The Battle of Tattle Beck: the final battle of our mini Fantastic Battles Campaign.

 The final battle saw the Ice Elves advance deep into Dingly Dell lands with the Dingly Dell army deploying south of Tattle Beck to give battle one last time. This is how I presented the game to Ian (Army General of Dingly Dell)... 

The Battle of Tattle Beck.

The final battle in a mini campaign between The Ice Elves and the Forces of Dingly Dell.

1,200 points per side, plus the Ice elves get a 30pt bonus from last game. .

The remaining forces of Dingly Dell rush towards Tattle Beck to hold back the advancing Ice Elves. This is their last chance to stop the Ice Elves from conquering a huge part of their lands. The Ice Elves advancing rapidly also send part of their force on a flank march...

Deployment:

The Ice Elves may deploy most of their army within 4BW of the Northern side of the table, one character plus the troops under his command deploy on a Flank March, see p25. The Ice Elf player must write down on which flank his forced march has gone. Once the first action phase begins the Ice Elves can pull a counter for the character and troops on the flank march.

The army of Dingly Dell must deploy all their force south of TattleBeck.

The two forces should deploy at least 10BW apart.

Tattle Beck: causes -1BW to movement and -1 penalty in melee per company to all companies fighting across the beck.

Objectives: both sides should also dice (d6) in secret for objectives p23.

Random Events, p41: at the start of each turn, players throw a d6 for Random Events as detailed on p41

The game lasts up to 6 turns (plus a seventh turn on a score of 4+ at the end of turn 6) or ends when one side loses over half of their companies and /or their Warlord (or Magelord) is killed.

Victory Points: the winner gains 7VP.

If the game is a draw then both forces earn 3 VP.

Players also earn 2VP if they achieve their objectives.

Victory Points total earned up to todays battle: Ice Elves: 9+ Dingly Dell: 1+

So to win the campaign Ian had to not only win today's battle but achieve his objective and prevent me from gaining mine. Ian's objective was 'Troll Hoard' and mine was 'Regime Change' which certainly suited the campaign. 

With Ian winning the throw to be classed as the Attacker we quickly deployed our armies and gave battle. 

Birds Eye view of deployment; but where will the Ice Elf flank march arrive?

Note that some units have been moved forwards or backwards due to mishaps.

We really enjoy the unpredictable nature of many parts of Fantastic Battles. 

Dingly Dell goat swarms attack the Ice elf archers and soon regret it!

(The blue and green counters are used to decide activation). 

Gnome Snail riders, more Dingly Dell weirdness which also proved to be quite tough. 

Dingly Dell spider riders, a 'surprise new unit' fresh off  Ian's painting table. 

My Magelord (Crasterlon Blackheart), prompted by my objective goes hunting for the Dingly Dell Magelord who is cowering behind the witches. It did not go well for me so I withdrew. 

My archers get charged by the snail riders but manage to survive. Next turn they killed a Dingly Dell Captain, Bobby Dazzler. 

The Ice Elf Giant Yeti is slain by missile fire (but thankfully falls safely to one side). 

Ice Elf mounted crossbow riders charge, pursue and catch some witches, whilst the Rogue has used his Phoenix Bow (crossbow) to shoot and kill one of the Dingly Dell mages, Zantaz Poppa.

A random event decided that one company of Mounted Ice Elf crossbow riders defected to the forces of Dingly Dell. Thankfully my flank march arrived on turn 3 and the Draconians soon sorted the problem. 

The Dingly Dell army made good use of Tattle Beck as an awkward barrier against the Ice Elves. However, the giant mushrooms with their very slow move decided to advance. 

The Gnome wizard, Rex Brindle's crafty use of the Summoning Spell bought forward Terrance the Giant slug. 

The Dingly Dell Imps, who are much tougher than they look clash with my Elite Tiger Riders across Tattle Beck. It was a real bucket load of dice clash with my Tiger riders scoring an amazing 19 hits compared to the Imps 7.  My Magelord had cast 'Empower' on the Tiger Riders which really helped and the Imps were destroyed but they did manage to kill the Tiger Riders captain.  

More Dingly Dell magic saw Maizy the Green Dragon being summoned, straight into conflict with the Blue Dragon. The Dingly Dell forces were suffering quite a few losses by now.

On the far left the Snow Trolls were caught in a slogging match with the Dingly Dell elks. 

The trolls did manage to kill the gnome hero Purple Ronnie. 

With the fall of Terence the Giant Slug the Dingly Dell army reached it's breakpoint of 12 companies lost and so victory went once again to the Ice Elves. This gave the Elves a very convincing overall victory in the campaign. A large swathe of Dingly Dell lands now belong to the Ice Elves. 

We had great fun playing the three interlinked games although the high quality of many of the Ice Elf units made it very difficult for the more numerous Dingly Dellers to damage them. Overall this was a fun campaign with Fantastic Battles as definitely our favourite fantasy rules to play. Army building is so much fun and such an important part of the rules as you can see in Ian's weird but wonderful Dingly Dell force in comparison to my more traditional Ice Elves.

Capture the Bridges:15mm Soldiers of Napoleon

 Nigel has set up a great looking wargames table for his scenario of 'Capture the Bridges'. There were three bridges across the river that a dice throw had decided was not passable. There were also various hills and buildings to capture and hold. So with Nigel in charge of the French and Ian and I in charge of the British we dealt the cards and set to. 

Nigel (French) and Ian (British) check out each others deployment.

Ian soon captured the church earning some VP (Victory Points). 

The French chose to advance.

More French advancing. 

The French capture a bridge.

But the British take the Farmhouse. 

The French advanced their artillery but suffered badly from the British artillery that was already deployed. You can score quite a few VP's from destroying enemy units. 

Ian and I played a Special Event card on these French to stall their move across the river. 

Nice view of Nigel's lovely Church model held by the British. 

 

Overview of the table at the end of the game from the British side. We grabbed a bridge on the last turn earning some VP's that sealed a British victory. 

We all enjoyed the game and agree that 'Soldiers of Napoleon' (SoN) are now our rules of choice for Napoleonics. However, our game today progressed slowly as it took some time for us to work our way through the card aspect of the game. Movement, shooting and melee are quite quick and easy and I think we will be quicker with the cards from now on. It is the cards that really give the 'Napoleonic' flavour to the game. With Nigel and his French opting for aggressive tactics and the British more on the defensive we were able to get more shooting in than the French which helped us score more VP. Now we need to check up on one or two aspects of the rules to speed up or next game. 

15mm Fantastic Battle, The battle of Mylken Meadow.

 Part two of our mini campaign today. In the last battle Ian's Dingly Dell Green Dragon was such a tough opponent that I decided to paint up it's twin brother. This was a not too devious plot to gently take the p*** out of Ian's dragon as I have the same model. I was going to paint it blue to go into my Ice Kin army but when I was rummaging through various boxes to find the exact model to mimic Ian's I also found a ready painted Blue Dragon already based for Fantastic battles. I quickly added some snow to it's base to make it fit in with the Ice Kin's basing. I then had to decide what colour to paint my other dragon and decided upon Green to match Ian's but also as a Forest Dragon to go in my Elf Army (a mix of High and Wood Elves). 

The blue Dragon is a pre painted D+D miniature that I painted in the blue scheme a few years ago and the Green model is a Reaper Bones young Dragon, 28mm models but both ideal for big dragons in 15mm. 

I enjoyed painting this model as a break from a seemingly endless line of 28mm Dark Age Saxon Spearmen. 

Here is a photo of both two green dragons, Ian's is the front one. 

So, on to today's game. With my Ice Elves victorious they gained a +1 bonus in the dice throw to decide Attacker/Defender and also may re-throw one set of dice at any point during today's game. Today's scenario was as below...

The Battle of Mylken Meadows

Battle 2 in a mini campaign between The Fey Ice Elves and the Forces of Dingly Dell

1,000 points per side.

Having won the battle at the crossroads Crasterlon Iceheart and his Ice Elves march deeper into the lands of Dingly Dell. Gathering some re-enforcements the Ice Elves come across the army of Dingly Dell gathering re-enforcements on the outskirts of the rural town of Mylken Meadows. The Ice Elves deployed on the northern high ground of Craw Hill whilst the Dingly Dell army deployed amongst the fields and buildings on the outskirts of the town.

Deployment:

The Ice Elves must deploy on the high ground at the Northern edge of the map, no more than 6BW in.

The Dingly Dell forces must deploy all their force within 6BW of the Southern table edge.

The forces must be no more than 8BW - 10BW apart after deployment.

Random Events, p41: at the start of each turn, players throw a d6 for Random Events as detailed on p41

Victory Points: the winner gains 5VP.

If the game is a draw then both forces earn 2 VP.

Players also earn 1VP if they can get at least one company +/or character onto the enemy base line.

The winner of the battle will also gains an extra 30 points of troops for the final battle.

The game lasts for 6 turns (+1 turn if a score of 4+ on a d6 at end of turn 6) or ends when one side loses over half of their companies and /or all their characters and their Warlord (or Magelord) is killed.

Ian's mad army of Dingly Dell folk had a new gnome idol, slow moving but with a defence of 6 it was a tough opponent.

The table after initial deployment. 

Mishaps played havoc with my deployment causing resolution loss and forced my centre unit of Elite Spearmen reeling backwards. 

The Dingly Dell force was not as badly disrupted by mishaps although their new idol was forced back. Ian had specifically placed it in the centre to counter my spearmen. With both units being forced backwards they were never going to meet.  

During turn 1 my spearmen failed their Impetuous action roll and continued to move back to my table edge. This effectively took 141 points of troops and a captain out of the game. 

That had me worried! 

A photo of some of the madness my Ice Elves had to face. Rampant Elk, imps, eagles, gnomes and giant walking mushrooms. It is a wonderfully eccentric and colourful army. 

Turn 2 saw the only Random Event with an armour cache being discovered just behind the Dingly Dell forces but we got so caught up in melee no-one claimed it before the game ended.

My tiger lancers crash into the imps scattering them. 

The imps about to scatter.

Dingly Dell forces then surrounded the tiger riders who died valiantly whilst dishing out much damage themselves. The tiger lancers were to be the only unit I lost in this game.

Elsewhere my drakkonians butcher the mad goats causing them to scatter. 

My mounted crossbow who had got around Ian's flank also scattered some flying witches.  

Although I was outnumbered by the Dingly Dell forces by targeting their poor quality troops I was able to bring Ian's army to over half his companies lost by the end of turn 4, game over. 

Fantastic Battles was once again fantastic fun. 

Victory Points earned: 

Ice Elves: 5 (campaign total 9) and an extra 30 pts of troops next game.    

Dingly Dell: 0 (campaign total 1)

With just one campaign game to go it is looking good for the Ice Elves. 

 

War and Conquest with 15mm Medievals

 With Ian now having his own copy of the War and Conquest rules we thought we would give our 15mm Hundred Years War figures an outing to further test the rules. We used a scale of half an inch to each real inch for moving and firing and this seemed to work very well. There were also a few unit types we 'adopted' from the Wars of the Roses list to make up our 2,500 point forces. We also discovered that you do not get many units when so many of the troops are very well armed and armoured as all that kit costs points. Using some of the guidelines from the rulebook about terrain and deployment we ended set up as in the photo below, Ian's French on the left, my English on the right. 

I had a piece of light artillery deployed in the centre of my line, first shot it maxed out with it causing 5 damage to the central unit of French Knights who survived the ensuing Morale Test. 

Ian's very strong centre, three very colourful units of French knights. 

My Hobilar's guarding my right flank. They held this position for three turns before chasing off a unit of French bidet's in the final turn. 

My English held their line and deployed stakes in front of the archers as the French closed in.

The author of the rules, Rob Broom had very kindly suggested some rules on how to use stakes in the game. The French knights avoided charging the stakes and their infantry never reached them so sadly those rules never got tested.  

The English longbow units were reeking havoc amongst the advancing French Infantry thanks to some great dice throws.

The French Knights tried to charge too soon, all three failed to reach the English line. In my turn my dismounted knights gleefully charged the central unit of knights causing them to flee. 

The Knights then charged my billmen and the artillery on the hill. Surprisingly the artillery held for one turn whilst the billmen using their halberds ans rank bonuses defeated the knights on the second round of melee as some longbow came crashing into the flanks of the knights.  

The artillery threw an amazing 3 on their Morale check to survive...for one more turn.  

The billmen waving goodbye to one of the French Knight units. 

With two out of three units of Knights destroyed by the end of turn six, the loss in points for the French was so huge that a comfortable English victory was declared. 

Another fun game and we have just about got the main rules sorted now but I will still have a re-read of a few sections to double check. Back to the Dark Ages for our next game probably. 

More 28mm Dark Ages

 Having enjoyed my first game of War and Conquest last week I was delighted to be invited over to new gaming friend George's house for another game, also set in the Dark Ages. George had spotted my post from last weeks game and happily he lives just a few minutes up the road from my daughter so not too far from me. George also has an amazing wargaming room, the whole of an old shop and plans are in place to make this into a wonderful gaming room.  It has not been converted into his ideal gaming room yet but even now it is an amazing space. It is also great to see another gamers collection of figures and amongst many forces George has a wonderful Seleucid army which he also used for games of War and Conquest. A new project for me next year perhaps? 

Use your imagination, how would you turn this wonderful space into the gaming room of your dreams.

This game saw my Norman's pitted against George's Saxon Heptarchy army. 

This photo shows my Normans advancing steadily. 

Sadly my photo of George's force came out to dark to be of any use.  

My skirmish archers were hiding in the front edge of the wood as my Milites advanced towards the Saxon cavalry. George had four large units of skirmishers screening the front of his units which were a real nuisance. 

George's Saxon Cavalry advance. 

Pesky skirmishers 

Happily my Pueri Light Cavalry smash through George's Skirmishers on my left flank. 

So far so good!

The centre saw a huge clash of infantry.

Suddenly it all started to go wrong as the Saxons won melee after melee.

The Saxon light cavalry see off my skirmish archers. 

There is hope as a unit of Milites defeat the Saxon cavalry and chase them off. 

With several units fleeing we called it a Saxon victory. This was a great game and I certainly learnt a lot about the rules which has to be a good thing. Thanks to George for hosting, hopefully we can get some more games in soon. 

Having played two games I am now busy redesigning  my Norman army with a mix of painted and unpainted figures, bases and movement trays on my desk. Both George and Charlie tended to use slightly larger units than I did which was interesting to note. Some of my units may increase in size and I am going to look more carefully at my weapon choices. 

George has also done a blog about our game; afterall history is usually written by the winners! You can read his thoughts on the game at the following link. 

Musings on Wargaming and Life: Normans again! (musingswargameslife.blogspot.com)