It is never a good plan to mock your opponents dice rolls….

More on that anon.

So it was Monday night which normally means a trip to Falkirk and District Wargames Club for some gaming goodness.  My first game of the year was against long time opponent Rory.  He offered me choice of systems and I chose WFB.  Chaos Warriors v The Empire.

I had not played a game of Fantasy Battles for about six months and the plan was to give the rules a good read through and tweak the list a bit.  In the end it was a matter of digging up the list I used last time and rummaging through my very disorganised wargames space (the attic) to find the rules and the army about ten minutes before I left the house.

We were a bit late starting after wishing club members happy new year, shaking hands, enquiring about Christmas (Goose was recommended) etc.  We threw some trees and hills on the table, Rory rolled higher than I did and asked me to start deploying first. The plan was dogs on the flanks, infantry to right of centre and Chaos Knights to the left.

Having got half way through deployment I realised that I has forgotten that I also had a unit of Marauder Horsemen to deploy – there was just room on the far right flank in a double column so that’s where they went (and took no part in the battle).

Rory had several large units of infantry in the centre – flagellants, militia, swordsmen and one other.  His knights were to my right and a unit of mounted pistoleers guarded his other flank.  He also had a cannon on a hill.  He had 3 characters including a level 2 wizard and a warrior priest.  I just had 2 one of which was a level 1 wizard.

Not much happened in the first turn, Rory advanced as did I if more slowly, attempting to get my horse around the right flank.  On the second turn the level 2 magician miscast and was lucky to survive, only going down one level. Then a unit of knights charged my right flank dogs who went down without a whimper.  On the other flank it was a different story a unit of foot charged my leftmost chaos knights. The result was 9 to 0  and when the foot broke they threw 2 and hence were destroyed.

I then remembered that I was using Chaos Warriors and not Early Imperial Romans so I charged in everything that I could.  The victorious knights slaughtered the pistoleers.  The next 2 units, knights and warriors, won but against unbreakable opposition (to be fair the flagellants gave the warriors a bit of a fright). 

Then it was the big showdown – a unit of Empire knights led by a general against two units, one of marauders and one of chaos warriors led by my general.  Now my chaos characters always have to challenge opposing characters if they meet them.   Being armed with a Great Weapon meant that I had to go second, so it was with some trepidation that I watched Rory throw his 4 dice.  It was quite funny when he rolled four 1s but I probably should not have taken a photo as that was when the dice luck (previously very much in my favour) changed.  My attacks in retaliation scored no hits and then his horse bit my general making him lose one of his two lives!  Despite my numbers advantage I only just hung on and if there had been time for another round I would have been in a lot of trouble.

Moral of the story – never take pictures of your opponent’s poor dice rolls.

So that was game one of my projected seventy this year.  Next week it will be a game of Purple Heart Valley.

I haven't quite sussed out how to make the photos appear in the body of the post, so here they are at the

end

 

Rory in classic wargamer pose

The armies are about to meet

The four ones!