Armies of Arcana Forum

[Remy]

Hi all!

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I actually put this up last week and then forgot about it, luckily Sparky spotted it and reminded me I'd done it. ^_^;;

This is 'pics only' because we didn't have time to finish the game and we also made a whole bunch of rules mistakes that would've really affected things - so I didn't feel like bothering to write up a full batrep!

Spot the mistakes - Wolf Riders charging flying Peg rider even though he was flying (Note: Peg rider is RIDICULOUS for the points, see other thread on main board), Orc berserkers (with Shaman in the unit - not even sure if this is allowed) FLED combat, and then fled off the board... whoops... and we weren't sure what to do a bunch of times with the War wagon. I also tried to use a flying spell on my Orc Berserkers as they engaged the Warwagon to avoid the Ram hits. Sparky dispelled it so it didn't affect the combat, but we later realised my trick doesn't work anyway as it has been FAQ'd not to work. I was sure I had read about someone doing this though, which was why I thought it was legit. Ah well. This meant of course that sparky's wizard didn't do anything for a while apart from that dispell though. He probably would've been wreaking havoc elsewhere otherwise (but then again, my Shaman would never have joined the near suicidal Berserker charge if I had known it couldn't possibly work!).


The objectives we had were rather impossible for us to attain once again. I had to destroy sparky's war wagon, which was all but impossible for me to do so given its missile resistance and manouevrability, and sparky's Mithril Warriors, which are next-to impossible for my Orcs to kill in melee without magic (and my Shaman had fled) - and Sparky smartly protected them behind the wood from my artillery, and with other units of course.

Sparky had to kill my Chieftain led Spear Orcs - which I protected in a similar manner to sparky, and kill my Orc Longbows which sat back, also protected by other units and tore stuff to pieces with bowfire - causing Sparky to lament my "Orcy gunline" tactics... sorry about that! I was just using every single model I had painted here, apart from yet MORE Goblin archers and a Doom Diver. So I didn't have a lot of choice in army selection.

The wood in the centre of the board was also a terrain objective for both of us.

Incidently if we had been playing 2 out of 3 objectives, I would've actually won because at one point I 'owned' the central wood whilst sparky's Wagon was still fleeing. Also later on, Sparky got his Wizard into the wagon and then tunnelled underground using an Earth spell. This meant I could not possibly win if he just kept it underground for the rest of the game! The only solution to this would've been to count it as 'dead' if it wasn't on the board, so if you did that, I again owned 2 of 3 objectives for a few more turns.
The tunnelling wagon is why my right flank went skirmish-mad in the last turns we had time to play, as they were blocking LOS for where sparky would've most likely wanted to bring up - in front of my Orc Archers no doubt!

[thanesgames]

"This meant I could not possibly win if he just kept it underground for the rest of the game! The only solution to this would've been to count it as 'dead' if it wasn't on the board, so if you did that, I again owned 2 of 3 objectives for a few more turns. "

That is the proper way to play it.

[sparky]

I hardly think that a unit making legitimate use of a spell counts as destroyed for the purposes of the objective rules.

[Remy]

Yeh but otherwise you could just do this every game, and your opponent can never ever win!

Thats almost as bad as the 'unbeatable' WFB Beastman armies that all ambush onto the board in turn 6.

[sparky]

Is it better that they win, for no good reason, as soon as you use your teleport spell?

[Remy]

Yes I think so overall.

Its a troublesome one alright. Simpler with Attrition rules I suppose as it wouldn't matter either way.

Note it would always be fine if you came up immediately that turn though. But the problem is you can hide them underground indefinitely as we discovered.


I think it comes down to, as we thought, objectives probably require a fair bit of "sporting play" on the part of both opponents. But to make an objective "impossible" for even 2-3 turns of the game is always going to seem pretty unfair. Just turn it on its head and think about this being done to you, since the majority of armies can do this (including Orcs and Goblins ^_^).

[thanesgames]

The game doesn't end as soon as they teleport. If they pop right back up immediately, they are fine. Remember, you determine victory after morale is finished, not constantly throughout the turn (otherwise, the first player who moves could claim the terrain objectives without the other player even moving).

The same also goes for giving an onjective unit flying - if they end the turn in the air, they count as an objective achieved.

Remember, you are deciding what will break the morale of your army. If your best unit suddenly bugs off the battlefield, thats a serious blow. The bulk of the army doesn't know if they are coming back, or if they got stuck underground, or are already back at the taverns bragging to loose women.

Likewise for flying; the critical unit seems to have left the field, obviously things must be going pretty bad. Lets get the hell out of here.

[thanesgames]

I would defintely go with 2 out of 3 objectives, it prevents turtling around the last one.

Alos, the objective game centers on a good balance between forces that can go out to seize enemy objectives and ones that defend your own objectives. A good tactic against a missile heavy army is to put your objectives out of sight or a terrain target on your side of the table to make them have to march out if they want to win.

[Togashi Gaijin]

Another interesting method of avoiding the "turtling phenomena" is to use hidden objectives and two of three combined. Playing with hidden objectives can be quite exciting, since you have to infer what your opponent's objectives could be by his gameplay - which is subject to all sorts of interesting tactics on its own.

_________________
-Togashi Gaijin-

[Remy]

thanesgames wrote:

I would defintely go with 2 out of 3 objectives, it prevents turtling around the last one. Alos, the objective game centers on a good balance between forces that can go out to seize enemy objectives and ones that defend your own objectives. A good tactic against a missile heavy army is to put your objectives out of sight or a terrain target on your side of the table to make them have to march out if they want to win.

I think thats all good ideas in general.

The trouble we had with the terrain one was as we found in my 1st game it made terrain placement really critical. There was a wood in the corner of the board with very poor LOS to the rest of the board and very clogged movement lanes to it - now this would normally be an innocuous piece of scenery, but sparky made it my objective, and put his objective unit in it too. And created an almost impregnable defense zone - smart play on his part! Now obviously we're just playing for a laugh and it doesn't matter but in a more competitive setting that would be really quite unfair for a lot of armies to deal with.

[thanesgames]

In that case, the odds are good that he essentially removed a big chunk of his army from the battle, which should allow you to fairly safely eat the other part of his army before approaching the nasty defensive area. It might be less direct, but often you can get a player to simply admit he can't win when he's got a pile of dead and you've got a lot of barely harmed units.

The hidden objective idea sounds like fun, maybe I'll try that here.

[sparky]

thanesgames wrote:

In that case, the odds are good that he essentially removed a big chunk of his army from the battle

Nope.

That was the battle.

[Remy]

Well explained there. It was only a small game.

All but maybe 1 unit was contributing to the defense of this objective area and unit.

heh, well its in that old batrep anyway if you want to see more.

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In a truely anal competitive setting, it would've essentially been a draw before we even started, because I would've realised I couldn't actually attack that objective effectively with the army I had, and sparky wouldn't have wanted to try and leave it (possibly ^_^). So draw then? yeh? Ok, where's the bar.

Slight exagerration of course, but it does illustrate some of the potential pitfalls with using objectives if you aren't careful with them. We weren't really that aware as it was only our first game of course.