Sunday Battle

Last Sunday's(5/15/05) D&D game was brutal. I got out my nearly all of my minis, and soon the party was smack in the middle of a huge melee that had no chance of ending by 6pm. It's an epic battle between friends and allies made by the group and monsters and people charmed by the Elves of the Purple Order. Of special interest is The Mandrake, a mysterious figure that turned out to be a beholder bribed by the King of New Rotalia to infiltrate behind enemy lines.

I don't know if I've ever had so many of my minis on the table at the same time. They include old Ral Partha and Grenadier metals, lots of Games Workshop, and no small number of Mage Knight and the new pre-painted plastic D&D miniatures. Even so, I never feel like I have enough. For this battle, I would have liked to have more Elf minis. But I was pretty happy with the terrain I have, which depicted a sort of desert area with cliffs and a few palm trees. We filled up a 12' long by 4' wide table in the hour it took to set up the battle.

Fighting for the freedom of the Ancient Isle were one tribe of Lizard Men, members of the New Rotalian Militia (I used GW Brettonian archers and knights), a boatload of Moporian Spearmen (I used GW Empire), Dwarven siege engineers with heavy catapaults (Carson and Phil made three pretty decent catapaults and a trebuchet out of clothespins and rubberbands, which I spray-painted a darker brown), lots of unorganized "rabble" of special characters, two Trolls, the King of New Rotalia and his retinue (I used P's GW Dogs of War horsemen and pikemen), and of course the party.

The Moon Army, led by the Elves and their charmed minions, includes a couple of tribes of Lizard Men, an adult Green Dragon (I won't reveal how old), two Giants (who are effectively a boulder-throwing artillary force), a huge unit of Orcs and Goblins, a bunch of creepy crawlies like giant spiders, scorpions and rats, assorted Mongrel Men (effectively the bad guys' "rabble,"), a few Drow Elves, and a small unit of Undead, led by at least one Vampire.

The Mandrake did not make his appearance until the very end of the game, and we'll see him in action next time. This session will be continued June 11. If we don't finish then, we'll pick it up June 25. If the party and their allies win the battle, they will be able to continue on to re-capture the Temple of Transformation, which the elves and their army are defending in this battle.

SUNDAY, NOT SATURDAY GAME IN MAY

ATTENTION: Hey, I'm playing cello solos for a wedding gig on the second Saturday in May, so we need to move the game to Sunday the 15th at noon. Also, remember it is now MINIATURES SEASON so bring your minis and any terrain you would like to show off. We will be using minis heavily through the good weather so we'll be downstairs. It is possible some of our future dates could move to Sundays too, so I'll let you know. I am really looking forward to the switch to two weekend sessions a month for a while, and my scheming brain is busy cooking up new ideas to challenge the characters and provide some real opportunities for them.

Magic: The Gathering -- Tapdancer Rematch

Last Wednesday it was just Carson and me, so we played Magic. He just brought his proxy-heavy "Tapdancer" deck, which is an elf deck that takes advantage of their mana production and untapping abilities, then putting equipment on them to "Tim" (after the mage in Monty Python's Holy Grail, a term for a creature tapping to deal 1 damage to any target) over and over again. Or just make a HUGE Ivy elemental. His deck is so well-tuned, it goes off every time and beats the crap out of my decks, except for my Earthquake (red/white) deck and my Crypt Rats deck. Basically, it you need a way to take out a lot of elves in a hurry, because his deck is really fast, so unless you've taken out 3-5 of them by the time you put out your 4th or 5th land, it's probably all over for you. It was a lot of fun, I've been itching to play Magic for a while. Last time I played against Tapdancer, it was really good, but he re-tuned it so now it's even faster. In one game, he had two Ivy Elementals, one 29/29 and one 31/31 by the 7th or 8th turn I think. In another game, he had his life total to something like 140. My Hurricane deck, which has a lot of elves, but also COP: Green also lost to Tapdancer, because it just sped his deck up more. Though now he's thinking about putting in a certain X/X regenerator from Tempest...