Orc's Drift for Dragon Rampant part 1

This is mostly me rambling on about the choices I made when I converted the classic Bloodbath at Orc's Drift campaign for Dragon Rampant.
The first decision was what has precedence.  I decided to keep as close to the original in spirit as I could.  Obviously this is a very subjective measure.  I wanted to keep the Dragon Rampant rules as is, but gave myself permission to add new traits and glory conditions, and indeed to set these for each battle, as I believe they can help drive the story.  I would use reduced and single model unis to cover characters and the generally small size of some of the forces, eventually I realised that a little invention for special characters might add to the play experience, but I kept that to a minimum.  I also selected various of the special rules and applied them as seemed fit.
For Kachas Pass I looked at what the original gave me.  15 wood elves and one (suicidal) commander.  The remaining elves and the lieutenant remain 'off table'.  40 orcs, 1 rock giant and a (cowardly) orc commander.  There is also a captured spy who is intended as a GM character (because back then the game was intended to be played with a third party referee)  acting as a mobile objective for both sides.

The basic troops were pretty straight forward.  The 15 elves became 2 reduced model units of Light Missiles with the Sharpshooter ability added.  I also gave them Fleet Footed, though in the play through this was never an issue.  As the original game has them waiting for the ill fated patrol to appear, any Move activation that would take the elves out of the compound has a -1 penalty for the first 3 turns, after that it is obvious that the patrol isn't coming back.  The elves do not need to take Morale tests for suffering casualties whilst in the compound, though all other morale triggers apply.
The orcs became 4 units of Light Foot and the giant was a Greater Warbeast.
The commanders were where I got a bit more creative.  The Wood Elf commander is seeking a noble death to atone for his adultery (you wouldn't get that in Age of Sigmar).  He became a single model Elite Foot with Wild Charge to encourage him to seek his glorious death and Missiles to represent his bow.  I invented a new trait and a new quest for him; Self Motivated, allowing him to reroll a failed Attack activation test (again to get him into combat) and A Glorious Death, +2 Glory if he personally finishes off the Orc commander or the giant (cumulative) and +3 Glory if either of these units destroy him.  As hoped this encouraged the elf player to really try to get Erdolas into combat with the nastiest enemy possible as soon as possible.
The Orc commander apparently 'missed' the previous battle, and wants to silence the spy who knows all about this.  I thought the might be a bit distrustful of him and gave him the Insipid trait.  i stated him up as a single model Heavy Foot unit, with Offensive partly to remove Wall of Spears, which is very hard to justify on one orc, and, well he is an orc commander.  I gave him a special quest, Silence the Spy; Fangor gains 3 Glory if he personally finishes off the spy.
The spy was assumed to escape on his first successful move activation.  he had his own phase at the end of each turn.  He basically moved away from any other models, I borrowed the mechanics form Frostgrave's Monster AI. 

The final bit of work was in designing the glory available to determine victory.  I'll admit this bit didn't go as well, I need to rebalance the actual values.  The aim is to award glory to the orcs for destroying the elven units and being in possession of the compound at the end of the battle, extra points are available for killing the spy as per Fangor Gripe's quest.
The elves get points for destroying orc units and especially the giant and Fangor Gripe.  Erdolas Thringol's personal quest means they loose points if he survives, and they loose points if the half orc spy escapes.  
The idea is to balance the glory so that if the elves do sufficient damage to the orcs they can actually win.  They may not be around to enjoy it, but their sacrifice will help the defenders at Orc's Drift later.  I'll have another go at this, but if anyone wants to make suggestions I'd like to see them.

Kachas Pass

I mentioned last post that I played two games of Dragon Rampant.  The second one was my adaptation of the classic second edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles campaign pack, Bloodbath at Orc’s Drift.

As mentioned before, I have very fond memories of this series, and I wanted to recreate them with a newer system; Dragon Rampant seemed to be about right.

If there’s any interest in how I went about this I will do a post about the process.  Here is how the first battle went.

If you don't know, the objective of this battle is for the Vile Rune orcs to destroy the elven garrison at Kachas Pass as quickly as possible before going on to meet up with two other orc tribes at Orc's Drift.  The elves are trying to hold them off as long as possible, not helped by being below strength and having a leader who suffers from a death wish.  There is also a half orc spy at the garrison who the elves want to keep safe, while the orc chieftain wants him dead as he has embarrassing information.

I provided the minis for both sides as I already had the orcs and had got some of the lovely Demonworld elves to face them.  I've been painting them over the last month or so.  As I set everything out the day before, I realised I couldn't find the giant.  A quick rummage turned up an old Nick Lund mini (orc? ogre?) which, once I mended his weapon, was quick to paint up and looks just right.  I also realised I had no half orc spy, so an undercoated Irregular Miniatures elf stood in for him.  Since he was supposed to be sneaking around, it didn't look too bad.

The bold defenders in the Kachas Pass garrison.

The Vile Rune tribe arrives.  Rock giant Guthrum Mane is in front (once again I was suffering from poor activation rolls, most of the tribe was stuck off table).

The foolhardy elven commander leaps over the fence to tackle the invaders single handed.  He did manage to inflict some casualties, even Fangor Gripe, the Orc chieftain, took a wound.

Meanwhile the elven archers in the compound take their toll on the advancing orcs.

The rest of the tribe catches up, and the giant now resembles a pincushion.

Erdolas Thringol, the elven commander, sees a target worthy of his sword, or at least an epic death.  Sadly for him, it was the later, squashed beneath the giant's club.

Without their leader, and realising that no reinforcements are on the way, the rest of the elves do their best to hold off the orcs.  One unit of archers destroys a unit of orcs and manages to finish of the giant.  On the right, orcs have already contacted the other unit of elves and driven them back.

The elves try to flee to safety (they kept failing morale tests, and being already broken the attrition wore them away) whilst their comrades try to hold back the tribe from within the compound.

The compound is cleared.  A unit of orcs chase the remaining elves.  They never caught them, but an unfortunate series of failed Morale rolls meant that the elves never made it off the table.   

Kachas Pass in orc hands. When they investigated, there was no sign of the spy, just a picked lock and footprints vanishing in the woods to the east.

A great fun game, and one that I think replicated the feel of the original.  there was a real sense of story, helped by a deliberate choice of traits and glory.

I kept pretty much to the rules as written, though I tweeked the unit profiles by adding abilities.  Nothing that wasn't in the books though.  I did make up a trait for the elf commander, and extra glory for both sides.
Next time it's Ashak Rise, with dwarves fending off orcs whilst trying to save their gold.  I'd better get some dwarves painted then.

P.S. Details of how I adapted the original scenario for Dragon Rampant can be found here.

Small, Far Away

Actually small and at home.  15mm Dragon Rampant at my house to be exact.

As hinted at previously, I was booked for a day of Dragon Rampant with good friend Stuart (Merlin).  We played a scenario from the book (The Sacred Mole of Ukkert), partly to remind ourselves of the rules.  Merlin has played recently, but its been an age since I did.  We both used armies we used previously, so there was a bit of rivalry between the forces.

The barbarian horde escape with the mole in its sacred box.  Cunningly Badvoc has given it to his fastest troops (the lovely looking elk drawn chariots) to carry. 

Some of the orcs lurk in the woods, hoping to ambush the invaders.

The rest of the orcs wait in the field.  And  wait, and wait 

Eventually some of the orcs manage to clamber over the hedge, but the bulk of their forces are sill milling around, doubtless discussing agricultural policies and their effects on an agrarian society.  The orc cavalry are Befuddled by Cantor the Red's magic, costing them a valuable turn.

The chariots move unhindered across the table, already nearly half way across with their precious load

At last, some of the orcs are able to respond to the threat, but canny Badvoc has deployed his forces as orc fodder, simply to try and cut them off from the chariots (and they say us orcs are brutal!)

The chariots reach their escape point.  They think its all over.

It is now.  Victory to the barbarians.

That was a great fun game.  Frustrating at times, but also a valuable revision exercise, reminding me of the rules.  I failed a far greater than average number of activation rolls, and very often early in my turn.  As a result, the bulk of the orc force stood by, watching as the chariots wheeled the Sacred Mole off the table.  Perhaps they didn't really care for it after all?  

Merlin had very sound tactics, placing the Mole with his fastest unit, and doing his best to move it as fast and as far as possible.  I think he only failed one activation for them all game.

It was a strangely bloodless battle.  We were both concentrating on the Mole, so units were used more as blockers than anything else.  Even the magic was mostly used to deny the orcs some movement by Battering them, rather than damaging them.  I might be misremembering, but I don't think either of us lost a unit, though we both took casualties.

EDIT I lost my Bellicose Foot, otherwise both armies ended up with all units at half strength or higher (undamages in many cases).

I'll report on the second game in another post, as this has already gone on a while, with a lot of pictures.  Look out for part two here.

Catching Up

Well, its been quite a while since I last posted anything.  I haven't been idle though, I've managed to get two games in, been to a show, and quite a bit more painting for various projects.

Last  month I had a day of gaming against long time opponent Stuart (Merlin).  He hosted and we got a couple of games of the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game in, with the intention of starting a Battle Companies campaign. I started a Mordor warband, basically nine orcs, and Merlin had Dwarves.  We both used the new Battle Companies book, I forget which particular flavour of dwarf he used.
The first game required me to hold a hill in the centre of the board.

Orcs surveying the landscape (and wishing they had some cover).

The game went badly for me, the only dwarf I managed to 'kill' saved himself with a point of Fate., Most of my warband were downed, before the rest fled.

Fortunately all of my orcs survived the post game injury rolls (though I would have to play the next game without one of them).  I did get another archer and a sneak, ready for game two.

In this game I had to try and kill the enemy leader, who, along with his warband, was resting in a compound.  The sentry rules provided a suitably interesting start; although things went a bit better to begin with, I was unable to capitalise on this, and once again, my orcs either fell or fled.  This time they were able to hurt a few of the dwarves though.

One of my lieutenants died in this game, leaving me short for the next game.  I fact I will be down to  seven orcs, as I have two sitting out and will have to leave an archer behind as well, as otherwise I have too many bow armed troops for the size of the warband.

(Yes the outhouse and tents are my 15mm Orc's Drift models, but they did the job here)

Sneaky dwarves 

  

Advancing orcs

Whilst I enjoyed both games, it was a struggle to get anywhere against the dwarves.  Their high defence meant I needed a 6 to hurt them after managing to hit them.  I just didn't get to roll enough dice to get the odds closer to my side.

The sentry rules in the second game were great fun, and enabled me to send lone dwarves out to get mugged by the orcs.  Unfortunately, they failed to deliver inthe hitting things department.  I did make a classic mistake though, I held off my archers for an extra round of shooting, rather than getting them stuck in and outnumbering the enemy.  I had forgotten that orc archers are not really worth considering as missile troops, they are much better getting stuck in, if they have numbers on their side.

We will get around to another game, but its not going to be easy to win, the dwarves will now outnumber the orcs!

Playing reminded me of the fun I used to have with this system, and also the frustrations at times.  The orcs really struggle with their starting warband against the dwarves.  They should have strength of numbers on their side, but by now I have lost that.  That defence of 6 is just too high to reliably hit,

which is as it should be, the dwarves should have the best armour.  We did wonder if perhaps the starting warbands were  a little unbalanced, but according to the points, that isn't the case.

At the end of March I went To Chillcon.  I'd never heard of this one before, but it was great fun.  Close by (on my side of Sheffield) and with some great traders.  I got a few Reaper bones for my ever-growing collection of unpainted plastic, a pack of dogs for Frostgrave (and D&D, as every 5th Edition game I run seems to end up with at least one character with a wardog), some bits of modelling stuff, and some old magazines.  I even picked up an old copy of 5th edition warhammer, as if I ever get back into playing this, that is the edition I will use.  Unfortunately I didn't notice that the previous owner must have been a heavy smoker; the book is sealed in a bag with a good amount of Bicarbonate of Soda.  I'll definitely put next year's Chillcon in my diary.  It was big enough to be interesting, but small enough to still feel friendly.  And I got a couple of free minis with the entry fee.

Finally in this catch up I managed to finish the nine orcs for my Battle Company (see them above, I'll do a post on them soon, they need some reinforcements).  I've also got some more 15mm stuff finished for Dragon Rampant.  Tomorrow I am hosting for a day of Dragon rampant against Merlin.  We will play a straight forward game to remind ourselves of the rules, then try my Dragon Rampant adaptation of the first Orc's Drift game, Kachas Pass.  I'll let you know how it goes afterwards.