Midgard The Iron Valley Campaign, Game 1

 We decided to fight our way through The Iron Valley, a goblet-sized fantasy campaign for Midgard. Mark is playing the Orcs, I'm taking the Dwarves and Colin will sit in as a sub-general for which ever force is the largest.

Scenario A: The Liberation of Krumpendorf, Prinz Schlagbert leads an assault to drive off the orcish invaders. I went for a strong force with two units of Long Axes and a unit of Troll Foes, supported by a unit of Tree-Clawers (forest bears). I have only taken one weak unit of Old Warriors, which I'll try to hold back in support.

Mark went for a large mass of goblins and soldier-orcs, supported by a unit of Troll-Bloods, a giant and some wolves and wolf riders.

The battle opens, Othere's contingent of Dwarves have occupied the village, whilst Prinz Schlagbert  is positioned to rush to their support. On the right, Friedhelm has the unenviable task of keeping  the orcish host from getting around the flanks and rear.

With only 9 Dwarf units to the Orc's 15, the initial deployment looks intimidating. With the number of units involved, Colin took command of the Orc's left flank.

Turn One 

Prinz Schlagbert rushes forward, while Friedhelm hangs back, waiting to see what the orcs do.

Unsurprisingly, Othere keeps his contingent in the village, manning the palisade.

After all, what they are facing looks rather daunting!

First blood! Othere's bowmen score a kill on the orc archers, whose reply decorates the palisade with dark feathered shafts, but fails to find Dwarf flesh.

The orc advance is slow and patchy. Mark was trying a tactic of putting the goblin units in front to weaken my troops before contacting his stronger units, but the goblin's reluctance to move was screwing with his advance.

Turn Two

Pretty much a repeat of Turn One. Schlagbert and Friedhelm's comtingents kept advancing. The bears rushed ahead and got onto the flank of the Orcs threatening the village, effective pinning them in their killing zone. The orcs responded by retreating one unit and turning the other to face the bears, effective preventing any assault on the village.

The Orcs also advanced, with the wolves and wolf riders swinging around  the Dwarves flank, forcing Friedhelm to adjust the end of his line.

Another exchange of arrows left the orc archers at half strength.

Turn Three

Being so outnumbered the Dwarves resort to the age-old dwarven defence tactic, All Out Attack!

Othere leads two of his units out of the village to crash into the Orc archers.

All of Schlagbert's units charge, frontally hitting two units of goblins and catching the elite Troll-Bloods in the flank.

Friedhelm leads his Long Axes into the goblins in front of them. On the flank the Old warriors decide that it's better to charge the wolves before the wolf riders can join them, rather than just wait to be overwhelmed!

The Dwarves have banked a good bunch of Reputation tokens from all their heroes charging, whilst the Orc Reputation suffers as the archers and two goblin units dissolve into red mist!

With opponents on two sides the giant is unsure who to attack first! At this point Mark realised that he had put two giants out in error, in fact his army list only had one! As he hadn't fought yet, he took off the confused giant, saving him the pain of making a decision!

Elsewhere Schlagbert's troops are pushing their opponents back with heavy casualties. But now the giant charged into the melee in support of the Troll Bloods and the Dwarves lost their first unit.

The isolated Old Warriors on the flank successfully held the wolves to a draw, only to be additionally charged by the wolf riders in the Orc's phase.

But somehow fought this combined attack to a standstill (another drawn combat). But cumulating looses left the Old Warriors with thin ranks to continue the fight.

Turn Four

The Orc's reputation is down to 1 so the Dwarves continued to press their advantage. Another unit of goblins and a unit of orc soldiers collapse into red ruin.

On the flank the last of the Old Warriors are finally cut down, surrounded by a heap of wolf and orc corpses.

In a final attempt to stave off defeat the giant and Troll Bloods both charge the units in front of them, but it's too little, too late.

At the end of turn Four the Orc's Reputation is down to -3 while the Dwarves are still on a healthy 7. A  Crushing Victory to the Dwarves.

It was a fun game for all. Mark's tactic of swamping the Dwarves with numbers might have worked better if he had put his better troops in the front rank and used the goblins as supports or to outflank the Dwarves. Let's see what happens in the next game.