Flint and Feather Playtest

The Iroquois (Haudenosaunee or "People of the Longhouses") and the aboriginal Huron built and inhabited longhouses. These were sometimes more than 100 m (330 ft) in length and generally around 5 to 7 m (16 to 23 ft) wide. The walls were made of hundred of saplings, sharpened and fire hardened, and driven into the ground close together. Bark, with a staple being birch bark, was then woven horizontally through the lines of saplings to shield the families from the weather. Horizontal poles were then used to brace the walls up. The roof was placed on top of these walls by bending saplings, resulting in an arc-shaped roof. Leaves and grasses covered this frame providing a roof structure. This structure was then covered by bark that was sewn in place and layered as shingles, and reinforced by light swag. The Longhouse had doors at each end of the structure which were covered with an animal hide to keep out the cold and the weather. Doors could also be inserted...

A playtest report sent to us by Howard Whitehouse, the writer of the rules. Enjoy...   My regular gaming partner and opponent Dan Foley agreed that we'd try out a couple of changes to the rules. Both Roderick and Lee had suggested that, instead of the existing 'I hit you/you hit me' system, we let the defender also hit when he scored more successes than the attacker.   This involved a minor change to let the defender redeploy his figures before combat, but this was straightforward enough. Since we wanted to focus on close combat,  both Dan's Mohawks and my Huron's split into a larger group on the valley floor, while putting a smaller group of archers across the creek to provide 'arrow support'. Dan outfoxed me in getting his men into a higher position, and my attempts to rush my archers up the  'natural staircase' to the top of the cliff were accompanied by a collection of light wounds - and a kill - from Dan's laughing bowmen.  Dan...