Another Heroscape session report

Here is another session report for Heroscape : Rise of the Valkyrie

I've just played against "him" again. If you've read any of my session reports you'll know that "him" is my boy-child that I'm now considering disowning.

Why am I thinking of depriving him of his inheritence? Well lets just say, tonight the score reached 102-1.

As much as I may blame that spawn of hell ( thats "him" by the way ) I feel I did make a few ... critical miscalculations.

I started laying out the map, while I was doing it I asked "him" how many points we had for our armies. He told me and we started picking army cards, I was distracted laying out the hexes and he mentioned that we start at one end of the map and had to get to the other end. I would have to make the run and he was going to stop me. We were playing the Durgeth Swamps Battlefield.

In my distraction I noticed the water and "being clever" I wanted to get my hands on the Marros, so I could do some cloning in the water as a holding action. "Him", being the spawny dice roller, got first pick and guess who he went for.

My second distracted thought was that I would be clever to fly over the water rather than try and slog through it. So... I picked Raelin. My second big mistake.

Second!?! What was the first? The first mistake was not reading the scenario properly! We carried on making our picks and then having completed the map/board I read the scenario while checking the start positions. No flying was allowed... Doh!

The Armies

Him : Airborne Elite, Deathwalker, Syvarris, Marro Warriors
Me : Raelin, Tarn Viking Warriors, Izumi Samurai, Krav Maga Agents

We set the figures up and got to move first.

The Agents went forwards, I was thinking of using them to shield Raelin who would go along the northern edge of the map. They moved forwards around the mesa and into the water as a blocking force. Followed by the Viking lads. Raelin went zipping along behind the shield.

Deathwalker came round the ruins and started to climb the steps to the mesa top. A couple of the Airborne tried an end around heading north towards my rear. Syvarris shot east along the southern edge and took a couple of pot shots at the agents.

Now the real fighting began. :(

I had the agents in the water spread out. The vikings stuck to the land and came around the mesa but came up short of being able to get into contact. The Airborne lobbed thier grenades and took out a Samurai and one of the Agents. Deathwalker mounted the mesa top and used his special attack to thin out the vikings and incidentally hurt Raelin.

Raelin made it to the island and this is where I made my third mistake. Well, actually I made the mistake in not understanding the system properly. I tend to play defensively and try to avoid risks. I should not have sent Raelin across the water but should have instead taken the risk of sticking to the land and shortening the water crossing. The mistake was in trying to keep Raelin as far as possible from the enemy, this meant a lot of time wasted in the open being shot at.

Syvarris was his usual sniper self, and between him and the newly arrived Marros the Agents started going down. The Vikings moved in to melee, I rolled the D20 to see if they could move again. Success! The Airborne they were meleeing with was dispatched, and the Vikings moved on and got into contact with the Syvarris and Airborne.

Meanwhile back near my the start area The Samurai were thinned but not down. They took out an Airborne and moved into melee with Deathwalker. This continued but acheived nothing, he just had too many defence dice.

Raelin was taking a series of single hits as she moved very slowly across the water.

The end came quickly. There was action scattered widely. The Vikings were in melee, the Samurai were likewise occupied but when Deathwalker took a long shot he got two hits on Raelin and it was all over, and she sunk beneath the water.

I particularly didnt look across at "him". He has that smile I hate. Its the "got ya" smile. The "ha ha" smile. The "loser!" smile. The "dads are weak, boys rule!" smile.

The chalk board now shows the score at around 102-1, not in my favour.

I however have learnt some lessons and intend to put these lessons into play next time.