Chicago Skirmish Wargames

Last month Karl and I got together at our regular club night for another game of Of Gods and Mortals, the game of mythological battles based on our favorite fantasy skirmish rules engine. It was my second game and Karl's first, but he was very excited to try out the game after hearing about the high marks Tim and I gave the game after our initial outing.

I only ended up with a handful of photos from the game, but we had a good time. As we did with our initial game earlier this month, we eschewed the mythological flavor and instead just built some fantasy warbands using the stock army lists in the book. We found in our first game that the game plays perfectly well as a straight-up fantasy skirmish as long as you stick to the army lists provided in the book and don't bend the rules too much.

Karl brought a warband composed of chaos warriors and cavalry led by a dragon, built using the mythological Japanese army list. I brought a dwarven warband led by a big ol' frost giant, built using the Norse pantheon in the OGAM rulebook.

Here are a few pics of our game. In the first turn, I used my giant's frost breath (or thunderbolt, depending on how you'd like to interpret the ability) to kill Karl's dragon. Since that dragon was Karl's god, he was able to summon it back to the battlefield again on his turn, using the summoning rules in the OGAM rulebook.

That was probably my last tactical victory on the battlefield that day. Karl pressed his advantage, slaughtering my infantry and legends until I had just a handful of figures left on the field.

My frost giant gave as good as he got (his lightning strike ability was particularly useful) but ultimately my depleted dwarves were routed from the battlefield. Here is their final stand.

We discussed the game afterward and agreed that gives a very playable "big skirmish" experience that really bridges the gap between Song of Blades & Heroes (designed for 6-12 figures) and Kings of War (designed for 40+ figures). We're very keen on using OGAM to play out some larger-scale battles in our upcoming summer fantasy campaign, so stay tuned!

-- Pat, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member