Fantastic Scuffles first clash

The first thing you need to know is that this is less of a battle report and more of a series of impressions and thoughts. This was my first game with Fantastic Scuffles and, as first games go, it had its share of mistakes and forgotten rules. You read the rules. You build a force. You put it on the table. You suddenly forget how to do an attack roll.

It wasn’t actually that bad.

The truth is that the rules, and the army building, is all theoretical until you put your minis on the table and start checking for LOS. That trait which seemed awesome when you read it in the rulebooks seems less unbeatable on the tabletop. The warband you created doesn’t mesh like the complex Swiss watch you thought it was.

Hence this being a set of impressions and first thoughts.

Please note that this post is based on a very early version of the game. It will most certainly change as it develops.

Getting the game started

I put together two warbands, the Wild Hunt and Argash the very Grim’s band of miscreants. The current Fantastic Scuffle rules have an Encounter scenario that is played on a 2’ x 2’ table. It has some rules for terrain deployment (which I ignored) and a table that you can use to roll for an objective for each warband. There are currently ten entries. The first six do not require the use of NPCs and those rules are not currently in the playtest package provided. Originally my idea was to have one warband get The Messenger objective and then have the second use the Ambush objective. The only issue with that is that the current Ambush objective has the two parties deploying very close to each other and I thought that in a two-player game this wasn’t going to be fair. Instead I gave the Wild Hunt party the Acquire the item objective. This would normally use the NPC rules but I instead decided that one of the models in Agrash’s warband had the item that the Wild Hunt wanted to acquire.

So the table was set up to fulfill the narrative of the game as defined by the two objectives. There was a road that went from one corner to the other which would allow the messenger to travel across the board and exit from the other side. Agrash himself was determined to be the messenger. The Wild Hunt were on the lookout for an item that was in the possession of Rockham the Scarlet. Since Rockham wasn’t an NPC they couldn’t buy it so they either had to pickpocket it from him or kill him and then loot his body. Very murder-hobo behaviour for a group of valiant looking elf-centaurs.

Lets roll some dice

Fantastic Scuffles uses a chit draw activation system. Each party adds a number of chits to the bag equal to the number of distinct unit profiles they have plus one wildcard activation chit. So one for each character and then one for each Minion profile. This is similar to Fantastic Battles. The Wild Hunt put in six chits and Agrash’s party added seven. I then remembered that since Karthaen, Huntcaller was starting the game riding on the back of Skaeth the Huntsman that the party would only add five. Skaeth has the Mountable equipment item (think of it as paying for a saddle) and Karthaen wouldn’t get their own dice until such time as they dismounted. They would both act together until that happened.

I think that chit draw activation systems get a bit of unwarranted abuse amongst gamers. They are indeed beholden to the RNG gods but I think that this is something that you have to take into account when you plan your games. You probably won’t get to generate the follow-up attack you want so don’t plan for it. I mention this because you would think that with a somewhat equal number of chits in the bag that each side would have an equal chance of drawing a chit. Most of the early turns saw groups of draws for each side which meant that one party, and then the other, got a chance to beat on the other without response. It is always critical to remember that every additional chit of yours that you draw means that your opponent will be getting more and more likely to do the same.

In chit draw systems, at least in my experience, the second chit of yours that you draw is a boon but the third is never a good thing. It only foretells of a bevy of consecutive activations for your opponent. Which is why I like this type of system. I used to play a lot of Beyond the Gates on Antares which uses the dice draw system from Warlord Games’ WWII rules. At some point you want your opponent to have an activation so you avoid the end of the turn being a one-sided affair.

Fantastic Scuffles adds a wildcard chit to the system. This is always the last chit drawn for each team and it allows you to activate any model but only to do one action. There is a trait, Heroic, which you can take to allow you to do two. Argash has it which is why he was the messenger in the scenario since it would let him take two move actions at the end of the turn to try to get to the opposite corner of the table. The addition of the wildcard activation throws another delightful wrench into people’s plans as it stops one from being able to even plan what you want to do on your next turn. Your opponent can move a model that is in charge range. It can attack and remove one of your models. Or, as was the plan, it can use it to move a model off the table to claim victory points.

Victory Points

The Encounter scenario gives each side 1 VP for each Character taken out of action. No points awarded for Minions as they are just miserable swine that no-one even cares about. In addition to this, each party also has an objective that will give them a varying number of victory points. The Messenger objective gives a player +3 VPs for getting their messenger off the table. Ambush gives the player additional points for taking party members out of action and even more for taking out the entire party.

The Encounter scenario gives you quite a few ways to get VPs but also ways to stop your opponent from getting them. Why not kill a party member that your opponent is trying to ambush? Hunt the Monster? Not on my watch! This becomes more of an issue (and more fun) in multi-player games but even in a two-player game you have the flexibility to win by not allowing your opponent to score points. And since your source of points is different than theirs this allows you to win while still blocking them.

The story of the game

Well that was a long preamble. Let’s talk about the game.

Before continuing, let me mention that my terrain is a work-in-progress. I am rebuilding my collection after a move to Edmonton. It’s a long story. Please excuse the unpainted terrain in the miniatures.

The Wild Hunt were attempting to get an item from Rockham the Scarlet. They could kill him but they would get more VPs if they could pickpocket him. Argash was attempting to hold off his opponents until he had a chance to get off the table and continue his delivery. I deployed Argash and his band within 6” of one of the table corners with the road. The Wild Hunt chose to deploy close to the deserted and ruined building. Even though there was no ‘thief’ in the party it was possible for any member of the Wild Hunt to try to pickpocket Rockham. The rules don’t specify any class requirement for the action.

Spoiler alert: neither of the parties actually succeeds in their objectives. I also forgot to roll for the Environmental Conditions but let’s pretend that I did and rolled a 6+ and got a good day.

Trees, as described in the rules, are meant to be individually placed but I decided to put mine in areas of rough terrain. I wanted something formidable for Sheoch the Tracker to move through. And that is how the first turn started out. Rockham moved forward down the road to scout it out and then Sheoch sprung from his starting location and danced into the rough terrain near the trees. At this point he was benefiting from Stealth which made him quite difficult to hit. The Hobgoblin minions were close enough to move and then charge into Sheoch. This provided the first illuminating moment of the game. Minions are utter shit. I was worried that they would be too good since the game doesn’t really have a lot of negative traits. Once the stats of the minions met the dice it was clear that they needed no additional help in being utter chaff. This is a good thing.

All of the minions started within 6” of Wilkham the Wrangler so they could all finish one action and then do a second. The plan was to move them all into position and then attack with the outnumbering bonus but the terrain laid waste to that. I was left with having to move them all and then charge in hoping that each successive minion would survive to build up a decent bonus for the last one. Sadly, the second minion charged in and missed with its attack which gave Sheoch an Opportunity Attack. Even with the -1 modifier to hit he killed the Hobgoblin. This caused every minion within 6” to make a Resolve test. The unactivated Hobgoblin failed his roll and promptly ran away.

That was the first lesson.

Althaen with the magic bow climbed up into the ruins to get a good vantage point to shoot. Havel the Untested moved forward (the Abyssal Dwarves are very slow) and got into position to attack Sheoch in the woods. The Hobgoblin archers all took aim at Althaen in the building and two of them managed to hit. Only one was able to cause a wound though.

Hitting and Wounding

In Fantastic Scuffles there is a to-hit roll and then a subsequent wound roll. Hitting a model in melee or shooting them with a ranged weapon has a few situational modifiers such as terrain. The wound table is a D10 roll that gives options for 0-4 wounds for an attack. The RtW roll (Roll to Wound) is typically modified by the target’s armour and by the attackers brawn and weapons. The modifiers fall somewhere between -2 and +2. Rockham is a bit of a brute with a +2 RtW modifier based on his size. The Abyssal Dwarves all have a -2 RtW modifier based on their armour. That said, you can still roll well and do a significant amount of damage with a single attack. The main thing to remember is that you never know how much you are going to wound a model so nothing is guaranteed. So when the Hobgoblins shot Althaen they then rolled with a -2 RtW modifier based on their puny size (This was incorrect. Their Shooting RtW was -1). So one arrow hit but did nothing.

More action

The original plan was for Skaeth to transport Karthaen into the thick of things but the game started with both sides very close to each other so Karthaen hopped off after Skaeth’s first move. This meant that Karthaen wasn’t going to be able to activate for the turn. Skaeth then charged into Rockham and did two points of damage with his spear. Argash threw his magic spear at Karthaen (his Mystic Missile spell) and managed to put a single wound on him. The cat/dog hybrid Lighaen ran up behind Skaeth and tried to get into position to do some damage to the Hobgoblin archers next turn.

The next turn saw Skaeth and Rockham trade some blows. Wilkham the Hobgoblin overseer moved into contact with Skaeth to try to help provide a distraction to make him easier to take down. Lighaen charged one of the Hobgoblins and I forgot that they were Evasive and should have ran away. Luckily Lighaen killed one of them and the other two failed their Resolve tests and did actually run away.

Havel the Untested moved to attack Sheoch but Havel couldn’t wound him and Sheoch couldn’t deal with the 9 Def that Havel had with his shield. Karthaen did some advanced measuring and then moved so that he was within 6” of most of the Wild Hunt and the cast his Inspire spell. It was actually his magic horn (that sounds rude) but he was able to use it successfully.

Argash wanted to continue down the road but found it blocked by a peculiar cat/dog creature which he quickly took out of action with his spear. Both Skaeth and Sheoch passed their Resolve test. Skaeth actually always passes Resolve tests.

The Hobgoblins basically die and/or flee. Skaeth and Rockham continued to trade blows with little effect. Karthaen continues to use the Inspire spell and also stay the heck away from combat. Havel hit Sheoch and did a resounding blow which took him out. While all of this was happening, Argash used his activation to move further down the road. Althaen used her magic bow (the Entangle spell) to entwine Argash and did so tightly that he took damage from the spell in addition to being unable to move. With nothing to fight, Havel attempted to move down the road to help fight Skaeth but is dropped by an arrow from Althaen.

A quick end

The following turn Argash kept moving down the road. Althaen firec two arrows at him (this is incorrect as she could only have shot the one time) and the first knocked Argash down to one wound but the second did no damage. Skaeth was forced to move out of combat which generated two Opportunity Attacks from Rockham and the Hobgoblin overseer. The Hobgoblin missed but Rockham dealt a punishing amount of damage which put Skaeth below half his Wounds. He moved and then charged into Argash. Since this attack is from behind he got a bonus and Argash wasn’t able to get the benefit of his shield. Argash is run over and will be unable to deliver his message.

It quickly came down to only Skaeth and Rockham left on the table. Skaeth made to chase him but Rockham decides that there is no reason to sit around and become a possible casualty and so he fled off the table. This takes the Wild Hunt’s objective off the table as well.

Argash’s warband only had three characters and so the Wild Hunt got two VPs for taking out Havel and Argash. The Wild Hunt had five and thus Argash’s team managed to earn 4 VPs and manage a win. Given that the party’s namesake was killed I am not sure how much of a victory it was.

Thoughts

Warbands

As expected, the parties that I built didn’t fully work in the fashion I thought they would. This is fairly standard when first playing a game of this type. I like that Fantastic Scuffles has spells but that they aren’t restricted to spellcasters. I had three spells in play during the game and not a single Sage. All of them were narratively attached to magic items that the models were carrying. Some of the issues with the parties and characters I built was not fully understanding the impact of the combat system. The Dwarves were slow but almost immune to attack. And missing a melee attack in this game opens you up to an Opportunity Attack. Just ask the Hobgoblins how that went. The Hobgoblins were more fragile than I thought but part of that was adjusting to how to play minions in this ruleset. The important thing is that the characters kept to the theme that I had for them. They might have had some issues with combat or activation but the sneaky guy was sneaky and the big Ogre was suitably big and Ogrish.

Combat

It took a little bit to work out the best way to resolve combat but once I figured that out things went quickly. The rules add some additional chaos into combat. You might hit but then you may not actually do any wounds. The little guy might plunge a sword through your armour and do three wounds. It is a bit random but not in the way that a game like Frostgrave is random. The physical attributes of a model are going to limit their potential for damage as will armour. So nothing like the typical Frostgrave issue where a footpad with a rusty knife rolls a 20 and kills your knight. The Wild Hunt’s archer was quite deadly but at a critical moment she failed to kill Argash and this required Skaeth to risk Opportunity Attacks to charge in to stop Argash. The chaos in the system provides narrative not just wildly improbable results.

Spells

My next game will have a Sage and some ‘proper’ spellcasting but it was also nice to see that spells weren’t just for a single class. As well, they were easy to use and fit into the game easily. I’ll have more comments after playing a game with a different set of warbands. Fantasy games are better when there is easy access to magic IMO. Magic items, spells, mysterious plinths. I have played games with little to know magic and they always seem like medieval skirmish games. Fantastic Scuffles is a fantasy game with the proper amount of magic.

Fun?

Ultimately nothing really matters unless the game was fun. I am happy to say that even in this initial solo game I did have quite a bit of fun. The game zigged and zagged and developed a fun story. The Encounter scenario, even at this early juncture, provided a fair amount of variety and gave each party a distinct goal. Those goals weren’t directly in opposition to each other but each party did have to stay aware of them to ensure that the other party didn’t pull off a win. Players need to balance achieving their goals with stopping their opponents. And happily none of the objectives appear to be game winning in and of themselves. I had enough fun that I forgot to write down any notes or take any pictures after the third turn.

My main fantasy skirmish experience has been with (A)SoBH. Even in a pre-beta stage I like these rules more. I always felt as if I was trying to fight the Song of Blades and Heroes rules to make my models fit and that wasn’t the case here. I had a goal for each party and I was able to stat up minis to match it. That seems like a successful game to me.