First Contact

Battlefield: Hill Land
Weather: Strong Wind
Scenario: Burn 'em Out
Defender: Johan's Beast Herd

Forces:

Valgen Maest's Dwarf Warband

LEADER / PERSONALITY:
Valgen Maest- Dwarf Commander (Sword, Shield, Chainmail).
Points: 95, Quality 2+, Combat 4, Special Rules: Leader, Fearless.
WARRIORS:
Falster Vonlyr - Elite Warrior (Heavy weapon & Shield)
Points: 46, Quality 3+, Combat 4, Special Rules: Short Move, Steadfast, Fearless
Harthic Urduum - Warrior (Hand weapon & shield)
Points: 34, Quality 3+, Combat 4, Special Rules: Short Move
Ovthur Whurdar - Crossbowman (Chainmail, crossbow)
Points: 24, Quality 4+, Combat 3, Special Rules: Short Move, Medium Shooter
Rangar Doomquarrier: Gunner (Blunderbuss)
Points: 41, Quality 4+, Combat 3, Special Rules: Short Move, Short Shooter, Blast
Glanthur Harfik - Cavalry (riding a bear)
Points: 52, Quality 3+, Combat 4, Special Rules: Mounted.

Johan's Beast Herd

LEADER / PERSONALITY:
Johan Tierpfleger - Human Leader
Points: 60, Quality 3+, Combat 3, Special Rules: Leader

WARRIORS:
Torgor (Beastman 1)
Points: , Quality 4+, Combat 3, Special Rules: Forester, Savage
Kragos (Beastman 2)
Points: , Quality 4+, Combat 3, Special Rules: Forester, Savage
Arax (Beastman 3)
Points: , Quality 4+, Combat 3, Special Rules: Forester, Savage
Sidern (Beastman 4)
Points: , Quality 4+, Combat 3, Special Rules: Forester, Savage
Jamwar (Young Minotaur)
Points: , Quality 4+, Combat 3, Special Rules: Dashing, Savage
XertonJamwar (Centaur Archer)
Points: 75, Quality 4+, Combat 3, Special Rules: Big, Savage, Long Move, Long Shooter

Setup:

The beastmen had a hut in the center of the board. The dwarves were to simply burn it down (which took one action) with one of the 3 torch bearers (marked in setup photo).

The Young Minotaur heads down to meet 2 of the torch bearers whilst the Dwarf cavalry flanks round the back to menace.

The young minotaur only manages to knock down a foe, whilst the bear rider continues to harry.The ranged beastman centaur comes down to try and ward off an Elite Dwarf.

Left and right, the dwarves close in to the outlying beasts

The beastmen try to seize the advantage, either outnumbering the foe, or engaging the torch bearers.

 The beastman finally takes out a torch bearer. Meanwhile the Young Minotaur has paid his earlier lone charge out to the dwarves and they march on towards their objective. To protect them, the bear rider come up the hill and engages with a defending beastman.

The bear cavalry gruesomely kills a beastman causing half the defending hilltop force (including the leader) to flee. The remaining dwarves use the new-found space to get a torchbearer to the hut. The dwarf Elite Warrior tries to rub salt into the wounds, but only knocks back the centaur.

The beastmen desperately try to get a lin eon the torchbearer at the hut, but everyone is engaged or our of range. The Centaur uses its knocked back status to its advantage to get away from combat and back up the hill, but doesn't roll enough actions to get off a shot. The leader returns to the hill to boost any quality rolls and the final torchbearer at the foot of the hill is engaged to stop his movement and ranged fire. But all the dwarf player has to do is roll one activation for the dwarf at the hut and it's all over.

But MacSver gets a bit cocky and decides to play a bit more. The lure of his bear cavalry in range of the beastman leader with a leader bonus proves too much and he rolls 3 dice - DISASTER - 2 ones! The bear moves in base-to-base but his turn is over and the hut still stands. One more chance was what the centaur was waiting for. He charges into melee to take advatange of his big special rule and save the day, but battles poorly and is himself knocked over. With everyone else tied up in battle no-one can reach him. The torchbearer at the bottom of the hill is attacked but only knocked down, so the dwarves get a second bite at the cherry.

MacSver is a bit more canny on his activation rolls this turn. He still can't resist an attack on the leader though, but can only score a knock-back. He manages to stand his fallen dwarf back up before unleashing all his dice to torch the hut, which he manages.

A Thong and a merry dance

The party face off against the marsh dwellers.
Note the system battle mat which shows the combat stance and
not the physical position of the character

The conclusion of the introductory One Ring adventure was played out last night, with much enjoyment all round again. We actually managed to have all the players round at the same time which was a bonus! The Party managed to blunder and flounder our way through the Mirkwood forest before being forcibly drawn toward the final showdown area, what appeared to be a dis-used temple.

It never seems to amaze me how we all manage to fail what seem to be the most mundane of dice rolling tests. One such episode of head-in-hands rolling left Paul, who has only played 3 RPG sessions in his life, wondering what to do as the rest of the party wandered trance-like into a fetid pond leaving him on his own in the hostile wilderness. It's certainly keeping our GM on his toes thinking of awful consequences as we roll the "Sauron" symbol with alarming regularity. Conversely we seem to roll the hallowed "Gandalf" symbol for completely improbable innocuous searches, leaving him with coming up with a suitable, but not game breaking results. A fine example of this is one of the dwarfs rather optimistically searching for a mythril shirt in a treasure pile of gold coins. The player rolled a Gandalf (which guarantees a success) and a six in his dice making it an extra-ordinary success. So the dwarf spied a glint of mithril in the pile, but far from being the mail shirt he was looking for I think it's suffice to say that the hobbit now has the best protected "crown jewels" in the land!

Necessary Evils

7:15 in the morning, basing my 16 behind schedule 10mm ratmen for priming tonight. Only a week to get them done before the closing time (and my deadline) in the Pendraken painting comp...

The Final Chain Reaction

Well, it's finally out. After years of tweaking and buggering about Ed from Two Hour Wargames has nailed his colours to the mast and released a final version of Chain Reaction that not only defines the basis of THW's Reaction system but will form the consistent basic system for all (or at least the lions share of) the Two Hour wargames titles. With no changes.

As most long suffering readers here will know I've made a conscious effort to get to grips with the Two Hour Wargames system. I actually had a copy of CR2.0 when you had to pay for it (imagine!), even though it was free and moved to version 3.0 before I'd ever played it (frugal lesson here - don't buy rules until you're ready to use them!). Arabian Squire and I have have had quite a few fun games over the past year or so with this basic free set.

Having a quick look through (without playtesting I must strain) there seem to be a few immediate changes from the previous Version 3.0

• The "In Sight" test has changed (again!), although it looks simpler and the test table has been done away with. The rules have reverted back to the "everyone takes the test" of old, instead of just the inactive figure(s),  as was previously the case. As this is one of the most "complicated" and most used rules in the system this can only be a good thing. It'll be interesting to see how the uncontrolled actions from the test results play out compared to the old version, as this was always one of the fun parts of Chain Reaction.
• Melee has changed a bit, although unless you are playing a side with no guns (bugs or werewolves for example) this is rarely used.
• Shooting is pretty much the same.
• There is a new "Cohesion Test" - think morale test.
• The Non player force rules seem to be better explained/fleshed out.

Overall I'm looking forward to giving these a go. A change in "In Sight" test is always a bit of a challenge, but I'm hopeful that once played through a few times (as always) it'll start to stick.

So what are you waiting for, download it!