Below is an article featuring Pendragon insights and first impressions from first time player and InsideGMT contributor David Wiley of Swords and Chit and Cardboard Clash. You can also find this article on David’s blog. Enjoy! -Rachel

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Note: You can follow me on Twitter at @swordsandchit.

Welcome to Swords and Chit! My aim is to focus on discussing and reviewing wargames. There are two primary reasons I wanted to start blogging about my wargaming experience: as a relatively new wargamer coming from a background of euro games, a lot of things in the wargaming hobby are going to be new to me and I hope to provide a fresh voice for those who might be on a similar journey into this area of gaming. Second, I have a very strong preference for games set in the Medieval period or earlier – although that isn’t where I’ll exclusively play, it is what I will focus on more than anything else. So I am glad you discovered this blog, and I hope you stick around for future posts!

Hoo boy, Pendragon. I knew what I was in for, kind of. After all, back in 2017 I started hyping the game when I learned about it, even chatting briefly with Volko and Morgane as the rules were getting finalized and doing a full-fledged “this game is going to be awesome and here’s why” post in my early days of Cardboard Clash. I read through the rules back then, and so there was a bit of a feeling of coming full circle as I dove into the physical rulebook in preparation. I set the game up on the table last week, read the rulebook over the weekend, and even watched part of a video to gear up for Pendragon Monday, marking my birthday as the day when I would finally play a game I’ve been waiting to play for years – literally.

The day didn’t turn out quite as planned, with the game being unfinished. It happens, my wife and kids are more important than any game. I did finish it on Tuesday night, and the game of Pendragon is why I’ve been so quiet for nearly a week: preparing for, and playing, Pendragon consumed a lot of my time and energy. Was it worth it? You betcha. Who says this can’t be a person’s first COIN game experience? Now I’m ready for Falling Sky, Liberty or Death, and others, right? So, in typical fashion, here’s some of the things I learned upon playing the Barbarian Conspiracy scenario as the Saxons against three bots.

Insight #1: Bots consume a very disproportionate amount of time

I am a relatively quick decision-maker in games by nature. My wife hates the analysis paralysis stewing over options type of play, and my style over the years has acclimated to that. By the time it was my turn to choose an action or event, I usually had a pretty solid idea of what my action/feat/event decisions would be, and as the Saxons it was a lot of Raiding and Returning, freely spending Renown in this short 2-Epoch scenario with lowered win thresholds for the Barbarian factions. I’m aware that, in a longer game, that decision will probably fluctuate more often. But even when I needed to consider my options for a while, my turns always took less time than any bot turn that wasn’t playing it’s “strongly desired” event or passing. Which means most turns every bot took more time than my own turn. More than 75% of the time spent playing the game was spent not playing my own faction, to boil it down into something concrete. To some, this probably is expected as you’ve played many COIN games – heck, I knew it was probably like that going into the game (playing all sides against each other, a Wargaming solitaire staple, is not my cup of tea so I always knew it would be me vs. bots).

This helps me to better grasp what I’ve heard mentioned multiple times on the Harold on Games podcast: streamlining the COIN bot system will bring about a refreshing way to play solitaire. Full disclosure: I still enjoyed my time playing the game! Very much so, in fact. The game was everything I hoped it would be, and by the end I was flowing through the flowcharts a lot better. But at the same time, think of how much better the pacing would be if each non-player side had, say, a 20-card deck and that deck had a “Do X and, if not able, do Y” option on there, and you’d only flip said card if they do not have a desired event showing on the two Event cards? If they can do neither, they pass, and at the resolution of an Epoch round you shuffle the discards back into the deck. Would they make stupid plays on occasion? Absolutely. Could it lead to unexpected aggression and maneuvers that foil your plans more so than a formulated flow chart you can plan around? Yep. Hello fog of war.

Ultimately, the game experience for a solo player will mirror that of playing 3 other opponents, as you’ll play 25% of the time with your own turn. Except you’ll be doing things on every turn, making decisions via die rolls and going through flow charts for how to proceed. It isn’t a problem, but for some it isn’t ideal either. Coming from a Euro-based background where a solo system on a game tries to function so that the player spends as little time as possible doing the AI/NPC turns so they can get back to their turns, I can’t help but notice the disparity between the approaches. I’d love to see games like Pendragon and Falling Sky become more solo-friendly in terms of having a better balance on time when the player is actually playing their own turns.

Insight #2: Terrain type matters to the Barbarians a lot more than it does the Britons

Each Barbarian faction has a segment of coastline with a preferred terrain, allowing them greater odds to Evade (which helped the Scotti faction tremendously in avoiding decimation via retaliatory attacks) or Ambush (a huge benefit against Militia units, not as much against Cavalry) during a field battle. Because so much of combat is deterministic in approach, those two things can help a Barbarian faction hang on against insurmountable odds or wipe out the opposing force without taking losses to their Raiders (which never once happened in my play, no matter how many times both factions rolled to Ambush…). While those regions are not the only areas where the Scotti and the Saxons can land, they definitely provide lucrative options because of the natural advantage they can provide should the dice go well. Knowing that makes the opening decisions of where to land with Raiding a little easier, but at the same time could make a human Briton player aware of where to bolster defense initially. What I think is interesting is that my Saxon force actually started out in a different part of the map due to Patrols getting adjusted right away, and it gave me a strong position to cling to that far enough away from the Dux, was poorly defended by Civitates, and the Scotti kept Raiding just north of there and pulled most of the focus from my small Saxon Warband that remained behind. After the first Epoch, I hammered harder along the other coastline, using those Fens to my advantage and, again, keeping the forces busy away from my small holding in the south.

Insight #3: That first Epoch is dangerous for the Barbarians

It caught me completely unawares. That first Epoch hit at the earliest point possible, and I was excited to go through a new set of steps. And then things dropped to Autonomy, and those victory thresholds for the Dux and the Civitates moved back. Uh oh. The only reason the game didn’t end right there was because it didn’t shift to where the Civitates could get their win. They had the control of territories to lock it up, and it served as a massive wake-up moment for me as a Barbarian faction: there’s a fine line to walk in the early game, to where you want to do well but not too well at taking territory. I’m pretty sure that had the game truly ended there, I might have felt a little bitter about that experience. It wasn’t until my third time rechecking the Dux and Civitates win conditions that I caught the caveat where they needed Civilian Dominance. Phew. It isn’t like the Dux missed their mark by much, either. That Epoch took me from “I feel good about how I’m doing” to “Oh crap, I better step up my game or I am going to lose” and, ultimately, that helped me tremendously during the bulk of what remained in the game.

Insight #4: Playing Against a Human Briton Player Should Be Different

Maybe I completely botched the bots, and maybe it was just random chance that led to it, but time and again the Britons pounded on Scotti Raiders over my Saxons. Or the Civitates Mustered more and more troops to those Hillforts, which they only maintained in the northern part of the map at that point. I walked away feeling like I didn’t see the teeth that I know the bots can possess. Even when, toward the end, I tried to override the bots to make anti-Saxon plays, it wasn’t able to make enough of a dent to my forces to prevent a runway Saxon victory (7 Population under Saxon Control when I needed only 3 for this scenario) at the second Epoch. I believe part of the assist was my initial waves of invasions being placed well, and then after that locked down I diversified my force to ravage varied spots on the coastline. And sure, I had a few really good events fall into the Scotti lap that removed a lot of Civitates forces from the map on those key areas, making it easier to break into the south-eastern map during the late game. But largely the bots don’t react in the way a player might to things, for better and for worse. I didn’t really need to adapt my strategy because I could tell, largely, what the other factions were likely to do based upon their flow chart. And so I leaned into that. Did I suffer some setbacks? Sure did, my initial attempt to take land in the center of the island got wiped off the map by some Dux Cavalry. But then they stormed over to take down the hordes of Scotti and left it wide open to take back near the end.

As much fun as I had with the game, the solo experience left something to be desired because I never felt like I had my back against the wall and needed to change strategies. I could see the finish line, and worked to maintain that hold before taking a late push to conquer more land. I’ll be watching some videos to see where I played the non-player factions wrong – it is definitely a possibility that I botched it all up. And maybe playing a Briton faction will be more interesting, akin to playing a game like Charlemagne, Master of Europe where I need to figure out how to stamp out a swath of enemy forces invading the land rather than being the invaders. But ultimately, I am convinced this game is going to feel more dynamic with at least one human opponent (which isn’t a surprise. This is designed for multiple players, with a bot system integrated after the fact rather than being designed as a solitaire experience first and foremost).

Insight #5: Battles Make Raiders Bleed

You would think that a force of 6-8 Raiders landing on a shore should have an easy time picking off a Militia and a Cavalry cube. Did I learn a hard lesson! Let’s say there’s a field battle. That Cavalry hits first, removing 2 Raiders. Then the Militia hits, removing another Raider. Those Raiders then do enough to remove the Militia and the Cavalry (three Raiders would have been enough to do it). But wait, there’s still a Fort and a Town to take with a force of 3-5 Raiders. That Fort, when attacked, will kill off 2 Raiders in the Escalade step, leaving 1-3 Raiders. Then the Storm step occurs, removing another Raider. That force of 6 fails to remove the Fort, as there has to be a surviving unit to remove the Fort. That force for 7 or 8 would survive with 1-2 units. That town survives, as they would need at least 4 Raiders to take that town as well. (1 would die in Escalade, 2 more during Storm). So, really, a force under 10 Raiders would be ineffective in just that one scenario. Factor in Withdrawing instead of a field battle, where that lone Cavalry can take 2 hits, and you’re looking at a whole new scenario to calculate. It can take a LOT of Raiders to clear out even a slightly defended region, which means you’re going to want to roll the maximum dice for incoming Raiders as you can in order to have a chance at keeping enough of them alive to Return with a decent stockpile of loot…

Insight #6: Sometimes the Limited Command is still the best option to take

In comparison to the alternatives, it never feels like the Limited Command is the right choice to make. It lets you target a single area, and doesn’t even let you tag a Feat alongside the Command. Your turn is never going to be as effective as it could have been, but there’s little you can do about it. You’ll eventually be in a position where the current Event isn’t good to use, or might even be “as good” as a single, Limited Command action could be for you to take. Passing at least keeps you available to go next turn and rewards you with a Renown (as a Barbarian faction) – but the viability of that depends a lot on the next card. If you are going after the other two factions coming available then passing is probably a wasteful decision. My personal preference with a Limited Command was to Return a really depleted Raider force with Wealth back, as it would net me Renown and avoid the easy slaughter by a Dux of Civitates turn. It didn’t let me convert any Raiders into Warbands or place Settlements, but it was usually fine. But dang it, that always felt like I was leaving things on the table by being forced into that Limited Command – something I am sure will happen far more often with a human opponent (since the bots cheat and never are stuck with a Limited Command…)

Wrap-Up

I had really, really high hopes for Pendragon. I mean, I’ve been waiting three years to play the darn game so how could it be anything except high hopes? I temporarily borrowed my friend’s copy of the game for the past few weeks so that I could finally try this game out and I’m grateful for that opportunity. It will be with a measure of sadness this weekend that I return it to his possession. However, I’m hoping my local FLGS has a copy in stock for myself because, well, this week I sold off a few games with the intent of picking this up for myself after that play of it – my way of providing a belated birthday gift to myself. One thing is for certain, this is going to hit the table again. Will I ever convince my wife to play this? Maybe I should cut my losses and be content with having her play War of the Ring with me on occasion.

Then again, maybe I should persuade her to come and ravage my shores with vicious Raids, build up Warbands of Shield Maidens and conquer the island that was Roman Britain. And maybe she’ll like it. But even if she doesn’t ever cave in to playing it with me, I’ve got a good friend who will gladly play, and a trio of bot players that will always be up for a game or two of Pendragon. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll tinker around with that idea of making some solo AI decks to see how that all pans out on streamlining the playtime…

Now, onto the list of reading materials supplied by Morgane…is that an extensive list of titles I want to add to my shelf. I cannot thank her enough for supplying that to sate my interest!

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