Darkness on the Fens - Red Book of the Elf King AAR

Recently, Sam and I met to play another game of Red Book of the Elf King. 

While my miniatures are fully painted (and will be shown in an eventual Painting Update), Sam's Circle is still in the process of being painted by a local painter. So we decided to play another small game of Red Book, with a Thane and three units of Companions on each side. This time, however, we'd play for a regular length game, with seven randomly drawn Glamour card for our Thanes to use. 

The table had the same approximation of terrain as last time, setting the game in a rocky, ruined section of the Isles of Eas. The scenario used was The Red March, which has a fairly simple victory condition - kill the opposing Thane before the end of the game (seven turns). If neither Thane is killed, then whoever caused the most wounds is the winner.

Sam decided to use Orelea of Ry Fert as his Thane, while I chose Alloysian of Vasterlant. Both Thanes are middling in their abilities, neither favoring close combat or magical attacks.

Both sides began off the table at the start of the first turn. As our units entered the table, our battleplans quickly began obvious - Sam had chosen to spread his forces across the tables, while I had focused my Circle on the left side.

Alloysian used his magic to cast Endless Fen, creating a 12" bog of difficult terrain that Orelea and one of her Companion units would have to traverse. In return, the Queen of the Long Isles cast Shroud of Night, creating a 6" sphere of darkness that blocked line of sight, directly in the path of my advancing circle. I would need to go around it to prevent Sam's force from getting a bunch of free charges.

Both sides spent the second turn skirmishing at range with Rhud magic and maneuvering through the rocky terrain, to little result.

Alloysian, however, hit Orelea with the Spear of Fate spell, causing a single wound (had all three gone through, it would've ended the game!). Sam's Glamour for the turn was Spirit Cry, which increased the Circle's Courage values by one for the rest of the game. This was an amazing Glamour that, if I ever had the chance to assemble my own spells for a game, I would definitely never go without.

With both sides rolling a total of ten actions in the bag, we knew turn three was going to be bloody.

Elves charged back and forth in the ruins to the sound of battle cries and Rhud magic. When the dust cleared, both sides had been wounded, with Sam holding the center of the table and my units surrounding him.

During this turn, Orelea cast Entropic Gaze, causing wounds to all of my units in her line of sight. Hoping to even the odds, Alloysian used Troll Cleave to try and fell a unit of Companions. But not only did he fail to reduce the unit, the Thane actually came away from the combat with a wound of his own. One more, and Oreleas' Circle could claim victory.

The fourth turn was rather short. I thought putting Alloysian out in danger might entice Sam to engage his Thane in combat...

The plan worked, although too well. Even with Alloysian's Pale Realstones, which could force redraws of the action counters, Orelea was able to active twice in a row thanks to some present penalty counters on her Companions. Alloysian's Fen Blade failed to strike the opposing Thane down, but Orelea had no such difficulties - her sword, Virtue, found its mark, and down went Alloysian.

With our second game, Sam and I are starting to get a handle on the rules. While simple, there are some tactical elements, especially with how quickly units can move or charge (10" on a 4'x4' table), which keep the battle fluid. And the Glamours add a lot to the game.

With two of the six Thanes played, I'm hoping to get the others to the table, and to start playing with full sized Circles.

A Good Krumpin' - Heroes of Black Reach AAR

Continuing on from last week, I pulled out my copy of Dropzone #1, a demo version of Heroes of Black Reach (an upcoming game from Devil Pig Games). If it sounds or looks familiar, that's because it's a reskinned and modified Heroes of Normandie, set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. 

I decided to pick up Dropzone because I've heard HoN praised time and time again, and because I'm on a continuing quest to play 40k without having to actually play 40k. 

Dropzone #1 includes a cut down rulebook, a paper map, and two cardboard counter punchboards. The units included in the demo are unique, meaning it's worth picking up apart from the core set and the army expansion sets. 

The demo game's scenario is fairly simple: to win, one side must occupy more of the four squares at the center of the map than the other side at the end of six game turns. 

The forces were:

Space Marines

Tactical Squad Solinus

--Grenades

--Heavy Weapon (Heavy Bolter)

Malcian

Orks

Mob Boss

--Boss

Choppas

--Grenades

Shootas

--Heavy Weapon (Big Shoota)

--Ammo

The scenarios deploys both sides in opposite corners of the map. The Orks have the numbers, but the Space Marines are better overall in quality.

Both sides advanced in the first turn, taking long range shots while on the move, which failed to cause any hits.

The Ultramarines continued their advance into turn 2, forcing the Orks back and removing a Shoota unit from the table. The Orks caused some damage in return, wounding both Sgt. Solinus and Malcian.

At the end of turn 3, the Space Marines had continues to hold the line, preventing the Orks from moving towards the objective. Another unit of Shootas was removed from the table, as Malcian advanced towards the entrenched Big Shoota, but the Space Marines' Meltagun unit was damaged.

Unfortunately, a burst from the Big Shoota was enough to remove Malcian from the table, and he was quickly followed by the Meltagun. While the Orks continued to take hits, Sam's force was now in danger of being flanked.

Of course, that wasn't going to deter the Ultramarines. The Orks lost enough units in Turn 5 to break both the Shootas and Sluggas, depriving the Orks of two of the four orders they had started with. The Orks, however, failed to cause any damage to the Space Marines. If the Emperor's Finest could contest the objective through the final turn, they'd win on victory points.

Unfortunately, Mork's eye had turned to the battlefield, and the Ork Boss managed to assault and remove Sgt. Solinus, occupying the square in the process. This was enough to secure an Ork victory, despite the massive losses!

Sam and I had fun, and it was nice to get our heads around the rules. I'm going buy the core set when it comes out, as it really does seem to give a good approximation of 40k without needing to play the miniatures game.

Dropzone #1 does come with some extras - the Space Marines can include a Rhino APC in their force, and the Orks can recruit a Killa Kan and a Trukk transport. Both sides can also take another heavy weapon options (Missile launchers).

I also managed to track down a copy of February 2018's White Dwarf, which included a unique punchboard with a unique Space Marine and Ork character.

What I'm especially hopeful for is the release of more factions - Devil Pig Games has already hinted that Eldar and Chaos Marines are expected as expansions.

Charlie Don't Hex - '65 AAR

My experience in the wargaming hobby has, for the most part, only dealt with miniatures. While these games are played on the tabletop with rules for movement dictated by tape measures or other distance measuring devices, some use squares or hexes.

However, there's a whole genre of wargames that, up until know, I've mostly ignored - hex and counter. I've dabbled a bit here and there - I own a copy of OGRE and the 150th anniversary edition of Battle Cry, and have played both. But these kinds of games are mostly unknown to me, and I'm hoping to rectify that in the future.

So when Sam offered up a chance to play '65 from Flying Pig Games, I eagerly accepted.

I'd seen other games from '65 before in the local community, most notably Armageddon War, which plays out a full scaled ground war in the Middle East in the near future.

'65 focuses on squad level combat in Vietnam, with counters representing teams of infantry or single gun teams or vehicles. It's also completely diceless - shooting and assaulting is determined by drawing cards from the deck and hoping to match color designators to the "success" color noted on the original action card.

For our first game, Sam and I play Scenario 1 in the rulebook. An understrength American infantry platoon had to evict a VC force from a nearby village. To win, the Americans had to score six points; +1 point for every building hex controlled at the end of the game, and +1 point for every VC unit destroyed. The VC had to prevent this by scoring -1 for every American unit destroyed. And both sides had a secret objective they had to accomplish.

Turns in '65 are done in impulses, depending on who has the initiative (by playing a card with a higher value at the beginning of the turns). Players play a card to use one of two actions on a card, which allow a unit or a stack of units to move, shoot, rally, fire artillery, etc. Some cards allow reactions, like retreating from an assault, or decreasing the amount of firepower or wounds a unit takes.

By the end of the game (7 turns), the VC had been reduced to a single wounded RPD unit, surrounded by Americans. Tallying up the points, however, revealed that the American had failed to meet their objective, only scoring 2 out of the required six.

It was a fun game, and I'm hoping to play some more in the future. There are plenty more scenarios, and I'd like to revisit this a couple more times - once as the Americans, and another as the VC, when Sam and I have a better handle on the rules.

Go for the Gold - ADLG AAR

Since moving away from the main group of players, I haven't had a chance to get ADLG out on the table. 

Recently, while rearranging my hobby room, I realized that a 15mm DBx-based army I bought last year off of eBay could potentially be large enough to form a ADLG force. Flipping through the book, I decided to try the game's Swiss Army knife faction - the Condottieri. 

Sure enough, my purchased miniatures could be used with the Florentine variation. I sent an email to Sam asking if he'd like to try out the game. 

Sam accepted, and took up the role as the commander for my Free Company. So, our two mercenary forces would go at each other somewhere in the plains of western Europe.

Sam won initiative and chose to defend.

Unfortunately, my terrain collection is really only meant for Triumph! and DBA - I'm going to need to fix that with some felt cloth - so the pieces were somewhat smaller than they should have been. Three fields, a village, a water feature, a gully, and a gentle hill covered the battlefield.

Our forces consisted of:

Condottieri (Florentine)
Initiative: 2

1st Command, C-in-C, Competant
-4 Heavy Knights Impact
-1 Medium Cavalry Crossbow
-2 Light Horse Bow

2nd Command, Competant
-2 Foot Knight
-2 Mixed Unit Heavy Spearmen/Crossbows
-1 Levy
-2 Medium Cavalry Crossbow

3rd Command, Ordinary
-2 Mediocre Pikemen
-2 Elite Longbowmen
-2 Light Infantry Crossbow
-1 Heavy Artillery

Free Company
Initiative: 1

1st Command, C-in-C, Brilliant
-5 Heavy Knights Impetuous
-2 Light Infantry Javelin

2nd Command, Ordinary
-2 Elite Foot Knights
-2 Foot Knights
-2 Heavy Swordsmen 2HW
-2 Light Infantry Crossbow

3rd Command, Ordinary
-4 Elite Longbowmen with Stakes

Both sides advanced towards each other for the first couple turns. I realized my mistake in deploying my heavy artillery on the flank. I wanted my pikes and longbows to be just outside the fields, but doing so meant blocking my artillery's line of sight.

In the center, our two lines of knights ended up facing each other when Sam charged my light horse, causing them to flee behind my own knights.

The battle looked something akin to a giant wheel, with the two armies taking mirrored actions - advancing on one flank, holding on the other, and fighting a brutal melee in the center.

Sam's impetuous knights surged forward and hit my own knights. While the combat ended up with more of his units taking cohesion hits, two of my four knights lost two cohesion each in the attack.

On the right flank, Sam's archers had managed to rout one of my mixed units, but the rest of the command charged into combat.

While I technically had the better force for close combat, the Elite status of the longbowmen managed to save them in a few key combats, although one unit was routed by my knights.

In the center, Sam had lost most of his knights, but my remaining units all had become disordered.

Sam's command of foot infantry had finally gotten close to spitting range, but my longbowmen and artillery weren't doing much to help the situation.

Seeing an opportunity, Sam decided to risk fighting in the fields against my longbowmen and Mediocre pikes. And it paid off! At the end of his turn, both armies had reached their breakpoints (19 for the Free Company, and 21 for the Condottieri). However, since the Condottieri had gone over their breakpoint (22 points), we decided that the game was a minor victory for the Free Company.

This was a good chance to relearn ADLG's rules, although I'm certain there were plenty of instances where I got it wrong. I'm hoping to introduce the rules to more people in the area and get some interest going.