Wednesday, May 30, 2012

The Haunted Town of Twindle

First an admission/apology...lately I've been playing warhammer...eighth! Shameful, of course. Seriously though, every version of warhammer has its own good bits, and GW has a lot of resources these days to design, playtest and edit new rules. Something GW didn't have back in the 80's. But I wouldn't be writing this if I didn't enjoy the charm and character of warhammer before it was owned by stockholders who have never played a game in their life. But on to the important stuff...The Battle of the Haunted Town of Twindle, Second Edition style!

The elvish town of Twindle was once quite prosperous, sitting on a crossroads that linked several major population centers. Until, that is, the local cemetery became possessed with a horde of malicious spirits, whose wailing was enough to freeze the marrow of even the bravest elf. Vlad the Vampie atop his mighty dragon seeks to control these spirits and add them to his army, while the Elves, led by Caradryan, have come to free their town of all undead.

The abandoned town of Twindle 
The terrifying ghosts within.

Notes: Vlad the Vampire uses the stats of a major chaos hero, making him much, much cheaper than a vampire. He rides a dragon with all the official stats.
Rules: The ghosts randomly attack elf units, causing them to take a Cool test. Failure makes them rout. However, every elf has been given a holy amulet that, if placed within the cemetery, dispels the ghosts and forces all undead units to take a roll on the instability table every turn.

The armies: Elves led by Caradryan, two units of 16 spear elves, Lomsec the level 4 mage with 7 skirmishing archers. The undead led by Vlad on his zombie dragon, two units of 30 skeletons, and Yohan the level 3 necromancer. 1500 point armies.

The elves prepare their assault.

The undead guard the cemetery.
The Battle: The dragon flew up to Caradryans unit and killed 8 with his dragon breath. Yohan summoned 12 ghouls. A skeleton unit routed some elven spearmen. Vlad challenged Caradryan, both Vlad and his dragon did one wound each. The elves were pushed back and needed a 9 or lower to stand, but rolled a 12. In the first turn the two biggest elf units were already routing! I gave each a bonus leadership test and both failed them. The elves failed almost every test they had to take all game.  Lomsec successfully cast Cause Instability on a unit of skeletons, but only caused one to disappear.  Both spear units fled the battlefield. Lomsec and his elf archers separated, each trying to run past the undead from a different direction to reach the cemetery. Then the ghosts appeared before Lomsec. He needed a ten or under to pass his Cool test and rolled a 12, another failed test! He routed off the table.
The Host of Ghosts terrify Lomsec the mage.

Yohan then cast a lightining bolt killing 5 elf archers, leaving two. They passed their panic test, the only good luck the elves had all game. Desperate, the elves sprinted towards the graveyard. Skeletons charged them...and failed by two inches! Then the dragon charged them...and also failed its charge! However, the dragon breathed fire on the poor elves, killing them both easily. The undead had won a complete victory.

Thoughts: The elves would have had a much, much better chance of winning if they hadn't failed almost every test they had to take. Still, they held on for several turns after I thought they were done. In the end a fun game, with a few different rules to mix things up a bit.