12 Маиуса 7533 года от сотворения мира
Любимая моя,
Пишу тебе после битвы...
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| the would-be shepherds meet |
After literal years of having turnip on the mind, Jim and I coincidentally finished big piles of terrain in the same month and managed to organise a game! Of course, that was two fucking months ago, because my brain then immediately froze on writing the after action report. I gotta work on this.
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| Slough Feegle Chaff (and Toady) |
The Earl of Slough Feegle's Regiment of Foot is constructed roughly similarly to my brave Motherlanders, except where I have some hard-as-nails Brutes, Jimmy has some weakling Bastards, mounted on disgusting horses which are
regrettably effective.
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| the Earl leads his Regiment of malefactors |
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| Motherlander Chaff (and Toady) spy a pus-sheep near the toothsome swamp |
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| the 333rd Turnips of the Motherland form ranks |
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| the long march is ended! |
We decided on the basic battle (A Long March), which is a fairly straight-up battle. I used my
cyclopean herder and his pus-sheep as objective markers; the two Regiments are fighting over food, after all.
Amusingly, the scenario blunder for A Long March involves removing
models. I do wonder what happens to some of Turnip's single-model units in those circumstances...
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| the shepherd anxiously watches as the armies fight over his flock |
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| skirmishing around the corner of the swamp |
The game started as you would expect; our skirmishers faces each other down, Jim charged his cavalry Bastards down the line, and I moved slowly up. Years of playing Death Guard and general sense of caution made me advance my right line in step, intending to play with my Chaff as a distraction.
Of course, I completely ignored that as soon as we started playing and just had fun with it. Turnip leads you in that direction.
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| THE HAND OF FATE MOVES ALL MEN AS PAWNS |
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| BANG |
I can't stand the touch of cotton wool (I'm neurotypical though), but Jim had made some basic firing markers for us, which worked really well. Turnip shooting is fun as hell and mostly totally worthless - except when it isn't, when it rules and you're going to live forever.
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| the players gonna play play play |
I rushed my Brutes forward to try and hold the tooth barricade (and a sheep) against the Bastards, otherwise moving my Chaff up to take another sheep. After my last few games being lost because I forgot to care about obejctives, I wanted to remember what I was here for this time.
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| this is how the gentlemen ride |
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| "I don't suppose you'll be paying me for these sheep now, eh?" |
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| cavalry: effective against skirmishers |
Of course, despite the heavy infantry directly in front of him, Jim sent the cavalry against the skirmishers. Which, y'know, makes sense. They did, of course, beat the fucking shit out of them.
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| ineffective line fire |
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| heavy infantry beats line infantry |
On the right flank, a few rounds of ineffectual shooting between fodder was eventually broken by my Brutes charging in, routing one half of the Earl's regiment to no losses of their own. Regrettably, they avoided the finger forest and withdrew along the greenish mud of this loathsome valley to comparative safety.
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turn... three? or two?
i really need to do these aars closer to the time |
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| it's all disco, baby |
The Brutes pushed on, taking a solid amount of fire from the two Fodder regiments, but bravely holding it together. Their Toady waved his bronze mace around menacingly, which probably helped.
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| baa. |
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| ohshit |
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| hold the banners high, lads! |
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| smoke and fire and the devil's laughter damn you all |
Around the back half of my army, the Bastards, having eaten my Chaff (I think the Snob got shot by Jim's Chaff), eventually came against a unit of Fodder. We mixed up a few rules in some of the sequences here - I think I accidentally said that all their Panic tokens should reduce their change of following an order, and so the unit lost a man. But the Fodder fire was also fairly effective, so we decided the mistake didn't really matter.
Besides, we were both having such a good time. This game is so fun.
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| turn four or so probably |
In between the two nightmarish forests, the Brutes were getting pounded with musket-fire but managed to charge against the Earl himself!
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| a mighty duel -- er, no, we just beat that guy to fucking death |
Turnip28 characters are
not good if you catch them with actual soldiers.
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| manoevering |
The remainder of the battle was a bit of a squib, with some small manoeuvres and some more gunfire, but not much else.
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| final board state (i think) |
In the end, the noble and heroic 333rd Turnips of the Motherland held two sheep, the cretinous and malformed Earl of Slough Feegle's Regiment of Foot held one sheep; both sides had lost a unit apiece; I had lost a Toady, and Jim lost his Toff. A clear victory to the sainted sons of the Motherland.
Conclusions
- We both loved Turnip28. A really characterful game, with the rules both servicing the narrative and fuelling it. Officers are useless (not one on either side did any damage), conscripts are stupid, and the whole thing feels ultimately futile. 10/10
- We do need to play more, and we will. It's a small enough game that if we made an actual effort at it, it would be easy to play more frequently - plus, we made all this sick terrain.
- (I haven't played a single wargame since this day, 25 May which was two months ago, so.)
- the tooth swamps and finger forests and gum barricades are even more horrible on an actual board, hell yeah
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