ARES Battle Report – Anger of the Heavens

Battle report for the scenario I set up yesterday.

Turn 1:  Both sides rush toward each other. Lorna races through the trees to skirt the skull in an effort to flank the Ral.

Turn one: closing to contact

Turn 2: As Lorna sprints around the back side of the skull, Logos spots her and charges with sword and axe in hand. Lorna parries his sword thrust, but Logos wounds her with a blow from his axe. Nyree climbs the hill, where Fjori presses to meet her. Fjori hits Nyree with a powerful blow wounding her severely, and she flees panicked back into the forest (rules note: after the game I realized this was an error on my part -- she should only have been shaken, not routed).  Kjell and Ilkhan square off in the center near the skull, each landing a single blow on the other.

Turn two: the fight begins

Turn 3:  Kjell attacks furiously with both blades, hitting Ilkhan twice. Ilkhan holds his ground and counterattacks, but Kjell parries the blow. Logos attacks Lorna once more with both weapons, dealing a cut with the sword and a blow from the butt of the axe haft that knocks Lorna unconscious. Fjiori charges down the hill and attacks Ilkhan from behind, leaving the Ral leader senseless and out of the fight.

Turn three: Kjell and Fjori gang up on Ilkhan

Turn 4: Logos launches himself at Fjori, but Fjori is extremely lucky and somehow manages to parry the sword and dodge the axe. Kjell attacks Logos and hits him in the back with both swords. At the same time, Fjori swings from the front and cuts Logos across the chest. The last Ral falls unconscious, pale from loss of blood.

After turn four: the victorious Valen take shelter from the storm

Kjell and Fjori bring Lorna back to consciousness and help her to her feet. The three Valen enter the opening at the back of the behemoth skull and into the relative shelter it provides, where they bandage Kjell's and Lorna's wounds.

Gradually Ilkhan and Logos regain consciousness, each crawling painfully away from the battlefield to spend the rest of the storm-wracked night lying in the mud beneath the trees.

Impressions: I really like the Ares rules. They worked as well as I hoped they would for a game with small numbers of highly individualized characters. I made up my own house rule that "kills" would be "unconscious" instead, simply because I'd like to re-use the characters for more than one fight. Other than that, I played the rules as written. The mechanics are intuitive and easy to pick up, and the whole game – even with me taking notes and photos as I went – took only one hour. Definitely a keeper. I think I may be set for rules for a while, using Song of Blades and Heroes for warband-sized skirmishes (8-12 models per side) and Ares for smaller ones like this fight.

Anger of the Heavens: First ARES Scenario Set-Up

The sky grows dark with storm clouds, and thunder rolls in the distance. Kjell, Lorna and Fjori have been hunting for three days along the ridges and ravines of the Great Rift on the eastern edge of the lands of the Valen. Three days with no luck, and the prospect of a night spent cold, wet and shivering in the wilds. Coming through the trees into a clearing, they spot the skull of one of the gigantic behemoths who once roamed Valdar in the first age. What is left of the creature's head is larger than a house back in the village.

"There!" cries Lorna, as the wind picks up blurring the landscape with leaves and debris. "Shelter! We can make our camp inside the skull of the beast!"

Lightning streaks across the sky as the three companions make for the fossilized refuge. As they do three Ral come forth from the woods on the opposite side of the clearing. On this side of the rift, they are no doubt the scouts of a raiding party, who also hope to spend the night in the comparatively warm, dry haven provided by the remains of the long-dead creature.

"Kjell!" Shouts Fjori over the wind, nodding toward the three Ral scouts.

"This our side of the rift," yells Kjell. "If they want shelter, they can find it back in their own lands!"

Across the clearing, Ilkhan steps ahead of his two companions, Nyree and Logos. With a simple tilt of his head, his message to them is clear. Stealthy scouting mission or no, he and his comrades will fight to spend the night protected from the storm.

As the two groups close the gap between them, another bolt of lightning zigzags downward striking a tree on the edge of the clearing, sending splinters swirling into the wind.

Steel is drawn, and soon one of these two bands will pay for their lodgings with the blood of the other.


Scenario Details:

Board: a 24" x 24" board, set up as per the diagram.

Entry: The Valen (Kjell, Lorna, and Fjori) enter from the "bottom" edge; the Ral (Ilkhan, Nyree, and Logos) enter from the "top" edge. All characters enter on turn 1.

Game Length: 6 turns.

Victory Points: At the end of the final turn, each side gains...
1. VP equal to the combat rating of each enemy eliminated
2. VP equal to the combat rating of each friendly figure closer to the skull than any enemy

Whichever side has more VP wins – and those characters get to spend the night in the skull, protected from the storm. The side with fewer VP suffers a morale break and all their remaining characters flee the clearing into the tempest-beaten forest.

Two Lost Parchments: A Very Simple Setting for My Barbarian Skirmishes

Nyree, Female Pit Fighter, from Reaper

Wasn't sure I'd manage it during a work week, but I painted my third villain – Reaper's Nyree, Female Pit Fighter – for a three-on-three test drive of Ares, which I intend to do this weekend. Now to come up with a scenario....

Nyree, Pit Fighter (43 points)
Wounds: 3
Move: 4"
Morale: 4
Armor: D8
Close Combat: D8
Ranged Combat: - -
Weapons: Axe D8
Magic: D6
Spells: None
Special: Individual, Thick Skull

So far none of these characters has any magic spells.  Once I've played through a game or two and gotten down the basic mechanics, I'll throw in some shamans and sorcerers.

Logos, Savage Warrior, from Reaper

My latest villain from Reaper for the small-scale Ares skirmish I'm planning: Logos, Savage Warrior.

Logos (40 points)
Wounds: 3
Move: 4"
Morale: 3
Armor: D8
Close Combat: D8
Ranged Combat: - -
Weapons: Sword D8 and Axe D8
Magic: D6
Spells: None
Special: Individual, Multiple Weapons

With one more villain I'll have enough figures for a three-on-three barbarian-themed skirmish. With luck I can paint one more mini this week in the evenings, and play a first game of Ares next weekend.

Ilkhan of Malvernis: Figure for Ares

Last night and this morning I painted the first figure of the batch of barbarian-esque minis I ordered from Reaper, and just now gave him some stats for Ares. Since I already have a few heroes, I'm trying to complete some villains, such as Ilkhan here:

Ilkhan of Malvernis (56 points)

Wounds: 4

Move: 4"

Morale: 4

Armor: D6

Close Combat: D8

Ranged Combat: - -

Weapons: Polearm D12                                   

Magic: D6

Spells: None                                       

Special: Individual, Fanatic, Ferocious

Again, I kept the name Ilkhan of Malvernis that the figure was given by Reaper. It is noteworthy that "Malvernis" in French means "poor clear-coat" or "poorly clear-coated" in modeling terms. I don't know if this was intentional on the part of the designer, but I find it rather an amusing name for a miniature.

ARES: Statting Up some Old Minis

I set up three characters for Ares this afternoon based on some barbarian miniatures I already had painted (all three from Reaper).

Kjell Bloodbear (57 points)
Wounds: 4
Move: 4"
Morale: 4
Armor: D6
Close Combat: D8
Ranged Combat: - -
Weapons: Two Swords D8
Magic: D6
Spells: None
Special: Individual, Multiple Weapons, Thick Skull

Fjori, the Untamed (43 points)
Wounds: 4
Move: 4"
Morale: 3
Armor: D6
Close Combat: D6
Ranged Combat: - -
Weapons: Sword D8
Magic: D6
Spells: None
Special: Individual, Powerful, Ferocious

Lorna, the Huntress (42 points)
Wounds: 3
Move: 4"
Morale: 4
Armor: D4
Close Combat: D6
Ranged Combat: - -
Weapons: Sword D8
Magic: D6
Spells: None
Special: Individual, Terrain Specialist (Woods), Hide, Backstab

Since Reaper Minis are nearly all given names, I'm just keeping they names they come with, as I did with Kjell and Lorna. I'll be inventing names for the few figures that don't come with names like Fjori, whose "real" name is simply "Raging Barbarian."

I also based and primed a few other minis today (some villains to fight against these heroes). Hopefully in the next week or two I will have them done and will be able to try a quick game.

Game Rules: Planning to Give ARES a Try

I've been hunting for new game rules lately, searching for something that works well with really small numbers of figures (a handful per side at most). I really enjoy Song of Blades and Heroes for warband-size skirmishes. But I'd like to find a rule set to use when I want something more individualized and "heroic," where each character is a hero or villain with his/her own personalized traits. Having looked high and low for a while now, I've narrowed the field to about three sets I'd like to try: Broadsword Adventures (Rattrap Productions), Warrior Heroes: Armies and Adventures (Two-Hour Wargames) and Ares (Majestic Twelve Games). All three look promising. At the moment, I'm leaning a bit toward trying out Ares first, since it appears (at least after a first reading) to have a level of individualized detail and rule mechanism simplicity that both fall right into the range I'm looking for.

 

I'm in the process now of painting up some new figures from Reaper minis, and in the meantime I plan to start statting up some of my existing ones for Ares.