TSA Escalation League 2025: Round 1 - Civil War

 And so we are off in the Escalation League, as the lines are put down for the first battle in the campaign for my Marienburg force.

And opposing me in the 500 points game was Jason, who also brought along the Empire of Man, so a civil war is the ideal skirmish to begin the campaign with...

So my force stood ready for battle, though "efficient" might be something else, as I wanted the feel of a ragtag band of local soldiers, not even carrying colours or the likes as they are taken aback by a roving hedgewizard shouting they are under attack.

Opposing me was another Empire of Man force from Middenheim, which consisted of a level 2 wizard with Ring of Ruin and Battle Magic, 5 Knights, 10 Crossbowmen, 5 Outriders and 2 units of 5 Archer scouts.

Generating my spells, I got Summon Elemental Spirit, so I would be able to use my vortex model, and Wind Blast.  The scenario was a straight Open Battle, and the campaign bonus objective was Hold the Ground, so from turn 2 onwards scoring units (on my side only the general, for him the general and the knights) needed to be within 6" of the central skull to generate tokens.  Most tokens at the end would claim the bonus objective.

I had first turn, and my force advanced forward.  My wizard managed to manifest the Summon Elemental Spirit in front of his knights, blocking their route to the heart of my force.

I did some minor casualties, with one scouting archer unit reduced to a single member, and the other losing only a single one.

The knights moved sideways to evade the spirit, as the first handgunners where shot down.

Combined fire from those spooky Outriders, Fireballs and Crossbows wreaked havoc on my Greatswords, nearly half their number falling but they remained steady.

With turn 2 now on, it was time I tried to do some real damage though, or this would be a very swift defeat.

My wizard casted Wind Blast, causing a panic test on the crossbows with his general.  They where first pushed back 2 inches, then failed their panic test and ran away a further 11 inch.  As they had deployed 12 inch in, this meant they ran off the battlefield, taking his general along with them!

His knights readied themselves to charge my crossbowmen though, as my Greatswords where obliterated.   My general decided to leg it as a result, as a unit was destroyed within 6 inches...

He failed to rally in my turn, and the crossbows couldn't take down a single knight in front of them.  But then they charged, and as a result of the stand and shoot lost one of their number.  They failed the panic, running through the Elemental Spirit but taking no loss from it.  

 

On the other side, the Handgunners where all shot down by the sick amount of dice the Outriders throw out, and they hit rather easily as well.  I think lady Margritta needs to send a fat paycheck to the Engineers guild in the nearby future...

My halberdiers charged on his knights, pushing them closer to their own edge, but my wizard failed to rally, running onwards.

In his turn the knights had rallied, and I moved my forces closer to receive the charge.  In the meantime, my wizard had rallied and he re-cast the vortex in the hope it would become an annoyance for his Outriders.  The inevitable charge of the knights came on the halberdiers in his next turn.

My wizard was then (just) gunned down, but the halberds managed to draw combat in the first round, taking down his standard in doing so, while in my turn they killed the last remaining Knight for no loss of their own.

His missile fire dwindled them down a bit, but as the game kept continuing, they charged the Outriders and the archer.  The Outriders Fire and Fled, but where shot down by the crossbows as they did so, while the lone archer was hacked down by the halberds.

In the final turn, his last two archers where taken out, leaving the field to the forces of Marienburg.  

Victory was my part to kick off the campaign, and I had scored the bonus objective thanks to the turn my general and his greatswords had lingered next to the objective.  The Wind Blast was the moment of the match, but the real winner for me was the Crossbowmen, who got, admittedly, lucky on the Stand and Shoot, but eliminated stragglers afterwards as well.

 

This means that all the available bonus points for round 2 have been scored, and the force will be boosted to 740 points for the next game, which will be against the Orcs and Goblin tribes of Patrick.  Now to go on a shopping spree to bump the quality up this time round instead of the numbers...

But that will be a tale for next month!