Circle Orboros – Dankelblarg

Bloodstone Marches – The Escape

ByDankelzahn November 1, 2007February 19, 2022

The Escape (Castle of the Keys)
Sunday, October 28th, 2007

After their victory over the dragon Pyromalfic, Everblight’s escape required his scattered forces to escape the ruins and regroup. Thagrosh had located a promising escape route through an unstable tunnel below the ruins and lead what forces were nearby away from the castle. Before the blighted forces could completely withdraw they were sensed by Balder, who quickly gathered what constructs were nearby in an attempt to cut off the dragonspawn’s escape.

The Escape is the Legion’s second Strategic Objective of the Bloodstone Marches theater of war, and the first fight of our second round. Although the victory conditions were the same as a standard assassination game, the fight was contemplated by the unstable cavern it took place in. To represent this the table was divided into 8 12″ x 18″ segments as shown here. During the Legion player’s Maintenance Phase he would check for a cave-in by rolling a d6 for each section, starting with section 1. If the roll was a 6, that section would suffer a cave-in at the start of the Legion player’s next Maintenance Phase and stop checking sections for that turn. When a section suffers a cave-in every model in that area suffers a POW 15 damage roll and is knocked down. All terrain is removed from the section and the entire section becomes rough terrain.

As with the rest of the campaign proxies were allowed, and Saultydog took the opportunity to let a Warpwolf stand in for the second Woldwarden which is currently in pieces on his painting desk. I was hoping he wouldn’t pick up a second one but it’s not like it’s unexpected. I hate those stoopit things.

Warmachine/Hordes

Bloodstone Marches – Prevent Blight Outbreak

ByDankelzahn October 19, 2007February 19, 2022

Prevent Blight Outbreak: Castle of the Keys
Sunday, October 14th, 2007

The second and final fight for a strategic objective of the first round in our Bloodstone Marches Theater of War campaign was Saultydog’s Circle trying to contain the outbreak of Dragonblight at the castle of the keys. Unfortunately for the druids they ran afoul of a group of Prorpger’s trolls who, still bitter over the Circle’s betrayal of Madrak Ironhide and unaware of the Circle’s goal decided to take the opportunity to strike at the Blackclads.

This game was fought on a table bisected from left to right by a 4″ stream of Blighted Shallow water. The blighted energies in this region had two effects: first living non-Legion models in the blighted water suffer -2 MAT, RAT, and STR. However we made a mistake and only played this as a -1 penalty. Second, all Tough rolls in this scenario only succeed on a roll of 6. The Circle’s goal was to damn this river by collapsing six of the eight columns surrounding the river and using the rubble to stop it. The columns were positioned with four on each side of the river, each 1″ from the river and 8″ from the columns to its right and left or 10″ from a table edge if there was no column to that side of it. The columns were ARM 18 structures that could take 20 damage points before being destroyed. This scenario used the Siege Attrition rules for the campaign, meaning if any columns were destroyed but Circle lost, the next time they attempted the scenario whatever columns had been destroyed in previous attempts would remain begin the game already destroyed.

Other than the river and columns, each player placed four terrain pieces but could only select obstructions, obstacles, and structures. We also allowed open pits to be used, feeling it felt in theme with the ruined castle. These terrain features had to be at least 6″ away from the channel and 3″ from each other. Both players primarily selected linear obstacles for their terrain pieces, resulting in a relatively open table with regards to LOS. Saultydog did place a couple pits on the Trollblood side to try to slow them down while Prorpger put a couple of structures over on the Circle side for the same reason. In addition we wound up using P3 paints for columns again. We really need to add some more variety of terrain pieces but time to make terrain always seems hard to find.

As I mentioned in the previous post about our campaign we were allowing proxies so both players took the opportunity to break out some new models and try them out. They fielded the following:

Warmachine/Hordes

Bloodstone Marches – Battle of Hawksmire River

ByDankelzahn October 9, 2007February 19, 2022

After talking about it for a while but never committing, my gaming group finally decided to start up the Theater of War presented in the Hordes: Evolution book. For those unfamiliar, the Theater of War is a map-base campaign system Privater Press has created for their miniature games. The first two theaters were created for Warmachine – The Battle for the Thornwood (in Apotheosis) and The City of Sul (No Quarter 8 ) – before the Bloodstone Marches was released for Hordes in Evolution.

Players create detachments from which they can draw their forces to attack each other’s territory. In addition to lands claimed, players accumulate Victory Points each battle which they can spend for various boons. Overall victory is achieved either through claiming a certain number of territories or winning the three Strategic Scenarios for your faction.

For our campaign Saultydog would be manipulating the druidic order of the Circle Orboros (the blue territories) Prorpger would be rallying the scattered Trollblood forces (the purple territories), and I would be leading the draconic Legion of Everblight (the red territories). We decided to allow proxies for the length of the campaign to allow us to try out some of our new models and see how they worked for us.

For the first round initiative was determined by a die roll. I won and elected to use my attack against the Circle to try for my first Strategic Objective and my attack against the Trollbloods to attack the long purple mountaneous area in the center of the map to try to get closer to my third Strategic Objective. Josh declared the final attack of the round against Prorpger at his own first Strategic Objective.

I decided to go ahead and do a battle report for each of the Strategic Objective battles, starting with my first one (the only game we were able to play). At th very least it would give me some more content to post up here. So without further delay…

Warmachine/Hordes

Trollbloods/Circle vs. Legion of Everblight – A Family Affair

ByDankelzahn August 24, 2007February 19, 2022

A Family Affair, 1000 pts.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007

The gauntlet was thrown Sunday – a team game where Prorpger and Saultydog would each bring 500 points against a 1000-point Legion army. We had to make sure to arrive at the store early so we’d have time to get everything set up and get started quickly, and it’s a good thing we did. There were quite a few models on the table and a lot of strategic decisions to be made each turn.

The table was set up as pictured here and Saultydog and Prorpger won the initiative roll and elected to go first.

Warmachine/Hordes

Circle Orboros vs. Legion of Everblight – Cat Fight!

ByDankelzahn July 21, 2007February 19, 2022

Circle Orboros vs. Legion of Everblight – Cat Fight!, 750 pts.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007

This week one of the local players and I threw down in a 750-point Hordes smackdown. I hadn’t gotten the chance to play him much yet other than in a large multiplayer game so looked forward to the opportunity. We both brought out one of the ladies of Hordes and set them at each other in a fury-filled cat fight.

Warmachine/Hordes

Team Game – Fanatic Alliance vs. Cygnar

ByDankelzahn January 25, 2007February 19, 2022

Team Game – Fanatic Alliance vs. Cygnar
Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Although we took a week off from the free-for-all game, Renwolf, Patman, Jgoewert and myself wound up playing a multiplayer team game, 350 points per person. Turns out a couple of arch enemies but aside their religious differences to do something important – try to beat up on some Cygnar.

Warmachine/Hordes

Fear the Boot and the Fight For America Hill, Round 2

ByDankelzahn January 5, 2007February 19, 2022

Fear the Boot and the Fight For America Hill, Round 2 (350 pts.)
Wednesday, January 3, 2007

After the fun we had with the first attempt at the Fight for America Hill we decided to try to tweak the rules to encourage people to take and hold the hill instead of hiding on the edges and sniping adjacent opponents. Our first try was to add VP rewards for claiming the hill.

Scoring:

Having the most models on the hill at the end of your turn scores 1 VP
Having the most models on the hill at the end of the turn of the player across from you scores you 1 VP

With those changes we rolled for initiatve and picked starting locations for the second try at taking America Hill.

Warmachine/Hordes

Fear the Boot and the Fight for America Hill

ByDankelzahn December 28, 2006February 19, 2022

Fear the Boot and the Fight For America Hill
Wednesday, December 28, 2006

It was a cold and dreary night, but none of us cared because we were all crammed in the back room of the local gaming store, crowded around a table moving our little pewter figures around foam we called “hills” and felt we called “forests.” Somewhere in the midst of our madness we had a wild and crazy Warmachine/Hordes King of the Hill style game between myself, Eye Tyrant, Prorpger, and Patman while Superduck (aka the Breadstick King) watched on).

We decided to have a 350-point four-way King of the Hill style match. Instead of scoring on every turn, each player would earn a victory point if they had more models than anyone else on the hill at the end of their own turn starting with the second turn. The board was dominated by the hill in the center, but there were a few other terrain pieces scattered around the board. Only the hill in the middle and the forest between the Patman and my own deployment areas got any use. The hill itself had some rough edges but to be fair we decided the whole thing was a smooth surface and a model only had to get on part of it to be “on the hill.” Prorpger threw a plastic American Flag that was sitting around on the hill, giving it its name. Which was fine until we realized this must be Early America Hill since there were only four stars and three stripes on the flag. Regardless, the battle was soon joined…