Warlords of Erehwon; Attack on Jomstead

I had another great game of WoE recently when I visited Bodvoc.  The purpose was to get a better grip on the rules, which we certain did, sometimes though making mistakes.

The Mission 

As is traditional, the host came up with the scenario, n this case a raid for loot which was available both from two static sources (the farm buildings at Jomstead) and two mobile ones (Jom and Osbert).

The Armies 

We played with just short of 900 points; both of us expanding the armies we used in the previous game. I'm using mostly my Severed Hands orcs, but gave Grashak Kra four Hobhounds (using the Gobbledog profile from the goblin army list) and I tried a Shaman again. Otherwise it was largely a case of increasing the size of the units. 

Bodvoc took a Shaman too, his main addition was a unit of Goblin Dervishes.

The goblins of Kruk the Destroyer

The Severed Hand orcs

Opening Moves

Both armies gradually advance. There is some ineffective shooting. 

Both the Hobhounds and the Gobbledogs approach each other 

The Gobbledogs seize the initiative and charge the Hobhounds.  Some savage biting ensues and the orcish pack is wiped out. 

In response,  the orc spears charge the remaining Gobbledogs who fall beneath a hail of thrown and thrust spears.

Mid Battle 

The Dervishes swing round the farm and smash into the orc spears quickly destroying the unit. The orc Shaman looses his Fiery Balls at them, slaying some of them. The smouldering remainder just grin and clutch their weapons.

Gurk, the Goblin Shaman, steps forward and with a gesture the orcs facing him tremble with dread.*

End Game 

The Dervishes contact the Orc Shaman,  wiping out him and his bodyguard,  but lose some of their number. They spin on into Hagar Sheol, killing his bodyguard as they finally exhaust themselves.  Hagar Sheol decides enough is enough and flees, er, makes a tactical withdrawal. 

Elsewhere, the remaining orc warriors charge the cowardly goblin archers in the woods. Amazingly,  the goblins survive, and are able to turn the tables and drive the orcs away **.

The remaining orc archers try to down the goblin Shaman, but fail to hit.

At half the number of units, the orcs were broken, and the dice dictated that the game was done.

So another glorious defeat for Hagar Sheol. At least he survived, merely making a tactical withdrawal (in my mind anyway). Partly this is due to my almost deliberate avoidance of any loot, I had hoped to take some from the cold dead hands of the goblins, and perhaps focus on the farmers in the last couple of turns, but Bodvoc's clever tactics kept me on the back foot most of the game. 

The Devishes are scary.  They managed to whirl their way through three of my units, including my underused Shaman. 

I was a little unlucky with my dice in the second half, but I did pretty well to begin with with my spear armed orcs. I seemed to be good at getting the goblin units down to one or two remaining minis, but failing to finish them off.  Kruk and Gurk being notable examples.

Conclusions

I do need to look at my army and find a credible response to things like Dervishes as I'm sure that I'll be seeing them quite often.  I also need to work out the best response to annoying missile troops hiding in cover (and remember that they don't benefit from that cover when charged).

I think that something faster would be useful, we were both surprised that Gobbledogs (or Hobhounds) aren't Fast. 

Unfortunately, orc boar riders are expensive.  I have thought about doing some conversions using the Old School Miniatures boars that I got a while back, I just need to find the right orcs to go on them. 

Orcs aren't great at shooting.  I think splitting my ten archers into two units was a mistake.  I've got some nice war machines to paint up, but they still rely on an Accuracy of 4, so would be of limited value. 

Against poorly armoured opponents such as goblins, I think more spears will be good.  The pre contact volley of spears was suitably impressive.

And I must learn to be more careful with measuring.  Several times I roughly measured distances, mostly to make sure that the Dervishes were just out of reach, only to find that I was out, and they were just in reach.  This cost me the orc spears, and possibly more.

Mistakes Were Made

This was a learning exercise, Bodvoc and I don't get to play often enough and we are still very much learning the game.  

* We made this spell far more effective than it should be, it crippled my centre.  At the time I didn't really understand how to use the Rally order, which would have helped.

** Giving the goblins cover for being in the woods is fine against missiles, but we granted it in melee too.  Oops, no wonder nine rampaging orc warriors failed against ten puny goblin archers.

But anyway, a great fun game, and I even got another mini from Bodvoc's Old School Haul for my orc's Drift project, so win-win (or lose-win in Hagar Sheol's case).

You can read Bodvoc's account over on The War Crow

Champions of Midgard; MEGAforce Board Games Night

A Viking Saga

Grim brought another new game along recently: Champions of Midgard. 

Each player is a Viking leader vying to become the new jarl of the township. This is achieved by racking up Glory.

The best way to gain Glory is by defeating Monsters, either the Trolls that constantly threaten the town, the Draugr that lurk nearby threatening villages, or the legendary Monsters found overseas.

But to do this you need Viking warriors (dice of different colours) and you get these in various ways by placing your worker meeples.

Worker Phase

There are various locations about town that grant resources such as food, coin or wood, or the various warrior types, swordsmen, spearmen or axemen.  Some locations allow you to build a private ship or hire a public longship.

Placing a worker meeple in a location blocks it for the rest of the current turn. Once this phase is over, combat begins. You did remember to place meeples where you want to fight, didn't you?

Fighting Phase

Players then assign Viking warrior dice to fight. Only one player per target, and no fighting among yourselves!

Combat is straightforward, the monster has a set offense (the number of warrior dice it automatically kills) and a set defence (the number of hits required to kill it).  The warrior dice are thrown and the results applied.  The dice have some blank faces, and shield results block kills from the monster.  Swordsmen are the weakest warriors, and axemen the strongest.

The game plays over eight turns, and although T'Other One and myself were new to Champions of Midgard, we'd all got pretty fast as play went on.

There are lots of nice details, such as Destinies, which grant extra Glory at the end for certain achievements, as an example, I had Draugr Slayer, and got extra points for killing the most undead. 

Runes are one off special abilities and the Merchant's Quay provides new goods each turn.

My favourite bit is fighting the legendary monsters, such as Fenris Cubs or Lyndwurm. They are all found overseas, so you need a ship. There are a couple of public ships available or you can build your own. The ships are equipped with warriors, but they also need meat to feed them. A deck of cards represents potential hazards on the way, such as storms or whirlpools, and these can rob you of meat or warriors. Then the survivors get to fight the Monster.

The board at the start of play. T'Other One won with just short of 100 Glory! Grim and myself trailed around the 70s.

Final Thoughts

Champions of Midgard is a great fun game. At it's heart it's a resource management game, but there is enough 'dressing' that it really feels like a Saga. The artwork, especially the board itself, looks great, my only complaint being the horned helmets. I thought we'd buried that bit of Victorian nonsense back in the eighties.

Component quality is good, with wooden meeples (deluxe versions are available with horned helmeted meeples, just wrong).

I'll definitely put this in S Tier, it provides a great evening's entertainment.  I grew up reading the Icelandic Sagas, so this is just my sort of game.

Champions of Midgard is designed by Ole Steiness and produced by Grey Fox Games, and there are a couple of supplements introducing more Jotuns and Valholl and a couple more options for expeditions.