Sunday, April 27, 2014

Grishnak's Grief.

Yes it's always that black orc Grishnac, isn't it?  Well, he won't be coming back!
This is a Rally Round the King game of orcs versus elves.  It did not go well for the orcs.
But yours truly forgot some things, of course.  For this game the orc commander had a War Rating of 4 and the elf commander 3.  Of course, the orcs out-scouted the elves, with a skirmish unit against nothing but heavy infantry for the elves.  So the orcs are the attacker.
Here we have the orc army, straight out of the lists.
They stretched out as far as they could.  The wolf riders are off the left of the picture.  They were further hampered by bad going in the middle of their line.

The elves, out-numbered, chose a compact formation with a bow unit on each wing, and the marines as reserve, since they're the fastest elves.

In turn 1, the orcs advanced and the elves brought the bows to touch the back corner of the flank, thereby hopefully staying out of melee, but able to support the line.

In turn 2 the orcs advanced further, while the elves stood firm.

IN turn 3, the orcs advanced into bow range.  The orc unit on the left flank of the center battle line was handled roughly by the bowman.  The bows hit him and cause him to advance 1/2 half move, which caused the bow to take an Enemy Threat test, and fire again.  This time the orc unit ic forced to retire and take 1 hit.  He now has 3 hits, and as a Rep 4 unit is pretty much out of the fight.  The wolf riders advance towards the marines.
The elf commander decides to call a charge, but fails and must stand still.  The elves' right wing bow unit turns 90 degrees to face the skirmish unit, if it ever gets there.

Turn 4: The orc commander orders a charge, and the elves do not countercharge, but stand to receive it.  In the combat the orcs' dice total 16 hits and the elves 18.  This is not so good, as all but 1 orc unit has AC 2 and the elves are all AC 4.

The wolf riders get into threat range of marines who are dual armed, and put 1 into the orcs. The wolves completed their charge and take another hit.  The elves take 2 . And the wolf riders retire and take another hit!
 It's now the elves initiative and they continue the melee.  The orcs score 13 to the elves 7. And the 2 orc units on the right fail their UD roll and stand still.  Another orc unit retires and takes another hit.  And the orc leader dies, leaving them with a War Rating of 1.  The loss of their leader causes the wolf riders to rout.

Turn 5:  The orcs have no choice but to tough it out in melee. The orcs take another hit, and so do the elves.  2 of the orc stands rout, and incredibly the elves fall back taking another hit each.

But it's all over for the orcs.  The elves charge, the orcs stand, and the last element in the line rout, leaving the field to the elves.  The orcs have 3 stands left that have not been in combat, but being UD would be fodder for the elves.  The elves have all their stands, but all but 2 have taken hits.
The orcs at the bottom of the picture have no chance against the better disciplined elves.

Did I forget some stuff? You betcha!  I forgot that the orcs have frenzy and are UD, so those two sort of cancel out.  I forgot to start from the right of the line on the orcs twice, which benefited them.  All in all a fun game played in about 45 minutes including taking pictures and writing everything down.  Both sides had the advantage of my dismal die rolling.