Today we have the 3" x 4" Ultra pro deck sleeves making their debut. As many have remarked, the problem with the perfect fit sleeves is that often, especially with the newer cards, they fit too much. They are hard to sleeve and they can bow and/or bend the cards. Marcus Giegerich came up with the great idea to cut those sleeves in half lengthwise. This solved many problems, but I found that the upper part flapped and so, even though it was the best option with the materials at hand, it was still was less than ideal. Back at the drawing board I came up with the solution you see here. I cut about a 3/4" strip off the bottom and trimmed it to <3.5" and affixed it with a piece of double sided tape. The sleeve covers the damage track and orders circle, which is the area which gets used most. If you still want to sleeve your cards in the conventional way they will still easily fit in the modified sleeve. The board that you see here is 1/8" hard board cut to four 15x18 inch sections duct taped along the 18" side and the felt is held in place by 3M Super 77 spray adhesive. This is the best product I have found to date.
The battle itself was a 1500 point total warfare gig with no terrain. I was testing a couple new rules and was trying to "control" as many exogent factors as I could. The setup was double-blind, which is one of the cool things you can do if you have a Traumatic Brain Injury. :-) The Goblin Bomb Chucker is the only card which does not fit easily on to the new style bases, but you can make do. The Orc army was composed of 2xSwordorcs, 2xSpearorcs, a Goblin Bomb-chucker, and a unit of Wolfriders.
The Lizardmen have Trog Warrior, Trog Warrior, Ancients, Trikes, Trog Warrior, with a swarmling bowmen behind.
This Battle was fought on our Baby Grand laundry folding table. :-)
Here is a foto after the first turn. The Lizards moved second so they actually got to move. The orcs are playing S&S and are all on hold. I was playing my own house rule for the GBC which allows them to roll 3d6, but taking a wound if any doubles are rolled. The first turn they rolled doubles so took a wound, which you can see marked off.
This is the fifth orc turn and you can see that the GBC has taken two wounds and finally fired successfully causing a total of 8 wounds in three turns, the Lizard commander regenerates a wound. The orc commander sent the spearmen into the trogs at the bottom of the pic by changing their SO to Close and did the same thing to the Spearorcs on the other end of the line.
On the Lizzie turn the lines crashed full on. The Lizzie commander can be seen here refusing the left flank While the Trikes and Ancients pinch the Swordorcs in the center. The GBC keeps the pressure up on the Ancients and the card play is as heavy as can be expected in a 1500 point game.
And the pinch by the Trikes and the Ancients is having a telling effect, though a profundity of Blue cards kept them from being one shotted.
Having done enough damage to the ancients the GBC turns its loving ministrations to the trikes be fore they duck out of range and put them in the yellow, they fail the Courage check, but the green card allows a reroll which keeps them in the game (or at least allows them to avoid Disruption, which at this critical point in the game saves them a couple CAs). The Trogs at the top of the screen have finally been eliminated and the wolf riders can be seen closing in on the swarmling bows.
Bad turn for missile troops. The swarmlings went poof after doing only one damage all game. At least they did as well as my elementalists at tournament, except this time Kevin's money wasn't on the line, and I didn't pay over 300 points for them! The Trikes did what they were expected to do and the GBC went poof.
Double pinch by the wolfriders and the other Spearorc that had been lashed from the far flank. This turn I drew two ferocity cards and played one on each pincher. The Wolfriders did an amazing 6 points of damage and that was that. I shook hands with myself and said "Good Game!"
The bomb chucker log looked like this:
Turn Dice rolls (X means Doubles!) Dice/Hits Wounds
1 1, 2, 2 X
2 3, 4, 4 X
3 4, 5, 6 15/14 4
4 2, 3, 4 8/6 1
5 1, 5, 6 12/8 3
6 6, 4, 2 12/10 4
7 3, 4, 6 13/11 6 (11 dice needing 1s and 2s!!!)
All my shots were against toughness four creatures, so I always needed ones and twos. This time I would say the GBC was definitely worth it, although by the end of turn two I wouldn't have said so. All shots were against large targets with 1/4 profiles, so the number of hits is dramaticaly higher and the resulting wounds are lower. It will definitely get more use this way, but it isn't a certainty, and I would never use it when Kevin's money is on the line as it is just too swingy. Swingy does mean high drama and lots of fun, however!
The new Fury rules did feel right, they didn't get used much this game because of the paucity of Lizard Rd cards that showed up and the tons of Orcish blue cards that were used specifically because of the Fury threat. I used it three times.
The most amazing fight had to be the last one with the ferocity pumped wolfriders rolled nine dice doing 8 hits and rolled 6 damage needing 1's and 2's! That eliminated the trikes but on their return strike they eliminated the wolf riders...Songs will be written!
Lizzy heroes had to be the trikes, everyone else died in a grindfest.
Orcy heroes were the swordorcs that got pinched by Trogs and Ancients and won! They can be seen in the last foto with two red boxes intact. I would say every blue card I drew went on them.
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