Ravenfeast, Free Viking Skirmish rules!

 

Hello, well, aside from the worlds of Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40,000, I have been known to dable with other wargames from time to time, none of which have seemed to taken off with my usual suspect gaming group unfortunatlely. 

I'm still working on Test of Honour and some other Samurai related gubbinz on and off, but the maority of my hobby time recently has been based firmly upon GW's worlds.

What does this have to do with Free Viking Skirmish rules you ask?

Well, the guys at Little Wars TV* have taken it upon themselves to work up a set of rules to try to encourage people to enter the hobby of historical wargaming.

 

 **

Found at Ravenfeast.com this PDF is a brilliantly written, easy to learn set of rules which are quite comprehensive with a guide on where to buy miniatures, paint them, build terrain, as well as scenarios and army generators.

They've even done an Introduction video and played through a game trying to Capture Alfred the Great.

 

The PDF is laid out in an easy to follow manner as the contents page shows:

Lots to find in here, in such a short page count to.

The turn follows most of the standard game sequence of other games:

 

One thing I like about this is that the "Rally" step is not at the end of the turn like so many other games I've played (especially fantasy based) but right after you dice off to see who has the initiative for the turn.

Another point about the game is that it is more important to roll LOW rather then the traditional High rolls. that might take some getting used to, but gives awesome rules like this one:

I can imagine all kinds of narrative scenes coming from this one rule, and possibly setting up grudges and fueds, if you're so inclined to play more narratively. Most historical games kind of go down that route to a greater or lesser degree, some try to force the competetive side of the game with strict points values and equal armies, etc.

And whilst there are points values per model in this game, it's more of a skirmish game rather then a full on competetive battle (although it could be from reading the PDF) and i'd not go down that route personally.

 

There are force lists for Vikings (obviously), as well as a section to create a Saxon force, and most interestingly, a full open-points build system to customise your warriors.
Want to recreate William the Conqueror or Herewards the Wake in this game, use the points build system. Again an easy elegant solution to something certain big games companies mak so difficult...

Included also is this rather nice map of Britain, which may see some use later on for a campaign system I'm pondering with:

 

And, a bit which I really like, is that there is a tutorial included about how to go about building a Dark Age longhouse, fully step-by-step and with a list of tools and materials needed:

 I may just have a go at building one of these soon-ish...If I ever get the ruined cityscape on the go again, with hobby enthusiasm on the increase after the hectic Christmas and New Year period that's a possibility.

Speaking of Christmas, I spotted this reduced today and couldn't resist picking it up asa late present to myself (I'm of that age where relatives find it easier to give me cash then gifts):

 

Which is kind of fitting for this post as in the Caturing King Alfred game, it's based off of The Last Kingdom series anyway with Uthred of Bebbanburg as the central character, but it also finishes off my collection, meaning that I have all thirteen books now and plenty of inspiration to read through:

 So there you have it, I've gone and ordered myself some Viking and Dark Age plastic's and am working out what to field out of the sprues I've picked up (more on that when they arrive).

If you're looking at a new period, making a sart in historical wargaming byt switching from fantasy or just wanting a ruleset to read, you can't go wrong by downloading Ravenfeast, it is free after all!

I'll be posting more about this as my miniatures turn up and i'll get chance to try the rules on the tabletop, so there's a future plan being made (again!).

Until next time...

 - Lewis

*I often put their battle report series on in the background when I sit down to paint, A persnal favourite was the D-Day game, split into Part One and Part Two.

** No I'm not going to copy andpaste the entire rulebook in this blogpost, there are just example captures taken from the PDF. Go and download the bloody thing and take a look for yourselves, the LittleWarsTV guys took the time and effort to make this ruleset, so deserve people's support for the game!