Crossing The Drudge

June and I played another game of Turnip 28 last night. We moved onwards and tried the third scenario, 'Crossing The Drudge'. This has the two sides on oppisite sides of a marshy river, represented by several patches of dangerous terrain. In the centre is a defensible obstacle, for which we used a building but which actually represents a stone bridge. In each terrain piece is an objective. If it's near the edge then it can be grabbed without going into the terrain. If it's in the middle then you have to take the risks for entering dangerous terrain. 

Here's the terrain. We scattered a few rock walls around as cover.

I now have a second unit painted - brutes with black-powder weapons - as well as a Toff to lead them. I used both of them and then filled out the rest of the force with June's goblins. I ran one group of melee fodder (because they did so well in the last game) and one group of fodder with regular missile weapons (bows).

Here's my top-hatted chaff and brutes in the position of honour right and centre.

My new brutes, led by The Gentleman.

June ran a unit of brutes, one of chaff, some black-powder fodder and a cannon.

The first turn was spent grabbing objectives. My melee fodder set off to drive away the chaff on June's right flank, and picked up an objective on the way. They look very intimidating heading down the causeway.

I also occupied the building in the centre with my brutes, grabbing the objective there. June's melee brutes tried to charge but didn't get the distance (charge and march moves are partially randomised). My chaff grabbed a third objective.

The end of the first turn. There'd been a few casualties from shooting but otherwise it had all been movement. My archers had taken a shot at June's brutes and failed to score a single hit.

On the second turn we made a huge mistake. June's fodder had moved close to the table edge in pursuit of an objective. I shot at them and forced them to retreat. This time we remembered that they are Fearless if they have eight or more figures; they still failed. But when they retreated they fled off the board-edge. Try as we might we couldn't find in the rules what should happen. We just assumed that any figure that went off was lost. The reality is that the table-edge counts as impassable terrain (and is mentioned as such in the section on Impassable Terrain) so the unit should stop and take casualties based on its panic.

This cost June pretty much the whole of her fodder unit when it should have just cost it a couple of figures.

My melee fodder charged Junes chaff. The melee went on for ages (you fight multiple rounds until one side scores more casualties then the other) and saw the chaff wiped out and the fodder severely depleted.

June charged he melee brutes into the building. This fight also went on for a bit, and cost us both a lot of brutes. My guys held their ground though - with Fearless brutes can fall back only a short distance even if they lose a melee.

My left-flank fodder also retreated off the table. Only one figure went off, but in fact because of the unit's high panic most of the unit should have been casualties.

The fighting in the building continued. But June's brutes were now flanked by my chaff and the bow-armed fodder (who had moved into dangerous terrain to grab the fifth objective). She decided to pull them out, but they got shot down. The survivors fled into an impassable rock-face, at which point we discovered the actual rule. So they were destroyed.

One of June's toadies attacked one of mind and killed him.

But June's leaders worried me not. She only had one mobile figure left that could take objectives - the fodder survivor - and my chaff shot him down. This meant that June could no longer capture or contest objectives. I had four and she had one. So it was game over.

I think that even if we hadn't made the mistake with the fodder it would have been hard for June to come back on this one. The single fodder unit would probably have taken one of my objectives but would have been hard-pressed to take a third. She simply didn't have enough effective moving parts to win. Although maybe targetting my two surviving Snobs might have worked; a side loses if all of their leaders are killed.

So another game and, again, only one rule messed up. We're getting better. We'll try cults next time.