The rules are light, but not in a good way. More an untested kind of way.

The Defence mechanism is odd and not explained well; why buy a shield if armor functions better? There's no stacking, common to the sword-and-board warrior in armor mentality. On top of that, a warrior in regular armor can only be hit on a 4 exactly; no regular encounters give a bonus to hit you. I rolled magic armor on my third encounter, meaning I could no longer be hurt until fighting the dragon (and even then the dragon can't hit you, only hurt you with fire)! How is that balanced or fun?!

This also CAN be played solo, but there's no race. Locked doors and getting lost means nothing. And with the above mentioned, you can just grind until you get magic items and enough money to buy 5-6 full heals and then "win" the game.

Still, as someone else said, this was free so I can't complain too much. There's just some serious room for improvement.

Relly enjoyed the game. . . and I think a couple of bucks for the expansions is in my gaming budget. I thought the basic rules made a great platform to expand and a campaign would be great. Thanks for the fun . . . and well worth the price.

Useful addition to the rules, but only 2 pages long. I reccommend anyway to get it for the Magic and the other simple characters. Above all, get the Custom Armies supplement that has much more contents and allows you to make your own units for the game.

Played a couple of games so far, this game is fantastic! Rules look like a simplified version of the (already simple) Kings of War fantasy rules, using polyhedral dice instead of "buckets of D6", and work (you got them in 5 minutes). Some mechanics do not seem "right" at first sight, but they must be seen in a solo wargame perspective. The enemy AI is also very simple and logical, regiments move towards the nearest enemy, unless they can apply a special rule (like Archery). In case of doubt I use common sense or roll a die. This and the random enemy deployment reflects well the idea of an evil, aggressive horde. I have still to try the Heroes of the Battlefield and I point out that there is another pdf, called Custom Armies, with point values and special rules for making your own units. On a side note, you can use whatever scale of miniatures and basing (I play with 6mm miniatures on a 60x60cm board, halving all distances) or paper counters.

Keel Game! If you think this game is too minimal I think you missed the point.

I've been playing this on and off since about 2011. The rules are neat and simple and quick to learn, giving a fun filled 30 minutes or so. But while they are simple, the "AI" you fight againgst still has a decent chance of beating you. Also, as others have found, because the rules refers to to units rather than actual numbers of figures, things can be scaled up for real massed battles or down to single figure level *

I bought the expansion packs for this and Chronicles of Arax more out of support/appreciation for Shane Garvey's work than necessity. I also fell it is shame that despite initial enthusiasm, back in 2011-12, there is no real community or continuity for this game, as I think it is a great intro to wargaming for busy folk or with children or just anyone really.

• Because of this, I have just started scribbling up some "house rules" for "Chronicles of Vacuum!", that replaces regiments with space ships. (If anyone is interested...)

This is a good game! It has a nice back story and solid mechanics.

Fairly simple rules for mass combat as solo play. Feels like it could have used a little more tweaking of the enemy AI. But as it it works and is not another fake solo game. Units move based on their strength and nearest target. This means you actually do need some strategy when fighting the AI forces!

The combat system could be pared down a little or even a lot. But works as is.

Battle Quest is a simple duneon crawler and is in no way an RPG. It uses some simmilar, but not the same, elements as in Warhammer Quest. But lacks the depth of combat. In fact the combat feels more akin to Tunnels & Trolls. but without even that systems depth.

That said it is a viable little solo game that does not require a map even. I think that with a little more fleshing out it has potential. But if you want a relatively light no-board crawler then give it a whirl.

I join everyone else in praising these rules--simple, straightforward, and easy to get into to. An excellent gateway game for newcomers, as well as a nice change of pace for veteran gamers. I have noticed an oddity no one else has mentioned: the rules present as a mass fantasy battle game, but the size of a regiment actually makes no difference. Whether a unit contains 3 figures or 103, it is eliminated when its wounds are reduced to 0. Thus, one could field an army containing very, very few miniatures, which is helpful for a beginner who does not own a lot of them. It may not be quite so attractive to someone who is looking for rules to use with large numbers of figures. Nevertheless, this is a very fine piece of work--the author is to be commended.

Very simple and ready to play game, I like it a lot, but it looks that the designer has stopped to produce new material, unfortunately.

It has for me just 4 stars because I found the characters a bit unbalanced, the first ones are a bit too weak, on the contrary the one with the expansions are a bit too strong and the game in general has a bit too much the "lucky roll sindrome".

I'm sure that with further work, it would have been better and better.

I hope to see more expansions in the future.

Wonderful game easy rules simple to follow fun easy

The game looks quite good. My only complaint is that it is too ink heavy to print. The background image on the pdf pages can't be turned off so that you can print just the text. Is there anyway that this can be done?

Couldn't win and expansions didn't help.

The good news:
On the one hand the main game was free - and it was simple enough to get rolling quickly - The mechanic for choosing which of the 20 encounters you would play which kept it somewhat random but also in general order started out fantastic. It was also great to see the extra contect you could buy showing that there was more to this than just a one time thrown together game.

The intermission: Having played the base game a couple of times I was really into it. Yes I had not made it all the way through but rationalized that it was just the dice or something. I did see a little bit of a challenge to playing but I was gung-ho for the game and bought the full bundle thinking that playing with the other characters would really make it shine and take care of things.

The bad news:
Tried a new character, and another and another but still no wins. Here's what I had trouble with: 1) In general, you often end up facing enemies whose dice are better than yours. I would get a lot of d8 armor vs my d6 damage or similar. And vice versa with the enemy's attack being better than mine. I seemed I would be able to hit freuquently enough but was unable to beat the odds to do enough damage. 2) Note that it seems you start at level 0 in the regular course of things - I started at level 1 to help out after those first couple of games - but having one extra ability didn't usual help out.
3) Hit Points/wounds was probably the biggest problem. Over the course of maybe 15 encounters that can do damage to you, you only have maybe 12 hit points to start and maybe a 1d6 healing potion or two. So by the time you start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel you realize you are down to 1 HP with three encounters left. 4) What really turned me off, and maybe I didn't read it right, but if you are unable to get by the Dragon by non-combat means, did he really have THIRTY SIX HP? (That's the next next to last encounter.) So my 2 HP vs his 36 wasn't going to cut it. 5) That mechanic for moving the game along is cool to start the game but you end up basically doing most of the encounters in order starting sometimes around #7-12. That's ok, but I thought it would keep it a bit more random than it ended up. Kind of seemed I may as well have played them all in order.
6) To be fair, I jumped to an adventure I had purchased - looking it over I did not see any 36HP baddies and this one even had a 'search for clues' first half of the full quest so I thought for sure I could at least have some good success. But alas, I didn't make it through the 1st half either. (Though that was only with 2 playings)

End story, On the bright side for the price of the bundle I spent enough time that it was worth it and I had fun learning the new system and all that. I would suggest to start at level 5-7 or even higher to get the extras needed to win and then scale back to lower levels as you go.

So if you are interested, get the free version and maybe one of the pay quests and one character and have-at-it. Maybe it will work for you and THEN you can buy more.

The 3 rating is because of the price and fun of learning the game.

SoCal Doug

First, I want to make it clear that I think Chronicles of Blood is a great set of rules, whether played solo or against an opponent. I was very much looking forward to any expansions, and a set of scenarios seemed like a good place to start. What I got for $1 were two very general, undetailed scenarios, that probably took all of 20 minutes to think up, write up, and finalize in a document. Because I like the rules so much I consider the money to be in effect payment for them, and not for the scenarios. In my opinion the scenarios should be made part of the rule set (and charge the dollar for that), or make them a freebie. I certainly am not going to buy the other expansion.

Sorry, folks, but there is no way I can recommend this. At all.