A Tale of Two Forts: Burn the Stores

The next game in the ongoing Tale of Two Forts was the Burn the Stores scenario for Vanguard. This scenario saw the Argent Defenders on the attack trying to burn down a storehouse being defended by the Melas Oneiros. Unusually for the scenarios we have played so far there was only a hook for the winners in the next KoW game so the Nightstalkers only fought to stave off disaster not for any advantage.

The Melas Oneiros fielded an unchanged warband composition with the only change being swapping out a fresh Phantom for the one who's speed had been reduced to 4" after being wounded in the last battle. The Argent Defenders once again shuffled the deck and fielded a power dice intensive list.

1 * Veteran Sergeant
1 * War Wizard
1 * Ogre Guard
2 * Veteran Sister
2 * Sergeant
2 * Paladin Defender
3 * Men-at-Arms

This left them with eight red dice and two white, which is a whole heap of dice to be throwing each round.

The scenario required the Melas Oneiros to defend a barn from being set on fire which was done by being in contact with the barn and spending a long action to set a fire. The defenders could remove a fire marker by again spending a long action whilst in contact with the barn.

My plan was very simple which was to force fatigue as many models from the group that need to move over to the barn to take an extra move and then try to stop the Basileans from getting into contact with the barn. The early moves saw my troops hot foot it over to the barn and even manage to pick a couple of the enemy off. With the number of power dice being rolled by the opposition I had to get lucky as Iron Resolve (giving a 3+ save) was being used pretty freely.

With the Argent Defenders not wishing to over commit by leaving themselves in charge range of my troops their right wing ground to a halt and the left spent a turn dealing with a Shadowhound.

At this point the game was effectively won by the Melas Oneiros, the Argent Defenders had no way of getting to the barn without exposing themselves to a charge and the Melas Oneiros had no need to over-extend themselves.

The Ogre did manage to kill another Phantom and the War Wizard had a few long range pot-shots but nothing major happened in the last couple of turns.

I think had this been a one off game then the Basileans would have been more inclined to charge in but having a developing Warband and the chance (though very slim) of having a model permanently lost meant they did not want to commit.

So the first actual win (after a few moral ones) of the Vanguard part of the campaign with the next battle being a Kings of War battle using the Pillage scenario.