Five Leagues Turn 15 - Someone think of the children!

I'm really behind with posting at the moment!  This is the second Five Leagues from the Borderland game from the 'Hen Night Weekend' (which was so long ago the wedding has now happened, the little miniature being a very proud bridesmaid for her Auntie).  This was a bit different for a number of reasons - bit the most interesting one was that the (now not so) little miniature joined me, helping set up the scenario and make choices for our brave heroes!

The turn started poorly, with the group waking up to find that some swine had swiped 12 gold marks from them.  A heated discussion followed as Robert accused Will of the crime, with Gregory and Thomas having to defuse the situation.  The situation was compounded by the band now being so large that they had to pay two more marks for upkeep, and another for more arrows.  Gregory put his skills to use earning back three marks helping out on the farms around the village whilst Giacomo visited the town healer to get himself back in action.

Almost back up to strength (Oswald still needed another turn to recover), our heroes went out adventuring, only for Thomas to come across something completely new: Monster Tracks!  Perhaps drawn by the chaos following the border incursion, two ogres had come down from the mountains and were preying on the nearby farms [I rolled up 'tough battle', which adds an extra enemy - I'm not sure it is supposed to apply to monsters but, as ogres are relatively weak, and the band quite strong, I went with it].

 

"Must be sumfink 'ere wurf eatin'.  Let's 'ave a butchers!"

(Mordheim Mercenary ogre and Citadel Ogre Brigand) 

Following the tracks brought them to a farmstead, just as the ogres closed in for the attack.  To complicate matters, Giacomo, Thomas and Gregory found the fleeing family who told them in a panic that they had been unable to get to the children, who had been playing in the edge of the woods! [I rolled up 'Fetch' as the objective, and thought it would be a good opportunity to us the Hasslefree Brats that I had painted up].

"Someone save the children! (keep up Grandad!)"

"and the sheep, if you can!"

The poor mites, busy pulling the wings off flies and blissfully unaware of what awaits on the other side of the farmhouse!

Thomas immediately volunteered to dash around the back of the longhouse to rescue the brats little ones, while the rest of the band would draw the ogres away.  Will, Jocelyn and Raymond would do their best to turn the beasts into pincushions while Robert and Guy, and Giacomo and Gregory, led two groups at each ogre.

The battlefield, beautifully (and convincingly) prepared by Rosa! (Heroes entering from the right)

"Over here foul creature, meet your doom on my sword!"

Robert and his faithful retainer, Guy, rushed forwards on the left; keen for the glory of felling the great beast!

But sadly, for Robert's ego at least, it was not to be; As two dead-on shots from Jocelyn saw the first ogre fall to the ground dead [I know that's not Jocelyn in the picture, but I didn't catch one of the momentous event], leaving Robert yelling in frustration!

On the right, the second ogre smashed aside the hay cart, to be met by Giacomo, Gregory and Finan.  The ensuing melee gave Thomas his chance to dash over the road to the farmhouse unseen.

Initially beaten back, another great shot from Jocelyn wounded the axe wielding brute, distracting it long enough for Giacomo to dart in and thrust his sword into the creature's black heart!

 

"Come with me if you want to live!"

Thomas finally reached the children, and successfully persuaded them to come with him, but by then the danger was all over.  At least he was able to hand them safely back to their worried families with no bits nibbled!

"Your children are safe!"

"Great, but what about the sheep?"

As if losing his 'kill' to an archer wasn't bad enough for Robert, he had now had to see Giacomo 'steal' the glory.  Another heated 'debate' between the knight and the archers broke out until Gregory was able to restore order!

The mopping up phase saw the grateful farmers dig deep and reward the adventurers which, along with some coins 'rescued' from the ogre's loot, saw the band regain all of the twelve marks they had lost at the start of the turn.

 

Other loot included a 'quick' light weapon, which Jocelyn took to replace his existing knife, and some torches .  The ogres had also clearly encountered some other brave adventurer who had been less fortunate as, stuffed in the ogre's bag with various unsavoury items stored (presumably) as a snack for later, was a full set of knight's armour and an enchanted weapon, a 'Heart Seeker'!

Five Leagues Turn 14 - The Haunted Stone

The missus was off for a couple of nights on her younger sister's hen do.  Time for the toys to come out...

Although there was an iron shortage in the village, it had little impact on the growing group of heroes.  Geoffery took Giacomo to the town healer, reducing the time he would be out of action, while the rest of the group did some trading, selling some excess weapons and the jewellery looted from the tower last turn, in exchange for light armour and a shield for Giacomo to use when he recovered (and 'get well' present?).

The old map that the party had also found in the old tower showed a old ring of standing stones on the edge of the forest, the map recently marked with strange and eldritch symbols pointing at it.  Convinced this could be the source of the dark forces plaguing the village, the party tooled up and headed out.

[I rolled up Dark Shadows encounter.  As this was the last points in this category it would be a 'Last Stand' against the 'Corrupt', including a Boss, Lieutenant, Sergeant and 6 corrupt, including a 'skulker'.  The encounter would take place on the edge of the woods around a haunted stone, with the Party's objective to eliminate the enemy].

As the party worked their way through the scattered trees on the edge of the dark woods, snatches of low gutteral chanting started to reach them.  Thomas shivered "Do you feel that? Like my blood suddenly ran cold.".  Geoffery hefted the hammer on his shoulder with his right hand, his left clutching the smaller brass hammer that hung on a chain around his neck, "Something wicked is near, we must not rest until it is wiped from this land, even at the cost of our own blood".

Will spat on the ground.  "Bloody knew you'd something like that" he said, but knocked an arrow to his string nonetheless. 

 

The party split up for their attack, the archers (Will, Jocelyn and Ray) on the left; Geoffery, Robert and Guy in the middle, and Thomas, Finan and Oswald on the right. 

 

Jocelyn drew first blood, dropping one of the corrupted creatures with a well placed crossbow bolt, then followed up with the corrupted sergeant. 

Meanwhile a desperate fight broke out on the right, started by the fast but deadly corrupt skulker.  Thomas wounded the vile creature, then finally cut it down, but not before both Oswald and Finan had been put down by other corrupt, leaving Thomas outnumbered.

In the centre, the bulk of the corrupt charged Robert, Geoffrey and Guy.  Guy struck one down swiftly, as did Geoffrey, while Robert engaged in a back and forth due with another.

On the right Thomas showed his metal, killing the remaining corrupt.  Guy fended off the Corrupt Boss, who was then engaged by Robert, allowing Guy to turn on and take down another creature.

As Will found his 'eye' and put a shaft through the Corrupt Lieutenant's heart, Robert gleefully dueled with the Boss - after serval back and forth exchanges the knight found a opening and thrust his bastard sword deep into the abomination, putting and end to the encounter.

Finan turned out to be OK (getting KO'd seems to be his default state!), while Oswald was lightly injured and would be out of action for two turns.  Searching the area revealed six gold marks, a shield and some medicinal herbs, and a prisoner that was immediately released.

As Geoffrey prayed to his god to cleanse the stones, and scattered holy water liberally, the others kept their distance.  Even with the corrupted creatures dead, the stone emanated a sense of unease and dread.  Will turned to Jocelyn "Happy to let the priest deal with that thing, I ain't going near it.  He looked around him at the bodies of the corrupted creatures, "at least this lot won't be bothering anyone no more".  Thomas looked at the archer, "careful Will, I might almost imagine you're starting to care about people".  "Yeah, well"  Will mumbled "just don't go spreading rumours like that around, I've got a reputation to maintain".

Mortar this than meets the eye

So last weekend saw me sneak off to Boards and Swords in Derby for a day of gaming with Matt, starting out with a 2000 point pitched battle between my Empire and Matt's High Elves, using WFB 6th Edition.

I won't do a blow by blow or turn by turn account, but here are some edited highlights.  Rough army lists are further down, but broadly speaking I took an infantry list with some big state units, artillery and flagellants, whilst Matt had a mix of chariots, small infantry units, and eagles.

 

  

  

  

  

Empire forces arrayed for battle, with a lot of black powder weapons!

The battle really split quite neatly into three broad areas.  On my left, my artillery, supported by a pair of Engineers and a unit of handgunners, duked it out with an Eagle, Chariot and a unit of spear elves containing a mage.  A miscast on Matt's first turn saw the mage explode, taking out three of the spear elves, but miraculously leaving the mage unharmed (although I imagine his surviving neighbours shuffled away from the slightly smoking magic user).  Things exploding would turn out to be a theme of the day...

Further ignominy was heaped on the poor unit when my mortar dropped a shell right in the middle of them, wiping out a significant chunk of the remainder.  Again the Mage survived without a scratch.  This would prove to be significant, as my Long Rifle armed Engineer took a wound from him, which should have finished him off by rights, but of course wasn't enough on its own.  Matt's magic was on point otherwise - choosing law of life saw him able to turn the scenery against me, and I took more damage from trees than any of his shooting!

An attempt by one of Matt's eagles to take out my artillery was thwarted by the cannon crew and an Engineer wielding a repeating pistol.  One of his three chariots was more successful, overrunning the mortar before it could repeat it's success - only to then fall foul of the cannon, now free from the threat of the Death Chicken.

 

Polly want a face full of lead!

  

There used to be a mortar there! In the woods, handgunners flee after the mage (seen top left) turned the very trees on them! 

 

Bang, and the chariot is gone!

The remnants of the mortared spear elves attempted to take out the cannon (which had in the meantime managed a successful shot on another spear unit).  However a failed charge gave my crew time to wheel the heavy gun out of their charge arc, and open the opportunity for the remaining Engineer to let loose with his reloaded repeater pistol, finishing the unit off (the standard bearer fled, the only survivor).  Sadly another chariot sealed the fate of the cannon crew soon after.

   

Funnily enough, I didn't fire the cannon from this position...

Meanwhile, on my right, my unit of flagellants blocked the gap between hill and lake.  Over the course of the game, with a little help from a detachment of swordsmen and one handgunner (the last survivor of his detachment), managed to hold up an eagle, chariot and a large unit of White Lions led by a fully tooled up Lord - wiping out the eagle and chariot in the process.  They died to a man - so from their point of view it was a successful battle!

    

Matt and I seem to have a knack for complicated melees!

At the very end, the White Lions managed to break through, but too late to influence the battle in the centre, which was pretty much over by then, allowing my halberdiers and spearmen to reposition to another blocking position.

 

Turn 6 - too late!  

The Centre kicked off with a mass firing of handguns, which did... very little as it turned out.  

 

Well, it looked impressive!

My state unit's detachments took the brunt of the charges, and were largely wiped out in combat, fleeing, or through being attacked by angry forestry.  In hindsight I may have been better off fleeing with some of them and allowing the chariots and spear elves to break themselves on my large infantry units.  My spearmen saw off one unit of spear Elves, only to be broken in turn by a charge in the flank (but later rallying) by another unit of spears, who were themselves then destroyed.

 

  

  

 

You can see here that the swordsmen detachment chased off the chariot - next turn they would be obliterated by the woods next to them! 

Near the end of the game, Matt finally succeeded in casting 'Comet of Cassandora', which resulted in an unseemly scramble away from the centre by my remaining infantry.  despite building up to 4 tokens, the rock of doom never arrived - which was a stroke of luck for my spearmen and halberdiers, who were right in the danger zone at the game's end!

 

What's that big glowing thing in the sky sarge?

So how did things end up?  Although I felt like the game ended with me pretty much in control of the battlefield with some sizeable units, Matt actually had more victory points than me, although not enough to avoid the game being a draw.  In the end I had just sacrificed too many units: the artillery, Engineers, all my detachments and the flagellants (a very effective, but not cheap, speedbump).  Had Matt's mage taken a wound from that miscast or the mortar round, it all could have been very different - magic was the cause of a decent amount of my losses.

Thoughts?  With hindsight I should have protected by artillery better, perhaps with the unit of handgunners who got trounced by trees.  Blocking attacks by eagle and chariots would have depleted them pretty quickly, but it could have gained me an extra turn or two of shooting.

I don't regret not taking any magic users.  A couple of extra dispel dice probably wouldn't have made much difference.  Matt is convinced I should take warrior priest more often, but at 95 points unequipped, and most of their abilities unused against high elves (hatred of chaos for example), I remain unconvinced.  Whereas I wasn't too disappointed by the Engineers - the repeater handgun helped dispatch a giant eagle and a unit of spears, and the Long Rifle came within a hairs breadth of taking out a Mage.

I probably should have fled with my detachments more - their defeat was almost inevitable, giving away points, whereas they had a decent chance of rallying due to the presence of my general.

Did I really need infantry units that big (30 models)?  Maybe not - they ultimately didn't really get into combat much.  That said, there is a comfort in knowing they can take damage from shooting and magic, and still put up a decent combat resolution from ranks, outnumbering etc.  perhaps reduce them to units of 25 (and 20 for greatswords), and use the spare points for hunstmen or a small unit to protect the guns.

My list

30 Halberdiers, detachments of 10 handgunners and 10 swordsmen

30 Spearmen, , detachments of 10 handgunners and 10 swordsmen

10 Handgunners, marksman with Hochland Long Rifle

30 Greatswords, detachment of 10 handgunners

Cannon

Mortar

20 Flagellants

Elector Count, Captain with Battle Standard, Engineer with repeater pistol, Engineer with Hochland Long Rifle.

Matt's army

3 units of spears

1 unit White Lions

1 unit scouts

3 chariots

Bolt Thrower

2 eagles

Lord, Battle Standard, Mage