And it was a face to face fantasy contest between my mate Andrew, using mainly his figures, scenery and rules, myself and a near mythical being, the female wargamer Helois (pronounced Eloise), a friend of Andrews who I last met about ten years ago.
We managed to get in two games between 1030 and 1730 - Helois won them both, I came second twice and Andrew...well its pretty obvious really (and this is why we don't want to encourage too many women to take up wargaming....!)
Great fun and I have taken A LOT of pictures - total count including four extras from Andrew is close to forty, so I will start uploading them now and in about an hour, I can add the dialogue!
This is the battleground, with entry/exit points shown (I did not quite manage to include the whole table - duh! We had to "find" treasure by rolling ten or higher when in an adjacent square - on the first success, we then rolled for our exit point - IF it was the same as entry, we had to re roll!
Game One
My entry point was 6 and exit was 5, Helois was entry 3 and exit 7, Andrew, being the unlucky general, entered at 8 and had to get off at 3! (exit points selected during game play as outlined above)
One of the many excellent plastic pieces in Andrews collection - he quite often subscribes to Kick Starter projects and has amassed a huge number of exquisite figures and terrain pieces this way
This is my first game "squad" - first up, the apprentice sorceress, from Reaper Miniatures
A nun with doppelsword - also Reaper
The leader of the intrepid group - plastic Frostgrave figure with a Statuesque female head
First archer - also a plastic Frostgrave with a Statuesque female head
Another Reaper nun, and.....
......... another!
And finally, a second archer, who is a Tribal warrior from Shadowforge
A gratuitous second image on the apprentice because I think she is a cool figure!
Andrew had 6 markers placed around the board - these were the locations of randomly generated "monsters" - any movement by any of the warbands within line of sight generated a reaction - this beasty was the first one to appear
My band making their way along the labyrinth of tunnels in search of their first treasure
Andrews group ( I believe these figures may all have been sculpted by a certain Mr A Morrison back in the day...). Centre top is a non playing female figure - she had to be safely escorted through the battle and off the other side to gain an extra victory point
Helois's Wizard plus a couple of standard warriors
Andrew walked in front of a line of sight and this chap appeared
Helois in the Temple of Doom. Her specific mission (we each had one) was to desecrate the tomb for an extra three VP's. she had to do this by successfully casting three spells (10 or better on 2 D6, although Wizards had at least plus 2 to die roll and could get a card to increase it to +4). The warrior in the foreground is attempting to "find" the yellow treasure marker (again by rolling 10 or greater)
Having extra characters in the search party increased the chance of success by one per extra person - so here, I only needed to roll a 5 or better on 2D6 - but I still managed to fail for two or three turns!
Finished with her desecrating and treasure hunting, Helois has withdrawn to her exit point. En route, she managed to persuade Andrews non player lady to go with her instead of sticking with Andrew - more extra VPs! My team are lined up to try to prevent Andrew from getting past. My special mission to get three extra VP's was to kill more characters than I lost - so I had to kill someone, even if I didn't want to! This didnt work out too well as Andrews Amazon leader had a special ability to turn into a Berserker and took out two of my team before the apprentice sorceress finally did for her with some magic. I think the final score was 8 or 10 to Helois, 6 to me and 1 to Andrew - he only had one surviving figure!
Game Two
Same entry points as Game One, this time, I went left and had the absolute luck of rolling exit point 4 - I could have been off the board before anything else had happened! Helois had to travel the entire length of the table from entry point 3 to exit point 4!
I changed figures for this game and added a damsel in distress that I had to get off the table. Here, three of my team attempt to find treasure
The rest of my team, with the dramatic damsel in tow, head down the corridor adjacent to exit point 4, where they successfully discovered a piece of treasure, which in turn revealed that my exit point was - 4!
Andrews team on the move, again with a damsel they have to escort to safety - in the background, the first monster has been activated
Two of Helois's band
Andrews sorcerer tries to put a hex on this ugly bugger
Whilst yet another monster is generated and advances against Andrew - he really was the unlucky general in both games! One of his characters trying to find treasure in a pool of water in this game threw a double 1 (a blunder) and in the resolution throw, slipped in the pool and drowned - much to Helois and my amusement)
Another view of the monster closing in on Andrews team. In the end it killed one of his warriors AND the damsel.
Another couple of pieces of terrain - I had thought they were just mounds of rock from my side of the table!
An image I took to show the fortuitous location of my exit point vis a vis my warband - now all I had to worry about was the roll at the end of each turn that could generate random extra monsters on a 1 - and THEN they rolled to see what entrance they came on at - so a 4 would have been problematic....
And still they keep coming ..... but fortunately not at point 4
And another undead creature arrived at entry point 2, just as Andres last two survivors entered the cavern at the bottom of the stairs
I stupidly sent the barbarian warrior forward to try to grab an extra piece of treasure - she was killed by the big guy in the distance
After that, I decided discretion was the better better part of valour, and pulled everyone except my leader back to exit 4 - now I really would be in the Poo if a monster appeared behind me.....
Helois was attacked by two monsters simultaneously, but she dispatched them both without even raising a sweat.
In the end, no monster appeared at entry 4 and I got all my figures off. My leader was near entry 6 trying to get an extra piece of treasure when another monster appeared there, so she beat a hasty retreat and also got off the board. I had about 8 points in total but Helois once again triumphed with 14 - Andrew I think had 3 - his two surviving figures were both wounded but managed to limp away.
A couple of close ups of figures belonging to Andrew but commanded by Helois
Andrew sent me the last four images. The first two are warbands composed entirely of Aly Morrison sculpted figures (so he says, if Aly corrects this comment, its nothing to do with me!)
This was Helois's band
This is Andrews band
The last two are just "monster eye candy" to quote Andrew.
Great fun and I would be more than happy to play this game again, even though I would never put myself down as a fantasy or RPG playing fan.
Watching the TV news stories tonight of music festivals around the country and record numbers of people out on boats etc, then seeing there were another record number of new Covid infections in the UK today, we really do have to thank our lucky stars that our government has controlled and managed the virus so much better than most other countries. I hope you are all safe and well and that 2021 brings some improvement in the situation wherever you are.
