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[Battle Report] Towers of Udayra - Blackbloods vs. Firstborn

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Horned Owl:
What shall I say? Heroism, steel, black blood, red blood. Lots of red blood.

The (modified) StarGrunt II rules yielded an entirely different feel than Chronopia´s own ruleset. Close combat is more a factor of morale than actual fighting prowess, with my Goblins pretty much just too scared of the Firstborn to charge them or put up a fight when charged. The tired and demoralised fleeing Firstborn could not hold either; they broke at the slightest pressure.

Good thing I had my elite (and aptly named) Assault Warriors for storming the towers; any other troops would probably have shied away from going into the breach. Then again, that´s why one has to have spearhead troops.

The second major difference is that Missiles do not do much damage but pin down units and prevent them from moving or attacking. This forces one to deploy one´s archers much more carefully; the use of "combined arms" and smooth interaction of archery and close asault is the key to winning the game.

On the whole, it felt rather realistic.


In Marius´ place, I would have used my Outriders and light horse to reinforce the centre and buy the fleeing troops time to recover. That way, he could have rallied them into fighting order with his Earl´s standard and then have them counterattack, supported by the towers. That would also have kept the Goblins from most of the battle. As it was, it took them a few turns to break the Goblins, and that was all the time I needed to finish off the fleeing Cohort with minimal losses.

I believe Marius, being used to Chronopia´s morale rules, expected his rearguard to put up more of a fight.

The marksmen had me stunned. When they snuffed the havildar and one of the leaders in the first turn, I knew I had to take them out quickly, or I would suffer a plague of shot officers throughout the game. Snipers in StarGrunt II are bad, bad news. Their superior range meant I had only my cannon to fire back at them, which is like clumsily swatting flies with a menhir. Cannon are not made to target dispersed infantry, and so it took four shots to actually get one Repulsar.

When the first Myrmadon stuck out its snout and was immediately wounded by the towers, I almost quit it there and then. I never thought I would get the Myrmadons through that hail intact to reach the towers. But in true Blackblood fashion, I persevered, and the fire grew less the more I advanced. By that time, the towers had more than enough to do with my infantry, and that was what made my victory possible. Even so, it was pretty close.

In the end, I believe it was my use of the command rule (where higher ranking officers may activate units a second or third time with a Leadership roll) that won me the game. Usually, the command rule favours the defender (a moving commander cannot give orders), but by placing my commanders wisely I was able to pull off a lot with transferring actions.

A pity the Outriders were able to flee with the Legion´s colours – I would have liked to capture the banner to lay it at my Emperor´s feet.

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