Fantastic Battles - playtesting by proxy during a pandemic

One of the challenges brought on by the current pandemic is the inability to meet friends inside to roll dice and push toy soldiers across a table. We are now able to meet outside (wargaming in the sun?), but with the recent squally weather, it's not all that enticing. This has been rather frustrating for writing purposes, as Fantastic Battles should now be in the middle of extensive playtesting. I started testing back at the start of the year, but lockdown really put a dampener on that. 

While other people have managed to test the rules, either solo or with various technological solutions to social distancing, I have been a couple of months without testing a battle. A couple of weeks ago I was invited by Steve and Forbes, two wargamers across the water in England, to join them for a virtual playtest. It had never occurred to me that this was a viable way to play wargames, but it seemed to work for them, so we gave it a shot ourselves this week.

I set up the table and deployed my forces - 1,000 points of halflings - on one side of the table, dumped 1,000 points of goblins in the middle, and my laptop on the window sill roughly where my opponent's head should have been.

We then set up a three-way video call between Andrew, my laptop and my phone. Andrew could see the entire battlefield from the laptop camera, while I could use the camera on my phone to give close-up footage if he needed it. After the initial discussion and set-up, we mostly operated with just the laptop camera (laptop muted and mic turned off), with the cameras off, but sound on, for Andrew and my phone. 

After Andrew directed me to deploy his goblins we rolled for mishaps - you can see some of the damage above. My unit of archer militia were too enthusiastic and deployed much further forward than they'd been ordered; over in the left you might be able to make out Andrew's trolls also suffered from too much enthusiasm. Both of us also had a couple of late units which, while on the table, were not deployed where they had been instructed. We each had a single unit suffering from disease, and some of my artillery crew had deserted before the battle. The wee bolloxes.

Part way into the game, the halflings' treefolk allies held their own against a combined assault of goblin spider-riders and trolls, while goblin captains scrambled around trying to keep as many units within their command range. The goblins were hampered throughout the game by their unreliable units, but Andrew's expedient distribution of captains meant that any real disaster was avoided.

Over in the centre, the poor militia archers fled before an onslaught of goblin wolf-riders. In retrospect, I should have abandoned them to their fate, but instead I threw forward yeoman cavalry and poultry-riding scouts supported by three characters (a captain, rogue and magic-user). These were each, in turn, ripped to shreds by the goblin king's wyvern, bat-riders and a sneaky goblin rogue.

The last photo - just before the end. The treefolk continued to hold their own. Having scattered the trolls and spider-riders, they were then attacked by a giant whom they were also able to kill. Unfortunately, he fell forward and flattened the halfling captain leading the treefolk. That was enough for the trees to loose heart and depart back to the woods from whence they came. 

The halfling kitchen militia were caught in a march column by a unit of ogre mercenaries. Their second giant and the goblin battle wagon took on the halfling pike-armed hearthguard who, though brave, were destroyed following a sweeping flank charge by the goblin wolf-riders.

So when all was said and done, a rather catastrophic result for the halflings. Playing by proxy, with an opponent on the other end of a video call, will never be as satisfying as meeting in person. However, given the circumstances, it worked remarkably smoothly. It helps that Andrew and I have a similar play style and could trust each other to report truthfully on dice rolls. The rules flowed easily for us with no obviously unbalanced areas. Another few games like this, and we might be ready for more open playtesting...