Scales of War part 3: The Rivenroar Family Crypt 21/10/2012

From the other side of the door out of the Mushroom Pit came a cry for help. The heroes went to investigate, however Lucian trod on a Slumberspore and fell asleep. The cry came from an old woman, who turned out to be Zerriska the Crone, one of the seven people the heroes were commissioned to rescue. They freed her from the magic circle in which she was trapped, and put up with her ravings about her having ‘Dark Powers’ long enough to know that, far from being a witch, she is a skilled herbalist. The heroes suggested that she might make up a healing potion for them, and after being given the tools and materials to do it, she grudgingly agreed, though it would be some time before it was ready.

The heroes proceeded back into the Mushroom Pit and decided to see what was at the top of the holes in the ceiling. Sayer went up first to find two goblins bearing down on him. Sayer took advantage of his mobility to deal with the goblins, killing one and fooling the other into taking a fall into the Mushroom Pit. This kept Grambur busy for a little while, as it was all he could do to prevent the Goblin from escaping. Meanwhile, the fight had drawn the attention of some of the Hobgoblins who were resting in the room to the South of the corridor Sayer had found himself in. They stormed over the hole hoping to take out the Eladrin Ranger, however Oro appeared from the hole and used the Acid Arrow to burn two of the vile creatures to death. The remaining hobgoblin turned his attention to Oro, causing him some severe damage, and Oro retreated back down the hole, but this gave Sayer the opportunity to finish the fight with a well-placed arrow to the neck.

Heading North up the corridor and taking a turn to the right, the heroes found themselves in a crypt. The sarcophagi in the middle of the room looked interesting but there was no time to investigate, as some Hobgoblins were waiting there and one of them had a bow. The heroes lost no time in launching the attack; Grambur positioned himself in range of as many of the creatures as possible. Most of the hobgoblins went down rather easily but the one with the bow proved a tough opponent to beat down. It hadn’t helped that another hobgoblin had descended the wrought iron stairs at the top of the room. Oro used his cold magic to slow the hobgoblin down and deny him the use of his already limited mobility, which meant Sayer had an easier time positioning himself for the attack. Ultimately the cowardly nature of hobgoblins won the day for the heroes; when the villains tried to run, the heroes took advantage and cut them down.

Inside one sarcophagus was a substantial pile of gold and silver, and a green gem. Grambur would have quite happily taken the ‘Dwarven Share’ of more than half of it, but he soon forgot about it once he discovered that the other sarcophagus contained a Frost Axe. Grambur eagerly took the axe for his own, naming it ‘Wintersbite.’

The heroes also had a look at the altar in the room, and discovered that the Hobgoblins were using it as an altar to Bane. However, Oro realised that the altar had previously been used as an altar to Vecna, the god of forbidden knowledge. A sense of foreboding filled the heroes as they gazed at the messages written around the walls of the crypt: “Here lie the Rivenroars until the day of the Black Sun. If you seek their monument, look at the lands around you.”

Experience: 197 each

Treasure:

• 26 arrows
• 200 gold pieces
• 200 silver pieces
• A green gem worth 8 gold pieces
• Frost Axe (lv. 3) “Wintersbite”

Scales of War part 2: Descent into Rivenroar 24/10/2012

Session Log 24/10/2012

The heroes met at the Northern Bridge. The battle was long since over, but the heroes guessed there was more to the attack than met the eye and were determined to investigate. At a loss for somewhere to go, they ended up in the Moondust Temple, a small place on the South West corner of Brindol devoted to Sehanine. There they met with a Priestess called Lia, who suggested that they talk to the Town Councillor Eoffram Troyas. Realising there was nothing they could do for the town that night, the heroes found lodgings in the Avandrian Hostel and settled down for the night, at a discounted rate since the battle with the Ogre that afternoon…

A new day dawned and had nearly reached its peak when the heroes met with Councillor Troyas. Troyas explained that 7 of the town’s citizens had gone missing and were suspected to be abducted by the Hobgoblins; he was looking for help to find them. He did not offer the commission lightly, but after Grambur impressed him with his physical prowess and Lucian made some insightful remarks about proving themselves to the town council, Troyas was forced to reconsider. The deal was sealed when Oro told the councillor that the heroes had no intention of letting history repeat itself and was determined to stop the Red Hand. Troyas was satisfied that these were the people he was looking for, explained who was missing and also that some treasure had gone missing as well; certain items of little material value but of huge social value to the township.

After a visit to the Hall of Great Valour to inspect the treasure that had gone missing, the heroes learned of a hobgoblin taken prisoner. They went to investigate, and after some less-than-gentle persuasion found out some useful information: The leader of the Hobgoblins was called Sinruth, a determined young Hobgoblin looking to raise an army and start his own Fiefdom in the Elsir Vale. For now, he was calling the abandoned Castle Rivenroar home, and had most likely taken the prisoners back there to feed to the ‘Undead Horrors’ that shared the catacombs with the goblins…

The heroes headed north, and though the going was hard for the Elves, they made it to the castle surprisingly without incident. All that changed when they marched into the catacombs beneath the castle. They appeared to be in the entrance to a crypt, and two Goblinoids were standing guard. One of them triggered a curious trick; the braziers either side of the room moved along the walls and shot fire at each other; it singed Grambur’s beard. The goblins were quickly and easily dispatched, whereupon the heroes had 3 choices: Do they head for the crypt of Von Urstadt, Von Jallach, or go through the doors that apparently lead to the crypt of the Rivenroar family?

Electing to head for the Rivenroar crypt, the heroes proceeded with a lot more caution. They headed down a long set of stairs, and the only sound was their feet echoing off the flagstones. Just when they were wondering if the stairs would ever end, they came upon a door. Lucian pricked up his Elven ears and heard that… something… was asleep in the next room…

Stealth seemed the best course of action and the heroes slunk through into a room filled with Mushrooms. It came as no surprise to Veteran Treasure Hunter Grambur that the mushrooms could potentially be dangerous if they were tampered with, and Oro knew enough about them to be able to say what they were: A combination of Brown Cloudspore, White Shriekers, Grey Doomspores and Red Slumberspores. The snoring that Lucian heard came from a Rage Drake asleep guarding the only visible way out of the room, and given the Dwarf’s rarely-welcome penchant for noise, the heroes decided matters would be a lot simpler if they took advantage of it’s sleepiness and killed it. Grambur rushed the creature and between them the heroes did a lot of damage before the drake had a chance to react. However, Grambur’s relentless attack pushed the drake into a cluster of mushrooms and he set off a Slumberspore, it had little effect on the Drake but did knock Grambur out cold. Not even a mauling from the Drake could wake him up. Lucian and Oro tried to help their fallen companion by firing shot after shot at the Drake and it seemed to work as with a bloodthirsty roar it charged for the Elves. Little did it realise the path would take him across more mushrooms; whereupon he set off a Shrieker and another Slumberspore. This time, it knocked him straight out, and Lucian finished it off with a knife to the heart.

With shafts leading to the floor above, and a door leading off into another room, the adventure has only just started…

Experience: 575 each.

Scales of War part 1: Batle at the Bar 17/10/2012

Our tale begins in one of Brindol’s Taverns; Ilya’s Cardhouse. Sat around a table near to the hearth, four figures sat, drinking jovially and playing cards. Their motivations for being in a cardhouse in Brindol were kept to themselves, but their instincts allowed for the company of strangers.

Towards the middle of the afternoon, Lucian and Orodrethanthilis, the two elves, happened to look across the room to a table at the back of the card house where three men were sat around, playing cards. Of particular interest to the elves were the thirty golden pieces set on the table, and sensing the opportunity for a profit, challenged the braggarts to a game. Lucian played extremely well and Oro managed to claim some coin. Even Grambur the Dwarf Warrior managed to win a few hands, and they looked very close to cleaning the players out. Just as accusations of cheating were beginning to fly, the door burst open and some Goblinoids entered the room…

The Hobgoblins seemed intent on causing as much havoc as possible, but the elves were quicker to react and cut several of them down quite quickly. Goblin Blackblades, making use of their diminutive size, ran around the tavern setting the place on fire, including the bar and the table on which the card game was brought to such a juddering halt. For his own entertainment as much as anything else, Grambur strode straight into the fray, taking several blows but refusing to go down. Lucian and Sayer, the Eladrin Ranger, took a height advantage of the tables and sniped at the hobgoblins, and those who had the presence of mind to pay attention to Oro would have found it curiously amusing that he was doing far more damage with his quarterstaff and throwing knife than he was with his spells. The battle was over when a goblin, having backed Sayer up against a wall, failed to see Grambur coming up behind him and was subsequently chopped into two pieces, neither side very pretty.

After leaving the Tavern to a bucket line, and berating the town guards for not being much help, the heroes learned that attacks like this were happening all over the town. Sayer and Oro pricked up their elven ears at the sounds of just such another attack, and used the opportunity to tell the others to get into position. Sayer took up a vantage point on top of a Barber’s Shop, to see an Ogre pulling a wagon, carring a lit barrel of pitch and threatening to throw it at any second. Grambur took in the situation at once, attacking the Ogre head on so that he could neither proceed further or run away. Lucien, in a concealed position, took a careful aim and hit the pitch that the Ogre was carrying, causing it to explode. The fire quickly spread, injuring the Hobgoblins and the Ogre. Oro, Sayer and Grambur wore the huge beast down with their relentless attacks, but in the end it was the fire that consumed it. Grambur strode forward to finish off the Hobgoblins, killing one. The other tried to escape, but another careful shot from Lucian put paid to any hope of escape.

Exhausted from their endeavour to stay alive, the heroes learned that the town guard had driven back the Hobgoblin incursion. However, it was not lost on the heroes that many of the fallen Hobgoblins bore the mark of the Red Hand, the army that attacked Brindol 10 years ago. Somehow, they felt they hadn’t seen the last of these Hobgoblins…

Experience: 279 each

Treasure:

• 30 arrows
• 30 Gold Pieces from playing cards.

My Thoughts on the New Chaos Space Marines now that I've actually got the codex...

I've got Dave to thank for this 'cause he bought me the book as a belated birthday present, and now I'm all excited about doing Chaos again. I registered my concerns in the previous blog about the changes to the rules that would no doubt come with the book, and now that I've been reading it a little while here's my opinions on some of them:

1) They've got rid of Summoned Daemons

OK let's get the easy one out of the way first: In the old rules I think going back as far as 3rd edition you used to be able to summon a unit of Daemons from one of your Chaos Space Marine units, or summon a Greater Daemon by having it possess one of your characters. I guess it worked at the time, but it wasn't a popular move to make once Chaos Daemons became an army in their own right, and with the new rules for Allies in 6th Edition meaning you can field both armies at the same time, the ability to summon Daemons is pretty much meaningless anyway. The fact that in 4th edition the summoned Daemons would be significantly weaker than their codex couterparts wouldn't have helped. Overall it's not a rule I'm particularly sorry to lose.

2) Bezerkers et al back to Elite

What's happened here is that the Khorne Bezerkers, Noise Marines, Plague Marines and Thousand Sons are now Elite choices. Now if I remember rightly this was the case in 3rd edition as well, though if your commander had the mark of the relevant God, you would get one of them as troops choices. So, for example, if you had a Chaos Lord with the Mark of Slaanesh, you would be able to take Noise Marines - but not the others - as troops choices. In 4th edition they cut out the middle man and allowed you to take all 4 as Troops Choices, no matter what your commander was doing, and this lead to some pretty nasty tournament combos, so for balancing issues and also to remind us that there are actually Chaos Space Marines in the Chaos Space Marine Army, they've been put back up to Elite. They've also still got the option of taking the leader with the mark of the relevant god to put them back down to Troops Choices, plus the same rule applies if you take the relevant special character. Kharn the Betrayer, for example, would bring Khorne Bezerkers back to Troops choices.

For some reason, you can't do that with the Daemon Prince. Even though you HAVE to take a Daemon Prince of one of the Chaos Gods, which confers its own benefits, you can't take the relevant units as troops choices. I guess that would represent the idea that if a Champion of Chaos has made it as far as being a Daemon Prince, he'd have to be a lot less near-sighted than refusing to take anything but the units of your own Gods. And also, the Daemon Prince is a LOT more powerful in this new edition. Armies would be horribly unbalanced if they were then allowed to take, say, Bezerkers as Troops choices...

3) Wargear

There have been quite a few changes to the equipment that are going to affect my army lists quite a bit. Here's a selection of them:

• Daemon Weapons: Not sure what's happening with these at the moment. They work in pretty much the same way as they did in 4th edition, though there is no option to take it as a Daemon Weapon with the mark of the Chaos Gods in order to increase its potency and inherent risks. My problem is that there seems to be no way to give a Daemon Weapon to anybody other than Abbadon the Despoiler. They don't appear in the Wargear section as an option; am I missing something here? This means I'm going to have to change the weapon I've given one of my Chaos Lords, although a viable alternative is not far away, which brings me on to my next point:
• Chaos Artefacts: Unique magic items for Chaos? Yes please, we'll have some of that! Might seem a bit cheesy to do this in the new edition of 40K but it's not going to be bad. Some of them are actually Daemon Weapons, and all of them confer particularly nasty consequences for those that find themselves on their business end - but most of them are not without their risks, meaning that they're unlikely to find themselves on the tournament circuit that counts on dependability.
• Vehicle Upgrades: I wasn't particularly happy with the fact that they've weakened Daemonic Possession by having to roll a 2+ for its benefit - ignoring Crew Shaken and Crew Stunned results - to take effect, AND given the chance that a dedicated transport might start eating its own crew on a roll of a 1 as they embark or start the game. Granted if this happens it gets a hull point back, but losing a Chaos Space Marine of any kind is going to hurt. The benefit it is supposed to confer doesn't help all that much in 6th edition anyway since there are no Crew Shaken and Crew Stunned results off a glancing hit anymore. Thankfully they have at least had the presence of mind to reduce the points cost, but I can see myself taking Destroyer Blades instead, which for what I intend for Rhinos at any rate look a lot more useful. And Havoc Launchers are now twin-linked, which may help a little.

4) Psychic Powers

The psychic powers in the new codex, and in 40K in general, is a lot more, how can I put this? Comprehensive. There's a lot more going on now with the different disciplines so it was never going to be the same, but most of the old spells are gone. This will upset a lot of the tournament players who liked to bum-rape units by grouping them together with Lash of Submission, then take a massive 5" template-sized shit on the unit. Gift of Chaos is gone as well, though I'm not particularly sorry about this because I never used it. Instead we've got several of the disciplines in the rulebook at our disposal, plus some tasty-looking spells in the Codex. I'm not going to go too deeply into specifics here because I'll be here all day but it looks like they've got an eclectic mix of functional powers and kick-ass lightning-bolt style spells.

One spell that was probably overpowered but I will nonetheless miss is Warptime. My Chaos Sorcerer has only participated in 1 battle so far, but being able to re-roll all my hits and misses pretty much won that battle for me.

Well that's it for me so far, I'll come back maybe later with more changes to the rules, perhapes when I've played a couple of games and had a chance to try them.

I'll see you next time...

My thoughts on the new Chaos Space Marines

So Games Workshop have hit me with another curveball; they're putting out the Chaos Space Marines ahead of everything else for the new edition of 40K. This was a bit of a surprise, I was convinced it was going to be Dark Angels, but there you go. With this and some shiny new models to build, there's no way I'm not going to have an opinion on this, so...

(Apologies once again; it's having a lot of difficulty uploading the photos...)

Chaos Space Marine Codex

My initial thoughts on this are a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand it's about time Chaos Space Marines had an update; they haven't had one since 4th edition and were long overdue. On the other hand, as a returning player I'm not sure how I feel about all the new things that will be involved in it. We've got several new units out on release - more on them later - and even more stuff once the Dark Vengeance models go out on general release. I'm hoping they will, rather than being relegated to Deffkopta-style 'you must drop £60 on Dark Vengeance before you can use Cultists' spiel. But there's a lot of new stuff now, some of which I suspect is replacing old stuff. Which is great except that I've actually spent a load of money on old stuff that is potentially no longer relevant. I say potentially...

Here's the thing: Where GW seem to be going with all this is taking Chaos Space Marines in a new direction. It's no longer enough for them to be able to say "Like Space Marines... but bad guys," give them a couple of different units and put a couple of armies on the table that fight in a very similar way for the most part. No, they seem to want to take Chaos in a different direction entirely. Hence the Cultists. Hence the Maulerfiends and Heldrakes. They want Chaos to be their own, very distinctive force.

Now in some cases this is quite welcome. Take the Cultists, for example. One thing that I noticed Chaos Space Marines struggle with was numbers. Particularly armies that were based on a mark of the Chaos Gods, would number at full strength around 30 models. My Khorne army, when it's finished, will have 31 models in it. And what we find is that we just don't have the numbers to cope with things like Tryanids, who attack in hordes, and even things like Necrons, because losing even 1 Chaos Space Marine is going to hurt. It would be good to field an army in numbers.

They also have given them two huge models, the Maulerfiends and the Heldrakes. Having the biggest stuff in the game is not going to last, judging by the precedent of Warhammer, who seem to be trying to put out a bigger and better model every time they release a new army, and with Eldar and Tau surely not far away from an update, the idea that Heldrakes will dominate the skies in 40K due to it's sheer size will last at most a year. So I think this is setting a precendent for what is to come in the new edition of 40K.

Trouble is what about my current armies that have only got Chaos Space Marines in them? What are they going to do? I'm hoping for some updates to the rules that might complement the currently existing rules, but I'll have to read the codex to find that out. I just hope what I don't read is that the armies I have spent the past 4 years collecting have been made redundant.

I think for the first time I'm starting to see what the bitter veterans rant about when their game gets updated, and while I'm not going to take one look at the army book and write it off straight away, I can sort of see why people do. This isn't news to a great many people, but to me it is the first time I sat one iteration of a game out from start to finish so it is a new and not entirely welcome feeling...

Anyway, on to the models:

Maulerfiend/Forgefiend

I quite like these, actually. They look outlandish, as though they just about belong in the Chaos army, but painted up with the rest of the army with a similar colour scheme and it should look really good as a centrepiece for a much larger army.

Heldrake

These look to me like flying stained glass windows. Not that that's a bad thing, but they don't look very... durable. I don't think GW has had a concept of aerodynamics since the Valkyrie, so it looks somewhat unbalanced. It'll be the token flyer of the 40K game for Chaos, a set of rules which I have yet to experience to be honest so I'm not sure how it's all working. I think in terms of colours, the same thing applies as does to the Maulerfiend...

Raptors/Warp Talons

This are quite welcome! I've got some of the old Raptors, and while they don't look bad, the models do look a bit dated these days. I'm hoping these new Raptors will be easier to stand, for a start! Assault troops aren't that easy to come by in Chaos Space Marine armies; Raptors were metal and lacked the flexibility of some of the other models and Bikes aren't actually all that good anyway. I think with the advent of these models we should see some more Fast Attack orientated forces in an army sorely missing some speed...

Warpsmith

Well lookey here, they've gone and put Dr Octopus in 40K. Not sure what I think of this. I like the model and the concept of having someone to repair tanks is useful for Chaos Space Marines but I can't quite see what he's going to do on the battlefield that the Techmarine isn't already doing. That'll be a chapter to look forward to in the book; just what is this guy's deal?

Mutilators

Oh dear, there's always one. Sorry but I don't like these models at all, I think they're absolutely hideous. I think they look overly chunky and barely capable of moving, never mind performing CQC manuevres they're clearly purporting to be able to do. And that 'Flesh Stretched Over The Power Armour' thing they've got going on makes me feel physically ill just thinking about it; why would even a Chaos Space Marine do that to himself? I know these models were probably conceived as a close combat equivalent of the Obliterator design. Funnily enough, I never liked those models either.

All the other models are stuff that was out in Metal before and has now been updated for Finecast, with the exception of the Aspiring Champion who I'm pretty sure was in the Dark Vengeance boxed set.

So all in all, it's not looking too bad at all, and I could definitely come up with some army concepts from what is on display here. I just hope it's not going to be at the expense of the armies I already have...

Edit 24/9/2012

It's just come to my attention that Khorne Bezerkers and Plague Marines, plus the kits to make Thousand Sons and Noise Marines, are now in the Elite section of the Chaos Space Marine bit of the Games Workshop Website. That, to me, is a pretty strong indication that those models are going to be in the Elite section of the army list from now on.

This means 1 of 2 things:

1: We're going back to the old rules where those units were listed as Elites, but if your army was lead by a Chaos Lord with the appropriate mark then they would count as Troops. So if you took a Chaos Lord with the mark of Nurgle, Plague Marines would count as Troops, otherwise they would count as Elites.

2: They're going to be purely Elite choices.

I sincerely hope it's the former. It would fit in more with the background, I guess, and shut down or at least limit some of the more vomit-inducing tournament combos like 2 Daemon Princes with the mark of Slaanesh leading a force of Plagues Marines. Also I've got an army full of Khorne Bezerkers at the moment and I do NOT want to be told that I have to also take 2 units of Chaos Space Marines before the army is going to be legal.

We shal see...

Resident Evil Alliance: 18/9/2012

There's not been much going on with games with Dave for the last couple of weeks because we've been busy building and painting some of our models. It's been a laugh doing that as well but we decided to take a break from that today and go back to playing some games. In this case we went with the expansion to the Resident Evil Deck Building Game: Alliance.

Fundementally the game works the same as the old one so I won't go too much into that. The difference is in the actual cards. The weapons are a lot more powerful, and allow for more risky manuevres into the mansion. This version also encourages a degree of teamwork; I guess that's why they call it Alliance but with only me and Dave playing, we were never going to use that particular aspect of it.

Everything about this guy suggests badass...

One thing I really like about the Resident Evil games is the random character selection. Rather than picking your favourite and spamming their tactics, the game forces you to decide how you can best use your character for any given situation. Dave drew Carlos Olivera, and I drew Jack Krauser. I didn't pay too much attention to Carlos' special rules, but Krauser...

You see it's a bit funny, because I don't actually know enough about the Resident Evil mythos to know who Krauser is. However, most of the characters who I recognised from the video game have special rules in their card counterparts that fit the theme for their character. The one that immediately springs to mind is Barry from the original Resident Evil game who is quite tough and an ace with magnum weapons. The rules for Krauser suggest that he is a complete and utter madman. In the old game his rules related to adding extra power when you use kives. However in Alliance he is absolutely deadly. He doesn't start off that way, as his rules prohibit him from using more than one weapon. I'm not sure whether it means per turn or per explore, hopefully that's been FAQ'd, but the fact is you cannot safely go into the mansion unless you buy another couple of weapons first. But when you manage this and get 6 commendations, his other rule kicks in, where you get +10 attack for each card in your hand. Combine that with what I think is the Fierce Battle card that allows you to draw another 4, and this makes Krauser unstoppable...

I bought a load of assault rifles as well. These work slightly differently in Alliance; the amount of damage you do is dependent on the amount of ammo you have, up to a maximum of 20. It doesn't make much tactical sense given Krauser's rules, but I was looking for the Signature Special that brings that limit up to 60. This took up lot of ammo cards and we really did need to flush out some of our other cards to speed up the deck, but this combined with Krauser's rules meant that I was often going into the mansion with 130, 140 attack power, which is more than anything could stand up to in there. I found Wesker quite quickly, dispatched him, and won the game easily, we didn't even count the score.

So, I really do like Alliance. If you're getting into it for the first time it's probably better to go for the core game first, but I do like the extra depth the rules give the game. I also like the more kick-ass versions of the weapons, and I'd love to be able to try the partner rules as well, although as it's still only me and Dave after more than a year I'm not holding my breath for this. All in all, Resident Evil is a really good card game, and there's enough depth and tactical variety in there - thanks largely to the characters - to keep me coming back for more for a long time yet.

Lord of the Rings, 10/9/2012

This was another match in Simon's campaign, this time playing Simon himself. The latter fact alone kind of makes this whole post a bit redundant; you always lose against Simon, right?

Actually, it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be...

OK for those of you who are interested, a bit of background - I've known Simon for a while, since I've worked at Games Workshop and I saw him around afterwards as well. He's one of these power gamers that I don't have a lot of patience with, so I rarely play him by choice. Other than that he's a really nice kid, and we get on well. He's put a lot of effort into organising this campaign, and while I still think he's got a lot to learn in terms of what does and doesn't work in a shop environment, I felt obliged to play him as a reward, with me using my Harad, and Simon using his Dwarves.

By nature of being Dwarves Simon's army had high levels of defence, and Simon had used the rules imposed on the campaign to make them even harder to hurt. They'd take a while to get to me, but they more than made up for it by having a Balista there as well. With Gimli and Durin as his special characters, I was in for a rough ride, especially since I had to kill 75% of his models in order to win and that would have to have included at least one of the characters...

It was never going to end well for me, was it?

Daunting task though that was, I was as surprised as anyone when my archers, in an uncharacteristic display of professionalism, managed to take out four dwarves in the first couple of turns. Simon chose that point to move the dwarves behind the ruins, forcing me to take the fight to them. Unfortunately it wasn't going to happen, as I had Gimli and Durin to deal with...

Far more typically of me I failed to wound either of them. I did try Sap Will on Durin, which I couldn't even get off, and then I tried to Black Dart him, which was a waste of time because I'd forgotten that he was defence 10 and therefore needed a lot higher than the usual 3+ to score the wound. Having shot half of my army to pieces with his Balista, and munched most of the rest with the Dwarves, Simon called the game to a halt at the point my army broke. Strictly speaking it should have gone on longer, but it was over by then and we both knew it.

Simon's asked me for a rematch and I don't know if I want to oblige; the fact is my army's not powerful enough to deal with him and I don't think it'll be much fun if I get involved with another game that I obviously haven't got a hope of winning.

Still, I'm going back to Workshop on Monday Night so we'll find out what happens then...