Trying Out 'Reign in Hell' Skirmish Rules

    Keith's demons scurry across the temple streaming with lava in our playtest of Reign in Hell

Our Sunday night gaming group played a miniatures game! Stop the presses!! For the first time since we've been back from our Covid layoff, we actually sat down around a table on a Sunday night to play miniatures. We had planned on doing so a couple times before, but ended up doing board games instead. So, when Mike S wanted to playtest "Reign in Hell" -- a new set of skirmish miniatures rules he'd downloaded from Wargame Vault, I was ready!

    We had a good turnout for our first Sunday night miniatures game in a LONG time!

I had briefly read through them and even watched a couple play-throughs on YouTube to familiarize myself with the rules mechanics. Keith had also read the rules, and even purchased a printed copy of them. So, we had three people having a vague familiarity with the rules and three who they'd be brand new to that night. Keith, Andy, and Mike had brought along miniatures suitable for the game. Mike had created a half-dozen 100-point warbands, so we selected one and began to root through their figure boxes for appropriate miniatures to represent our demons and such.

    Jenny's fearsome Leader charges into the midst of Joel's warband

The idea behind Reign in Hell is that the netherworld is in chaos. Different factions are fighting for control of it -- some to bring back its "glory days"while others to destroy it entirely. Each player's force contains a Leader and his lieutenant (known as a Devout). With out 100 point armies, we would also have 5-6 lesser demons. Each faction also have a Philosophy. For example, the force I chose was "Empty" -- a group that wants to see Hell destroyed and all of the demons and such return to Earth. Shortly after I had chosen all of my miniatures, though, my phone rang. My 83-year-old dad had fallen and the aide at the house needed help getting him up. This was not the first time this had happened on a Sunday evening, but luckily it hadn't happened recently. Since I was hosting, Jenny was able to come downstairs and take over my faction and play.

    I had set up the terrain for the table, but Keith brought along this awesome, Hellish centerpiece

I returned just as the six factions were ready to close and trade blows. Mike had told me that he liked the looks of the rules because they looked quick and bloody. I agreed. The combat system essentially has players rolling a number of six-sided dice equal to their Combat Value. If their value is superior to the enemy's, they need a 2+ to score a hit. If equal, 3+. If lower, 4+ still scores a hit. So, there are going to be LOTS of hits. Saving rolls are made only with a "6" on 1d6. So, yeah. Bloody! There are modifiers, of course, but that is the basic system. Interestingly, there is NO missile fire that we'd seen, yet. It's all about bloody and brutal hand-to-hand combat.

    Keith's demons turn to face the arrival of Andy's force - not the his blue 12-sided dice for each fig

When you kills an enemy model, you receive a bonus "Soul dice." You can either use it in a subsequent turn, such as in a combat, or you can save it for the after-game campaign bonuses your warband may receive. That is what had drawn Mike to the game, as well. He liked the idea of an ongoing series of games where your faction's models get stronger, die, change, etc. It had been a long time since we'd done any type of campaign on or Sunday evenings. I think the last time was when we played Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago back in 2018. I think it ran less than 6 times, as I decided I wasn't really a fan of the Frostgrave Magic & Combat system.

    Balrogs, Gargoyles, Succubi were all scored from our collections to field warbands for the game

So, how did our Sunday night crew like Reign in Hell? They seemed to be having a good time. The Initiative/Activation system is interesting. You roll one 12-sided dice for each figure in your warband. First, all 12's move, then 11's, 10's, and so on. The problem with a six player game is that is a lot of circling the table, "Anybody have any 9's?" and so on. I suggested that instead of bouncing from player to player (Player A moves one 12, then B, then C, and so on), the player who is first (A) moves ALL of their 12's. Then B moves all of their 12's, and so on. Then simply rotate player A clockwise on the next turn. That would save a lot of time of going back and forth in a multiplayer game, I think. And as an observer and not player, it seemed to me there was a decent amount of time between one player finishing their move and figuring out who would go next.