Away Team Red: Romulans

Introduction

Those who know me well will know that I have something of a fondness for Star Trek.  I've published a number of articles previously about my "not Trek" starships and the games of Full Thrust in which they have been used.  There are reasonably good sources of such models from a wide variety of sources.

Until recently, there has been a scarcity of figure models, suitable for use in games set on board a ship or as part of an away team on a planet's surface.  There have been some that would proxy for Federation crew, but very little for other races.

Well, not any more!  There's a range of 3D-printable designs called "Away Team Red" that I've only discovered in the last 6 months or so, even if they have been around for a bit longer than this.  Physical specimens are available from a number of suppliers on hosts such as etsy.com .

The Away Team Red collection is obviously designed by someone who loves and respects Star Trek, especially the original series.  If I've understood correctly, the sculptor goes by the handle of Lost Heresy Miniatures.

The range includes several alien races (including a "not Gorn" set - something of a holy grail for me!) as well as a considerable number of "not Federation" crew and a few monsters.  Excellent!

After that long preamble, here are some Romulans!

Aquilons

• Firstly, they're not "Romulans" - the designer calls them "Aquilons".  Well, well.
• There are two variants of the 10-model Aquilon set: one with helmets and one without.  I have the bare-headed figures.
• The 10 models in the set include an obvious leader, but many of the rest are equipped with long guns.  Ideally I would have preferred a more diverse group, with some figures using equipment (scanners, comms...) rather than brandishing weapons.  But you get what you get.
• I've converted several of the crew in small ways, though this was not easy.  They're printed in a very hard, very brittle resin and the only way to cut this was with a razor saw.  Of necessity, my conversions have been limited to swapping the occasional hand (plus what it's holding) or shortening the weapons to make them pistols rather than rifles.
• These models are slightly larger than 28mm - maybe 30mm?  They're close enough for me to mix and match with other manufacturers, especially for other races.

The Crew

I painted the first four figures with coloured sashes; I suppose I'm thinking of these as officers or specialists.

Tomeet is obviously the captain and I imagine that Rukan is his second-in-command (since he's got the same colour of sash, albeit a lesser form).  The other two could be science, engineering, comms, medical or any other specialties I desire.

The next pair are in the "rank and file" uniform, with standard black sashes.  However, they're carrying pistols.  Perhaps they are ensigns - does the Romulan empire have such things?

Am I alone in thinking that the 3rd model's face looks like Leonard Nimoy/Spock?

Finally, we have the goon squad, security, mooks or whatever else you wish to call them.  I'm thinking that these are the equivalent of the Federation's "red shirts" - un-named characters whose chance of surviving an episode is low.

...except that I did give them names.  Does that create a paradox and break the universe?

Finally, here is the entire bunch all together.  Romulans aren't inherently evil; they're just very secretive and have their own honour code.  That should be plenty to bring them into conflict with my other Trek-like forces!

Conclusion

These are excellent models!  They're on the chunky side, but that gives them a lot of strength and they should resist handling damage well.  The hard resin does make it difficult to convert them, but that's too bad.

These aren't the first "Away Team Red" models I have bought - and I don't think they'll be the last, either.

Mortal Gods: Who's in the House?

Introduction

I've had a copy of the Mortal Gods rules as well as the Mythic expansion for quite a long time now, but have not done much with them.  Until now, that is: recently I dug out these rules and my Ancient Greek models and played a game at my local club (Helensburgh Alternative Hobby Association, or HAHA for short).

I enjoyed that game so much that I decided to buy some more models, group bases &c. and to host another game at the club.  This time I recorded some of the action, so you can read about it as well.

Scenario

I pitted forces of Hades (on the left, mostly skeletons and necromancers, but with a phalanx of temple guard) against Heroes (on the right, led by Jason and Heracles, with a few minor names heroes and an odd assortment of warriors).  Each side came to about 660 points and was split into two allied contingents, so that we could accommodate two players per side.

The scenario was simple: there are 5 objective markers around the table.  Each of these is controlled by whichever side has the largest number of models within 3"; whichever force controls most objectives at the end of the game wins.

I did add one twist: a Cyclops inhabits one of the three central terrain features and would appear at the end of turn 1.  It would be controlled by a 5th player.  What I didn't tell the others at the start was that should this be slain then another cyclops would appear; once again it would appear randomly from one of the three central features.

The Game

So, how did it go?  Turn one was spent mostly with each player moving their forces forwards.

At the end of turn one, the cyclops appeared from the house, right in front of three Greek heroes.

The monster reacted before any of the humans: it tossed a large boulder at Jason.  The missile overshot the hero, but landed right in the middle of a group of approaching peltasts, flattening most of them!

Atalanta shot the cyclops full of arrows, before Herakles and the other heroes finished if off.  Almost immediately, another cyclops appeared at exactly the same position

After this, the heroic side became a bit fixated on monster hunting!  Most of their forces converged on the second cyclops, leaving very little to face off against the onrushing skeletons.

Again, Atalanta wounded the creature, but not enough to knock it out.  With a bellow of rage, the cyclops charged, injuring her and a nearby unarmoured hoplite, before Meleagros stabbed it from behind and felled the brute.

Whilst this side-show was happening, Hylas was the only Greek hero left to stem the undead tide.  He held his own to start with and even destroyed some skeletons, but eventually he was overcome and killed.

The heroes then caught an incredibly lucky break: At the start of a turn Hades drew one of the worst possible omen cards for the undead side.  Why was this so bad?  Well, all the skeleton groups have just a single die for Courage rolls, thus giving each one only a 50:50 chance of moving in the intended direction.

Predictably, much of the turn was spent with the skeletons milling about, whilst the heroes tried to reposition to a slightly better location.

Then, something unexpected happened.  Meleagros attacked a skeleton group, wiped them out and scored a critical hit in doing so.  This is extremely easy against skeletons with a base Resistance of 1; the hero rolled 5 or 6 attack dice and only needed to inflict 2 damage on the unarmoured group to score a crit - and that would then entitle him to another action (which could be used to make another attack).  Rinse and repeat...

By the time that Meleagros had run out of skeletons near enough to attack, he had destroyed two entire groups of them and badly injured a dark temple guard in (if I remember right) 3 follow-on attacks.

The same thing then happened in the centre of the table.  Herakles, driven to grief by the loss of Hylas, went on the rampage and destroyed everything within reach.  Badly wounded, he was only stopped by failing a Fear test to charge a Neukadaimon (sp?), else the damage would have been much greater.

At this point, the forces of Hades were considerably shaken and thought they had lost the game.  However, in a quick reversal their priests then summoned more groups of skeletons - and dropped these right beside three of the objectives!  The game ended before the heroes could respond to that (presumably by rampaging through these new groups as well).

At the conclusion of play, the heroes controlled 2 of the objectives (one isn't visible in this picture).  However, the last-minute summoning of more skeletons meant that Hades now controlled 3 objectives, thus making them the winner, by the narrowest of margins!

Conclusion

Well, that was fun!  The heroes became a bit distracted by the cyclops (both of them) and devoted the efforts of four named heroes to fighting the creatures.  They killed the creatures with relative ease, but this concentration of force left them short-handed elsewhere and I think they would have been overrun by the dark forces if it had not been for two things:

1. The very unfortunate Siren Song omen; it affected the skeletons far more than it would have affected pretty much any other force.
2. The rules for critical hits.  Once we realised that even a mid-level hero (like Meleagros) could run amok through multiple bases of skeletons in a single action, we were scouring the rules to see if we had made a mistake.  But (a) critical damage occurs on double the base resistance [so, 2 points of damage], (b) a critical entitles the model to another action, (c) that bonus action may be an attack and (d) there's no limit on how many times this can be repeated.  Am I wrong about this?

As it was, the late game saw the skeletons decimated, but a last minute summoning after the heroes had used all their actions for the turn and couldn't respond saw fresh skeletons swarm over the objectives and win the game.  Truly a lot of emotional swings!

Man of the Match: probably Meleagros, in my opinion.  He struck the killing blow against the second cyclops (after Atalanta had weakened it) and then went berserk against skeletons, destroying a considerable number.  For a not-quite-top-rank hero, that's impressive!

Most Useless: I think the phalanx of dark temple guard was very disappointing.  It looked impressive, but hardly moved during the game, never fought anything and never contested any objectives.  A waste!

Carronade 2023: We Came, We Saw, We Played Games

 Introduction

My son (A.) and I have been going to the Carronade show in Falkirk every year since 2015 - at least, in years when the show wasn't cancelled due to Covid lockdowns and the like.  It's always been a good day for me; this year was no exception.  As always on my blog, this is a personal account of our experiences rather than any attempt to describe the entire event.  It's mainly for my own memories, though if others find my writing entertaining then that's good too!

My preferred mode of transport to Falkirk is by train.  It takes longer than driving from home (Helensburgh) once the walks to and from various stations are taken into account, but it's so much more relaxing.  The exercise is also better for me!  This Saturday was a beautiful day for walking - warm and dry.

The Venue

Carronade is a big show (not huge, but definitely big enough for a day out).  It's held in a school building, where the show is spread over 5 different halls.  One of these is reserved for the flea market (bring & buy) and another is mainly for the painting competition.

The other three halls (pictured below) are full of games and traders:

We spent time wandering around looking at the demonstration games, joining in various participation games, browsing trade stands and meeting various friends.

Also, we sampled some of the various participation games that were on offer.

Game 1: Xtreme G Racing (Glasgow Games Group)

Glasgow Games Group put on a home brew sci-fi racing game involving various jet bikes.  Apparently, the main design principle was to make a miniature game which felt somewhat like playing Mario Kart.

I'm not really able to judge how well that objective may have been achieved (I've heard of the console game, but I've never played it).  However, the Xtreme G Racing game was a good game in itself, with simple rules that still managed to offer tactical choices to the players.  Silly but fun!

So, here's how our race went:

I didn't have a jet bike, but rather drove a yellow mono-wheel.  They all have the same abilities anyway...

After the first lap (of two), I was well in the lead 😀

...but when the leaders crossed the finish line (a tie between blue and red), I was nowhere to be seen.  What happened?

There was a massive pile up on the last lap; most of us were thoroughly caught up in it.  I misjudged the distance remaining and thought I had time to go into the pits.  This was a big mistake and I came in a distant last 😖.  Oh, well...

Game 2: Moonstone

Now this is something unusual!  I thought I knew a bit about gaming and had at least heard about most games.  However, Moonstone has passed me by - until now.

So, it's a "whimsical fantasy" skirmish game.  Bands of creatures (goblins, humans, gnomes, other...) search for buried treasure (moonstones) and have to finish before dawn (i.e. there's a time limit).  The models are definitely whimsical, the abilities are interesting and the combat system is done via cards that depict fencing moves.  So far, so good.

Here's what happened in our game:

• A's (human) sniper tried to shoot at me.  He misjudged badly and his musket blew up.  Injured, he decided to retreat.
• One of my characters ("Grubb"?  Not pictured) found and dug up a shallow moonstone.  He then ran off the board with it, thus securing me one victory point.
• My goblin-mounted-on-a-pug found two moonstones that were fairly well buried.  However, it turns out that the dog was an enthusiastic digger, so I retrieved both items quite easily.

• However, A's knight ("Baron something von Fancyhat") saw this and decided that stealing my finds would be easier than discovering his own.  My pug+goblin was no match for this human in a fight and was slaughtered.
• In revenge, my vicious midget then appeared out of nowhere and did some real damage to the Baron with his signature attack (hint: it involves stabbing upwards).  This left the Baron barely alive - but he counter-attacked and obliterated my little creature.  At this point I was beginning to really dislike the man...

• In an ignominious move, my beaky goblin wizard approached Baron von Fancyhat and slew him with a noxious fart (yes, you read that right!  Whimsical fantasy?  You decide...).
• This last goblin then grabbed one of the dropped moonstones and legged it before daybreak.

Final score: 2 moonstones to the goblins, 1 to the humans (I can't remember which human character had picked this up).  This was definitely a most interesting and unusual game, both for the subject matter and also for some of the game mechanisms.

Game 3: 02:00

Now here's a game that seems to be everywhere at the moment!  02:00 is a game pitting British commandos against German garrisons in night-time raids (I imagine that other forces can be used as well).  As such, it places a high emphasis on stealth and spotting; I was very curious to see what mechanisms were used for these aspects and how well they worked.

In our game, a small band of British special forces had to cross the board and escape off the other side.  We would win if at least two of our men achieved this.  That didn't sound too hard!

To this end, we crept along the hedgerows, ignoring the sleepy cattle.

However, I hadn't reckoned with the German officer.  He was a bit keen, to put it mildly!  This jackbooted thug personally spotted and shot 3 of my 4 troopers - my last squaddie was traumatised to the point where he couldn't resist a sentry and was (probably) taken prisoner.

In this last picture, you can just see my British officer running off the board (top left), fully expecting that his men were right behind him!  At least he escaped, though to be honest I think he deserved to be cashiered for his exceptionally poor leadership.

What of the rules, then?  Well, although the game looked fantastic, the assistant on my side of the table wasn't really comfortable or familiar with them.  The game host (on the other side of the table) was hoarse from having talked most of the game - and was overloaded with questions from both sides and from passers by.  Overall, I came away feeling that I still don't really know how the rules work.  A missed opportunity?

Game 4: Dead Man's Hand

Dead Man's Hand is a set of rules that seems to be very popular, possibly even to the point of dominating the "Old West" style of games.  Since I play such games myself - if only occasionally - I was interested to see what this rule set could offer.

As might be expected from the name, playing cards are an integral part of the game.  In this case, these serve two functions: determining the order in which models activate and also providing a hand of "event" cards that each player can use at an appropriate moment.

Here's the game we played:

I took a large group of desperadoes (Mexican bandit types), whilst my son commanded a similar number of outlaws or cowboys.

My leader was cut down (almost my only casualty), but in return my desperadoes incapacitated over half of the opposition in only two or three turns.  At that point, the enemy leader rolled really low on a nerve test and all his remaining figures ran away.

My thoughts on this game: the figures and scenery were perfectly good and set the scene nicely.  I'm not so sure about the rules, though:

1. The cards used for activation order were almost entirely random, so there wasn't much decision-making around them (unlike, for example, the way that cards are used in A Fistful of Lead).
2. The "event cards" didn't make much difference.  Maybe that was because we were unfamiliar with them (the text was very small and quite dense) and we didn't use many.
3. I'm really not that keen on shots essentially taking "hit points" off models.  A single shot does (usually) 1 point or (occasionally) 2 points.  For reference, an average gunman can take 4 hits; a leader can take 5.  So it's not possible to kill an opponent with a single shot.
   This seems so odd that I'm wondering if I've understood the rules at all.

In summary, I was left cold by the game we played.  Is this because we didn't really understand the rules?  Or is it because Dead Man's Hand just isn't my kind of game?  Perhaps this was another missed opportunity to learn about a set of rules which sound very interesting.

Loot

Yes, there was some shopping - both small pre-orders and some impulse buying.  Here goes:

In no particular order:

• Dodos.  Just because.
• Centaurs - more Greek Myth classics.
• Japanese cart crew, to flesh out my "samurai" village scenes.
• What a Tanker - seems like a fun set of rules and I wanted to take a proper look.
• Sarissa's "Guide to Laser Cut MDF Kits".  Should be an interesting read.
• An Old West building.  Actually I wanted the saloon, but Warbases didn't have the extra floors (with balcony) at the show - so I treated myself to a different model instead.
• Dice, paint brushes, bases.

Summary

This was a really good day.  The weather was nice for walking to the venue, the traders had (mostly) what I wanted and there were plenty of participation games (too many for us to play in all of them!).  I'm not sure what else I could have wanted!

Claymore 2022: Good enough!

 Introduction

There haven't been many wargame shows over the last 3 years.  Here in Scotland, they have been slow to restart, with Carronade (Falkirk) as the only major show to happen in 2021.  This year (2022), it looks as if Claymore (Edinburgh) will be the only big show.  Oh, well - better one show than none at all.

This post is about our experiences at Claymore 2022.  It's a very personal account and as such is a record of our experiences and activities.  If you were expecting a full description of the entire show then you might be disappointed.

Travel

As usual, we had to drive some 2 hours to reach the venue.  It's not a good location for public transport, especially if one is starting from outside Edinburgh itself.  We (well, I - as the driver) did get slightly lost in north-east Edinburgh on the final approach, but this was soon corrected and only cost us a few minutes.  My excuse is that it has been several years since my last visit to Claymore and I had forgotten one of the last turns.  Oh, well - no great damage.

One difference from before was that this time we had a party of three: myself, my son A. and a friend N. from the Helensburgh games club (HAHA).

Game 1: Tank Golf!

Before we had even finished an initial tour of all the halls in which the show was taking place, we were grabbed by a group who invited us to play a quick & simple game of tank golf (?!).

The serious part of this is that during the Japanese invasion of Singapore (in World War 2), some of the fighting took place on & around a (British) golf course.  Our hosts had a wealth of information on the area.  This included pointing out which areas had now been redeveloped as a highway, where undisturbed graves were thought to be located and so on.  All very serious stuff.

Then the game: each of us was given command of a Japanese tank.  The object was to drive it from the tee to the green within the fewest possible moves.  Apparently, this hole was a par 5, so anything under 5 moves would earn bonus points.

Oh, while we were doing this, we could shoot at entrenched British infantry - and they might shoot back with Boyes anti-tank rifles and a 2pdr anti-tank gun.

4 tanks lined up, ready to start (as there were 3 of us, one vehicle wasn't used).  I had the one on the extreme left, with the white dice)

After 4 turns, I made it to the flag.  Since this was one under par, I scored a birdie.  Also, I managed to shoot one of the ATRs, scoring a bonus point.

This was a quick and simple game with a very engaged set of hosts.  The only think I would say against it is that the movement was completely random; as players we didn't really have any decisions to make (well, we chose which target to try to shoot - but that was almost irrelevant in determining the overall outcome).  It would have been nice if we could have chosen which gear to use, or the direction to head, or even whether to observe from the hatch or button up.  I think the organisers missed a trick here, though it was still a fun little diversion.

Game 2: Test of Resolve

Just before lunch (and the timing might just have affected my son's concentration 😄), we joined in another game.  This was set during the Wars of the Roses and played with the Test of Resolve rules (under development?  Already published?  I'm not clear on this).  Again, the organisers were very keen and incredibly thorough on their topic.

So, we played an ambush.  My son and a stranger took a column of evil Yorkist loyalists who were advancing along a road.  N. and I took 2 commands of noble Lancastrian rebels who were hiding in the nearby woods in ambush.

My Lancastrians waiting to ambush from the woods at the bottom.  Unwary Yorkists keep to the road.

The trap is sprung a bit too early, as the Yorkist scouts see me waiting.

Battle is joined!  Initially, damage seems light, but entire commands can disintegrate very suddenly.  This happened to the other part of the Lancastrian command as it charged from the far wood - though at least they did take some of the enemy with them.

Feeling somewhat desperate, with slightly inferior troops and outnumbered by about 3:2, I staked everything on a swift charge.  Miraculously, I crashed through and scattered my son's advancing Yorkists with minimal damage to myself.  That left just one enemy battle to go.  They put up a stiffer fight, but my remaining troops finally managed to rout them and the field was ours!

I feel a bit conflicted by this game:

• On the one hand, I wanted to like it.  If nothing else, the enthusiasm and background knowledge of the presenters requires some form of reward.
• On the other hand, the movement abilities of the troops seemed a bit stilted, morale seemed to be accounted for twice (once by individual unit status and again by a pile of tokens for each command) and the combat results seemed very unpredictable (anything from no real effect to complete disintegration - situation and troop quality seemed to play only a very minor part).

My experience was only very brief, of course - and late medieval civil war is not really one of my main  interests.  I'd suggest that anyone with a real desire to play games in this period should find out more and make up their own minds.

Eye Candy

There were some very pretty display games at the show.  This one particularly caught my eye: it's a samurai-era naval battle:

I believe that all the ship models are made by Scheltrum, though I could have misheard that.

Here's a random picture of the Sports Hall (i.e the smaller-sized part of the venue).  The larger part of the show was in the entrance hall - but I didn't take pictures of that.  The layout in both is the same: games in the middle and traders around all the sides.

Game 3: Imjin River

Once again, we found a game with a very knowledgeable and dedicated host (there seems to be a pattern here!  Although I find it odd that this state of affairs should remarkable; engaged & competent game organisers ought to be the normal state of affairs at shows).

Our final game was a recreation of the battle of Imjin River, from the Korean war.  So, Chinese hordes are sweeping over the border and are only 20 miles from Seoul.  Can the vastly-outnumbered U.N. forces (in the shape of the British Gloucestershire regiment) delay them enough for a proper defense to be organised?

This game was notable for at least two things:

1. The terrain was superb!  The boards were topographically accurate, having been built from maps of the actual location.  I was even told that the vertical scale was correctly proportioned - this land is really rugged.
2. The game wasn't reset for each group of players.  Rather, we picked up the situation from where it had been left by earlier players.  I was told that our finishing situation would be recorded and set up as the start point for the next show which the game would visit (Partizan?  I probably didn't remember this correctly).  The entire battle would thus play out over several sessions throughout the show season.

So, the U.N. forces have a lot of firepower (artillery and aircraft), but the Chinese have stupendous numbers of troops...

At the time we picked up the game, the Gloucesters had just received orders to pull back several of their battered companies (which had weathered intense attacks all through the previous night).

It was really scary leaving our tranches on the previous hill tops in order to run across the plains back to our supports.  Each red disk is a Chinese battalion (or regiment or something like that).  Our pale blue disks are companies.

Air power and superior command & control are great!  We didn't lose any of our units at all (though 'A' company in particular was roughly handled and had very few stands left by the end).  Note that another Chinese army is now crossing the river and heading towards the U.N. positions.

So, this was a very intense game.  From the U.N. perspective, the communist attacks felt completely relentless.  Even when we wiped out a Chinese unit there would always be another one along soon after.  I imagine that N. (who took the Chinese) must have felt frustrated, as almost all his strongest attacks melted away under the withering U.N. firepower.  But when a communist attack did make it through, when the artillery & aircraft were occupied elsewhere and the Gloucesters were in open ground, significant damage was caused.

I don't know what rules were used - whether they were commercial or home brew.  However, we all picked up the important points very quickly and they seemed to give realistic results.

The only criticism I would raise is that there were a lot of small markers for various levels of damage, ambush status and the like.  These didn't always stay with the correct stand of figures, especially when models were balanced on steep hillsides.  A better solution would have been to integrate the markers more closely with the stands, either by swapping out models for "damaged" ones, or by giving each stand magnetised markers, posts for "damage rings" or some other mechanism for recording status.

Overall, this was a very impressive and enjoyable game, about a significant historical event.

Conclusion

This last game took us up to departure time.  I haven't mentioned our wanderings around the trade stands (there was plenty of that), or a couple of visits to the Bring-and-Buy room (the first time it was absolutely mobbed; later on not quite so busy).

Travel home was easy enough, taking almost exactly 2 hours of driving.  At least we had plenty to talk about!  Overall, it was a good show for me.  One good game, two acceptable ones and a certain amount of talk and shopping.

Ah, yes - the loot:

So, in no particular order:

• Some new sets of rules.  Not that I really intend to play them, but just because I'm curious.
• A box of Living Dead Peasants.  These are probably destined to become Mindless in my Viking-themed undead army for SAGA: Age of Magic.
• Matt varnish.  I use a fair amount of this stuff and courier deliveries suck, so I try to buy it in person at any shows I visit.
• More Perry Samurai.  Although technically these are peasants, probably destined to join my scruffy force of bandits.
• More prehistoric goodness from Stone Axe Miniatures, as supplied by Iron Gate Scenery.  This time I have a Megaloceros family (giant Irish Elk) and some goats (generic small grazers).
• Finally, a Club biscuit - my prize for winning the Tank Golf game.

HAHA SAGA Escalation League - 5

Introduction

Over 2 years ago, the Helensburgh Alternative Hobby Association (HAHA) set out to run an escalation league for SAGA.  We managed the first two of our planned monthly meetings, in January and February 2020 - then Covid-19 struck.  Since then we have been through lockdowns, isolations and other inconveniences, but as of a few months ago we re-started our event.  This is a momentous post, because WE FINALLY COMPLETED THE LEAGUE!

For descriptions of the league rules and the five planned events, see here:

• Starter for Ten (January 2020)
• Twin Power (February 2020)
• Long Live the Peasants! (October 2021)
• Bonus Round (November 2021)
• Armageddon (now, this article, February 2022)

The plan was always for a climactic, every-man-for-himself battle at the end of the league.  In this, each player would field the entire 4-point SAGA warband that he (or she) had collected over the duration of the campaign.  Although we started with seven or eight players, due to the lengthy delays we only finished with four.  The others had all moved away from the area and were unable to continue participating.  I hope they are still enjoying SAGA as much as they did in the first two events, wherever they are now!

Armageddon

Usefully, the SAGA "Book of Battles" has a scenario for exactly the kind of grand, chaotic game we had envisioned: it's called "Battle Royale"!  This scenario has an alternating placement anywhere on the table.  Victory conditions revolve around Survival Points and successful charges.

We read the rules slightly incorrectly and gave the VP only for a charge which caused more casualties than were received, rather than any charge that made contact.  In the end this wouldn't have made any real difference to the results, though.

Deployment

Initial placement was quite simple: the Skraelings filled the marsh and the wood with bowmen, planning to move all their warriors onto the hill (and not appreciating that the gentle hill gave no defensive bonuses at all).  The Anglo Saxons, Normans and Crusaders mostly kept to themselves and deliberately didn't interleave with their enemies.

Fighting

Much of the action in our game revolved around the foreground hill.  Although the Skraelings climbed it, they were then sandwiched and harried by both the Crusaders' and the Anglo Saxons' elite troops.  Skraelings don't do too well when defending and their forces just melted away.

The other early action was between the Crusaders' crossbowmen and the Normans' spearmen.  The crossbows proved deadly, both at range and in melee (though by the time the melee occurred, there weren't too many spearmen left!)

Little action occurred elsewhere, except that the Norman archers' volley fire was a constant, if minor irritant to anyone in range.

Finally, the Norman knights decided that they'd find out how squishy the nearby Skraelings were.  It turns out that the swamp didn't slow down the knights enough to save the archers and yes - the Skraeling levy were exceptionally squishy.

The game ended after fierce fighting left the Crusader warlord as "King of the Hill".  He had triumphed over all opposition, including all the Skraeling warriors, their warlord, the Anglo Saxon chief and all of his hearthguard.  He did have a little help in doing this, but the Crusader lord had been all but unstoppable!

Results

For this particular battle:

• The Crusaders scored an impressive 17 survival points.  Much of that was due to successful charges, though many of their units still existed at the end of the game - albeit sorely reduced.  For such a clear victory, they score the maximum 3 league points!
• The Anglo Saxons and the Normans scored 11 and 12 survival points respectively.  Mostly this came down to the units they had left, rather than scoring for charges.  Decent second places, so both are awarded 2 league points.
• The Skraelings were hammered by everyone else (though the others all swore that there was no conspiracy against them!).  They gained a mere 2 survival points for the single unit of levy hiding in the forest.  At least the league rules grant 1 league point for just showing up, so their sacrifice had some purpose...

The HAHA Escalation League Conclusion

After all the points have been added up, the standings are as follows:

	January 2020 Starter for ten	February 2020 Powers of two	March 2020 October 2021 Long live the peasants!	April 2020 November 2021 Bonus round	May 2020 February 2022 Armageddon	TOTAL
Byzantines	1	1	(damaged)	(absent)	(retired)	2
Anglo Saxons	3	3	1	3	2	12
Normans	1	2	1	(absent)	2	6
Jomsvikings	1	2	(retired)	(retired)	(retired)	3
Anglo Danes	3	(absent)	(retired)	(retired)	(retired)	3
Skraelings	1	2	3	2	1	9
Crusaders	2	2	1	1	3	9

Congratulations are due to the Anglo Saxons, who won 3 of the 5 rounds outright and thus achieved an unassailable number of league points.  They are the champions!

It's been a long campaign, but we finally got there.  I'm immensely pleased that we completed the schedule, whilst at the same time I'm saddened that it took so long and that we lost so many participants along the way (again, not due to lack of interest, but rather because "real life" got in the way).

Would I do something like this again?  Certainly I would - like a flash!