Battle for round 1, table 5

Round 1 - Across the Thirsting Gardens
Shimmering portals dump clumps of warriors along Asheall’s border. Befuddled by their journey, the fighters hurriedly take stock of the outlandish realm before them - sweeping grounds dotted with crumbling ornaments and the facade of a gargantuan palace. The sound of the true battle can be heard deep inside, but the entranceways seem to skirt around the vision of mortals. Animated stone groundsmen are on hand with helpful directions. In their haste, however, few fighters notice the small signs that read: “Please keep off of the grass”.

Set-up and Deployment
The Lawn
On each of the long board edges, place markers at 8” and 22”, as shown by the red circles in the deployment map. The rectangular area between these markers is the Lawn.
Fighters are on the Lawn if any part of their base is within this horizontal area, regardless of where they are vertically or if they are standing on terrain.

Objectives
Place four objectives around the centre of the board, as shown by the black circles in the deployment map. All objectives begin the battle with the Dormant status (see next page).

The Warden player chooses one objective. At the start of the first battle round that objective gains the Animated status.

The Vulture player then chooses clockwise or anti-clockwise, with respect to the centre of the battlefield.
Round 1 - Across the Thirsting Gardens: During the Battle

The Groundsmen
In this battle, objectives may take the statuses of Dormant or Animated.
Dormant objectives cannot be controlled by either player.
When an objective becomes Dormant, it is no longer under the control of either player.
There can only ever be one Animated objective in play.
Control of the Animated objective follows the standard objective rules.

At the end of each combat phase, the player who controls the Animated objective scores 2 victory points.

Feeding the Lawn
At the end of each combat phase, each player scores 1 victory point:
If any enemy fighters were taken down on the Lawn that round.
If any enemy fighters with the Hero runemark were taken down on the Lawn that round.
If more enemy than friendly fighters were taken down on the Lawn that round.

Change Places!
At the end of each round, after determining scores, the current Animated objective becomes Dormant and the next objective in the direction chosen before the battle becomes Animated.

Then, if one player has fewer victory points, they may choose to repeat this rotation process, but only once per round.