The first encounterTackling the hordes of darkness with the help of dinosaursOur first encounter was an egg hunt, several highly prized dragon eggs, that in no way were cheap mini cream eggs despite looking exactly like them were scattered on the battlefield, each would provide a bonus of 100VP to whoever was carrying it when the game ended.
Oh yes and the eggs owner was in the area, likely to make passes to express irritation at her eggs being stolen.
The armies deployed, no real intermingling, Sir Leopardus to the bottom right, with our Lizard allies to the top right - what can only be called a character stuffed brick of warriors, some dinosaur with a magical thingy and a few skinks. Not sure what the enemy made of that brick but it scared the hell out of me.
Facing off against a force of Goblins, about which more in part three, with some squigs, some 50 archers, a honking great spider and a Wyvern with a Shamen riding it to lead them. Also facing Dark Elves, with a dragon rider in charge, ten fast cavalry and two blocks of females with enough clothing for about half of them.
Things started well, the Dark Elves vanguarded the fast cavalry forwards, with a character in attendance, given they also would have the first turn this wasn’t as risky as it looked, Indeed I fully expected them to be alongside the lance of knights very shortly after.
Their first turn saw the goblins squabbling to not much effect, the fast cavalry being slightly marching through a wood, that turned out to be somewhat nasty and had some more of them for lunch, five and the character survived but ended up alongside the knights safely out of arc. That dark elf dragon made a pest of itself and my ally generally didn’t manage to do a lot either.
Our first turn didn’t see much, the knights redeployed to face the elves, the general breaking out to flank them - basically to make it a little bit harder to play silly games and to free up a few options, the second lance making a cautious advance with the trebuchet making a dent near but significantly not near enough to the enemy.
All in all a somewhat inconsequential first turn really.
Towards the end of the second enemy movement the situation in the centre was thus:
The fast cavalry character having leap out to charge the trebuchet and the dragon tormenting the lizards dinosaur thingy, again the goblins didn’t do much, their monsters taking shelter behind a building to be out of sight of my second lance.
Amazingly in the ensuing combat the trebuchet grew stood their ground and held, though but two of them remaining thus pinning that character in place, of course safely out of sight of my general, blocked by his own unit, or so they thought.. The fast cavalry ‘sneaked’ through the gap to again sit alongside the lance - that was actually what I hoped for as it got them out of the way.
Onwards to our second turn!
With the enemy fast cavalry out of the way the knights charged the dragon, figuring its better to do it while he is busy than be next on the menu, with them out of the way the general pounced on that enemy character.
To the far end of the table the skinks grabbed an eggs and the warriors finally worked out where the enemy actually was and advanced.
To the other side the situation continued nicely
The orc shamen had moved to be out of the arc of the knights, who decided that they didn’t fancy playing silly buggers with a flaying character they would never catch so they ignored it, Barney moved up, not into combat as he couldn’t but to make sure the Wyvern took the hint and cleared off. Comments from the orcs indicated they feared we were after the spider, we were actually after the egg but a bit of paranoia never hurt.
Needless to say the trebuchet died, the elf striking before my Lord, who then killed him with a single blow before turning back to face the enemy in our rear.
My knights discovering that a dark elf dragon is not a sensible thing to charge, and less so when you charge through a wood to do it, and
even less so when your lances are made of rubber, that managed nothing between them and were somewhat reduced for their troubles.
The enemy turn began, and saw a very long range charge by an enemy giant on my General, who as the image below showed decided not to argue..
Brave Sir Leopardus indeed.
Demonstrating why I seldom bother with magical armour on characters, they tend to get chased off or run down long before they actually get killed anyway.
The elves regrouped and the enemy monsters piled towards the centre of the table to get away from my other knights, and focus on that slow moving brick - figuring they needed to all hit it at once.
To the rear we decided that a block of 50 night goblins was
bound to have a few fanatics in there, and a small block of knights is not the best tool for handling them so stayed back, but did secure a second egg. Barney moving to chase the enemy monsters.
Time moved on and the dark elves put a block of women to slow the lizards down, having been reduced somewhat by magic the lizards figured they could have a go, so they did.
Deciding to avoid the fanatics the knights simply went the other way, the lizards made contact with the elves and the elves moved into position to counter them.
A mess was developing, sadly my lot were too far to really help, but the lizards were not doing badly, having munched the elves, but were left somewhat exposed to a series of enemy units
Who naturally all piled in, one unit of lizards with some characters now faced one of the enemy giants, a massive spider, a dragon and a wyvern… Yet they didn’t break.
to the other side the goblins advanced, trying to trap my knights with fanatics if we attempted to join in
Yeah, not going to be flanked by that lot willingly.
And that was more or less that, the Lizard unit did die, but the characters survived, holding the third egg, a defeat, but with the bonus points for the eggs a 3:17 one and not worse.
Perhaps not a good start.
You may have noticed one thing missing, no real mention of magic, for good reason - throughout the game we rolled terribly for power dice and the few spells that did go off had no real impact, but conversely neither did the enemies so will accept that.
Barney survived, providing some bonus points in a side event and I saw again just how much of a tank lizard characters can actually be.