středa 6. listopadu 2013

Orctober Clash

The stars were right on october's bank holiday, so I managed to play my first game of Song of Blades and Heroes. However, there were other thing that I couldn't call right - I had only 4 dwarves and 3 of each orcs and goblins (yes, excluding Talisman, those are all my painted minis so far), so the warband lists were short and unbalanced, and the table was rather smaller than it should have been. But we wanted to play anyway, so anything went.


Warbands - Dwarves

  • Dwarf Leader (Q2+ C4, Leader, Fearless, Short Move - 88pts)
  • Orcslayer (Q3+ C4, Lethal vs Orcs, Short Move - 40pts)
  • Crossbowman (Q3+ C3, Shooter(medium), Good Shot, Short Move - 38pts)
  • Spearman (Q3+ C3, Steadfast, Short Move - 30pts)
Totaling 196 pts, this small warband ignored the personality points rule. Orcslayer could be handy - were he used.

Warbands - Orcs and Goblins

  • Orc Chieftain (Q3+ C3, Leader - 60pts)
  • Orc Elite Bowman (Q4+ C3, Shooter(med), Unerring Aim - 33pts)  
  • Orc Champion (Q4+ C4, Savage, Hero - 57pts)
  • Goblin hero (Q4+ C3, Hero - 45pts)
  • 2 goblin warriors (Q4+ C2 - 2x15pts)
This band had lots of points in personalities and the champion (2 kills) was worth every point in particular. I should have had probably skipped both Hero abilities when building this band, although the goblin hero was quite useless anyway.

The Game

In the first turns some useless shots were exchanged, the dwarves remained close together, while the orc champion could not be held any longer and rushed to flank the dwarves from left. It was a part of intricate plan, including synchronized assault by the goblins and orc chieftain from right/center, but failed activations delayed them a bit and left the champ facing the dwarves alone and failing.


Then the dwarves in their arrogance made a fatal mistake by letting their spearman to finish off his prey. The orc did not only stand up, but even fought back in such a ferocious manner that the remaining three dwarves had to test the morale. Three goblins finally arrived and swarmed the orcslayer.


The crossbowman made his last shot and missed, while the commander assisted his overwhelmed comrade. Surprisingly, only one goblin fell.


Orc chieftain finally joined the fray, while the glaive of the champion split the crossbowman in two. Prospect of a grim death did not deter the bearded braves from soldiering on...


...however, their leader attacked in such an unfortunate manner that he opened his guard, and chieftain's sabre made short work of him. By that time, the orcslayer was on the ground, barely fending off eager goblins - and having seen his leader die, he just let the blades come through.


Summary

We had fun, even though the game was rather lopsided. The rules were easy to grasp and didn't stand in the way; the whole game took 90 minutes even with rules explanation and lookup. Now I just have to assemble and paint at least two proper warbands, most likely Mantic dwarves (Ironclad+Ironwatch) and Empire Militia.