Keeping with the theme of mass battle fantasy awesomeness for the blog this weekend we're also going to have a peek at the Battlesworn supplement for Oathmark: Battles Of The Lost Age which was released by Osprey Games earlier this year!
Battlesworn was the first expansion to Oathmark by Joseph A. McCullough and introduced more narrative elements into the mix as you track the growth of your units and award them with Battle Honours! There is more in the book too and these are my first impressions on it as an addition to an already excellent game.
Battle Honours
The core of this new book is the introduction of heroic units that have proven themselves in battle. These Battlesworn units are those that have fought valiantly against the odds and now have a story woven around them that feed into the campaign games you play of Oathmark: Battles Of The Lost Age.
There are a few rules around awarding what are called Battle Honours to a unit in your army but the main thing is that they need to have taken part in a sizable battle (they reckon around 1500 points or larger) and they must have had at least one miniature remaining as part of the unit when the fighting ceased. The unit also cannot be Unthinking or under Spellcaster Control (which ties into Oathbreakers and Undead armies) and must not have the Militia or Slave keyword as part of their unit entry.
In addition, the unit must have either eliminated or routed an enemy unit from the table or been part of a moment in the battle that helped in your path to victory. You don't have to have won the battle but this could have been a unit which helped stand against the odds atop an objective or managed to capture a key part of the battlefield.
Once you've decided upon your unit of choice that is going to receive Battle Honours you can then list them on a new sheet that is provided as part of the book. During gameplay, Battle Honours can be used to reroll a particular die for activation, morale tests, combat or shooting. This will start out being just one after the initial battle that formed them into a character unit but as they fight multiple battles they can be awarded multiple Battle Honours which all them to make more rerolls across different tests.
As long as the unit survives with just one miniature present in the unit then they are considered to still be eligible to receive new Battle Honours. If they are wiped out for whatever reason then they have to roll on a table to see how they fared. The unit could become decimated and lost to time or they could simply be wounded and take a little while to get back into fighting form. It should also be added that a unit with a reroll through Battle Honours is a pretty handy thing to have in your pocket so they will cost more points to introduce into your army!
When a Battle Honours unit dies this might be a chance to introduce Oathmarks into your games. You could mark their passing on a mighty Oathmark which can be carried as part of your army. There are rules for using them in your games and giving a buff to your force but make sure that you protect it as if it gets destroyed then panic will surely spread amongst your army!
The new Battle Honours rules are a great way to build character within your army and allow you some fun opportunities to do some hobby. You could fashion accessories and talismans for your units that receive Battle Honours to show how impressive they are. Maybe you could even make a new banner that they carry above them as they march forth? There are plenty of ways for you to make it known how storied your soldiers are!
Engineers & Riverine Craft
As well as Battle Honours there is a big section of the book given over to using Engineers in your games and Riverine Craft (Boats). Engineers are available for all of the races in the game and they allow you to build makeshift defences which your armies can hide behind.
Making barricades for your soldiers to hide behind is a great way to use your Engineers and this allows you to hunker down on objectives as you come under withering fire and assault from all sides. Engineers can also build bridges to cross rivers, another main focus of the Battlesworn book, helping you plan out interesting ways to approach scenarios.
Another use of Engineers is to smash down walls and break your way through defences. Engineers in Oathmark are a good way to start considering siege games and I love the idea of teams of Dwarves rushing towards the walls of a city under covering fire as they work to break down defences and make an entrance for your army.
You can also find rules within this section of the book for building both Small and Large Boats into your force. Small Boats can hold one unit whilst Large Boats can hold two and they also come with a crew which keep them going during your games. The book says that you could either present these boats in their entirety or just use flat cutouts to show where these craft are on the tabletop!
This then flows into additional rules for shooting from boats, fighting between vessels and also making landfall with them. This means that there are now simple but effective rules in the mix for Oathmark for doing raids along the coastline of an enemy kingdom, clashes on rivers between ranging scouts and of course full on seaborn battles between two forces who are seeking to secure passage across seas and oceans.
New Military Expeditions
This all then flows into three new Military Expeditions which make good use of the new rules for Engineers, Riverine Craft and of course your new Battlesworn units. I talked about Military Expeditions in my coverage of Oathbreakers and in general, these scenarios follow a similar pattern.
When you undertake these Military Expeditions you are going off on small narrative adventures with your armies via linked scenarios. Once a winner has been declared for each of them you'll then unlock the ability to control new territories within your kingdom during campaigns.
As with Oathbreakers, the scenarios here are also governed by new tables for events that can happen as your playing and also a new selection of monsters that can be taken to fit into that water-based theme for Battlesworn as a whole.
Again, I really like the way Military Expeditions are laid out in this book and it's fun to have more linked narrative opportunities to move you away from classic pitched battles towards something more meaningful between two or more opponents.
Final Thoughts
All in all, Battlesworn is a less weighty tome in terms of content when compared to Oathbreakers. The new rules for Battle Honours, Engineers and Riverine Craft don't take up much additional space in the context of Oathmark and they simply offer up modular ideas that you can take or leave. I think that a lot of people will be using the Battle Honours rules but they might leave Engineers and Riverine Craft for very specific scenarios or the Military Expeditions themselves.
New spells (focused around water), creatures, units and more are fun to play around with all the same and I think that those who are deep into their Oathmark campaigns are going to find some fun ways to use these rules. As I've noted above this really opens up the door for seaborne raids, sieges and more!
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