Battle Amongst the Tombs

I had another gaming day up at Bodvoc's where we played a four player game. Bodvoc devised the following scenario.

Battle over the Graves of the ‘Kryndara’

A multi player game of Kings of War using four 750 point ‘Ambush’ armies.

The Kryndara are an ancient people whose burial grounds are occasionally found scattered amongst the many ruins to be found upon the plains of Babdos. As the opposing armies approach each other it is obvious that the battle is going to take place across the ruins of a Kryndaran graveyard. As the armies close upon their foe, they clash over the remains of the graveyard, can they claim some treasure as well as victory?

Deployment: For deployment, place 4 tokens numbered 1-4 in a bag. The players take it in turns to draw a token from the bag. The number drawn indicates their deployment zone and also they will ally with the army deployed adjacent to them. (One long table side was numbered 1 1nd 2, the opposite side was 3 and 4).  Players then throw a d6, deploying their armies in ascending order, so lowest score first (re-throw ties). Figures may be deployed up to 12” in from the table edge. Other terrain will have been placed randomly on the table.

Duration: the battle last 6 turns plus a possible seventh. At the end of the sixth turn throw a d6, score 1,2 or 3 = game over, 4,5 or 6 and play a final seventh turn.

Chapel and Graves: in the centre of the table is a ruined chapel. Also placed along the centre line are 4 old graves, equally spaced. Then throw 2xd6 for a number of inches and a random direction dice for each grave and locate them where the dice indicate.

The ruined chapel is worth 2VP and each grave is worth 1VP.

To claim the chapel or a grave a player must move a unit into contact with it and be the only player with a unit in contact with it at the end of the game. The first player to contact either the crypt or a grave must throw a d6 with the following effect…

1-3: Chapel/grave is empty

4-5: The angry spirit of a long dead Kryndaran attacks the unit/character

Spirit: SP5, Me5+, De4+, Att1, Ne11, if defeated it will shriek and then fade away.

6: Treasure: throw a d6 again… 1,2: a rusty Blade of Slashing (re-roll 1 melee dice)

3,4: A very decorative Staying stone: +1 to Wavering stat

5,6: Onyx Ring: regeneration 4+, once per game.

Any treasures found/claimed are also worth 1xVP.

Players also gain victory points for routing enemy units, scoring 1VP for each point of unit size their routed foe is worth. We will use glass gems to keep score of VP's. The winners of the game are the allies with the most glass gems at the end of the battle.

We randomly drew who fought where and with whom, Bodvoc had his Silvan Kin of course, and he was allied with Phil using the Orcs I recently based. I used my Karpath Kingdoms of Men and was allied with Ian's blue-skined Ice Orcs.

Bodvoc's sylvan Kin.  750 points of shooty nastiness

750 points of Green-skinned meanness 

My 750 points of bold Men of Karpath

Opening Moves

We set up with the two rival Orc tribes facing off against each other, and the Sylvan Kin keen to renew hostilities with the Men of Karpath.

Before the battle starts the Silverbreeze cavalry have claimed one grave.  

The Green-skinned Gore Riders claim one tomb while the Ice Orcs occupy the chapel.

The Ice Orcs advance, claiming another grave, while their green kin wait. Sylvan Kin shooting has already routed the Mounted Scouts 

Clash of the Gore Riders. The Green Orcs were hindered charging through a pond and needed 4+ to hit 

This is the result

Sylvan Kin shooting wavers the Bowmen, slowing down the second Spear Phalanx. Mayster proves singularly ineffective with his Fireball

Mid Battle

The leading Spear Phalanx has fallen to the Sylvan Kin 

The Green Orc Gore Riders use their superior numbers to see off the Ice Orc troop, they turn to face Dennis the Krudger on his gore, Gnasher 

Artem and the Foot Guard charge the elves. Despite causing a lot of damage, the elves hold firm (note that double 1 Nerve test).

Dennis has seen off the opposing Gore Riders

The melee hots up between the men and the elves.  Meanwhile we decide there's something wrong with the Ice Orcs*

Mayster takes moves to investigate one of the graves, but Emyn Lockharn charges him.  The adjusted Ice Orcs turn to face the Sylvan Kin, while their second Krudger tackles Emyn Lockharn

The Orc table half, less action, but tense manoeuvring

End Phase

The Skulks charge their icy brethren in the flank, so the Hunters turn their attention on the Ice Orc Ax  

Emyn flees the melee, but is chased by the Krudger and is hurt badly, and the Hunters fall beneath the Ice Orc axs.  Meanwhile, with Anichka holding off the Forest Shamblers, the Guard are free to charge down the Sylvan Kin standard bearer. Sadly, the General can't rout the Shamblers, despite chopping many branches off. Mayster finally causes some damage with his Fireball, scorching the cavalry, but it's too little too late.

As the battle ends the men of Karpath have suffered badly. The Foot Guard remain, as do all their heroes, but the rest of the army have fled. The Sylvan Kin are reduced to the Silverbreeze Cavalry and the Forest Shamblers, led by a badly wounded Emyn Lockhart.

This was a great fun game, with the opening turns dominated, on my table side at least, by Elven archery.  Once I was able to get to grips with them, they didn't seem so tough, though I had bad luck with the dice, and Bodvoc had better than average rolls.  I was really hampered by the terrain, It forced me to advance one unit wide, and the elves were able to concentrate their archery (11 shots from the Hunters and Emyn, plus 3 from the inevitable Army Standard Bearer with Boomstick, and 7 more from the Silverbreeze Cavalry) where they wished.  Had I been able to present a choice of targets I would no doubt have got more units into contact and the elves would have paid dearly.

The Orc side of the table was a lot less bloody, we suspect that the orcs had actually made a pact to do some half-hearted fighting and we expect future battles between the reduced Sylvan Kin and the Green-skin Orcs, and the men of Karpath and the Ice Orcs.  In actual fact, Phil, commanding my orcs, had never played before, and wanted to watch most of the action.  I'm sure he'll be diving right in next time!

Ultimately, the Syvan Kin/Orc alliance won by 2 victory points, a much closer result that it looked like at the beginning.

You can read Bodvoc's version of events here.

*The Ice Orc problem; due to a mis-communication, and confusion between editions, the Ice Orcs were mixing up troops and regiment sizes.  Although they were stated correctly, there were roughly twice as many Ice Orcs as there should have been.  After readjusting them they seemed a lot less scary to their Green-skinned opponents.