Well I had another go (with my gaming friend Mark and his pack of wild Vikings) of the scenario Clash of Warlords. As I am starting to get more of a hold on the rules, I figured now was the time to get a hold of tactics side. Unfortunately in my older muddled brain I thought I was going to get an armor save bonus for melee in the woods, and it turns out that you only get that for shooting. My kingdom to be young again and have all of my mental faculties working smoothly once more! Oh well, it was a lesson learned, woods don't really help you unless your facing a shooting army which the Vikings are not. We both used 6 point armies this time around. Mark deployed two warrior units of 12 each, and three of Huscarl 4 each (one of which where those Amazon demons he calls berzerkers). This gave him an advantage in that he could afford to lose one unit and not effect the number of saga dice he would get. I deployed two units of warriors 8 each, and two units of Huscarl 6 men each, and one levy unit with bows of 12 men. I deployed the levy on my left flank and should have bloody well put them in the center forward, at least they would have been in position to get at least one shot off. Here is a picture of the starting positions (please excuse the sacrilege of some unpainted units but both of us need to paint one more unit to complete our painted armies).
The battle did not start out well for me. It seems I am doomed to not roll any hits at least once or twice when I play Mark. Of course he taught me a few more tricks about his Viking dogs. Like having your Warriors in 12 man units so you can use the ability Valhalla, where you can remove up to three warriors engaged so you can gain 3 attack die for each. Pretty powerful stuff when you have all 12 engaged and are basically doubling your dice. Yes indeed the Vikings have many little tricks that make them a very offensive oriented army. But getting back to the game. Mark basically took the fight to me right up the middle and starting pounding on my Anglo Danes. He took out one of my Warrior units in his first engagement which left me down a Saga die. I counter attacked and smashed what was left of his Warrior unit (except one model, the other thing it seems I can't do against Mark is take out a whole unit) and my last Warrior unit took two causalities. Here is another picture of the situation at the moment.
On turn 3 Mark used one of his Huscarl units to chase off my Levies, which was fine by me, and reorganized his line. My last Warrior unit then attacked his Warrior unit he moved up into the woods and sadly I plebe with my attack dice once more (again story of my life against Mark), but that not being a problem with Mark he kindly took 5 out of my remaining 6 models. I smartly activated them again for a move back to the rear to save a loss of another Saga die.
Turn 4 Mark finished off my hapless Levies and reorganized his line some more and moved them up. I positioned myself to strike at his Warriors that had moved closer to me in the woods.
Turn 5 I unleashed my Huscarl for a little revenge party against his remaining Warrior unit, hoping and praying to the ancient gods that I would have good fortune with the dice! My dice were good, but not good enough to take out his entire unit. The dog again escapes with three models, but has four fatigue on them. My Huscarl got carved up as well, losing three models.
Turn 6 (and what was supposed to be the last turn, but again I didn't read closely enough and we played out the game for 8 turns) Mark charges in with his Amazon demons and finishes off my poor Huscarl but I was able to take them out as well. Worth the price I must say!
At this point Mark would have won on points alone. We did play on and we bashed each other down to a hand full of models but sadly my Warlord went down giving Mark the game he had in the bag already at the end of turn 6. Playing Mark is always a pleasure. His laughter is contagious and his humor, well let's say he needs to work on that one a bit. My last picture is his humorous memorial to my fallen Warlord....
