Friday 18 March 2016

Its That Time of Year Again

The coming weekend marks the Triples show in Sheffield, held once again at the English Institute of Sport.  Amazingly this year it doesn't clash with the Mantic Open Day.

I will be there with a few of my gaming friends.  Not much of a shopping list this year, just some bases etc and some plastic spears if I can find any.  Of course, once I get there I might be tempted...

I will, of course, post anything interesting that I find.

Tuesday 15 March 2016

A Bit of KoW

Once again, its been a while; more on that in another post.

I had a great game of Kings of War last night against T'Other One's Undead.  It was great to get the old orcs out again, I've not played with them for ages.  We used T'Other One's great Tablescapes terrain tiles, and his army looks excellent.  If you want to see more of it then check out his blog (Link at the bottom of the page somewhere).

Anyway, we rolled Invade, meaning that to win you had to get more troops in the opponent's half of the the table by the end then he did on your side.  We each had 1000pts, and, unusually, neither of us had any magical artefacts.

N.B. the battle is written up from my point of view, the Undead may well have another story to tell.

It became obvious early on that we were both going for a refused flank...

though there was a horde of zombies (with accompanying necromancer) on the far flank.

The orcs move off, desperate to try and hold the foul undead away from the orc tribal lands.

The early clashes consisted of the werewolves and ghouls charging and wiping out the orc skulks.  In exchange, the gore riders took out the werewolves in a cloud of thundering hooves and shredded fur.  In the confusion the ghouls have slunk off behind the orc lines.
Meanwhile the Krudger and one of the orc ax regiments take down the revenants.

A regiment of orc ax turn to head off any threat from the undead on the other side of the tower, while the Krudger and his gore riders decide what to do about the revenant king.

In the centre of the field the other ax regiment takes down the zombie trolls.

Then both axe regiments sandwich the poor wights, while the Krudger trades blows with the revenant king.

On the far flank the zombies have managed to work their way round behind the orc lines, aided by the necromancer's Dark Surge ability.  The orc ax horde turns to face them, hoping that the river will hold them off.

Which it doesn't.  However, crossing the river Hinders the zombies, making their attack less effective, and causing much merriment in the orc camp.
The final stages of the battle didn't get photo'ed, but the orcs continued their triumphant run, wiping out the ghouls, the zombies and the revenant king.  Eventually the lone necromancer fled, no doubt threatening revenge.

All in all a great battle, played with nicely painted armies on lovley terrain.
1000 points is a good size for a small to medium battle, we both felt that we were somewhat constrained in troop choices, but that's probably what 'real' orc krudgers and necromancers have to face.  it's also a great size of battle to learn how to use your troops and the rules (neither of us had played for months, so we were both a little rusty).

I should point out that T'Other One was less than lucky with his dice rolls.  Twice his zombie horde charged my orc horde with 30 attacks.  Each time he did one point of damage.  Also when Dark Surging his wights towards my rax regiment he stopped one inch short. I did seem to have to dice gods favour however.