Despite this lack of time, I did mange to try out third edition rules and fight a battle before Christmas on an improvised table. I played alone and did aim at re-familiarising myself with the rules by basically playing a scenario based on a defence against an advancing horde. I used all my Orc and Goblin force and my developing Empire Force, which is based on Perry Miniatures fantastic historical models. Photos are of course rubbish but were only taken to give an idea of the action, not to be beautiful diaromas. If they were, I failed at the first hurdle of providing a decent table.
This is not competition wargaming or wargaming to sell miniatures, it is to have fun in an evening while telling a story.
Background
Following the events outlined in the previous post, the Orc and Goblin horde has begun raiding and wiping out towns in the West of the Empire. Prince Horatio, an elector count, has decided to build his reputation by taking on the force. He has entered into a bargain with the merchant Bismarck. In exchange for the use of his troops, he will support Bismarcks attempt to marry the Duchess Winona. This would bring the Merchant Bismark into nobility and give him claim to throne of the small Duchy of Weisburg and real power. As it stands, Bismark is already a powerful figure in Weisburg having purchased land and power with gold that he gained from adventuring in Lustria. While known as unpredictable, he is a powerful figure who's backing is depended upon by nearly all the factions in Weisburg.
All that is except the Duchess Winona, who despises the figure and has claim to the inheritance of the Duchy when her frail father dies after her elder brother renounced all claim to the his inheritance and became a warrior priest of Sigmar. Her father listens to his daughter but is increasingly pressured to marry her off with increasingly influential voices telling him to arrange a wedding between Bismarck and her for the good of the Duchy. Bismarck see's that only a bit more pressure is needed and so has started to ally himself with nobles outside of Weisburg. Prince Horatio, the son of an Elector Count who is already seeking glory presents himself as a perfect ally.
So far the Orc and Goblin Horde has presented no real threat, other than a stream of refuges and distress from small villagers. Nobles are not wanting to mobilise against it, seeing an all out war as what is wanted and so what should be avoided, allowing the Horde to break down under the weight of infighting. Prince Horatio agreed with this, until something happened. A group of clergy, from various religions started preaching about the evils of ignoring the greenskin menace. Prince Horatio's advisers advised to ignore this, until slowly one by one they did u-turns and advised the Prince that it would improve his standing if he engaged in crusade aganst the green tide.
It was a week after the last adviser changed his mind that Bismarck approached the adviser with a proposition. In exchange for his support of the marriage of the Duchess Winona, Bismarck would allow the use of his private army and they would face off against the Green Horde along their path of advance.
While their was no real path of advance, the village of Gimte provided a clear target for the Greenskins and agood place to assemble to beat them. The Prince agreed. He marshalled his small force of pikemen and called for help amongst the noble Knights aligned to his father and to Weisburg. He had a force and marched on Gimte.
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| The edge of Gimte and beginnings of the Great Forest. The Field of Battle |
Bismarck and The Prince's forces were camped in Gimte for a week before something happened. It started with scouts not returning and those that did reported a large force of Greenskins gathering but not approaching. The force outnumbered the Princes and Bismarck's combined forces. Bismarck's commanders and The Prince agreed open battle would not be possible and they would have to allow the Greenskins to break against their defences in Gimte. They set up with the nights on the Eastern flank next to the elite mercenary swordsmen of Bismark. Then the Princes artillery and Pike at the edge of the village and Bismarcks gunners and crossbowmen defending the village. The aim was to keep the Greenskin form the village and the break as many advancing as possible.
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| I did say the table was improvised! Empire Knights assembling |
The Empire fired on the goblins and soon a healthy number of casualties were being made.
But more and more Greenskins entered the field of battle and the giant spider advanced onto the Empires right flank.
In what looked set to become a legendary heroic charge, Prince Horatio ordered his knights to charge the beast. Unfortunately heroism is a lot easier in legends than it is on paper and the knights panicked at the enormity of their task and stayed in place, struck down by fear. The Goblins spurred their Araknorak (the spider) forward and charged instead. The Knights ended up
locked in combat with the beast, only just holding and not routing.To add to this, mangler squigs started to rampage through the Empire lines and the majority of the Empire forces looked set to be left out of the battle as Orcs and Goblins closed on the crossbowmen and gunners defending the village.
In an effort to engage and split the advancing greenskins who looked set to ignore the majority of his defences the Prince ordered his pike men forward to form a block in the centre of the field. Unfortunately they were charged by the Orc General and accompanying battle standard barer. Two models but I imagine it would be the equivalent of 50 (1 model represents 25 actual soldiers) super hard, huge Orcs armed to the Teeth lead by a couple of maniacs. They were followed by more Orcs and a Goblin regiment side charging the pike men.
With this the Prince ordered those who could to withdraw. Bismarck had already gone, abandoning his mercenaries who gave a fighting withdrawal. The Empire weren't routed but they were defeated. The village was the Orcs and symbolically, for this disparate group of tribes, they had defeated the Empire for the first time. They were ready to stop raiding and march to war! The reign of Finbad the Unrepentant, warlord and Emperor was about to begin!
Lessons
The battle showed a few things to me. Firstly it highlighted the flaws of 3rd. edition Warhammer. Despite it allowing more depth and range of actions, it drags as the battle gets bigger. If I am to continue resurrecting it, I will limit my games to 1500-3000 point afairs. In particular the combat system drags and does need honing down. Close combat should be short quick and brutal, not a drawn out affair. Anyone who has done martial arts training will tell you that you cannot physically spend hours fighting back and forward, but third editon seems to suggest this is exactly what happens over a tiny strip of land.
The second issue was manoeuvre and orders. I want a game where the general is giving and struggling to give orders, not just being a leadership bonus while units can freely manoeuvre. In my next game, I'm tempted to use some kind of order system based on Warmaster, to represent orders struggling to get through. The logical thing would be to back this up with an initiative move system which could result in forces doing the opposite of what you want them to do.
Finally the use of all my Orc and Goblin armies was over the top and made the game one sided. While I don't want to end up tied to army lists and points, I need to both remember restraint and use suitable size armies for time and space that match up more evenly. So I'll probably never paly with my full Orc and Goblin force using third edition rules again
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