SoBH Battle Report : Quest for a Magic Item

I had a second day working from home yesterday, so my lunch break was spent running another Song of Blades and Heroes battle with my youngest son. This battle was over much more quickly than the previous one, so we didn't have to take a break mid-point during the game to continue in the evening like last time.

We both decided to use the same forces as last time as we had become familiar with them (and it saved time by us not having to devise two new warbands). My son was the defender so he set up the board and then rolled the scenario - Quest for a Magic Item. We then placed the three magic item tokens (purple counters) by each of the terrain pieces and kicked off the game.

Starting set up - orcs to the left, humans to the right

We both moved up our forces as quickly as possible to try to gain the magic items. The human archers decided to have a bash at really long range (at a -4) and only just missed out by one point on killing one of my orc archers!

In the second turn, the orcs moved a few but then double-failed to activate. The humans managed to get into the woods and found that the magic item was located there. It was a magic sword (+2 Combat until a 1 is rolled). The orcs would now need to run full tilt to try to stop the archer getting off the table.

The humans find the magic sword

It was at this point that we forgot about the 2AP required for actually picking it up. The orcs managed a few triple activations and got closer to the archer with the magic sword, who was able to get within one move of the board edge and safety. The rest of the humans moved to block the orcs from trapping the archer.

The orcs advance rapidly to stop the archer with the magic sword

I was having a lot of luck with activation rolls, so my orcs advanced very quickly and managed to slay one of the human archers. The humans double-failed to get the archer off and had no other moves this turn.

Victory is in sight

The orcs managed to close the gap and would most likely have caught the archer next turn if only he would double-fail. He didn't and got off the board with the magical treasure.

The final result was a win for the humans.

Victory Points : 

Orcs = 1 point (1 for 25pts of kills)

Humans = 3 points (3pts for getting the magic item off the table)

Campaign total : Orcs = 7, Humans = 9

It was a fairly easy win for the humans, but if we had remembered the 2AP treasure pick up rule, it might have turned out differently.

 

Next game, now that we are becoming more familiar with the rules will be the start of a proper campaign hopefully. The humans will keep the sword as a reward and the orcs the treasure from last time. I will try to work out some campaign rules for treasures and reinforcements.