Battle of Hürtgen Forest

Last Thursday I played a game of Flames of War (FoW) (version 4) against Guus under supervision of gamemaster Lex. Guus is working on a FoW incarnation of the Windhundpanzerdivision; to test the first batch of his freshly painted troops a setting and scenario in line with their history were chosen.

The setting was inspired by the Battle of Hürtgen Forest, in which the Germans fought American troops in the last phase of ww2. In our case however it was my Tsejcho-Russian tank army that would try to drive off the defenders of das Reich. Lex had worked out a scenario based on the 'No Retreat', with some tweaks. And he was also our very hospitable host, rules official and just judge.

Like always I had prepared properly and read Lex' instructions intently (right...). However, one of those minor tweaks, stating that the attacker (me) was not allowed to use air support had somehow missed me. This was not a big thing, since I had expected to fight a panzer army (never heard of the Hürtgen battle before) I could now replace the Sturmovik points for tank riders, which would hopefully come in handy against all the infancty Guus had selected.

The other major setting for this battle was that almost the whole table would be 'forest' (the 'FoW type' of forest being indicated by the shade of green of the playing mat). My tanks would have a hard time driving through let alone fighting infantry!

In so far this was a historicly correct setting the battle worked out fine, for Guus and the Germans that is. Guus deployed his force dug in, waiting for the invaders, panzer IV's and HMG's in reserve and a small but important scouting group forward (in turn 0). My tank force of 15 T-34's, 3 SU-85M's, a pack of T-70's(!) and 4 BA-64's were deployed in a way to make most use of the one road on the board. My idea was to make use of my recce to spearhead a force of tanks up that road, but Guus clever use of his recce prevented this (wonder where he got this cunning plan from..?).

This meant my main force of a small and big contingent of T-34's were 'blocked' by the recce unit and stuck on the lef flank. To put some pressure on the other side I sent the T-70's and BA-64 there, trying to manouvre past the dug in troops there.




This plan did not work out too bad, except for some small problems: The smaller group of T-34's did not manage to get past the three stands of recce, the main force did smack through the other part of the German recce unit, but this took (too) much time. Moving through woods means bogging down a lot, taking (too) much time. Failing armour saves against artillery fire (PAK 50!) takes (too) much losses, even if you have a Russian number of tanks.
Medals (hero of the motherland!) went to the 'little ones' of my army: The BA-64 and especially T-70's made a heroic quest through the woods, around the left flank of the Germans just in time to pin down the defending infantry and PAK's to support the final all out atttack of the main unit on the trenches.

However Guus' dice rolling was not up to Guus' normal high standards, hitting, destroying and bailing enough tanks to force a break off of the assault :-)


All in all a very good start of the year and a return to the Flames. Can't wait for the next engagement!!

Mordheim: Battle for the temple

It was Friday night Mordheim Night. 6 players were initially lined up to visit my place and play a hefty game of Mordheim. We’re playing once every 4-6 weeks now regularly for a couple of years. A couple of months ago we decided to pick up the Border Town Burning campaign again and have been playing it with loads of fun. A list of 6+ war bands entered the competition and more often than not the Mordheim nights are visited by these 6 players! We’ve split up game play so 2 or 3 player games were run simultaneously but also 6-player games have been seen on the gaming table with loads of fun.

Large multiplayer Mordheim game interaction
I think 6 player Mordheim (or 4+ player for that matter) Works really well because you can all set your own agenda and try and work towards it. Since everyone has its own agenda you tend to bother each other less than in a 2 player game. In a 2 player you of course have your own agenda but it becomes clear quickly what your opponent is going to do.  Therefore it is easy not only to work towards your own agenda but is also easy to work against your opponents goal. Always fun to block plans and wreak havoc  at the same time to see your opponents frustration grow.
With more than 4 players it is more difficult to spot all other goals and even more difficult to work against all these goals. You cannot split up that much with your war band. In large multi player battles you see that opponents quit quickly find each other and multiple battles within the large battle occur. All in all a large multi player field is not much different than separate parallel game sessions.

The battle report
Ah well, enough for introduction ranting, on with the battle report of the Battle for the temple. We ended up with 5 war bands playing since one fell asleep at home! J

We decided to line up the table with the temple at one end and the starting position of the war bands all at the long end of the table lined up next to each other. A sort of sprint starting line! All war bands lifted their ladders, ready for the starting queue and started running! A set of hedges and bushes were in the way (dangerous terrain test!) and then it should be climbing up the temple as fast as possible. For each war band this should be the basic plan and with 3 ladders in each unit movement was somewhat challenging. All kinds of different movement rates made the distribution of ladders a science in itself! Does the big Ogre get to carry the big ladder or should 2 dwarfs carry it since their movement was reduced to begin with.  Maybe just average your movement out and have the fast moving models as bodyguards around it? Maybe use the Ogre bodyguard actually as a bodyguard or would that be silly?
All kinds of tactics could be followed here, in the end you need your ladders to get up to the 3^rd level of the pyramid and claim the prize, if no war band routs in the mean time of course! So there we have it, a starting line with war bands, a temple at the far end, a bunch of ladders and some difficult terrain in the middle J GO!

For me the tactic was to let my Ogre bodyguard not act as one and let him run with the big ladder towards the temple. He should outrun pretty much everyone, except for the other Ogre war band of course. The rest of my war band (Marienburg mercenaries) were there only to wreak havoc amongst the other war bands in order to delay everyone in getting to the temple.

 
I started shooting at the nearest target being some Nurgle dudes. My marksman shot at point blank range right through one of these fellows killing him instantly. The slayer in my war band was not to be restrained and charged the nearest group of undead. He was in such a rage! Swinging his axe around it inspired the dwarf treasure hunter to  get into close combat as well as the rest of the war band to get into combat with one of the nearest enemies.

Other war band tactics
The other war bands (undead, Carnival of chaos (Nurgle), Ogres, Witch hunters and Marienburg mercenaries to be complete) were starting to run (or limp or crawl or lurch) towards the temple as well. Some small skirmishes broke out here and there. The Ogres were running towards the temple just as my bodyguard did. They were running along the other table edge out of reach of my Ogre. I got over the hedges with no problems but the other Ogres turned out to be more engaged with ladders and each other instead of jumping the hedge.
The Carnival of chaos started to take revenge for killing their fellow war band member and with a nice aimed barf attack my marksman went down and out. I started fighting amongst the undead some more, taking down more and more of those rattling bones. The ogre bodyguard reached the temple and was making up his mind for climbing the first level. At the same time at the other end of the pyramid the other ogres reached the base as well. The other war bands were still struggling to get their ladders in one piece forward and more undead fell down.

View from the Carnival of Chaos (Sacha)

Scenario 62 – Ladder chase

Since we were with 5 players and there was no way to divide the rectangular table in equal parts with the temple in the middle. So we decided to start from one table end and race to the other side of the table where the three story temple and treasure was.

One other change we made to the rules was that you could still run if an opponent was within 8”, it was a chase after all. That and we had to deploy within 2” to 4” of each other.

We started out from 30” and rolled for the starting positions. I rolled a 3 which landed me dead smack in the middle. Flacked on one side by Arjan’s Undead and further away Ludo’s Ogres, and on the other side Tom’s mercenary crew and on the far side Ruud’s witch hunters of chaos.

My ladder teams looked like this: Two tainted ones with the sprint skill with the biggest ladder up front. Two plaguebearers and two Brutes with the small ladders behind them.

Nurglings on the flanks to run interference and my movement 3 carnival master at the back as support.  

I badly wanted to win a scenario for once, so my whole focus was on getting to the temple as fast as possible. That strategy got shot immediately when Tom won first turn and killed one of my big ladder carrying tainted ones with a point blank range head shot.

In my turn my other tainted one exacted revenge by killing Tom’s engineer with a vomit attack in the face.

From that point on my strategy consisted of running to the temple and catching whomever would arrive there to try and steal their large ladder. Most likely candidate were Ludo’s ogres, so my nurglings chased after them.  My brutes, plaguebearers and single tainted one raced to the front of the temple.

However by the time the nurglings were delaying Ludo’s support ogres and the bulk of my force were trying to climb over the hedge the game ended.

I ended up with a single experience point for killing the engineer during the game. My surviving heroes got an experience point, 1 campaign point for participating and 3 wyrdstone shards.

In hindsight it would have been better to adopt Tom’s strategy of going for experience points by killing then trying to win a single treasure. I guess that shows my newness to the game.

The end of the battle
At this time the undead war band took so much casualties, they routed the battlefield finishing the game. So actually nothing happened, no one reached the top to claim the chaos artefact, not too much casualties (aside from the undead), almost everyone survived in the end. Safe to say that my ogre bodyguard won the ladder handicap sprint for the temple but other than that it was lots of experience war all. The battle was fun however. Tactics were formed and a tactic of running towards the end goal was definitely something new in all the battles we played.

An evening of miniature nerding
The battle time was not too long especially when looking at 5 player multi Mordheim. On the other hand this Mordheim game night was ideal for discussing miniatures, painting, war games and whatnot. Everyone was discussing newly acquired games and mini’s, painting and scenery building techniques. It was maybe more of a miniature nerd evening with a beer on the side that game evening itself. And that is a good thing in my opinion, it is the one time your amongst fellow enthusiasts and you get to share stuff and as a bonus everyone understands what you’re talking about J

6 player Mordheim

Our gaming Group consists of about 8 people playing several different gaming systems. We started with the border town burning campaign and most gaming nights a max. Of 4 people can attend the gaming session. No problem since the campaign system provides the right mechanism to cope with this. However the other night a total of 6 players applied and actually turned up for gaming night! Now what! Multiplayer scenario’s are cool but 6-player is taking long turns and how do they all interact? Headaches all over the places.

Fortunately mister Akrimpen and I were running our weekly km’s and during these runs we come up with the best game systems you can dream of. Usually we forget them when finished running (probably only during the runners high you can conceive these brilliant ideas) but now we noted them down and confused our fellow gamers with this system.

The system
The 6-way Mordheim system is loosely based on the Triumph&Treachery ruleset for WHFB. We came up with a turn system based on playing cards. Each turn the cards define an alliance and a turn sequence. A set of 6 cards is needed with the suits defining the alliance (2 of each) and the numbers define the turn sequence. Each suite has a high and a low number (for example: 6 Clubs and Ace Clubs, 5 harts and 2 harts, etc.). Highest number goes first and then along the numbers.
First turn:  the cards are dealt randomly. After the first turn the player who went last (the Ace) gets the 6 cards and may choose the first card, then the player before him, etc. Now you can choose/guess your alliance but also determine the order of play (when you want your warband to have its turn). At the start of the turn all cards are revealed and the alliances are shown. If for some reason you are in H2H combat with your alliance partner at the start of the H2H combat phase the members are set 1 inch apart.

Scenario

Our scenario was fairly simple: 1 artefact in the middle and all warbands equal distances from the centre in 12 inch bubbles at the edge of the field. A more or less city playing field with a big plaza in the centre (lots of room for the big battle. Preferable a plaza with 4 entry gates and further fenced off.
Goal of the scenario is to get the artefact off the table. Only a hero can pick up the artefact standing next to it for 1 turn. If multiple heroes stand next to the artefact for 1 turn and you want to make a move first do a strength check to see if you can take the artefact and run. If not, you remain standing.
The rest of the battlefield has 6 weirdstone shards to pick. Just moving aside a shard, you can pick it up and continue your move.

Win conditions the usual (winning leader +1XP, surviving hero + 1XP, +1 CP playing the scenario, etc.) but we added the following conditions:

+1 CP winning warband alliance (both allied warbands get this even if 1 warband member got the artefact, this makes working together more interesting)

+1XP for the hero who got the artefact of the table

Battlereport

So far the scenario! Now for the batllereport, did it all go as planned and how good was this system!??

The 6 warbands were: Marienburg mercenaries, Beastmen, Carnival of chaos, Marauder horsemen, Ogres and Witchhunters.

The game started of with the beastmen running towards the artefact and the beastman shaman actually flying its first turn and landing on the artefact. A quick start here! The other warbands moved tactically towards the middle. Immediately it was clear the Ogres were more going for the weirdstone and the Marauders leaving their spawn alone to hunt Mercenaries.
The next turn the beastmen were shot at heavily, taking some losses and the shaman was taken out, no direct retreat move with the artefact here. The mercenaries positioned themselves with shooters in a tower and they let a hired Ogre bodyguard make a run for the artefact. Meanwhile the beastmen were picked of by the carnival of chaos, while withchunters were stalking some Ogres.
Next turns made it clear that the Ogres were only leaving with weirdstone if they were lucky and in their haste of retreating one Ogre fell of a ledge tripping his foot and crashing down heavily taking it out of action. Marauder horsemen were not faring too greatly being heavily outnumbered here. Only 3 on horse entered the fray letting the Spawn take on a Dwarf warrior.
At this point route tests were taking its toll and the playing field rapidly became more empty. The Ogre stood its ground and was apparently scary enough to start walking with the artefact. By now turn 6 arrived and the scenario ended, letting the Marienburgers have the victory and the artefact.

Awesome game in retrospect. The game system with the cards worked like a charm and all players were busy scheming to go first or last and plotting alliances they (might) get each turn. This time we played without weather rules and random events (BTB ruleset) since with 6 players the turns were already long enough. We had good fun and a lot of game in games were played (some going for weirdstone, some fighting out personal vendettas and some going for the artefact). Good clean fun I’d say.

The watchtower

A game of my Ogres vs the Nurgle warriors of chaos. For the first time my army list contained the mournfang cavalry! Yesterday I actually finished painting them but they were good to go on Friday. The rest of my army was a set of 7 Ogres, 5 ironfists a bruiser (BSB) and a butcher (lvl2). I added a scraplauncher, 3 maneaters with pistols (and swiftstride and poison attacks) and 3 leadbelchers for some shootyness and 2 sabretusks to harass where needed.
What was I up against: a hellcanon (of course), some low level spawn, a block of warriors of chaos (not to mess with), a chariot, a wizard, a hero with palanquin and it was topped off with some 3 dragon ogres.

The scenario I rolled was the watchtower and Chaos was assigned to guard it. Of course the warriors were put in the tower (maybe the single most difficult unit to defeat without any charge bonuses). The game for me started of with my first mistake: not charging the tower directly with the strongest unit I had. For some reason I sought out the my chaos opponents first to ensure a safe battle for the watch tower. This is somewhat odd since I had more troops than the chaos ones. An immediate charge and fight for the tower would have been a better plan. Start the conquest of the tower as soon as possible is a lesson learnt here.

My Chaos opponent did will by putting his warriors inside the tower. They are a tough nut to crack. I charged with my ironfists eventually but even with my big block of attacks it was not enough. The one time I won combat, the warriors stayed inside the tower and I had to start all over again. Subsequent attacks proved some losses on my side as well and in the end I couldn’t swing it before the game was ended.

While this should have been the centrepoint of the battle, I put my focus first on the dragon ogres and the chariot for I thought they would mess with my plans. Of course my chaos opponent manoeuvred in such a way charges in turn 3 were only succesfull. I had to charge the spawns in the end with my mournfang (completely wiping them out, mournfang are gooodd!!) before I could get to grips with more interesting units. The maneaters got to grips with dragon ogres (which should have been my mournfang with their impact hits) and got stuck the rest of the game. Luckily the hellcanon played no major part in the game as well as the magic users. I would have gotten stuck in sooner with some charges but it was not to be.

The watchtower scenario with Warriors of chaos inside was too tough a nut to crack with the mistakes I made. Fun game, good mournfangs, better luck next time!

Plans are nothing, planning is everything

This is not a battle report, instead it's gonna be a brief reconstruction of the 'strategic' planning that my fellow general Ludo and I carried out.. Which ultimately led to our cunning plan... that off course failed as soon as the battle started...

Context
Ludo and I were facing Tom's Ogres, in a 1000 + 1000 vs 2000 points battle. We used PBE Games dice roller to determine the scenario and scenery for the battle, that gave us the 'Battle for the pass scenario'. A suitable scenario, since the battle was to be played at my home, and a smaller battlefield fits so much better at our table... Taking into account the size of the table, both sides rolled twice for scenery, ending up with a 'Mist wreathed swamp' and 'Tower of Blood' to be placed by Tom and a 'Raging Torrent' and 'Altar of Khaine' for the forces of evil (that's us!).

So we knew the scenario and conditions for the battle, the lay out of the battle field and its terrain features (but not the exact location of these features) and the type of army we were facing. Furthermore we found out on the interwebs that Tom would field a 'shooty' Ogre army...

Planning
So Ludo and I started planning our armies... First decision to be made was what combination of armies to use. Ludo could field a Vampire army or a Slaanesh daemon army, I had the choice between Daemons or Warriors of Nurgle (Having played mono-Nurgle-armies the last 10 years I feel a bit awkward since the release of the new Army books.. All of a sudden I changed from fluff gamer into power gamer...).
And here our adventure in planning started, resulting in a long hectic mailthread..

Plan 1
Our initial choice was the Vampire/CW combination. At that moment we did not know that Tom was heading for a 'shooty' variant; our main fears were that we would be 'out magic-ed' and the big monsters that were spotted on his painting table.. We were also considering that big blocks of skeletons, zombies and chaos warriors would lead to congestion on the battlefield. So we would need to arrange just a few big 'anvil' blocks and some hard hitting (coping with the high toughness of the Ogres) units with a small frontage to sneak through the lines..
Plan 2
To cope with the big nasties that were supposed to be painted and battle ready by now (Stoned Horns, Mourning Fangs..?) we would field a secret weapon: A deamon prince of Slaanesh! This guy/girl could just fit in a 1000pts, but no upgrades would be allowed.. So a naked prince (fully in theme with Slaanesh). A bsb herald with a small body guard of Daemonettes and two units of Seekers all fitted nicely without breaking the point limits. The daemon prince looked like the only option available for Slaanesh daemons to 'hurt' Ogres and with its speed should be able to pick its fights, supported by the Seekers. Nurgle daemons would support this attack sending in Drones and infiltrating Nurglings. The anvil of the combined army would be formed by a block of Plaguebeares with two heralds inside.
Plan 2b
Then we found out that we were lacking magic defense (and offense, but that was a lesser concern) and that the new rules stated that generals and bsb only supported units devoted to the same God.. So, out went the Nurgle daemons, in came the Warriors. The WoN part would have to take care of magic defense (one level 2 wizard), the main anvil (unit of warriors), some distractions (hounds, marauder horsemen, spawn) and some extra hitting power (knights). All in all not too bad (and in hindsight, perhaps the most potential combination?). But then our spies found out that Tom's army was all about shooting (and probably some magic too...) So time for:
Plan 3
Since the nude non flying prince would be shot to pieces before getting into combat AND there was no way we could organize some sufficient (sufficient for our kind of dice rolling...) magic defense, we would go for an ALL OUT attack variant!! Fully chaotic to the max!!
So into the Slaanesh part came the Fiends and an extra herald to replace the daemon prince. Two heralds would join the daemonettes creating some sort of flanking anvil-in-emergencies block and a speedy threatening group combining the Fiends and Seekers. The Nurgle half of the army would also go for top speed, taking Hounds, Marauders on Horse and Forsaken(!) as core and adding Knights with a Lord(!!!) on steed and a exalted hero in a chariot as extra hammers (who needs anvils anyway?)!
The plan was simple (for once.. does this mean we're in fact learning?): Charge in as soon as possible, safety is to be found in close combat...

Plans are nothing
So, how did we fare? Eventueally we managed to fight off a bloody draw (and dare I say, we were a bit better positioned than the Ogres at the moment when we ended the game). So not too bad, considering the firepower of the Ogres. Six leadbelchers, Ironblasters, a Scraplauncher, a Harpoonist on top of a nasty beast and not to forget 60+ Gnoblars threw in some considerable firepower, making short work of the poor doggies and horsemen, and forcing the Chaos Knights once to roll for panic.. On the other hand, magic was slightly less impressive, certainly when a early miscast resulted in a three level degradation of the poor cook.
Slaanesh deamons turn out to be very good at killing off Gnoblars, but failed to hurt Ogres.. My Lord with his knights retinue performed under expectations (I'm really not suited to play elites), though this was just a bit emphasized by the Scrap Launcher rolling double ones in two successive rounds of combat....
Heroes of the day (for me) were the few remaining dogs that forced a big block of ogres out of the game by blocking the charge into a much more important unit. They died horribly for doing this, off course, it's a dogs life...
If we did not have to cope with the big horny monster, crushing Forsaken and only to be halted by the block of Daemonettes, the plan would have worked (but not as we had forseen ;-)
The Fiends and Seekers managed to execute a nice flank attack, killing the Gnoblars and tying up some Ogre units. On the other flank, the Lead Belchers, Iron Blasters and nasty unit with the Slaughtermaster were kept out of combat and if (and that turned out to be a back if) the Knights had managed to support the Seekers and Fiends, it could have been a decisive attack. In reality the Scraplauncher slowed the Knights down for almost three turns, buying time for the Ogres to rearrange their battleline...


Mistakes and questions
After reading the rules one more time I'm still not sure if we handled the close combats involving monsters and chariots right. I think the rules state that an opponent can choose to attack either monster or rider, in which case the Daemonettes for example should have attacked the rider instead of the T6 monster... On the other side, the Ogres could have attacked my exalted hero instead of the chariot. But I'm not completely sure, so rules lawyers, please enlighten me! ;-)

Hell cannon insurance

Rattling noises reflected against the cliffs of the small pass as the demonic cannon was pulled by panting Dragon Ogres. Three small creatures were running around the troublesome carriage commanding and cursing in an old strange language.
'These terrible high hats better make sure the cannon will be safely transported to the fortress. We payed a high enough price for this machine.' Nurgly mumbled by himself. The chaos wizard and his warrior revenue had made the long travel into the Dark Lands to obtain the Hell Cannon. Negotiating with the Dawi'zharr was hard, but gold, wyrdstone and above all a group of captured dwarfs was a price the Chaos Dwarfs could not resist. 'The imposing war machine would be an important resource in his masters army' Nurgly observed, 'but this one looks even more menacing and tempestuous.'

The chosen path took the small detachment through a cramped mountain pass. Nurgly sent a group of scouts ahead. They took off on their horses towards the left flank and some time later their horns could be heard in the distance, raising the alarm. After a small curse Nurgly organised the battle line. He could feel the presence of magic forces nearby, even of a kind of magister he had not encountered before. Stretching out in the palanquin, he scanned the pass. There were some arcane ruins halfway, but the forces he felt were stronger... With a small kick he commanded the Nurgling mounts forward. The warriors followed, leaving the Dragon Ogres to guard the precious cannon and it's crew.

On both flanks forests hid the enemy, but in the centre a group of Ogres was spotted, carrying what seems to be barrels on their shoulders. 'Curses, those dumb brutes.. I would have been happy to recruit them' went through the mind of the wizard 'let's hope they're few in numbers...' Behind him the chaos cannon roared and fired, spitting a foul projectile towards the ogres. The shot missed and the demon inside the machine screamed and grumbled. 'Hopefully those high hats will keep it under control!' Nurgly crackled.

The Ogre unit marched nearer and from the woods on the left flank two giant tiger like creatures emerged, threatening the marauder scouts. 'Move a little closer to those' came from the mouth of the wizard before he descended in deep concentration. Dark energies were folded up into a powerful spell, hitting one of the sabre tusk, killing it instantly. Moments later the scouts hurled a volley of axes towards the second beast, with the same effect. The Hell cannon added to this by hitting the lead belcher's. The ogres only took one wound, but the impact of the shot made them panic.

However the Ogres did not give in that easily. The lead belchers rallied and with a agile move occupied the center position again, bringing Nurgly and his group within shooting range. Even worse, from the forest on the right flank a massive group of Ogres broke out, being led by a huge Ogre. In this unit Nurgly spotted his adverary, a Butcher. 'Fire at them' Nurgly had jumped up and screamed in the direction of the Hell cannon crew. The chaos dwarf tried to turn the warmachine toward the Ogre unit. But then the demon bound inside the cannon jumped at the change. The spirited machine broke loose and devoured the three chaos dwarfs!

Things went downhill for the Nurgle worshippers. Nurgly and his revenue took two salvo's of cannon fire from the ogre cannon carriers. And how hard the chaos wizard tried, his magic powers could not overwhelm thite raw forces of the ogre magic. The winds of magic caused more victims amongst his bodyguard (despite that the Butcher was one time lucky to escape with just a wound left). Manoeuvring hard to keep his revenue out of charge range of the big block of Ogres, Nurgly saw the Hell cannon stampeding towards them! The ogres took their change/bait and charged the broken free demonic warmachine. A terrible clash broke out. The hell cannon was damaged by impact hits and the attacks of the butcher and his ogres. But somehow it survived, the demon was still bound to the carcass of the machine, howling and twisting. With a final move it puked out the remains of its venomous ordnance, killing the butcher!

The stubborn and murderous fight of the hell cannon turned out to be the pivoting point of the battle. Not only did the Ogres lose their general, their main unit was stuck too long in battle with the war machine and was outmanoeuvred by the unit of dragon ogres. These creatures charged into the rear of the big block of ogres and despite losing a dragon ogre in the fight, wounded enough ogres to break them. Simultaneously Nurgly and the remains of his unit chaos warriors charged like they were blessed by Khorne (rolling 11 on their distance roll where a 9 or 10 was needed). The lead belchers were overwhelmed and broken. In one and half turn the battle had turned completely, even the late arrival of a Gorger could not change the outcome...

Nurgly sighed as he walked around the remains of the hell cannon. A bubbling puddle of reeking mud indicated the place where the Ogre general had been submerged by the spit of the demon. Some nurglings were paddling in it and swarming over the twisted and bruised metal barrel and parts that once formed a mighty cannon. With a sudden kick Nurgly send one flying into the mouth of the barrel and a swallowing noise could be heard, followed by a hiss of steam. 'Let those prisoners take the barrel and as many parts as they can carry' the wizard ordered. The warriors and dragon ogres forced the group of captured ogres to comply. The small caravan took off, back towards the Dark Lands. 'Hopefully those pesky high hats will be able to repair the cannon' Nurgly thought 'perhaps I could claim that this should be within insurance regulations?'

Chaos in Carpathia, our first attempt

About a year ago we purchased the rules for chaps in Carpathia. Also a year ago we purchased the mini's that we were going to play for this game. Our warbands were collecting dust ever since :) But now was the time to dust of the old rules and get the game started. Something different then the ever present Mordheim, WHFB and whatnot. Since it was our first game, we chose a simple scenario within the city just to get to know the rules a bit. 3 warbands were present: Vampires, Witchhunters and my own warband: werewolves. I actually had some time this year to paint them, so fully coloured my warband members took to the battle field. My assylum inmates were some victorian ladies that banded with the wolves. The leader of the pack is the "dottore" in human form, but with the wolf features to distinguish him from a regular human. This post will from the werewolves point of view obviously. First thing I noticed with the werewolves was there movement. Specifically the enormous movement available to them (maybe I'm a bit biassed by playing with dwarves). Anyway, the werewolves were running around on buildings and parapets en suddenly getting shot at by vampires (or there henchmen). The order of play is refreshing. Every time a character or group moves, shoots, fights etc. until the next warband character or group can make its actions. This gives a good sence of everything happening at once. The werewolves were running and hiding while the witchhunters and vampires quickly got to grips with each other. It was a matter of who got control of the mob of our scenario. Nice to see influence working and a mob swirling back and forth. Eventually the withhunters got control of the mob after they lost a victim to it. My werewolves were getting in combat with the vampires and slayed some bloodsuckers. The combat mechanics gave us at first the idea, that all warband stats and members were very evenly matched. It took a while before a casualty fell in hand to hand combat. My wolf pack suffered a big loss at the beginning leaving only 2 wolves but they held out in the next rounds of combat. I found that odd, since their vitality (life) is measured by the amount of wolves left. Apparantly their stats were enough to survive and getting no wounds. The vampires had a bad time against the wolves, the fact that the withchunters were harassing them, wasn't helping either. All in all a fun game and our first contact with the game mechanics of Chaos in Carpathia. Defintely a game we will pick up and start a campaign with. For me, new wolves have been painted and the warband grows! :)

Victorious dwarfs!

It has been a while since we have been playing...well...any game really. It is a bit quiet at the gaming front so we decided to play a quick game of WHFB!
We are still learning the 8th ed. rules as we go along. We still play too little!
I investigated what I have painted in dwarf numbers and came up on around 1800 points. We decided to do a game of 1815 points as it is the year of the battle of battles: Waterloo.
With 1815 points I actually could start choosing what troops and what equipment and of course what runes! I went for the variety of troops with a big block of 30 dwarf warriors and small blocks of hammerers, iron breakers, thunderers, miners and even some slayers. A canon, a grudge thrower and a gyrocopter to top it off with some war machines.

My opponent had the warriors of chaos. He had a big block of chaos warriors and a large amount of flagellants to make up the core of the army in points. This time he went for a wizardy army with a level 4 warlock and level 1 wizard. Supported with two groups of 3 ogres and a group of dragon ogres this was a maneuverable army. Usually I got a hell cannon to take care of but not this time.
The battle field was the battle for the pass and a river split up the terrain in two. Some tower, buildings and stones made up the rest of the battle field. In the beginning the dwarfs laid back and started shooting. Only the warriors of chaos were within sight and with one canon shot a couple of the warriors were shot. Luckily the look out sir saved the chaos sorcerer this time! The dragon ogres crossed the river as the first troops and directly lost one! The rest sprinted towards the forest and a grudge thrower shot killed another one.

More movement of the warriors of chaos over the river was quite the disaster. The block of warriors was decimated with 5 of them dead. The ogres crossing the river, killed 2 and got a lot of wounds. The cannon and grudge thrower proved worthy killing more warriors. Two ogres charged but not quite made it. The thunderers let loose a volley of shots killing one outright. The remaining ogre was eventually finished by the hammerers.

In between these physical battles magic flowed freely. My rune smith with a rune of balance and rune of spell breaking dispelled nicely. No real damage from all the spells chaos fired at me. And all that remained in play I could dispel in my own turn. No rune lord needed yet!
The dragon ogres were eventually in charge range of the slayers. The orange beards charged and battle commenced. THey didn't fare as well as I hoped. My dragon slayer was not that good or not that lucky this time. But they died a heroic death. The gyro was also harassing the ogres and mad quite the wounds but was finished of quite swiftly in the beginning of the battle.
My block of dwarfs, iron breakers and hammerers were still very inactive and threatening but no action seen. The chaos warriors were only with 2 left and the sorcerer was killed in action. No ogres left and only some marauders this was the end of the battle.
Solid victory for the dwarfs! Lots of ale commenced!

My learning points were to be ready for the magic. This time I was "lucky" I think. But with around 2000 points a rune smith with anti magic runes is definitely needed.
My grudge thrower had no runes and should have had a rune of accuracy and penetration to do a lot more damage. Now a lot of shots went wide and did no damage. More of that and maybe lose the iron breakers for now. They'd seen no action. The dwarf warriors also had no action with BSB in them but maybe because they were so imposing on the battle field!

Mordheim still going strong

We are still playing the game. The blog might tell you otherwise but last weekend we had a good old fashioned game of Mordheim. Three war bands battling it out in the city of Mordheim searching for treasure.

Actually this was a scenario we already played a while ago. Then we had the Luggage (disc world) also attending. This time it was plain and simple searching the treasure and killing each other.
In the field were my trusty dwarfs, some halflings and a new kid on the block: Inquisitors!
The game started with the Dwarfs and the inquisitors squaring of in a narrow alleyway. Massacre commenced and in the meantime the halflings were prying open the treasure chests. That is not that easy when you are as small and a little weak.

The inquisitors were taking the upper hand at the start, but my sturdy dwarfs proved their hard heads worthy and they stood fast battling it out. The pesky Inquisitors were dropping like flies all of a sudden and the first route test took them running of the battlefield!
The halflings (cowards as they are!) were shooting their arrows at the dwarfs. This was no worthy foe to loose more men against in such a way and the dwarfs took of as well. They already had found some treasure and were happy as they are.

The 2 thunderers proved worthy of their guns this battle, shooting at very long range with one shot an inquisitor to death. What a marksmen they are!

BTB: Mordheim, The Siege

After playing the border town burning campaign for a while, it was time for it to come to an end. We wer playing regularly (once per 4-6 weeks), but to reach the 40 campaign points is taking just to long. The campaign was good while it lasted but it was time for the final battle. The three most regular players (in this case, dwarfs, chaos and halflings) got together for this epic battle.

The dwarfs took the defence and the halflings allied with the Nurglings. Fortifying themselves behind thick walls and a big gate, the dwarfs took position. The thunders (5 strong) took ther aim from the top walls along the gate and the rest (2 slayers, one hired slayer, 4 beardlings) stood behind the gate.

Outside a blizzard was blowing strong, visibility reduced to 10 inch the dwarfs couldn't see the Nurglys setting up and the row of halfling bowmen taking position. On the other hand the evil allied forces couldn't make out a dwarf as well so all was even.
The alied forces advanced at the gate. The Nurglys sending the cheep troops up front and letting the expensive hero's do a sneak climb at the far side of the wall. A warlock flew over the wall into one of the buildings in the castle. The dwarfs started to let loose volleys of led. Blackpowder smoke obscuring the gate even more in the blizzard. They did not that much damage in subsequent turns. This could also be said for the halflings. THey were shooting flights of arrows to the wall but failing to damage a single dwarf. Turn after turn the shooting continued and 2 dwarfs went down.

Meanwhile the warlock was trying to set fire to a building with some magic. Probably the flying consumed all his energy, because he fumbled and failed epically! The rest of the Nurgly heroes were scaling the wall and the dwarfs behind the wall were doing some patroling but were too far away. The Nurglys were setting fire to a building with the three of them and clever enough trapping themselves in the fire! They were pinned and taking damage here! Finally the warlock managed to set fire to a building and it burnt down to the bottom in minutes.

The dwarfs managed to kill a thieving halfling that had hidden within the Castle walls; one of the slayers that is. The rest of the dwarfs not shooting at the horde at the gate (that was having much difficulty with the gate since only 1 member of the warband was strong enough to damage the door: the pitfighter), were running to engage combat with the Nurgly heroes. The slayers were really going down on Ticky and ShyShy, in moments only pulp was left in the hallways of the castle. The warlock didn't stand long as well and the Nurglys were thinned down.

Outside the gate the Halflings wer sick of waiting and wasting arrows and started pumping arrows in their allied Nurglys in front of them. A massive onslaught continued. After a couple of turns the halflings and Nurglys were halved. All warbands were now taking route tests each turn and it was inevitable that one warband should leav the game. When some earthquakes started to shudder the castle and surrounding grounds it was too much for the Nurglys. They ran of the battlefield. The Dwarfs were taking this bad as well, the Noble could reroll a failed route test one time (he failed the roll with a double 6) and failed the reroll just as badly (again a double 6), leaving the few halflings that were left with the victory!

What an epic battle it was, this was no doubt the biggest onslaught for all warbands. All the saved fundings were put in to expand the warbands to full capacity, resulting in this epic fight. A worthy ending of the Border town burning campaign. Now only to start searching for the new campaign setting...

BTB: Horde approaches

lot of projects going on on this blog, but is there being played anything Mordheimy? The answer to that question is yet. There was a game played a while ago that did not have a battle report over here. Luckily I found my notes that made me able to reconstruct a bit of that big battle. There was a lot at stake here because if the posessed were to win a castle had to be built before playing the next BTB battle. Let's see what happened.


Some normal weather out there in the cathayan borderlands. A group of dwarfs and halflings are banding together to get a messenger to a nearby town to warn the inhabitants of the chaos threat. The chaos horde was bellowing in the distance behind the walling of the derelict town the defenders were in.

The dwarfs and halflings shooters were up in a tower and a bodyguard was maneuvering the messanger to a spot were it could get a clear run towards the neighbouring town. The possessed split up along the wall in order to be able to stop the runner. The division made them weaker but definitely not to be underestimated. It seemed they even hired an ogre to support them in this fight.

A lot of maneuvering is taking place inside the city with the possessed trying to scale the walls. This was not that easy since one of the plaguebearers jumping a gap fell and hurt his kneecap badly suffering a wound from a 2 inch drop! What a wussy!
All of a sudden one of the buildings burst into flames! Just as this setting was to be one of the more boring ones this unexpected event happens! Luckily it was a building well out of the way of the defenders and especially not the tower all the shooters were in.

The halflings were snipering away with their arrows and doing a good job. The elder shoots Frogface out of action with a great quick shot with a dark venom arrow. What a nice shot!
They had to show their skill since of the sniper thunderers killed the Ogre on turn one already. This was after all fire of the other thunderers softened him up a bit.

In the small fights that follow within the city walls the slayer that just followed the dwarfs went down but one of the beardlings killed "The drummer" possessed.
It wasn't for long that the messenger had an almost clear run and went for it. One of the possessed " The butcher" managed to grab a hold but the messenger killed him instantly while jumping the wall and working the spurs un his horse to create a big distance between him and the chaos horde.

What a good fight it was. The result being no castle to be built yet and a lot of experience to be had since the warband ratings were way apart! Dwarfs and Halflings claiming the victory for once!