This battle report covers the first of the three Rue Mist scenarios. In this first scenario-- No Turning Back-- the battlefield shrinks by ever-increasing amounts every 4 turns. The field is divided into zones using marker terrains. In the diagram below, zone 1 is the deployment zones, zone 2 is the green bands, zone 3 is the white bands, and zone 4 band is the yellow band in the middle.
Each player gets two turns to move out of the way before the current zone disappears. After 6 turns per player (12 turns total), only zone 4 will remain. Any unit with more than half its area in a zone that disappears is eliminated without any victory points scored.
A large army has problems in this scenario. If it takes 12 order points to move all your units, then during your first 6 turns you'll have only 2 order points per turn in which to do anything but move.
There is one special rule: if you can get a unit to move off the edge of the board via the control terrain, then you get a victory point and your opponent loses one. This can make a big difference in the end game.
In this scenario Nate played a Han army and I played an Egyptian army.
This is an almost purely artillery army. The control point has very little cover, and there is really no time for the fancy maneuvering required to use close combat units effectively, so the Han are playing completely to their strength. The mounted archers can move fast enough to give the Han player a tempo edge when outrunning the disappearing terrain. The entire army can be moved in 11 order points.
This army uses two turtles whose purpose is to take and hold the control point against artillery. The archery formations sacrifice a Fire Arrow icon to get an extra point of speed. Finally, the Hellenic Strikers are designed to harry the enemy in order to give the other units time to pull forward. The entire army can be moved in 12 order points.
The scenario has a single control point on one edge and two large blocking terrains, one on each half. The key features, however, are the marker terrains that indicate the boundaries of each zone. Nate and I used dice placed on the markers to indicate the current edge of the field.
Nate placed a Heavy Lightning and a Flame Strikers on his left, positioned to go around the blocking terrain in the middle of his territory. On his right, he placed the rest of his army in a contiguous block (there being no Fireburst in my army), including the other Heavy Lightning and Flame Strikers, the two Phoenix Squads, the Raven Column and the Ashi Squadron.
I deployed my army entirely on Nate's right to be close to the control point. I started with the Steel of Amenhotep, then a Hellenic Striker in front of a 13th Legion Pitati. Another 13th Legion Pitati was placed in front of that. Next to the forward Pitati, I placed the Master of Steel, and at the end my last 13th Legion Pitati with another Hellenic Striker in front. All of the units were spaced slightly so that they would not have to waste movement points to avoid splash damage from Fireburst.
I won the dice roll. Because of the nature of the scenario, there was no ambush turn: my first turn was a full one.
I started by moving up three of my formations (2 order points each) and both of my sorties (1 order point each). The sorties, with a speed of 6, were able to make it most of the way into zone 3, but the formations were a little slower. In particular, the 13th Legion Pitati on Nate's left was slowed by the need to slide over to get around the blocking terrain in the middle of the field.
Nate moved up his entire right-hand brick en masse, commenting repeatedly about how nice it was not to have to worry about Fireburst.
I used four order points to move up my remaining 13th Legion Pitati and the Steel of Amenhotep.
I had four order points left. I used two to push a Hellenic Strikers into base contact with the nearby Heavy Lightning.
It took one more order point to attack. Because the unit's normal attack dice were augmented by Aggressive, the attack was 7 to 0. I did 4 damage.
Nate downed one of the Han Crossbowmen and one of the Han Mounted Archers, injuring another Mounted Archer. This effectively reduced the damage from 4 to 3.
With my last order point, I regrouped the Hellenic Strikers for defense. The purpose of the Strikers is to slow down your opponent, and the extra defense would hopefully force Nate to spend extra order points to get rid of them. In particular, with no defense, he had a 59% chance of killing the Strikers with a single shot from the Raven Column. With 3 defense dice, the chance was reduced to 44%.
It was Nate's turn. At the end of this turn, the deployment zones would drop away and any units caught in them would disappear; however, Nate needed only three order points to move the rest of his units to safety. He started instead by shooting the Hellenic Strikers with the Raven Column. Because the Strikers were in melee, the shot was at a one-die penalty, 9 to 3 with Good Fortune. He did 6 damage.
The Hellenic Strikers had one figure left. Rather than push the Raven Column to finish them off, Nate shot with the nearby Phoenix Squad. Again, there was a one-die penalty, so the shot was 5 to 3. It had a 93% chance of success, and in fact Nate did 2 damage.
The Hellenic Strikers were removed from the board and Nate collected a victory point. He had 5 order points left.
He used the next three order points to move up his rear Heavy Lightning and Flame Strikers units.
With his last two order points, he moved the damaged Heavy Lightning onto the control point.
Four turns had elapsed, so the deployment zones dropped off the battlefield. To denote that the field was now smaller, we moved the dice we were using to track the number of turns up to the 2 markers. Since all of the units were safely beyond these markers, nobody was lost.
I needed to get the Heavy Lightning off the control point before it escaped and gave Nate a free victory point, but I also needed to get as much of my army as possible out of zone 2, since I only had two turns to do it in. First, I used three order points to move up the Master of Steel and the remaining Hellenic Strikers.
I used two more order points to move up a 13th Legion Pitati. This not only got it to safety, but put it in position to shoot the Heavy Lightning.
The attack was 9 dice to 0 with Fire Arrow. The expected damage was 7, which was what I got.
Nate downed three horses and injured the fourth. This reduced the unit's movement to 3, which would not be enough to get it off the control point unless it pushed. I had only one order point left, which was not enough to attack again. I used it to push the Hellenic Strikers into base contact with the Heavy Lightning. This not only contested the control point, but insured that if Nate tried to escape with the unit, I had a 90% chance of killing it during the breakaway attack.
Nate started his turn using two order points to move up the Raven Column to shoot the Hellenic Strikers.
The attack was 9 dice to 3, the Raven Column taking a one-die penalty for shooting into melee. Nate had a 44% chance of getting the 7 hits he needed to kill the target, and luck was with him.
The score was now 2 to 0 in Nate's favor. He had used 4 order points. He decided to leave the Heavy Lightning on the control point so that I would have to spend effort to keep him from getting victory points. Instead, he used the remaining four order points to move his sorties up into zone 3. In an ordinary game, he might have chosen to carefully position them out of striking distance of my units, but in this scenario movement points are simply too precious. He moved them as far as they could go and counted on the movement pressure to keep me from making too many attacks.
It was my last turn to get my units into zone 3. I spent 2 order points to move up the Steel of Amenhotep, at the same time contesting the control point.
Next I moved up the 13th Legion Pitati on Nate's right, into position to shoot the Raven Column.
The shot was 9 dice to 1 with Fire Arrow. The expected damage was 7, but I got only 6 hits (4 from the dice, 1 critical hit, and one Fire Arrow bonus).
Ordinarily, I would have pushed to finish the target off, but I had only 2 order points left, and zone 2 was going to disappear before my next turn. I used them to move the rear 13th Legion Pitati to safety.
It was now Nate's turn.
He started by using two order points to shoot the Steel of Amenhotep with the Raven Column. The attack was 10 dice to 12 with Good Fortune, the Steel getting 4 extra defense dice from Wall of Shields. In this case, the Good Fortune roll of 6 (which even though it was a third 6 did not count as a critical hit) was the only damage Nate did.
Nate used his third order point to Fireburst the Steel of Amenhotep from the nearby Flame Strikers. This increased the total damage on the unit to 4. I downed a Shield Golem and the Formation Legionary, then injured another Shield Golem.
Nate had used three order points. He used two more to push the Raven Column to shoot the nearest 13th Legion Pitati. The attack was 10 dice to 3 with Good Fortune, meaning the expected damage was 7. Incredibly, he got only 2 hits.
Nate had three order points left. He used two to move up the Flame Strikers on his left and Fireburst the Master of Steel for 3 damage.
With his last order point, Nate moved the Ashi Squadron onto the control point, insuring it would remain contested if something happened to the Heavy Lightning.
We had played 8 turns, so now zone 2 disappeared from the board. We moved the indicator dice up to the #3 markers to indicate they were the new limit of the battlefield. Once again, no units were lost.
Because the Steel of Amenhotep was already in a safe position with more than half its length in zone 4, I needed only 8 order points to get the rest of my army out of zone 3. I therefore felt I finally had enough time to start killing some of Nate's units. I started by shooting the Heavy Lightning on the control point with my rearmost 13th Legion Pitati.
The attack was 9 to 0 with Fire Arrow. I needed 3 hits and did 7, killing the Lightning and collecting 2 victory points.
I used the next two order points to shoot the Raven Column with the front 13th Legion Pitati. This attack was once again 9 to 0 with Fire Arrow. I needed 5 hits and did 7, killing the Ravens and getting 2 more victory points.
The score was now 4 to 2 in my favor. I had four order points left in this turn.
The injured 13th Legion Pitati in the front was going to be killed next turn, so I decided to use it one last time to attack the Flame Strikers on Nate's left. I used two order points to move them into position.
The attack was 9 to 3 with Fire Arrow. I did 9 damage, killing the Flame Strikers and collecting another victory point.
It was Nate's turn. His first task was to kill the exposed 13th Legion Pitati. He used one order point to shoot them with the nearest Phoenix Squad. Because the Pitatis were turned to the side, the shot was through a bad side and they had no defense. The dice roll was 6 to 0 and Nate did 6 damage.
A follow-up shot from the other Phoenix Squad finished the job.
Nate collected 2 more victory points. The score was now 5 to 4 in my favor. He used one order point to move his remaining Flame Strikers into zone 4, and another to Fireburst the Master of Steel for 3 damage.
Nate had 4 order points left. He used 2 to move his remaining Heavy Lightning forward to safety where it could shoot the Master of Steel.
The shot was 7 dice to 11 with Good Fortune, the Steel getting 4 extra defense dice from its two Wall of Shields icons. He did no damage.
I used my first order point to heal the Master of Steel with Artificer so it could move.
I used two more order points to move the Steel to safety in zone 4.
Two more order points moved the forward 13th Legion Pitati to safety.
I discovered now that I had a serious problem. Because of the need to heal the Master of Steel before I could move it, I had only 3 order points left. Because of the position of the blocking terrain, I needed two move orders to get the rear 13th Legion Pitati into zone 4. Since this was my last turn before the next drop, I was going to have to let the unit disappear into the mists of erosion.
I had two order points I could spend to shoot somebody. I decided to target the remaining Flame Strikers. The attack was 9 dice to 3 with Fire Arrow, and I did 8 damage, killing the Strikers and collecting another victory point.
With my last order point I used Lord of the Dead to try to heal the Steel of Amenhotep, but I rolled a 1 and only brought back the Formation Legionary.
The score was now 6 to 4 in my favor. It was Nate's turn.
With his first two order points, Nate moved the two Phoenix Squads to safety in zone 4.
Nate had six order points left. He decided to use them to kill the remaining 13th Legion Pitati. He started by shooting with the first Phoenix Squad. The dice roll was 6 to 0, because he was able to target a bad side, and he did 4 damage.
Shooting with the other Phoenix Squad did 4 more damage.
Nate had four order points left and the 13th Legion Pitati had four figures left. He used two points to shoot them with the remaining Heavy Lightning. The attack was 7 dice to 0 with an expected damage of 5, but Nate rolled poorly and got only 2 hits.
He used one more order point to push the Phoenix Squad to shoot again, and this time did 6 damage, killing the 13th Legion Pitati and collecting two more victory points.
With his final order point, Nate regrouped the Heavy Lightning for movement and defense.
The score was now tied 6 to 6.
It was time for the final drop-off. My rear 13th Legion Pitati was still in zone 3, so it was removed from the game. Per the rules of the scenario, no victory points were awarded.
I had two turtle formations left-- the Master of Steel and the Steel of Amenhotep. Nate had two Phoenix Squad artillery sorties, the Heavy Lightning mounted archers, and the Ashi Squadron close combat sortie. Nate had the edge in number of units, but none of them had enough attack potential to do permanent damage to the self-healing turtles.
It was my turn. I started by using Artificer to heal the Master of Steel to full health. Next, I moved it into base contact with the Heavy Lightning.
I had used 3 order points. I used my next 2 to attack with the Master of Steel. The dice roll was 3 to 2 with intuition, and I did two damage.
Nate downed one of the Han Crossbowmen and injured one of the Han Mounted Archers. Once again, the combination of single-peg and multi-peg figures on Heavy Lightning enabled him to shave a point off the total damage done.
I had three order points left. I used one to heal the Steel of Amenhotep with Lord of the Dead, rolling a 5, which brought the unit back to full health.
With my last two order points, I moved the Steel up more fully onto the control point, insuring that Nate's units couldn't get to its vulnerable bad side in the back.
At this point, Nate did not see any way he could hurt me, and he was concerned I would be able to wear him down and win by elimination. He therefore switched tactics. He had three sorties and a formation. Two of the sorties were one movement order from leaving the board through the control point. The third sortie and his formation could both push to get off. That meant he could exit with all four units in only 8 order points. If he did so, he would get 4 more victory points and I would lose 4. With his army off the field, the game would end and he would win with a score of 10 to 2.
Nate started by moving off the three sorties. This took four order points.
The only wrinkle to the whole scheme was that the Heavy Lightning would suffer a breakaway attack when it pulled away from the Master of Steel. The attack would be 3 dice to 2, so the most damage it could do was 4 hits. Nate could down two horses, leaving him with one Han Crossbowmen and two Han Mounted Archers, enough to keep the unit's full speed even after pushing. The game was over and Nate had won.
This is scenario about speed and order points, so an army of fast sorties has an advantage. Nate's biggest advantage came from his decision to deploy his army around the blocking terrains in the middle instead of crowding them on one side like I did. The crowding meant I didn't have the freedom to move units the way I wanted, and that cost me a valuable artillery unit.
More important, I was not prepared for Nate's plan to simply move his army off the board. This technique leads to a low-scoring win, so in a league tournament where victory points are important, it is not going to be your primary strategy; however, if it's what you have to do the win the game, the low score is only a minor drawback.
Next up: an earthquake strikes in Not My Fault.