Border Clash: Fantastic Battles mini campaign, scenario 1.

 Many years ago I drew a map of my own fantasy world and called it Aelgard. This was very much a Dark Age/Tolkien inspired world. Sometime later I focussed in on one particular area called the Braemarg which had several typical fantasy races spread around an area of wilderness, perfect for RPG games, skirmishes and major battles. Over the years many of my fantasy games have been based in the Braemarg using a whole variety of rules and figures varying from 6mm to 28mm. Here is the map. 

The Braemarg

The little that we know of the Brae-Marg has been gleaned from Ancient Elvish maps and

Dwarven chronicles. It is a desolate and dangerous wasteland bordered by several races.

Ermain Tor: home to the Human Horse Lords of Baron Aldred.

Valheim and Nilheim: the dark, northern land of Orcs and Goblins; known in the Brae-Marg as ‘Pech’.

Feldros: high in the Aven Peaks, this is a mountainous land of rampaging bands of savage Beastmen.

Dunuik and C’Nos: inhabited by numerous warring tribes of Barbarians who, for the right price, will fight for anyone.

Galgoen and the Colbryn Forest: Ancient home of the Elves of the Line of Guthelin.

KynMarroc: Mountain Hold of the Dwarf Lords of the Line of Marroc ( the Rock Born).

This map is but a small section of the Fabled Land of Aelgard.

Fantastic Battles is the most recent set of Fantasy battle rules I have acquired, and also one of the best. After a couple of very enjoyable solo games I decided to run a small campaign of three linked scenarios using my 10mm Elf and Barbarian armies. Staring with a 500point border clash, each battle would get slightly larger, (750 pts and 1,000 pts), all with a bit of a twist in the story. Here we go...

The Braemarg Campaign: Elves v Barbarians

using Fantastic Battles.

scenario 1: Border Clash

(500 points per side, no artillery allowed).

After several clashes between small scouting forces both the Elves and the Barbarians now deploy larger forces to try and deter further enemy infringements upon their lands. As the elves, led by Iruath Greycloak move across the River Greenspyke the Barbarians advance to meet them, with Wulfnoth Irontooth leading from the front.

Elf Objectives: defeat the Barbarians and occupy the barbarian village.

Barbarian Objectives: defeat the Elves and occupy their watchtower.

(Use the rules for Settlements on p21 for any enemy characters within the watchtower or village).

Troll Hoard: somewhere on the battlefield there is a Troll Hoard. Randomly place 6 counters across the board, at least 6” apart. As companies/units or characters come into contact with a counter, throw a d6, on a 6 the Troll Hoard has been found. If the Troll Hoard is not found after the first 5 counters, the last counter will automatically be the Troll Hoard.

This Troll Hoard is protected by a company of trolls which must be fought before their hoard can be claimed.

Company	Res	Mov	Mel	Sht	Def	Traits	Pts
Trolls Irregular Company	5	3	5	-/-	4+	Monstrous, Regenerate, Thrown Weapons	39

If the Trolls are defeated the winning side can claim the Troll Hoard. This is a new magic item, The Bow of Nemyn, a legendary elf bow from ages past. This magic item allows any character carrying it one shot per turn, following the rules for missile fire but also including targeting enemy character, (following the usual rules for Line of Sight). Range: 5BW.

The Bow of Nemyn can be carried by a character in future campaign games.

Winner of the battle gets an extra 1d6 x 10 points of forces in the second battle added to the points total indicated in the scenario outline.

The map of deployment  is the top image and the lower photo is how the table worked out. 

The dice decided that the Barbarians were the attackers (which suits the scenario). Rolling for mishaps, both the Treekin and the actual Treeman arrived late, you can just spot them fording the river to the west side of the board. On the Barbarians side, one company of Mounted Raiders failed to turn up. 

This is how the two forces looked at deployment...

The 'Mishaps' saw the Elves Treeman and Treekin allies turn up late some way behind the main elf line and on the Barbarian side one company of light cavalry didn't even turn up!

In turn 1 the Barbarian's seized the initiative and moved forward at speed.capturing two of the tokens; the first throw amazed me by being a '6' which meant that Wulfnoth Irontooth himself was surprised by a company of trolls protecting their hoard. Charging into each other the Trolls and the Barbarians beat the hell out of each other, both suffering multiple hits. 

Meanwhile the elves opted to wait for their forest allies to catch up, it was not worth their while trying to capture any of the tokens as the Barbarians already had won that race!  Turn 2 was spent with the barbarians advancing slowly, apart from the berserkers who spent the turn rallying of some damage. The elf light cavalry advanced towards the Bison Riders and managed to get in a point of damage from shooting.  

The elf light cavalry on the far flank tried to evade from the Barbarian Bison Riders but did not quite manage so got caught in melee and were soundly thrashed. In the centre the Treeman and Treekin charge into the Barbarian Warriors scoring several hits with little damage taken to themselves. 

Life in the shape of lovely weather paused the game for a few days whilst my wife and I took advantage of it and went walking and cycling but I finally got back to the game today.

The elves scored a lucky break early on spotting Odoacer, the Barbarian Mage in short range and out on his own, so they shot and killed him. The elf Mage, Eritas then rallied the Treeman. On the far flank the ogres tried to charge the elf light cavalry but they evaded. Meanwhile the Treeman supported by the Treekin scattered the Barbarian Warriors. Wulfnoth and his berserkers moved towards the Wood Elf Warriors protecting their Tree lookout post but got badly shot up by the Elf Rangers and scattered. 

By now the Barbarians were at well over half  their companies lost but they did manage to fell the Treeman before they left the field, leaving the elves easy winners. (the Treeman falling into open space rather than on top of anyone. 

With their own outpost intact, the elves quickly moved across the now empty battlefield to claim the barbarian village for their own, thus earning an extra 50 points worth of troops for themselves in the next battle. 

Fantastic Battles is a great set of rules, easy to adapt to your own ideas and give a good, exciting game. So far I have only been able to play solo but am really looking forward to trying them against some of my gaming friends. 

I was also very lucky recently to win a prize in a draw organised by Nic who wrote the 'Fantastic Battles' rules. The prize was a Battle Valour Delvian starter army, very kindly donated by Jeff Gatlin of Shieldwall gaming in America. This was a fantastic prize to win and I have jumped straight into painting them. According to Battle Valour's description, Delvian's are Dark Elves led by the goddess Winter. So I took the winter theme and using a 'cool' palette painted some spearmen first and added a Giant Yeti from Reaper bones and an Elf Mage from Demonworld. So starts my first 15mm army for Fantastic Battles. 

 

  

Romans, Dwarves and Star Wars

Well March has been another busy painting month with more good progress on an assortment of projects and I even played a game or two...on-line!

My prime aim for painting was to add a few units to my 10mm Early Imperial Roman army. More auxiliary cavalry and infantry were a priority plus another cohort of legionaries. I had fun painting all those little shields. My box of unpainted Romans is almost empty now and I need to move on to painting a few units for my Ancient British. 

Chris and I also got busy making buildings for our 20mm Star Wars project as well as painting up more figures. We will be using Fistful of Lead 'Galactic Heroes' for our games set in a galaxy far, far away. These were quite quick and easy to make from foamboard, xps and a variety of bits and bobs then liberally covered with polyfilla and painted. Our main campaign will be based on Tatooine where the buildings have a Middle Eastern look so we have added a few little bits of tech to theme the buildings to Star Wars. I have another building almost finished and then I need to make something a bit bigger.  

This final photo shows a couple of Chris's buildings and some scenic scatter crates. He is currently making a much larger building and a crashed spaceship; Tatooine being full of them! You can read all about how Chris made his buildings on his blog:

 The Periodic Painting Table: Building Tatooine in 20mm

I also couldn't resist re-basing my 10mm Dwarves to be used with Fantastic Battles. The warriors are the wonderful Copplestone figures but the archers are from the GW Battle of Five Armies range. A quick check on E-Bay shows that these figures are probably the most valuable figures in my entire collection, (there is a blister on e-bay at the moment for £85).

I have a few more Copplestone Dwarves and a few from Pendraken to paint and then I will start on rebasing and adding to my Goblin army as I hope to play and create a Battle of Five Armies scenario using the Fantastic Battle Rules.  

Having tempted Chris into buying a copy of Fantastic Battles he raided his wargames loft (a veritable treasure trove of over 40 years of wargaming) and rediscovered some of our old 6mm Fantasy project. He kindly sent me some Dark Elves to paint whilst he works on his Orc army. These are the old Irregular Miniatures strips of figures, ideal for a speed painting project and based on 25mm square bases that will perfectly suit a smaller wargames table; using inches as the base width for movement and shooting etc... 

I enjoyed my on-line gaming experience playing the Gladiator combat game 'Sons of Mars', umpired by Pete. In the first bout, my Hoplomachus was well beaten in the 8th and final round by Dave's Secator. A few days later I took to the arena again and this time I thrashed a Thracian, in 6 turns thanks mainly to Martin's awful dice throwing. 

Coming next should be a few 10mm Ancient British, 10mm and 6mm fantasy plus more 20mm Star Wars and buildings. I am still reading 'Lionheart and Lackland' by Frank McLynn, a fascinating book full of battles and other information. I have discovered that King John was only 5ft 5" tall, and that Robert the Bruce was the Great, great grandson of Sir William Marshall, the greatest Knight of England!

A mixed bag of Figures and scales.

 During February I painted a whole range of figures in assorted scales. First up I added a few bases/companies to my 10mm armies for Fantastic Battles. 

The next lot are definitely all Chris's fault. I have just sold all my Wizards of the Coast Star Wars figures. However we are keen to experiment with the 'Fistful of Lead' set of skirmish rules and as they also do a sci-fi version called 'Galactic Heroes'  Chris was very keen to get me involved when he found his stash of Micro Machines Star Wars figures in his loft. These are aprox 20mm high and we originally collected some of these in the late 1980's I think it was. The figures in the photo have had a quick re-paint and our first battles (when we can finally get together for some games) will take place on Tatooine using my homemade desert mat. I think from their uniforms it is obvious who is on the dark side?

I also managed to get a few more bases of 15mm ancients painted. The Spartans are Museum Miniatures from their original range not the new 'Z' range. The Assyrians I acquired from Chris are Essex Miniatures to be used as levy infantry for my Persians-these are the first Essex miniatures I have painted in many years but I really enjoyed painting them. With about 60 bases/units completed I shall leave the Greeks and Persians for now. 

Time for a solo game of Fantastic Battles putting most of my 10mm Elves and Barbarians to good use. 

Fantastic Battles: The Battle of Skalik Water

Elf Force

Elf Warlord: Lord Athramael of the line of Guthelin.

Elf Magic User: Leofryn (Leaf) Spells: Bless, Lvl 1, Entangle Lvl 2.

Elf Captain: Emyn Lockharn, he who can shoot a wren through the eye at 100 paces.

Elf Rogue: Iruath Greycloak: follower of the silent way (Shadowy Cloak of Stealth).

1x company of Unicorns

2x companies of Elf Knights

2x companies of Mtd Raiders

4x companies of Spears

2x companies of Elf Archers

2x companies of Wood Elves

2x companies of wood Elf Archers

1x company Elf Ballistae

Total = 796 pts

Barbarian Force

Warlord: Bodvoc the Bold of C'Nos, the War Crow. (Lions Roar Talisman)

Magic-User: Yrfog of the Cave. Spells: Curse Lvl 1, Magic Missile Lvl 2.

Captain: Talorcan of Dunuik

Rogue: Black Cornaith (Winged Boots of Alacrity)

1x company of Buffalo Riders

2x companies of Mtd Raiders

2x companies of Outriders

6x companies of Warriors

1x company of Berserkers

2x companies of Scouts

1x Mammoth

1x Giant, Droth of a hundred battles.

Total = 798 pts

This is a basic encounter battle with a simple twist. Place a small lake in the exact centre of the table. This represents Skalik Water, a place of mystical power, often mist shrouded. At the start of each turn throw 1xd6.

12= The lake is clear

34= no change (Lake will remain clear or shrouded as per last turn)

56= The Lake is shrouded in mist and blocks all line of sight. When covered in mist Lake Skalik's mystical aura allows any Magic-User casting a spell within 2bw of any lake Edge to re-throw any dice that score a 1. (Don't forget that the mist also blocks line of sight!)

The Barbarians are deployed at the top edge, the Elves along the bottom edge. 

The Elves were deemed to be the Attacker and both sides rolled 'Seize the High Ground' as their objective. The Mishaps table proved to be fun with one unit of Wood Elves withdraw a few bw but the biggest impact was when the Barbarians Mammoth had to march forward 4bw leaving out on it's own and right in front of of the elf ballistae. Two turns were enough for the elves to concentrate as much missile power onto the mammoth to destroy it. On the right flank the elf heavy cavalry won the first round of melee against the barbarian Mounted Raiders. Over on the left flank the Wood Elves and the Unicorns clashed with more Barbarian Cavalry. By the start of turn 3 the magical mists appeared on the lake.  

 So as the mist formed across Skalik Water at the start of turn 3 fate decided that a random event happened. This proved to be a Troll Hoard which the dice decided was located upon the shores of the lake. Sadly all characters were too heavily involved in the battle action and were not able to take advantage of this yet. The large melee on the left flank resulted in the unicorns and mounted raiders being scattered. On the right, the Elf Knights easily destroyed the Barbarian Outriders and Lord Athramael slew Talorcan in a personal challenge (playing solo I wanted to see how this played out). 

Turn 4 was also very eventful. The lake remained shrouded in mist as the Barbarian Warriors on the right smashed into the Elf Knights, their Berserk trait which explodes 6's worked well when they actually threw six 6's so the Elf Knights scattered taking Lord Athramael with them. 

On the left Bodvoc himself charged into the Wood Elves at the head of his Buffalo riders. The Wood Elves proved quite tough and scattered the Buffalo Riders whilst Bodvoc had challenged Emyn Lockharn to an ineffective duel. In the centre the Giant Droth of the Hundred battles fought his last as he and the beserkers were easily scattered by the elf spearmen.

So with turn 5 yet to play the mist still shrouds Skalik Water and things do not look good for the barbarians as with their loses so far they are close to breaking. 

   Impetuous actions at the start of turn 5 prompted the Elf Mounted Raiders to foolishly charge the Barbarian Warriors on the right flank-they got hammered leaving that side open to a Barbarian advance. On the left flank the Elf spears could just reach the side of the Barbarian Warriors that were busy fighting the Wood Elves. This was enough to cause those Barbarians to scatter, Bodvoc running off with them. The only gain the Barbarians got was that their Magic User, Yrfog of the Cave went to look for the Troll Horde revealed on turn 3 and was lucky enough to find a Haughty Helm of Reassurance. However, with over 50& of their characters and their companies gone it was game over for the Barbarians leaving the Elves badly wounded but victorious.  

This was a very enjoyable game to play and I learnt a lot about the rules. Many of the decisions I took were often just to see what happened but it was all good fun and I can see Fantastic battles becoming one of my favourite games to play. 

I also did some reading this month to help me plot and plan a large club scenario based around Plataea using an almost double width table. Plans are to play this through using the 'To the Strongest' rules. Each side will get a copy of this map with their deployment marked on. As the table is gridded this is very simple to do. However, it seems it will be at least May before we can get together to play this. 

 Next Chris got me interested in William Marshall, 'The Greatest Knight' and I have to say that was the best historical factual book I have read in some time; each chapter was like an action adventure historical novel. Having enjoyed that book so much I am now reading 'Lionheart and Lackland' to get to know more about this fascinating period. A few of the guys at the Old Guard club are starting to collect and paint figures for the new 'Barons War' rules and I have to say I am getting drawn in (just ordered the rules).