Getting Ready for Oathmark - Middle-Earth Style

My five nights working week did not leave me much time and energy for hobby stuff, but I have been printing some cottages for various purposes (no time for painting, yet), somewhat dressing a table for my first test run of Oathmark, and putting a lot of minis on previously printed trays.

I have brought in my Vikings to play the role of Dunlendings (they are in the far corner), and some painted GW/Warhammer wolves I bought some years ago, in order to bring the Isengarders up to a similar number as the Western Alliance (which is actually from areas east of Isengard, just to make things more confusing...)

Bases are all over the place; I intend to continue basing/rebasing my infantry on 20mm washers, and I really don't think it will have much impact on gameplay - if the system is solid, it will work fine with slighly narrower frontages on some units.

I hope to play a couple of turns tomorrow, and also do a little work on bases for minis not yet present, we shall see about that (I also have to do my 8-kilometer walk, fight some dandelions, and finish painting a certain Mr. Gamgee, so that he can be varnished to keep the contrast paints in place).

I have not worked out points values, as this does not need to be a balanced affair, and I have not added characters of any kind. I aim to get the basic rules worked in, and get a good impression of the way standard situations are handled, then I shall know if this game is what I hope it is: My new go-to battle game to replace God of Battles, which I have found to be too unbalanced for my liking.

Hello, There!

Another hiatus coming to an end. Actually, I have been slowly restarting the furnaces of the hobby room over the latest couple of months, ordering some rulebooks, and printing some stuff for the table (more about that in later posts).

My latest acquisition is the fantasy battle game Oathmark, published by Osprey in collaboration with North Star Military Figures.

When first I learned that McCullough was the author of Oathmark, I was somewhat disappointed. McCullough is, as many will be aware of, the author of Frostgrave and Rangers of the Shadow Deep, and I am absolutely no fan of the very random combat system sported by both of them, so it was with no high expectations I followed the news stream from North Star regarding Oathmark.

The combat system in Oathmark, though, is very different from the opposed d20 random mayhem that is Frostgrave and RotSD. Oathmark uses d10s, and when attacking/fighting an enemy unit, the target number to hit is variable, depending on your unit's Fight value, the Defence value of the enemy, and some modifiers, the most important one being extra full ranks - simulating the impetus of a large body of men.

I am yet to play a test game, but I have a relatively good gut feeling about this set of rules. It is relatively simple, maybe even simpler than God of Battles, while still giving that 'old school' feeling from Chainmail, AD&D Battlesystem, and early versions of Warhammer.

The 'world' of Oathmark is relatively 'low' fantasy - a bit like a Dark Ages setting with fantastic races and some monsters. Magic is present, and all races have access to battle mages and some artefacts, but emphasis seems to be on rank-and-file.

The game currently has only four races: Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs/Goblins. There are no restrictions on army composition - actually, the built in campaign system is designed to make each player's 'kingdom' a motley conglomerate of any or all races.

As this may seem strange at first glance, think of Tolkien's Middle-Earth, and the various armies fighting for dominance of good and evil. Saruman's force of Half-orcs, evil Men, and Dunlendings. Mordor's armies composed of Orcs, and Men from the east and south (even Dwarves reportedly fought for Sauron at some point, I think). The Last Alliance of Elves and Men.

I, for one, am going to use my Middle-Earth forces for this game - although I am also eagerly awaiting the supplement Oathbreakers, reportedly bringing rules for Undead to the Oathmark world late autumn (although it may be delayed, due to all this pandemic business).

2019-08-17: God of Battles, Undead vs Blood Gorged Lizardmen

This may be the last time I have played God of Battles. With each game I play, it becomes more and more obvious to me that the combat system (and probably the whole points system) is heavily flawed, and if I cannot convince my gaming buddies to adapt some changes, the game is dead for me. Period.

The biggest problem is the Defence Dice procedure that means that it is the unit size, and not the number of hits suffered, that determines the number of 'saves' rolled, which means that a small unit with Defence 4 is prone to loose more models than a large unit with Defence 4 if they suffer the same amount of hits. This has to change if I am to even consider playing this game again.

There is a lot of things I love about the game, especially the very simple movement rules (although the rules for Formed Units lead to some very awkward situations now and then, and have to be tweaked a bit), but I am tired of seeing my bread-and-butter troops get cut to pieces by large Loose Units and/or single models with a psychotic amount of Defence Dice (T'lekkan Behemoth, for instance) without having the slightest chance of even inflicting a single wound on them.

Well, I have written down some suggestions for rules changes, and submitted them to one of my gaming buddies - we shall have to see how they are received.

On to the AAR:

The above picture shows the  battlefield with roughly half my army on the table while the next two show both armies fully deployed.

Turn 1 I had my Chariots and Knights speed forward on the left, while my infantry tried to get in position in the gaps between the jungle patches and ruins - in a kind of Refused Flank strategy.

The Lizardmen generally surged forward.

Turn 2 started well for me with an abhorrent dice roll (I forgot to add the 2 extra dice for Charge!), when a Chariot with a Blacksoul crashed into the enemy. Blue hit on 3, Red on 4....

When the other Blacksoul in Chariot attacked, I remembered the Charge! bonus - not that it mattered much...

The Chariot saves at 4+, which statistically should mean that half the defence dice should work, but never tell me the odds, as the universe does not work that way.

One of my Chariots was subsequently charged by some Temple Guards, and when it got to strike back, at least the Chariot (blue dice)  performed as could be expected, while the Blacksoul just barely managed to scratch an opponent.

I do not remember what this roll was for - looks like a Chariot save - but try counting the sixes rolled in all the pics so far...

This was the lay of the land after Turn 2. As far as I remember, both my Chariots were gone (40 pts C&S), and I had annihilated one unit of Temple Guard Watchers (12 pts, I think).

I am not sure of the sequence here, as this looks conspicuously like another Blacksoul/Chariot attack roll gone bad. It has been a couple of days since we played, and, frankly, I did my best not to think about the game until I sat down yesterday to process the photos.

In Turn 3, my knights managed to dispatch the remaining Temple Guard Watchers without sustaining a single casualty (!) themselves, but at the same time the Saurus Ravagers reached my infantry line, and the carnage began...

We opened Turn 4 with my Knights attacking and slaughtering half a Skink Archer unit, and the Ravagers almost wiped out my Skeleton Horde. Emil agreed that any dispense was gone from the game, as the Ravagers would wither down my Skeletons faster (and longer) than my Knights could hope to kill reptiles, and we called it a day.

This session completely killed my desire for playing wargames - God of Battles in its current form in particular - and just as important for painting minis, as I have absolutely no other reason for painting minis than using them for gaming.

Bad day for my hobby mojo.

2019-05-21: God of Battles, Undead vs Chaos

I actually anticipated playing against Kevin's Greenskins today, and had built my army accordingly, but he brought a Chaos Demon army built on the T'lekkan list. It is always nice to see a new painted army on the table, and as it were, the tactics I built my army for somewhat succeeded!

Kevin postioned his units fairly evenly over the width of the table, apart from the Behemoth (Greater Demon of Slaneesh?), a hulking Enormous monster capable of taking on entire legions on its own, as it would turn out, which was placed on his extreme left flank, just opposite my Camp. I concentrated my relatively few infantry units near my camp, and left my Blacksoul in a Chariot and my Knights to covering most of my table edge.

On Turn 1, my Knights and Chariot sped forward on my left, hoping to hit the Demons' apparently weak flank.

On Turn 2, Blacksoul in the Chariot despatched a Demon unit. The Behemoth strode steadily forward, while I pulled back my defensive line a bit to stall the inevitable clash.

Turn 3, the Behemoth destroyed a Skeleton Horde, while my knights got mauled by something unnatural... Another Skeleton Horde drove some Demons into the woods.

Turn 4. The Behemoth destroyed another Skeleton Horde.

The remaining 3 Knights were wiped out, and my Blacksoul went in with a vengeance.

Turn 5, my Camp Followers beat off a Demonic attack, and my Chariot burned the enemy Baggage Train - but the Behemoth destroyed the 3rd Skeleton Horde and broke my army. For the first time ever, my Necromancer had to flee the battlefield...

Conclusion:

The Lords of Undeath severely lack some big nasties like the ones that can be fielded my many other armies. I may have to give up using my Necromancer, and instead field another Chariot for chasing soft targets, while my buffed up Blacksoul tries to keep check on any biggie fielded by my opponent. I must say, I dislike this kind of meta game decisions; a points based battle/war game should allow you to build an army to the same points value as your opponent, and then be able to take on whatever he used his points on.

Oh, well, it's all fun and games...

2019-05-20: God of Battles, Undead vs Dwarves

Some might say I am a bit of a masochist, as I keep inviting Ulolkish  to play his Dwarves against my Undead, but we still had some house rules playtesting to do, and it feels appropriate to keep testing with the same two armies.

This time we tested this:

Pushbacks

When a melee has been fought (both sides having attacked), the unit inflicting the most casualties is the winner of that combat.

When two Formed Units (or a Formed Unit and a Tenacious Loose Unit) are fighting, instead of being locked in place until one is destroyed, use the following:

The winner decides if if he wants to Push Back the loser. I he does not decide to do so, the units remain in place. If the winner decides to Push Back, the loser is moved 4 inches directly backwards, and the winner is moved forward and placed in contact with the winner.

and:

Necromancer

When the top card of the Power Deck is flipped to attempt Raising a skeleton, if the card flipped is not of a value sufficient to raise the type of skeleton the Necromancer wishes, the Necromancer may play additional cards from his Power Hand, as if powering a Miracle.

The combined Power Value MUST equal or surpass the points cost of the target unit – for instance, you must have a combined value of at least 12 to raise an Undead Knight, although an unmodified flipped ‘10’ is enough for raising any kind of Undead model. (This part we introduced in our last game, and we have decided to keep it.)

Raise Dead

As we do not feel the Necromancer's innate ability, even with the above augmentation, to raise 1 Skeleton whenever one or more enemies are slain is providing a proper necromantic feel, we now introduce a new Necromancer Miracle:

Raise Dead
Target: Friendly eligible Undead Unit (see Effect)
Cost: 10
Effect: Raise 1 Guardian of Midnight, OR 1 Undead Knight, OR up to2 Skeleton Warriors, OR up to 3 Skeleton Archers, OR up to 4 Skeletons (Horde) and add them to a unit of the appropriate type which has suffered casualties (it may not exceed its original size).
Duration: Instant


The Necromancer may choose this Miracle to be part of his Miracle Hand, but by doing so he forfeits his right to discard one of the Miracle Cards he then draws to complete his hand. If it is not chosen in advance, it is shuffled with the rest of the Miracle Cards, and may be drawn at random like the rest of the Miracles.

The first turn saw steady advance by both armies. My Chariot and Guardians of Midnight were kept behind the flanks for now.

Turn 2, the battle lines closed in. My Skeleton Warriors took position on the hill on the left, while the Dwarven Miners passed my line.

On Turn 3, battle was joined, and the Miners surfaced in contact with my Baggage Train. My Chariot sped towards the enemy Camp.

On my extreme right my Skeleton Horde was getting hammered, and Argonor was Raising Dead like a madman to keep the unit on the battlefield.

On Turn 4 a Skeleton Horde with a Blacksoul charged the Dwarven Archers. The red dice hit on 3+, the white on 4+. This kind of dice result is not even a rare occurrence when I play wargames.

The Miners sacked my Baggage, and my Chariot moved into contact with the enemy Camp.

All over the front, my Skeletons were crumbling in droves, and my Necromancer had all but depleted his Divine Goodwill (Sacrifice Cards).

Only 4 points lost out of the 52 on the table, but almost all my units were closed to being wiped out by now.

At least, I had inflicted some casualties, and even had raised some Skeletons from the slain foes...

We did not complete Turn 5 - just for show I sacked the Dwarven Camp, but there was not much doubt that my army would break, this turn or the next, and that I could hardly hope to do any significant damage to the enemy Main Force with my decimated units. Thus, we noted this down as another Dwarven victory, and sat down to evaluate the House Rules tested.

We felt that the pushback rule needs a Morale Test for a unit to avoid pushing on when winning a combat. The test should be taken at ML -2 or -3 to make it possible even for Unbreakable units to get 'drawn out' and exposed to flank attacks and the likes. This will be tested the next time we play.

The Raise Dead Miracle worked very well. It did not upset balance, because there is a trade-off to be paid in Sacrifice Cards, and thus in effectiveness when it comes to using other Miracles and dispelling enemy Miracles.

We kind of felt that not being able to discard a Miracle to see if the Necromancer can get a more interesting one is too restrictive, and I gave it a lot of thought how to change it, without making the Necromancer too powerful.

What we agreed to try is a 5 points Rod of Resurrection working the same way as the Raise Dead Miracle, still being powered by Sacrifice Cards, but usable as many times during the Necromancer's Activation as he can pay the 10 Sacrifice pips.

With this, the Necromancer will draw Miracle Cards as normal before the game, and being able to discard one he does not want. I may even get my cold prying hands on one of the destructive Miracles some time...

2019-05-07: God of Battles, Undead vs Orcs

Initial setup.

I had managed to get two gaming appointments within four days, which is a rare occasion for me, but here Kevin and I found ourselves in the garage attic on a plain Tuesday evening.

Kevin brought the Greenskin horde I managed to beat the last time we met, but he had changed the composition considerably, bringing myriads of Goblins to the fray (with only two units of War Orcs and a Boss riding a Troll).

I brought a slightly reduced infantry force (only 35 pts this time) with my Necromancer riding a Chariot, and a single Blacksoul to put in a Skeleton Horde. In retrospect, I probably should have swapped my characters, keeping a Horde with the Necromancer in reserve, out of harms way, while the Blacksoul should have ridden the Chariot through droves of Goblins. Well, live and learn.

We agreed to set up 12" in instead of 8" to reduce marching time, as as a mid-week evening does not allow for more than about 4 hours of gaming at most.

The Orcs were the attackers (I think the Lords of Undeath have a far too low Aggression level; in my book, the Undead hordes of a Necromancer are more likely to be invading the lands of the living, while sensible beings steer clear of the nightmare-ridden badlands, but, well...)

As the Goblins covered most of the width of the battlefield, I opted for a more spread-out formation in order to make it as difficult as possible for the Greenskins to sweep in behind my battle line and sack my Camp (placed at the far right corner of my table edge).

Turn 1 saw a steady advance from both sides - I forgot to use my Stratagem, and Kevin only remembered his because I grumbled 😆

Turn 2 saw the first fighting. Kevin used his Stratagem to give his Troll/Boss an extra activation, allowing it to make contact with the Skeleton Warriors in the center of the table. As usual, I wasn't able to even scratch back, so I lost 4 Warriors. A s a side remark, a Troll with a Character wielding a weapon upgrade is a beast. My army really lacks the option of Monsters; the closest I can get is a Chariot with a buffed up Blacksoul, and I am still not sure that it would be able to win a fight against the Troll...

Turn 3 the last Warriors fell to the Troll. On my right flank, a unit of Goblins was annihilated by a Skeleton Horde (we made a mistake, having it Recoil off the table), which was then in turn charged in the flank by some War Orcs.

At this point I already doubted that that I would be able to turn the tide in my favour - simply too many enemy units that I could get on the offensive without exposing my flanks/rears to attacks.

Turn 4.
My Chariot made a desperate dash towards my Baggage Train (graveyard) in an attempt to prevent it from being sacked by the Goblin hordes closing in.

A unit of Goblins were routed by a Skeleton Horde in the center, while the Horde on my left flank was getting mauled by the Troll/Boss.

On my right, both units of War Orcs were now stuck in, and I began succeeding in raising some skeletons.

Turn 5.
The two Skeleton Hordes in the center were cut down, mainly be the Troll/Boss, but also by some pestering archery from the Goblins. One of the War Orc units broke, and Argonor was able to raise another couple of Skeletons this turn. My Chariot dispatched a unit of Goblins, while another mob reached my graveyard.

I was now a mere 3 points away from my Break Point.

Turn 6 saw me dispatching the last War Orcs, and raising another Skeleton, but my Necromancer came too late for saving the graveyard from being sacked (the Sutlers did not show, otherwise I might have survived another couple of turns).

This was a rather cinematic moment, actually, with my Necromancer racing his Chariot to try saving the moment, and the Gobbos swarming the graveyard just before he could have prevented it.

Below is the final state of affairs. I think I managed to kill off 21 points of Greenskins, which means that 3 more points without me losing more Main Force units would have given me the victory, which again means that if my Chariot had reached the Goblins, I would have won, and that just makes the final action even more cinematic! As it were, I lost 24 to 21, and I still think the Lords of Undeath and the Orc Warlords lists are very well balanced, whereas I find it hard to think of way to beat the Dwarves.

Conclusion:

Another closely fought scrap with the Orcs.

I need to rethink how to protect my Necromancer when fighting the Orcs, so that I may free up my Chariot for fighting the Troll (I have NO doubt whatsoever, that I shall have to face it again after its performance this time). Placing him in a Horde near my Camp may be a solution to that, although it shortens my phalanx/battle line.

I also need to pay attention to the table size recommended, as very wide tables are NOT to my advantage, so mayhaps we shall play on a slightly narrower surface the next time.

When facing an enemy with that many cheap units, I may have to take either the Undead Knights to mop up some easy points while my main battle line is getting pounded (actually, I think that if I can occupy the Troll with a buffed up Blacksoul in a Chariot, my Skeleton units will be able to hold their own, and maybe even score enough points for the Knights to carry the day hunting Goblins). I do want to try out some Skeleton Archers , soonish, though, and I think I shall be rummaging through my Necropolis (big box with unfinished Undead) later today to see, what I can find.

Although I have lost two in a row, the last week has whetted my appetite for more God of Battles, and I shall be making appointments as often as I can get them scheduled!

2019-05-04: GoB Undead vs Dwarves AAR

Initial deployment.

Saturday, Ulolkish and I played God of Battles - still our go-to fantasy battle game.

Friday, Ulolkish announced his intention to arrive mid-morning, which made me give up on getting the Oseberg tents ready for the table Saturday (and also the big tent for my Necromancer), but both will be ready for Tuesday evening and a scrap with Kevin's Orcs!

The game was 40 pts., and we agreed on a break level of 26 pts.

• We agreed that hills and woods would Slow movement, and that the rocks were impassable (duh!).
• The giant skeleton was fielded as a unit of Guardians of Midnight (6 wounds).
• We were testing some house rules regarding push-backs between Formed Units; as it were they did not work quite to our satisfaction, and we shall try a modified version next time.
• We also tested an alternative rule regarding the Necromancer's ability to raise skeletons (an option to add Power Cards from the Necromancer's hand to the flipped card); it worked nicely, but the ability is still quite underwhelming, according to Ulolkish, who was on the 'wrong' end of it. We agreed that I shall come up with a 'Raise Dead' Miracle to add to the Lords of Undeath Miracle Deck, but in a way to not offset balance. More about this at a later time.

The Dwarves were the aggressors, and having fewer units, they maintained the Initiative for most of the game.

On Turn 1, both armies advanced steadily.

On Turn 2, the Undead phalanx reached a hill and slowed down.

Turn 3 saw the Undead left take up position on the hill, while the Dwarves were outflanking the phalanx. The Giant Guardian moved to protect the left flank.

Turn 4: The Giant Guardian was beaten back badly by the Dwarves.

On Turn 5 I made my first tactical error: Moving the Skeleton Warriors down to meet the Dwarves; I should have rotated on the spot to maintain the higher ground!

Turn 5 also saw some fighting at the center, and the Undead Phalanx began to look a bit tattered...

On Turn 6, things began to go badly wrong in earnest. My army was crumbling rapidly, and the Dwarves were too stubborn to die. Another tactical error on my part was to move the warriors on the right too far forward, exposing their flank to attack, but at this point it didn't matter a whole lot anyway.

The dwarves had reached my Camp. It was now only a matter of time before they would succeed and break my army, though.

On Turn 7, another two of my units were destroyed. The Dwarves were beaten back by my Camp Followers this time.

Only a little fighting occurred on Turn 8 (and I forgot to snap a photo of the final positions). My Camp was sacked, and my army broke.

Conclusion:
I did not manage to remove a single point from the Dwarf army, and I am a bit bewildered, as to how to get on even terms with them.

I may have to add some Skeleton Archers to my army; I can think of two ways to employ them:

1. As part of the main battle line, advancing before the close combat units in a kind of manipular/checkerboard formation, then withdrawing between the fighting units, but stil able to shoot between them. I.e. a kind of skirmishing rôle.
2. As  independent scouts/skirmishers on one or both flanks, perhaps in cooperation with Ghouls. They can then pester enemy units going for my main phalanx, even threaten their flanks, and ultimately go for the enemy Camp & Baggage if unopposed.

Fielding the Undead Knights may also be an option, as they are fast and a relatively strong unit for charging enemies in the flank, but they soak up an awful lot of points, and thus weaken on of the few advantages held by the Undeads, namely their ability to field many cheap units to put in the way of the enemy advance.

As mentioned earlier, we have decided to augment the Necromancer's raise dead abilities, and next time we shall be testing a new Miracle to see, if we can give the Unded a little more staying power and even out the odds a bit, I just do not want to tweak too much, before I have tried more options with the army - but even Ulolkish seems to think that the dead are too easily dispatched, so we shall see... 

As we had not played for quite some time, we spent an awful lot of time flipping through the rules - If from now on we manage to play at least once a month, gaming time should shorten considerably (we spent almost six hours on this game, without any breaks for snacks or drinks). I did not suffer a lot of fatigue from the experience, even though I am suffering from a bad cold, and this goes a long way to explain why I prefer God of Battles over other fantasy battle systems I have encountered: It flows easily, you don't have downtime while your opponent moves his entire army (GoB has alternate unit activation), and the turns kinda flow together, so it really feels like one long game with short alternating turns instead of a series of very long turns.