By Eck - a 1,000 Goblin v Ogre game of KOW

Today I enjoyed another splendid day of gaming with my good friend Chris. We were playing Kings of War again, slowly preparing for our campaign between his Ogres and my Goblins, this was another practise game with time left over to discuss our campaign plans. 

We like to theme our games and add background detail and this was today's scenario...

The faint pencil cross by the river shows where the battle took place. 

'By Eck', Grab the Loot: adapted from 'Push', from p76, COK 2019.

Pulling hard on the reigns, Skrel hauled his mighty wolf to a halt. Sent out to protect the goblins new secret weapon by King Krag, Skrel and his large patrol had come across a band of merchants trying to cross the lower slopes of the mountains undetected by the goblins. Before him now, the human merchants fled dropping their goods all around. Beyond the humans, Skrel watched what had caused him to halt. Appearing over the river Eck was a large force of Ogres, now seen by the panic stricken humans who fled in all directions, their merchant goods scattered and forgotten in their rush to escape both Skrel's goblin host and the ever nearing Ogre Warband.

By Eck was where the spoils would be fought over. 'By Eck' thought Skrel 'my blade will taste Ogre blood this day' and urged his wolf forward.

After both players have deployed their forces, roll a D3. Each player places that many Loot counters within their set-up area; giving them to units to carry if they wish-rolling a dice to see who places a counter first.

An additional Loot counter is also placed in the exact centre of the board. The aim of the game is to capture as many Loot Tokens as you can.

Victory Points: are awarded as follows...

2xVP for each Loot token you hold in the opposing side of the board

1xVP for each Loot token you hold in your own half of the board.

(use the rules on p75 regarding Loot Tokens, maybe using our Frostgrave tokens for these?).

Game Length: is 6 turns, throw a dice at the end of turn 6, on a score of 4+ play a final seventh turn. 

This was the goblin secret weapon, fairly useless for the points, it only ever hit on turn 2.

The game started well for my goblins as the ogres forgot to move some of their troops on the first turn allowing me to manoeuvre into good positions. Once combat began it was amazing how many Nerve tests were passed by both armies, thus causing more rounds of melee than expected. 

Initially the goblins were giving as good as they got, however...

The ogres had a new secret weapon themselves, a unit of heavy crossbows which were far more effective than the goblins catapult. 

Melee was close during turns 2 to 4 with fortune swinging both ways. Sadly, a poor turn 4 from the goblins allowed the ogres to gain the upper hand and eventually they were able to grab 2 of the loot counters in the goblin half and the third counter in their own half, thus scoring a 5-0 win and not a single goblin left standing. 

I think that by now, having lost the last 3 games to the ogres, my goblins have  lulled them into a false sense of superiority so that we can surprise them with our tactical genius and fighting skills once the camapign begins. 

It was a great game once again, really close up until the end of turn 4. We are looking forward to getting 3rd edition KOW soon and plan to have a couple more practise games to get used to them before we start the campaign proper, we both also need time to paint a few more units. 

Goblin re-enforcements, a hut and a map.

Goblin re-enforcements, a hut and a map. 

Here is a photo of my goblin King, Krag with his newly finished hut. This is actually a small 28mm building, just the right size for an impressive 15mm hut for King Krag. My just finished, 2nd regiment of goblin rabble also sneaked into the photo shoot. Combined with my other regiment I can also field them as a horde. To help the rabble look this unit mixes models from Alternative Armies, Essex, Tin Soldier, Ral Partha, Demonworld, Magister Militum, Pendraken and possibly more. 

We, (good friend Chris and I) intend to match my 15mm Goblin Army v his 15mm Ogres. The map shows our initlal preperation for a KOW 3rd edition campaign set in a world of our own creation: Brynglan. This will be a slowly developing campaign as we intend to have a couple of practise games first to get used to any rule changes. Notes and emails are currently being exchanged as we work out our own campaign system; all of which will be recorded here.  

King Krag and his goblins dwell in Azgarheim and the surrounding area, the nasty, opressive ogres live just south, with Cold Plains being their main stronghold. 

Bolt Action Smoke and Deployment Markers

A few more bits for Bolt Action, some smoke markers for light and medium mortars and some deployment markers for our demo game. I also painted up the last 2 Afrika Korps figures I have, could be useful for observers or something?

More Bolt Action and 10mm Fantasy

With the club gearing up towards putting on a Western Desert Themed demo game of Bolt Action at the Battleground Show at the end of November, I have finished a few more bits for my Afrika Korps, some more barbed wire and useful scatter scenery. 

Prompted by another club member to look through my collection of 10mm Fantasy, I had fun taking photos of some of it. Most figures are by Pendraken, but you can also use many of the Kallistra range to expand your collection as they have obviously used the same sculptor at times. 

The old mines and the ruined tower were made from polystyrene packaging and a few other bits and pieces and have been used in both 15mm and 10mm battles. 

Bits for Bolt Action and re-basing ancients

I am currently working on at least 3 different projects and have just finished some more bits for my 28mm DAK Bolt Action. There is a DAK medium mortar and a 'dug in' position for it to hide behind. Also some oil drums which hopefully are not too sci-fi in their look?

I have also started rebasing (every wargamers favourite task) some of my 15mm ancients so that they are all suitable for rules like 'To the Strongest', 'Impetus' and 'Sword and Spear'. I have finished the Persians first as there are only a few of them although I did add a unit of Arab Camel archers. 

Next up the Spartans and more Bolt Action stuff! 

  

Border Reiver Show 2019

Today I drove up to Gateshead for my annual visit to the Border Reiver Wargames Show. I always enjoy this show despite it perhaps being one of the smaller ones. Although initially busy the show did quieten down after lunch. One of the reasons for this must have been the smaller number of traders, perhaps due to the clash with Colours at Newbury? 
I also did my usual trick of booking a table for a spot of selling. I didn't have quite as much to sell this year but still made a decent profit, especially in the first 10 minutes which was quite manic. Slightly annoying was the fact that at least 3 of the sellers seemed to be businesses rather than gamers selling their stuff and they had spread out over quite a few tables mainly flogging GW stuff!.  
As for purchases, I pounced on some Bolt Action vehicles on the sale tables, a half-track and a stug 111 for just £7 each. I also bought some scatter items to help me create some more desert scenery, walls, lines of sandbags, crates and oil drums. 

Of course as soon as I got home I dropped the vehicles, snapping the plastic aerials off, these have now been replaced with wire ones. I also got an Afrika Korps 80mm mortar. 

Finally, I also bought a goblin hut. This is meant for 28mm figures but is quite small so it should make an excellent hall for King Krag, leader of my 15mm goblins. I will post a photo of this when it is painted. 

Surprisingly for me I actually came home with more money than I went with thanks to my sales. That profit should buy Ann and I lunch tomorrow somewhere on our long bike ride. 

The Ogre and Goblin Wars.

Luckily for me my mate Chris and his family opted to have their holiday in the Dales this year so I popped round last night for a game of 15mm Kings of War. We were using the Ogre and Goblin armies that we have been collecting and painting recently. Chris has very cleverly made his ogres from 20mm plastic orcs, but the way he has painted them makes them look great, see...

This game was to be a follow on from a previous smaller game won by the ogres so I quickly put a scenario together as follows...

 

The Battle of Fyngore’s Keep

Krag hawked and spat. Ogres,how he hated them, even though he had only first met any a few weeks ago; that day they had left him bloody and battered. Today he would have his revenge. He glanced up at the giant next to him; Kral Kral Kan would help him gain that revenge. Surely no ogre could stand against the mighty giant and his huge blood soaked club.

Krag had assembled a mighty goblin host and headed south. His scouts had told him the ogres were camped near the remains of Fyngores Keep, an ancient ruin west of the River Thynn. Now the two armies were close, the ogres, having spotted the goblin army were hurriedly forming ranks. Drums beating, horns blowing, Krag waved his army forward, this was a good day to kill some ogre...

This battle is played as Scenario 6 (p87) from the main rulebook, ‘Kill and Pillage’ with each army totalling 1250 points.

Objective: At the end of the game each side totals the points value of all enemy units they routed. There are also 3 objective markers on the table each worth an extra 125 points to whichever side controls them at the end of the last turn.

To place the markers each player should throw a d6, the highest throw places the first and then alternate until all 3 markers are placed. The markers should be at least 12” apart.

Game Length: 6 turns, then on a d6 throw, 1-3 the game ends, 4-6 play a 7^th and final turn.

Victory goes to the player with the highest points total as long as that total is at least 10% higher than the enemy total, otherwise the game is a draw. 

After 2 turns my goblins were in a good position, having damaged many ogre units with missile fire and waiting for the ogres to come to us. 

You can see Fyngore's Keep in the photo above. This model was made a few years ago from cork tile and polystyrene packaging. 

After 4 turns the goblins started to worry as when the ogres finally got into melee their superior attack and defence started to tell. This was despite my cunning plan to try and out number them in melee by having two goblin units take on single units of ogres. The ogre berserks proved to be the game winners, taking out my mawbeasts, King Krag, my fleabag riders, the spitters and my army standard bearer, (about half my army) I shall shoot those guys to bits next game!!!! By the end of turn 6 it was all over and the ogres scored a deserved victory but it felt epic and was great fun. 

My thanks to Chris for hosting a game whilst on his holidays.