More Fantastic Scuffles

Nic sent through a new playtest version of Fantastic Scuffles last week, so over the long weekend I played a couple more games and generated a pile of new questions and comments.

I reworked my warbands, because some of the things I've been using have changed cost or how they work. In fact I also upped the overall cost to try more things out - these games were played with 120pt parties.

In the first game I used the Uruk Hai against the Elves

The Uruk Hai fielded two characters (their leader Kurtz and The Berserker), plus three minions with sword and shield. Their mission was to topple an altar in the centre of the board and all escape alive. You can see the altar in the centre of the board - it's that plinth with the skeleton on it.

The Elves had one character (Temu Elrond) plus three sword-armed minions and three bow-armed ones. Their mission was to recover an item from the Uruk Hai berserker. They could do this by simply killing him and rifling through his pockets, or thieving it from him. The former seemed the best bet.

Kurtz and teh Berserker made the mistake of crossing open ground in front of the Elven bowmen. They may be minions, but when they activated they rained down a hail of arrows on the Uruk Hai leader, heavily wounding him.

Still, it prevented them from shooting the Uruk Hai minions, who rushed towards the altar.

Thanks to them using a wild-card activation and getting an early initiative draw on the second turn, the warriors quickly reached the altar and with a lucky roll were able to team up and destroy it. Now all they had to do was run for home.

In fact the two Uruk Hai characters moved as close to the exit as they could, whilst hiding from the archers. The other warriors fell back.

(In fact the Uruk characters could have left the table, and that would have caused the minions to flee as well, ending the scenario and giving them maximum points.)

Temu Elrond came in alone to take on the Berserker. 

Blows were exchanged and they both ended up badly wounded.

Meanwhile the Elven swordsmen attacked the Uruk Hai minions, making it harder for them to exit.

Temu Elrond killed the Berserker. Kurtz was unfazed and went in for revenge.

A hit followed by a double ten for damage. Temu Elrond has magic armour which means teh damage roll is the lowest of two D10. With two tens that was going to hurt regardless.

Temu Elrond was dead.

This meant that, as minions without a character in play, the rest of the Elves fled. They really need a backup character. Or one less likely to get stuck into a fight.

So the Uruk Hai won; the Elves got 1VP for killing the Berserker, whilst they got 4VP for toppling the altar and killing Temu Elrond.

The Uruk Hai stayed on for the second game, and I fielded the Kobolds as their opponent.

The Kobolds also had one charcter (their Kaptain), plus three groups of minions - two with axe, two with short-bows and six with swords (or equivalent). Their mission was to get a message to the opposite corner of the table. One of the axe-kobolds had the message; you can see the two of them off to the side of the rest of them; their aim was to head down the left of the board and then along the bottom, avoiding the wood in the centre.

The Uruk Hai had clues to some treasure that was hidden in the wood in the centre of the board. They needed to recover the treasure and get it off the table.

The warriors were on the ball again, quickly reaching the wood. The Berserker moved to cover their rear. He took a few arrows from the fast-shooting, and surprisingly accurate, Kobold archers.

The main mob of Kobold minions crossed a stream to attack the Berserker. The first one missed and was killed by a counter-attack.

That caused a morale check and two of the others fled.

The Uruk Hai found the treasure. Now they had to escape with it.

The Kobold Kaptain attacked one of the Uruk Hai from the rear. After all, if they could kill one then the others would take a morale test and maybe flee, dropping the treasure.

He missed.

Some surviving Kobold warriors neatly sidestepped the berserker (who had killed another one of their number) and attacked another Uruk Hai in the rear. They wounded him but couldn't quite get the kill.

The Kobold archers shot down the Berserker.

One of them tried to shoot the warrior fighting their Kaptain. He missed and his shot went wide, hitting the Kaptain instead!

Meanwhile Kurtz had set off alone to intercept the messenger and his friend. Facing them across a stream he intimidated them.

They ran, but fortunately not off the table.

Rallying they attacked, one from the front and one from behind

However the Kobold Kaptain was making heavy work of trying to finish off his opponent, and was then killed by the minion! As the only character in the Kobold party, the rest of them fled (including the messenger).

The Kobolds got a VP for killing the Berserker. The Uruk Hai got 6VP for finding and recovering the treasure, and killing the Kobold Kaptain.

Both scenarios were pretty fun, although getting back into the various numbers, factors and interactions took a while in the first game. And between them the games raised what I hope was useful feedback.

A Yokai/Kobold Scuffle

I tried another game of Fantastic Scuffles yesterday, and went for two extremely different warbands.

The first used my Yokai figures and used three characters - the Tengu (skilled sword-fighting flier), the Oni (big strong giant) and the Jorogumo (seductive magical spider-woman). This was a chance to try out the spell-casting rules.

Against them I ran my Kobolds. They had one character (their leader) and then three groups of minions, most with swords, some with two-handed axes and two with bows.

The Yokai had to destroy an altar in the middle of the table. The Kobold leader had a grudge against the Oni and had to slay him. That would probably require some teamwork.

A party flees the table if all of its characters are killed (I got that wrong in an earlier game). he Kobolds have one character and he's not really up to much. So the Yokai decided to go for a quick win and send their fast-flying Tengu to perform a surgical strike on the Kobold's kaptain. Om the way he got hit by a couple o arrows from the Kobold archers.

He attacked the Kaptain and, amazingly, failed to even wound him.

The Oni ran towards the altar as his strength was useful for toppling it. He took a couple of arrows as well. Early on the archers performed really well.

Other kobolds came to the aid of their leader ...

... and they took down the Tengu!

So not a great start for the Yokai. The other kobolds spread out to cover the altar and gangup on the Oni. The Jorogumo wisely stayed out of the way; her skills were about confusion, charm and deception and she would come in useful once battle was joined.

She confused the first two kobolds to try and attack the Oni, preventing them from getting coordinated.

The Oni hadn't quite reached the altar and found himself under attack from several kobolds. He took some wounds but killed one of his attackers.

This caused some of the others to fall back.

The axe-men rushed in.

So did some of the swordsmen. The Oni killed one with a counter-strike. This forced a moral test on the others, some of whom fled. As they fled the Oni got in free hacks ...

... and killed two more of them. 

The Kobolds were now scattered and had lost over half of their melee troops. The Oni and Jorogumo moved up to the altar; the latter could provide help in toppling it.

The Kobold kaptain was rushing into the fight; their win would depend on him killing the Oni and it looked like he'd have to do it single-handed.

Another kobold attacked the Jorogumo and wounded her.

The archers had a pop at the Oni, but their earlier luck deserted them.

The Kobold kaptain moved into the Oni's rear.

And charged, scoring a hit.

Keeping their eyes on the prize the Oni toppled the altar. The Yokai now just had to leave the board to get the full points for their mission.

This now left the Oni free to squish the annoying Kobold leader.

He swung and missed. And with his opportunity attack in response the wily kobold got in a telling blow to the vitals and downed the Oni.

This now left the Jorogumo alone, but all she had to do was escape. She fled across the shallow pond and stream; going the other way would take her past the Kobold kaptain. A couple of arrows flew past her. Neither hit.

She used her magic to scare off a few of her pursuers.

A kobold chased her across the stream and wounded her.

She made a run for it, but the Kobold Kaptain was on fire now and chased her down.

So this was a fairly decisive win  for the Kobolds, who got the points for their objective and for killing three enemy characters. The Yokai got a few pints for toppling teh altar, but would have got more if one of them had escaped.

Possibly waiting around to topple the altar when the Kobold Kaptain attacked was a bad move by the Oni, who only had to kill the Kaptain for the Yokai to win by default.

The game generated a few questions to do with use of magic as well as timing of morale tests when a figure is killed, but overall everything worked OK and made sense. Both warbands were interesting to play, and came with their own benefits and challenges.