Blood Eagle

What is Blood Eagle

Blood Eagle is a skirmish game set in the Dark Ages, written by Craig Cartmell and Charles Murton and published by their own Ministry of Gentlemanly Warfare in 2016. It covers raids and feuds across Northern Europe, Scandinavia and the British Isles in the 9th and 10th centuries.

The publisher pitches it with The Thirteenth Warrior, the Vikings! TV series, the Norse sagas and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. You can charge a shield wall, board a rival’s longship at sea, or raid a foreign coast and sail home with silver.

It’s historical if you want it to be, and legendary if you don’t. The book lets you field heroes like Lord Uhtred, Ragnar Loðbrok, Lagertha, Egil Skallagrimsson, Erik the Red and Beowulf. It also has trolls and frost giants, Sidhe warbands, deathless Draugr chieftains and Grendel himself.

The book holds:

the core rules and a full points system for building your own forces
thirteen forces from the period
ten legendary heroes your warband can call on
ordinary and legendary armour, weapons and equipment
pagan Wyrd powers and Christian miracles
sixteen scenarios, twelve scenario complications and fifteen landscapes
rules for fighting aboard ships, and a campaign system for writing your own sagas

Blood Eagle runs on the same core engine as the Ministry’s other games, In Her Majesty’s Name and Daishō. The publisher says players can borrow skills, powers, beasts and equipment between the three.

How it plays

Small warbands. Each side fields three to fifteen miniatures. The publisher says a game fits in an evening on a table a yard square.
Points-built forces. Every figure has a points cost. The Ministry calls 250 points an average warband, and treats a standard Viking warrior at 28 points as the benchmark for rank and file.
A d10 system. Each turn opens with initiative: both sides roll a d10 and add their Leadership, and the higher score acts first in every phase. Then come movement, shooting and fighting phases.
Fate rolls decide hits. When a figure is hit, it rolls against its Fate. Beat it and the figure is fine. Match it and it’s knocked down. Fall short and it’s out of the game. Weapons modify that roll, so a two-handed axe hurts more than a club.
Armour stacks. Mail, helms and shields add up to an armour rating. A shield can be hacked apart by an axe, which is called a Sunder attack.
Heroes earn their legend. Heroes gain a Hero Point every time they take an enemy out, and spend them on re-rolls. A Hero who falls gets one Last Heroic Act: one more attack, throwing a sword to an ally, or a death speech.
Ships and weather. Fights aboard a longship are slowed by the Sea State, which also hurts shooting and fighting rolls.
Magic is risky. Casting a Wyrd power or a Christian miracle takes a successful Fate roll, and a double 1 means losing the power for the rest of the game.

How to start

📖

Blood Eagle E-Book Edition

The full rules as a PDF, £6.25 from SnM Stuff.

Get the rules. The PDF e-book is £6.25 from SnM Stuff, which the Ministry lists as the sole vendor of the digital edition. The print book came out through North Star at £14.95 in 2016, but it’s no longer in North Star’s Ministry range.
Grab the free extras. The Blood Eagle page has a reference sheet, a warband roster, the FAQ, errata, and figure cards from Salute 2016.
Use the minis you have. The Ministry writes rules and doesn’t sell miniatures, so any Dark Ages figures will do. A warband is three to fifteen of them.
Build your own warband. The free Creating your own Warband guide walks through a Wendish warband from theme to points.