Thanks for the added comments Kev.
Sunday morning we had 2 big games going on at the same time! We decided on 3000 points per side with 2 players controlling a side. No terrain because some of us had to leave and go home eventually.
Left side of table, nearest to fartheset: Pat Hill playing Romans, Tim Sheehy playing Dwarves. Apparently Tim also had a Dragon.
Right side of table, nearest to fartheset: Brook Villa playing Men of Hawkshold, David Cheng playing Lizardmen.
They where using the command card backs to determine the expanded deployment zone of 10 card lengths.
Close up shot of the same battle. Aside from Brook and Dave winning, I have no idea what happened in this game. Do any of you remember? And look at all those Romans for 1500 points!
Left side of table, nearest to fartheset: Brian Evans (a great SFB player converted that weekend) playing Dwarves and Nikko playing his trusty High Elves.
Right side of table, nearest to fartheset: Myself playing Umenzi and Chris Dixon playing - you guessed it - the Undead.
A close up of our battle. These where the army composition to the best of my knowledge:
The good guysDwarves:
2 x Axemen
2 x Battle Axemen
1 x Hammersmen
1 x Militia
1 x Shortbeards
High Elves:
1 x Celestial Guard
1 x High Elven Knights
1 x High Elven Archers
2 x Battle Squads
The Bad guys (that would be us)
Undead:
4 x ghoul Pack
4 x Zombies
1 x Rat Swarm
1 x Death Knights
Umenzi:
3 x Warriors
1 x Spearmen
1 x Javelineers
1 x Chosen
1 x Possessed
1 x Shamans
1 x High Priests
I normally like to integrate forces with my allies the same way Brian and Nikko did, but the Umenzi leadership issues make that tough to do. So Chris and I didn't integrate. There is no way I can recall a turn-by-turn account of this thing, but I'll do my best to summarize.
The good guys realized that charging into a situation where they where outnumbered 12 to 19 was a bad idea, so they decided to hold. Aside from a hold order for my Spearmen with a terrain objective set slightly to the left of Nikko's leftmost (to my right) Battle Squad, we all charged ahead. I started hexing dudes like crazy, starting with the Knights and Celestial Guard and then both of the Battle Axemen and Archers. I blessed my Chosen, Spearmen, and one of the Warriors. I also had Faith Armor on just about every unit by the time we engaged. That's what you get for holding against Umenzi!
The Archers hit one of the Ghouls forcing the courage check, but the stupid stinkies actually held! First contact with some more Ghouls did not yield the same bravery as the rest failed a courage check at one point or another and had to be reformed in front of the Zombie line that was slowly shambling along. The Death Knights blasted into a Battle Axemen on our far right, but the Dwarves courage held. Dwarven courage was not on display for the Shortbeards who where routed by the Swarm of Rats, but they are after all only Shortbeards. It took the Umenzi a bit more time to reach their engagement since Ghouls and Death Knights are MC 5 while Umenzi are MC 3.5. There was some jockeying on my far left as Nikko maneuvered his Battle Squad and Knights to pinch my advancing Spearmen while I jimmied with the hold location to prevent that and keep the Warriors backing the Spearmen up in position to help. The initial charge exchange Went pretty normally after the good guys finally charged in. I remember Brian keeping an Axemen unit away from my blessed Chosen for an extra turn. Smart man.
While the Death Knights where pounding away on the Battle Axemen, the Celestial Guard was able to Flank pinch the Knights. The Battle Axemen perished, but so did the Knights. The Ghouls where losing ground and the Dwarven lines where holding on my side despite being forced to make lots of courage checks. The turning point of the game for me occurred when the High Elven Knights and Battle Squad finally pinched my holding Spearmen. I knew this was going to happen so I was prepared with the blessing, faith armor, and some helpful cards. Fortunately for me they succeeded in their pre-combat courage check. Both elven units where cursed and I played a Hardened for the Battle Squad attack, so the Spearmen survived the charge turn still in the yellow. I played a Karma on the Knights for a point of damage. I was hoping to inflict 2 more damage to at least put them into the yellow, which should not have been that tough since I got 7 dice at 2s and 5s. Alas, my "to hit" roll yielded ZERO HITS! I played a Cunning card to at least get a point of damage out of this mess and Nikko countered with a Mithril. So much for that. My Warriors to the rear where at least able to pinch the Battle Squad and force them to flee with 1 red box left. Then my Spearmen fell and the Knights where able to start sweeping my leadership units. At least the High Priests Death Cursed the suckers, but they never took true combat damage this game. My line began to crumble once I started failing courage checks and my Chosen where eventually triple pinched, which did not end well. I think an Axemen finally routed once in the red, but that was too late to help me. Chris only had his Zombies surviving by this point and my side was a mess, so we threw in the towel.
This was Brian's first game outside of the tutorial game that Nikko walked him through and he seemed to have a good time. It was great to see Nikko's mind work on a larger scale than it normally does. As usual, somebody correct me if I forgot anything or got any of my facts wrong.
