Welcome to Gull's own Battleground Blog!

This is my personal space about YMG's Battleground: Fantasy and Historical Warfare miniatureless miniatures game. If you love miniatures wargames, but are put off by the expense in time and money of collecting and painting all those figures, this is the game for you! If you are unfamiliar with Battleground simply click on the tutorial link below and watch a quick sample combat. Next, click on the forum link and meet some really great folks who will be responsive and answer all your questions. If you are already familiar with BG:FW&HW this site is an adjunct to the forums where I put up my own brand of replays and and stuff that just wouldn't fit in the forum (but I'll post links!).

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Dark Elves vs. Umenzi series replay

James and I finally locked horns this weekend and it was the Umenzi bringing the pain to the Dark Elves. This is the first battle fought on my new felted board with felted bases with felted terrain. The Forces were arrayed thusly:

Spears    Shaman   Shaman             High priests
Jav       Jav          Jav     Warriors          Spear  Possessed   GWE

LB Levy          LB Levy           LB Levy         LB Levy       LB Levy        
 Blade Dancers  Lash M           Lords of D                 Lash Mistresses

Map 3D Scenario: Breaking Point  Special Conditions: Stormy Weather


Stormy weather turned out to be the perfect storm for Dark Elf hell. Max range nuked to 14" shut down Lord of Dusk mapboard chicanery and Umenzi spells anesthetized pain touch. As if that wasn't enough, my good Orcish dice eluded me, I failed lots of Courage checks early on, and my Lords only inflicted five wounds all game!

The early game started out well enough and everybody was moving and positioning as they should. James kept the nerf on my Lords so they were only rolling three dice all game.

 Here we have a rules question. The front center point of the Lash Mistresses is not on the hill, therefore they cannot see the GWE who they are Range order modified to attack (the #8 on the GWE) so I attack the Possessed instead. Was that right?
Things start deteriorating rapidly for the Dark Elves. The Lowbloods are too spread out and are getting pinched all over by the Umenzi and the heavier pureblood units are doing little or no damage. The Blade Dancers are advancing really slowly as they swing wide.

And everybody dies. By turn four I have lost all but one of my levy (four) and my Lash mistresses facing the GWE go poof this turn. I concede as I'm about one unit shy of James getting his victory and I've only killed the Possessed. My play was poor, my Dice were poorer, and my cool gameboard did not intimidate James.

This game ended far too quickly for there to be any MVPs or goats, but here are some observations I made:
1) If you're going to go with cheap line units keep them together, don't fan out to cover a broader front.

2) LOS means that your units block your LOS also.

3) You are never going to out Umenzi the Umenzi, don't even try to match them cheap unit for cheap unit.

4) If you are going to do any damage with Lowblodd Levy you have to have at least average dice! ;-)

5) You absolutely cannot count on James screwing up!

5 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mike, I will guess that a good analysis of the situation might be difficult for you, & as I have had similar challenges, I've started to put together a 'play book' based on my experiences with BGW. You did do the scenario conditions Before creating your roster? The scenario conditions scream out so much info. Breaking point means DE must Concentrate on one side or the other, especially against Umenzi(or other numerous enemy units). Observation 1) is correct. Stormy weather - forget Dusk Lord. You desperately needed the Coven with the 2 LM (a good choice). The whole plan is that you crush one side or the other of the Umenzi. 2 LM will ensure that, Coven will change speeds on dangerous units. The other half of the enemy forces just won't get into action.
    As for the Q about the LM attk the GWE, often is Forgotten the Size of the Target! GWE is Colossus and 2 steps bigger Target, so the GWE would have been Visible, even in picture that shows that it is not even fully on the First level of Hill. The rules for unit size and Terrain are still very fuzzy, but can be worked out.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anjin, embarassingly, yes, we did the conditions before the purchase. As so often happens to me, I realized pretty much what you suggest right after the first turn (sometimes I'm a little slow), actually, it started donning on me during setup. Your analysis was spot on! kudos to you, and I look forward to your playbook.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sweet, yet brief report. I was looking at Mumakil steamrolling down that hill to spread the word of Death and Flatness to that poor Lowblood Levy unit and verily they where converted. I think the key to at least keeping the Giant War Elephant manageable for the Dark Elves is to bring a unit of Highblood Coven and use their Midnight Chill spell attack to slow that beast down. Great pics and I really dig the neatness of the card bases, good work as always!

    ReplyDelete