Looks like my hardly ever used Sauron eye rule book with its expensive tabs is soon to be out of date ! Also all the sourcebooks.
Never mind I guess that having new content and new figures will be worth it in the end. Probably need to print up some more Rohan terrain I suppose . Lords of the Rohirrim . Surely the box set cannot include all the old figures !? Those sculpts are quite out of date and I have a lot of Rohan .
At least if the rumours are true the special weapon strikes they I never really liked will be going at least for warriors. Seemed very gamey and served to slow the flow of combat down for no good reason .
Both sides deployed as instructed. Elves as a shield wall with rangers to the side. Evil as a block broken with spiders in the centre and archers and wargs to the flanks.
For the early moves the elves generally held their ground or made just half moves in the hope of causing hits from archery. The evil side advanced with the faster troops such as beasts taking the lead.
Archery was very poor. In one round no hits were scored and the evil force generally moved forwards as with elven cloaks the rangers were hidden.
Eventually the lines clashed. The rangers on the left were decimated but Tauriel and her rangers fought well and survived the whole battle.
The spiders advanced ahead of the Orcs and fared poorly but did a good job of draining the elven captains of their fate with their spider webs that can cause paralysis. They were weak in battle though and the Spider Queen herself was dispatched by Thranduil.
At this point though the orc shaman with just one will point left having cast channeled fury already rolled a six on transfix on Thranduil. With three will he failed to resist. Then the orc leader closed and attacked him . He used heroic strike to aid achieving maximum in the fight. Razgush beat Thranduil and with hatred of elves and his mighty blows was able to kill Thranduil.
From this point the battle appeared lost as the flanks closed in.
So another victory for evil in this campaign. The Hatred Elf rule for all evil models in this fight really hurt the elves. Also being outnumbered made it difficult to know what to do other than try shooting at the oncoming horde but that proved less effective. Being able to re roll ones was not so effective and elves mainly have strength 3 so find it hard to wound and orcs are very easily replaced any way . The spiders and fell beasts died easily but when they managed to win could be deadly.
Perhaps if Thranduil had not suffered the Transfix he could have held off Razgush for another turn but it does seem quite a one sided scenario. Maybe he needed better tactics.!
We played the first stand alone scenario in the Bayou. We ran out of time making it half way before we had to stop! Was a good game but took a long time to get my character Jenny geared up enough to do anything except hand out whiskey.
This is a card driven game about officers in Napoleon’s armies starting with the Revolution until the restoration.
Was lots of fun with Mike spending most of his time in Reserve beating up peasants or watching nobles including the King being executed. when he was not out of hospital recovering from wounds sustained in duels or guard duty .
Phil Darryl and Bruce were involved in various wars and campaigns across Europe. Low Countries and Italy being noted by napoleon. The latter two grabbing plenty of loot on the process .
By the end all had reached sub lieutenant at least and Phil made it to full rank .
So reviewing the FB group and re-reading the rules I worked out a few errors/ things I got right.
1 Bring all supports into the combat even those facing off.
2 Columns use 1CD not inferior volley (that was GdA1).
3 I was correct in that skirmishers screening infantry against artillery will be the target for them once within 20cm (with cannister bounce through). However when the columns charge through them of course the artillery shoot the columns in the combat phase.
I also determined the unit size for infantry I shall use in future. 4 bases of 40mm or 6 of 30mm for standard and add an extra rank in column for large. Cavalry I will think more on: 3 or 4 for standard sized. 40mm.
I do like GdA2. I am thinking about making some skirmisher sabot bases next. Maybe paint up some more Austrians! I found some bags hidden in a box.
Tried out my group again on GDA this time with the latest version 2 . We used the scenario from WSS Magazine. This is about the Bavarians defending Neumarkt against an invading force of Austrians. The Austrians are hampered heavily by the terrain which consists of woods as they arrive a long the roads.
Set out my forces with larger unit sizes . This looked good but I ran out of Austrian troops as I had expected some losses in the earlier turns but in fact the Austrians hardly moved at all .
The game began with the Austrian main force failing to move at all for the first three turns . The defending Bavarians were deployed holding the hills and the villages so hardly needed to move . In the centre the Austrians skirmished against the Bavarians holding the main village .
As the Austrians arrived to the west they attempted to drive off the enemy cavalry but in fact were forced to retire behind their own infantry squares . Allowing the Bavarians defending cavalry to advance beyond the half way line did seem to mess up the scenario a little as the Austrians needed to march on to the map from the road in the face of cavalry which I do t think I as meant . I allowed them to move and change formations a bit otherwise they could never get on .
In the centre the Austrians advanced rapidly eventually with a forward move . This allowed the Bavarian artillery on the hill to inflict casualties on them . The Bavarian artillery were somewhat frustrated by having to fire canister against the skirmish screen rather than at the troops behind . Was not sure what to do there really .
The Austrian infantry finally charged against the Bavarian artillery and drive them off . To the far right the Austrian infantry were happy to sit in the woods and await their own artillery to drive off the Bavarian guns . Their skirmishers engaged each other on the edge of the woods .
At this point at about turn six with the arrival of Bavarian reinforcements we ended the game early as it was very late . This was a much larger and longer scenario than I had expected!!
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