GOOOOOAAAAALLLLLL!!!!!!!!
Well, at least the start of one. One of my goals that pre-dates this blog is to own all the Osprey Blue Books. I guess you could say, it was a goal from my own pre-history? Huh? Huh? Anyway.... I have every single, currently published Blue Book and have reviewed all of them. I have even played a few!
It took me a bit to get my hands on a copy of Hide, Bone, and Stone due to some changes going on in my personal life at the time of publication. I had to hunt a copy down and gather it up into my collection. However, I have it now and am eager to take a look. This is not the only Stone-Age book by Osprey in my game collection. I also have the RPG PaleoMythic on my shelf. However, I am not sure I ever wrote a RPG Review of that one. Those cam a bit later in my blogging career. If you are interested in my thoughts on that one, drop me a comment and I will see what I can do.
In Hide, Stone and Bone you are the leader of a tribe of early human ancestors. You are attempting to survive the perils of the Ice Age. The game represents the "Big Days" of a tribes life, while the campaign represents more of the day-to-day life of the tribe. This game has options for solo, coop, and versus play. I have to admit, I do not have any miniatures for this period but I might have some plastic critters and maybe even some cave men from a by-gone age in a pinch.
So, let's get into the <ahem> meat of this book!
Things I Liked
The currency in this game is not like what you see in other games. Instead of a "cost" in resources, it is a cost in time. This is called Moons.... i.e. how long it takes to get things done.
You can be a tribe of Cro-Magnun Humans OR Neanderthals. "Modern" humans are represented by two different stat lines for some variability in "tribal" lists. No word on mixed tribes Clan of the Cave Bear style.
To add tactical gameplay, their are combat arcs. 180 degrees for tribesman, and 270 for predator beasts! This is for line-of-sight, but also used to determine if a model can try to "dodge" an attack. Combat arcs like this are a simple and effective way to add Tactical Gameplay.
There is a limited form of Pre-measuring in the game. When a model first activates, the player may measure 12 inches out from the model. This represents what they can see clearly from their position. After this initial measurement, no pre-measuring is allowed. A nice hybrid version I had not encountered before. This is another simple way to allow for Tactical Gameplay and to force a player to make Meaningful Choices on limited information.
The game does a good job making a variety of different animals to inhabit this world from predators to prey. They are run by a simple table-based AI using their instincts. Predators will act differently than prey, and even herd/pack animals act different than lonely singles. This leads to different instinct tables. Animals also can have a variety of traits to make encountering them unique to other Hominid bands.
Things I Do Not Like
The game tries to move away from Melee Yahtzee because you can choose to Fight, Grapple, or Throw. Fight is a pretty standard opposed dice test with the winner causing a potential hit. Throwing is also an opposed test but with more modifiers on both sides. However, Grapple gets interesting as you can inflict a wound, Throw your foe 3 inches away in any direction (like off a cliff), or move out of combat. However, I am not sure why someone would choose to grapple rather than just Fight. It will only come up in certain situations. However, unlike fighting, grappling does not always end decisively with a winner or loser and can go on for multiple turns.
Toughness related tests, are the only time you roll low in the game. Every other test is roll high. I prefer when rolling high is always the preference. However, based on how they use Toughness, I understand why they went low. It can be tough to balance out all your stats to be high vs low intuitively. However, failing to do so leads to If This/Than That rules.
The game uses Stress Tokens that add up from various actions. These act as modifiers to a Stress test that can impact if a model will activate appropriately. I like the Concept, BUT the stress tokens are an unnecessary board clutter and mechanic as you could just have the model take tests as they are acted upon, and failures cause an effect, represented by facing or immediate movement instead. Less rules and less table clutter in that scenario.
The game uses alternate activations based on the winner of a roll-off. However, the game uses something I hate; Action Points. Some moves use more action points than others. For example, most movement type actions are 1 point, so you can move multiple times an activation. Basic combat is typically two actions so fight, grapple, throw, etc. There are a few complex actions that take 3 such as a charge. The game does cover a wide variety of actions with this system such as yelling at a foe, going prone, or even certain shamanic acts. Yuck to action points! I do not want to track action points during a game. Hate action points. However, others love them so now you get to see my preferences!
Meh and Other Uncertainties
This game is written by a chap names Austin Hunt. That seems very appropriate for the subject matter. A Nom de Plume? LOL
Casualties are placed face down. There is a one turn to try to help them, but a turn they are considered dead. They have crawled away to die in a hole or ditch somewhere and can not be found or helped further. Now, casualties and how to treat them has become a choice.
The game uses a combination of d10s with a few d6s. The game has Natural 1 Crit Failures for all tests. A Natural 10 is only useful as a Critical Success for combat situations.
The core rules are about 15 pages of how to play. Overall pretty simple rules with enough meat to force some interesting decision making. However, like many of these small skirmish games the focus is on the campaign. The campaign details are the bulk of the 60 pages! Therefore, if campaign and story-telling skirmish games are not your thing.... well..... I am not sure what to tell you.
The campaign covers all the things you have come to expect such as injuries, experience, skills, and gearing up. Success is based on something called "Extinction Points and when or if they run down to Zero, your band is assumed to have been scattered, disbanded, or left the area. They have lost. Success of Failure on "Big Days" (Scenarios) leads to gains and loses of Extinction Points. The campaign is pretty straight forward but notable absences are Base Building and story-telling events between "Big Days".
There are additional rules to play games set in a "Pulp" Hollow Earth type setting with Dinosaurs and Pulp Adventurers interacting with your tribe. This also includes being able to add the Pulp Adventurers to your bands as NPCs.
The book has several scenarios with a variety of Objectives and complications to allow for a great deal of replayability. This range from battling other tribes, hunting beasts, or gathering supplies while under duress. A decent assortment of things to do but nothing outside of what you would expect from a game like this.
The game does not go too in depth on solo, coop, or versus game play. However, the rules are self-evident based on how the instinct tables for animals work. However, facing against rival tribes in solo is not clear to me.
Final Thoughts
This is a straight-forward and well-themed skirmish game. It makes some efforts to add choice and tactical decision making than many skirmish games. However, it is still a bit under-baked "on the table". The focus is mostly on the campaign and linked games. That is where most of the ink is spilled. The Campaign follows the tried-and-true pattern of a solid campaign and it has a clear win/lose state. The campaign is missing some story-beats that focuses the events to what happens on the table.
I am sure this would be a fun game for short, club campaigns and the occasional "Big Day" or convention game. It is well suited to multi-player scenarios. Overall, a nice little addition to the Osprey stable and does what it says on the tin.
Or purchase all out games at the Blood and Spectacles Publishing Wargames Vault Page!
