Another Fantastic Battles Siege game

Andrew, Jim and I met for another playtest of the Fantastic Battles siege rules this week. The changes implimented as a result of the earlier testing (compressing the attrition into a modified mishaps roll and focusing on the assault itself) have certainly cleaned the game up a lot and led to a much more dynamic experience. 

The game saw just over 1,000 points of ratfolk besieging just over 500 points of goblins. The goblins bought various siege strategies to aid in their defence, and the rats built siege machines, a mine, and paid off a traitor to open one of the fort's gates.

The traitor, true to his nature, proved treacherous, and failed to unlock the side gate to the fort, and the mine was equally poor, meaning that the left flank of the fort was still secure at the start of the assault. 

However, two turns of artillery shooting away meant that the gate was blown off its hinges, and the ratfolk giant wheel careened inside, to attack the defenders while the giant rat-god and army warlord attacked the same defenders from across the wall.

While both the goblin defenders and the rat wheel were promptly being destroyed, the rats attacked the other flanks of the fort en masse, bringing battering rams, ladders and a siege tower to bear. The goblins revealed one of their strategies was to drop boiling slops over the attackers; this caused significant distress, but not enough to turn back the tide.

At the end of the day, the overwhelming numbers of the rats - entering through two gates (thanks to artillery on the flank and battering ram to the front) and scaling walls - secured their victory.

It was a really enjoyable game and the core mechanics are close to being fixed. Now it is just a matter of determinging the right balance for the different force sizes and strategies.