When we posted on some hobby groups on Facebook our first post about the Fantasy Crusade campaign system, some good folks were really interested (and that flattered us a lot). They ask for some clarifications, which I still have to provide through a specific rules post, and I first need to translate to English all our notes and campaign sheets: however, Grimbeorn and I already (so to speak) played the first game!
We choose our armies from respectively his Ogre Kingdom Crusade and my Empire Crusade. However we played full strength, so 1000 pts on the battlefield.
We picked the sixth battle from the WHFB core rulebook, The Watchtower.
Ogres win the throw for the tower, so they start with a core unit inside it. Grimbeorn puts on the battlefield a Bruiser with two hand weapons (General), another Bruiser as BSB, 6 Ogres, 6 Ironguts and 5 Leadbelchers. BSB and core Ogres are currently garrisoning the tower.
My Imperial forces attack with a more various army (even compared to Grimbeorn's Empire Crusade I preferred to mix more diverse units: maybe less effective but I love the background effect). I field 5 Knightly Orders, 10 Greatswords, 15 Swordsmen, Helblaster Volley Gun, 15 Halberdiers with a 8 Crossbowmen as Detachment, 5 Pistoliers. My Heroes are a General on warhorse and a BSB.
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| Ogres move forward, but I try to start aggressively to avoid their charges, so I try to charge first. I succeed with every attempt (woah), but I lose two knights against the dreadful shooting of the Leadbelchers |
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| Even without two men, my charge is devastating: my General unit obliterate the Ogres by successfully scaring off and destroying them in their attempt to flee |
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| On the other side of the tower, my Halberdiers have a bad time against the Ironguts: they're really strong! We kill just one of them but we lose the combat... |
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| ... and the only survivor is the BSB, who holds the line for Sigmar and the Empire! |
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| Its a brief heroic moment: the Ironguts literally eat him and turn to charge 😱 my poor Swordsmen. In just a combat phase this entire unit will be totally wiped out |
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| Grimbeorn and his usual reaction to my double sixes |
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| Turn of the events! With a charge, my knights leaded by my General successfully destroy all the remaining Ogres by pursuing them after winning the Combat phase. Second mark for them today |
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| With just the Ogres on the tower remaining, weakened by my constant shooting, now the Empire just need to wait. Sigmar blessed my Helblaster Volley Gun which suffered just one misfire in the entire game! |
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| My Greatswords charge the tower with the last Ogre still maintaining possession |
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| The end of the game! |
So, the first game of our campaign ended with a suffered victory for me. I lost both my core units, but Grimbeorn lost his entire army in battle. Our Crusade rules state that a unit destroyed in battle is automatically restored at its full strength before the subsequent game; however, we had to roll on the death chart for our characters.I totalize 4 Glory Points with this game (1 for playing the game, 3 for winning) and Grimbeorn 2 Glory Points (1 for playing, 1 for losing). Some of our units gained an enemy standard, which will grant some experience and, maybe, some upgrades for our units.
It was a nice, fun game, and we liked the Crusade-like army composition. With this game we beta-tested the post-battle sequence and we wrote something more accurate in our rules. More on that later. We decided to ignore, just for this game, the Saga system inside our rules, so we could just try the base rules: for the next game we're already writing down some ideas for this key feature of our Crusade Campaign.
I'm looking forward to fight the Ogres with my other armies: it's a fascinating enemy, and I really want to explore their potential and find their weak spots. I have an entire Crusade to do so...
