A Breath in the Hills

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We woke to something of an exception these days - a crisp, calm, bright sunny morning. Rather than paint minis I took the opportunity to have a wander in the glorious sunshine and check the local roads and paths for access/egress. The fields were completey flooded but the roads were passable. I enjoyed just being outdoors.

I've been slowly going a little stir crazy over the past 3 weeks, what with 'Donkey Cough' then the snow and, the continued filthy weather combined effectively keeping me indoors, or office bound during the day when I finally got back to work.

The hills were magnificent in their snowy mantle. Just to the right and out of the picture above, one of the lower hills was largely denuded of snow. From an angle it seemed to have a pattern of snow remaining in gullies and folds that looked something like the Uffington 'White Horse' . Inspiration! I'm going to get an extra 'green' hard backed hill from Mike at The Scene to paint a primitive, pictish style creature on it for my 'Valley of the Fire Dragon' fantasy gaming background.

I think a stylistic version of this Pictish Wolf or perhaps even a Viking Boar symbol would be interesting. Must get Khurasan's Norse next month plus 15mm.co.uk's Fire Giant as a Conanesque Frost Giant for Age of Might & Steel battles.

Cheers
Mark
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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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