Gnomes Of Fire

We’ve always got some kind of scape gaming going. Right now we have two big long term games and a challenge. We’re really into the challenge partly because it’s a break from the big games, which can take months and months.

The challenge is simple. Two 1200 point armies try to win either by conquest or by simultaneously standing on 3/4 meaningless glyphs on a large playing field.

I have to say that playing with my two sons is amazing. They’re both good sports, good spirits and good players. I often feel that I’m the weakest among the three. They’re old now, with part time jobs and school but we’re all playing together again and that’s wonderful. It’s treasure.

The winner of the challenge gets to be the 1200 point army in the next game. The two losers are on the same team and each field 600 points. If the losers win they have to choose who’ll be the 1200 point player. My middle son was just unseated after winning five games in a row, and they let me be the 1200 player. Woo hoo!

Our scape is different than your scape. That’s a sad and lonely thing, but that’s what’s happened. We have mostly customs and our home rules have evolved over the decade or so we’ve been playing. On your turn you get to move your entire army, then your entire army attacks. We’ve revamped our magic systems into fifteen different schools so there’s a lot to think about on your turn.

We long ago had to divide up the generals’ factions into more groups. We now have more than thirty factions. For this challenge, I chose Jandar.

My sons usually scoff at Jandar. They’re like the Griffindor of Scape. My one son likes heavy melees, while my other son usually chooses a variety of crack troops. I tend to like ranged squadies; they don’t usually fare well against heavy melees and crack troops. But this time I had two Jandar mages to help me.

Ruby Jemsparkle and Bartholomew (Barty) Silverhair are gnome mages. I don’t usually like small figures; but I’m attached to this pair. Rumour has it that they’re romantically involved too. For this game, Ruby was a fire mage and Barty was a divine mage.

My eldest son took an army from our Chaos faction- beastmen, minotaurs and other monsters that like to kill things. My middle son once again selected an army of Delaine. They’re a highly skilled professional medieval army supposedly in the service of some god, but in reality they’re just being manipulated because their whole religion is a scam. (my opinion- my son will no doubt disagree. How did our figures end up with so much back story?)

The armies took up their positions across the field. My eldest son suggested that they ignore the victory conditions (standing on the glyphs) and just go for the slaughter.

Nervously, I took my first couple turns. My sons’ forces were in headlong charge. Ruby began casting spells, make a line of lava across the board. My three squads of the 4th Mass were lining up behind it, backed by some WW2 snipers and Drake Alexander. The Sentinels of Jandar stood on the two glyphs on my side of the field. We waited.

The lava line inconvenienced their bestial charge, which was fine with me because it gave me more time to shoot. The Delaine mage teleported a group of minotaurs and beastmen in amongst the 4th Mass. We took a few casualties but my melees took them out and the 4th Mass kept firing.

All this time my sons were confident they were going to win, even though very few of their troops were making it through. There were a couple ponds and water spots on the board and they were funnelling their troops through them, meaning they weren’t getting a good hit on me. If it had been reality the 4th Mass would have run out of ammo. They kept firing.

I had a handful of melee heroes who were meat shielding the 4th Mass, and eventually the enemy horde did break through. It took a while, and it often seemed very close, but eventually my relentless attacks took their toll. When they finally surrendered they had only five melee fighters left. I had five 4th Mass and a bunch of melee heroes, plus my two mages, though they’d used up all of their magic.

My sons were stunned. Generally they beat me. They’re better at strategy. The think my simple weak squad armies are sad. But last night I won.

I’m sure you’ve had some games that were a pleasure to play. Last night was exhausting. When the game was done I was wiped. I’d poured everything into that game, tried my best, was white-knuckled on every turn. Did I enjoy it? Yes, but it was one heck of fight....