Fantasy Warriors Battle Report

Once again, it's Dwarves vs. Orcs, this time with our tweaked 1,250 point armies. After my ignominous defeat the last time out, I decided my greenskins needed some moral support in the form of standards and leaders. The upgrade made for a much more satisfying, albeit bloody, game.

We used the "official" scouting rules and, as Des opted not to scout, terrain layout was entirely up to me.

(Incidentally, from here on out we'll be using a house rule for scouting that's much more satisfying and less convoluted.)

I set up a veritable wilderness on the Dwarf side, with a marsh on one side and rocky, broken ground on the other, with a fair-sized wood in the middle. I decided that this was a surprise river crossing by the Orcs, my very own "crossing of the Delaware", and set up the "big river/shoreline" tiles on my side.

Desiree deployed her troops in the center, with three layers of defense consisting of crossbows, then a unit of axes and her human knight allies, then the other axe unit and her spearmen (speardwarfs?).



I went with my standard "double envelopment" setup, which might have been ill-suited to the rough terrain of the board in retrospect. Wolves and trolls on the flanks as fast movers, rabble archers out in front to act as a skirmish screen, and a strong center of sword- and spear-armed orcs.



My left flank, with the trolls ready to mess things up.



One of the swank new units, sporting their new standard, musician, leader and champion, complete with atmospheric back-lighting. ;)



My wolves started on Hold thanks to their scouting (this is something we're doing away with with the new house rules--why would the scouting unit start off immobile and away from the action?), but that was quickly solved with an Eldritch Command from my wizard/warchief OTP. The rest of my army moved out as the Dwarf crossbows (aka the Murder Machines) opened up.



In the picture above you'll notice my trolls moving through the woods. That's as far as they'd get, as they were cut down in most cowardly fashion by volley after volley of crossbow bolts. Actually, if the trolls act as crossbow magnets, that's OK--less death for my other units! (Kinda like how tanks work in WWII games, or the Volley Gun in my old Warhammer army.)

Meanwhile, my wolfriders launced an attack on the Dwarven flank, cutting down a unit of crossbows as my spears and one unit of my swords moved up into the center. Meanwhile, the other unit of swords moved around the flank, stepping over the troll corpses...



After mowing down the crossbows, the wolves charged on, catching the Human battle leader as she was making her way back to her troops after picking up new orders from the warchief.



Desiree threw a unit of axes into the battle to bolster her battle leader. The first bloody melee of the game ended with my wolfriders getting wiped out and the Dwarf axes (and Human battle leader) routing off the board.



On the next turn, the Human knights quit the field. The right flank of the field had completely disintegrated! Sensing an opportunity, I moved my wizard up. Chanting and waving his arms, he opened a portal to another dimesion, summoning forth a demonic abomination...



...who promptly ate the wizard and disappeared to his home dimension.



The fight was shaping up in the center. Both sides had expended their missile units and the infantry was moving in. This was turning into our own version of the Battle of the Wilderness. (Incidentally, this battle featured the premiere of my latest attempt at finding a compromise between woods that look good on the table and still let you play. Using pieces of felt to represent the boundaries of the woods, the trees are secured to the board with pins, making them removable if a unit goes through the woods. Since one of the pivotal battles took place in the middle of one of the woods this was the perfect opportunity to test out the system and it worked really well.)



The two sides clashed just as the sun began to rise. I realized I should've started the battle just before sundown--Bad Light doesn't effect maneuvering of units, but it DOES effect combat! On my left flank, Desiree desperately threw her crossbow units against my flanking unit. My Orcs cut through them, but were hung up for a couple turns.



The battle in the center was bloody indeed. My spears hung on nearly to the last Orc (those standards really make a difference--although I was also rolling well). Meanwhile, my swords, fueled by Bloodlust, fought in the woods to the last Orc, barely defeating the Dwarf axes (in the end I had to throw in my battle leader to provide the final "push").

As the Orc spears routed off the field, the Dwarf spears turned to face my flanking foce, which had finally cut down the last Dwarven crossbows.



The exhausted speardwarves didn't last long, and I soon stood in triumph--but at what cost? I had precisely eight miniatures on the table in the end. A Pyrrhic victory, but a victory nonetheless.



Lessons learned:

1) Orcs really benefit from standards and leaders.
2) Getting my boys into Bloodlust is most desirable. It happened "by accident" this time (once from a casualty test after taking missile fire, another time when the Dwarves counter-threatened one of my threatening units), but in the future I'll make use of magic and influence to try and whip my boys into a frenzy if the opposition doesn't do it for me.

I'm looking forward to our next battle, since I'm anxious to see if this victory was just a fluke. Plus the house rules I've assembled promise to add some extra levels of sophistication to the game. Until next time!

Short Update

Hi.

It's been a while.

Miniatures have been on the back-burner, it's true. This is due to a variety of factors.

First, having to wait two months (plus) on my order from Mirliton. I mean, good for them that they took a month off, but to not leave a provision for shipping during that time? And then to send the package surface mail?

In the intervening time, RPGs have taken up the slack. But now I'm getting ready to get back to the miniatures in a hobby and professional sense...and that's got me thinking about Fantasy Warriors.

You see, I ordered some minis from Games Workshop to paint and sell. And just looking at them reminded me of how amazing current miniatures production is. The "old school" sculpts have a distinctive charm (I loved the Orc command minis I--eventually--received from Mirliton) and the patina of nostalgia...but damn, the idea of doing Fantasy Warriors with a mixture of GW, Reaper and whoever else just has alot of appeal.

For one thing, convenience. No need to order from Italy when a quick trip to the FLGS (in my case GameScape on Divisadero) will tend to most of my miniatures-buying needs.

Also, scale is a factor. Desiree ordered some female dwarves from Reaper to act as her Warchief and Battle Leaders. They look great, of course, but even though they skew small they still tower over the older Grenadier male dwarves. Using all contemporary sculpts would solve this problem...although there's still the scale creep of Rackham and imitators. It never ends! :)

Finally, if I want to sell this idea to friends or newbies, making miniatures acquisition as simple as possible is a major plus.

This is all just theory at this point anyway. I don't have any money to be pursuing an army from scratch at this time--and at any rate, I've got some Orcs to paint up so Des and I can go at it with our 1200 point armies!

P.S. What about the samurai? Oh, they'll have their day. I want to do a bit more research viz. banner density, and a couple conversions, but then the painting will begin in earnest. Once I'm done with my current job (in about a week!) I'll have a fair bit of free time--we'll see how much gets done then!

Fantasy Warriors Update/Primer

This last weekend saw another game of Fantasy Warriors.
No battle report this time, since it was kinda a "dry run" for our new 1200 point armies (details below), plus Desiree's brother Mark was in town and was interested in what these miniatures games were all about, so the game was also a demo of sorts.

Desiree handed over her Dwarf army into Mark's capable hands and provided tactical advice and "psy-op" type psychological warfare against yours truly. Blood really is thicker than water I guess... ;)

Mark did very well indeed, not even counting that this was his first game. His standout moment was probably when he concentrated his Dwarven crossbows against my beloved Trolls, eventually bringing them down...which was a good thing, because his initial volley had driven them into Bloodlust and they were charging across the field towards his stunty ranks! I'm not too upset about losing my Trolls like that. Crossbows are murderous; they have range and penetration, even if they lack the rapid fire of bows. If my Trolls attract most of the crossbow fire across the course of a game, thus causing the Dwarves to use up their ammo to take out the Trolls, then that means the rest of my army is spared the withering fire. If the crossbows are employed elsewhere, that leaves my Trolls fresh and ready to crack skulls. They're a bit like tanks in modern combat, I suppose. At any rate, I lost--again--but thanks in part to facing a different opponent I was able to start coming up with some real insights aimed at making my Orcs more of a lean, mean greenskin machine. Basically, the lesson learned is that Orcs need all the help they can get. Standards, champions, musicians, "the quality of quantity", the works. This was especially highlighted when my unit of 8 Orcs went up against a unit of 8 Dwarves over a bridge. Both units lost a single figure. The Dwarves held steady, the Orcs routed right off the board! Hopefully this game will mark the last time I'll regularly be rolling morale tests that have my units routing on a 1-2, or even a 1-3!

Another thing I took away from this game was an increasing respect for the FW rules. They are more subtle than they first appear. Small things, like how the orders a unit is under affect it under the stress of combat--Attack allows you to roll more dice to hit, Hold makes it more likely you'll stick around--are a mark of excellent game design.

Back to talking about adding to armies, here are the details on our "new" armies (our 1200 point armies are essentially the same as the 1000 point versions with some unit additions, so not all that new, but you get the idea).

My Orcs have added a unit of 4 Wolfriders and a mounted Battle Leader, creating a new command. I intend to use this unit to scout. The fact that they'll have to start the game on Hold is OK, because they form a handy reserve unit that way. I used them in this capacity their first time out and it almost tipped the balance back in my favor towards the end of the game. Each of my infantry units now has a champion, standard and musician and each has grown by four models. I also boosted my Wizard's Power Points so that he'll be able to summon a Fiend if he needs to, and he'll be more effective in general. Oh yeah, I replaced the technically illeagal Amazon wizard with a proper Orc. These changes put me a bit over budget, so I had to downgrade my Elite War Trolls to "stupid" War Trolls. The next time we bump up our points totals, I'll be sure to boost my Trolls back to Elite first thing.

(Here I'd like to take a moment for a mini-rant--no pun intended--and talk about why I won't be fielding my new army for at least a couple more weeks. Seems that our friends at Mirliton in Italy are taking a whole month off of work. The whole company. So orders placed before the end of August--like, say, for some Orc standards, musicians and champions--will not go out until they return from their vacation. Damn those Europeans and their commitment to "the good life"!)

The Dwarves saw far fewer changes--the Human Hero became a Battle Leader in charge of an allied command of foot knights. It was this little gem that turned back my wolfriders, despite my best efforts. Elite troops + extra-heavy armor + two-handed weapons? Not nice. Not nice at all.

I did some quick calculations and determined that if Des wanted to add standards and champions to her units, thus boosting unit sizes in the bargain (and if she added a Priest as well, which is only common sense as an antidote to my Wizard), she'll be looking at a 1500 point army right off the bat! So at some point we'll be movin' on up to 1500 point army. Oh, Elite War Trolls...I'll have you back one day!

At any rate, I thought I'd take this opportunity to post some thoughts on the other armies one can field in Fantasy Warriors, along with links with where to find properly "old school" miniatures (I've made reference in previous blogs to my preference for "true 25mm" miniatures--a full-blown rant deserves a proper blog post of its own).

Your first step is to download the Fantasy Warriors Companion. This was an expansion set put out by Grenadier shortly before they folded and has been out of print for about 12 or 13 years. This is a shame, because it contained lots of cool new rules, a FAQ, and--most crucially--recalculated army lists. The lists in the original rulebook had some balance issues and typos. The Companion corrected these. And now, thanks to our Italian friends at Mirliton, the Companion is once again available as a PDF! Huzzah indeed. Any army built for FW should be built using the army lists in the Companion. Oh, and if you don't have the Fantasy Warriors Rulebook already you should download that too. The section at the beginning of the army lists (page 47, to be precise) explains how to put together an army in FW and has "universal" costs that are the same for all armies, like Leadership, Power Points and "unit specials".

(As an aside to those of you who'd know what I'm talking about, the Companion also features some of the earliest illustration work of one Mark Gibbons, later to make a name for himself with an extended tenure at Games Workshop.)

Here are my thoughts on the various armies you can field in FW (excepting Dwarves and Orcs, which get plenty of coverage elsewhere in this post and this blog):

Amazons
Right off the bat, we have an army that is in a bit of limbo. Most of the original Grenadier FW miniatures, long out-of-production, have been re-cast by Mirliton. The Amazons are not one of those armies as of this post. However, the other late, great minis manufacturer, Ral Partha--having been resurrected by Iron Wind Metals--made a line of Amazons that should scale well with Grenadier. If scale is not an issue for you, there are several other manufacturers that make Amazon-like armies. The main problem is that the Companion lists have the Amazon "cavalry" mounted on Sabre-tooth cats. You can pick up sabre-tooth cats via the Barbarian army, which also boasts tiger riders. But nevertheless, you'll have some conversion work ahead of you if you want to field sabre-tooth-cat-mounted troops in your army.

Iron-Wind Amazons

Barbarians
This is a fun army. Basically, you're fielding a whole legion of strapping, muscle-bound, furry loin-cloth sporting uber-menschen. These are stereotypical fantasy barbarians all the way: a strange cross between Conan, Celtic warriors of myth and cavemen. Some of the minis available are a real hoot, like the Barbarian War Rhino, with its wild, screaming crew literally hanging off the Rhino's furry hide. If you had a twisted worldview like Desiree, you'd probably say this army is extremely homo-erotic. I won't go there, but there you have it...

Homo-Eroticism Ahoy!


Goblins
One of the reasons I prefer Fantasy Warriors over Warhammer is that each army list is distinct without being gimmicky. Orcs are more like something out of Lord of the Rings than Cockney Brits with green skin, for example. And Goblins are a distinct race from Orcs, with their own flavor. Perhaps the most salient feature of the Goblin army is the fact that they, of all the armies, are most affected by "bad light". Most armies that suffer from bad light just take a penalty to shooting and morale when they're caught out outside when they shouldn't be (generally day for the evil races, night for the good guys). Goblins take it one step further. They are rated as Fanatic at night and Poor by day. Talk about seasonal affective disorder. Another thing I like about the Goblins is their cavalry--giant spiders! How cool would it be to field a unit of five or six giant spiders with plucky goblin mahauts clinging to their backs? Add to this the Hobgoblins, who can add a bit of weight to your lines, and you've got a pretty darn versatile army. Oh yeah, then there's the matter of a little thing called the Goblin War Giant. Ahem.

They only come out at night...

Trolls, Ogres & Mercenaries
These are "army lists" that aren't. You can't field an army made up entirely of Trolls or Ogres, as much as you may want to. If you really want to, take up Warhammer and be prepared to pay $50 for a single boxed regiment. At any rate, most armies can field units of Trolls and Ogres, and as an enthusiastic employer of Trolls I can tell you that it's well worth the investment. These monstrosities really add punch to your lines (almost literally in the case of the Ogre "Linebreaker" unit--is that a great name or what?) and look great on the table. The Companion introduced the concept of Mercenaries. Basically a blanket term, you can buy any unit from any army as a "mercenary" unit. Yes, that means I could field Dwarves in my Orc army if I wanted to. They'd be mercenary dwarves, of course, and that means they wouldn't be entirely reliable...still, it's an idea... What's worse (or better, depending on how you look at it) is that you can choose to put your mercenaries on "half pay" or, worse, "quarter pay", allowing you to purchase the units for less points but drastically affecting their already suspect loyalty. Specific "mercenary only" units are also available in the form of Horse Archers, Half-Orcs, Dragons and Giants. I'm seriously thinking of picking up a unit of Half-Orcs when we bump up to 1500 points, since I already have a pack of minis that would work for this purpose. Incidentally, Grenadier did release Horse Archer minis but they have yet to be re-released by Mirliton. Lastly, you may notice the link for the Giant went to Reaper Miniatures, one of the contemporary "30mm+" manufacturers. This is one of the pleasures of using "true 25s"--anytime you require a large creature (like a troll, or a giant or a demonic fiend), go ahead and buy one of the larger minis of today. The miniature, already cast to look large next to his 30mm cousins, will tower over your true 25s! As detailed in a previous post, I used the "Bull Orc" minis from Reaper for my Trolls and you'd never guess they were anything but!

Wood Elves & High Elves
There is a long-standing tradition in fantasy to divide Elves into two castes. One side epitomizes the benefits of the Elves otherworldliness and immortatility--they are masters of everything they study, but they are also haughty and few in number. In Lord of the Rings these were the Elves of Rivendell and Lothlorien; in FW (and Warhammer...and D&D...) they are called the High Elves. The other side of the Elvish coin emphasizes their connection to nature. LotR has these sorts of Elves hailing from Mirkwood (like Elvish super-hunk Legolas); FW (and Warhammer...and D&D...) calls them Wood Elves. Here we have a "good guy" version of the split between Orcs and Goblins--two closely related races that nonetheless each get their own army list, distinct in flavor as well as strengths and weaknesses. Wood Elves are rated as Tribal, High Elves are Disciplined. Nevertheless, both armies are counted as Veteran, with optional upgrades to Elite. Both armies boast excellent archers and cavalry. It is the special units that the differences really shine. Wood Elves can field Giant Eagle Riders, druids, shapechangers and tree spirits. High Elves, to be honest, kinda get the shaft--they can't match the Wood Elves for specials. They can, however, upgrade any of their missile-armed troops to Marksmen, deadly snipers able to pick off heros and leaders. Further complicating matters for the would-be High Elf general is the fact that Grenadier's High Elf minis have yet to be reissued. Fortunately Ral-Partha comes to the rescue again. I guess the idea is that if you want to field an army of the absolute best in pure infantry and cavalry, go with High Elves. If you want lots of crazy magic and shit, go with the Wood Elves.

Cream of the Crop

Magic & Crazy Shit

Humans
Last but not least we have the forces of humanity, or "Men" as the Army List is properly called. I really like the look of the Grenadier minis for this list, and the content of the list is pretty solid as well. Basically we have an army based on late medieval technology. Knights are wearing full plate-mail, archers wield longbows alongside other units with primitive handguns. There's a definite "fairy tale" feel to this army, with wizards in pointy hats and whatnot. Clearly, like any human army worth its salt, there's great variety. Juggernaut units of heavily armored knights lead the vanguard, while peasant infantry holds the line with pitchforks and sharpened spades. The whole army exudes an aura of civilization that puts them in wonderful contrast to that other human army, the barbarians. What an interesting matchup that would make! And I think it's high time someone come up with some houserules to allow the inclusion of "half men" (aka. Hobbits) in the Human army, eh? Damn right!

Are we so vain?

Also, check out Thunderbolt Mountain's exquisite 25mm Arthurian line to supplement the Grenadier selection!

Undead
OK, so the humans weren't quite last...but to be fair, the Undead were not originally included in the FW rulebook. An addition of the Companion, this is the first choice for all you Harryhausen fans out there. Who wouldn't want to field a legion of skele-bones, marching forward in eerie silence. Of course, if you play against an opponent who has seen Army of Darkness one too many times, you'll never hear the end of it. I haven't read over the rules for fielding an undead army, but to be sure it's an army like no other! The special rules in the Companion take up about a quarter of the book. On a practical note, we're once again faced with a lack of "official" Grenadier re-casts. And once again, Iron Wind comes to our aid.

You'll have to scroll down a bit.

UPDATE! On November 1, 2006, Mirliton began re-releasing the Fantasy Warriors line of Undead.

Now where's that Undead War Mammoth...?

So there you have it. A more or less complete evaluation of armies in Fantasy Warriors. On a final note in regards to gaps in Mirliton's line of re-casts, here's a case where eBay can be your friend. Even in the case of minis that are available via Mirliton, you can still find the originals on eBay. That's how I got my wolf riders, still in their original box no less! Shop around, it's part of the fun of army construction. Although I do miss the days when I could just walk into my (not so) friendly local game store and pick up a few blister packs off the shelf. Waiting for shipping sucks (see above).

That's all for now!

The Future is Now!

So after going all over town yesterday in a vain quest for Future Floor Polish (see previous update), it occurred to me I should maybe check out the market right around the corner from my apartment. And of course they had a bottle! Sheesh. Sometimes it's just too obvious, y'know?

I had time this morning before work to do some test painting with the new "Magic Wash". I did a test-paint on three Pendraken ashigaru. They were primered three different ways: white, black, and black with a white drybrush. I mixed my paints to a thin, almost wash-like consistency with the Magic Wash and applied brush to miniature.

The best result came from the black undercoat with white drybrush. The thin glaze of paint allows the white to show through on the the raised areas, creating a natural highlight. The black undercoat fills in the cracks and crevasses that the glaze can't reach.

I'm not sure when I'll start mass-painting in earnest--there are a couple work-related projects I need to work on...but once those are out of the way, I get to play. ;)

More on Taiko! and our armies

As I mentioned in my previous post, for Taiko! I decided to treat figure basing a little differently. I also tweaked the army lists a bit to fit my own peculiar prejudices:

• I eliminated the requirement that 1/3 of the ashigaru in an army be armed with regular hand weapons. Although the percentage is accurate, that third usually stayed "in the rear with the gear" and only joined the battle in truly desperate circumstances. The fighting ashigaru were inevitably armed with yari of some sort or missile weapons.
• Similarly, I negated the "1/3" weapon requirement for the sohei.
• I intend to use the Weather Table from Daimyo, especially since the Taiko! rules for setting fires specifically mention modifiers for rain and high winds.
• I'm thinking of writing up point costs for pavises and palisades, but I want to try out the basic rules first before I start coming up with points values out of thin air. Might send an email to the folks at Flagship and see how they've handled defensive works in past games.
  

I think that's about it. The rules themselves are really solid and I can't wait to give 'em a test spin. To that end, I've come up with a neat scenario. But first, let's look at the armies...

Our armies are based around a fairly specific time frame, namely late 1563 into early 1564. This was when a young Tokugawa Ieyasu (still at this time known as Matsudaira Motoyasu) came head to head with local Ikko Ikki contingents in his home province of Mikawa. Several skirmishes and a large battle were fought in which the young Tokugawa impetuously led from the front, famously returning from a charge with his armor full of enemy musket balls! One of his future trusted generals, Ishikawa Ienari, started out on the side of the Ikko Ikki but later switched sides.

With all this in mind when designing my army, I decided that I wanted to have a mounted Army Commander (the impetuous Motoyasu himself!) along with his "right hand man" Honda Tadakatsu and the general, Sakai Masachika, who started the whole conflict when he was sent to collect rice from a temple without its consent. I also took Hattori Hanzo as a sub-commander, because how could I not? The content of the army is fairly conventional--a mix of Veteran and Young Samurai, most armed with pole arms (which in Taiko! include weapons like the no-dachi), ashigaru wielding short and long yari, and missile troops. Since it's still relatively early in the firearms era, I have slightly more bows than teppo. Thank you Arsenal for making that possible! ;)

The Ikko Ikki are an eclectic mix, as they should be. Peasants form the backbone of the army, but we can also find sohei, both on foot and mounted, samurai, under the leadership of that shifty fellow Ienari (it'll be interesting to see if he defects like he did in real life--another reason I love Taiko!), and even some shifty ronin armed with, of all things, muskets! There are actually more firearms in this army than in mine, which is as it should be. The Ikko Ikki were early proponents of the teppo.

Oh, and there are rumors the fanatics have contracted with the mysterious ninja. Wish I had points in my army for a yojimbo body guard...oh dear...

At any rate, the scenario I referred to above will be a fun way to teach ourselves the rules and kick off the campaign. Basically I want to represent the sparking point of the whole conflict, when Sakai arrives to collect rice from the Joguji temple and the peasants and monks therein beg to differ. Each army will have one cavalry, one infantry and one missile unit, as follows:

Sakai's Forces

• Army Commander, Mounted (Sakai)
• 2x Mounted Samurai, with Pole Arms
• 6x Ashigaru, with Pole Arms
• 4x Ashigaru, with Bows

The Ikko Ikki

• Army Commander, Mounted (Outraged Sohei)
• 2x Mounted Sohei, with Pole Arms
• 6x Peasants, with Pole Arms (hoes and pitchforks)
• 4x Ashigaru, with Teppo

All the Ikki are rated Fanatic, and the Peasants have been upgraded and the Ashigaru downgraded so they have comparable Class and Armor values.

A small complex (two buildings, a watch tower and a tree-stump wall) represents the temple's granary. The objective for Sakai is to raid the granary, or burn it down. The Ikki must prevent this. Simple, fun, guaranteed mayhem! Can't wait to play! :D