More Names for the Naughty List - Empire of the Dead AAR

Happy Halloween, everyone!

In the spirit of the holiday, I've got an Empire of the Dead post to share. 

I was back up in my hometown this past weekend, so I put out a call to my old gaming group to see if anyone wanted to get a game in. Gary replied that he was looking to playtest some new factions for his upcoming annual holiday game, so Carl and I agreed. 

Gary's usual Victorian town was accentuated by a layer of snow, heralding the arrival of a new faction:

Arriving from the North Pole, Santa Claus and his gang were looking to deal some damage to those who might sully the holiday spirit.

The gang consisted of Santa, Mrs. Claus, and a bodyguard, along with a trio of worker elves and a troop of toy soldiers. Santa also had the ability to summon a mob of toys.

For the first game, I was running the Clauses, while Carl brought the Circus.

The Winter Wonderland gang deployed with the elves supporting the toy soldiers.

Carl's gang of clowns and freaks were on the opposite side of the town.

Winning the initiative, Carl rushed the Circus through the town square, with the Imp Tumblers moving up and over the arch, supported by the Ape Man.

Meanwhile, I moved Santa and his bodyguard up to support the toy soldiers, while Mrs. Claus and the elves held the open flank.

Poor dice rolls on my part (basically a constant of this entire game, so keep that in mind), Carl's Circus got the jump on my gang before I could do much else!

I also panicked and summoned the toy mob both and the wrong time and the wrong place. Since they're small, they're a good tar pit unit to place in front of the toy soldiers, who aren't great in a fight. However, Carl was moving the Ape Man to attack me from around the building, so I brought in the toys to block him.

Carl, of course, responded by just moving the big bruiser away from the mob.

It wasn't looking good for Santa's crew. I had moved the toy mob in a conga line through the fight to help on the other side, but that allowed the Ape Man to swing back around and attack me. Dr. Lizard had pushed into combat with Santa, while the Imp Tumblers kept the rest of the toy soldiers distracted. Mrs. Claus and the remaining elf were stuck in combat with a posse of clowns.

At this point, the game turned into a massive scrum, with (mostly) everyone stuck in combat.

While I managed to kill the Ape Man, Santa was lost along with a number of elves and toy soldiers, forcing the North Pole force to break.

After a couple small adjustments, Carl and I played a second game, swapping sides.

It was a much closer game, as I was actually able to roll a number higher than a 4 on a d10. Carl played the toy mob right, summoning, surrounding, swamping, and eventually subduing the Ape Man under a horde of magical playthings. It came down to a single's turn combat phase, and the Circus ended up winning by the slimmest of margins.

It was fun bringing out Empire of the Dead again, especially with Gary's fantastic miniatures and terrain. The games let Gary tweak the new gang a little bit, like giving the toy soldiers knives (bayonets) to help in close combat, and giving Mrs. Claus a new Unnatural Occurrence.

Gary talked about the other warbands he's got ideas for the annual game, like the Dark Holiday gang (which will likely induce nightmares before Christmas) and a coven of witches. I'm looking forward to seeing them.

Skirmish on MDF-7 - Gates of Antares AAR

One of the games I've been tempted into trying out is Warlord's Games' Beyond the Gates of Antares, since my Scifi gaming is sorely lacking (nevermind that, at the moment of writing this, I'm likely heading into a Kill Team league...)

I picked up a Freeborn starter set and a couple extra units, since the Freeborn look like a pretty versatile faction that have unit choices from very cheap, expendable infantry to expensive, elite troops. The whole "Space Dutch" backstory (as Keith put it) and the Fremen from Dune aesthetics were icing on the cake. 

So it was back to Keith's place to play on his table. We used the "Let Battle Begin" scenario, with both sides lining up on opposing long edges of the table.

Keith's force of Algoryn was small and elite, with a Command Squad, two AI Squads, an Infiltrator Squad, a Skimmer Squad, and an X-Launcher team.

My Freeborn were less elite but more numerable: A Command Squad, two Domari squads, a Feral Squad, a Mag Light Support team, an X-Launcher team, a Transport Drone, and a Targetter Probe shard.

The first turn was all maneuvering, with Keith moving his skimmers up one flank and my transporter drone hovering down the streets. The white poker chip was a minefield that Keith's infiltrators had placed before the game started. While they looked to be more anti-infantry, I decided I didn't want to risk my drone that early, so I moved it towards a different gap in the buildings.

Speaking of the buildings, we decided that were we playing in an industrial sector. This meant the buildings offered a decent resilience bonus, but were difficult to move through.

Keith's skimmers, unfortunately, took a hit when my Mag Light Support managed to ambush them, downing one of the vehicles. The remaining skimmer fired at my X-Launcher, but only managed to put a pin marker on the unit. Keith's Infiltrators, however, took fire from both the Domari unit in the buildings with the weapon teams and the drone, which did some damage. Thanks to a Down order and a Camo Drone, Keith's Infiltrators managed to stay alive.

By turn three, it was clear things weren't going well for the Algoryn force. The last skimmer was taken out by the Mag Light Support team. While a Scramble shot from the X-Launcher forced my drone back, the Ferals unloaded and charged forward.

This meant that one of the AI squads, which was trying to move forward, was caught both by an Ambush from the drone and supporting fire from the Ferals, severely reducing the unit. My other squads started to move out of the buildings and onto the street.

In a desperate last chance bid to take out the drone, the remaining two troopers in the AI squad charged my drone and attempted to wreck it. Unfortunately, they didn't have the equipment to deal with the vehicles armor, and both sides came away from the combat untouched. However, the AI squad was left in the sights of the Ferals, who opened fire and wiped the Algoryn out.

At that point, Keith decided to concede, as his force was badly mauled and unlikely to be able to do much to the drone or supporting infantry.

It was a fun game, if overlong for just 750 points (although some of that might have been us checking the rule books, QRS, army lists, and weapon lists again and again). One problem I have is GoA's similarities and difference to Konflikt 47 - there's enough of a shared ancestry that you feel like picking up the game will be easy, but the changes are enough that you're constantly second guessing or mixing up rules.

Still, I hope Antares gains popularity in the area, and we're hoping to get to 1,000 point games as a minimum for more variety.

Barrage 2018, Tamil Indians vs. Medieval Hungarians - ADLG AAR

My final game at Barrage was against Walt and his Medieval Hungarians. 

Like Bill, Walt decided to dismount his knights as the game started. He also decided to deploy heavily to his left, which would effectively leave one of my commands out of the fight.

The fighting started on the right in the forest, where Walts line of light infantry decided to charge into my command. For some reason, I decided to fight in the forest, knowing that my medium infantry and elephants would be at a disadvantage, while Walt's light infantry wouldn't. This resulted in a quagmire that bogged that command down in the difficult ground for the rest of the game.

The rest of the game didn't go well either - with Walt's commands interpenetrating and nudging each other all over the place, it was difficult to keep track of who was in command of what.

Ultimately, Walt managed to forced my army to break, although his own army was just a couple of lost cohesion points away from breaking as well.

Overall, I placed 5th out of ten players. The Tamil force was interesting, if a little boring - there's no real tactical depth to the force. I missed the speed and maneuverability of light horse and real cavalry, and I may build a force with them for the next tournament I go to. Maybe I should expand my Avar?

Barrage 2018, Tamil Indians vs. Medieval Germans - ADLG AAR

My second game at Barrage was against Bill and his Medieval Germans. 

Unlike Joe, Bill decided to dismount what cavalry he could at the start of the game. 

However, since this mean most of his units were heavy infantry, I technically had a "faster" army, and I managed to reach the middle of the battlefield first. 

This meant that when combat came, I was able to claim the top of the hill on the left, which gave me a height advantage in combat. 

While my right flank ponderously swung around, the other two commands were having a decent go of it thanks to some hot dice, and I was able to liberally spread cohesion damaged against Bill's army. 

This time, the Indians managed to hang on in the scrum, and enough of Bill's units routed for me to score a victory.

Barrage 2018, Tamil Indians vs. Nikephorian Byzantines - ADLG AAR

This past weekend I travelled down to Maryland to take part in a 15mm L'Art de la Guerre tournament at Barrage 2018.

I had been furiously working on a Tamil Indian force, thinking I'd been in the Ancients bracket of the tournament (the split being between pre- and post-1000 CE lists). 

However, I was surprised to discover I had been placed in the post-1000 bracket!

That didn't affect my overall strategy much, however. With Elephants, Impetuous infantry, and Ordinary commanders, my army would simply march across the table and hope to roll high on the dice when in combat. 

My first opponent was Joe, who brought Nikephorian Byzantines. 

Despite all the elephants on the table, he elected to keep his units mounted, which allowed him to rapidly re-deployed his knights and heavy cavalry away from one of my commands. 

With all the shooting available to his army, I decided to push my units into combat as quickly as possible. The first round went decently for me, with the Elephants and Impact/Impetus Medium Swordsmen causing cohesion lost across Joe's line of infantry. 

Unfortunately, the dice then swung completely in the other direction, and I saw most of the two commands in combat simply evaporate, leaving Joe with the win.