Well, the car's packed, just about to set off...

May the dice fly high!

Thanks for a great tourny Nebseni, was a lot of fun the epic fight against the eater towards the end was great and i got a slightly better result against Fenhir this time than i got last time so that's good too.

Thanks Adam.

I'll put a fuller report in the next few days, but the overall results were :

Champion of Ra and first overall : Nick Champion of Bast and second overall : Erik Champion of Horus : Adam Champion of Khanum : Murry Champion of Sobek for greatest Carnage : Darcy

The Kharga oasis, famed for it's vinyards, is a town that lives on trade and commerce.

Typhon trade with the desert tribes, and Basti and ToTanem merchants and traders flow through the town gates carrying goods and produce to and from the cities on the Nile itself.

There is a small fort to guard against raids from the wretched Libu, manned by Heru with the assistance of Olympian mercenaries.

The Typhon and the Heru share a history of blood, playing deadly games of skirmish and ambush whenever they get the chance.

The Basti and ToTanem despise each other.

The Olympians are a long way from home and the two contingents are from different, competing cities.

The Kharga oasis is a tinderbox waiting for a spark...

+++++

Priests arrived from Thebes, one group to each faction.

They spoke to the local high priest with honeyed words and then to the harbingers, telling them that in the portion of the necropolis controlled by the others that there were stolen artifacts that must be recovered.

The harbingers led their forces into the necropolis escorting the priests, and blood was spilled as the priests went about their work.

Blood called for blood. The city penned the garrison into it's fort, raided it's supply caravan and attacked it in camp. The garrison fought back.

More blood was shed, the wheel of revenge spinning faster and faster.

Then came word from patrols that a group of bodies had been found, recently murdered priests left for the buzzards and jackels... which raised the question of who were the 'priests' who had started this?

The answer came from the necropolis in the form of three great armies of the undead, newly raised.

The town and garrison tried to ally agains this new threat...

One group put aside their differences and defeated the great evil. The two others fought each other as much as the undead and were overwhelmed.

The town and garrison were placed under siege by the Eater.

Without a relieving force from the cities on the Nile, it is only a matter of time before the defenders fail and Kharga becomes a second Ankhara.

+++++

Overall, I think it was a success. People had fun and I managed to achieve more a 'storytelling' atmosphere as opposed to a straight competition, which is do-able with a small group.

The first game was pre-set. The second and third rounds were 'freeform', the players could choose from a limited set of scenarios, alternating between teams, with one team/player picking the scenario, the other team picking who would oppose them. I may need to adjust how the attacker and defender roles were assigned.

The dynamics of the final game were interesting. On each table we had one player from each team vs about 3000 pts of Eater and death cultists. The objective of the game was to score the most points of kills.

The twist in the plot was that kills on the other player counted double. It was interesting to watch people's faces when that was announced.

The Eater had unified command, but effectively only one activation choice at a time and with only Ka 3, problems with command rating/assigning orders to all units.

On one table, the two players cooperated right from the start, trading activations as required and defeated the Eater handily. (It was also Pakhet's first game with EoD) On the two others, they didn't, either just not cooperating well or actively antagonistic, and were defeated themselves.

There wasn't time to play the 'finale' scenario I had in mind : both teams with skirmish forces on a two tables joined short end to short end, covered in tombs and monuments, with each team starting at a short end and an eater force in the middle, with the objective to be first to get to the middle of the board and kill the central cabal of necromancers.

As it happened, losing two of the three previous games would have made it a bit implausible to be taking the war to the Eater, unless you postulate them sneaking in, in a desperate last throw of the dice, trying to decapitate the EoD before the town fell to siege.

I'll post photos in the next day or so, as soon as I get them adjusted and online.

A few of the 'generic' scenarios need adjustment.

The 'camp raid' scenario heavily favors the attacker if the attacker has chariots, as they can be in combat in the second turn, and because of the scenario setup the defender starts off both disordered and facing the center of the table. This virtually guaranteed rear charges. The after the action fix we came up with was to have the defender start off either disordered OR facing the center of the table.

A further possible fix would be to allow the defender to lightly fortify the camp with thornbushes which would stop chariots and give light cover.

The 'rescue the hostage' is probably better as a 'scavanger hunt', with patches of scrub that the spy and his captive are potentially hiding in. As it is, they're chariot bait.

The 'kill the messenger' scenario is probably better done with (I understand) Sandfly's mods : three messengers, two of which are decoys and played along the table rather than across it.

One other thing I might do next time is split up the rather strong Canberra team...

I would like to thank the players getting into the spirit of things and for putting up with my ongoing experimentation and apologise for my intermittent lack of focus. My only excuse is lack of sleep compounded with Daylight Saving coming in on the weekend.

I would also like to thank Pakhet for taking time off from studying to play one of the Eater forces, and Mark for his advice and taking over some of the more mundane administrative chores, and handling rules adjudications.

Without their help and support it would have been a much poorer experience all around.

A big thank you to Barry for organising the weekend, the team battle v the EoD was interesting and I enjoyed something a bit different.

Also thanks go to Mark and Pakhet for helping out.

I also have to thank my opponents for an enjoyable weekend of toy soldier gaming, it has been fun trying to explain to my work mates what I did over the weekend and how well I did.

Sorry just playing around with the tags to see what they do

First, big thanks to Offler for loaning is Skellies. They helped in killing all four of Nick's chariots, a feat no-one else managed in the comp.

Finally got the photos done and uploaded.

http://s223.photobucket.com/albums/dd258/barrycadwgan/MOAB%202010/

Unfortunately I left the memory card for the camera at home on the first day and wound up using my phone, and ran out of memory after the first game of the morning. Still, it gives you an idea...