Yuil Drassil sighed in exasperation. After a few short weeks, Windy Hills had seemed to be realizing the benefits of his protection. The fruit trees and the crops had exploded in abundance, and the townsfolk were well fed and provisioned. They had even begun to overcome their fear of Epona Quickhoof and her centaur braves, who patrolled the lands between Windy Hills and Shesham.
But now, another group of men had arrived to “liberate” the town of Windy Hills. Yuil
shook his leaves in frustration and amazement. ‘Will these manlings ever learn? Nature is not their enemy. They may as well attack the very grounds of Pannithor, for all that it would help.’ He would have to make sure to capture as many as possible. Maybe he could convince them to join his coalition against the growing darkness to the south. He communed with the forest shamblers who ringed the town. He showed them a vision of entwining the enemy in roots and branches, holding them in place until he could speak with their leader. As he peered at the enemy, he saw a pair of Giants. He wouldn’t be able to reason with them. It would be best to ignore them until the battle was over. He communed with Epona, and within moments she was forming her companions up into regiments. With a sketch of a battle plan in place, he called forth his forces to war.
SCENARIO
Ashley – As the Captain’s Men were after taking over the town, we played invade, as it seemed to fit the theme. We tried to set the terrain to try and fit that as well. Lots of walls in the deployment of the Nature beasties sort of thing.
We decided to play 1500 pts. As The Men were defeated in their previous battle against Alex’s Dwarves and went through a bunch of tunnels, it seemed logical that they would not have been able to gain reinforcements.
ARMY LIST BREAKDOWNS and STRATEGY
Ashley
2x Horde Foot Guard (1 w/ blessing of the gods, and 1 w/ brew of strength)
Regiment Pole-Arm Block
Regiment Knights w/ Potion of the Caterpillar
Hero mounted on a horse
Wizard w/ bane chant and inspiring talisman
2x Giants
AND The Captain
I chose to stick with a combination of units that I used in my battle against the Dwarves last round. I had been defeated and escaped through a tunnel network so it seemed logical that it would have been difficult to get reinforcements or recruits. At 1,500 points I had to opt for only 2 giants. I know, tragic. I also chose to use two hordes of the foot guard, which on paper have crazy damage output. I was hopeful to move up the middle and these were going to be my scoring units.
Mike
Yuil Drassil with the Griffin Banner and Blizzard
Horde of Forest Shamblers
2 x Regiment of Shamblers
Forest Warden, Drain Life
Epona Quickhoof, bow, Piercing Arrow
3 x Regiments of Centaur Bray Striders
For story reasons, I opted to take Yuil with two regiments and a horde of forest shamblers. I also took a forest warden and the warden’s watch formation to give them some extra speed and to get an extra inspiring source for these troops. They would be deployed on one flank and they would vanguard forward to put some pressure on and hopefully roll up a flank. For my second battle group, I was inspired by my fellow podcaster Greg Person, who is putting together some regiments of centaur bray striders. I wanted to see how good (or bad) these units really were. So I chose three regiments and a centaur lord to lead them. Because of their nimble and high speed, I figured I’d use them to harass the enemy with their bows and redeploy or rush forward in the later turns to play the scenario.
After Setup and Vanguard
So the Forces of Nature win the roll and chose to go first. I was surprised that Ashley, after seeing our set-up, opted to use the Captain’s ability to redeploy her giants to the left flank, across from my faster elements. In response, I pressed forward on the right flank to do two things. First, I wanted to get my unit strength on Ashely’s side of the table. If we’re fighting over there, she won’t be able to get her units to my side. Second, I wanted to isolate the regiment of polearms and begin wrapping up the flank. On the left, I used the centaurs to target Ashely’s knights to remove the unit strength and stop awful combo charges.
Ashley cries because she makes bad decisions in deployment all the time.
End of Ashley’s movement, Turn 1
Ashley- Hey Rossi, could you not shoot me in the face? Like what did my knights ever do to you? So basically Mr. Nature shot me a little bittle and with all that speed on my right flank, I was feeling the pressure (*Under Pressure starts playing*). I charged my pole arms in and may or may not have yelled “Yolo”. The polearms did little damage, and were open to a massive counter-charge.
Mike-Yuil communed with the forest shamblers, reminding them to capture the men, not kill them. The shamblers entwined the soldiers in vines and roots, trapping them to the ground and immobilizing them. They wouldn’t be a threat for the rest of the battle.
End of Ashley’s Movement, Turn 2
Ashley- Well my pole arms did like, 1 whole wound, because I am awesome. On my left flank, I was trying to move up in to charge range without ending up getting double charged. And more poor knights just keeping beaten up on….
Mike-Based on future performance, I think that Ashley was giving the centaur regiments too much respect, but what did I know? I kept up the shooting, piling on more wounds onto the knights. I kept backing up to stay out of her charge range with the giants. On my right I turned the trees toward the horde in the center. I think that if Ashley had pushed the polearms in to keep me pinned and had turned her horde toward me more aggressively she would have had a better chance of killing one of my units during her turn. During my turn, I charged the horde with everyone, on all the sides. The trees made a mess out of that unit, putting over 20 points of damage on it. That should take care of that…..
End of Turn 3
Ashley- The foot guard horde getting charged was not so great, BUT ROSSI ROLLED DOUBLE 1s. <I like to think that the unit fought off the entwining roots and valiantly fought on>. I feel like all I did was play a damage control game. And this turn clearly shows that for me. I counter charged the horde of forest shamblers and did a whole 7 damage off of 25 attacks. If you shift your attention to the left flank, we can see that Rossi just played the scenario, like a smart man, and just ran for it. BUT MY HERO HAS LAID CHASE, going in to one of the centaur regiments on the left to pin it in place.
Mike- I have no honor and no shame.
Quickhoof looked at the approaching forces, and yelled to her troops to scatter. They knew that they were to only stand their ground in the most extreme circumstances. Yuil woudln’t want her men to sacrifice their lives in some stupid grand gesture.
End of Ashley Movement, Turn 4
Mike-On my right, I recharged the footman horde and this time wiped them out. That gave me 9 unit strength on Ashely’s side of the board with that unit. On the left, try as I might, I couldn’t put enough wounds on the knights to stop them from charging home against one of my centaur regiments. The centaur regiment in the middle now ran from the other horde, and the regiment on my left should be able to defeat a lone hero. (I moved Quickhoof over there for the inspiring just in case).
Ashley-My knights were wavered this turn, but a good headstrong roll allowed me to finally charge something! Also after two rounds of combat, my dear Hero dealt 5 damage… off 6 attacks. He really is MVP and I should give him a gold star. Also Mr. Rossi shot my captain! He was okay obviously, but he is the first to do so! I am able to eliminate the unit that I double charged, however you can see that I was running low on units and low on ways to kill his army hanging out on my side.
End Turn 5
Mike-At this stage of the game, I pushed the rest of my units so that they could score for the scenario. If I could keep my losses to one more regiment, I had the game in the bag.
Ashley-I feel like some of you at home are saying “Ashley, what are you doing?”. The answer remains, I have no idea. Here we can see my attempts to consider trying to kill something somewhere. My threat range isn’t there and I am running out of options to lay chase, and only have 7 unit strength on the table. My defeat hangs over me like a sad little rain cloud.
End Turn 6
Ashley-As we can see here folks, this photo is quite similar to the last, and my fate remains sealed. That little hero on the left flank did some serious damage, 7 wounds in total actually. Might have been the most exciting battle of the game for my side.
End of Game
Mike- I spent my turn bravely running away, and I finally dropped the knight regiment from Quickhoof’s shooting, This sealed the game for the Forces of Nature.
END of GAME RECAP
Ashley – The battle did not go according to plan. However, as always Mr. Mike Rossi is a gem to play against. And as a felt lost trying to play 1500 pts, it shows in my playing. I should have put much more to the right flank and blocked him up more. Mike played the scenario and that really sealed it for him. Good game and well played.
Mike – The battle went according to plan. I put the vanguarding units as a group and they were able to roll up Ashely’s flank. The centaurs were excellent harassers, but they don’t have enough staying power to really put too much “spike” pressure on enemy units. I think Ashely missed a trick to redeploy her giants against my trees and leave the centaur regiments alone. This would have given me fits. That being said, with my extra speed and maneuverability she didn’t have lots of choices.
END of GAME FLUFF
The Captain’s Men came to liberate the town but struggled to find their foe. Arrows rained down on them, but the knights and giants pushed on at the commands of their Captain. But as they moved deeper into the battlefield, their adversary remained difficult to find. How could you tell which trees were soldiers and which were just trees? A short time had passed in the battle when The Men were shocked to discover the enemy had moved behind them, almost unnoticed. Some of the units simply seemed to disappear.
Yuil Drassil sent forth a messenger to The Captain to ask him to stop the fruitless attempts to “liberate” the town and speak with him. Seeing his men entwined and pinned to the grounds of the battle field, he could only acquiesce. Yuil approached, and communed with the Captain. The Captain was amazed and awed. When Yuil Drassil spoke, it was like the entire world was speaking to him. Like the trees around them agreed with him.
Why did you attack us?
The Captain stood silent, but Yuil saw a flash of an idea; a bag of gold. Yuil ruefully shook his head in exasperation. He closed his eyes, and the ground began to rumble and shake. The Hero had to calm his horse as a giant earth elemental erupted from the ground. It stood completely still and then extended its hand. A few lumps of silver emerged from its upturned palm, about the size of a man’s torso. ‘Here. Will this do?’
The Captain thought to himself “By the gods, how much silver is that?” Yuil smiled, pointed to the precious metal, and responded out loud. ‘It’s that much…’
The Captain smiled back.
Yuil Drassil told The Captain of the previous strife in the region and of the growing concerns of the evil to the south. It became clear to The Captain that he had been manipulated to set forth to liberate Windy Hills, and had been foolish to attempt it. Hearing Yuil Drassil’s words and the way in which he spoke them, The Captain was moved to add his sympathies to Yuil Drassil’s cause. Yuil was relieved. More allies would be needed to fight the Darkness in the days to come. While the dwarven clans wasted their might fighting each other, the men would stand united with Nature. It was a good start….
