Song of Shadows and Dust: Miniature Skirmish Rules for Urban Violence and Civil Disruption in the Ancient World (Song of Blades and Heroes)

Purchased this after seeing it rolled-out at a "try-tabletop-&-board-gaming" day at a local science centre. The system is sufficiently easy that - at the gaming day - I saw a pair of 8(ish) year old girls sit down, learn how to play and have a complete game in about an hour. Witness to the enjoyability of this game, after wandering off for about 20 minutes I saw them come back for another game!Don't let that confuse you into thinking that this means that it's overly-simple though. While simplicity of gameplay is clearly a major factor in how the game was designed I found it engrossing and entertaining in equal measure. Each Player builds his or her faction as they like it, choosing from pre-designed character archetypes or coming up with their own via easy-to-use supporting online software so the faction you play as can represent whatever you choose (you can play as the People's Front of Judea, if you wish). With each faction having an objective of their own in each game (making for 121 possible combinations from those listed in the book) you'll likely never have two games of the same type. It's worth noting that combat needn't be the central focus in this game, in fact for some characters AVOIDING combat will be the main aim.This was an entirely new direction for me in games. I know practically nothing about the period setting of biblical (ish) history, other than what I learned about Romans from Primary School and "The Life of Brian", but I don't think it's necessary to know anything. The rulebook contains numerous quotations from classical texts, but don't be intimidated by that. Instead give them a read; some are so humorous that I'm not entirely sure they're genuine! In fact there's plenty of humour and enjoyment to be had throughout the book and throughout the play.Ideally played with tabletop miniatures and similarly-scaled model buildings, but just as playable with pennies/tiddly-winks for characters and cut-out pieces of paper for buildings. A short enough game duration to have several in an evening, and no reason it couldn't be played by more than two factions at once.

Great game, well presented. Inspiring with some well thought out mechanisms.

fantastic game wonderful concept and very interactive....

While not quite my thing gaming wise but a well put together game and solid mechanics - visually games can be very attractive with the right terrain from what I've seen - again bonus is that it works with various scales of miniatures - always handy

Great little game based on civil unrest in ancient times. The rules are easy to learn and enable loads of character to be build into your miniature gangs. The games themselves flow very quickly and smoothly, this enables a whole campaign to be played in an evening. There's an abundance of humorous little twists that will make each game very memorable. Highly recommend this game