Fantasy Warriors Battle Report #6

Long-time readers of this blog may recall when Desiree's brother Mark made a visit last August and trounced me using D.'s Dwarves. This Memorial Day Weekend saw Des's family coming up for her college graduation (congrats!) and a showdown between her dad Frank and myself was only natural. Would this prove a case of "like father, like son" or would I be able to lead my greenskins to victory? Read on...

Like Mark, Frank had never played a miniatures game but was quite interested in the concept and eager to give it a shot. To that end, Desiree once again put her Dwarf army on loan. I was cautiously optimistic that my tweaked Orc army, coming off a two-game winning streak, would do better than it did against Mark--whose utter defeat of my army inspired me to make the changes in the first place.

Previous games have been played on a 6' x 4' layout, but Des and I had been noticing that inevitably only about 2/3 of the table (if that) would see any use, so I decided on a 4 foot square layout for this game, which worked just fine.

Using my scouting house rules (see the previous bat-rep), my Orcs outscouted (between my wizard and mounted elements, this only makes sense...hooray for house rules that are a massive improvement over the published rules!). We agreed on a river for the board and I set up a table and selected an edge such that the Dwarf deployment had a river with no crossing on the right flank, a patch of rough ground on the left, and a hill in the center. My own deployment had some woods and a bridge on my own left and was otherwise open.

Frank, at Mark's urging, chose to roll to negate the broken ground and did so. He set up the majority of his army on the hill, with the crossbows out front, the spears behind, and the Human knights in reserve; the axe-wielding Dwarves were set up on the flanks. An excellent deployment to be sure.

I went with my standard deployment--fast units as flankers (trolls on my left, wolfriders on my right), orc infantry in the center, orcs with spears in reserve, rabble archers out front (to act as a missile screen as much as anything...). My trolls began the game concealed in the woods, which was a nice bonus for a unit that always attracts a lot of crossbow bolts from the get-go.

As always I attempted to read the omens and they came up "bad". I cast Fudge the Omens and tried again...still no luck. Oh dear. Neither of us issued any boasts. I rolled for time of day and got Night, but the time dial was set at "5"--only two turns until dawn! Dang. By the time my forces would come to grips with the stunties, it would be light. Sometimes Orcs just can't catch a break, you know?

We issued identical orders: Attack for our infantry, Oppose for our missile troops. As usual, the battle opened with relentless crossbow fire, directed entirely against my Trolls and wolfriders. Lady Luck finally began to favor me as the two units emerged through the hail of arrows unscathed. My infantry also moved out, although my spear-orcs lost 1/4 of their number trying to ford the Strength 5 river. D'oh! Chastened, they turned for the bridge...

My fast moving flankers took only a couple turns to reach the bearded lines, weathering potentially murderous crossbow fire the whole while, mainly due to my hot rolling with their saves. The wolfriders slammed into a unit of axe-dwarves, the Trolls took on the spear-dwarves in the center as the crossbows fell back.

As my own center moved up, things progressed nicely on my right as the wolfriders systematically cut through their opponents despite the assistance of the Human battle leader. Meanwhile, a massive brew-up began to form in the center on top of the hill as units from both sides were sucked into a roiling melee as soon as they arrived on the scene. All considerations of tactical finesse were thrown aside in favor of generalized slaughter.

By the time the wolfriders finished off the axes on my right the melee on the hill had evolved to include every non-missile unit from both sides with the exception of the knights. In a replay of the confrontation from my game against Mark, the wolfriders charged the armored humans and were slowly annihilated.

The attritional battle in the center eventually began to swing in the Dwarves' favor, but my Orcs, emboldened by their standards and worked up into bloodlust, fought to the last. The tide finally turned when the crossbows charged in (despite being on Oppose orders...whoops)--I finally conceded the game when I was down to all of six Orcs (including my warchief and battle leader).
Victory point calculations gave the Dwarves a "major victory"--they had won the battle, but my army was not out for the count. Sounds about right.

This one definitely could have gone either way; things looked very bad for the Dwarves almost to the very end. The massive fight on the hill was unlike anything I've seen before--Frank and I were both rolling double-handfuls of dice!

A few other considerations:

• My War Trolls, downgraded from Elite to afford all the unit specials for my Orc infantry, truly showed their "Unpredictable" quality, gaining a +3 quality bonus the first round of combat, then a -3 the second round, resulting in a rout! That combat also saw the Dwarves hitting on a 2 or better but killing on a 5 or better and the trolls hitting on a 5+ and killing on a 2+...nice bit of symmetry there...
• My Rabble Archers are worthless, worthless, worthless! During Bad Light they hit on a 6 (and even then they need to get within short range) and kill on a 6, and night doesn't improve things much. Combined with their paltry range, I'm not really sure they're worth the points. Then again, at only 60 points they barely cost me anything and they DO make handy missile shields...we'll see...
• The big melee highlighted the most tiresome aspect of the rules: the Casualty Test. Going through that laundry list of modifiers every turn for every unit gets pretty time-consuming. I should work out a way to note the running modifier for each unit involved in combat.
• I'm getting better at handling my Wizard. In addition to the "Fudge the Omens" spell, I also used "Incite Frenzy" to whip my Trolls into Bloodlust (an essential ingredient for any Orc army!) and gambled a bit with a last-minute assassination attempt on the Dwarf warlord with "Finger of Death". I had a 1-in-3 chance of overdrawing power and blowing up, but made it (barely--down to 1 Power Point!), but unfortunately the two kill rolls the spell grants failed to come up in my favor.

Before and after the game much discussion was given to the unpainted Dwarf bat riders--I think Des is finally ready to expand her army, despite the fact that that will give me more points to work with as well. Muhahahaha! We have yet to discuss what our next threshold will be, but I think adding bat riders will put her army at at least 1500. Maybe we can go whole-hog and double our points to 2500? Then we'll definitely need to go back to 6x4...

Speaking of terrain, I'm seriously considering buying a set of Kallistra Hexon tiles. My modular boards are great and all but they don't offer quite the versatility I thought they would. Plus the Hexon system stores a lot better than my big ol' tiles. I'll post pictures of the new terrain if I end up plunking down for it...

Fantasy Warriors Battle Report #5

It's that time once again, time to break out the minis and have a good ol' fashioned bloodbath (in plastic and metal, of course).

We were once again using our tricked out 1,250 point armies, which I'll detail after the report. I'm quite happy with the new incarnations of our armies--they tend to produce much closer games. The last game saw the Orcs win a Pyrrhic victory against the Dwarves--could I do better this time? Or would the little bearded freaks get the better of me? Read on...

Using a post over on the FU_UK Fantasy Warriors forum as a base, I had cooked up some new scouting rules for this game. The rules in the book are too restrictive, we felt, and frankly not very realistic. Too "gamey", I suppose. The rules are reproduced in full at the end of this report, but in essence they involve rolling a handful of dice and totalling 'em up. Certain elements in your army give you bonus dice, increasing your odds of a high total. Highest total outscouts, or outmaneuvers, as per the rulebook.

As it was, my wizard and wolf-riders gave me two bonus dice and I managed to outscout the Dwarves, although just barely. I set up a table fraught with obstacles in my opponent's deployment zone. A marsh on one flank, a wooded hill in the middle, and a patch of rocky ground on the other flank. A river snaked across the field of battle, crossed by two bridges. I improvised a weighted table (also reproduced below) to determine the river's strength, which came up "4".

Des decided to roll and try to get rid of the marsh and the rocky ground. Dice were rolled and the rocky ground was history. Due to modular nature of my boards, we couldn't remove the board entirely, so we agreed the rocky area would just be cosmetic and not affect movement.

I decided to check the omens--Des declined, claiming the Dwarves are above superstition--and...they came up Good!I steepled my fingers confindently and watched Des set up.

She decided to anchor her left flank against the table edge, setting most of her army on the extreme left of the board. Her Knights held the center and, on the other side of the wooded hill, her speardwarves guarded the extreme right flank.

I set up my forces accordingly, essentially splitting them into two wings. One wing, consisting of my trolls, an archer unit, and a unit of warriors would take on the speardwarves on the flank and try to turn it. The rest of my army would march up and engage the bulk of the dwarves, pinning them.

After we set up I observed that yet again it looked like we were not going to use a whole third of the table. I think in the future, at least until our armies' next growth spurt, I'll lobby for a 4'x4' setup instead of 6'x4'. Increases the choices in modular tiles, at the very least...

One other thing: we were getting a fairly late start on the game, so we agreed on an artificial end time three hours hence. As it turned out, the game ended of its own accord with 15 minutes to spare, so it all worked out in the end.

For orders, I set all my commands on Attack. It's in my archers' best interest to try and get within short range anyway. The time had come up as the first phase of day, so there was no point in trying to wait for the night. I'd just have to do my best with the Bad Light.

Des, for the first time, gave her troops the "classic" Dwarf Army order combo: Hold for infantry and Oppose for missile units. Nonetheless, she kept forgetting she couldn't move her troops throughout the battle and was feeling very frustrated by the Hold order, despite the morale bonus it provides. This, combined with her jealousy of all the units I get to field (no matter how poorly they might perform in contrast to her Elites) led me to observe at one point that maybe she'd be better suited for a more proactive army, like Barbarians. She ruefully agreed, but reaffirmed her love for her Dwarves all the same.

So here's the setup at the beginning of the game:



(A note on photography: I was playing with settings throughout the evening, as the lighting in our "game room" isn't that great. After the first picture I started fiddling with exposure times, which helped, but, since I'm not a human tripod, made for some slightly blurry shots. Apologies in advance.)

My army moved out across the board. The Dwarven crossbows had been set up on the left flank, with two units out front and the third in reserve. My wolfriders fell under crossbow volleys almost immediately, but weathered the barrages intact (not for lack of potential kills--if my wolfies hadn't had their Saves, they would've been annihilated the first turn).

Here we see a shot from behind the Orc lines looking towards the bulk of the Dwarf army. Orcs pour across a bridge in the foreground as my Warchief and Wizard look on; meanwhile, my wolfriders crest a small rise in the background.



The two crossbow units emptied their boltcases into my wolfriders, eventually felling two of them. As my boys drew to within charging distance, the missile units withdrew, making for the wooded hilltop, as the reserve crossbows moved up, readying their weapons. Here I paused to remove a Shaken counter my wolves had picked up, allowing the Dwarven murder machines one more round of shooting. I gritted my teeth as another wolf went down; I would have my revenge soon...





Meanwhile my trolls smashed into the speardwarves on the far right flank after some ineffectual shooting from my Rabble Archers. Dwarves started disappearing like popcorn, but they refused to budge. Clearly I was in for a fight to the finish.



(A note about archers: I'm seriously thinking about dropping missile troops from my army. My Rabble Archers' only hope of hitting during bad light is to get within short range--six inches!--and even then they only hit on 6s. Regular archers would've been only a little better, hitting on a 5 or 6 at short range or 6 at long. Combine this with the weak power of the bow against the heavily armored stunties, and you have a recipe for a whole lotta nothin'.)

Another view of the battlefield as the Orcs begin to contact the Dwarf army:


My wolfriders finally made contact with the third crossbow unit and sent it fleeing, but not before it had killed the last wolfrider, leaving only my mounted battle leader. However, an interesting opportunity presented itself as the crossbow unit routed--I had a clear path to the Dwarven warchief.

In the center, my other unit of warriors charged the knights atop the wooded hill and began dying in large numbers, gradually whittling away at the humans in the process, just like a good Orc unit should. ;)



My mounted battle leader charged the warchief as my spear unit prepared to charge the "bearded buzzsaw", aka the dwarven axe units. The battle truly could go either way.



As it turned out, the battle hinged on the fight between our leaders. We each inflicted two kills, and each only saved one. Both leaders died, so both armies were due for a Command Test. Of course, the Dwarves were worse off, since they'd just lost their warchief, and the dice rolls reflected this. My whole army (helped in part by the Good Omens) stuck around, although the archer command became Disorganized. The Dwarves, on the other hand, quit wholesale...



...Well not quite. The allied Humans stood fast! Forming a desperate rearguard, drastically reduced in number, they fought on bravely. I turned my spear unit and charged it into the knights' flank. Attacked from two sides and desperately outnumbered, the brave warriors hacked left and right, splitting greenskin skulls and severing limbs with reckless abandon. The combat ended, we rolled our Combat Tests...and both Orc units routed!

I guess they figured with the battle pretty much in the bag there was no need to die needlessly fighting these crazy knights. The human allies had kept the Dwarf retreat from turning into a full-scale rout. We called the game at that point.

Victory points told the tale: I had won a "decisive" victory, but if the knights had not done what they did I could've had a "major" victory. Ah well. A win is a win. :)

Now for some details on our armies as they currently stand.

My army consists of three commands. I have one warchief, a battle leader, and a mounted battle leader (not pictured), plus a wizard:



(The leaders are Ral Partha; the warchief has an awesome shield slung across his back with several severed hands nailed to the front. The wizard is Grenadier.)

The warchief commands the Rabble Archers (although maybe not for long...):



The battle leader commands a unit of orcs with spears and two units of orc warriors, plus a unit of trolls. The warriors are reinforced with a full complement of specials: standard, musician, champion, and leader. The spears, who are upgraded to Veteran, currently have only a standard (a Black Tree Miniatures "half-orc"):







A note on the shields. For the longest time my plastics lacked shields, having failed to glue them on back in the day. Thanks to em4 Miniatures, I was able to order some replacement shields, so both armies got kitted out properly. I sprinkled in a few GW "Goblin" shields among my orc warriors to add a slight tribal feel as well.

I was using Reaper Bull Orcs for my Trolls, but since the last battle I decided I wanted a more "traditional" Troll unit. Ral Partha came through, and I'm very pleased with the results--more sinewy musculature looks much more trollish, I think:



The mounted battle leader personally commands a unit of four wolfriders that includes a standard and musician. Very much my army's "centerpiece" unit:



And yes, that's a hand-painted Samhain logo on the standard bearer's shield. Orcs are totally metal, didn't you know?

Speaking of paint jobs, longtime readers of this blog will recall that all my plastics were originally painted by me when I was a wee lad; I came back and added a wash and some highlights, but kept the basic color schemes. As a sort of tribute to this, I've kept all later paintjobs very simple, along with the basing, which is just simple flocking. The Samhain logo was a bit of my current painting stylings creeping in, but on the whole I think I've done a good job keeping things "back to basics".

The Dwarf army is about half the size of my Orcs, partly owing to the fact that every unit has been upgraded to Elite!

A dwarf warchief and battle leader share command responsibilities with a human allied leader:



(All three figures are Ral Partha. Des wanted a matriarchal command structure!)

The warchief, like mine, commands the missile units, which, unlike mine, are deadly effective:



The battle leader commands the infantry, a unit of speardwarves and two units of dwarves with double-handed axes:







Right now the dwarf infantry can't afford too many specials. The speardwarves have a standard (who I actually painted for one of the axe units, thus the weird contrast in color scheme) and the axe units each have a leader.

The human allies consist of a mere five foot knights, but man do they pack a wallop!



So that's how our armies look right now. Things are always subject to change, of course, but, like I said, the current configuration lends itself to pretty exciting battles.

Til next time!

***

Scouting:

Change:

Before the battle roll:

• 1D for each command in your army (not counting mercenaries)
• 2D for each Scout in your army
• 1D for each Wizard in your army
• 2D for each flying unit
• 1D for each mounted unit

And add your Warchief's Leadership.

The side with the greater score has outscouted the enemy. If one side has a scouting score greater than twice that of the enemy, they have outmaneuvered them.

If the totals are tied, add the following modifiers:

• +2 per Light Armored cavalry unit
• +1 per Medium Armored cavalry unit
• +1 per Light Armored infantry unit

***

Random River Strength Table
As any river with a mid- to high-level strength is nearly impossible to cross in FW, this table weights results towards the lower end of the scale.

Roll 1D:
1: Strength 1
2-3: Strength 2
4-5: Strength 3
6: Roll again...

Roll 1D:
1: Strength 4
2: Strength 5
3: Strength 6
4: Strength 7
5-6: Roll again...

Roll 1D
1-2: Strength 8
3-4: Strength 9
5-6: Strength 10

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!