We continue our sessions with Burning Banners, a great fantasy-themed wargame, set in illustrious world of Khalar. We are still focusing on smaller scenarios, ones which introduce players to the main game. As this will be the third scenario we played, and we did it twice in different groups, you will see how it went both using Basic and Advanced rules.

This title accommodates any number of players between two and six – which is truly great. However, I really wanted to check again how it will work with three factions. This is usually the most difficult set-up – here made easier from the start as there always will be a “two versus one” set-up in Burning Banners, not every side individually.

About the Game

Couple of words about Burning Banners for those who are not familiar with it. If you know the game – feel free to skip to the next section. In essence, this is a fantasy wargame for two to six players. It is really fast playing and intuitive, and features a whopping 29 scenarios, of various size, length and complexity. They range from short campaigns with 2 Kingdoms and one map, to the entire 12-year war, in which 6 kingdoms battle over four maps. Possibility to play with Basic and Advanced Rules, as well as with one of the six featured factions (Goblins, Orcs, Army of the Night, Oathborn, Fjordland and Eastern Empire) allows for endless hours of great joy!

Scenarios, Campaigns and Chapters

If you have not played Burning Banners yet, it is worthwhile to stop for a moment and analyze plethora of options to bring this title to the table. In essence, all possible set-ups are divided into two sections: Scrolls of Sandaria and The Chronicle of The War of Burning Banners.

My session reports / playthroughs from Burning Banners world:
The Scrolls of Sandria:
0 Invasion of Drefeld (565)
1 Fight to the Death (556)
2 The Jarl's War (572)
3 The Great Goblin Raid (581)
4 Orcs on the Deepwater (584)
5 Approaching Thunder (584)
6 The Spire of the Moon (588)
7 Fire in the Field of Ash (589)
8 Goblin Apocalypse (589)
9 Marauders in the Empire (593)
10 Last Stand in the East (593)
11 Across the Oskolton (593)
12 Goblin High Tide (593)
13 Orcs at the Gate (595)
14 Return of the Long Ships (596)
15 Against the Spire (599)
16 Assault in the North (599)
17 The Undead Empress (604)
The Chronicle of the War:
Book 1: Rage of the Witch Queen
1 Out of the Shadows (589)
2 With Fire and Steel (590)
3 In the Fangs of Beast (591)
4 Wolves of the North (592)

Book 2: Blood Tide Rising
5 The Sword is Broken (593)
6 World on Fire (594)
7 The Longest Night (595)

Book 3: Witch Queen at Bay
8 The Sword Reforged (596)
9 The Lion Rampant (597)
10 Twilight of a Goddess (598)
  • Scrolls of Sandaria – consists of an introductory battle, designed to help players learn the game, followed by seventeen self-contained scenarios from different periods in the Burning Banners timeline. We focus on this now.
  • The Chronicle of The War of Burning Banners – contains starting positions for ten of the twelve years of the war. This allows players to set-up a single 3-turn game from any year in the war, to the entire twelve-year war.

That way you can gradually get into the world of the Burning Banners, learning the rules step by step and familiarizing with the great and extensive lore of this title!

Scenario Description:

Let us jump now to the description of the scenario we planned to bring to the table. As mentioned earlier, both sessions which I am going to present below were played with three players so the options were limited – and with odd number of players, it is always tricky to pick-up a proper scenario. Still, we had like three/four options and I decided to continue with adventure presenting the last stand of the Lilith and Army of the Night.

This will be Campaign 16. Introductory Campaign (zero) as well as the ones numbered 1-6 are quick, 2-player engagements, most of which happens long before the Great War – and the ones from 7 to 17 are a bit larger and already during the war.

So what is the main goal and aim of the scenario? Not surprisingly, Dwarfs plus Fjordland have the task of utterly obliterating the Army of the Night by destroying the Spire of the Moon. The Undead will try to survive. Simple, clean, without any ambiguities.

Sides:

So here is the split of the factions in the scenario:

  • Army of the Night (Invader)
  • Fjordland (Resistance)
  • Oathborn (Resistance)

Well, the Vikings and Dwarfs will gang-up against Undead – not easy for the player leading the Lilith – still, possible to survive and win. Especially in the light of a very interesting special rule: The King is Dead, Long May He Reign! You see, Lilith seeing her kingdom and crusade against the world of men crumbling to pieces, decided to ally herself with Osterloch, the dreadful Wraith, who moved to Spire of the Moon. The forces of good will have to deal with him first, before they can defeat the Army of the Night!

Session Report 1 (Base Rules):

Initial set-up of Campaign 11. That one I played with Adam (Army of the Night) & Kuba G (Fjordland). I had pleasure of leading fearsome Oathborn forces. This was attempt with Base Rules. You can see that Undead are spread much broader than only Spire of the Moon.
This is close-up on the Spire where Osterloch sits (he cannot be moved). This is very well fortified, magical place, which without Siege Engines will be extremely hard to take. This is after Turn 1 – Adam already started to build the defensive perimeter, razing many nearby villages.
Middle of the game. We realized with Kuba that we were focusing too much on picking the settlements of Lilith far away from target, thus simply losing our time. In the meantime Adam built wall of bodies around the Spire.
It took an enormous effort to finally get closer, block the recruitment and start killing all those nasty enemies. War are definitely won by economy. The final battle can be seen above – it took some attempts to win 🙂
Final close-up – my Storm Giant accompanied by Siege Engine did the trick! The Spire of the Moon lays shattered, razed to the ground. Victory for Resistance!

Session Report 2 (Advanced Rules):

Initial set-up of Campaign 11. This time I played with two seasoned wargamers during the Agrowar 2024 – Janek (Oathborn) and Michel/WojennikTV (Army of the Night). The command of Fjordland was given (by random choice) to me.
Again, I think I focused a bit too long in the South-Western part of map, fighting Undead far away from the target. But when I finished, as huge column ov Viking warriors started to sail towards the goal!
As you can see, we played with advanced rules so a lot of heroes appeared on the map. Michel nicely planned defense, bringing both Lilith and Bela.
Love how the Spells change the dynamic of the game Here well played Earthquake severely damaged forces of Resistance (i.e. mine and Janek’s)
The path to victory was somehow similar to the one in first game: 1) gain economic advantage 2) somehow get to the Spire and block the recruitment 3) bring the Storm Giant with Siege Engine. The final battle was huge, with many spells, special abilities and blessings. And the first attempt failed – thank you rats!
The situation at the end of the game. The Spire taken and razed; the scattered remains of Undead running away. Final Victory to Resistance!

Result:

Both games ended in the Resistance victory and defeat of the scourge of the Earth which Army of the Night was. However, that was not an easy feat to achieve. If the Oathborn and Fjordland too much focus on fighting the Undead far away from the Spire, they will not have enough time to do the actual job of destroying it. Five turns might not be sufficient then, despite possibility for the Dwarfs to enter from the southern part of the map.

However, even with the correct focus of Resistance, Lilith can build tons of units, including the rats, which can take down even the most formidable enemies (Storm Giants, like it happened in second game). It really takes appropriate tactical planning – and let us be honest, economical advantage of the Resistance – to defeat the opponent. Not easy task to do!

Evaluation & Summary:

Scenario Fun Factor

Scenario Balance

Time to Play

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

That was our second scenario played with three players. I must say, it did not feel awkward nor somehow artificially distributed among three sides. The Army of the Night was boosted with Osterloh, usually attacked all the villages near the Spire to create buffer and get some money. On the other hand, there were two Resistance factions, so it was rather up to them to find the way to crack the opponent.

While army-wise both sides were initially equal, economically the difference started to tell pretty quickly. And once you get through the defense perimeter to be adjacent to Spire and block the recruitment there – the end of the Undead is slowly becoming more realistic. Thus my 2.5/5 scenario balance evaluation.

As for the time to play, this is definitely adventure which hits the sweet-spot – not too long, not too short, minimal downtime. Very well suited for play with Advanced rules. And definitely fun – exciting goal in sight, not some artificial victory points but clear target – Spire of the Moon!

More session reports to come, stay tuned!