Solo Wargaming - Example Playthrough (Pic Heavy)

Wanting to test the principles of solo wargaming first hand I decided to break out some of my old Warhammer Fantasy miniatures and try a practice game. The rules set utilised would be Warhammer Fantasy – something of a home-brewed mash-up of the parts I like best from 6th, 7th and 8th editions. If you are not a fan of the fantasy genre or are not familiar with the warhammer rules set, don’t worry – this project will aim to illustrate the solo gaming mechanisms utilised rather than focusing on the nuances of the Warhammer fantasy gaming system.

To provide a narrative framework to the game I determined that following the unexpected and untimely death of a venerable grand tribal chieftain, who had held the monstrous races in a coalition and under a somewhat peaceful truce with the human kingdoms, that all the lower chieftains had decided to take up arms against the humans to prove their strength and therefore, their suitability to lead the coalition from now on. The human kingdom, suddenly engaged on all fronts, scrambles to defend its borders, reinforcing existing garrisons with hastily raised levies.

The battle would take place outside a defended mountain pass leading to the human kingdom. An orc warlord leads his forces to attack the pass in an attempt to break through and raid the farmlands beyond the pass, seeking to gain valuables, status and recognition from his peers. The town and existing defensive structures which had previously been present outside the pass had been damaged or destroyed in an earlier war and had not been fully repaired.

The evening before the battle, a group of human scouts from the pass garrison and a group of orc scouts stumble into one another. Were I playing a full campaign I could have utilised a solo skirmish game here to determine the outcome, but for the sake of this article we will assume both sides suffered minor casualties before both forces retreated.

Additionally, in the hours of the early morning, a force of goblins was dispatched by the orc warlord to seize control of a tower near the mountain pass which had been converted into a makeshift signal tower. This was in order to prevent the human garrison raising the alarm that an orc force was on the move in the area. Once again in a full campaign this would have provided scope for a smaller scale game in and of itself, but we can just assume that through stealth, subterfuge and, more likely, overwhelming numbers, the goblins managed to capture the tower.

As an additional aside, I had opted not to include magical equipment or spellcasters in either force for the sake of simplicity.

Orc player’s Information

The Orc warlord knows the following:

• The mountain pass will be defended by at least a token garrison form the human kingdom.
• The garrison is likely to have been reinforced, however given how stretched the human kingdom is, the reinforcements are likely to be few in number and/or of poor quality troops.
• The human garrison likely suspects the presence of his force, given the run-in between the two scouting forces.
• The human garrison will likely not have had an opportunity to fully rebuild the defensive network and structures at the mountain pass. However, in previous battles in this area the older orc advisors recall the humans using various traps as defensive measures. It is strongly likely that some of these may remain and are active, or have been repaired by the human garrison. Consequently travel on the roads may be the best way to avoid said traps. The orc warlord can reasonably suspect that the human garrison will anticipate this approach and either barricade the road, or alternatively, will have the road covered by ranged units and will try to funnel the orc forces down the road.
• Knowing that his intention is to rapidly break through the human lines and raid, the orc player will not bring siege engines as part of his force as they would reduce his mobility once the pass is breached.
• The orc warlord knows he dispatched a force of gobils to seize the watch/signal tower, however will not know if this was successful until he arrives on the battlefield.

Human players information

The human garrison commanders know the following:

• Warlords from the monstrous races have been attacking frontier human settlements regularly of late, following the death of the former grand chieftain.
• Orc scouts were reported in the vicinity in the previous evening. This strongly suggests the nearby presence of an orc raiding force.
• Some of the defensive trap network outside the ruined village on the outskirts of the mountain pass have been hastily repaired and refitted. However due to the hasty nature of the repairs some of the traps may not be in working order.

Orc Forces

The orc forces were comprised of every painted non-siege weapon orc or goblin miniature I could find.

From left side front to back:

20 orcs with 2 hand weapons (generic heavy infantry)

20 orcs with 2 hand weapons (generic heavy infantry)

20 black orcs (elite heavy infantry)

20 big-un’s (veteran heavy infantry)

10 archers (mediocre missile infantry- will act as a skirmishing scout force for this game)

10 archers (mediocre missile infantry- will act as a skirmishing scout force for this game)

Chariot

Giant (Shock heavy infantry/monster)

Orc warlord

Goblin boss (lead’s goblin subfaction – subordinate leader to orc warlord)

20 savage orcs (fanatical heavy infantry)

20 savage orcs (fanatical heavy infantry)

5 boar riders (heavy cavalry)

42 goblins (poor quality infantry)

21 goblins (poor quality infantry)

20 goblins (poor quality infantry)

20 goblin archers (poor quality missile unit)

Approximate point equivalence of the force is around 2,500 points.

The orcs are essentially  a hand to hand combat force so the orc warlord will be seeking to come to grips with the opposing force as quickly as possible. Knowing the forces available to him and based on the information to hand the orc battle plan is as follows:

• the goblins which were not engaged in taking the tower will be deployed on the right flank (mainly to keep them out of the way…)
• The faster elements of the force, ie the boar riders and chariot, will support the right flank.
• The skirmishing archers will be deployed in front of the main body of troops to screen the force from any enemy fire.
• The black orcs will be deployed on the road to spearhead an assault on any defending forces.
• One unit of savage orcs will be deployed in front of the black orcs to screen the elite unit form any enemy missile fire.
• The remaining orcs will be deployed close to the road to support the main attack.
• The giant will be kept towards the rear to screen it from missile fire until such time as it can be deployed to make an appropriate impact.

The orcs also suffer from a special rule called ‘animosity’ which means that each round there is a chance that most of the units (except the Black orcs, chariot and giant) may bicker amongst themselves or charge off rather than following orders.

Human Forces

The human forces are divided into two components – the fusiliers charged with defending the pass and the reinforcing contingent. this was intentional – playing the humans as two smaller discrete forces with differing orders would mean that the army would not fight as a cohesive whole.

Fusiliers Force composition

Front to rear:

Engineer (leader of force)

Two cannons (heavy artillery)

25 spearmen (defensive regular infantry) with two detachments of 12 handgunners (heavy missile support)

The fusiliers are, obviously, a ranged force and will by default be deployed at the mouth of the pass and will not seek to give up their defensive position.

Approximate points equivalence of this force is just over 700 points.

Reinforcing Force composition

Front to rear, left to right:

15 free company (poor quality infantry)

Captain (leader of reinforcing force)

15 free company (poor quality infantry)

10 archers (average skirmishing infantry)

20 swordsmen (good quality infantry)

10 crossbowmen (good quality missile unit)

10 huntsmen (average skirmishing infantry)

6 pistoliers (fast light cavalry missile unit)

Approximate points value of this component of the force is just over 800 points, bringing the combined human forces to a little over 1,500 points compared to the orc’s 2,500.

Based on the information available to them at the start of the battle, the reinforcing force will deploy to the left of the fusiliers in a defensive position. Once they observe that the watch/signal tower has been captured they will need to consider whether to redeploy to attempt to recapture the tower.

The below image shows the filed where the battle would be fought. The orc army would approach from the left hand side of screen table edge, with the goblin forces having captured and occupied the tower on the bottom right of screen. The fusiliers would deploy defending the mountain pass at the top of screen where the road met the table edge, with the human reinforcing force deploying along the same table edge, further to the right of screen.