Hi all,
So James and I finally get the first game in full swing. We decided to make this game a friendly; we will work out the after game effects as if we were taking part in a campaign, but as it's our first game and we WILL make mistakes, these effects are just for 'what if' purposes.
SO we set up a 3x3 board and padded it out with my travesty terrain (that's not a brand, my terrain sucks) and some cool fillers from James' terrain box.
I won deployment and chose my board edge and deployed my vast force of :
Krosh (wizard), with two thugs and his trusty undead knight. Fairly central.
Brun (apprentice), with two thugs out on the right. Oh and my raised zombie.
Crossbowman covering the left flank whilst an archer covered the right.
Brun deployed.
James preceded to deploy his Wizard (Algannon) central, with a Templar (Ser Thrandar) and two thugs (Note I don't remember many of James' crews names, he will edit soon) (Jake has the buckler and Bruce the 1 hander).
Apprentice (Brigitte) to his right flank with crossbowman ("The Huntsmaster") and two dogs (as of yet unnamed - suggestions on a postcard).
A thug and a crossbowman to his left flank. (Neither of these people have names. Jay suggested Axel for the guy with the axe)
So the full field looked like this:
We opted for the standard six treasures, have a fight scenario as we were more geared towards learning the mechanics at this point.
Out of game spells before I forget: I raised a zombie and failed to cast Familiar on both my wiz and apprentice.
Turn one.
James won initiative.
Wizard phase:
With a group activation James' wizard and support goons push up to the wall of the central building, the wizard casting shield on his Templar buffing his armour up. A thug named Bruce grabs the first treasure token (MDF sewer tokens on the above pic).
Krosh pushed the centre towards the same building with a group activation, Successfully casting Telekinesis to drag a treasure token into the waiting arms of Cobb (thug).
(sorry wobbly pic)
Apprentice phase:
James' apprentice performs another group activation to push the war hounds forward with the crossbowman giving cover, but fails to cast Power Word even though it was empowered. The crossbowman has no valid targets to engage.
Brun Group activates hie small team and heads for the centre building. He successfully casts Possess on Lazarus the zombie, increasing his fight and armour at the cost of his already bad willpower.
Soldier Phase:
James' two man team on his left flank pushed to the edge of the ruins, where the Crossbowman ("The Huntsmaster" - I may just call him Jaeger to make him sound less like a weird prowrestler) caught my archer in the open and knocks 5 health off of him.
The hurt (but not wounded) archer, Koop returns fire, but misses...probably due to the crossbow bolt protruding from his leg.
On my left flank Clarke the crossbowman gets a good hit on a war hound in the open doing enough damage to wound it.
Turn 2: Initiative Jay.
Wizard phase:
Krosh moves the team further into the ruins and fails to cast bone dart on one of the war hounds. This would soon become a recurring theme...Cobb heads towards the table edge with his loot.
James' wizard's group pile into the ruins to engage in our first close combat!!
Jake, one of James' thugs is hit by Horne, the thug cultist for 4 damage. The Templar (buffed still) and Knight square off. The two most proficient combat masters on the table look each other up and down.
The die are cast...one D20 each. Pants.Will. Be. Shat. (The dice shaming has started. Dice shaming is a noble tradition. I'd also like to nominate the green dice, which I had given to Jay for the game, for what it does to me later....)
In an unrivalled display of incompetence, these 'warriors' utterly embarrass themselves.
Apprentice phase:
Brun, moves towards the two thugs on the right flank, whilst sending his troops up to the centre ruins. He then casts Bone dart at the crossbowman, but fails to cause any damage.
James' Apprentice activates with the crossbowman and they both move up, the apprentice successfully casts Heal on herself and recovers the health lost empowering the earlier Power Word spell. The crossbowman engages the cultist crossbow but fails to hit.
Soldier phase:
The hurt cultist archer, Koop manages a miraculous shot on the crossbowman and takes him out of the game. Whilst the crossbowman misses the ever closing war hounds. Oh dear.
James' war hounds get even closer to the cultist crossbowman in the ruins, whilst on the other flank a Thug mounts the temple stairs to snatch a treasure, leaving him quite exposed.
Turn 3: initiative James.
Wizard phase.
The thaumaturge Wizard moves into touch range of his Templar and casts Heal successfully on the thug Jake, to bring him back to full health. Jake swings for Horne, but again Horne wounds him instead, back down to 6 health. The Templar makes up for the previous combat and annihilates the Undead Knight, Ser Arten. Leaving an ominous gap and a clear view at Krosh....
Krosh sees the gap and moves a bit closer to the knight (he had a crossbowman to his left, dogs to the rear, when in doubt, bone dart. Well he would if he could actually pull it off, failed to hurt the Templar...things looked grim. With the group activation Horne hits Jake some more..
Apprentice Phase:
James Apprentice group activates with the crossbowman, who reloads. She casts an empowered Elemental Hammer on his crossbow to give him enough stopping power to put the cultist crossbowman down in one shot! (Elemental hammer was awesome.....really awesome)
Better than being mauled by dogs....
Brun moves up and fires a bone dart at the Templar in the ruins...but again fails to wound. His group advance further into the ruins. One Thug grabs a treasure.
Soldier Phase:
The exposed thug runs back down the stairs with his loot, (Go Axel!)
whilst the war hounds are literally an inch from intercepting the cultist legging it with treasure.
Bruce escapes with a treasure.
Said thug has the option to 'force combat' but decides to leg it instead. That was close!
As he moves out of the way the archer moves up and takes a shot at the war hound that is wounded, but misses.
Turn 4: initiative Jay.
Wizard Phase:
Krosh is desperate, with nowhere to go and backup too far away, not to mention a Templar bearing down on him, he casts Raise Zombie successfully to put a zombie in front of said Templar. Horne uses the group activation to kill Jake. Leaving just the Templar and wizard who promptly legs it towards a treasure outside the building, leaving the Templar as rear guard. The Templar swings hard and takes the zombie down to 1 HP.
Apprentice Phase:
Brun has nothing to see or do so sprints around the flank of the centre building, trying to catch the wizard. He orders the treasure carrying cultist towards the board edge, a hard decision as he was close enough to perhaps get into a fight...but we came for the gold!! Thaumaturge apprentice moves towards the ruins and instructs the crossbowman to grab a treasure. She again casts heal to replenish the health lost in her self harm earlier.
she's in the trees....
Soldier Phase:
Koop takes aim on the wounded hound and puts it away with a long shot. Another cultist dives onto the templar, now outnumbered the Templar will surely fall!
Alas the cultists and zombie both loose drastically to him and he takes them both out in immense fashion! (At this point he has both shield and combat awareness on him, which is making him a bit of a beast. Armour of 14 and fight of +6. He also gets +2 damage from the zweihander so that's a lot of punishment he can deal out)
Can anyone stop him?
Finally the remaining war hound has enough move to get into combat with Krosh but not enough to attack.
Turn 5: initiative James
Wizard Phase.
James' Wizard grabs a treasure whilst he is juuuuust close enough to include the Templar in a group activation, who promptly wades into Krosh and with the outnumbering bonus from the war hound drops him to 5 health!! Ouch.
Krosh activates with Horne the cultist. with a dog on his back and a juggernaut to his front, he has to fight. He swings for the dog, and scores a critical hit (a 'natural' roll of 20 doubles damage) which eviscerates the dog. Horne looks at the pile of dead at the Templar's feet and decides to swing anyway, maybe, now outnumbering him will help (said that before). He scores a Critical hit!!! Which takes the Templar down finally! (Betrayed by my own dice! I got a bit grumpy at this point because I wasn't looking at things objectively! Bloomin' d20s...)
I would rather be lucky than good....
Apprentice Phase.
James apprentice moves closer to Krosh, seeing him as perhaps a soft target with only 5hp, and casts combat awareness on the wizard with empowerment. (This turned out to be a bit of a waste of time. I should have gone for shield but I had a vague plan of revenge!)
Brun see's her plan and uses the spell Wall to block the door she intended to get through next turn, protecting his master.
wall is out of shot but behind Krosh.
Soldier phase:
Most of the remaining soldiers are loaded down with loot so move towards the edge of the board.
Turn 6: Initiative James.
Wizard Phase:
With no soldiers left barring a crossbowman laden with treasure, and laden with some himself, James' Wizard heads towards the table edge, not trying to cast anything. Krosh gambles and steps into the open and tries to cast Bone dart at the laden crossbowman but as you can imagine it fails.... Horne runs in pursuit of the fleeing wizard.
Apprentice Phase:
James' apprentice takes advantage of Krosh exposing his position and has just enough move to get into combat but cannot attack.
With the fleeing thaumaturge in view apprentice Brun takes him down with a bone dart in the back!....only kidding, he miscast it so bad his eyes ran down his face and he was left on 4hp.....
Soldier phase:
The crossbowman vacates the area with more loot. Meanwhile the cultist archer, Koop, risks a shot into the combat between Krosh and the apprentice...
with 50/50 odds of hitting his master, he takes the shot...Taking the apprentice out in one hit!
Turn seven consisted of Krosh missing a Bone Dart at the enemy wizard (shocker), and said wizard calmly walking away with his loot...
WHAT A GAME!! loved the system, it was touch and go (and touching cloth) frequently.
Post game rolls:
James: one dog misses a game, no further casualties.
270 xp for the wizard (2 advances)
4 treasures of 250g, 20g and magic 2h weapon, 40g and 60g and candle of summoning sold for 200g.
total 570g and a magic 2 hander cuz the Templar was not hard enough!
James moves into a temple and buys the Blinding Light grimoire for 500g!
Since this I think I'd have invested one of my two levels in making power word better. I really think the +3 to cast will help make me really reliable and an XP generating machine!
Jay: One thug misses a game no further casualties.
210 xp (2 advances)
2 treasures of 40g and a magic bow for Koop, 20g and gloves of casting (a +5 cast used once per game).
Krosh moves into an Inn and buys a thug and a man at arms (had 20 left over from initial build) taking the gang to 11 models (12 if I can get lazarus up)!!
Post game analysis:
D20...the fickle bitch of dice. In what should have been a freight train, Those two back to back crits saved the day. But who won? Krosh and co had more bods on the ground and had the field at the end of the day but came away with 60 gold and some bits, where James' crew got 570 gold (!!) and bits!!
These end of game bits were just for us to test the system. But it really is quite good. My initial misgivings about extra weapons having bonuses (axes pierce armour, swords parry) were not an issue as there is enough modifiers to keep it going as is, any more could slow it down more. I do however think aggressive wizards who can put damage out can get ahead on experience within a few games if they take people out. Something i was hoping Bone Dart would do for me.....but lets not go there.
I enjoyed the game and, as a first game, felt we made fewer mistakes than we have in the past (we've made a fair few in Batman!) so that's a real plus point for the system. I think simplicity is a fantastic think and it certainly doesn't have to come at the exclusion of tactics. The post game admin was fairly quick so thats always a plus. I've got two articles coming (which both may turn into two parters) that will discuss some stuff about terrain but, for now, I will say that I think we got away with a decent level of terrain but there were some really open areas that gave range some good traction....shame Jay can't hit with a bone dart! I really think I got a bit too attached to my troops and whilst a Templar is much better than a thug, he's still not fantastic. I'm going to be playing around with my tactics a bit but I think I've got a good handle on the basics. The whole experience has certainly made me wary of putting my wizard anywhere near combat.
My men of the match- Koop, 3 kills with his bow and Horne who killed Jake and the Templar. 5 kills between two cultists. Goes to show they are more than just lackys and gold grabbers. With the fickle D20...anyone can be a champion!! Horne will be promoted to man at arms.
My Man of the Match has to be Ser Thrandar. He was, until he died like a punk, an absolute beast.
The game works really well and I'm an instant fan. I apologise for the repetitive writing but I forgot James' guys names, I'm sure he will edit. (And indeed I have!)
Hope you enjoy guys.
Jay and James
