The Mountain Pass - Red Book of the Elf King AAR

Red Book of the Elf King is a new game produced by Lucid Eye Publications and written by Rick Priestly, to accompany Lucid Eye's line of miniatures. 

The game is set during the Fae Revanche - the great civil war between various Circles of the elves, after the Elf King left his throne for the Outworlds. 

Players chose a Thane and a number of Companions (units of three Elves each), along with their Glamours (powerful spells that only the Thane can cast) and then attempt to assert their supremacy and claim the vacant throne!

This was our first game, using the special introductory scenario in the rulebook. Two Thanes and their Companions find themselves at an impasse - while traveling through a mountain pass, both sides block the way, and neither Thane will back down and allow the other to continue on.

We used Vachel Goldenhand and Saylian Trollblood for this game, with Sam taking Vachel and the set of Glamours with lower casting value, while I played with Saylian and the Glamour set with higher casting values.

The objective was simple - either kill the opposing Thane or cause the most wounds before the end of four turns.

The Thanes and their Companions deployed on opposite sides of the pass, taking cover in the shade of old ruins.

Both sides spent the first turn advancing, out of range for either charges or Rhud magic (shooting attacks, which all elves can cast).

The second turn saw all the action. Combats between Companions sprang up across the ruins, with Vachel's warriors of the Throne of Towers easily thrashing Saylians supporter from the Sarlant March. It didn't help that Vachel's Companions were immune to Courage tests from Shooting attacks, which Saylian's Companions favored.

In the midst of battle, Vachel was able to charge Saylian, and caused three wounds - leaving Saylian with only a single wound left! Saylian's attacks were unable to pierce his opponent's defense.

A unit of Saylian's Companions, seeing their Thane in mortal peril, managed to charge and force Vachel to retreat. However, this left Saylian open to a charge from one of Vachel's Companion units. While Saylian's blades did their work - leaving only a single, wounded Companion left - one elf's spear managed to find its mark, striking Saylian down.

The Lord of the Sarlent March's beaten and bloodied body was pulled from the field by his Companions, while Vachel led his victorious warband through the mountain pass.

This was a fun, if quick, intro scenario. I'm looking forward to playing more and larger games, where both sides have a Thane, six units of Companions, and seven Glamour spells to cast. The rules are fairly simple, with a unique activation mechanics (both sides roll a d6 to determine how many activation tokens are placed in a bag, along with an amount equal to a neutral d6).

The Glamours are interesting, and can be fairly powerful, if they go off right. For example, I used Red Death during the game, which causes a chain reaction of Defense rolls with a penalty. Any model that fails a Defense roll has takes a wound, and the spell jumps to the next elf in the unit. If a unit all fails their Defense roll, the spell then jumps to the next closest unit. With enough poor rolls, an entire warband can be affected.

Of course, Sam managed to save on the first warrior, and my spell sputtered out.

I'm looking forward to playing more games of RBotEK, and to seeing what releases lie in the future. Lucid Eye has already released Trolls and Humans (with only the Trolls having rules in the game thanks to a scenario in the back), and there are rumors of Goblins and Dwarves.

Painting Update - Gangs of Rome, Konflikt 47

We're back again with a look at what I've finished painting recently.

Gangs of Rome is a new skirmish game that's both easy to pick up and fun to play. There are a couple aspects that are a little gimmicky - your gang members are randomly generated and you get a card in each fighter pack you buy, along with four randomly distributed equipment coins and their associated cards - that gave me pause before picking the game up.

But the game has been enjoyable to play, the fighter cards aren't overpowered by themselves, and there's a decent balance between a fighter having better overall states (which increases their point cost) and having less points to spend on equipment to use in the game.

There are also some non-random miniatures used in the game. The two on the left are Agente and Gladiator, which are equipment that become models at the start of the game. The center model is a dominus, who acts as a representation of the player and objective in certain scenarios. And the two models on the right are Barca and Tisiphone, named characters with non-random skills and attributes that players can include in their gangs.

I can also put a check mark next to my Konflikt 47 Germans, since I've got enough to field a 1250 list with some options. There's 20 zombies, a sniper team, a mortar team, and a kubelwagen.

A Beach of a Walk - Big Battle DBA Battle Report

This past weekend, Sam put on a game of BBDBA for the South Jersey Gamers Association. 

The battle was an invasion from the sea by an alliance of Spartans, Thebans and Asiatics. The defenders were Athenians, Thessalians, and Phokians. The invading force needed to capture the acropolis.

The Spartan force took up the center of the invader's battle line, with the Thebans to their left and the Asiatics on the right.

The defenders had the Phokians place their artillery and hoplites in the acropolis. The other Phokian units (mostly psiloi) and the Athenians deployed to the right  of the city, while the Thessalians defended the area to the left, over the river.

For the first few bounds of the game, the two sides marched across the verdent fields, vineyards, and groves to try and get into position.

Both sides were mostly made up of heavy infantry, so progress was slow. But eventually the various armies managed to move into line. The Phokians and Asiatics lined up their psiloi on one flank, while the Thessalians and Thebans moved their heavy infantry into the good going on the the other.

As the commander of the Athenians, I managed to get my hoplites into the open ground in front of the acropolis, forcing the Spartans to fight partially in rough ground.

The Athenians and Phokians managed to get their Light Horse through a gap in the enemies' line, which forced them to divert units away from the main fight to try and keep the horsemen hemmed in.

The Spartans and Athenians were the first to get to grips with each other. I noticed that, with units like Spears, you really need to make sure you've got a solid line. Combat factors bonuses from Flank Support, and being outflanked, can potentially spell disaster. For example, a lone unit of Spears facing off against three units of Spears will have a combat factor of 2, against the attacking units combat factor of 6!

Near the beach, my unit of light horse managed to defeat a Spartan psiloi unit, leaving a small group of Spartan hoplites dangerously exposed.

The Spartans finally began to move out of column and into a wider line of battle, but the Athenians managed to hold them back.

The Theban general, preferring to lead from the front, suddenly found himself alone and in close combat with the Thessalian hoplites, but he managed to survive. The Thessalian horsemen, however, realized that the river was easily forded and moved across, easily passing through the gap in the invaders' line.

The Phokian and Athenian light horse managed to rout the Spartan hoplites as their Asiatic allies looked on with relative nonchalance. While the Asiatic and Spartan rears were safe, the Thebans were wide open, unable to stop the combined cavalry of the defenders.

Both the Spartans and Athenians lost more units in the ongoing scrum, but the Spartans were the first to break and flee the field of battle.

As the Thebans desperately held across the river, the Asiatics and Phokian psiloi began to engage, with little effect.

The Thebans were the next army to break, unable to push through the Thessalian heavy infantry at their front or stop the defenders' cavalry in their rear.

With two of their allies gone, the Asiatics retreated as well, relatively intact for their troubles.

The Athenians, Thessalians and Phokians celebrated their victory with much wine and rejoicing!

Sam put on a fantastic game, providing the terrain and armies. We actually were the first people to play on this terrain since it had been commissioned by Sam almost half a decade ago.

DBA continues to be a fun set of rules for relatively simple Ancients combat (as long as you've gotten past the somewhat difficult language. I'm also wondering if we could replay this game using the Triumph! ruleset. Playing a big Dark Ages game would also be fantastic.

Empire Cup 4 - Blood Bowl AAR

This past Saturday, I drove up to Long Beach Island to attend Empire Cup 4, my first Blood Bowl tournament. 

I decided to take my Chaos Dwarves, since I had used them in the recent league and had a decent grasp on how to run the team. Team had a 1.1 million gold budget to spend on their team, and then additional gold to spend on skills depending on their Tier. Since Chaos Dwarves were Tier 1, I had 60k to spend. I gave one Bull Centaur Break Tackle, and the other Block and Mighty Blow. I also took Zzharg Madeye for more ST and ball handling skills. 

My goal for the tournament was to at least get a touchdown against an experience opponent. Anything else was a bonus!

My Round 1 game was against Cary and his Goblins team. It had the full compliment of Goblin craziness - chainsaw, ball-and-chain, doom diver, 'ooligan, pogoer, and bombardier - along with a couple of Block Trolls.

However, a few lucky dice rolls (and not one, but three interceptions from the Bull Centaurs) meant that I was able to win the game, 3-0.

My Round 2 opponent was Ramsay and his Chaos Dwarves. We both realized that this was going to be a slow, methodical game. Ramsay had decided to drop the Bull Centaurs in favor of taking a Block and Claw skilled Minotaur. While I managed to foul it off the table, it was definitely the focus of my team for the first half.

While both Ramsay and I managed to score, an unfortunate double 1 when trying to Go For It with a Bull Centaur allowed Ramsay to run a hobgoblin in for a Turn 16 touchdown. The game was a loss, 1-2.

My round 3 opponent was Campbell and his Norse team.

Unfortunately, I made a few mistakes during this match - getting greedy with a 1 die block and reroll, for example - and the dice were against me. This was a bad game for the Immortals, with a lot of Dwarf casualties. I also had a Hail Mary pass from Zzhargh scatter off the pitch, when it could have been a tying result for the game. It ended up as a loss, 0-1.

I placed 7th out of 8 players, but was awarded Best Sportmanship. At least I accomplished my goal of getting a touchdown!

It was a fun time, and I enjoyed my first tournament. However, it definitely showed me that I'm not a fan of driving 2.5 to 3 hours each way to get to a day long event. I'm considering the two day event later this year, since that'll at least give me a day to recover.

Down in the Dirt - Fistful of Lead AAR

While there's been some interest in starting up a Dracula's America campaign, I took advantage of some terrain built for that game to play some Fistful of Lead. 

This was a pretty simple shoot 'em up between Bill and I - four gang members on either side, each armed with a pistol. 

Near the train stations, both sides advanced cautiously.

However, in the center of town, our gang members were running wild, their guns firing (and missing).

My one cowpoke attempted to stick his head out for a better shot. Not only did his gun jam, but his was pinned by Bill's return fire.

A Clint Eastwood look-alike used his sixshooter to gun down my moonshine-swilling pistolier.

Bill also attempted to shoot my pinned man, but his own gun jammed. A follow up into close combat then left Bill's gang member pinned!

Bill was having better luck across town, with both of my other gang members shot and killed.

Now it was just my one gang member left, his gun jammed and pinned by the bullets slamming into the dust.

Bill's man in black tried for another round in close combat, but a knife hidden in my cowboy's boot put the opposing gang member down for coffin measurements.

Bill was determined to kill my last gang member, but once again, the close combat went my way, and my dust covered gunslinger was victorious.

By then, Bill had determined that while my last man might have been decent in hand-to-hand, he was still pinned and out of ammo. His two remaining gang members simply stood back and emptied their guns, doing enough wounds to turn my last fighter into a grisly Swiss cheese.

Fistful of Lead continues to be a fun, quick game for fights in the Old West. I'm looking forward to the eventual release of the sci-fi version, which I hope to use for Necromunda.