More for the Plastic and Lead Alps

Earlier today, I received my June order from North Star Military Figures. The Gnolls are (primarily) for my 'remixed' version of Rangers of the Shadow Deep, the Goblins for mixing in with my LotR Orcs (and providing extra archer arms for the Gnolls), and the Halflings are for my 'Frodo's Quest' Shire spin-off (more about it in a later post).

The Hell Crows are for RotSD (some kind of Crows, the name eludes me right now), and the Frostgrave Barbarian with the two-hander is for Emil's Sellswords & Spellslingers warband.

The Magmites and the Thief are just bonuses, but I shall probably find some use for them.

Oathmark 2000pts, Elves vs Orcs and Goblins

As previously announced, Kevin and I played a game this evening. I had laid out the table, so as soon as Kevin arrived and had his army out of the boxes, we could start placing our units on the table.

The first turn we used the Forward unto Battle rule to get things moving. I made my first tactical mistake by timidly turning  my Mounted Rangers in behind my battleline - they should have hung around on the flank to make a dangerous counter-attack later in the game, but, well...

My second mistake was to advance too fast in the center, but I was afraid that the Goblin Archers would wither down my few units too fast (I still think archers are too effective in this game). As it were, my infantry got stuck in way too early for my Archers and Rangers to have had enough impact on the rather large force I was facing.

The end of Turn 2:

My Linebreakers broke the Goblins in front of them, and then my Spearmen tried to do the same with the Orcs, but, alas..

Abysmal dice rolling on my part, well done by the Orcs.

I sadly do not remember what broke the other Orc unit (those to the right of my Linebreakers), but break they did... It may have been my Mounted Rangers shooting at them, but I am not sure.

I was beginning to feel a tad of pressure on my position.

My remaining Spearmen were annihilated by Goblin bowfire, and my Linebreakers defeated and pushed back the last Orc unit, but were Disordered in the process, which meant that I coiuld not exploit the wide open unit of Goblin Archers the following turn. My Archers (left flank) were suffering bad casualties, and my Rangers were just about to be caught by the Gobbos on the right.

This was the situation before the last turn. I did not take further pics, but my Rangers were charged and lost more than half their numbers, my Mounted Rangers moved forwards and fired at the Goblin Archers in front of them, without hitting a single time (5d10 rolling 5 or less, go figure), and my Linebreakers shook off the Disorder but could no move to contact an enemy unit. The two remaining Archers were killed off. When the Linebreakers then lost half their number to bowfire, I conceeded the battlefield; my Mounted Rangers were too far away from the Goblins on the left to reach them, so they would most likely be halved or worse before making contact, my Rangers were only 3 strong, and the Linebreakers faced annihilation by the Orc Wsrlord and his retinue.

Thoughts on the game:

This one played rather smoothly. I think that having way fewer units than in my solo test game contributed heavily to the faster pace, as units had more space to maneuver without ending up at strange angles facing each other - but looking up stats for combat was of course much easier, too, because I only had to look at my own roster this time.

The Champion Dice had some impact on some of the fights (we only had the commanders being able to use it - plus the Troll, but it never succeeded in catching an enemy), and the extra Activation/Morale dice provided by the Commanders was also quite prominent - especially for the Orcs/Goblins. We did not use the Death of and Officer option, but I shall add it to my next game.

I still think that calculating the variable Target Number for every to-hit-roll feels a bit 1980, but we were actually doing it without having to look up the modifiers after a few turns, so it can be lived with, as not slowing down the game all to much (it still may if rosters consist of several pages - this game I only had one page).

Movement:
Because of the few units, maneuvers were mostly made to swing around terrain features, and there wasn't any occurrences of units being pushed deep into the rear lines (as there were none), so I did not see any awkward situations this time (but from my test game I know they can and probably will occur in large games).

I think I would still prefer a system with some range modifiers for shooting, but I have not played enough games to assess the overall impact on the game of such a change.

Morale had a significant impact on the Orcs/Goblins, with several units breaking, and panic spreading. It is a feature that I rather like, although it may sometimes come down to a few bad rolls whether your army stays fit for fighting or runs away.

The game today took about two hours, including placing the armies on the table (I had prepared the table/terrain in advance, but it had taken me less than 10 minutes), which is faster than I expected, but we had relatively few units, did not use more than one character each, and we had no Wizards. Next game I play, I shall add more Characters, and let Champions kill off Officers. I have not yet even read the rules for Magic, but I think I shall start out with a single low level Wizard in one of the next games I play.

Overall:
It feels like Oathmark is better balanced than God of Battles. Playing Undead in GoB, I often faced enemy units I could hardly scratch, because of the many dice they roll regardless of the number of hits scored on them (elsewhere on this blog you may find my musings about how to possibly mend some of the worst flaws of that game, but I never got around to trying them out, yet), but in Oathmark it rarely feels impossible to damage an enemy unit (some cavalry units possibly excepted - I have to play some more). The possibility to roll only five or four dice for attacks somewhat evens out the difference between elite and standard units - which can be both good and bad. My abhorrent dice rolling may have made the elite Elves seem somewhat underwhelming, but if the dice had fallen more normally statistically, the game might have hung more in the balance at the end.

I am still not sure if this will be my go-to fantasy battle game, as I still have some reservations regarding some of the rules, but today's game did not put me off. I shall try to get a game against Duregar/Ulolkish arranged within an overseeable future - probably Middle-Earth themed.

2019-08-06: Age of Fantasy Skirmish AAR

Emil and I duked it out in the garage attic once more - he playing the staunch defenders of Gondor, and I the devious Goblin horde.

We played the standard 4 Rounds.

We rolled only 3 objectives this time, and Emil won the deployment roll-off.

The first couple of photos show the table before deployment (almost - we had just begun placing units when I remembered to pull out the camera).

The next three pics show the forces deployed.

This photo I snapped to make sure that all Objective Counters were shown (there is one in the ruined throne room upper center right).

In Round 1 both forces sped forward - I was able to secure two Objectives, while Emil took the last.

In Round 2, the fighting commenced. The Gondorian wizard hit one of my Trolls with a Fireball which left it flat on its back. My Shaman failed horribly to cast Glare on the enemy Wizard.

I could not defend the Troll, and he was quickly dispatched at the beginning of Round 3. My other Troll took its place, was also hit by a Fireball, but shook off most of the effect. My Shaman failed another casting attempt.

Early in Round 4 it became clear that Emil could not shift the Goblins from any of the two Objectives I held, and we agreed to call it a day, with a 2-1 win for the Moria horde. Before that, my Shaman actually managed to Glare the Wizard, and managed to inflict a whooping 3 hits (on 2d6), and one of those was saved, leaving the Wizard to cast another spell.

The game could have gone either way, but I succeeded in taking and holding the two Objectives closest to my side of the table with the majority of my warband. I need to think up some alternative scenarios, though, as the game may get a bit samey.

Goblins Rebased

I am going to use these guys as my Hearthguard in tomorrow's game of SAGA Age of Magic. I finally finished rebasing them yesterday (I started before out summer vacation), and now they are ready for some action!

2019-07-03: SAGA Age of Magic, Goblins versus Gondor

Today, I introduced Emil to AoM; I had prepared two 5-points lists (Horde and Kingdoms), but without any fantasy elements (basically, it was like playing with 'historical' warbands).

I skipped the 2nd Ed. rule about having to end the movement of each model within S of the first moved model (I plan to go back and also play with the 1st Ed. rule that only models within a certain range of enemies add dice to the Combat Pool), and this eased Movement quite a lot.

Emil was 1st player, and we both advanced; I even used some extra SAGA Dice activations to move a bit further.

The lines closed in.

The Gondorians kept Manoeuvering closer...

...while my Goblins rested to get rid of some Fatigue.

The Gondorians converged on my center. We did not adhere rigidly to the rules on gaps between units.

There was blood. Much Blood. First, my Hearthguards charged a warrior unit, rolling perhaps 20 dice, inflicting 4 hits. The, my Warlord charged the same unit, also failing to wipe it out. Finally, my Hearthguards took a Fatigue to charge again, this time annihilating the stubborn Gondorians.

Then there was more fighting. My last Hearthguard barely survived a Hearthguard versus Hearthguard scrap, after fending off another Warrior unit. On my right, my Warriors beat the crap out of some cocky Humans.

The Levies on both sides moved towards the center (neither side had fired a single shot), but the dwindling number of SAGA Dice was beginning to be felt.

Emil went all in on attacking my Warlord, but failed to kill him (he was saved twice by his Resilience). On the end of Emil's turn, both Warlords were Exhausted, and it began to resemble the old Robin and Marian movie. We called it a day, and did not count the Massacre Points.

We both had some horrific dice rolling at certain stages in the game, but Emil suffered badly from his as it occurred late in the fight, and thus was rather decisive.

Understandably, Emil was not all that excited about the game, but he agreed to try it again when we meet up after the summer holidays. If he still dislikes SAGA, I shall read up on Age of Fantasy (non-skirmish version), and see how many units I can field for that game (or how many I have to paint up - I intend to get some of the new Citadel Contrast Paints to use for unit painting, so as to be able to get some models ready for the table faster).

2019-06-28: Åcon 2019, Friday

Last weekend, I attended the private event Åcon in Esbjerg (it was on pause last year) - a small 'invites only' gathering of gamers.

Rasmus Wichmann, probably the driving force behind Team Dread Streets, publishers of Dread Streets, the cinematic swashbuckling game, was present for a couple of hours, and I sat in on a simplified demo of said game.

It was very hot, and it probably influenced our ability to focus, but we managed to play it to an abrupt end, when Rasmus was called home. If I recall correctly, I was deemed winner (or second) because of some unused counters.

I then demoed One Page Rules Age of Fantasy Skirmish. I really need to make some mats large enough for this and other games!

At the end of Turn 4, The Goblins carried the day, holding 2 objectives against 1.

I think this late evening pic looks a lot like this one from 2016: https://argonor-wargames.blogspot.com/2016/07/acon-1-day-in-esbjerg.html

2019-06-23, SAGA Age of Magic, 2nd Test Game

This time we added the rules for Lieutenants and Creatures. Ulolkish brought his Dwarves and borrowed my two bears, and I fielded a force consisting of Moria Goblins and some Citadel Dire Wolves I bought painted a couple of years ago, as I only have two painted riderless Wargs, and needed four for this warband.

On my first turn (above) I let the Wolves advance fast on my right flank, while the rest of my warband manoeuvered forward.

The Dwarves (below) also advanced, but kept their Bears close to their flank.

On my second turn, my Wolves swept in and attacked the Bears. I annihilated the enemy Creatures (I rolled a bucket of dice, and we got the Resilience rule wrong), but two of my Wolves also bought it in the process.

Then the Dwarven Warriors killed off my Wolves (Creatures are really a glass hammer, even though we did not get the Resilience rule right), and both some Warriors and their Hearthguards advanced on my left.

My Warriors then fought the Dwarves who just killed the Wolves, but failed to defeat them and had to retire. My Hearthguards charged the Dwarven Lieutenant, killed him losing 3(!) models in the fight, while my Warriors an the left fell back behind the woods to avoid getting hammered 1-2 by the two units threatening them.

The Dwarves followed and charged my Warriors on the left, but the fight was a drawn, and the Dwarves had to fall back.

Then, I lost the game by the Dwarven Levy scoring 3 hits on 4 dice on my Hearthguards with their bows. I did not manage to save any if the hits, and my Hearthguards were annihilated. Sorely disappointing performance, but, well, it is Goblins...

The next turn, on the right my Goblins and the Dwarves decimated each other, and my Warlord finished off the enemy unit. There was some ineffective fighting on the left.

On the next turn, my Warriors on the right were reduced to 3 figures, and I would now had only my Warlord generating SAGA Di(c)e, and I did not see any reason to continue the fight. Again, one single roll completely statistically off was the main reason for the final outcome; had my Hearthguards unlikely demise not happened, they could have charged the Levies and probably dispatched them without being wiped out themselves, I would still have a SAGA Dice generating unit, and would have stood a chance against the Dwarven Hearthguards.

Conclusion:

We still need to play more times to get the rules properly memorized, but this game gave me some understanding of how this edition of the game works.

Tactics are not really important; you do not get a bonus from charging, and the 2nd Ed. rules have all members of a unit in combat fight, so you cannot out-manoeuver an enemy unit, hitting it in the flank to reduce the number of models fighting your charging unit (this was possible in 1st Ed.).

Instead, it is important to hold off, until you have those killer combos on your Battle Board, giving you an edge when actually duking it out with the enemy.

Characters, although packing a lot of dice for single minis, are not really fighting  machines. They are great for mopping up the leftovers from earlier scraps, but as the Warlord's ability from 1st Ed. to fight 'side by side' with another unit by using 'We Obey' has been left out of 2nd Ed., I find him too difficult to use in an offensive role, as his Hearthguard Bodyguards are often too far away.

I may suggest we go back to using some of the rules as they were in 1st Ed., to add more tactics to the gameplay, as games may otherwise turn into very defensive affairs, if none of the sides can get the SAGA dice results they want, and do not want to risk their troops without proper Battle Board support.