Third attempt at herding the cats yielded some results. Saturday 13th game day at my place, on the cards Epic Megageddon.
Assembled a table based on the mdf I have, rather than aiming for a specific size. Was plenty big enough (at least until we started putting down all the models). I think it was about 7.5' x 5.5' and I needed to cut down one of the boards just a tad to get the rectangle.
[ed: Turns out it was larger than the previous board. Previous was 2100x1500, and this was 2250x1650, based on a common 1800x1200 (normal board) + 450 to each length, as all the board involved were 450 wide. fascinating stuff. [yawn]]
Had some support beams under it to ensure stability and towels to protect the dining table. Overall... solid.
Table cloths on. I opted for the two 'blanket' mats cos they're the most similar pair I have and didn't want to mix neoprene and blanket.
Then the fun part, being able to put out as much terrain as I damn well want.
Tried to vary the terrain and put out something for everyone. Top right was forests and ruins.
Bottom right was cathedrals and mountains.
Left side had the city dominating the centre and industrial around the sides.
This would give titans plenty of high things to break line of sight and lots of buildings for infantry to get cover in.
Overall I was pretty happy with the result, just unfolded organically too... the fun part.
We were playing 2:1 (only 3 of us playing) and had Imperials: marines and titans vs Chaos: chaos marines and vraksians traitor guard (didn't get a starting pic of the Chaos forces).
And now a dump of pics as the game happened, from the school of playable dioramas...
Infantry hiding in the ruins. Garrison was a help for this scenario.
This was our Chaos player's first time using the Vraksians. This is our standard Thursday night blackstone crew.
Vraksians.
Chaos Marine bikes and part of the Leman Rus tank blob.
Lots of Marine tanks this time around.
I decided against using airborne drop troops as our objective for the game was turn-by-turn held objectives giving the side points. Holding the objectives on your side was worth less than holding objectives on the enemy's side. Exactly the same as our game in November 2019.
Bottom line being that troops on the ground was far more relevant than troops in aircraft for holding objectives.
The only off board formations we had (both sides) was a set of terminators each which teleported in, and attack aircraft (thunderbolts etc).
Chaos Marines and Deathstrike launchers. There was a lot of artillery and indirect fire units on the Chaos side (and these reaching across the board *), forcing the Imperials to spread out to avoid the barrages as much as possible. This left the deployment zone feeling far smaller than it normally would have.
* this is actually a fun feature of these big board games. Needing to travel further and giving those long range weapons a chance to function in their niche.
A Malchador formation garrisoned within the city.
Minotaur artillery were active throughout the game.
Tanks a little too close to an infantry formation for comfort (and about to get stomped in an assault action).
Not satisfied with smashing tanks they summoned a big ol' Greater Demon to continue the rampage.
The city.
Just an overview of the board approximately end of turn 2.
Probably during turn 3.
And our final results...
As well as getting late in the day, things were turning rapidly in the Imperial's favour with Chaos loosing more and more troops to the point of ineffectiveness. We started with a 4 turn limit but called it at turn 3.
Because the photo is a bit blurry, our turn by turn results were...
Chaos Imperial
Turn 1 13 10
Turn 2 12 (25) 8 (18)
Turn 3 7 (32) 16 (34)
There was a surprising quantity of beer consumed, but the game seemed to flow smoothly regardless (or perhaps because of).
The only real change we made from the November game was that each side activated alternately rather than each player on each side.
So any vraks/csm and then any sm/titan
This was substantially better as it allowed more flexability in terms of the army strategy, additionally the i.e. titans only had six activations so it would have forced the available options (unnecessarily). Anyway it worked well and I'll amend the scenario rules to use this method.
We also didn't bother with BTS's or any other options - just points per turn.
I mentioned the increased worth of artillery on this board but another feature I liked was the option of taking unit types that are often overlooked for standard 'tournament' games. The are LOTS of units that are thematic, in-universe and really cool, but which don't have a place in the 'standard' game play. This (and other scenarios) are a great opportunity to dust these units off and give them a run on the table.
And that was that. Probably my last Epic of the year, but hopefully some more fun game adventures to be had in the new year. Probably not mega for a little while as it's kind of intense, just MORE EVERYTHING. Worth doing, but you need a break between these big games.
update 2020-12-17
I decided that the army used would be getting battle honours. It was something "more than a pickup game at club" and required a bit of prep, organisation and elbow grease to make it happen (even though it was just 3 of us. What the hell, the event was catered even!!).
These...
...are the colours that the fighting units will receive. The event was fluff-named "Purging of Cersmond Secondus". This is sideways mashup of 'Richmond' as that is used on more weather maps than 'Windsor' is.
I had initially thought to just give them a commendation, but the 'Convoy' event (the last that received colours) was a 2 game vs one person deal... so roughly the same amount of table-time.
Dice were thrown in anger, experience points were earned...
Until next time...
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