Spring 994 - Orkerdammerung

The Undead army had little to say for itself. The Necromancer deployed his melee troops on the right and his skirmishers on the left, ready to swarm around the woods in the middle of the battlefield. The Orc army matched his deployment.

Deployment (Undead at bottom of picture looking a bit like Goblins)

 Both armies advanced as expected with the skirmishers quickly coming to blows.

As the skirmishers met, they quickly realised that the Orc skirmish line included a unit of main battle wolfriders, who saw off their opponents very quickly.

Steve reveals his cunning plan: pretend that a unit of wolfriders is skirmishers and manoeuvre them like that until they met the enemy in battle, then feign confusion about their true nature! :)

 While the skirmishers were destroying each other, the main battle lines met. The Orcs were pushed back while the Undead stood their ground. This was going to be a battle of attrition.

The battle rages as Orcs are pushed back and Undead stand steadfastly

Orcs start to rout but the undead line is close to falling apart

In the end most of the Undead were destroyed but the Orc commander fled with his unit and the rest of his army followed.

The aftermath. All that remained of the Undead

This was a real slugfest. Both armies stood and took a pounding. My poor rolling on the attack might have contributed to this but it really game down to the wire as the Undead Fanatic status counted for more than the Orcish higher Rep. Naz-Goth is no more and Steve must choose another nation to lead to defeat. The Book of the Hungry Moon has been temporarily lost in the Orc rout. It will reappear in Winter 994.

Autumn 993 - The Battle of the Buried Bones

Pagash the Mighty Belcher looked back and wondered at what could have been. Around him his Orcish army fled in disarray. It had all started badly. He was going to have to kill his nephew, Woben, for organising a mealtime meeting with the Undead.
His stomach still lurched every time he thought about it. Why had he gone along with the idea of having a treaty with them? In the end he’d had to declare war on them, despite the fact they had nothing he wanted in their land. Had it been the necromancer clouding his mind? Now he thought about it, it must have been. The initial part had gone well, with his army taking position on the high ground, while the skirmishers and wolfboys had moved around the sides. Then a charge into the centre.

The Orcs charge while the Necromancer fails to summon more troops to aid him. The skirmishers retreat in the face of the Orcish charge. Meanwhile the Orcs seek to envelope the Undead.

Unfortunately the skirmishers had run off at the first sign of trouble. R’Nuld, his cousin, there was another one he was going to have to speak to, preferably after pulling his tongue through a hole in his neck. In the centre, the Undead had proved tougher than he’d thought. Slowly his Orcs had begun to flee the battle, but he could still have won, he was sure.

The Orcs start to flag as the Undead cavalry fall on the Orcish right flank (Those undead look suspiciously like Goblins! Treachery!!), but they still hold their own and take their toll on the Undead too.

Then the Wargs had run off to bury the bones of their opponents. This left him alone in the battle and numbers told. Even worse he had been forced to leave behind the wizard Pawdanyas and the hideous D’Beemagy. Not that they had ever been any use, other than for parties. He’d also probably lose less money at card as well.

Surrounded, the Orcish general uses his own troops as a shield. The Necromancer with his cavalry is nearly spent, but a unit of zombies has closed with the Orcs and chomps its way through the meagre fare that is the Orcish brain.

Still back home now to prepare for the upcoming invasion.

This was an interesting game. The Undead wizard failed miserably to cast any spells successfully. I had planned to use him to reinforce my army by summoning more skeleton warriors to my side. Total failure. Fortunately, a combination of the Terror attribute and the Fanatic attribute kept the undead in the battle long enough to rout the Orcs. With the way my dice were rolling, and the failure of my general to inflict casualties on the Orcs, despite my best efforts and multiple substitutions of dice, it was just as well that I managed to get a fresh unit of zombies into the fray. That made all the difference.

One unit of Orcish warriors and the Orcish mage were captured in the pursuit.

Spring 993 - The Battle of the Plain Plains

Pagash The Mighty Belcher surveyed the plain plain. Judging distances with giants was always difficult, were they close and not very tall or huge and far away. Still at least they weren’t dwarves, with their trickery and breweries.

With a wave of his hand the archers and dire-wolf riders headed off to harry the giant’s flanks. He planned to wait and then split his forces to attack from either side. Suddenly some Ogre’s charged across the ground towards his dagger hand side. At the same time huge rocks came flying through the air. Fortunately the giants were not very good shots and almost hit their own ogres. Unfortunately Zarg and Gnart decided this was the signal to charge and rushed headlong towards the giants with their units. Pagash shook his head and groaned.

'Betta see if you can hit ‘em.’ Pagash said turning to the Shaman at his side. After much wailing and strangling of goats, a fireball shot towards the giants only to fizz and turn into a shower of toads. 'Well that was a waste of good goats,” thought Pagash. “Might as well get stuck in and dirty.” The remaining Orcs moved towards the giants. It was always difficult hacking at ankles, but they seemed to be doing some damage. His dire-wolf riders had headed off, but had caused some havoc before running.

Suddenly the giants before Pagash broke and ran, as did the ones Zarg and Gnart had attacked. This just left the Queen of the giants and she was in a right regal rage. Wave after wave of orcs broke against her sword, but slowly the damage was being done, until finally she realised the battle was over and ran from the field. Pagash turned to survey the field. They’d won, but there were a lot of squashed orcs out there. Why hadn’t he listened to his father? If only he’d known which one was his father, he might have.

The Mountain Giant army was broken and the Orcs held the field. The Giants returned to their mountain fastnesses to await the next attempt to drive the puny small things from their rightful home.

Summer 992 - The Battle of Duffer's Bluff

The clanging of the shields and weapons reverberated through War-Leader Pagash’s brain. He was beginning to think, maybe finding the unguarded storeroom of Dwarven beer wasn’t so lucky. In fact maybe they had been meant to find it. In fact now he thought about it, the warrior who had found it was rather short and a funny shade of green.

The outnumbered Dwarves deploy with Duffer's Bluff at their back while the Orcs emerge from the woods to attack them.

They jogged towards the dwarves, every step jolting both his head and stomach.

Both armies charged towards each other. The Dwarves thought their only salvation lay in taking the fight to the enemy and crushing them quickly

“Charge”, he groaned. Most of the orcs lurched forward. Off to his good hitting hand-side he saw the unit lead by Uggran Gutwretcher come to a halt, as Uggran lived up to his name, curling up and discharging from every orifice, in a spectacular and messy display.

The Dwarves were right! The enemy general fell wounded and most of the rest ran away.

They clashed into the dwarven line and he raised his shield to ward off an axe. As the axe struck it forced the shield back onto his head and bringing with it sweet oblivion.

With the Orcish general fallen, the Dwarves made short work of the rest and were soon lined  up to tackle the Wolf Riders, the last remaining Orcish unit.

“Did we wi……”, his sentence trailed off, as he looked at the bedraggled band of orcs gathered around him. This was going to need all of Pug Mangleson’s wordskills to make this one sound good. Maybe he’d better kill a few of his rivals as they were recovering, he thought, as he got to his feet and felt for his dagger.

Steve had really poor luck in this game. His general fell early in the conflict and his Orcs really did not want to close with the Dwarves at all. The war will continue in the Autumn.

Spring 992 - The Battle of Roundwood Down

To Brother Father Cedric
Harbottle Preceptory

My dearest Cedders,

Congratulations upon your change of title. Is that a promotion or just a recognition of your manly attributes? Your Brethren and Treyine ways truly are a mystery to me. I am sorry that I have been unable to reach you at your preceptory yet. It appears that I and my bodyguard have been conscripted into the Treyine army. It is all dashed awkward, although the latest outing was rather jolly. Lord de la Warre seemed to be rather too hungover in this battle and it led to all sorts of complications. Initially he deployed the army too far back, leading to an awkward moment or two, especially when that jolly rascal Hogash came racing over from the Naz-Goth lines to challenge Sir Alaric to a duel.

The Orcs advance while the Treyine troops lurk behind their stakes

It was all frightfully dashing with Sir Alaric fighting by the Comte de Queensberry's rules, but the Orcish hoodlum was really rather too much for the old chap, who succumbed to a boot in the vitals and a knife in the eye. Poor fellow. He was really jolly decent for a man. Of course, that led to some of the girls getting a bit carried away and galloping around in circles instead of dealing with the Orcish oik.

Hogash lays into Sir Geoffrey's men

And kills Sir Alaric before seeing off all the others in the area

Hogash really was quite remarkable. He routed Sir Geoffrey Chambers and his entire White Company but he got carried away a tad chasing after them. I think there was something about making them wear pink, frilly knickers or some such. When he turned around and returned to the fray, I had gathered my girls together once more and we quickly showed him what's what.

Barbax and the girls prepare to show Hogash what's what.

While this was going on, Lord de la Warre had apparently ordered the advance, while the rest of the Orcish army had occupied Roundwoods.

The Treyine troops were quick to take the fight to the enemy and soon had shot their arrows and were engaged in melee. If I recall correctly the shouting and screaming made it sound like a tremendous lark. It's a shame we were engaged in taking prisoners and tidying up our side of the battlefield. That reminds me. Hogash says he would love to meet you. I think he is adapting to life in our camp now and I am fairly sure that Lord de la Warre is not aware of him in our tents. Of course, I doubt he would recognise him now anyway. We don't let Hogash too near anything sharp just in case he hurts himself.

So, Cedders, the battle went on, the archers soon tired of the melee and slid back through the lines of the billmen, who took up the fight and all ended well for us.

The last of the Orcs surrender

The Orcs were driven back and all is well. I believe that our march will carry us near Harbottle. I may not be able to leave the army permanently just yet, but I shall certainly try to slip over to you and introduce you to my daughter. She is really looking forward to meeting you and I cannot wait to try Griselda's famous floury baps. Everything you have told me about them makes me look forward to them.

SWALK,
Barbax

I played this one poorly as the Treyine (and rolled poorly with regard to Sir Alaric) but managed to pull it back from the edge by virtue of having more disposable troops than Steve did as the Orcs. I let the archers soak up hits from the Orcs while weakening them and then threw the billmen into the melee. This turned out to be a good choice that led to the destruction of the Orcs. Job done. Treyine lost its hero permanently. The Orcs lost a stand of archers and their hero, who left after the battle.

The Desolation of Naz-Goth

 This battle was a fairly quick one, just two turns per side. The Orcs tried to gain some cover from the Archers by forming up in the woods. See for yourself how well it worked. (I also tried another style of report. Good old Comic book, using Microsoft Paint and some downloaded fonts.)

See what happens when you self edit? Cavalry on the Left!

 So Treyine marches ever on. I want to see what happens when they come upon an equally sized and armored force. Dansforth hid with the Arquebusiers and I just didn't think any magic was needed. The two questions I have are, what is the movement rate for a hero, and do heroes recover after the battle or is Hogash captured?

In the future I'd like to try another video AAR, maybe with comic book influences and try one that is more like a comic book page layout. Cheers. Oh, and if you care to read about it you can look at my failed project to actually game this one with figures here and the subsequent posts where it all went wrong.

Spring 991 - The Battle of Dat Look Like A Hill

Da Moon

All da noos what is fit to scrawl

GOBCHA!

In a feat not seen since the days of Nurg the Slowhand and Arg the Screamin’ Axe, our boys has gone out and dun us proud.

The two battle lines form up

Lining up against the massive army of invading goblins, our few brave lads looked firm with their 3 dinners on my shirt, war costume, sponsored by Umtroll. At the shout from King Pagash the Great Wind, the fearless bunch moved up in 11-0-0 formation at the sneaky goblins.

The goblins headed towards our brave lads and the two met on top of Dat Look Like A Hill. While our archers caught their archers on Dat Anuvva Hill. Our archers soon showed them what shooting is about and they ran off, like the little girlies they is.

The two battle lines meet

The damage after the first round of combat

And then we took reaction tests.

And then we fought another round of combat

The goblins then tried sneaking some wolf riders round the back, but out fearsome hero, Hogash, raced round the back to chase ‘em off. Funny that was the only time Pagash looked worried all day.

The End

The two armies put up a right good fight with toing and froing all along the line, but the lads betta training showed and class will out. Soon the goblins were running off the field carrying the fallen figure of their leader with them. Several of the dire wolf lads and the buggies got carried away and chased them back to their burrows. The screaming continued long into the night, as we celebrated our glorious victory in true orcish style. Goblin taste yum.

Like a sleeping giant we is now awake and are going to go on and bring orcish rule to the world.

Poor Goblins. Their lower Rep really told in this battle. They actually did more damage early on but soon started to suffer. It's a shame the skirmishers all routed from the first volley fired at them. Had they stayed on the field, they might have made a difference. Ah well, pity the poor Goblin nation which is no more. The Goblins are now Orcish slaves. Time to write a mixed Goblin and Orc army list so the Orcs can use the Goblins as cannon fodder.