Tales from the Table
The Players and Armies:
Kyle - Mahkim, including
two Swamp Behemoths, three Great Ones, the Keeper of the Mist, Aipham the
Farseeker, Warleader Mathan, a Muck-lobber, a Net-master, a Familiar, a Fairy
Swarm, two Frogs of Muurkra, some Miasmen and a few Peasants.
Robbie - Elves, including a Tree Ent, Oberiene Triamlathari, Solonar
Avarnoth, Prince Leronoth (and a Familiar), Ailan Elorean, two Riders of the
Woods, two Deepwood Warriors, three Deepwood Archers, two Elven Snipers, two
Elven Bards, a Centaur Archer, a Fairy Swarm, an Elven Warder, a Festenwood
Tinari.
The Setting:
Two 150-point armies, three feet apart, 6
units to start and 6 reinforcements per turn, with the goal of pinning the
opponent's homeland for two turns.
Both armies deployed line troops first, and the Mahkim certainly began with the edge in intimidation with all those gold-rimmed disks up front. First blood was drawn by the Mahkim on the fourth turn, after some feints. A Swamp Behemoth pinned a threatening Elven Fairy Swarm, the Mahkim Fairy Swarm pinned the Tree Ent (just out of range of the Elven Warder), and Great Ones swarmed around Solonar Avarnoth. After the Elves committed all available units (Oberiene joined the fray between Solonar and the Great Ones), the Keeper Teleported the attacking Swamp Behemoth on top of a Sure Aimed Archer and an Elven Bard. After the round, Oberiene, Solonar, an Archer, and a Great One were dead, and the Behemoth was wounded. Combat swirled - the forward Mahkim heavy-hitters were pinned quickly, the Mahkim Fairy Swarm was moved to a more innocuous location (for the Elves) and pinned there, and the rest of the Elven army positioned itself for hit-and-run tactics. The turning points in the battle came as the Mahkim lost one Behemoth, had a Great One and Aipham the Farseeker pinned by the Tree Ent, and lost the Keeper of the Mists to a Sure Aimed, Elven-barded Ailan Elorean. The Mahkim conceded the field when all Great Ones, Behemoths, Miasmen and unique heroes had fallen, leaving the Elves with archers, a wounded Tree Ent and Leronoth to face Peasants, Muck-lobbers and a Familiar.
A few things seemed to be at work in this game. The Mahkim didn't commit their hard-hitters quickly enough and forcefully enough, allowing the Elves to pin them and smack them down with arrows. Zip spells were mostly transportation instead of assault accelerators. Fear of all of those Elven arrows turned out to be largely unfounded, as the only arrows that hit with any reliability were from archers with Sure Aim or from Snipers. Robbie needs to practice his missile drops.
It appears that, with the introduction of the Centaur Archer, Ailan Elorean is overpriced. The Archer is slightly worse in combat numbers, but is much faster, and can be boosted with the addition of Thalos to the army. Of course, in this battle, Ailan had a couple of pivotal plays, using Sure Aim to put killing damage on a Great One and the Keeper, but an extra Centaur Archer would have had the same effect for one less point.
As a group, we're really beginning to dislike the ways in which the Familiar changes the game. On one side, lots of spells are nice, but on another it really plays havoc with battle plans to have a caster turned into a machine that just does the same thing every turn.