The stone bridge over the Scir Burn, the first good river crossing encountered out of the High Passes through the mountains, once had an older name. But to the locals it is now only known as the Troll Bridge, after the battle fought there during the second Great Orc and Goblin War.
While the missus and the miniature were away, and I was able to set up the front room with the gaming table, I snuck in another game of Grenadier's Fantasy Warriors, between my growing Orc Hordes and Dwarven Muster. I didn't want the Dwarves to be able to just sit tight and wait for the Orcs to come to them (which plays to their strengths), so the scenario was that the Orcs were attempting to seize a bridge, which would allow them quick access to the rich lowlands. The Dwarves had to stop them. If one side gained an advantage in scouting, I would place the bridge nearer to their lines.
I didn't bother with points values, just chucked everything I could onto the table.
Both sides were split into three commands, each assigning one to scouting:
Orcs
Command 1: Warchief(3), 2 units of 12 Orcs, three trolls
Command 2: Battle Leader(1), 10 Archers, one ballista, 10 Orcs
Command 3 (scouting) Battle Leader(2), 6 Wolf Riders
Sooth Sayer and Mage (15 magic points)
Dwarves:
Warchief, Messenger, Mage (15 magic points)
Command 1: Battle Leader, 14 Great Axes, two units of 12 infantry
Command 2: Battle Leader, 10 crossbows, 1 giant crossbow
Command 3 (Scouting): Battle Leader, 5 archers
Both sides sent a command out to scout, but neither could gain the advantage, so the bridge was placed squarely in the middle of the table, on the Dwarves right flank (I'll give all directions from the Dwaves perspective for clarity) and both scouting commands started the game disordered, on hold orders, and at the back of the table.
With the clock showing only one turn until sunset, the Orcs were not too concerned about bad light. The Sooth Sayer predicted good omens for the Greenskins, as the Brukk Bitter Brand, the Warchief, boasted to his followers that they would find him in the thick of the fighting, then gave orders to his command to attack, and to the archers to Oppose. Lacking a messenger, Brukk got his Mage, Crooked Shal, to send new orders to the Wolf rider by Eldritch Command, which succeeded.
The Dwarf Warchief, Lorgear Granitehelm, eschewed the reading of the Omens as too great a risk, and made no boasts, instead remaining just behind the battle line, where he could best control his forces and send new orders if needed. Knowing that the lighter armoured orcs were likely to reach the bridge first, he sent order to his infantry to attack as quickly as they could, while his missile troops would try to inflict as much damage as possible on the advancing Orc horde. His messenger successfully carried new orders to the archers to advance within bow-shot and support the left flank.
The Orc line surged forwards, the Trolls rapidly outpacing their smaller brethren. As both sides exchanged largely ineffective arrow storms, the Dwarven Mage attempted to Blast the opposition, only to fail and use up all of his magical energy!
The foul smelling trolls smashed into the Dwarven Great axes. Both sides took casualties despite the dwarves' armour and the Trolls resilience but, while the Dwarves stood firm, the Trolls were shaken by the stubborn refusal of the small things in front of them to just lay down and die, that they first became shaken, and then routed!
The rest of the Orc line briefly halted to hurl insults and threats at the stoic dwarves before plunging into battle. The vile taunts left the dwarven crossbows shaken but did not stop them expending the last of their bolts into the nearest unit of Orc Warriors. Sadly, rather than breaking them, the casualties just worked the greenskins up into a state of bloodlust! But the Orcs did not have it all their way, as one of the units of Dwarf warriors also decided that the best answer to being insulted was to bury their axes in the Orcs directly to their front!
Battle was now well and truly joined as Orc and Dwarf fought in close quarters. Brukk killed one of the Dwarf Battle Leaders but the disciplined Dwarf commend held form despite the loss, and in fact left Brukk's own unit shaken. Slightly battered by their rout of the trolls, the great axes had no time to rest as they found themselves facing a line of fresh orcs warriors.
One the left, Warchief Granitehelm tried to send new order to his missile troops to attack the orcs to their front, but the message was garbled, disorganising the crossbows further.
By this point, both sides had taken casualties and had shaken units. The Orc Warchief's boast has paid of in one respect, slaying one of the dwarf battle leaders (without him, shaken or disorganised units in his command could not recover), but the trade off was that he could no longer send out new orders to his troops, leaving his archers and ballista out of volleys and unsure what to do. An attempt those same archers to threaten the dwarf warriors to their front backfired, as the Dwarves responded in kind so effectively that the Orcs ended up Shaken, only to then be charged and routed in one swift move!
But the Dwarves were not having it all their own way. The Wolf Riders had now got back into position, and routed the shaken dwarf crossbows with threat alone, taking with them the Battle Leader that had joined them to try and get them back into order.
With the crossbows gone, the Wolf Riders now had an open door into the Dwarve's rear, and a possible chance to take out the Dwarf General, with only a small lightly armed unit of dwarven archers in any position to stop them. A volley of arrows from the archers caused casualties before they were charged - miraculously they held and inflicted further casualties but, once again, the Orcs responded by going into a state of bllodlust.
In a single moment, the Dwarf situation on the left suddenly looked vulnerable, with marauding wolf riders and two of their three battle leaders already fallen.
However, just as suddenly, the fickle gods of battle turned their eyes the other way: first, despite being charged by a unit of Orcs in a state of bloodlust, the Giant Crossbow team held their ground and even forced a casualty test on the enemy (which they passed). But more importantly, right in the thick of the hardest fighting, the dwarves slew Brukk Bitter Brand. Word of the fall of their leader (who had promised he would be found in the heart of battle, but presumably alive) spread quickly amongst the Orc ranks - resulting in every single one routing off the table!
So, at the last, a clear victory for the Dwarves, who held the bridge having lost only one unit in its entirety. The Orcs would need to find longer, harder routes down to the fertile lands beyond.
Final Thoughts
I really enjoyed this game. I still think one of the things Fantasy Warriors Excels at is creating a sense of narrative - with the Orcs reading the omens, boasting warchiefs, and units hurling threats at each other before combat.
The way that units become degraded over the course of a game, becoming shaken, disorganised (or even bloodthirsty) is also something that I like a lot, in comparison ot Warhammer's very binary approach (you are either fleeing or completely rallied) . I also like how characters are not single handed machines of carnage but have a genuine role to play in leading and commanding, which can lead to some difficult choices - both of the Dwarf Battle Leaders that were lost had only joined those units to try to overcome the effects of being shaken and disorganised; while the Orc Warchief may have added a fair bit of combat power to the unit he was in, but once engaged in combat, could do little to influence the wider battle.
It is a less dynamic game than Warhammer, which can see some units nipping around the battlefield like they have had too much caffeine. The relative immaturity compared to WFB (which was in its third edition by this point) is also there in what WFB covered and FW did not - such as skirmishers, what happens with unusual situations like being attacked in the flank, and various other matters of detail. But I think these are easily resolved with some common sense.
I would like to have a think about Scouting though. I'm not keen on the idea of scouting with whole commands, which leaves them out of the main battle for a whole. I need to come up with something that allows for smaller detachments to be made for the purpose of Scouting.
TTFN