Swords Against the Dark Empire: Wrath of the Lich King

Unfortunately I have fallen a little behind on my painting goals; the weekend turned out to be a little busier than expected, so I am now running a two-stand deficit, which I will have to make up at some point. But, to assuage my conscience, I decided that we might as well play a couple of games with these figures we've been painting. So on Sunday night we spread out a ground cloth on the living room floor, and fought three battles.

The first two games saw the dreaded Army of the Lich King pitted against the miscellaneous forces of Good. The Lich King is a Hero General, backed up by two Magicians, two Blades, two Shooters, and enough Hordes to make up the rest. On my side, I had three Knights, including the General, three Shooters, including Dad's two stands of elves, a stand of Blades, a stand of Flyers, a Hero, and a Magician.

The first game was rather anticlimactic; my Hero snuck through and captured his stronghold almost immediately. It had been a while since something like that had happened...

So we set up a rematch. This time I was the defender, and managed to pull off a second victory. My troops unsuccessfully charged up this hill several times, but the Elves managed to hunt down one of William's Magicians in the woods, and my Hero chopped through his Shooters and his other Magician.

After that, we switched up armies entirely; I wanted to give my new Antediluvians a try, so William agreed to lead the Dinotopians against their soon-to-be ancestral foe. My line of Spears did pretty well against his Warbands and Behemoths...

But unfortunately he got his revenge by breaking through my cordon of Riders with his Hero, and took my stronghold.

Today we got a package in the mail from our grandmother, containing our snazzy new double-sided ground cloth. The stand is my Dargograd cavalry from the other day, now all properly based. We decided to have an inaugural game, my Antediluvians against the Lich King...

The armies muster for battle, while my Riders prepare to make a flanking maneuver. Hills are always troublesome when it comes to balancing your troops; it's worse when they have two-inch pikes...

The flanking maneuver sees some success; I managed to pin down and destroy one of William's two Magicians, but not before he had ensorcelled mine. Against the second Magician and the Lich King himself, my Riders were somewhat outmatched...

At last the battle lines meet. Off to the right, a lone stand of Spears skirmishes ineffectually with William's two Shooters.

A few turns later, things have not gone so well; I have overwhelmed William's Hordes temporarily, but his Blades have cut a whole in the center of my line, and the Lich King himself dealt the finishing blow by offing my left-most unit.

All in all, an enjoyable set of games. The Antediluvians seem well on their way to a proud tradition of defeat, and hopefully I can close my painting gap over the course of this week.