Sunday 15 March 2009

End of Empire


Jim has quit the Campoon and his empire is now gone, or rather turned barbarian.

Message from Dave M
Executive decision made with respect to the dissolution of the Elastic Empire.

Barbara the Barbarian and her chums have leapt in to the breach and declared a New Barebrained Empire. All of Jimbiscuss' remaining territories will turn Orange. Any army entering these territories will roll on the independent settlements table, but add 1 to the dice roll.

The Barebrain Empire have rejected all diplomacy as just 'man talk' and will not player will be allowed to send diplomatic missions to the empire, or part thereof


This helps my position out quite a bit as it means I've only one direct opponent (Dave M) in the area and I've now got a nice buffer zone of Barbarians between me and the next nearest opposition (Dave S). This makes a mass landgrab whilst I'm away less likely. It also removes one of only two Empires who currently have fleets besides myself.

Friday 13 March 2009

Year 2, Part 2


(Still Tuesday!) After the previous battles it's back to the map for some more Campoon moves.

I decided on a defensive posture and attacked into Jim and Dave M's lands; razing four villages (two of each just to be fair) to the ground in the process. Jim I attacked by the land bridge\bottleneck, Dave via an amphibious assault. Managed to burn a path to Dave's capital but I decided not to have a pop at and we both agreed a (temporary) truce.

Matt and the Nurgle continues to face off as Matt recovers the lands that the Nurgles had took off him the previous year. Eventually an agreement was reached and Matt turned back to hitting Dave S's now undefended Maginot Line.

Dave S had decided to try and relieve the territorial pressure on himself and continue with his full scale invasion of Jimland. Slowly crawling forwards as Matt continues to take territories off him back near his heartland. Jim, being absent, couldn't really do much about it.

Mark finally completed his seaborne invasion of the mainland only to find that the Nurgles had got there first and built a prefab city. It didn't stay in Nurgle hands for long as the ensuing siege wiped them out. There is now a nice clear area for Mark to expand into.

Paul quietly expands in the corner not upsetting anyone. He'll have to eventually as he is running out of virgin territory to conquer.

With only two moves left before 'Winter draws on' there does not seem to be much room for battle other than a Dave vs Jim rematch, with Dave now having the forces of an additional army available to tilt the odds.

Unfortunately I have no photos of the current positions as the batteries went dead in my camera.

The big problem for me is that I am away for the next two club nights, so there might not be much of my peninsular left when I get back. Will be leaving some instructions behind to try and limit the damage.

Thursday 12 March 2009

Normans Nurgling


Campoon Battle 2

Matt (1500pts Normans)

vs

Martin the High Nurgle (1500pts Picts)
(actually played by Dave M due to Martin's absence)

The Field of Play
From Campoon 3


The Nurgles outnumber the Normans quite heavily on the ground, but apparently the Normans have some 'panzers' available.

Nurgles Advance, Normans Encircle


The terrain is not really to the Nurgles advantage. There is also another Norman Cav circling around just south of the picture.

Panzerblitz Arrives


The Cavalry finally hits sending whole ranks of dead Nurgles crashing to the ground. The Normans manage to penetrate into the rear area, and if not for the time limit being reached could of crushed the remaining Nurgle forces. As it is the Nurgles don't come off to bad (but are still forced to retreat on the map).

End tally: Matt lost around 120pts, The Nurgles around 500pts. With the new rules for replacements being implemented (actually they are the ones that were used in the LoTR campaign) this could be reduced for both side quite a bit.

[Disclaimer: I have no idea why Martin refers to all his armies as Nurgles as there appears to be no connection with proper Warhammer Nurgles other than their implied vileness\smelliness. He's used Garden Gnomes as Nurgles before now.]

Wednesday 11 March 2009

Frontier Space


A mini-campaign devised by Paul overnight as he had forgotten to bring his rules along with his models from Geordieland.

A knocked together rules using ideas from DBA. ('These Starships are a lot like Elephants') sees a classic ST Federation vs Klingons match up.

Four planets and two Starbases on each side and a treacherous region of space in between. Plus a Wormhole to link the two sides.

The Wormhole is in a bad position for the Federation as it is one map move away from three planets. Ships are only built at the Starbases so theres no quick way to reinforce them. Plus the resources to build ships come from the planets.

The Starmap
From Furness Wargamers


After the fleets were slowly built up ships started buzzing backwards and forwards through the wormhole. I managed to quickly build a frigate and send it through , but it was destroyed in a one-on-one battle on the other side by a Klingon counterpart. The Klingons then sent a sizable force through to meet the defending Feds. One of our retreating heavy cruisers managed to sneak into the hole and eventually captured a Klingon planet, but a large Klingon force was loose in oue sector.

Another pounding
From Furness Wargamers


The Klingons in retaliation captured two undefended Federation planets.

After yet another defeat, where the Klingons regained their lost planet, the Federation gave up and headed off the map.

So that was 5 battles, and numerous map moves, in the space of about 90 minutes. Not many ships involved so not too much tactical movement in the battles (but there was one instance of the Feds doing a dummy retreat and then ambushing a damaged ship; So it was possible.)

Saturday 7 March 2009

The First Battle


The first real battle of the Campoon.

Jim (1500pts - Late Romans) vs Dave S (1500pts - Caphilates)

First time for Jim using this rule set, Dave's also a bit rusty. The moves have been dropped down to centimeters from inches and some Warmaster based figures used as they were the most readily available. The rest of the Campooners were either looking on or trying to get their Army Lists sorted.

(The strange blob\void in the middle of the photos is in fact a foam hill with unique light reflecting properties.)

Initial Setup looking from Jim's side
From Campoon 3


The hill\blob is the main terrain feature placed right in the middle of what, due to the scale change, is a large battlefield. Dave tries to overload on one side of the hill but the terrain still favours Jim's more mobile forces.



Unfortunately Dave's cavalry gets caught up amongst his other troops as Jim's cavalry and archers clears the other flank.



A Ding-dong battle occurs in the middle as the two main blocks of troops remain locked together. Dave's dice rolling lets him down as he should of clearly won at least a couple of the deadlock melee rounds.

The final positions


And so Mullah Dave ends up losing the battle big style despite having the chance to cut his losses earlier on. Dave still has another army available in the neighbouring hex so a early rematch is a distinct possibility.

Thursday 5 March 2009

Winter of the Flea(s)


The Campoon continues into the first winter phase and then into the first turn of the following year. Army Lists are still being clarified (given that not everyone has WH Ancients, the books are only available once a week). Despite being in a Viking like position I've gone against type and have selected to go Anglo-Saxon.

The Diplomacy and Espionage segments were both let downs, with non of the major independents joining sides, only Mark got a good result as the final independent city on his island joined him to give him complete control of the island, which is now derogatorily referred to by the others as 'Walney'. The only Espionage was a hoard of agents going paranoid trying to capture non-existent spies.

The temporary absence of Martin meant that his lands entered dormant mode, where in effect they all become neutral for this turn, except his capital with his armies inside. A similar thing is to happen with Jim next week in his absence.

After the winter
From Campoon 3


During the first and only move that night, which not only included people trying to devour the Nurgle but also Dave S invasion of Jimland, leading to the first true battle of the campaign (which actually occurred in a neutral village hex). The rules for ship movement has been clarified and is much looser than the original rules with landings being allowed anywhere.

The Invasion


The End of move 1?


And then it happened! The return of the Nurgle! as Martin showed up and retroactively had his move. Matt was more than happy with this, despite originally being the main beneficiary of Martins absence, as it leads to a chance to bash the smelly one down in combat.

Fisticuffs in the Center