Solitaire Scenario Development 2

I'll first recap the battle and then I'll revise the scenario.

At the start of the battle we have a force of eight Dark Elf units who have found the source of the undead that are plaguing the countryside and have been dispatched to the scene

The initial force has, in addition to the forces depicted, a command card and one pain touch. A useful way to save on comand actions is to have Standing Order modifiers on all units, as far as possible. Often, after setup when the opponents deployment is known, one wants to shuffle the line a bit (maybe a lot!) and this is best done with order modifiers in your standing orders. In this case I have the drake riders on the far left flying all the way across the board and Holding to the left of the spawning ground. I have since discovered I was incorrectly leaving the Drake riders in the air on hold. According to the rules the flying unit must land to "Hold." The lash mistresses next to them are moving diagonal to the left and the Half-blood levy are moving directly diagonally right to be directly in front of the main line. The lowblood levy are moving to hold where the halfblood levy started and the low-blood levy on the right will move ahead to where the coven is if they move from their start location. The Dusk Lord is set with Range, but I have forgotten to write it in at this point.

 On turn 1 the undead move first and the zombies shamble forward and since there is no unit in the woods another zombie is spawned. The DE start moving into position.








The Dusk Lord has fired his spell at the lead zombies and caused 2 wounds.

Turn 2 sees yet more zombies and more Dusk lord zaps, though they cause no wounds.

A close up of the disappointment, they needed 3's to wound. Undead vs. DE is interesting because the zombies are really tough and the DE are paper thin, but the skills are also similarily matched.

Turn 3 sees the emrgence of some Troll Zombies. In the next two pictures I had inadvertently switched them ahead and later you will see them in their proper place. Of interest here you can see that the Lash Mistresses halve lured a unit of zombies away from the main DE army.

By turn's end they have destroyed 2 zombie hordes, but more are on order.

 Flash forward to trun eight and we see that the mistresses have pulled in a big one! The coven can be seen moving off to a new location and the Low-blood levy behind can finally move up to and occupy the hill as per their initial SO.

 By turn nine the zombies are all around charging and the Dark Elf commander has realized that there is no end in sight so he orderd the drake riders to storm the spawning ground.

A turn later we see the zombies have been destroyed by the half-blood levy (with coven assistance) and that The drake riders are locked in combat in the woods. As long as there is still an undead unit in the woods they do not spawn any more, so the tide has been stemmed.

And with the demise of the zombies we have the game end.


4 turns of combat and only ineffectual damage!



My original thought was to have the next undead unit appear with the occupying unit in the spawning woods where they would just fight regular melee combat, this continuing untill all other undead units were destroyed, but that just makes the game too darn long! I also had to add a rule that said when a unit defeated the undead unit in the woods it occupied the woods or else the game would never end.

                                                         Summary Observations
First off, I had originally thought that the game would end when the spawning area was occupied and all the undead were eliminated, however, as I was kind of taking a wait and see attitude with respect to engaging the Undead, by the time I had occupied the woods I just called the game as I was in no position to quickly overcome the rest of the horde.
So my rules for the scenario thus far would be:
The Undead start with a zombie in the woods. The woods will spawn a new undead unit every turn that there is no unit in the woods at the end of their turn. The opposing army takes the first turn which is only shooting and then the zombies get to move in their turn. Zombies have no Command Actions and may not re-animate. The Undead Army is placed in a pile in this order: zombie horde, zombie horde, zombie horde, Zombie Trolls, zombie horde, Zombie Trolls, zombie horde, Zombie Trolls, zombie horde, Zombie Trolls, zombie horde. When an undead unit is destroyed put it under the pile at the board edge and it will spawn when its turn arrives. If all the undead are on the board then none will spawn.
The player wins by occupying the spawning grounds and stopping the spawning and destroying all spawned undead. When a zombie unit is destroyed in combat in the woods a unit that was attacking it occupies the woods and at the end of the next zombie turn a zombie appears on top of the unit and they fight a combat as though they were in front to front contact and had not charged. A player may have other units adjacent to the units in question and they get pinching bonuses. If at the beginning of any undead turn there are no undead on the board the spell is broken and the player wins.

Other Observations:
This is a good scenario for learning about a faction and what its strengths and weaknesses might be as well as good practice at controlling and maneuvering your army. You know what the undead will do, given that knowledge, how can you most quickly and efficiently stop the spawning? How will your tactics change if you place a hill in the center? you could place any terrain you'd like and just place the woods in the undead setup area to be the spawning ground.