There is no real point to this post, just feeling
Between my schedule and my friends' schedule, I don't get to play nearly enough.Had the joy of introducing SBG to new players last night. The game was actually hosted by a friend of mine who likes the game but doesn't really know the rules, and only has the core rulebook (no war bands). In addition, he had two new friends who'd never played. The new guys took to the rules very quickly, it reminded me what a simple and effective game it is. Once the phases were understood it was impressive how quickly they picked up on bread-and-butter tactics:
"So this elf can go 2 handed with his blade? Okay, it's 2 on 1, I'll have one of them use his blade 2H, the other normal."
or
"I can't shoot at the pikes, because they're fighting, can I? Whoa, I can? Okay, I shoot at the first pikeman so if I kill him the second pike can't support."
We even got into heroic moves and combats, which I find is unusual for beginners.
The scenario was interesting, though the board was a little "terrain-dense". There were really only two narrow passages to the "Great Elven Tree of Power", which, being evil, we naturally wanted to cut down. We decided it would be a siege target, with D7 and 10 batter points. We were given a small host of 24 goblins + captain, 30 uruks with a mix of shield and pike + captain, one cave troll, one Mordor troll, and one Mordor troll chief. My friend, being the experimenter that he is, defended with about 16 elves, plus a couple of heroes, plus an elven sorceress he made up who could summon earth elementals (think "Ent") wherever she wanted. Naturally in the narrow passages this wreaked havoc on the goblins and uruks, and not much could be done about it.
By the time we'd punched through and the earth elements had been slain or dissipated, we were broken and started running away. The troll chief rolled a 4, and having no Might and only one Will left he ran screaming. Luckily the Uruk captain made his roll and steadied the few remaining uruks and trolls.
10 goblins remained, their captain having been slain earlier by an earth elemental. The first turn after being broken they *all* made their Courage roll...I guess the Tree was in sight and they were excited. But the second turn after being broken, having failed to push through the 4 remaining elves, they *all* failed their Courage roll and were no more.
Anyway, in the end everyone really enjoyed it...hopefully I've expanded my pool of potential players, assuming I have time to play...
