The first turn we used the Forward unto Battle rule to get things moving. I made my first tactical mistake by timidly turning my Mounted Rangers in behind my battleline - they should have hung around on the flank to make a dangerous counter-attack later in the game, but, well...
My second mistake was to advance too fast in the center, but I was afraid that the Goblin Archers would wither down my few units too fast (I still think archers are too effective in this game). As it were, my infantry got stuck in way too early for my Archers and Rangers to have had enough impact on the rather large force I was facing.
The end of Turn 2:
My Linebreakers broke the Goblins in front of them, and then my Spearmen tried to do the same with the Orcs, but, alas..
Abysmal dice rolling on my part, well done by the Orcs.
I sadly do not remember what broke the other Orc unit (those to the right of my Linebreakers), but break they did... It may have been my Mounted Rangers shooting at them, but I am not sure.
I was beginning to feel a tad of pressure on my position.
My remaining Spearmen were annihilated by Goblin bowfire, and my Linebreakers defeated and pushed back the last Orc unit, but were Disordered in the process, which meant that I coiuld not exploit the wide open unit of Goblin Archers the following turn. My Archers (left flank) were suffering bad casualties, and my Rangers were just about to be caught by the Gobbos on the right.
This was the situation before the last turn. I did not take further pics, but my Rangers were charged and lost more than half their numbers, my Mounted Rangers moved forwards and fired at the Goblin Archers in front of them, without hitting a single time (5d10 rolling 5 or less, go figure), and my Linebreakers shook off the Disorder but could no move to contact an enemy unit. The two remaining Archers were killed off. When the Linebreakers then lost half their number to bowfire, I conceeded the battlefield; my Mounted Rangers were too far away from the Goblins on the left to reach them, so they would most likely be halved or worse before making contact, my Rangers were only 3 strong, and the Linebreakers faced annihilation by the Orc Wsrlord and his retinue.
Thoughts on the game:
This one played rather smoothly. I think that having way fewer units than in my solo test game contributed heavily to the faster pace, as units had more space to maneuver without ending up at strange angles facing each other - but looking up stats for combat was of course much easier, too, because I only had to look at my own roster this time.
The Champion Dice had some impact on some of the fights (we only had the commanders being able to use it - plus the Troll, but it never succeeded in catching an enemy), and the extra Activation/Morale dice provided by the Commanders was also quite prominent - especially for the Orcs/Goblins. We did not use the Death of and Officer option, but I shall add it to my next game.
I still think that calculating the variable Target Number for every to-hit-roll feels a bit 1980, but we were actually doing it without having to look up the modifiers after a few turns, so it can be lived with, as not slowing down the game all to much (it still may if rosters consist of several pages - this game I only had one page).
Movement:
Because of the few units, maneuvers were mostly made to swing around terrain features, and there wasn't any occurrences of units being pushed deep into the rear lines (as there were none), so I did not see any awkward situations this time (but from my test game I know they can and probably will occur in large games).
I think I would still prefer a system with some range modifiers for shooting, but I have not played enough games to assess the overall impact on the game of such a change.
Morale had a significant impact on the Orcs/Goblins, with several units breaking, and panic spreading. It is a feature that I rather like, although it may sometimes come down to a few bad rolls whether your army stays fit for fighting or runs away.
The game today took about two hours, including placing the armies on the table (I had prepared the table/terrain in advance, but it had taken me less than 10 minutes), which is faster than I expected, but we had relatively few units, did not use more than one character each, and we had no Wizards. Next game I play, I shall add more Characters, and let Champions kill off Officers. I have not yet even read the rules for Magic, but I think I shall start out with a single low level Wizard in one of the next games I play.
Overall:
It feels like Oathmark is better balanced than God of Battles. Playing Undead in GoB, I often faced enemy units I could hardly scratch, because of the many dice they roll regardless of the number of hits scored on them (elsewhere on this blog you may find my musings about how to possibly mend some of the worst flaws of that game, but I never got around to trying them out, yet), but in Oathmark it rarely feels impossible to damage an enemy unit (some cavalry units possibly excepted - I have to play some more). The possibility to roll only five or four dice for attacks somewhat evens out the difference between elite and standard units - which can be both good and bad. My abhorrent dice rolling may have made the elite Elves seem somewhat underwhelming, but if the dice had fallen more normally statistically, the game might have hung more in the balance at the end.
I am still not sure if this will be my go-to fantasy battle game, as I still have some reservations regarding some of the rules, but today's game did not put me off. I shall try to get a game against Duregar/Ulolkish arranged within an overseeable future - probably Middle-Earth themed.
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