Fantastic Battles AAR June 26th 2022 game

 

 

 

 

The Orc Boar Boyz were too enthusiastic after deployment and found themselves pinned against the woods!

So while the Orcs had to turn around to avoid the woods, the Goblins rapidly advance their left wing to take advantage of this challenge.

With their enemy to their rear, and taking rocks from the trebuchet, the Orc cavalry desperately wheeled to their left.

 Meanwhile

 On the Goblin right flank

 

The Goblins had their own challenges as the 'supporting' archers advanced in the mishap phase to block the faster Goblin chariots.

 

An intricate series of choreographic moves were required to extricate the chariots from the rear rank so as to propel them towards the waiting Orc spears. Note, the small Goblin rogue skulking off towards the village.

 

 The Battle so far

 

The Goblins manage to get their troops moving forward en masse

But the Orcs strike first driving their badly wounded chariot into a regiment of archers!

A unit of archers and a mage advance to contest the village, seeking to stymie the lone Goblin rogue. 

  Meanwhile

The Orc reserve slowly advances (some impetuous rolls did not go so well) with the archers and sword units applying pressure on the Goblin right, while the Big Uns and Black Orcs stall out while moving to support the Orc Boar boyz.units get committed to attacking the Goblin left flank

The fanatics and giant threaten the Orc reserves, while three Goblin units seek to intercept the boar boyz.

While the battle is being fought a savvy, opportunistic rogue has made it to small settlement/tower.

 The battle so far

On the right flank, the Goblin archers are able to withstand the charging chariot and dispatch it.

 Then the Goblin chariots and the Orc spear collide!

While across the battlefield other melees are started!

 The Fanatics crash into the Big Uns, but to little effect.

While the far left flank see the largest combat of the game.

A panoramic view of the swirling action!

On the right

In the center 

(that's 4 hits on the fanatics, they are still there only because of the attached warlord)

On the left

Turn 4

The Goblin archers are out shot by the Orcs and flee

While in the melee phase the expendable Goblin chariots are destroyed.

The warlord no longer supports the fanatics and they dissolve in the action phase, leaving behind a badly mauled Orc regiment.

While the melee on the left see some significant results

As another turn starts, we see that the Goblin left flank is down to one warrior units as the archers were driven from the field.

The boar boyz, while victorious in melee, were too badly mauled and despite the presence of their warlord the irregular Goblins are able to muster enough missile fire to finally dispatch this mighty unit!

On the far right the spider riders try to maneuver away from the traffic jam, having already shifted to column formation.

While the wolf riders are taken out by the Orcs in the village and thus are never able to engage the Orc spear having

In the center, the Giant remains engaged with the Big Uns who finally receive support from the Black Orcs. It is over all too quickly.

At the end of the battle the Orc rogue returned with his booty,,,

...oh as for the Goblin rogue, he was caught early on in the battle, in the act of stealing a banner and then while trying to flee from the village the Orc archers (who were now friends of the villagers) turned him into a pin cushion! After this 'urban' adventure the Orcs attention was drawn back to the battle where they play a major roll in eliminating some Goblin cavalry.

The Goblin army was broken. The collapse of the giant was onto an already destroyed Orc unit. but it was still nice to see them go splat!

Overall it was a fun quick game that we were able to finish in under 4 hours. None of us had played this game before but it is a quick game to pick up. The next game should be interesting as I think we all have a better feel of what to do and what not to do. Crowding can be an issue and while we did play on the standard size table with standard size point totals, terrain caused some constriction points. 

Many of the units were belligerent but thankfully no one attacked their own troops, but there were some definite slow downs due to out of command units. Captains are a must in this game.

 

Magic was not that effective in this game, but that was more a result of unfamiliarity with the game than a fault of the game. It just worked out that some mages wound up being unable to effectively utilize the spell(s) they had. The Orc mage had success with the bless spell, and the warlord and captains had mixed results when trying to rally troops.

I liked the movement trays. It really sped up the movement of troops and really drove home the challenges of maneuvering the larger units. Plus I just like the look of them, they made the multi company units look bulkier and despite the lack of lines on the bases it was easy to match up company to company in melee even when off center.

I look forward to the next game, one of the players has requested undead so I will be drawing up an army list for them, prepping some new movement trays and fixing up any of my damaged undead figures (they have bee neglected for a few years now) I may field an Empire army for the next game I had been painting some a year or two ago and now feel inspired to finish off that task!