Blood & Crowns: Painting My Armies

By Mitch Reed

I wish that my love of history was more well-rounded.

Blood & Crowns is a new skirmish game that covered the Hundred Years War. The kickstarter campaign is still waiting on production of the initial project, and should ship this spring (northern hemisphere).

My journey from never having an interest in this period to becoming excited about it is a wild story.

When it comes to certain periods of history I have little more than a rudimentary knowledge of what occurred and may be able to recognize a few battles, dates, and historical figures. When it comes to the history of the Hundred Years War, I know it lasted more than a century, and other than reading Shakespeare’s Henry V and John Keegan’s Illustrated Face of Battle, both of which I read back in High School, I know little about the conflict.

When I heard that Firelock Games was working on a new game called Blood & Crowns that covered this period, I did not list it as a “must buy”, however after seeing a draft of the rules and especially after my NoDiceNoGlory.com interview with Eric Hansen, the designer, I was hooked and now I have painted over 100 models to play this great game.

For those who have loved the other “Blood &” series, you will feel right at home with the flow of the mechanics and quickly learn the basics of the game. One thing that seasoned Firelock grognard will notice is how much Eric added to the core engine to bring out the rich flavor of the period.

The book has the main combatants of the period the English and French armies, however, you can also field Scottish, Irish, Welsh, and Spanish armies to fight it out on the table.

Along with these historical factions, Blood & Crowns has a very broad scope that allows you to fight battles on the sea, or siege a fortress. There are also unique missions included in the book, that give you all the flavor that you will need to get into the period.

For those not familiar with Firelock Games, but who love the period, I think that you would be impressed with Blood & Crowns. I love reading rulebooks, even ones that cover periods I never plan to play to see how they built their mechanics.

When comparing Blood & Crowns to other skirmish games of this period, the width and depth of Blood & Crowns has the width and depth at the right levels that will convert a lot of players who already enjoy this period.

Using the smooth core mechanics that define the Blood & series, combined with the expanse covered in Blood & Crowns will impress even the crustiest man-at-arms. What convinced me to try this period was talking to Eric. Once you hear the passion he has in our podcast, you will also want to check out this game.

You can tell that he knows this period very well and did even more research in putting together this book. Another thing that struck me from my talk with Eric is that he gets game design.

Many superfans of a particular period who venture into the world of design rely mostly on the historicity of their design more than the game mechanics. Eric has a talent for both which is very rare, and many gamers do not realize that. As you can hear in our discussion I went from an interviewer to a fan and then to a customer.

I did play test the game before I chatted with Eric. However, our talk made me pull out my proxies and look at the game not from the mechanics’ point of view, but instead looking at the unique flavor of the period. The bottom line is that the game is fun and bloody other than bowmen, combat is up close and personal. I also played with my eye on the lists and their distinct capabilities and game impressed me even more.

Since I started painting again this fall, I continued my work by paining two armies from this period, the English and the French. I picked up the four Perry Brothers Box sets (French Army, English Army, Men-At Arms and Mounted Knights). I added one additional French and English Mat-at-Arms sprue for each and a sprue of knights for the 1450-1500 period (for command figures). To top this off I picked up both the English and French Agincourt command metal figure blisters.

We all know Perry models are excellent and I loved painting these. I also did some kitbashing and used the extra wooden spikes and arrows for Ready and Ammunition markers, an idea I saw on a Facebook post. I love how these came out.

Think about what kind of game could get someone who has never desired to play the period, and who has stacks of unpainted miniatures into a Hundred Years War game and put the models to play the game on a must-paint next list.

This has happened to me before. And I fall for the same trap: great mechanics, deep and well-written rules, and most of all, a fun-to-play game. Even if players have a similar unfamiliarity with this period, they should check out this game… so they will not think themselves accursed for not playing, and avoid holding their manhoods cheap, whiles any others speak of Blood & Crowns.