Dwarfs v Goblins

A return to normal Tuesday gaming with Crabro today, after the Easter hiatus. We continued with our Battlelore marathon, this time with some Iron Dwarfs set on the tall banner side against Don Pedro's forces aided(?) by a bunch of permanently frightened goblins.

In the first game I played Don Pedro's side and was surprised to find that my goblins were not running away in panic as much as I was expecting. ...They were getting slaughtered however.

With nothing much left on the right flank I tried to gain some banners on the other flank but ran out of steam there. In the end I decided to use a "Blue Banners" card to make some sort of mass attack and confront the dwarfs I feared (not only were they permanently bold and therefore ever ready to "battle back" but they were defending from hills). In the end the outcome was as I had always expected, a loss however the score was very close. I think 6-4 or even 6-5.

A game of BattleLore in progress. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)t

After lunch we changed sides and I was surprised to find that, despite some silly mistakes on my part, I was poised for the whitewash - 6-0. At this point I made possibly my silliest mistake and ended up setting up an attack on a lone figure...from my own army. I don't know whether I would have been successful in getting a banner elsewhere or perhaps I could have rescued this unit if I had played a different card. At any rate Crabro pounced and got a consolation banner for his troubles. I then managed to finish the game at 6-1. Crabro was most complimentary about the win, saying I played the side far better than he did. This was very kind, as was his allowing me to roll the extra dice allowed by a card in one move, after I had forgotten to take them. In reality it felt as though I had been very lucky.

Either way it was excellent fun as usual and we both look forward to moving on to including magic (the "lore" in Battlelore) next time.

Head of Trajan (reign 98–117 CE), from an oversized statue (around 2.70 m height). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The remainder of the day was used in setting up and learning another Stefan Feld game: Trajan. We didn't have time to actually play it after that but we have a head start for next time. We have high hopes of this after enjoying Feld's other games so much, and it looks very good indeed.