Here at c0wabunga towers our second Warhammer Renaissance campaign is underway. Like the first campaign, it is played loose but tight… just like Led Zeppelin. We improvise the story against a backdrop of our choosing.

The story so far

The Chaos Lord Kreothul had been constantly eyeing the southern lands below the Chaos Wastes. He wished bring his armies south to reclaim the Dark Throne which resides in the mountains north of the Troll Country. In the Battle at The Skalle Pass, however, Kreothul was called to fight for the powers of Chaos somewhere else and his whole operation was surrendered to the Dragon Ogre Shars’ka.

In the second game, Shars’ka lead the army onwards still going to the South. He ran it into a Dwarf ale festival. The Dragon Ogre decided to make a statement and kill and the Dwarfs and take the ale for himself. It was a hard fought battle – the Dragon Ogre was severely wounded by the Dwarf king, and all the ale was spoiled.

Flight of the Orcs

Now let us return to the third game:

It was still the end of Kaldezeit (by the Imperial calendar). Several Orc pirate fleets have been encountered on the seas along the Norscan shoreline too. Kapten Kroog is a famous example of such an Orc pirate captain. Now, he and his Orcs had been lying in wait, wanting to snatch the Dwarf ale (see game 2) and as they saw the horrible Chaos army approaching and the events that started to unfold they decided to head for their ships as fast as they could. When they had been going the other way, they had sneaked their way around a Norscan vanguard settlement… but now, with the speed their were at they were going to have to plough straight through the settlement. Kapten Kroog thought that maybe it wasn’t half bad, at leasts they could forage before hitting the ships just South on the tip of The Island of Dur.

The Norscan guards were looking out over the horizon in the early hours of the day. Suddenly hundreds of bodies could be seen storming across the field and smoke plumes started to rise from the nearby Dwarf settlement of Orin’s brewery. Jarl Regnar decided that it was time to light the beacons and alert the nearby settlements that something was coming.

Scenario:

The Norscans had to light a beacon in the middle of the table. The Orcs conversely had to stop them from doing this (as it would draw more Norscans and make their escape all the harder). We used a hill with a pile of dung as the beacon. The scenario was pretty straight forward: The army with the most scoring units touching the hill at the ended of the game was awarded the objective (750 VP).

Armies:

We used 1500 points armies

Battle

The armies were deployed secretly on a map. I forgot images of the deployment but the below photograph comes close.

The two armies lined up and battle commenced. It was a head on collision. Both sides had giants and trolls, and they had lined up directly in front of each other. The Orc giant charged the Norscan giant. And the Orc river trolls made for the Norscan stone trolls.

The giants were making a ruckus in b-minor, and eventually the Orc giant swung it’s club and completely failed to do more than 1 wound. The Norscan giant then won the combat by yelling an bawling (we couldn’t figure out what happens if both giants yell and bawl) causing the Orc giant to run off and get killed.

The pursue move landed the Norscan giant right next to the Orc main regiment… at this point Kapten Kroog clasped his hand on his face. It seemed like repeat of earlier struggles.

The Orcs stood their way against the giant and eventually managed to beat it as it’s Jump up and down resulted in only 2 wounds.

The River trolls got into the Stone trolls and the savage Orcs failed to charge the Ogres.

A unit of Forest Goblins failed their animosity test just as they were about to make vital shots… two berzerkers (work like fanatics) were released from the Norscan ranks and tore into the goblins. In total 4 berzerkers had joined the Norscans and 3 of them died to doubles pretty fast… (the model moves 2d6 in a random directed -on a double it dies from exhaustion/mushroom delirium).

Kapten Kroog’s trusted boar men were going the far wide and long route on the flank… yet again they had failed to deploy where the enemy would be as had been their custom for many battles. Kapten Kroog was beginning to suspect that they were in fact just lazy gits.

The mighty Norse giant had made it to within 1″ of the table edge, before magically passing the leadership roll. The Orc ballistas were on fire hitting the Norscan main regiments hard. But here we made a mistake. Since ballistas use BS for hitting, they are not allowed to aim… we’d forgotten that, and played them like cannons. So the Orc ballistas fired at the Norse Jarl and Vølve and hit. Both were allowed Look Out, Sir! rolls and both failed… however – the rules clearly state that this is not how it works. But neither of us were capable of figuring it out during the game (which was the 2nd in a row… we might have been a bit tired). When you use BS you just hit the regiment and all characters are safe. Losing the characters was obviously a devastating blow to the Norse army, and certainly calls for a rematch. It made for a good story line though.

When the game concluded both of the armies were claiming the objective. We decided that probably the Norse would light the beacon, but not in time that the Orcs couldn’t escape to their ships.

Conclusion

The game ended in a minor vicotory for the Orcs as it was tied on the objective. For me personally, it was a delight to play something other than Dwarfs. I think the Norscan army is maybe not top tier, but pairs pretty good with Orcs. I am a little more doubtful what will happen if I bring Chaos again (which is likely given the campaign narrative…).

After the game we rolled (1d6) for the named characters that were taken out during the game to see if they die (1), are hurt (2-5) or unscathed (6). It turned out that both Jarl Regnar and the Vølve were hurt and will be out for 1d3 campaign games. In effect this means that the Norsca player cannot field these exact gear combinations in the games they are out.