Open Combat - brief AAR

[boneio]

Introduced a couple of friends to Second Thunder's open combat this week.

As there were 3 of us we alternated playing 1v1 and managed to fit three games in - not bad for an evening session!

With two new players, I acted as coach for the first game in which a group of animated teddy bears took on a viking warband. A lot of clustering round the edges of the board somehow didn't result in the expected bloodbath. Many mistakes were made (both tactical and in terms of learning the rules!) but in the end the vikings won the day.

Game 2 was my Blue Cursed orcs vs the vikings. With the opening turn volley my goblins taking out the viking leader, it was an uphill battle for the new player. I of course apologised for being ruthless in teaching the lessons of Dont Stand In Front of Each Other; and Protect Your Leader (rerolls).
Despite that it was a well-fought game and the orcs took some casualties before pushing the leaderless vikings to break point.

Game 3 saw the teddies and their monstrous ally (teddy golem?!) deploy well against the orcs. On the first turn the teddies showed uncanny strategic nous and ran away from the orcs, forcing my split force to try and catch up to the other side of the board where Robin the archer teddy was peppering my poor innocent goblins, supported by the teddy golem and a spear-teddy.
After rolling 4 1s in a row on one turn, and a double one with a two-hander on the next, I managed to taunt a couple of the furry gits out and onto the eager blades of my heavy orc and cyclops.
With just 1 point until break point on both sides, Robin the archer managed to take out his counterpart goblin, which loss was enough to convince the orcs that there was easier prey than unholy animated stuffed toys.

A great three games and both new players already talking about new warband builds to try and more scenery to make.