Happy New Year Everyone!!

Apologies for the delay in posting this: Sunday was much busier than I
anticipated, and we had surprise visitors on New Year's Day, so I
didn't manage to write this up until today (And I've only just managed
to do it before bedtime 'cos I was back at work today as well...)

OK - I planned a fairly straight forward battle, just to see how the
rules played. Myself and three of my buddies got together for the
battle, and we played teams on the day. The armies were:

Human Army with a couple of allies (Ent, Giant Bear, Giant Spider).
One general and two Magic Users.

Orc & Goblin Army, again with some allies (Red Dragon, 2 units of
Minotaurs [Ogres], a Giant, and 2 units of Large Boars). Two generals,
one Magic User and an Assasin.

We had a few extra (new) units in each army that are not listed in the
TW basic rules. I've already posted the stats for these in a previous
post.

Magic Users all started with 10MP each as suggested in the rules.

We divvied up teams, and then each team decided how much of each army
they were going to control. I was looking after the Left Flank of the
Orc army, so all descriptions of the battle will be from that perspective.

Finally, we were using version 22 of the rules, and decided to use
alternate activation rather than colour activation.

====================================================================

the Orc Army had the best of the activations at the start of the game,
getting royal cards and Aces very quickly. The Red Dragon drew first
blood, completely wiping out a unit of cavalry that attempted to skirt
the forest over on the left flank.

This victory was short lived, as the humans brought up a unit of Spear
and a unit of Bows (with the sorceress) and killed the Dragon on the
very next activation. The Humans were just too afraid of this powerful
animal and poked, shot and fireballed it to death. It was an excellent
example of ganging up on a powerful creature, but unfortunately they
didn't seem to carry it over into the rest of the game.

Most of the action developed in the centre and on the right flank.
There were an exchange of hits between the Giant Spider and the Goblin
archers and Orc cavalry. Eventually the Spider was killed by a unit
of Minotaurs, but it gave a good account of itself.

The human army brought up it's knight units (one of which had the
Human General) and tried to take out the Minotaurs. But they held
firm, and then the Assasin (who was activating with the Minotaurs)
successfully took out the General.

Orc Cavalry attempted to dispose of the Sorceresses Spear unit - in an
attempt to expose her for attack, but a quick heal spell here, or the
activation of another unit to cover her hex kept her going.

Some slight manouvreing in the centre continued, when the Humans
suddenly decided to develop the left flank, and sent the ranger
plunging through the woods on their own. They did a good job at
attacking a unit of boars, but the return fire evened things out quite
nicely. A second unit of boars finished off the Rangers and the action
slowed down a bit over that side for a while.

In the centre, the Humans were being very wary of the Giant, keeping
well away from him and just taking potshots with the Archers. They
occasionally cast a freeze spell on him before his activation, but
they didn't follow this up, so he was available to activate again at
the end of each turn.

Continuous excahnge of long range bow fire was whittling down units
very nicely. Over on the left flank the Ent charged through the trees
to confront two Orc units - damaging the Archers before the Orc Swords
could wound it and force a retreat. The remaining archers were then
able to finish it off.

The Bear had also nipped through the trees, and was attacking the
remaining boar unit, but the boars and the archers on that flank were
able to kill it.

I was getting worried at around this point though. the Orc army was
looking very weak, and extremely spread out, while the Human Army
still had a good number of units with a full complement of Wounds.

Further exchanges of bowfire forced the sorceress to join with the
Wizards Spear unit (Up til now, the Wizard hadn't done very much). At
around the same time, the Unit covering the Goblin Wizard and Assasin
was wiped out, leaving them dangerously exposed.

Suprisingly, the humans did not capitalise on this opportunity.
Instead, the Giant was frozen again, and a simple bow attack on the
Assasin resulted in a miss. The Assasin then moved up to the bowm unit
and attacked the Sorceress (since she had more MP than the Wizard) and
successfully murdered her (but was caught in the attempt)

The humans now decided it was time to get stuck into the Giant and,
while inflicting a couple of extra wounds, left it standing.This was
all the opportunity needed, and with its next activation, the Giant
trampled a unit of spear, and engaged the unit of bows covering the
Wizard. Both units were destroyed, and the Goblin Wizard then
fireballed the Human Wizard. This effectively one the game, and was a
surprising turn of events, considering how pessimistic I had been in
the last few moves.

With only two wounds left, the giant wasn't likely to survive and
attack by the remaining Human knights, but with the Baors and Wizard
left to dish out some havoc, it was all over bar the looting
of the bodies.

===================================================================

Well, it played out in just over two hours, and the general feeling
was extremely positive. I really enjoyed myself (winning helped) and
was impressed at just how quickly each activation went once we got the
hang of it. I'm confident that a replay would take under two hours.

I was also pleased that the balance of the game was so good. The
Humans should have had two Ents (But my mate forgot to bring one) so I
whitled the Boars down by a unit to keep things even. Perhaps another
Ent could have made the difference, I'm not sure.

Individuals really made a difference. Obviously, then Magic users
really packed a punch, but the Assasin did really well - two
Individuals felt the steel of his dagger. I was a bit disappointed
with the Dragon, but that was poor moving on my part, I should have
picked my target more carefully. The Giant more than made up for this
though, although I had to be patient and bide my time to use him. A
timely Heal spell helped to keep him going.

I thought the Human Army made a couple of mistakes - not aggresively
attacking the Giant after freezing him was one. With two magic users
they could have piled two or three activation markers on him and
carved him up with a penknife!

I also felt that sticking the knights on the right flank was a poor
tactic as well. They were the human 'heavy hitters', and I'd have kept
them in the middle to take on the Giant and Minotaurs (if I had been
in charge).

Also - neither of us played units with much support. We were far too
worried about being bracketed and unable to retreat (and therefore
taking a hit). There seemed to be a lot of single unit moves and
attacks, and therefore a lot of exchange of wounds. I suppose it would
be better to gang up when you draw a royal or ace card. That letts you
get all your attacks in before your opponent can respond.

To summarise: It was utterly brilliant, and I plan to play again very
soon! :o)

DaveA