Fjord Racing

Last night was our final normal club-meeting of the year, so as is traditional we played a single large game. Because our these of the week was Naval, Ralph came up with the idea of playing Fjord Serpents. But we did something a little different - a race rather than a straight battle.

Each player had one fully-crewed ship, either a small but nimble karvi or a large (but slightly faster) snekkja. Because they are slightly faster the snekkja started further back.

The goal was to race down the fjord, round the buoy (blue marker) and then head back to the finish-line. The winner would get 3 treasure, second-place 2 and third-place 1. But scattered around the terrain pieces and shoreline was more treasure, so a ship could win by going slow and collecting treasure before finishing. Or stealing treasure from another ship.

It all looked pretty straightforward, but the area we were sailing in was, shall we say, somewhat constricted, and it was obvious that there wasn't going to be room for everyone without some conflict.

And they're off!

This snekkja with the green and white checked sails was mine. I got to start close to the shore, so didn't have to worry as much about a possible scrum in the centre.

Daniel (blue stripes) and Ralph (red stripes) moved ahead with their karvis. But Daniel collided with Ralph and we had teh first damage of the game. In Ralph's case it was considerable.

Five ships sailed to avoid a log-jam in the fjord by going through the main channel. Other Daniel (red sail karvi) and I went through the gap. Other Daniel ran inshore to collect some treasure. He had decided to focus on the race, not other ships.

Craig's snekkja headed along the other shoreline and collided with Ralph's ship, sinking it. We were now down to six competitors.

Caesar's ship (white sail) broke through into a lead. Behind him you can see Other Daniels ship against the shore, and mine against the log-jam, both collecting treasure. 

Here I am, stocking up on loot. The idea was that we didn't have to win the race if we could collect lots of stuff first.

And this is why it wasn't worth getting too far ahead in the race - as Caesar rounded the buoy one way, Craig was rounding it the other and there was a collision.

Collisions in Fjord Serpents can do a lot of damage to both ships. And you can see Daniel and Keegan's ships heading towards Caesar's intent on doing as much as possible.

Aerial view. Caesar and Craig were locked in a boarding action, whilst at the bottom of the picture Other Daniel was on the move. His plan was to go past the buoy and come back in through the gap in the two islands, hoping that, by then, all the other ships would have sunk each other.

Another shot of my ship and its heroic crew.

And here it is deliberately colliding with Keegan's ship. Which sank. Mind you, it left my ship pretty beaten up as well.

Yes, my plan was to go round the buoy by just smashing through all of the ships in the way.

Other Daniel can be seen beginning his turn bottom right. Meanwhile I was preparing to bash Caesar's ship out of the way. But wait! Is that Daniel's karvi comin up the middle of the scrum?

It is! I smashed into that and it sank.

Other Daniel joined in, comin in between the islands to smash Caesar's ship to pieces. 

At that point we had to call the game. Other Daniel and I both had two treasure, whilst Craig had nothing. But both Craig and I had ship that were close to sinking, whereas Other Daniel's had taken no damage at all. He'd played a nice safe tactical game and deserved to be considered the winner.

Thanks to everyone involved for a fun evening, and to Ralph for putting together the scenario.

Triple HOTT

After a long break I played HOTT with Geoff last night. Initially I wasn't sure what armies to take, but then I had a shower-thought and thought of a triplet of games based around some children's fantasy literature.

I took my Narnian matched pair and my Alan Garner matched pair. We played one game with each pair, and then a final where the winning armies from the first two games faced off.

The first game saw me running the Narnians with Geoff running the White Witch. The Narnians defended. This is the position after a couple of turns.

The two armies closed and, thanks to some interesting terrain placement, both had their right flanks anchored on hills.

First combats ...

... saw some push and shove, and the Narnians lost a couple of beasts, exposing their left.

Aslan had stayed in reserve in case of such disasters, and started chewing his way through the White Witch's hordes.

The Narnians had a run of good combats and began to turn things around, destroying some enemy behemoths.

On the left of the picture you can see a problem for the White Witch. The Pevensie children are attacking the minotaur from the front, whilst Narnia's giant is providing a potentially fatal flank contact. If the Pevensies win then the minotaur is destroyed. If The minotaur wins then the Pevensies and the giant recoil, and the giant crushes the White Witch.

The minotaur dies, and that was enough to break the White Witch's army.

So our first finalists were the Narnians.

The second game was between two armies based on Alan Garner's 'Weirdstone of Brisingamen' and 'The Moon of Gomrath'. I took the evil Morthbrood (which is almost identical in structure to the White Witch's army), whilst Geoff was the Forces of Light under the wizard Cadellin Silver-Brow.

Geoff pushed Cadellin to the fore and he quickly bespelled the fearsome Mara, forcing it to retreat.

The armies closed over the length of a long ridge. Kind of appropriate, if you know the books.

The Mara fled into some woods ...

... and was destroyed by Lios Alfar ambushers.

The Morthbrood's right flank collapsed and things started to look bad for them.

But the shapeless black blob that is that the Brollachan sneaked through the enemy lines, with a clear run at the stronghold.

The Morthbrood's left flank - Svart Alfar hordes backed up with crow fliers - evened things up a bit, holding off the Wild Hunt knights and destroying the Lios Alfar horsemen supporting them. 

The Herlathing in action!

But the battle ended when the Brollachan switched from the enemy stronghold to attack Cadellin Silver-Brow, supported by the crows. It's not often you get a game where a sneaker kills an every general, but this was one.

So the final was between the Morthbrood and the Narnians. Geoff took the Narnians this time.

The crows were at the forefront again, picking off the Narnian hordes on the flank. The Brollachan was also oozing forward.

A fight on the Morthbrood left saw their beasts destroyed.

The Mara was next. 

Narnian hordes returned via Cair Paravel. The crows were sent to destroy them and possibly clear the way for the Brollachan.

The Svart Alfar bore the brunt of the Narnian attack, and held it well.

Aslan went after the Brollachan, but couldn't destroy it. It soon fled from him towards the stromghold.

The Morrigan destroyed the Narnian giant.

But she was attacked by the Pevensie children supported by some dwarves. And she won - the children were ensorcelled by her dark magic.

Leaderless the Narnians fell prey to the Morthbrood and were defeated.

So two wins for the Morthbrood who emerged as the top army of the night.

I'm keen to try this again with two more matched pairs to create an eight-army World Cup of literature. I can add in my Redwall matched pair, and to round it out maybe a pair of Barsoomian armies as well.

Ten Years Ago - December 2015

Something historical for this month's Ten Year time-machine post. Back in December 2015 we played a big DBA game recreating the battle of Chaeronea, using some lovely 15mm figures.

Here's the post:

Pikes & Hoplites - Chaeronea 338BC

And here's an arse:

Monster Island

 After Saturday's Australian Outback Paleo Diet game I set up something different on Sunday. This time the setting is a mysterious island, sometime in the 17th century. Some dinosaurs are relaxing near a river.

But here's some sailors from an English ship. They are looking to bring back the head of the big meat-eater.

They cross teh landscape cautiously. An ankylosaur watches them.

They confront their prey.

The plan was to goad it into a charge. Otherwise its reactions would tend to lead it to fall back into the depths of the jungle (off the board). However the sailors milled around in confusion (lots of failed activation rolls).

One of them had brought grenadoes. In order to entice the meat-eater. forward he sought out a nearby group pf small raptors and lobbed one of his bombs at them. Two of them were blown to pieces, and the other two ran away. There was fresh meat in the area now, and the meat-eater was interested.

Even teh ankylosaur came for a closer look. Two of the sailors worked their way around behind the meat-eater. This was still part of the general plan to drive it more to the centre of the play area.

One of the hunters opened fire with his musket. He wounded the mighty beast. And also made it very cross.

It roared and one of the sailors ran away to be seen no more.

The musketeer crept froward for a better shot and the beast attacked. Needless to say the sailor was injured.

The bomb-wielder used some to try and injure the beast and drive it towards the other sailors.

It was unharmed, but did at least move.

The muketeers fired again ...

... but all they did was anger it. It ate one of the sailors.

Another bomb failed to hurt it.

The bomb did, however, make it even angrier, and the sailor was eaten. Along with his bombs.

At that point the two survivors, one of them injured, decided to call it quits and return to their ship.

The raptors and the mighty beast enjoyed their unexpected lunch.

The sailors were unlucky early on. Without wounds or any particular stimulation the T-rex has about a 50/50 chance of advancing or falling back when it reacts, and in every case it fell back. The sailors kept failing activations that allowed them to properly goad it with attacks and were in danger of seeing it fall back completely out of play. Hench the dangerous changes of plan that split their forces and saw them destroyed when the monster did finally rouse itself.

That said, the T-rex is very much a creature best engaged by weapons with a longer range and that don't need reloading after each shot.