The Age of Might and Steel: A Tabletop Review

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The Age of Might and Steel:
15mm Fantasy Combat Rules

by Steve Hazuka

from: 15mm.co.uk

Price: £6






THE BOOK:
48 pages, A5, good quality paper, some b/w photos included.

2 pages of Troop Types
13 pages of Main Rules
3 pages of Fantasy Armies for AoMaS
14 pages of Army Lists (built around 15mm.co.uk products)
2 pages of Monsters & Special Profiles
5 pages The Elden Groy campaign with 4 scenarios
2 pages of cut out counters
1 Roster Sheet

A high quality printed product overall.

SCOPE:
Fast Play, Grand Tactical Fantasy

ARMY SIZE:
Minimum 3 Units per side plus 'special stands' - monsters, Magic users, heroes etc.
A unit consists of 5-12 stands of figures.
3-5 Units create an Army, two or more Armies create a 'Nation'.

SCALES:
None. The recommended base sizes are 40mm wide by 20mm deep for infantry and 30mm deep for cavalry.

BATTLEFIELD:
6ftx4ft recommended for most games.

GAME LENGTH:
1 hour plus, realtime

PLAYING AIDS REQUIRED:
Normal 6 sided dice (1 per player recommended)
A tape measure
Counters/markers (two pages of printed counters is provided in the book for you to copy and cut-out)

GAME TURN SEQUENCE:
1) Assign Leaders/Special Units
2) Issue Orders andMagic Spells
3) Morale
- Cast Magic Spells
- Activate Units
4) Units Move
5) Ranged Combat
- Defensive
- Offensive
6) Hand to Hand Combat

COMBAT:
The base score required to hit a target with ranged weapons is 3+ on 1d6 and Hand-to-Hand is 2+. There are modifiers but combat is quick and bloody!

THOUGHTS:

If you are looking for a gritty, detailed set of Fantasy rules - step away now! Let's not beat around the bush. AoMaS is Fantasy Lite! Master Chef describes the rules as "a Vanilla Latte with an extra shot of Vanilla". Having said that AoMaS does what it says on the tin!

How do the claims stack up?

• Play a full game inside an hour with 100-200 15mm Miniatures on the table.
• All the action played out using 1 six sided dice (1D6).
• Armies built from Units made up of Stands of several miniatures.
• Add Generals, Monsters, Magic Users, Heroes and more to your Units.
• BIG Fantasy Armies easily controlled !
• The look of a complex battle without the headaches.
• Create original scenarios or use the included Points System and Army Lists.
• Combine Armies into ‘Nations’ for even bigger games!
• For busy gamers who enjoy a rewardingly simple game that encourages tactics.

Absolutely no argument there from me! I like AoMaS! I like it a LOT! I dragged out my 15mm Dark Age and Medieval odds and sods and had them set about each other with gusto. This is old school fast, furious and very, very bloody gaming!

There is something about AoMaS that has resonated with me at a very deep level - I can visualise the battles in miniature, so much so that I really want to do this project and bring the Valley of the Fire Dragon to life on the tabletop.

The structure of the rules allow you to scale up or down very easily. There are some neat touches like the ability to band heroes and magic users together to form their own discrete unit on the tabletop.

If you want a painless set of fun rules that will allow you to dip your toe in Fantasy gaming waters without being tied to a specific canon, or just want to beat the winter blues with hard and fast butchery on the tabletop, The Age of Might and Steel may well be for you.

Cheers
Mark
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Life Work The Universe...... Breath of the Fire Dragon

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"Kobolds!" - Not quite what I expected the Master Chef to say when he gave me a pack of painted miniatures. "Kobolds from Splintered Light. 'Foresty creature' look about them so I thought you'd like them for your Fire Dragon armies".

"Oh! I've included some excess Satyr's too!" Satyrs? I mean, let's be honest, they're the Austin Powers of the fantasy world. I'm not sure I can field these on a tabletop without quoting one-liners from the movie! Thanks Chef!

Whilst I'm firmly into 15mm now, my personal golden age of fantasy miniatures lies back with 25mm in the 1970's. This entry on greyhawkgrognard.blogspot.com gives an impression of the type of figure I still hold a deep fondness for over and above the 28mm grotesque of Games Workshop.

My favourites were Minifigs' Valley of the Four Winds, and Garrison's Sword & Sorcery ranges spiced up with Vikings, Sassanids, Ghazanids and Medievals plus the odd plastic 'giant' Eagle.

The spark for all this came from Airfix Guide no.9. At that time I used to hike up to The Harrow Model Shop in Station Road every saturday to spend my pocket money, it would still be a couple of years before GW would open in Dalling Road. I walked 3 plus miles each way to spend my £1 a week on 25mm figs at 9p each. "Luxury! Tell the young people of today....." LOL!

My introduction to 'fantasy' as such was the classic, Beowulf. I still remember listening to the story being played to us at primary school and can feel the deep intonation of the words and visualise the images conjured up in my mind from back then. This resonated with the world my mother painted for me with her stories of Finn McCool, Brian Boru and Finnbheara. It's this gritty world of Dark Age monsters and magic, Fearie Kings, Anglo-Saxon poems and Norse sagas I have always found more intriguing than what could be called 'High Fantasy'.

The Wulf Kings and the Crow Lords, simple warbands of heroes and men, forest creatures, sprites and the deamons of the land will battle for dominance over the Valley of the Fire Dragon. Whilst the Fire Dragon himself, HOT37: The Swallower of Hope from 15mm.co.uk will come from his mountain ramparts on occasion to assert himself as overlord.

It's just something the soul of a boy from the "loch of the red eye" is telling me I have to do.


Cheers
Mark
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Life Work The Universe...... For You Christmas ist Verboten!!

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The Xmas Silly Season is well underway! Workplace Christmas parties ahoy on every point of the compass - usually these days hosted at some organised "Bring a Drunk To A Party" event taking over hotel function rooms in a city near you - a sea of little black cocktail dresses, cloperty high heels, fake tan and glitter! All on a dancefloor the size of a pocket handkerchief.

Just as well, following announcements of additional job losses, plus the unexpected death of a colleague last week, we were instructed on Friday that under no circumstances were we to hold Christmas parties or celebrations in our offices, -6 on your Morale roll!

This scurvy pirate spent Friday night in the city partying with shipmates from various parts of the organisation till the early early hours. The flotsam of events of the past 6 weeks being washed away on a tsunami of Stella, Bloody Mary and Margerita!

Spent the night, or rather what was left of it in a 'posh' new hotel attached to a new shopping and entertainment complex in the city centre. This complete break from routine doing as much good for my NLP as the partying.

Saturday morning was surreal. The entrance to the hotel is on the first level of the complex and it was like stepping out into a scene from Mass Effect! Yo Sushi's neon signage cementing the Sci Fi feel. Breakfast was a latte at Costa, where I ran into Jacqui.

The train home rattled across a countryside settled in a deep frost, golden rays of sunshine glinting off a steel grey sea. When we turned inland the frost became heavier and at the entrance to my valley the breath of the Fire Dragon hung low and menacing like a living entity at the base of the hills.

Images of fantastical Dark Age armies, the Wolf Kings and Crow Lords ploughed through my head as we moved over an ancient rural landscape where lairds, kinship and tradition are still important. OK, OK, it's a sign - I MUST indulge in 'Dark Age' fantasy gaming next year. The Valley of the Fire Dragon WILL come to life on the tabletop using Age of Might and Steel! Which I haven't been able to get out of my head all week.....


Mark
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Life Work The Universe......Gaming Bodyswerve

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We live in the shadow of the foothills of the Grampian Mountains. It's a land of Roman Forts and Pictish Circles - but mostly it is a land of old history beyond recorded time.


And on early winter nights you can see the breath of the Fire Dragon spreading across the valley floor as he settles down to sleep. This Valley of the Fire Dragon is the setting for my semi-historical based Fantasy gaming using Age of Might and Steel from 15mm.co.uk.


I guess my Fantasy inspiration is Conan, Gor, Islandic Sagas and 13th Warrior more than Middle-Earth and Clawhammer. So my first two protagonists are Dark Ages rather than High Fantasy.

Master Chef put me onto Age of Might and Steel, with intention of recreating a Conan based Hyboria. What sold the rules was the claim - "For busy gamers who enjoy a rewardingly simple game that encourages tactics". Sounds great and I can start with these two armies based on my favourite 15mm Dark Age miniatures:

The Crow Lords

They live in the high perches on the highest of the hills and see themselves as the natural rulers of all they survey. The Crow Lords are carrion first and foremost and enjoy feasting on the aftermath of the battle.

Think half-crow men - Early Saxon & Vikinges with crow feather mantles, Griffons (as Crow warriors), giant Eagles and 25mm 'giant' crows, Shamans.

The Wolf Kings

They have roamed free to hunt across across the land since time became time. The valley is THEIR hunting ground and they will fight to the death to keep it for themselves.

Arthurian & Romano-British - Wolftail Warriors, Werewolves, human wolf riders, wolf Packs, Ulfhednars, Wizards.

I think AoMaS will compliment Alien Squad Leader as a mid-week fun game and help me blanket out work just now.

Cheers
Mark
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