High Elves in the Age of Magic VI - The Battle of The Haunting

A more recent game - we continued our campaign of High Elves versus Undead in the foggy uplands with a large 7 point SAGA - Age of Magic battle. This battle may be the last of our campaign (these battles are loosely peripheral to a friend's more organised campaign of the Forces of Good versus the Undead, the final battle of which is scheduled later this month).

The Warbands Assemble in the Foggy Morning Dark

In a huge battle just prior to the events of this blog entry, the Undead band of ghouls were slaughtered - their King and other leaders lying dead (or deader), the last survivors scattering in the darkness, maybe caught and torn apart by wolves or other predators, maybe still lurking out there in the mountains, but no longer a major threat to the Great Kingdoms.

But the struggle for the foggy uplands was not over. Far from it. For another evil force appeared to take the place of the ghouls: a horde of skeletons, including an undead giant and skeletal cavalry had seemingly risen from the very soil.

Practically the entire High Elf host was assembled for this battle. Because of the darkness and fog, units had to deploy within short distance of each other. This factor negatively impacted the Elves because of a nasty surprise the Undead would spring (Citadel miniatures).

The skeleton army, with a catapult.

View from the perspective of the Undead commanders: a Crypt Captain and Vampire sorceress.

The Spectral Haunting

The nasty surprise that had followed the army of skeletons turned out to be the ephemeral forms of the dead: a legendary group of ghosts. These would float back and forth across the Elven army in the unnerving darkness, scaring the less stout-hearted elves, causing fatigue, and even scaring an Elven archer to death!

The ghosts.

The Skeletons Attack

The darkness and fog limited the effectiveness of the missile units and magic users on both sides. The Skeleton cavalry commenced the action, attacking and driving back an unprepared unit of Elven archers who had attempted to take cover in rocky ground. I had a number of defensive battleboard abilities that I should have used to try to save the archers, but I neglected to do so.

A short-range volley from the Elven left-flank archers, a bolt of light spell from the Elven mage and a sharp, lone counterattack by the Elven paladin wiped out the skeleton cavalry.

The vampire sorceress used a spell to confer the benefit of flight to undead units, and my opponent used this cleverly to move his unit of skeleton archers right over to my board edge to claim Victory Points for a scenario-specific victory condition. The same spell was also used to move up a unit of skeleton spearmen to threaten the Elves and then levitate the massive undead giant into combat with the Elven lord: crushing him in combat.

The undead giant kills the Elven leader (Citadel miniatures elves).

However, the Elven lord was able to inflict severe damage to the undead behemoth, and shortly after, the Elven left-flank archers (the emerald regiment) under command of a Captain (a Great Kingdoms hero type that has the We Obey special rule) took the opportunity to finish off the giant.

The archers avenge the death of their lord.

And then what happened?

After this I forgot to take any more photos as it was a really intense battle. The ghosts flew back and forth inflicting fatigue on the Elves and almost leading to the death of the Elven paladin, killing an Elven archer. The Elven mage became exhausted by the ghosts swirling around him, and having to run back and forth casting spells. He was eventually hit by a long-range skull-shaped projectile from the undead catapult and killed outright, but not before he was able to slow the Undead Crypt Captain with a spell.

The vampire sorceress continued to cast wither spells to inflict more fatigue, but the Elves were able to invest large numbers of SAGA dice to rest ('dispelling fears'). The Elves also managed to use two phoenix SAGA dice on good defensive and offensive abilities that made any attack on their spearmen units too daunting a prospect for the skeleton spearmen, who merely demonstrated in fron of the Elven right flank.

Three of the four ghosts expended their frightfulness and dissipated (the ghosts counted as hearthguard for victory points, and were a legendary unit, so their loss was a major blow to the Undead).

The Conclusion

Meanwhile, the Elven Reavers charged the skeleton archers (who had recently fired on them) and smashed many to the ground. The Elves were able to inflict enough casualties and hold on long enough to claim a fairly narrow victory. The vampire and remaining skeletons retreated to save themselves for another day.

This was a great, close game. I thought my Elves were doomed by Turn 3 due to the haunting exhaustion and loss of their leader. But they managed to turn it around by being conservative with their SAGA dice and defensive abilities. The mage should have taken the protective spell 'Laying On Hands' to deal with fatigue - as unexpected fatigue on heroes makes it unwise to use several Great Kingdoms battleboard abilities, in addition to slowing and weakening your units generally. I also should have used my SAGA dice more efficiently, and probably only won the game because of some luck phoenix rolls that scared my opponent.