Clash on the River Meirr-Fantastic battles in 15mm

 Today's game of Fantastic Battles saw Phil's Orcs take on the combined might if Ian's gnomes and my barbarians. The scenario was a battle for possession of a bridge as detailed below...

Having seen the error of their ways, the Gnome forces of Nature have forsaken the Orcs and  are now allied with the Barbarians led by the fearsome Wulfnoth. The Orcs led by the mighty Baar'N Dor are now advancing towards the bridge over the River Meirr, can the Barbarians and Gnomes keep control of the bridge before too many Orcs cross over to the western lands? 

Clash on the River Meirr.

1200 points of Orcs against 600 points of Barbarians and 600 points of Gnomes.

Objective: to defeat the enemy and be in control of the bridge. Roll a d6 as normal to decide who is attacker and who is the defender.

Each side has to deploy 1xd6 of units on the west side of the river, the rest of their force will deploy as usual over on the eastern side.

Terrain: as per map below with a few extra terrain features. The defender places the extra terrain, the attacker chooses which table edge to deploy on.

Camps: Each army has a camp (treat as rough ground) which must be deployed on the eastern side of the river in the appropriate deployment zone. If one side raids or captures the enemy camp, it causes a ripple of resolve loss (same as losing your Warlord, so -1 resolve per unit.)

The dice decided that Phil's Orcs should deploy first, along the southern edge with just the one unit on the western side. The Orcs suffered no 'mishaps'. That meant the Barbarians and Gnomes deployed along the Northern border and they also had just one unit deployed west of the river. In the 'Mishaps' phase quite a few of Ian's units had to move forward or backward, messing up his plans for that flank. 

Here you can see Phil's fearsome Orc army, large units of archers and large units of warriors backed up by Trolls and their base (hut) to the rear.

 (I seem to have lost my photo of the allies deployment). 

In last weeks game I never got chance to use my cavalry with their fearsome charge so this week it was straight into the orcs on turn 2. Three turns of fierce fighting later both units broke. We had an interesting discussion here when my cavalry had taken their full amount of resolve in damage but were kept in place by the single resolve of the captain with them (Brave Bodvoc, the Warcrow himself!). When activated could Bodvoc remove himself from the melee (basically save his skin) and then both units would  fight even though the cavalry had no resolve left? Couldn't quite find an answer in the book but we decided the captain needed to use his Resolve to keep them in place? 

My single company of scouts had been deployed on the West side of the river but did not fancy their chances against the large unit of orc archers peeking out from behind the bridge. So my scouts fled across the river, grateful that there were no trolls under the bridge.

In response, Phil activated his orc archers into column and they set off over the bridge to try and join the fray (but proved to be too late). 

Overview of the battle where you can spot Ian's mad mushroom berserkers. Their stimulants made them Impetuous resulting in them moving back and forth randomly and never getting into action-a tough unit sadly not used in the battle. 

The Barbarian chariot supported by Viking warriors edge towards the trolls which had been badly mauled by shooting from Ian's flying witches. 

CHARGE! It was a tough fight but the Trolls were routed and the warriors scattered too.

Right on the Eastern flank the Gnome Imps charged into another large unit of Orcs and just managed to survive whilst scattering the Orcs. Victory for the Gnome and Barbarian alliance. 

Interestingly neither side tried to capture the enemy camps during the game but the allies did use more single company units than before and their extra manoeuvrability seemed to pay off.  Phil's large units were tough but slow to react and do anything other than move straight ahead.

Another great game that once again came up with unexpected outcomes and also proved that we can defeat the dreaded Orcs!  I just did not take enough photo's of this game.