Test of Honour game, a family feud…

I couldn’t make it to the club this week so as I was at home the Mrs said that she would like to try Test of Honour!! She had seen it played and thought that it looked easy and the figures looked nice… well I wasn’t going to turn down the chance of a game, so I set up a simple game on a small area and started to play.

We both had the same forces, one Samurai Hero, one Devoted Samurai, three bowmen, three Spearmen and three musket men, this made it simple to keep track and allowed her to see how each unit / figure worked.

The first thing I have to say is that because the game was on the dinning table the light was not great for photo’s, actually it was awful, if I had thought about it properly I could have set up another light or two with better bulbs, but I didn’t so I hope that the pictures don’t spoil the report.

The second thing is that my Mrs has played a few different games in the past and once she gets her head around the rules she normally plays ok, the main issue for her is ‘tactics’, this always lets her down slightly, I was hoping with a simple game like ToH this wouldn’t be too much of a problem.

Well we set up two the forces and I went through the basic rules with her, and very soon started to play the first turn… 

At this point I started to think I might have a problem, not with her understanding the rules but with her dice rolls!!!

This was her first roll for shooting with her unit of bowmen, “is that good?” she asked with a perfectly straight face, when she saw the pain on my face, my good lady burst out laughing… it was an evil laugh I tell you!

I realised at that moment that I might be in for a very hard game.

We did a little shuffling of figures forward as she got an idea of the rules, my force started to take on wounds from ranged fire and some more ridiculous dice rolling, and my Samurai tried to keep safe.

Then she moved her Devoted Samurai forward on his own and I thought, ha ha, her first mistake, I ran my Samurai Hero over there and thought that he would cut her Devoted down and show her what she had done wrong… I wasn’t being nasty honest… 😉

Well that’s when I got my first fumble of the game! My Hero was obviously an idiot as he cut himself with his sword when he attacked, oh well I had another action, I will cut her Samurai down next time.

Nope my Hero missed again, but at least this time he never fumbled.

Seeing that her Devoted Samurai was fighting an idiot, her Samurai Hero ran over to join in the fun, and there was another ridiculous roll, another seven swords rolled!!! my hero took a nasty deep cut on his leg.

Things were getting worrying for me, my ranged warriors couldn’t hit a barn door even if they were standing next to it, my Samurai Hero was obviously a rubbish swordsman and my Devoted Samurai wasn’t feeling very devoted today, and continued to keep out of the way! ( well actually he was moving towards a unit of bowmen, getting ready to cut them to pieces! )

The main troops of both forces didn’t really want to get too close or take part in much of the fight, they mainly stood their watching the Samurai battle it out.

Well my Hero was still alive and facing two Samurai so decided to attack the easier target and swung wildly at the enemy Devoted Samurai but his swing was too wild and he missed completely… oh damn my dice rolls were terrible.

The enemy Samurai Hero looked at my Hero and decided that he wasn’t a worthy warrior to fight so he let his Devoted Samurai press the attack while he stood back and watched.

The Devoted produced some really fancy sword work and cut my Samurai Hero down…

Seeing this my Devoted Samurai was outraged and charged headlong into the enemy bowmen, and failed to hit them!

They fought each other for several turns until my Devoted finally died… and I called it a victory to my Mrs.

Well that was a shock! That game felt like I had lost from turn one, it was fun ( I certainly think my Mrs had fun!! ) but I struggled with every dice roll, I fumbled so many times it was getting silly.

I saw so few X’s when my Mrs rolled her dice that I had to check them to make sure they still had them!!

When I called the game, I think I had only killed one bowmen and manged to get a few light wounds on a few of her figures, I had lost the Hero, the Devoted and two spear men and one bowman, and a few of my other figures had light wounds ( Blood Drops )

I can’t take anything from her victory though it was well deserved.

It was still early so we decided that we could play another game ( I wanted to get my revenge!! ) so I set up the terrain a little differently and we used the same forces as the first battle.

Well this was a whole different game, I hammered her troops badly over the first few turns, her Samurai Hero took a couple of hits from my musket men, I started to smash through her troops… it was going to be a slaughter!! Victory was going to be mine!

Her Hero hid from my troops! He ran behind some bamboo and started to skirt around behind his troops, trying to stay alive, he had taken a couple of light wounds from my bowmen.

My Samurai and bowmen took out the enemy spearmen, cut them down easily, all I lost was one bowman.

My Hero and Devoted then charged into her group of bowmen and cut them to pieces and then chased after her Hero around the bamboo.

My Samurai Hero and Devoted chased after her Hero, he decided that he didn’t want to fight my Samurai so ran through another clump of bamboo and hid again. My Samurai ran into the remaining enemy musket men and killed them and then came up against her Devoted Samurai… remember him from the last game… well I did and charged in…

…and fumbled!!! Now my Hero was almost dead and my Devoted was badly wounded, so seeing that both of my Samurai had faltered and were badly injured my dear wife decided to charge both of her Samurai at mine and she killed them…

And that was that, I had almost destroyed her complete force, and had badly wounded her Samurai Hero, I thought the battle was mine, but I was robbed of victory at the very last minute.

I can’t fault my Mrs for her game play and tactics they were spot on, she timed her attack perfectly and won fair and square… damn it!

I am sure that we will have more games of Test of Honour, we both had lots of fun. and I am sure that I will get my revenge the next time we play…

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6 Comments

  1. Zac

    LOL!
    OH MY GOD THATS SUCH A FUNNY REPORT!
    have ever considered buying a rubber sword and going down Chislehurst Caves and beat the snot out of some LRPGers no dice required!
    😉

    • Mac

      Hi Zac,

      It’s not funny!! 🙁

      The first game was hard fought but just didn’t go my way, the dice hated me and my Mrs couldn’t roll bad at all during the game.

      The second game was going so well, until my Samurai were charged and were killed, I was robbed!!!

      I will get my revenge next time…

  2. Vic

    Hi Mac,

    Zac’s right – it IS funny! looked like a real hood fun pair of games though.
    I’ve had so many games like that against my friend Peter – I spend 3 turns grinding out a slight edge, he then evens the score with 2 lucky dice rolls, start again … grind-grind & here comes Mr Lucky … grind-grind & here comes … well, you know how it is … Peter’s mystical, magical ability to roll 2’s or 12’s on demand when playing BattleTech ended up with me avoiding playing him ☹

    I think your samurai need some new pills! Does ToH have any honour rules? Surely your Missus samurai hiding & sulking behind the shrubbery is … good tactics, but hardly in the spirit of Banzai!

    Vic

    • Mac

      Hi Vic,
      Yeah to be fair it was funny!

      Yes Test of Honour has “Honour” rules and a set of cards to go with them ( actually dishonour cards! ), but as this was the first time the Mrs had played I thought it best to try and keep it as simple as possible so didn’t use those cards.
      Also some of the skill cards and dishonour cards are meant for campaigns or at least linked scenarios as they can carry over from game to game.
      So as I said I thought it best to leave them out for the first games.

      Mac

  3. Zac

    Poor old Mac, the only guy I know who can get snake-eyes on 3 dice.
    Runing away might not be very Bushido but being hacked to bits is;
    Think about
    cherry blossom

    • Mac

      Hi Zac,

      The way I have been rolling lately it is effecting even my D20’s, I made a roll the other night for a broadside from one of my spaceships in a game.

      I rolled 6 D20’s and saw three 1’s and all the others missed… I only needed 7’s to hit 🙁

      Mac

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