Gencon 2015: Kings of War Mega Battle

So once again did the dastardly forces of evil join together in their eternal struggle against the sainted forces of good.  The battlefield was Gencon, and so far the forces of good had managed to stop the evil hordes every time, with a record of 4-0.  Could they continue to hold out?

We had 12 players at the mega battle - for 6000 pts per side.  For this game we play "Pillage!", with three towers the objectives.  Gencon has more space constraints and is much tighter about their gaming area - so while at Origins we grabbed a third table - here we were forced to just use the two, with the objective towers being placed every four feet (conviently marked from the Learn to Play sessions earlier in the day)

All the units were deployed and ready to go, when a great rumbling is heard from the towers.

The forces of evil

The forces of good

I like to make the mega battle a bit more fun and light hearted.  In the past we have had random events happen to various units, but this year the players were in for a BIG surprise.  After deployment, two giants emerged from each tower to stand watch over them.  These initially counted as blocking terrain - however after both sides had a turn, then at the end of your turn, if you had a unit within control range of a giant, you could attempt to recruit it on a 4+.  If you had more giants than the other team the test got harder, and each side could only control three of these.  The catch was that in order to control the tower and score for the win,  you had to remove both giants around it.  I was initially worried this would be too easy.  Foolish me.

Postal Service giants

Slave Giant, and a Malifaux Whiskey Golem which is big enough to be a giant

discussing 'strategery'

and the fight begins

It turns out the giants were MUCH more difficult to control than anticipated.  The second turn for evil had them attempting to recruit five of these monsters - and fail every roll.  This became a pattern throughout the game, with three of the giants not being recruited until the last turns of the game.

The forces of good had more gold than the evil ones did, and recruited two bands of giants to help in the battle.  Giant chariots and dwarf beserker brock riders attack the undead cavalry

Basileans maneuver and charge, while the Vampire riding Undead Dragon uses the un-recruited giant to protect his flank.

Wanting to make this a more epic battle, I encouraged people to bring bigger monsters than they normally would in a 1000 pt game.  Thus we had and Undead Giant on the table, as well as some dwarfs brought a Steel Behemoth.

Simple rebasing turned an awesome Mage Knight Seige figure into a dwarf Steel Behemoth.

Abyssal Dwarfs and Twilight Kin fight against Basileans and Elves

One of the giants finally being attacked

The Whiskey Golem was the first casualty of the game, as the goblin swinging from his hand broke off quite quickly.

Kara has changed the basing for her regiment of halfbreeds (representing by the big walker) so that it slides back from its base, helping it to actually be in base contact with other units as it charges them with undead cavalry

The dragon and a giant attack some dwarfs

And the dragon goes after some ogre shooters

While the giant maneuvers itself so that after charging, it back up so that the tower keeps the dwarf from counter charging

Ariel the mermaid tries to sing to some Basilean men-at-arms, but they don't appreciate her song.

Can anybody manage to take control of these stubborn giants?

Moving up the halfbreeds

Halfbreeds with a flank attack on the horde of ogre warriors.  This is not going to end well for somebody

Golems attack the steel behemoth (with a grotesque champion in the flank) while the undead cavalry destroy the organ gun in the background

The nutters on badgers aren't intimidated by the animated pile of bones

skeletons line up against the dwarfs with the uncontrolled giant blocking them

At the end of the game, while the dwarfs were next to a tower, the undead giant contested it.

At the second tower, the steel behemoth and grotesque champion contested again contest the objective

For the center tower, it looked like the dwarfs would control it, because the skeletons were just our of range.  However it was pointed out that the rickety tower sitting on the divide between two tables had been knocked over during the game.

A quick measurement resulted in the placement of the tower being correct by over an inch - which resulted in the skeletons going from being 1/4 inch out of range to firmly in range to contest it.

So the final result was no towers were controlled by either side - resulting in a win for the Giants!!!  The scenario beat the players.  So the record now stands at 4 - 0 - 1 in favor of the side of good.  While the evil players claimed it as a tie, and thus not a loss, I still think of it as the giants winning.

A good time was had by all.  A 12000 point game was played through in just under four hours.  Everyone had a lot of fun, and they say they are looking forward to the next one.