Skirmish at Segikahara - Test of Honour AAR

Bill wanted a large multiplayer battle to break up the two-player games we've been playing in the campaign so far. I offered up a scenario based on the opening of the Battle of Sekigahara.

In the prelude to the historical battle, a thick fog covered the fields of Sekigahara. Forces from both the Eastern and Western armies stumbled into each other and engaged as the fog lifted. 

This scenario was designed somewhat based on this opening encounter. The Loyalist and the Rebels played as two combined sides with the following deployment and scenario rules:

• The battlefield is a 6'x4' table split into 6 2'x2' areas, labeled 1-6
• Each warband is divided into two equal (or as close to equal) groups of bases
• Players then roll a D6 to determine which square they deploy in. A second D6 roll then determines where in that square they will deploy:
• 1-4 - 3" away from the labeled side
• 5 - In the center of the square (if an enemy group is already deployed there, then place your units 1" away)
• 6 - Player may chose anywhere to deploy, at least 3" from the edge of a square
• Once both sides have deployed all their units, the game begins. 
• The first turn is played in Darkness according to the Darkness and Deceit rules, due to a thick fog. 
• All units are considered Unaware according to the Darkness and Deceit rules. They may test to become aware as normally described in the Darkness and Deceit rules, but only move D6" for their random movement. 
• The fog lifts at the end of the first turn. Units are no longer affected by Darkness, and they are no longer Unaware. 
• At the end of Turn Five, whoever controlled the central building (by having more bases touching/on it) would win the scenario.

The idea was to create a battle that's a little more interesting than your standard battleline scenario, where both sides will have to rally their troops and attempt to seize a central point while also holding back the enemy.

By pure chance, the two side actually ended up largely grouped together by alliance. Most of Kai, Sam, and Jolene's forces (the loyalists supporting the Emperor) ended up in the bottle left of the table, while Bill, Harley, and my forces (the rebels, fighting for the Shogun) ended up in the top right. A few members of either side were scattered about, blocked from their allies.

For the first turn, both sides mostly moved randomly around, only able to move a few inches in any directions. One of Sam's ashigaru units managed to spot and charge Harley's ronin, wounding the group.

As the first turn ended, the thick fog quickly burned away, revealing a battlefield littered with scattered soldiers. The samurai quickly rallied their units and began moving towards the center, hoping to use the building as a staging point to secure the area.

Most of the fighting in this game took place in the bottom left of the table, as Bill's ninja were hunted down by Kai's and Sam's combined forces. Meanwhile, Jolene skirmished with Harley and me in the top right.

While this was going on, Harley, Bill and I managed to get our hero characters (a ronin, ninja, and samurai, respectively) onto the building, hoping we could hold on for the rest of the game.

The fighting continued into the fourth turn. Bill's ninja were wiped out, and Harley's ronin sallied out from the protection of the building to get not one, but two critical hits, wiping out a spearmen group.

Kai did managed to get a non-hero samurai onto the building, but he was quickly set upon by the leaders of the rebel warbands. While the loyalist samurai wasn't killed by the battle's end, he was gravely injured, suffering wounds to his leg and head.

We decided to call the game at the end of turn four, instead of playing out the fifth turn. Bill's ninja had delayed Kai's and Sam's forces long enough that they wouldn't be able to reach the building in time to contest it, and Jolene's warband was shifting to evade around the shogunate forces' commoner units.

With the loyalists falling back, the rebels declared victory for the Shogun. 

Chaos Dwarves vs. Orcs, League Game - Blood Bowl AAR

My opponent for this game was Mike and his Orc team.

After my beating from Bruce, the difference in team value between Mike's team and mine was so great that I was able to by Morg 'N' Thorg!

The teams set up, with Mike winning the toss and deciding to kick. The ball landed back in my endzone.

With a blizzard raging, my team basically fumbled the ball constantly. Neither Morg nor my Sure Hands Hobgoblin could pick the ball up from the pitch. Mike even managed to slip a few Orcs around my line and grabbed the ball. He was only stopped from scoring by Morg's blocking.

The teams set back up for the second half with the Dwarves kicking off.

In a surprise twist, I managed to not only get the ball out of the Orcs' hands, but then ran it in for a touchdown with a Bull Centaur!

With only a few more turns, the Dwarves kicked off again. A failed block with no rerolls left Mike's team in the lurch. Amazingly, I then managed to get an unskilled Hobgoblin past the Orc line and in possession of the ball. Mike attempted to block the Hobgoblin with the Orc Thrower. However, an Attacker Down resulted in not only a casualty, but a touchdown as well. I had somehow managed to win 2-0!

This was an insane game. By all rights, Mike's higher strength and Mighty Blow filled roster should have blasted apart my team. Sometimes the dice treat you well, and this was one of those games. I managed to pull through with only a single player missing the next game (with a Niggling Injury as well, but that's not so bad for a Dirty Player Hobgoblin), and another Chaos Dwarf picked up Mighty Blow.

Twilight and Trickery - Test of Honour AAR

With two campaign days of Test of Honour under our obi, Bill wanted to add something to our games, and introduced the Darkness and Deceit rules. Each table would be playing a different scenario. 

Harley was my opponent, and we were playing the Sudden Attack scenario with the rules for Darkness and Unaware opponents. Harley's ronin warband (with an accompanying ninja) started at the edge of the table. My own warband started in the middle, but would have to roll randomly to move whenever a token was drawn from the bag. At the end of five turns - at dawn - whoever controlled the three objectives (having a model within 3" and no enemy models within 3") would win.

The ronin warband stealthily approached under the cover of darkness. My own soldiers managed to clump up in the center due to the random movement.

A musket-armed ashigaru stumbled across the approaching enemies, but was silently cut down by the ninja.

The alarm was raised when one of the ashigaru groups spotted the ronin to the north of the compound. Harley's ronin leader and ninja continued to creep around the other side as their followers caused a distraction.

As the fighting thickened, the ronin leader struck, killing the ashigaru sergeant with his massive tetsubo. Several failed tests of nerve cleared the objective. A ronin contested the second objective, while the ninja secured the third.

Harley's fortune reversed in the final turn, however. With the whole of my warband aware of the attack, I was able to contest two of the objectives (with my samurai dueling with the ronin leader, and a group of spearmen attacking the ninja), and take control of the third with my archers killing the lone ronin.

This was a close game that only swung my way in the very last turn. We found the rolls for random movement to be fun (although rolling 2d6 seemed a bit much - one group of spearmen seemed to sprinting from one side of the compound to the other for no reason), and the Darkness rules allowed for Harley's warband to advanced to close range without worrying about taking fire from my archers or musketman.

Chaos Dwarves vs. Humans, League Game - Blood Bowl AAR

This was a game between my Chaos Dwarves and Bruce's Humans. With Bruce's star Thrower having died in a previous game, I was fairly certain my Dwarves could out-bash the humans. 

I won the toss off and elected to kick in the first half.

This turned out to be a mistake. A few surprise knockouts on my team left a gap wide open that Bruce exploited for an early touchdown.

We reset, and I was hoping to get a touchdown with the remaining turns left in the half. Unfortunately, we had rolled Pouring Rain for the game's weather, and my Sure Hands Hobgoblin never managed to pick the ball up.

I eventually forgot the ball and just tried to smash as much of Bruce's team as possible. Again, the dice weren't with me, and my Dwarves mostly pushed the opposing players around the pitch until the end of the first half.

The second half started with a rock thrown at my team, turning one of my Guard Dwarves into a casualty.

With the rain still pouring down, my team was unable to secure the ball.

Bruce managed to sneak through my diminished line, grabbed the ball, and scored another touchdown - after causing a casualty to my Mighty Blow Bull Centaur.

We set up once again, but the Chaos Dwarves couldn't force a gap through Bruce's line. Mired in the mud, the game ended with a 2-0 victory to Bruce's team.

This was a complete and utter defeat. I had not only lost the game, but the hits kept piling on: the two casualties rolled Missing Next Game, I lost a point of fan factor, no one gained enough SPP to gain any skills, and I ended up with a Major Incident on my Expensive Mistakes roll, losing half my treasury!

The Immortals will have to soldier on through the next match, hopefully without any more casualties.

Right Under Your Nose - Test of Honour AAR

In my second campaign game for Test of Honour, I faced Sam and General Li. 

With our 15 point forces, we needed to search three treasure tokens and eliminate the other player's samurai.

Both sides advanced. My Experience Bowmen attempted to search, but failed - and continued to do so for every single turn of the game, effectively giving Sam a 3 point advantage.

Both sides crept forward, wary of the bow-armed commoners that both samurai brought with them.

After a couple more turns of movement, the warbands finally closed the distance, with Jiro and a spearmen group taking blood tokens.

However, Sam and I discovered that it can be rather hard to do anything in Test of Honour if you fail to roll at least three Swords during dice rolls.

I finally managed to draw first blood (not counting the blood tokens) by eliminating Sam's sergeant.

Finally, General Li failed an Evasion Roll (after about half a dozen attacks from Jiro), and was cut down. Victory went to the Shogunate!