 |
| Hefty. and very square. |
And now for something completely different. I
wrestled for a long time with whether or not to purchase Burning Banners: Rage of the Witch Queen (Compass Games, 2024). Firstly, it’s a big investment, both of cash and
space (regular readers will know we live in a smallish apartment, and storage
space is at a premium – I can no longer afford the shelf-space for “occasional”
games). I’ve also been leaning harder into historical games over the last
couple of years, selling or giving away many of the “family” games I’ve bought
over the last ten or so years, and keeping just a handful of favourites.
In
fact, around the middle of last year, I made the decision not to acquire
Burning Banners. I drew a line under it and moved on, telling myself it’s too
much to commit to. I’ve been divesting my collection of a lot of RPG material
because I’ll never get around to using most of it. Since beginning A Fast Game,
I’ve been doubling down on historical gaming, not all war-gaming exclusively,
but I have avoided fantasy an sci-fi (that’s not to say I’ve cleaned house, but
in the last three years I’ve bought just one Sci-fi game, To Honor Grandfather (Cheese Weasel Logistics, 2025), and that was pretty much
solely because of the Traveller RPG connection (I have every intention of
grabbing the Belter (Game Designers Workshop, 1979) re-release from Compass Games when it finally lands.*
That
resolve was shaken by a couple of confluent events. First, I stumbled across a
review by the gentlemen of The Player’s Aid in my YouTube recommendations, and
my FLGS was selling copies for a very reasonable price†, along with a
10% discount because it was the end of the year and obviously that reignited my
interest – fairly passively, but definitely kindled.
The
cover illustration is a Chris Moeller original and a fan favourite (Billy
Thomas mentioned it was one of his favourite covers during a recent Town Hall).
It well conveys the feel and tone of the game inside; a group of heroes leading
a haggard army against the titular witch-queen, Lilith and her horde of otherworldly
minions. The rendering in purples, distant blues and browns make the banner
titles in red and white pop on the box.
The
cover also lists the six playable factions of the game; three “bad-guy” factions
– Orcs, Goblins, and the Army of the Night – and three factions who may seem
like good guys in comparison the others – the Oathborn, Fjordlanders, and the
Eastern Empire.
I
should just take a moment to mention the weight of the game. The box comes in
at a little under 3.9kg (8½ lbs). If you have a bad back or impoverished upper-body
strength, you may require the assistance of a burly friend or manservant to get
the game home.
 |
| Box-back. |
Burning
Banners is a fantasy game, replete with the trappings of a fantastical setting.
It’s set in the imaginary world of Kalar, where six races battle, sometimes in
alliances, sometimes on their own, for supremacy, glory, treasure, and whatever
the scenario’s victory conditions dictate. Let me say form the get-go, I get
that fantasy games may not be your thing. But be in no doubt that Burning Banners
is every bit a wargame; combat is gritty and sometimes lethal, and fortune
smiles on the well-prepared.
The
box-back offers a glimpse into the setting, with its rich internal history and
lore. It also presents a taste of the gorgeous map art, some of the denizens of
Kalar (the map extract and counters are shown at true size; 1” counters and 1 ½”
hexes), and some sample cards and coins (the game even has a production
component for each player’s forces).
The
game breakdown is one of the nicest I’ve seen, with icons for each qualifier
drawn from the game art. The game’s complexity is rated at low/medium; Burning Banners
has two modes of play, the Basic Game is a straight-forward wargame of armies
clashing and trying to gain the upper hand, while the Advanced Game introduces Heroes,
Spells, and superior artillery (Monsters) to pound and confound the enemy. The
scale of the game is one “Imperial League to a hex and a yearly turn cycle of
four seasons, while each unit marker represents an Army or a Hero.
 |
| Popping the hood. |
The
game duration is listed as an hour plus, depending on the scenario (I’d
estimate at least two hours for the shorter multiple player scenarios using the
Advanced Games rules), and there are scenarios accommodating two to six
players. Burning Banners’ solitaire suitability is given to be Medium, though I
think that would be a little higher with the Basic Game scenarios, and the recommended
age of players is, of course, fourteen and up.
 |
| The post cards. Superfluous, but they do look really good. |
The first
thing you see upon removing the lid is a small bundle of art prints. These are
referred to on the back of the box as postcards. They serve no in-game
purpose, but they replicate some of the character art from the game on a much
bigger scale than you’ll see on the counters. I’m a bit ambivalent about this
kind of thing in games, but I didn’t grow up in a world with videogame art
books and people who collect pop-culture character bobbleheads as a retirement plan,
so I’m not qualified to judge.
 |
| The Rulebook. |
Burning
Banners comes with three booklets; the Rulebook, the Campaign Book and a Traveller’s
Guide to the World of Kalar. All are printed on nice, weighty semi-gloss stock,
presented in full-colour and profusely illustrated, and rendered in a Palatino-reminiscent
typeface and font size that never had me reaching for my reading glasses.
 |
| Sample Rulebook spread. Readable and well illustrated. |
The
rulebook runs to sixty pages. The first half is devoted to the rules for the
Basic Game, though more is presented here than will be used in the introductory
scenario. The next fifteen pages of the rulebook cover the Advanced Game,
introducing rules for Heroes, Monsters and how they and the various card decks interact
with the game. The last quarter of the Rulebook offers a guide to the different
card types (Hero, Magic, Treasure, and Blessing), a five-page glossary (always
a good idea when presenting new concepts), and a helpful guide for reading the
counters on the back cover.
 |
| The Campaign Book. Scenarios are called Campaigns in Burning Banners. |
The
Campaign Book boasts no less than twenty-nine scenarios (referred to as
Campaigns in the game), with guidelines on how to link the final ten into a
Grand Campaign of truly epic proportions (cue Battle of Five Armies music). The
scenarios are really well laid out graphically, with easy-to-read symbology for
the involved factions and their turn order, and colour-coded stat-block-style boxed
notes highlight the pertinent information for each faction involved in the
given scenario (Starting Income, Opening Builds – available currency for
building your initial army and any bonus Heroes – and any Special Rules as applicable).
Each scenario also includes a contextual paragraph placing the current campaign
in the context of the larger history of the era.
 |
| Sample Campaign (No. 16 - three faction). |
For the
shorter Campaigns, everything fits onto a single page. As they get more
complex, these expand to two pages, but are always laid out over an open spread
– no needing to flip a page back and forth.
 |
| The Traveller's Guide to Kalar. Worth reading. |
Also included
in the game is a Traveller’s Guide to the World of Kalar. This is a sixteen-page
distillation of the lore of the Burning Banners universe. This is a place that
Mr Moeller has obviously inhabited for some time, fleshing out a history and
pantheon of the game world as lovingly as Greyhawk or Glorantha.
The
Traveller’s Guide has been prepared with an eye to brevity and humour. While this
isn’t critical to game play, it’s definitely worth a read, and to have on hand
for players acquainting themselves with the Heroes and events in the game for
the first time and helps contextualise the action and the stakes as the Campaigns
play out.
 |
| Four 22' by 17" mounted map sections that meet up perfectly. |
Mr
Moeller is first and foremost an artist; it was his job for many decades with Wizards
of the Coast and is still his passion. This is obvious in Burning Banners and,
to my mind, most clearly in the game’s map-boards. The map was hand-drawn in
the style of fantasy cartography going back to the Lord of the Rings. This means
that the illustrative quality of the play surface can only be appreciated from
a single view, but this should hardly matter during play. Cities and settlements,
terrain and rivers are all beautifully rendered and use a mix of textural cues
and symbology to convey information about the battleground.
 |
| Sample map, laid out and looking really pretty. |
The
game map is divided into for mounted sections. Practically speaking, these fit
together very well (immaculate edge-matching), and the segmented map allows for
many scenarios to be played on one of two of the map sections, rather than
having to clear the whole table for each Campaign. Each section is 22” by 17”,
making the whole map roughly comparable to a two standard-sized map game
footprint with a portrait orientation. The hexes are a full 1½” across, the
better to accommodate the 1” unit markers.
 |
| Map detail. Nice. |
The map
is hand-drawn; every city, village, tower bridge looks a little different. There
are coniferous forests further to the north and deciduous groves to the south. The
overall effect is stunning, but these details aren’t all simply for show. Rivers
are lined in black as far as they are navigable, and subtle symbology brings a
wealth of usable detail to the board without taking away from the overall effect.
 |
Counter sheet 7 - markers and currency (apologies for the reverse order - the pics loaded
on top of each other instead of consecutively, and I didn't have the patience to
fix it on the fly). |
 |
| Counter sheet 6 - mostly Control markers. |
 |
| Counter sheet 5 - Monsters (brown) and Sea Monsters (blue), oh my!. |
 |
| Counter sheet 4 - Goblins. |
 |
| Counter sheet 3 - Orcs (black edge) and Army of the Night (suitably red). |
.
 |
| Counter sheet 2 - Fjordland (blue), Oathborn (grey) and some Army of the Night. |
 |
| Counter sheet 1 Eastern Empire (purple) and Fjordland. |
Burning
Banners comes with seven easy-punch counter sheets. These are mostly populated
with counters representing units – Armies, Heroes, Monsters, and Siege
Equipment. There are, of course also markers and tokens used in play or for
tracking activities, or for indicating factional control over locations are
about ⅝” in size. Finally, coin tokens in 1s, 5s and 10s are available to keep
track of the production economics of the game.
The
unit counters are remarkable, not just for the (again) hand-drawn representations
of the unit types, but for the clever economy of presentation. Central to the
design is an image headed by a title explaining the unit type (some of the more
common units have multiple illustrations depicting the same unit type). A
coloured bar down the left edge distinguishes the faction, while a torn brown
strip on the right will intricate if the unit has been damaged (on the verso of
the counter or just started off as a weak unit. Each unit has a build cost in
the top-right corner, in a point-up yellow square; this represents the cost to
create or repair the unit. Some armies are Feral, wild beasts under factional
control; these are marked by their production cost appearing in an elongated
(diamond-shape) yellow square with a vulpine face in the bottom half.
An army’s
Movement rating is indicated in the lower-right corner. In most cases this will
be an unadorned number. In the case of Huge allies (wyrms, giant eagles, actual
giants), this number will appear in a black hexagon.
The combat
Strength of a unit is indicated in black or white bars, or a combination
thereof, in the upper-right corner of the counter. White bars represent Light Dice
(d6s), while the black bars indicate Heavy Dice (d8s). In combat, one die is rolled
for each bar on the counter, of the colour matching the bar. Hits are 5s and
up, so a one-third chance of a hit on a Light die, and a one-half chance on the
Dark dice. In combat the Defender also rolls; every successful roll by the
defender blocks (cancels) one of the Attacker’s hits. It’s an elegant mechanic
for a less civilised age.
 |
| The Player's Aid Card, Front (right-side) and back. |
 |
| And Inside the fold. |
Burning
Banners comes with two Player’s Aid Cards. These are 11” by 17” bi-fold cards
and they are laid out rather brilliantly. The front panel covers Combat
Resolution, the inner panels offer a clear explanation of the Turn Sequence,
Actions, Free Actions, and the Winter season procedure (this kicks in with the
Advanced Game), And the back panel offers an annotated Terrain Effects summary.
 |
| The nominal bad guys (vampires are still bad, right?). |
 |
| The nominal good guys. |
Each of
the six factions has its own Faction Display, a small, double-layered board
that houses the faction’s available armies, heroes and other markers, and reminds
the player of the special attributes particular to that faction (e.g., the
Fjordlanders are accomplished seafarers; they can move by ship as a free action,
and can increase their sea movement by two).The
double-layer design with cut-outs for the units and other markers probably
isn’t necessary, but it is a nice touch, and will probably appeal to gamers
more familiar with Euro-games. Burning Banners is an obvious candidate for hobby
gamers who have tried something like Scythe (Stonemaier Games, 2016) and
are emboldened to try something more classically war-gamey but aren’t quite
ready for Death in the Trenches (Compass Games, 2022).
 |
| The Season Display, kind of the odometer and fuel gauge of the game. |
Game
progress is recorded on the Season Display. This display card and the Magic
Card Display, which is used in the Advanced game along with the cards, is
mounted on a medium-heavy weight of cardstock (both are single sided). The
Season Display has a Season Track representing three game years, Spring to
Winter, a Turn Track for the participating factions, and an Income Track, for,
well, keeping track of each faction’s current income. Each season is a Turn in
game terms, and each scenario offers guidance as to the opening and closing of
the given campaign; Campaign 17, for example, runs over six turns, from Spring
of Year 1 to Summer of Year 2.
The
Turn Track has six columns, each with three positions denoting the three phases
of play each faction works through in their turn. The scenario notes dictate
the order of play, and Faction Tokens are placed on the Turn Track for each
faction represented in the current Campaign. This is a neat way to keep
everyone on the same page, but for multi-player games, I think I’d be commissioning
one (reliable) player to manage the admin of the tracks, to avoid overreach
(that is, people reaching over the board, knocking pieces or – heaven forbid –
drinks in the process).
 |
| The Magic Card Display, like it says on the label. |
As previously
mentioned, the game also comes with a Magic Card Display. This isn’t as fancy
as the double layered Faction Displays – it’s simply a board marked with places
to keep the fresh Spell and Treasure decks and the discard piles for the played
Spell and Blessing cards. I’m just getting to the cards now, so you’ll have to
bear with me for a moment.
As I’ve
mentioned, The Magic Card Display and Season Display are presented on a nice
weight of board, but I didn’t mention they also feature rounded corners. It’s a
minor thing, but it demonstrates the careful thought that has gone into the production
of this game. Along the sides of the
 |
| Four sealed card decks as they come, 206 cards in all. |
Burning
Banners is a card assisted game. At least I think it is. I’m only just starting
to delve into the Advanced Game rules, but as I understand it, the cards are there to
offer random adjustments, in the form of boons and Blessings, or acquired as
Treasures.
Every fantasy
story should have a little magic, and the cards are how this is introduced into
the game narrative. There are three types of cards; Spells, Treasures and
Blessings. The Spells and Treasures are drawn from shared decks, while each
active faction has its own Blessing deck. During play, the cards a player as
collected through the course of play (during the Arcane Study phase of a turn)
can be spent to improve the odds in a fight or become “owned” by the faction in
the case of Treasures.
The
cards themselves are very nice, printed on a typically good weight of cardstock.
They are attractive without being overdone – they don’t each sport individual
illustrations or fancy fonts. Instead, they each sport a Title, a game function
presented in a text box in the centre of the card in a eminently readable font
and size, and some colour-text in a slightly smaller font at the bottom.
Overall, great presentation, and nothing to distract from the gorgeous map and
counter art.
 |
| Clarifications. Just don't call them errata. |
Finally,
the game does come with a couple of two-column sheets of notes. Before you
start on a song and dance about errata in Compass games, the two sheets (two
and a half pages) of notes are all Clarifications, note further explaining this
or that rule where an early adopter of the game has found the Rulebook somehow
lacking. I for one welcome these notes, I can be a bit of a meathead at times
and any assistance is welcome.
------
I am
pleased to report that I have punched some Burning Banners counters and pushed
them around the board a bit. While I’ve started going through the Advanced Game
rules, I want to play through the introductory scenario a coupe more times to
bed down the learnings from the Basic Game before I punch any more counters,
maybe even run through it with a second player. I’ve been reluctant to go for
multi-player games in recent years, but Burning Banners is a game that will
appeal to the Wednesday group (which often swings between four and six
players), and there are a lot of two-player scenarios included as well. As I mentioned,
a big selling point was it being a Chris Moeller game – like John Butterfield’s
output, I’ll pretty much try anything Mr Moeller chooses to release (that I can
afford). I’ll write up an AAR for the first competitive game, and see how we go
from there.
* Since
writing this unboxing, I’ve noticed a serendipitous connection among the games
mentioned here. Burning Banners designer and illustrator, Christopher Moeller
was also responsible for the Compass-version Belter counter graphics. Needless
to say, they look quite nice.
† At
least it was a reasonable price to my mind. Milage may vary.
