The Battle for Boglen Wood Rages On!

On Friday Keira and I played against each other for our respective second games in the Song of Blades and Heroes campaign that we started the day before. Both fancying ourselves “good guys” we were hard pressed to explain WHY we’d be fighting at all. I figured perhaps it was a case of mistaken identity – both parties assumed the other was a group of bandits that had been dogging them for sometime and decided to finish the matter by attacking!

FORCES

The Explorers (Keira)

Human Infantry Leader

70 points, Q 3+, C 4, Leader, XP 1

Human Wizard’s Apprentice

30 Points, Q 4+, C 1, Magic-User, Spell Scroll, XP 1

Human Elite Archer

50 Points, Q 3+, C3, Shooter (Long), Unerring Aim, XP 1

Human Elite Archer

50 Points, Q 3+, C3, Shooter (Long), Unerring Aim, XP 1

Human Elite Archer

50 Points, Q 3+, C3, Shooter (Long), Unerring Aim, XP 1

Human Elite Archer

50 Points, Q 3+, C3, Shooter (Long), Unerring Aim, XP 1

Total 300 points

Baron Phillipede Lapin’s Men-at-Arms (me!)

9 Victory points, 1 Campaign Point, Tough as Nails

Baron Phillipe de Lapin - Human Infantry Leader

70 points, Q 3+, C 4, Leader, XP 1

Gaston - Human Elite Archer

50 Points, Q 3+, C3, Shooter (Long), Unerring Aim, XP 1

Renauld - Human Archer

44 Points, Q 3+, C3, Shooter (Long), XP 1

Jean-Luc - Human Archer

44 Points, Q 3+, C3, Shooter (Long), XP 1

Pierre - Human Warrior

30 Points, Q 3+, C3, XP 1

Claude - Human Warrior

30 Points, Q 3+, C3, XP 1

Patrice - Human Warrior

30 Points, Q 3+, C3, XP 1

Louis - Human Warrior

30 Points, Q 3+, C3, XP 0

Total 328 points

THE GAME

As it turned out Keira was the attacker so I set up a little camp along my edge of the board and said that Baron Philipe’s men had set up camp in a location the had seen others had used – figuring it might be bandits and by sitting on their camp the bandit’s might come to them.

As the sun began to fall in the west they fancied they spotted their quarry silhouetted on the western horizon.

Keira receiving some tactical advice from her brother.

Baron Philipe’s men quickly rush to their arms to defend against the attacking bandits.

What is with this rolling turn-overs for my first move!? This is BS!

Once again the Phillipe charges out – only to find no one is following!

Keira took advantage of this – trying to make the poor Baron look like a pin-cushion!

The baron tripped and fell to the ground, trying to dodge the swarm of incoming arrows!

Keira rather enjoying this turn of events.

Again I started with the Baron… and AGAIN he rolled a single action and a turn-over!? Seriously…? SERIOUSLY!?

So I guess when the Baron fell to the ground his men did not rush to his aid, or plan to avenge him…

It was only after he got back up again and called them a bunch of sissies than they finally sprung to action… in TURN THREE!?

Keira also had some trouble motivating her troops to get going – this was her leader’s roll she was going to attempt to order the FOUR ELITE ARCHERS to try a concentrated fire group action – which surelywould have been the end of the poor Baron – at least for this action.

Having seen their master fall in a hail of arrows, then get back up again and call them sissies – the Baron’s men-at-arms finally sprang to life and rushed towards the ford.

The Men-at-arms rushed across the ford and into contact with the enemies archers, while their own archers and crossbowmen fired on the enemies leader and mage.

The Enemy archers dropped their bows and drew their swords to meet the men-at-arms rushing at them out of the river.

While one Archer was driven back, momentarily, two of the men-at-arms were knocked to the ground (probably because of their slippery wet footwear on the slippery muddy bank of the ford…)

The battle continues another round – men-at-arms got up and knocked Archers down, while another of their own slipped and fell in the melee. The Baron’s archers managed to hit the enemies mage – or at least made her drop to the ground to avoid incoming missiles. The Baron himself finally started making his way across the ford.

The final round went poorly for Keira’s explorers – two of the archers were knocked down and out of action and the Barron finally made his way out of the ford and into contact with the leader. At this point she conceded the game, but I said it was more likely that once Baron Philipe got into contact with the “enemy” leader he probably recognized her, and she recognized him, and they both said “wait a moment – you’re not bandits!?” and both leaders called on their troops to stop fighting!

Still I claimed a victory and another campaign point and five more victory points for taking down the two Elite Archers. The archers, it turned out, weren’t too badly off –one will completely recover by the next game and the other had had her bell rung and will be at reduced quality (Q4+) for a game.

Keria – having lost two games in a row – claimed the underdog bonus and took in 50 gold for income. My income was reduced (because of the Murder of Crows we’d spotted while exploring after the last game) and only took in 30 gold.

Keira hired another Human Warrior and I’m contemplating doing the same.

Keira came across a small shrine in her explorations but decided against paying and praying to try and win the favour of the gods. I, on the other hand, discovered and abandoned alehouse and added it to my domain! Huzzah! So now I can get one of my guys liquored up before battle – giving him a better combat value, but reducing his quality! (or I can just sell some of the booze after every battle for an additional 5 gold. 

A couple things I have noted about this campaign system - while it is possible to improve Quality and Combat and gain certain special rules, you can not gain Good Shot or Unerring Aim...? As a Human Elite Archer (with unerring aim) is only 6 points more than the regular archer, it's probably better to just get the elite archers at the start of the game... Also, halflings have no leaders in the list. I know, it's really easy to come up with one with the point calculator, but I was wanting to stick to the lists for generating warbands for campaigns - lest anyone come up with something ridiculous... I suppose there is the "Theme Vote Rule"... but I'm thinking of the game weekend I'm planning to host in June. I was going to have the players bring their own damned warbands for once (usually at these things I've supplied all the warbands) but to keep players from doing anything silly I was going to say they have to stick to what's listed in the four books.... Hmmmm.... We shall see. I suppose I could say anything in the four books is okay, you can come up with your own stuff, but it will have to be voted on by the other players so have alternatives ready if you abomination gets voted down!?

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

The next round of the campaign – Hopefully we’ll get Amanda in on the action tonight!  After that..? perhaps the next round... or some newly painted stuff! 

I see the next Song of Ice and Fire Audio books has arrived for me at the library... so I'll probably be getting a fair bit of painting done over the next three weeks. I have to limit myself to ONE DISC per day otherwise I end up staying up stupid late...