Having last week played a game of DBF using the spiders as hordes, this week I played a smaller 80 poiont game against Andy, but this time trying them as Beast packs. Under Hordes of the Things, spider hordes seemed right, but un der DBF it didn't. Under DBF hordes are unwieldy, do count towards army losses for victory, and don't come back. The idea of beast type packs assailing the enemy seemed more appropriate.
Andy fielded his British napoleonic fantasy army.
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| The initial deployment: both sides were constrained to the central deployment zones, meaning additional forces had to be deployed behind |
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| Scots Greys. Andy had based them 2 to a base many moons ago, which ought to make them Light Horse, but hey.. Scots Greys.. Knights of course |
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| The 'heavy hitters in the spider army... two behemoths and a hero |
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| The spider Beast Packs |
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| Righto.. let's be 'at it'.. straight in.. |
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| Spider Behemoth General vs Brit Knight General.. the Brit general was destroyed... so it didn't look good for the Brits from there on in |
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| The second spider behemoth destroyed the British shooters, an the breakthrough of the British line was made |
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| Howeve Andy had posiiotned his two artillery pieces to the rear... |
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| The spiders attacked the first artillery piece and destroyed it |
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| Meanwhile the British were keeping the beasts at bay |
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| Action between the spider best packs and a mix of British shooters, and warband (Scots infantry) |
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| The behemoths attack the second artillery piece |
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| The artillery wins and the attacking behemoth flees |
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| In Andy's next turn he fires artillery at the second spider behemoth (general) and it too flees |
However British losses had mounted and finally the game was won by the spiders... a very different game from that in which the spiders had been hordes. Mind you, in contrast to the previous game, my die rolling with the spiders was .. well ... extraordinary. I think it was 7 combats in a row with a die roll of 5 or 6.... as they say, some days you are the pigeon, some days you are the statue. That said, the DBF rules continue to challenge and satisfy.
