Monday, August 22, 2011

Defense of Orn's Crossing - Battlesystem Report

Here is a battle that I did with Battlesystem today.  It wasn't a large battle, but it was to recreate a battle that happened in my game world.

The situation:
Orn's Crossing is part of the newly formed Khulzad Alliance.  The Khulzad Alliance was formed between the dwarves of Khulzad, and the humans of the surrounding lands who have been caught in a struggle between surrounding kingdoms.

The kingdom of Herinoch decides to take back part of the lands and sends a force to capture the strategic fords at the town of Orn's Crossing.  They send a force composed of some heavy infantry, and a large number of mercenary infantry.

The forces

Herinoch Army
Army Commander
20 Heavy Pikemen
40 Light Infantry (2 units)
10 Light Cavalry
3 sergeants for the light infantry and cavalry

Khulzad Alliance

12 Medium Infantry
10 Medium Archers
8 Medium Cavalry
A dispatch was sent to the dwarves who have dispatched a unit of 20 Heavy Dwarves along with the regional commander.  (They will arrive on turn 4)

The Battle
Turn 1
Both sides enter.  The Khulzad medium infantry are in the village, and the archers and cavalry are arriving.  The Herinoch army enters and starts moving towards the fords.
Defenders deploying

Infantry and cavalry moving in at the top.

Archers moving in

Herinoch army approaches

Turn 2
Everyone keeps moving.  The Khulzad Medium Infantry deploys near the ford.
Cavalry charges into village.  (Archers in village)

Turn 3
The defenders all reach the village and deploy.  The defenders decide to be bold and deploy their cavalry on the other side of the river.  They are hoping to charge some of the attackers and delay them long enough for the dwarves to arrive.
Cavalry charging to ford

Herinoch is closing in!

Turn 4
The Khulzad cavalry charge the Herinoch cavalry.  The Herinoch cavalry attempt to countercharge but are not able to motivate themselves.  The fight is fierce and 4 of the Herinoch cavalry fall, but they manage to bring down 1 of their attackers.

Cavalry charge!

To the north, the dwarves sound their horns letting their allies know that they have arrived.
Finally the dwarves arrives.

Turn 5
The Khulzad cavalry try to disengage, but the light cavalry stays with them, but it costs them a lot as 4 more of the light cavalry fall, but they kill one of the Khulzad cavalry.  They also hold the cavalry down while the heavy infantry move forward to engage them.
Cavlary fight

Overview of the battle

From another angle


The Khulzad archers fire on the light infantry who are nearing the river, killing one.  The dwarves continue to march towards the crossroads.

Dwarves moving as fast as they can!
Turn 6
The cavalry battle continues and the Herinoch cavalry looses one more, and they break and run.  Still, the heavy infantry with their long pikes now engage the Khulzad cavalry an kill 2, but their morale holds.
The Khulzad archers send another volley towards the advancing light infantry, and 2 fall.  The others fall back a little to regroup as they decide if they want to advance into the storm of arrows, and the infantry on the other side of the river.
The Khulzad dwarves are moving as quickly as they can go!

Infantry nearing ford

The cavalry gets trapped!

Turn 7
The Khulzad cavalry try to disengage, but the Herinoch pikemen swarm them and butcher all but one rider who routes and manages to get across the river. 
Things are bad for the cavalry!  Infantry nearing ford.  Where are those dwarves ?!?

Rush to capture the fords
The Khulzad infantry and archers see the terrifying slaughter, and both panic and run leaving the fords open!
Routing cavalry!

Everyone runs!

Turn 8
The dwarves quickly move through the village and deploy on the far side facing the river.  The Herinoch light infantry see that the fords are open and rush across as the rest of their army moves up behind them.

The Khulzad archers suddenly realize that the town is about to fall, so they stop and turn to fire a volley at the advancing infantry, and a devastating volley it is!  5 of the infantry fall in the river.
The fords are falling!  Finally dwarves!


The commander of the Khulzad infantry is trying desperately to rally his troops, but they are continuing to run.

Turn 9
The commander of the Khulzad infantry finally calms his troops and gets them to turn so that they can rejoin the fight.  The dwarf commander challenges his troops to charge the infantry who are swarming across the ford, but the dwarves are just too tired to move.
The Herinoch light infantry hold their ground as their allies move up, but the Khulzad archers target them once more, this time killing 2.  This is too much for the infantry who break and run.
The infantry are fleeing, but the fords are in trouble


Turn 10
Crossing the river.  It is harder to cross away from the fords, but still fordable.

More infantry cross the river now.  The Herinoch pikemen advance into the dwarves.  A pitched fight erupts, with the dwarves taking down 3 of the pikemen, but loosing 4 to the longer reach of the pikes.  They fall back to regroup.  As they fall back the Khulzad archers fire on the pikemen to cover their retreat.  They manage to take down 2 of the Herinoch pikemen.
Herinoch is across the river!  The dwarves and pikemen join battle!

Farther down the river the second unit of light infantry cross the river.  The commander of the Khulzad infantry tries to get his troops to charge, but their confidence is still shaken.

Turn 11
The dwarven commander once more is not able to get his tired dwarves to charge.  The Herinoch pikemen advance back into contact and continue to punish the dwarves.  They kill 4 while the dwarves drop 2 of them.

The Khulzad infantry finally realize how desperate their situation is becoming, and charge the light infantry who is now across the river.  Still, their confidence is not great, and they only kill one of the infantry while they loose 3.
Khulzad infantry vs Herinoch light infantry.  Bloody battle!

The situation is looking bad for the Khulazd alliance.

Turn 12
The dwarf commander catches sight of the Herinoch commander and charges him through the swirling battle.  The leader of the Herinoch army smiles and spurs his horse forward.  The two exchange a few blows but can not bring the other down.
The dwarves see their leader fighting and advance back into the pikemen.  4 more dwarves fall, but they kill 3 of the pikemen, and this time they fall back from the fight.  The Khulzad archers take advantage of their withdrawal and fire, killing 2 of the pikemen.

The Khulzad infantry regain their composure and press into the light infantry killing 4 of them.  The light infantry are only able to bring down 1 of the Khulzad infantry.

Turn 13
The two army commanders are still locked in combat, and the dwarf manages to bring down the Herinoch leader's horse.  Now they are on even footing!
The Herinoch infantry regroup to charge but hesitate.  The Khulzad archers fire on them again killing 2 more, and now the pikemen decide that they have had enough and retreat.
Herinoch attack starts to crumble.  The two leaders are locked in battle.



At the same time the Khulzad infantry continue to hammer on the Herinoch light infantry killing 3 more and loosing 1.  Now the light infantry sees their other allies falling back, and they also break and run.
The rest of Herinoch flees.  Khulzad survives!

The commander of the army of Herinoch sees his army fleeing, and realizes that he is in serious danger, so he throws down his weapons and begs for mercy.  The dwarven commander thinks for a moment, and raises his axe, but decides to take him prisoner instead of ending his life.
The survivors of the battle, and the two leaders facing off.

Aftermath
The battle was a tough fought one.  It teetered back and forth at several moments.  The worst was when the Khulzad cavalry broke and cause the archers and infantry both to break.  It looked like it was over then, but the archers were able to rally, and they were the deciding factor in the battle!

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Short Batrep - Raid on Village - WHAA

Here is a brief battle report for a small skirmish using Warrior Heroes Armies and Adventures...

The situation is this.  A band of raiders have moved in from Grierland to raid a small village in Mirilandi (My own game world).  Mirilandi has a small garrison at the town, and has gotten word that the raid is coming, so they are quickly trying to deploy their people.

The raiders are emerging from the woods to the west of town, and moving in.
This picture shows some of the attackers moving out of the forest.  Some of the riders had already moved off to the south.




Here you can see the defenders lining up on the west side of the town.




As the riders moved around, some of the defenders moved to the south to meet them.

 The attacking infantry quickly swarmed the defending infantry.  The defenders had 4 archers, but they proved highly ineffective.  They killed one attacker at the outset, then didn't help for the rest of the battle.


The attackers realized that they could not bring all of their forces to bear on the west, so they sent all of their cavalry to break through in the south.



Fighting on the west turned bloody fast, but the defenders held strong and quickly killed four attackers without any losses.

On the south side, the raiders cavalry charged, but the defending infantry held better than expected.  One defender went down, and one rider.




To the west, things went bad for the attackers real fast.  A couple of defenders went down, but the attackers were falling left and right, and soon broke and ran.

To the south, things were touch and go.  The initial cavalry charge was held against, but they kept coming, and two more defenders were soon down.  Then, the village commander and his aid attacked, and they were able to hold, killing a couple more cavalry, and soon the rest were fleeing.
Infantry gone, and leaders are now engaged.
Two dead, and the rest second guessing as they see that almost all of their friends are gone!

Bye bye.... Loosers!

The battle was a lot of fun to play out.  The attackers were all Rep 2 or 3, while the defenders were all rep 3 and 4.  It played out pretty well, but the attackers kind of messed up on their initial deployment.  I don't know if it would have made any difference, but they tried to send the bulk of their forces to the west, but realized that they streets were too narrow to bring any significant numbers to bear.  So they redeployed the rest of their cavalry.

The defenders also had incredible dice rolls which kept them from suffering very many casualties.  Still, things could have changed at almost any time.

I did make one modification to the rules for this game.  I let the defenders form a shield wall which gave them a +1d6 until the wall was broken.  I think that it worked out ok.







Monday, August 1, 2011

New 15mm Dwarves Comparison

It has been a while since I have posted.  I was away for most of July, but I am anxious to get back to gaming!

I just recently picked up some of the new Splintered Light dwarves, and have to say that I absolutely love these guys!  Splintered Light Dwarves

The dwarves have great detail and a lot of character.  They fit very well with most of my other 15mm figs.

Here are a couple of pics.  The first has a Demonworld elf and a Chariot Miniatures halfling.










.
The next is a closer pic with just the elf.












Here is a group shot with a DW giant.







This final shot compares other manufacturers. 
 
The first mini is the old Reaper Shadow Corp fig (Now Blood Dawn).  The next is a Splintered Light dwarf from the Splintered Lands line.  The next is Black Raven Foundry.  I think that the next is Irregular, but can't remember for sure.  Then the SLM Dwarf.  to the right of that dwarf is a Mighty Army (from Rebel Miniatures), then Tabletop fantasy (from 15mm.co.uk), Peter Pig, and finally Chariot Miniatures.

The dwarves are probably a little too large for most 15mm, because they are almost as tall as my humans, but it is so close that it won't be noticed.  I would gladly use the Mighty Armies, Splintered Light and Tabletop Fantasy in the same army.  I think that SLM is the best detailed of the three, but it is barely noticeable.