The Setup (skip this if you just want to read about the battle 
)
I had played plenty of 400-500 point games with my two friends this summer. [I'm a recent college grad. One of the guys who also just graduated got me my master set for my birthday in July; let's call him Bill. The other guy has one year left; let's call him Tom. Tom and I have been playing all manner of games against each other since we were 10, and we seem pretty evenly matched in most of them.]
After a local store had a sale that was still too hard to resist, I ran and picked up my first 2 sets of Romans and was eager to try them out. Forsaken Waters and the other official Hasbro scenarios had proved to be lots of fun, but tonight I wanted to try something different. I called up Tom and brought up the idea of trying out a 500 point game on one of the Gencon tournament maps.
The Map and Armies
We went with Island Conflict by Rychean and Funrun. It seemed like a good one, and proved to be rather fun to play. I told him what army I was using and he set about making as typical and effective a tournament army as we could with what I've got.
My army:
Marcus
2x Roman Legionaires
2x 4th. Mass
Airborne Elite
Me-Burq-Sa
I had decided to try out 4th Massachussets in a Roman army because the prospect of Waiting and Firing with 4 dice (thanks to Marcus or 5 from height) seemed like something that I should try. It would also make up for the general lack of range I'd have if I had NGS or something else instead. I was also curious to see how they'd do in a non-valiant army.
Tom's army:
Major Q9
Braxas
2x Deathreavers
Swog Rider (Bill's the one who owns Guilty McFiller.)
The Game
I started in the East starting zone, with Tom in the West. The Glyph in the middle was Lodin, which wasn't interesting enough for either of us to try too hard to keep it.
Round 1 and early Round 2 was mostly spent fortifying positions on opposite sides of the little lake in the middle. I sent some 4th Mass, MBS, 4 Romans and Marcus toward the southern hill on my side, and Tom got Q9 on top of his hill, and moved Braxas and some Deathreavers up menacingly.
At the start of Round 2, my Airborne dropped. I put 1 behind the SW ruin, and the other 3 foolishly by the NE ruin. I later moved 3 Minutemen and 4 Romans to support those 3 Airborne.
Braxas charged forward and quickly pointed out that 2 of my Airborne in the north had forgotten to properly secure their gasmasks. The minutement returned fire, and in two back-to-back turns [the last of round 2 and first of round 3] they had managed to score 7 wounds on Braxas. She beat a hasty retreat, but the gunmen hounded her, and killed her as she stood behind Q9.
While my soldiers on the northern side threw themselves at Q9 over the coming turns (eventually causing 2 wounds before dying), MBS slowly chipped away at the Deathreavers, killing 2 or 3.
After a bit of cat mouse (including the Swog Rider charging forward to engage my MBS, only to get shot immediately), Q9 grew tired of only picking off one squad member a turn and charged forward brazenly. He mowed down my Minutemen as if they were wearing paper armor.
Q9's arrogance proved to be his downfall however, and (from height), Me-Burq-Sa scored a 4-Skull roll. Q9 only rolled one shield.
BOOM!
After about 5 vicious rounds of combat, I was left with one lone Roman Legionaire, and two unwounded Warlords. Tom had 5 Deathreavers. I thought my victory was all but assured.
This time it was my turn to underestimate Tom.
The deathreavers killed everything.
I had stupidly left Marcus on low ground, and he was eaten alive. They never seemed to want to make eye contact with Me-Burq-Sa either, and every time they rolled, they'd get at least one skull, and MBS would have no shields.
I lost. Tom had 3 Deathreavers left.
It's probably worth mentioning that Tom used to play Skaven, and never seemed to lose.
)I had played plenty of 400-500 point games with my two friends this summer. [I'm a recent college grad. One of the guys who also just graduated got me my master set for my birthday in July; let's call him Bill. The other guy has one year left; let's call him Tom. Tom and I have been playing all manner of games against each other since we were 10, and we seem pretty evenly matched in most of them.]
After a local store had a sale that was still too hard to resist, I ran and picked up my first 2 sets of Romans and was eager to try them out. Forsaken Waters and the other official Hasbro scenarios had proved to be lots of fun, but tonight I wanted to try something different. I called up Tom and brought up the idea of trying out a 500 point game on one of the Gencon tournament maps.
The Map and Armies
We went with Island Conflict by Rychean and Funrun. It seemed like a good one, and proved to be rather fun to play. I told him what army I was using and he set about making as typical and effective a tournament army as we could with what I've got.
My army:
Marcus
2x Roman Legionaires
2x 4th. Mass
Airborne Elite
Me-Burq-Sa
I had decided to try out 4th Massachussets in a Roman army because the prospect of Waiting and Firing with 4 dice (thanks to Marcus or 5 from height) seemed like something that I should try. It would also make up for the general lack of range I'd have if I had NGS or something else instead. I was also curious to see how they'd do in a non-valiant army.
Tom's army:
Major Q9
Braxas
2x Deathreavers
Swog Rider (Bill's the one who owns Guilty McFiller.)
The Game
I started in the East starting zone, with Tom in the West. The Glyph in the middle was Lodin, which wasn't interesting enough for either of us to try too hard to keep it.
Round 1 and early Round 2 was mostly spent fortifying positions on opposite sides of the little lake in the middle. I sent some 4th Mass, MBS, 4 Romans and Marcus toward the southern hill on my side, and Tom got Q9 on top of his hill, and moved Braxas and some Deathreavers up menacingly.
At the start of Round 2, my Airborne dropped. I put 1 behind the SW ruin, and the other 3 foolishly by the NE ruin. I later moved 3 Minutemen and 4 Romans to support those 3 Airborne.
Braxas charged forward and quickly pointed out that 2 of my Airborne in the north had forgotten to properly secure their gasmasks. The minutement returned fire, and in two back-to-back turns [the last of round 2 and first of round 3] they had managed to score 7 wounds on Braxas. She beat a hasty retreat, but the gunmen hounded her, and killed her as she stood behind Q9.
While my soldiers on the northern side threw themselves at Q9 over the coming turns (eventually causing 2 wounds before dying), MBS slowly chipped away at the Deathreavers, killing 2 or 3.
After a bit of cat mouse (including the Swog Rider charging forward to engage my MBS, only to get shot immediately), Q9 grew tired of only picking off one squad member a turn and charged forward brazenly. He mowed down my Minutemen as if they were wearing paper armor.
Q9's arrogance proved to be his downfall however, and (from height), Me-Burq-Sa scored a 4-Skull roll. Q9 only rolled one shield.
BOOM!
After about 5 vicious rounds of combat, I was left with one lone Roman Legionaire, and two unwounded Warlords. Tom had 5 Deathreavers. I thought my victory was all but assured.
This time it was my turn to underestimate Tom.
The deathreavers killed everything.
I had stupidly left Marcus on low ground, and he was eaten alive. They never seemed to want to make eye contact with Me-Burq-Sa either, and every time they rolled, they'd get at least one skull, and MBS would have no shields.
I lost. Tom had 3 Deathreavers left.
It's probably worth mentioning that Tom used to play Skaven, and never seemed to lose.
Wow. I would have never seen that coming. My brother would have given up only having Deathreavers.