New Blood.

Managed to get a game out of my new Kislev proxies. Introduced two chaps to the old school warhammer with pared back rules to serve as an introduction to the game. We did basic psychology, which I decided was test to see if they run away. No modifiers or what ifs, just dead simple. The idea is that I ease these two new chaps slowly into the rule sets I use for mass gaming. So I said to them, “if 50% of your chaps in a unit die in one turn, then they test to see if they run away. If in a combat, the side who has more deaths tests to see if they run away. That’s it.

We went through basic shooting, move and manoeuvre, and combat.

The forces I gave the newbies are just a foot troop type, a missile troop type, a cavalry and a simple war machine. Each newbie had the above and the experienced players had a slightly more complex human force (galloper guns/ two types of cavalry, for instance) and played the side being ambushed. The ambushed side is really up against it in this scenario, the road down the centre is the line of travel. The imperial marching column must escort the dwarf pony pulling treasure off the table, heading for the roads end in between the two trees. The mercenaries must catch up and aid this effort from the opposite board edge before the marching column is overrun. The Orcs get to deploy second and go first, it is an ambush after all. The objective being for the orcs to have uncontested control of the pony for one turn and sack it, possibly eating the pony later!

The whole game would last no more than 6 turns so that everyone could get a good game completed in an evening and have a very bloody time of it. It certainly would be bloody in the end as on turn 6 two giants arrive in the hills to eat up the remaining imperials. Time is not an ally this day.

The opening moves from the orcs did not go well, many tests on animosity failed. Everyone enjoyed that part of the game, so I made a mental note that narrative was going to be a theme for them going forward.

The Uruk hai siege ballista’s and Morranon orc bolt throwers made a devastating salvo upon the marching column. Soooo many Zweihanders and missile troops died instantly!

The imperials tried to manoeuvre to block access points to the treasure and allow the pony to make a dash for the road exit!

The mercenaries managed to blunder their manoeuvres and slow their own advance by being stuck behind the dwarf slayers. Oh dear.
The newbies picked up fast cavalry principles very quickly and placed the Warg riders in very annoying positions on turn 3 and made a dash for the pony. Luckily, the artillery started to misfire and blow themselves up which was quite a relief for my imperials!

The Knights of Saint George made a dash along the right side of the valley to attempt to clear the enemy troops from the pony, while the valiant halberdiers did Stirling work on the left of the valley. Alas the knights could not push forward far enough and the pony was contacted by the wargs! My only hope was the mercenaries would push forward and aid the halberdiers to free them up so the halberds could do their bloody work on the wargs before they could eat Bill the pony!

Those cunning newbies placed a unit of pike man in front of the hussars, the newbie chap in charge of the hussars charged the pikes head on………

It was carnage. My rules regarding pikes is if they have not march moved, or charged, then they are ‘in formation’ which confers certain benefits. +1 strength against charging infantry, +2 if the chargers are cavalry or large monsters. And they get to fight in 4 ranks. They also get to attack first even against chargers. As would happen with real pikes!
The only times this does not apply is if the Enemy charge is in the flank or rear of the pikes or the pikeman are not ‘in formation’. In which case the beleaguered pike are using swords only! With no rank bonuses!
The zweihander great swords can force pikes to be out of formation by lucky rolling in combat. The great swords negate the pikes attacking first and force simultaneous combat with the zweihanders rolling first to check if modifiers come into play. If the great swords win the combat then the pikes are no longer ‘in formation’ (leaving them open for a cavalry more up). Any 6’s rolled by the greatswordsman in hitting the pikes, negates a pike rank bonus down to the minimum front rank. So if 6 zweihanders attack the pikes and roll two 6’s, then the pikes originally fighting in 4 ranks can only fight back in two ranks as the two 6’s negate two of the pikes rank bonuses. 

This was of no use however, as the Zweihander greatswords were basically dead, and nowhere near the pikes.

The Hussars charged, died, and ran away. The narrative attached to these special weapons really helped the game along for my players as they had just seen the devestaing nature of cavalry charges with my knights of Saint George.

The Mercenaries failure meant an orc success in turn 5. We carried on playing for the funsies and some Kislev horse archers did magic works and then everyone ran away when the giants arrived. I used the Giants as a way to gently hint at what is in order for next time should the players wish to play again and build on their knowledge of the game so far.

They said they would like to play again! Someday I will have a full 6 local players for the mega game ideal.

Great Fun, keep those newbies coming!