My first game was against Chris' Dawrves. On turn 2, Chris had 2 units of cannon on a hill, brigaded with 2 units of rangers. Two other brigades od Dwarf warriors were on the hill as well. His line was anchored to the board edge on my left. I tried to go right to attack the exposed end of his line. On turn 3 a 2 units of Hounds tried their luck against a brigade of Dwarf Warriors on the plain, and 1 unit of hounds tried the attack against a unit of rangers on the hill. (There was another attack that I got off that turn but I do not remember what units attacked which dwarves.) Unfortunately, I resolved the attack against the ranger first. They won because they were defended and made their saves. Once they wiped out the hounds, they fell back right behind the hounds that had yet to fight. My hounds lost that fight and died because they had nowhere to retreat to. Much of the rest of the game was a blur of trying (and mostly failing) to get into a good position. Critical command rolls failed to go off, leaving lighter units to attack the Dwarf warriors unsupported, which did not help. The end result was a resounding Dwarf win.
My second game against Gary's Empire troops went much better. The scenario was to have the most number of stands on the central hill. Gary deployed two units of cannon on a hill in the center, with infantry on either side, and some cavalry on each flank. On turn 1, my cavalry/chariots/hounds moved twice each (two brigades worth) under direction of the general. The infantry brigades moved close to the centerline of the board on my right. Empire was able to move some infantry units forward, but his cavalry on each flank refused to budge. On my turn 2, I took the open fill in the center and prepared my infantry for either a charge or cannon fire. The General's inspired orders saw that each of the cavalry brigades got off 3 successful orders each! One brigade smashed at the Empire cavalry, a unit of hounds attacked his cannons. The second brigade were able to charge the infantry units in front of the cannons. Combat went my way. I was able to eliminate a unit of handgunners and a unit of pistoliers that were brigaded with 2 units of knights, and managed do some damage to the knight units. The infantry in front of the cannons were destroyed, and the attackers advanced in the cannons. The cannons then were destroyered. On the following turn, the Empire knights on the left charged the remants of the cavalry that attacked them. On the right, the Empire Knights cam forward to get ready for an attack on my infantry on the ground. Turn 3 was short, but the Empire was unable to get close to the center hill, and so lost the battle.
The third battle was a scenario in which each side had to try to rescue (or capture) wouned leaders. Each player had two leaders (objective markers) that he positioned before deployment, one per table quarter. Armies set up from deplyment zones anchored in opposing table corners, reaching 60cm out from the corner.
My thrid battle was against the Vampire Counts. One of the VC objective markers was on the edge of his deployment zone, so the VC army had a unit touching during deployment. The Daemons had 3 objective markers fairly close to their deployment zone. On turn 1, a VC commander was unable to order a unit of Zombies to move the marker. (We postulated that the Zombies may have been trying to eat, rather than save, their commander.) The VC player was able to come forward a bit. The Daemon army was able to grab one objective located in a forest, came close to a second, and was able to move the cavalry brigades toward the center. On turn 2, the zombies again did not move as they decided whether or not to eat the wounded commander. The VC army moved a little more toward the center, but only a few command rols went off. On turn 2, the Daemons had two objective markers and had cavalry on the central hill with the last unclaimed marker. On turn 3, VC got closer to the hill, but units were stranded in bad positions when the key command rolls did not go off. The Daemons made the most of it, getting off some charges on initiative and getting some orders off. The dice also abandoned the VC player in combat. A few turns later, the VC army was at the break point, having lost 12 units. The Daemons lost 3 units. My hat goes off to my opponent for his sportsmanship in the face of bad die rolling. This was a resounding victory for Daemons.
