Warlords of Erehwon - Another Introductory Game

I thought it only fair to introduce T'Other One to Warlords of Erehwon.  Bodvoc and I have been having a lot of fun with the game, and have quite a few plans for scenarios and campaigns, and T'Other One is definitely interested in playing through the Lichemaster stuff. So I set up a short game to introduce the gameplay. 

Basic Stuff 

I went for a straightforward clash for the game and used my recently painted skeletons and zombies, plus an unpainted unit of archers, and a roughly similar force of orcs.

I also printed off an edited QPS and rosters, taking the opportunity change some of the quirkier stat names (Fight for Strength etc).

I've not done a full report, but here's some pictures and a brief rundown of the game. 

If you want a bit of a story, the two warbands are fighting for control of the potentially magical trilthon (though the orcs foolishly forgot to bring along their Shaman, that, or I ran out of points).

The Vale of Sacred Stones

As the mists clear, the two warbands eye each other over the plain,  or the orcs do; very few actual eyeballs in the undead force. 

The Vale as the armies deploy

The undead shuffle on, archers occupying the hill, while the undead champion leads a flanking force. 

The undead left flank

Another flanking force of spear armed skeletons, while the suspiciously boney necromancer holds back. 

The undead right flank

The skeleton archers proved more effective than the orcs; unsurprising, given the poor bow skills of orcs generally. 

The skeleton spears managed to get the charge in against the orc spears, routing them.

On the other flank, the skeleton guard followed the champion and charged into the orcs who followed their champion. Initially,  the orcs held their own,  helped by Grashak Kra crashing into the undead champion. Unfortunately an impressive flurry of blows were largely stopped by the ancient rusting armour. 

As the melee continued, the skeletons gained the upper hand,  eventually driving off the orc warriors and pulling Grashak Kra down. 

Champions clash on the flank

On the other flank the orc warboss and his retinue charged the zombies shuffling out of the woods (they needed to pass an Agility 2 test in the woods - and succeeded!) they took out over half of the walking dead (might have been more if I'd remembered their extra attacks) for no loss.

Unfortunately, the skeleton spears then charged them, gradually dragging down the warboss' chums.

Warboss vs zombies

The orc archers had suffered from the superior undead missile fire, at one point hunkering down rather than returning shots, but enough remained to either charge or shoot at the skeletons with swords. Having chosen to shoot, they did little damage, and were punished when the skeletons charged into them, breaking and running for the hills. I realise now that just charging would have been a better option, ah well, lesson learnt.

At this point only the orc warboss remained (it had been a brutal turn!), surveying the field he decided that discretion was the better part, etc, and joined the remains of his broken force. 

Final Thoughts 

A great fun game, and I'm not at all embarrassed at being absolutely tabled by someone playing their first game. 

Clearly the dice had their favourite that night.  I think the undead passed every single Command test, whereas the orcs passed two. Mind you, Grashak Kra's armour held up even better than the undead champion, passing every Tough reroll. In the end it was weight of attacks that did for him.

But T'Other One played well, and kudos especially to him picking up a new game so quickly. 

I hope we'll play more games of Warlords of Erehwon in the future, and it's been useful for me to get an idea of how the undead play on the battlefield. 

October 25 - Terror of the Lichemaster: Gimbrin Finehelm and his Miners

More Dwarven Miners

In the original scenario, Gimbrin Finehelm is accompanied by five other dwarfs. Three have crossbows, and all can act as individual characters (I'm pondering how to represent this in Warlords of Erehwon. I've a few ideas,  but it's going to need a bit of experimenting). 

I've already painted sufficient dwarves for the miners at Ashak Rise, so technically I don't need to paint any more.

But

This wouldn't be much of a post without me doing something new, so I thought, how about a mini for Gimbrin?

Gimbrin Finehelm 

Gimbrin was one of the minis sculpted specifically for The Terror of the Lichemaster Mail Order deal. As such, he commands a high price on evilbay.

As with Ranlac the Black, I've no intention of spending that much, and I'm not aware of any 'not Gimbrin's' out there.  So do I have anything in my collection that will do?

Oldhammer in Toronto (excellent blog, check it out) emphasises the 'fine helm' aspect of his name, and expands on that for the rest of the dwarves. Great idea. So I want a dwarf in a fine helm.

What Duck?

It just so happens that I do have a dwarf in a very fine helm indeed. Sir Donald the Quail, one of Citadel's dwarf heroes.

Sir Donald The Quail aka Gimbrin Finehelm

He was pretty straightforward to paint.  From the start I wanted bold, bright colours and red and yellow just seemed right. I was tempted to paint the duck bright yellow with an orange beak, classic rubber duck, but that would be too much yellow (though he is 'The Quail', so perhaps he's less than brave?).

I just managed to squeeze him in before the start of November, making October a relatively productive month for me, and proof that setting targets can be very effective. 

Finished Dwarves 

So that's the good side done.  I'll probably add in the mules from Ashak Rise, simply as scatter terrain.

All six of the dwarves

Gimbrin meets Borrin Fimbul

What Next?

I still need to do a bit of work on terrain, most of the buildings are built, but the minehead needs some repair and embellishment.

The next lot of 'Good' models (already undercoated and on the painting table) will be the Bogel family, and, of course, their farm.

Beyond that, I've been looking at what I've got and what I need for the Defence of Frugelhofen. That's a lot more painting, so it might be some time.

Ghost Miniatures Trolls

If you've read my last Warlords of Erehwon report, you'll have seen these trolls. I've had these for many years, originally as RPG monsters, then in my old Kings of War orc army.

I stripped them a while ago with the intention of repainting them for Old School stuff, though Orc's Drift has tended to refocus my orc painting. But it's fun to add extras, hence little additions like the orc chariot and these lads.

The trolls were originally from Ghost Miniatures, now available, in the US at least, from Old Glory Miniatures. 

They might not be the best detailed minis, but they've lots of character. I used a Ghost Miniatures dwarf for Fimbul at Ashak Rise, and I've a handful of their orcs and elves which I might paint up some day. 

I painted the trolls just like big orcs, differing skin tones and all.

Clothing is minimal, mostly furs, so I tried to use colour to suggest different 'donors' for the fur.

The Trolls

'Grabber'

'Chopper'

'Yeller'

'Basher'

They are a nice addition to my Old School forces and can fight for orcs or goblins.  I've even thought about assembling a monster army, mostly as an excuse to sort through and paint some of the monsters in my collection. 

They are a little smaller than the traditional Oldhammer Citadel troll, but still big enough to obviously be a monster of some sort.

Size comparison with Ghost Miniatures dwarf and Citadel orc

Whats Next?

Checking the Ghost Miniatures website I saw that the trolls were sold in a pack of five. Sorting through my older Kings of War orcs recently,  I found the missing troll.

Troll Boss

He's since been stripped and is awaiting painting to match his pals. As he's got more armour than the rest of them, he can be the unit leader.

MEGAforce Boardgames Night: Lost Cities

As there were only two of us recently,  Grim dusted off his copy of Lost Cities by Reiner Knizia

He picked it up on the market a few years back, and it's still in excellent condition*.  This was his and my first play through.

Lost Cities

Aim 

The aim of the game is to assemble successful expeditions to various Lost Cities.  This is done with cards of differing values from five different suits.

Gameplay

Each player starts with a hand of eight and takes it in turn to either place a card in an expedition or discard a card face up in the centre.  Cards are numbered 2 to 10, and MUST be placed in ascending order, but they need not be sequential.  So a 4 cannot be played on a 6, but a 6 can be played on a 4.  

The five suits represent different destinations; Desert, Neptune's Kingdom, High Mountains, Jungle and Volcanic Caves (the latest edition has a sixth,  but this was an earlier copy). 

After playing or discarding, the player draws another card, either one of the face up discards or a face down card from the deck. 

There are also 'Backer' (aka Handshake) cards, representing financial backing for your expeditions.  Up to three of these can be played before placing any numbered cards, they are also tied to the suits.

Play stops as soon as the last card is picked up,  so you can get caught out with good cards un-played in your hand. 

Scoring 

Expeditions are scored by adding up the numbers, but each expedition costs 20 points, which are deducted.  The result is then multiplied buy the backer cards +1. This does mean that a negative score is made even worse as your backers want results, even at the  cost of your success. 

There are also bonuses for having enough cards in a run and penalties for only having backers and no expedition cards.

If this sounds complicated,  it plays really smoothly.  It's recommended to play three rounds, and we were well into the swing of things in the first round. 

End game showing the different expeditions and the discard desk

Conclusion 

Lost Cities is a lovely little game.  It doesn't take long to play, our three round game took less than 40 minutes and we were learning the rules as we went. 

The card design is nice too, the cards show a panorama of the expedition drawn in a 1920s/30s style. 

There's quite a bit of strategy for such a simple looking game; do you discard a card that your opponent will find useful? Do you risk playing that 7 on that 4, or do you wait to see if you can find a 5 or a 6?

Lost Cities is two players only, which slightly reduces its utility (suggestions for a four player variant are available on the website), nevertheless, it's definitely a high A Tier/low S Tier.

Lost Cities is published by Kosmos, and is available from them or the usual retailers. 

*I suppose this should ring alarm bells, it looked rather like someone had bought it, played it once and didn't like it.  We really enjoyed it though.