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!.