Kong vs The Uruk Hai

Catherine and I played another game of BattleSworn this afternoon. It moved a lot faster than the previous one, as we barely had to look anything up. We originally limited the game to ten bidding rounds, with the winner being the one who had inflicted the most casualties at the end of that time, but decided half-way through to go for a random end - at the end of the tenth round, and each round thereafter, we would roll a D6, and on a 4+ the game would end. This prevented the famous 'last turn' syndrome, where people do silly things because they know that there's nothing to lose.

We tried some  troop classes we hadn't used before in this game - a Healer and some Arquebusiers. We still don't quite feel confident enough to try magic yet. We may slip a Warmage into the next game, though.

I had a force of Uruk Hai:

4 Uruk Hai with pikes (Fighters)
2 Uruk Hai with crossbow (Arquebusiers)
1 Berserker (Tank/Brute)
4 Armoured Uruk Hai (Tanks)

Catherine used my Politically Incorrect Pygmies (old Citadel figures), assisted by the King of Skull Island, Kong.

4 Warriors (Fighters)
1 Brute (Chief)
1 Witchdoctor (Healer)
2 Blowpipe Hunters (Rogue/Shooters)
KONG! (Brute/Tank)

As you can see, both Kong and the Beserker were the same in game terms, despite the figures' radically different on-table footprint.

I'm not really into games where you put screens down the middle of the table, so we came up with an alternative method of deployment, based on HOTT. We both rolled a D6 and the highest roller selected the terrain. The other player numbered two adjacent edges 1-2 and 3-4 and the other two 5 and 6, then diced to see which one they got. Once board edges were determined we alternated setting up figures - we rolled dice, and the lowest roller set up that many figures on their board-edge. We kept doing that until all figures were deployed.

And here's the setup we got:

Catherine got her blowpipe users into a good position in the centre.

I moved up some Uruk Hai to engage them.

When I charged she managed to take one down with one shot.

The other Fighter ended up locked in combat with the pygmy, and soon Kong came up in support.

The Uruk Hai tried to use crossbows to bring down Kong, but to no avail. And soon they were themselves under attack by pygmy warriors.

The Uruk Hai berserker moved up to defy Kong.

Charge!

Splat! Without even breaking a sweat, King smashed him into the ground (Catherine did a six dice attack and rolled five hits).

The Uruk Hai were moving their armoured warriors up on the other flank, but the pygmies held them off. On turn 10 the game ended.

Casualties. The Uruk Hai had lost four figures, whilst the Pygmies had lost only their chief, slain by a crossbowman in the woods.

The Healer never got used. Catherine moved him into position to heal a pygmy on red, but the game ended before she got chance. The Arquebusiers got off one shot each, with no effect, and I never had the initiative to reload. Otherwise everything performed as expected. Catherine had good combat die rolls, and some of mine were truly appalling - more than once I inflicted no hits with five or six dice. The Shooter/Rogues were great; a combination I will have to try myself. And one problem with playing a bidding game against someone to whom you have been married for over 20 years is that you tend to think the same. We had an awful lot of drawn melees through us both selecting the same number. we both need to play someone less predictable in future ...