SoBH Battle Report : Treasure Hunt

This week is half-term week. Unfortunately, I was unable to get any time off work whilst my youngest son is over. However, we decided that we would try to play a game or two in the time we have available.

This lunchtime, and for a bit after work, we were able to put together a small game for Song of Blades and Heroes. My son had a bit more time available to ponder his plans than me, so he created a fresh human warband, whilst I used my already extant orc rabble.

Apologies for the picture quality - they were taken very quickly on my phone as I had limited gaming time to fit into my lunch break. Also, I didn't get time to take a picture at the end of each turn, so this is a brief summary of the skirmish.

The human warband (2 archers, 1 heavy infantryman, 5 barbarian warriors)

The orc rabble (3 archers, 1 orc warlord, 5 orcs)

My son set up the table, we rolled for a scenario (Treasure Hunt) and set to.

Starting positions - orcs had priority

The game didn't start out too well for me as the orcs refused to do what I wanted of them. I moved half of them up to try to get to the objective treasure token by the building, which worked, but ended up stringing the other half of them out with no force cohesion trying to get around the building to flank the humans. One of the archers failed to move for several turns and one of the rabble always failed the activation (I activated with 3 dice to get to the hilltop treasure token at the end of each turn and he failed every time).

The humans moved up nicely in a shield wall formation with archers on the flank who would try to get the treasure token in the forest and use the shield wall as cover for on the way back. They took a few pot shots at the orcs by the building but their arrows failed to find their marks, except for one (see below at the end of the post).

Turn 2 - The orcs reach the 1st treasure token

The orcs continued to fail their movement rolls but eventually got to the treasure token on turn 4. They were shot at all the time, but the humans failed to make any impact, especially when they failed to activate on the first roll of their turn 4. The treasure token turned out to be Fools Gold, so the orcs tried to head over to the second treasure in the woods as the humans seemed to be stalled. However, one was shot along the way, which left it open for a human archer to check out the token; it too turned out to be Fools Gold. The orc trying to climb the hill failed his activation yet again.

Turn 5 - the 1st treasure token turned out to be false

The orcs on their flank were slowly getting too close for comfort, so a couple of human warriors peeled off to deal with threat. They piled straight in and took out an orc warrior.

Turn 6 - the melee begins in earnest

The next turn saw the orcs cut down in great numbers, including a couple of Gruesome Kills. The orc leader did, however, manage to kill the human heavy infantryman for a slight bit of retaliation. All the orcs retreated towards their base edge, and one of the orcs left the board (rolled a triple 1). This took the orcs below the fifty percent mark so a Morale check was carried out which meant further retreats.

Turn 7 - the orcs take a battering

This actually panned out well for the orcs as it returned them to very close to their board edge and the final treasure token on the hill. The humans, thinking that their adversaries would get away with the treasure, ran pell-mell after the orcs - you would not believe how many triple activations happened over the next few turns for the humans.

Turns 8 & 9 - the orcs go after the treasure - the humans chase them down

Turn 10 - the orc leader grabs the treasure

The orcs, having grabbed the treasure headed towards their board edge, but the humans closed in on all sides trying to cut them off. Again, triple activations all round whilst the orcs barely managed single activations. However, at turn 12 the luck began to run out; a double-fail on their second roll stopped the human advance.

The final turn began with an orc triple activation which got both the leader and the archer off the board with the treasure.

Turn 13 - The orcs leave the table with the treasure

The final result was a Draw.

Victory Points : 

Orcs = 6 points (5 for the Treasure, 1 for 25pts of kills)

Humans = 6 points (150pts of kills - if 2 more points value of orcs had been killed, victory would have gone to the humans - i.e. if the archer was a warrior that was left, then the humans would have won)

It was a close run game to begin with, but then the tide suddenly turned and a whole swatch of orcs got Gruesome Killed in one turn leading to all but two of the orcs leaving the table. The orcs were on the back foot then (with lots of poor activation rolls to add to their woes - so many 1s), but the humans' luck ran out on the 12th turn and moved to the orcs to get them home with the treasure on the 13th turn.

 

We encountered a weird thing that we could not find covered by the rules - an archery attack led to an orc  rolling a 1 with a -1 penalty = 0. The human archer rolled a 3 with a -2 penalty = 1. The rules state that a Kill needs the attacker to double the defender's score. Unfortunately, any value above 0 is infinite - so was this a hit, a Kill or a Gruesome Kill? We decided that as the scores were so low we would just count this as a hit. If the scores were higher, we decided that a difference of 2 would mean a Kill and a 3+ would mean a Gruesome Kill.