designed a scenario

[Estarriol]

sorry if this is in the wrong place!

I'm designing a scenario for a little intro game. The idea is to look impressive and not be too taxing, though a little more interesting than a standard line up and fight.

The premise is this:
Elves vs. Undead.
The Liche King has imprisoned the Green Lady in a sacred grove within her forest. He has begun a ritual to drain the life out of her and the sacred trees surrounding said grove. An Elven prince has led his forces to come and rescue her.

board layout:
scattered trees. In the centre is a hill, with a large circle of six trees. Each must have some representation of a magical net encasing it. The green lady is set up in the middle of this circle, with the same effect showing her imprisoned by the Liche King's ritual.

armies:
Elf army - 750 points.
Green Lady's army - 500 points (sylvan folk and forest shamblers only)
undead - 1000 points.

(this is just what I had a quick playtest with. The battle will hopefully be bigger but that's all I had on hand).

setup - undead sets up entire army first within 6" of the hill in the centre. Elves may then set up within 6" of any board edge.

objective:
Elves must destroy three of the energy 'nets' surrounding the sacred trees. They have a defence value of 5+ and are routed on 12. They cannot be wavered.
Once this happens the Green Lady may summon her forces to her side! After all nerve tests have been taken in that turn, her army may be set up anywhere within the sacred grove but not in combat.

Undead objective is to annihilate the elven scum.

Anyway, if you see any problems with this please let me know.

[Estarriol]

I had a little solo bash to see how it played out. The Elves were a little rash, and rather on concentrating on defeating the undead in their way they were trying to break through to the objective, and succeeded in freeing two of the sacred trees before being overwhelmed. The problem was that by the end, even had the elves succeeded in unleashing the Green Lady and her angry horde, they would still have had less in points on the table than the surviving undead.
I reckon this is more of a problem with my tactics than anything else.

Elves list was restricted by the models I had available:
Prince plus cat on foot, 2 spear regiments with full command, 2 bow troops, 1 scout troop, 1 bolt thrower, 1 standard bearer.
The Green lady was accompanied by a cat, and would've been joined by a unit of 3 shamblers and 2 sylvan folk troops.

The Undead consisted of a Revenant regiment, a Revenant Knights regiment with command, Wraith troop, Ghoul Regiment, Skeleton Horde plus dog, liche, revenant King, standard bearer.

the elves deployed all in one lump on a short table edge facing only the ghouls and the liche.
They advanced, firing arrows all the way damaging the skellie horde which was advancing toward the elves' right flank, and the revenants advancing on the elves' left flank. the Revenant Knights were well out of it. The Wraiths made a run for it behind the elven line and attacked them from the rear. They fell upon the Standard Bearer thinking him easy meat, but neither made any headway for the rest of the battle.

The elves punched through the undead with a spear regiment and the prince. The ghouls held on against the scouts, and were lucky in routing them. They then came in against the flank of a bow regiment which was trying to shoot the energy net from the third tree. the Skellie horde was held for the entire game by a lucky bow troop.
The spear regiment attacking the trees was stopped and held down by the three undead characters until the ghouls could join the fun. the other spear regiment routed the revenant regiment before the revenant knights turned up and returned the favour.


Anyway, I don't know if it was just how I was playing it, but the elves definately have their work cut out for them. I think next time the spears need to hit as fast as they can rather than worring about the bow's line of sight. The archers should either advance to cover the flanks of the spears and shoot the hell out of reinforcing undead or to try and shoot out the energy nets on the trees. The Prince's cat should be encouraged to pounce at a tree, as it could probably do enough damage to free one of them. The prince should charge the second, and hopefully the scouts can free the third nice and early.

I haven't experimented with the thought of trying to deploy a flanking force or two to keep the undead busy and thus split their forces.

[Bert]

Hi. I think part of your problem with the scenario is the way the undead work, and the way characters work.
If the undead are able to overwhelm a foe, then they can regain numbers lost while fighting said foe.
This can work well in the scenario, but if they have too many necromancers to support them at the same time then they will not loose enough for it to be fair to the other side.

On top of that, characters in general would be immensely useful for the undead in this scenario, as they can flank and give a much larger number of attacks, plus they can be on the other side of the groove, and still turn around and reach the enemy in a short number of turns.

I think the way to solve both of these problems is to limit the undead player to one, or at most two characters. Definitely no more than one summoner/healer type.
This would represent the scenario better, as I can imagine more hordes around such an event with one or two leaders leading the ritual. While also balancing the undead force.

Having a lot of fast undead in general also seems to give them a bit too much of an advantage, as the Elves have no choice but to be flanked, and faster undead means it can happen on undead turn two instead of turn four.

[Estarriol]

Thanks for the feedback! You're right, the undead did manage to react quite fast. The Elves hit the Ghouls especialy as they were the fastest unit on the table so should've bought some time.

Equally though, the elves 'all eggs in one basket' set up might have been a problem in itself, as the undead have no small units except the Wraiths, so two diversionary prongs, say the bowmen set up on a different side in two different locations would force the undead to either use a disproportionate number of points to go and get them or ignore them.

I'll try that first, and then I'll either lose the Rev King and take more troops, or simply make the Liche not available for use until the ritual is interupted.

[Estarriol]

I played this a slightly different way last night. The elves fielded two scout troops, tow bow troops, a spear regiment, a stormwind cav troop plus the prince and a banner bearer.

The scout troops set up separate from the main army, meaning i had three different prongs in my attack. Their set up forced the Revenant Cavalry, Revenant regiment, and revenant king all had to go after them or leave them at their backs. Whilst the scouts folded pretty quickly, they distracted the revenants for long enough that the prince and the spear regiment managed to fight their way through to the trees before the revenants came back.

It then balenced on a knife edge as only the banner bearer was able to actually hit the tree while the Revenant King and the Prince squared off, and the spears held off the revenant regiment. The rev cav came down the other flank, but weren't able to intervene before the Ritual was disrupted and the Green Lady's troops came out. Even then it was a damn hard fight and very close - the skelly horde and the rev cav take a lot of killing, and they did manage to dispose of the Shambler troops and a regiment of Sylvan folk before falling.

It ended with the elves only fielding the Prince, Banner Bearer, a bow troop, the Green Lady and a Sylvan folk regiment. Very messy battle all round. I wonder if perhaps I shouldn't up the elf's points a little bit to make it a little easier for them. As it is, they only just have enough to do the job and if the undead get lucky it can be a walkover for them.