Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Warrior Heroes - The rise of a star?

Warrior Heroes - Armies and Adventures

I finally got through enough of the rulebook to give this game a play. I have had ATZ (All Things Zombie) from Two Hour Wargames for a while, but had yet to try it out (I’ve since decided to stay in fantasy/ historical 25mm gaming). I’ve been meaning to purchase their fantasy version of their system, but when I saw this, I jumped at a chance. The rulebook is fairly robust, but that’s due to all the options that this game gives. I really need to get more historical/fantasy basic troops (I have a ton of hero types, but general troops are sorely lacking).

With that preamble taken care of, I followed the rules of how to make a star (there is a very nice download that goes through it as well). Since I had just bought a bunch of Confrontation models, I felt that the easiest army would be the Brethren.

Star – unnamed
Brethren (from the heart of Ekra) – Full Sun alignment
Rep: 4
Hardiness: 1
Weapon: Long Sword (IMP 5, FR 1”, MIN 4)
AC: 4 (scale)
Melee troop – Warrior (Elite Trained)
Social Standing: 2

This gave me 6 CV of followers. As it turns out, I rolled the exact same thing for all of them:
3x Brother Sergeants, Rep: 4, AC 4, Lance (IMP 7/4), Move 12; Elite trained

It’s funny that my star is the only non-mounted troop in the bunch!

So, March 986: My small band is in search of evil on the borders of Ekra. Most of the month goes by peacefully except for a confrontation in a small village. It seems that a knight and his retainers (a mixture of 8 foot troops) from Altengard were in the area and only some calm talking on my part, the matter ended peacefully (6d for the knight vs. 4d for Star and amazingly both passed 4 dice)!

[I rolled 10 CV worth of characters and ended up with a knight, 5 arquebusiers, 2 skirmishers and a spearman. We had a round of talk the talk in a village – clear terrain and it ended peacefully.]

April 986: We had a little problem with the local Authorities in a city of Altengard. It seemed that they did not want 4 heavily armed ‘characters’ in their town and I’d be damned if I was going to surrender my family’s blade. The knight would not back down no matter what and in a moment of distraction, charged me!

[I again got a walk the walk result on the encounter table with an even amount of CV – 9 in this case. Again there was a knight, 2 skirmishers, 3 infantry and 2 spearmen. This time, the knight scored a single success more than the star and the battle was on! I decided that the battle took place on one of the many city streets in the area. I don't have many buildings so I made due.]

Initial knight attack – Evenly matched (2 successes each).

Turn 1 (K6/S6): Nothing happens


Here you can see the 'city' setup. The small walled squares in the middle represent buildings. The other two sergeants move around to intercept the foot soldiers!

Turn 2 (K2/S1): Swordsmen charges star, passes enough dice and with a 1 pass on the quick move table gets to melee. 1S/1B (1 Success/1 Block) vs. 2S and are evenly matched. Knight attacks 6d vs. 4d and pushes Star back 1”. Melee continues 6d vs. 3d – Evenly matched. Knight’s footmen move to a side street to engage. Brother Sergeant charges (<>Turn 3 (S5/K2): Knight attacks Brother 6d vs. 4d (1S vs. 3S) and is only stunned due to protected armor (lance is IMP 4 since it isn’t the first round of combat). Melee continues 1d vs. 4d, but both are evenly matched with 1S. Swordsman moves and attacks outnumbered Brother with 4d vs. 4d (2S vs. 1S) and the horse rears back 1”. Melee continues 4d vs. 4d (4S vs. 2S) – Brother OOF. The closest two models make a morale check and one of the Sergeants routs!

Turn 4 (K3/S1): Knight charges flank of the final sergeant and a melee ensues (I determined that the sergeant would not get its lance special since it was being attacked in the flank) 6d vs. 4d – Evenly matched. Brother attacks knight 4d vs. 6d (4S to 3S). Melee continues 4d vs. 5d – Evenly matched!

The Knight Charges the flank of the sergeant on a side street!

Turn 5 (S5/K4): Knight attacks sergeant 6d vs. 4d (4S vs. 1S/1B). Brother OOF.

Postgame results: Both OOF sergeants are still OOF and the router is heading for home. The star completely recovers, but I determined that he was captured. On the advancement front, the star gets a Rep increase to 5, a Hardiness increase to 2 and a social standing increase to 3, but is immediately back to 2 due to being taken out of the fight (which I don't think I agree on the social advance).

Yep, it took longer to create the scenario for the second month than it took to actually play the game. How will the star get out of the dungeons alive? – Stay tuned.

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