One factor to arranging games via a club web-forum, which I often do, is that sometimes you don't know who you are going to get as an opponent, until the last moment. Thursday's game was one of those; where it turned out my opponent was a precocious 9 or 10 year old son of one of the other club members.
Cue an evening of ADHD influenced gaming, where to lose to a child would be an emasculating humiliation. Pride dictated that I take the game seriously!
As it was, it presented a potentially tough match up of my Orcs and Goblins against High Elves. High Elves have several natural advantages - Goblins fear them, they always attack first, high leadership, fast, and so on. However, I could rely on experience; and so I deployed with a plan to use my fast troops to outflank him.
As one might expect from a novice, he fell for just these traps, allowing his general to be sucked into fight after fight with units it's equal and all the time to be exposed to (sadly inaccurate) artillery fire. He also allowed his cavalry to engage in a suicidal charge against my goblins.
As he charged in he released a Fanatic, who ended up in their line of attack; passing through him to their target did enough damage to destroy them, but even had that failed, 24 poisonous goblin bow shots would have followed, and a dangerous terrain test for another magical effect. All before any melee; the elves had no chance.
The same goblin unit, augmented repeatedly with the poison spell, withered away a unit of Swordmasters, whilst its' compatriots blocked the advance of a unit of spears. At the rear of his lines, my spider riders flanked a unit of bowmen, destroying them utterly, in time to counter the Elf general on his Griffon. So far the Orcs had done nothing.
The Spiders did enough harm to finish off the Elven general, leaving just a confused Griffon. Whilst the Elven spearmen easily beat the goblins before them, their pursuit left them exposed to a Mangler squig and the massed artillery of the Goblins. Not that this mattered, as the scenario was Blood and Glory, and by this stage without its' General the Elves were already beat.
Actually a pleasant game, but a relief to win, and avoid the shame of defeat by a child!
Elsewhere at the club, Mark and Andy were having another pop at KGN. Canadian Churchill tanks were having a bad time of it struggling through the Bocage:
Mark had a much smaller force, but it had access to defences and tricks, the Panzer IV at top of shot was in fact a fake; however it was Panzerfausts and Shrecks hidden in foxholes that were doing most of the damage. An authentic game indeed!
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