Strandhogg Game 9: Heroic Stand

For our game this weekend I decided to utilise the Command Challenge scenario from the latest issue of Battlegame.

The original scenario has Spartans, abandoned by their Macedonian allies, having to make a fighting retreat in hostile territory under the attack by the Illyrian alliance. I substituted the slow-moving dwarves for the Spartans, and put together an alliance of Beastmen, Skavens and Goblins as their opponent.

As in the original scenario, I gave the players a choice of victory conditions. The dwarves could win by either exiting the table with 50% or more of their strength, or eliminating 75% of their enemy. The alliance could score a minor victory of eliminating 50% of the dwarves, or a major victory by eliminating 80% of the dwarves. If the Alliance player chose to go for the major victory, he could recycle on destroyed unit.

The dwarves start within 12" of the centre of the ruins, while the alliance enter via the far table edge. The ford at the middle of the table was the only crossable point of the river.

fg entered the able with all his forces on the right bank. While this allowed him to cut off Martin's escape, it also meant he had to fight the river crossing to get to the dwarves.

Martin formed up one unit in a shieldwall at the ford, while his archers shot at anyone who came close to the bank.

An initial charge by the warg riders was repelled...

As was one led by the Skaven Warlord.

Finally, the Beastlord himself led the charge. Meanwhile, having lost most of one beastmen unit to archery, fg voluntarily routed it off table and recycled it, this time on the left bank. Martin despatched his rangers to meet the threat, while his other warband rounded the ruins to support them.

The Alliance broke the shieldwall, killed the thane and gained a beach-head, forcing the Huscarls and the remainder of the warband to fall back inside the ruins, while the rangers take casualties from the flanking beastmen. But before the beastmen can exploit their success, Martin has killed enough enemies to hit his victory condition.

This is probably the most one-sided (pun unintended) Strandhogg game we've played. I had expected Martin to execute a fighting retreat, and fg to execute a two-prong attack, which would have prevented Martin from concentrating his missile power. fg also had the poor luck of losing his archers early, and rolling poorly for shooting.

This is an interesting scenario that perhaps deserves to be recycled too. Our next scenario may see the dwarves paying the humans a visit and asking some tough questions...

In the meantime, here's a shot of fg's Skavens, who gave a good account of themselves in their first outing.