First Contact

[andrewgr]

A month or so ago, I showed a friend (Steve) how to play.  He bought a couple of decks, but we hadn't had a chance to play again since then.

Today I offered to play any scenario he wanted, and he chose First Contact, with me playing the Umenzi.

He deployed his two light cavalry units near the road, his militia and bowmen in the center, and his two swordsmen facing the hill.

I deployed my Worthy near the road, and everything else in the center, in 3 ranks: front rank both warriors and one atlatlmen, second rank three atlatalmen, and third rank both shamen.

My Worthy smashed through his first light cavalry and was engaged with the second one when the game ended, just slightly on his side of the board, so that I was able to get the 100 point bonus for owning my home/right quadrant.

His swordsmen went to the top of the hill, into my half of the board, but left the flank of the one nearest to the center exposed.  I flanked it with one of my Warriors unit, and killed it on the final turn.

In the center, other than the unit of Warriors that flanked his swordsmen, everything else just advanced until they met the wall of militia in the center, who had been on Hold until the final turn when they Charged.

The outcome was very one sided; I had 600 points (1 quadrant + killed light cav + killed swordsmen + miscellaneous other), and since he didn't control a single quadrant and hadn't killed any of my units, we didn't bother to count his points.

This was only Steve's second game, so the outcome wasn't suprising.

I was a little dissapointed with the scenario.  The Nahlakar's Gambit was so much fun (even though that was very one sided when I played it, too), I was expecting something a bit more interesting.  The fifth turn comes so fast, there was barely time for combat.  (That might not be the case all the time, but since Steve had the longer range, he wanted to maximize the number of turns he could shoot at me without me shooting back, so he put most of his army on Hold to start the game.)  It took almost as long to set up and tear down the game as it did to play.  Still, it was useful, if for no other reason than as a rules refresher for Steve.