Zen 10 Challenge - Test of Honour AAR

This past weekend, Bill ran an event for Test of Honour at Half Day Studio. Each player would bring along a 24 point list and play in up to three scenarios, each with a different points level and objective. 

As one person unfortunately couldn't make it, Bill decided to step in to even up the number of players. 

My first game was against Sam, in a 15 point game where the objective was to control the bridge at the end of five turns.

Our warbands were identical - a Hero Samurai with an accompanying samurai, along with a Sergeant of Archery and a Bowmen group.

Both sides had their samurai advance to the bridge while the bowmen engaged at range.

After a flurry of blows in a ferocious melee, Sam's Hero Samurai took a heavy wound and failed his Test of Honour to continue on. As his blood dripped from the bridge to the river below, I declared victory.*

*Which, to my great shame, was wrong. Technically, the game should have continued to turn 5, but I made the mistake of assuming that a lost Hero Samurai caused the warband to flee. Not catching that turned out to be a bigger problem than expected...

My next game was against Bill in an 18 point scenario in which the two opposing sides would need to capture the retainer, who was resting at the entrance to a shrine. The game took place in darkness, and only the area between the fences was considered illuminated by the moon - although the lanterns to either side of the gate also provided light.

Poor luck on Bill's part meant that when his Hero Samurai failed her test to take control of the retainer, he fled directly towards my own warband. My Hero Samurai passed the test and led the retainer deeper into the woods.

With the objective in hand, my warband stipped their advance and began to target Bill's Hero Samurai with ranged attacks, hoping to kill her and end the scenario quickly (like I said, problems...). Bill continued to advance, hoping to get past my two samurai and retake the retainer.

However, that put Bill's Hero in range of both of my own samurai, who teamed up to strike her down. Again, I thought this ended the scenario, which was reinforced by Bill's concession. The only consolation to this mistake was that it was unlikely that Bill's commoners could take down the two samurai in the remaining turns, thanks to the differences in action amounts and abilities scores.

The last game was against Kai, and we were back at the bridge-control scenario (which Kai hadn't played yet. This meant that I didn't get a chance to play the 24 point scenario control objective game).

A feature in this tournament were quest cards. Players weren't supposed to have any in their skill decks - instead, each table had its own objectives. For this game, each player was supposed to draw a quest. To my great misfortune, I drew the quest which meant I had to play with 13 points instead of 15. This meant I had to drop my Sergeant of Archery from the game.

I played conservatively with my points and activation disadvantage, which was likely a mistake. Kai managed a long range shot that took out one of my bowmen

Kai's Samurai Hero quickly charged over the bridged and cut down my supporting samurai.

Now it was a two-on-one fight, with my Samurai Hero desperately trying to fend off both of Kai's samurai.

Kai also brought his lone spearman over the bridge, as if I didn't have enough problems as it was!

My only hope was to move my Samurai Hero onto the bridge and hope to contest the objective and end the game in a draw. However, Kai's Samurai Hero cut down both of the remaining bowmen, causing my Samurai Hero to take, and then fail, a Test of Nerves, which forced him back off the bridge and into the river.

Kai's Samurai Hero, scoring a critical success on the last damage roll against the bowmen, used the Follow Up move to get onto the bridge, securing both it and victory.

The final game was a 10 point battle royale between the four warbands.

While I advanced cautiously, the rest of the samurai quickly moved to the center of the table.

Kai's samurai was the first to be cut down, causing his warband to flee the battle (yes, that was actually in the scenario's rules this time!).

Sam's samurai exchanged blows with Bill's before a failed Test of Wits meant that my musketman targeted Sam's samurai instead of Bill's, breaking our under-the-table truce. While Sam's Samurai Hero slew my musketman, the warrior fell to a lucky set of rolls from my Bowmen.

The next few turns was spent with my own Samurai Hero trying to strike a fatal blow against Bill's. However, I failed, and my Samurai Hero was cut down like a bamboo stalk, leaving Bill's warband victorious.

With all the games over, and the points tallied up, the winner of the event was... Bill! Since he was the one running the event, however, the title went to the person next in line... me! Regardless, Sam, Kai, and I each got a chance to pick from the prize pull. I decided to grab the Ninjas of Iga boxset, as it would allow me to run a Ninja warband in future games.

I had a great time. Bill's scenarios were cleverly planned out and his tables filled with appropriate scenery. While it may be time to put Test of Honour away for a little bit, I'm looking forward to revisiting the game in the future and seeing what other expansions Warlord has planned.

Cold Wars Open Event, Game 2 - DBA AAR

My second game in the open event was against Terry, who had brought his Medieval Germans.

I won the roll for attacker, and Terry put down two plough, a difficult hill, and a road.

My advancing line was fractured thanks to all the firepower Terry's Germans had. Meanwhile, my Light horse had managed to pull two Knight Hordes and a Light Horse away.

However, that didn't help much, as I lost both units of Light Horse and an additional two units of Cavalry, in exchange for a single Knight Horde. This ended the game with Terry's win, 4-2.

Painting Update - Konflikt 47, DBA

Let's take a look at what I've gotten on the painting table since last time. 

As you've probably noticed, there's been a lot of Konflikt 47 on the blog this year, thanks to a push from Bill at Half Day Studio. As such it's pushed a few things back down the queue. 

These are the vehicles from the German starter set - a Spinne light panzermech, and a Panzer IV-X (the X designating that it's armed with a Schwerefeld Projektor, or a gravity pulse cannon). I'd like to point out that the Panzer kit also included the regular turret in the kit, which lets players field either option. It's a nice bonus. 

Also finished are these two Rift-tech units; armored Fallschirmjager Falcon jump infantry, and the fanatical Waffen-SS Shocktroopers.

While all that Rift-tech is fun, you can't forget about the average infantryman. These are two squads and an officer which act as a backbone to most lists that I build.

I've also completed one of the two options for another DBA force: III/13b, the Avars from 558-631AD. The other option (III/13a) should be pretty easy to finish at some point in the future, since it just replaces all of the infantry with more cavalry units.

Cold Wars Open Event, Game 1 - DBA AAR

Last week I traveled back to Lancaster to attend Cold Wars 2018. While I always enjoy seeing and participating in the wide variety of games available, this time my main goal was to take part in not one, but two DBA events - an Open Event on Friday morning, and an Early Byzantine Themed Event on Saturday morning.

This was a trial by fire, since my previous experience with DBA had been a single solo game I had played to try and get a rudimentary understanding of the rules before the convention. 

Since I was taking part in two events, I decided to bring along the army I had painted for the Themed Event - III/13b, the Avars. 

My first opponent in the Open Event was Mike D, who had brought along his Warring States Chinese. As I won the roll for Attacker, Mike set up the battlefield with two plough, a road, and a gentle hill.

Both our lines advanced towards each other.

Unfortunately, rather ignorant of DBA's combat factors, and coming from ADLG, I didn't realize just how much the fighting favored Mike's crossbows compared to my cavalry. While I managed to kill one unit, I lost a unit in return, and my own line was disrupted.

The game quickly ended as another round of shooting from Mike's crossbow was enough to kill two more units (one of which was my General) ending the game with a 4-1 victory to the Chinese.

Bandits & Brigands - Test of Honour AAR

For last night's games of Test of Honour at Half Day Studio, I decided to put away Jiro's warband and instead used the miniatures from the Bandits & Brigands box. 

My first game was against Bill. We've been discussing Osprey's Ronin rules, especially since everyone basically has a Buntai warband ready to go thanks to Test of Honour. I had asked Bill if we could try a Samurai only game, and he agreed.

We had 20 points to spend. Bill took his custom Lady Yoshikira, a Devoted Samurai, and a Ninja Lieutenant. I took the Bandit character hero, Kojiro, two Bandit Bruisers, and a Bandit Lieutenant armed with a bow.

The objective was to control the Torii gate by the end of five turns.

Both sides rushed for the gate, with Lady Yoshikira leading the charge. While my Lieutenant couldn't hit anything with his bow and arrows, a Bruiser managed to cut down one of Bill's supporting Samurai.

The dueling continued as Lady Yoshikira managing to fend off three attackers!

Unfortunately, Bill's warband couldn't recover from the activation imbalance, and both the Ninja and Lady Yoshikira fell, ending the game early.

The game basically confirmed what I had thought - Test of Honour is best used for warband sized games, while the smaller skirmish sized games should be left for Ronin, which does a better job of making close combat more interesting than just activating and rolling dice.

My second game of the night was against Sam. Using the Bandits again, I made the largest sized warband possible (16 points), which Sam then met.

Our warbands were:

Bandit Samurai Hero Character
Bandit Bruiser
Bandit Group
Bandit with Bow
Bandit with Musket

Samurai Hero
Wise Samurai
Sergeant of Archery
Loyal Bowmen Group
Spearman

The mission was simple - whoever had the last Samurai standing, won.

With half of Bill's warband armed with bows, most of my initial activations were spent on Cautious Moves, which gave my warband free Evades in case of attacks. Sam's hero, hoping to get into my warband's flank, charged forward and used the terrain to block my Bandit archer's line of sight.

However, luck quickly turned against Sam when my Bandit hero managed to wound, then cut down his Samurai hero. Since I rolled a critical with the damage (at least 5 swords), my Bandit Hero was able to follow up and charge the Sergeant of Archery, who was also chopped into pieces.

The game ended the next turn, when Sam, unable to roll enough swords to evade, lost his Wise Samurai to my Bandit Bruiser.

This was a rough game for Sam, and my victory was secured more through lucky rolls on my part (and unlucky rolls on Sam's) rather than any kind of tactical genius.

I do have to say, the sculpts for the Bandits are fantastic, since they're all original, compared to the plastics that Warlord bought from the now-defunct Wargames Factory.

Pedal to the Metal - Gaslands AAR

Gaslands has been causing something of a craze recently, and it's pretty easy to see why. Post-apocalyptic, high-octane car racing is always fun, and the abundance of cheap cars means that anyone can stop by their local dollar store and walk out with enough models for a variety of options.

Bill's been excited to try out a game, and so Gaslands was featured for the first Friday Night Fights event at Half Day Studio. 

There were four players controlling two cars each. Bill had two pickup trucks, Kai went with a pickup truck and a car, and Keith and I chose a car and performance car combo.

We chose to use the Death Race scenario, where players have to race through a series of gates in order.

After a few missteps, we managed to get through the first turn. The game has an odd turn structure where there are six "Gear Phases" in each turn, ascending from 1 to 6. A car can activate in any gear phase that matches their gear or higher (so a car in gear 3 can activate in Gear Phase 3, 4, 5, and, but not 1 or 2). This means that a car can activate multiple times in a turn.

With most cars jockeying for position, I decided to have my performance car use one of its nitro-boosters to shoot through the gate. However, this (plus some collisions that my other car was involved in) caused both my cars to wipeout, reducing them back to first gear.

It became painfully clear just how problematic being stuck in first gear can be in this game when most of the other cars are in higher gears. I was stuck unable to do anything as the rest of the cars were able to make 2-4 additional moves.

Keith, Kai and Bill were mostly focused on each other, with Bill's and Keith's lead cars playing catch with Molotov cocktails.

It took us about two hours to get through one and half turns, which was mostly due to the four of us trying to work our way through the rules. That should speed up in the future.

However, it looked as though Keith was likely to stay in the lead, since Bill's pickup (the only vehicle with enough distance and speed to keep up) wrecked and then was destroyed.

I'm hoping to play more in the future, since the game should speed up once we have a firmer grasp on the rules.

Tides of Fortune - Test of Honour AAR

My last game of Test of Honour was against Kai. We played a 24 point game (the first full sized game since we started playing) with the Escort mission. 

Since Kai won the roll-off, I started with the objective, who I would need to escort off the opposite side of the table. I decided that my Devoted Samurai would be capable enough to handle the job.

This is also a pretty good shot of one of the tables Bill has set up in preparation for the upcoming Test of Honour tournament at Half Day Studio.

Both sides exchanged fire in the first turn, while my Samurai Hero led the charge into Kai's warband. I attempted to move the Devoted Samurai up the edge of the

I'm forced to admit that I may have gotten a little cocky during the second turn. With the samurai able to move so quickly, and most of Kai's warband too far to reach the Devoted Samurai and escort in close combat, I thought the scenario would quickly end.

Kai and his luck put the kibosh on my plan, as he managed to strike down both of my samurai in rapid succession. The escort decided to hide on the opposite edge of the hill - surrounded by Kai's soldiers.

Kai's Samurai Hero and his men decimated a unit of Loyal Spearmen. Things were looking pretty dire for my warband.

At the end of the fourth turn, Kai's warband still hadn't managed to secure the escort, but I was forced to concede. It was highly unlikely that my remaining commoners would be able to stop Kai's Samurai Hero and his supporting units, not to mention the other half of the warband on the opposite side of the table.

It was a fun game, with plenty of action, and a definite "win big, lose big" mentality.