The Return to Herohammer

Note: This post was apparently sitting in "draft" state for 3 years and I totally forgot about it. I never really finished the thought but I figured I'd just post it now and get it there. 

When I dove back into Warhammer and jumped on board the #Oldhammer movement, I really loved the nostalgia, the atmosphere, and most of all, the old sculpts (don't get me wrong, the new modern sculpts are amazing technical miniatures, but I feel like there's just some character missing from them).

But the era that Oldhammer focuses on is Warhammer 3rd edition which was just before my time. I discovered The Hobby and Warhammer when WHFB 4th edition was released in all it's glory, and that's the game that I hold dear.  I will always love it but I also thought I was the only one that loved that version of the game.  It was a time of crazy magic and zany characters; the oft derided "Red Era" where it seems like 50% of every new kit was painted bright red.   When combined with 5th edition, the over-the-top nature of army lists with 50% special characters that dominated the game was dubbed Herohammer, and not in a "charming, nostalgic" way.

The advent of Facebook Groups, however, seems to have provided a place for us forgotten, shunned few that actually loved that era, with red paint and Goblin Green bases.

Anyway, that was a long intro to say that once I found the Herohammer Facebook Group, the nostalgia bug bit me hard and I'm going headfirst into a group of projects that I've always secretly wanted to do. 

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.

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.

Edwin Earns His Keep

 Fought a quick game of WHFB 4th edition in the continuing story of the Warpstone Conflict.

A quick recap of the most recent events: 

Lord Edwin the 3rd, newly honored as the Baron of Lietzburg, was young to his title and had not yet earned the right to bear the family heirloom, the Dragon Blade - the traditional sign of the full and rightful Baron.  He would need to prove himself on the field of battle; until then he would have to carry the Blessed Sword, a secondary artifact in the family's armory. 

So far, Edwin had not fared well as a young commander, recently attacking a Dwarf keep in the mountains of Wissenland, thinking the Dwarfs had found the warpstone and if he could retrieve it he would finally prove worthy enough to take up the Dragon Blade.  Unfortunately for Edwin, King Azegor repelled the Talabeclanders and Edwin was seen fleeing the battle field. 

Edwin regrouped, and after a few months, raised a small force to invade the Loren Forest where his commanders believed orc and goblin camp of Waaaggh Grom the Paunch and Night Goblin boss Skragg was located.  Of course, Boss Skragg was not involved in this scrap because he was too busy licking his wounds after his embarrassing defeat at the hands of Dwarf King Azegor.  Grom was also not at the camp, so the greenskins would be led by Skullface (notorious Black Orc, riding his chariot The Basher.

So that's the setting. A small battle, roughly 1100 points per side (4th ed army books).

Some Deployment shots:

Newly acquired squig hoppers in the Orc camp

Yes, that's a unit of common goblins.  A sight rarely seen on the battlefield.

Lord Edwin's newly raised force. 

Now, some action shots. 

This is somewhere around turn 2 or 3.  The Doom Diver catapult malfunctioned and shot the diver straight ahead, bouncing along the ground slamming into the first thing it hit which was...

...Skullface's chariot The Basher!  The impact killed both boars, so Skullface had to abandon his ride and trudge forward on foot.

The two battle lines approach each other. The other orc chariot on the greenskin left flank when far across the hill trying to outflank the Empire, but Baron saw it and ordered his halberdiers to wheel and counter. The common goblins were led by the NG shaman, Zom the third.  Originally they were going to hold back until Zom realized his Waaagh spell was a hand-to-hand combat only spell, so...they reluctantly moved towards the skirmishing Stirland Archers.  On the right flank, Blok the troll passed his stupidity tests by staying nice and close to Skullface, advancing towards the empire cannon on the hill, "Old Blue".   Fred the Giant was roused from a long nap and decided the pistoliers looked like a tasty snack.

It's about to get interesting...

Fred and the squighoppers approach the Pistoliers (i need a name for them, too). 

Back on the Empire right flank, the orc chariot was short on the charge the previous turn, so the halberdiers took the initiative and charged into the chariot, winning combat, and breaking them.  This caused the goblins to lose their panic check and flee.  

The amethyst wizard looks on as the halberdiers begin to chase the fleeing greenskins 

In the magic phase, the wizard cast Hold Fast on the chariot (night goblin shaman Zom was fleeing so he could not dispel).  This meant they would be stuck and would not be able to rally on their upcoming turn, potentially setting up a charge and destroy by the halberdiers next turn (cunning!).  

Nothing much happened on the next greenskin turn - Skullface and the orc boys tried to charge but were short, setting up the counter charge by Lord Edwin and the spearmen.    The Halberdiers successfully charged the orc chariot that was stuck by Hold Fast, destroying them, and causing the goblin unit to flee off the board.  The entire goblin left flank had collapsed at the hands of a single empire unit.   Also, Old Blue fired the cannon at Blok the Troll, killing him outright!

This would be the penultimate combat, as we reached the 4th turn. The spearmen failed to cause much damage and the orc boys (with additional hand weapons) caused enough damage to win combat (despite the spearmen carrying the Banner of Defiance into combat) and rout the spearmen...however...

...Lord Edwin saw his chance to prove his doubters wrong and launched into combat against Skullface with a fury he had not previous brought to bear.  Edwin used the power of the Blessed Sword and defeated Skullface, causing to fail his panic check as well. 

At this point, I called the game for the Empire.  The young baron defeated the greenskin army led by Skullface, sacked their camp, and recovered the warpstone.  Upon returning to Castle Lietziger, the seniors of the family presented the most treasured family heirloom, The Dragon Blade, to Edwin III, hailing him as the full and rightful Baron of Lietzburg.

This battle was a lot of fun, and it's time name the amethyst wizard as well as the unit of halberdiers.