Recently my friend Ben and I tried to design and run our own campaign. I’ll talk more about that in another post but the upshot was that we didn’t think we’d done a great job; because we had been designing with our own armies in mind specifically, it was hard not to get anxious about balance concerns. We thought we’d start off by playing some that someone else had designed.
The timing was quite fortuitous with the relatively recent releases of Battlefields: Lustria and Battlefields: Border Wars. We decided to try out Battlefields: Lustria first. The story in a nutshell is written that there are ancient ruins with some valuable relics that one player is defending and the other player wants to pilfer it.
At the start of the campaign you pick a race and additional statistics for your general which are used outside the games. You have ten points to assign as you wish to Planning, Preparation and Guile and each race has a bonus +1 to one statistic. Throughout the games you might test against this statistic, passing if you rolled on or below your value. You might also compare with the opposing general in which case you rolled and added that to your respective value and compared that. You must have at least one point in each and at most 5 points in one. I picked Lizardmen as the invader and Ben had Vampire Counts as the custodians. We each had +1 to our preparation and when all was said and done I had 2 Guile, 5 Planning and 4 Preparation to Ben’s 4 Guile, 2 Planning and 5 Preparation. We also decided from the get-go that we would write one list and keep that list for the entire campaign. That had some slight issues that we’ll get to in a second. We were fighting with 1,600 points. We played closed lists so I asked Ben to share his list with me afterwards for inclusion here. Here are our lists.
George’s Lizardmen:
Slann Mage-Priest: Channelling Staff; Harmonic Convergence; Reservoir Of Eldritch Energy; Battle Standard. 390
10 Skink Skirmishers: lustrian javelin; shield. 70
10 Skink Skirmishers: lustrian javelin; shield. 70
24 Skink Cohort: Skink Brave; Musician; Standard Bearer, 3 Kroxigors 300
20 Temple Guard: Revered Guardian; Musician; Standard Bearer. 310
Bastiladon: Solar Engine. 150
Bastiladon: Solar Engine. 150
Salamander Hunting Pack 80
Salamander Hunting Pack 80
1600 Points
Ben’s Vampire Counts:
Vampire Lord: Ogre Blade; Dawnstone; Red Fury; Quickblood; Barded Nightmare; shield; heavy armour. 398
Necromancer: Obsidian Lodestone; Level 2 Wizard. 145
Necromancer: Dispel Scroll. 90
39 Crypt Ghouls: Crypt Ghast. 400
12 Black Knights: Hell Knight; musician; standard bearer; Banner of the Barrows; barding; lances. 392
3 Cairn Wraiths: Tomb Banshee. 175
1600 Points
In order to establish which scenario you would play, you each picked from one of five actions and compared them on the campaign matrix to work out what scenarios and under what additional conditions. My forces landed on the beach and I selected to Establish a Beach Head while Ben elected to Harass. This meant that Ben was at a disadvantage having only 50% of his force at the start of the battle, holding 50% of his force in reserve.
This battle was a disaster for me. Ben rushed his Vampire Lord and Black Knights straight into my Skink Cohort and the Vampire killed three Kroxigor and about 10 Skinks before I got to attack. He chased them down and killed them. I flank charged him with my Bastiladon which was useless in combat, as it turns out, and he crushed it and used his free reform to turn and face my Temple Guard and Slann. He charged them and killed the Temple Guard to a man before I had a chance to strike. I killed quite a few of his zombies but not enough to score any victory points. Ben’s victory meant that I had to try and land again but he would get a Stratagem of his choice for the subsequent battle. He picked Family Heirloom which gave him a free magic item worth D6x25 points.
On the second landing, I picked Hold and Ben picked Charge. We fought the same scenario but this time Ben only had 75% of my points and we played with Night Fighting which meant that each turn we rolled 4D6 and that was the maximum distance Line of Sight could be drawn that turn. Before the game we discussed how we would deal with him losing 25% of his points, given that we had decided to keep the same lists. We ended up saying that he could take as much in any other category as he had taken core (or double in the case of Special choices). This meant he would have to take his full 400 points of core to keep his Vampire Lord which made the Black Knight unit far less scary. He also let me change which Lore of Magic I had taken. I had taken Lore of Heavens for fun which just had no tools to deal with the Vampire Lord.
We started up the game and Ben rolled for his item and could spend 50 points so took Armour of Destiny to give him Vampire a 4+ ward save. I picked Lore of Light to try and make it harder for the Vampire Lord to blend my troops so effectively. The game started off in relatively underwhelming fashion as I tried to block a charge of his Vampire and other units into my Temple Guard but ended up leaving a gap just wide enough. I was luckier than in the first game and he didn’t kill all of the Temple Guard so I was stubborn on the Leadership Test and was able to buff my units in the later turns to mostly stem the bleeding. We ended up with just the Slann and the Vampire Lord facing off against each other. I had managed to get two spells off on the Slann meaning that Ben was hitting me on 5+ with no reroll. He still hit four of five times, wounded each time and I failed all four 4+ saves. I was devastated. If my Slann had held up, I was likely going to win as my Skink Cohort was rushing towards his Ghouls and Necromancer in the back. After the Slann died, I had already suffered too many casualties and had resigned myself to the loss and was wondering how I could possibly win a game where Ben had two strategems! On my sixth turn, I used both Bastilodons’ Solar Engines to cast Beam of Chotec at the Lord with Ben failing to dispel either. I rolled a 5 and a 6 for the type of attack, the 5 dealt 2D6 S5 hits, which he saved all of. The 6 dealt 2D6 S6 hits. They all wounded. He saved one on an armour save, failed to save any on his rerolled armour save and only saved one on his 4+ ward save! I had dealt four wounds to the Vampire Lord and killed it with one spell and some pretty incredible luck! I had won the game! If I had won the first time, I would have been able to pick a Stratagem for the next Scenario but in absence of clarity, we agreed that I wouldn’t as I had lost the first.
With Ben feeling a bit hard done by, we picked our actions for the second engagement; in which I advance towards the ancient ruins and can head straight there, go through a swamp or across a gorge and he can react accordingly. I picked to Flank Right through the swamp figuring that it was bad for his cavalry and good for my amphibious Skinks. He elected to Attack. This was one of the worst results for Ben. We would fight a scenario where the entire battlefield was dangerous terrain, he would only have 50% of his army and if I won, I could take a planning test and if successful, would win the campaign, representing my ability to entice him out of the base to steal the artefacts. I love it when a plan comes together! This time we had to think again about our approach to the points restrictions. I really liked the idea of having one list for the entire campaign but it did seem harsh to force Ben to take just his core and his general in this case. We decided that in this and future games, you would be able to take up to 50% of your original list, ignoring the usual breakdown of categories (Lords, Heroes, Core etc.).
As for the last battle, it was pretty anticlimactic and not very fun for our intrepid antagonist. Ben brought his Vampire Lord with five Knights and his necromancer with a handful of Ghouls. The deployment was diagonal and, after the roll off, I had to deploy my entire army first but with a unit failing to start on the board on a roll of a 1 or a 2. All my units save my Slann with Temple Guard and one Bastiladon came on. Ben deployed as far away as possible from me in the corner. I played my first turn tentatively, just tiptoeing forwards so as not to have to take dangerous terrain tests for marching. I tried to cast a Banishment from my Slann who had entered at the board edge and it was cast with Irresistible Force. I killed only one of Ben’s knights and the Slann lost thee wizard levels to the miscast. I started to worry that I might not actually be able to destroy any of his units, meaning a draw or a loss for me if he managed to kill anything of mine once it got closer. Several turns of me walking up, casting Beam of Chotec and, once in range, shooting with the Salamanders were met with turns of Ben casting Invocation of Nehek to reanimate them with both of his wizards. It came to Ben’s 5th turn and he miscast, blowing up half of the ghouls and having his necromancer fall down a hole. On my sixth turn I was able to shoot the rest of the ghouls and then flee from his Vampire’s charges the following turn. I rolled my dice for the Planning test, failing only on a 6 and rolled a 2. I had won the campaign.
While I was happy to win, it was bitter-sweet because it was clear that Ben hadn’t enjoyed the last game and I don’t play Warhammer to be competitive like that. I felt that the campaign matrix was a cool way to progress the campaigns and give them some re-playability but it definitely felt that if you outmanoeuvred your opponent in the beginning it could mean the individual games ended up very one-sided. Throughout the games, there were a couple of unclear things. Here is a summary of the rules and clarifications that we aim to stick to for our next campaign:
– Army lists are written at the commencement of the campaign and cannot be altered unless the campaign rules specify.
– Lores of Magic or spells chosen (e.g. Fateweaver, Teclis) may be chosen as the wizard is deployed in each game and need not be recorded on the army list. We will likely apply this change to anything else that could be chosen but in tournaments is often specified that it must be decided at the time of list writing. E.g. Assassin placements.
– If a points restriction is applied on an army for a scenario, the player may simply remove units or models to reach that points limit. Maintaining points restrictions for each category is not necessary. You can also drop below the minimum unit sizes here if necessary.
– Stratagems are not persistent and will only work for the next scenario.
– If a victory would award a benefit and a defeat would require a rematch, in the event of an initial defeat followed by a victory the benefit would not be be awarded.
Overall I enjoyed the campaign and am keen to try out Battlefields: Border Wars with Ben next time and I’m going to get another couple going with other friends, I think.