For this game I raised the armies up to 1.000 points and introduced cavalry. The civilised cities (Romans) sent a punitive party to show the raiders a lesson from their previous failed attack. Attackers had 2 units of 20 spears each, 1 unit of 10 archers and 1 unit of 10 cavalry for 1.090 points. Raiders (Chaos) had 2 units of 20 soldiers each, 1 unit of 10 wolves, 1 unit of 5 heavy cavalry and 1 level 3 spellcaster with the general spell Fireball and the human spells Blade Mastery (+1 fighting to a unit) and Mud (rough ground) to delay the attackers, for 1.074 points.
On the left the civilised cities army and on the right the barbarians defending. The scenario forces the defender two deploy two units in the centre, so I deployed 1 unit of soldiers and the spellcaster behind them.
On the first turn only one unit of the attackers and two from the defenders activated! The sorcerer could cast Blade Mastery on the unit in front of him.
Attackers quickly pushed in the middle and charged. They successfully defeated the enemy in combat by inflicting more casualties and leaving them disordered.
The spears on the right advanced a little next to the wood, to cover the flank of the fighting unit in the centre who had already pushed back its enemy six inches backwards; the enemy wolves also positioning themselves for a flank attack. Down on the right the cavalry got higher ground; but enemy heavy cavalry was already facing them to support their soldiers defending the "mouse" oathmark.
The push in the centre continued and...
when the defending soldiers were forced again to fall backwards, they collided with their heavy cavalry allies. Now the rulebook states that for these cases, the collisioned unit must always move backwards as much as it needs to make way for the retreating one. I think in this case it would have been more sensible to step half inch forward to make them room, but I followed the rules and moved them backwards up to the other extreme, putting them in a very bad spot.
The spellcaster casted a fireball and killed one cavarly man, so I moved them behind the hill to avoid more fireballs (I could not charge down the hill as they failed their activation). You can also see behind how the defending heavy cavalry manoeuvering again in the middle to reach the attacking enemy cavalry on the hill at the bottom.
On the next turn, defending side activated first and charged cavalry, thus negating them the +3 bonus in charge for melee; but even so they couldn't hurt much them due to their high defensive value (12).
In the centre of the battlefield the attacking spears unit got the opportunity to destroy the oathmark, but miserably failed its activation. Meanwhile, tired of waiting for the wolves to charge, the other spears unit charged them instead.
The defending unit could not shake off disorder but a Fireball from the magician behind killed two more enemy spears.
Seeing the enemy cavalry already in trouble and engaged with the soldiers, the heavy cavarly turned towards the enemy in the centre who was about to destroy the oathmark, but then the attacking cavalry shaked off the enemy infantry and charged them from behind!
In the melee there were one heavy cavarly and two cavalry casualties in total. Then the defending soldiers moved behind the eneny cavalry and got them trapped.
Attacking cavalry turned to face their enemy at their backs, and then the archers fired at the enemy heavy cavalry but all the arrows bounced back. After that, the heavy cavarly flank charged the enemy spears in the centre who used Shielding and Brace to minimise the impact.
Right on turn eight the spears on the left managed to reach the pink oathmark and destroy it, atfer massacring the wolves, but this did not stop the attackers to loose the match as they neeeded to destroy two oathmarks to win in eight turns. They could have won if they would have destroyed the oathmark in the centre of the battlefield when they got the opportunity, but failed that activation.
After every turn and every activation, the game offers you a lot of decision making and it is bloody fun! I am still learning to use the cavarly properly but I would say they rule the battlefield; their +3 to charge as well as their armour (12 or 13) make them a fearsome opponent.
Also, I didn't have time to cast all the spells the wirzard had as he failed activation and spellcasting on a couple of times, so I don't know up to what point it would be useful to deploy a level 5 spellcaster as they are not precisely cheap.
I can't hardly wait to have another go with bigger armies (I'm frantically painting) and a different scenario (there are six to try).
It certainly sounds like you are getting on well with Oathmark! It sounds like there are parts of it that remind me of Warhammer's earlier editions (like being able to push units back). How are you finding the activation system? I'm not that keen on rolling for activation - a bad set of rolls can leave you doing nothing much, but there might be more to it than that?
ReplyDeleteIt clearly gets similarities to WHF like casualty removal for example, but the activation on units is a new thing and very well thought one I would say. Also, units always move or do something, even if they don't pass the activation roll. Basically, units have two actions and when they don't activate they have only one.
ReplyDeleteIn a battle it is very important which unit must activate first or before another, as when the opponent charges one of your units, that one is considered activated for that turn.
cheers
Thanks, that's really helpful :-) I may have to add it to the future purchase pile. I was already interested by its approach to using whatever you have, and creating a kingdom.
DeleteYou´re most welcome my friend :)
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