It took a while to get back in the saddle, but Saturday night I threw down with Albanyadriel. Despite telling him I wasnt batrepping the game, heres a quick and dirty rundown for completeness ;D
BLOODFIRE GAME 11: EMPIRE OF DUST
Salamanders 2000
Fire Elemental Horde – Brew of Haste
Fire Elemental Horde
Fire Elemental Horde
Fire Elemental Horde
Ember Sprite Regiment
Ember Sprite Regiment
Ember Sprite Regiment
Ember Sprite Regiment
Ankylodon Battle Platform
Herald on Raptor – Diadem of Dragonkind
Herald on Raptor – Healing Charm
Mage-Priest – Surge (8), Heal (3)
Clan Lord on Fire Drake – Banner of the Griffin
Swapped the double Greater Fires for the Ankylodon and the return of the fourth Sprite base. This leaves 15 floating points, which will probably hover between +1 Sp or BOTOK on the one of the Fire hordes, as my keen analysis has told me that they most hurt for speed and actually hitting things.
Empire of Dust 2000
Skeleton Spearmen Regiment
Skeleton Spearmen Regiment
Skeleton Crossbowmen Horde – Blood of the Old King
Mummies Regiment
Mummies Regiment
Enslaved Guardians Horde
Skeleton Cavalry Regiment – Casket of the Damned
Balefire Catapult
Balefire Catapult
Cursed High Priest on Mount – Fireball (12), Vicious
Cursed High Priest on Mount – Fireball (12), Vicious
Idol of Shobik
Newly finished Guardians replaced the oft maligned Worm Riders, and the Bone Giant transmogrified into the Idol! At the cost of the third Balefire (and no doubt other stuff, that thing is pricey).
I asked to play Loot, as I dont know if Ive done it with Bloodfire (and screwed myself out of it during the GT, because Im dumb). We basically went equidistant with the counters, despite confirming that you can skew them all onto one side given the 12 placement rules. Which is generally my armys thing O_O
BATTLE
Part of what I wanted to do this game was work in three battle groups, as opposed to one to two mega clusters, which happens to be what Loot wanted as well. So to that end we formed Bloodfire Squadrons 1 (Fire Elementals + Ember Sprites + Ankylodon + Healing Herald), 2 (Fire Elementals + Ember Sprites x2 + Diadem Herald) and 3 (Fire Elementals x2, Ember Sprites, CLOFD + Mage-Priest), theoretically based on where the Empire was projecting force?
With the general slowness and short range of this army and the spread out loot counters, this also meant that the battle groups didnt interact very much – which happily worked out in the end (spoiler).
On the left, Healing Herald kept the Fire horde fairly topped off as it advanced at the Crossbows, while the Ankylodon went aggro on the Spears over there. Despite copping a sick flank charge from the Crossbows (:P), the big lizard stomped the Spears out in two rounds, spun around and helped the Fire horde deal with the Idol, which had plowed into them earlier. 20 CS4 attaks in the flank ended the 350-point legend. Late game on the left saw the Fire horde eviscerate the Crossbows (18 attaks into 13 wounds!!!) and the Ankyldon scoop up both the left and the center markers.
The lightly-held center turned early when the Cavalry bounced off the Fire horde, batted around in return, then bounced off the Diadem Herald in a wood, and the Mummies failed to even waver the Sprites. This got the Mummies flanked by the Fire horde and the Cavalry vaporized by breath attaks and fireballs. However the grind with the Mummies would go into the late game, with the same burning out Fire Elementals finally ending them.
Meanwhile on the right, the Bloodfire was applied pretty liberally and did what it does: Spears were vaporized by 32 breath + 10 fireball, Guardians got charged in front and flank by Fire hordes (thanks +1 Sp!), and despite losing a Fire horde to flanking Mummies (I was dumb and overestimated the reach / potential of the Cavalry in the center, turning my flank to the Mummies inches away), burnt them down too.
In the end, the Empire had one Cursed Priest desperately scrambling to fireball things and one Balefire which stubbornly refused to hit anything (AA had maybe two hits all game between the two catapults?), to the red things three loot counters.
BLOODFIRE VICTORY
BLOODFIRE 