Yuil Drassil coalesced within the forest outside of the walls of Windy Hills. He felt confident as he strode toward the low stone walls of the town. The townsfolk needed to be warned about the growing darkness from the south, and like their counterparts in Shesham they would welcome the protection that Yuil Drassil could provide.
The sound of bells pealed out from within the town, and the locals began shouting. ‘Curious.’ Yuil closed his eyes and made contact with the deep magic of the earth. He began communing with the trees and foliage within the town, the crops outside in the fields, and even the lichen on the rocks. The shouting became more urgent as the minutes ticked by. As he began to call the deep magic of growth, Yuil gazed over the walls and into the town. The midday sun glinted off spears and armor, and it finally occurred to him that the town was mustering armed men. ‘To defend themselves? From who?’ Yuil dropped the magic and looked around him, searching for demons or goblins. An arrow flew from within the walls and struck one of his upper branches.
The townsfolk were fighting…him? But why? Didn’t they understand that he was there to protect them? The town of Shesham had seen the wisdom of Yuil’s protection. Another volley of arrows flew toward him, but they failed to pierce Yuil’s bark skin. From outside the town Yuil saw an armed group riding large cats gathering for a charge. It finally dawned on Yuil that he may have a battle on his hands. He didn’t want to fight the townsfolk, but he needed them to heed his warning. The zealots among the small folk were too rash to reason with sometimes.
With a sigh, Yuil summoned the spirits of the trees to heed his call. If he could hold the zealots at bay, he may be able to convince the townsfolk of the danger. He just hoped that he could limit the bloodshed in the meantime.
Abbess Sovleka had hardly exchanged greetings with Windy Hill’s captain of the guard when the town bells began to ring and alarmed shouts sounded from the simple wooden watchtowers surrounding the main entrance. She had ridden, accompanied by several troops of her panther-mounted sisters, forward of the main Basilean garrison force to announce the arrival of Dictator Christos’ force, the XXXIst Legion’s IIIrd Cohort, and had halted at the crossroads in front of town to await the captain and his guardsmen. Ever vigilant as she must be here so far from the peaceful borders of the Hegemony, she had instructed one troop of sisters to dismount and keep watch from the farms outside the walls, and it was one of these younger sisters who now came sprinting over, bow strung and with her panther bounding alongside.
“Tree spirits, Abbess! Advancing from the far woods. There are many, and they seem intent on moving on the town.”
Sovleka glanced at the guard captain, disappointed to see the fear evident in his eyes, before instructing the sister to mount up and alert the Dictator of the threat and request his immediate arrival. Leaping nimbly onto the platform of her panther chariot, she addressed Windy Hills’ men: “Hold the crossroads with your guard, Captain; my sisters and I will cut the tree demons off from the forest. Do not forsake us to your walls — a full cohort of legionnaires shall be here momentarily!” She gestured at the dust on the horizon from the legion’s march before guiding her chariot down the road toward the emerging threat, ten of her sisters quickly loping behind on their panther mounts.
Pre-Game Meditations: Mike
So Chris and I wanted to run a narrative scenario that fit into the idea of a “first engagement.” We shared our army’s motivations and backstories, and we settled on Yuil wanting to isolate the town while the troops that were nearby (mostly foot troops and non-elites) scrambled to defend it.
In keeping with this, we agreed to run a smaller game of 1,500 points, with only 750 points available in the first turn. At the beginning of Turn 4 we would each get an additional 750 points of reinforcements. Chris’ reinforcements would come on from the table edge, and they could move as normal when they arrived. Mike’s reinforcements would be “summoned” within 12″ of Yuil Drassil, if he was still alive, but they wouldn’t be able to move or fight the turn they came on. In addition, Mike’s army would only have one Inspiring source. Lastly, we would run the Invade scenario to simulate the need for Yuil to break through to the city walls. We also agreed to run a 7 turn game to give Chris’s reinforcements time to cross the centerline. This ended up being a good decision, based on how the game went.
Pre-Game Meditations: Chris
As Mike explains above, we wanted to do a first-encounter type of scenario, with his tree-things coming to the town of Windy Hills to offer their protection at the same time that the Basilean garrison arrives to nominally do the same (and secure the XXXIst Legion’s food supplies). Storywise, Abbess Sovleka advances ahead of the main Basilean force to announce the arrival of the garrison as her sisterhood force is mounted and known to the town guard.
I envisioned the town guard as a basic infantry force and used crossbowmen from the Basilea list to represent them. The rest of my 750 point vanguard force was to be made of the Abbess Sovleka on a panther chariot and several Sisterhood units. The garrison would be led by Dictator Christos and consist mostly of men-at-arms, with some paladins.
Lists
Basilean Vanguard
- Abbess Sovleka on Panther Chariot wielding the Blade of the Beast Slayer
- Regiment of Panther Lancers with Dwarven Ale
- Troop of Sisterhood Scouts, representing dismounted Panther Lancers
- Troop of Gur Panthers, representing the mounts of the dismounted Sisters
- Regiment of Crossbowmen, representing the Windy Hills Town Guard
Basilean Garrison (Reinforcements)
- Dictator Christos, mounted on a Basilean warhorse and wielding the War Bow of Kaba
- Horde of Men-at-Arms with Spears with the Hammer of Measured Force
- 2 x Regiments of Men-at-Arms with Swords
- Regiment of Paladin Foot Guard
I didn’t want to take many magic items, but after looking at my first draft of the list I realized I would have a tough time breaking through the minimum De5 of Rossi’s trees, so I added the Sword of the Beastslayer and the Hammer of Measured Force to even the odds a bit. I also wanted to take advantage of this narrative campaign to try out a few units I don’t often use, like the Gur Panthers and Sisterhood Scouts as well as the Dictator and Crossbowmen. In hindsight, I probably should not have tried so many of these less common units at once!
Forces of Nature Vanguard
- Yuil Drassil, Tree Herder, Drain Life, Banner of the Griffon
- 2 x Regiments of Forest Shamblers
- Horde of Forest Shamblers
Forces of Nature Summoned Reinforcements
- Boulderguard Formation (2 x Hordes of Earth Elementals and a Greater Earth Elemental)
- Regiment of Air Elementals with the Orcish Skullpole
So this is a small, compact list that fits the theme pretty well. The narrative has Yuil showing up with his treekin guards, and he “summons” the very elements to protect him later in the battle. So, to match our idea about how the story was going, I decided to only choose trees and elementals for the list. As the battle went on, I noted some serious deficiencies with the list 🙂
Deployment
Mike: So Yuil and his trees come out of the woods with Vanguard moves, which put a little pressure on. My units were barely in leadership range, with the idea being that I would turn the horde on my right side toward the middle of the table. We rolled for turn and Chris went first.
Chris: What shmuck made this map? Oh, right, that was me. Well crap, we’re playing Invade and I have a difficult terrain field half the size of the Golden Horn occupying my center, and a couple of jammed together farmhouses interfering with my flank. Worse, before deployment (but inconveniently after making the map and settling on my force’s story), I see the problem, but for the sake of the story I stick to keeping my units at the crossroads.
I deployed the crossbows toward the center with the thought that they could move up Turn 1, fire for 3–4 turns, and then move to the center. I was hopeful that their Piercing 1 would be useful in putting some pressure on Mike to advance within range of my slower infantry. The Abbess and the Panther Lancers are similarly deployed at the crossroads, and here I’m planning to use their speed and nimble to get them on the flanks of the trees very quickly. I didn’t want to put the Sisterhood Scouts in the field as they don’t have Pathfinder, while probably all of Mike’s force does, but… well, it felt appropriate for the Sisters to take cover after dismounting to set up a picket line. The Gur Panther troop was deployed further on the flank in the hope that they would be able to harry Mike’s forces and corral them toward the crossroads.
Turn 1
Chris: I won the roll-off and opted to go first, as I wanted to capitalize on my cavalry’s speed to get on the flanks quickly and hopefully keep Mike from advancing too much to the center. In Invade, I’m always aiming to have the fight on my opponent’s side of the table if possible, and while I didn’t feel comfortable taking on Mike’s trees to the front, the flanks were another story.
I didn’t feel that I played my panthers on the right very well, but I was encouraged to hear that Mike felt constricted by them. I should have deployed them such that they could pivot to the right, move 10, and pivot back to face his flank, but I misdeployed them too close to the building and that wasn’t a possible Turn 1 move. So I set them up to move around the flank Turn 2.
In the center and to the left I moved the crossbows to a firing position at the crossroads and sent the lancers far up the flank. Here I’m again my own worst enemy, as the hill I decided to place on the map blocked LOS for my height 2 cavalry, and thus I was restricted in just how much pressure I could put on Mike’s flank. That said, and in hindsight, I should have been thinking of this earlier, and the Abbess and the Lancers switching places would have been a better deployment.
Mike: First off, this is my first time using Universal Battle, and I found it hard to translate what I saw on the screen with what I would see on the table. I didn’t really get my feet under me until the end of the game.
So after Chris moved, I was surprised at how speedy his fast elements were. Having nimble on the Panther Lancers and the Gur Panthers to the right put some real pressure on me, and it forced me to castle up. I used the hill to anchor my line. The cats to the right of Chris’ line also made it so I couldn’t really turn my Forest Shambler horde to the left, because I didn’t want to give them a flank. In the end I didn’t move much. I needed Yuil to be alive at the beginning of Turn 4 in order to summon the reinforcements, so I didn’t have much of an incentive to take risks.
Turn 2
Chris: The majority of my force doesn’t move as I wanted my Panther Lancers to maintain LOS on Mike’s trees, and the hill would take them out of the game for a turn. I was also not sure what Mike would deploy later on and didn’t want the De3 Panther Lancers getting too far from the Abbess. This will be the first turn (ever!) that I get to shoot with the crossbowmen, and I was also thinking that maybe I could do enough wounds to one of the smaller regiments of Forest Shamblers to really pressure Mike into advancing past the hill. Sadly, that didn’t happen — the terrified town guard didn’t manage to do a single wound despite the piercing of their crossbows, but at least the more seasoned Sisterhood Scouts did put one through.
On the right I wish I had a clever reason as to why my Gur Panthers moved BACK into the farmhouse area, but sadly, no, I was just being indecisive. I did want to put a little pressure on the regiment of Forest Shamblers in front of Yuil, to force them to either turn to face the Gurs or risk a flank, but as we’ll soon see, Mike’s happy to give them a flank as they’d be hindered on the wall.
Mike: So by the end of turn 2 I haven’t moved much, and I don’t really have the speed to put any pressure on Chris. In addition, Chris has a few units with shooting, and he was able to plink wounds on me. I had chosen Drain Life for Yuil Drassil for the grind, but with two turns under my belt I realized I should have taken Blizzard to allow me to “reach out and touch” Chris’ units.
Turn 3
Chris: I’m doing wounds through shooting! And I’m Basilea! This is all so new and exciting!
Sadly, though, while it was novel to roll so many dice in the shooting phase (18!), I did only a few wounds and didn’t break the wounded Forest Shambler regiment. I got them on the first roll, but Yuil had sneaked forward and was now inspiring the treekin, and they were fine on the reroll.
I’m continuing to be a putz with my Gur Panthers on the right, and nothing else really moves. At the end of this turn I realized that I was in trouble. We were playing Invade, and I was reasonably certain Mike was about to summon a bunch of unit strength directly in the center of the table. Meanwhile my reinforcements would have at least three turns before they could get to the other side of the board, and I hadn’t taken any of Mike’s units off through the shooting I was earlier so excited about.
Looking back, I should have been using these turns to move the Abbess around behind the hill, since her Height 3 would allow her to threaten flanks a bit more readily.
Mike: Shuffle Shuffle Shuffle. <YAWN>. Is this what tactical genius looks like? Three whole turns have gone by and I haven’t done much of anything besides stand there and get shot up. Chris has me pinned with the panthers that are milling around on the right, and the lancers on the left are making me play cagey. In short, he’s outplaying me, despite all of the terrain advantages he gave me 🙂 At this stage I’m relying on my “summoned” units to set up a wall of rock that will allow me to advance.
Turn 4
Chris: Turn 4 sees the Basilea garrison-turned-relief force enter the battlefield. It seemed appropriate to deploy the spearmen and one of the swords regiments on the road, as they were marching along the road after all, but I could see that my earlier placement of the crossbows was going to cause trouble. I envisioned Dictator Christos sending the paladins and a regiment of swords off the road to advance through the crops as they got closer to town, so I deployed those two regiments on the right.
I rushed everything up as fast as I could, but once again my terrain placement inconveniences my battle line, and only one regiment of foot can fit through the gap between the farmhouses at a time. I can’t send the foot through the small pond as the depth of it would have them trudging slowly through there for two turns, and we only had a guaranteed 4 turns remaining to get over the line.
Mike: So the beginning of Turn 4 Yuil summoned a Boulderguard Formation to protect him. The two hordes of Earth Elementals formed a wall to the north, and the Greater Earth Elemental was raised to anchor my left flank. Being tall, he could see over the hill as well. Lastly, I put a regiment of Air Elementals in my backfield. With their ability to fly, I could protect my right flank from the cats, etc. I was thinking that they could pivot and fly 20” to wherever I would need them. (Anyone else catch the mistake here?)
Turn 5
Chris: I was pretty dismayed to see Mike summon 6 unit strength of De6 Iron Resolve elementals essentially right on the centerline of the board. By itself that would be pretty hard to shift, but I also knew that I’d only have a few turns to do it, and with very little CS in my army.
Maaaybe if the elementals weren’t practically already on my side of the board, the swords and paladins could hold them at the centerline? Although I wouldn’t do much damage, neither would he given their defense and Iron Resolve. With this in mind, the paladins bravely rushed toward the animated rocks, swords following in the rear.
The Gur Panthers move deep behind Mike’s lines, finally in a position to really threaten things, and they’re now looking at guaranteed flank or rear charges next turn.
In the center, the spears wheel into the field as they couldn’t march past the crossbowmen. I’m assuming now that they won’t make it onto the other side of the field with the turns remaining, but I’m desperate to get their Hammer of Measured Force into combat against Mike’s De6 elementals.
Meanwhile, I’ve put a bunch of wounds onto that stupid little Forest Shambler regiment through shooting, and it’s STILL THERE. That’s really sad.
Mike: Now that the Gur Panthers moved up on my right flank, I had those Air Elementals ready to pivot and fly 20” to stand in front of the cats and block them u… what’s that? Air Elementals shamble? So they can’t fly 20”? Huh… who knew? (The joy of mostly playing one army for all of 2nd Edition…) So now I knew I had to give up a flank or rear of some sort. I turned my horde of treekin to the left, positioned in such a way to give the panthers my flank. My Air Elementals, chagrined at how shambly they were, swung right to guard their rear. I was under some pressure from the sustained fire. Meanwhile, to the north my Earth Elementals were fighting the foot paladins. With their anemic damage output, and the Iron Resolve on Chris’ units, I wasn’t doing much up there, but I was still on Chris’ half of the table, so I was playing the scenario. On the left I set up a regiment of fresh treekin behind a wall, facing the panther riders and the chariot. Hopefully the wall would help them stick around.
I should say that I fully expected Chris to take all of his weaker units and run them to my side of the table on the far left flank. I figured, looking at his list, that he’d be able to put at least 9 unit strength on my side of the table and still have units left over to block me up. But when he came out to fight I was relieved. And excited. I’d rather scrap.
Chris: Apart from also preferring to scrap over just playing the scenario, given the narrative incentive that the defenders should be dealing with the threat to the town, I also felt that I wouldn’t have unit strength to beat out Mike’s minimum three hordes of Large Infantry. To war!
Turn 6
Chris: The spears are ever-so-slowly moving through the massive field in the center. As I mentioned, I’ve essentially written off that US3; they won’t make it across. Hopefully they’ll get into combat! To make that a bit more likely, the Sisterhood valiantly throw themselves into the second horde of Earth Elementals, hoping to pin them in place.
Trusting that the crossbows will FINALLY finish off that regiment of trees, the Abbess and her Panther Lancers charge the other regiment. They’re both hindered, but I’m hoping that the Blade of the Beast Slayer will go off here with Vicious and gift me many wounds, breaking that unit and allowing my girls to threaten Rossi’s rocks and Yuil himself (itself?).
On the far right, the Gurs get a rear charge on the Elementals while the men at arms and paladins both go into the front. (Mike: I didn’t see that coming. I blame two things. First, I was still trying to translate what I was seeing on the screen to what I would see on the table. And second, I’m an awful player…)
On the far left I send a regiment of swords over the edge, playing the scenario but completely out of the fight.
Mike: Here comes everybody!
Chris: The crossbows did it! They killed the Shambler regiment!
I don’t really want to talk about the rest of the army’s performance.
…
…
…
Fine, I’ll talk about it, but really all you need to do is look at the image below. Do you notice that lack of wound counters? The Abbess and her Panther Lancers combined for 1 wound on the Shambler regiment, so pitiful it looks like we didn’t even track it. (Mike: I healed it in my turn with Drain Life). The panthers, paladins and swords would need two turns to get through the Earth Elementals, so their performance wasn’t so disappointing, but man did Sovleka let us down. And she’s about to get pounced on by the biggest rock on the board!
I’m used to having a big turn when everything charges into combat, but I’m also used to taking knights and Elohi. With this turn, I was feeling pretty confident that the game was lost.
Mike: I like to think of Yuil summoning vines from the ground to hinder the Basileans’ attacks. That’s much cooler than “Chris rolled a bunch of d3s in a game that uses d6s.”
Mike: Holy shmoly, did I get lucky. Some good use of terrain by me, coupled with some abysmal dice rolls from Chris, kept me alive. So now I finally had the grind I was looking for. I countercharged the regiment of treekin into the Abbess on the Chariot and sent the Greater Earth Elemental into her flank. I was figuring that I’d be able to flip the chariot and reform to face the lancers. (Storywise I was trying to remove all the “zealots” from the field so Yuil could talk reason with the townsfolk). On the right I sent the horde of treekin into the rear of the Gur Panthers and countercharged with my Earth Elemental hordes. Yuil was able to use Drain Life, putting a single wound on the paladins and healing the treekin regiment. The Air Elementals shambled around the right flank, looking to “invade” next turn.
The Abbess, despite being attacked on all fronts, stood tall, calling to her troops to stand their ground. [Chris: She was wavered, but Headstrong is sweeeet.] And the Gur Panthers were driven into a frenzy by the treekin attacks. I rolled a double one and we were stuck in place. This would give Chris the opportunity for another rear charge with them. If the Earth Elemental horde on the right broke, I’d be in some real trouble.
Chris: I love the snake eyes on the Gur Panthers — a breath of life! Maybe there’s a chance? Also not touching the Panther Lancers, and just wavering the Abbess, is giving me hope.
Turn 7
Chris: Well, I might have had a chance given the last turn’s results, but this turn dismissed that idea right quick. The Abbess went back into the Shamblers hard and did 6 wounds, but with Yuil nearby they stuck around, sealing her doom. Honestly, she deserved to go down after letting the Hegemony down on the previous turn!
The Panther Lancers into the flank of the Earth Elemental horde, with the spears in the front and Dictator Christos in the other flank, did 7 wounds. The two units were hindered because I put terrain everywhere, so this is about average, though I would like to point out that the Dictator is a miserable combat unit who hopefully will be worth taking in v3 — because he’s certainly not worth it now! Given the results, I think I should have put the lancers into the Forest Shambler regiment with the Abbess.
We got the right elemental horde up to 13 wounds, thanks in no small part to the cats continuing to sharpen their claws on the rocks, but Yuil’s inspiring was once more on point — I needed a 5 twice due to Rally, but no luck. (Mike: Yeah for the Banner of the Griffon!)
I moved the crossbows up so that the following turn they’d be able to cross the line, but I think I lost track of the turns a bit here and should have done that the turn before. As a result, should the game end at 7 (since we were playing 7+), they wouldn’t score.
Mike: At this point Chris and I discussed it, and it was pretty much all over. He needed to break the Earth Elementals to pull the win, and I once again got lucky and squeaked by. So I countercharged everywhere that I could and flew the Air Elementals to Chris’ half of the board to seal the win if we didn’t go another turn. I even sent Yuil into the flank of the lancers. This turn saw the Abbess and her retinue removed from the field, and I finally finished off the Gur Panthers. The paladins held their ground, but it just wasn’t enough.
End of Game
Abbess Sovleka stifled a cry of pain as she crawled out from the ruins of her chariot, struggling to maintain consciousness. The corpses of her panthers lay yards away where the great stone elemental had tossed them after smashing the carriage asunder. She concentrated, channeling her divinity magic to heal some of the worst wounds, and as her vision cleared she was alarmed to see the great boulderkin watching with lifeless eyes a mere few yards away. Ignoring the pain shooting through her legs, she stood and readied her blade, only to have it swatted away by an enormous tree bough.
Where the eyes of the rock monster were lifeless and uncaring, those of the large tree spirit now regarding her were clearly intelligent, even sympathetic. She struggled to make sense of this new threat, and then a misty, calming sense invaded her mind, followed by the words of this… Yuil?
“Are you ready to listen, fleshling?” Her immediate, righteous anger was swept away, pushed out of her mind by the alien presence. “There is a great darkness rising to the south of us. We must work together to contain it, and ultimately to defeat it.” Yuil projected scenes into the Abbess’ mind of a dwarf force being cut to ribbons in the southern woods by walking nightmares. Hordes of gibbering scarecrows swarmed over dwarf formations while hulking, mind-altering behemoths rent the small, brave warriors limb from limb. “I believed that your people needed Nature’s protection, like the folk of Shesham, but I see now that you can fend for yourselves. If I promise to leave you and your people be, will you vow to fight the darkness with me?”
Yuil’s presence left the Abbess’ mind, and the pain from her injuries rushed in. She paid it no heed, however, so shocked was she at the nightmarish scenes that had been shared by the spirit. In the years since the Great Abyss War, word had reached even her secluded abbey of sightings of walking nightmares across Mantica, and while her younger sisters laughed at the thought, Sovleka knew the truth of the threat. Grimly, she nodded to the ancient treeman, and turned back toward the crossroads, where a standoff had formed between the departing legion’s rearguard and more of the animated elementals. Perhaps this threat was what had inspired Gnaeus Sallustis to journey this far from Basilea? Regardless, she would deliver Yuil’s warning.
Chris: I really needed at least one more turn in the hope that I could break the two hordes of elementals, but sadly the fortune of the Shining Ones doesn’t extend this far from Mt Kolosu… At the end I scored a paltry 2 unit strength to Mike’s whopping 10. Ouch!
I had a few things going against me in this game, though I should mention upfront that the way I responded to these inconveniences truly exacerbated the situation. I think we likely should have had our relief forces coming on the field from Turn 3 with it being Invade. Although Mike’s units couldn’t move on their arrival, they were essentially on the centerline from the get-go, while my units would have to march two turns — without terrain! — just to get to the center. As it so happened, there was also quite a bit of terrain, which I can only blame myself for. Not only did I create the map, but I also chose where my units were to deploy!
My deployment for just about every unit was substandard, and I made it worse by not realizing that immediately. The Abbess should have taken the ground behind the hill to benefit from her height while the Lancers posed a threat to the front, and the crossbowmen ended up just getting in the way of the relief force when they finally arrived. I don’t even want to talk about my indecisiveness with the Gur Panthers, though it is interesting to hear how constricted Mike felt about their position on his flank even as I felt I misplayed them badly.
I also chose a force that was relatively light on CS and TC, which I would sorely miss once getting into combat with Mike’s Fearless De5 and De6 units. I should have recognized this sooner and more positively used the time before my relief force arrived to get on the flanks.
Mike had a slower force, but it was resilient, compact, and high in unit strength with Large Infantry hordes and regiments. He played the scenario to the letter and deserves this one-sided win every bit! For every mistake I may have made, he made a great decision, and the despicable tree spirits took the field in a decisive victory.
Mike: My list was defensive, but slow. The scenario, and the abundance of terrain, is what really helped me here. Chris played the first few turns really well, and only bad luck kept him from removing a few key units in later turns. All in all it was a great first experience with Universal Battle, and Chris is a fantastic person to play against. He helped me through the learning pains of figuring out the interface. (Which is super easy once you know what the buttons do. Seriously, why did I wait so long to get on UB?)
Some of my unit choices weren’t the best. Having Drain Life on Yuil was a waste, and the Air Elementals weren’t used to their best because I didn’t notice they had shambling. But that being said, I had an army that could play the scenario well, and I was legitimately more concerned with the narrative. I’m glad that the battle played out the way I envisioned the story going: Yuil tries to not hurt the townsfolk and only neutralize the “zealots” (Sisters), which is pretty much how it worked out.
From a tactics standpoint, this wasn’t my most stellar outing. I spent most of the game reacting to the moves that Chris made. I’ve played dwarves for years in 2nd Edition, so I was familiar with how to play a defensive game, not overextending and using the terrain to my advantage. That being said, it made for a somewhat boring game until the later turns. I would love to play Chris again anytime, and hopefully we can meet up on a traditional tabletop battlefield soon.
Going Forward
Mike: Yuil met this leader named Gnaeus, and convinced him to leave the town in Nature’s protection. The townsfolk will be granted all the bounties of nature while he moves his legions south. So the plan moving forward is to get more allies to face Jake’s Nightstalkers. This could mean speaking to another human force operating in the area, led by the enigmatic “Captain.” I also plan on taking an army with a more varied unit selection.
Chris: Windy Hills is lost, but Yuil’s magic is causing its crops to multiply in unnatural, but bountiful, ways. While the town will not be under the protection of the XXXIst Legion, the food supply is secured, and now Gnaeus and Dictator Christos can turn their attention to the threats lingering further south: lawless brigands under the command of “The Captain,” several aggressive Dwarf clans, and — worse yet — the nightmarish creatures slithering out of the marshlands. I look forward to redeeming myself in my next game, perhaps with a more traditional force!
Great scenario and a great fight. This report gets my vote