Mordheim, Season 3, game 6.5

Why 6.5? THis isn't strictly one of the games that will make up the 10 game campaign. This is a side show to that, where as the victor of lasts week game I had the option to go and raid someone elses camp.  As Dave had the warband with the highest rating and had been rather successful lately I opted to pick on him, in the hope of bringing him down a peg or two.

The scenario was simple.  Dave set up his Marienburgers in the middle of the table, surrounded by treasure tokens and loot crates, and we all deployed round him. Last man standing wins.  Deployment ended up very similar to last time, with my Undead sandwiched between Andy's Skaven mob and Rory's Protectorate of Sigmar, with the Witch Hunters on the opposite side of the table, and Ian's dwarves sandwiched between the Witch Hunters and Protectorate of Sigmar (PoS).

Early game saw the Skaven and undead make a dash for the table, while the Marienburgers tried to exit assault the Witch hunters, who bottled it and decided to hide behind a hill.  The Dwarves began the long slow plod towards the centre, but still managed to snipe the PoS of the table. 

The Skaven and the Undead managed to reach the centre of table, bagging a couple of treasure tokens. The Skaven couldn't decide whether or not to have a bash at my undead or to go after the Marienburgers, trapping them against the Witch Hunters.  They made a half hearted attempt at the undead, but the prospect of trying pass all those fear tests on the low Skaven leadership put him off and he changed direction and went after the Marienburgers.

By this time the fight between the Marienburgers and the Witch Hunters had reached its peak, with the witch hunters taking down a fair few of the Marienburgers but suffering heavy losses in the process, including their ogre mercenary.  The Witch hunters decided enough was enough and called it a night, trying to minimise their losses.  The Skaven then pile in to the Marienburgers, with the Rat Ogre making an awful mess. Dave decided to fight on though and with some lucky break tests managed to fight on. This cost him dear though as by this time the Skaven and dwarfs were upon them and they were wiped out to a man.

This left the Skaven, dwarfs and undead on the table, and the skaven then decided that enough was enough and also left the field, leaving it to the dwarfs and undead (again). The Dwarfs headed for cover, trying to get into a position where they could use their crossbowman (dwarf?) to snipe at the undead.  They hadn't reckoned on the 18 inch charge of the Dire Wolf though, and it burst from the back of the undead to pin the dwarf missile troops in combat and stop it firing, allowing the other undead to advance, and then charge the dwarf position.  Another dwarf went down to the undead charge and at this point Ian decided enough was enough and legged it, leaving the undead victorious.

So another win for the undead, more through luck in deployment than anything else.  I ended up between the skaven and PoS. the PoS were out of the game pretty quick and the skaven don't really want to engage the undead, and I'm not fast enough to catch them. This left me in a bit of  vacuum, despite getting into the centre of the board pretty quickly.  Everyone else got stuck in pretty quickly, apart from the dwarfs so once again we were left on the board to fight it out.

I suffered no casualties in this game, and got a good haul of loot so my warband is starting to look pretty healthy again.  Most other people suffered one or two casualties, with the Witch Hunters rather amusingly losing their hard fought for Ogre. 

My warband is starting to look pretty good, with the dregs getting quite tough. The necromancer remains a source of embarrassment though as he regularly fails to achieve anything.  We have resorted to sending him to do all the risky tasks in between games, and sure enough while being lowered down a well looking for treasure he picked up a disease and will need to sit out the next game. I'm not sure I will notice him missing, to be honest.

Apart from that the campaign is starting to balance out some more, with Dave's Marienburgers coming out of the game a lot better than they should have considering every model was taken out of action, although his casualties were enough that he warband is now down to a more manageable level. The witch hunters lost their ogre, which makes a hefty dent in their abilities and the dwarfs lost another model, which is keeping them on an even footing.  The skaven remain a worry, as canny use of disposable giant rats are helping to keep them in the campaign. That coupled with their speed and ability to hoover up treasure tokens so they are rapidly moving ahead of everyone else.

Civil War

There is a new version of Basic Impetus going to be released shortly, and as Fraser is a man with connections he obtained a playtest copy of the rules for us to try out.  I brought my Late Romans, opting to use the Eastern Empire list, while Fraser opted to use the early republican list, so geographically ok but a few hundred years apart from each other.

The new Basic Impetus has set army lists, representing a "typical" army of the period, with just a couple of optional swaps that you can do to try and change them about a bit.

My list consisted of:

Heavy Infantry with supporting Archers

Cavalry ranging from light horse archers to heavier Clibinarii

Light infantry with Plumbati and Javelins

Skirmishers with Javelin and Sling.

Fraser had a mix of heavy infantry, representing the Triarii, Hastati etc.

One unit of Cavalry and some skirmishers

The new rules have quite set rules for selecting terrain, with a die role dictating what your options are and taking it in turns to place it.  We ended up with some hill, some broken ground and small wood.

Initiative is decided by a dice roll, adding in any cavalry units you have, with the lose having to deploy first. Having more cavalry I had a good advantage here, but Fraser won the roll off and I had to deploy first, opting to take control of a large hill in my deployment zone with my heavy infantry.

I deployed my cavalry to the right of them, and guarded my left flank with my skirmishers.

Fraser deployed in a fairly solid line, with his cavalry and skirmishers on my right.

Early game saw a cautious advance from my troops, as I had the cavalry advantage. I hoped to turn one flank of Fraser Romans and get round the back of his army.  The only major hurdle to overcome was one unit of skirmishers, which should have been easy for my cavalry to overcome. Alas it was not to be and my entire cavalry flank was bogged down trying to defeat one unit of skirmishers.

Where it all went wrong.....

Left Flank not ding much better

Waiting on the hill to soften the opposition with shooting.  No effect though.

Mid game and things only got worse.  My cavalry were destroyed by the Roman reserves and my left flank also started to disintegrate, thanks to some truly awful dice rolls. 

Right at the end

Definitely not going to plan!

Late game saw the infantry lines engage, with the Republican Romans having a clear advantage thanks to a higher VBU and the use of Pilum. Eventually my army was broken, with Fraser only losing a couple of units of skirmishers, making for a repeat of last week, only with a different system.

So the first attempt at Basic Impetus went badly, in terms of how the game went, but more importantly how were the rules?

The main problem with the main Impetus was that there were too many "trick" that could be done, and the whole movement/interrupting your opponent movement mechanic all got a little bit too precise, making for a game with a very tournament feel to it.  Basic Impetus removes a lot of these issues, as you now cannot hold your troops in preparation of your opponent doing something and then reacting at precisely the most advantageous moment. 

I think we got most of the rules correct (or Fraser did anyway, I just sort of did what I was told), apart from the javelins/Plumbati rules, which only work in the first phase of a combat and we were using them in every phase.

The things I liked: 

Set army lists, no more min-maxing to get the most efficient army

Simplified turn.

Evasion is simplified, due to most units being unable to perform a second move

Stand and shoot

Simplified measurement

Pursuit and retreat rules from combat.

Initiative is very important now, and you get a couple of re-roll included for free, with the option to swap out some troops for a couple more.

Things I wasn't quite as keen on:

No counter charge.  You can evade, or you can stand and shoot, but there is no chance to counter charge. Why? It doesn't strike me as a difficult thing to add in.

Shooting is largely useless, especially skirmishers shooting at other skirmishers, as the -2 dice usually means you cant do anything.  Put skirmishers in front of your main force and you are pretty much missile proof.

Also a minor gripe but why bother with the supporting archers?  I don't think they have ever done anything of any note in any of my games of Impetus beyond providing additional casualties to the main unit, preserving its Impetus and fighting ability.  It is certainly not worth building any kind fo strategy around them. They must have been useful for something or they wouldn't have been fielded. it is a bit of a mystery.

Still I enjoyed the game, and think the rules have some legs. We will give it another go in January and see what happens.

R.I.P. Joe Dever

Joe Dever.

1956-2016

An Epic Disaster

This weeks game was to be the first outing for my recently painted Epic Armageddon Blood Angels, against Fraser and his Orks.

 

We played a standard tournament scenario, with 3000 points each.

Having played Guard in Epic for the last fifteen years or so I wasn't exactly sure what to expect so took a bit of everything:

Tactical Detachment
Tactical Detachment
Assault Detachment
Devastator Detachment
Death Company
Terminator Detachment
Bikes
Land Speeders
Predator Annihilator
Thunderhawk
Thunderhawk

Fraser brought (very roughly)

STompa Mob
Stompa Mob, with super stompa
Blitz Brigade
Boyz Brigade
Big Gunz
Fighta Bomber
Fighta Bommers
Stormboyz Brigade
Speed Freaks

Pre-game saw Fraser put his objectives on the extreme edges of my table edges, while mine were placed more centrally.

 

The blood angels deployed fairly centrally, hoping to make use of the cover and their faster units. Fraser put a stompa mob on each flank, obviously looking to take the objectives he had deployed on each side, while putting his infantry in the centre.

 

Fraser has a habit of being a jammy git, and this started of looking like it was gong to be no exception as despite the odds being in my favour he won the initiative roll to go first.

 

Early game saw the Blood Angels advances into cover, while the Orks advanced strongly on the flanks, leaving their centre on overwatch. I decided to take a punt with the first Thunderhawk and did a ground assault on the large Stompa Mob on my left flank.  The marines managed to survive the interception from the Ork Bombers, wiping them out in the process but in the ensuing assault the terminators were wiped out, for the loss of only one killa kan.  As usual Fraser had passed all of his armour saves, while I had failed mine, resulting in the Terminator formation and accompanying Thunderhawk being wiped out.

 

Fraser retaliated with some fire from a few formations, resulting in a few blast markers and one stand of marines being eliminated.  The marine land speeders then engaged the Ork Speed Freaks, wiping them out for no losses.  Fraser retaliated by killing two of them with his blitz brigade.

 

I then brought in the second Thunderhawk, carrying the Devastators and Death Company.  Fraser reacted with his other squadron of Fighta Bombers, and after all of my anti aircraft fire had missed completely he managed to inflict a single hit on the Thunderhawk.  I was not worried as Thunderhawks have a 4+ re-rollable save and 2 damage points, so they should have been safe.  However I failed the save, and the re-roll and then to add insult to injury I rolled a 6 for the critical, bring the Thunderhawk crashing out of  the sky, killing everyone on board!

 

Turn 1 was complete and half the blood angels were dead, for the loss of 3 planes and a single Killa Kan on the Ork side, so I decided to call it a day.

 

So a fairly typical game against Fraser, with him being a jammy git and me failing miserably. In the end he did not really have to do anything, as my assaults all turned out to be suicidal, thanks to poor dice rolling on my part and excellent on his.  In hindsight I probably should have continued playing, but at the time I couldn't really see the point as the main assault elements of my army were gone, and I had no real answer to all the Stompas and mini titan.

 

It was a pretty disappointing evening, as I was hoping for more from the mighty Space Marines.  I am trying to make a point to play them differently from my Guard, so I went for an aggressive assault based approach, which in this instance didn't pay off (although to be honest, nothing generally ever pays off against Fraser).

 

Next week we get to go through the charade all over again, except this time it is with the new version of Basic Impetus!

 

In other new Gary managed to actually pass a cohesion test, which is apparently pretty noteworthy.

Targe 2016

This Saturday saw my annual trip up to Kirriemuir for the last show of the year, Targe.

This year was a bit different though as I had volunteered to put on the club demo game this year, and had opted to take my War of the Ring Isengard and Rohan collections.  It was really just an excuse for me to get most of my collections on the table and have enough time to play to a conclusion, as on a Monday there just isn't enough time to have a really big game. To top it off I had managed to add another two units of Uruk Hai to my collection, mostly by just retouching old second hand models I had in the garage and then re-basing them to match my existing collections.

The scenario I opted for was from The Lost Tales, and details how Rohan, led my Theodred the Kings Son crossed the River Isen and headed North to try and defeat the forces of Isengard before they could enter Rohan. It did not go well for Rohan, as this action led to the first battle Isen Fords, and ultimately Theodred's demise.

Deployment

The game involved my entire Isengard collection, around 300 models and most of my Rohan, of around 100 infantry and about 60 cavalry.  In terms of points they were roughly equal, working out at about 2500 a side.

Forces of Isengard

The Riddermark

The game itself played pretty much as expected, with the clearly outclassed Rohan trying to shoot as many Uruk Hai as possible before the two forces contacted each other, at which point the Rohan were pretty much ground to dust.  In the end there were only a couple of Rohan formations left on the board, and a lot of depleted Uruk Hai formations.

Lines close on each other

Dunlendings take the ruins

Warg Riders appear.

I did not see much of the show itself as I was running the game all day, but there looked to be the fairly usual mix of historical games floating about, with a smattering of sci-fi and fantasy, although they mostly appeared to be sponsored by the companies that made their games.

Not to many Rohirrim left at the end of the day.

As for the game itself, as expected the Rohan got a drubbing. I like the War of the Ring rules, principally for the turn sequence and the way heroes can break the turn sequence, but there are a lot of flaws.
 The main one being that the game is basically one of attrition, with whoever has the heaviest armour inevitably winning.  The Uruk Hai are a very heavily armoured force, with their basic troops all having heavy armour and shields, or pikes. The Rohan however are not, with the basic infantry not even having armour (god knows why, as the models are wearing armour), plus the army does not actually have any heavy hitters in it, apart from the Royal Knights (and that's pushing it!).  I think I am going to have a serious look at the rules in future and try and find a way of balancing them out a bit more.

Running the game also didn't leave much time for shopping either, which I considered a good thing as I did not want to make any impulse purchases. In the end I pretty much stuck to plan and bought myself a carry case from Figures in Comfort to hold my expanding Dark Elf army for WHFB/Age of Sigmar/whatever.

One nice surprise was a prize in the painting competition!  I had entered my Stormcast Eternals, but did not really expect to get anything from them. I then completely forgot about it as I was paying the game until Kenny came through from the main hall and fetched me as I had won first prize in the Sci-fi fantasy group category! That was a pleasant surprise and meant that it was the 2nd time in 3 years that I have won that cup, with a runner up prize last year.

Yay!

All in all a pretty good day out, and it is was a change to attend a show from the point of view of putting on a display. I thought it looked not to bad, especially as I hadn't really put to much effort into the terrain. This game was all about the massed troops rather than any interesting scenery/terrain.

Frazer actually helping!

Mordheim, Season 3, Game 6

Game 6 of our Mordheim campaign, so we are now half way through.

This week we were down the dwarves, as Ian had other matters to attend to. This left:

My Undead (warband rating 128).

Dave's Marienburgers (warband rating 196).

Andy L's Witchhunters (warband rating 191).

Rory's Protectorate of Sigmar (warband rating 107).

Andy's Skaven (warband rating 162).

The mission was simple, another ruined village, with a bad guy and his minions in the middle. They were guarding a relic that was either very helpful if you were a good guy, or you wanted to destroy if you were a bad guy. 

Deployment was as always random and I ended up sandwiched between Dave K and Rory, and having just managed to get the cash together to replace my vampire vampire I ended up going for Rory's Protectorate of Sigmar (PoS from now on).

Early on and the game split into three parts.  The Witch hunters and the Marienburgers went straight for each other and large fight ensued, with Dave managing to take down Andy L's freshly painted Ogre double quick thanks to some lucky shots. 

The other Andy's Skaven made a quick rush towards the objective, hovering up treasure tokens as they went, and then got caught up in a big melee in eth centre of the table.  I headed my Undead towards Rory's PoS as my warband was still quick weak and I didn't want to risk to many more losses.  My undead managed to make short work of the PoS, accounting for every member of their warband for no losses, although the vampire came quite close!

Mid game saw the Skaven see off the evil lord and his minions and as he was an evil type he promptly destroyed the artefact, denying it to any of the good players.  The Marienburgers, having seen this decided that enough was enough and decided there was no point in sticking around and left the field carrying their few casualties with them.  The witch hunters were quite happy at this, even though their losses meant that they had to make break tests every turn. 

Late game saw the Skaven head off towards my warband, while the witch hunters started moving towards the centre of the table.  I didn't fancy fighting the Rat Ogre in a fair fight so started withdrawing and shooting at them, hoping that the fear and low leadership on the Skaven would keep them at bay.  As it turned that is exactly what happened. the witch hunters finally failed a leadership test and fled the field, and I used my one remaining zombie to block a choke point, keeping the Skaven rat ogre from charging my warband.  Meanwhile I had managed to shot down some giant rats, and, in a great stroke of luck the leader of the Skaven warband.  A fear causing ghoul was stuck out the front to act as bait and the Skaven all promptly failed their fear tests and froze in place, allowing me to start shooting at them. Andy decided at this point that there was no point in hanging about and also fled the field, leaving the Undead victorious!

Another interesting game, and certainly not the result I was expecting. In the end my warband preformed well, with some excellent shooting, and the zombie proving to be extremely resilient in the face of a giant rat and an rat ogre.  Still never managed to cast a single spell though!

this time deployment played a big part, as the two toughest warbands deployed quite close to each other and so ended up fighting it out. If I had ended deployed next to either the Marienburgers or the Witch hunters the result would have been very different. In the end I had no casualties and so managed a good search of the battlefield, finding a decent amount of loot. This allowed to re hire a ghoul killed in a previous game and leaves me with enough cash to splash on some fancy toys although I haven't yet decided what those will be. I may save the cash to buffer against future losses.

My warband is getting quite strong now, with the Ghouls becoming quite powerful and the three dregs starting to become quite resilient, which is what I am aiming for with them.

As I won I got to pick the next scenario, which could either be a descent into the catacombs in search of treasure, or a raid on an enemy camp.  I opted to raid Dave and his Marienburgers as that would help to prolong the campaign for a game or two, which would be a good thing.

Epic Blood Angels

I finally finished my Epic Blood Angels.

It took a while to get the whole force together, especially the Thunderhawks but I think the army is finished. There is certainly enough to play 3000 points, which is the standard at our club.

Many thanks to John for starting this of by gifting me a box of unwanted Epic stuff. I did the marines fist as I don't really enjoy painting armies any more and their red armour makes them easier to paint.

The Full Army

And again

"modern" Thunderhawks

Original Thunderhawks, proxying as Stormtalons until I find a better alternative

Tactical and Devastators

Assault Marines and Death Company. Tanks on the Left.

Lost

This is going to be a bit of a personal post, rather than my usual reporting on the weeks gaming at my local club.

I lost my dad to Leukaemia this week. He was diagnosed in December last year and was initially given only 2-5 months to live.  He managed to fight on for 10, even though his last few months were spent coping with all the cumulative conditions that were taking their toll on him.

We all knew this moment was coming but that still cannot prepare you for when it does.  Luckily we were all there when he passed and it was peaceful so we have that to be thankful for.

The prospect of losing my father had made me slightly philosophical lately about the ways that he has influenced me as a person, and also how he has influenced my two brothers.

My dad was fairly old fashioned, working hard for his family but also spending a lot of his time pursuing his own interests, while my mum raised us. He never backed down from a fight  and was always very active in whatever he was involved in. He spent a lot of time on committees for the various organisations that he was involved in and tried a lot of different things, jobs and travelled a lot during his life.  

My fondest memories of my dad was always when we were playing board games together. My dad liked to keep busy, so quite often the only way to spend decent time with him was playing cards or a boardgame. He was always happy to  play board games with a slightly impatient and fidgety child with poor attention and would quite happily explain rules several times, or give advice on things we had missed. The games we played varied a great deal, from cribbage (a particular favourite of his) to monopoly and even Talisman and Space Hulk!  He was never derisive of my hobbies and interests, even though many were and while was not full of false praise would do his best to support my hobby.

We shared a similar interest in reading as well, especially fantasy, sci-fi and historical dramas.  I was a late reader, not really taking to it until I read the Hobbit when I was well over 10 years old. I remember talking to him about how much I enjoyed it and that I couldn't wait until my birthday to get my hands on the Lord of the Rings. Low and behold a copy was gifted to me a few week later, totally out of the blue and by surprise.  It has a hand written message from my parents inside and remains one of my most prized possessions, even though its a bit worn and starting to fall apart. I have other copies of The Lord of the Rings, but that is the one that I always come back to and enjoy reading the most.  As an adult I would read books and pass them on to my dad, and when he was finished we would discuss what we thought of them and their merits relative to other things we had read. Even during his illness I was still passing books across to him to read, so that we could discuss the various characters and themes in them during my visits.

My dad also always had unbuilt model kits lying around the house when I was younger. My oldest brother built a lot of model plains when he was younger, and my dad had a few kits lying about the house that he always insisted he was going to build when he was older and had more time.  He also had a model railway layout in the loft, that I remember spending a lot of time playing with. Those kits never got built, as my dad was always looking at something new to do and upon his retirement he built a G scale model railway in the garden. There followed years of us discussing various model making materials and techniques as my dad tried to create something a bit different and we discussed the best use of materials and techniques.  

I think my lifelong love of gaming stems from those happy times playing board games when I was younger, and the early exposure to my dads model making (intentioned rather than actual activity) cemented my love of model making and gaming. I still greatly enjoy gaming of all types, and although time is limited by work and other commitments I try and play at least once a week, and if not playing then I am always at least reading about games, or assembling and painting models.

When my kids came along they both developed a love of trains, and we all enjoyed family trips to  Falkirk for the model railway show. My youngest Blair still loves trains and always asked to run a train around the garden when visiting my dad.  He has a Hornby model railway gifted from my mum and dad one Christmas and we are looking forward to making a layout for it in honour of my dad and so he has something to remember him by.

Me and my dad at my graduation in Dundee, 2010.

There will be no gaming for a few weeks while we come to terms with this, but I'm sure I will be back to it soon enough, after all what better way to remember him than by continuing to do one of things that he had such in influence on.

Mordhein Season 3, Game 5

A short turnaround for our Mordheim campaign, with only two weeks between games.

 

All the usual suspects were there, with the campaign starting to have a two tier feel to it.

 

The Witch hunters, Dwarfs and Marienburgers all seem to be doing quite well, with the Skaven slightly behind them, and bringing up the rear are my Undead, sans Vampire and Rory's protectorate of Sigmar (PoS). 



Undead

Witch Hunters

Protectorate of Sigmar

Dwarf Treasure Seekers

Marienburgers

Skaven (they had had their first move by the time I took this so had spread out a bit)

 

Warband ratings range from over 200 fro Dave's Marienburgers to as low as 80 for the PoS. I was definitely in the lower end of the pile with a rating of just over 100, with the others all floating around the 160 mark.

 

The mission this time was a search and grab, with some Dire Wolves and Warlocks on the board to make things a bit more complicated. We also changed the table around slightly this time, using a 6'x6' table with everyone deploying equidistant from the objectives. This would make for a much fairer game.

 

Deployment saw me sandwiched between the witch hunters and the PoS, which was not exactly ideal.

 

Early game saw a cautious advance from the Undead, trying o stay out of trouble and just get through the game unscathed, while elsewhere the Dwarfs and Skaven got stuck into each other, and the Marienburgers began sniping at the PoS. 

Undead advance with zombie trailing along behind

The Undead managed to shoot down one Dire Wolf before the Witch hunters engaged them, and came of it pretty badly. the Witch hunters sent in their war hounds first to pin the undead in place, survived the Undead counter attack and then annoyingly passed all their fear tests to launch an all out assault.  Two ghouls and a Dire wolf went down to the assault, leaving the undead in a bad position.

Witch Hunters gang up on the Necromancer

Just before the witch hunter assault.

Elsewhere the PoS had fled the board after losing two casualties to shooting from the Marienburgers, and bizarrely the dwarfs failed a rout test after a couple of casualties, surprising everyone with an early bath.

 

At this point in the evening I received a phone call and had to dash off to deal with a domestic emergency, effectively meaning that my Undead left the board without the opportunity to retaliate to the Witch hunters assault.

 

I am unsure what happened after that but from I can gather the witch hunters carried the  day, with the Skaven taking an early bath and the Marienburgers narrowly missing out on victory.

 

So a short evenings gaming, and another minor disaster as two ghouls id not survive the evening. The only good thing was that I managed to save enough money to resurrect my vampire, although at this late stage in the campaign he is nowhere the force he could have been.  the undead will struggle on, but with only 9 "men" they are definitely on the back foot.  if only the necromancer could actually manage to cast his spell when needed.....

Age of Sigmar

I finally caved and had a go at Age of Sigmar.

 

I've been watching the game develop for a while now and picked up the General's Handbook recently.   the matched play rules looked ok and Ian and I decided to give them a trial run.

 

We jumped in at 1000 points, with me using my Dark Elves Aelves and Ian using his Orcs Orruks.

 

In Age of Sigmar the Dark Elves have been split into about 5 factions, which is a pain in the neck. I cobbled together a list from the stuff that I had but as it turned out I didn't have the requisite 3 battle line units required, but we decided to let it go so that we could get a game.

 

My force consisted of:

 

10 Darkshards

10 Darkshards

20 Witch Aelves

20 Corsairs

10 Drakespawn Knights

5 Dark Riders

5 Warlocks

10 Sisters of Slaughter

Witch Aelf Hag

Darkling Sorceress

Dreadlord on Cold One

War Hydra

 

Dark Aelves

Ian fielded:

 

20 Orruks

20 Orruks

10 Ironjawz

2 Bolt Shooters

1 Giant

20 Orc Archers

1 Orc Chariot

3 Grot Fanatics

1 Warboss on foot

1 Warboss on Wyvern

1 Shamen.

 

Orruks

I really had no idea what to expect in this game, and had no ide what any of Ian's stuff was capable of , and only a slim idea of how my own would perform.

 

As such I let Ian have the first turn. It turns out this was a mistake as the forces od destruction all get a free D6 move at the start of the turn, and he had selected a warscroll ability that let his forces run, shoot and then charge with no problems, whereas normally if you run you cant shoot or charge.  So inevitably he was down my throat in the first turn, inflicting casualties.

They move how fast!?!?!?!?

My reply was fairly feeble, as most of troops were in hiding to avoid being shot, but I managed to deal some damage to the chariot and kill the shaman.

Hydra vanishes under a sea of Orruks

Turn 2 and the Orruks had priority again, with them charging in all over the table.  the ensuing fight saw the Giant killed, one unit of Darkshards wiped out, the Hydra killed and the sisters of slaughter wiped out.

Witch Aelves hide from shooting.

The Dark Elf reply showed that Witch Aelves, while fragile packed a punch as they eliminated one unit of Orruks, with the Warlocks finishing off the Wyvern with a spell.   

Orruks all gone...

Combat continued into turn three, with the Orruk archers charging into the Drakespawn Knights and combat continuing everywhere else. The Drakespawn Knights proved to be pretty tough, and wiped out the Orruk Archers.

End of turn 3

Turn 4 saw the Drakespawn Knights finish off both of the bolt throwers, and the Witch Aelves start to make inroads to the last remaining Orruks.  the Darkshards failed to finish off the Warboss as well.   We pretty much ran out of time at this point and called it a draw.  

 

My initial thoughts on the night went along the lines of "this is a pile of crap" as the game did not seem to make much sense. At one point in the game a unit of Orruks had so many buffs on them they had 4 attacks each, which even the Witch Aelves cant achieve.  Once I have had a chance to think on it though a lot of my annoyance probably came from the legacy of playing Warhammer for nearly 30 years.  I have to remember that this is a completely different game, and as such approach it differently.

 

So what didn't I like:

• The movement phase is pretty boring now. In WHFB (my main frame of reference) manoeuver is pretty important, especially for fast cavalry.  That doesn't really exist now and it looks like Fast Cavalry are pretty much redundant now.
• Lack of decision making.  You can almost do everything all the time now. You can always shoot (even when in close combat), and pretty much always charge. the only decision to make is whether or not to run, and in this case the Orruks didn't even need to bother with that.
• The Splitting up of the Dark Aelves. I understand why they did it and in the future I hope they will get some attention but at the moment it is a bit of pain in the neck.

 

 

What did I like: 

• The simplification of the profiles, although the game has lost some depth due to the lack of comparison between Strength/Toughness etc. I still like the level of simplification.
• There is a lot of synergy in the game now, with Heroes attempting to provide buffs to the troops around them, rather than just being super tanks. Only a couple of characters in our game saw combat, with the rest providing benefits to the troops around them.
• List Selection. Now you don't have to buy that one extra model to give you a slight advantage in width and combat resolution. That's all gone now, which is a good thing. Command groups are free for everyone, which is another thing we don't have to muck about with.

 

So after some thought I think the game has some legs. I will keep an eye on it and continue to play whenever I get the chance.  This is purely a game now, with the closest comparable example I can think of being Malifaux. The designers have made no attempt at "realism."

 

I must apologise to my opponent Ian for getting a bit grumpy in the middle of the game as well.