A Tale of X-Gamers.....This seems to be a revolving number of players in the Berks-Pa Gaming Club that are participating in a Warhammer Fantasy Battles uprising. I myself first got my start in table top wargaming outside of Role Playing Games with Warhammer Fantasy. My Dwarfs of Clan Steel Thunder were my original army.
Now with the release of 8th edition, a year later, 7 or 8 of us in Berks are looking to get back involved with Fantasy Battles. So, following a format of the classic "Tale of 4 Gamers" from the White Dwarf magazines, we are doing something similar in our game club. The initial plan is to construct 500 point armies, build them, paint them and play at least one game with them within 6-8 weeks.
Now that I finally got on to this project, I had opted to go with the arch enemy of my beloved Dwarves, and roll with Orcs & Goblins. The decision was easy, as first of all, it is the classic enemy to my favorite army. The other determining factor was that I had over 1500 points of unbuilt, unpainted Orcs & Goblins laying around on shelves in the "Man Cave". So it just was econimically smart to get this project under way.
Like any true "fluff" player, I had to come up with how I was going to go with the background of my army. Deciding that a young and upcoming Orc Big Boss would start to assemble units of his warband into his own Waaagh! one day, I decided to keep it simple. So here came Big Boss Gorlab (Balrog spelled backwards). No Orc Boss is worth his salt without a few bands of orc boyz along, so I threw in a mob of Orc boyz and Orc Arrer boyz I had sitting around. To fill out final points I added 7 of the Forest Goblin Spider Riders from the old Battle For Skull Pass boxed set.
My army looked like this:
* Big Boss Gorlab: Shield, handweapon, Shrieking Blade (causes fear), Armor of Fortune (Heavy armor and 5+ ward save).
* Boyz Mob: 20 boyz, extra hand weapons, shields, light armor, musician, standard bearer and Boss.
* Arrer Boyz mob: 15 Orc Arrer boyz (hand weapon, bow, light armor)
* 7 spider Riders: (hand weapon, short bow, spear, shield).
And that totals up to a simple 500 points. My opponent this month was my friend Colin Galen who brings with him Tomb Kings. However, due to timing, he had to play this game with the old rules and due to the costs and numbers, he was at a disatvantage.
We played a mission from the book, where you must capture a tower in the center of the board. We used a ruins structure I have that would work well for the main objective of the game.
The Tomb Kings set up to the far North, a unit of skeletal archers centrally located and a unit of warriors with a Tomb King or Guardian of some sorts just to the East of them (Orcs facing North, deploying from the South). The leader was not attatched to a unit but using walls for cover and also was a sorcerer of sorts.
The Orc Arrer Boyz set up to move into the ruined structure, preparing to garrison it. To the South East I had the unit of Orc Boyz flanked by the Spider Riders that I was planning to use to move through the woods as fast cavalry and close the distance on the skeletal archers.
Tomb Kings turn 1: They moved, took range at the orcs, only to miss with all of their shots or failing to wound on any of them.
Orc turn 1: Gorlab himself was attatched to the large mob of Orc boyz, leading his troops into battle. As fate would have it, the Orc Arrer Boyz rolled animosity, but rolled a "6", and got "we'll show 'em!" and surged forward into the ruined building, setting up their garrison and the movement put them in range of the skeletal archers, allowing them to fire at the archers and taking out 2 of them.
The other units simply advanced under march trying to close the distance with their enemies.
Tomb Kings turns 2 & 3: These pretty much saw Skeletal Archers shooting at Orcs, and very rarely wounding them and when they did score wounds, the orcs usually managed to save the wounds. I think a total of 3 orcs died in 3 turns of shooting. The Tomb King Sorcerer kept trying to cast his spell upon his archers, aiding them in their attacks. Sometimes it worked, sometimes I managed to dispell it.
Orc turns 2 & 3: Orc infantry and spider riders continued to advance through the woods. Orc Arrer boyz continued to whittle down the skeletal archers, who kept mananging to regenerate a few each turn or their Tomb King sorcerer would reanimate a few each turn.
Tomb King turn 4: As orc forces continued to close the distance, the skeletal foot soldiers prepared themselves to be in a position to avoid a charge by the advancing orcs. The sorcerer continued to reanimate fallen skeletal archers and managed to stay out of Line-of-sight so that he could not be targeted by Orc archers.
Orc turn 4: Forest Goblin spider riders closed the gap on the skeletal archers. Orc arrer boyz were doing enough damage that the sorcerer could not reanimate them all fast enough. Sooner or later the skeletal archers were going to fall. The Orc infantry boyz kept closing the gap, moving slowly through the forests in their path.
Tomb King turn 5: Again more repositioning, the skeletal warriors prepare for the orc assault, reforming just to hopefully be at the edge of charge reach for the orcs. The skeletal archers took out some of the spider riders but cause them to flee far enough away.
Orc turn 5: Orc infantry boyz and Gorlab fail their charge against the skeletal warriors. The orcs now prepare themselves to be assaulted. Orc archers manage to finish off the skeletal archers along with aid from the spider riders, who were forced to flee.
Tomb King turn 6: The Skeletal Warriors with a Guardian or something, assault the Orcs. Gorlab calls out a challenge and the Skeletal leader accepts. The fight is burtal, and ends in drawn combat.
Orc turn 6: Arrer boyz finish off skeletal archers. Gorlab, in single combat, cuts down the skeletal tomb king sergeant/veteran. The orcs win the combat but the tomb kings remain locked in combat. The sorcerer looks for a safe place to hide.
Tomb King turn 7: More skeletal warriors die but hold their ground. Things look grim for the Tomb Kings.
Orc turn 7: Gorlab has fun killing skeletons. The combat again is drawn, and the orcs find the Tomb Kings to be tough opponents in close quarters. Game ends here, Orcs in control of the Garrisoned tower. A win for Gorlab and his Orc Boyz!
