SEASON OF WAR: Week 2 Scenario Rules & Tactics (this time it's quite straightforward)

One of my most Kunning Kommandos (a trusted Internet source) gave me a heads up about the coming week's Season of War scenario.


--- WEEK 2 SCENARIO RULES: A HEROIC DUEL ---


Special Requirement - your army must include at least 1 Hero.

This scenario is quite different and literally centres around your and your opponent's Heroes dueling.

The game starts with your and your opponent's armies deployed 12" from your own table edge, pretty normal. However, you and your opponent have to choose 1 Hero to deploy in the middle of the table instead. The Heroes then duel while the rest of the army fight around them (edited). They cannot interfere, cannot attack the Heroes, cannot buff the Heroes with Spells or Commands.

The way the duel works is NOT a normal combat. The Heroes roll for initiative to see who strikes first each round. When they strike, they choose ONE Melee weapon to make ONE single attack, EVEN IF that Melee weapon can normally make more attacks. They continue trading blows (remember, ONE at a time, even though most Heroes make multiple attacks with their weapons) until one of them is slain. The rest of their armies fight around them normally until the Duel ends, then it continues with one caveat (edited).

The caveat is, the winner of the duel inspires everyone within 10" of him. All affect models can re-roll all their failed To Hit rolls and never suffer Battleshock.


--- STRATEGIC CONSIDERATIONS ---


The obvious strategy is to choose a Hero that has high survivability and a really great Melee weapon to win the duel.

Conversely, choose a really cheap Hero that you don't care about, let him die, then focus fire on your opponent's duel winner to kill him off quickly and strip away the bonus. The idea there is that your opponent probably used a high points cost Hero to win the duel, leaving less points for the rest of his army, so once he dies, you actually have more points on the table, turning your disadvantage into your advantage.

It's a minor thing, but I want to own up to a mistake.

We actually played the scenario and, upon reading the rules, we found the Duel begins the 1st and every turn afterwards, but the rest of the armies can fight while the Duel is still going on.

And we had a lead-lag issue where I tabled my opponent before the Duel was finished. My army had to gather around the Dueling area and wait for, as it turned out, my opponent's Champion to finish, then they all rushed in and killed him.

Thus, my opponent won the Duel and lost the war.

It was so Forge A Narrative that I've actually bought a new model to represent this victorious yet fallen Champion of my opponent now has been raised by my Undeath army as their new General.

In conclusion, the scenario seemed flaw but was still fun!