What Ruleset Did You Use In Your Last Game 2016

[pierre the shy]

1) What ruleset do you use in your last game? General Quarters 2

2) What armies were confronted? Royal Navy v Imperial Japanese Navy

3) Did you feel comfortable with the ruleset? very

4) and... was the first time do you use the ruleset? No

5) How many players were in the game? 4

We played another of my "what if" scenarios. Its the night of 9 December 1941 and Force Z plus two light cruisers are heading north to attack the Japanses landings at Kotu Bahru in Northern Malaya.  Protecting the landings are Admiral Kondo's Covering Force of two Kongo class battle cruisers, two heavy cruisers and 3 destroyers.

Although the British heavy ships are equipped with radar it's not very reliable. The British units are not used to working together at night while the IJN is quite skilled at night fighting early in the war. The IJN ships had some amazing early gunnery rolls which saw HMS Express quickly sinking after taking a multitude of 8" fire from the two enemy cruisers. None of the RN ships was hit by Japanese torpedoes fired at long range, though the Prince of Wales had a narrow escape. The Japanese battle cruisers came into action at that stage and caused enough damage to Prince of Wales and Repulse for them to abandon their interception mission and return to Singapore. HMS Durban was also sunk by the fire of by the two Japanese cruisers, though both of them were quite badly damaged by return fire.

A well deserved victory to the IJN in the end  ......next week we're sticking with WW2 naval but shifting to the North Atlantic...can the Bismarck make it home with a little help from its freinds (and the Z plan actually being progressed somewhat?)      

[toxicpixie]

Is there much difference between Advanced Song and "normal" Song? I gather there's stuff with reactions to enemy activations and the traits are different in some details? Either way, sounds good - the basic engine is cracking and quick

[Zippee]

Is there much difference between Advanced Song and "normal" Song? I gather there's stuff with reactions to enemy activations and the traits are different in some details? Either way, sounds good - the basic engine is cracking and quick

Essentially the activation sequence is that any failures can be picked up by the opposition and rolled to activate their figures as a 'reaction' in the opponents turn. A reaction trumps an activation.

So if I roll 2 dice to activate my guy and get 1 success, 1 fail: my opponent can use that failed dice to roll for a reaction - if successful this happens before I activate my guy.

If I roll 2 fails, he can choose to take the 2 reaction dice or take the turn.

Each of his guys can only react once per turn.

So goblins (Q4+ mostly) v elves (Q2+) meant that the elves essentially all got to move in their own turn and in the enemy's whilst the goblins occasionally got a chance when the elf rolled a 1.

A small difference on paper but against such widely differing warbands had a significant impact - I gather not everyone likes it and the rules retain the option not to, or to moderate / limit it. We found that it meant the elven player was always involved in the game (this was good as Luke is 11 and easily distracted) whereas his dad the goblin king essentially had a go and then sat Luke's turn out apart from rolling for being killed, sorry shot at. In reality it meant rolling to activate a 'prone' goblin was a risky affair as any failure (50% chance) would probably (anything but a 1) lead to an elven archer planting an arrow in him and adios gobo!

Can't really say about the traits - haven't done an analysis (I have both OSBH and ASBH but none of the supplements), I think the ASBH calculator includes all supplementary traits so it's a bit of a big list, I'll certainly be cropping it as we found that too many traits (or at least too many different ones) bogged the game. Oddly the goblins had the most divergent and eclectic set. We certainly found some were very powerful, some subtly so (like Tough - only becomes apparent through play how good it is) others blatantly so (like Legendary Shot and Longbow and Leafsight).

We'll definitely be playing more but I'll take considerably more notice of the traits, both in their effect and the number employed. My gut reaction is that we'd prefer more minions and less 'superhero' heroes but one of the good things is that the game allows precisely that sort of crafting.

We deliberately left magic out of the game this time around, so can't comment on that. I know the spells and magic system in ASBH is far more 'in depth' than in OSBH.

[toxicpixie]

Cheers Zippee, great stuff. From the sound of it good quality figures benefit even more than usual - Q2 is just ludicrously good normally and with a reaction chance that gets Even better!

[fred.]

We found with normal SoBH that having figures with too good stats wasn't much fun.

[toxicpixie]

Yeah, I tend to Quality 3+ at best. Quality 4 if the warband really needs the numbers/it fits thematically - but a Leader is usually de riguer then or there's just no fun for whoever is playing them. Means they can get a good schwerpunkt going on at the risk of stragglers or bunching

One of our players goes Quality 2, max fight. He tried to shoehorn a Leader in as well, just in case :/

Actually, in more Pendraken related themes, SoBH would be cracking in 10mm with single based figures!

[Zippee]

We found with normal SoBH that having figures with too good stats wasn't much fun.

I think (and admittedly it's based on very limited intel) that that is even more so in ASBH.

The troll and goblin king (eventually, after several rounds of mutual clanging off of shields and bigness) managed to eat the 3 elven spearmen (thanks to a Gruesome kill by the troll and a miraculous morale fail by the elves leading to effective free hacks) but the ordinary goblins couldn't do a thing, they just needed to stay out of sight from the elven archers.

There was plenty of terrain to do this but unfortunately the Bowmaster has Leafsight (can trace LOS through vegetation and cancel its cover effect) and Legendary Shot (can perform a shoot action with any/all of his actions) plus a Longbow (range out to 4L +1 at 1L) with Good Shot (+1) - so well positioned he just dominated a huge area of table. And it proved impossible to get to grips with the archers and Bowmaster as they all had Free Disengage, which when combined with their high chance of reaction meant they were always able to dance out of the way and take shots.

The combat in the ruins with troll and king v spearmen with archer support was great, the next hour or so was pretty dull. Good experience using the rules though.

This was not helped by not having limited the table size - I just put the ruins in the centre of my 6x4 with a stream and ford with the ruins (where the action was) plus hill with a temple ruin (played no part) and surrounded it all with forest and undergrowth. Obviously if I'd taken the time to define a 3x3 or even 4x4 area that would have had a significant impact (mea culpa: hindsight is ever thus   )

One thing we did find tiresome was the recoil on odd, prone on even (or is it the other way around?) based on the dice mechanic - for some reason we just couldn't remember and it isn't on the QRS (well until I wrote it in BLOCK CAPS across the top   )

[Zippee]

Yeah, I tend to Quality 3+ at best. Quality 4 if the warband really needs the numbers/it fits thematically - but a Leader is usually de riguer then or there's just no fun for whoever is playing them. Means they can get a good schwerpunkt going on at the risk of stragglers or bunching

One of our players goes Quality 2, max fight. He tried to shoehorn a Leader in as well, just in case :/

Actually, in more Pendraken related themes, SoBH would be cracking in 10mm with single based figures!

I took the stats from the suggested lists in the book - all elves Q2 . . . I didn't know guv! Archers 55pts, Spear 58pts, Bowmaster 116

The goblins had two personality-leaders - one of them a discipline master, the elves just had the one personality who isn't a leader.

With it being a first game, it perhaps took a little while for the goblin king to realise the benefit of group activations but I don't think it was a game changer.

[fred.]

Group activations are key for low value troops. One of my daughters likes to play a halfling band in SoBH and they really struggled the first few games, then we read up on leaders, and suddenly they were much more effective, swarming big stuff.

We have played with multi-based 10mm works great. We just treated each base as a figure.

Constraining table space when you have shooters vs Melee is rather important, for any ruleset. We once tried Mongols vs Lizardmen, it was fairly pointless. The Mongols could barely damage the lizards with shooting, but could stay away from melee. I've seen the same in epic with IG tanks vs Tyranids.

[toxicpixie]

Yeah, that sound like a recipe for a massacre, the Elves having free rein, machine gun artillery bows and three times the activations

Song works with a small table space, it's one of its strengths.

What points were you playing to - looking at those elf stats more than the 300 that "basic/normal" plays to?

And I agree with Fred re:leaders, especially if you've got Shield Wall or Swarm Fighting (what wee it's actually called!). Also for group shooting - half a dozen rubbish shooters become lethal as a group

[Zippee]

What points were you playing to - looking at those elf stats more than the 300 that "basic/normal" plays to?

ASBH recommends 400 for a 40-60 min game, we had 6 hours, a game of X-Wing plus our first game of ASBH plus some infill boardgames - so I upped that to 500 to give a bit more to play with and avoid a crippling early quick loss situation.

Warbands were:
HIGH ELF (510)
Bowmaster: Q2+ C4 Personality: Free Disengage, Good Shot, Leafsight, Legendary Shot, Longbow, Rare 1 (113pts)
3 Warriors (spear & shield): Q2+ C3 Block, Long Reach, Rare 3 (55pts = 165pts)
4 Archers: Q2+ C2 Free Disengage, Good Shot, Longbow (58pts = 232pts)

GOBLIN (511)
The King: Q3+ C3 Personality: Discipline Master, Difficult Target, Heavy Armour, Leader, Melee Block (108pts)
War Boss: Q3+ C2 Personality: Difficult Target, Good Shot, Heavy Armour, Leader, Shortbow, Unerring Aim (86pts)
2 Elites (spear): Q4+ C3 Heavy Armour, Long Reach (33pts = 66pts)
4 Warrior (sword & shield): Q4+ C3 Melee Block (27pts = 108pts)
3 Archers: Q4+ C2 Difficult Target, Shortbow (27pts = 81)
1 Cave Troll: Q4+ C4 Big, Bludgeon, Dim-Witted, Tough (62pts)

[toxicpixie]

Ahh, I see

Yeah, that elf list looks lethal, I'd guess the goblins need to group up their melee guys with the Leaders and surround the bowmen so they can't run off and turn them into pin cushions! Hard work with no table edges

Otherwise they're probably hitting four activations to one including reactions? Dakka-dakka-dead.

[Zippee]

Yeah in retrospect it was definitely the table edges 

Still frustrating as the second half was it was a good learning exercise in design and play which was the objective.

Thankfully the 11 year old picked elves not goblins, otherwise there may well have ben tears before bed 

Thanks for all the pointers, much appreciated

Oh and although I could play in 10mm and have done Sharp Practice with multi fig bases subbing as a single model, I have such a huge LotR collection (thanks to my wife who's a bit of a fan and spent frivolously) that to consider doing it in anything else is frankly silly (especially when you throw in all the RPG stuff filling 12 GW cases).

Do you thin 196 Uruk Hai pikemen will break the game   

[fred.]

Do you thin 196 Uruk Hai pikemen will break the game   

No more so than the machine gun elves.

You might get bored of rolling activations though

[Zippee]

You might get bored of rolling activations though

Surely that's what Group Activations are for