Wednesday, June 7, 2017

One on One - SAGA AAR

After a break, Kevyn and I met up to continue our Age of the Wolf campaign. 


We decided to play the Challenge scenario, where a confrontation between Floki and Louis turned violent. We used the terrain rules in the book, which gave us a forest, rough ground, and a gentle slope.


For the first turn, both warbands advanced in support of their warlords. Floki charged the mounted Norman warlord, dealing a couple wounds and forcing Louis back. The Norman crossbowmen took aim at Floki, but the Viking leader nimbly dodged the bolts.


With Floki's ability to reduce the Norman's SAGA dice for the beginning turns of the game, the Normans were slow in getting to grip with the Vikings. Louis charged in against Floki with a unit of mounted Hearthguard, but were forced back.


Grinning and laughing maniacally, Floki again charged Louis, but had a unit of Viking hearthguard with him. The Vikings landed another series of savage blows on Louis, bringing him down to only five wounds remaining.


The Normans countered, their horses trampling the Viking warlord and dealing eight wounds in one turn!


But the Vikings were in a blood frenzy, and Floki had a fresh unit of hearthguard at his back. He was able to deal enough damage to finally take Louis down, winning the game for the Vikings.

Louis ended up with a serious injury, losing an Attack for the rest of the campaign. Both warlord had managed to amass enough power to become Athelings, setting them up for the next two games in the campaign.

Tuesday, May 30, 2017

2:10 to Jaeger City - Fistful of Lead AAR

For our second game, Carl and I decided to use the "3:10 to Yucca" scenario from the  Fistful of Lead rulebook.


The roughs would need to get the captured bandidos leader to the coach to secure victory. Meanwhile, the sister of the bandidos leader had shown up, hoping to free her captured sibling and escape.


 With the rough's leader providing covering fire from the old fort's battlements, the roughs moved out.


The bandidos didn't waste any time, opening fire on the roughs who were stuck out in the open.


Fighters on both sides were taking hits and diving to the ground. As both sides continued to fire at each other, the sister fell in combat against the ex-Army officer


The roughs were bogged down, unable to recover from their wounds or being pinned down. One bandido rushed the downed hostage-holder, hoping to free the captured leader.


That combat didn't go in favor of the bandido, who was killed by a lucky shot from the prone rough's pistol. But that distracted the rough long enough for another bandido to sneak up behind and put a bullet in his back. Now free, the bandido leader took off running without a second glance. On reflection, she had never really like her older sister all that much.

This was a fun, action-packed game with plenty of back and forth on both sides. If Carl's shooting hadn't stopped the rough escorting the hostage, I might've had a chance to get her onboard the coach and secure victory. Instead, I suppose the roughs will need to watch their backs for some time.

Monday, May 29, 2017

Barn Storming - Fistful of Lead AAR

Carl and I got together these weekend with the intent to put on our spurs, don our ten gallon hats, and head out into the West with a couple games of Fistful of Lead. 


The first game was fairly simple - a head-on clash between our two gangs of roughs. While I had an advantage in numbers, Carl's bandidos were equipped with rifles, out-ranging my pistol-wielding men.


After all the cards had fell on the first turn, both gangs had advanced towards the center of town.


The air was soon filled with lead. Brazenly, my gang attempted to surround the bandidos, who were hoping to get into the cover of the barn after their leader had kicked the door open.


Both sides took casualties, as a pinned rough in my gang ran for the hills, while a bandido fell, blood staining the front of his shirt.


Led by an Army officer gone rogue, the roughs continued to poor lead into the barn, with the bandido leader falling to the ground.


Two of the roughs tried rushing the barn door, hoping to get at the remaining bandido. One caught a bullet in the stomach and was killed. The other took advantage of the situation to unload his pistol into the prone enemy.


The last remaining bandido was dispatched from a distance.

As it turned out, the rifles weren't much help when the fighting was so close against the weight of fire and advantage in numbers of the roughs,

It was only after the dirt and blood had settled, however, that the roughs realized that the bandido leader was still alive. They recognized her from a wanted poster in the nearby saloon, and after securing her with some rope, the gang retreated to the abandoned fort to decide on what to do next...

Friday, May 26, 2017

Bowing Out - Shadow War: Armageddon AAR

The group gathered on Wednesday for more games on the war-torn world of Armageddon. 


The first game was against Mike and his Grey Knights in the Raid scenario. The Grey Knights would be defending against Harlequins, who would need to destroy the entrance to a bunker before reinforcements could arrive. 

The Harlequins rushed the two Grey Knights that had deployed, with both falling in close combat to the xenos. The bunker entrance fell soon after. The Grey Knight reinforcements didn't arrive until late in the game, but were unable to stop the Harlequins from retreating off the table and winning the game. 


The second game was against Pat and his Imperial Guard, who had managed to Ambush the Harlequins.

Unfortunately, the guard had split up, leaving a convenient group of three troopers vulnerable to the Harlequin's speed. The xenos ran out of cover, their prismatic blur keeping the worse of the enemy's fire at bay. A single round of close combat was enough to down all three of the guardsmen, forcing a bottle check and ending the game.


Finally, I faced off against John and his Chaos. This was a straight Kill Team Fight, as John wanted to see just how nasty a full force of Harlequins could be.

The answer? Very, very nasty. Despite the Chaos Marines essentially hunkering down at the opposite end of the table, that didn't prevent at least two of the Harlequins from getting into close combat. The final tally end the end of the game saw three Harlequins and seven Chaos Space Marines taken out of the game, with Chaos bottling.

So, I've decided to drop the Harlequins. They're simply too powerful for the league, and even increasing their invulnerable save to 5+ doesn't change the fact that they're difficult to hit at range, and are absolute monsters in both shooting and close combat. I picked up a couple boxes of Ork boyz to make a new, hopefully fairer, kill team.