A short note on strategy from the Border Princes Campaign (turn 10)

I thought it might be appropriate write a short article to explain the rationale behind the decisions made for the Beastmen in the Border Princes campaign we’re running at the moment.

To recap, at the end of turn 9, the Beastmen were allied with the Orcs & Goblins and at war with everyone else (High Elves, Bretonnians and Empire, although there hadn’t actually been any conflict with the Empire at this stage). Plenty of battles had been fought over the middle ground around Malko and the Old Silk Road, but over all the Beastmen were at least holding there own, and in particular were doing extremely well against the High Elves. Their alliance with the Orcs & Goblins ensured that some support was generally available for any battles in the centre of the map where serious opposing force could be brought to bear, and additionally were locked in combat with the Empire, keeping them focussed on the South of the Border Princes (i.e. away from Beastmen-held areas). It was clear that the Empire would be able to break through the Orc & Goblin lines in turn 10, and battles with the Bretonnians and the Empire against the Beastmen and Orcs & Goblins looked likely.

In turn 10, the Beastmen and the Orcs & Goblins mutually agreed to break their alliance, depriving both of support against the two human nations who were tightening their hold on the territories around Malko. Worse, being in combat with each other meant that they couldn’t use their own neighbouring armies to assist in battles against the Bretonnians and the Empire, since the banners that would have been able to support were fighting their own battles.

In addition, the Beastmen entered an alliance with the High Elves, a nation with relatively few banners which were largely focussed in the extreme North West (i.e. away from the main fighting) and who the Beastmen seemed to be holding back without too much difficulty (admittedly, this is mainly due to my luck rather than skill).

The result of all this is that the Beastmen traded a powerful ally in a useful position (the Orcs & Goblins with their 17 provinces) for a comparatively weak ally far from the main action (the High Elves, with only 12 territories on the map). The battles with the Orcs & Goblins also meant that the Empire were able to make full use of their well-placed Bretonnian allies to crush the Beastmen army on the Old Silk Road.

So, back to the question: why? It is simple, of course. An acknowledged problem with map campaigns is that you end up fighting against the same opponents a lot of the time, while others (in a different part of the map) can’t be engaged at all. I wanted a chance to fight against Justinmatters‘ Orcs & Goblins, and I wanted to shake up the stalemate in the centre of the map. So ultimately, this was just an excuse to (I hope) liven up the campaign a little by mixing the combinations of alliances and the likelihood of battles being fought.

Beastmen vs Orcs & Goblins (1600 points); 12Apr11

After the Beastmen’s traumatic battle against the Empire and their Bretonnian allies in the Old Silk Road, I am looking to get back some territory in the first of two battles against the Justinmatters‘ Orcs & Goblins for turn 10 of the Border Princes Campaign.  We opted to play the equal-sided battle in Section 61, although we got Justinmatters’ banners mixed up (it should have had a Goblin Warboss as the general).  I decided to test out a unit of Centigors in this army, and so I dropped a Bray Shaman and shuffled other units to make room for the drunken fools.

Black Angus – Great Bray Shaman, Level 3, Steel Claws, Talisman of Preservation, Jagged Dagger, Ironcurse Icon, Lore of Shadow (GBS)

Herod of the Short Mile – Wargor, BSB, Gnarled Hide, Heavy Armour, Shield (BSB)

25 Gors, additional hand weapons, full command (G1)

20 Gors, additional hand weapons, full command (G2)

30 Ungors, full command (U)

Tuskgor Chariot (TC)

23 Bestigors, full command, Banner of Discipline (B)

5 Harpies, scouts (H)

5 Centigors (C)

Justinmatters selected this bunch of green-skinned reprobates (roughly):

Orc Big Boss, Martog’s Best Basha (BB)

Orc Big Boss, Battle Standard Bearer (BSB)

Orc Shaman, level 2 (OS)

Goblin Shaman, Staff of Sneaky Stealin’, wolf (GS)

2 x 25 Boyz, additional hand weapons, full command (B1 and B2)

2 x 20 Night Goblins, nets,  musician, 2 fanatics (NG1 and NG2; F1 to F4)

10 Spider Riders, full command (SR)

5 Wolf Riders, musician (WR)

Wolf Chariot

Boar Chariot (BC)

2 Trolls (T)

Spear Chukka (SC)

With terrain randomised and deployed turn-about as usual, we had a mysterious forest in the North West, and two sets of fences at opposite ends of the table.  In the centre of the North was a Wyrding Well (looks suspiciously bloody in this diagram) and an Elven Waystone next to the fences in the East which, admittedly, doesn’t look much like it is the work of Elves.  The building in the South is a Dwarf Brewhouse and the one in the North is a Grail Chapel.  In fact, since both armies are in the Forces of Destruction, it is effectively just a normal building.  Finally, boringly, there is a normal hill in the South East.

The mission is Blood and Glory (again), but there are plenty of banners on each side so there should be no shortage of brutality.  The Great Bray Shaman takes Melkoth’s Mystifying Miasma, Withering and Enfeebling Foe, the Orc Shaman gets Gaze of Mork and Bash ‘Em Lads and the Goblin Shaman has Gaze of Gork.  Finally, the Centigors turn out to be sober and we get on with deployment.  Beastmen have far fewer units and duly get the first turn, which is just the way I like it against armies with more shooting than me (i.e. all of them).

So, as usual, the Beastmen spend their first turn racing for the enemy lines.  I briefly debate whether to hang back with the Centigors to reduce the chances of the Spider Riders getting the charge on them early, but I decide to just go for it – having initiative 4 was a factor in my thoughts.  The Bestigors, having been stuck in the building as there was no room on the front line, duly leave it and get themselves in a tangle behind the Elven Waystone.  I had considered just putting them behind the Wargor’s Gors as a second line of attack, but this way did keep the Great Bray Shaman close to the Waystone for as long as possible.  The winds of magic only give us 2,1 dice to play with, and the Goblin Shaman’s Staff of Sneaky Stealin’ means that I’m not likely to get much done this phase.  An attempt to put Miasma on one of the Night Goblin units is dispelled, and that’s it.

The Boar Chariot and one of the Night Goblin mobs both move forward with animosity, and no-one is forced to stay still.  The Spider Riders fancy their chances against the Centigors and go for it as fast as the many legs of their mounts will carry them.  Both chariots charge the small Gor unit but an improbable charge roll of 2,2,1 for the Wolf Chariot would leave it less than 1″ short; the Orcs riding the Boar Chariot don’t mind – it’s just more bashing for them.  The Wolf Riders fail their swift reform check despite being in range of the General and BSB, but they only need line of sight on the Harpies for the Shaman’s magic missiles anyway.  After rolling 4,3 dice for the magic phase, Gaze of Gork is dispelled on the Harpies (I don’t want them panicking away so early), and Gaze of Mork fails to kill any of the Gors in the West.  The shooting is ineffective, knocking over a few Gors here and there, although the Spear Chukka has no unobscured targets and misses it’s shot at the Gors.  The Boar Chariot kills a few Gors with impact hits and holds after losing to the musician.  Over in the East, the Centigors lose one of their number to a Giant Spider and then go mental, killing 8 of the Forest Goblins and running the survivors down.  I can’t say I’m not impressed so far.

The Centigors lose one to a fence (which makes you wonder how they manage in forests if a fence can do that to them) before crashing into the Spear Chukka crew – note that my lack of skill with Battle Chronicler makes this look outrageous, but it was fine on the table top.  The Ungors charge the West Night Goblins, losing 6 to the inevitable fanatics, although the back ranks do sit on one of the drug-fuelled maniacs.  The Wargor and his drinking buddies lose 8 of their number (but kill both fanatics) on their way into the other Night Goblins.  It’s times like that when I’m glad that Beastmen don’t pay a load of points to bother with armour.  Finally, the Harpies realise the Spear Chukka is not only out of reach but being handled by the Centigors, don’t like the look of the Wolf Riders and so decide to charge into the flank of the Wolf Chariot (again, it looks impossible on Battle Chronicler but it was fine in the game).  The Bestigors and the Tuskgor Chariot (pleasingly, my only unengaged units) manoeuvre a little to set themselves up a little for the next turn.  I get a good roll for the magic phase, giving us 6,4 dice to play with and channelling to boot (although the Staff of Sneaky Stealin’ soon takes that one away) and I’m looking to throw all my hexes onto Justinmatters’ units.  Sadly, I roll 3,3,2,1 in a four dice attempt at Withering on the Wolf Chariot which doesn’t even meet the casting value so that’s it for magic.  Luckily, it turns out that my smelly goats don’t need help from the warp anyway.  The 3 remaining Centigors skewer all the crew of the Spear Chukka before they even know what’s hit them, reforming to face the back of the Orc Boyz mob.  The Harpies put a couple of wounds on the Wolf Chariot for none in return (how come they can’t manage that against Crossbowmen?); it flees an epic distance to the far side of the Brewhouse (failing to banjo itself on the building) and the Harpies find themselves in the flank of the General’s Boyz mob, which is probably not a good idea.  The Wargor and his Gors kill of a whole pile of Night Goblins despite the nets.  The little green guys flee off the table (because they hit the Wolf Riders, although they don’t panic) and the somewhat diminished Gors pile into the Boyz waiting behind.  The Ungors kill a decent number of their Night Goblins, who obligingly net themselves and cause few casualties in return.  Despite being stubborn from the Brewhouse and in range of the Big Boss and BSB they flee and end up behind the Boyz, staring at some thirsty Centigors; the Ungors clip the Trolls in their pursuit.  Not bad considering the lack of magical assistance.  The Gors in the East fail to live up to this level of service, failing to wound the Boar Chariot.  It kills one in return and passes morale after losing on static combat resolution again.

The unengaged mob of Boyz charge the Ungors sitting right in front of them.  The Wolf Chariot fails to rally, not surprisingly since it’s now miles from the General, but the Night Goblins pull themselves together and opt to stay facing the Centigors, who wonder if anyone would notice if they just bypassed the rest of the fighting and went straight for the beer in the Brewhouse.  The Orcs & Goblins get 4,4 dice for their magic phase.  Evidently they decided that, since the Beastmen magic for turn 2 was useless, they ought to go one better.  The Goblin Shaman casts Gaze of Gork on the Tuskgor Chariot with Irresistable Force.  The resulting devastating miscast (1,1 on the Orc & Goblin chart) finishes off the Wolf Chariot and the surviving Fanatic and causes a handful of casualties across the other units.  The Shaman himself is killed and the Wolf Riders panic off the table.  Ouch.  To add insult to injury, the spell fails to wound its target anyway.  Apparently this is expected of Goblin Shamans (er… shamen?), and the Orc Shaman carries on with his business as though nothing had happened, putting Bash ‘Em Lads on the General’s Boyz mob.  The Boar Chariot finally fails it’s morale check against the ranks of Gors now pressing down upon it and it flees; the Gors reform to face the main action.  The Gors with the BSB do an admirable job fighting the Orcs but it isn’t enough to stop them testing for insane courage (losing all four Harpies didn’t exactly help their cause).  Even with a re-roll they can’t manage it, and a paltry 3 survivors flee past the Bestigors; the standard bearer and BSB both commit seppuku rather than face the shame of flight.  The Ungors lose a lot of their number but they hold since they are usefully stubborn next to the Brewhouse.

The Tuskgor Chariot charges the fleeing Boar Chariot.  It’s not in the way and it can’t redirect so I go for it to try and over run, which it duly does.  The Centigors charge the newly rallied Night Goblins and the Bestigors charge into the General’s Boyz.  In the magic phase (3,2 dice, and I get to keep all mine since the Staff of Sneaky Stealin’ is gone), Justinmatters knows that he’ll have to dispel any hexes I put on the Boyz with the Big Bosses to keep himself in the fight.  He lets a Miasma (-2 WS) through on the Boyz with the Shaman, which I cast in the hope of getting him to commit his dice to it, but does dispel Enfeebling Foe on the main mob.  Oh well, it was worth a try.  The Centigors finish their good run, losing 2 to the Night Goblins and failing to run them down.  I tried them first in the hope that they could get into the rear of the Boyz and hence get another round of combat this turn, but it was not to be.  In the main event, the Big Boss, BSB and Boyz are obviously tired after their previous exertions, only managing to kill 2 Bestigors between the lot of them after some dreadful rolling.  The Bestigors show them how it’s done, chopping them down to a few left plus the characters, who fail both attempts to hold (needing a 3 to do so).  They get away (again, except for the BSB), but Justinmatters decides that is all he need to see here.  The Big Boss is stuck in a unit under 25 % of its original size, so the game comes down to whether he could roll 1,1 to rally them next turn, otherwise they are near certain to flee off the table (even if they rally, the Bestigors could just charge them again and finish the job).  Since this is Blood and Glory, that would be their breaking point reached.

Victory to the Beastmen!  As usual when the game goes your way, I find that there isn’t much to be concluded, apart from ‘well, that worked.’

The Centigors did well although I think they might be flattered by getting to be sober when facing an army with low initiative.  Against Elves they still would get skewered.  Still, it was quite nice getting to roll armour saves for a change.  I like them enough that I have added a unit of them to my to-do list, shamefully stealing the good ideas of Beastlord and Zebrazach.  It won’t be any time soon though; I’ve already got far too much painting to do.

I am still not really sure of how to deal with Fanatics. I got rid of 3 of the 4 in this battle just by sitting on them with my guys and sucking up the damage, but there must be a better way. I am open to suggestions.

Wargor Battle Standard Bearer Conversion

I finally got round to kit-bashing a Wargor to be the Battle Standard Bearer for my goaty herd. In game terms, I almost never put the army on the table without this guy in it; giving re-rolls to leadership checks is vital to stop the cowardly little blighters fleeing all the time. That it works on Primal Fury too is even better.  My main inspiration for the modelling was Zebrazach‘s fantastic BSB, although I won’t even be attempting anything like the astonishing work he put into the banner itself.

Constructing him was easy, as is everything I do for these guys – if it wasn’t easy, it would be way beyond my capacity to do it.  The majority of the pieces are from the Bestigor kit.  I had to rotate the lower set of horns to allow them to actually fit with the way his arms are held up but they look fine that way and it’ll make him look a bit different from anyone else in my army who ends up sporting that mighty set. The cloak is from a Chaos Warrior.  It involved quite a lot of cutting and scraping since the piece comes with a lot of plugs on the inside to (presumably) fit it nicely onto a Chaos Warrior’s back.  I’m planning to use the banner I have left over from my Minotaurs for it but I will leave that out for now until I’ve actually put some paint on him.  I always find banners and shields make for very fiddly painting. Finally, like my Bray Shaman, I stuck him on a spare bit of Carnifex carapace to give him the height to stand out from the lesser minions.

I had to stick a little Milliput under the arms to avoid that ‘blank plastic’ look.  As you can see, I made my customary blood sacrifice to the gods of miniatures while getting rid of all the stuff on the cloak.

The Milliput on the cloak is just to hide the remains of the fittings that would otherwise have snugly fitted it to a Chaos Warrior.

I had to cut his pony tail off since it was in the way of the cloak, so he has the shortest hair of any Gor in my army so far.

Beastmen (1600 points) vs Empire and Bretonnians (2080 points); 15Mar11

It is turn 10 of the Border Princes campaign, and the Beastmen are drawn on to the field to fight the first of their 3 battles.  On the other side of the table are Furycat‘s Empire army, supported by not one, not two, but three banners of Bretonnian knights.  I’ve had pretty good success fighting uphill battles lately, taking on Aramoro‘s Bretonnians down by one banner and Forkbanger‘s High Elves down by two banners, and winning both games.  I think that my improbable luck is due to end now, and in any case I’d need a lot of it to stand a chance against an army with nearly a third more strength than my own.  I waffled for a while about what to take, but in the end I used a fairly conservative army.  Against anyone other than the Empire I probably would have tried out a Cygor to see what they’re like, but since any big guys would be cannoned into fine red mist, there wasn’t much point here.

Kettrin the Frozen – Great Bray Shaman, Level 4, Steel Claws, Talisman of Preservation, Lore of Shadow (GBS)

Greygave– Wargor, BSB, Gnarled Hide, Heavy Armour, Shield (BSB)

Ezekial – Bray Shaman, Chalice of Dark Rain, additional hand weapon, Lore of Beasts (BS)

23 Gors, additional hand weapons, full command (G1)

23 Gors, additional hand weapons, full command (G2)

23 Bestigors, full command, Banner of Discipline (B)

2 x 5 Harpies, scouts (H1 and H2)

2 single Razorgors (R1 and R2)

Furycat took this list, testing out the idea of a hero on a Pegasus as a mobile reserve but otherwise sticking with a rather straightforward mix which has served him well in the past.  As usual, he declines the use of wizards, preferring to rely on the Warrior Priests to see him through any magical shenanigans on my part.

General of the Empire, Armour of Meteoric Iron, Dawnstone, Other Trickster’s Shard, Great Weapon (GE)

Captain of the Empire, BSB, Talisman of Preservation, full plate armour (BSB)

Captain of the Empire, Pegasus, lance, full plate armour, shield, Aldred’s Casket of Sorcery (CE)

Warrior Priest, Hammer of Judgement, heavy armour, shield (WP)

30 Halberdiers, full command (H)

31 Swordsmen, full command, Banner of Eternal Flame (S)

2 x 10 Crossbowmen (C1 and C2)

22 Greatswords, full command (G)

Great cannon (GC)

2 Mortars (M1 and M2)

9 Knights of the Realm, full command (KotR)

10 Knights Errant, full command, Errantry Banner (KE)

As usual, we rolled up terrain from the list in the book, getting a scree slope in the South West and a normal hill in the South East, a couple of forests, a couple of mist-wreathed swamps (watch out for Fimir!), some ghost fences in the middle and blessed bulwarks in the North West.  The scenario is the Meeting Engagement so we check to see if anyone is delayed.  On the Beastmen side, one Razorgor is late as is a unit of Harpies (whatever happened to scouts?).  Over on the human side of the table, an impressive display of dice rolling has both units of Knights, the General, the BSB, one unit of Crossbowmen, a mortar and the Halberdiers sleep in too long.  The Great Bray Shaman takes my favourite set of spells, Melkoth’s Mystifying Miasma, The Withering, Enfeebling Foe and Pit of Shades while the Bray Shaman has Wyssan’s Wildform and Amber Spear.  The Beastmen set up first and go first.

Predictably, the Beastmen head for the human lines as fast as their hooved legs will carry them.  The Harpies hug the board edge to keep out of the charge arc of the Pegasus rider, but there is no subtlety in the rest of the movement – straight forward at top speed.  The Gors in the West find that the forest is a venom thicket, but improbably none of them succumb to poison (they must be some kind of woodland creatures).  In the magic phase, a cheeky attempt to drop some Greatswords into the Pit of Shades fails when I roll 1,1,1,4.  Amber Spear on the Pegasus is easily dispelled.

The human reinforcements come on, with the characters taking their places in the ranks of the Greatswords, and the only other movement is the Pegasus moving to defend the cannon.  The winds of magic blow strong (6,4) but with only a single Warrior Priest to use it, most of the dice are wasted.  Armour of Contempt is successfully put on the General of the Empire though.  A hail of crossbow bolts and artillery fire kills  8 Bestigors and 4 Gors, but no-one panics.

The Harpies charge into the Crossbowmen defending their blessed bulwark forgetting (just like me) what it actually does.  This will come back to haunt them soon. The Eastern Gors wheel into the face of the Halberdiers to try and get out of the Knights’ charge arc, but it isn’t far enough.  In the West, a couple of Gors die to the poison forest but otherwise they continue their hurried pace toward the Swordsmen.  Finally, I remember to bring on the reinforcements.  Another attempt at the Amber Spear on the Pegasus is dispelled, but Miasma reduces the Greatswords stats by 3.  The Great Bray Shaman also manages to get off Pit of Shades on the Greatswords, but a bit of a scatter followed by some good rolling from Furycat means that only 5 of them die.  The Harpies manage to kill none of the Crossbowmen, lose 3 of their own and flee… right into the most annoying position possible, between the Bestigors and the Greatswords.  For those keeping count at home, that is Crossbowmen 2, Harpies 0.

The Halberdiers charge the inch or so required to get stuck into the Gors  and the Knights of the Realm have no trouble getting a flank charge too.  Another high winds of magic roll gives another 6,4 dice for the Warrior Priest to use, putting Unbending Righteousness on the Greatswords.  The Razorgor in the woods is killed by a guided missile cannon shot while another 7 of the Gors in the West are pummeled by mortar and crossbow fire though again they do me proud and don’t panic.  The Gors lose to the combination of Halberdiers and Knights, although they make a good show of it and it is rather close… Even with the BSB re-roll they still break and narrowly escape the Halberdiers (except for the Wargor who feels obliged to hurl himself into the fray); the Knights restrain themselves and reform.

The surviving Gors in the West charge into the Swordsmen, who hold, but the Razorgor, despite only needing 7 with swiftstride to get stuck into the Pegasus, manages to fail and plods along a pathetic 4″ toward the hero.  The Harpies and Gors both rally, and the Bestigors shake their fists angrily at the Harpies for getting in the way.  The Bray Shaman puts Wyssan’s Wildform on the Gors fighting the Swordsmen.  The Warrior Priest dispels Miasma on the Greatswords but is unable to stop Pit of Shades.  Luckily for him, it gets the maximum possible scatter, clipping the Crossbowmen and sucking one of them to their doom.  In the only combat of the turn, the Gors pummel many Swordsmen for no loss, but they hold despite being out of General and BSB range.

The Halberdiers charge the Gors again, the Greatswords charge the Harpies, who flee though the Bestigors.  The charge range is sufficient to contact the Bestigors anyway.  The Pegasus rider charges the Gors in the rear, barely aware of a giant pig huffing and puffing off in the distance.  While he’s there, the Captain steals Amber Spear from the Bray Shaman using Aldred’s Casket of Sorcery.  In the magic phase, Soulfire fails to wound any of the Bestigors, and Unbending Righteousness is dispelled on the Greatswords.  The Empire artillery finally finds out that ‘misfire’ is printed on the dice, with one mortar exploding and the cannonball sticking in the ground close to the Razorgor.  The other mortar kills off one of the Harpies.  The Crossbowmen break out their sandwiches since everyone in range is already in combat.  The Pegasus rider challenges and is answered by the Foe-render, but only briefly before the Beastman is skewered on his lance.  The remaining Gors fail their Primal Fury check, kill a few more Swordsmen for no further loss but they still lose combat and are run down.  Similarly in the East the Gors fail their Primal Fury, kill a handful of Halberdiers and are run over from static combat resolution.  Finally, in the main combat, the General of the Empire challenges and is answered by the Great Bray Shaman.  This clash of mighty lords leaves each with only a single wound.  The Bestigors continue the theme of this turn by failing to get Primal Fury and, though they trade hits gamely with the Greatswords, they still lose combat and are run down when they break.

A quick look at the table confirms that, yes, I do only have a Razorgor and six Harpies left, so I offer my surrender.  Furycat magnanimously accepts and so the game is over with a massacre to the Empire.

Well, that went pretty much as expected, in that the Beastmen were hammered mercilessly. There were a couple of parts where the dice cost me dearly – notably the Harpies not only failing to hurt the crossbowmen but also fleeing in such a way that they prevented the Bestigors from getting a charge on the Greatswords. Still, I think that I’d probably have lost this one no matter how lucky I was.

There are some very basic lessons I could learn here though.

1. I forgot to use the Chalice of Dark Rain, which might have mitigated some shooting casualties in turn 2.
2. My placement of the Harpies in turn 1, though it did help keep them from being charged by the Pegasus hero, was in fact pretty unhelpful to me – I should have either faced them slightly differently so that they had more charge targets available (as it was they only had the choice of the Pegasus, who was protecting the cannon, and the crossbowmen who saw them off fairly smartly) or just flown them behind the lines again in turn 2 to give me more options and keep Furycat reacting to them.
3. I forgot to bring me reserves on in turn 1, which I blame on playing too much Warhammer 40K (in which reserves can’t arrive until turn 2), but was still silly.
4. As Aramoro pointed out, I could have moved the BSB’s Gors to face the Empire table edge in turn 1 since it was certain that the reinforcements would come on there as there was nowhere else for them to come on. That way I could have charged and at least done some damage to one of the reinforcement units.

Next in the line of fire: Justinmatters‘ Orcs and Goblins.

Border Princes Campaign (Turn 10)

We had a couple of very pleasing battles in Turn 9 of the Border Princes campaign, especially for me.  Firstly, the Beastmen overturned a large advantage to massacre the High Elves in the forest of Section 40 then fought off a combined force of Bretonnians and Empire soldiers in even more improbable circumstances over the Old Silk Road. My luck can’t last.

Turn 10 begins with the alliance between the Orcs & Goblins and the Beastmen breaking down; the Beastlords and Warbosses just can’t keep such belligerent armies from fighting each other. As a result a couple of skirmishes break out around the Western banks of the Lower Thunder River with the Greenskins having a single banner advantage in the Eastern-most battle. The Empire continue their advance toward the North and East with one banner making as far as the Old Silk Road where it meets a force of Beastmen. Three banners of the rather static Bretonnians are available to support their allies in the Empire while the Beastmen, embroiled in a fresh war with the Orcs & Goblins, are unable to reinforce their position. Finally, the decimated High Elf armies struggle through the Northern mountain ranges.

At the end of the turn, an alliance of People with Pointy Ears is declared between the High Elves and the Beastmen, the latter of whom have clearly been watching too much of the Narnia films.

The banners that are currently identified are:

Bretonnians: Lord Guillaume L’Echec (crown symbol; currently in Malko), un-named Prophetess (chalice symbol; Section 58)
Orcs & Goblins: Un-named Goblin Warboss (chess knight symbol; currently fighting in Section 61); un-named Orc Big Boss (Orc head symbol; Section 93)
Empire: Two un-named Generals of the Empire (no symbol; currently fighting in the Old Silk Road and cavalry symbol (also includes Ludwig Schwarzhelm); section 85)
High Elves: No identified banners
Beastmen: Great Bray Shaman Brannick the Forlorn (cow symbol;  The Warrens), Great Bray Shaman Black Angus (bull’s head symbol; fighting in the Old Silk Road (yet again))

Finally, for those interested, here are the scores at this stage (before any battles).  The Empire and Beastmen will each gain a banner at the start of next turn regardless of combats, and the Beastmen could get another one  depending on the results of the three battles (Old Silk Road and Sections 61 and 62).  Orcs & Goblins are being pegged back a little in the South, but their gains in the North mean that there is no loss of banners due to good use of their forced march ability.  Both the Bretonnians and High Elves remain static.

Empire: 27 points (23 territories, 1 of which is special); 9 banners
Beastmen: 27 points (23 territories, 1 of which is special); 8 banners
Orcs & Goblins: 21 points (17 territories, 1 of which is special); 6 banners
Bretonnians: 21 points (12 territories, 1 of which is Malko); 4 banners
High Elves: 16 points (12 territories, 1 of which is special); 4 banners

Tuskgor Chariot Conversion

I’ve finally assembled a Tuskgor Chariot, converted (or, strictly speaking, kit-bashed) from a handful of other sets of miniatures.  This was, of course, mainly to keep everything in the army 100 % plastic as I’ve long since joined Justinmatters on the ‘I hate metal’ bandwagon.  It only took about 3 months after noting it on my ‘to do’ list to actually get round to it, although in my defense a large part of that time was deciding whether to use Chaos Warhounds as the draft animals, or take the plunge and go for the new Orc Boar Boyz.  In the end, the Warhounds won because you get twice as many of them in the pack (i.e 10 Warhounds rather than 5 Boars); that I can also use the rest of them in my army was a bonus.

So the Tuskgors were ‘replaced’ by Warhounds which were just used straight from the box, with a few spines shaved from the back of one of them to make the chariot brace fit better.  The Chariot itself is an Orc Boar Chariot with some of the fittings removed, again to make a better fit with the Warhounds.  I’ve left out the scythes from the wheels; apparently Orcs are clever enough to put giant blades on their chariots for the impact hits; Beastmen are not.

The Gor is a regular Gor with his right hand weapon cut off and replaced by the whip the Orc driver was using, and his left hand rotated 90° or so at the forearm so that I can (hopefully) make it look like he’s holding on to something when I glue it all together in the dim, distant future after it is all painted.

The Bestigor had a little work done on his right arm, mainly removing the severed head he was carrying round like a man-bag and moving the shoulder out a little.  I had to stick a bit of Milliput in there and used an even simpler version of the technique mentioned by Khorne53 to get it to look passingly like chainmail.  Again, I hope that when it all comes together it’ll look like he’s holding on to the side of the chariot as it bumps around maniacally.

The angle of this one doesn’t really  show anything more than that it is a rare sunny day here.

It turns out that two Beastmen have to be pretty good friends if they are to share the back of  a chariot.  I have no idea how they have enough room to fight in there, especially with that outrageous axe the Bestigor is showing off.

I remembered after seeing this photo to go back and fill in the wheel ‘hub caps’ with a bit of Milliput (they have a recess so that the scythes fit on nicely, but since I’m not using them it looks a bit silly).

The front-on angle doesn’t exactly show the Warhounds at their best.  I did a little bit of work to try and cover up the gap where the two halves of each miniature join together.  Luckily for me, it is much less of a mess in real life than it appears in this photo (or more accurately, since the camera never lies, the mess is much less visible in real life than it appears in this photo).

The Gor is, fortunately for me, obscuring the work I did on the Bestigor’s right arm so you’ll just have to assume that it looks good.

It was only after I finished putting this lot together that I found that I don’t actually have a chariot base to put them on, so my next task can be to acquire one before I finish painting them.  Luckily, this deadline will give me plenty of time.