Christmas Savage Worlds Showdown Game

Bit of a belated Christmas game post here.  This game pits the followers of Krampus, the Christmas beastman/demon that enjoys popularity in Germany, against Santa Claus and his Elves, with some raiding Dwarves that are hoping to loot Santa's workshop.  Krampus is tired of playing second fiddle to the jolly old elf, and it's time to settle the score.  This was also an excellent opportunity to use our newly assembled gingerbread houses for terrain.

The Elves got victory points for keeping Santa out of Beastman hands and protecting their packages.  The Beastmen got points for getting Santa - more alive for public humiliation, dead is okay as well - and for killing both elves and dwarves.  The dwarves got more points for gathering presents, but some smaller amounts for enemy casualties.  I had the dwarves, my oldest boy had the elves, and the younger son the beastmen.

Rules (skip if you don't care about mechanics and just want to see the action):  In my test games with Fistful of Lead:  Galactic Heroes - Game 1 and Game 2 - the action devolved into a bloody mess, and the mostly identical stats for each mini contributed to this dynamic.

For our first Christmas-themed game, I wanted to do something different.  Building off of the existing setting for the Campaign for the Darkened Wood, my fantasy Savage Worlds Showdown setting, I decided to use the stats from Savage Worlds with the activation cards from Fistful of Lead:  Galactic Heroes.  This fixed what I perceived as a weak point for the FFoL rules, the amount of differentiation between minis. Dwarves are stout and good in melee, Elves are good with a bow but weak in melee, and the followers of Krampus (beastmen) are fast and tough to kill. I know there are ways to make the FFoL rules provide some of this crunch, but it’s already been done in Savage Worlds and I didn’t see a need to reinvent the wheel.

Here's the table - Dwarves at top left, Beastmen at bottom right, Santa's village in the middle. 

Tranquil morning in Santa's village.

The dwarves approach from the woods, hoping to get in and out with a minimum of conflict.

Krampus sounds the charge with his horn.  It's on!

The dwarves rush in toward the elves.

The elves have dropped one beastman with a well-placed arrow.  The elven swordmaster rushes forward to confront the beastmen. He leaves one beastman shaken, but there's a lot of mad fur around him.

A scrum breaks out between the dwarves and elves.

The elven swordmaster gets brutally killed by the beastmen.

The beastmen rush forward into the village square.  Santa's at top right, and needs to get moving.

The beastmen look ready to dish out some pain.

The elves fare poorly once in close combat with the dwarves.

The dwarves advance into the village square, rushing to get the presents.

Santa, foreground, takes to flight and depends on his elves to create time for him to escape.

Beastmen continue forward.

The beastmen rush forward over fallen elves.

Aerial view of the battle.

The elven chieftain confronts one of the beastmen, and gets a helping hand from one of the dwarves.

Another dwarf joins in to help take down the beastman.

A beastman, top left, falls to elven arrows.

Santa continues his run for the edge of the field.

The elven chief is shaken, but a Remove Shock card puts him back into the fight.

Lots of corpses littering the ground, chaos in the village.

Dwarves making off with wrapped presents.

The dwarves who were helping the elven chieftain abandoned him, and now Krampus wounds him and knocks him down.

The dwarven wizard blasted the elf above and to the right of him with a magic missile.  In retaliation, the elf at top center of the photo fired an arrow that dropped the dwarf wizard.  A second elf then followed up with another arrow, a coup de grace that ended Stumpy Gandalf's run of good luck.  Dastardly!

Enraged the dwarves seek vengeance for Stumpy Gandalf.  Freya rushes forward to exact revenge against an elf.

Freya lays her dwarf low as other elves are tied up with a beastman.

Erik the Berserker downs another elf.

Krampus ends the elven chieftain's life.

Erik, having finished his business in the village, departs before the beastmen run out of elves to kill and turn on him.

The village falls to Krampus and his warband.

Santa made it to the woodline, escaping to live another day.  The dwarves ran away with the game both on points and in loot from Santa's village.  If you received your Christmas presents, don't thank the dwarves.  They didn't get a chance to take yours before the beastmen ran them off.

Rules feedback:

1.  I may never play Savage Worlds Showdown by the written rules again.  As written, cards are drawn for each unit instead of dealt to a player who gets to choose which mini or unit gets activated by a particular card.  Dealing hands to each player and allowing them to activate minis in turn both allowed the sequencing of actions and let the special card properties play out.  It lets players make choices that make the game exciting, which is what it's all about.

2.  I like the crunch of the Savage Worlds stats.  The troop strengths and weaknesses and exploding dice made for an exciting game.

3.  We had a great time with our Christmas game.  Definitely a new family tradition.

Beastmen vs Wood Elves, Song of Blades and Heroes

I put the first game of the year in the books with a quick bit of Song of Blades and Heroes between me and my better half.  The scenario, Treasure Hunt, comes from the main rule book, with the opposing parties racing to check three possible locations where treasure might be located.  If (based on a roll) the first two come up dry, then the treasure will be found at the third.

I took a faction of five Beastmen, who all activated on a roll of 3+ on a d6, and have a Combat value of 4 (added to their roll in a contested d6 vs. d6 encounter).  No special abilities, save my leader, who had the (obviously) Leader trait.

The boys/beasts, in all their glory.

My special lady friend took a group of four Wood Elves, who activate on 3+, have a Combat value of 3, were armed with bows, and could move through the woods without penalty (Forester trait).

The fey lads.

The stock Beastman clocks in at 40 points, the Wood Elf with bow at 50.  As the encounter played out, you'll see that this was a mismatch.  The Elves needed more numbers, not less, to offset the Beastman toughness, and this game gives particularly short shrift to missile troops.

The Field:

I started from the near side.  Click to embiggen and enjoy my labels.  Do the same with the rest of the pics below.

Turns 1-2:
The Beastmen won initiative and race toward the three potential treasure spots.  They made better progress than the Wood Elves, in spite of the heavily wooded areas, on account of some good luck with the dice on activation.

The Beastmen take an early lead in getting to potential treasure spots 2 and 3.

Turn 3:
Two of the Beastmen and the Wood Elf leader arrived at Treasure 2, in the middle of the field, at nearly the same time.

The Beastman who made it to Treasure 2 first discovered that the treasure wasn't there, but he and his buddy stuck around to face off with the Wood Elf leader.

The lead Beastman moved into contact with the Wood Elf leader, so that at the least the Elf wouldn't be able to move out of combat to another possible treasure location without offering the Beastman a "free hack."

The Wood Elf leader prevails in the early combat, but only to the extent of knocking down the lead Beastman.

Meanwhile, over at possible treasure location 3, a Beastman has discovered that the treasure wasn't here, either, but moved forward to likewise engage a nearby Elf in combat and tie down the enemy.

Turn 3:
As both sides now know that the treasure is at treasure spot 1, they all shift forces toward that location.

The Beastman leader leads the charge, racing toward treasure site 1.

As the Beastman leader completes his move to treasure site 1, the Beastman previously knocked down has gotten back to his feet, and another Beastman rushes to his side to gain a group combat advantage over the Elf leader. The Elf leader succumbs to a bad roll and enemy numbers.

Though the Wood Elf leader fell in combat, his followers all retreated just one movement, just enough to avoid leaving the field of combat.  They resumed the push for the treasure in his name.

Turn 4:
As the Beastman leader gathered up the treasure, the Wood Elves proved unable to slow their enemies' momentum in the contest.

As the Beastman leader successfully spends two actions picking up the treasure, a Wood Elf moves into the copse of trees and fires an arrow at the Beastman leader.  It failed to connect, and the Beastmen moved closer to victory.  Out of the picture, other Beastmen continued to move toward treasure location 1 to screen their leader's exit from the field.

 Turn 5:

As the Beastman leader made a successful move out of the copse of trees that had hidden the treasure, two Beastmen moved in to engage the archer that had dared challenge their warlord.

The advantages of numbers and a higher Combat value again overwhelm a Wood Elf.

Turn 6:
As soon as the turn started, the Beastmen leader activated well enough to leave my starting edge, gaining victory.

Victory!

AAR:
1.  You'll notice a lack of Wood Elf activity in my report.  The Fey Folk failed to force a fearsome fight from their frail followers.  Seriously, the Elf rolls for activation and combat were awful throughout.
2.  Two key factors in the math supporting Song of Blades and Heroes really undermined the Elves here.
-  First, the expense of statting up the Wood Elves as archers meant that troops inferior in combat (Combat value 3) were more expensive than the Beastmen (Combat value 4).  This is one way in which missile troops are disadvantaged in SoBH.
-  Beyond close ranges, missile troops are not very effective.  They suffer beyond 1 x Shooter Distance (Short, Medium, Long).  Even though these were Long Range Shooters, look at how the numbers play out.  With a distance beyond 1 Long Range measure (7" - 14" or so) the shooter suffers -2 to his Combat value.  So a C3 becomes C1.  And this is fired against a C4 target.  So if the Beastman target rolls a 1 and adds 4 to get 5, the best the archer can do is roll a 6, add 1 to get a 7.  This fails to get a double on the defender, and fails to get a kill.  Even if you take the trait Unerring Aim (the Elves were already too expensive relative to the Beastmen, so I didn't), which reduces the distance penalty to -1 instead of -2, the best you can do is 8 versus 5, which still fails to double and produce a kill (and noting that rolling a 6 vs 1 is a 1-in-36 chance in happening).  So it's impossible to kill beyond close range with an archer, even one with a relatively high Combat value, against a C4-level target.
3.  So, as much as I enjoy Song of Blades and Heroes, particularly for its "play what you brought" ethos, there is still a certain amount of Army List gamesmanship that can be had.  I'll never again field a force made up of archers because of the structural disadvantages outlined above.

I remain undeterred in wanting to play Song of Blades and Heroes, but will definitely be mindful of the necessity of fielding a more balanced force for both sides in the future.  More to follow.