Cold Wars! 2015 - Day 2

So on to Day 2 of Cold Wars. The main even of this day for me is the SAGA tournament, this time around I decided to take my new Milites Christi (Knightly Orders) warband as discussed previously. Every player got a leather pouch with some plastic ancient coins (quite cool actually), that we could use to bid on various things throughout. Like trying to go first ect..

Game 1: Capture the Hoard

So game one was a scenario in which we had to battle in an attempt to get some treasure tokens off the board. You get 3 victory points for getting one off, 2 for holding one, and 1 for having the most slaughtering points. My plan was to advance with my 2 units of foot warriors to take the coins, and use my mounted units to counter attack anyone trying to make off with them. Mt crossbows would take the hill and provide covering fire of sorts.

The Normans seemed to be coming up with a similar plan, but they had 2 units of Archers, and never moved their foot as much.

Their plan seems to have been to use the strong archery abilities on the Norman board to weaken my units early. But I was able to mitigate this by using Armor of Faith to get more defense when they attacked, and took some time building up Piety to strengthen some of my core abilities.

I managed to pick up one token but had taken a couple of losses, nothing serious.

The action really started on turn 3 or 4, my forward unit of warriors got pounded by a bit unit of mounted warriors, leaving only 2 men. But then I countered with my own Knights unit and wiped them out.

Next turn I continued to pull back my treasure, and advanced my crossbows, to more readily cover the unclaimed ones. Then I moved up the bishop and a unit of Knights, to bait the Normans scary Knight unit into attacking these guys instead of focusing on my treasure hunting. I ask allot of the clergy at times.

Not sure he is in full support of Operation Sacrifice the Bishop

This worked beautifully and some orders were 'wasted'. But I lost the Bishop and I think the Knights also. In the last turn the Normans had picked up the far treasure and were likely ahead on slaughter points so I just had to make them drop it. Since my plan had saved the crossbow men from a sure death the filled the would be richer Normans with arrows until all were dead.

Finally my Knight Commander decided it was time to challenge the opposing Norman commander to a duel to show him who's boss. (no effect on the Scenario so I tossed him in just for fun at the very end). I believe I got lucky and killed him but I am not real sure anymore. Anyway it was a 2-1 victory for me as I was still holding a treasure token, but had lost heavily on slaughtering points. I got to keep the 3 gold coins thou!

Game 2: Hold the Treasure

Now for an example of a game where everything doesn't go my way. This time I was facing a crusader warband.

In the second game the task was to defend the treasure (modified Homeland Scenario). We each had to bid how many points we thought we could defend with and the person with the least would be attacked by the other guys full army. I figure defending is easier as the attacked must push out every unit so I bid for. This was my first mistake as I should have said 5, (opponent bid 6), but I was afraid they would also bid 5 and wanted to defend.

I decided to put a unit of foot in each terrain item and then a unit of Knights to defend my commander and counter attack. I put the crossbows on the right which was also a mistake, they would have been better off in the center where they could shoot perhaps but hindsight is 20/20 on that one.

My opponent was advancing slowly to unlock all the abilities of the crusader board, but also was taking forever to do every turn so I got a bit bored if I am honest. We actually did time out. I took a mid game shot of Grorges game while I waited it out.

Vikings take it to the Norse Gaels

Then we get to mistake number two. I got ancy and decided to charge the big unit of mercenary Knights on my turn (they are weaker then). I should have just waited it out and continued on my piety but oh well, traded 2 Knights for 2 Warriors in the end.

Eventually we started to get somewhere. Then the Crusaders used an attack everywhere ability to launch a big attack.

A few assaults on the house killed off my warriors there, and one the other side some mounted Knights pushed me out of the forest. Meanwhile my crossbow guys tried to fend of some other knights. In this scenario we had to roll for a random effect due to Lokis mischief every turn. I got one the brought back my 2 dead Knights so that seemed ok.

Then my crazy Teutonic guys attacked the Heathen Knights again!

Loki made this picture fuzzy - not my fault

We traded a couple of guys again I think my Knights were slightly better off. finally of all things a punch of peasants trued to kill my Knight Commander, the nerve of some people. They actually made a creditable attack, but my Commander is not about to be killed by a bunch of stinky peasants so I rolled 7 5+ saves out of 8 and they gain no effect. Haha I thought how about them apples.

Of course while this was happening some crusader crossbows snuck up to my crossbows hill top retreat and killed them all leaving me with no one in the terrain. Time was called at this point so I just got my turn. I made a third big mistake here and tried to sneak my foot guys around into the hill. I thought you were only forced to charge if you are with in very short, but turns out it's short for a second move. So I was forced to charge the Knights in the forest without any abilities and lost. Could have just sent my Knights to the hill if I had realized. But that's war so ended up with a loss.

Game 3: Clash

The final game was a close to normal clash of the warlords scenario. So two warlords just had to kill each other, nothing to it. Once again I was facing off against the Crusaders.

I guess the Crusaders decided to chase my guys back home to Germany. The 2 close terrain items counted as rough ground, and the big ruin in the middle counted as a large building.

In the first half of the game not much happened, we moved into position and I prayed, while the crusader unlocked abilities. The crusader crossbows moved into the ruins and had a good old fashioned crossbow fight with my crossbows, and surprisingly were loosing despite being in a building.

Then I decided it was time for some action and I needed to kill some peasants. So I charged in with my Knights and used the 'Repent Sinners' ability to kill a whole bunch of them, leaving just a couple. The crossbows in the building tried to kill the Bishop with a round of fire, but he is the kind of guy that fights 8 Knights alone so they were not successful. Of course my 2 Knights died, and half of the next unit which I brought up to attack the crusader mounted. I charged into the building with my own crossbows and killed off all the Crusader crossbowmen, proving once and for all that Trutonic cross bows are best.

Sadly this sparked off a blood feud for control of the ruins. The Crusader Mounted and the Archers (very night Robin Hood looking guys, an old GW kit apparently) killed out my cross bows and took over. Then I sent in my men at arms to kill those guys and so forth. Many dead people and all that.

Looks like our Bishop is into again!

After seizing the all important ruined columns I now had an opportunity to beat up the Crusader Warlord, so I sent my Knight commander around who the charged in with my Men at Arms. Sadly there was a Knight just with in range to take hits for his boss so I ended up one hit away from killing him. I made a desperate attempt with the other foot but no dice.

The Crusaders counter attacked on there turn with the Ascalon ability to boost their warlord up to 10 attack dice, so my Knight Commander finally achieved a Glorious Death.

So once again a real fun game a tournament. Not super successful but allot of fun. I think I could have won round two if not for some mistakes but oh well. I didn't stick around to see who won the prizes (Tom had great support this year!), as I wanted to had to the bar and have a beer with the Kingston/Ottawa guys. Never pass up an opportunity to give Ed a hard time. Looking forward to the next Saga tournament!


As before here are a bunch of random pictures of the con:

Excellent Terrain from Muskets and Tomahawks Tournament

Same

I have to get into this game, really regret not getting the book now!

SAS raid a long table

Tod's Blucher Game, looked very nice

Will have to give it a try after all

So there you have it, another great convention. Things really picked up on the second day. The tournament events really seem to be picking up lately, the tournament room was full again, despite the biggest one (Flames of War), being moved to a different spot. They had a real impressive with like 8-10 tables of people playing an Ancients game called L'Art de Guerre, no interest in it myself but was impressed they had so many players. I have been moving away from the big battle scale games towards playing more skirmish like games like Saga and maybe Muskets and Tomahawks.

At the dealers area I picked up a bunch of stuff. Starter armies from Gripping Beast for Pagan Rus, and Rus Princes for a game a cangames, allot with some Teutonic Knights on foot for me to paint as the Livonian Order. Sadly they were sold out of the Men-At-Arms Foot set. Then I got a Beothuck Warband from the excellent Footsore Miniatures. They are also supposed to send me a Brad Pit from Fury!, foot and in cupola. So that should be fun. I will update my painting score next painting post, but this is sure to destroy it.

Thanks;
Mike