Fantasy

30 September 2016

A field of Slaughterloo

A great excuse to put a LOT of lovely miniatures onto the table!
A really fun day last weekend, playing in a massed 6 player game of Slaughterloo, the fantasy Napoleonic game by Alternate Armies.  John and Dave from the club were kind enough to share their voluminous collection of miniatures, which they have been collecting for more years than they care to admit.  And despite having 6 Divisions on the field, they still had a lot of figs uncommitted to the battle!

The real gem of this game is the characterful miniatures.  Wonderfully sculpted in a cartoonish style, they are a lot of fun and the various special units rules add a wonderfully slapstick and fun layer to the game.  Orc Infantry, Dwarves, Elves, Dogs, and Frogs just to name a few, but my favourite were the undead Russian hordes.  I got to see a lot of them as my Allied Division went up against John's Undead Division on the left flank of the battlefield.

Orc Line Infantry

Orc Riflemen

John's Russian undead form into line to pour fire into my advancing Division 
Supported by flying undead Cavalry!

My stout Prussian Dwarves

My Dog Cuirassiers catch the undead flyers in the funk and destroy them utterly - bwahahah! 
My flank march arrives on the field to threaten John's left flank

The Dogs of War!
Wonderful Frogs in column of marsh!

My Division crashes into John's line, defeating it in detail and routing his Division - Huzzah!  Sadly our combined right flank and centre were then defeated in detail, but I take the morale victory instead :-)

Fantasy elements aside, Slaughterloo is quite a good and free flowing Napoleonic game.  More old school style with with more tables and modifiers, vice the more widespread "buckets of dice" many games have at the moment, it has a good and free flowing feel.   A hand of three replenishing command cards add a touch of variety, chaos and fun.

Thanks to John and Dave for a lot of fun and letting us play with their lovely figures.

16 comments:

  1. Looks like a blast. Not something I would ever do myself but certainly something I'd happily play!

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  2. Wow - that looks like a lot of fun!

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  3. Wonderful! I have often looked at these characterful sculpts and thought about picking up a couple, just great fun.

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    1. Take a look at Alternative Armies Michael:

      http://www.alternative-armies.com/collections/slaughterloo-game-system

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  4. Love the fantasy element of Slaughteroo, cracking sounding game!

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    1. And there were lots of extra rules, magic items etc which we didn't even touch!

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  5. A fantastic game, that! Brings back distant memories of an unknown skirmish game we used to play at the club, which had very similar figures. Interesting to note your preference for 'old school' games - something I agree with very strongly. Thanks for the pictures!

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    1. After games like BA etc where 10 guys fire and you roll 10 or so die, to have a single dice for all firing means that its far more likely to have very effective or ineffective fire (i.e. just as easy to roll a 6 or a 1, vice 10 x 6s or 10 x 1s in a 'bucket'). For a genre like Napoleonics where firearms weren't as reliable and training not as thorough this seems entirely reasonable, and much more relies on a single die roll which adds to the excitement

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    2. Flintloque is the skirmish game you probably saw Colonel. Made by the same chaps and using the same figures but with a roleplayish skirmish format. Also tons of fun but I love the grandness of Slaughterloo.

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  6. Thanks for coming to the game and smashing my poor Undead mate. They were just out for a Sunday stroll, hoping to pick up a few brains and along comes this nasty group of dwarves and dogs...

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  7. This is probably the first game report of Slaughterloo I have seen on the web since my mate and I played about 2 years ago! It doesn't get the online attention it deserves! Thanks for posting this!

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    1. It is a fun game - hard to take Napoleonics goos seriously after playing this!

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  8. That looked like a fantastic game! My best friend and I just had our very first S'Loo game on Saturday and had a good deal of fun thrashing our way through the rules. His Ferach kicked the living doodie out of my Orcs. I didn't imagine how bloody FAST the elves could be, especially when coupled with a Rapid Advance C & C card...

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