Not a battle report - MESBG Orcs Vs Orcs

Afternoon #Warhammer Community I've been #PlayingWarhammer with a game of new MESBG. I think this is Azog's Legion versus Azog's Hunters with the main difference being the hunter's ridiculous movement value of 8". Meaning Otty had a huge manoeuvrability advantage. Liam had originally looked at Bolg as the hero but saw the new rules for the Troll Brute, so we switched things up. 

As I have a huge issue with matched play games having missions with scoring points for taking a banner, when not all armies can take banners - I was adamant we take one, because we could. This caused a lot of debate how wrong we were but I think 50% of the missions score this way. Obviously we rolled a mission that didn't, but that doesn't stop us using the re-roll to duels within 3" benefit.

Liam did most of the movement, tactics and rolling in the early turns. Trying to find a way to make Otty's movement redundant. Unfortunately his dice rolling was appalling and he couldn't manage above a three. 

Eventually he handed the dice to me as I've had a run of 'getting exactly what we need recently' but hilariously I was also getting ones and twos! 😂 The Troll Brute had some fun trying to trample through the Hunters.

About halfway through the game we realised we'd not remembered to use the Banner's reroll ability afterall! To make matters even worse we discovered the Legion has a faction rule that means we get can get a Banner reroll over the entire board each turn, or a couple of other benefits instead. This represents Azog's banner orders from The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies. So we'd forgotten to use them for most of the game.

The Brute managed to get into some meaty combat with Lurtz eventually. Then Otty took the decision to fire with his archers into combat at the Troll Brute rider [not actually on the model]. Both hit, but both got 'in the way', so hit Lurtz!

He had one fate point left, a 4+ save and this was Otty's role!  😂 

Oh man, it was such a funny game. Once again MESBG delivering fun outcomes that make you laugh so hard. I don't know why this plays so hard with comedy moments. There's something about the game mechanic that makes so many dice roles pivotal and yet offers 50:50 chances that come as such a surprise when it doesn't pay off.

Whatever the reason we're going to keep on playing and having fun.

Not a battle report - Star Wars Legion Empire Vs Mandalorians

Afternoon, at this rate I may have to look at a new URL and whole new rebrand! I can't appeal to the Warhammer Community on this one, it's Star Wars Legion! This is not the first game we've played, but it appears to be the first one I've shared.  That surprises me as I'm sure I have loads of pictures... of games I will definitely have no recollection of either!

As I don't remember what happened let us instead enjoy the pictures and muse somewhat on the game. Legion is like 40k, but based on Star Wars. There's another game - Star Wars Shatterpoint that seems like a skirmish game and seems to have a bit more support but Legion is on its 2nd edition [the new rules are free to download]. We're coming to terms with the new rules, I'd estimate we played 1st edition maybe about 6 times.

Overall, I think we like it. It's not as fun, or as simple as MESBG but it is much more engaging than 40k, despite occasionally being more complex! That's right. When I claim 40k is too complex how does a more complex game feel more entertaining? I'm still trying to conclusively answer that but I have various thoughts.

First up, every unit comes with a datacard, with all it's specific rules. You can then add upgrades, more cards, and that helps build your army. Together with an overly convoluted and impenetrable mission/deployment/objective setting stage at the beginning of the game just getting to turn one is a chore in itself.

Honestly, I think the next game we played it took over an hour in pre-game 'book-keeping'. It was ludicrous, but did add some of the high points of humour for the evening. When the game actually starts you have a set of order cards that give you some buffs but have a specific value 1-4. This is how many of your units you can give orders to and whoever 'bids' the lowest gets to activate their unit/units first. So if you choose a 2 unit order and your friend chose 3 you get to give orders to 2 units and activate them. Your friend gets to give orders to 3 units and can activate them after, or it alternates, I forget which. Like I say it's complicated and I seem only able to understand the rules when I'm actually in the shed.

There are various movement tools that feel really precise given they have hinges in, and you position them on the base and then move the leader model from one end to the other. The the rest of the squad just moves anywhere within a certain distance. Kind of undermining the precision effort but I think there is a net speed benefit in the end. Each unit gets to do 2 'actions' which could be move twice, move once and attack once [you can only make one form of attacking action unless special rules say otherwise], aim and shoot, dodge and move or even rally.

Some of these actions give benefits in the shooting phase or when you are shot at. Any time you are shot at your model gets a 'suppression' counter, like Bolt Action pinned marker, and that can prevent you from doing more than one action. To counter this you have to do a leadership roll and all of these rolls are on special 6 or 8 sided dice. 6 sided are for 'defence' - for rallies and saving throws [in white and red -  red is best]. These have shields and 'surges'. Some units convert surges to shields, increasing their defence. 8 sided dice for 'attacks' [in white, black and red - red is best]. These have hits, critical hits and surges. Again, some units convert surges to a hit, or even convert a surge to a crit! It's a neat way of managing a units capability but it does mean every time you fire or make a save you have to consult their datacard to see if a surge counts for anything else.

So yes, confusion is very much part of the game and can slow down progress. If we get through 2 to 3 turns in one evening that's a result!

Many units are single wound models, but some heroes and tough units like Wookies are multiple wound models. 

Therefore wound counters come as standard, alongside the suppression and many, many other markers. Now you know I'm a fan of markers, but even I get overwhelmed by just how many are used in this game.

Cover allows you an additional saving throw [on white dice]. Roll a dice for every hit [crits ignore cover]. Soft cover allows a shield [and surge if you convert] to negate 1 hit. Hard cover can negate 2. You also get 'cover' saves for dodging and if you already have a suppression counter. Simple and complex, it's quite a feat.

Alternating play really helps feel like you're not a spectator as your army is deleted a unit at a time. Although, the potential to remove a unit in one turn in Legion is highly unlikely. Which is one of its appeals. Even with 'tanks' like the AT-ST against an infantry unit - it just doesn't have enough guns to wipe a unit in 1 turn. It may kill 1, 2 or 3 in a squad but most of them have enough figures to weather firepower of that magnitude.

And even that will only put one suppression token on the squad so they'll still be usable if they haven't been activated. They may have one less action, if they fail their rally, but you don't feel like you're constantly losing options. I think that is one of its biggest successes - the durability of units. Unlike the films, Stormtroopers hit quite a lot, but their blasters aren't that fatal. Even Rebel t-shirts can be effective armour!

So, we're somehow loving this complex, long winded game in a way that the similarly afflicted 40k doesn't seem to deliver. It's frustrating and sad that we've all invested in a game that no one is motivated to play. I love the figures, the settings and the armies I've spent time and effort painting. We just can't bring ourselves to put them on the table

That said, I won't be investing in a Star Wars army just yet. Suggestions for factions keep being made to me and I would dearly love a Jawa army. The 3D sculpts are stunning and funny too.

However, this is is not even a legitimate faction. There are no rules for them aside from an upgrade card for one model. And without official figures even, there are no official cards, which are key to playing the game.

We discussed using Ewok rules, but the Ewoks are utterly murderous and we have an Ewok army already painted up. So there's no incentive for me to buy into another system. Nor add in a load of new figures to paint, which is actually a relief.

Not a Battle report - MESBG Rohirrim Vs a lot of Orc hunters on Wargs

Afternoon #Warhammer Community I've been #PlayingWarhammer with another game of new MESBG and despite this being one of the most recent games I have very little recollection of what happened. I can only tell I partnered with Liam and his Orcs because most of the pics are from that side of the table. 

Naturally Otty went with his beloved Rohirrim.

The Orcs had something of an advantage - being able to scale difficult terrain with ease, those cliff edges and ruins offering no impediment.

The initial surge forward.

While a flank is exposed Heroes ride to ruin and the world's ending!

With something of a bun-fight in the middle of the board.

It looks like Otty lost a lot of his army at this point, with Orcs a plenty.

Again the Rohirrim are outnumbered but not necessarily outmatched.

I cannot tell from this what happened. Otty looks stunned, but that could be that despite the pictures he somehow snatched a win. Maybe he, or Liam, can remember what happened. Bottom line I know I had fun, ate some crisps, drank some tea, rolled some dice, laughed and enjoyed the company of these guys.

Aside from a functioning recollection of the actual game we played what more can you ask for?

Battle report - MESBG Rohirrim Vs Wild Men of Dunland

Afternoon #Warhammer Community I've been #PlayingWarhammer with another couple of games of new MESBG. This was one of the new campaign missions based on the War of the Rohirrim film. Again this was a game from January, so my recollection is so bad but I'll try to remember as much as I can. This mission has the Wild Men of Dunland breaking into Edoras with the goal of burning down the village. Meanwhile the loyal followers of Helm Hammerhand are trying to prevent this treachery, by keeping the flaming brands from the buildings. There's a weird setup where you have to split your force and  thanks to some misunderstanding I put a lot of the Rohirrim in immediate danger, getting swamped by Wild Men and General Targg.

After the dust settled Targg remained while 6 Wild Men had perished to my 3 Rohan warriors. 

On the other side a smaller warband faced off against loads of archers and their more violent double-handed weapon wielding colleagues.

Targg and my hero, Theo-someone [no doubt] carried on their scrap with Targg being trapped. With a show of bravery his fodder ran to the nearby building to set it on fire.

Outnumbered but not undaunted my Warriors received the charge of the Wild Men in protecting their homes. 

I'm thinking this was a very poor duel roll that saw the Rohirrim fight back with furious defence.

But it was enough to stop them getting to the barn to try set it alight.

With Targg dead my leader and his retinue caught up with the Wild Men .

With the Wild Men engaged the Leader charged off to give support to the beleaguered flank. 

The Warriors continued to fight the Wild Men and while cutting the last one down were horrified to see his flaming brand catch on Brunnhild's cabin, setting it alight.

On the other side, with the flank decimated the Wild Men surrounded the barn but every attempt to set it alight was thwarted.

The dice were against them. Whether it be damp tinder or the barn had been prepared for such an event it would just not catch fire.

Worse too for the Wild Men, the brave Warriors had managed to put out the flames on the cabin.

My hero continued to try and thwart the attempts to set the barn alight. Without flaming brands higher rolls were needed and none were forthcoming.

More Wild Men fell to the ferocious attacks of the horse lord.

But the numbers were too great and he fell to their clumsy attacks.

But despite their small victory they still could not set the barn alight, leaving the Rohirrim to win the day.

There were a lot of great moments in this game, I may not remember them clearly but they were vivid. We played an extra couple of turns just to see if that barn was set alight but so many dice rolls failed. Even the cabin that got lit and then put out, that initial roll to see if it caught fire I think was just a thematic roll. I don't think there was any legitimate reason for the dead Wild Man to have had a chance to set it on fire but we thought it was fun.

The setup was somewhat traumatic as I think I miscalculated the task at hand. However, the Rohirrim are outnumbered from the start so I'm not sure if there's a more optimum choice on how to divide your force. It worked out in the end, luckily.