MageKnight Night

I finally managed to put my (extensive) MageKnight miniature collection. For those not familiar with the game here is the Wikipedia article on it. Last night, feeling kind of bored and with nothing interesting to do, I called the dreaded Colonel McRaffy, Scourge of the Steppes, Hammer of the Elves, Lord of the Orcs. OK, his name is NOT Colonel McRaffy, but he is a dedicated Orc player in every game from D&D to WH40K. He picked Orcs (no surprise there), I picked Elemental League. 

Colonel McRaffy poring over troop dispositions.

McRaffy's plan was simple. Move fast, get into melee, kill. Considering the orcs, this is not a bad plan at all.

I am afraid the Elemental League Death Star will be operational before the Orcs arrive.

I used a simple, old tactic. I had some pretty powerful ranged combat figures (a Troll Artillerist and a Troll Gunner) backed up by some enhancers that improved their ranged damage and provided them with high defense. A Centaur Champion secured one of my flanks, and the winged little elf provided me with healing and interference.

Orcs moving down the middle.

McRaffy selected two pieces of blocking terrain to limit my fields of fire. I selected two long, narrow bodies of water to funnel him to a prepared position.

 When in doubt, Trolls with big guns win.

Knowing I would be facing orcs, I selected a Troll Gunner to use the Flame/Lightning special ability and shred their formations. True enough, when the orcs reached the top of the funnel, I was able to hit their formation for considerable damage. Pushing the figure in the next round and rolling a fumble was bad luck, but I had started whittling him down.

The top of the funnel

The killing ground.

The orcs spent two rounds in the killing ground of the funnel before breaking out. After repeated shots, the units that were left were not in any shape to deal with a relatively intact Death Star.

The Ankhar Butcher charges in.

The Centaur Champion clears my right flank.

Endgame. 

In the end, only 3 figures essentially reached melee range with my Trolls. With a Defend "daisy chain", they were not able to damage them and were soon dispatched. Apparently shooting fence posts as crossbow bolts is not fun for the targets.

Roll of the dice

In the end, it was poor figure selection that did Colonel McRaffy in. More figures, figures with Force March to move them quickly across the killing ground and a killer figure with high attack and damage output (or autodamage figures with Poison or Ram) would have been more effective. Still, a good time was had by the both of us, and by the time we called it a night, midnight had already come and gone. 

MageKnight is a fun, quick and deceptively simple game with good strategic depth. If you haven't played it, lots of figures appear on EBay and other sites regularly and with reasonable prices. Perhaps next time I will convince the good Colonel to try his hand at MageKnight Dungeons. With close to 700 figures available, I don't think that either of us will be bored any time soon.

The family is back from our yearly vacation in the lovely island of Sifnos and as work has not started yet for the neither SWMBO or myself I still have some free time left.Here's some pics of my orc and goblin warband for the Song of Blades and Heroes system. I think I'll be using the stats straight from the books for most of the minis but I still haven't settled down as to what I'll do with the warg.

All the miniatures come from Splintered Light. If you haven't looked them up, please do. They have some of the best 15mm fantasy miniatures available and they are very pleasant to deal with. There are several packs in the orc and goblin range, but I started off with the basic stuff (command, warriors, goblin scouts, warg and troll).Here is the command element. The Orc chieftain is an exquisite fig with plenty of available detail. So is the standard bearer. The shaman gave me a bit of trouble because I think I sprayed the primer on too thick. Still I think it came out OK. My only problem is the lack of a musician, but that's not a great problem. I think that a musician is available in the savage orc command pack.
The orc warriors and goblin scouts are pretty straightforward figs but they are exceptionally sculpted, with plenty of available detail. A pack of heavy orc infantry and another of orc archers have become available recently and they'll be in my shopping list for my next order (probably around Xmas).
Here is the best figure of the whole range in my honest opinion; the warg. Now, this is what a warg should look like. Big, bad and bone-chillingly frightening. If you are into 15mm fantasy BUY THIS MINI! I cannot recommend it enough. The amount of detail is amazing and the size is spot on for what is supposed to be a giant wolf that eats people with a single bite.

And here is the troll. There are two trolls available in the line and I'll be getting the other one at some time too. I'm not sure that this is close to my idea of a troll, but it is pleasantly big and mean-looking.

Eventually I'll add more options to my available figs for the orc and goblin warband. Savage orcs, goblins, orc slave master, savage hyena cavalry and so on and so forth. The options are practically endless.

That's all for now from windy Athens. Have a great night y'all.

My Orc Army

I finally received the (almost) final installment for my 6mm orc army. I initially went with the Irregular Miniatures Orc Army pack. At GBP11 it was hardly a major expe
nse and it provided me with the basis of my units:In Fantasy Rules 3rd Edition using 15mm basing (40X40mm) and ranges is recommended when gaming with 6mm figures. In this case I've broken each unit in two 40X20mm sabots, allowing me to use the figures with either Warmaster or HOTT if I later use any of these sets.
With everything included in the Army deal I was able to make:

• 2 HeavyChariot Units
• 2 Light Cavalry Units
• 3 Handweapon Units
• 2 Skirmisher Units

Not bad for 11 pounds worth of stuff. To add to this I ordered the Orc Brutes from Microworld Games (Steve is a great guy and his miniatures are topnotch), some more stuff from Irregular and the Goblin Hordes from Baccus. With all these I plan to make an additional 2 skirmisher units, 2 handweapon units, my 2 elite handweapon units, 2 (or maybe more) goblin mobs, 2 more light cavalry units and one more heavy chariot unit. Considering that the average FR!3 game is around 1000 points this is (massive) overkill, but it is easy to get carried away with 6mm stuff.
What else is left? The heavy hitters. Large and Small Monsters in the form of giants and trolls will provide bowfire and melee support, behemoths will provide long-range firepower, together with catapults and a siege tower. I initially didn't want to include heavy cavalry because the Irregular chariots looked so good, but Microworld Games sent some free samples with my order that included excellent boar-mounted heavy goblin cavalry, so that will be included with my next order.
Before I sign off; I'd heard horror stories about Irregular's sculpting. True, they are not up to the standard of Microworld or Baccus figs but they are hardly horrible. They paint well, as can be seen below, they have interesting units and they are practically indestructible, all of which are important points for me.
That's all for now. Hopefully I'll finish my dwarven warband for Song of Blades and Heroes soon so I can post those pics.