t2final

Armies of Arcana Tournament - March 26^th, 2005

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Brett Manus, the third place in the competition, selected the board the final battle would be fought over by Mike Baltes' Dark Elves and Steve Saddingtons Wolfen.

Steve built his army with no shaman and 3 Rocs, similar to how he played two of his three Round Robin games. He also had two large units of Night Guard, and two units Lunatics and of a unit of Great Wolves. This was a power heavy army composition, with every model having at least two wounds and two atacks. Most people feel that lunatics are a great buy in general, but in this game, Mike was able to break those two units without significantly hurting ihis own force.

Mike took his enormous human slave unit, and three Wizards (two fire, one death). He had two small units of double crossbows, a unit of Cavalry with lance, a unit of Berserkers, and a unit of Swordsmen

Turn 1

Mike selected a hill and forest on his side as objectives, plus the unit of Swordsmen. Steve selected the forest and hill in the upper corner of the photo, and a Night Guard unit.

Mike won initiative, and let Steve move first. Steve aggressively moved his rocs forward, making Mike skirmish his units that were out in the open to reduce the effectiveness of their ramming attacks. Mike did a little damage shooting at the rocs with his double crossbows.

Turn 2

Steve moved first again, charging his Rocs into combat with the Calvary and Berserkers. This was somewhat risky, as having two ramming units hit the same enemy can lead to them doing as much damage to each other as to the enemy. Steve's lunatics could not quite get into combat this turn, but they moved up as close as they could get to mop up after the Rocs on the next turn.

Mike moved his skirmished cavalry to fully engage the rocs, and brought his unit of peasants forward to block the approaching great wolves. Mike decided to NOT engage the one roc attacking the cavalry with his swordsmen, as he wanted to make sure all of the ramming attacks went on the cavalry where they could blow through onto the other roc.

The rocs attacking the cavalry did do significant damage to each other, inflicting as many wounds on themselves as on the cavalry. The Cavalry outright killed one roc and left the other with very few wounds. That roc failed its morale test and flee back behind the lava falls hill. Mike rolled incredibly well through this sequence, saving far more hits and inflicting far more wounds than could have been expected. Mikes cavalry retreated to the board edge.

The roc attacking the berserkers killed many with his ramming attacks, but lost all but one wound from the survivors' retaliation. Mike had only one berserker remaining after the morale phase caused further losses.

Turn 3

The magic phase revealed Mike's Cunning Plan - he cast firebreath on his human slaves to give them a worthwhile attack, then cast Unholy Channeling on them! This meant that every time a slave died, his corpse had to make a unit save or rise as a skeleton under Mike's control. Every 5 point slave could come back as a 14 point skeleton!

Unfortunately for Steve, he had no spell casters to counter this nonsense, but luckily Mike had not read the spell closely - the wizard in the unit gave the unit a Magic Save of 4, instead of the slaves normally pathetic 1. Instead of getting 83% of the dead back, he'd only get 33%.

Mike won initiative, and decided to move first. This allowed him to seemingly sacrifice his human slaves to the wolfen lunatics. This would give him an extra round to build up spells and possibly rally his cavalry in time to deal with the survivors before they got to the woods and the swordsman objective unit. Plus, Mike had a Cunning Plan…

Mike moved his swordsman unit to protect the crossbowmen in the forest from the great wolves.

Steve, had a different plan, however. He used his quarter move to get the great wolves in position to charge the double crossbowmen on the objective hill. Mike killed several great wolves with his crossbows as they charged. Steve tried to overrun his roc engaged with the remaining berserker back into the air, they simply killed each other instead. He continued sweeping his two night guard units towards Mikes left flank.

Mike's double crossbowmen happily shot into the combat, knowing that the slaves were truly worth more dead than alive. The slaves and lunatics then slaughtered each other. Steve lost almost all of the remaining lunatics in the morale phase. Mike's remaining 10 or so slaves plus their leaders fled the remaining two lunatics, who were kept busy with 11 freshly raised skeletons.

On the objective hill, Mike drove off the Great Wolves, and passed his morale test to stay firmly in control of that flank.

Steve's wounded Roc and Mike's Cavalry both returned to the battle.

Turn 4

Mike had now absorbed and destroyed two successive waves of attacks, attacks that had crushed Steve's earlier opponents. Mike had lost his berserkers, a few cavalry, and a unit of slaves that had almost gained in value after the skeletons were raised.

However, Steve still had a powerful pair of Night Guard units approaching. Steve moved first, and continued their advance towards the objective woods. Mike brought his swordsmen back over to meet them, while his cavalry snuck back towards the forest and hill Steve had to defend. They would still have to get by the badly wounded Roc, but skirmished and loaded with first strike, they should be more than a match for it.

The remaining two lunatics and the skeletons found an especially pathetic round of combat. Steve's great wolves rallied, but they were very weak. Mikes slave unit also returned.

Turn 5

Mike moved first, allowing his cavalry to get out of range of the night guard and to seize Steve's Objective forest. This also protected them from a charge by the Roc, as it could only walk into the forest, not fly. The slave unit moved to confront the great wolves if they decided to make another move on the hill. There was nothing for the swordsmen to do but prepare for what would surely be a cataclysmic fight with the successive night guard units.

Steve cleverly maneuvered to get both of his night guard units into combat with the swordsmen. Mike responded with two more buffing spells for his swordsmen. Since all Mike controlled one objective, all he had to do was defeat Steve's objective night guard unit to win. Even if he lost his objective swordsmen, that still would leave Steve needing to capture the forest or hill.

With this in mind, Mike fearlessly shot into combat at the objective unit with his double crossbows. Though this killed many of his swordsmen, it turned out to be the critical factor, since his swordsmen failed do enough wounds their own to force a morale test on the objective unit.

All three units in the combat lost their morale rolls. Mike won has won the Golden Thug trophy!

"Good Game" says Mike, proudly displaying his trophy!

"Good Game" says Steve!

This was a really great final match up. Mike did a fantastic job of controlling the Rocs, and utilizing his spells nearly perfectly to boost the powers of his troops. The Unholy Channeling/slave trick was truly inspired, and, if the wizard and lord had not been in the unit, could have easily resulted in Mike having a unit worth double the one he originally put on the table.

It was especially gratifying to me as the game designer to see Mike's very standard army list (a little cav, a little missile, a little infantry - with no elite troops and no monsters) defeat an army that was obviously powergamed in composition. In AoA, what you do with your troops matters much more than what troops you take.