New Scenario Idea for MESBG: Surrounded!

Hey Reader!

What this scenario looks like in
Middle-Earth: don't arrive too late!

So, I was preparing for a Bolt Action tournament at the end of April, and was switching gears to new win conditions for scenarios, moving models as part of a unit instead of loose and free like in MESBG, getting used to having like no rerolls and zero Might Points to fix problems - you know, all the good stuff you miss when you are not playing MESBG - and in the process I decided to play a quick game from a different scenario pool than will be at the tournament, because I enjoyed it. And that got me thinking about porting that scenario over to MESBG, because that's just who I am, :P

And technically aspects of this scenario exist in Battle Companies and the Doubles scenarios, though the structure for that scenario doesn't port over well to general gameplay because of the nature of battle companies. 

So for those of you who are familiar with Bolt Action, this is the Attacker-Defender scenario "Surrounded" (Scenario 11 in the 2nd Edition Core Rulebook), and we're going to first walk through what the scenario is supposed to be thematically for a World War 2 game, and then we'll talk about the very few fixes we'd need to make to bring it over to MESBG. If you like it, feel free to use it at your events! If you think it's trash, well, they're different games, so adaptations aren't easy, and I respect your opinion if you disagree.

So with no further ado, let's get surrounded.

I.  Original Design: Enemies All Around

This scenario is introduced with the words of then-Major Dick Winters of the 101st Airborne from the TV show, Band of Brothers, where he says: "We are paratroopers, sir. We are meant to be surrounded." Which is true, and awesome, and everything we love about Band of Brothers.

It then goes on to give the setting: a portion of the army is embedded in a specific position (part of a town, a critical railway line, a fuel depot, etc.), and they are being surrounded by the enemy, so it falls to the rest of the platoon, company, etc., to get them out of trouble.

And this is a cool setting: it's an Attacker-Defender scenario, so one side is trying to overrun a set of positions while the other is trying to hold them back, and this is something you could totally see happening naturally in a war. Which makes for a great scenario for a wargame, because we can visualize why we are doing what we are doing.

And it really works for MESBG as well, because we have some examples of this from Tolkien's stories. Whether it's the Men of the West on the hills of Cormallen Field before the Black Gate of Mordor, Theodred and his Eored holding out against orcs awaiting the arrival of Elfhelm, Isildur on his way home through the Gladden Fields, Thorin's Company in the fir trees surrounded by orcs and wargs, or even Ugluk and his raiding party on their way back to Isengard as they are ambushed near the edges of Fangorn, small detachments that are surrounded and in need of relief are present all over our source material.

Board setup in Bolt Action

Setup is simple: half of the defending force is setup within 12" of the center of the board, allowing them to take advantage of cover as best they can, and the rest of the defending force is left in reserve (so can't come onto the board until at least Turn 2). The attackers, meanwhile, nominates half of his units to arrive on the first turn (which Bolt Action refers to as the First Wave), and then the other half are also held in reserve, with the ability to come on as early as Turn 2. Units when they arrive can arrive from any table edge, so long as it's not the same table edge that the most recent enemy unit arrived from.

And the aim of the scenario is simple: remove as many units as possible. You score points for each unit you remove (remember: Bolt Action is a unit-based game, not a model-based game, so when we say "unit" remember that a single unit could be a squad of infantry, an artillery piece and its crew, a tank, etc.), with no other points available (no need to control an objective, destroy an objective, etc.).

And this is great for Bolt Action, but naturally we will need to make a few changes for an individual model game compared to a squad-based game. There are also some things we just need to omit; preparatory bombardment doesn't really have a correlary in MESBG, so we won't be bringing that over (but I personally would change how that whole mechanic works in Bolt Action anyway, so there's that). And that's where we turn next.

II.  The MESBG Version

To start off, the good news is that MESBG actually has rules for basically all of these aspects, so that makes it easier to move over to the game! There are a few changes we should make, so we'll walk through it following the format we're familiar with from MESBG.

SCENARIO: SURROUNDED

Part of the army has become separated from the main body during the fighting. As the fighting closes around them, they must be rescued or risk the battle turning in favor of the enemy.

SCENARIO OUTLINE

A portion of the defending force has been separated from the rest of the army and is in the process of being surrounded! Save the detachment, or crush it to bring the balance of power in the region toward your force.

THE ARMIES

Players choose their forces, as described on Page 130 of the Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game rules manual, to an equal points value before the game.

LAYOUT

Set up terrain as described on Page 136 of the Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game rules manual. Once the battlefield has been set up, place a marker on the center point to determine the deployment area of the surrounded forces. Players must also agree on which direction is north - this is important for determining where and when Reinforcements arrive from.

STARTING POSITIONS

The defender selects half of their warbands (to a maximum of 2) to make up the surrounded force. These two warbands deploy within 12" of the center of the board. The rest of the warbands for both sides are yet to arrive - their models are not deployed at the start of the game, but will enter as the game continues (see Special Rules later). The attacker nominates up to 2 of their warbands to serve as the Forward Scouts of the army, which benefits their deployment later.

(Centaur's Note: In Bolt Action there is a benefit for the attacker's First Wave to arrive on the board; we have given that bonus in a small form, but I think it will at least make getting your troops onto the board a bit more reliable and improve your odds that you actually feel like you're surrounding the enemy instead of just spotting your opponent two free units arriving at a useful point on the map.)

INITIAL PRIORITY

Both players roll a D6. The player with the highest score has Priority in the first turn.

OBJECTIVES

The game lasts until the end of a turn when one force has been reduced to a quarter (25%) of its starting number of models or below, at which point the force that has scored the most Victory Points wins the game. If both players have the same number of Victory Points, the game is a draw.

SCORING VICTORY POINTS

• You score 1 Victory Point for causing one or more wounds on the enemy leader (Wounds prevented by a successful Fate roll do not count). If you kill the enemy leader, you instead score 2 Victory Points.
• You score 1 Victory Point for causing one or more wounds on each of the enemy heroes (Wounds prevented by a successful Fate roll do not count) that led the warbands in the surrounded detachment or the Forward Scouts (so a maximum of 2 Victory Points for each side). If you kill up to 2 of the enemy heroes that led those warbands, you instead score 2 Victory Points for each hero you kill (so a maximum of 4 Victory Points for each side). If the enemy army leader is one of the two heroes in the surrounded force or the forward scouts, you score points twice: once for the victory condition above, and once for this one.
•  You score 3 Victory Points if the enemy force is Broken at the end of the game. If the enemy force is Broken and your force is unbroken, you instead score 5 Victory Points.
• You score 1 Victory Point if the enemy force is reduced to 25% of its starting models at the end of the game.

(Centaur's Note: In Bolt Action you just get VPs for removing enemy units, so we've kept that theme by every VP being tied to removing enemy units. Unlike Bolt Action we also reward you for going after the warbands that were surrounded (or forward scouting), which you don't technically have to do to win in Bolt Action's scenario. And I think that's thematically cool.)

SPECIAL RULES

Maelstrom of Battle: At the end of the Move phase, roll a D6 for each of your warbands not on the battlefield and consult the chart below (the warband's captain can use Might to alter the roll either up or down). Models can't charge in the turn taht they arrive but otherwise at normally. Roll for each warband separately (adding a +1 or -1 to the result of the Forward Scout warbands for the attacking force), deploy the models in the warband (if the D6 allows) then roll for the next. Warbands yet to arrive count as being on the battlefield for the purposes of determining if your force is Broken.

1. The Warband does not arrive.
2. Your opponent chooses a point on either the north or south board edges at least 6" from a corner - all models in the warband move onto the battlefield from this point.
3. Your opponent chooses a point on either the east or west board edges at least 6" from a corner - all models in the warband move onto the battlefield from this point.
4. You choose a point on either the north or south board edges at least 6" from a corner - all models in the warband move onto the battlefield from this point.
5. You choose a point on either the east or west board edges at least 6" from a corner - all models in the warband move onto the battlefield from this point.
6. You choose a point on any board edge at least 6" from a corner - all models in the warband move onto the battlefield from this point.

Conclusion

Most scenarios for most games are pretty similar, and we're really blessed with the range of scenarios we have for MESBG. If I was putting this in a pool (for those who like doing Veto system for tournaments), I'd put it in Pool 1 with the rest of the maelstrom missions, and I think it fits nicely there, though I could also see people using it as an alternative to, say, Lords of Battle or Contest of Champions, as those are also kill-centric missions. 

What do you think: interesting concept? Worth trying with your group? Overly complicated? Let us know in the comments below!

Watching the stars,

Centaur

"Firenze!  What are you doing?  You have a human on your back!  Have you no shame?  Are you a common mule?" ~ Bane, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

The Board Is Set: How to Play Reconnoitre

Good morning gamers,

We're wrapping up the discussion of Pool 5 today - and it involves more walking than any other scenario in the game: Reconnoitre. The idea of this scenario is simple - but there are a LOT of complications from how you "deploy" to the incentive to actually score the main point of the scenario that make a lot of players shy away from it. So, as we've been doing, we're going to unpack what Pool 5 is all about (which you can skip by clicking here if you've already read this part) and then we'll dive into Reconnoitre and how to actually have a good time playing it (and possibly even win it).

Pool 5: Going Places (And Usually Far-Off Places)

Pool 1 scenarios have odd deployment rules which can make your army show up all over the board (sometimes that's good and sometimes that's bad). Pool 2 requires you to control (or at least contest the control of) 4-5 different objectives. Pool 3 involves reaching one or more objects somewhere on the board (and in two of those scenarios, there's some element of offense and defense that needs to be played). Pool 4 scenarios are about how much killing your army (or your army leader) can do.

Pool 5 is about getting places, which means that it's very similar to Pools 1, 2, and 3. In Pool 1, most models will be walking onto the board from the board edges and will need to make their way to some part of the board (the center of the board in Hold Ground or to various quadrants/objective markers in the other two scenarios). Pool 2 doesn't need to require traveling far if you start on the center, but depending on your army's play style, you might be walking a lot (usually to play keep-away from an enemy shieldwall or spam horde). Pool 3 has all kinds of things that require you to travel a quarter of the board length or half of the length of the board.

The Scouring of the Shire, Part 11: The Bounders Strike Back

Good morning gamers,

This scenario is OLD - back when Centaur and I got into the game in the Fall of 2010, this scenario was available for download from the GW website, with directions on how to adjust the game for alternative participants. With very few models in our collections - and none of them from the Scouring of the Shire - we had a lot of fun seeing if Merry and Pippin from the Fellowship (20pts) could beat up 10 Orcs (60pts) . . . the game was a lark, but we also learned how limited Merry and Pippin are as characters.

Today's scenario features 5 Tookish Hunters and 12 Ruffians (standard load-out of 6 vanilla, 2 whips, and 4 bows) and we're basically doing a deja vu scenario to the Maggot's Farm scenario where about half the Ruffians we have here try to get across a similiarly-sized board with only Maggot and his dogs to stop them (mostly his dogs, though). Oh, and Centaur gets 20 traps in this scenario . . . lovely.

The Bounders Strike Back

The Ruffians start 12" up the board and as such, they started as far up as they can. To win, I need to get 5+ Ruffians off the far board edge. Centaur wins if he can kill 8 of them - he started with his Hunters as far forward as they could go and scattered the traps as a way to hem me in. The raised portions with the trees are all woodland terrain and we have some trees for cover . . . but not much. Critique us if you want to, but I'll tell you now that adding slower terrain cover would have both advantages and disadvantages for the Ruffians - more on that later, though.

With Centaur automatically claiming priority on the first turn, we began the grind fest!

The Board Is Set: How to Play Storm the Camp

Good morning gamers,

Today we're viewing the second scenario in Pool 5 - and it's an old one: Storm the Camp. So far in this series, we've seen scenarios that are pretty fun (like Hold Ground, Domination, or Destroy the Supplies) and scenarios that can be very one-sided (like Seize the Prize, Contest of Champions, and Heirlooms of Ages Past). Today's scenario is commonly seen as the hardest scenario to not get a draw in . . . and it also involves a lot of walking (Pool 5 scenarios generally do). As a result, it's not hard to chalk this scenario up as an "unfun" scenario for many lists . . .

. . . but the scenario is actually quite interesting and while draws can easily be a thing, it's a good "gatekeeper" scenario for helping novice players become expert players - and to keep us long-time players constantly thinking and re-thinking about our army strategies. We're going to review first what Pool 5 is all about (if you've already read this, you can skip it by clicking here) and then we'll get into the specifics of Storm the Camp (and the strategies you can employ to win the scenario).

Pool 5: Going Places (And Usually Far-Off Places)

Pool 1 scenarios have odd deployment rules which can make your army show up all over the board (sometimes that's good and sometimes that's bad). Pool 2 requires you to control (or at least contest the control of) 4-5 different objectives. Pool 3 involves reaching one or more objects somewhere on the board (and in two of those scenarios, there's some element of offense and defense that needs to be played). Pool 4 scenarios are about how much killing your army (or your army leader) can do.

Pool 5 is about getting places, which means that it's very similar to Pools 1, 2, and 3. In Pool 1, most models will be walking onto the board from the board edges and will need to make their way to some part of the board (the center of the board in Hold Ground or to various quadrants/objective markers in the other two scenarios). Pool 2 doesn't need to require traveling far if you start on the center, but depending on your army's play style, you might be walking a lot (usually to play keep-away from an enemy shieldwall or spam horde). Pool 3 has all kinds of things that require you to travel a quarter of the board length or half of the length of the board.

Top 10 Series: Top 10 Shock Cavalry

Hey Reader!

We're back! Who doesn't love another Centaur rankings post (except Sharbie, ;P ) - and with the release of the Rise of Angmar supplement coming soon, now is as great a time as ever to do our review of the best shock cavalry in the Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game. As I always do with this series, I need to make some caveats first.

So first, we're combining evil and good in this list, which means that, in general, you're likely to see a greater weight toward Evil because 1) they are far more likely to get S4 on mounted models, and 2) they get easier access to war spears and lances in general, and +1 to wound is really, really good for shock cavalry.

Second caveat: we're looking at shock cavalry, not cavalry generally. So while skirmish capabilities are really good, and can make the difference between cavalry making it to the enemy mounted or not, we're not ranking skirmish and harassing cavalry here: we're purely ranking cavalry on their aptitude on the charge. This also means we will be assuming that the model is charging when assessed, though we will weigh their effectiveness against both infantry and cavalry models.

Third caveat: I'm only looking at warrior models for this comparison, mostly because we already reviewed the heroes in a previous podcast (and if you're wondering, I think the best shock cavalryman in the game is Radagast on a Great Eagle for oh so many reasons, most notably his ability to charge into enemy cavalry, cast Panic Steed on a 2+ on models all around him, turn those cavalry into infantry, and then finish the charge, which feels really strong for me even if he doesn't get the benefits of his Staff of Power), but also because some of the special rules/Might point discrepancies make them hard to compare to each other, so I figured warrior profiles were closer in value and form to each other (and a LOT closer in points cost).

Fourth caveat: while we will be considering the ability to charge in difficult terrain, we are assuming open ground for these assessments because, well, that's kinda necessary to get the benefits of the cavalry charging rules. So I know this puts Lorien Cavalry at a disadvantage, and I'm sorry, but it would skew the results pretty heavily if we did, so there.

The Board Is Set: How to Play Divide and Conquer

Good morning gamers,

We're kicking off our fifth part in this series on how to play the various scenarios in MESBG and Pool 5 brings us some of the LEAST loved scenarios in the game (even more unloved than Heirlooms of Ages Past, Seize the Prize, and Contest of Champions). We'll be tackling the newest (and most beloved) of these scenarios today, Divide and Conquer. This scenario, introduced with the Matched Play guide, has one of the oddest deployment configurations you'll find - but I at least think the scenario itself is not only the best scenario in the pool for a fair game, but it's also an interesting improvement over other scenarios we've already viewed in this series.

As we've done previously, let's begin with an overview of what the scenarios in Pool 5 are all about (and per the usual, if you'd like to skip this and go straight to the scenario specifics, you can click here).

Pool 5: Going Places (And Usually Far-Off Places)

Pool 1 scenarios have odd deployment rules which can make your army show up all over the board (sometimes that's good and sometimes that's bad). Pool 2 requires you to control (or at least contest the control of) 4-5 different objectives. Pool 3 involves reaching one or more objects somewhere on the board (and in two of those scenarios, there's some element of offense and defense that needs to be played). Pool 4 scenarios are about how much killing your army (or your army leader) can do.

Pool 5 is about getting places, which means that it's very similar to Pools 1, 2, and 3. In Pool 1, most models will be walking onto the board from the board edges and will need to make their way to some part of the board (the center of the board in Hold Ground or to various quadrants/objective markers in the other two scenarios). Pool 2 doesn't need to require traveling far if you start on the center, but depending on your army's play style, you might be walking a lot (usually to play keep-away from an enemy shieldwall or spam horde). Pool 3 has all kinds of things that require you to travel a quarter of the board length or half of the length of the board.