Well, the Ketelsens came over to Amherst the other day, and if you know Brian, well, we couldn't help but play a wargame. We played a game called "Sword and Shield version 2" that I made up last year. I can't believe it was last year, but it was, the date I put on the document was 2007. Regardless, it was a fun game! Here are some pictures, and some commentary.
Sword and shield is appropriately a medieval combat game. However, it is a fantasy medieval game. Each soldier represents one soldier. Version 2 is played with d6's. In this picture, you will see the main objective, a tower. Brian unfortunately got there first with his archers, which was decisive. However, it was not apparent that this was decisive until we compared our respecitve piles of casualties. 
Here is a really sad picture. The officer in charge of leading the Bertonian Militia Spearmen was killed at the head of the column. He went down in a flurry of blows from Brian's clubmen and axemen.
Here's Brian looking pretty pleased with himself upon killing my officer. Basically the fight had gone poorly for him until he killed this guy. I was pretty sure that I could use the officers buff stats to pound my way through the enemy and to the door of the castle. Then I could throw the archers off the tower and put my own bowmen up there. But alas, Sam Fireson had to die on the battlefield. Apparently an axeman bashed through his armor. Tragic. But I didn't stop fighting!
Here, near the end of the battle, Brian's steadfast legion receives reenforcements (the guys with the blue shields) who had run away at the beginning of the battle. Yup, that's right, at one time I had three units to Brian's one in front of the door of the castle, and Brian held on. All of his units routed except for this one unit. And I tried to destroy it, and I lost... A very glorious day for Nevan Arms, and a very sad day for the Bertonians.
Brian's casualty pile... 
Bert's sorry casualty pile.
All in all, a good time was had by all. Brian and I both liked the game, which is a blend of morale and losing figures. The combat system worked pretty well, and I was pleased because I developed it. However, we both decided that using a ten sided dice would provide more edge cases and better unit differetiation. Also, it is possible that I made it a little to hard to kill axemen and officers. So, having a 10 percent per node spread instead of a 17 percent spread would probably be better. So, look for new game rules for Sword and Shield version 3 coming out soon! The six foot by six foot table was pretty handy as these miniatures were pretty big. I've thought about buying some 25mm medieval miniatures, but my wife says I need to paint my American Revolution and Napoleonic figures first. I'll probably get around to that by Christmas? or maybe Next Summer? Who knows... :)
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