War in the Icy Waste of Jortunheim

 Colin came over for  Midgard game, pitting the Heroes of Jortunheim against the Hordes of the Ice Witch. This was our first game using the Sorcery rules.

This game was over rather quickly, mainly due to Colin's ability to roll a bucket of 5s and 6s in almost every melee!!!

Just a brief example, in turn 2, Colin charged two units of Jortun (smaller frost giants, frost ogres?) led by the hero Sigurd, his army commander, into my Frost Troll and Ice Wyrm. This immediately gave him 3 extra Reputation points. Against the Frost Troll he rolled 12 hits (!!!), the poor beast was only armour 3, so 4 wounds, killing it outright. Against the Ice Wyrm he scored 3 wounds, so it retreated, into the unit supporting it behind. This prompted another command test, which I failed and the wyrm took another wound, also killing it.

So in the first turn of combat, I had lost 8 of my 11 Reputation points and Colin was now on 14!!

Things mostly went downhill from there, at the end of Turn 4 I was into minus Reputation, while Colin still had 8 points left. After that sort of a start, to be honest I was just happy to be able to hang on until turn 4!😂

The Heroes of Jortunheim deploy.

The Hordes of the Ice Witch line up against them.

Charging a giant might not be the best idea.

Suddenly there are a lot of gaps on my flank.

The Jortunheim struggle in the centre (unlike both flanks).

"Are you having a laugh little man?".

The Ice Witch's Frost Knights cut their way forward.

Jortunheim's Dokkalfar and their sorcerer attack.

The Frost Troll looks fierce (but wasn't in the end!).

There was a lot of laughs in this game and it was still a great fun to play. It was just that the dice gods were not on my side today.

Middle Earth Clash with Midgard Heroic Battles

 Ian came over last night for my first go at using Midgard Heroic Battles for Middle Earth. Set in the mid-Third Age, around the collapse of  the Kingdom of Arnor, an Orc host out of Angmar encounters a Dwarven force from the Blue Mountains.

I gave Ian the choice and he took the Dwarves and rolled high, so he was the attacker. This would mean I deployed first, but he took the first move.

The Angmar Orcish host, I used double depth bases for the orc units as it gives the impression of massed numbers and looks more menacing, well just orcish!

The Dwarven force. They look puny next to the mass of Orcs, but these are very hard b***ards!

In the first turn the Dwarves advanced in a calm, orderly manner, keeping the main battle line neat and throwing their skirmishers forward on the wings.

In turn the Orcs rush forward in a somewhat more disorganised manner, whilst the warg riders rush off to outflank the Dwarven line (I miscalculated how long it would take these gits to get into position without a hero/champion to push them along!).

In the second turn the Dwarves charge forward in the centre and the slogging match begins! This was a good move for the Dwarves, not only do they have an advantage for charging (reroll and 1's), it negates and extra dice the Orcs get for charging as they are classed as being Impetuous.

The Dwarves start pushing the Orcs back, their superior armour is paying off.

Except for the unit facing the trolls, who are forced backwards, but with heavy losses on both sides.

The third turn continues with an epic clash as the upper hand swaps back and forth, and the supporting units move into the melee where they can. Leading his hearth guard forward the Dwarf Lord destroys the Orc unit in front of him, first blood to the Dwarves!

On the flanks the Orcs charge into the fray, but with another 2 Orc uruk units wiped out and a hero wounded, for just a unit of Dwarven skirmishers, things are looking bad for the Orcs. Their Reputation is down to 3 whilst the Dwarves still have 6 tokens on their pot! That said several Dwarf units are rather badly chopped up, so could break with a little push.

Turn 4 sees a change of fortune (again) as the warg riders finally get into a position to charge into the flank of a Dwarf unit engaged with uruks to their front. An outstanding results sees the Dwarf axemen wiped out and their hero leader wounded. 

The centre of the battlefield is looking a bit empty (because so many units are dead!).

The last thing these unfortunate Dwarf axemen see is the trolls bearing down on them as another Dwarf unit crumbles. At the end of the Attacker (Dwarf) phase, we are both down to zero Reputation. It all depends on the final Defender (Orc) phase of melee. At this point our normal dice throwing resumed as I killed a Dwarf hero and destroyed another unit for no loss at all!

A view of the table at game end. 

The Dwarf Reputation pot looks empty...

...but in fact there are 5 Dwarf Reputation tokens in the Orc pot, representing a minus score for the Dwarves. Final score Orcs 0, Dwarves -5!!! 

A great game with a lot of fun and laughs. It was a really close game with the advantage swinging back and forth until the very last minute!

Mercia sees off Welsh Raiders - Midgard Heroic Battles

 Colin and I managed to get two game of Midgard Ancient battles in this week, the second being an Early Medieval (that's Dark Ages for wargamers) clash between the Saxon Mercians led by King Penda against an unnamed Welsh warlord and his raiders. 

I was the attacker with the Mercians, so Colin deployed his Welsh first and I got to move first in Turn 1.

My centre and left hand commands rush forward towards the Welsh line. The (out of shot) right flank, led by Penda's brother Eowa, rolled appaling dice and just shuffled forward a little bit.

Penda with his hearthguard, leading from the front.

The left command, led by Penda's son Peada (that was his real name!).

The unnamed Welsh warlord stands with his hearthguard, awaiting the onslaught.

The Mercians crashed into the Welsh battle line, Penda led his hearthguard in the first charge, which really boosted my reputation score. +1 for a hero charging, +1 for first charge of the battle, +1 for Army commander charging and +1 for targeting the opposing army commander!

Peada, supported by Osric the Mercian Champion, charged into the welsh line opposite them. Osric challanged the opposing hero to single combat (gaining 2 extra reputation points, 1 for the challange and +1 for challenging a higher level hero). He started well, wounding the Welshman in the first round, the second round was a glorious draw, but Osric fell to his opponent's blade in the third and final round. Obviously his heroic death inspired the Mercians to avenge him, because the pushed the Welsh back, inflicting heavy casualties.

In the centre the gods continued to smile on Penda, as, despite suffering heavy casualties, his heathguard wiped out the Welsh unit of heathguard opposing them and the Mercian spearmen pushed the other heathguard unit back with a very bloody nose.

Now it was the Welsh player's turn to activate and on the, so far unengaged, right flank they charged into the Mercians, pushing them back.

The next turn followed pretty much the same pattern. By the end Eowa and his entire command had been wiped out on the right flank. But no Welshmen were to be seen elsewhere on the battlefield, save for the dead....

...and the Welsh warlord who struggled on alone against Penda's onslaught, surrounded by the bodies of his dead heathguard!

At the end of  turn 4 I still had 6 reputation points left, whereas Colin was into a minus score! A great victory for the Mercians, obviously Penda's alliegance to the old gods has paid off!

Geat fun, these are a really good set of rules, that we are really enjoying. Next week we are going to add magic into the mix with a couple of fantasy armies.

To be honest, these rules are probably not for everyone, but they seem to suit us.

El Cid on the Plains of Andulcia - First Game of Midgard Heroic Battles

 I finally got around to my first game with Midgard Heroic Battles. 

My previous attempts to play had been scuppered by my opponents' health issues. Now, as family illness had scuppered our Christmas plans, I had the time to set up a solo game to run through the mechanisms.

I used the lists from the rulebook for 300 points of El Cid’s Medieval Spanish and Ibn Tashfin’s Almoravids.

Due to time issues I didn't want to get out my full table so I used the 30" wide table that was already set up. This meant that both armies had to deploy right on the table edge, I'd make allowances if any units got pushed off the table (which wasn't a problem in the end!).

 I'd split the infantry between the centre and right flanks, and chucked a couple of units of light riders to skirmish on the left. El Cid had all the infantry in the centre, with skirmishers screening the heavy foot. Light riders faced off against their Islamic counterparts , while the mounted knights were massed on one flank led by El Cid himself. 

My idea for tactics was that the Spanish knights would smash the flank opposite them, then roll up the Almoravid line. The Almoravid intention was to hold the flanks and crush the infantry in the centre.

Here is the table at the end of the Attacker's (Almoravids) phase in turn 1. The infantry are steadily advancing, keeping together to maximise their oppotunity for archery before commiting to melee.
                                       

Things hadn't gone to plan with the Islamic horse. the first unit advanced and passed their command test (3+) to make a second move, bringing them into javelin range of their opponents. however the second unit, with attached hero, failed their test for a second move. Not to worry, the Hero has two Mighty Deeds which can be used to reroll failed command tests. He spent one MD to reroll the commandtest, but failed! He then spent his other MD, but failed again!

The eager unit now unleashed their javelins, scoring two hits (5or6). The Light Riders have armour 3, so no kills, this time.

Moving on to the Spanish phase and both their light riders charged in (as their Hero joined them he gained Reputation, both for charging and leading the first charge of the game), as did one of the units of knights. In the centre the skirmishers moved up and shot, inflicting one kill.                                                                                                     

Over on the Spanish left flank, a unit of knights crashed into a heavy infantry unit. Everything was in the knights favour, the infantry did get some extra dice for their shooting ability, but the knights had Thunderous Charge, which meant hitting on 4+ in their first melee, plus as chargers they would reroll any 1s. Despite thie they only scored 6 hits to the infantry's 5! The infantry had supports, which allow them to roll to try and reduce the number of hit they receive. They rolled 4 dice and got a 5 and a 6, so knocked 2 hits of the kight's score. This meant the infantry had won and forced the knights back. As the infantry had armour 3 and knights armour 4, both side suffered a kill.

El Cid's unit failed to advance a second time and charge the infantry in front of them. The big man spent two Mighty Deeds trying to encourage them, but rolled 1s on both occaisions!

                                       

The Light riders rolled appallingly, both were pushed back and each suffered a kill. This forced a Risk to the attached Spanish Hero, who rolled a 1, so was wounded. He could have used a Mighty Deed to attempt to save the wound, but as he had used them up in the combat, he didn't have any left. As the Light Rider are both Stamina 2, this wasn't good. Units down to Stamina 1 who retreat must pass a command test or rout, of course one of them did! This lost the extra reputation the Hero had earned earlier!!!

On to Turn Two.

The Amoravid foot decided to get in first and charged El Cid and his unit (gaining Reputation for charging and charging enemy Army Commander). Unfortunatly I'd forgotten that the Knights had "Counter Charge", so came back at the foot with their "Thunderous Charge". In the centre the Amoravids stopped messing around and slammed into the skirmishers, all of whom failed their Evade roll! I seemed to be channelling someone else's dice rolling when thowing for the Spanish!!!

                                        

                                       

It was a bloodbath on the Islamic right flank, as El Cid and his men hacked their way through the infantry. As you can see, they gave as good as they got and El Cid won the melee by just 1 hit ( if it hadn't been for that Thunderous Charge, the infantry would have won!).

On the other flank the surving Spanish horse were wiped out. 

                                                 

The Hero survied his melle, but lost so should have been pushed back. This would have taken him off the table,  but as this was narrower than usual, I allowed him an extra turn on the table, so everyone remain in place.

The situation at the end of turn 2 was not looking great!

Turn Three

The Avoravid infatry struggled on, managing to hold off one of the Knight's units, but the unit fight El Cid was wiped out.

In the centre they won a hard fought melee and pushed one of the Spanish foot units back. On the Amoravid left they lone hero finally went down fighting, while the other Light Rider unit moved up to threating the centre's flank!

Things are getting a bit hairy for El Cid's Reputation by now!

                                         

Turn Four was fairly inconclusive, with a lot of hacking but no much effect!

In Turn Five another unit of Amoravid infantry fell to the Spanish knights

But it was all a bit too late as a unit of heavy infantry and two more skirmisher 8units were destroyed in the centre.
                                           

At the end of turn 5 El Cid was down to a -2 Reputation, whilst Ibn Tashfin still had a healthy 5 points!

Great fun and this helped me get my head around the mechanisms and order of play. I am really looking forward to playing against live opponents in the New Year. My first impression was that these rules will be a keeper! I like the fact thet the heroes are very important to the effectiveness of the army, but are not super-human killing machines that unbalance play.

Whatch this space for more soon.