Sunday 15 January 2012

Testing, testing

Band of noble, but morally inferior wood-elves
I am not much of a one for wargaming, mainly because I have the tactical sense of a doughnut, but I do enjoy watching others pushing little lead soldiers around.  That and I paint the occasional mini and it's always nice to see them in use.

This afternoon saw a playtest on our table and very entertaining it was too.  Good and Bad (with a definite capital "B") faced up to each other across some randomly assigned terrain. 

Using trees for camoflague, the good team consisted of the wood-elves pictured above, a small dwarf unit, Donaar K'Baab the dragonborn hero, Friar Ducaine the robust healer and some random halflings teleported in from an alternate dimension. 

On the other team, assorted dark elves, some leftover scaven, a few rats, a selection of blood cultists masquerading as ghouls, Karolina the vampiric bard, Davy Powys the mighty dark elf hero, a giant toad and Madskillz the troll.  They appeared from behind a small hill and around a (possibly) strategic tower.

As it happened, most these units were ranged, so battle joined fairly fast.  Unlike some other minis games I've witnessed it was not only speedy, but pretty lethal. 

The dwarf unit dropped almost at once due to good rolls from the ghoulish cultists, but revenge was taken almost immediately when they were wiped out in turn by the wood elves. 

At the centre of the battlefield, the heroes good and bad accummulated to challenged each other to duels.  Donaar and Karolina both fell and the wood elves were so demoralised that they turned and fled.  Madskillz never even made it into combat, felled by the anachronistic halflings.  "Big, smelly chap at 4 o clock.  Take him down."

Considering the whole combat was bodged together on the fly, it was amazingly well balanced.  The whole thing took about an hour and a half including setting up.  I'm seriously tempted to give it a go.

What was I doing?  Making a costume is the answer to that one.  We have a big table.  The sewing machine behaved impeccably.  Clearly all it needs to keep it happy is a battle raging two feet away.

4 comments:

  1. Thank you! Some corrections: the dwarves were killed by dark elf crossbows, and the wood elves were fleeing before Donaar was killed, but the battle was won by Evil when they continued to flee off the table.

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  2. Thanks for that, I misheard who took down the dwarves.

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  3. The ghouls ran up the hill to fetch a pail of water, and then charged down and Elrose got killed right after.

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