Thursday, August 14, 2008

Tiny soldiers, big battle

Still playing catch-up here, hence the fairly intense run of posts. On Sunday I had the rare (for me) pleasure of using some of my Epic scale stuff. In particular I got to command my lovely Orkses against my opponents Imperial Guard.
It was mainly a match to help me get re-acquainted with the present Epic Armageddon rules. The armies were a modest 2500 points each, but this nonetheless allowed me to field some 150 (6mm tall) figures 40 or so vehicles. My opponent had more like 250 figures, but markedly less armour.
The game opened with the Guard trying to encircle my Ork town with trenches, and my aim was to break out. Although outnumbered in manpower, I was sure I could out fight him up close, and I had Stompa's and Battle Fortresses to provide a big hit (we capped the game to DC3 and below, and no aircraft - for simplicity and balance, what I didn't know was that my opponent only had infantry, sappers, able to really hurt my big vehicles!).

My plan was to ignore the defence lines as much as possible and instead sweep round the flanks. On the left I sent two warbands of Orks into the hills to work over the enemies right, whilst on my other flank I hoped to knock out his mobile forces with my Cult of Speed buggy squadron (16 vehicles) backed up by a Blitz brigade and the Stompas.
The left went well, but the right initially stalled when Sappers made short work of my Stompas. In response I sent in my reserve Warband and their Gunfortress (with my biggest weapons).

As stated, the left saw me victorious, as first the Guard rather foolishly charged me, and then I rolled up his flank, sweeping another Blitz Brigade into his rear echelons, whilst my warbands cleared out the defensive positions from behind.

By the end of the game, His troops were balled up in the centre of the table around an improvised network of defensive shell craters. I on the other hand owned 5 out of 6 objectives, and had 'broken the enemies spirit' by destroying his largest detachment.

It was fun, though you have to say that without their usual heavy armour the Imperial Guard were rather neutered, and I felt as long as I stayed in close and kept assaulting his lines the result was never going to be in doubt.

I still feel that the previous version of the rules was more enjoyable, given the extra variety the armies had, but it played well again and with two fully painted armies it looked pretty good too.


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