Thornwood Campaign: Game 1

Yuri and the Impaler get physical.

WM/H gaming has really slowed down for me as Dystopian Wars continues to be my current #1 game plus I got sick of the local/national competitive meta. So what to do in this situation? Tudor and I agreed on starting a narrative WM/H campaign instead. :-D

The story arch behind this campaign is Khador trying to find a way through the Thornwood to move from Llael into Ord. There is neither a complex reward/punishment system nor a set of consecutively planned games, Tudor and I just chat everything up on the go.

Supreme Kommandant Irusk is being trusted with the task to lead an army through the Thornwood forest. As a smart Kommander he isn't blindly leading them through that forest, instead he moves in with a small scouting band first. With him are his trusted Man-O-War Shocktroopers and Battle Mechanics, a Man-O-War Drakhun as well as a Kodiak.

Supreme Kommandant Irusk - WJ: +5
- War Dog
- Kodiak - PC: 8
Man-O-War Drakhun - PC: 4
Yuri the Axe - PC: 3
Man-O-War Shocktroopers - Leader & 4 Grunts: 9
Battle Mechaniks - Leader & 3 Grunts: 2
- Battle Mechanik Officer - Battle Mechanik Officer 2

On the receiving end, there is pGrim being alerted to the intrusion of enemies in his wood as he moves around with his ranging party.

Grim Angus - WB: +6
-    Troll Impaler - PC: 5
-    Troll Impaler - PC: 5
-    Pyre Troll - PC: 5
Troll Whelps - PC: 2
Kriel Warriors - Leader & 9 Grunts: 6
-    Kriel Warrior Standard & Piper - Standard & Piper 2
Greygore Boomhowler & Co. - Boomhowler and 5 Grunts: 6

So for game 1, the Khadorese are trying to enter the Thornwood whereas pGrim wants to keep them out. We agreed that we basically just play a simple caster kill scenario, but the Khador forces should try to reach the Trollbloods' edge of the table whereas the trollbloods should eliminate everyone so no messager can go back to the Khador main host.

Let's see how it goes.

In round 1, the MOW Shocktroopers move up surprisingly quickly because they run for 8" plus get an additional 3" with eIrusk's Tactical Supremacy. Yuri is hiding behind the wood on the left.

The Trollbloods moved up as well, but other than pGrim's shot with the Impaler's animus every ranged attack was short.

pGrim aims but does not kill so the wounded Shocktrooper is being repaired again by a Battle Mechanic.

Yuri, who was hiding behind the wood the previous turn but is now equipped with Pathfinder, Battle Lust, and Weaponmaster, charges the first Impaler and kills him with one strike. Sounds like this nice little stroll accross the wood bridge wasn't so happy after all.

For the rest of their turn, the MOW Shocktroopers advanced some more while the Drakhun crashed into the lines of Kriel Warriors killing one.

On their turn, the Kriel Warriors immediately closed in on the Drakhun...

...but it took the second living Impaler to take him off his mount.

For the rest of their second turn, pGrim popped his feat and was taking insignificant shots at the MOW Shocktroopers again.

Because of pGrim's feat, the Khador band moved forward at a slow pace, so rather than doing deadly close combat attacks the MOW Shocktroopers resulted to their Shield Cannons.

On their turn, the Kriel Warriors and the Pyre Troll charged the MOW Shocktroopers, but only the buffed Pyre Troll was able to do any form of significant damage to them. In the meantime, eIrusk's feat kept the flanking Boomhowler & Co. away in the top right .

In their fourth turn, the Kodiak decided to turn right and support the block against the Boomhowlers. In the center the Kriel Warriors continued to be fed into a close combat that was impossible for them to emerge from as victors. Also, eIrusk moved into the wood on the top left because he felt saver there.

Save my ass - pGrim doesn't care about character models standing in a wood. He aimed, shot, hit, and wounded.

On his turn, eIrusk decided to go all in and charged pGrim. However, pGrim only lost half his hitpoints due to his amazing DEF 16.

On his turn, pGrim killed eIrusk in close combat as his six FUR proved to be just enough to bring eIrusk down to 0 HP in melee.

Consequences from this game:

We decided that eIrusk was severely wounded and had to retreat to his camp in front of the Thornwood. In his next game, he starts with 3 HP down.
Yuri gets +2 P against warbeasts because he sliced through the Impaler so mercilessly.
The Drakhun gets the Taunt rule because he was able to significantly shatter the Kriel Warriors' lines.

On the Trollbloods side nobody performed exceptional deeds, so we counted the casterkill as +5 Army Points for the Trollbloods in their next game. pGrim saw an opportunity to raid the Khador camp, so while the Khadorese were busy carrying back eIrusk into their camp, eGrim would quickly muster additional forces.