MAD vikings

[Colonel Kilgore]

Not to be confused with the (possibly also) excellent and entertaining factual book "Bloodfeud: Murder and Revenge in Anglo-Saxon" by Professor Richard Fletcher, of course.

[martin goddard]

Might well be?

[John Watson]

Blood Feud (Fletcher)is a brilliant read.
John

[Matías]

Just set outa new version. Hope it covers those questions?


martin

I did not receive the email (zaitzevivan), maybe I'm not in the list yet?

[martin goddard]

Hello Matias
Whoops! Totally my fault. Sorry.
My problem is with using Windows 10. I really do hate it for making my life more difficult.
I can list about 6 ways so far it has made things worse for me.


martin

[Matías]

Got it Martin, thanks! Will have a look at it after work today.

A shame to hear Win10 is giving you problems. I had to format my Win10 laptop last weekend and it originally came with Win7. First thing I did after formatting was update to Win10. 

I still have an old laptop with XP on my painting desk.

[martin goddard]

Windows 10 is a blight upon my PC computing activities!

martin

[Colonel Kilgore]

We played a couple of games tonight. One of which included the first time Mrs K had gone near anything approaching a wargame, so that must constitute something of a victory. In this evening's entertainment, Torsten Wolfskin from the Western Isles slew Kare "Curly Hair" from the Eastern provinces, while Gorm the Lesser from up North succumbed to "Killer" Arne from the slums in the East.

Young Master K (who beat me) thought it was "great fun" (how strange...).

Mrs K thought that the game wasn't hugely exciting, was too plain, and could be improved. She was notably disappointed that the choice of name played no part in the game. And had to be repeatedly reminded of the rules by her offspring (who beat her). 'Nuff said?

Little Miss K felt that it needed a reward ("like fighting over a woman or something" - she still harks back to Gamette 1...). But if an 8-year-old can grasp all the rules after a single play, and beat her Mum, there must be something going for the game, I think.

Some thoughts from the games:
- presumably Dodge has to be selected once the Attacker has succeeded in gaining an Attack, but before the dice are rolled? It would be helpful to specify that in section 8 (it's pretty clear in section 12, but we missed that)
- we played that you could try to Move as often as you had actions left, even if one failed - stopping on a fail seems a bit limiting, while section 12 implies that no Move after an Attack is allowed, if there was any movement before attacking (we missed this, and allowed a move to contact, attack and then a tactical repositioning to the rear - actions permitting - which seemed appropriate)
- in section 7, it might be better to replace "target" by "loser" and "attacker" by "winner" in the outcomes, as at this point the attacker and defender roles are irrelevant
- section 8 only being able to Dodge "back" a bit limiting - would it be OK to allow a dodge sideways too?
- it might be useful to remind gamers in Section 7 that only one Attack is allowed per turn
- section 9: Recovery is hard to get on just a 5 or 6 - maybe increase the odds a tad?
- we failed to find section 13 (even though I knew it was there) to start the game - whoops! Sections 13, 14, 15 seem to be in reverse logical order
- section 15: still no female warriors   

We played with 4 different models (one each), which is nice. The Gamette pack could perhaps include 4 (the spare 2 being bystanders / seconds), of which one could be a female?

Anyway, lots of fun was had.

Simon

[Colonel Kilgore]

We played three games tonight in about 20 minutes total. Little Miss K (aka Torsten Wolfskin from the Western Isles) vs. Gorm the Lesser from up North, resulting in a 2-1 win for the Gormless one .

I think we probably played the rules as they were actually written this time, not as we'd thought they were written...

We think we'd previously (including in the comments below) misinterpreted a couple of points:
- that a single Move action actually allowed multiple moves, until a fail occurs (we'd previously played one move per Move action - if achieved - which made things rather slow)
- that Attacks can happen as many times as there are Attack Actions (we'd previously understood only one Attack per turn, since "it was only Move that allowed multiple actions"...)

On the basis of our current understanding, and apart from the lack of female names, the only thing we'd now suggest changing is the Recovery roll - it's hard when one (especially when that one is a small and sleepy one) repeatedly fails to roll a 5 or a 6 with just the one action separating one's valiant warrior from Valhalla.

We found the Dodge action useful - even when limited to the central squares as per the rules (moral: don't get caught in the edge squares), so there's another degree of subtlety / risk management in the rules.

Again, very enjoyable games, that played rapidly and were literally child's play.

Simon

[martin goddard]

Thanks for the feedback Simon
I will get to work  on it with a "fixing spanner".


martin

[Colonel Kilgore]

We played 3 more games tonight. We're very happy with the rules as they now stand.

Torstenor Wolfskin was again victorious, although I finally won my first ever duel right at the end.

These are our favourite Gamette rules yet.

Simon

[martin goddard]

That sounds god news Simon.
I will make a special figure for the gamette pack.

martin

[Colonel Kilgore]

Thanks Martin!