Gromril, You Say? - Mordheim AAR

With the start of the new year comes, apparently, the start of a tradition with some players at Aetherstorm Games - a Mordheim campaign. 

I was intrigued when I first heard about it since Mordheim is one of those old Specialist rulesets that Games Workshop abandoned, but still has a dedicated following. And unlike Blood Bowl, Necromunda, and Epic (sort of), there hasn't been much in the way of reviving Mordheim since the Old World was blown up. 

I decided to go with the Outlaws of Stirwood Forest warband featured in one of the later Town Criers. It's a primarily ranged focused warband of humans, relies only on bows, and can have a Warrior Priest in support. 

This test game was against Bruce and his Dwarves. It wasn't a great matchup for my Outlaws, since I have to roll 5+ to wound (after rolling to hit) and then roll 6+ to actually remove a dwarf from the table. But since this was just a pre-campaign skirmish game, I'd take this as a test.

The table, by the way, is a massive 16'x4' area with a variety of terrain, held at the store and placed by Bruce. It's very thematic and looks great!

For the first few turns, it seems like things might actually go my way. I managed to take out two dwarves after stunning them and charging with other members of the warband. But then Bruce's Noble got stuck in. Between his 3+ armor save, Toughness 4, and an insane amount of criticals, he cut a swathe through my fighters. Even though he was rolling morale checks each turn, the Dwarves' high Leadership meant that they were likely to stick around for awhile (although I now realize he should have also been taking All Alone tests on his Noble as well. Something to remember!).

I eventually decided to retreat rather than allow a single dwarf to take out my entire warband, or just rout from a failed leadershop roll. I won't go into all the details about after game events since this was a one-off, but I did decide to drop two Henchmen and instead give my leader light armor and hunting arrows. My Warrior Priest also recived light armor, which will give him a 5+ armor save with his shield. So while my warband will only have eight members, I'll have a little more survivability and lethality from the get go.

My plan when playing dwarves in the future? Run around them and shoot a lot! Hopefully I'll be able to complete objectives without having to engage Bruce's warband. Otherwise, I'll just have to cause as much damage as possible from a distance.

That Sinking Feeling - Cruel Seas AAR

The second game from the January South Jersey Gamers Association was Warlord Games' newest offering, Cruel Seas. I hadn't paid much attention to the release, for several reasons. The scale of the miniatures and actual conflict (basically patrol boat skirmishes) and the period didn't grab me. Also, since this is another of Warlord's offshoot games, they rules weren't likely to be all that good.  

Ted set up a five player game using one of the scenarios in the book. Three German E-Boats needed to rescue the crew from a stricken compatriot in the center of the table. Four British Vosper Motor Torpedo Boats would oppose the German flotilla, aiming to capture the E-Boat's crew.

The German's game plan was to fight against the odds and send two of the three E-Boats to peel off and attack the Vospers, while the third E-Boats moved to rescue the waterlogged crew.

Unfortunately, that plan didn't pan out. The smaller Vospers proved annoying difficult to hit, and when the E-Boats slowed to try and get a better shot, the Vospers lit them up. One E-Boat took a hit to one of its stowed torpedoes, which detonated and caused massive damage.

The stricken E-Boat decided to open fire as a Vosper approached (it wasn't a legal target to the British until it chose to fire), but instead sank below the choppy surface of the English Channel.

My E-Boat managed to secure the German sailors, but since I had to slow down to do so, three of the four Vospers trained their guns on me and opened up. In a single turn I went from having 55 Hull Points to 4!

In the next couple turns I managed to slip away thanks to some bad dice rolling, and moved up to full speed. The British players paled, realizing that their chance of victory was slipping away.

Sam, of course, wasn't going to have any of that, and made up for his dismal luck in the To The Strongest! game by dealing enough damage to my E-Boat to sink it.

Ted did run a fun game, and while my overall impression of Cruel Seas hasn't changed, it won't be a game that I actively choose to avoid for group events like SJGA meetups.

Danube Blues - To The Strongest! AAR

This past weekend was the monthly South Jersey Gamers Assocation meetup. Having no game to run myself, I took part in two games. The first was run by Bill, and was a good old Romans v. Germans bashing using the To The Strongest! ruleset.

While I have a copy of To The Strongest! as a pdf, I picked it up on a whim and never did much with it, mostly because the Ancients/Medieval game of choice in the local area has been ADLG. I decided to use this game as an opportunity to see how the rules worked. 

The commands deployed around their camps, with the Roman and German forces looking exactly like you'd expect - Legionaries on one side, Warbands on the other, with a smattering of cavalry and skirmishes to taste.

A large hill and a stream helped to separate the battlefield into three sections, meaning each command was going to remain unsupported as long as there were enemies to the front.

Thanks to some poor command chit draws on the German side, the Romans had the initiative for most of the game, quickly moving across the table and looking to engage.

As the only Roman commander with cavalry units, I decided to move even faster, getting around the flank of the opposing German forces and pinning them down.

While disorder tokens were being exchanged back and forth, my cavalry were the first to rout an enemy warband, putting the German's rightmost command into peril with Roman cavalry in their rear.

It seemed as though fortune favored the Romans as the German commands kept drawing low on their chits and cards, failing activations and losing combats.

Ultimately, the almost-complete loss of the German right command, along with casualties from their center and left, was enough to break their resolve. The barbarians fled, leaving the Romans in command of the field and with a solid victory.

It turns out I'm a big fan of how To The Strongest! plays. One of the biggest complaints I have about ADLG and other games like it is how fiddly movement is, and how players can get away with some pretty heinous looking shenanigans if they muddle their commands and start sliding units left and right. TTS! does away with this completely using its grid-based movement. And as you can see from the pictures, the game still looks like an Ancients battles, with lines of infantry clashing, light troops skirmishing, and cavalry flanking.

It would likely be a longer term project, but I may be a convert...