Battle of the Old Temple

For my next Chronicles of Blood game, I decided to play a scenario oriented battle.

Army of Ratmen desecrated a temple of a long lost human empire. But long dead warriors left their graves as skeletons, trying to rescue their holly place.

There is a hill with a temple at the southern table edge. Regiment of Slingerrats is located on the hill, from where they can see (and shoot at) whole battlefield over the heads of other units, but can also be seen (and shoot at) by any unit.

In front of the hill regiment of Monkrats is located. All other Ratmen regiments should be placed by rolling, as per rulebook.

My undead warriors will be coming from the North.

In this scenario player has the first turn. Ratmen will not move (but will shoot and cast spells!) until their turn 2, when they will start behaving as described in the rulebook.

After turn 5, additional 5 victory points will be awarded for each unit within 15cm of temple.

Roosters (click to enlarge):

Me:

Enemy:

Elite champion – advanced special based on house rule from earlier post. Regiment can re-roll combat dice once per turn (either in your or enemy combat phase, not in both!), instead of once per game. Reroll must be done before enemy combat dice roll, never after. At the moment, I have set this special at 2 points.

I deployed my hard hitting chariots on the right flank, the majority of the forces in the center and light cavalry on the left. System responded by locating all of his heavy units to his left while Spearrats positioned themselves to the left and right of the Monkrats, to protect their flanks.

This way, I found myself tactically outsmarted at the very beginning of the game…. From time to time, based on their reaction to my moves, I am beginning to suspect that artificial intelligence systems like CoB or Mythic GM emulator are beginning to develop self consciousness :).

No unexpected events happened during the game.

Turn 1.

Both chariots and guards cast Enhance, raising their damage to d12. Other undead regiments moved.

Monkrats cast Blast, instantly killing my regiment of archers!

Turn 2.

Chariots cast Blast on Ogrerats, but rolled below armor and scored no wounds.

Guards cast Blast on Monkrats, scoring one wound. Monkrats passed morale test.

Swarm moved. Centaurs shot at Spearrats but missed.

Monkrats cast Blast causing 3 wounds on Swarm. Slingerrats shot at Swarm and scored one additional wound.

Turn 3.

Chariots cast Haste and charged Ogrerats, but lost combat end suffered 1 wound.

Guards cast Haste and moved. Swarm moved. Centaurs shot but missed again!

First Thunderrats charged chariot at the flank, won combat and scored 1 wound.

Monkrats cast Shielding on themselves.

Ogrerats charged chariots but lost combat and suffered one wound. They passed morale test.

Slingerrats missed.

Turn 4

Chariots charged Ogrerats but lost combat and suffered 2 wounds.

Guards cast haste and charged Monkrats, causing 1 wound. Monkrats passed morale test.

Swarm moved, Centaurs missed again.

Tunderrats charged chariots again, killing them.

Monkrats charged Guards, but lost combat and suffered 3 wounds. They passed morale test.

First Spearrats charged Swarm and killed it. Second Spearrats charged Centaurs and killed them also.

Slingerrats shot at Guards and caused 2 wounds.

After being left only with seriously wounded Guard regiment, I decided to admit the defeat. This is my third loss in the row, so I will have to seriously think about improving tactics with Undead army.

More scenarios can be found in second CoB expansion here.