Battle Report - Club Day Saga Age of Magic

Hello All,

Yesterday evening we had our Club day, doing some Age of Magic Saga. I decided to try out another of the boards, so I went for an Uruk-Hai Horde army. Time to see what the white hand of sauron can do.

I had Lurtz as the Warlord with Saruman as a wizard, and Ugluk as a Champion. Troop wise a bunch of warriors, a troll berserkers, and a unit of bow. Facing off against the warriors of Troy with a big unit of hearthguard, Artemis as a mage, and some woodland creatures, using the great kingdoms.

Scenario wise we played the fully random battle as I find it the most fun and got:

Unknown lands - player 1 sets up 4 terrain
March column - played on the short edges
Under pressure - either player can end the game after 4 turns, else 6 turnd
Forced march - move slow for first 2 turns
Sacrifice - massacre points to win, with a penalty  for killing a unit outside melee 

Heres the set up, kind of far apart!

After a couple turns of marching its time for war. Not that we forgot about maneuvers turn 1, and mis understood what they meant by 2 turns of slow so had twice as much of that.

Anyway I advance up in long striking range, and put the troll in range of the warriors, hoping they would charge. But the creatures did and killed mr troll, but lost 3 if their own.

My turn I launched lots of charges, pushing back the spearmen, and archers. This left Artemis vulnerable so the Uruk-Kai were able to kill her. Sadly my berserkers charged the huge unit of hearthguard and killed just 1! They had a really good defensive ability.

Not looking great at this point, but it was a good counter push for me.

Most of the steam is gone now, and we ar both down saga dice so it becomes charge and counter charge. The hearth guard are really throwing their weight around.

I made some bad charges but whittle down the spearmen on the right. And the trojan elite finished my unit and took back their hill. I guess they are bad about the while Artemis thing.

My turn I killed a few levy and finished the spears.


Points wise it came up to a pretty solid win for Nick. I think the turning point was my berserkers failing to deny the trojan hearthguard, and I was never really able to get all those juicy points.

Also after consulting my rules lawyer I realized that Nick's army was 9 points not 8!

Edit: my bad I had thought there was 12 hearthguard for some reason. Counting can be hard it seems.

All in all a fun club day. I like the interesting variety if armies people bring out for this. Sadly I was to interested in murder to take shots. But Tod put a few on face book.

Thanks;
Mike

Battle Report - Test of Honor

Hello Folks,

Time girls another Wednesday wargaming battle Report! This week we had a chance to try out the new version of Test of Honor, from Grey for now Games. We just did the starter scenario, which doesnt use the cards  which pits 2 characters and there bands against each other. First one to loose the hero loses!

I took some Warrior monks to defend against the pirates.

Here is turn 1, my guys moving out from the houses, pirates coming up the docks.

Turn 2, do to the chips we drew the pirate captain got really far ahead. I took cover with my slinger and gunner behind some crates.

Blades are met. The heroes start dueling each other. In this game if your action is unspent you have to use it to try to dodge if you are hit. So my gunner was able to pin the group of pirates.

But not for long,just as it seemed the pirates were on the ropes the chips go against me and my guy is wounded as well.

But never fear next turn the pirate manages to fail avoiding and gets run through!

Game 2:

That was quite fast so we had time for another round. I changed over to some spooky Ninja to changed it up, but otherwise the same set up.

Set up as before, Ninja master in the far left house.

This time I had less guys and no long ranged weapons, so I decided to hang out behind the walls more...

Slower advance this time, kept getting the tea break early.

Sometimes really early.

Gunner fails to climb the cliff.

Pirate captain being a bit more careful about bringing up guys this time.

Then the Ninjas jump the wall and battle rages!

But the captain goes on a savage killing spree! Reducing my group to 1. That's not good. Ninjas are good at evading hits but not so good at resisting them. But I have been charging the captain so he is on the ropes.

Finally it came down to just the master. But he charged in doing a lingering wound. In this game if you roll well you get an extra effect based on your weapon, lucky for me the ninja master got a free charge so was able to cut the pirate down.


In the end I quite liked this game. Was more fun then I would have thought. Very simple to play. The chips can be annoying but di mic things up allot. We will try again in a couple of weeks with the cards and about twice as many guys!

Thanks;
Mike

Painting Update - Skulls, and Monks?

Hello Folks,

Finally time for another painting update. Been busy and lazy here lately, with lots of trips to halifax for work (booo). But I got some stuff done.

Avenger Bolt Thrower:

First a war machine for the men of Gondor, need to take out those pesky trolls.

Hexforger Skulls:

Big floating skulls for my Khorne army.

Warrior Monks:

Couple of new warrior monks.Models from Kensei, basically the start of a fall of Samurai.

Peasant Slingers:

Never to poor to throw rocks at Samurai!

Warrior Monk Boss, with Big Stick:

I just like this guy.


So ya not a ton of guys, but some progress anyway!

Pledge Status, 2019:

Bought: 200
Painted: 240 (More Gondor guys and a new Infinity army)
Total: -40

Thanks;

Mike

Battle Report - Mordor vs Dwarves in Domination

Hello Folks,

Time for another Wednesday wargaming battle Report!


This weeks is another Lord of the rings game. I have a mordor force with Gothmog lots of orcs mordor uruk-hai and troll. Facing off against pesky dwarves, with Durin and Balin.

Mission we pulled was Domination, there are 5 points around you have to control at the end, plus points for breaking the opposing force, and wounding their leader.

Here is the deployment. I have Gothmog and the main orc force on the left, uruk-hai and troll holding the middle, and small groups of orcs behind. Dwarfs have 3 groups about equally spaced. My main strategy is to avoid fighting thr good dwarf heroes as much as possible and just beat up the normal guys!

Here we are after turn 1. The troll went right, both to avoid Durin and to break through the dwarfs so my 4 archers could go take an objective towards the back. Some fights with the Uruk-hai and my main line of orcs went in. Dwarfs had to move forced so I was able to pick and choose. Fighting went pretty well for me with a few dwarfs down!

Next turn the battling continues. On the left my line is pushing through pretty well. But I had a few orcs climb up after the archers and they were crushed. In the center it's a bit more even but the uruk-hai were doing better then expected. The Troll is pushing through as well which is good.

Next turn, the warriors are starting to dwindle so the heroes are starting to have ti fight more. Mainly the troll has finished of his flank, but the dwarf archers are pushing dangerously on the left.

I think this was a big turn. All 3 heroes in the middle called heroic combats so the get to charge again if they kill everyone. I got super lucky here and Gothmog rolled a bunch of 6s and killed Balin!

Around this turn the dwarf force broke, but they have high courage and were consistently losing priority so not a huge deal. Pretty much at the clean up phase now so I am trying to lock down those objectives.

Next turn my force broke, which can be bad as orcs have very low courage. I lost a few but it wasn't terrible. The dwarfs had hard luck as well loosing a few. My main concerns were my 4 archers in the back and the troll as I could easily loose objectives there, but they mostly held.

Final turn, the Dwarfs routed due to only 25% remaining, a few kills and more poor courage rules.

End of the day o held 2 objectives fully and 2 contested, plus breaking the dwarves for 7 points. The dwarves had 2 points 1 for breaking and 1 for wounding Gothmog.  So a win for the orcs, but was pretty close actually, we both lost allot of troops.

I was never really close to wounding Durin, he is just to tough!

Thanks;
Mike

Battle Report - Team Yankee

Hello Folks,

Time for more Team Yankee!

This time I took a full American list, an Abhrams Combat Team with some infantry and SAM hummers to help out along with artillery. This time I took mines and bomblets instead of copperhead.

Russians had T72s and infantry, but split the tanks into small units of 3.

We rolled for a mission and got dust up, but had done that recently, so I rerolled and got Counter Attack. Which ended up being fun, this one has objectives count from turn 6 and one starts undefended. Also the rules for capturing are a bit different for some reason??

Heres the deployment, Bad Duncan using a ruler to make sure every tank is exactly as far forward as possible hah. Good Duncan had his Force behind (they both have 10 tanks + infantry).

The Duncans advance aggressively, but the few shots miss.

I moved my infantry out of their transports into the woods to block good Duncan's tanks, then sent my transports and hummers towards the objective.

My tanks deployed from ambush below the picture and shot at some tanks, but only did ok.

Next turn the Duncans advance but more cautiously. T72s engaging my tanks, and taking out 2 9f my artillery.

In my turn the artillery guy stuck around, and mined the bridge to furthur block good Duncan. My commander moved to flank the forward T72s but rolled 1s. Very foggy 8n that corner. My first reserve arrived as well and killed a few of good Duncans tanks.

Next turn the battle rages. Bad Duncan had a lucky round and killed 2 Abhrams from my ambushed platoon, the last would fail morale. Everyone else shot back to my new Abhrams hull down way in the back but mo effect. And the AA shot up my guys in the woods. Also Good Duncan took his infantry into the woods near the left objective.

Big thing for me was my infantry surprise assaulting the AA and killing them, we thought that wasnt a rule in this game, but it is!

More tanks trading shots, all the luck is for me now, but the last artillery guy died.

My turn u blitz out the infantry to shoot missiles at the BMPs and the assault with the other teams, taking them out. Otherwise its down to cleaning up the last few 5anks.

Race for the objectives starts now as they count. So everyone is moving to contest. I probably should have started moving up my hill Abhrams at this point but was being overly cautious.

Defending the hill. Bad Duncans last 2 T72s kill the commander this turn.

Defending the woods. The infantry assaulted, but I got 5 out of 6 hits in defensive fire and pushed them back!

Sadly the last 2 T72s assaulted my infantry on the hill and pushed them back, taking the objective, using the modified rules of this mission you can capture at the end of a turn if you start contesting.

But the Abhrams were a turn away from probably killing those tanks so it was really close!

Counter Attack turned out to be a very fun game actually, and we felt the small Russian platoons played allot better, more fun for everyone. They only lost 1 I think to morale?

Anyway hope you enjoyed the battle as much as we did!

Thanks,
Mike

Battle Reoprt - Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game - Fire and Snow

Hello All,

Time for another Wednesdsy wargaming battle Report! Been busy lately, but finally got time for more games. I had a new mat and set of terrain from kickstarter this week, so decided to play some lord of the rings games to try it out!

I decided to play some guys I haven't played much, so I took the Iron Hills Dwarves with their pig riding boss, and the had to add some of the white council to make up the points. Serge had a Balrog and change.


Drew a random mission card, and got Lords of Battle, so winner is determined by the most murder. Maybe not the best missions for balrog fighting!

Here's the deployment, Balrog facing down the dwarfs with elves off to the side. At this point my plan is for elves to murder goblins, hopefully before the dwarfs die. Dauntless on his pig would like to get around the flanks, but there is a troll I dont super want to fight as well.

Turn 1 just moving up not much action. But the Goblin archers put a hit on Galadriel.

Turn 2 the Elf heroes engage, Glorfindel killed a few, and Celeborn push back the Captain. Galadriel tried to banish the balrog but he was resisting. Dauntless offered the Troll the chance to fight him 1v1 but he declined.

The Balrog started eating dwarfs, but only 2.

Next turn Glorfindel killed some more Goblins but the test scattered. Galadriel failed her spell again. I moved Dain to fight the Troll, but got to close to the Balrog. I tried to win, but it was not to be and after the Troll and Hoblins did a wound the Balrog killed him easily.

 Next turn the Balrog continued his dwarf eating project...

The Goblins ran away so the Eld heroes move to find more.

Running out of dwarfs so getting close to the end. Galadriel got some lucky rolls and put a wound on the Balrog with banish spirit. And the Dwarfs held against the goblins. So 1 more turn.

Galadriel did another wound, and Glirfindel killed another Goblin, but that was the end.

Score wise the Balrog liked twice as many guys, killed my leader, and broke me. I just got a point for wounding the Balrog, so it was a 10-1 ouch!

Promise I will use a more sensible army next time hah.


Thanks;
Mike