Jomsvikings

It’s been a while since I last got out my Jomsvikings (over two years ago I think), but I decided to field them against an Irish army for a livestock raid scenario. It turned out that they’re pretty well suited to this sort of game. Though they are an incredibly aggressive army, they are also very fast moving, and good at blocking some of the Irish abilities which make them fast moving.

I didn’t play a legendary warlord this time, I just took four hearthguard and two sets of warriors. With the exception of a single hearthguard unit, everyone had heavy weapons.

The Jomsvikings got to go first, which is bad when going up against the Irish who want to have lots of terrain. So we ended up with five terrain pieces. However, I put down a large hill in my starting corner, which nullified a lot of the Irish abilities.

Since we started within M of the corner of the table, neither of us could fit all our figures onto the table. The Jomsvikings, being mostly hearthguard, started with only one unit off the table, whereas the Irish had a couple of units off the table, giving them a dice disadvantage.

Turn 1

The Jomsvikings went first, and completely forgot touse manoeuvre. I made an immediate rush for the livestock, taking fatigue to do so. Fury of the Pagans allowed me to move quite quickly, and my opponent didn’t cancel anything to give me wrath. I then used A Storm Rises to remove fatigue, and once again my opponent declined to give me wrath tokens.

A lot of Jomsviking abilities can be cancelled by the opponent in exchange for proving wrath tokens. These can then be spent in other abilities, to give extra bonuses. The Irish in this game were clearly worried about what I might do with wrath tokens, so kept on letting me do what I attempted (though not what I wanted, which was wrath tokens).

We then did random livestock movement (actually we forgot, and did it early in the Irish turn). I rolled really well, and 4 of the 6 livestock bases came in my direction.

It was then the turn of the Irish. The also moved, but not as quickly. They used The Old Way to move multiple units, but didn’t get very close to the livestock.

It was then their turn to roll to see which way the livestock moved – and most once again came in my direction. This was to be really bad for the Irish.

Turn 2

The Jomsvikings moved fast and grabbed things. Again, Fury of the Pagans and The Storm Rises were really good at moving forward multiple times, and then removing fatigue. By this point I had grabbed three of the livestock and were beginning to move them back to my corner of the table. Since points were only on the number of livestock grabbed, the best the Irish could hope for at this point was probably a draw.

The Irish rested, then tried to use The Old Way again. This time I played Punishment, which would cancel their activation unless they gave me wrath. I was fully expecting them to give me wrath, but they instead accepted the cancellation.

The Irish did manage to grab a base of livestock, and moved up and threw some javelins at my hearthguard. They got one hit, but no kills.

Turn 3

The Jomsvikings continued to move their livestock back, using A Storm Rises to continue to remove fatigue after multiple activations. Though I didn’t need to, I decided to force combat and played Fury of the Pagans to active three units. The first charged into the nearby unit of Irish warriors.

I also played Pagan Faith with an ‘yew’ symbol, meaning I get +3 dice unless my opponent decides to cancel it (giving me two wrath tokens). Then I get to resolve it a second time. I was allowed to take the +3 attack dice the first time, but the Irish gave me wrath tokens for the second time.

The Irish played Wail of the Banshee, giving them extra defence dice and defence bonuses. I got 9 hits, but only 1 kill. They got 5 hits, and 2 kills, driving my Jomsvikings back.

I then tried to charge my second unit of hearthguard in using Fury of the Pagans, but that was cancelled for another wrath token. My final use of that ability was a simple move.

The Irish tried to play The Old Way to move several units, but I cancelled it with Punishment. Their heroes and hearthguard moved up, using javelin attacks on my injured hearthguard unit, eventually wiping it out.

But by this point, the Irish had no chance of winning.

Turn 4

The Jomsvikings had one base of livestock off the table, and were able to get a further three units off early in the turn. I moved my forward units back to not lose any more, and started moving a fifth base of livestock in my direction as well.

Though the Irish got their livestock off the table, it was only one base. It was highly unlikely that they would be able to grab the final base from me, so we called it.

My memory of the Jomsvikings is that they were a highly aggressive faction, with lots of good combat abilities. I’d forgotten that they had a number of abilities that allowed them to restore fatigue and move. Being able to move and take multiple actions is really important in this scenario, so it gave them a big advantage over the Irish.

The Irish also have some good movement abilities, but not as many. If I was willing to take the risk of having activations cancelled for wrath tokens, just sticking “birch” on Fury of the Pagans (which is a basic ability, so I can put multiple dice on there) would allow a ridiculous number of activations of any type. Though I didn’t think of it, I could also use it to rest my units.

I’d also forgotten that you can give Jomsvikings units javelins with Song of Steel as well. Since I didn’t get any wrath tokens until the end of the game, I didn’t really get to make use of most abilities. But in this game I didn’t need to.

So it was a clear victory to the Jomsvikings. A slightly better, a huge amount of luck when rolling for random movement of livestock, and more aggressive movement at the start (though again that partly comes down to the board) meant that the Irish never really stood a chance.