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Now before I go on I have to stipulate that I have had a couple of games of these systems by some Canberra locals in the past two weeks. So I was on my A game (sarcasm)...with a slight hangover from drinking the night before with my brother and wife who were down in Canberra for the defence force side of those catholic shenanigans going on.



Well I cracked the ice off of my car after a healthy 6:00 am alarm and headed to Helensburgh (2 and 1/2 hour drive) to catch up with Ross who I have to admit I haven’t seen in years.


I was excited about the prospect of a big day of Hordemachine or Warrdes as Ross pointed out.



We started out with a good chat and a tour of the house. Which brought us past his painting table and I expressed my interest in learning how to be a better painter. I was very impressed with the miniatures that Ross showed me. Also his MacDonalds themed Carnival of Chaos Mordheim party are great.



We decided to start out with a boxed set game of Hordes with Circle of Orboros versus The Trollbloods. It was a boxed set game so my forces consisted of Kaya, Warpwolf and two Argus. His forces comprised of Madrak, Troll Axer and two Troll Impalers.



I have to take a minute to point out how impressed I am with Ross’s gaming set up. He has a modular gaming table that looks great and fits well together plus a bunch of great scenery to add to it. I’ll see how I go putting some photo’s I took from my phone.



The most important thing to note about the table is that it has two panels bolted on to the sides of the table that have….wait for it…CUP HOLDERS!!! Yeah this is gaming in true luxury.


Anyway to the battles. We started with Ross deploying first and going first. He ran madrak and the axer across a small footbridge (across the channel) while the two impalers ran around the side to get to the main bridge. This was definitely a mistake as it put one of the impalers outside madraks control area. Ross called it after it was done and said “oh no I’ve done it again, he’s going to hurt me”.


My turn consisted of running everything forwards and casting stealth on an argus that didn’t really need it.



His turn he rolls for the threshold of his impaler and sure enough it frenzies and pokes the other impaler right in front if it in the butt! Score!



My turn I moved everything up slightly and the warpwolf around a corner of a building to get ready to line up a charge…which was my first mistake. I cast stealth on it under the assumption that stealth made it invisible…but learned that stealth only prevent shooting attacks from range...oh oh the troll axer is lined up on the wolf!



Ross’s turn…He gets psyched up to put some hurt on my warpwolf with his troll axer. Now at this point I’m sure I started hearing bag pipes playing from somewhere close. I don’t often hear bagpipe music so it did stand out. These random events continued through the course of the day. Ross charges the warpwolf with help from a spell by madrak. He plants the first boosted hit on the wolf and manages to roll 5 on 3 d6 for damage. Wow if he keeps this up my wolf will be dead by Christmas! He forces the axer to make an additional boosted attack with boosted damage…maxing its fury out on 3…hits easily again…then rolls another 5 on 3 dice for the damage. And here I was thinking my wolf was toast!



My turn and its time for payback. I realize that I have screwed up my fury management from last turn and only have 4 to play with this turn. I move kaya up close to the warp wolf (within 6 inches) but blocked from vision to madrak and the impalers by terrain. I cast primal on the wolf, warp the wolf for strength and proceed to headbutt the axer to the ground on the free power attack this gives. This means that the axer receives all 4 fury worth of auto hitting attacks at power and strength 16. The axer is taken out handily by the wolf. Woohoo 1 down and 3 to go!



Madrak decides that this isn’t acceptable and chooses to try and take the wolf down with a thrown axe attack…he hits, does some damage and casts the impalers animus on it. The impaler limps up (spear in butt!) and tries to critically slam the wolf but manages to not get it on 3 dice and roll poorly for damage. The wolf definitely isn’t healthy at this point.



I decide that the warp wolf is critical to my victory here (As the argus seem to struggle to put the damage on things) so I cowardly step him out of the line of sight behind the tower and choose to regenerate, I also rile it up to maximum fury as in kaya’s activation I heal it for a further 6 points. I move an argus around the outside in a position to threaten madrak from the other side of the tower.



Upset about the loss of his axer and the cowardly tactics of the circle player Ross steps his impaler up and critically slams the threatening argus into a solid structure for massive damage and knocking the beast down (I think it lost one or two spirals here). The slam did put it out of Madraks thrown axe range even with the other impalers animus however. Madrak moved further to the opposite side of the tower to allow a breather which was probably a mistake as I sacrificed the badly damaged argus for another round of healing the warp wolf. The other argus moved up and Doppler barked at the impaler remaing behind…making it choose whether to move or shoot.



Madrak and company decide to stick together and focus on the wounded argus and take it out. The other impaler attempts to slam the argus that barked at it into the warp wolf that I stupidly lined up…but his critical slam didn’t happen on the throw.



On my turn I moved kaya up, and cast spirit fang on the impaler that didn’t move. This hit and did some more damage (combined with the spear in its butt) and also lower its speed and defense. I then moved up with my warp wolf, warped for strength again…picked up the impaler (with its lowered defense) and two handed threw it at madrak, knocking him into the water and killing the impaler. The argus charged the other impaler.



From there it became a game of how wussy was kaya as I had to keep cutting myself for fury points that I mismanaged. I used my feat to jump out of the way with spirit door after Ross got his hopes up about me leaving kaya in the open for a critical fatality thrown axe from madrak.



The rest of the game involved me wearing madrak down while he was stuck in the water (having spirit fang hit him for -2 speed and plink him down some hit points plus half speed in the water).



The other argus ended up sacrificed to madrak to keep this attrition going (as he still hadn’t used his scroll of invulnerability!) The warp wolf moved in for the kill with madrak on his final life point (and the scroll). He didn’t make his tough roll. Win to the Circle of Orboros!! The bagpipe music was splendiferous! And my first win playing purely by myself (no outside help) and totally unexpected.



I was really impressed with my game…my tactics and my devious use of the terrain. I’d also like to thank Ross’s terrible dice at key points in the game (See picture) J


Game two after a lunch break we decided to up the ante and used the boxed sets plus two units of troops each (All the hordes mini’s I have). Ross took his Cryx battle box with warcaster Denegra with a big unit of mech-thralls (I think they were called) and a really, really annoying undead pirate unit that just keeps re-appearing unless you kill the unit leader.



Enter random event number two…around the start of play a helicopter flew very low, right over his house (us) and landed in a field a short distance away.



I don’t have the energy or the memory to replay turn by turn how this game went but the game was EPIC. After the first game we reshuffled some terrain and set off at each other again. I got first turn and ran up as fast as I could again to try and stall him on the terrain features (again).



The wolves of orboros managed to get a good charge in on those undead pirates (as Ross decided not to fall into the same trap as last game getting stuck on terrain and stood his ground on the other side of the channels…forgetting the wolves ability to ignore terrain). I managed to chew through the mech thralls with combined charges by the argus and wolves leaving only a few for retaliation.



The cryx forces were very scary being able to use those death chickens (bone jacks) as arc nodes for spells…thankfully I managed to avoid a lot of the nasty stuff from that. The wolves were total game winners for me ignoring the annoying disappearing reappearing undead pirates and ripping an arm and movement off of his death jack.



The game came down to the wire with me charging denegra (after she killed my warpwolf) with two different units of wolves of orboros (actually the bigger unit only walked up, 4 guys and 2 guys) and running an argus up and spirit dooring in with kaya, using her feat for the extra fury and attempting to critically knock her down for the wolf boys to hurt more easily. I hit twice with some damage (out of 4 swings) but didn’t get the knock down. The wolves had to rely on luck. The first guy hit and brought denegra down to 6 life points left…the next two wolves managed to miss with their strikes (only 3 of the unit of 4 could reach) it came down to the last wolf of orboros trooper who hit and pinned her to the wall with a double 6 for damage. Yeehah!



I couldn’t believe that I had actually managed to win…again. I totally expected to lose that second game. I think Ross couldn’t believe it either. We played out what would have happened if I hadn’t managed to hit, or wound her quite so luckily and sure enough Denegra would have wiped the floor with Kaya with Focus to spare. Such a close fought game, and honestly was the most enjoyment that I’ve had war gaming in longer than I can remember, if not ever.

A huge thank you to Ross for inviting me to play at his house using his gaming equipment, his hospitality and company, his friendly gaming and great attitude throughout.

Oh and to top it off we were heralded with a large fireworks display (random event number 3) as I was about to leave.

Yes I think the signs and portents of the druids were very strong on this particular day!

Maybe convert the files to jpgs?

Sorry, I'm new

Cheers for the headsup, its magic...the jpgs appear by themselves

Next time I'll figure out how to put the .jpg's in the right spots in the report and try and take better pictures even!

Your casters picked an interesting place to fight. That canal, depending on exactly how it effects movement, presents a tactical challenge.

I like the table, but my Khador army would rather fight someplace a little more open. Actually, I'm not sure any of them even know how to swim. They'd feel more at home on top of a glacier.

Thanks for the run-down on your day of fun.

Cool report.
I like the terrain set up too, it's nifty. does one of those towers have a big chunk blown out of it?

Yeah, there is a massive section of that tower blown away. I didn't even notice until the second game because I was looking from the top down!

We played the canal as shallow water, so half movement.