This was the second game we played last Friday night, so we made it 3000 points per side with no terrain this time around. I got to control the large army while Brook and Chris got 1500 points each. Again, the deployment zone allowed for 10 units in width.
For this game we tried out a sugar cube house rule for large units. This rule simply gives large units a (+0) +1/+0 bonus on the charge turn only. It was an interesting experiment.
Set Up
Monsters and Mercenaries played by Brook, Elves of Ravenwood played by ChrisFrom top to bottom:
2 Wildmen Horse Archers
Hill Giant (Hits like 5 ton sledgehammer)
3 Wildmen Swordsmen (Will you be brave if we pay you?)
3 Ravenwood Swordsmen
Treant (this is his favorite band -
http://www.themaneatingtree.com/ )
Wildmen Swordsmen
Stag Cavalry and a Wolf Pack where behind the right flank (Chariot Food)
This was an interesting build because they had a lot of firepower on the flanks, but the center was squishy-soft.
High Elves played by your humble narrator From top to bottom:
Battle Squad (Go out there and be somebody!)
HE Knights
Cygnets backed by Archers
Cygnets
Celestial Guaaaaaaarrrrddddd!
3 High Elven Swordsmen
Battle Squad backed by The Chariots of Doom
I knew I would have a tough time creating a 10 unit line, so I gambled and tried to commit most of my firepower to 1 side while the other side would simply need to hold out for a couple of turns so my breakthrough guys could do their thing. Since I didn’t know what either of my opponents would bring (a line of Ogres would have made me very sad), I committed to focus on the Ravenwood side because my line units matched up well to most of Ravenwood’s units. I would depend upon the Battle Squad on my far right to do spectacular things tying up the Horse Archers and Hill Giant and I was hoping my Knights could one-shot a Wildmen Sword unit so that they could then flank the Hill Giant. This wouldn’t quite work out, but I had some spectacular stuff occur on my left that more than made up for it.
Standing OrdersIf I’m not mistaken, all of my opponents units had a generic close objective as did most of mine. My Archers where shooting at the Wildmen Swordsmen closest to them, which would be facing Cygnets. In hindsight I should have shot at the Wiildmen that the Knights Charged. You see that lonely little blue bead up top in between the lines? That was the Hold objective of my Battle Squad. I wanted them to gum up the works for the Giant and his Horse Archer friends. No biggie, right? That’s only 5 times what my unit was worth anyways…
Early Turns
This was taken during the High Elven turn.
Brook liberally applied spoils to his Wildmen, and the one that was about to be charged by the Knights got 2 spoils boxes. My archery netted me a point or two on the way in.
From top to bottom:
My Battle Squad is about to arrive at the point where it plans to be slaughtered. Fortuately, I only took a point of damage from the Horse Archers. I played an attack Storm to achieve maximum carnage this turn. My Knights rammed into the Wildmen Swordsmen and I played a red command card which blasted them right into the yellow. Their courage check was very poor since even 2 spoils boxes couldn’t prevent the route, but Brook played an Ordered Retreat. I Sprinted the Celestial Guard so I could have an early engagement with their Ravenwod Swordsmen opponents, but I only got 2 damage on the charge turn. I did the same with one of my HE Swordsmen and this unit actually did better. I direct controlled the HE Swordsmen facing the Treant to keep them from final rushing Mr. Tree which had gotten a little ahead of the Ravenwood line on this turn. I also direct controlled the Battle Squad on my left flank to keep them back a bit, so it couldn’t get pinched by the Stags on my opponent’s turn.
Mid TurnsSorry folks, you’re just going to have to use your imaginations here because I forgot to take a pic due to all of the excitement of slicing and dicing. I had made a slight miscalculation in the placement of my Battle Squad on the right flank and Brook was able to burn the command actions necessary to have his Giant final rush my Knight’s flank with it’s own flank. The Knights survived the resulting pinch and finished off the Wildmen Swordsmen they had been beating on in the process, but failed their courage check after taking damage and they perished with a whimper. However, this allowed the Battle Squad to sell itself dearly, keeping both Wildmen Horse Archers occupied for a while because the Giant was obstructing one of them. In fact, one of the Horse Archers flanked the Battle Squad and I was able to play a red card that forced a route check which the Horse Archers failed! As they where reformed, the next Horse Archer was able to seal the deal, but that Battle Squad will go down in High Elven lore as a group of heroes. Both Cygnets hooked up with their Wildmen opponents and did OK. The one farthest to the right vanquished it’s foe with some help from Elven archery while the other one was able to finish it’s opponent rather swiftly because the Celestial Guard forced a failed courage check on it’s Ravenwood opponent and then they pinched the poor Wildmen. Poof. The 2 High Elven Swordsmen units facing Ravenwood swordsmen where able to grind their opponents down while the one that was tangled up with the Treant was able to hang in there. My other Battle Squad was also direct controlled to keep it out of Stag range. They then locked up with the unit of Wildmen that where on the Ravenwood side in a rather long, uneventful fight. The real fireworks (at least for me) went on with my Chariots. I placed Precision on them and they inflicted 4 wounds on the Stag Cavalry while only taking 1 point of damage in return. Luck would have it that that Stags blew their courage check and that was the end of them! Next up was the Wolf Pack which didn’t fare any better as they suffered the identical fate.
Endgame 
Starting from top to bottom:
My Archers managed to inflict the stray point of damage or two to the Horse Archers, who where about to close in and give them the business. The Hill Giant had flanked 1 of my Cygnets, which died quickly. Mr. bully then flanked the next Cygnet unit, but I was able to juuuuust reach it’s flank with the Celestial Guard by sprinting them. You may wonder what the heck happened with the Treant. It got pinched by 1 of the HE Swordsmen. On the other side of it, my Battle Squad forced a failed courage check on the Wildmen and I ordered them to engage the Treant on the other flank instead of pursuing the Wildmen. So now the Treant was triple pinched. It hung in there valiantly, but as all things like this go, it eventually went down. When reformed, Brook had the Wildmen face the red hot Chariots rather than have them get flanked by going after the Battle Squad. I then started Sprinting my remaining line units to the other front. The game was effectively over now since the Giant didn’t have long to live, I had more units remaining, and I would have 6 command actions per turn to my opponent’s 3 since all of the Ravenwood units where gone.
Final Thoughts The biggest thing going for me this game was courage. Having my Knights die due to a failed courage check was embarrassing, but that would be the only courage check I would fail all game long. On the other end of things, my opponents failed about 3 courage checks each and that was a big difference. My High Elven line units matched up really well against the Ravenwood line units and that lonely Battle Squad really gummed up the works on my far right flank by holding up both Wildmen Horse Archers and forcing Brook to burn 2 command actions to have the Giant go after my Knights. Another thing that helped was that I got a lot of the right command cards at the right time and the fact that HE command cards are awesome to begin was certainly nice.
I’m not 100% sure if giving Large units a (+0) +1/+0 bonus on the charge turn is needed, but it sure helped those guys hit hard on the charge. It felt right to give this sort of thing to a 400+ point unit, but I’m not sure about giving it to the guys that are floating around 300 point territory. Still, I’m certainly open to giving it more testing because I don’t mind it too much if a mega-unit gets a leg up.
Heroes of the GameRavenwood – Not much good going on here since the courage dice bit Chris this game and his attack dice where not stellar either. I’d have to go with the Treant for standing up to so much abuse.
Monsters and Mercs – The only choice here is the Hill Giant which caused the death of my Knights and 1 of my Cygnets. It probably would have finished off the other Cygnet as well before going down.
High Elves – I’m torn between the Battle Squad on the right flank that perished so valiantly and the Chariots that tore through the Stags and Wolf Pack. They also would have likely finished the Wildmen they where engaged with.
