I know that this has already lots of reviews, but since i received it this Xmas and played it the last few days i had to review it. I'll start by saying that i like heavy hex&counters wargames. But i decided to try this light block wargame because i was interested in the theme (if you've seen Braveheart you know the theme).

The contents:
The box is strange, never seen one like this. The game map is made of card and it doesn't stay plane unless you leave it resting for a couple of days or you put a plexyglass board over it. But one can say it's nice; it shows Scotland divided in several regions with the nobles homes showing the respective heraldry; in the south there's also the England region; the regions are divided by black borders (indicating plane terrain) and/or red borders (indicating movement through mountais). The wooden blocks are ok but be carefull with the labels that you have to stick on the blocks, they can be damaged very easily. Yet, i must ask if they could find an uglier label for Wallace. These blocks represent the 14 scotish nobles, scotish regular forces (infantry, cavalry and archers) and english regular forces (infantry, archers, knights and hobelar); there's also blocks for a norse unit (a scot unit), a french cavalry (a scot unit that comes into play if some conditions apply), Edward I and a scotish king (that comes into play if some conditions apply). Sice the nobles can defect to either side each side has it's own noble blocks, except for Moray that never defects to the english side. The cards, well nothing special; there are 20 with numbers 1, 2 or 3 (more on that ahead) and 5 with events.

Victory.
Victory is related with controling the greater number of nobles, but there are other victory conditions like killing Edward II (Edward I is replaced by Edward II if Edward I dies or in the beginning of year 1307), killing the scotish king or controling the 14 nobles (for the scot) and 13 nobles for the english (in this case Moray has to be dead, since he never switches to the englis side).

Set up:
Easy. The english starts with 11 nobles, 2 english infantry and 4 more units that are randomly drawn from the english draw pool. The scot starts with the nobles Bruce, Galloway and Moray (who never defect to the english side), Wallace and 4 infantry units. Each palyer is dealt an hand of five cards.

Fog of War:
When playing each player sits on opposite sides so you can only see the labels on your own units. But during the game you'll know more or less acurately where everyone is.

The game:
Each round represents 1 year and within each year there are 5 turns(corresponding to the 5 cards that one receives). In the beginning of each turn each player selects a card and they reveal it simultaneously. If both played a number card the one that played the highest moves first this turn, in case of ties english goes first; if one of the players played an event card the event is resolved first (and this player wont be able to move any units, except for the event in itself); if both players played an event card the events are resolved (english first) and then the year ends abruptly (no more card play till next year). The number in the card represents the number of block groups that you can move, the same is to say from how many regions you can move. When you move you have to obey some rules. Some units have a move of 2 and others 3. when you cross a red border or enter a region with enemy units you must stop. Also you must obey border limits, this means that in all your movements you can cross black borders with a maximum of 6 blocks and red borders with a maximum of 2 blocks. Who understands this rule? Does this mean that hey! this 2 units have crossed the mountains and the rest of the troops feels tired by that?! Do they have to pay for taxis and they can only afford for 8 guys??!. Well, when the first player ends his movements the other player executes his movements (if he played a numbered card). In doing so he can reinforce regions where his enemy moved to, leave regions that the enemy entered but he has to leave the same number of blocks as the enemy has there, and so on. If a region contains opposing blocks a battle ensues.

Battle:
At start each block has a strength of 4 or 3 (this is the number of d6 you roll in combat), has they suffer casualties the blocks are rotated to indicate it's new strength. When you suffer the last hit the block goes back to the draw pool except for some blocks (like Wallace) that are removed from play. Each block has also a move factor (2 or 3) and a combat factor, for example A3, B4, B2, C2, C3, etc. This means that in battle defending A's roll first, then attacking A's roll, the defending B's roll and so on. The number after the letter means that you have to score equal or less to score a hit. Remember the strngth of the unit tells the number of dice to roll, so a strength 4 unit with combat factor A3 would roll 4d6 and score a hit for each 1, 2 or 3 rolled. Combat is not simultaneous, so after each roll the opponent suffers the corresponding hits starting by it's stronger unit. Each battle has 3 rounds (a round ends after all units have rolled its dice). If the attacker after the 3rd round did not elliminate the enemy hi has to retreat. It is possible that when an unit has it's turn to roll it may instead retreat (eiter attacker or defender can do it). There's also rules for reserves. For example, player 1 attacks a region containing player 2 units with block groups coming from 2 different regions, then player 2 reinforces that same region with block coming from another region. In this case the attacker must choose one of its 2 groups as the main attacker being the other group the reserves; the reinforcing group of the defender is also a reserve. Reserves only enter combat in the 2nd combat round.

Then after playing the 5th card the year ends (or if both players play an event card) a wintering turn happens. Here is when you receive reinforcents. Some of the regions show castles with a number (1, 2 or 3) and some also show a cathedral. The number in the castles indicates the number of blocks you can have in a region in this phase, if you have more you have to disband them to the draw pile or remove from play if it's a special block (like Wallace); nobles (except for Moray can never be disbanded). The number in the castles indicates the number of strength steps that you can recover for your units (the cathedral acts as 1 extra point only for the scotish), and this works for all scotish units and english nobles and infantry units. Also, for the scotish, if he has his blocks at full strength he can draw blocks from the draw pool, but allways respecting the maximum numbers of blocks that can be in a region according to the castle number. This drawn blocks come at srength 1 but they can get more steps if you still have remaining castle points. Also, in this phase all nobles (starting with the english) go back to their home region, which means that if the region is enemy occupied the noble will defect to that side, and may cause dibanding of blocks if castle limits are not respected. All non infantry english blocks go back to the draw pool but see next), and infantry that remains must obey castle limits. If Edward I is in Scotland then any number of any english block may remain in scotland if in same region as Edward I. If Edward I is in Sotland the english won't receive reinforcements for the next year. If Edward I doesn't remain in Scotland (you can voluntarly disband it to the draw pool) then the english receives reinforcement blocks in England up to half the units in his draw pool.

Well, i guess this is more or less what the game is about.

Now, do i like it? If i ignore that the rules are full of contardictions and badly explained, if i ignore that the rules book has 8 pages and that the FAQ (almost impossible to find; i only found it at www.grognard.com) his bigger than the actual rules book and if i ignore that the FAQ conradicts the rules book and itself i'll say yes i like it, i'll give it a 7. But if i consider that as a World in Flames player which has more than 60 dense pages rule book and i've never found a bug in the rules, then i'll say i hate it, i'll give it a 4.

Let me show just a couple of condratictions (amongst lots of them):

When i was playing i assumed that after playing a card it would be then discarded (but nothing is said about discarding or not in the rules), but check the FAQ:

"Q. Are the two cards used to determine play order available again to play in each movement phase?

A. Yes. Once a movement card is played, it governs (1) who goes first in that particular round, and then (2) how many group moves you have when your turn comes around. Once movement is over, players decide which card they’d like to play next and those two cards, once revealed, will govern the next round."

Another one in the FAQ:
"Q. The rules state that the main attacker is designated as all blocks entering through a particular border. Does this mean that with 2 movement points, if I move 2 groups through the same (obeying border limits) border, would BOTH moving groups be considered one attack?

A. Yes. "

Yeah ok!! But the rules book says "Main Attack block must start the turn in the same area and cross the same border into battle. All other blocks are in reserve."

Also in the FAQ:
"Q. Can reserves retreat before they commit to battle?

A. Reserves are forced to retreat if all other blocks have been eliminated in the first battle round. Or they can choose to retreat at the beginning of the second battle round."

But the rules says, and they say it's important: "IMPORTANT: Battlefield Control changes if the Attacker wins in Round 1 before Defending reserves arrive. The Attacker is now the Defender for further combat"

But according to the FAQ if the defender lost all his blocks (not the reserves) the his reserves must retreat, so when does this IMPORTANT rule apply.

There are more like these.