On Bloody Ground: Macedonians v Seleucid's.

 It has been a couple of years since I played a game v George at his house. In that time he has had some building work done to create a wonderful wargaming room that will be the envy of most gamers. George was keen to try WIP's 'On Bloody Ground Ancient rules 'and I was just as keen to get a game in with my newly painted Macedonian army. We had both read through the rules and selected our 2,500 point armies. I had played the rules a couple of times when they first came out but as that was a couple of years ago I still felt like a novice.

We went through the terrain layout and then deployed the troops. 

Here we are ready for battle. 

The main centre of George's Seleucid's. 

Most of my Late Macedonian's. 

Another view of my Macedonian's... 

...and another.

George had an elephant, why did I deploy my cavalry facing it? 

Turn 1 done and the armies close in on each other. 

George's Seleucid cavalry routed one of my companion cavalry units then turned onto the flank of the other. Over on the far right flank George had a unit of horse archers and some slingers who soon destroyed my light cavalry and peltasts over there. but I forgot to take photos of that action.  

Here comes the elephant which was forcing Leadership tests on my cavalry being within 12" of them. It was starting to look like my Macedonians were going to suffer the fate of all newly painted armies. 

Just before George's elephant and cavalry charged my remaining companions. 

It was no surprise that my cavalry got defeated in that melee, hit by the elephant to the front and the opposing cavalry in their flank. 

We also had some hoplite v hoplite action over on the left flank. We struggled a bit with the rles here, a bit confused over how many ranks should be fighting for each side. Despite that George unit won that melee too. 

In the centre our two forces were just getting ready for charging each other but sadly we ran out of time (too much chatting). Overall the four turns we got through tested the rules out as we had tried a variety of shooting and combat actions. We were a little puzzled over a few aspects of the rules but felt that we played things right in the end. George had got himself into a very strong position with both flanks collapsing on me so we called it a Seleucid victory. 

That was a fun day, a great game played in a nice friendly fashion. 

Barons War: Field of Glory

 For our fourth game of Barons War we played scenario 4: Fields of Glory. It was just me (Baron de Lacy-Rebel) and Ian Baron Maudsley-Royalist) playing this week with a 600pt Retinue each. We decided that the crossroads in the centre of the table was the main objective with my Baron's tent as another and the stone cross as the 3rd objective.

This was the first time that we had both used mounted Knights and it is perhaps not very surprising that they tended to dominate the action. In this photo Baron de Lacy shows his intention to ride around the flank and claim the Royalist objective...would his cunning plan work!

On the opposite side of the table Baron Maudsley is pondering his action plan. 

Baron Maudsley and his retinue after deployment. 

You can see their stone cross on the far side of the table. 

Baron de Lacy and his Retinue deploy.

Baron Maudsley advances.

Baron de Lacy sends his levy to take on the enemy levy (or simple folk as Ian calls them). 

Maudsley's levy won that fight so Baron de Lacy went charging in, due to some bad dice rolls he did not do anywhere near as well as expected but did manage to break the levy...just!  

Next Baron de Lacy headed along the road towards the crossroads. 

Note the retreating levy and also Baron Maudsley and his knights lurking in the background, protecting the cross. 

Baron de Lacy charges into the enemy crossbow troops and again, although they won the melee, it was not very convincing, I was beginning to despair of my poor dice throwing. . 

Baron Maudsley has seen all this.

 

So Baron Maudsley charges into Baron de Lacy and his knights, winning the melee and pushing de Lacy and his remaining knights back over the hedge. I could not believe how many '1's I threw on my 'defence' and 'shield' throws. 

Eventually only Baron de Lacy remained fending off Maudsley and his knights plus a few crossbow bolts. 

The end is nigh as Baron Maudsley claims the crossroad as quite an intense melee in the small field also goes Maudsley's way. 

Baron Maudsley charges in just to make sure the few remaining enemy are defeated. 

This was a clear victory for Ian and Baron Maudsley as he claimed 2 objectives to my one but with most of Baron de Lacy's retinue in tatters there was little that could be done to avoid the defeat. 

That was our fourth game, I had won the first two but Ian has pulled it back with two wins to make the current score 2v2. Next game will be scenario 5 and it will be the decider of this little run of Barons War games. 

Barons War: Attrition

 Today for our 3rd game of Barons War we went with the third scenario Attrition: whoever kills the most points of troops after 5 turns is deemed the winner. Ian and Nigel combined their troops for a force of 600pts against the same amount of points of my troops led by John de Lacy as usual. Nigel's contingent were led by Robin Hood and Ian's were led by a Baron but I have forgotten his name.  We had previously played at 500pts so this was to be our largest game yet. 

Robin Hood deployed on the left on top of the hill, taking a group of merrymen as his command group. Not sure if this correct within the rules for command groups but he had painted the figures so we went with it. De Lacy deployed his Retinue near his tent, clearly visible. 

De Lacy's mounted serjeants went charging in and were quickly surrounded by the enemy but thanks to some amazing defensive roles they actually survived but minus a few men. 

Robin Hood (stats taken from v1 of the rules) was a bit of a beast with his merrymen causing havoc with their shooting. 

Ian,s small contingent of knights try to surprise my knights led by a Lord (de Lacy's son we decided). This was our first ever mounted knights v mounted knights clash. 

A view of the centre of the table with my red and yellow mounted serjeants still surviving. 

They are quite surrounded by the enemy. 

Happily my knights defeated Ians, some good victory points in the bag for my retinue.

Elsewhere Ian and Nigel had driven off the one remaining serjeant scoring a good wedge of victory points. At this point Ian and Nigel were well ahead. 

Getting a bit cocky, my knights charged into some peasants. To my disgust I only killed one of them and then some upstart peasant slew my mounted Lord. This made Nigel very happy. 

My foot serjeants came down the road and charged Robin Hod and the Merrymen killing quite a few of them and causing them to be broken. You can see them backing off. 

In the final turn my two remaining knights charged Robin Hoods command group killing what was left and causing Robin to become broken. Not much else happened so it was time to tally up the fallen. I had suffered 302 pts of casualties compared to Ian and Nigel's 254. So a win for Ian and Nigel but with Robin Hood and the remaining peasants broken it is a shame I could not count them in my total as they were still on the table. 

Once more we had great fun with parts of this game being very cinematic. Next week we play again using scenario 4: Field of Glory'.   

 

The Map of Albion, a first campaign game of Warlords of Erehwon.

 The Map of Albion. 

Good friend Chris and I have been planning this for a while; using the Warlords of Erehwon rules to play through some of the old Warhammer Scenarios and Campaigns. Chris has been working on Orcs Drift and the Terror of the Lichemaster but we started with Dark Shadows, a campaign set on the misty Isle of Albion. Chris would be using his new Undead army whilst I would be using my Dwarf army, 99% of the figures used are lovely 'old school' models, a current shared obsession of ours. On the table were plenty of figures by Citadel, Chronicle, Ral Partha and Asgard amongst others. 

To kick our campaign off I developed a new scenario: 'The Map of Albion'. The aim of this game would be to locate a map of Albion leading to the owner of the map arriving on Albion first and thus becoming the defender in the first scenario from the Dark Shadows campaign book. 

The scenario for the Map of Albion was as follows...

...In this opening skirmish scenario all characters should be limited to a maximum of Tough 2 and Magic Level 2 until they gain more experience.  

‘The mists of Albion are clearing,

Keep sharp your swords for war is nearing!’

A minion of the Dark Lord has been sent to steal an ancient map from the dwarves. The map is said to show the hidden location of the dread Isle of Albion. As the minion flees with the map the dwarves give chase desperately trying to capture the minion and win the map back. The Dark Lord has sent a force of troops to help the minion escape to safety with the map.  

Set up: Place at least 6  rough terrain features as per the rules on p109, spread evenly over the board. The fugitive minion is hidden in one of the six pieces of rough terrain (woodland, swamp, rocky ground etc…). These terrain pieces must be set up at least 6” away from deployment zones and each other

 Once the terrain is placed players dice to decide which force starts from which side. Deployment will be along the long table edges, upto 6” from the table edge..  

Deployment: Is as per the rules on p111. 

Objective: The object of the game is to locate the minion and take the map from him and hopefully being in possession of the map at the end of the game. To do this players must search the areas of rough terrain to discover which of them the minion is hiding in. The first warband to contact an area of rough terrain will locate the minion on a d6 throw of 6, if not found the next search will be successful on a 5+, the third search 4+ and so on. Note that the minion (and his map) can change hands if the unit currently holding him is defeated in melee (routed) or destroyed by missile fire (the minions body with map is found amongst the dead?). 

Game Duration: The game ends at the end of any turn when the map is successfully carried from the table or one warband reaches its break value. 

Victory: The warband that possesses the map at the end of the game is deemed the winner. With the map in their possession the winners will be the first warband to reach Albion and thus will be the defending force in the first scenario in the booklet “The Mists Recoil’. The winners may also throw a d10 on the after game Progression table. 

Scenario Special rules: The minion is just a figure representing possession of the map, he has no melee capabilities etc…

So, Makhar the Necromancer deployed his Undead on the left whilst Amlodi, the Dwarf Chieftain deployed his dwarven troops on the right. The Green tiddlywinks are the objective markers. 

Moves for turn one were mainly runs or sprints to try and get close to the objective markers, ready to capture them. 

Chris managed to conjure a few extra skeletons for this unit. Note the flying Carrion Beast in the background; my dwarves grew to both hate and fear this beast. 

The skeletons managed to locate the minion with the map on turn 2. I had already rushed onto a couple of objective markers but failed the search which actually made it easier for Chris. 

(sorry for the blurry photo??).

Chris's necromancer, Makhar was also very effective, either hurting my units with his nasty little 'Chill Wind' spell or raising more undead. 

This Carrion Beast was tough. Not only did it have a Resilience of 10 but it could throw 3x rocks 10". Chris very wisely also deployed it well away from my one missile armed unit. The Carrion Beast was able to crush many a dwarf without fear of being hurt back. 

Makhar up to his magical trickery again, targeting the blurry dwarves on the far side of the building. My poor old dwarves gave chase to the undead, trying to catch up with the now retreating skeletons holding the map. Makhar was able to disrupt the pursuit with his spells. 

My depleted Dwarf warriors with big axes finally caught a unit of zombies and managed to destroy them in 2 turns. Hurray, I am finally killing undead!

On the left flank my dwarf archers were also starting to kill a few undead. 

Getting a bit cocky the dwarf warriors then charged Makhar and his skeleton guard. That was not a good idea, both units withdrew from that melee a bit sore. Makhar now withdrew his unit as the game was close to ending. The skeleton unit holding the map was easily able to withdraw from the table meaning that Makhar and his undead warband were victorious. 

This also meant that Chris could throw 1xd10 on the simple campaign progression chart I have developed and he threw a 7 meaning his warband could create a magical standard from the bones of his enemies. The standard grants all of his warbands units within 10" a +1 bonus to their Command stat, well worth having. 

As always, when playing Chris, we both had great fun and perhaps learnt quite a bit about army selection and the rules too. There was just time before Chris needed to leave for us to look at our next game "The Mists Recoil' and how best to convert it from Warhammer to Warlords of Erehwon. Can't wait!. 

More Barons War: The Prize.

 For our second game of Baron's War we played scenario 2: the Prize. We imagined that a local priest had hidden a document listing some of the rebel lords and both sides were keen to lay their hands on it. Ian sided with Nigel to take on my retinue; we are still playing at 500pts per side. 

Turn 1 and I sent in my mounted serjeants to capture the scroll.

Well that was easy...

Easy until Nigel loosed some arrows at my serjeants...   

...and just to finish them off, Ian charged his Knights command group into my serjeants. Three men down and my serjeants were 'broken'. We threw a dice to decide if in their flight the serjeants dropped the scroll. Luckily for me they did not so their flight was quite fortunate as they fled to safety with the scroll. 

Elsewhere lightly armed green troops danced around the wood trying to avoid each other. 

Then Ian sneaked his slingers into the wood to try and attack my archers who pulled back. 

My knightly command group charged Ian's and slew his commander. By the rule this meant game over as we only had one commander each so Ian could not try to elect a new commander (and I also had the scroll). Ian's command group was broken with just one knight left. 

Having claimed the scroll and killed their Commander I pulled my troops back to secure the win and forcing them to give chase but they never caught the serjeants holding the scroll. 

This was our second game (Nigel's first game) but it was really enjoyable once again. We are still finding our way through the rules but are improving our knowledge each week. Next week we increase the points to 600 per side with another leader figure each which should prove useful...I might try using some mounted knights but don't tell the others!