It's time for another round of Joust A Minute!
A 3,000pt clash of Bretonnia vs Orcs & Goblins in the Old World.
One of my first games of Old World was an Orcs & Goblins clash against Sultan Plays Bretonnians. That was a modest 1,000pts (which I won, quite against the run of the odds), so when we got back together for a rematch, it was time to bring out the big guns (or, in this case, goblins wearing bat wing apparatus).
Waaagh! Grushnog - Orcs & Goblins
I followed my usual pick n' mix approach to building greenskin armies, although I did finally paint up a solid core of Black Orcs, led by my warlord Grushnog Ironsplitta.
I also packed the army full of war machines and squig-based operatives, since they're probably the most formidable part of my army.
- Grushnog Ironsplitta - Black Orc Warboss (General)
Full plate armour
Bigger, Choppier Axe, Talisman of Protection - Maverork - Orc Warboss on Wyvern
Heavy armour, Shield,
Da Choppiest Choppa, Trollhide Trousers, 'Eadbuttin' 'At - Little Grom - Goblin Warboss
Light armour, Shield
Biting Blade, Potion of Strength - HopSplat - Night Goblin Warboss on Giant Cave Squig
Light armour, Shield
Wollopa's One Hit Wunda - Dipstik - Night Goblin Oddnob
Level 4 Wizard, Waaagh! Magic
Buzgob's Knobbly Staff - 24 x Black Orc Mob
Command group. Full plate armour, 9 x Great weapons, 15 x Additional hand weapons,
Waaagh! Banner - 30 x Night Goblin Mob
Command group. Thrusting spears, Shields, Netters, 3 x Fanatics - 29 x Night Goblin Mob
Command group. Shortbows, Netters, 3 x Fanatics - 24 x Goblin Mob
Command group. Thrusting spears, Shields, Light armour - 6 x Goblin Wolf Rider Mob
Shields, Cavalry spears, Feigned Flight - 6 x Goblin Wolf Rider Mob
Shields, Cavalry spears, Feigned Flight - 6 x Stone Troll Mob
Troll vomit, Great weapons, Light armour - 6 x Night Goblin Squig Hopper Mob
Light armour, Boss - Goblin Bolt Throwa
- Goblin Bolt Throwa
- Goblin Rock Lobber
- Doom Diver Catapult
- Doom Diver Catapult
- Mangler Squig
Colossal fang-filled gob, Heavy armour - Mangler Squig
Colossal fang-filled gob, Heavy armour
The Crusade of Duc d'Olivier
- Duke on Royal Pegasus
- Paladin on Royal Pegasus
- Lady Élisse Duchard
- Damsel on Unicorn
- 6 x Knights Errant
Command group. Lances, heavy armour and shields. Barding. - 6 x Knights Errant
Command group. Lances, heavy armour and shields. Barding. - 6 x Knights Errant
Command group. Lances, heavy armour and shields. Barding. - 10 x Knights of the Realm on foot
Command group. Heavy armour and shields. - 10 x Knights of the Realm on foot
Command group. Great weapons - 6 x Knights of the Realm
Command group. Lances, heavy armour and shields. Barding. - 6 x Knights of the Realm
Command group. Lances, heavy armour and shields. Barding. - 6 x Pegasus Knights
Command group. Lances, heavy armour and shields. Barding. - 3 x Pegasus Knights
Command group. Lances, heavy armour and shields. Barding. - 6 x Questing Knights
Command group. Lances, heavy armour and shields. Barding. - 8 x Grail Knights
Command group. Lances, heavy armour and shields. Barding.
Mission and deployment
We're playing Pitched Battle (not least because it's the easiest way to get this number of models on the table) and Bretonnia sets up with a heavily weighted centre.
Knights Errant, Foot Knights, Questing Knights on the right flank, with Knights Errant, Grail Knights and the Duke's Pegasus Knights in the centre. On the left flank are more Foot Knights, two Knights of the Realm, Knights Errant and Pegasus Knights.
The Orcs & Goblins take the hill in the centre of their deployment and cram it full of war machines: two Bolt Throwas, two Doom Divers and the Rock Lobba. Screening this are the Stone Trolls and a Manger Squig.
On the left flank are Wolf Riders, Orc Warboss on Wyvern, Night Goblins with Oddnob and Black Orcs with Warboss.
On the right flank is the Goblin spears with the Goblin warboss, Night Goblin spears (taking cover behind the privet hedge), another Mangler Squig, the Night Goblin warboss on Giant Cave Squig, the Squig Hoppers and Wolf Riders.
The Bretonnians give up the first turn to pray to the Lady, so the greenskins have the initative!
Turn 1
The Orcs & Goblins begin their advance. The Wolf Riders race ahead on both flanks, tempting out the charge, while all the other goblins stay put, in no mood to close the distance.
The Orc Warboss angles his Wyvern to countercharge whatever is going to wipe out the Wolf Riders on the left flank, while all the Squigs bounce forward, without much say in the matter. One of the Manglers goes sideways, rather than forwards, in the hope of protecting the war machines.
The other surprise move is the Black Orcs, who are struck by the defensive potential of the low stone wall in the centre of the battlefield and march resolutely to occupy it.
Only the war machines have range for shooting, and everything is targeted at the Pegasus Knights. The goblins display a uncanny accuracy and slam rocks, bolts and flying goblins right into the heart of the unit. Unfortunately quite a lot of the Lady's blessing holds up, and only three of the Pegasus Knights are felled from this bombardment.
In a move the surprises absolutely no-one, the Bretonnians charge. The right flank Knights Errant run into the Wolf Riders, while the left flank Pegasus Knights pull up short as their Wolf Riders turn and flee (and then rally, due to sneaky feigned flight).
The Wolf Riders on the right flank, who stood up the charge, perform better than expected. Despite losing four of their number, the survivors hang in there, giving the Wyvern a tasty flank to consider.
The Duke and his diminished Pegasus Knights run into the central Mangler Squig, while the Black Orcs are charged by both Knights Errant and Grail Knights.
The Duke manages to avoid the swinging balls and pops the Mangler Squig at the first attempt, overunning into the Trolls behind.
Meanwhile, the Black Orcs discover that the low stone wall provided far less advantage than advertised, and over a dozen of them are slain. The Black Orc warboss hews down two knights in reply and, though they have taken a pounding, there are still more than enough of the elite infantry to start an attritional grind.
Unless they roll an 11 for their break test. Which is, of course, what they do.
It is at this point that I realised I intended to purchase a Battle Standard for the army, but neglected to do so. Such thoughts are swept aside as I see my general and his troops run down by the Knights Errant.
Turn 2
An uphill struggle lies before me, but you can never count out the greenskins!
The Night Goblins begin by releasing all their Fanatics (presumably to lighten the load and retreat faster). The left-flank Fanatics do well, smashing through the advancing unit of Knights Errant and killing all but one of them (that's what you get for abandoning the lance formation).
The final Knight Errant is shot down by a volley of goblin bows - unheard of! (maybe they hit a fetlock and the knight wandered back to the tents).
The right-flank Fanatics do ... less well. Two of them collide and kill each other. The third spins away towards the edge of the battlefield and is never heard from again.
With all the magic spells foiled by the Bretonnian Damsel, we move into charging. The Orc Warboss on the Wyvern slams into the flank of the Knights Errant and the surviving Mangler Squig bounds into a unit of Knights of the Realm.
The Squig Hoppers bobble towards the central treeline and everyone else holds back (having learned the lesson about advancing towards low stone walls).
The war machines open up on the Grail Knights, and their accuracy is matched only by how often the knights' ward saves succeed. Also, one of the crew gets tangled up in the Rock Lobba's gubbins, but that's about to be the least of his problems.
Despite being tooled-up for his sort of combat, the Wyvern Warboss only manages to chop down four of the Knights Errant, who kill another Wolf Rider in return and only have to Give Ground in the combat.
The Mangler Squig has a similar turn on the other flank, munching down four of the Knights of the Realm, for the loss of a single wound, and forcing them to Fall Back
The fight between the Pegasus Duke and Stone Trolls is a similar push, with neither side managing to rack up a convincing number of hits. However, the Trolls lose the combat and are forced to take a break test on their pitiful leadership.
The Trolls also flee from combat and are run down by the Duke, who is now eyeing up his nemesis, the Doom Diver catapult. And there goes the centre!
The Bretonnians begin the task of rolling up my battleline, with the Pegasus Duke and Grail Knights charging the war machines.
The Questing Knights swing around to target the Wyvern, and both the left-flank Knights of the Realm (foot and horse) charge into the Squig Hoppers. The Pegasus Paladin leads his unit into the Wolf Riders, who elect to sacrifice themselves this time
With a mere stamp of hooves, two war machines go down, and the Duke's force sweeps on. Over on the extreme flank, the Errant Knight champion issues a challenge to the Wyvern warboss, gets massacred horribly, but preserves the life of his standard bearer to Give Ground (what a hero).
The Wyvern gives up on this as a bad job and reforms to face the Questing Knights.
There's a number of equally lopsided challenges on the other side of the battlefield too. As the Wolf Riders are cut down by the Pegasus Knights, the boss takes on the Paladin with no measurable impact.
Against the Knights of the Realm, the Night Goblin Warboss issues a challenge, then pulls out Wollopa's One Hit Wunda, which should make mincemeat of the Knightly champion, but instead misses every time and the Great Squig is forced to flee back to his own lines as his own unit is slaughtered.
The one spark of hope on that flank is the continuing success of the Mangler Squig, who chomps down the remaining two Knights and reforms for a rear charge into the squig-slaying Knights.
Turn 3
The goblin units reluctantly accept they will have to contribute to this battle. Swigging his Potion of Strength, the Goblin warboss issues a charge into the Knights of the Realm. And falls short (so there's a waste of a potion - hope it tasted nice).
Their neighbouring unit of Night Goblins also attempt a charge, and get themselves caught on the privet hedge they'd been using for cover.
The other Night Goblins are more effective, with the OddNob finally getting some spells to work, which throws a cascade of debuffs onto the Questing Knights. He even drops a Foot of Gork directly on the Pegasus Knights - taking out another two. The final Bolt Throwa tries to skewer the Grail Knights, but their blessing of the Lady protects them once again.
Another Fanatic embeds itself into a stone wall and becomes instantly two-dimensional. The final one whirls into the most inconvenient place - directly between the Warboss Wyvern and the Questing Knights. I have to risk the charge and plough straight through - the Fantatic delivers the maximum number of hits on his supervisor, though the Trollhide Trousers save him from harm.
Aided by the magical support, the Wyvern smashing through four of the Questing Knights (that seems to be about his average) and survives the counterblows. The Damsel was gearing up to unleash Hammerhand on him, but was foiled again by the Oddnob (who was having his best turn of the game)
The Grail Knights and Pegasus Knights complete their massacre of the war machines, and charge into the Giant Cave Squig, who survives the subsequent challenge once again and flees - bouncing through two units of goblins to arrive on the other side, about as safe as he could be (for now!).
The Duke's Pegasus and his one remaining retainer swing around from the central hill to target Oddnob and his bodyguard.
The Knights on foot charge into the combat between the Wyvern and Questing Knights. This unfortunately just provides the Orc Warboss with easier meat, and he chops down six of the warriors, winning the combat once again.
Turn 4
There's very little movement or charging, as everyone is where they want to be (or hoping to be somewhere else!)
As a side note, the surviving Wolf Rider from the left flank has been racing around the battlefield, in a desperate bid to become the designated survivor, and the surviving Knight Errant has been chasing him, in a desperate bid to stop him.
The Mangler Squig hits the Knights of the Realm in the rear, but is running out of puff. It fails to smash through them, and is run off back to its own lines.
The Orc Warboss finishes off the rest of the Knights on foot, and despite taking a couple of wounds from the Questing Knights, continues to boss the combat.
The Duke's Pegasus Knights ride through a volley of shortbow arrows to smash the Night Goblin archers and run them down, taking with it the greenskins' only magical punch. They swing around to engage the Orc Wyvern.
What remains of the greenskins' right flank is sandwiched between the Grail Knights, Knights on Foot and Pegasus Knights. What follows is a very brutal massacre, even by the standards of this battle, and the fifty-or-so goblins are broken and run down in short order.
Turn 5
As the lone Wolf Rider is finally caught and killed, it only remains for the aerial combat we've been waiting for: Pegasus Duke vs Wvyern Warboss.
Victory belonged to the swiftest blade, as the Warboss lost his final wounds before he could even swing back. And with that, the ravaging hordes are wiped from the field of combat, and victory belongs to the forces of chivalry!
Result - 3,450 : 1,196
Victory to the Kingdom of Bretonnia
Locker Room
Well, even with my spotty record of commanding greenskins, that was quite a shellacking!
I think I had a decent battle plan (of drawing out the first charge with chaff, then countering with my heavy units), but I got over-excited and wanted to get stuck in (and orcs are wont to do) and clearly had far too much faith in the defensive properties of a low stone wall.
The lady's blessing was also a big factor in keeping lots of really expensive units alive. My artillery did have uncommon luck in shooting, I'll admit, but it all ran to nought against the faith of the Bretonnians.
Still, I had a thoroughly good time, and accounted for a lot more Knights than I expected. The Mangler Squig did a grand job, as did the Wyvern Warboss. I have lots more options for playing Orcs & Goblins, so lots of potential for a rematch!
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