Pulp Alley of the Apes

 

Maybe for our next game? This was the board I made for the Analogue Painting Challenge. I am thinking maybe a quick one off Planet of the Apes game? I can certainly create some leagues, or those that want to can do the same, and we can have at it, maybe a four player game.

I still have room for another Fantastic Battles game and can certainly clear off the secondary table for some other game.

The big question will be when. So when can people get together again?

In the meantime some more teaser pictures.

Fantastic Battles Orc vs Goblin (preview of AAR)

 

Warhammer 6th edition, the clubs first game in far too long! (an AAR on the game)

 

Dwarves to deploy on the right, Greenskins on the left, the sticks show the deployment zones

So, it has been quite a while since we last played Warhammer but like riding a bike it all came back to us once we got started (the good and the bad) It was a classic match up Dwarf vs Greenskin. In this case the two Greenskin armies were aligned but not combined. Each was commanded by their own hero. One army was entirely made up of Orcs, while the other was all Goblin save for a single giant. At the start of the game the two Greenskin commanders fought a duel to see who would be the overall commander, the Orc chieftain was victorious knocking the Goblin leader even more senseless.

The armies were pretty basic, no lords only heroes and only 2nd level wizards for the Greenskins. The Dwarves had four leaders one of who was a Rune smith. No magic items or special banners, I figured we should just try a simple army battle with limited big hero intervention. The scenario was from one of the annuals, a three player variant, which also included some rules governing the selection of the war chief. 

The Dwarves defended the center of one long table edge while the attackers came in from the opposite side of the table, but from the corners, their center area was unoccupied. 

The Dwarves anchor their left flank to the old tower.

The Dwarven right flank terminates on the rocky outcrop.

The massed Goblin hoard

The Orc army

 

The opposing armies arrayed for action.

Everything was set up as per the instructions for the scenario, the forces were deployed, loins were girded and battle come down. The Greenskins were the attackers and tried to race forward to engage the stunties. However animosity did impact these plans. At first it had limited impact, round one went by smoothly. But, subsequent rounds, especially for the Orcs saw animosity create some serious traffic jams. For the Orcs the only truly successful units were the cavalry and the chariot. These two unit were able to attack the flank of the Dwarf army and in fact the cavalry were the only Orc unit to engage the Dwarves in melee. The Orcs did have plenty of success with their archers, driving back a Dwarven Thunderer unit, and the mage did become a nuisance too. 

By turn 3 the Orcs have contacted the Dwarven left flank

Meanwhile on the Dwarf right flank, the Goblins have leapt forward with their chariots and wolf riders in the van. They attempt to weaken the dwarf defenders with volleys from their rock lobber and doom glider. While the Goblins were remarkable adept at estimating the range, fate often intervened to weaken the actual impact. 

The dwarf crossbow men did inflict many casualties on the wolf rider but could not halt them and the chariots crashed into the Dwarfs inflict grievous damage. The canons seemed to be manned by drunks as they missed, a lot!

 

The Greybeards hold the far right of the Dwarf line take a lot of damage from the impact of the chariots
 

Crossbows and Greybeards were pushed back, but the rough cliff face slowed down any pursuit. Strong leadership kept them in the battle. The followup by the Wolfriders brought them into contact with the Iron Breakers while the second chariot slammed into the spear armed Dwarves..

 

Note the wolf chariot in the background fled into contact with the giant

 

 The spear Dwarves felt the impact of the chariot and 'fled' as only Dwarves can, very very slowly. Somehow, the chariot failed to overtake them in pursuit, must have been too much ground Dwarf gumming up the wheels.

The chariot was able to rally and prepared to attack once more.

The Orcs succeeded in their charge smashing through the clan troops. The threat caused the Dwarves to break up their battle line in an attempt to respond to the greater threat. The Orcs continued to suffer from traffic jams as a result of animosity and were also bothered by the persistent buzzing of the Dwarf gyrocopter. The copter focused it's attention on the Orc arrer boyz on the plain almost slaying the Orc wizard who was attached to the unit.

The rear areas of the Goblin army saw some action. The Dwarves had a ranger unit that had been hiding in the woods. This unit came out to threaten the rock lobber which forced the Goblin player to redirect a wolf cavalry unit to turn and attack the ambushing Dwarves. 

The battle did not go well for the Goblins. One rider was slain by throwing axes while seven more were hacked apart by the heavy two handed axes wielded by the rangers.

All that remained of the wolf boyz was, amazingly, able to rally!

 

By the way, you might wonder where the doom catapult is. Well it did not make it past the second turn! Unfortunately for the Goblins it suffered a critical and flipped over!

 

The game went well, but time was the greater enemy and we had to call it a day after turn 4. It was great to get together again and play a fun, simple game. It was nice to see three good size armies fight it out, but really the best thing was the chance to talk and joke and have some fun.

 

One note, not all who attended were caught up by the excitement, some just seemed to take a very relax view of the entire thing...

 

Next gameday will be Sunday June 26th featuring Fantastic Battles

So the consensus seems to be for the Sunday, but there is still the option of playing something on the Saturday as well.  Sunday will be a rematch/re-fighting of the Warhammer battle we just fought, but using the Fantastic Battles rules. I am currently creating movement trays for both sides, individual company bases of 60mm x 60mm and some larger trays that will hold 2, 3 and even 4 company units. It is all a bit of an experiment but so far I like the look. I have also been adjusting the forces involved, adding some units removing other units. It is all a bit of a balancing act. I am not certain how big a force I should aim for, my heart says really big, but the mind says keep it manageable, after all it is our first go at the rules.

Some samples of what I am working on, just rough work so far. Ultimately the bases will be textured, painted and flocked. I plan to use double sided tape to 'attach' the troops to their respective bases, this tape will not allow one to pick up a tray by one figure, but it will keep them in place when players pick up their units by the tray as they should!  

While troops can form up in three different formations, anything other than a line seems to me to be a rare thing, so multi company trays might just work. I can certainly create a few Testudo trays but I do not think they would be used all that much.

Now, column formation might get used more often, but in reviewing the various AAR that I could locate I have found very few times in which a column was used. A column comes in handy in tight places or when snaking along a road, but that is about it. It does not confer a movement bonus and is viewed as a non combat formation. Should someone want to form a column the troop stands could be turned in place on the unit trays, or an arrow could be deployed to indicate the new front of the unit. The only real challenge would come from a unit trying to snake along a winding road. Well, I do not have any winding roads and even if I did, I will always have spare single company trays that could be subbed in. 

The main value in using multi company trays would be in the speeding up of figure movement. There is another benefit, an aesthetic one, it allows me to tighten up my formations. As can be seen in the following pictures, multi company unit trays will allow me to have more troops in formation, no gaps between companies and therefor looking more like massed troops. Since the system does not care how many figures are on a base there is no rules reason preventing me from doing this. If my figures were on individual bases this would not be such an issue as I could spread them out a bit better on the base, but they would still be 4 figures on a tray (6 does not always work due to the size of the bases) The unit trays still have dead space but that is at the ends and is less noticeable. When I finish off the trays I will make a mark every 60mm to indicate each company so that we will be easily ably to line up our combatants in melee.

As a side note it also occurs to me that I can use this style to indicate formed and irregular units. Irregular can remain on individual trays, or even company trays that will mimic the appearance of individual company trays. While not really important it will perhaps offer a visual clue to the nature of the enemy and offer a variation to the uniformity of all the units. 

Finally I have to say having a single tray 4 company unit really drives home the message about how difficult it is to manoeuvre these units!.

 

 

Oh and yes FB does have a form of animosity, it is called belligerent and can be much worse than animosity!

More pictures of my WIP

An unwieldy 4 company wide formed unit

Two 3 company irregular units

Two 2 company formed units beside a 3 company formed unit

3 company irregular cavalry unit

Well that worked out fine!

 

Hi

Thank you to those who were able to attend the gaming day this past Sunday, it was great to see and talk to you again. I have a possible game date for the next game day(s), Saturday and or Sunday June 25th and June 26th.

Either or both days will work for me so it is party time er gaming time!

I am currently prepping up the forces for Fantastic Battles and will be able to prep other stuff should we want to try and squeeze in another game of something. If that is a possibility please let me know what you might like to play. 

 

That could include a board game if so desired.

 

As for this past weekend I think we all had fun revisiting Warhammer. Sure we were all a little rusty, and had a tough time remembering which rule came from which edition, but on the whole I think we made very few mistakes. I think the stated out unit cards helped facilitate  the game play. Next time I will work on the scenario a bit more to tighten up the battlefield.

 

Pictures and a report to follow soon.