Ganesha Games Convention Games

At our local gaming convention, Conquest Sacramento, I ran some of Ganesha Games’ skirmish rules, Song of Blades & Heroes (fantasy) & Song of Drums & Shakos (Napoleonic). These rules tend to work best when played 1-on-1. So since I wanted to be able to have up to 6 people play at a time, I set up 3 1-on-1 games to be run in parallel.

There were 4 players that tried the fantasy games out. 3 of them only stayed to play 1 game, but 1 player decided to stay to try all 3. Everything went well, with the players picking up the rules quickly.

Viking Board
The 1st fantasy board was Viking themed. A Rus bandit gang had somehow enlisted the aid of a Giant which allowed them to pillage the countryside almost unhindered. The local Viking Jarl gathered his Hirdmen and Godi (magic user) to kill the Giant & drive off the gang. There were about the same number of Rus as there were Hirdmen, but the Hirdmen were hardened fighters while the gang was just some ruffians with a Giant to back them up. This was played with 28mm figures & was based on the Kill the Monster scenario from the SBH Arthurian suppliment.

In the 1st game on this board, I played the Jarl & Hirdmen against one of my fellow local gaming club members.

My Hirdmen drive off a screen of his Rus.

His Rus fall back under the protection of the giant.

His giant lumbers forward as my Godi (in the wolf skin) tries to get a Transfix spell off on him.

Even the battle experience of the Hirdmen was no match for a giant. The giant finally killed half of my warband, forcing a morale check & the Hirdmen runs off to lick their wounds.

In the 2nd game, I played the Hirdmen again. & again against another local club member (the one that played all 3 games). But this time, the Rus player's luck failed him. My Godi was able to root the giant to the ground with his spell, while my Hirdmen swarm him. A quick death followed and the rest of the Rus gang scattered.


Beastman/Frogman Board
The 2nd fantasy board had Beastmen raiding a Frogman (Deep One) village. The Beastmen were trying to burn the Frogman huts.

The Beastmen had the skills Forester (ignore brush & woods/jungle movement penalties) & Running Blow (didn’t have to stop to make an attack, but could keep on running by the target if the attack was successful).

The Frogmen had the Amphibious skill (move through water without penalty). This was also played in 28mm & was a simplified version of the Bridge Over MurkyWaters scenario from Ganesha Games' free online magazine Free Hack. Here is a battle report from a solo game I ran of the scenario which was my 1st SBH game.

The 1st game on this board was played between the local gamer who ended up playing all 3 fantasy boards & an out-of-town gamer. Here, the frogmen race to reach their homes before the beastmen.


The frogmen defend their huts against the beastmen's torches.

The beastman leader was finally killed which caused the rest of the warband to run off, saving the frogman huts.

In the 2nd game on this board, a young boy played the Beastmen vs an adult. The game was going fine until the Beastmen were able to engage the Frogman Standard Bearer in combat. The Standard Bearer lost, which caused all the Frogmen to make a morale check.

Standard Bearer at the edge of the lake about to be attacked.

The leader failed so badly that he ran off the table. This caused a 2nd morale check for the remaining Frogmen, most of which also ran the table. The boy was ecstatic since this was the 1st convention he attended & he’d beaten his opponent so soundly. Both his father & grandfather came by to thank me for showing him such a good time & making his 1st convention memorable. In honor of the his 1st convention victory, I gave him one of the Beastman figures to keep.

The young beastman commander with his "goatee".


10mm Board
The final fantasy board had 2 medieval knight forces face off. It was played in 10mm using a single Games Workshop Warmaster stand to repalce a single 15mm figure.

I was curious to see how the 10mm Warmaster stands would work as 15mm substitutes. The only problem is when a unit lost in combat & it needed to “fall down”. We put the whole stand on its back, which did look a little funny. But overall, they worked fine & the game look good. I’ll definitely be using them again since I have such a large Warmaster collection.

Here I played the blue Imperial forces facing off against the purple Bretonnian forces.

My forces move forward and try a flanking manauver.

The Bretonnian Men-at-Arms provide doughty resistance against my knights.

The Bretonnian mounted squires wipe out my crossbowmen & follow up, contacting my Imperial halberdiers. Shortly after this, the Bretonnian Grail Knights thunder forward, destroying the halberdiers and then the Wizard, finally forcing the Imperials to run.



Napoleonic Games
After the fantasy games were done, I set up the 3 Napoleonic games. All of them were 28mm.

The 1st game was a simplified version of Blunt’s Pay Day, a scenario published in the Free Hack magazine, which itself was based Sgt Harper defending the pay chest against the French in the 1st Shapre’s Rifle book. But my version had Portuguese Cacadores (riflemen) defending the pay chests against French Line Infantry.

I ran the full Blunt's Pay Day at the local club a few months ago & here is a report on that game.

The other 2 games were from the War of 1812, so both had British vs American troops, & were on similar boards.

The 1st was set early in the war around Chesapeake Bay. The British were trying to scout out the American naval yards in preparation for an attack to burn the ships. The American were trying to intercept & prevent them from crossing the board to where the naval yards were.


The final game was set in the Niagara campaign. A British commander was travelling to meet with a local Native chief to coordinate their efforts against the Americans. The commander brought 2 Canadian Glengarry Light Infantry with him, and the native chief had sent warriors to escort the British to the meeting place. A detachment from the US Regiment of Rifles were sent to intercept them & prevent the meeting.

Here are the Glengarry Light Infantry and Native warriors I painted for the game.


There was only 1 player for the Napoleonic games, but it was not surprising since it was mid-afternoon on a Sunday, so the convention was winding down. We played the Chesapeake game. The player had already been interested in Ganesha Games & actually left another game early that he was playing in, in order to try out SDS. After we played the SDS game, he was planning on buying at least SDS & possibly Ganesha’s ACW Company level game, ‘61-‘65.

Here is my British seeing off his Americans after killing his Leader.

So overall, a very enjoyable afternoon teaching & playing some fun games. I had to laugh though when I was tearing down the games. One of our local club members was cursing my name when he saw that I had been running Song of Drums & Shako. He’d played in a game I’d run at the club a few months ago. & he was cursing me because I’d cost him too much money. He’d bought the SDS rules & then had to go out & buy figures for it. I guess that speaks well of the rules.

Slicks vs Chicks

This was a game played at Dundracon in the San Francisco Bay Area over President's Day weekend. A friend & I have been pretty much fighting the exact same scenario with the exact same figures at this convention for about 4 years, but each year we try a different ruleset to see if we like it. So far we've tried We Could Be Heroes, Future War, & some others I don't remember. This year we used the Ganesha Games Flying Lead modern rules.

Since the most promenent terrain feature was a pile of tires, someone suggested to fight over a tire fire. The Chicks wanted to keep it burning, the
Slicks wanted to put it out.

Left half of the board


Right half of the board


There was a central road that ran down the middle of the 2 halves.

Tire Fire


Slicks (East riding miniatures Corporate War line)


Chicks (variety of manufacturers)


Chicks bought a bazooka which made short work of the Slick assault element's ride


Slick command element set up to provide covering fire for the assault element see at the bottom right


Melee chick triples a slicks combat score, making it a gruesome death. All the nearby Slicks fail their morale & run off.


Final Showdownm the Chicks leader mesmerizes the Slicks with her impressive mohawk while the melee chick lops the head off the Slicks leader. Strangly, none of the other slicks seeme bothered by it & don't fail Morale.


At this point, only the Slick's assault element was left & their short range weapons really didn't give them much chance to fight back, especially with the melee chick almost unbeatable.

The game was fun, but the rules seemed a bit too crunchy for something you'd expect from Ganesha Games. One problem could have been that each of the figures had it's own different set of skills & weapons, so we had to keep referring to our army list to figure out what skills & +/- needed to be added to the rolls. Also, this was our 1st game of Flying Lead, so we were consulting the rules alot.

But, for a more historical game, where there'd be a lot less individualality in the figures, I think it would work a lot better.

& finish to up with, I noticed that the dune buggy that the slicks command element used had the driver on the right side. I thought this was pretty hilarious so had to share. I got the buggy as part of a large lot of scifi figures, so I have no idea where it came from, but I figure it was somewhere in England or Australia.

Song of Portuguese & Payroll

Today, I ran my 1st game of Ganesha Games' Song of Drums and Shakos, their skirmish Napoleonic game. The scenario was Blunt's Payroll, published in the company's free newsletter. It's heavily based on the payroll dispute at the beginning of Sharpe's Rifles.

The French, with more but lesser quality troops, must defend the army's payroll chests, from the Portuguese who have fewer but higher quality troops. The French set up in & around the ruined inn where they'd camped the previous night. The Portuguese come on from a random edge of the board. I didn't have any British troops, so Portuguese were used as stand-ins.

Here is the board layout with the French deployed around the inn and sentries thrown forward.

The Portuguese came in from the far side of this picture (behind the French standard). The French Ensign noticed them sneaking through the woods just as a Portuguese rifleman drew a bead on Capitan Pierre Rouge and blew him off his horse, giving Sgt Henri a field promotion.

The death of a leader forces a morale check which almost all of the French troops failed. Luckily, when failing morale, having a standard allows troops to use it as a rallying point, running towards the standard, instead of running away. And this actually moved most of the French into cover and a better position to defend the pay chests.

Sgt Henri quickly called for his new command to regroup and take up a position behind the stone wall.

With both sides now ensconced behind stone walls, desultory fire was exchanged.

The Portuguese decided to move things along by moving behind the trees and occupying the inn where the French had just had breakfast. The Portuguese, recognizing they were being flanked, repositioned themselves behind the cover of the pay chests.

The accurate fire from the inn windows finally broke the French morale (they took more than 50% casualties requiring a morale test). In the flight, the French Ensign dropped his standard. A daring Portuguese rifleman dashed out to try to capture an Eagle. But Sgt Henri refused to let his 1st command end so ignobly. So he charged the rifleman, quickly dispatching his opponent.

Encouraged by his Sgt's valorous display of courage, a Voltigeur rushes up to retrieve the standard.

But this was to be their last acts as they were shot down by accurate rifle fire, thus ending the game.


I was very pleased with how well the game ran. It took about 2 hours, but that included setup & rules explanation. Unfortunately, the French player rolled badly throughout the game while the Portuguese players continued to roll well. Otherwise it might not have been so one sided.

Song of Snow & Slime

Finally tried Song of Blades & Heroes for the 1st time. I used the Bridge Over MurkyRiver scenario from the 2nd issue of Ganesha Game's Free Hack magazine. But since I didn't have Lizardmen & Wood Elves, I turned them into Deep Ones & Vikings. The racial characteristics (Amphibious for the Lizardmen, Forester for the Wood Elves) matched the substitute races well, so it was just a direct replacement.

The scenario is a Deep One shaman leading a scouting part to capture a bridge on the edge of the Viking territory.

Here's the board setup that was specified in the article.


When using 25mm figures, the game calls for a 36"x36" play area. But I played on my collapsible painting table, which is 32.5"x32.5", so it was a bit more cramped, but still worked well.

Unfortunately, I had to raid my daughter's art box to get construction paper for the river & the bridge. I've already got the makings for rivers, but will definitely need to work on a bridge for future games.

Since I'd recently made some huts for another game, I threw those onto the board & turned it into a small Viking outpost.


The Deep Ones forces were 1 Shaman, 2 Warriors, 2 Skirmishers (3" range band Javelins) & 2 Savage Deep Ones (harder to activate, but more violent in battle). The Vikings had 1 Shaman & 5 Long Bowmen. Both warbands ended up being just under 300 pts, the standard size for a force.

Here's the initial force deployment. The Vikings set up around their outpost in the upper right corner. The Deep Ones spread out across the left side, with the Savage Deep Ones inside the wall, the Warriors on either side of the river, & the Shaman & Skirmishers behind the trees in the top left corner.

But after the game was over, I realized it be more interesting to have the 2 forces deployed so the river was a natural barrier between them.

The Vikings went 1st, with the Shaman (figure near the back without a shield) & 3 of the Bowmen rushing to the brush by the bridge (Vikings' racial skill is to move through woods & brush without penalty).


The other 2 Bowmen try to outflank the Deep Ones to gain the high ground on the hill at the north of the board.


The Deep One Warriors dive into the river (their racial skill was to move through water without penalty) while the rest of the Deep Ones advance.


The main Viking party finishes moving into the brush & prepare to ambush the Deep Ones. Unfortunately, the Deep Ones are still outside the Vikings' 7" longbow range (* see note below). The flanking Viking force doesn't get very far due to bad dice rolls.

The Deep One Warriors speed under the bridge & pop out of the water right next to the brush the Vikings are hiding in. So much for the Vikings' long range advantage. The Savage Deep Ones slowly move up, but due to them being harder to activate, they aren't able to make multiple moves in 1 turn like the others, so don't move too fast.


The Vikings in the brush fire arrows & magic to little effect, while the flanking force is still moving slow. The Deep One Warriors reach the Vikings in the brush, but don't have enough actions to attack them yet.


The Viking Shaman is confronted by one of the Deep One Warriors (right side in the picture above), which won't end well. So he tries to run away but gets cut down as he turns around. 1st blood to the Deep Ones. The other Deep One Warrior knocks down his opponent. The flanking Vikings finally are close enough to be of use & shoot down one of the Deep One Skirmishers. The Deep One Shaman & the unengaged Vikings exchange spells & arrows to no effect.


The Vikings continue to be ineffectual in melee, while the flanking Vikings fire with a similar success at the Deep Ones. The fallen Viking is skewered by the Deep One Warrior.


Both sides knock an opponent over, but the Deep Ones are the only ones able to seal the deal, killing the 3rd Viking. This causes a Morale check for the Vikings after losing half their force. The 2 flanking Vikings stalwartly stand, but the 3rd Viking, facing 3 Deep Ones on his own in the brush makes a strategic withdrawal.


After that, it pretty much goes downhill even more for the Vikings. They were able to kill one of the Savage Deep Ones.


But then the Vikings were all chased down & killed to a man.


The Deep Ones gibber in celebration of their total victory.


Overall, a fun, light game, but with some tactical depth due to the multi-activation rule. It took me about an hour to play, with lots of flipping through the rulebook since it was my 1st time playing. But with really only 7 pages of basic rules, the flipping was very quick.

I noticed a big difference in performance between the regular Deep Ones (needing a 3+ on a d6 to activate) & the Savage Deep Ones (needing a 4+ to activate). The affect of that 1 point was quite noticeable.

But, the crushing defeat of the Vikings came down to my usual bad dice rolls. While I could easily activate the Vikings (needing 3+), when it came to hitting, I regularly rolled 1-3s, against the Deep Ones 4-6s. Actually, in the middle of the game, there was a series of about 6 consecutive turns where I failed badly enough activating the 1st figure on a side, that initiative passed immediately to the other side. So effectively, both sides took a long tactical pause, just staring at each other, since I was unable to successfully activate either side.

*NOTE: I also just realized I was doing ranged combat wrong. I only allowed the ranged weapons to fire 1 ranged band. The Vikings were only firing 7". But ranged weapons are supposed to be able to fire up to 3x their range band. So they should have been able to fire almost all the way across the board. It would have been initially at a -4 to hit, but that still would have given them a lot more chances to take the Deep Ones out before they got into melee.