Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Spring, Year 2

Telor spent the winter vigorously recruiting new elves, and his army now stands at 32 spear elves, 10 sea elves, 16 archers, 10 great swords, and the hero Caradryan. Yohan the necromancer used all his magical might to summon a long dead vampire from his restless sleep, Vlad the Slayer, riding atop his mighty zombie dragon. The effort cost Yohan a great deal of his magical power that would take months to regain, but as the armies drew up around the southern town of Waking Nightmare, would Vlad arrive?

Rules note: Vlad on his Zombie dragon arrives at the start of an undead turn if a 5 or 6 is rolled on a d6.

Vlad atop his Zombie Dragon...cool figure!


To Yohans delight, Vlad and his mighty dragon arrived at the very beginning of the battle! Yohan attempted to cast 2 fireballs at the sea elves, but the fireballs landed far short. Vlad summoned 22 skeletons. The sea elves shot at the zombie dragon but all 10 of them missed. However, Lomsec the elven mage hit the dragon with a lightning bolt causing it one wound. The zombie dragon then charged a unit of spearelves and Telor on his Hippogriff.  In the ensuing combat the zombie dragon tore the head off the hippogriff with one mighty mauling. Telor fell to the ground and pulled his favourite maneuver - running away! Vlad then cast "Total Control", allowing him to control undead anywhere on the battlefield and prevent them from becoming stupid. The Sea Elves killed 6 skeletons with shots from their elf-bows, and then the archers killed 2 more. The spearelves fought bravely against the dragon giving it one wound, but received 4 in return. Lomsec cast Zone of Steadfastness, affecting one spear unit, giving them x3 attacks. The zombies led by Yohan charged into the sea elves, eventually routing them. The zombie dragon defeated all the spearelves plus the elves armed with greatswords, only taking a few wounds in the process. Only the archer elves managed to retreat off the battlefield in good order.
Vlad and his dragon pursue the few remaining elves.
Thoughts: A vampire on a zombie dragon is powerful...too powerful! The elves took so many causalties they had no choice but to concede the campaign. If their entire army can barely touch the zombie dragon/vampire combo, then half an army has very little chance. So Vlad the Slayer has won the second lost valley campaign. I've made up more reasonable stats for zombie dragons (that cost half as many points) so hopefully in future battles things will be a little more balanced.