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!

7th Voyage/8th Voyage: Kill the Enchantress!

Introduction

I don't normally run the same game 2 weeks running at the local club, but I've been trying out my "8th Voyage" house rules for Crooked Dice's 7th Voyage game.  This time, I thought we'd delve into the realms of magic...

So, the scenario is going to be a standard Slay mission.  Jason and the Argonauts have been tasked with hunting down and killing a powerful enchantress whom the locals accuse of all manner of misdemeanours.  Mainly this comes down to the occasional seduction of handsome young men, but you know how superstitious these villagers can be, full of tales about the dangers of the forest and so on.

Anyway, our heroes have finally caught up with Circe at the site of a ruined bath, deep in the woods.  She is only accompanied by a few nymphs, barely visible behind the foliage, so this shouldn't take long.  After all, it's just one woman and a few teenage girls, versus a large number of Greek warriors.  Mind you, some of those trees look a bit creepy.  Weird - I could have sworn that one just moved - and not just swaying in the breeze either.  Must be imagining things...

The Forces

Argonauts

• Jason: star/hero (though more of a leader of men than a combat monster).
• Meleager: co-star/minor hero.
• Atalanta: co-star.  In our game, she was given a powerful magic bow as well.
• 11 hoplites/veteran heavy infantry.
• 6 psiloi/light infantry.

Forces of Nature

• Circe: extremely powerful enchantress, with magic and hypnotic powers.  She was given a magic item: the "All-Seeing Eye" - so she knew that the Argonauts were coming...
• 4 wood nymphs.  Capable of seduction and with an ability to move instantly between trees.
• 4 treemen.  More shrubs than mighty oaks, but still able to tear a man in half.  These start the game concealed in plain sight; they are treated as part of the scenery until they either choose to act or until they randomly let their enthusiasm get the better of them and act anyway.
• 1 water elemental.  An almost unstoppable force of nature.  This doesn't start the game in play; it needs to be summoned first.  Mind you, that shouldn't be at all tricky for a sorceress of Circe's abilities...

The Game

Jason, Meleager and a couple of Argonauts ran forwards towards the lone figure near the pool.  This was easy money; what could go wrong?  4 warriors against one defenceless woman - the fight should be over in just a moment, right?

It seems that Circe had other ideas, though.  She immediately summoned a huge figure of living water from the nearby reservoir, followed by calling down a pillar of fire on the heads of the impudent mortals who had disturbed her meditations.

Perhaps the second spell was a bit hasty, as the fire didn't strike the earth anywhere near where she intended it.  Still, as a warning shot it was quite impressive!  [Note: from this point on, we left the 'fire' templates where they fell, just to show the pattern of the action.  Apart from the moment of summoning, these fireballs had no effect on game play.  Though I did nearly run out of such markers by the end of the game...].

Most of the remaining hoplites were then ambushed!  Bushes came alive and grabbed at them, whilst seductive spirits stepped from within the trunks of trees and whispered promised of delight in an attempt to entice them.  Most of the hoplites were too steady to be affected by this surprise, but it did hinder them and prevent reinforcements from reaching the leaders immediately.

The water horse flowed forwards to engage Jason and his bodyguard, and a treeman approached the same group from behind.

At this point, a veritable horde of Argonauts rushed down the far side of the pool.  Atalanta stopped to turn and shoot at a nymph, but missed [this turned out to be very much her thing all game long.  Even with a magic great bow, she just couldn't hit anything much.  Definitely not pulling her weight/points cost...].  Mind you, it looked as if Circe might be swamped by this body of soldiers even without the assistance of the famed archeress.

Never underestimate the power of an enchantress!  Circe stepped back from the mens' rush and summoned one of her nymphs to her side.  She turned to cast another pillar of fire on her pursuers [with rather more effect this time] and then effortlessly hypnotised a lone hoplite who thought he had the drop on her.

Another pillar of fire struck the Argonauts, slaying some and sending most of the rest running around with their clothes burning!

Meanwhile, Jason and his buddy were having a hard time against the forces of nature.  Time and again, they were saved from serious injury only by the narrowest of margins (and stout armour!), but they were very much on the defensive.

Circe even had time to call down fire upon Atalanta; the strike wasn't exactly on target but it still set her alight.

Not everything was going against the Argonauts.  They had slain a couple of the wood nymphs and had even managed to injure one of the treemen.  However, the humans were now completely scattered across the landscape.

Circe continued to stoll through the glade ahead of her pursuers, throwing pillars of fire at any who came too close.  Another lone Argonaut charged at her, but was immediately hypnotised before he could do any damage.

Meanwhile, the elemental contemptuously turned from the fight with Jason, leaving him to the tender mercies of a treeman.  It moved to try to save the last of the nymphs from Meleager and Amphion, but it couldn't halt the slaughter.  The water horse did take revenge by slaying the hoplite, however.

At this point, Circe's luck ran out.  Jason knocked down the treeman he was fighting and then ran after the enchantress.  He caught up with her just as Meleager and one scared hoplite arrived; together they attacked the witch!

Even when it seemed as if there was no hope, Circe was unstoppable!  She ducked out from the middle of the scrum without so much as a scratch, then turned and invoked another blast of magic that left both Jason and Meleager burning.  Circe wasn't friendless either; the water horse was sloshing along to her side as quickly as it could.

The enchantress was becoming tired, now.  Meleager had panicked and run around until he burned to death and Jason was preoccupied with dousing the flames on himself.  Despite this, there were still more Argonauts around.

Two hoplites managed to corner Circe and even though one of them was drowned by the water elemental, the other man stabbed straight and true [aided, if I remember correctly, by the sacrifice of an event card to gain +2 on the strike].  Circe finally took a wound - though this was only 1 of the 3 that would be needed to slay her.  At least it was some consolation for the Argonauts...

At this point, we had to call the game because we were running out of time.  Both casts had been reduced to 50% of their starting figures, though both had high morale values and had passed the required tests to avoid any further effect.  Atalanta and Jason both managed to put out their fires and survived, but there weren't many hoplites left!

Conclusion

I think it's fairly obvious that Circe and her allies won this game!  For the record, she gains 3VP for simply being alive [after all, it was a Slay mission], plus 2VP for dispatching Meleager [don't worry - I'm sure he'll be back, miraculously unhurt, for the next episode in the series].  So, a grand total of 5VP.

In contrast, Jason and the Argonauts gain 1VP for surviving [because of his Honourable trait - the VP gain cancels out some of the disadvantages] - and that's it!

Looking at the forces at the beginning of the game, it seemed as if the Argonauts had an overwhelming advantage.  They outnumbered the enchantress' force by 2:1 - all they had to do was trap her in combat and sooner or later the sheer weight of attacks would have cut her down.  Indeed, there was one turn where the hoplite rush might well have achieved this, if only they had won the initiative.  Instead, Circe won that turn's initiative and moved away, out of their reach.

This game was intended as a playtest of my revised combat mechanics.  For the most part, I think it worked well.  I've added some extra house rules to cover artefacts that scatter [such as the pillar of fire spell] and also to permit defenders to turn to face their attackers under some circumstances [basically, when any initial surprise is over].

In addition, I'm having doubts about whether armour is too potent and/or strikes are too weak - although the casualty rate from this game seems to suggest that there's not really any imbalance here.  The elemental did seem maybe a bit too invulnerable, for all that...

So, further tests will be needed.  Who's up for another game?!

7th Voyage/8th Voyage: Jason and the Playwright

Introduction

It's been a long time since I played any games based around ancient Greek myth; I think the last such one was in 2016 (here: Jason and Medea).  All my previous outings have used the 7th Voyage rules from Crooked Dice, but despite there being much to admire in these rules, something wasn't quite right for me.  More specifically, the combat felt flat; both sides would simply stand next to each other and hack repeatedly until someone got lucky and hit their opponent enough times to knock them out.  Boring...

Since that last game over 2 years ago, I've been intending to write my own, revised combat rules for 7th Voyage.  This new adaptation would be based loosely on the equivalent combat rules from 7TV (2nd edition), but with inspiration also taken from Song of Blades and Heroes and the existing 7th Voyage.

Well, I finally got round to firming up and writing down my ideas (which I'll call "8th Voyage"; more on those in a future article) and this is a report of the first playtest.

Jason and the Playwright

The story for this game would be very simple: it's the Steal scenario from the 7th Voyage rulebook.  However, instead of an object the Argonauts have been charged with the rescue of a person.  The famed playwright Phineas has fallen in with bad company; he's been taken away by a bunch of hard-partying satyrs!  It's not completely clear whether Phineas has been kidnapped, or whether he has been beguiled and tricked into this wasteful life...

Either way, Jason and his fellow Argonauts have determined to rescue the man.  They have an ulterior motive: Phineas's work is much respected in Agathopolis, their next port of call.  If they can persuade the playwright to put on a show in that town then their passage would no doubt be expedited by the locals!

So, forces are as follows:

• Jason, plus a whole bunch of heavily-armed Argonauts.
• Meleager, plus some very lightly-armed skirmishers/psiloi.
• Antigone.  She doesn't have any followers at all, but has a magic helm which makes her invisible.  The black "7th Voyage" counter denotes when she has activated this item and cannot be seen.  Note that this doesn't make it impossible for opponents to hit or impede her; it's just much more difficult for them!

Antigone with her Helm of Invisibility.  You really cannot see her at all, can you?

On the other side:

• Hylaeus (the satyr leader) plus several spear-armed satyrs (in the background of the picture above).
• A small group of satyr archers, beside the river.
• A larger group of satyrs with a mixture of bows and spears (foreground).
• One cyclops.  Note that this monster is a neighbour of the satyrs and therefore an ally against human intruders.  However, there's not much love lost between him and the satyrs, so the monstrous cyclops causes fear in everyone who comes within 6" - friend as well as foe!

Phineas, the playwright, starts in the middle of the ruined theatre.  He is too befuddled to move on his own, but can move when accompanied by any of the rescuing humans.

The Game

Made invisible by her magic helmet, Antigone stalked forwards towards the amphitheatre and the playwright.  The nearest satyrs sensed her presence (maybe saw dust swirls, or smelled something)  but although they prodded the area with their spears, they failed to make contact with the heroine.

She reached Phineas and was just about to make herself visible and lead the playwright away when the cyclops came lumbering up.  Like the satyrs, it could sense that something wasn't right, but unlike them it had a much longer reach.  One of its flailing limbs caught Antigone with a forceful backhander and threw her across the stage.  She wasn't injured but - at least temporarily - was decidedly out of action.

Help wasn't forthcoming from Meleager and his light infantry.  The young javelineers were ineffective against the tougher satyrs who rushed to intercept them, though one lad caused a lot of frustration to Hylaeos (the satry leader) by simply refusing to die!  Even the hero Meleager was knocked off his feet and wounded; for a few moments he seemed to be in real trouble...

Jason made better progress.  Two satyrs tried to block the river ford, but Jason and his hoplites swept them aside with ease.  Not everything went their way, though: a lucky, long range arrow from a satyr archer felled one of the Argonauts in return.

Now that the way was clear, the Argonauts surged forwards.  The cyclops was reaching about in the dust trying to find the still-invisible Antigone when one of the hoplites ran around and stabbed it from behind.

Remember that the cyclops is fearsome to all other models on the table?  Since it was now pretty much the centre of the action, an increasing number of Argonauts and satyrs had to take fear tests whenever they were activated.  Not all of them passed; indeed later in the game we ran out of my yellow & black "Scared" tokens and had to improvise with other types of counter as well...

Whilst the cyclops roared with pain, Antigone made her move.  She stabbed at the creature (thus becoming visible at least for a while) - but her blow was ineffective.  In return, the cyclops belted her so hard that she landed in the amphitheatre's cheap seats (at the back).  It then turned around and swatted the Argonaut away as well.  Truly it was a very annoyed monster!

The dazed - and now visible - Antigone was promptly showered with arrows from the nearby satyrs.  Although a fair number bounced off her shield, eventually one shaft struck home and took her out of action.

Bellowing loudly, the cyclops rushed at the approaching Argonauts.  Its initial rush left Jason on his back in the dirt, but the hero was soon on his feet again and attacking.  Whilst he and the approaching Meleager distracted the monster, a brave Argonaut sank his spear into its flank [the spearman was considerably aided by a +2 modifier gained from sacrificing an event card.  As it happened, this particular event card was only useful for a spell caster, so "sacrificing" it wasn't much of a loss for the Argonaut player!].

Between them, Meleager and the Argonaut attacked repeatedly and forced the cyclops back all the way across the amphitheatre.  Jason saw his chance, rushed up to Phineas and started to hustle the confused playwright away from the fighting.

Before he could escape cleanly, Jason was shot in the back with an arrow.  Of course, it would take more than a single injury to fell a hero of his standing, but even so it was worrying...

Two Argonauts had been tasked with killing Hylaeus, the satyr leader, or at least with keeping him occupied so that he couldn't do anything especially useful.  After fighting with them inconclusively for much of the game, Hylaeus switched tactics and started to use his hypnotise power instead of his spear.

Almost immediately, he managed to dominate both of the humans; they were at least temporarily under his control.  The wily satyr suggested that they go and take a bath in the river, reasoning that the Argonauts would have to take drowning tests when they were next activated.  In this way there was a good chance that they would be lost to their original side whether or not they regained control of their senses.

As it happens, neither man recovered from the hypnotism by the end of the game; they were never seen again by the other Argonauts...

The cyclops tried to go around the amphitheatre to reach Jason and the escaping playwright, but it hadn't gone very far when it was charged from behind by an exceptionally enthusiastic Argonaut.  The man stabbed the monster fatally and as it writhed around on the ground [courtesy of a "Taking your time" event card], he stabbed it some more until it finally stopped moving.  Thus was Antigone avenged...

The exhausted Meleager was suddenly surrounded by satyrs who bounded into and across the amphitheatre.  He tried to defend himself, but was struck by arrows and fell.

With the loss of this hero and the two hypnotised hoplites, the Argonauts cast was thoroughly shaken.  Jason escorted Phineas off the table and at that point we had to call the game because we ran out of time.

Victory

So, who won?  Scores were as follows:

Hylaeus and the Satyrs

• 2VP for knocking out Antigone
• 2VP for knocking out Meleager
• 1VP for shaking the opposing cast [i.e. reducing them to less than half their number of starting models].

So, a grand total of 5VP.

Jason and the Argonauts

• 3VP for knocking out the cyclops
• 3VP for rescuing Phineas and escorting him off the table.

...for a total of 6VP.  Therefore, it's a marginal Argonaut victory, albeit a somewhat Pyrrhic one.

However, consider this: if the game had gone on for just one more turn, the satyrs would almost certainly have axed the Argonauts [i.e. reduced them to 1/4 of their starting models] and would thus have earned themselves another 2VP, increasing their score by enough to claim themselves a marginal victory.

Conclusion

This was a fun game for me (as umpire) and hopefully for the players as well.  I'm delighted to have re-entered the world of gaming Greek Mythology!

The Argonauts achieved their goal of rescuing Phineas.  In addition, their heroes all acted, well, heroically.  Some hoplites got stuck in enthusiastically to help their leaders, though a few just cowered at the back and refused to engage.  The psiloi/javelinmen were not particularly effective, which is as it should be...

For their opponents, the cyclops did its thing, dominating the centre of the action and terrifying all and sundry.  The satyrs proved to be remarkably resilient; relatively few fell in combat - though this might reflect their tactics rather than any special powers.  I'm still not quite sure how they managed to wipe out so many armoured, veteran warriors!

My revised, "8th Voyage" combat rules seem to have worked very well and I don't see any immediate need to make changes to them.  Some more play-testing would be good before I can declare them to be "finished", of course.  I will publish this set of house rules soon, so if anyone is curious then you can see where my thinking has led.  In the meantime, I think that combat in 7th Voyage has become a whole lot more fluid and interesting...

7th Voyage: Jason and Medea

Introduction

We just had another day of gaming, so I've got a couple of battle reports to make.  I'm going to describe this one first, for reasons that should become obvious in due course (don't be concerned by this; it's nothing sinister or anything).  So, without further ado, let's enter the world of Greek Mythology for a game of 7th Voyage!

The Scenario

Medea, the sorceress, has retired deep into the untamed woods, intending to take the waters in the lost and forbidden bathhouse of Queen Semiramis and thus refresh both her body and her mystical powers.  Annoyingly, a palace servant has revealed her plans to the Argonauts who are visiting her father's kingdom.  A band of these adventurers plans to capture the princess in the act and drag her back to the palace in order to curry favour with the king.  [I'm taking some liberties with the classical story of Jason and Medea here; if that bothers you then just think of this as some other sorceress called "Medea"].

This will be variant of the standard "Steal" mission from the 7th Voyage rulebook.  Instead of trying to obtain a magical item, the Argonauts intend to capture the sorceress herself.  Can't be that hard, can it?  One woman, on her own, against a large band of armed warriors?

Medea heard the sounds of men crashing through the bushes near to where she was standing.  She cast her sight through the undergrowth to find that a number of her father's guests were creeping up on her, their very presence defiling the holy site of the ancient ruins.  Annoyed, she started to summon the spirits of wood and water to punish the invaders...

The Forces

Jason and the Argonauts

Jason's force was made up from the following:

• Jason, Hero/Guest Star
• Atalanta, Hero/Co-star.  For her Gift of the Gods, Atalanta chose the Girdle of Venus, thus upgrading her seductive form to hypnotic beauty.
• Meleager, Hero/Co-star
• Antigone, Also Starring Amazon.
• 10 Argonauts, armoured veterans with a mixture of spear and sword.
• 5 Camp Followers, psiloi with a mixture of javelins and bow

That's quite a big cast (19 models), with a great deal of martial prowess.  It'll be difficult to stand up to them in a straight-up fight!

Medea and the Woodland Spirits

The sorceress was able to call on these spirits as her defenders:

• Medea, Hero/Guest Star
• 5 Hesperides, stealthy, seductive wood nymphs.
• 4 Treemen, slow but powerful mid-range monsters
• 1 Water Elemental, an untamed force of nature!

This is a strange, mystical cast.  Half of it is highly mobile and armed with seductive powers, whilst the other half is slow but unstoppable (well, almost).

Note that of these 11 figures, only Medea herself and the 5 Hesperides would start on the table.  The treemen had their positions plotted on a map; their Infiltrate rule would keep them hidden for at least a turn or two, whilst the Water Elemental could only be brought into play via a successful Conjure Elemental spell.

The Game

Medea spent the first turn chanting, then cast a spell to summon the water elemental [success was never in much doubt: she threw 2d6 + 4 (int) + 2 (chanting) and only had to reach a score of 10.  If by chance the spell had failed on turn 1, she'd just have tried the same thing again on turn 2].  Waters rushed from the bath and surrounding bushes to form the shape of a gigantic horse just in front of the sorceress.

Jason's party decided to split up, in a rather feeble attempt to distract the dangerous-looking water creature.  The hero himself went north around the ruined columns, Atalanta went south through the trees and a reserve stayed in the middle, ready to march forward when needed.

On the other flank, Meleager and Antigone advanced their men without meeting any real opposition.  This was just a walk in the park, right?

First blood was drawn by Atalanta's group.  They advanced rapidly and started to slaughter all the wood nymphs they could find.  This despoiling of nature was quite brutal, really...

Suddenly, the forest came alive!  Near all the groups of Argonauts, the trees themselves stirred and reached for the invaders with long, supple branches.

Atalanta, sensing danger, was quick to react.  She ran away from the copse in which she had been sheltering just in time; the newly-activated tree monster could only roar in frustration as it failed to catch the nimble archer.

Others were not so lucky.  Jason was caught by one of the treemen and then battered by the water horse as well.  He may have been a great hero, but this was a fierce assault and he wouldn't last long unless the attackers were distracted or driven off.

Poor Nauplios was sandwiched between a nymph and the 3rd tree monster.  He was knocked to the ground and then torn limb from limb as he lay there, stunned.

Apologies for the poor quality of this photo.  I didn't notice at the time that the camera had focussed on the treetops, not on the models at ground level.

The final treeman strode from the forest near to Meleager and scared the cr*p out of him!  It then pummeled one of the other Argonauts into the ground, but the day was saved when Antigone charged over and slew the monster with a couple of quick blows.  "They're not so tough", she called out in encouragement to her fellow warriors.  "Just hit them in the buds."  But Meleager couldn't get over the shock; he just curled into a ball and could be heard whispering softly "the trees, the trees..."

Despite the best efforts of his immediate support, Jason was being hammered.  The water elemental had him pinned on the ground and was debating which was the best way to finish the hero off for good.

Elsewhere, Pheidippides killed another of the tree monsters, though it took him rather more effort than Antigone had suggested.  More Argonauts poured forwards from the east, even threatening to overrun Medea herself.

Medea made a run for it, whilst Argonauts rushed from all sides to assist their beleaguered leader.  Those coming round the north of the ruined bath paused briefly to dispatch the dryad and treeman that blocked their way.

Jason may have been bruised and bloody, but he wasn't finished yet.  As the melee swirled around him and his friends were tossed aside by either the water monster or the enraged treeman, the hero stood up and stabbed the elemental.  His sword must have hit a vital spot for the creature hissed in pain [that's 1 of its 3 wounds gone, then.  Took a lot of effort to achieve even a single point of damage...].

To cap this, Antigone effortlessly slew the last tree monster, albeit assisted by several other Argonauts this time.

The water horse may have been alone, but it was by no means defeated.  It rounded on Jason and smacked him down again; once again the leader of the Argonauts lay groaning in the mud.  Brave Ialmenos smote the monster in the flank and (miraculously) managed to wound it [it's now lost 2 wounds out of 3].

However, the final word went to Atalanta.  After hanging around the fringes of the fight, looking for an opportunity to shoot with her bow, she suddenly remembered the Girdle of Venus.  The water elemental was an extra [it's a stop-motion monster, which counts as an extra rather than as a hero or villain] and was therefore theoretically vulnerable to an attempt at Seduction.

Atalanta called to the water horse with her most soothing, persuasive voice.  Probably she had an apple or two to hand as well - horses like those.  Hmm, to be successful, she needs to win an opposed morale test; her base morale is 3 and the elemental's stat is 5, so this is going to be tricky!  I decided to use an event card to gain +2 to my chances [event cards can be used for this minor effect rather than for the major effect which is printed upon them], thus making the base scores 5 vs 5.

Both sides rolled a dice to add to their total; both dice came up with a '2'.  This wasn't enough; Atalanta had merely equalled the necessary score and hadn't beaten it.  I had almost given up in despair when I suddenly remembered that Atalanta had Luck and could re-roll the die.  Excellent!  The re-roll was a '5', thus the heroine's total was a 10 vs the elemental's '7'.  Atalanta succeeded in hypnotising the water horse and bringing it over to the Argonaut's side!

Even though the Argonauts seemed to be running away with the game, the nymphs weren't quite done yet.  Dryope used her seduction successfully on Pheidippides.  As the pair were out of sight and a long way from any other models, I suspect that they walked off together into the sunset and that the warrior was never seen again (though his beautiful child might have returned to the world of men in 18 years or so)...

The game was sealed for the intruders when Antigone ran after Medea.  She found the sorceress cowering behind a tree and dragged her back roughly to the victorious Argonauts.

Conclusion

This was pretty much a total victory for the Argonauts.  Medea's forces were all but exterminated, whilst relatively few men were killed, seduced or otherwise lost.

The Argonauts had a few scary moments, mostly when the treemen burst from cover.  Despite their initial successes, these monsters couldn't handle the sheer numbers of veterans who counter-attacked them; the fearsome effect wasn't as useful as it might have been against less battle-hardened warriors.

Medea and the Hesperides had many interesting abilities, but these were barely used as the woodland cast tried to match the Argonauts in a straight-up fight.  The "hitty" treemen and water horse were given all that cast's activations, whilst the nymphs were left to be slaughtered.

Model of the Match: has to be Antigone.  She cut her way through 2 (or was it 3?) treemen and was the one to capture the sorceress at the end.  Brava!

Most Disappointing: I'd say it was a tie between Medea (who just sat around looking pretty after her initial summoning spell - not what one would expect from a major league sorceress) and Meleager (who was scared witless when the forest started to move and is, for all I know, still cowering in fear).