York At Sea

I have finally begun soloscaping and am enjoying it very much. I only played for about two weeks, perhaps twice a week, and then life seemed to get too busy. But you know, I missed it, and so I have gone back to it. It’s very relaxing- I forget about the pressures and stresses of the day and give my full attention to the battlefield.

Often when I intend to write a battle report I don’t end up doing it- it’s hard to get pictures because I kill cameras and I oft wonder if it’s even understandable, since my scaping has grown so far away from yours.

I am playing six factions on a battle board- actually only five now since the undead have been eliminated. They were the strongest for a while but everyone combined against them – nobody really likes the undead you see.

Ullar took over most of the undead’s point generating outposts and became the new great power. They also became the new great target. The game is split into three groups- Jandar and York in the North, Ullar and Rome in the center, and the dwarves to the south.

Ullar was being arrogant. (Imagine elves being arrogant!) They were also generating more points per turn than anyone else. The northern alliance tried to make treaties with Rome, who refused. So they moved against Rome, knowing full well that the real fight would be against Ullar.

True, Ullar had the most outposts, but that also meant that their forces were spread over a larger area. They had been investing in roads to speed up the movement of points from place to place, but it’s a rough land.

The terrain of each square on the map is decided by 20d, once it is explored. Ullar’s home base turned out to be a nice natural fortress, with water on two sides and thick forest on the other two. Rome was not so lucky, and fell quickly.

Last night was a battle in the war which seems will bring about Ullar’s demise.

York knew that time was against them- the longer they waited, the stronger Ullar became as it gathered it’s far flung armies. A York army of 290 points had entered the sea next to Ullar and was waiting for more troops, but Ullar had initiative and struck first. A combined Roman-Ullar army of 250 points attacked the York flotilla. The nearest York army built roads (which costs points) and quick marched (more points) and managed to join the fray, tilting the odds away from Ullar again. York now had 430 points to Ullar’s 250.

But this was to be a sea battle, and here York was disadvantaged. Their forces are historically based- lots of peasant archers, some pike man, and a few nobles on horse. The horseman, the strongest units, would likely not be included in the battle, as they’re mostly useless on ships, where ranges rules. York was going to have to buy boats with their points as well.

Ullar chose air power. Charos, Saylind, Atlaga and for mercenaries- Raelin. Did you know a major difference between my game and yours is that our flying units don’t have to land at the end of their turn? They can stay in the air forever. We call the Heroscape flying rules “hopping”. I guess if I’d been smarter I would have chosen the protectors of Ullar- more sky ranged power- but I was excited to use Charos and Saylind- the latter is a recent acquisition and I have never used him before.

York was not stupid either. They purchased three ships and equipped two with cannon and one with a mortar. The cannon have greater range but the mortar hits a larger space. I took extra archers and the whole expedition was captained by George of Clarence, an archer hero.

Ullar won initiative and flew onto the board. The York ships followed and the cannon pecked at Charos but he laughed off the shots. Ullar moved again, and Atlaga was in range. Saylind moved forward and summoned Charos, who then moved and engaged the ships.

York had a bad turn. The mortar misfired, killing one crew member. The two cannons also misfired, but no one was injured. Of course none of the enemy was injured either. The York archers fired at Charos and Raelin but did no damage. At this point I thought it looked pretty hopeless for York, even though they had more points. York had taken a dwarven gyrocopter as a mercenary and it entered the skies at this time but did not yet have range.

Ullar began killing. Atlaga took out another mortar man. Charos killed an archer. And Saylind and Raelin, flying and fighting back to back, descended to ship level and holed one of the York vessels.

As you can imagine, a hole is not a good thing. The ship begins to flood randomly, dice controlled, and when it is full of water, it sinks. We have rules for figures that swim in “deep water” but it’s mostly drowning....

But now York had a good turn. They wounded every single one of Ullar’s figures, using the two cannon and plenty of arrows. Honestly it was mostly luck. Some of the best archer attacks were only five dice on ten dice defense but sometimes the skulls just have their way, don’t they?

The holed York ship now only had one hex unfilled with water- it would sink the next turn. The Yorkies managed to pull next to another ship, move the cannon (worth fifty points!) and evacuate the remaining pikes.

And then it all fell apart for Ullar. Raelin dropped first, taking her defense bonus with her. Charos fell to an arrow. Saylind took a cannon ball in the gut. Atlaga held on the longest but the dwarf gyrocopter engaged him and he plummeted. York won.

Ullar lost their entire 250 point army, plus sixty-five mercenary points. Rome is effectively out of the game. All told York lost only 75 points. The way to Ullar’s lightly defended home base lays open; But honestly it will be a mostly psychological victory- it’s just one base of Ullar’s many.

I have recently become interested in felt mats. I don’t have one yet, but you can get a pretty big one with scape hexes printed on it. I think this would be perfect for our large sea battles. Now sometimes we use lexan sheets, which are small and awkward, and sometimes we just use land to be the sea and really they both work just fine, but still greedy me dreams of unrolling that big expanse of hexed blue water. What could be nicer than that?