BattleLore—Not Made for Midnight

A fiend of mine came over Friday Night. We repaired a Guitar Hero Guitar and then proceeded to play Guitar Hero 5 untill we started getting worse every time we played. He turned to me and asked if I wanted to play BattleLore—I foolishly answered in the affirmative.

He started setting it up. To understand what that means, you must understand that BattleLore is a board game with the spirit of a table top miniature war game. Playing tabletop miniature war games generally involves purchasing your army one or a few models at a time, assembling and painting said models, in addition to having a table large enough to do so. BattleLore givees you a Large Board to deploy your units on, and a lot of miniatures with no need to paint.

So he had half the game set up when it donned on me that I really just wanted to go to bed, but you don't just half set up this game and then put it back in the box—it takes almost twice the effort to put it away as it does to set up. BattleLore uses the Command and Colors system, which is a game mechanic used for simplified miniature war gaming that is used in a number of games (Battle Cry, Command and Colors: Ancients, Memoir 44, and BattleLore). What's different is that BattleLore is essentially the Hundred Years Wars re-imagined with Fantasy races and magic. 

Which is kind of interesting if you know a little about the history of Role Playing Games. In the 70's Gary Gygax was an avid historical miniature war gamer. He wrote a book that added medieval fantasy elements to tabletop miniature war gaming called Chain Mail—which later evolved into Dungeons and Dragons.

As much as I like BattleLore, I just wanted the game to be over so I could go to bed. The thing about this game is the amount of luck involved in winning. Strategy and tactics help; but the mechanic for fighting involves dice. You could play your cards in such a manner that you have six dice to roll vs your opponent, and have not one of those dice score a hit. You could also be rolling as little as two dice in melee combat and take out three of your opponent's  troops.

So we played until two in the morning. The thing was, I was so tired that I kept trying to attack my own units, so I would venture to say BattleLore is not intended to be played by those that are only half conscious.