It was great fun today to have a first game of Warlords of Erehwon with long time friend Chris. We hadn't had chance to play a game for a while but had both been busy painting up some old school minis so we felt it was time to get them on the table. Originally we were planning on using the old school mini's for games of Dragon Rampant but felt that whilst we like those rules we wanted something with more fantasy flavour, where dwarves can be dwarves and orcs can be orcs! So we decided to give Warlords of Erehwon a try. Thus my random collection of Asgard, Hinchliffe, Dixon and Grenadier Dwarves took on Chris's mix of Citadel and Marauder orcs, all figures designed before the year 2,000; great stuff, what more could fantasy gamers in their 60's want!
Well we wanted a scenario for a start so for our first game we felt it best to try the 1st scenario first but with an added twist to give the game some background story. As host I kept the scenery fairly simple and came up with the following...
The Hill of Sleng
A first game of ‘Warlords of Erehwon’ scenario 1 with a slight tweak.
“Orcs west of the Twin Peak Mountains” roared Amlodi, a veteran Dwarf Lord, “Never in my lifetime!” Moments later he spotted the smoke in the valley below, the large, crooked figures rushing around and the guttural shouts. “Orcs!” spat Amlodi, “Lads, let's bathe our axes in Orc blood”
The objective for the game remains as on p115 in the rulebook, to destroy more enemy units than you suffer, the side that loses the least points in troops is the winner. Players must also try to take possession of a large central hill, the Hill of Sleng.
Sleng was a celebrated Dwarf hero of old and in the centre of the hill there is a statue to Sleng. For added kudos the Orcs may wish to topple the statue, if so use the following rules which are an adaptation from some of the rules for buildings.
Only one unit at a time may attempt to topple the statue on a ‘Advance’ order and the unit must be in base to base contact with the statue. Once each turn throw a d10 and read the result as below…
1: The statue topples to the floor and breaks into several pieces.
2-5: the statue rocks on its base but stubbornly refuses to topple.
6-9: the statue remains firmly fixed in place.
Players may deduct -1 from the dice score for each successive turn/attempt that the unit remains in uninterrupted contact with the statue. Of course the dwarf player will wish to stop this from happening.
We found the rules for deployment easy to follow and our forces of Dwarves and Orcs were soon rushing towards each other in an attempt to get atop the hill of Sleng. It was seven Orc units v 5 dwarf units.
A group shot of some of Chris's wonderful Orcs, led by the Orc Chieftain 'Krushitel'
It's always fun to get a game in, I'll just have to try different tactics with WoE.
ReplyDeleteThat dwarven armour is very tough though, I'll have to get some Ewal Dwergar allies.
Or maybe just better dice.
I can't believe your bad luck on the dice. Sure to even out next game.
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking a bit more about our game and the points you raised.
ReplyDeleteCertainly dwarves seem to act as we expect them to, though I'm used to them being a bit slower (they sort of are, with their low chance of performing a sprint without being exhausted). But did orcs behave like orcs? Personally, I don't think so.
I agree with your next points, I'm not sure if I like the idea of the game being won or lost at the army selection phase, and I suspect that's just a small part of it.