Escort the VIP - IHMN V2.0 Battle Report

 Quick battle report from our first run through of the v2 IHMN rules.  My 10 year old son loves playing this game, and he also likes making up rules so we added some additional rules to the Escort scenario.

Notes on the pictures - some of the pictures were taken before we added the fog, so the chronological order of the pics is not totally accurate.

Scenario - Escort the VIP, Fog rules, "activate the gates" special rules

A company has to get their escort from one end of the board to the other; other company gets to set up as an ambush. Also used the Fog Rules - basically while the fog is in place, roll a die to determine visibility in inches. On a double, the fog is lifted.

Background -

The Mad Scientist Dr. Horscher has lost control of one of his experimental "Stone Men", and has hired Lord Curr's company to escort the Stone Man (the VIP) back to his laboratory, The Horscher Institute.

The US Secret Service has found out about the loose experimental Rock Man, and has dispatched Special Agent Dempsey to extract the experiment and return it to the USA in the interests of "Global Security". Agent Dempsey, along with his second in command Agent Sigma, have commandeered a squadron of US Rocket Corps for the mission.

The main thoroughfare is Queen Street which leads to the Horscher Institute.  

Additional Scenario Rules - The escort company (Lord Curr) has to enable the generator to activate the gates at the end of Queen Street, to open the pathway to the Institute.  Model needs to make a successful Pluck roll while in base contact with the generator.

The foggy streets of England.

Lord Curr's company at the far end of Queen Street, with their VIP.

The experimental Stone Man

US Rocket Corps deployed on the top of factory building, waiting for their quarry to appear...

Curr's company rolled first initiative - rocketmen on the building.

The generator behind the factory.  Also needed to make a successful pluck roll to move the barrels out of the way...

Curr split 2 Incorrigibles (Fitz-Curr and purple pants) over to the generator on the first turn.

Rocketmen spotted them, and Rocket Sgt Madison sent to men over to the back of the factory - they dropped a grenade, but with the fog and height, it missed. This alerted the constable guard.

On the back over on Queen Street, one rocketman dropped down to stop the incorrigbiles from resuming escort. Sgt Madison dropped the grenade hoping to take them out as well, but he mistimed the throw - the grenade went off just as the rocketman was landing - killing his own man!

2nd rocketman dropped down to help the fight for the generator, but the Incorrigble Purple Pants knocked him out of commission.  Fitz-Curr joined in support as well.

After rolling doubles, the fog had officially lifted, giving Agent Dempsey a better view of the situation.  With three out of five Rocket Men out of action, including Sgt Madison, Agent Dempsey at this point realizes things were quickly getting out of control and that his remaining Rocket Corps were outnumbered.  He signaled Agent Sigma to begin advancing down the street - Dempsey took cover behind the building, with Sigma behind the crates.  Mohan Singh saw Dempsey and unloaded a burst of fire with his machine gun, but hit the building.  Dempsey fired back, missed while dodging the hail of bullets.

The view from The Institute down Queen Street

Curr and his Incorrigbles escorting the Stone Man

The Rocketmen back at the generator turned the tables, knocking out Fitz-Curr!

With the help of another Rocket man, they took out Purple Pants as well, preventing him from turning on the generator to open the gates. 

The big scrum has ensued now - the rocket men come down Peacock Lane to join in. Multiple rounds of hand to hand combat end in a stalemate with fumbles and amazing Pluck rolls.

With the reinforcements arriving, Dempsey is squared up one-on-one with the infamous Lord Curr, and takes him out of action!  The tables have improbably turned in favor of the US Secret Service.

But then, a series of terrible rolls result in Agent Dempsey as the last man standing, outnumbered, facing an Incorrigible and Mohan Singh.  Dempsey manages to trip Singh and take him out.

With only a single Incorrigible left, Dempsey uses his pistol to crack him on the head, knocking him out. 

He single-handedly secures the Stone Man and boards the Secret Service Ornithopter to spirit it away back to the US.  Against all odds, Mission Accomplished!

It was a really fun game.  The scenario, background narrative (mostly invented by my 10 year old son who was playing the game with me), and fog rules really helped to create a good setting for the game. It's one of the things I love the most about IHMN - every game really feels like a story.

As for Version 2.0 - I tried hard to go slow and actually read the new rules. For the most part, it's the same game with minor improvements (group fights, shooting into fights, etc., all much simpler).  Mohan Singh definitely feels like he's worth his points value now.  Looking forward to seeing how the adjustments to the Mystical Powers works out. In Version 1.0, they were definitely unbalanced. I played a number of games against The Servant's of Ra and Ahkenaton was pretty powerful. 

I'm definitely back into IHMN - I've decided to start upgrading my terrain: better pavements, better buildings, and convert my cobblestone MDF boards to insulation boards. The MDF is too heavy to carry around to conventions.  I'm also going to paint up my additional companies and NPCs so we have more choice.  Can't wait to get in some more games!

Battle for Maugthrond Pass

Waaaay back in the early 90s when Warhammer Fantasy Battle 4th edition (the best edition) came out, I got the boxed set, and like many people, played the scenario that came with it - the Battle for Maugthrond Pass.   Also like many people, we (as my best friend Le Coq Fou mentioned) frantically glued all the plastic goblins and elves and had to use the cardboard cutout "standees" to represent the cool units and characters like High Elf Prince Eltharion on Stormwing, the repeater bolt thrower, the Orc shaman Blacktooth riding the Wyvern, the stone thrower, and of course, Grom the Paunch.  With a bedsheet draped over some books for hills and a paper cutout template to represent the woods, we thought wargaming couldn't get any better.

Some 30+ years later, I realized that I now owned all of the actual miniatures for those cardboard standees and, even more surprising, I had finished painting them.  The only thing left to paint was a few high elf archers and spearmen.  All the goblins were painted, too (technically they were night goblins from the Skull Pass boxed set and a few oldhammer metal goblin archers, but good enough).

It was time to refight that scenario with fully painted armies on a real wargaming table.  

Here's a summary of the refight and a photodump. The scenario was surprisingly balanced and a lot of fun.  Staggering the elf reinforcement arrivals certainly helped, as did delaying Etharion's arrival until Turn 5.  Any earlier and he probably would have wiped the field.  For the sake of fun, we adjusted a few unfortunate early die rolls (like the stone thrower misfiring and destroying itself on turn 1!), and tweaked a few rules near the end to keep the cinematic effect going.

(Click the picture for larger image)

Overhead shot from a different angle than the map.  Use the directional arrows to re-orient...

Thronduin's guard patrolling the village. They can't move until the warning beacon is lit.  Neither can the elf archer reinforcements.  

The goblin horde, led by Grom, emerge from the early morning mists of the forest.

The Orc Shaman Blacktooth managed to get some pretty good spells.

The main goblin spearmen unit ignore the watchtower and march as quickly as possible to the village before the warning beacon can be lit.

After the first elf was killed trying to light the beacon himself, 3 more elves ran down together

The orc stonethrower crew estimated the distance perfectly to nail the bolt thrower, but their accuracy was a little off....and instead had a direct hit on the goblin spearmen!

4 gobbos squashed by a stone. oops.

Blacktooth, after spending a turn to successfully extract the power of the magic Standing Stone and charge up the Black Amulet (victory points!), he cast Da Krunch, summoning Gork's foot (or was it Mork??) to flatten half of the elf archers.  The promptly failed their panic check and fled.

By now, the warning beacon was lit, so the archer reinforcements began to enter the battlefield.  But it was too late for the smaller spearmen guard unit.  Grom charged the unit and wiped them out, then angled into the village to lend support to the goblin spearmen who had charged the larger guard unit (Thronduin's Guard). The supporting elf archer unit failed their panic check from the nearby destruction of the other spearmen unit had nowhere to go, boxed in by Blacktooth.

Turn 5, Eltharion has arrived to "save the day".  He almost did...

This battle was epic. Eltharion charged, and the Sword of Teclis did it's damage - killing Blacktooth. But the Black Amulet was still able to bounce a few wounds back onto Eltharion, ALMOST killing him. On the next turn, Eltharion eliminated the wyvern who was loyally standing guard over the dead body of his master. 

 

Meanwhile, Thronduin's guard routed the goblin spearmen, but didn't catch them - this left their rear flank exposed to a charge from Grom...who was also charged simultaneously by Eltharion (i forget how we got into this situation, but it was legit)

Anyway, for fun we decided to have the chariot attack (and the wolves) count against the high elf spearmen, but then have Grom and Eltharion fight each other as a challenge. We resolved everything simultaneously, and Grom managed to kill Eltharion (he only had one wound left...), and the chariot attack just murdered 75% of the elf spearmen unit,  who was run down by the chariot after the fled. 

The final overhead shot. We counted up the victory points, and the Goblins won 25-11!   A resounding victory.

My son and I had a blast playing this scenario. It definitely helped that we tried to make decisions in keeping with the "narrative play" instead of the absolute best tactical/game rules decision. For example, with only 1 wound left, risking 10 victory points by having Eltharion charge Grom was not the best idea (it basically won the game for the Goblins), but there was no way that Eltharion was passing up a chance to battle his arch enemy and try to repel the Goblin lord. Plus, this is Herohammer - the characters are destined to fight each other!

Hope to have some more refights over the remaining holidays of 2023.

Herohammer at Historicon 2022

 It was great to be back at Lancaster Convention Center in downtown Lancaster PA, for Historicon 2022.

This isn't a full convention review, but rather a quick recap of one of the games I played on Friday.

A big highlight was a Friday meetup with some of the Oldhammer in the US guys, where we played some Warhammer Fantasy 4th edition (Herohammer, more appropriately).  Since all of my miniatures are temporarily packed away during the basement refinish project, Anthony was kind enough to bring an entire High Elf army for me to use, while he played the Orcs and Goblins.  Dustin brought some scenery, and we were able to get a great game in.  

Apologies for the poor pictures - the lighting in that particular room was poor.  We did our best, including Anthony attempting to use his phone flashlight as an additional light source, to varying success. Anthony generated the army lists ahead of time and his miniatures are beautifully painted.  The pictures do not do them justice.

Summary - 1000 points per side.  Only one mage (on the High Elf side).  Orcs had a unit of boar boyz (awesome 3rd ed metal boars), wolf riders (also 3rd/4th ed metal), Big 'Uns (Knightmare games i think), Rock lobber, bolt thrower, and a boar chariot.

High Elves had two bolt throwers, unit of spearmen with battle standard bearer, two units of archers, a mage on a horse, and a chariot.  Mage drew Fiery Convocation from High Magic as his one spell, and it would become very instrumental later in the battle. 

Here's the overhead picture of the deployment (High Elves closest, Orcs and Goblins at top of picture).

The Greenskin battle line forms...

Wolf riders!

High Elf Reaver Knights, archers, and the mage (also the general).   I kept the chariot back as a reserve (at first...)

High army book and Battle Magic book in all their glorious colors.  Also can see the old card-based High Magic spells. 

The Reavers move up with the chariot in support

After High Elf turn 1...

The orc Boar chariot charges the Reavers.  The battle is joined!

A few turns later, and the spearmen had taken a number of hits from the orc stone thrower and bolt thrower.  The wolf riders were approaching on the flank...

...here the come...

fast forward a few turns - the orc boar chariot destroyed the reaver unit - the high elf unit then destroyed the boar chariot (in pursuit), and flank charged the boar boys.  At one point we thought the boars fled on a panic check but then we remembered the the orc general had the Crown of Command, and Anthony passed his leadership check. Phew!

Anthony unleashed his rock lobber on my High Elf mage, with a perfect guess of range, then he rolled a hit on the artillery die, and proceeded to roll a one for the wound roll! The mage amazingly survived.  Which was unfortunate for the Orcs because the mage just kept frying units with the Fiery Convocation.  Easily the MVP of the battle. 

The wolf riders swung around the building on the extreme left flank of the high elves - the remaining spearmen reformed and took the charge, but the wolf riders were still getting roasted by the Fiery Convocation spell. 

After turn 5 (or 6), we called the game and the High Elves won a close victory.  It was a lot of fun. I can't remember the last time I actually commanded a High Elf army. 

I couldn't stick around for the next game, which was Dustin and his awesome Dwarf army, vs another gent that came by and was watching the first game.  

Anyway, great fun.  Thanks again to Anthony and Dustin.  Hopefully we'll get to do it again at Fall-In 2022.