My kids and I played a game of ASoBH last night, pitting a beastman gang against a pack of orcs for control of a hill on which grew a malevolent, sentient pumpkin, pulsing with the raw stuff of chaos.
I wanted to try two warbands from extremes of the spectrum, so the beastmen/broo were close-combat monsters (and all Personalities under ASoBH rules - normally limited to half the total points), while the orcs were mainly rabble (the Rabble trait in SoBH means that you are put out of action/killed if you are beaten on a dice roll, rather than being knocked down or pushed back) but with four crossbowmen.
The sides were as follows:
Beastmen
Elephant Man: Q3; C4; Leader, Tough (100 points)
Hyena Man: Q4; C4; Heavy Weapon, Savage (41 points)
Two-headed Broo: Q3; C3; Combat Master (50 points)
Broo with Mace: Q3; C3; Block, Bludgeon (48 points)
Goat Man: 27; Q4; C3; Savage (27 points)
Minotaur: Q4; C4; Big, Dashing, Group Fighter, Savage (48 points)
Total: 314 points
Orcs
Orc Leader: Q3; C3; Leader, Heavily Armoured, Expert Block (78 points)
Bugbear: Q4; C4; Big, Bludgeon, Block (48 points)
6 x Orc Rabble: Q4, C3; Rabble (@15, so 90 points)
4 x Orc Crossbowmen: Q4, C3; Rabble, Crossbow (@26, so 104 points)
Total: 320 points
The game was terrifically entertaining. I know that some dislike the ASoBH reaction rule, but I think it does wonders for keeping everyone involved in the game and - more importantly - for simulating simultaneous action. In that respect, I really like the fact that the "reactions" needn't have anything to do with the characters that roll failures (so you might roll a failure when activating someone on your baseline, which leads to a character advancing on the far side of the table); it's simply a neat mechanism for breaking up the turn sequence.
A big change from basic SoBH is that certain missile weapons are much more powerful - crossbows in particular. My son's beastmen paid the price for being contemptuous of the orc crossbowmen as they advanced, with the result that the two-headed broo was pin-cushioned before he could put his Combat Master trait to use. I split the orcs into a combat group with the bugbear and the crossbowmen. I kept the leader dashing between the two to give orders. The beastmen, now wary of the crossbowmen, charged into the orc fighters - but this allowed the crossbowmen to kill the other broo and the goatman by outflanking them.
As the fighting grew fiercer and the orc rabble began to crumble, the leader scuttled off to join the crossbowmen in the centre of the table. By this point, only the minotaur and the elephant man were left standing on the other side (after shrugging off various morale checks), but the bugbear and six orc rabble were slain. The surviving orcs had been scattered by morale tests following the loss of more than half their number, but regrouped and began to reload.
We then had a very tense moment when the minotaur broke from behind the cover of the ruins to charge the orc leader. The leader was a fair distance away, but the minotaur was armed with the Dashing trait, which gives a free attack after a charge. So if he could get there in three moves, he could still attack. But a failure would give a chance for a shot or for the leader to retreat. In the event, three successes allowed him to charge in, giving a Dashing attack on the leader, along with the +1 Ambush bonus. Sadly for the minotaur, though, he only managed to knock the orc leader down. Next turn, the leader stood and issued a group action, which allowed the minotaur to be swarmed with more orcs than his Group Fighter ability could deal with. Outnumbered four to one, he was struck down by one of the rabble crossbowmen - an ignominious end!
His elephantine leader advanced to avenge him, but the numbers were now overwhelming. Not even the Tough trait could save the betrunked chaotic from what would otherwise have been a Gruesome Kill but was merely a game-clinching out-of-action result.
29 February 2008, 12:27:39 AM