Disaster for the Human Race in BattleLore 2-15Today I set up to battle against Warlord Shifani and his hordes of goblins. I was aided by stout dwarves and a 20 foot spider the troops called Cupcake.
I had a decent commander and a decent warrior plus a newbie cleric. He opted for an extreme cleric and a mage.
As usual in BattleLore, the cards dictated the strategy. I had only cards for the left flank. I thought I could make it work, though, because my left was composed of dwarves, my best troops, facing his worst troops, goblins, on his right. A no brainer. The problem was that the scenerio set me up with a gap between the center and the left; pushing ahead on the left would make the gap wider. So, I positioned a unit of cavalry in the gap.
The doughty dwarves pushed forward and crashed into the goblin line on turn 2. They left their heavy infantry behind for speed i.e. I played Blue Banner and could move all the dwarves except the red unit. After some truly bad rolls, no goblin casualties, but at least they only killed one dwarf in the counter attack.
Then disaster struck. The enemy mage hit my line with Chain Lightning. The rolls were very good, many humans fell and a cavalry unit was completely wiped out. This was the cav unit that was guarding the gap on the dwarves' right flank, leaving the goblins free to swarm over the hapless Scotts. This they immediately did. The dwarves took some casualties but retreated out of the trap before they could be wiped out.
I straightened out the dwarven line and brought up the heavy infantry to support. Schifani hit my center with a lone unsupported cavalry, got a retreat, then hit them again. A human unit, weakened by the lightning, was wiped out.
Then I played my trump card. My cleric caused the very trees to attack his goblins from behind while the dwarves came in from the front. But the trees failed to get a single goblin on the vital left flank, only scoring a couple hits on the right. The dwarves failed to get a single hit as well; stupid Scotts Gits.Schifani's cleric then healed his troops, all goblin casualties were returned. The cavalry unit in the center killed another unit with aid from a couple more infantry he moved up. He now had 5 trophies and I had not managed to get one. I conceded the game and fled the battlefied.
Since that game was so short, we played the same scenerio again.
This time the cards were all for the right flank. So, I pushed ahead with the right and center. This time I took my time, moving only one space at a time so the heavy infantry could keep up, and moving the whole line abreast. This also did not work out; as I was inching forward, he continually hit my line with archery and spells like Swarm. He would only get a hit here or there, above average rolling but nothing severe, but by the time I came to grips my two red units were down to one man each.
I played BattleLord card so I could hit him with the whole line at once together with a Berserk card, but the dice, who really hate me, said that I could only move 3 green units and one red. This was not good. I had to leave behind a blue and a red unit behind and none of my units were supported except Cupcake the spider. Cupcake was dismal. The first goblin who timidly shoved a spear at her ran it though the eye into the brain. The first counter attack on the spider unit killed it before it could cause a single hit.
Schifani then played a spell card, I did not look to see which one, which gave all units +1 die and caused kills on a lore die, together with a Infantry Forward card. I defended with a Shield Wall card. (Question: the shield wall lets a unit ignore the first color roll, but what if he is using a card and gets a hit on a lore roll? Does the unit get to ignore the first hit? S. said he didn't think so, so the shield wall failed to stop a single hit.) S. Rolled spectacularly, despite the shield wall he wiped out three units in one turn, which made four with the spider. I conceded again.
Final Analysis: The game seems to favor the defender greatly. The attacker has to move in slowly, especially with heavy units, which gives the defender plenty of time to store up the good cards for counter attack while the attacker burns a lot of cards just getting up to the line. When the attacker hits the line, unless he has a card like Blue Banner, he hits with only 2-3 units; the defender can then come around the flanks and put on some heavy hits. Do not even try to attack unless you have a card that lets you activate 4+ units in one zone together when contact is made.
The game also favors luck more than strategy. Shifani was wise to sit and let me come to him; but his drawing some excellent spell cards and a couple of terrific die rolls are what really settled the battle. I know that every loser blames it on the dice, but I think I'm justified here.
The best cards seem to come from Wizard and Cleric, especially cleric, so invest heavily in them. Shifani did and it worked well.
posted by Al @ 5:53 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Alvin and I met not long after 10 AM. We elected to play the first scenario that allows the players to set up their own war council.
I greatly enjoyed meeting and talking with Alvin. We have had some experiences in common with regard to miniatures wargaming rules, and we discussed some of the odd troop and weapon types that rules authors seem to emphasize, often to excess.
I tried the level 3 cleric with a level 1 rogue in the first game. A level 3 cleric definitely has the opportunity to rule a cluttered battlefield.
The second game, I tried a level 3 rogue with a level 1 wizard. I never played a single rogue card, though the wizard got cards that worked nicely with my command cards.
The spider died! 1 measly green unit rolled 2 dice, scored 1 hit with a green helmet, then promptly rolled another green helmet. I should go buy a lottery ticket.
The 2 cards Alvin is unsure about were Enchanted Mass Might vs. Mass Shield. Alvin's units did ignore all flags and the first banner color. I had a couple of key lore rolls, such as a green unit rolling 2 lore in his 3 dice (for which I did not pick up tokens, since they were being used for something). I'm confident we played it correctly.
I'm still thrilled with this game. There are many unexplainable breakdowns in battles across history, incidents where generals or their underlings missed opportunites to act, or where they pushed too far and suffered for it. This kind of stuff happens in the CnC family. It's certainly not always the fault of the player, and Alvin is 100% correct in that my luck was excellent and his was not.
I do hope Alvin had enough fun to give it some more tries...and hey! we do need someone to be the Butcher of England in Kingmaker-Battlelore.
Steve
Sounds like you guys had a blast.
There are some great strategy articles on BGG. We all agree there's lots of luck and sometimes you'll lose because of it. There are ways to mitigate your luck, however.
A few items I've read that ring true:
-- if you opponent takes a 3rd level cleric, consider skipping the cleric and taking a bunch of 1st level guys. This will fill up the lore deck w/ non-lore cards.
-- proper defense is very important; bold formations give you free battle-back
-- the only way to win is kill figures, and you need to roll dice to do that. Therefore, whoever rolls more dice has a better chance to win. Maneuvering your troops is important, but it doesn't directly help you win.
-- it's often not worthwhile to try to protect weak units. They are still as strong on offense, and spending a move on them doesn't advance your cause directly.
Nice report, Al.
How do the rules for playing with a custom Council work? I never read that part of the rulebook. I would have assumed that each player designs his own privately and they were then simultaneously revealed during set-up. Ted's first point implies that either one player builds his Council and then the second player builds, or both players build simultaneously and what they are doing is public.
Post a Comment
<< Home