Ilium: A Game of Heroes - Night Mission

 

Sleeping Thracian warriors with
Rhesus' chariot in the centre

Diomedes and Odysseus deployed,
Odysseus is near the chariot

Odysseus escapes in the chariot

On Tuesday morning Craig came over and we played another game of Ilium: A Game of Heroes out in the shed. This time the scenario was a Night Mission with Odysseus and Diomedes raiding the sleeping Thracians (allies of the Trojans) to steal a chariot, from the Thracian king, Rhesus. The scenario is from The Iliad:

Then on they went, through weapons and black blood,
and soon they reached their goal - the Thracian camp.
The men were sleeping, totally exhausted.

The splendid weapons lay beside the sleepers,

set tidily in three rows on the ground.

Each fighter had his chariot beside him,

and a pair of horses. In the middle, Rhesus

slept, with his fine quick horses at his side,

tied by the reins onto the chariot rim.

Homer, The Iliad, Book 10, 585-593 translated by Emily Wilson, pp.240-241, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 2024

This was a really tough scenario for the Achaeans to actually win as the two heroes were alone, against three sleeping Thracian heroes and their contingents, with a single promachos from each contingent, awake as sentries. These sentries could alert their sleeping companions, who could awake on passing a resolve test and then activate in the next turn. 

Night vision in the scenario was limited to 6" and in our game one of the heroes and their contingent never woke. Odysseus was able to jump in to the chariot and move it towards his side but the sentries alerted their companions who were able to attack the two Achaean heroes. In the end it was a very short game as Diomedes and then Odysseus were overwhelmed. Maybe two Thracian heroes and their contingents rather than three would make for a more balanced scenario? 

Thracian sentries raise the alarm

Diomedes and Odysseus are eventually overwhelmed