The Christmas Tilts

Well chaps, it's less than 3 days now until our Christmas joust. I hope you all have your knights ready.
I've just finished putting the finishing touches to a few accessories and everything is now packed at this end.
First off, I've created rostas for all players; everyone will get there own rosta plus play sheet. The play sheet will essentially list the actions available for the melee. Whilst the knight management sheet, available with the rules, is great for managing a campaign it's not so useful in game. Hopefully, the new version is easier to use at it groups all the necessary information in one place.

For the melee, I've used the same format as my 'Sons of Mars' rosta. For instance, a charge stat of 2(2) means the knight has a charge factor of 2 plus 2 for his weapon - i.e. a total of 4. Similarly, an armour factor of 2(2) means 2 for the armour and 2 for the shield - total 4.

For the joust, the contributions from lance, armour, horse type etc. can be quite complicated. The new rosta takes all this into account and groups all the modifiers into the 5 essential factors: initiative, stability, movement, STR and JST.

Turning now to the on table accessories, I've created as set of eight banners to add a sense of pageantry.

 Whilst adding colour, these also have a functional use. Two of the banners have longer poles, which are used to record hits, in the joust, by placing coloured rings over the banner pole. The remaining banners are used to record the turn number.

The fourth pass of the joust - indicated by the four banners at the rear.

The red knight has an advantage for passing the centre point - shown by the shield on the tilt fence.

The red knight already has 4 points - recorded by the 4 rings on his banner pole.

In the joust each knight must choose a jousting technique; accurate, standard or thrusting. I've created cards to indicate the player's choice - the player's must choose a technique before impact.

The banners also record the turn number in the melee.

Turn four of the melee - indicated by the four banners.

Fatigue points will be indicated by the same red markers that I use for my 54mm gladiators. However, as we will be using smaller 28mm figures, the markers will be kept outside the 'arena'. Vitality will be recorded using casualty dials; again kept at the side of the arena. Eventually, I will probably mount a squire or similar onto a casualty dial.

Overhead shot of fatigue and vitality markers. These will normally be placed outside the arena.

The last required accessory needed will be a way of recording favour dice. For these we will use paper clips. Sounds odd but favour dice may be carried over between matches and / or events, this way the 'favour dice' can simply be clipped to the player's rosta until used.