Dammit Thor! Those were new pants... :(

I introduced Lee to Andrea Sfiligoi's Of Gods and Mortals last week with two games pitching a pack of hairies led by Thor, against my less hirsute Greeks. Initially Thor took on Hermes (out for his first game) and later he fought Athena. Once again, my camera(-phone) proved incapable of taking decent photos, although the fact I was shaking with man-flu may not have helped...

So, to string together an ad hoc narrative to support the few grainy images: Thor had the same followers in both games - 8x berserkers, 8x skirmishing youths, and three valkyries. Hermes led a force consisting of 8x Thracians, 4x centaur archers, and 4x dryads, all supported by the minotaur, the hydra and the Kalydonian boar. 

The Norsemen were all penned up behind the village to begin with. The berserkers and my Thracians kept snarling at each other, but neither managed enough activations to get close to each other for quite some time. This left the minotaur exposed in the middle of the two units, where he was set upon and ravaged by a valkyrie.

The centaur archers knocked down another of the valkyries, allowing the Kalydonian boar to leap the river and send her back to Valhalla. unfortunately, Mr Bristlebreeches (as he is affectionately known) was then likewise exposed behind enemy lines. He managed to fight off the third valkyrie, but ...

... then received Thor's hammer, Mjölnir, in the butt and dropped dead. Hermes, meanwhile, had decided to be a bit gamey and zigzagged across the table to attack the Norse skirmishers, forcing them to recoil off the table and destroying the unit.

The Norse berserkers decided they didn't want to face the Thracians and tried to cross the river, ending up in a pretty sloppy berserker sandwich between the Thracians and Hermes.

Somehow, the berserkers held themselves together and saw off the opposition though.

One of the remaining valkyries wandered over too. This forced me to throw in my centaurs, which raised the odds. Then Lee saw my bid and raised me Thor. the ensuing fray didn't go terribly well for me. Hermes was killed, re-invoked, and killed again. Both the centaurs and Thracians were badly damage (three centaurs died in a single hit from Thor!), and reduced to a point where they could no longer invoke. 

And then, in a battle of the boobies, the less-than-well-occupied other valkyrie crossed into the woods and punched a tree. With my god nursing his wounds, and no units left which could invoke him back, we called the game a pretty brutal victory for Thor and the hairy tribes of the North.

****

For our second game, we played the 'Sacred Grove' scenario. At the end of six turns, whoever had more assets in the grove would win the game. This time, Athena led 8x Macedonian hypaspists, 6x heroic undead shades, 4x dryads, and was supported by the heroes Herakles and Atalanta. 

Atalanta and the Macedonians decided to eradicate the Norse skirmishers to begin with and pushed them down from their hill. While this proved a pretty easy task, it did occupy too much of my force for too long. Indeed, Atalanta all but destroyed the Norse skirmishers on her own over the course of the six turns.

While they were keeping busy on the hill, Herakles led the shades into the grove where Thor and the berserkers had already taken up positions, despite Athena's judicious use of lightning to thin their ranks. Thor also used lightning in the game; only twice, but very effectively. One shot to kill a single dryad, meaning the tree-ladies could no longer bolster Athena with their prayers, and the second bolt killed Herakles on the spot. Bum.

Athena then decided it was time to join her forces in the woods, bringing up the useless dryads as extra supports.

Then, in a classic example of declaring-the-use-of-a-rule-before-reading-it, Athena demanded that all around her should tremble before her might. I assumed that the rule would effect all those damned valkyries too. Apparently I assumed not. Then, to rubb salt into the wound, the Norse berserkers passed their tests and were unimpressed. Meanwhile, my shades and the last dryad were all awed. 

And that pretty much spelt the end of my game. Again. While Athena proved mightily formidable in battle, her allies were driven from the woods, while the hypaspists and Atalanta failed their activation rolls and never made it in among the trees. Chalk up another win for the mighty Thor!