Oshweken Playtest

Tom's Archers huddle behind the rocks for cover.

Oshweken is a village on the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation Indian reserve near Brantford, Ontario, Canada.We were in Brantford for a local show at the Legion Hall and ran a day long campaign game of Flint and Feather. My goal was to work through a couple or few games using the campaign rules in between tabletop games to see how they ran and tweak any issues. We were successful in that we did get a chance to get a good assessment of the campaign rules.
We had two players lined up, Tom and Wayne, who sat down to bash on each other. Neither had played the game before so it would be a good test of the rules. This was also the first convention playtest that we used Shaman rules and Orenda. We also used the Warband Record Sheets for each player. Four Sheets of six man Warbands had been prepared the night before. Each Warband was created equally using a Great Warrior, Companion, Veteran Warrior, Warbearer, Stripling and Shaman. Therefore all Warbands were valued at 135 Furs each, as per the chart on page 2 of the Basic Rulebook. All abilities and skills were used from the Basic Rulebook except for two instances. First, we have made up about ten Shaman skills which were rolled randomly for the Shamans (what the heck we have to playtest them all anyway). Second, I made up a new skill called Arm of Oak which allows a Key Character to use a Huge Club, and the Huge Club gives a character an extra +1d6 for Counterblow when using the Huge Club. I have found this ability a little redundant (similar to Fox' Guile) so we may have to change the benefit slightly, like make it for Parry instead of Counterblow, and allow you to do an attack die out of Parry.

Wayne's Warband approaches after splitting to retrieve furs.

So the first game we played we used a basic set up and a grab the Furs Markers goal. The game progressed well with Wayne attempting to gobble up as many furs markers as he could, he got four by the game end. Meanwhile Tom played a more conservative game and based his defense around a rock outcropping which allowed him to hide and shoot arrows and then attack with some melee armed warriors from behind the rock. His tactic was successful as he was able to shoot down a stripling before the close combat was joined. In the ensuing close combat Wayne's Companion was injured and knocked down while both Great Warriors were injured. A Warbearer was also beat up. Wayne's group failed their Nerve Test and ran away leaving their Companion to be captured and tortured by the victorious Warband. With the death of the Stripling and the capture of a Companion as well as three Furs Markers captured the game was given as a victory to Tom who collected 100 Points and totaled out at 180 as per the Victory Table on Page 30 of the basic rules. Wayne meanwhile did not go home empty handed, gaining four Furs Markers, he achieved 50 points for being partially successful in the game, and he topped out at 69 Furs after considering all his loses and damage he created.

The Shaman (in wolf form) leads the charge.

In the between games section the Companion was rolled for and not accepted into the tribe but rather tortured to death. Wayne rolled for his Great Warrior with no effect on the brave. The warbearer also recovered from his wounds. Tom on the other hand lost the use of an arm on his Great Warrior and promptly retired the figure. He then promoted his Companion to Great Warrior and bought two new abilities for the new leader. He also purchased three Warbearers and a Stripling to further outfit his Warband.
We found the chart for the injuries to Warriors to be rather one sided. In terms of injuries sustained your figure either died, he retired, due to a severe wound, or there was no effect on him. Secondly, the points seem to come fast and furious and allowed a victor to really stock up on new recruits, abilities and equipment. Possibly 100 points is far too many for a winning side as this would allow you to buy up to three or four new models quite easily. Also, this could be the intent as warriors tend not to get old and skilled rather they are just replaced with fresh blood after a tabletop battle. More testing will have to go into the campaign rules to find the right balance.
In the second tabletop game we rolled up a scenario from our scenario pack and got the mission of "Trip to Kebec" right off the bat. This scenario is important because if you are the player traveling to Kebec you can buy the Shining Wood, a great boon to any warband. We will continue part two of this blog with a discussion about the Trip to Kebec Scenario next week.