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.

Midgard Heroic Battles, getting started.

 I have eagerly been awaiting the publication of these rules for a couple of years now and, having got hold of my copy, I am very pleased so far. They feel like they will give me the sort of games I was hoping for with Oathmark, but sadly it didn't deliver (for me at least).

As often happens, the Law of Sod kicks in, I haven't been able to play an actual game yet as two attempts have had to be cancelled due to "real life". But that has given me the opportunity to review my armies that would be suitable for trying the rules out. They comprise of:

Late Romans and Franks

El Cid Spanish and Andalusians

Early Crusader States and Saracens

Middle Earth Elves, Dwarves and Orcs (with the Late Romans/Franks doubling up for Arnor and Angmar).

I thought I'd start off with the Elves. This army was put together 20 odd years ago and is a mixture of Grenadier, Ral Partha and Kalistra minis. My first thought was "I need more Elves!". The army is all infantry, which is fine for the War of the Ring, but Tolkien does mention elf cavalry in earlier eras. I had been meaning to get some cavalry for some time, but never got around to it. As luck would have it, I found two lots of painted Grenadier elves on ebay in quick succession, which included plenty of cavalry. Job done!

Here are some pictures of the army. I'll be using sabot bases for Midgard, my armies and individually based on washers and I can't face the prospect of rebasing over a thousand minis!😮

This is the original army, like I said this was painted about 20 years ago. Noldor spears, bows and axe/swordsmen, plus some skirmishing scouts.

Now with the recent reinforcements, 3 units of knights, 1 each of horse archers, foot spears and fppt bows. Some of the cavalry arrived with broken horses, so I will have another unit of knights once that's sorted.

This onlt arrived a couple of days ago and I haven't got around to basing them next.

Next to sort will be the Dwarves, a core of Vendel miniatures, with a mix of other ranges.

Then the Orcs, which may take a while....it makes me wonder, do I have enough Elves?

More Great Northern War with Blucher

 Colin got over earlier today,so we could have another bash a the Great Northern War using Blucher rules. I had expanded the size of my Swedish and Danish armies, so both sides now had 3 infantry commands and 2 of cavalry.

The pre-game mini campaign finished with a fairly typical deployment. We each had 4 commands starting on the table facing each other and one command entering as reinforcements. The reinforcements could make things interesting, I had a cavalry command following up on my left flank and Colin had an infantry command reinforcing his left flank. Unfortunately they were going to enter to the rear of my right flank!

It was an interesting, hard fought game and a lot of fun. We each started off with half our forcing facing each other across a stream. With neither side wanting to risk a crossing under fire, they spent most of the game looking at each other.

My cavalry reinforcements turned up early and with their support I was able to disperse the Danish right flank and swing around onto the flank of the Danish centre. They had punched a hole through the Swedish centre but were unable to exploit it before being over run. The Danish reinforcements were late in arriving and a Swedish regiment, holed up in a small village, prevented most of the units from rushing forward to catch the Swedes in a pincer manoeuvre.

The Danes belatedly attacked across the stream, but lost the cavalry fight, which took their army morale to breaking point!

Here is a few pictures from the later part of the battle.

The Swedes Left Command starts to flank the Danish Centre.

The Danish Left starts to cross the stream.

But the infantry are held by the Swedish Guard.

The beginning of the end, the Danish Centre starts to collapse, leaving a forlorn-looking infantry regiment rather isolated.

The Swedes start to win their bloody melee in the stream.

The final situation on the Swedish right as the Danish army breaks. You can see the first units of the Danish reinforcements moving up, but too late to take part in the battle.

Great fun to play. It was much closer than it seems from the final pictures. The Danes had lost 8 units routed/destroyed to the Swedes 4, but I had 4 more units who just needed 1 hit to rout them. It could easily have swung the other way.

I have been playing around with the (limited) unit traits in Blucher, as well as the commander's abilities, to give a National flavour to the opposing forces, which seem reasonably balanced to me. In our previous game the Swedes had been given a right royal kicking by the Danes!

A Sellswords and Spellslingers Dungeon

 After several attempts to find a date we could both make, Ross managed to come over a continue our  Sellswords and Spellslingers campaign, following the adventures of our motley band of heroes, Steinarr the Cleric, Dallin the Warrior, Renir the Wizard, Lars the Warrior, Aoife the Elf Ranger and Mephiso the Wizard. 

We are using Corey Burger's Scenario Generator and expanded Event Deck (both put out earlier in the year via Andrea's Patreon site). As we were entering abandoned (or was it?) underground catacombs, we are also using Corey's provision dungeon rules. Well done Corey!

It started off so badly, Ross activated Mephiso first, tried to cast a Light spell onto Lars' shield (this would have counted as a permanent torch) but rolled a 1 on a d20, losing all his magic for the duration of the game! Then, when I activated one of my fails drew a Mana Flux card and I rolled low, so spells were more difficult to cast (for the one magic user who could still cast spells!).

The first room we entered had 6 skeletons, which the party finished off, but only after a couple of us suffering wounds. We also drew a Hidden Treasure card, which put a chest in our current room and 2 other random rooms, one of which contained treasure. Of course, the chest in our room was a dummy!

As the other treasure chests were in nearby rooms, we decided to ignore the right-hand side of the dungeon and concentrate on finding the genuine chest. 

The second room we entered turned out to be the lair of the Necromancer himself! The undead wizard, a horde of skeletons and 2 Skeleton Knights! Somehow we managed to take them all out without any of the party dying and we had found the actual treasure chest, plus Renir snatched a wand he noticed on the Necromancer's body. Mind you everyone was wounded and two of us were just 1 hit away from being out of the fight!

We decided to cut our losses, grab the chest and get out of there, we could return and check out the other rooms another time. At this point Renir redeemed himself. So far he had either failed to cast a spell, or else missed with his magic dart attack. Now he rolled 4 activations and proceeded to successfully cast his Heal spell 4 times! That got the party back on their feet, which was just as well. Not only were there still a lot of undead who had entered as wandering monsters, a bugbear with a big axe had entered the dungeon, between us and the exit.

Here are some photos of the game.

The intial set-up (I love my Tenfold Dungeon kits!), the PCs have entered in the bottom right corner.

Everything is looking quiet.....

....so far, at least!

What a surprise, skeletons!

And more enter a nearby room.

Yet more!!

It's getting crowded in here!

And now they are coming up behind us.

Oh Goody! The Necromancer and his undead minions.

Less minions now.

And the undead lord bites the dust!

How will get past this lot?

Well that's one way of doing it Steinarr, not the way I would have chosen but that's up to you!

Steinarr, duck!

Get him, Dallin!

Lars, stop bleeding on me!

Eventually we all got out in one piece. If Renir hadn't got his Heal spell working when he did, we would have been dragging a couple of the PCs out by their heels, that Bugbear was vicious! Great fun to play and once the party have healed up, we will be back to check out the rest of the dungeon. Of course some other nasty things might have made themselves at home by then.

Renir's wand turned out to be a Wand of Magic Dart, the spell he already can't hit a barn door with!

Return to Gothic Horror with Fear and Faith

 I had Kirstie and Ian around on Friday, so I threw together a quick 3-player scenario using Ganesha Games' Fear and Faith rules in my Gothic Horror setting. I realised that i had not put my scarecrows/pumpkin heads on the table since I bought them on Ebay over a year ago, so I thought it high time to get them bloodied.

Three factions, A Vampire, a Warlock and a Witch. Each have a bride/daughter/sister trapped in a demon plane and need to carry out a ritual to release them. Unfortunately, when they reach the site of the portal, they discover the other parties are also there and fisticuffs ensue.

The table layout. The ritual must be carried out at the altar stone in the centre of the table (2 actions and pass a successful Q roll). First one of the three standing stones must be activated (1 action Q test) to generate the magical energy required and direct it to the ritual caster. Once "switched on" the energy could be diverted to another caster in the same way.

The Witch and her artificial animations (ME). Only her magic can harm the vampire and her minions have a high Q score, so will be difficult to command. On the positive side, they are hard to kill.

The Warlock and his followers (IAN). The Warlock has magic, his henchman is a vampire hunter with wooden stakes and holy water vials, plus one of this minions is a huntsman with a crossbow and a supply of wooden bolts, so lots of ways to kill a vampire here. The other minions are average quality thugs for hire, so nothing special.

The Vampire and his enthralled Cossack guards (KIRSTIE). The Vampire is the most powerful character in the game, but his Cossacks are just average sword fodder.

The warlock's followers rush forwards, one of them reaching one of the standing stones.

Another gets to a second stone, just ahead of a cossack.

Another cossack gets to the third standing stone.

I on the other hand roll appalling dice and by the third turn I still have not even got all ny artificial creatures off the starting edge!

Kirstie rolls much better dice and while my forses are dithering, activates a standing stone.

Shooting is not so good however, two attempts to shoot the Warlock minion by the central standing stone miss by miles!

One the other side of the table, having switched on the energy for the Warlock, the musketeer moves up to get a shot at the one creature I have been able to get moving.

The Warlock rushed into the centre of the table, but then, feeling a bit exposed decided to move back and let his minions do the fighting.

The Vampire hunter charges one of the cossacks, joined by the thug with the pitchfork.

The second cossack charges in to help his colleague. A frantic melee ensues, with both cossacks being knocked to the ground, by scambling back on their feet before the coup de grace could be delivered.

The musketeer hits my pumpkin head. It's a kill, but because it wasn't an aimed headshot, the creature is only knocked down.

The Vampire moves forward to survey the carnage.

Finally a turn with reasonable dice rolls and two of my creatures charge the musketeer befor he can reload.

The next turn goes badly for Ian, one of his minions is killed by a cossack....

...while another is killed by my creatures.

Allowing another pumpkin head to move up and redirect the energy to my witch.

I had my Witch in the centre of my forces, where she could influence the most creatures and try to get them going. Unfortunately I hadn't noticed this cossack who had crept forward and took a long range shot at the Witch. It shouldn't have been too much to worry about, there were lots of minuses for the shooter.

But Kirstie rolled a 6 and I rolled a 1!!! The only result that could have killed the Witch, so I was out of the game. The huntsman took a shot at the Vampire with his crossbow, but missed.

While the huntsman was reloading and seeing that the Warlock and Vampire Hunter were busy elsewhere, the Vampire took a chance and rushed up to the altar stone. It was down to who activated first, if Ian gained the initiative there was a chance for the huntsman to reload and shoot, as well as the Warlock moving up and casting a spell. But Kirstie won the initiative and the Vampire easily passed the rolls required to  cast the ritual and open the appropriate portal.

A win for the Vampire and a definite big loss for the Witch! The Warlock lives to try again when the start are next in alignment for the ritual, so he will be back in a few years!

A lot of laughs were had, some beer was drunk and we all had a great evening.