Back to Fantastic Battles.

 It was great fun today to play a 15mm 'Fantastic Battles' game with Ian as it is one of our favourite set of rules. Ian was using his deadly 'Undead' led as usual by the Warlord Kroogan Hymax. I used my Wylde Elf army led by the mighty Mage Princess Leofran who rides her unicorn into battle. The scenario was a fairly straightforward one with a bit of flavour added by using both the 'Objectives' chart and the 'Random Events' as well. 

Princess Leofran glanced up towards the summit of Tol Berwyn where dragons once dwelt. She wished she had a dragon fighting beside her today. Leofran patted her unicorn, Corwen and turned away back down to her army. She had seen enough, the undead were advancing. 

Elven war songs sounded across the valley whilst the undead advanced in utter silence. The Undead Warlord Kroogan Hymax made a wide gesture with his arms whilst chanting and the whole undead force came to an immediate halt. Silence fell across the land between the two forces. Leofren gave a slight nod of her head and the elf knights mounted on pegasi took to the air; the battle was about to begin. 

Here is the rough outline of how the table was set up. 

Deployment before mishaps.

Undead to the left, Elves to the right. 

We were using the Objectives chart on p23 and a quick dice throw each decided that the Undead had to try and capture the high ground (there were no hills so we swapped this to capture the woods instead which would upset the elves) and the elves had to rescue a damsel in distress. Ian placed a single figure in contact with one of his toughest units to represent the damsel (we called her Princess Marielle). 

Mishaps forced one unit of undead forward and another one backwards. 

The elf pegasus riders were sent forwards by mishaps too. 

Undead dragon withdrew from a poor mishap throw. 

Turn 1 and the elf pegasus riders moved forwards again, taking up a blocking position against any undead who may advance between the pond and the wood. 

A good birdseye view of early movements as the elves advance to get into missile range of the undead. Elf shooting proved to be quite effective early on.  

A random event causes a unit of undead archers to swap allegiance and join the elvish army! We decided the story behind this random event was that Princes Leofran used her mysterious magical powers to cause this. Ian then charged the treacherous unit to destroy it before it could cause any harm on his own troops. 

Elf eagle allies swoop in and kill an undead wyvern. 

Over on the left flank a unit of centaurs supported by mounted elf archers take on undead infantry and after a couple of rounds of melee destroy them.  

In the centre the undead Hydra and his skeleton supports were also killed/destroyed by a unit of elf rangers.The undead casualties were starting to mount up. 

The undead rogue known as 'The Piper' attacked the elf rogue Emyn Lockhard and kills him in a duel. The Piper then went on to attack and kill an elf captain called Cadvan Longspear. This was starting to reduce my command capability. 

Sensing the end of the battle the elf pegasus riders charge into skeleton archers to try and destroy them.  

The elf rangers get caught in another fierce melee with another unit of skeletons. (the purple dice are a reminder of their 'empowered bonus in the melee from a spell).  Warlord Kroogan Hymax waded in to assist the undead but gets killed by the elf rangers who are also killed. However, the death of Kroogan Hymax causes a huge 'resolve' loss across the undead army which now collapses in defeat.  

My Treemen had just charged into melee with an undead dragon which with the help of the resolve loss caused by Kroogan's death is also slain. A great victory for the Wood Elves (it is not often I win at Fantastic Battles against Ian, a true master of using traits to great effect). 

Neither side achieved their objectives. The undead were nowhere near capturing any woods and the Princess Marielle was escorted from the battlefield by one of the few remaining undead units (a quick 50:50 dice throw decided this which could be an objective for another game?).  

Ian and I both had great fun playing this game which left us wanting to play again soon. 

We both think that Fantastic Battles is one of the best fantasy rulesets around.