Capture the Giant

Having just completed the Mega-Moo it seemed only fit that the next game of Vanguard be the Capture the Giant scenario. This scenario sees both sides trying to wear down a giant over 5 rounds with victory points being awarded each turn for who ever causes the most damage on the giant. Bonus victory points are awarded for killing off members of the opposing warband but with 3 VP's awarded each turn to the warband that does the most damage on the Giant then the route to victory is via hitting the Giant the most.

Having had the worst of it in the two last games I changed up my Warband to be a more elite affair with no grunts being involved. The new look warband was comprised of :
1 * Shade with Heavy Weapon
1 * Mind-screech
1 * Shadowhound
3 * Reaper
1 * Phantom
3 * Spectre
By adding the Spectre's I also added an extra ranged element which I hoped would be effective against the Basileans as it would negate the Parry ability that makes many of them such a pain to kill.
The warband also puts out a decent amount of attacks which I hoped would make Stuart have to use his Iron Resolve ability more often and allow me to attack more models without them having 3+ saves.

The Basileans opted to add an extra Battlecat for speed which meant dropping the caster and with it the Heal spell. The combination of Parry, Iron Resolve, and Heal make the tougher Basileans almost impossible to kill without investing many times the points value of the model.

The game started well on the VP scoring front for me as I managed a couple of turns scoring the most hits on the Giant but I also lost four units including the Mind-screech whilst only killing the Palace Ogre in return. This did prove useful to me as the Basileans lacked unit with Crushing Strength to lower the Giants defence. With a defence of 3+ the Giant helped me out by withstanding lots of attacks by the Basileans who really struggled to damage him.

The Giant itself initially made a move towards my right table edge and then moved back and forth towards the centre of the Basilean table edge and the right hand table edge. This meant that it ran over the Basileans a couple of times and even managed to kill one of them.

Over the next couple of turns I lost even more troops which took me to the breakpoint on turn 3 so I had to roll nerve tests for the last 2 turns. Despite having good nerve on most of my troops they generally failed them and fled towards the table edge and then failed again to depart the table. This did have the effect of limiting the troops that the Basileans could kill so they couldn't get VP's.

By the last turn the Basileans needed 3 VP's to claim the win and due to the movement of the Giant they could only get 2 units into contact, neither of which caused a wound.

Somehow to my great surprise my Nightstalkers had held on for an unlikely win mostly due I think to the more elite warband composition. The next game we play should be the start of our mixed Vanguard & KoW campaign, I just need to get the campaign written!