ORC INVASION! | Basic Battles: Super Small Skirmishes, Ep. 001

[@CavernadoLekkis]

Simple and fun. Thanks for creating and sharing it!

[@GrayArmyGaming]

Thank you! Glad to be able to contribute something to the gaming community!

[@pedrosmart]

Great job! Fabtastc scenery set up as always. Your enthusiasm really is infectious! :)

[@GrayArmyGaming]

Thanks so much! I am really having a blast with these games!! 😊👍 Keep fighting the good fight!! ⚔️🛡️🔥☄️

[@squidamodd1048]

Nice report! I would suggest to apply the rule of opportunity attack only when your figure is leaving melee and the enemy figure doesn't touch any of your allies (otherwise the enemy is too occupied by the melee to try to pursue your fleeing figure).

[@GrayArmyGaming]

Fantastic point! I will definitely include that in the next version! THANKS!! 😊👍

[@stephengilbert8166]

Hi Matthew, I just wanted to follow up on your Basic Battles video by.. well, actually paying you the highest compliment I can give. Normally I pretty much only use my own rules (or very occasionally.. heavily modified versions of commercial rules), and have done this most of my life, from way back when I started wargaming at a kid in the late 1960`s and role playing back in the early 1970`s. Even with my Star Wars Miniatures games, I tend to switch between WotC`s Skirmish rules and my own ABC “Advanced Battle Chain” ones. So you can see, I love reading commercial rules.. and my bookcases are full of them, but I rarely use them.... and then I read Basic Battles.. and THEN I watched your Basic Battles battle report, and that was it, I was hooked; So I just wanted to let you know, you`ve really started something here for me with my massive love for solo gaming, and also with my family and friends when we get together for our regular games game. I wanted you to know, you have solved a massive dilemma for me… i.e. which rules to use for my Stormbringer Age of Sigmar magazine collection and the Dominion boxed set: I WILL be using your Basic Battles rules to play my solo AoS campaign throughout 2023 (and beyond).. practically unheard of that I love a set of rules I haven`t created myself… but yours are simply too good to ignore. I will be adding lots to them of course, but the framework will indeed be everything you have laid out (without changes)… just with lots of adds on`s to allow a bit more variety for the myriad of miniature types and some unique abilities in that collection.

[@GrayArmyGaming]

Wow! That is fantastic! I would love to pick your brain a bit more about the additions you make! There is so much freedom in the system for home brewing rules! I would also love to get a copy of the rules set you have been working on! Currently I am trying to work out a narrative system that can be combined to play with Basic Battles that would allow the player(s) to have something like a long-running narrative campaign like in D&D or another roleplaying game, but where all the combats are played out using the BB rules set. My thought is this: start with a ton of narrative that sets up the campaign (which I am working on right now) and then introduce your war band. Battles begin small because the group is relatively inexperienced, but they get harder as the game progresses and as the players gain experience and go up in levels. (My thought is a new level for every successful battle. Each level or every second level could give a +1 bonus to hit and defend. And maybe one additional wound per level, so a level 3, could have 5 wounds, for example.) Given the result of the battle there are different narrative results for what the next battle will be. If some characters die, others can join the group along the way. All of this leads the group to the final boss battle where the campaign is thus concluded. A good deal of narrative will help conclude it all. So, in short this is something like a “choose-your-own-adventure” story, but where the story is shaped by how the battles play out. I was thinking about calling this “Basic Battles: Epic” or “Basic Battles: Campaign” or something like that. This is an idea that I started thinking about after beginning to play through Episode IV in my Star Wars Miniatures series. But I also wanted to try something with the Fantasy genre. Does this sound like something you and the community might be interested in? If so, I will keep developing the idea and making YT content about it with the goal of releasing a PDF rule book for the narrative aspect of Basic Battles. Thank you again for all of your fantastic support. It really means a ton to me and keeps me motivated to keep working on all of these crazy ideas! Kindest regards! 🤩 /Matthew

[@stephengilbert8166]

That sounds absolutely fantastic Matthew, I would absolutely love to see this system develop in the way you suggest. Having seen (and played to death) you Basic Battles, I have complete and utter faith that you would make the simple campaign inclusion just as sublime in their simplistic yet immersive style and tone. The “choose-your-own-adventure” idea has left me very excited, as the concept would seem to me to be ideal for BB. I have your email address from last time, so will happily send you a few battle reports of my own (soon as they`re ready) using your rules with my add on`s.. if you like? I`m basically planning to play a sort of sandbox campaign using all the miniatures that come in the Stormbringer AoS magazine.. painting them up, an issue at a time, and adding them to a sort of MYTHIC type campaign, and watch it grow as I pool of more and more models.. as I assemble and paint them (I`m subscribed to the magazine so get sent four issues at a time every month or so). I will be using the miniatures and `some` of the background, heavily modified of course… but set in my own world creation (a lot of it generated at random using solo Oracles). I think you`re onto something big here and I`m honoured and privileged to be in on it from the beginning.

[@GrayArmyGaming]

@@stephengilbert8166 This sounds incredible! I happily receive anything you want to send to my email! 😊👍

[@stephengilbert8166]

You got it bud :-) I`ve been painting, playing, and model making a WWII campaign for the last month, so am only just back to my fantasy games now (literally as of today), so bear with me and give me a few weeks, and I should have some games to send you, all typed out with oodles of photos. I`ll include my simple abilities and magic stystem as well, so you can borrow ANY of it for yourself.. it`s your system after all. I just added (and probably ruined) a few bits of my own hehe.

[@GrayArmyGaming]

@@stephengilbert8166 Sounds great! 😊👍

[@Nortic111]

I really like the structure of this, will have to watch the series so far!

[@GrayArmyGaming]

Thanks so much! It is a fun rules set and I am constantly trying new tweaks in the rules in the videos to make it even better! Thanks for stopping by! 😊👍

[@gidierecklusiak4550]

Thanks for the rules, play the view games it was a very fun. I also find myself adding some additional rules some times like if the guy has like 3 guns I give him 3 dice. And I only have d6's 😂 so I have to translate that for the d20's. Also if you want a bit bigger scale you can have like having 15 models represent as 1 unit with the amount of models in that unit representing the unit health instead of dice, but anyway. Like the game. And thanks for sharing. Go high Elves Go.

[@GrayArmyGaming]

Awesome reflections! I love your ideas and will definitely be trying them out in the future! Kindest regards, and happy gaming!

[@stephengilbert8166]

Hmmm, yeah that would work, I do something similar with the One Hour Wargame rules, and interestingly, I do that already with my larger Star Wars Miniature Skirmish battles.

[@GrayArmyGaming]

@@stephengilbert8166 😊👍

[@stephengilbert8166]

I finally got to watch this late last night.... And you know what? I found it as enticing and grippingly exciting as any of your normal Star Wars game, only, these are YOUR rules and they work marvelously (and yet they have the old school feel I so adore). Loose enough to bomebrew and add on little bits if you want to, but complete enough to stand alone if you want a nice, smooth but easy game. I`d absolutely love to see you do more videos using the same format you used in Orc Invasion, and expand on it further. It was so beautifully thematic.

[@GrayArmyGaming]

Thanks so much! I love the simplicity of this rules set, and I have been tweaking it a little bit each time! I have already recorded Ep. 2, and I will be starting Ep. 3 soon! 👍😊 Thanks so much for your support! If you have not already done it, I would love to have you take a look at the PDF rules (especially the “Super Small Skirmishes” section and share any of your thoughts as a seasoned gamer. I SOOO appreciate the awesome feedback from all of you in the community!) Kindest regards!

[@stephengilbert8166]

In the same way that WotC`s Star Wars rules are excellent in all their purest form... YOUR own Super Small Skirmish rules have that same wonderful charm... I really do love them, for all the same reasons, and WILL be using them myself for sure. Easy to learn, easy to use, and sooo easy to homebrew and modify to suit any occasion. Oh and, I absolutely love the LOKE battlemat book you use., I have the dungeon one and really want the one you used in your game.

[@GrayArmyGaming]

@@stephengilbert8166 Awesome! Happy gaming! Do let me know how it goes for you! 😊👍⚔️🛡️🔥

[@stephengilbert8166]

yeah after literally a life time of gaming, at this stage.. I kinda know what I like and what I don`t like, immediately when I see it. Normally I can look at a set of rules and like a composer can hear the music in his head, straight off the sheet, similarly I can read a set of rules and have a pretty fair idea how they will play.. before I even set up a game. Strangley though YOUR game shone brightly and spoke to me after I watched your battle report, and made me go "wow... wow... WOW. Oh boy, they really, really work." They really are pretty remarkable, and I will for sure to putting them to that test on my own solo game table.

[@GrayArmyGaming]

@@stephengilbert8166 Wow! Amazing!! Thanks! 🫶😊

[@dan8981]

I watched this battle report with my 8year old daughter last night (she was rooting for the elves). Any way we both thoroughly enjoyed the battle report, so watched the next one too. Then grabbed some minis and terrain and played a couple of games. We had a blast thanks. I was looking for a simple game to play with her and this is ideal. I have a quick question and a suggestion. Question in the small skirmish variant do you still crit with 20 and cause 2 wounds? So insta death. And the suggestion, I am not sure if it was this game or not but there was one point where a mini was charged and rolled a natural 20 to defend against the two attacks, I wondered about in that case the defender could cause a wound back to the attacker, their defence was so awesome. A anyway I a wary of adding too many rules on as it’s simplicity is it’s strength. I love the format of these battle play through too.

[@GrayArmyGaming]

Wow! Thanks so much for the fantastic response! It does my heart so good to hear that these rules are helpful parents and kids connect at the gaming table! That is really what I was hoping for most of all! 😊 (I have three boys of 10, 8, and 4, and we have had so much fun with the system.) Regarding those instances you mentioned, I will need to go back and rewatch the battle! (I am known to make quite a few errors in the heat of the moment! 🤪). It is definitely time to record another match! Thanks for the encouragement!! 👍🤩

[@privera9649]

Great Video!! Where you get the High Elf Archers?

[@GrayArmyGaming]

Thanks! The archers and spearmen are from the old Warhammer Fantasy boxed sets. They have been my life project to get them painted up (still working on them! 😂).

[@privera9649]

They look great!!

[@aaronwilkinson2519]

can i just ask where do you purchase the terrain books from? :)

[@GrayArmyGaming]

I picked mine up from a local game supplier in Sweden. I have also seen them on Amazon. It might be possible to check out Loke Battle Mats’ website and see if you can do a direct order. Good luck!

[@aaronwilkinson2519]

@@GrayArmyGaming thanks so much, really appreciate it.

[@GrayArmyGaming]

@@aaronwilkinson2519 No problem! 😊👍