Strandhogg Fantasy Game 6: Get the King!

With my Amera ruin completed, it was time to use it as the centrepiece of a game.

I designed a scenario based around it: after a disastrous battle, the dwarf king flees the battlefield with his loyal huscarls and head for friendly territory. They take shelter at a ruined fort, but are found by goblin scouts. The goblin king leads an attack from two directions.

Even though I don't use the points system given in the rules, having played a few games I have some idea of how the warbands fare against each other - as it turns out I did quite OK.

I gave the dwarves a unit of huscarl, one of warriors, and two of rangers.

Thomas, who proposed the troll throwing rule, commanded the troll and two warbands, while FG, who proposed the riderless warg rule, took the goblin king, the warg riders, and the remaining warband.

To add a twist to the scenario, while the goblin players are nominally on the same side, only the player who kills the dwarf king will actually be declared the winner.

Besides the Amera ruin I had, FG also brought along a few Fantascene pieces he had. I gave the two goblin players a hill, a woods, and a rock cluster each to place in each other's half of the table.

I begin the game with the king and huscarls in the ruin, the warriors at the entrance, and a band of rangers on each side.
 

Thomas sends his warbands in from both corners and begin to attack my rangers from both sides.

FG makes a feint with the warg riders, and once I deployed my rangers and warriors to counter his move, sends them round the side of the table.
 

The rangers fare poorly against two warbands and the troll, who delighted in lobbing rocks at them.

Sensing the moment, I send the king and his huscarls out from the ruins, initally intent on making for Thomas' side of the table.
 

Unfortunately, FGs' warg riders move swifter than I expected them to... I turn and head for FG's side of the table instead.
 

Murin's rangers are eliminated, leaving him alone to face the green tide.

The huscarls form a shieldwall as the warg riders and troll bear down on them.

There is much carnage as all the units converge on the king, now only 3 moves from the table's edge. The warg riders have in fact ridden in a full circle around the table! Thomas' troll lobs rocks at the mass of bodies, (accidentally?) taking out one goblin leader.

The dwarves fought hard, and eventually the goblin king himself would be the one to land the killing blow.

The battle took almost three hours, which was not unexpected since we had three players this time and the action took place on a full 6' x 4' table. It helped that both Thomas and FG have each played a game of Strandhogg before. To speed things up I often flipped open an activation card while a player made his move if there wasn't going to be any melee.

Thomas enjoyed the rock-throwing rule for the troll, which allowed the troll to score some kills without being killed in return - this was the only game where the troll survived till the end!

FG made very good use of the warg riders, and it was their high movement rate (coupled with the slower movement rate of the dwarves) that allowed the goblins to cut the dwarf king off.

With me working on the Perry WOTR figures and FG starting on his Skavens, we can perhaps look forward to games with different troop types and special rules before the year is up.