Fight in the Forest

 My youngest son loves playing wargames, and he loves playing Warhammer Fantasy with me. He also loves to make up rules and be creative.  So for his recent 10th birthday he wanted to play a game where he was free to make up any rules he wanted, using any figures he wanted.  And so, this past weekend we played the game. He set up the board and only wanted a giant forest, and a specific rule for the trees (I made him write it down before the game so that it was clear before we started).  Basically you were allowed to knock down trees if you charged or came in contact with them. He added some special conditions for dryads (AoS dryads, for that matter).   

He loves playing as Orcs and Goblins. He loves the wacky, zany nature of the army and he has painted a giant squighopper model from AoS as well. Since it’s his game, we just combine all the rules and figures from different versions of the game because it’s fun.

Anyway, this game was High Elves vs Goblins in the forest. It was a ton of fun. He’s really really good at guessing distances so the Rock Lobber and Doom Diver are really effective for him. 

Here's a shot of the deployment

Some elf archers setting up in front of a wood

They've found their target - Blacktooth, the feard Black Orc boss, riding his chariot.

Despite many near misses, the Doom Diver finally hit the Repeater Bolt Throwern which was causing major havoc throughout the game.  Splat!

Lots of missile fire was exchanged back and forth until the goblin line finally hit the central Elf line. This would be the critical moment of the battle. Would the High Elf spearmen units withstand the charge?  After the boars that were pulling the chariot were killed from sustained bow fire, Blacktooth also charged in.

The goblins overcame the elves by weight of numbers, breaking them and causing them to flee off the table.

 Blacktooth and his trusty companion broke the other spearmen unit and ran them down.

The Goblins were determined to wipe all the Elves out of the forest, and were successful!  There was some last minute failed animosty checks with the goblins, resulting in them charging the Giant Squighopper. That was a good laugh.

Overall, a fun battle.  I really enjoyed playing with so many trees on the table. And it's always fun to play games with your kids.  Happy Birthday buddy!

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.

Eltharion

 One of my guiding themes in my current hobby projects is going back to my favorite GW battle reports or pictures from White Dwarf or other books, and trying to either recreate the shot, or play the scenario. 

This, of course, requires collecting and painting the figs!

One of those figs is Eltharion, the High Elf Prince on a Griffon, that appears in the starter scenario of my beloved Warhammer Fantasy Battle 4th edition boxed set.  Eltharion was included as a "standee" - card-stock picture of the character that represented the figure, along with Grom (goblin chariot), Orc Stone Thrower, and Elf Bolt Thrower. 

It occurred to me the other day that I had all of those actual miniatures painted, except Eltharion. I was close!  I scored a huge deal when I purchased an entire high elf army at a flea market, and Eltharion was included.  He was already painted and needed some fixing (tail broke off, properly pin the wings, etc.), but it was a perfect start. I didn't need prime him and I could quickly paint over the existing paint job without losing much detail. 

I think I spent more time repairing the model than I did painting it.  Anyway, here he is!  Now I just need to finish the rest of the High Elf army and I can re-fight the Battle of Maugthrond Pass.

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.

Save the Farm

My good buddy, Rookie Wargamer, had recently painted up some nice scenery and a small sheep, so the gears immediately started turning about a possible scenario...

We really like to use Age of Sigmar rules with the Old World setting: "AoS in the Old World".  That's the setting I used for this game.

Background:

A peasant farmer in the Empire province of Lietzburg has accidentally discovered what appears to be some ancient elven ruins on the edge of his property.  However, the nearby elf lord has also learned of the discovery and has dispatched a force to go reclaim the long missing family heirlooms, as well as conduct an honor killing of the farmer for desecrating the sacred ground.  The elves will also make use of some Lizardmen allied detachments. The farmer is obviously concerned for his safety but, ever the pragmatist, is equally concerned about his livestock.  So he has demanded that his lord Baron Edmund come repel the elven force and ensure the safety of his livestock.  

Objective: 

Both forces must control the elven ruins, as well as the farm. 

Major victory: have the most models within 6 inches of the ruins AND the farm.

Minor victory: control only one of the objectives as described above.

Starting on turn 3, at the end of any Battle Round, if a player holds all objectives as described in "major victory", the game ends immediately.  Otherwise, game ends after turn 5.

Special conditions for Empire player:  since the peasant farmer has requested aid of his lord, and also his livestock, the Empire player must ensure the safety of the herd, too.  Starting in turn 2, roll a die. On a 6, the sheep has escaped and moves randomly.  Roll 2D6 and select highest for distance.  In order to win Major Victory, the Empire player must control both objectives, AND have at least 3 models within 3 inches of the sheep, and have more models than opponent within 3 inches of the sheep.

The sheep can't be killed.  Only one sheep moves, the other animals are just for scenery.

With that, deployment!

We used the collection of barrels in the corner of the livestock pen to represent the "control the farm" objective.

We used this nice new piece of scenery, the statue obelisk thing, to represent the discovered elven ruins in the (also new) rocky outcrops.

The sheep mounted on the bases is the one able to get loose...

Lord Edmund, deployed at edge of farm.   Halberds in the crop field.   Behind the farmhouse, the small unit of Lord Edmund's personal guard (greatswords) have deployed as a reserve.

Swords and Pistoliers.

High Elf spears and archers have already breached the outer crop field.

Kroxigors in the center, looking menacing and generally irritable.

Small unit of saurus deployed on the Allied left flank to threaten the elf ruins.

The Elf Lord, sporting a nice new paint job.

The battle has begun.  Pistoliers advance and decimate the saurus after the crossbows do their work.

The allied line surges foreward

Despite some taunts and jeering from the Allied commanders, Lord Edmund takes up position behind the wall, prepared to bring his considerable skill to bear at the critical point...

The Elves unleash their arrow storm fury, ripping the halberds to shreds.  The farmer hears the commotion and quickly retrieves his old and battered halberd off the mantle above the fireplace and runs outside to lend a hand.  It's been years since he retired from the state troops unit but he still remembers how to get in formation.

The Allied line crashes into the Empire line.

The sheep has gotten loose!  The farmer will be asking for steep reparations...

Swordsmen hold firm, securing the elven ruins.

Not many crossbows left, they try in vain to fend off the Reavers.

The kroixgors make short work of the pistoliers

Seeing the left flank and farm about to collapse, Lord Edmund charges into the advancing spearmen, scattering the sheep.

The lizards surround the swordsmen

After finishing off the crossbows, the Reaver Knights leap through a collapsed section of the ancient wall, attempting to surround the swordsmen

Not looking good for the swordsmen with the swift Reavers dashing to the rear

Upon seeing their lord engaged in combat, the personal guard charge into the spearmen cutting a number of them down.

At this point, we forgot to take more pictures.  But basically, it was turn 3 and the battle hung in the balance.  The allied flank had totally decimated the Empire right flank around the elven ruins and had total control of that objective.  The Sheep was loose and the Empire did not have enough units left to go chase him down, so there was no way for them to win.  However, they could still force a tie and the greatswords unit almost pulled it off.  They had nearly tipped the scales in the melee in front of the farm, but it wasn't quite enough.   The Empire side conceded victory to the Allied forces.

It was a really fun game, and I think the very brief background story and simple scenario brought the game to life.  Fully painted armies and decent scenery made a huge difference as well.