I don't think I've personally encountered the mangled plastic in quite the percentages you describe, but do agree that it's an unfortunate problem. I hope it won't be the case in the future. We'll see. Overall, I was very pleased with the packaging for the game. That game is packed to the gills and the decision to use just one color of plastic and simply swap around the banners was genius. There are places to put the cards and tiles and banner men, so I guess I'm more forgving. DoW could have gone with a harder plastic that might have negated the "mangling" problem with the mounted units, but those bits are small and hard plastic would make the weapons sharp, so I can imagine lawsuits from the parents of toddlers (not the target audience, but even so) were adroitly avoided.



Hmm. I've played some games where as long as a guy was a guy, a bow was a bow, and a horse was a horse, no one was too particular that a heavy infantryman wound up among the lights if the banner type and figure count for the unit were correct. One thing I've done, though, is to put a little colored sticker on the bottom of each figure and to have a ziplock bag to hold each type. I've found that that helps when it comes time to set up and take down.



I agree. An index is about the only thing missing from the rules.



After having played BattleCry and C&C:Ancients, BattleLore feels like a "scrummier" game. My opponents and I actually enjoy this aspect. It was pretty fluky to roll three red hits on three dice, but you might have rolled three shields, too, for the same result. Or any combination of shields and ablue helms. I think, overall, there is an 8% chance of Medium Cav putting the kabosh on a full-strength Heavy Cav unit. A remote possibility, but a tangible chance, nevertheless.

But I do have one friend who enjoys reading about the medieavl period who seems to think that BattleLore's combat system has about the right mix of "scrum" and "quick kill." We have toyed with a house rule that Heavy units can ignore one shield hit, but are worth two banners when killed. It makes heavies a bit more stolid, but you feel their loss, too.

AS for the Spider... I wish I were there to see how things developed that made the thing such a brute. Are you saying you hit the Spider 20-21 (over two games) times in all and missed a single green on the re-rolls? That's quite a run of bad luck, I'd have to agree.

But you might have generated enough Lore to use those River Rage and Chain Lightning cards that you talk about later. I've seen things like that happen in my games. A Mounted Charge whiffs, but I still earned enough Lore to put more over the top on a good Lore card next turn that connects.



There has been some debate about the Cleric's cards and Lore in general. I can only say that, in this one game, you certainly played well by making the most of your trumps. Next time, your opponent might plan better for the possibility of a Cleric in your council.

However, my friend wth the medieval penchant and I once played a few games where we went through the Lore decks and discarded all but the "battle-oriented" cards. Cards with manuevers and tactics that we thought the troops could bring off themselves without the aid of "magic." (Like "Eagle Eye", for example.) That makes for an interesting variant, too. I find it pretty cool that the Lore system can stand up to thatsort of tweaking, too.



That's one I really disagree with. I find that the system depresses wild swings by bringing down the number of dice you throw in an attack. That units can Battle Back under the right circumstances is an important difference from BattleCry and a big part of good strategy. Some units can ignore the Bonus Hit face depending on the class of weapon used by the attacker. The concept and implementation of Lore and Creatures. The more varied terrain, weapons, and troop types... Lots of things about Battle Lore distant it from BattleCry.

I'm sorry BattleLore wasn't a hit with you. I find it a lot of fun, even if it is a bit flukey at times. We try to laugh and shrug off disaster and wild triumph alike. And that usually gets one of us or an observer off on a jag about the weird things that happen in real battles.

Thats it to the tee. I could not buy a green shield on the critical hit roll. The worst was when my red calvary scored 3 hits and rolled 3 misses allowing the spider to battle back hitting once and poisoning the unit.

Yeah in both games that spider was on my right flank and I sent far too many troops to an early dimise against it. In the first game it took out or reduced to easy kill my green bowman (that it ran up to early on), blue dwarves, blue footman and blue calvary. In the second game I fared better on loses but it was still fustrating to watch red calvary, red foot man and blue calvary fail to score that single green shield on the critical hit roll.

Why is this review for Battlelore posted under Battlelore: A Call To Arms?