If you are in the OSR and you're interested in trying a Wargame, you should be looking at Torch and Shield [COREBOOK REVIEW]

 If you're following this blog (lol) then you may have seen my previous impressions post on the technically released game Torch and Shield. Released to backers(of which I was literally the first, which was kind of neat to find out) yesterday in PDF format, I have torn through it with the intensity of a starving man trying to open a tin can with his teeth. AND....

This game is really good, and if that's all you need, you can simply walk on from here.

The Full Game

Let's do a little recap before we get going here. In Torch and Shield, you play as either one of three(more incoming) rival clans of Dwarves(or a generic clan), and as that clan, you assemble a "crew" of Dwarves and delve into the lost Holds. Each game is basically at the pain point where you and a rival crew meet, demand the other one back off, refuse, and then battle it out for treasure. Defeated dwarves are either killed outright(rare) or they're injured(common) and you record these injuries, deaths and victories. Dwarves can rank up and become powerful heroes, breaking the generation rules of Torch and Shield and allowing you to have things that wouldn't be 'legal' at crew creation.  So if you've played Mordheim, it's very, very similar. To the OSR people, that might be less familiar, so let me go further as to why you should give it a try:

Here Be Monsters

Doing battles in what is effectively one of many "Morias" is a good way to make noise, and yes, once the battle begins, you will be facing potentially attacks from various hordes of monsters every single turn. There's several kinds and they have an excellent "A.I." system inside of them, with actions chosen based on factors like if they have someone in line of sight etc. This typically makes the game much harder than expected. Monsters do better when they're in darkness (more on that below) and also have an easier time spawning when they're in darkness, but this is also based on various what's going on in the scenario. Monsters have no allies but there's some fun rules about Dwarf honor, two dwarves fighting to the death will allow their enemy to engage the enemies of dwarfkind without punishing them. Monsters also don't just generically attack, they may instead just try to pull you away to their entrances, found at least once in every scenario. So I mentioned Darkness...

Let There Be Light

You need to equip your crew like a DnD party - specifically an OSR party, so making sure you have light sources is tantamount. There's two stages of a "tile" in Torch and Shield. One is simple - it's illuminated or it's shrouded. One dwarf must be the bearer of the source, torch or lanterns, and yes in true OSR fashion you can risk it all and throw it at people and set them on fire, at which point they become a light source. You can also become "soaked" with water and have it go out, or have it become extinguished by a random event and so on and so on. Light travels in eight tiles in every direction and your enemy's torches light you too. Not being in the light means you're "shrouded" and being in darkness has an average chance of nothing happening. Then there's a higher chance of a certain type of enemy spawning and killing you. You can also just straight up die, being grabbed by something in the dark. This is a HUGE part of the game, and there's a reason it clicked to me that the OSR might be interested in this. 

Battles

Gameplay is really simple. Your stats determine how far you move, how easy it is to do damage, etc. Players draw cards = number of crew and an extra if you have a leader every turn and you activate based on the number/nobility on the card. Leaders can "sheathe" a card to save for later turns, but no leader = no sheathe. Then it's pretty easy to extrapolate - combat is phased, so move, attacks, resolve successful attacks, draw from the event deck to see if something really bad happens to you or not. Missions typically have different objectives but it's not really about a straight deathmatch (naturally you can play it that way) especially with monsters spawning in to kill you both. 

Crews

The Crew creation rules are pretty simple. You won't be rolling for stats in this game, as the "profiles"(stat blocks) will be the same for each dwarf starting out. There's some different "types" of Dwarves, from a "Greyshield(leader)" dwarf to a "shortbeard(grunt)" dwarf. Again, this is pretty typical of most wargames, and naturally these guys can advance from lowly grunts to powerful heroes - assuming they survive. There's three kinds of Dwarves as mentioned and they bring their own special types of Dwarves, berserkers, knights, gunslingers and everything in between. If a dwarf is still standing at the end of a game, he gets an advancement point(basically XP) and after 6 of those are accrued, he becomes the next "level" of it, so shortbeards become Clansmen, clansmen become thanes, and thanes become greybeards. Clan specific dwarves just get another "trait" which is basically a "talent" that adds something good. The hero Dwarves are able to do fun things like upgrade their weapons to Baduraz steel or buy lavish displays of wealth for themselves to intimidate other dwarves. Dwarves can also equip maps, keys, dwarven ale that offers buffs and more! It's got a very in-depth character creation system and despite that, I was able to, after reviewing the rules easily create a crew.

Campaigns

This is the meat and potatoes of the game. While Torch and Shield is perfectly serviceable as a standalone battle game it lives and dies on it's campaign. Campaigns are as described above - you get levels and treasure for surviving, more for winning, so it's not entirely a winner takes all situation. Often, it does depend entirely on the scenario, and there's also co-op scenarios. Caught in a death spiral? If your crew is so beat to hell that you can't do a proper scenario anymore, you can do a raid mission in order to make money (you have to win, though). It's entirely possible to lose and lose and lose so hard you have to basically disband the crew and start again. Painful, sure, but if you're used to loss in the RPG world this shouldn't hurt you too hard. Likewise, success in your ventures will lead to leveling up. You can also end a mission at anytime, cutting and running with no punishment - you will still get your 3 gold for trying but you don't fuck over the other side. As for injuries, this is pretty simple, you either die, miss the next game, start with less health, or you're fine. It is possible to get killed instantly, taking three damage in a single hit - this kills the Dwarf outright(unless a fortune point is spent). They have stated leveling options, and injury options, will become more in depth in the future. The rules mentions at least once dwarves missing limbs, so....

 

Once you and another crew can scrape twenty coins together, you enter a trio of scenarios. These are very difficult - once you complete all three(in a row), you take what's left of your bedraggled crew and battle for title of King Under the Mountain, and that's the basic, core campaign. New campaigns are promised in the future. 

 

Finishing up

Good game. Very fun, easy to learn, lots of campaign stuff. It's more complicated than Battle Companies or Warcry, but doesn't have as much stuff as Mordheim or Blood Bowl, getting a nice medium between the two. An absolute gem of an indie game. Ever Deeper, dawi!