In the Ruins of Threnal

998YK, Spring Equinox.

It began with the earthquake. As the ruins of the old giantish city of Threnal began to shake, huge blocks of stone, crafted by giants 50,000 years ago, tumbled amidst the newer goblin settlement and the orc army encamped around it. The goblins had patched the many gaps in the old walls, but these repairs were poor quality and there were soon many breaches that would take months to repair.

As Commander Gravnok sought to maintain order among his own orcs, and among his goblin and troll allies, little did he know that the Hammerhead army were already marching up the valley to the city. The goblin scouts took one look at the vast army marching up the valley and fled into the mountains. By the time the orcs realized that the enemy were upon them, the duergar has already closed the pass south, and the orcs had no choice but to fight.

~50 point Ancients D6 battle report, orcs vs dwarves.

Introduction

This is a battle is part of my Eberron-themed solo Mighty Empires (ME) campaign, all of which is being reported on this blog. The orcs are having a terrible start to the year — the Hammerhead Clan used Quake as their equinox magic and rendered the defences at Threnal useless, and the orcs then rolled a 1 on their attempt to withdraw before the advancing duergar — so they have to fight, despite having only ~2120 points against the duergar's 2970 (in ME). Threnal is a ruined city from the Age of Giants, long abandoned and now with a rather smaller goblin city built in the centre of the giantish ruins. Due to the earthquake, the city offers no fortification bonus to its defenders.

I am using Ancients D6 to wargame the battle itself, and this will be my first really big battle with that system — I am keen to see how it performs. Let's look at the armies.

Commander Gravnok of the White Fang Tribe has over 4000 warriors at his command, mostly encamped in the outer ruins of the city. But his host is of variable quality. Over 1500 are goblins, weak fighters that dislike a fair fight. His main shock troops are a tribe of 300 trolls, and 200 orc worg riders. The rest of the host are orc infantry — mobile and aggressive, but not as reliable as the duergar.

• 6xLI Orc warrior warbands
• 1xLI superior Orc warrior warband
• 2xLI Orc archers
• 1xHC Orc worg riders
• 2xLC Goblin wolf riders
• 1xSM Trolls
• 3xMob Goblin tribes

The backbone of the Hammerhead Clan army is around 4000 duergar infantry, well armoured and fighting in close formation, mostly equipped with axes and warhammers — though some wield heavy picks, adapted from their customary mining tools. To compensate for the lack of cavalry, some of these infantry blocks are equipped with long pikes. The duergar do not favour ranged combat but there are some crossbowmen in the army.

• 8xHI Duergar warriors
• 4xHI Duergar pike warriors
• 2xHI Duergar iron fists (hammer & pick, for armour piercing)
• 2xLI Duergar crossbowmen

In charge is of the duergar is Commander Nartar, who has redeemed himself for his failure to take the city last year with his brilliant move to trap the orcs here into a battle. The Hammerhead empire has expanded well beyond their well-fortified base in the Black Anvil Mountains, and so at his disposal are some auxiliary troops drawn from subject territories of their empire: 400 Vulkoorim (drow) tribesmen, who are better missile troops than the duergar, more mobile, and more used to fighting in the plains and forests of Xen'Drik.

• 1xLI Vulkoorim hunters with longbows
• 1xSK Vulkoorim scouts with longbows

The Battle

I gave the orcs the choice to either fight in the ruins, or outside. Outside would mean more open terrain, where their cavalry and light infantry would benefit from their greater mobility — but the ruins offer a more compelling advantage I think.

Deployment

The White Fang need to make the most of the ruins, concentrating their troops in the south and expecting to hold their ground amid the ruins here. Their warbands are not as adversely affected by fighting in broken ground as the duergar will be, and as units get no support in broken ground, the duergar's greater numbers will not immediately affect the fighting. The downside is that their cavalry advantage is largely wasted — their cavalry is out in the north, unsupported, and the duergar can easily guess where it will be and counter accordingly.

So the Hammerhead Clan put their pikemen in a block on the left, shielding the flank of their main force from the cavalry. The drow scouts are on either flank, to screen against the enemy light cavalry and to cover the advance of the infantry. Most of the duergar are in a block in the centre, from where they will march up and try to push through the ruins — if they can bring their numbers to bear then they should win easily. The duergar crossbowmen will lead the way and screen the main attack.

Turns 1-4

End of turn 3.

The Duergar advance, maintaining a solid line of dwarven warriors while screening with the vulkoorim scouts and crossbowmen.

The orcs try to move their cavalry in the north wide to threaten the flank and hopefully draw off some of the enemy numbers. There were exchanges of fire between the drow hunters and the goblin wolf riders here, but casualties were light and the captains on both sides were able to maintain order.

In the south, the vulkoorim hunters were better placed to fend off the goblin horse; with the cover provided by the ruins, they were well protected and after some well-placed volleys, the goblins fled for the hills.

End of turn 4.

But in the center was the toughest action. The duergar crossbowmen were able to cause some losses, but the orcs had good cover and the orc general was able to keep his men in order. The dwarven crossbowmen were able to screen the advance for much of the way, but their losses were heavier — one unit pulled out of the advance in disorder, and the other was broken up by fire from the orcs. With the screening force dispersed, the orcs began to inflict losses on the mass of dwarves approaching.

Turn 5.

Turns 5 & 6

Commander Nartar seized the initiative, ordering his warriors in the centre to charge. The orc archers continued to pour fire into the massed duergar as they rushed into the ruins, causing some losses, but soon the duergar were among them. On the right the archers broke and fled, but on the left they held their ground for a while and slowed the duergar advance.

Seeing the group on the right break, Commander Gravnok moved a warparty of orcs forward to meet the advancing Hammerheads. Amidst the ruins, the massed duergar were not able to bring their superior formation and numbers to bear, and were beaten back to the ferocity of the orc warriors — particularly since the orc wizards were with the orcs here in the centre, and had enchanted them into a magical frenzy.

Turn 6.

On the orc left, one tribe of goblins turned ready to head into the ruins in the centre if the duergar continued their advance, and the trolls moved forward to cover their flank. The duergar here were closing in also though, and their captain decided to close with the trolls in the open ground here. But the charge met with fierce resistance from the trolls, whose natural toughness and great strength exceeded even that of the sturdy duergar, pushing them back and breaking up some of the attacking force. While Hammerhead warriors continued to engage the trolls, more duergar moved to cover their flanks, while the drow poured fire into the goblins in the ruins ahead of them inflicting heavy losses.

On the orc right, the White Fang captain there saw an opportunity and raced his worg riders around the flank of the Hammerhead pikemen that were trying to keep them at bay. The Hammerheads had retained a unit of crossbowmen here, and the orc cavalry made for them — but they took a volley from the Hammerhead's first, and the charge failed to break the sturdy duergar, who instead cut their way into the cavalry with their hammers, driving them back. 

Battle status: White Fang down 8 points, Hammerheads down 6 points.

Turn 7

The Hammerhead's have an opportunity to destroy the White Fang heavy cavalry in the north while it is reeling back from its failed charge against the crossbowmen. The crossbowmen shoot at the retreating cavalry, as a unit of pikemen charges up from the side and engages them. The worg riders' losses are heavy and they break and run.

Turn 7.

Meanwhile, the duergar summoners finally make their roll to summon a group of lesser elementals. A group of sand mephits are brought into play, and the Hammerhead summoners direct them to sweep around to the back of the ruins. This frees up the pikemen to turn and prepare to enter the ruins from the north side, where battle still rages between the orc and duergar warriors.

On the south side of the ruins, the Hammerhead warriors charge forward to meet the next body of orcs — but are countercharged in the flank by more goblins pouring in from the south. The orcs are being pushed back here, but it could go either way.

Commander Nartar sees the trolls pushing back his infantry, and commits his own unit, his reserve, to support them. They turn the tide, pushing the trolls back but not breaking them. Meanwhile, the orc captain on this side orders the goblins forward to try to get into the flank of this formation — the duergar infantry there meet the charge but are pushed back by the sheer number of goblins.

Battle status: White Fang down 13 points, Hammerheads down 6 points.

Turn 8 & 9

The Hammerhead's greater numbers are starting to tell. With most of their cavalry gone (the last unit of Goblin wolf riders is being screened away from the battle by the drow scouts and some pikemen), the White Fang's forces are engaged in an increasingly desperate holding action amidst the ruins. The Hammerhead pikemen now join the fray at the north end of the ruins; the duergar warriors already here have suffered heavy losses, with one regiment breaking up and fleeing the fight; but the orcs are nearly spent here.

The orcs charge in again at the southern side of the central ruins, but are pushed back again by the Hammerheads. Commander Gravnok bring his own bodyguard around and joins in the fight here, hitting the duergar in the flank again. The goblin flank charge is doing damage, and the Hammerheads are paying dearly for their hold here, but they are holding. The sand mephits also engage and rout the orcs at the east side of the ruins.

In the south, the Hammerhead infantry tries to surround the goblins at the edge of the ruins here. The orc captain orders forward a warband to support them, but the Hammerheads are tougher fighters and overwhelm them, routing the orcs and goblins. The trolls are still doing a lot of damage though, routing one of the duergar units facing it.

Battle status turn 8: White Fang down 17, Hammerheads down 9 points.

Battle status turn 9: White Fang down 23, Hammerheads down 13 points.

And as the White Fang have had more than half of their army routed, that is battle over.

Post-Battle Analysis

The White Fang's core plan worked out okay — they held on to the ruins in the centre, and made the blocks of Hammerhead infantry pay dearly for contesting it. The difficult terrain denied the duergar the benefit of their larger numbers and better organized troops.

But almost everything else went poorly. The orc right, badly outnumbered, tried a bold flank rush and it all went awry — the duergar crossbowmen holding against the heavy cavalry charge meant that the only powerful unit on this flank was surrounded and routed early. This left large numbers of duergar pikemen in place to sweep around and into the ruins from the north, and numbers would eventually tell against the orcs there.

On the orc's left, their tribes of goblins did poorly in the open against the drow and duergar and were broken up with minimal cost. The trolls did inflict some serious losses, and there was a race going on here for the Hammerhead troops to clear away the units on the flanks and get more troops into the side of the trolls to overwhelm them.

Ancients D6

Ancients D6 continues to work well. I will continue to try other systems, but this is one I can certainly return to. It is an interesting half-way point between a command-point system like DBA and an 'attrition-style' accumulating damage/disorder system like Kings of War.

Consequences

The Hammerhead Clan now controls Threnal, and its armies are now encamped there. They took 390 points of losses in ME terms, so about 13% losses for these armies.

The way I am calculating losses in ME terms is to halve all losses (routed units) for the winner, reduce by 1/3rd all losses for the loser, plus ~5% losses for each point of disruption taken for non-routed units during the fight. This reduction represents routed units regrouping after the battle, and is similar to how ME suggests that losses in Warhammer Fantasy Battle are translated back to the ME game.

The White Fang take 733 points of losses, which is about 1/3rd of their army lost (and about 1/5th of their total armies). It was an expensive day for the orcs amid the ruins. Their armies regroup in the next tile, and will need their own reserves and the Storm Lords' reinforcements to aid them to make it an even fight next time. Of course, the Hammerheads might strike before they can concentrate their forces…

997YK, Winter End

Deployment

Winter is nearly over. Armies form and march to the frontiers, ready for another season of war.

White Fang Tribe: The strategic situation will be simple — lots of dwarves on the border, and little to prevent them just marching straight up to the capital. The orcs could just abandon the frontier and accept a siege, but they have a counteracting threat — if the duergar just march past their army heading for the capital, then the orcs can do the same — at Threnal they are only 4 tiles from the duergar capital. So, the orcs put around 1400 points in defensive positions, half in the capital, half in a fortress nearby. The rest are high in the Dragon's Teeth mountains at Threnal, hoping to hold that city.

Hammerhead Clan: The duergar hold a lot a fortress in the centre of the map that would be a shame to give up cheaply, so a garrison banner goes there. And another garrison banner for the fortress on the lake in the north-east, to fend off Sulatar scouts. They, like the White Fang, need a garrison and supporting armies to defend the capital, in case the orcs try to lunge past the armies on the front line. But the main concentration is in the village tile, in the plain below Threnal — banners 1 & 6 with nearly 3000 points.

Duergar and orc armies prepare to battle for control of the Dragon's Teeth mountains; human and orc spies try to investigate and sabotage the approaching army. A human army prepares to come in from the east.
Any battle here will be nearly twice as big as the battles in year 1, and we could see one very early.

Sulatar: The Storm Lords cannot afford to ignore the duergar, so probably the full force of their army is not going to hit the Sulatar this year. So I think they can risk sending off a scout army again; the duergar really do have a terrible terrain disadvantage in the north (their armies have no clear winter retreat path from much of this area) and if the Sulatar are going to catch up they need to claim that territory. Everything else will be in Searing Heights defending the capital.

Storm Lords: The human empire has the hardest deployment problem. If they let the duergar crush the orcs this year, they may get too far ahead for anyone to beat; so banner 5 with 700 points is heading for Threnal or the orc capital, depending what unfolds. They also have to defend  their capital, in case the Sulatar try to sneak an army past to deal a blow to the heart of the empire. And they have those two cities in the south centre to defend, so normally I would put 500 points there each at least — but that would leave only around 1800 points to face the Sulatar, which is not enough. Instead I go for: 800 points in banner 3 in one of those cities, hopefully able to shield the other as well; 700 points in banner 4 in the capital; and 2000 points in banners 1 and 2 ranged against the Sulatar. They are still outnumbered by the Sulatar, but the Sulatar are hampered by needing to shield their capital, and the other armies can come forward to help as the season progresses.

(top) Sulatar armies defending Searing Heights against the Storm Lords.
(bottom) Storm Lord agents try to intercept enemy spies and saboteurs.

Espionage

Now here is a fun, albeit not well thought out mini-game. Each side gets to buy agents and deploy them on the map, to carry out sabotage (to destroy enemy settlements/ships/supplies), spying (on enemy troop deployments), assassins, and agents to try to intercept enemy spies. I don't think it is very practical to show here exactly where every agent goes, but you can see where all the operatives are from the pictures above and I will just describe the results.

I am hacking this part of the game fairly heavily. But I don't mind that, as it never quite worked in the original game, although the concept is cool. In particular, I am reducing all troop losses from espionage by a factor of 10: in the rules as written, an assassin can kill 500 points of troops in an attack, which makes sense when Warhammer Fantasy Battle is your system (a hero can easily be 500 points), but in my campaign where 500 points is about 500 men, it would be silly. This does render assassins not worth the cost; I may try to rewrite the rules for them later. I am also playing all tiles face-up for this solo game, since there's no point hiding from myself and I want the images here to show what is going on.

Storm Lords: They play their agents at home first, and manage to round up all the enemy agents in Stormreach (2 saboteurs and two Sulatar spies). Sabotage works well against ships, and the ships are valuable. But their spying on the duergar gets nothing.

Hammerhead Clan: Spied the size of Storm Lords' banner 3, and White Fang banners 1 & 2 in Threnal and their banner 4. Their agent protecting their main army caught the most dangerous operative, a saboteur from the Storm Lords, but missed the 3 spies; however none of the spies manage to spy on their army there.

White Fang, Sulatar: I think the Sulatar caught one spy, but apart from that nothing worked for them.

The duergar just keep piling up advantages — now they know the sizes of all the opposing armies in the main theatre of war.

Spring Equinox

Another phase for big magic before the armies set off.

Storm Lords: Portents of Terror, and cast it on the west Sulatar army in Searing Heights (or rather on the tile that it occupies). The spell immobilises any army in that tile on a D6 roll of 1-3 each turn. That might mess with the Sulatar's defensive plans.

White Fang Tribe: Chaos Void. They use it on the barren tile adjacent to their own capital; chaos void consumes the tile in a malevolent darkness that consumes any army that tries to cross the tile. That will force the duergar to come at the capital via the adjacent city, which is more defensible.

Hammerhead Clan: Quake. Handy — this causes an earthquake which does so much damage to the walls of a city or fortress that it is useless for defence. Perfect to cast against Threnal; now the orcs have to fight in the open.

Sulatar: They roll Rot initially, which destroys all baggage in a tile — that can be a very handy spell, but the closest Storm Lord armies do not have much baggage, and the further ones are not really threatened by anything. So they reroll and get Quake: which they cast on Stormreach, hoping that it might force the humans to play more defensively.

997YK Winter

Mighty Empires defines a whole series of things that happen in between campaigning seasons. It's a really nice and clear part of the rulebook.

Autumn Equinox

The equinoxes allow powerful, empire affecting magic to be cast. They are the one time that magic gets involved in the strategic game. Each empire that has a banner of at least 500 points in its capital gets to cast one spell — you don't get to choose, you have to roll and get one reroll if you do not like the first one. You also have to roll to cast — it gets harder to cast a spell the further away the target is.

White Fang Tribe: Initially they roll Prosper, which rebuilds a razed settlement. That would be useful for the ruined city that they found — but they go for a reroll, hoping to get something better. They get Break Siege, which is not very useful, and try to cast it against one of the unoccupied Duergar fortresses, but fail to cast the spell.

Hammerhead Clan: Initially they also roll Prosper, which is no use to them at all as they own no razed settlements. So they reroll and get Shrouding Mists, which they use to get their banner number 2 home safely — it was stuck on the wrong side of the river and would have had to make a winter retreat otherwise.

Winter Quarters

Every army is recalled to its home realm. If any army does not have an unobstructed path back, it has to make a roll to see if everyone makes it back — but only duergar banner 2 was blocked, and magic just fixed that.

Winter Events

Storm Lords: Plague. Plague strikes one of the villages where an army is stationed for the winter. Banner 4 is lost — ~1000 points of troops gone.

White Fang Clan: Special Tribute. D6 extra revenue: the orcs collect +2 gold in taxes this year.

Hammerhead Clan: Peasant Revolt. Revenue reduced by D6; -1 revenue this year.

Sulatar: Raids. Every border settlement has to roll a D6, and on a 4+ the settlement is too affected by border raids to provide taxes this year. The Sulatar have a lot bordering the Storm Lords; the result is -4 revenue this year.

Diplomacy

Normally, this would be the official moment for players to negotiate and decide alliances for the year ahead. Since this is a solo game, I rolled some dice instead. I will do a separate post at some point about rule additions that I am using — I am still working out how to handle some of the stuff in the game that either does not work well solo, or does not work well with wargaming the battles. For now, suffice to say that I banned any empires allying if they would in total have more than half of the armies and more than half of the revenue — it would be entirely legit in an ME game with players to gang up and crush if you wanted, but pointless for what I am doing.

The dice decreed that the White Fang and Storm Lords should ally. This should be interesting — they have slightly more than half of the revenue, but definitely less than half of the armies, and they should still have less than half after spending their revenue. I think the Storm Lords are going to have to help out the White Fang — if they just leave them to face the dwarves alone, the orcs are going to be gone fast.

The second part of diplomacy is trying to gain favour with independents. An empire can spend one gold for a chance to convert an independent into a part of their empire. Usually this is only worthwhile for fortresses and cities. The independent city on the west coast would normally be a tempting target, but the orcs would have trouble defending it so I think they are better off leaving it independent for now.

Construction, Recovery, Recruitment, Baggage

1 gold spent = 100 points of armies.

Storm Lords: They spend 17 gold on troops, 6 on baggage — they need a decent amount of baggage as I think their cities in the middle need a viable garrison, as does the capital; and there may be an opportunity to besiege the Sulatar capital this year. I am leaving 5 gold for espionage too, mainly to defend the fleet.

White Fang Tribe: Only 3 baggage needed, and 3 for espionage should be sufficient — the dwarves are starting a long way from the orc capital, so there is no need to plan for a long siege, and I think with the alliance in place that the orcs are able to fight the dwarves rather than just play defensive. And I rolled a 5 to recover that ruined city, so they only have to spend one gold to rebuild it — that seems worth it. That leaves 15 gold for armies.

Hammerhead Clan: 7 baggage (they need to hold a fortress in the centre, and probably need baggage for attacking Threnal). 5 espionage, as it seems worth trying to sabotage the Storm Lords' fleet. And 17 on armies.

Sulatar: The closeness of the enemy to the capital means they have to spend at least 3 on baggage — they might be in for a long siege in the second half of the year. Even spending as little as 3 means that I will have to seek a field battle to wear down the Storm Lords first. And 2 on espionage is really the minimum, I want to defend my capital and have some other play. That leaves just 7 for armies.

Winter Summary

Before we go back to the map for deployment, here is the summary of spending & armies with most of the winter action done.

		Storm Lords	White Fang Tribe	Hammerhead Clan	Sulatar
		Human	Orcs & Goblins	Duergar	Drow
Start	Revenue	10	7	8	7
Summer start	Troops	4000	2000	3700	2700
Summer	Campaigning losses	530	-20	30	530
Winter Start	Troops	3470	2020	3670	2170
	Potential Revenue	29	20	30	16
Winter	Actual Revenue	28	22	29	12
Spending	Diplomacy	0	0	0	0
	Troops	17	15	17	7
	Construction & Recovery	0	1	0	0
	Baggage	6	3	7	3
	Espionage	5	3	5	2
Deployed	Troops	4187	3520	5370	2870

997YK Summer: Results

"The orcs stopped advancing and have consolidated their position at Threnal", the captain said.

"Because our forces were too slow to cross the plain." King Burdouc Hammerhead's voice boomed in the subterranean throne room. Sat on a large but unadorned throne of stone raised in the centre of the cavern, the duergar king would seem austere to an outsider — but his black crown shone with a faint green sheen in the torchlight, revealing to any dwarf that it was forged from adamantine. "Commander Nartar could have seized the city if he had struck faster."

"The city will be ours next year, as your grace wills," the captain replied.

"And what of the Storm Lords?"

"They have consolidated their hold of region around Stormreach, but made little progress beyond the river — the Drow were able to drive them back from Searing Heights. House Thuranni has several spies in place inside Lordsmarch Palace, and they say that the Storm Lords are already training more soldiers, and recruiting more mercenaries from Khorvaire."

"They will be coming for us — if not next year, then the year after." The king's voice boomed again, reminding the nobles present that their enemy was not resting. "But we will take the fight to them first."

997YK, Summer: Barrakas, Rhaan

Barrakas

Start of turn 5, Barrakas

Storm Lords: first, the easy choice: banner 6 attacks the independent village to the south-west, winning a battle with troglodytes and taking the tile. They could not scout new ground in any other direction, so clearing this village gains them a tile and gives more tiles to scout next turn. Banner 3 tries to scout but bad weather prevents it from moving. Banners 4 and 5 scout west and find a fortress and another independent village; banner 5 will stay in place to block the Sulatar from stealing the tile on their turn. Finally, banner 1 has the hardest choice — if it stays in Searing Heights, it is likely to get attacked again by the Sulatar — and there seems little reason to risk the losses. So they move down to the river, taking another Sulatar village but accepting that the Sulatar will probably move forward again and steal some back.

White Fang Tribe: Banner 2 is staying in the city of Threnal, hoping to defend it against the approaching duergar; it sends out scouts as well, but they get slaughtered by some local tribe. Banner 1 is heading for the city to reinforce the defenders, scouting a village (fortunately not meeting any obstacle, or the city might have been in serious trouble). Banner 4 scouts and moves into a barren mountain tile. Banner 3 searches the barren tile beside the capital — and finds a ruined city. There is a small goblin tribe inside, which choose to join them — +100 points for banner 3.

Side note: I am using the rules for searching barren tiles, originally in White Dwarf issue 131 but also included in the Warmaster edition of the ME rules. I am playing with some local additions though — stuff I wrote down 20 years ago and have had sitting in a file inside my ME box since then. We will see if any of it is any good.

Hammerhead Clan: Banner 1 scouts towards Threnal, finding a barren tile and deciding to move into it despite having no food: getting a foothold close to Threnal in preparation for a siege next year is important. Banner 5 searches the mountains near the capital and finds a gold mine (yes, really). Banner 2 moves ready to cross the river next month, and banner 3 decides to be bold and scouts downriver towards the Storm Lords — and finds a fortress! That is a good forward post for a fortress, a jumping off point for a future attack on either of the eastern empires.

Sulatar: Sulatar banner 5 has been sent on a death march into barren lands — it has no baggage left. So it has to roll a subsistence check, and in keeping with the Sulatar's great luck so far, they roll a 1 — that's D6x50 points lost to hunger and disease. Fortunately I only roll a 2 for that, so -100 points for banner 5. They then scout along the coast and find another barren tile, which they move into (they have to move or stay, so they get to starve again next round either way).

Banners 1 & 2 pursue the retreating humans, hoping to either bring them to battle or retake more villages. And banner 3 moves into the barren tile by the capital, where it can either steal villages next turn or do a tile search.

End of turn 5, Barrakas.

Rhaan

We are heading into autumn in Eberron now, and this is the last move of the campaigning season. This is the last chance to seize territory this year.

Storm Lords: Banners 4 & 5 decide to join up and attack the independent village to the east. This is not optimal short-term, but I know it is rare to get a chance to deal with out-of-the-way independents so I decide they should take the opportunity now. The independents roll 400 points against the humans' 1000 — so no battle report for that one, I resolved it quickly and the humans trampled the independents with only 17 points of casualties.

Banners 1 & 2 scout neighbouring tiles, and stay in place (risking a possible Sulatar advance).  Banner 6 scouts an independent village on the border with the White Fang, and banner 3 scouts a banner highland tile in the Dragon's Maw mountains.

White Fang Tribe: Banner 1 joins banner 2 in Threnal, making a solid defence against the dwarves approaching. Banner 2 tries to scout but the scouts never return. Banner 3 takes losses due to starvation, losing 80 points. And banner 4 searches a barren highland tile without result.

Hammerhead Clan: Banner 1 takes 10 points of losses from hunger (in a barren tile with no baggage). Banner 5 heads back to the capital. Banners 1,3,4 all scout villages (stealing one from the Storm Lords). Banner 2 scouts a barren tile, but the army itself fails to find a spot to cross the river.

Sulatar: Banner 5 takes 20 points of losses from its march through barren tiles. It then scouts a village, making it just about worthwhile (it is a starting point for more scouting next year). Banners 1 & 2 chase the Storm Lords' forces downriver (they choose not to stand against the larger drow force), and banner 3 takes a village on the river back from the Storm Lords.

And that's it for 997YK (game year 1) summer. The winter in Mighty Empires is a whole different thing, so we will get to that shortly. First I will make a separate post with a round-up of how the campaigning season went.

End of summer campaigning.

Clearing Tangleroot

A human army descends into a jungle area to clear it of troglodytes.

Ancients D6 (fantasy) battle report.

Preamble

This is part of my Mighty Empires campaign set in Eberron — see previous posts in this blog. The Storm Lords chose to attack an independent village, so I am wargaming the resulting battle. As per the ME rules, independent villages get D6x100 points — the troglodytes rolled 4, so 400 points against the 600 points in the Storm Lords' force. For this game, I am using Ancients D6, so those armies scale down to 8pts for the trogs and 12pts for the humans.

No-one likes troglodytes. Even amongst the reptilian races of Eberron, they are despised — even kobolds look down on troglodytes, since kobolds are clean and organised, whereas troglodytes never clean and adventures have been known to pass out just from the smell of a troglodyte cave. That usually has a grisly end — the troglodytes of Tangleroot worship their own dark gods (though few ever get to converse with a troglodyte, so scholars think that they are just troglodyte names for the Dark Six), eat human flesh and make live sacrifices.

The troglodytes live in the jungle of this valley, and in the many watery caves near the river. Leading them in defence of their homes is Xassak, a minor spellcaster who has slain more than a few unwary adventures unwise enough to venture out from Stormreach into the wilds, but who rarely fights above ground.

• 2xSkirmishers
• 3xLight Infantry Warriors — Troglodyte Warriors

The invading force is led by Delera Omaren IV, one of the five Storm Lords that rules Stormreach. The Delera family chose to buy its respectability by becoming patrons of the city, and are greatly respected. As one of the city rulers, she handles with relations the dragonmarked houses and trade guilds that have enclaves in the city; as such she has no experience leading an army on campaign, and certainly no battle experience, but through negotiating terms and assistance for expeditions into Xen'Drik she does have some theoretical knowledge of the geography and hazards of the area around the city.

The troglodytes refused to bend the knee, so she decided that they must be cleared — there are hobgoblins living in this area that are willing to obey the city's wishes, if the troglodytes are removed.

At her command are 1200 men and women, around 70% human with the remainder being a mix of gnomes, dwarves, elves and half-orcs typical of the population of Stormreach. More than half are of the city guard; then there are 200 scouts made up of the better quality adventurers and wayfarers recruited in Stormreach, and around 300 other poorer quality levies that have been equiped out of the Storm Lords' considerable resources and brought to the battlefield. Knowing the terrain, Delera took only infantry when she parted from Greigur d'Deneith's larger force.

• 2xHI — guard infantry
• 2xLI with crossbows — guard crossbowmen
• 2xSK with bows — scouts
• 1xMob — levies

As the armies are so small, instead of the usual one general, one captain with 2 and 1 order points respectively, I gave them 1 and 0 order points respectively. So the general is like a captain in a normal D6 game, and the captain is just there so that one side cannot lose on one die roll if the general dies (since normally you have more than one commander).

The Battle

The Battlefield, Deployment

The troglodytes are choosing to fight in an area of ruins, which should provide cover for their missile troops and funnel the enemy into a narrow frontage where their numbers may be less effective. They set up with their large block of infantry in the one open space between the ruins and the marsh to the north, so they can bring their numbers to bear; their skirmishers will head into the ruins to stall the rest of the enemy army.

The Storm Lords realise what is going on during deployment, and shift their later deployed units to the right, but they will have to shift their levies to the right flank.

Turns 1 & 2

End of turn 2

On turn 1, the troglodytes double-time their skirmishers into the ruins. The Storm Lords push their crossbowmen ahead, hoping to get in plenty of shots before the enemy close.

On turn 2, the Storm Lords go first and shift their crossbowmen slightly south, to clear a path around them for the levies. They use their order point to bring the main block of spearmen forwards to cover the crossbowmen's flank. The troglodytes use their order point to bring their main body forward at the double, hoping to get across the firing range of the crossbowmen in one round. The skirmishers fire without effect, and the crossbowmen return fire, but the skirmishers are dispersed in the ruins and have good cover. The northmost units of crossbowmen and scouts fire on the advancing rush of troglodytes, inflicting some losses but not breaking the charge.

Turn 3

Realising the danger of getting rushed before her troops are fully formed, Delera reacts quickly, ordering her spearmen to fall back to make space and get into line with the advancing levies, while the nearest skirmishers and crossbowmen spread out to the sides.  The other crossbowmen press forwards into the ruins, now benefiting from cover as they exchange fire with the troglodyte skirmishers. However despite fire from all the crossbowmen and scouts, they are making little impression on the trogs.

Xassax is beginning to suspect that he is falling into a trap — it is now his troops being funnelled and the enemy threatening to envelop his charging troops. But the enemy has so many crossbowmen, so he needs to close the distance quickly. He orders a group to charge the crossbowmen pestering his right, while his main block continued to advance to meet the enemy foot. However the crossbowmen have swords too and are ready to use them — most of them have years of experience keeping the peace in Stormreach, and some have fought in the sewers of the city against troglodyte infestations in the past. With their charge broken and losses mounting, the trogs break and run.

Turn 4

The troglodyte;s main body has one shot left — charge and break the main body of the Storm Lords' infantry, and hope to kill their commander. The guardsmen meet the charge, and Delera orders her levies to charge into the flank. Meanwhile the scouts circle around for a rear charge.

The troglodytes in the ruins decide they they need to do damage fast if they are to help their main force at all, so they also charge the crossbowmen at the edge of the ruins. The crossbowmen take heavy losses but stand their ground; the scouts on this wing charge in to help, but take many casualties from the better prepared trogs and are routed.

But in the main melee, things are not going the way of the troglodytes. They are causing casualties amongst the spearmen, but the spearmen withstand the charge and in deep formation are able to inflict losses back.

Turn 5

The second unit of crossbowmen charges into the ruins, and manages to clear away one of the units of troglodyte skirmishers. Over in the main melee, the scouts charge into the rear of the troglodyte formation; now surrounded, the troglodytes losses are mounting rapidly, and their formation wavers and then disintegrates, with trogs running for the woods.

Post-Battle Analysis

A clean win for the Storm Lords, and without taking heavy losses — their only unit to rout was a cheap 1 point unit. They managed to bring their numbers to bear fairly effectively.

My first impression of Ancients D6 is good. It seems to be half-way between DBA and Kings of War, which are both games I have played recently and liked parts of. It might, like Kings of War, prove a little too simple for my taste, but we will see — this was a very small battle, well below the recommended points (because I want to keep the scale right so a full size ME banner of 1500 points maps to a normal size army in most systems).

Consequences

The Storm Lords take the Tangleroot village tile and move their army in; this opens their way to scouting to the coast here.

Applying half losses to the ME army points, the Storm Lords lose only 73 points from that banner. The troglodytes are gone — defeated independent armies are eliminated from the map (no longer a significant strategic force).

997YK, Summer: Lharvion

Lharvion

Storm Lords

Although the Storm Lords won the Battle of Firebranch (previous post), they cannot easily grab the enemy capital. There are two passes leading up into Searing Heights (the drow homeland). One is held by the recently-repulsed drow army; due to their losses in the battle, SL banner 1 is now relatively weaker compared to the drow than it was before, so it would be risky to try another field battle. However the other pass (north-east) is an undefended village, and if it moves there then the drow would have a tough choice — if they attack and are repulsed again, the humans could press on and destroy the capital next turn. So the drow are more likely to play safe and defend their capital — that ties up their larger army in a defensive role.

The other banners continue scouting, including banner 5 scouting to the coast beside the Sulatar realm; it remains a threat to the Sulatar there. Banner 3 is also following the river up into the Dragon's Maw mountains, getting closer to the orcs. They gain three new villages and one village from the Sulatar for the turn.

White Fang Tribe

The orcs can see the Storm Lords' expedition approaching their territory now, and suspect that it might be larger than their scouting force. So they turn north, and discover the ruined Giantish city of Threnal in the mountains — currently occupied by Goblins.

A city in a strategic location — this discovery could become the focus of the remaining summer campaigning. There are Duergar and human banners within striking distance of this city.

Hammerhead Clan

Seeing a city pop up on the map not far from their banners marching down into the plain, the dwarves decide to target it — the orcs may struggle  to hold the city given their army is small and only half of it is close enough to make any defence this summer. Banner 6 scouts the intervening tile — and is blocked by an independent fortress, which is too expensive to assault just to get a passage. They will have to try another path next turn. Banner 1 moves up to join it though, forming a single strong banner for attacking. The dwarves scout two other villages this turn.

White Fang banner 2 discovers and occupies the city of Threnal, in the Dragon's Teeth mountains; three other banners converge on it.

Sulatar

By the rules as written, the Sulatar can attack the Storm Lords' banner 1 without making a test to find a path in difficult terrain — by the rules, you only ever test for terrain in your own tile, and you get placed once you move on the edge of the tile that you move into so do not have to test terrain in that tile. The way the tiles are laid, there are mountains on the south side of the tile with the SL army, but the drow army is in a tile with no mountains on the north side. So they could attack the still-outnumbered humans again. I am making up the battle rules as I go though, so I might give them a terrain hinderance in the resulting battle. Anyway that would be risky as noted earlier, so they retreat to the capital instead.

Start of turn 5, Barrakas.

But with that army in the capital, they are safe against an assault by the Storm Lords — so much so, that they decide to divide banner 1 back into two banners, as even with 500 points fewer defenders, they can still hold the city — in ME you get a 2x points modifier when defending a city tile. (In hindsight, they should not have combined into one banner last turn, so they could move independently this turn.) Banner 3 holds position to block the advancing banner 5 of the Storm Lords, and banner 5 moves into a barren tile in order to scout beyond the barren area around Searing Heights itself.

The Battle of Firebranch

Nymm, 997YK  — the forces of the Sulatar descend from Searing Heights to drive back the approaching army of the Storm Lords.

Impetus Fantasy 300pts-ish battle report.

Introduction

I am trying out different fantasy wargaming systems as I play this campaign. For this battle, I used Impetus with the add-on fantasy rules. I played with 300 Impetus points = 1500 ME points, so the armies would be suitably sized. So given the set up from the campaign (see previous posts on this blog), the Storm Lords got 300pts and the Sulatar 340pts.

There will be no pictures with this battle report I'm afraid, as I do not have any minis yet — I have some on order though. I fought it out at half-scale with tokens instead. The battle report will have maps instead.

The Storm Lords' forces are in confident mood. With a force of over 3,000 fighting persons, swelled further by camp followers, they are making the first push in strength into Sulatar territory. The core of their army is around 1,500 of the Stormreach guards. These are professional soldiers, employed by the Storm Lords to keep order in the city and guard it against hostile forces in Xen'Drik. The guard is a little less diverse than the city, with about 70% humans (and a fairly equal balance of men and women), with the remainder being a mix of all the civilised races of Eberron: elves, dwarves, halflings, half-orcs, and a few gnomes. They are commanded by Commander Markus, an elf who has served as a guard captain for many years and previously had command of the defence of the city wall; he acts as overall commander for the army.

• 2xCL with crossbows — Light Patrol Cavalry
• 3xT crossbows — Crossbow-armed guardsmen
• 1xFP — Heavy infantry guards
• 1xFL — Light infantry with pikes
• 2xS — Scouts

However the guards have little field battle experience, being mostly used as patrols and to maintain order in the city — and to be the biggest private army in a city rife with criminal gangs, trade groups, and religious orders that all come with their own security and enforcers. With the guard came another 1,200 levies — rabble pulled from the taverns and jails of Stormreach, and refugees from the war in Khorvaire looking for some coin.

• 4xFP class C — Heavy infantry levies

The army's biggest asset is the contingent of 600 mercenaries from House Deneith — veterans of many battles in the Last War in Khorvaire. The bulk of these are heavy cavalry, but there are also crossbowmen and ballistae. Deneith provides the best mercenaries in Eberron, and is scrupulous in upholding its contracts. The Deneith contingent has its own commander, Taggart d'Deneith, a veteran who has led in dozens of battles on at least three different continents.

• 2xCP — Deneith Heavy Cavalry
• 1xT — Deneith crossbowmen
• 1xArtB — Deneith ballistae

The Sulatar are outnumbered, with only 2,100 fighters in the field — although if the Stormreach levies are discounted then the armies are around the same size. They have a strong martial tradition, so there are few camp followers: almost everyone present is an able warrior. The core of the army is around 1,500 spears and archers, warriors experienced in the harsh tribal warfare common in Xen'Drik.

Supporting the infantry are around 300 light troops: horse archers, skirmishing archers and hunters. There are also around 200 mounted nobles, armoured warriors skilled with bow and sword. Their most unpredictable asset, however, is Hazai Haatha, the tribe's strongest Archconjurer, who can bind the power of Fernia (the plane of elemental fire) to his will. In command is Shurraena Orlyrae, a capable commander; she has the advantage that her army is composed of drow used to fighting together, unlike the Storm Lords' patchwork army.

• 1xCM with bows — Noble horsemen
• 1xCL with bows — Horse archers
• 3xFP with pikes — Elven spearmen
• 1xFL, knowledge of terrain, rush — Hunters
• 3xT, eagle-eyes with longbows — Elven Archers
• 1xS, longbows — Scouts
• 1xCH wizard, with summon unit (fire mephits) and fireball — Hazai Haatha

The Battle

Deployment, turns 1-3

The Storm Lord's army is encamped in the plains north of the village of Firebranch. The area is mostly fields with some ploughed farmland, except on the north side where there is a hill and some woods. The Storm Lords therefore put their heavy cavalry and the rest of the Deneith contingent on the south side, to exploit the more open terrain. The Stormreach guards with crossbows are all in the centre opposite some ploughed land that is bad terrain for heavy infantry, and some of the levies are deployed to support them in case the drow mount a frontal assault. On the left is the main block of infantry, with the other half of the levies, the light infantry, scouts, and the one unit of close-combat guardsmen.

The drow see the rough ploughed ground as a big asset for them, and deploy their elite archers as the centre of their line behind this terrain (which will keep the enemy cavalry and heavy infantry away). At either end of this line are the elven pikemen. On the south side, their left, they have their light cavalry and hunters, the latter aiming to get into the woods on this side to disrupt an expected flanking move on this side. The noble cavalry are on the north side.

After 3 turns, the Storm Lords' forces are advancing on the flanks but holding back in the centre. The Sulatar have got their hunters into the wood though, which has tied up the possible flanking move on that side — the Deneith crossbowmen and some scouts are being sent in to try to clear the wood. Aware that going around the woods will take too long, Taggart d'Deneith is keeping his men north of the wood and hoping his infantry can keep his own flank clear.

Turns 4 & 5

Having taken up position behind the ploughed field, the Sulatar archers start raining arrows down on their enemies. This immediately brings disruption to the human troops approaching on both flanks, slowing their advance and routing the scouts on the north side. The Storm Lords realise their mistake now: their centre is too far back to provide support, and the levies there may not get into the action at all. Meanwhile, their scouts entered the south wood and were immediately charged by a rush of drow hunters — skilled warriors in the often dense undergrowth more common in central Xen'Drik. Meanwhile, Hazai Haatha manages to open a portal to Fernia and pulls through several fire elementals and a swarm of fire mephits, which he and his acolytes now control.

Commander Markus reacts by ordering up his levies from the centre to march south-east to support the cavalry attack. They are immediately a target for drow archers though, and the poorly disciplined troops are disrupted easily and now block his crossbowmen from getting into the fight. Their more experienced light infantry on the left managed to steal a charge on the drow cavalry trying to outflank the infantry attack in the north, driving them back into the woods on that side in confusion.

Turn 6

The Sulatar see an opportunity while the human army tries to redeploy, and a unit of spears breaks off from the main line and charges the Deneith crossbowmen on their left, dispersing them easily. Their horse archers, which have circled the wood to come at the Deneith troops from the flank, manage to inflict some losses on the heavy cavalry. Meanwhile the archers continue to keep the enemy centre and left disorganized.

The Storm Lords are making progress though. Both units of heavy cavalry counter-charge the now isolated unit of elven spears, causing losses and trapping it well ahead of its own lines. And a unit of mounted guards with crossbows, moving to support the cavalry advance, take up position and fire into the flank of the drow horse archers, routing them from the field.

Turn 7

The Storm Lords are slowly disentangling their centre, with the levies moving off to the south to support the cavalry and some of the crossbowmen now able to advance towards the drow centre. On the south side, all the units fighting are tied up by the drow and making no progress.

They manage to rally their light infantry in the north, but the drow wizards have been moving towards this flank and a fireball throws their troops back into confusion. With the lead unit of levies already disrupted, the guardsmen advance past them to take up the lead in the attack — but they too have their formation broken up by the close-range fire of the archers. The drow spearmen in front of them seize the opportunity, charging in and routing them.

Game status: Storm Lords demoralization: 6/23; Sulatar demoralization: 2/26.

Turn 8

Seeing their comrades under pressure from the heavy cavalry in the plain, with more human units moving up to support, the second unit of Sulatar spearmen advanced and charged in to support them. But engaging the fresh Deneith cavalry in the open was unwise — the spearmen take heavy losses and are broken. The original unit of spearmen are fighting grimly to the end, both taking and inflicting losses on the Deneith cavalry. Meanwhile, the drow hunters in the woods to the south finish wiping out the Stormreach scouts there and prepare to move forwards.

In the centre, the levies are finally getting out of the way of the crossbowmen, though the undisciplined troops are still difficult to direct and are still causing disruption to their own lines. A unit of horse crossbowmen tries to screen the levies, and the artillery now coming into range, but takes heavy losses as it draws the attention of the elven archers and is routed.

On the north side, the levies engage and overwhelm the elven spearmen on this side, and begin chasing down the drow scouts which are forced to withdraw. The drow noble cavalry charge back into the light infantry, hoping to disperse the disrupted troops — but they take heavy losses and are routed, although the light infantry are too broken up to rejoin the battle.

Game status: Storm Lords demoralization: 8/23; Sulatar demoralization: 9/26.

Turn 9

The Sulatar can see the tide of battle turning against them. Shurraena Orlyrae, with the archers in the ploughed field, can see that her north flank is driven back by the levies, and her archers will soon be flanked — and even at close range, they are not causing enough casualties to deter their advance. The archers are now causing losses to Commander Markus' crossbowmen, and the battle may hinge on breaking the inferior missile troops in front of them. The Deneith artillery is now firing at the archers, disrupting  the southern end of their line.

The hunters swing around and charge into the rear of Taggart d'Deneith cavalry, already much worn down by a protracted fight with the drow spearmen. However, despite heavy losses, the cavalry hold, and the drow spearmen are now mostly dead or fleeing; and there are levies moving up to help disperse the hunters.

Game status:  Storm Lords demoralization: 8/23; Sulatar demoralization: 12/26.

Turns 10 & 11

The drow make their last attack, throwing the fire elementals into the heavy cavalry and causing some losses for the humans. But attacking these heavy troops is desperation, and the elementals are taking heavy losses and can only delay the inevitable. Meanwhile the hunters are routed by the other unit of cavalry.

The levies charge into Shurraena's archers, disrupting them, and the crossbowmen begin pouring fire into the other archers. The drow can see the writing on the wall and, as the archers begin to falter, it soon turns into a general retreat.

Game status:  Storm Lords demoralization: 8/23; Sulatar demoralization: 16/26.

Post-Battle Analysis

The Storm Lords deployed badly, and had trouble bringing their numbers to bear. They also had some bad luck on the south side of the battle, where their heavy cavalry could have trampled the spearmen much quicker with some luck. Although it may have worked out for the best, as the SLs were close to the threshold for defeat for most of the second half of the game: if the badly battered heavy cavalry had got free sooner and tried to advance, the archers may have routed them.

The Sulatar, on the other hand, had terrible luck: the human forces took a beating from the archers for far too long and yet held together. Commander Marcus' unit was nearly routed at the end, the levies could have been routed many times, and the heavy cavalry (worth 3 demoralization points on their own) were nearly routed by the rear charge — they could easily have reached the winning line with some better luck.

Impetus

I'm not sure about Impetus. The way that Cohesion tests work means that there is enormous unpredictability; a melee can drag on for many rounds if both sides retain cohesion, and then suddenly one side can get obliterated in one roll. It may be a bit too far from what I am used to. I do not think that the levies (taken from the French Hundred Years War army list) are balanced, at least against the fantasy units — 7 points each for units that destroyed my spearmen and could waste most of the fire of my 30 point archer units. I am sure I made tons of rule mistakes though. I was also very lost in the way that command structure and generals' leadership bonuses applied, and found the initiative system a little complicated for my liking.

VBU seemed to give units a double advantage — they both do a lot of damage, and are not only hard to kill but hard to even weaken. So the VBU 7 heavy cavalry seemed really hard to break up, and ate through far more than their points cost in drow units.

Consequences

Mighty Empires provides guidance on translating Warhammer Fantasy Battle results back into losses for banners — it is presumed that many troops that fall in battle really just flee the field or are out of the fight injured but not killed. This system results in reducing losses by around half. For comparison, typical results from the in-game combat system of ME, for those playing it as a standalone game, are 200-300pts of losses aside.

I decided to go with half-casualties across the board here: units routed in Impetus had their value reduced by half, and units that took VBU damage were reduced by half that amount. I also gave the drow the benefit of one gain in the battle — in Impetus a general can improve (or worsen) during the fight if they get a lucky roll, and Shurraena did do so about half-way through, which is worth +10 points to the army value (50 points in my translation to ME).

So I calculate that the drow took 410 points of net losses (in ME terms), and the humans took 390 points of losses. Many of the most expensive drow units, namely the wizard and archers, were little damaged by the end of the game, whereas the human units have mostly taken losses and in particular the expensive heavy cavalry are badly beaten up. So the humans have a strategic win, but it has not improved their strength relative to the drow facing them. They have paid dearly for the win, due to their bad deployment.

997YK, Summer: Eyre, Dravago, Nymm

I am decreeing that the campaign begins in the year 997UK. I am using the Eberron calendar, of course, so the summer campaigning months are Eyre, Dravago, Nymm, Lharvion, Barrakas, Rhaan.

Eyre

I rolled to see which empire got to move first this season, and it was the Storm Lords.

Storm Lords: Scouting towards the Sulatar went as expected, with both banners finding and moving into villages — in particular the river crossing, which is the key to this area. The strongest banner, banner 3, had a bout of sickness (from the scouting event chart), losing a few troops and not moving this month. That might break their plan of going after the orcs. Meanwhile their banner 4 encountered an independent village, which I decided was not worth the risk to attack, so they also did not move.

White Fang: The orcs had some routine scouting, finding 3 villages. They also found an independent fortress; I rather like having independent fortresses in my realm, as I do not need to garrison them and few invaders want to waste time besieging them. Even if the orcs marched all their banners here they probably could not take this fortress, so there is no decision to make here. It does get in the way of scouting towards the humans, though.

Hammerhead clan: The duergar also had an army get stuck with sickness. Their army moving east found a village, which they needed to (they were sitting in a barren tile, consuming their last baggage). The other two armies both found fortresses! — the dwarves have far more than they can practically garrison now.

Sulatar: The scouting armies did fine, finding 3 villages. The two armies facing the Storm Lord advance tried scouting the tile north of the bridge tile, in case they got lucky and found a fortress — but it was just a village. They also scouted the nearest banner, finding out its strength (1000pts). That tells them that they outnumber the lead banner (1200 vs 1000) — but it will just withdraw if attacked, and there are two other banners behind it so that is 2-3000 pts coming at them. They decide to hold and merge those two banners to save on baggage.

Dravago

Storm Lords

The Storm Lords move Banner 1 back to the river crossing — I realised that my original deployment was not well thought out, as I did not want to attempt a dangerous river crossing and risk losing troops and baggage, particularly when the Sulatar might counterattack with my back to the river. The strike banner against the orcs, 3, scouts successfully this turn and finds a city; that will be a useful base for later. The other two banners both scout villages, and are in place to strike at that independent village next month if they want. Finally I split banner 3, as it now seems unlikely that it would actually encounter many orc armies this year, and I can use the city tile to break it up (a city is the only tile that can sustain two banners at once without consuming baggage).

White Fang: Simple scouting. The orcs find another fortress as they head along the inland route towards Stormreach, and an independent city on the coast. One banner is delayed by local weather and fails to scout.

Hammerhead clan: One city found, another fortress in the mountains (there is a big network of Duergar holds up here, it seems), and some villages. Banner 3 is following the river and heading towards the action to the southeast.

Sulatar: The Storm Lords splitting banner 3 shows that their total forces across the river are no more than 2000; they are also advancing slowly. So the Sulatar can afford to keep their eastern armies scouting for now, and they find two more villages. Banner 1 tries to do some scouting while waiting for the human armies, but the scouts are waylaid. Banner 4 is the tricky one; any scouting west that it does could be undone by the Duergar army heading down the river, and moving north takes it away from the action and it might not be able to evade the Storm Lords armies if it moves back into the pass to the capital next turn. So they play safe and move into the pass now, keeping space between them and the Storm Lords' leading banners.

Turn 2 End. The Sulatar have backed up banner 4 so that there is a clear tile between them and any Storm Lords' forces, and to avoid clashing with Hammerhead banner 3 that is heading downriver from the North.

You probably cannot see the banners clearly unless you zoom in on particular parts of the map image.

Nymm

Storm Lords: The Sulatar forces screening their capital mean that I have to choose now — the SL armies have to join up and join battle, or turn away. Although slightly outnumbered, they have an even chance of success and it would disrupt the Sulatar's plans if they win or even draw. So banners 1 and 2 advance and combine into a single army. The other banners all scout, finding two more villages, and in the west another city — so I probably will not advance much more this year in the west, as I need to screen these cities against the advancing Duergar.

White Fang: More scouting, 2 more villages secured.

Hammerhead Clan: Scouting reveals a fortress by the lake, and two more villages. Banner 3 has to choose whether to cross the river towards the Sulatar, and decides against it: there is a risk of getting attacked on that side by one of the armies manoeuvring here and being trapped against the river. Note that in ME, your position within the tile matters when the tile contains rivers or mountains: which side of the river you are determines which directions you can move freely.

Sulatar: There is a large Storm Lord force two turns away from the capital, but the Sulatar outnumber them and act with confidence. The two scouting armies continue scouting, finding another village; and the two armies before the capital march out to strike at the Storm Lords. The Storm Lords decide to stand and fight, so the first battle of the campaign is upon us! The battle report will be in the next post.

Sulatar armies converge to fight the Storm Lords advancing down the river. In the background the advancing Hammerhead banner 3 is visible, and the Storm Lords now have two cities west of the river in hand.