Treasure Time - a SoBH Battle Report

A battle with my new Swamp Warband and MacSver's Goblin Horde. A Treasure hunt scenario was rolled. The 3 treasures were set up accross the board. Treasure one in the west was on an abandoned escarpment with variable access points. Treasure 2 was in the middle of a swamp. Treasure 3 in the east was up a dead-end bottleneck path at the base of a tower.

Forces (all stats are from published rule books):

• Swamp Warband: Lizardman Leader, Lizardman Warriors (x2), Giant Lizard, Frogfolk Shaman, Frogfolk spearman.
• MacSavages Orc Warband: Orc Warboss, Savage Orc Warrior(x2), Goblin Archer (x2), Goblin Light Infantry (x12!)

The Goblins rolled as defenders as set up first, followed by the Swampies.

The first couple of turns were all movement up the board. The first focus is Treasure1 as it's the most open. The Orc boss, backed up by the slow Savage Orc and mis-firing Goblin LI are on course to clash with the Lizard Warriors and Giant Lizard. It's just a case of who gets there first. One of Goblin archers heads for the tower base, trying to take advantage of the lack of opponents in the eastern half of the battle ground.

The Giant lizard rushes the first possible treasure location, which turns out to be empty. This almost seems inconsequential as the Orc Boss and Lizard clash. There followed a protracted battle between the WarBoss (with Savage Orc in backup) and the Giant Lizard who alternatively managed to stun each other in the next few turns.

Attention now turns to the middle of the battlefield. The Savage Orc on short move heads straight towards the edge of the wood with sights on the possible treasure in the swamp; however the Goblins formation is broken up as no group move is available being out of range of WarBoss and mainly failing single or double Q4+ rolls. Only three or four goblins actually make it to the edge of the woods with the savage orc, the others straggling behind. The Lizard forces also head into the forest/swamp area. With fewer numbers in a tighter area activations are proving to be less of a problem.

Next the focus is split between the last 2 possible treasure locations. Round the swampland the Lizard leader, Shaman and Spearman make for the tower to try and guard against a quick goblin archer grab and run from the tower. Meanwhile a lizardman, taking advantage of his amphibious skill races across the water to claim the treasure, only for his worst fears to be confirmed - it's empty, meaning the treasure was at the base of the tower. Gleefully the Gobbo archer races up to the final location to pick up the prize, firing an arrow into the pursuing Lizard Leader on the way. With Goblin Light Infantry also coming up to the gap between the swamp and the tower, a pitched bloodbath of a finale looks to be brewing.

On the escapement, the realiastion finally dawns that the big fight here is pointless, so the Giant Lizard takes advantage of the knocked down Warboss to break towards the action on the other side of the swamp, where there is a bit of a skirmish developing. The westerly goblin light infantry start to flank south, looking to head off any lizard withdrawls. Meanwhile, at the tower, the Lizardman leader slays the goblin to claim the prize for himself. All that remains is to sneak past the mass of goblins at the bottom of the path and run for home!

But to MacSver's dismay, one of his goblins is gruesomely killed. The majority of goblins, so far from the support of their leader, fail morale tests to one degree or another and flee. The Savage Orcs fair little better, one failing and fleeing and the other staying still thanks to an entrance spell from the frogfolk shaman. With the flanking Goblin Light Infantry to far away (and failing to many Quality rolls) to catch up, the leader rushes down the path and home to victory.

I have to admit that when MacSver put his handfuls of figures onto the table that a pasting was in order. But the lesson from this battle was simple, lots of poor quality troups are not always the answer. They really needed the quality bonus from the leader to move into any effective position. It proved to dangerous to roll 2 dice for them individually, and only rolling one left alot of them standing doing nothing turn after turn. Really, had we both not been spending so much time (and dice) focused to the Warboss and Giant Lizard knocking lumps out of each other the game could well have gome the other way. It probably slowed the goblin advance towards the tower allowing my meagre numbers to get across just in time.

We'll see what happens next time...

(thanks are due to MacSver for his memory jogging notes, as this post has gone up a week after the battle!)