Monday, July 24, 2006
Furyondy Frontier
On Saturday, Chris C. and I sat down to finally give Greyhawk Wars a try. We had hoped to find six interested people so we could play out the entire Greyhawk Wars campaign, but we came up short (by a lot). So we decided to give one of the two-player scenarios a try. Unfortunately, we didn't have all that many choices, as the Adventure Book has very few scenarios.
Although Chris would've preferred to play a scenario involving the Great Kingdom, as he's involved in the RPGA element of that nation, we didn't have that option with the available scenarios. We chose Furyondy Frontier, which is an early war scenario that puts Furyondy up against an invading Iuz.
In this scenario, the winner is the nation that controls its enemy's capital city at the end of any turn. So for Iuz to win, the player has to capture Chendl, and for Furyondy to win, the player has to capture Dorakaa. While the west map is used, only a handful of countries can come into play through diplomacy and war -- Bissel, Ekbir, Horned Society, Ket, Perrenland, Shield Lands, Tusmit and Veluna.
Furyondy starts out allied with the Shield Lands, and Iuz starts out allied with the Horned Society, so each player has troops scattered about two nations as the game begins. As the Furyondy player, I set up first and spread my military around so that Iuz couldn't just march through, bypassing my forces and head right to Chendl. Chris set up so that he could begin preparations to attack through the eastern Bandit Kingdom areas and through the Vesve Forest to the west.
In the first three turns, we both focused on sending heroes around the board to recruit mercenaries, search for magical treasure and convince neighbouring nations to ally. In the first turn, I made a diplomacy roll in Veluna, gaining a valuable ally, but Iuz was apparently more charismatic. Iuz gained both Ket and Tusmit, thereby building up his forces more considerably than Furyondy.
In the second turn, we both sent heroes to Perrenland. Unfortunately, my diplomacy roll was an utter failure and Iuz's roll was a success. At this point, I missed an important rule. I had read that the only way to move heroes was during the "place heroes" phase, and if an enemy's army is in an area where the hero is at the beginning of the turn, the hero can't just be picked up and moved. I didn't realize that the heroes could move as infantry units during the actions phase. So basically, my poor Belvor hero got himself stranded in Perrenland at the end of turn two because I misread the rules. Iuz ended the turn with both Perrenland and Ekbir as allies, taking the neutral territories and putting me at a severe diplomatic disadvantage (as my attempt to win Bissel as an ally failed miserably).
The third turn saw both of us continue to amass our forces and find treasure. Chris was luckier than I with searching for treasure and ended up with some powerful and very useful items, whereas I wasn't able to find a single treasure until the last turn of the game (and it was only a treasure that gave me a bonus on searching for treasure).
On turn four, Iuz finally attacked my forces that were moving into position near the Horned Society. He won the battle and started to push against my line on the east. In the west, he invaded Furyondy itself through the Vesve Forest. He also invaded Bissel and pushed me out, once again stranding my poor hero there (again, not the misread rule mentioned above). That left me with only one hero. One thing I wasn't sure about is if I could continue to make diplomacy rolls in Bissel. Since Iuz had captured the territory, I assumed not.
On turn five, Furyondy was able to push Iuz's forces back out of its own nation, but since Iuz had lost initiative that round (he only won initiative on turn three; every other turn, Furyondy had initiative), he had a chance to regain his territory. An error on my part gave Iuz an easy move into Chendl to do battle, and after a brutal battle that involved five units and a bunch of mercenaries on each side, the capital city of Furyondy fell to Iuz.
Overall, we found the game itself to be fairly enjoyable, although the way battle lines are set seemed a bit odd. We're thinking about redesigning the battle rules a bit for a future game. Still, as we're both fans of the World of Greyhawk D&D campaign setting, we quite enjoyed our time doing battle for the fate of the Flanaess. We'll probably be giving it another try in the coming weeks.
Although Chris would've preferred to play a scenario involving the Great Kingdom, as he's involved in the RPGA element of that nation, we didn't have that option with the available scenarios. We chose Furyondy Frontier, which is an early war scenario that puts Furyondy up against an invading Iuz.
In this scenario, the winner is the nation that controls its enemy's capital city at the end of any turn. So for Iuz to win, the player has to capture Chendl, and for Furyondy to win, the player has to capture Dorakaa. While the west map is used, only a handful of countries can come into play through diplomacy and war -- Bissel, Ekbir, Horned Society, Ket, Perrenland, Shield Lands, Tusmit and Veluna.
Furyondy starts out allied with the Shield Lands, and Iuz starts out allied with the Horned Society, so each player has troops scattered about two nations as the game begins. As the Furyondy player, I set up first and spread my military around so that Iuz couldn't just march through, bypassing my forces and head right to Chendl. Chris set up so that he could begin preparations to attack through the eastern Bandit Kingdom areas and through the Vesve Forest to the west.
In the first three turns, we both focused on sending heroes around the board to recruit mercenaries, search for magical treasure and convince neighbouring nations to ally. In the first turn, I made a diplomacy roll in Veluna, gaining a valuable ally, but Iuz was apparently more charismatic. Iuz gained both Ket and Tusmit, thereby building up his forces more considerably than Furyondy.
In the second turn, we both sent heroes to Perrenland. Unfortunately, my diplomacy roll was an utter failure and Iuz's roll was a success. At this point, I missed an important rule. I had read that the only way to move heroes was during the "place heroes" phase, and if an enemy's army is in an area where the hero is at the beginning of the turn, the hero can't just be picked up and moved. I didn't realize that the heroes could move as infantry units during the actions phase. So basically, my poor Belvor hero got himself stranded in Perrenland at the end of turn two because I misread the rules. Iuz ended the turn with both Perrenland and Ekbir as allies, taking the neutral territories and putting me at a severe diplomatic disadvantage (as my attempt to win Bissel as an ally failed miserably).
The third turn saw both of us continue to amass our forces and find treasure. Chris was luckier than I with searching for treasure and ended up with some powerful and very useful items, whereas I wasn't able to find a single treasure until the last turn of the game (and it was only a treasure that gave me a bonus on searching for treasure).
On turn four, Iuz finally attacked my forces that were moving into position near the Horned Society. He won the battle and started to push against my line on the east. In the west, he invaded Furyondy itself through the Vesve Forest. He also invaded Bissel and pushed me out, once again stranding my poor hero there (again, not the misread rule mentioned above). That left me with only one hero. One thing I wasn't sure about is if I could continue to make diplomacy rolls in Bissel. Since Iuz had captured the territory, I assumed not.
On turn five, Furyondy was able to push Iuz's forces back out of its own nation, but since Iuz had lost initiative that round (he only won initiative on turn three; every other turn, Furyondy had initiative), he had a chance to regain his territory. An error on my part gave Iuz an easy move into Chendl to do battle, and after a brutal battle that involved five units and a bunch of mercenaries on each side, the capital city of Furyondy fell to Iuz.
Overall, we found the game itself to be fairly enjoyable, although the way battle lines are set seemed a bit odd. We're thinking about redesigning the battle rules a bit for a future game. Still, as we're both fans of the World of Greyhawk D&D campaign setting, we quite enjoyed our time doing battle for the fate of the Flanaess. We'll probably be giving it another try in the coming weeks.
// posted by Chris @ 12:39 PM 
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