No No, Normans

Recently I actually had a little time to play a game. I decided to pull out Battles of Medieval Britain.

The Campaign

I'm in the midst of a campaign to play all the scenarios from start to finish. So far I am 0-3.

Today's Battle

Today's battle is Hastings. It's ironic because I just posted a Hastings-inspired LARP scenario on my LARP blog.

Set Up

The first picture shows the initial set up.

• Normans (red) - 1 unit of knights, 1 of archers, and 4 warriors
• Saxons (blue) - 4 units of spears, 4 of warriors, and King Harold in the red hex (top right)

I play the Normans. My objective is to kill Harold.

The Battle

On the very first turn the Normans lose their knights.

The archers take out a unit of Saxon spears.

Then disaster strikes. The Normans eliminate a unit of Saxon warriors but they lose THREE units.

Shortly followed by another unit.

The last remaining Norman unit piddles around for a few turns before a failed attack.

The day ends. Harold was never even threatened. A decisive Norman defeat!

Still No Action

On the tabletop front, that is.

I've been doing prep work for the next season of our LARP. As a result, I haven't had much gaming time.

I visited another group's practice last Saturday. I got some photos to use for a recruiting flyer. I'm in the last picture.

A Ghoulish Feast

Game Background

I actually had time for a game last weekend! 

I toyed with playing the final battle of my Revolution in Florida campaign but I am still in a fantasy mood. I've been planning scenarios for the next season of my LARP campaign and I thought about running one of those scenarios on the tabletop. However, I don't want to spoil anything in case my players see this post. So I decided to borrow a scenario from last season.

Set Up

The Dark Magi are on the move. The Legion has sent a scouting party out to find the enemy.

Combatants:

• Empire - Optio Infelix (gray meeple) leads 4 legionaries (red).
• Infelix wears heavy armor (save 4+) while the legionary scouts have light (save 5+).
• Infelix can take 3 hits and the legionaries can take 2.
• Dark Magi - a necromancer (black) leads 6 ghuuls (green. They are essentially zombies)
• Ghuuls save like they have heavy armor, which reflects their ability to absorb damage. However, they move slowly and are more likely not to activate in a turn (they need 3+)
• The necromancer has light armor. He can either cast a spell, which works like a ranged attack, or respawn a zombie.
• Ghuuls can only take 1 hit (they're minions after all) but the necromancer can take 3.

The mission: The scouting party must kill the necromancer.

I played the scenario using a skirmish variant of my MicroBattle rules.

The Skirmish

Infelix leads his squad onto the field of battle. They spot some ghuuls.

Legionary Escamus goes berserk, breaks discipline, and rushes a ghuul. It knocks him down then devours him..

The rest of the squad engages. Another legionary is wounded.

Note: I did not have wound markers handy so I put wounded figures on their side.

Infelix cuts down a ghuul. He then rushes the necromancer. Meanwhile, another legionary is wounded.

A ghuul intercepts Infelix while the necromancer backs off. The wounded legionaries perish while the remaining legionary takes a wound.

Seeing that the day is lost, Infelix calls for a retreat.

But the ghuuls catch up to legionary Postremus and slay him.

Infelix flees. His mission is an abject failure.

Thoughts

Not the result I wanted, but it was still a fun skirmish. It's good to be back gaming.