Beardy Deployment

Hi all. First time poster but long time ghoster here.

I wanted to run something by you guys to see if it's happened to you, and if/how you address it in your campaigns.

Our campaign just had the Lost in the Bogs scenario from Empire in Flames last night, with just one warband attacking another. The defender was spread out as per the rules, and the attacker had tactician. We had a moderate amount of terrain.

The rules gave the attacker a head start by stating attackers could be placed "not 4 inches within the side edge." This was in addition to the distance afforded with the tactician skill which amounted to a total of 12" deployment. The scenario also gave the attacker first turn as the lost player goes last. Since the defender's models can't be within 6 inches of any other defender it led to numerous defenders being deployed closer than 12" to the board edges.

With the above mentioned deployment, the attacker was able to pick a side and deploy within charge range of 5 defenders and charge on the first turn. Since the defender was spread due to the deployment parameters, it was multiple attackers versus single defenders. 4 defenders went ooa before the defender even got his first turn. I imagine we would have similar results in the Surprise Attack scenario, or any other scenario where deployments can overlap a bit.

We play pretty much RAW unless proven otherwise, but I wanted to see if we were missing something here. I always was under the impression that models could not start the game within charge range of people, but couldn't find it anywhere. I know there is a lot of disagreement over the use of tactician in general, but am wondering if we missed anything else. A lot of skills such as infiltration and hunch seem to have a deployment restriction to prevent immediate charging, so not sure why it wasn't the case here.

My issue is the defender really didn't even get a chance to play, which ultimately seemed like a colossal waste of time and not fun.

Would you guys chalk this up to bad luck? Poor written rules? Or did we miss something entirely?

I recommend 2 things:

Never ever play Lost in the Bogs again. Its a awful scenario even without the addition of Tactician to the mess. It is much more interesting to play the rulebook scenario Surprise Attack with boggy terrain or something. Definitely poorly written rules.

As far as an attacker not being able to set up in charge range, this is not a rule. Surprise Attack is pretty much predicated on the Attacker being able to pick off the Defending models on the first turn and Defending models may charge when they enter the board in subsequent turns.

Second, do not use Tactician or have a LONG discussion of what scenarios it may be used in and which ones it may not be used in. In my group discussion proved impossible, so the skill just got banned. Tactician ruins several scenarios out right and is generally just a pain to deal with in any other scenario.

Well, if the rules are written poorly, or are combined in ways the authors didn't predict, playing RAW can be a colossal waste of time and not fun.

Thanks for the quick reply guys.

I think we will have to take your advice to heart. Lost in the Bogs seems like a horrible scenario, and I think we need to have a discussion about banning Tactician entirely, or severely limiting it's application. This scenario combined with tactician completely eliminated the defender from playing at all, which defeats the whole purpose of playing a game for fun in the first place.

Personally I've never understood the purpose of the surprise attack/lost in the bogs like scenarios, as there is often not a thing you can do to prevent major losses (unless there is a huge discrepancy in warband rating). They seem like they are just free kills for the attackers for the most part as the attacker has his full force and can pick off reinforcements as they come in with ease. Not really a game of skill/tactics at that point in my opinion.

I'm curious, will you be doing a review of the Surprise Attack scenario Von Kurst?

Welcome to the forum Ferrus!
(Forgot to do that in my first reply)

Quote :

I'm curious, will you be doing a review of the Surprise Attack scenario Von Kurst?

I will. It is scenario #9 though so not this week...

We have not included most of the Empire in Flames campaign scenarios in our Empire in Flames games for several years now. Lost in the Bogs, Bounty Hunting and Stagecoach Ambush are amazingly poorly thought out scenarios. I recommend The Thing in the Woods and to a lesser extent The Frenzied Mob. It is much better to use the Nemesis Crown scenarios as Empire in Flames scenarios, plus all the good content from Fanatic Magazine (though there are a couple of those I regret playing as well...)

I am probably in the minority, but I enjoy the challenges of Surprise Attack. But I will save that for another thread.

Welcome aboard, Ferrus!

I find 'Surprise Attack' useful in narrative campaigns, especially as a bit of a balancing mechanic. Whichever warband wins one battle gets ambushed next time, to give the defeated warband a chance to repay their loses. The stronger warband suffers a disadvantage which actually gives a fairly balanced, potentially very fun game.

Also, I was once surprise attacked while playing Night Goblins -- my squigs started off all over the board and immediately went wild, being so far away from their masters. That alone justifies the scenario's existence, to my mind...

So I finished a sort of review of Surprise Attack
https://boringmordheimforum.forumieren.com/t2286p100-scenario-reviews-an-irregular-commentary#138373

And I had forgotten but I did another sort of review/tactics thingy before that
https://boringmordheimforum.forumieren.com/t2797-surprise-attack#40947