Attack on Jomstead
A day of pure gaming pleasure today. Friend Chris and his nasty Orcs came up for a game of 'Warlords of Erehwon'. His Orcs were facing my goblins again in a glorious old school figure fest. Very few of the figures on the table were around before the year 2000. It was 899 points per side.
Being the host I created the scenario which was as thus...
Kruk the Destroyer looked down on the green fields below. All looked calm. His scouts had told him of the easy target for loot at the remote settlement of Jomstead. As Kruk formed his plan, (mainly suggested of course by Gurk his mage and chief advisor). Gurk suddenly called out “Boss look, it’s them damned Orcs again”
Kruk snarled in response, “ Get those sparkly spells of yours ready Gurk, it’s time to grab some loot and sort out those pesky Orcs of the Severed Hand once and for all”.
As Kruk glanced across to the far side of the valley he could see the Orc Leader Hasgar Sheol pointing up at him and his goblin horde, was the rancid orc actually laughing at him???
Kruk roared in anger, “ Come on lads, we have work to do”!
Set Up: Jomstead is a small farm of a couple of huts and a field or two, centrally placed on the table. Each player throws a d6, the score determines which table section they will be allowed to deploy in, upto 12” in.
Players will need to roll randomly to decide who is nominally the attacker or the defender. Highest throw choose’s. The attacker gets to choose whether to deploy along the northern or the southern edge.
Deployment: Each long table edge is divided into 3 equal sections, numbered 1,2 on the western edge, 3,4 in the centre section and 5,6 by the eastern flank.
Each player throws a d6, the score determines which table section they will be allowed to deploy in, up to 12” in. (see map).

Objective: the objective is for both sides to acquire loot from raiding Jomstead (and hopefully Victory Points too) and if they can kill the enemy leader so much the better.
Game Duration: the game lasts until one side reaches its Break value or until 6 turns have passed. At the end of turn 6 roll to see if a seventh final turn is played.
Victory: the side that acquires the most Loot and Victory points is deemed the winner. To claim loot, any one unit or character from a force must spend one turn stationary next to any of the buildings in Jomstead.
Jomstead Farm is home to Jom the farmer and his son Osbet. If looting Jomstead throw once on the Loot Chart for each building looted. Jom and Osbert are trying to flee with some of their livestock. At the start of the game (and each other turn) throw a d6 +5” and also throw a random direction dice. This is how many inches that Jom and Osbert have fled from the centre of their farm. Jom and Osbert have a base of livestock or a wagon each. Any player that moves a unit or character into contact with one of these bases also throws 1xd6 on the Loot Chart and places the livestock base at the rear of their unit.
Note: Loot can be swapped about amongst friendly units by simply having the units move into contact. Loot can also be stolen by an enemy unit that defeats any unit holding loot.
Players can also gain Victory Points by causing the death of the opposing leader. If either Kruk the Destroyer or Hagor Sheol are killed the opposing player earns an extra 3 VP. If Kruk or Sheol actually deal their foe the actual final death blow they will earn an extra 5 VP. |
Special Scenario rules: Loot: when a player loots a building or wagon, throw a d6 on the Loot Chart below to find out how much loot they have collected.
D6 score… | Loot |
1-3 | 1 loot |
4-5 | 2 loot |
6 | 3 loot |

Jom and Osbet, having spotted the Orcs and Goblins round up their livestock and possessions and are ready to flee.
With dice having decided that the Orcs were to be classed as the attackers we started pulling order dice out of the bag for deployment.
Hasgar Sheol deploying his troops.
Deployment, orcs on the bottom left, goblins right centre. This random deployment left the goblins a bit closer to the village which proved to be an advantage.
Jom and his son started to run off. I think we were so worried about what each other was doing we left them to it until it was too late and neither were caught. .
Moves from turn 1, note the two units of gobbledogs near the village,(mine look like wolves) about to get into melee.
The orcs try to sneak some archers round the goblin flank.
Note the runic stone fantasy scenery that Chris has made and gifted to me today, thank you my friend.
The goblin gobbledogs made short work of the orc ones, leaving just their dying leader, Grasak Kar who made a lovely snack for my gobbledogs.
Turn two saw some goblin warriors enter Jomstead and start grabbing some loot.
The goblin dervishes by the tree proved to be very effective, destroying two orc units including their Shaman which was a very good thing as we were wary of his 'Fiery Balls'
I thought I had taken more photo's but I must have got too interested in the game.
Gurk the goblin shaman finally got round to casting his 'Timidity' spell during turn 3. He badly affected 3 orc units making it difficult for Chris to activate them with the number of pins they had now suffered.
A second goblin warrior unit looted the other building and both goblin units with loot started to withdraw.
Trying to force his way back into the game the Orc leader Hasgar led his unit into battle only to be defeated and he ran off with the few remaining warriors of his bodyguard.
Kruk was charged by a large unit of Orc warriors but he and his (newly painted) bodyguard defeated the orcs in melee but only Kruk was left alive.
By this point things were looking bad for the orcs. Chris charged another orc warrior unit into the goblin archers on the edge of the wood. Amazingly, the goblins even won this melee by just one point and the orcs failed their break test. I certainly got the best of the dice throwing today.
With the orc horde now down to half and even some of them running off a victory to the goblins was declared. They had earned 4 victory points and the orcs 0.
We both really enjoyed this game and feel we are getting a clearer understanding of the rules. The dervishes performed very well and Gurk's 'Aura of Timidity' spell was cast at just the right time. Good dice throwing when casting the spell made it very effective. Kruk certainly enjoyed watching Hasgar Sheol run away. What a great way to spend a day.
I have a sneaky feeling that Chris will also be writing a blog, proving perhaps that history is not always written by the victor.
After the battle Kruk was seen giving this guy some of his loot.
"Ere" said Kruk, "what is that mad stuff you give the dervishes Gurk?"
"Oh, that is some powerful stuff" answered Gurk, "why?"
"I just put some in your tea" answered Kruk.