Defend the Village - Ares test game

I am playing the same scenario that I used with WHAA and Savage World Showdown, but this time I will be using the rules Ares by Majestic Twelve Games. Actually, I actually played it twice, but the first game I didn't take any pictures, and I messed up some of the rules. In that game, the orcs rushed the town, and on the right were beat up pretty bad by the archers, and then hurt even worse when the reached the hedge. On the left though, in the first round of melee, they took out Borom, and quickly rolled over the left and finished everyone else off. It started well for the humans, but turned into a bloodbath real fast.

Now, on to this matchup!
The Initial Setup.

The orcs were emerging from the woods, and Lord Borom was just entering the village







Round 1
Round 1 saw the orcs moving up to the river, and the humans rushing to take their positions along the hedge.

Round 2
The orc archers were now in position, and while the other orcs were fording the stream, they took a few pot shots at the quickly arriving humans. Amazingly, one arrow found its place and dropped one of the human warriors.

Round 3
The orc archers fire their rounds as their allies continue to advance, but this time they come up short. However, the human archers who are now at the hedge, open up on the orcs rushing at them. 1 orc falls to their arrows.






Round 4
The orcs on the right rushed the hedge, but the human archers opened up on them at point blank and 2 orcs fell. However, the orcs reached the hedge, and a bloody fight ensued. The orcs managed to drop one of the warriors and one of the archers.

Round 5
This round saw the fight fully engaged. At the opening, the orcs rushed, but no one fell. However back at the hedge, the fight continued. Gorg dropped a warrior and rushed over the wall, but the human archer fell one of his allies, and another was killed while rushing a warrior at the hedge.

Round 6
This and the next round were the deciding fights. Gorg and two orcs made it over the hedge. Gorg attacked a human soldier, but the soldier managed to fend off his blows. One of his companions fell as the other orcs double teamed him, but the humans reacted quickly. One of the men at arms saw an opening and rushed Gorg from behind. Gorg never even saw the attack coming as he was focusing on the man before him. The man at arm's spear ripped through Gorg's armor and pierced his heart, instantly ending his life. At the same time, the archer pumped an arrow into one of the orcs that had just killed his friend. The remaining orc panicked, but had nowhere to flee, so held his ground.

Over at the hedge though, things went bad for the humans. Borom was locked into a battle with two orcs, and one of them managed to get past his defenses and landed a heavy blow that left Borom fighting with only half of his strength.

Round 7
Thing really went bad for the humans here. At the opening in the hedge, the orcs made a savage push and butchered 3 of the human defenders, and more importantly, Borom was once again overwhelmed, only this time with even worse results. A sword managed to find a gap in his armor and tore deep into his body. He dropped to the ground as his life slipped away. The remaining human warriors fought valiantly and killed two orcs, and the sole human archer took down one more. The human's morale was wavering, but they knew that if they fell back, that the people of this village would be massacred, so they held for a little longer.

Round 8
This round saw a complete resurgence for the humans. After seeing their leader so brutally murdered, they grew angry and leaped into action before the orcs could react. In their furry they cut down 3 orcs, and the archer turned his attention to the human archers who were still firing whenever they could. He took out one of the unarmored orc archers, and the remaining two send all of their arrows at the human archer, who took an arrow in the neck, and fell lifeless.

The remaining orcs were stunned by this sudden turn and fell back as their morale waivered.

Round 9
For a brief moment, the remaining orcs considered moving back in for an attack, but they were now outnumbered, and weary, so they decided to retreat and come back again when they could recover their strength.


Conclusion:
This game has a lot of cool mechanics, but I do not like the I Go U Go aspect. I like games that make combat simultaneous. The orcs would probably have won this game, but in Round 8, the humans acted first, and even though they were outnumbered two to one, they each managed to kill an orc, thus evening up the fight. Then the orcs rolled a bad morale test and fell back shaken.

However, the game was still a lot of fun, and rather easy to play. I used the "Fast Play" variant which is one the MJ12 Yahoo site(basically it drastically reduces the hits a figure has), and the whole fight lasted less than an hour. I think that I will run this again, but allow the defender to strike back unless he is ambushed or struck from behind.

Vacation to Virginia - Civil War Sites

These are actually pictures from last year. We visited a couple of ACW sites, and I thought that I would share some pics in case anyone wanted to see them.

Pamplin Park - National Museum of the Civil War Soldier
I would highly recommend a visit to this park if you are in Virginia. The Museum of the Civil War Soldier is one of the best that I have been to. Even my kids enjoyed it. One of the things they do which is rather cool, is that at the beginning, you pick out a soldier to "be your guide". You get an MP3 player, and as you go through the museum, your soldier tells you some of his experiences. Then at the end of the tour, you get to find out what happened to the soldier that you were listening to. It was pretty cool, because it puts you in touch with that man. One of my daughters cried when she found out that here soldier did not survive the war.
This Picture is of a local, small plantation.
Firing a canon
Reconstruction of defensive structures around Petersburg and Richmond.

Manassas National Battlefield

I loved visiting this park. It was a nice day, and a well kept up park
.
Here is a statue of "Stonewall" Jackson.













This is the "Stone House", and if I remember right, it was used as a hospital during the battles. The house has been slightly modified since the war. It has A/C and electric.










A reenactor (if that's how you spell it), going over the operations of the rifle. I believe this is an 1861 Springfield, but not positive.

This was right outside of the visitor center, which was actually a rather nice visitor center. I have been to some that had very little information, and this one did pretty well.



Firing the rifle










Cannons set up along the Henry House Hill which played a major part in the first battle of Manassas

Save the Village using Showdown for Savage Worlds

Showdown is a skirmish system for Savage Worlds by Pinnacle Entertainment -link- I can't find the Showdown rules on their site now, but they used to be free.

I replayed the previous scenario using these rules and had problems from the start. To begin with, the rules don't have any example stats, so I had to make my own up, and I didn't do it well. I set either my attack dice too low, or my parry stat too high, because for the most part, the only way to hit was with a high roll. In this game, if you roll the highest number on any die, you get to roll that die again and add to the roll. This can continue until you roll anything other than the high number.

So, what happened was that the orcs closed to the hedges while suffering two casualties. The humans suffered none from the orcs bow fire. Then at the wall, the regular troops just bashed away on each other only causing an occasional casualty. The leaders had a little bit better luck because they had higher skills. I didn't finish the fight, because I knew that it was broken.

I will look through the Savage Worlds site and find some more info. I may modify my stats and run the fight again, because there are a couple of concepts that I like in the game, but at this point I am not too impressed.

My next try will be with ARES by MJ 12 games -link-

15mm Wargame with Warrior Heroes Armies and Adventure

I have done a couple of test games with WHAA, and this will be my first serious game.

This is a pretty basic scenario. The "good" guys are Lord Borom, and his forces which are defending a small village against an orc raiding forces lead by Gorg, and Morg.


The Good Guys
Lord Borom Quality 6, AC 5, 2 hand sword
2 Men at Arms Quality 5, AC4, Spears
3 Warriors Quality 4, AC 3, 2 Hand Axes
5 Warriors Quality 4, AC3, Hand Weapons
2 Archers Quality 4, AC2, Bows & Hand Weapons






The Bad Guys
Gorg & Morg Quality 5, AC 5 & 4, Hand Weapons
15 Warriors Quality 4, AC 3, Hand Weapons
3 Archers Quality 4, AC2, Bows and Hand Weapons

The battle began with Lord Borom and his forces just entering the village to defend it. Across the river, the orc forces were emerging from the forest.




Turn 1:
Both sides rolled and were able to activate. The humans moved towards the hedge row. The orcs moved towards the river. The orcs were breaking into two attack groups. One group was heading on the right (the top of the picture) and was trying to rush across the creek and to the hedges. The other was rushing across to the south, and trying to get to the opening at the hedge. They were leaving their three archers at the edge of the river to harass the defenders.

Turn 2:
Humans roll a 2 and activate everyone. Orcs roll 3 and move first. The archers, who had reached the river open fire. Miraculously they manage to take 1 warrior OOF. Others cross the river.
Humans take up position along hedge and in the opening.

Turn 3:

Humans roll 4, orcs roll 5. Orcs move first, but archers (Who are not with the leaders) do not activate because their Quality is too low.

Orcs clear river and start to move on the walls. The humans unload with archers, and on the orcs right 1 orc OD, and 1 OOF.






Turn 4:

Orcs roll 2, Humans 6. Everyone activates.

Bad rolls for humans give now results for archers. Orcs on the other hand manage to take one of the human archers OOF.

Turn 5:
I rolled 3 ties on activation, but finally got a 4 for orcs and 3 for humans. The orc right rushed the hedge and made contact. On the left the orcs moved closer. The orc archers took another human warrior with an OD result, and the remaining human archer took an orc warrior OOF. Then melee ensued. In the end the humans held the hedge, and the orcs were pushed back with 1 warrior OD.

Turn 6:
This turn things were joined in earnest. Once more the orcs got priority, and all of them charged again. On the right all of the remaining orcs crashed into the humans. As they charged, the human archer got off a shot and dropped one orc OOF. Then the orc leader pushed a defender back and was able to cross the hedge, but 1 more orc was OD.

On the orc left, not all of the orcs were able to make contact, and it was a bad day for the ones that did. Two were OD and the others pushed back.

Turn 7:
This was the big turn of the fight! Humans rolled a 3 while orcs rolled a 1. Orc archers didn't have any targets as all of their infantry were now in the way.

Humans moved first, and on the right one man at arms and the archer charged Morg who was now on their side of the hedge. The other 2 warriors continued to hold the wall. After a brief fight, Morg fell in battle. One of the orcs failed his "Leader Lost" test, but the other 3 held.

On the right, the humans rushed the orcs. A bloody fight ensued which saw 2 orcs down and 2 human warriors also down.

On the orc turn, they reengaged on the left, and Gorg struck Lord Borom, but couldn't take him out.


Turn 8:
This was the final straw. Humans activated first with a 4, and orcs second with a 2. The human archer struck down one of the orcs who were trying to reach Morg's body. When the other 2 saw this, they broke.

On the left the orcs were cut down till all that was left was Gorg and two others. (I made them check morale and all stayed!).

However, when the final orcs moved back in, they got vengeance, dropping 2 warriors and 1 man at arms!

On the right, the last orcs could not charge and fell back.

Turn 9:
The end! The orcs rolled initiative first with every body activating. Gorg and his last three companions charged. Lord Borom and his last soldier, however Borom was tougher than they thought, and two orcs went OOF. Gorg choose to stay and finish the fight.

At the same time, the orc archers fired upon the other defenders, and the last human archer got fed up with this and fired, dropping one orc. The others decided it was time to leave.

In the last fight of the day, Borom and his companion attacked Gorg, and butchered him, and thus the orc raid met with failure!

Starting my Blog

Well, like so many before me, I will be starting a blog here. I am a fan of miniature wargames of almost all genres. I collect fantasy, WWII, ACW and some Sci Fi. I do 15mm and 25mm, and will be posting more stuff on this blog.