MEK OP Game Night: Domains At War

As seems to often be the case for the end of the semester, I don't have enough time for a full write-up on the Saturday sessions. Last week we had three new players, so I did another intro scenario for the Battles system in D@W with some alterations to the Chaotic force. I let the new players design their own divisions using a point-buy system based on BR values. This time we had four divisions of Lawful troops against three divisions of beastmen (orcs, hobgoblins, ogres, and a troll platoon). Surprisingly, no one elected to play the elves, or to add any extra heroes to a division.

Durnovaric Expeditionary Force
Company A (Father Padeen BacCorleot, 5th Level Cleric)

• 2x Heavy Cavalry
• 2x Longbowmen
• 2x Slingers

Company B (Lord Damuth, 5th Level Dwarven Vaultguard)

• 4x Dwarven Heavy Infantry

Company C (Magister Finbar Crowne, 5th Level Mage)

• Heavy Infantry A
• 3x Longbow

Company D (Sir Asmund Crayg, 5th Level Fighter)

• 1x Heavy InfantryA
• 2x Longbowmen
• 2x Light Infantry F
• 1x Medium Cavalry

Beastmen Horde, Legions of the Undying
Company A (Warchief Khazay)

• 1x Trolls (with 27 unit hit points and 7 attacks!!!)
• 2x Light Ogre Infantry
• 2x Heavy Orc Infantry

Company B (Chief Awitar -- Kyle: "Hey, didn't we already kill this guy?" No, that was Zraqua!)

• 1x Heavy Ogre Infantry
• 4x Light Orc Infantry

Company C (Engineer Ursk)

• 4x Hobgoblin Bowmen (desperately needed some infantry support!)

By sheer luck, the dwarves and cleric set up on the same side as the hobgoblins, and the mage's division got the trolls. This allowed the mage to keep the trolls locked down with web spells, and the cleric to tie up the hobgoblin commander with hold person, as the dwarves slowly chewed through the ogres and orcs. Web is another good example of a spell that works much better on a large battlefield, where it's essentially perfect crowd control against a single tough opponent.

Once the orcs in the center crumpled, the game quickly moved to morale checks, and Chaotic troop armies never survive more than one of these. None of the commanders were slain, but all of the units routed off the map. Arguably, the trolls were trapped and couldn't escape, but I want Khazay as a recurring villain, so I'm going to assume that he was stronger than his trolls and could break out of the web. (A more detailed system like Pathfinder would allow individual characters a combat maneuver check to escape from web.)

I'm feeling more ready to start on a full campaign with production mechanics included, although I might need to try simplifying the mechanics to accommodate the fact that not everyone has a rule book. For the moment, I'm working on creating more Excel spreadsheet tools to avoid having to look through a zillion photocopied tables for monthly recruitment limits.