We decided to try out some of the proposed changes to some of the Undead command cards, so we started with a simple 1500 point duel. I selected Ravenwood because they have a wide variety of defensive stats with some of their line units having high defensive skill, which historically gives the Undead a rough time. For those not on the Rules Team Forum, the Undead Command Card changes we tried out where these:
Flesh Rot: Change the combat bonus from (+1) +0/+0 to (+0) +1/+0. The extra damage inflicted from the card remains the same
Vampirism: Change the combat bonus from (+1) +0/+0 to (+0) +1/+0. The healing benefit of the card remains the same.
Note that due to a slight repositioning of my dining room table I was getting severe glare off of the cards when trying to take pics because of the light fixture directly above the table. I didn’t get this straightened out until the next game we played so the angle of these pictures is going to seem weird. My apologies.
Set Up
Undead played by ChrisFrom left to right:
5 Ghoul Packs (numbered 1-5 for purposes of description)
Skeleton Trolls
Death Knights
Ravenwood played by yours trulyFrom left to right:
Bearkin
Brownies
Swordsmen
Wolfkin backed by Archers
Bear Pack
The best damned Spearmen EVER
This is just a “blah” build for me, but I was trying to get different defensive stats out there. I think this is actually the first time I had all 5 core units represented in a Ravenwood build. Go me! There where 2 things I was going to pay serious attention to. The first one was obviously the doomed Spearmen who had to somehow hold off over 800 points worth of bad-assery on their own long enough for the rest of my line to do its thing. The other was the Wolfkin, which are a terrible match up for Ghoul Packs since they get extra attack dice vs. routing opponents and Ghoul Packs route so often on the early engagement. Comically enough, things would work out the exact opposite of how I envisioned it with these 2 units.
Early Turns
Taken after the Undead turn
Standing Orders: All Undead where set on an unmodified close. Same for Ravenwood with the exception of the Spearmen that where assigned to hold an objective where the little green bead is in the first photo. Surely they could hold off both the Death Knights and the Skeleton Trolls? – LOL The Archers where shooting at the Ghoul Pack next to the Skeleton Trolls.
My shootery was modest, only granting me a point of damage before engagement because I burned Spirit Guidance. I also applied Spirit Guidance to the Spearmen.
Engagement from left to right:
Ghoul Pack 1 hit the Bearkin hard, but routed after the charge and the Bear Kin put a hurting on them during the return attack.
Ghoul Pack 2 puts a hurting on the Brownies and both units stick around for the fun.
Ghoul Pack 3 routs from Swordsmen
Ghoul Pack 4 succeeds it’s courage check and the Wolfkin fail theirs. Wolfkin take their lumps and reform.
Ghoul Pack 5 teamed up with the Skeleton Trolls to pinch my Bear Pack, which fails it’s pre-combat courage check! This happened because I goofed and let my Bear Pack get a little too far ahead of where I wanted it to be while I was fiddling around with direct controlling my Spearmen.
Now about those Spearmen. The Death Knights charged into them and I gritted my teeth because I had no defensive cards to play. Then Chris drops a Flesh Rot and I know I’m doomed seeing that he needs 4s and double overkill + an impact hit and he’ll be getting extra damage from the card. Then Chris rolls all 5s and 6s on his to hit roll and I just take the impact hit + the card damage. Unbelievable! My return attack is boosted by an Aspect of Stag and that coupled with hot nets deals 4 damage to the Knights, who route! The return attack kills them outright and I didn’t even need to use the Spirit Guidance. Unbelievable!
Later Turns
Taken at the end of a Ravenwood turn. Note that the Ghoul Pack and Wolfkin facing each other are both routing (Chris had not erased his standing orders yet).
From left to right again:
The Bearkin engage reformed Ghoul Pack 1.
Ghoul Pack 2 is pinched by the Swordsmen, but they hold and then kill the Brownies on the pinch turn. On the next turn they put the Swordsmen into the red and the Swordsmen route! The Swordsmen reform just in time to absorb the charge of Ghoul Pack 3 which has been reformed and recharged. The Wolfkin re-engaged Ghoul Pack 4 and ran off yet again when losing a red hit box. They where finished on the following turn. Ghoul Pack 5 took out the Bear Pack quickly and was then hell bent on taking out the Archers, which feathered them well on the way in. The Ghouls finally rip into them and both units run from each other when put into the red. And that brings us back to the Spearmen, who charged the rear of the Skeleton Trolls. The Trolls hung in there for a few turns, but finally succumbed to the mighty Spearmen which survived the ordeal with all of it’s yellow boxes remaining. At one point Chris played Vampirism on the Trolls, but I countered with a Parry and he totally whiffed since he needed 1s to hit on that roll due to the rear-attacking penalty.
The Bear Kin eventually got pinched and failed to kill another Ghoul Pack, leaving me with the Super Spearmen and Archers in the red to face 5 severely damaged Ghoul Packs. I conceded.
Final Thoughts OK, raise your hands if you thought that all of the Ghoul Packs would survive this battle while the Death Knights and Skeleton Trolls perished! Yeah, I didn’t think I’d see a response
This game went exactly the opposite of the way I expected it to. The Death Knights blowing their courage check was huge for me, but that was tempered by some courage failures of my own and the fact that the Ghoul Packs succeeded about 50% of all their checks.
Thoughts on the Undead command card changes While we both liked the changes, we where unable to get any true data on their performance. Flesh Rot was played once this game on the Death Knights and Chris’ attack rolls where so bad that he received no benefit from the +1 offensive skill. Vampirism was also played once on the Skeleton Trolls, but the card was countered by a Parry and he needed 1s to hit anyways since he was attacking Spearmen to their rear.
Heroes of the GameUndead – All 5 Ghoul Packs for not only killing lots of Elven creatures (that’s expected), but for surviving the game! There was the occasional point of reanimation used on them, but that’s still pretty damned impressive.
Ravenwood – The Spearmen that single handedly took out Death Knights. While that act alone was worthy of song, they went on to rear-attack and vanquish a fully healthy unit of Skeleton Trolls as well. If we would have played on they surely would have killed at least 1 more Ghoul Pack. This was an unbelievable performance and they only took 4 damage during the course of the game.
