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.