Dragon Rampant Campaign - The Valley of Jeff - Game Four

Fleeing back down through the Uppar Hills Gruzzkupp's once proud invasion force turn to make a stand against the invigorated Dwarfs.

A simple Bloodbath game with the Dwarf force as the attackers.

Here's a video version

Here's the analogue version

Angry Oakenfinger Clan

The field of war

Orcs in fine array

The Orcis Wizard pushed up, sending some of the more ferocious lads on ahead.

Whilst Gruizzkupp's bodyguard set about stalking their opposite numbers

More fearsome boys stormed up a hill intent on feasting on goat-meat

The Pig Riding lads spied some bears. In the woods. Where else?

the Dwarf advance was more circumspect.

Dragon's Breath enveloped the Orcs protecting them from the crossbows.

The Black Orcs taunted their foe

The first Orc charge failed to much dent the Dwarf elite.

So the Black Orcs closed the ground.

The other Boys managed to scrag a couple of Goat riders

The Boars faced off against the bears.

The Dwarfs had cleared out the first Orc threat.

The face-off continued

The Bears charged and the Orcs countercharged!

The fight went in the favour of the Bears but they then failed their courage test and ran back to...you guessed it...the woods.

The Black Orcs fell on the Dwarf hearthguard.

Bagpipe Toting Dwarfs pushed up.

The Goats were being whittled away but the Orcs couldn't bring them to ground.

The Hearthguard were pushed back by rampaging Black Orcs.

The Boar Riders changed tack and fell on the Dwarfs

Forcing them back.

The Orc wizard spent his time trying, and frequently failing, to enhance the Black Orcs.

The battered Dwarfs somehow failed to respond to the rallying cry of the bagpipes.

The Black Orcs cut down the Hearthguard and then charged in to the crossbows.

However the Bears arrived to cut down the wizard and despite the Black Orcs finally catching the last of the Goat Riders, night fell with the Dwarfs in control of the battlefield.

Another grand game of Dragon Rampant. i did *somewhat* hamper the Orc cause by failing to remember that DR now uses 30 point warbands and only taking a 24 point force!

Next battle sees us back at the river as the Dwarfs seek to push the Orcs completely from their territory!

Warmaster Revolution: Empire v. Nippon

As part of the Warmaster campaign Matt (Nippon) was due to face Alessandro (Empire).

Circumstances meant they were not able to play, so I volunteered to field a mercenary Empire force in Alessandro's place

The Empire assembles. Plenty of knights.

A field somewhere in Nippon by the looks of things

the bulk of Matt's army is made from the Wargames Atlantic plastics

The daemons are 3D prints

I took skirmishers for the first time.

As the Daemonic battalion moved up I was able to catch them in the flank.

The Griffon rider went in too

My White Wolves had lined up for a devastating charge. Then failed their order.

Having dispatched the Daemons the Halbardiers were in turn caught by Samurai cavalry

And more Nippon horse caught my knights.

Both units.

On the left my horse still failed to charge home - partly discouraged by the Nippon forces being in fields, making for a closer fight than I'd have liked.

The right flank was now largely clear of cavalry on both sides

Though enough Nippon horse remained to fall on the last Knight of the Blazing Sun

Finally the White Wolves got stuck in

Though this unit rather disgraced themselves and bounced off.

It was left to the foot soldiers to catch Samurai horse in the flank and wipe them out - forcing Nippon to withdraw.

Good fun game and interesting to play with something other than Kislev for the first time in a while! the cannon proved devastating in the early game and the Empire Knights had enough grunt to take the heart out of the Nippon forces and then I managed to hang on and pick off units to get them to withdraw.

The Nippon army is a tough one I think - like an underpowered Empire - and therefore hard to use effectively a bit like I'm finding Kislev.

Warmaster Campaign Game One: Kislev v Chaos

My first game in the Warmaster campaign was a rematch from the recent Winter Warmer - fighting old Chum Matt and his Chaos.

I tried to film this but the camera is playing up - I'll see what can be salvaged at a later date

I won the scouting I was hoping to hold the woods and ruins with infantry, have my light cavalry run around on interference and then smash some stuff with bears and Winged Lancers.

Horse archers on the flank

More cavalry on the other wing.

The hordes of Chaos

Dragon! Yikes!

The Dragon popped into the graveyard

Chaos, true to form, came racing up.

The Chaos general darted out ahead, I took advantage and landed on him with some horse archers making him pull back. Unfortunately this rather hung the horse out to dry.

I managed some shooting on the big block of Chaos which confused the front rank

More shooting and magic also blunted the Chaos horse

I'd got the wagons set up nicely to dominate the centre.

Unfortunately the hero on my right failed to get the woods occupied.

As a result the Chaos horse caught archers in the open.

This ended as expected for the horse archers.

Meanwhile the Chaos foot assaulted the infantry in the ruins

I was quite confident until more infantry slammed into the flank.

Dragon Ogres too charged home. The General joined them!

Having cleaved through the horse archers the knights were on my flank!

Surprisingly the general and Dragon Ogres bounced! They did take a unit of Horse Archers with them!

It was at this point I noticed the film camera was broken, so after some fettling and swearing we resumed the game but i forgot to take any pictures for a bit.

The Chaos Infantry cleared the ruins, but were in return charged by the bears - who they just about held off. 

The Knights pummeling my flank pulled back - which was something fo a let off.

Oh, and I killed the Chaos General.

We hadn't agreed if we were playing "King is Dead!" rules before we began, but as that's the usual default we agreed we were and so with the roll of a seven the Dragon Rider took over in charge.

Meanwhile back in the ruins the bears in turn found themselves charged.

The infantry were now in the woods and causing all manner of command problems for the Knight brigade.

Having killed a unit of Chaos marauders with a flank charge the Horse archers rather unwisely followed up into another unit. Bounced and were in turn charged. - The spawn would be able to follow up.

In the ruins the bears once more went on the offensive - and were blostered by a Wizard turning herself into an Even Bigger Bear!

The Winged Lancers finally crashed home.

I maybe should have tried to maximise charging the spawn for easy break point killing

The Red Guard tried to help things by shooting. With little effect.

Unfortunately the bears bounced off and the knights who had positioned themselves to kill the retreating warriors were in turn charged in the rear!

The Dragon felt unnecessary.

With this combat the Kislev forces reached break point and the field belonged to Chaos!

On the count up of points it was closer than appeared. And a couple of luckier rolls on my side for command may have made all the difference.

I do think Two War Wagons, whilst looking cool is very sub-optimal. Most players will only ever charge a war wagon once - and then in other games simply ignore it.

I've got more Winged Lancers on the painting table now - just need them finished for the next game!