The Return of the Dead, 15mm Fantastic Battles

 Somewhere dark and dank the restless dead were stirring. From the deepest, scariest corner of Ian's painting shed the undead army appeared and marched over to Phil's house for their first game of Fantastic Battles. Facing these scary little blighters would be the combined might of Phil's Orcs (led by Lord Baarn Dur) and my Ice Elves (led by the Mage Lord Scathach Death-gaze). Ian also produced some suitably themed undead scenery to add to the atmosphere. We were quite interested in how this new army would play as it would be using Traits we had not played before like 'Mindless'.  All figures are 15mm from a wide range of companies. 

We came up with a simple scenario. 3 pieces of undead scenery were placed about the board serving as 3 objectives to claim.  The theme being the undead need them to raise more troops and the alliance needs to destroy them. 

Orcs and Ice Elves on the left were the attackers, Undead on the right were defending. 

Ian had lots of great previously unseen figures in his new army including these undead vultures from kallistra. 

Here you can see the undead mad cow and some of the scenery to be fought over. 

First main action of the game was my Ice Elf mounted crossbow being charged by the vultures. They remained in combat for about 5 turns before the elves finally won. 

The undead rogue was leading the vultures and he challenged the Ice Elf rogue to a duel and the two managed to slay each other. This left the two units out of command but locked in melee.

Love these skeleton cavalry from Ian. He used 'summoning' to bring these on. 

Phil's new unit of Trolls held our right flank all game, facing of against more undead cavalry and skeleton archers, neither of which dared advance against the Trolls. 

The Jester in the background is in fact Kroogerrand Hymax the Undead MageLord/Necromancer, he of the annoying summoning spell. Just as the alliance thought they were getting the upper hand, up popped a freshly summoned vulture, undead dragon or two companies of undead cavalry. 

Another very nice undead figure-that did nowt all game!

Ermantrude the Undead Mad Cow charges into my very worried Ice Elf archers. 

A view down the main centre battle where Phil's Orcs was slowly getting the upperhand. 

My Tiger Lancers having defeated one lot of undead suddenly find themselves charged by an undead dragon and a vulture. 

Ermantrude, the undead mad cow is slain by the Ice Elf Archers but falls onto them squishing a few brave elves. 

The centre of the battle as the Undead are broken leaving the Ice Elf/Orc alliance victorious.

Phil's main battle line a bit battered but still intact. 

Once again, Fantastic Battles gave us a great game that seemed incredibly close until the undead suddenly crumpled over two action packed turns. Victory to the Alliance but we are sure the undead, (currently sulking in Ian's shed) will return. Ian's use of the Summoning spell was very clever but none of us were quite sure on how it should actually be cast. His mainly Mindless army was quite tough to break and certainly presented us with a fresh challenge. 

We are enjoying Fantastic Battles so much we have decided to plan a small three player campaign, using the campaign system in the main rulebook with a few added tweaks of our own. It may take a few weeks to sort out but should be fun. 

I have also had time to paint up a couple more 10mm ACW buildings, a church from Timecast and the barn from Pendraken. The two ranges seem very compatible to me. The barn has an integral base, I added a small mdf base with a few cardboard graves to the church.