Warlord: Battle in the badlands. Guidelines and tables for Goblinoid warbands using 3rd ed Warhammer.

Finally got the Warband guidelines ready to release. Treat this as a playtest set and forgive any and all errors, there are bound to be many. Any feed back is greatly received.

Link:

Warlord Battle in the Badlands.


Edit:

I've already spotted some problems with the document not least of which is the roll to advance your warlords stats. It should read minus from your roll the number of times you have tried to improve the stat including failed times. This makes it increasingly difficult to improve.

Orctober, a few posts you may have missed.

Not everyone who visits this blog is also a member of the Oldhammer forum (if not why not?) so there is a chance you may have missed the thread running on that august site covering many of the members contributions to Orctober.

If you haven't been may I suggest you visit.

Orctober on Oldhammer.

Here are the couple of pictures posted to said thread, go check it out:

Skirmish at the rock. An Orc Warband battle report.

 


Harbash grinned, "dat lit'l toerag Slagnark fort e cood run, fort e cood 'ide aaat safely wid a bunch a gobbos. Dat litawl toerag noo nuffink." His boyz the bashers were with him and they two were itching to carve a new one on Slagnark. It had taken balls the size of fabled squigoths and treachery that the pointy eared pansies would  be proud of to do what he'd done. Harbash wasn't going to be pleased until Slagnarks flayed skin hung as atrophy on the grinning sun banner of the bashers.

 

The gobbos, the Thieving gitz, as they were known locally were much loathed in the local area and mnay locals had been quite happy to point out the current location of their camp. Harbosh had also been told the usual tactics of the thieving gitz. Send in the stikkas to soften the enemy, meanwhile the gobbo spears sat on their arses. All the time Sodgit the self styled shaman warlord blasted fireballs and sent spirits to make the enemy fill their breeches and run. Harboth plan in return wouldbe to send his boyz down to bash the gobbos and he'd personally see, with his own bows that the stickas were driven off. Hed have plenty of time to come back to the main fight crashing into the side or rear.

Things began to unravel almost straight away. The gobbos, probably incentivised by Slagnark in their ranks started marching forward.  They'd be on the Bashers before Harbash had a chance to chase off the skirmishers. "Wait on dat 'ill", roared Harbash, "I be back in a bit." he then strode of with his bow-orcs to crump some goblins. The little bleeders began shooting at him but t o no effect. He even let his own boyz return fire grinning as one of the little runtz keeled over, a thick crow fletched shaft  stuck in it's body.

Sodgit the shaman started convulsing in a weired dance before sending ancestral daemons to sap the resolve of the bashers just as he'd sent similar spirits to boost the courage of his own boyz. The boyz didnt' seam convinced by the spell seaming ly shrugging off it's effects. Meanwhile the gobblin spears edged closer to the bashers huddled in shield wall on the hill.

It was then that stranger things began to happen, the stikkas caused a casualty amongst Harbash's bow boyz who were unable to hit in return. Fireballs also began to fall upon the unit.

The goblin spears marched to within an easy charge of the orcs on the hill and then stopped jeering the bashers trying to provoke the charge. And charge they did, with the advantage of height and the impetus of the charge a quick win was expected but with only a single goblin casualty caused the orcish attack stalled.

Sensing the turning point of the battle had already been reached without him Harbash turned his unit to charge the goblin spears flank ignoring the goblin skirmishers. A fatal move for several more orcs. 
Slagnark set about his old comrades with vicious abandonment slaying one unfortunate boy followed by the improbable death of several others at the hands of the spear goblins. All for no loss of life on the goblin side. The Bashers turned and ran before being cut down to a man, their standard captured as the loan orcish survivor turned tail and fled before being overun.

Harbash correctly sensed the time was upon him to run, which he promptly did. He had just received a resounding thrashing from a bunch of gobbos.

Orctober: Orc warbands.

I'm still getting my warband rules bashed into shape but in the meantime I thought you would like to see two of the warbands I rolled up using the rules. In my next post I should have a battle report finished detailing a clash between these two starting warbands. All the names were generated on the orc random name generator I've put in the warband rules. I was one dice pip off rolling up a rather famous orc name but as it is the first warband belongs to the level 10 orc hero Harbash



Harbash and the Bash Boyz.

Harbash and the Bash Boyz.

 Harbash is a level 10 hero with light armour and a shield. In addition to this equipment he rolled up some magic gubbins and ended up with the Bloody entrails of flatulence. These bloody troll guts have enough regenerative power to still be able to digest food and to not rot away. If fed vast quantities of mashed up Gruntrooms the guts fill with a magical wind. Once per battle the owner may automatically cast windblast lasting d3 turns.

Harbash has divided his  boyz into two units. By sacrificing one of the boyz he rolled up Harbash has got a standard bearer for the boyz armed with shields, light armour and hand weapons.

Harbash's other boyz are armed with bows and Light armour.

The second warlord is Sodgit a level 10 goblin wizard.

 Here he is with the thieving gitz his goblin warband.

 The thieving Gitz are joined by a level 5 orc hero name of Slagnark. What crime this champion committed to pledge his admittedly worthless oath to a goblin? His unit is armed with shields and spears. By removing one goblin the unit gains a standard.

The remaining eight Goblins have short bows and usually deploy in skirmish formation.

So who do you think has the better warband Harbash or Sodgit and who is likely to win the first clash?

Orctober: Orc warbands rules, Magic Gubbins needed.

I'm getting the rules I put together for Orc warbands ready to download. I've played a few games with Warbands I've rolled up and I'm confident that they work well together and in conjunction with RoC warbands. However one thing I never really finished was the magic gubbins table. Orcs as a rule don't advance by gaining mutations like chaos warriors  but by growing in skill and strength. There is only so far yo can go with this so I've added tables for new units, tributes from conquered tribes and if they are lucky they may even come across a magic item in the badlands.

I've filled the table in with the obvious +1 to S sort of magic items and those covered by the BOB but I would like a nice large and varied table. So I'm asking for ideas, they shouldn't be overly powerful or obvious rewrites of 4th ed onwards magic items.

Things the replicate 3rd ed spell effects as a one shot or clearly work within 3rd ed rules is what I'm looking for not special rules.  Please do post any ideas bellow, if you'd like to see them used in the finished table that is.

Orctober. The orc that launched a thousand armies?

Following up on last years excellent Orctober retrospectives on Orc evolution Matthew and Thantsants have this year both expanded upon the subject with looks into influences upon the Citadel Orc and personal journeys through fantasy art respectively.

I feel compelled to add my pennies worth to the debate but much of the ground I would cover has already been covered quite admirably. I do see (or rather do not see) one glaringly absent figure though the subject has been lightly touched upon.

I believe the figure to be amongst the most influential on the young minds of our generation in determining what we will and will not accept as a proper orc. By the time it was produced the Citadel orc was already well evolved but I'm be suprised to hear if any other orc figure ever made it into as many homes. Figured it out yet?

Rather than post the picture here is a link to a picture so you can have a good unbiased think and then see if you agree.

Orctober

Happy Orctober Fest!

So Orctober is on us again and I hope very much that once more you will put aside cares for Chaos, desires for dwarves or even urges for undead (unless they are orc undead I guess) and spend a month obsessing about orcs or orks. 

Why I hear you cry. Well first of all I love orcs, they were my first miniature army and are just your best all round bad guy. Secondly around Orctober I always get into gaming doldrums, selfishly a month concentrating on my favorite army sounds like a good plan. Also I really need to make sure I paint some orcs each year, my orc collection is by far my largest and I have some catching up to do in the painting department.

 Finally no other race lends itself to the race/month combo quite like Orctober so it would be a crime not to celebrate such kick-ass serendipity. Oh and finally, finally people seamed to enjoy the theme last year.

So like last year I'm probably going to post out a prize to one random author of a orc or ork (I'll even include other goblinoids at a push) related blog or forum post.  The post should identify itself as part of Orctober and link back to this initial Orctober post. It should also be a meaningful attempt to add something to the community no simple, I like orcs now enter me into a prize draw posts. New material as well guys please. I'll accept anything as meaningful if effort has gone into it art, stories, discussions, reviews, painting, reports and anything else that I think is cool after having seen it.

The prize up for grabs will be somewhat dependent on the communities response. I'm still not decided on that fourth box of Rudlugs, I want to give it away but something stops me. I think I want to be sure they will go to a good home.

So if the community knocks my socks off they will be up for grabs. Even if not I can promise like Paul last year, some vintage lead for someone. One of my first Orctober tasks is to sort through my collection the Orc diaspora in my garage is shocking.

If anyone wants to join in and spread the love by all means offer your own prizes up!

One more thing. Zhu has kindly allowed us to use his painting from last year as a sort of banner for the month see the top of this post. Stick this in the top of any Orctober post you make and we will all know you are joining in.

OK first task, organise my orc collection.

Oldhammer Quest the game.

Just a quick post to show off some photos of the game I just enjoyed with my fellow East Anglian Oldhammerers (well they're almost all from Bedfordshire). OGRE as we call ourselves met at my place, that's Erny's non-virtual place, for a bit of dungeon bashing.

We used 3rd ed rules and randomly rolled level 5 characters against a dungeon of nasties GMed by myself. I've tweaked the rules and at some point when play testing is done I'll stick them on the blog if anyone is interested. Enough of the wittering here are some photos.

Bat swarm, the ranger has to burn a fate point.

The adventurers make Short work of WPs swamp Troll.

Goblins are quickly dispatched.

Then they find the dungeons...dungeon.

Orc sleeping quarters. Murder hobos stop only to loot the bodies.

Well after a brief fight.

The thief opens the door on some of Snicket's rats

At the same time the elf finds another bat swarm.

What's cooking?

They breeze through goblins.

I should have taken more dungeon eye level photos.

How the game ended, area cleared two doors to open.

And just because I forgot to show all the guys when they came over here is Zagor from Otherworld in his Fighting Fantasy blister pack.

Oldhammer Quest.

On the 18^th of this month I have invited the local Oldhammerers of OGRE (Oldhammer Gaming Ring East-Anglia, we love our cheese us Oldhammerers) to join me for a delve into the bowels of the Oldhammer world.  I’m currently bashing together the additional rules and guidelines needed to run 3^rd ed as a dungeon bash/ adventure game and will post my efforts up here when done.

In the meantime here are some shots of the terrain the action will take place on:

And here is a link to the various adventurers who are stepping forward to brave all the terrors of the dark.

Forum posts. 

 Adelmo Ladro

The making of the BOYL14 siege game.

You've seen countless photos by now but I honestly can't believe you could appreciate the magnitude of the game unless you were there, unless you were playing even. Where do you even begin to describe a game of the magnitude of the BOYL14 Siege game? Initially meant to be a scenario involving the sallying froth of the defenders of Avalone against the Siege engines arrayed against them it rapidly developed into something on a much grander scale on the forum.

I think it may well be worth having a little look at all the work that went into putting this extravaganza on for so many people to enjoy.

When we arrived at the Foundry site midday on the Friday we discovered a Marquee which was unexpected. There were two massive tables, I didn't think to measure them they were massive. Given the cloths I put on them I would guess they were about 6' wide by 10 to 12' long. Unlike the vast majority of the foundry tables they were covered only by a grey green cloth not the usual foundry textured ground. Never mind all we needed was a large table because at the last minute I decided to bring both my green cloths along this covered just enough of the table to allow us a huge area of grassed land in front of the walls of Avalone and behind the walls the table stayed appropriately grey.

The field of battle, we have just finished setting up the terrain and the troops are being added.

Paul's fields and hedges.

Mr Rab's Tower.

Paul, Golfang1 on the forum, began filling the area outside the city with his fields, hedges hills and trees. He also added some siege works to the defenders side in front of the city walls. I added to this my own hills and a dirt road that I use for 15mm games, it served well enough as the road to Avalone. When Thantsants arrived he added more fields and farm steads to the mix and Mr Rab who turned up late was able to add a tower from his own lovely collection. A special addition to the setup was a stone wall.








This wall was horror of horrors unpainted, though it didn't look too bad in the bare grey metal. The reason for including was not only did it look great but it was contributed by Bryan himself. They were the masters for a never released set of stone walls that were to have come out at the same time as the Mighty Fortress.

The road to Avalone.

Harry's houses with Bryans wall in the background.

The city walls themselves were mainly my own, painted the day before, I got RSI drybrushing that lot. I included the small keep I had converted in the walls and had the breach I had also converted waiting to be used. Thantsants walls and gate were more than enough for us to add a gate house to the main entrance and an extra wing giving the wall a serious length to be exploited by the forces of Chaos. Again Bryan had left out the metal masters for the Mighty fortress and was a little disappointed we hadn't used it in the walls. My bad , I even explained it was because they were not painted. "Elitist", Bryan replied. Left me wondering if he used to game with bear lead back in the day, surely not?

More of Harry's houses.

Thantsants set of gates infront of my own providing the gate house.

 The houses inside the city were supplied by Harry, my Brother Snicket, Thantsants and myself along with the cobbles which were hypocritically unpainted. More on the source of these cheap and excellent cobbles another time.

My brothers Elven tower.

So there we have it Seven people contributed to the terrain alone for this game. I thought it looked awesome though a bit of me knows we can do better.