Hammered Scots!

Played Hammer of the Scots today and got HAMMERED as the Scots!  This is a Columbia Block Game on the Scottish wars with the English.

Setup for the scenario, Blue is Scots and Red are English.  That big blob at the top left are not actually in play.

End of turn 2 (1298).  The big blob of blocks in England (top right) have special rules to enter but when they do they can do some serious damage!

End of turn 3 (1299).  We were both working out how the game plays, the way to win is to have the majority of Scottish nobled supporting your side.  You do this by having control of their area at the end of each year or defeat them in battle.  In either case they will instantly defect to your side.

End of Turn 4 (1300).  Don't remember much of this turn but from the blocks left on the board at the end it was not a good year for my Scots!

End of turn 5 (1301).  A better year for the Scots.  I thought I was going to go from this position and start routing the English!  How WRONG I was!

End of Turn 6 (1302).  The English King finally ends up in the English reinforcement draw.  He and his troops proceeded to annihilate Scottish resistance in the south.

End of Turn 7 (1303).  The king trounced some more of the Hapless Scots but Mornay managed to run and hide, and so Ross was forced to convert to the Scottish cause since Monray was sitting in his area at the end of turn (Ross' area is the very bottom with two blocks in it).  The King has to leave the board at the end of the turn and goes back into the draw pile.  Probably missing his tarts, English swine!

End of turn 8 (1304).  Things are going from bad to worse to rock bottom.  The King was drawn as a reinforcement and then sea moved to the middle of the map with a knight.  The Scots had to scramble to stay out of the way, in the process Ross switched sides once again.

End of game.  The English moved first and caught the Scots.  Edward and his Knights made their attack and scored enough hits to kill off the Scots (Edward rolls 4 dice and hits on a 4 or less, Deadly!, and the other hits on a 3 or less).

A very fun and quick playing game.  I am looking forward to playing it again.  I have some ideas on how to put in a better game next time around and look forward to putting those ideas to use.  First is using a speed bump unit to slow up King Edward.  This game I tried to stop his big stack with a stack of my own - I ended up losing badly.  Second is to buy lots of units at the end of each year rather then building up nobles.  This allows holding territory that has been taken while allowing a unit to stay behind to hold MY territory as well.  If you can force a noble to defect at year end you get them at whatever strength they are currently at while defeating them in battle will leave them at strength 1.  Plus more blocks in play means more speed bumps for the king...