In my previous articles I told you how I had bought the Pillage Introductory set for the price of 5 Space Marine Heavy Intercessors and what it was like unboxing, building and painting the models you get inside. You can read that here:

Pillage – Part One: I Bought An Entire Wargame for the Price of Five Space Marines

Pillage – Part Two: Continuing the Viking Adventure

Pillage – Part Three: Playing the Scenarios

From a Starter Game to a Complete Game

In my previous articles I’ve focused on the introductory set for Pillage and worked my way building, painting and playing the scenarios included in that box set.

Now, I’ve picked up the complete rulebook because I enjoyed the intro so much, and I’m telling you now, this doesn’t dissappoint.

What Does the Full Rulebook Contain?

A lot. There’s so much material inside the book beyond the basic rules.

The rules from the introduction are there, but the full ruleset expands on them so much and even gives you rules for naval battles.

Some of the areas covered include:

• Expanded combat rules: Charging, charge reactions and shield walls, as well as special moves like swimming and climbing, and also the rules for when an model is outnumbered in combat.
• Shooting and equipment: All the weapons and additional choices like cavalry, warhorns and standards
• Advanced rules: building rules, more in depth pillaging rules, morale, special characters like healers and beserkers.
• Historical army lists: There are army lists for Vikings, Anglo-Saxons, Normans, Irish, Scots, Picts, Welsh, Carolingian Franks and Bretons as well as a generic army list if the faction you want isn’t there.
• Different ways to play: naval battles and battles with 3+ players
• Hobby guidance: Tips on painting your models along with some scenery making advice.

That’s a large expansion on the introductory rules.

Looting

One of the things I really enjoyed in the game was the pillaging of livestock and treasures. In the book it outlines the value of these items which gives you opportunities to create linked campaigns for your armies.

It also gives you rules for searching buildings and other areas for loot that isn’t shown on the battlefield.

All of this immediately had me thinking about the possibility for a linked campaign where you could loot battlefields and use it replace fallen warriors and improve the weaponry of your warband between games.

Using the full book

Reading the book is one thing but I wanted to play a game with the actual rules before making up my mind on them.

So I arranged an evening of Pillage with my mate Ian who hadn’t played the game before.

We started by playing through the introductory book which let him get familiar with the way the game worked. Unfortunately for me, he learnt them a little too well!

He played the Irish, and tore me apart in every scenario throughout the intro book, which was helped in no small way by his slingers that seemed to have developed some crazy skills.

We moved on to a game using the full rules with same models from the intro set on a 3’x3′ board and this was where I appreciated what it adds.

Morale

Possibly the rule that made the most impact in our game was morale. During our game I had to roll morale for two of my Vikings that weren’t locked in combat during the game and I managed to roll a 1 for both, which immediately removed them from the game. That was 25% of my force with just two rolls.

Positioning and multiple combats

What I knew was lacking from the intro booklet and that I have mentioned before in the series, was what happens when a warrior faces off against two opponents.

It became very tactical and in most cases I had my warriors moving in pairs of a warrior with hand weapons and another with a spear for support.

Ian picked up on this as well and mentioned that he thought much of the game’s depth came from the positioning of your models, avoiding being outnumbered and trying to get into combats with support to give you better odds.

The combat system is simple but the decisions you make before getting involved in a fight are important, and because both players can lose a model in the same fight even what you would think would be an easy encounter can see your models taken out with a lucky hit.

It’s a brutal system but I personally think it seems perfect for the time period.

Introducing someone new to the game

I think the thing that says the most for the game is how much Ian appeared to enjoy it.

We played through the intro scenarios and a game using the full rules all within two or three hours.

Ian is now planning to collect a Saxon warband and even talked about making some terrain based around them. Considering he’d only just played his first game I think that speaks volumes.

Final thoughts

Now I’ve played both the intro rules and a game using the full rules I’m even more impressed with Pillage.

The full rulebook builds on what you know and also gives you some great additional rules, and you don’t need a massive collection of models to play it.

I’m looking forward to playing the game more and especially the naval rules that are included for boarding actions between boats.

So watch this space, as I think my next article will be about choosing my faction…