This week JB indulged me with further testing of the siege rules for Fantastic Battles. Using almost all the fortifications made for my by Jim at Dark Architect, we played the largest siege to date, pitching 2,000 points of attackers (my Wylde Elves allied to my Beastlings), against 1,000 points of Fallen Dwarves as the defenders.
With the attackers suffering badly with disease ahead of the assault, the failure of the sappers to undermine the walls, and the total lack of traitors to unlock the gates, my lads (and lasses) had a hard old slog getting in under the walls.
Although a beastling levy unit did get ladders to the keep wall, they were broken as they tried to scale the defences. Massed shooting from dwarvern handguns and artillery also managed to bring down the siege tower ... which then fell back on the trolls pushing it.
The dwarvern mage-lord, frustrated with inaction, flew his winged bull out of the keep to attack the skirmishing archers. Failing to destroy them in the first round of combat, he proceeded to disengage. Sadly, the movement took him too far on the other side of the fortress where he was charged and slain by the waiting elven stag-knights and their chariot support.
On the far side of the fortress, the second unit of beastling levy breached the gat with a battering ram and spewed forth into the outer defences.
The revised modifiers conferred by the different fortifications meant that the success of the assault was never a foregone conclusion; the arrow towers in particular caused me significant harm. However, JB's army was not necessarily well suited to defending walls and the large number of characters continuously rallying and blessing my troops managed to keep them in the field long enough for the dwarves to lose heart.
Any estimate on when the siege rules will be ready for distribution? I enjoy Fantastic Battles quite a bit and may have need for siege rules (specifically the assault phase as opposed to the other aspects of a siege) in the not-too-distant future.
ReplyDeleteI am aiming to have everything finalised for a release over the winter. However, the playtest rules for sieges have been available for a while through the Facebook group. If you don't use Facebook, feel free to contact me using the contact form and I can send them to you.
DeleteThanks Nic, I am a member of the Facebook group and have seen postings about the siege rules but don't see anything in the file section and searching for "siege" turns up nothing for me (other then the posts mentioned above). Are they under a specific name?
DeleteIt's part of the scenarios pdf.
DeleteI am looking forward to the siege rules. I have a quick question on the battlefield rules. Does the spell Magic Missile use the target unit Defense value or, being magic, does it set the target Defense to 4+ or 3+ like Heavy or Powerful Missile Weapon?
ReplyDeleteThat is one of the few 'rule amendments' being made with the scenarios, sieges and new stuff document.
DeleteMagic-users casting magic missiles
Magic missiles always treat their target’s Defence as 4+, ignoring the Defence modifier of targets with the ephemeral or shieldwall traits. Mundane targets have a Defence of 5+ against magic missiles.