Bogland Terrain and Army Composition

Just to flesh out a few details from my HoTT campaign world

The INSIDERS GUIDE TO BOGLAND: 

• No road infrastructure as it encourages humans
• No woods, they "would" (ahem) encourage elves
  
• Flies, lots of flies, everywhere, nice juicy flies
  
• Rough ground everywhere to trip things up like silly men in plate armour
  
• No rivers as such but plenty of pools of stagnant water for things to "lurk" about if you get my meaning
  
• Hills yeah, nasty little steep hills, horses could break their ankles on those
• Pits of snakes and things, and lots of biting beetles
• Lots of Orcs, nasty evil ones
  

Prime time real-estate really, yet for so,e reason in its entire recorded history no neighbouring country has yet successfully invaded it, or for that matter expressed a wish to, bar the DREGS who got lost and couldn't find it!

Trolls, you got to love them and fear then, even if they are on your side! These are of the more modern Games Workshop ilk of 28mm offerings.

The Bogland Orc Army:

• 1 x Warband (General)
• 1 x Warband
  
• 8 x 5Hd
  
• 1 x Troll (Behemoth)
• 2 x Beasts
• 2 x Riders
  

Technically not based as a true hoard, but it gives you a feel of what you expect to see. Again, old, old AD&D figures finding a second lease of life (although based incorrectly). My HoTT army painting is slowly taking form in GW LOTR figures. For the campaign I am borrowing some 15mm orcs.

Bogland Army Battle Honours:

• Victorious slaughter against the unwashed DREG's in the Battle for Smale (now called Lesser Bogland)
• A completely routed contingent in the Battle of Dwarf Rock (but we don't talk about that much and it's the last time we try and help a rival Orc clan kill dwarves in armour with pointy things)
  

Mottoes and Sayings: 

• Never wash or fight fair
• Make sure that elf is really dead
• If it's good enough for a rat or flies to eat, it's good meat
• Why? The Boss said so

Hail to the Orc Chief of Bogland

If "the day to end days" happens and heaven forbid the winter ancient campaign splutters on a damp start, "Plan B" maintains that I can fall back on the "fun" campaign from my other (shamefully infrequent) wargaming soul-mates (it's a bit of a drive to get there but well worth it when I do). I [try to] venture forth once a month (or so) to HoTT it with the 'worst' of them: Dwarves, Rats, Horseman, Desert Drifters and Orcs, lots of Orcs. Here I am currently dabbling as self proclaimed Orc-Warrior Chieftain of Bogland viewing the rest of the world with megalomania and paranoia. The Boss-Man is shown below, twenty eight year old D&D figures, now that should bring a nostalgic smile to many a face. The paint job is a more recent affair, some eight years old!

Bogland (THE HITCH-HIKERS GUIDE):

A foul, evil smelling bog-land of bilge and puss vomited forth from the earth that upsets the noses of elves and horses, but is somehow strangely palatable to that of dwarves due to its similarity with the fermentation process. The badlands stretch as a far as the eye can see, an afterthought of bad magic from an inept sorcerous fool long since dead. A place feared by many but called home to a race of squat and squalid orcs whose language has over one hundred and fifty ways to describe a dead elf but no word to mean "poetry"! The closest they get is "to evacuate ones bowels noisily in the morning". Summary: Best avoid, as no clean running water is available.

The urge to embark on world-wide crusades of destruction comes naturally to these orc-folk. Currently  I am engaged in a life and death struggle with the neighbouring DREG Desert Drifters in what the official Bogland history refers to as "The War of the Dark". The war took a turn for the better when 50% of the DREG army was eaten by a hungry Sand-Worm in a desert storm (I kid you not) as they tried to invade Bogland. They should really make better maps or at least attempt to read them. As Bogland returned the invasion complement, despite now being outnumbered 14 stands to 6 these same plucky, these surviving fanatics attempted to lift my investment of their second city (nay, squalid collection of small huts). Suffering an additional a mere 50% army casualties in the process (Knights being ripped apart by an ugly big Troll Behemoth), they then retired to their capitol (a big hut) where it looked as if their "end days" were fast approaching (to the sound of orc marching feet from Bogland).

(Above) There is no Troll quite like an original AD&D Grenadier Troll (long nosed) figure.

Yet it was not to be so, divine intervention interceded on behalf of the DREG as an unexpected plague struck Bogland for the whole of year Year Two of "The War of the Dark" (I couldn't make the game twice in a row). With a whole year to recover the DREG's may now be able to muster a flea-ridden field army to face Bogland in a fight to the death for their capitol, that's if the plague ever lifts from Bogland.

To be continued ....