The ANNIHILATION is over and Khador came out on top. Each of the four games was contested closely and the attrition rules limited both of our force selection, particularly in the final game. Here are all of the articles related to this campaign –
[Games 1 and 2 | Game 3 | Game 4 | Campaign Rules]
We’ve fought a hard campaign and there are plenty of things to reflect on. I’m going to tweak the campaign rules for readability, but otherwise they’ve worked well. I’ll run the campaign again with other factions, but for now the rules seem robust enough.
Anyway, now that the dust has settled and we’ve had a chance to assess our losses here are our final remarks.
Peter: So, quite a comprehensive loss on my part for the campaign then, and it had all looked so good after the first game. And even after the first few rolls of the dice in this one, to be honest!
Looking back, I think my biggest weakness throughout the series of games was not doing enough to protect my caster. The first game I had a house to hide Sevvy behind, and it made all the difference. In the later games I was a bit too easily led into attacking, and in the last game in particular, bad dice meant that I got tied up in combats that I was expecting to win decisively. Owen did a much better job of keeping his eyes on the prize and had plenty of firepower to bring to bear on me when I made a mistake.
I’ve enjoyed the games a lot, especially having to pull together a force from a limited pool. By the end of the four games my force is actually looking reasonably healthy, not hurt by the High Reclaimer bringing back my bait unit of Bastions. Having seen the amount of damage I did to Owen’s force, even through Khador armour I would be interested to see if other factions came out with enough points for the final game. Cygnar wouldn’t be able to rely as heavily on hanging back and shooting due to the scenarios, and Cryx playstyle tends to be classified as a glass hammer.
Apart from the fairly major mistakes in a couple of games, I think I made a big mistake in my choice of casters. I think carefully looking at the scenarios would have suggested different choices on my part, but then I wouldn’t have had the chance to bring back all of my Bastions ready to charge back into the fray, which was one of my favourite moments in the final game.
Overall then, I think as a test run of the system which Owen set up it was almost entirely sucessful. We had a few issues tracking the zones in the last scenario, and I’m not a big fan of ‘jack bonds other than the ones that come with epic casters, but I think the openness of knowing which scenarios and which faction you are facing result in fairly evenly sided matches. Plus I managed to total a Devastator during it, and that’s never a bad thing!
Owen: Playing 35pt ‘caster kill games can get a little formulaic with each player trying to pull off their tricks before the other. Not so when you play a campaign like this. Each game challenges you as you have to pay attention not only to the scenario winning conditions, but also to the losses you are willing to take to win the scenario. With the campaign view in mind both Peter and myself did some merciless slaying in the first two games. In the first and second games Peter and I (respectively) had the scenario win in the bag, but continued the carnage until our turns ended. It isn’t enough just to win, we wanted to take down as much of the enemy as possible too!
He may have a ruthless streak, but Peter is a great opponent. He got into the spirit of the campaign and played four great games. His Bastions, who refused to die, were a pain throughout the whole campaign and I’m certain that if there was a fifth game in the campaign I’d be toast. As it is I got lucky with two of the wins. One area I was happy with was my choice of ‘casters. Sorscha and Irusk are great scenario ‘casters. My one regret is not choosing Sorscha to lead my army in Game 1. For the ‘clear the area’ scenarios such as Mosh Pit and No Man’s Land her feat is awesome. Irusk is handy enough in a fight too as he can buff a lot of his army and exercise some great board control. Overall my army selection was good, but it was a little frustrating that I was left with a number of duplicate FA:1 units for the last game. That’s the nature of an attrition campaign.
I’m planning an update to the campaign rules. Whilst the ‘jack bond rules had zero effect in our campaign they have the potential to be very powerful, so I’ll change them to be optional. Other than that I’ll leave the structure as is. More play testing may necessitate changes, but for now the campaign rules seem fine.
I enjoyed that so much I’m itching to play another ANNIHILATION campaign. I might bring the Legion out to play next time.
Owen
Update A new version of the campaign rules are available here
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