Two games of 'Mead Price'

After a gaming drought approaching a whole month Martin and I got together to push soldiers around and roll dice. Neither of us had much appetite for anything requiring a great deal of brain capacity so Martin suggested we give chum James'  two page 'Mead Price' rules a go. James wrote these for playing quick and dirty Dark Age games at Sutton Hoo recently. I was hoping to go but COVID put paid to me travelling, but you can read all James adventures here.

The rukes are very simple - rather like the two people deciding to play them and can be downloaded for free here.

We both had Late Roman/Roman British forces - Martin's mostly from the excellent Gripping Beast range, mine mostly Footsore.

My King and his hearthguard held the centre

With warriors and skirmishers on both flamks

Likewise the usurper was in the centre of Martin's line.

It's not a game that encourages much in the way of hanging about, so we both raced forward.

My line became rather fractured and although I was pressing home aggressively my Reputation was suffering.

 

The Warlords were going at it toe to toe, but the random event cards meant I was throwing more dice and whittling the enemy away.

Eventually my Warlord cut down the usurper and his hearthguard and I escaped with victory - just!

It was fun and brutal and quite quick, so we lined 'em up and had at it again.

This time I placed my Warlord on my right flank.

Again both sides pushed up.

Though my Warlord was slow off the mark.

Devastating shooting by Martin's skirmishers saw both of my skirmisher units dead on the first turn!

His cavalry pushed home behind the lines.

A ryn of further bad luck, including an event that cost me more reputation saw my goblet emty all too quickly and I was routed from the field!

Two games played in less than two hours. You wouldn't want to play something this simple all the time, but as a change of pace and a chance to push some pretty soldiers around it was just what we needed.

We did add a few "house rules" as we went through. We decided skirmishers could move in any direction (not just straight forward or back) and could shoot as well even if they changed facing. We shuffled the deck whenever the random event card came up (we used cards instead of tokens) which meant not every unit got to move each turn. Finally we gave a charging unit 1 extra dice to roll in combat - just because it felt right.