Nevershall Pass

Introduction

We in the GTA Gaming Group are playing a simple campaign using the Warmaster Mighty Empires campaign rules.

This battle represents the outcome of turn 3, in which Chaos (Edward) and Empire (Andrew) agree to a mutual non-agression pact, allowing them to team up and attack my High Elf nation. (This is what happens when you're late to the game!)

As a result, this game is a 2500-point High Elf army vs. 1250-point Empire army and a 1250-point Chaos army.

Like last time, we set up a digital camera on a tripod so that we could faithfully record the game. I've assembled these pictures into two slide shows, dividing the game into two parts. If you're keen to get to the animations, scroll no further, go straight to Part I.

The Battlefield

Andrew and I really enjoyed the amount of hills we used in the last game, so we did the same here. We rolled 6D6 to see how many hills we would place, and 3D6 to see how many trees - far more forest than in the last game. In addition to the forest, we wound up with three impassable cliffs (two of them face away from the camera, but they're there!) This was a return to the densely packed battlefields we've been playing on lately, and maneuvering really required careful thought.

We rolled randomly to determine which side we would start on, and I wound up in the east this time (the camera faces north). Andrew brought out some foamcore stand-up boards, and we arranged them to allow real hidden deployment.

The Empire-Chaos Army

The Empire and Chaos armies started in the west. From north to south, they fielded:

4 Empire Knights
Chaos Harpies, Cannons, Flagellants
2 Crossbowmen, 2 Halberdiers
2 Chaos Warriors, 2 Chaos Marauders
2 Chaos Chariots
Chaos Knights, Mounted Marauders

After playing a couple of battles like this, I believe two-army forces have three disadvantages:

They're constrained by 1,000-point maximums, which limits flexibility in unit selection.
They suffer the 'quarter-army' breakpoint problem where, if you're able to concentrate on one sub-army, making them less resilient.
Each character can only issue orders to half of the force, which can limit flexibility when orders fail.

The High Elf Army

I've played some large, many-player games, but this was actually the first time that I had to field more than 2000 points. I finally figured out that my usual troop selection doesn't break into brigades very easily.

With the help of some Orc proxies, I was able to correct this and selected three full infantry brigades, two full cavalry brigades (one Reavers, the other mostly Silver Helms), and two half-brigades of eagles and bolt throwers.

I deployed in the east - from north to south (which is left to right in the picture):

4 Reavers
3 Silver Helms, Chariots
2 Bolt Throwers
Archers, 3 Spearmen
2 Giant Eagles
Archers, 3 Spearmen
Archers, 3 Spearmen

Now.. on to the battle!