999YK Summer End: Game Over

End of summer 999YK

Summary

Let's see how the empires are doing — the changes since the start of the year are huge.

			Storm Lords	White Fang Tribe	Hammerhead Clan	Sulatar
			Human	Orcs & Goblins	Duergar	Drow
997YK	Start	Revenue	10	7	8	7
	Summer start	Troops	4000	2000	3700	2700
	Summer	Campaigning gains/(losses)	-530	20	-30	-530
	Winter Start	Troops	3470	2020	3670	2170
	Winter	Actual Revenue	28	22	29	12
998YK	Summer start	Troops	4187	3520	5370	2870
	Summer	Campaigning gains/(losses)	-980	-733	-520	-545
	Winter start	Troops	3207	2787	4850	2325
	Winter	Actual Revenue	28	19	44	12
	Winter gains/(losses)		0	-1400	-530	0
999YK	Summer start	Troops	4607	2787	7220	2925
	Summer	Campaigning gains/(losses)	-210	-2030	-1025	-2385
	Winter start	Troops	4397	757	6195	540
	Winter	Potential Revenue	22	0	56	0

Well, that's not officially the end of the game, but the Hammerheads have an enormous lead now, as is apparent from the map. They have the majority of the troops and the majority of the revenue. I could play out 1000YK but the Storm Lords cannot really win from here.

I rolled the winter events for the Hammerheads and Storm Lords: the former got Increased Revenue, and the latter got Rebellion. Well, that really wouldn't help the Storm Lords at all; certainly it doesn't help them. Really the only chance was if the Duergar rolled Treachery or Dragonrage, either of which might have taken a chunk out of their empire. As is, the Storm Lords would get crushed.

For completeness, I should say here that empires that lose their capital are not completely out of the game, but they can collect no revenue so they cannot buy supplies or recruit more armies, so they cannot play much part in what continues.

Debrief

The failure of anyone to ally against the Hammerheads really decided the game. In a game with human players, this would normally not happen: the players would be allowed to change alliances during the year and the other empires would probably have teamed up against the Hammerheads. But human players aren't rational and will sometimes refuse to work together, so I allowed that possibility in this game also, and that was what happened. If the White Fang or the Sulatar had managed to hold out until the end of the year, it would have been worth playing on as together the other empires could have been strong enough to resist the Hammerhead Clan.

The Hammerheads had a great game, and were able to control a large area without being significantly threatened. This was mostly because of the close placement of the Sulatar and Storm Lords' capitals, which meant that they had to position their main armies to contest with each other and could spare little for other excursions. The Storm Lords squandered a strong position in year 1, I feel: they neither went for an early kill on the Sulatar nor managed to gain much elsewhere by holding troops back from that fight.

The White Fang were always behind and were unlucky in the third year not to make more of a fight of it. Their brilliant defence of the capital in Lharvion was ultimately for nothing when they lost their main army on the same turn.

999YK Summer: Lharvion

Lharvion

For the first time in 40,000 years, dragons hunt in the Dragon's Maw mountains. Scouts from the armies of the Hammerhead Clan, patrolling into the foothills of the mountains, saw dragons circling the higher peaks and wisely decided to stay away. Human settlers to the east of the mountains also saw dragons flying overhead in the distance, and cowered in their homes for fear that the dragons could spread their destruction further.

Hammerhead Clan: Banner 6 scouts into the tile with the White Fang capital, Lagakh Mor, and chooses to move into the tile and try to seize it from them. But the attack is repelled (see previous post), driving them back into the barren territory north of the capital.

Dragons spread destruction through the Dragon's Maw mountains,
having already burned the fortresses to the west.
Meanwhile, the duergar approach Lagakh Mor, while the orcs
stand in defence of it.

Banners 1 and 3 scout once towards the city east of the capital, intending to lay siege, and once west to secure the mountain tile behind them. The second set of scouts roll a scouting event, and roll an 11 for the event — another Dragonrage! I don't think I have ever had two dragonrages in one year before, and certainly never in consecutive turns in the same place. The dragons do wake up and there are 4 dragons this time, but fortunately the random directions that they roll just spread them through the mountains and unscouted tiles on the east side.

Hammerhead banners 1 & 3 choose to move west, intending to lay siege to the orcs there. The White Fang have a choice here: they are not badly outnumbered and could fight, but it is betting everything on the battle. If they let  the siege start and then fight next month, the duergar will have had a month of starvation and disease to reduce their fighting strength and so the battle will be easier — but they lose the chance to reinforce the army defending their capital, which was lucky to hold on before and might lose before the end of the year. So instead, White Fang banner 1 will stay to defend the siege while banner 2 retreats to the capital.

(Aside: I realise I have messed up the turn sequence here — all movement should be resolved before all combat, so if banner to retreats to the capital it would have been able to participate in the battle there. Which wouldn't actually happen as the duergar could just choose not to attack this month, expecting to win the battle at the capital. But I got carried away and already played the battle, so I'm just rolling with it.)

The duergar attack the city immediately — there's little reason not to, since they are most likely going to get even casualties, and there's nearly a ⅓ chance to storm the city and destroy the army there. They roll a 9, and storm the city. Mazorn is now in the hands of the Hammerhead clan, and its garrison army is destroyed.

Banner 4 fails to scout again, but the scouts encouter mercenaries that add to their strength by 60 points. Banners 2 & 2 grab villages from the Sulatar and Storm Lords, and banner 8 continues to move south towards the action.

White Fang: Well, they just lost Mazorn and their main army when they failed to defend that siege. That's pretty much game over; they will be out of it very soon now. Their armies just consolidate in the capital and wait for the execution next turn.

I think the outcome would not have been much better if they had done anything else though at this point; earlier rolls that went against them had got them on the edge. Perhaps their best chance would have been not to risk a siege and give up Mazorn, and just fight a slightly-outnumbered pitched battle at the capital; they might have won again. That would still be pretty risky, but maybe the odds were better than a siege.

Storm Lords: The Sulatar capital is well garrisoned, so attacking there is still not viable. Instead, the armies there will just bombard again: this time they roll a 3 and do minor damage. Banner 4 fails to scout, and banner 3 retakes a village from the Hammerheads.

Sulatar: Banners 1 & 2 are besieged and stay defending. Banner 3 starts withdrawing north.

End of Lharvion. The Hammerhead Clan are in a position to mop up all territory in the west. Meanwhile the Storm Lords' siege of Searing Heights continues.

Barrakas

Hammerhead Clan: First order of business, destroy the White Fang for good. Banners 1, 3 & 6 all move to attack Lagakh Mor. This battle I'm not going to wargame, as there is no wargaming system in my repertoire that will give a army outnumbered 5:2 much chance of winning — the orcs stand a better chance using Mighty Empires' simple dice roll for combat.

But it doesn't work out for them. The Hammerheads roll 11 on 2d6, +3 for the 5:2 advantage, giving 14, a crushing victory. The White Fang loses 300 points, their armies are scattered and lose their baggage.

Banner 7 moves out towards the Storm Lords, and banner 5 takes back a village from them. Banner 2 fails to scout and loses 60 points of troops to sickness. Banner 4 scouts a new village. They are too badly outnumbered to defend the fortress here, so they burn it down instead, intending to withdraw to the south if pursued.

White Fang Tribe: Banner 2 loses another 90 points due to starvation and disease, now that the baggage is lost.

Storm Lords: Banners 1 & 2 assault the Sulatar capital. And they roll a 9 (-1 due to the relative strength of the armies, taking into account the x2 defensive bonus for the city, +1 due to the bombardment the previous turn) — that's enough to storm the city. The city is overrun and the garrison is destroyed.

Banner 4, though, is paralysed by mutiny; it will be unable to move this turn or next. The Storm Lords are lucky that there are no armies close to their capital able to take advantage of this.

Banner 3 is in a tough spot, with two duergar armies advancing towards it. Defending cities seems to be a bad idea this year, so they decide to withdraw.

Sulatar: They are basically out of the game; their one army is too small to do anything useful, and they probably need to ally now with the Storm Lords if anyone is to survive the coming duergar onslaught.

The month two empires fell. Hammerhead Clan armies occupy Lagakh Mor, and Searing Heights has falled to the Storm Lords.

Rhaan

Hammerhead Clan: Banners 3 & 6 spread out taking over former White Fang villages, and banner 1 takes over the ruined fortress to the south, driving out the White Fang's armies.

White Fang: also out of the game effectively at this point.

Storm Lords: Banner 1 seizes a village from the Sulatar.

Battle of Lagakh Hon

~100point l'Art de la Guerre battle report.

An army of duergar has come all the way to the capital of the White Fang orc's empire, Lagakh Mor. As the city walls were ruined by a magical earthquake — summoned by the duergar — earlier in the summer, the orcs decide to mount a defence outside the city, in the plains called Lagakh Hon by the orcs. Here the orcs will make their final defence against the duergar of the Hammerhead Clan.

The duergar have around a 50% advantage in army strength, making this battle similar to the battle at Threnal between these empires in the previous year, with the orcs outnumbered, hoping to hold on in a defensive posture. But this is a much smaller battle: these are small scouting armies, less than one quarter of the size of the main armies that met at Threnal. However, for the White Fang this is the final defence, with their capital falling to the Hammerheads if they lose. Translating their armies in Mighty Empires into l'AdlG points, the orcs get 68 points and the duergar have 100.

The Armies

The Hammerhead Clan's force is around 900 strong, with over 800 duergar warriors and around 100 Vulkoorim drow auxilliaries. In charge is Commander Drukh, a solid if unimaginative commander who, before the conflict, was in charge of a complex of mines in the Dragon's Teeth mountains. His troops are sturdy and disciplined, but their food supplies ran low during the long march south, so their strength has been depleted by disease and desertion.

• 5x Heavy swordsmen armour impact — duergar warriors
• 1x Heavy swordsmen impetus — duergar shock troops
• 1x Medium spearmen — duergar spears
• 2x Crossbows — duergar crossbows
• 1x Heavy artillery — duergar heavy ballista battery
• 1x Light cavalry bow — Vulkoorim mounted scouts
• 1x Light infantry bow — Vulkoorim scouts

Against them, making a desperate stand to protect their capital, is a force of just 700 orcs, led by Shaman Armnok. They were expecting reinforcements that did not come, and may never come now as the main duergar army is laying siege to the city to the east. While ferocious fighters, the orcs lack the discipline of the duergar, leaving them both outnumbered and with inferior troops.

• 1x Medium swordsmen elite — orc veterans
• 5x Medium swordsmen — orc warriors
• 2x Medium cavalry — orc worg riders
• 1x Light infantry bow — goblin archers
• 1x Light cavalry javelin — goblin wolf riders

The Battle

Deployment

The Hammerhead forces set up in the open plain, where their dense infantry formation should be able to crush all in its path.

The woods and fields to the west are guarded by the Vulkoorim scouts, and on the east side is the ballistae battery on the slopes of a ridge. The Vulkoorim mounted scouts fill the gap in the line between the artillery and infantry.

The White Fang have only medium infantry, and have no desire to meet the duergar in the open plain. So they position only cavalry in the plain to the east, with their infantry in the fields on the west side.

Turn 1, 2, & 3

End of turn 2

The duergar advance, shifting their line west to try to meet the orcs.

The orcs advance their infantry, turning their line to match the terrain, while the cavalry rides out to flank the duergar line. They hope to trap the advancing infantry between their own infantry line and the cavalry.

End of turn 3

Now the duergar move up their drow scouts on their left, to harass the orc's cavalry in addition to the ballistae bolts already being hurled at them. The orcs counter by moving up their goblin wolf riders, but their medium cavalry are nevertheless disrupted by the hail of missile fire.

Meanwhile, on the left, the vulkoorim scouts advance and start firing on the orc line in the field here, causing some disruption to their ranks. The goblin archers in the field in the centre are also taking heavy losses from the duergar crossbowmen in the centre. The orcs rally, however, and charge to drive back the skirmishing drow.

Turn 4

End of turn 4

The duergar must deal with the threats to their flanks. One unit of dwarven infantry turns to face the orcs moving around their right flank, while another unit peels off to face the cavalry across the plain. Growing impatient, the orc cavalry now charges, but the cavalry are already disordered by ballista fire and the impetus is lost as the heavy dwarven infantry stands their ground against the charge without problem. Meanwhile, the goblin cavalry charge the Vulkoorim mounted scouts, but are quickly routed and driven off.

Turn 5

End of turn 5

As one unit of the White Fang's cavalry is routed by the duergar in the plain, the orcs realise they can wait no longer and must exploit their advantage on the left now or never. The line here charges, joined by a flank charge by the unit on their far left that already advanced. The duergar line manages to meet the charge, but it is thrown into disorder as the ferocious orcs take advantage of their local advantage in numbers and press their attack.

Demoralisation points:

White Fang: 7 (target of 12)

Hammerhead Clan: 3 (target of 12)

Turn 6

End of turn 6

The duergar are in a mess — they moved their line too close to the orcs, giving them all the flexibility about choosing when to fight. On their left, the duergar are cleaning up: the remaining orc cavalry are routed by the duergar infantry there, who have done an excellent job driving off cavalry despite their greater numbers and the open ground here, with only a little assistance from their ballista battery. But there are a lot of troops over on the left here, and meanwhile their right is being swamped by the main orc attack.

The White Fang orcs warriors in the centre cut a path through the duergar crossbowmen, causing heavy losses, and slowly but surely the duergar begin to break away in groups, until the crossbowmen are all fleeing for the rear. The duergar line infantry next to them are also taking heavy losses, but are at least able to stand again the charge. Although the Commander Drukh charges his own regiment to take the weight of the flank attack, the damage is done and the duergar spearmen, already disrupted, give way before the orcs still facing them — fleeing through the commander's unit behind and throwing that into disorder as well.

Demoralisation points: 

White Fang: 10 (target of 12)

Hammerhead Clan: 8 (target of 12)

Turn 7

End of turn 7

The duergar charge another unit of heavy infantry into the melee in the middle, trying to relieve their embattled unit of line infantry there. But the unit has already sustained heavy losses and collapses into rout, leaving the new troops to handle the rampaging orc warriors.

On the duergar right, Drukh is leading his personal regiment in the melee, and they manage to hold their ground against the orcs despite being attacked in the flank as other units flee. The orcs in front of them waver and, with mounting losses, then break and run.

The rest of the White Fang line is staying in the field, where they can cover the flank and be ready for a counterattack by the duergar coming from the left.

Demoralisation points:

White Fang: 11 (target of 12)

Hammerhead clan: 10 (target of 12)

Turn 8

Commander Drukh emerges from a protracted and bloody right with the orcs on the right, he and his personal regiment victorious and the orcs, despite their numbers, finally put to flight with heavy losses. But, as he surveys the battlefield, the sight is grim: most of his main battle line has been broken up by the orc charge — the final unit of duergar warriors here, after heavy losses, is overwhelmed and breaks ranks to flee. Beyond, his units on the left are regrouping and mounting a counterattack against the orcs in the centre, where they seek to bring the White Fang commander, Armnok, to close quarters. But the orcs are ready for them, and the rough ground of the field is better suited to the orcs than to the heavily-armoured duergar in close formation.

With his army in disarray and in danger of being entirely overwhelmed, Drukh reluctantly calls a retreat. The duergar must regroup.

Demoralisation points:

White Fang: 12 (target of 12)

Hammerhead Clan: 13 (target of 12)

Post-Battle Analysis

Well, that was a remarkable turnaround for the orcs. I thought that, having wasted their cavalry, there was little chance that I could turn it around. So I decided to try with their only advantage — local numbers on the west side of the field, plus the slow-moving duergar would have a hard time redeploying to meet it. The duergar has foolishly put themselves in a place where the orcs could charge them, but they would take several turns to charge the orcs, and were dithering due to the poor formation of their line. The orcs got unlucky with rolls with their cavalry, but made up for it with the main infantry push.

The duergar may have won the east side of the battle, but their troops there were so scattered that they could not be easily redeployed to meet the main orc force in the centre. The duergar started with a 50% points advantage, but much of it was left scattered in the east because their commander was too far away to use it.

Technically, the battle is a draw, but that means (in the ME rules) that the attackers have to withdraw so they are effectively the losers here.

L'Art de la Guerre held up okay again here. I think it struggled a little with such small armies, as sometimes little happened on a turn since there were so few order points to go around. But it still strikes a good balance between making an interesting battle while feeling reasonably balanced and not totally arbitrary.

Consequences

Most imporantly, the orcs remain in posession of their capital, and are not out of the game.

The White Fang lose 140 points from their ME army — fairly heavy losses for a victory, around ¼ of their army, but that's not surprising considering how badly outnumbered they were to start with and had all their cavalry and skirmishers routed early on.

The Hammerhead Clan loses 225 points, 30% of their army. That is expensive but not a disaster — the battle was very close, effectively a draw, and the Hammerheads had fewer routed units than the orcs (who had over half of their army routed). If they attack again, these same armies could face off again and with the duergar having only a slightly reduced relative advantage.

999YK Summer: Nymm

The vast wilds of Xen'Drik contain many concealed places and wonders. Giantish ruins are most common — the ruined city of Threnal is merely one of the largest and most grand, but the ruins of smaller settlements are scattered throughout the interior, the remains of an empire that lasted 40,000 years. That empire was strong until the war against the Quori, when the giants unleased the most powerful of the magic taught to them by dragons to shift the alignment of the plains themselves. The backlash on Eberron itself destroyed whole continents, wrecking the giants' own empire in the process — though doubtless saving Eberron by preventing the Quori from crossing from their native plane.

Their slaves, the elves — except for the Sulatar — took advantage of the weakened state of the empire to rebel. Desperate to prevent their civilization from falling, the giants turned once again to their terrible magics. But the dragons would not stand for Eberron being near destroyed just to save the giants: they turned on their former pupils and destroyed the giants' empire, preventing a greater destruction. Some dragons remained in Xen'Drik to oversee the desolation, to ensure that the giants were truly unable to rebuild.

Nymm

Hammerhead Clan: Banner 3 scouts a barren tile. Banner 1 tries to scout the way to besiege the main Orc army, but rolls a scouting event — and rolls two sixes: a dragon lair. And they roll a 4 on the test to wake up the dragons, triggering a Dragonrage.

I roll D6+1=4+1=5 dragons. The way this works in ME is that the dragons do an essentially random walk over the map, placing one dragon in each tile until you run out of dragons. These tiles all then make a test which will result in most of them get burned to the ground.

Dwarves cannot resist a good cave. The Hammerhead scouts had orders to scout a path to the White Fang capital Lagakh Mor, but an order to scout is one that can be interpreted broadly, and the duegar surveyors chose to investigate the unusual cave in the foothills of the Dragon's Maw mountains. The unnattural cold should have warned them that something was afoot, but the duergar were far from home and sensed that there might be something of value of they went deeper. They were rewarded with the sight of a vast underground chamber, icy and misty — but it was already too late, as the magical wards had been activated and the dragons were already stirring within.

Aussircaex and Aussiroth, white dragons that had lain in slumber here for most of 40,000 years, were awakened. The scouts were just the first to perish. The dragons, feeling it necessary to see what was going on in the surrounding area and wanting to intimidate the neighbourhood, flew forth and attacked surrounding settlements. They scoured the surrounding area, destroying two fortresses that they passed. The duergar army encamped nearby was of little interest to them, though — the dwarves are possess only clerical magic, and were clearly not settled there — so the dragons contented themselves with a demonstration of power by flying through the camp and slaying a hundred or so soldiers with blasts of freezing ice, before flying away to the peaks of the Dragon's Maw mountains.

Well, that was pretty bad for the duergar, but it could have been worse — if I had rolled a 5 or 6 instead of a 4 on attacking the tile with their armies in, the armies would have been destroyed by the dragons — which would have upset the whole campaign.

A dragonrage covers the land west of the Dragon's Maw mountains. The fortress just taken by the duergar, and the neighbouring independent fortress, are razed, and the duergar armies take some losses, but the White Fang orcs get escape the destruction.

Meanwhile, banner 2 moves south towards the Sulatar, exploring a barren tile. Banner 4 tries to continue scouting, but the scouts are ambushed by bandits and never return. Banner 8 continues to move south, in case it needs to back up either the operations in the centre or west.

With banners 5 & 7, I made a concious choice not to head for Stormreach. Doing so, given the messy state of affairs with the Sulatar banner 3 already operating down south, might force the Storm Lords to call off their invasion against the Sulatar; and that would bring another near 3000pts of troops into action close to the border — better to let the humans and Sulatar fight it out between them. So instead banner 5 just continues grabbing villages, hoping to weaken the Storm Lords for an attack next year.

White Fang Tribe: Banner 1 scouts out the approaching banner 6, and the news is bad: it's larger than they expected; larger than banner 3 can defend. Darn. The right play is to move banner 2 into the capital to defend it, but they fail their scouting roll! Double darn. So banner 3 moves into the capital instead, but it is going to be smashed by the duergar next turn provided the dice do not betray them.

Storm Lords: Banners 4 and 5 converge, blocking their path for the Sulatar towards Stormreach with a larger force. No scouting mishaps here, fortunately. Banner 3 stays in place to defend the cities here.

Banners 1 & 2 move in to besiege the Sulatar capital in Searing Heights; on the way, their scouts manage to recover some supplies that the Sulatar thought were burned, enabling them to bring more food to the siege. That gives them a good chance of winning. (They rolled a scouting event when trying to retake a village; they rolled found supplies, and rolled a 6 on a D6 for how much was found.)

The Storm Lords know the relative strengths here: 2807pts Storm Lords vs 2325 Sulatar. Direct attack is therefore not going to work early on; instead, they spend Nymm bombarding the city with siege engines — but they roll a 1, gaining no advantage.

Sulatar: Besieged banners 1 & 2 are stuck in the capital defending, and use up precious baggage. With the Hammerheads probing the Storm Lords in the centre of the map, we know that their banner 4 will not be heading towards the siege now; so banner 3 turns north, taking and burning another human village.

End of Nymm.

The southern part of the map burns — it's a warzone, with 7 settlements razed now. The Storm Lords are losing territory everywhere, but have a chance to knock out the Sulatar with the siege of their capital. Meanwhile, the White Fang are in deep trouble and may lose their capital next month.

Battle of Brekkur

999YK, Dravago. An army raised by the Storm Lords tries to retake the village of Brekkur from the Sulatar.

~600 point Kings of War battle report.

Introduction

This battle is part of the Mighty Empires campaign that I have been chronicling on this blog. The Storm Lords' army, once again commanded by Delera Omaren IV, is trying to retake a village seized at the start of the summer by a Sulatar force.

Delera Omaren IV, one of the Storm Lords that rules Stormreach, is personally commanding the army that is hunting down the Sulatar. She has commanded in several small field battles in previous years of the war, though not against the Sulatar. At her command is a force of around 1000; humans are the largest group, but with the usual mix of races typical of human kingdoms in Eberron — gnomes, elves, dwarves, and halflings. Most of her force are Stormreach guards, mostly newer recruits trained during the winter; but around one third of her force are poorly-trained levies recruited from refugees at the Stormreach docks desperate for work — or press-ganged from its slums.

• 2xShield Wall(20) — Stormreach guards
• Militia Mob 1xRegiment(20) 1xTroop(10) — levy
• 1xCrossbowmen(20) — guard crossbows
• 1xMounted Scouts(5) — mounted guard patrol

Defending are a force of around 500 Sulatar drow. They are led by Nadan Zolavar, who has experience fighting the humans from the battle of Cinderfall last year. His drow are experienced warriors, better used to fighting in the wilds of Xen'drik than the Storm Lords' recruits.

• 1xKindred Archers — Sulatar archers
• 1x Kindred Spears — Sulatar warriors
• 1x Silverbreeze Cavalry — Sulatar mounted scouts
• 1x Stormwind Cavalry — Sulatar noble shock cavalry

Although outnumbered, the Sulatar are the stronger force — on paper. Their cavalry gives them more flexibility though.

The Battle

Deployment

The Storm Lords decide to focus on attacking the Sulatar infantry; the infantry are so outnumbered (more than 2:1) that the cavalry will have to come to help them. If the infantry can be swept away then — as at Cinderfall — the cavalry are unlikely to stand.

The Sulatar decide to use the hill for their infantry, anchoring their left flank on the woods on the downslope. On the right, their cavalry have a lot of work to do.

The Storm Lords win the initiative roll and choose to go first — they want to rush the enemy main line.

Turn 1

Delera wastes no time in ordering her infantry to march forward to seize the hill in the centre of the battlefield. If her troops can establish themselves there, they have good control of the field; the Sulatar will surely contest it, and the fight there should be decisive. Only her right flank can advance rapidly though, as the rest of the infantry have to pick their way out of the gully that crosses their part of the battlefield.

The Sulatar archers appear before them, emerging onto the crest of the hill where they will make their stand. Immediately the skilled drow archers begin raining arrows on the leading guard regiment, causing some casualties and disorder. Meanwhile, on the Sulatar right, their light mounted archers sweep towards the Stormreach guard patrol holding the enemy flank, their arrows causing losses for the guards, but more importantly screening the flank of the heavy cavalry which takes up position to harry the Storm Lords' advancing infantry.

Turn 2

The Stormreach patrol cavalry meet the advance of the Sulatar mounted archers by charging and engaging in melee, but they cause few casualties. The infantry just keeps advancing; there is a troop of levies making their way through the woods on the right in a flanking move, while a larger force of levies advances on the Sulatar archers and a regiment of guards moves up to meet the elven spearmen. The crossbowmen are holding back as a reserve, and the other unit of guards is sheilding against the Sulatar cavalry.

The drow archers turn their attention to the advancing levies, and as the range closes, the veteran archers start picking off targets with deadly accuracy. Their formation soon collapses and the survivors turn and flee. To the left of the archers, the drow spearmen charge the guards that have just crested the hill, hitting them just as the levies to their left start to flee; the guards, already disrupted by the earlier fire of the archers, take heavy losses and also break and run.

Meanwhile, the cavalry charge into the other block of guardsmen, hitting them at the gallop in the open — assisted by the light cavalry, which breaks away from the fight with the guard patrol and charges into the flank of the exposed block of guards. The guards take heavy casualties and their formation is badly disrupted, but they stand their ground.

Turn 3

Things are going badly for  the Storm Lords. Half of their infantry has been driven off with few losses by the Sulatar line on the hill. Their crossbowmen now begin shooting into the formation of Sulatar spearmen advancing down the hill, causing some losses but not slowing their advance. The spearmen charge into them, causing heavy losses and quickly routing them also.

The patrol cavalry charge into the rear of the Sulatar horse archers, causing losses but failing to break their formation.

The guardsmen in the centre cause some losses to the Sulatar heavy cavalry, but their formation is broken and, with the armoured drow knights riding through their formation hewing down guards left and right, the remaining guards break and flee.

The levies in the wood advance to the edge, but are met by a hail of arrows from the advancing archers, and wisely decide to halt their advance and instead beat a hasty retreat. The battle is clearly over — the Storm Lords have little left.

Post-Battle Analysis

The Storm Lords got mangled once again by the Sulatar archery line, but this time they did not have the numbers to break it. Instead their army is comprehensively routed.

It should be noted that this is too small a battle to be considered a reasonable test of the KoW rules. I like the Kings of War fluff, but it still seems to me like a system designed to give an excuse for marching around those big beautiful blocks of Warhammer miniatures (and don't get me wrong, one should definitely have an excuse to do that!) on a table rather than producing an interesting wargame. It is certainly quick and decisive, but battles seem to dissolve into a pile-in where everyone tries to charge every round to get their attacks in. I may be missing something. I wanted to give it another go as I own and like the rulebook, but I have not really had a battle that felt satisfactory using these rules.

Consequences

KoW is a more Warhammer-like system which tends to have very high casualties, so I will follow the ME rules for resolving consequences for Warhammer — just halve the casualties for both sides. (Technically, I should have allowed the Storm Lords to get tabled, but that's dull). That gives 210 points of losses for the Storm Lords, and 60 points lost for the Sulatar.

The Storm Lords' attempt to retake Brekkur is repulsed and the Sulatar remain in place there.

999YK Summer: Eyre, Dravago

Summary

A quick summary before we go into the summer turns

			Storm Lords	White Fang Tribe	Hammerhead Clan	Sulatar
			Human	Orcs & Goblins	Duergar	Drow
997YK	Start	Revenue	10	7	8	7
	Summer start	Troops	4000	2000	3700	2700
	Summer	Campaigning gains/(losses)	-530	20	-30	-530
	Winter Start	Troops	3470	2020	3670	2170
		Potential Revenue	29	20	30	16
998YK	Summer start	Troops	4187	3520	5370	2870
	Summer	Campaigning gains/(losses)	-980	-733	-520	-545
	Winter start	Troops	3207	2787	4850	2325
		Potential Revenue	35	20	39	13
	Winter gains/(losses)		0	-1400	-530	0
999YK	Troops to deploy		4607	2787	7220	2925

Summer

Eyre

Hammerhead Clan: Banners 1,3 and 6 advance towards the White Fang capital, seizing two villages from the White Fang and one from the Storm Lords. Banner 2 gets delayed by bad weather. Banner 4 scouts yet another fortress in the north. Banner 8 starts moving up to support the front line, and banners 5 and 7 swap places with 5 moving into Storm Lords' territory, stealing a village.

White Fang Tribe: Banners 1 and 2 retreat towards the capital, intending to hold Mazorn (the city just east of the capital) and perhaps delay/divert the main attack. Banner 3 moves towards the capital, to help defend it.

Storm Lords: Banner 3 & 5 hold position, waiting to see what their potential attackers will do. Banner 4 advances towards banner 5. Banners 1 & 2 have to miss this turn due to sabotage.

Sulatar: Adopting a scorched-earth policy, banner 1 burns down the village west of the capital, as well as reclaiming a village from the Hammerhead Clan. Banner 3 advances into the Storm Lords' territory near Stormreach, trying to draw away more of their armies from Searing Heights — something of a desperate move here, hoping to delay things until the Hammerhead's introduce complications. And the other banners stay in place near the capital; banner 2 reclaims a village from the Storm Lords.

End of Eyre

Dravago

Hammerhead Clan: Banners 1 & 3 — the main invasion force against the White Fang orcs — advance and capture the fortress two tiles east of the enemy capital. There is a brief siege, and the garrison is overrun, though it costs the duergar 200 points of troops. Behind them, banner 6 also moves south.

Banner 2 moves west, aiming to pick up territory near the Sulatar. Banner 4 scouts a barren tile in the north. Banner 5 grabs a village from the Storm Lords, and banner 7 rolls badly and is stuck.

White Fang Tribe: Banner 4 moves into Mazorn and merges into banner 1. The defensive army is in place, and the enemy will be here next month. Meanwhile banner 3 moves up to fend off the duergar army approaching from the north.

Storm Lords: Banners 1 & 2 march east up into the mountains of Searing Heights. One of their scouting forces finds a merchant caravan and retrieves and extra 3 baggage — bad news for the Sulatar, the coming army has a lot more food to sustain a siege than the defenders do.

Banner 3 retakes a village from the duergar. Banner 4 gets a bad scouting roll, and rolls a 12 (on 2d6) for the effect — the scouts stumbled into a dragon's lair. Fortunately, their next dice roll is low so they do not wake the dragons; triggering a dragon rampage only two tiles from their capital would have been very, very bad indeed. With its support delayed, banner 5 decides to go it alone against the Sulatar army that just crossed the border; and they fail to scout the strength of their enemy, so they go ahead without knowing that they are slightly outnumbered. They are repulsed with heavy losses.

Sulatar: Banners 1, 2, & 4 grouped in the capital ready for the siege (regrouping into two banners). Banner 3 moved further south, into the village of Hruggagek — and burned it to the ground (as they cannot hope to hold on to territory this far south.

Position Summary

End of Dravago

In the east:
Storm Lords banner 1 (1500pts) and banner 2 (1307pts) approaching the Sulatar capital in Searing Heights.
Sulatar banner 1 (1500pts) and banner 2 (825pts) defending the capital.

In the south:
Storm Lords banner 4 (500pts) and banner 5 (290pts, recovering from a defeat at Brekkur)
Sulatar banner 3 (540pts)

In the west:
Duergar banner 1 (1500pts) and banner 3 (1300pts); and banner 6 approaching from further north (800pts)
White Fang banner 1 (1500pts) and banner 2 (787pts); and banner 3 approaching from the south (500pts)

In the centre:
Storm Lords banner 3 (800pts)
Duergar banner 5 (800pts) and banner 7 (920pts)

998YK, Winter End

Deployment

Hammerhead Clan: 3000 points of troops are deployed at Threnal, and the main goal for 999YK will be to capture the White Fang's capital city to the south-west. This army alone outnumbers all of the White Fang Tribe's remaining forces. Apart from that, there are banners posted at Zolifar and Logoria, to hold onto the central and east parts of their empire; a banner posted at the city in the west bordering the White Fang, to shield the west against attack (and this should be able to move to reinforce the main attack against the White Fang, capturing territory as it goes), and a larger banner in the centre to attack or defend against the Storm Lords.

Sulatar: most of the Sulatar troops are posted in and around the capital, expecting another attack. One banner is placed across the river to threaten the Storm Lords' territory and hopefully draw off some of their attacking forces.

Storm Lords: 2800 points of troops are placed just south of Zolifar in the centre of the map, aiming to strike east to seize the Sulatar capital. A smaller army is placed along the river further south-east, to protect against any attempted counterattack against the capital or other border settlements, as well as a banner in the capital Stormreach itself. And a banner of 800 points is placed in the northmost city that they hold in the centre, to shield against any Hammerhead attack.

White Fang Tribe: 500 points are placed in the port in the south, to shield against any attack by the Storm Lords. The other forces are placed between Threnal and the capital; the plan has to be a scorched-earth policy of burning villages before the Hammerheads can take them, to try to reduce the duergar's supplies before they are able to lay siege.

Espionage

Hammerhead: 5 spies, 3 agents, 3 saboteurs

Storm Lords: 1 spy, 3 agents, 2 saboteurs

Sulatar: 1 agents, 1 saboteur

White Fang Clan: 1 agent

This continues to be mostly a duel between House Phiarlan, working for the Storm Lords, and House Thuranni working for the Hammerhead Clan; neither of the other two empires have enough money to spare to spend much except on defensive espionage.

Sadly I do not have the physical map to put all the tokens on for this winter. The espionage activity this year is concentrated in three areas, so let's have 3 mini-maps. On these maps:
Agent
Saboteur
Spy
(no assassins were placed)

The west: On a dry, windy night, agents of House Thuranni — currently employed by the Hammerhead Clan — evade the guards and set fire to several large buildings in the centre of the village of Grisdias. Soon the whole settlement is ablaze, and by morning few buildings remain standing. The nearby White Fang army camp is not affected, but they will no longer be able to draw on the local village for supplies.

The Storm Lords sent a saboteur to try to destroy Hammerhead supplies at Threnal — they may no longer be allies of the White Fang, but they do not want the Hammerhead Clan invasion to be to easy — but he was caught by Hammerhead agents there.

The south: The Hammerhead Clan hired several saboteurs and spies to try to destroy the Storm Lords' cities and ships. But agents of House Phiarlan, contracted by the Storm Lords, intercept the enemy agents there and have them seized by the city guard before they can do any harm.

(Storm Lords rolled a 3 for their agent in Stormreach, removing all Hammerhead operatives; the Hammerheads got to activate their other saboteur, but rolled a 1.)

The east: And another Hammerhead spy trying to assess the Storm Lords' defences nearer the border was also caught after House Phiarlan passed information to the Storm Lords. (Storm Lords rolled a 6 for their spy near Zolifar; they also learned the strength of Hammerhead banner 5.)

But a Sulatar saboteur manages to disrupt the Storm Lords supply train brining supplies to their staging area for the year's invasion. This will force their banners to delay for one month there while they sort out the mess. And a House Thuranni agent does manage to infiltrate the Storm Lords' camp and give a detailed report to the Hammerhead Clan on the army's composition.

Spring Equinox

Storm Lords: cast Raise Dead against Sulatar banner 4. The spell goes off, but only 100 points of undead are raised.

White Fang Tribe: also get Raise Dead (after rejecting Abundance). They get only 200 points though, which is also fairly useless.

Hammerhead Clan: Quake, for the second year running. It is a long way to cast it on the White Fang capital, but it would be really useful if it went off, so they try it — and roll a double six, getting it. That really messes up the White Fang's defence — they will have to face the duergar in open battle now.

Sulatar: reject Portents of Terror and get Quake. Damn, that's not very useful for a defensive situation. Their best move I think is to use it against Stormreach — the Storm Lords will need to play more defensively if their capital is vulnerable to attack. It is still a somewhat desperate move, as it will only be really effective if the Hammerhead army moves towards Stormreach.

Spring Equinox 999YK