Another game of Vanguard, again against Merlin. This time he travelled down to mine and the intention was to play a couple of games of Vanguard, and use the results to inform a Kings of War battle in spring. Since we had played the first scenario last time we opted for 2 and 3, 'light the beacon' and 'rescue the princess'. In fact we spent so long chatting and took so long to play, that that princess never got on the table, let alone rescued.
Elves lurk in the woods, eyes peeled for returning orcs.
The elves 'volunteered' to guard the beacon. Clearly everyone else took a step back.
The bulk of the orc force.
Orcs sneaking through the bizarre foliage.
The orcs attempting to surprise the elves by swinging wide behind the huts.
The elven spears are joined by their prince, ready to take on the troll, hopefully just out of charge range.
The Gore Rider scrap, the fence hindered me here, but ultimately the addition of two Greataxes and an Ax equalled the subtraction of two elves. (Who says Orcs can't do maths?)
In the end, despite the orcs trouncing most of the elves, they were unable to light the beacon in time. At the end of turn five, with only a couple of elves left we rolled for a further turn. Sadly the game was over, and the elf wizard had positioned herself next to the beacon, preventing the orcs lighting it.
The up and coming battle would be that much harder as some of the orc forces would be delayed.
A highlight for me was the elf prince shooting with his longbow from just outside the troll's charge range, only for the Godspeaker to use Green Rage to move the troll forward into range, who was then activated and charged the poor prince. The small party of Ax and Skulk on my right flank kept several elves occupied for the first half of the battle. Merlin, however, showed a greater focus on the objective and kept at least one elf in contact with the beacon at all times so I never got the opportunity to even try and light it.
Another fun game, though we are still getting to grips with the fine details. Last game Merlin had much better dice luck than me, this time I more than made up for it, at one point getting seven hits from an initial roll of 3D8!
I'm looking forward to playing the KoW battle after this, Merlin can delay some of my units as they didn't get the message in time.
It was a fun game and your crafty move with the troll was possibly the main deciding move of the game. Once my poor old Prince had been squished, the loss of power really hurt the elves.
ReplyDeleteIt was indeed great fun. Using Green Rage to Walk the troll forward, then Power to activate him to charge the Prince was fun (for me). Don't forget that by that stage the troll had three wounds (though he later regenerated) and was potentially very vulnerable.
DeleteAgain, remember that your better grasp of the objective won you the game. I was the one who foolishly charged in, though you had defended the beacon so well that I doubt holding off another turn would have helped me.