New 1/15/11 - Raider30's battles from the basement...

[Raider30]

Greetings all,

This is my first attempt at a battle thread. Will try to post updated battles soon after they are completed. Comments and questions invited. Without further delay:

Battle 1:

I'm introducing my boys, both 8, to HeroScape. They are loving it and are just now learning the advanced rules. I'm not bothering with strategy or card synergy or anything like that with them. I'll point it out if it comes up but for now they are allowed to pick a 500pt. army and then we play. We do use special abilities, we just don't draft specifically for them if that makes sense. Here's the setup:

Map: Derelict
Army #1:
Dumutef - 25
Blade Gruts - 40 (65)
Khosumet the Darklord - 75 (140)
Anubian Wolves - 75 (215)
Deathwalker 9000 - 140 (355)
Werewolf Lord - 140 (495)

Army #2:
Isamu - 10
Fyorlag Spiders - 40 (50)
Izumi Samurai - 60 (110)
Tornak - 100 (210)
Elite Onyx Vipers - 100 (310)
Nilfheim - 185 (495)

They placed their units, rolled for initiative and the battle was on. We had time for 4 rounds before they had to head off to bed. Things move a bit slow initially as I have them read the abilities on each card when they go to move a unit for the first time. Needless to say the armies were chosen because the figures 'looked' cool, not necessarily for battle strength. However, they are quickly finding out that some abilities are really nifty.

Army #2 pulled off a double frenzy on Army#1 and managed to kill off Dumutef early in the 2nd round. Keep in mind here there is a lot of east/west movement going on and only a minimal amount of north/south engage the enemy movement.

Early engagements have gone to Army #2, based mostly on some outstanding dice rolls. Numerous times he's rolled all shields to thwart his brothers multi-skull rolls. But in the end so far there are relatively few casualties. Army #1 has lost Dumutef and 1 Anubian wolf. Army #2 has lost one EOV.

And that's where we left off last night. The middle of the field is becoming clogged with the few squad figures they have while the main Uniques are just hanging back not being used. Early indications are that Army #1 will try to make use of Werewolf Lord's ability to turn a unique hero from Army #2. Needless to say Army #2 has already questioned the fairness of such a play. Army #1 pointed out that Army #2 got to go 3 times in a row with his EOV and that pretty much shut up Army #2.

Thoughts on the eventual outcome?

Stay tuned as they are both pushing to be allowed to play again tonight and battle on.

- Raider30

[Matthias Maccabeus]

Good times!!

I'm glad they are getting into it so much! I love playing against my daughter and all the "girls" she picks out.


Army 1 has a little bit of synergy with Khosumet, Anubians, WL, and Dumutef.

Army 2 really has none.

I'll go with army 2 just because it had the only Jandar unit in it.

[Raider30]

Greetings,

The battle was allowed to continue this evening. The boys got in about an hour of play time and almost finished the game, but not quite, before it was off to bed. Here's the rundown:

Army #1 won initiative every single round.

This bummed out Army #2 who decided to take out his frustrations on Army #2 with Nilfheim blasting 3 of the Blade Gruts in a single turn using his special attack.

Unfortunately to attack the Gruts Army #2 had to move Nilfheim within range of the Werewolf Lord, who on the next turn promptly damaged Nilfheim making him a Hybrid for the rest of the game. This was pretty exciting for #1 who desperately wanted to take control of Nilfheim and use his special attack to blast the nearby samurai. Unfortunately he failed 4 times in a row to take over Nilfheim. He was left with normal attacks and eventually took down Nilfheim. His Werewolf Lord was sitting at only 1 life left though so it was a pretty decent battle.

Isamu made the mistake of walking up to a Blade Grut, talking some trash and then failing his roll to escape. Grut killed him quickly and painlessly. Some consolation was necessary to #2 as he really liked "the ninja guy." Felt better after I pointed out he still had 3 samurai on the battle field.

In the meantime #2 moved Tornak up into the fight, used some height to gain an extra attack dice and promptly removed Khosumet from the game with a great attack roll.

Other smaller skirmishes were occurring: #1 lost an Anubian Wolves to a Fyorlag Spider. Said spider was then squished by #1's Werewolf Lord.

#1 then rolled a '1' when he attempted to use his remaining Anubian Wolves unit and so ended the last of the Wolves.

Things weren't looking all that great for #1, he only had Werewolf Lord with a single life left and DeathWalker 9000 on the field....wait, Deathwalker9000? Where did he come from. Apparently #1 was so keen on using his Werewolf Lord to try to gain control of Nilfheim he forgot about his Deathwalker9000. Once he realized he still had DW9k to play with he promptly walked him into range and using his special attack blasted Tornak.

Tornak however, was right next to a Fyorlag Spider AND #1's last remaining Blade Grut. Wouldn't you know it - 3 skulls rolled for DW9K's special attack. Spider dead. Tornak had height still and rolled 3 shields, but the poor Grut, well he died a tragic death.

So right now left on the field is DW9K and Werewolf Lord for #1. #2 has 3 Samurai, Tornak, and 1 Fyorlag Spider.

I'm going to predict that #1 finishes off #2 with a flurry of DW9K attacks tomorrow night(assuming we get to play).

Comments/Thoughts?

- Raider30

[Raider30]

Greetings,

Well the conclusion to the big battle happened tonight and it was not exactly what I had expected.

It started off pretty good for #1, he won initiative and proceeded to wipe out one of the samurai left from #2's army with his Werewolf Lord.

#2 had a spectacular string of wiff's which let #1 continue to whittle down what was left of #2's army, killing the last 2 samurai and finally the Fyorlag spider.

What happened next was completely unexpected. With only Tornak left #2's luck did a total 180 degree turn. He first rolled enough shields to block DK9K's attack and then on his own turn rolled 3 skulls to attack DW9K. DW9K had 9 dice to throw and came up with *no* shields. Dead. Finished. I think I was as stunned as #2 was.

After that it came down to Werewolf lord with only 1 life left and Tornak with full health. #2 managed to get Tornak down to 1 life, but the tide had turned and Tornak killed the Werewolf Lord with ease.

They stood up, shook hands, said good game, and immediately asked me to tear down the map and build a new one so they can start playing again tomorrow with new armies.

All in all I'd say their first attempt at a 'real' scape game went pretty darn well.

- Raider30

[Shockma Ranyk]

Great reports, Raider30! Keep it up!

[Fen_Hydra]

Very nice reports.

[zing103]

More pages to bookmark it seems.... Keep it up

One suggestion though, include a pic of the map you guys are playing on in each report. Just so we know what it looks like.

[Raider30]

Greetings,

Thanks for the encouragement! I'm hoping it will be a bi-weekly thing(depending on school and other time limitations of course). I've already had a request from #1 for the next map to have a jungle theme. I do have one TJ set so if anyone has a good map that uses just one TJ feel free to suggest it.

- Raider30

[nyys]

This is a real good one IMO.



DOWNLOAD

[Raider30]

Originally Posted by zing103

More pages to bookmark it seems.... Keep it up

One suggestion though, include a pic of the map you guys are playing on in each report. Just so we know what it looks like.

Greetings,

Yes, good idea. Here is a link to the map Derelict by Jexix:

http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//derelictpic_v4x.jpg

I made one small modification in that I moved the battlements closest to the start zone one hex to the left. I wanted to give the boys an additional way to move out of the start zone without having to get stuck in the water for a turn. Also to encourage them to use both sides of the map rather than have them funnel their units through a single area and end up bunched up.

Hope this helps,

- Raider30

[zing103]

Thanks.

[Raider30]

Greetings,

The basement was again aflame with war last night as Matthias, Omahavice and Matthias's buddy K came over yesterday for some gaming fun.

I say aflame because that is an appropriate adjective to describe what happened to my American Werewolf in Iowa army when K destroyed it in a torrent of fireballs with an elven army hand picked by Matthias.

K had never played HS before so he and I sat down to battle while Matthias and Omahavice played Claustrophobia. Matthias picked him an elven wizard army and gave him the basic lowdown on how the game worked and sat beside him most of the first game giving advice.

I was playing an army made of Anubian Wolves x3, Wolves of Badru, Dumutef Guard x2, and Werewolf Lord. The other option was to put in Khosumet instead of the WL. But given the synergy of the elven army it was thought the WL could mess some of that up by biting the unique heroes and changing their class to hybrid. At least that was the theory....in practice on the other hand...

Map: http://www.heroscapers.com/community...o=file&id=1375

Game 1 started off fairly well for me. I won initiative. Then things took a turn for the worse. I started off not placing my OM's correctly. I needed to get the WL out and running fast, but foolishly put only OM's 1 and 2 on the Wolves of Badru(bond with WL). Thus when he ran out of movement he was still several hexes away from the elven army, who proceeded to begin to blast him with fireballs. He was almost dead before he even began. Though I did manage to land one hit and change an elf to hybrid it didn't make much difference in the long run.

Under Matthias's guidance K moved his elves up to set up a screen and reinforce each other. I had to try to rush my Anubian Wolves up to them, but not being totally familiar with all the units in HS I left one group clustered together and K promptly fireballed it and wiped out 2 of the 3 units, with the 3rd being picked off by another elf moments later. A few turns later, I consciously attempted to avoid making the same dumb mistake and rather than move my units through the center of the map tried an end rush down the right side. Unfortunately I still made the same mistake and left them in a cluster at the end of my turn.(I *knew* to not cluster them in the center but once my focus was off the center it was like I totally forgot that little piece of information) K launched another fireball and wiped out all 3 this time.

The dumutef guards were really kind of useless on this map as there were no roads and I couldn't get them up with the Anubian Wolves because of the use of that fireball ability. Basically I just got picked apart. I will say that K was rolling *very* well which didn't exactly help me. Bottom line - K had a scorched earth policy and burned everything in site. I think I killed 1 elf that entire match.

Game 2: More of the same. Started off better getting my WL down the field quickly this time and biting one of the elves and disrupting them a little bit. But again some good rolls on K's part and the WL dropped at the beginning of Round 2. However, I did manage to wound the elf that was dropping fireballs on me in game 1. At that point I just rushed my wolves of Badru and pounced a couple of times and managed to kill her off. Which meant I could finally move my Anubian's down the field and attack. I ended up rolling a 20 at one point and had 9 attack dice to roll for 2 attacks. First roll ended up with 5 skulls, not bad, put 4 wounds on the elf. Second roll - 1 flippin' skull, elf defended.(Yes Matthias I'm still bitter about that roll!) Hard not to feel as though that was a total waste ya know?

Once again the Dumutef guards were kind of useless. Given the range of his elves and their movements I didn't feel as though I could spend the time marching up the guards just to give the wolves 1 extra attack dice. With their life of 1 and even though they have 4 def, K was rolling too well and I just figured they'd be destroyed before they could get anywhere. So I focused on rushing the Anubians and hoping for some good d20 rolls to boost their attack. 3 turns in a row I rolled between 2-6 giving them a measly +1 to attack. Needless to say I wasn't able to do much with that.

In the long run I knocked out 3-4 of his heroes but he was able to take me down again.

I really enjoy playing and don't really mind losing as I learn from each loss. I make a lot of mistakes and consider it a small victory if I don't end up repeating them(or at least repeating them consistently, heh).

Anyway, it was a blast and we played some other games but I'm sure Matthias will talk about that over in the board games folder.

Thoughts, questions, comments welcome!

Merry Christmas!

- Raider30