Book of War Posts

A collection of Book of War updates from Delta. I have not had a chance to use them yet as the Wizard in my game got blown up by a fire ball before he could raise any undead.

New Units:

Elementals
Elephants
Giants
Treants
Undead
War pigs (I know it's April Fool's but whatever)

Unit Expansions:

Knights
Wizards and heroes

Rules: 

Cold
partial hd
random armies
weather control

The Siege of Witherhelm

I finally had my D&D group play the siege I have been planning at posting about for months. I used Book of War by Delta. I took some advice from the internet and I ignored some probably very good advice from the internet. Everything worked out though.... sort of. 

Dave hard at work setting up the evil army

The campaign is in shambles but in a good way I wanted to have a meaningful battle where the objectives were determined by things that mattered in the large framework of the world and not just objective markers. This made the game more like a real war in that there were no winners. The high level 'good' NPC was devoured by a purple worm in the basement and the high level magic user was blasted out of the sky by a fireball after he got overconfident. That means that all known cities of the world are without leadership and in a state of anarchy.

I look on with no idea that half a continent is about to be thrown
into anarchy.

Setting up took a long time. I was ready to use chgowiz's Fellowship Supplement for Book of War but the part spent the whole time hidden in the inn. They weren't discovered until the guy playing the evil army lifted up the inn as a joke and saw them in there. By that time it was too late; he couldn't get any troops over there and his wizard had been fried.

There is ivy growing on the keep because I screwed up making it
 and had to cover up my mistakes.

This picture is blurry due to the heat from the fireball that is rushing towards
the evil wizard. His last stand was on top of a beer.

The goal of the evil army was to capture a very important wraith trapped at the top of
Witherhelm stronghold or barring that free the wraith and destroy Brock Thickstone.

Brock Thickstone's goal was to inflict as much damage as possible to the evil army before retreating so that it could not attack his home territory a few hexes away. Both sides failed spectacularly.

Here is a synopsis that one of my players wrote (I bribed him with xp):

Alright so I will take a wack at this as I am I dire need for the xp and there is a sick amount of it.  

Witherhelm keep sat at the center of the board topped by a pyramid and encircled by a series of obelisks.  The rest of the land was covered by farms, a pub and a pair of hills and a pair of forests.
Clargarser’s army attacked on 4 fronts having first strike:
1.  Pikemen and medium infantry from the castle front which was actual north in Philadelphia so I will call that north in Witherhelm.  
2.  Cover of forest at the southwest for pikemen and heavy infantry
3. The primary front from the Southeast by cover of forest which included cavalry, archers, Raglom and Clargarser
4. Purple worm

Witherhelm defended with our rabble group under the concealment of the pub, with proximity to the front from the north, taking opportunity to hide the stirge in a wheat field.  Their front was also aided by archer cavalry.  This front was successfully defended.

The southwest front was taken by surprise by a unit of pikemen utilizing a spell “tree form” meaning concealment by fake forest.  The pikemen rocked the infantry and then came to successfully defend from the pikemen offensive by Clargarser.  

The southeast front remained hidden in the forest, facing combat late in the game and then retreating, but not before a flurry of events transpired.

First, the purple worm emerged in the basement of the stronghold. Thickstone ventured to the basement to inspect the racket.  Severely injuring the worm before being eaten whole.  Brock was gone in the first round of play.  Fortunately the units were unaware of this or else morale would have plummeted.  

Next Raglom tried some fancy shit while flying and was blown out of the sky by Xylarthen’s fireball wand.  

So then the purple worm re-emerged to destroy one of the obelisks.  This was sad news for the band of longbonermen taking to the roof of the keep. This action released the wraith, who proceeded to make these archers wraiths as well.  Scary stuff.  

Fortunately Xylarthen was able to levitate and use his fireball wand to knock these wraiths off before they ran amok.That plot line was brewing since Naked and afraid day 1.  

The stirge returned to the keep full and Clargarser left town.  Glad we took out the catapult factory.  Thanks Nupo the Gnome.  We love you.  

This is the first turn of the game

A short time later

The battle reminded me of the Anabasis, which is ridiculous. this was much sillier.  A lot of people died though.

I made a hard to read chart (I suck at Information Design):

You can see the initial army list with a mostly accurate point value for the armies. I multiplied by ten to get the cost of the armies in gold pieces. Brock Thickstone didn't care that he lost a lot of money on the battle because he died.

Host of Clargarser		pts	Defenders of Thickstone			pts
10 pikemen		50	16 pikemen			80
14 medium infantry		70
10 heavy infantry		90
6 archers		42	5 archers			35
			6 longbowmen			60
			10 horse archers			130
10 medium cavalry		120
			10 stirge			80
1 purple worm		60
			1 PC party			???
Raglom		80	Xylarthen			80
Clargarser		65	Brock Thickstone			65
Total		577				530 + ???
Remains at the end of the battle
				9 pikemen	45
10 heavy infantry	90
				4 archers	28
				3 longbowmen	30
				5 horse archers	65
5 medium cavalry	60
				1 PC party	???
				Xylarthen	80
Clargarser	65
Total	215				248
Difference	362				282
Loss percentage	62.7				53.2
Host of Clargarser was 8.9 % bigger

Book of War: The Battle of Throggs Neck

The Blurry Monsters:
6 Archers
12 Goblins
7 Medium Infantry
1 Purple Worm
10 Stirge
263 Points

The In Focus Humans:
5 Archers
7 Heavy Infantry
5 Longbowmen
7 Medium Infantry
10 Pikemen
233 Points

The Battle of Throggs Neck was the first battle that I played that had an objective. Throggs Neck is a trading post and some monsters and some bandits wanted to attack it. The human forces wanted to drive the monsters off. Fortunately, for the humans the monsters approached from the other side of the river Throgg.

The battle started with the two sides facing each other as in the pictures above. The humans seized the initiative and attacked.

The humans rush forward. It is their time to be blurry.

Instead of adopting a defensive posture the humans to send their pikemen across the bridge 10 men abreast (it's a wide bridge) directly into the goblin infantry supported by archers. The human forces wipe out half the goblins and rout them. A strong start for the humans but no the pikemen are alone surrounded by the forces of chaos.

The goblins flee

Here are the longbowmen fleeing so as to not seem biased.
This happened 2 turns later though.

The goblins run away from the battle field but the rest of the monster army mounts a counter attack. The bandit archers climb the hill they were hiding behind and fire at the enemy archers. The purple worm also burrows towards the archers busts out of the ground and swallows ten of them or maybe a few of them escape crawling on the ground missing limbs, screaming. The stirge fly to the back lines and set upon the longbowmen. whatever malignant intelligence is controlling the monsters is apparently concerned primarily with eliminating support for the human infantry. 

The Purple worm neutralizes the human archers but is too close their medium infantry

The stirge set upon the longbowmen and ultimately destroy them. 

The medium infantry move up to slay the purple worm

Over the course of the next few turns. The monsters are able to eliminate the ranged support of the human army but it costs them the purple worm. The humans left  enough infantry to dispatch it. The bandit archers are having a great time  poking at the humans across the river from on top of their hill. The human pikemen maybe get a little luck against the medium infantry for the monsters and really start to whittle them down.

After disposing of the longbowmen it is time for the
stirge to make a tactical retreat.

The pikemen that wouldn't die blocking the mercenaries of the monster
army from aiding the archers

The heavy infantry for the humans are having trouble fording the river. They desperately want to get to the mercenary archers and stop them from killing everything.

The fight with the pikemen degenerates into a confusing mass of death

Things start to look bad for the monsters because the pikemen refuse to die or run. They keep the medium infantry from intercepting the heavy infantry and in a desperate attempt to eliminate them the stirge fly over. The pikemen are routed but surrounded so they cannot flee. This was a huge tactical blunder. They continue to fight on further delaying the infantry support for the archers.

The mercenary archers last stand at the top of the hill

This allows the human heavy infantry to summit the hill under arrow fire and engage the archers in melee. The human medium infantry now take the opportunity to clean up what the pikemen could not.  The heavy infantry quickly scatter the archers. They have taken the hill and defended the trading post.


This game lasted a lot longer than the last one as the forces were much bigger and the terrain was more complicated. The bridge and the river made movement a lot more complicated and cumbersome. There were also more strategic decisions to be made. This battle took about 2 hours and 8 turns for each side. It felt fast paced the entire time though.

Book of War Battle Report: The Battle of Trying to get all the Rules Down

The Human army is ready to fight.

Baron Thickstone has sent a regiment into a neighboring hex to subdue whatever monsters are there and win more arable land from the wilderness. His regiment sensed the foul smell of monsters and quickly organized.

On the other side the indigenous monsters joined together to repel the outsiders and maintain their chaotic way of life.

 Army Lists

Human Army
6	Archers	42 points
7	Heavy Infantry	63 points
10	Pikemen	50 points
Total Army Cost:		155 points

Monster Army
12	Goblins	36 points
10	Stirge	80 points
1	Purple Worm	60 points
Total Army Cost:		186 points

The Monster army

Rules Mistakes:

·      I thought heavy infantry had a move rate of 9” not 6”.

·      I didn’t see that archers that stand still have a rate of fire of 2 per turn. I was giving them 1 shot per turn and then only have the unit would manage to get a shot off if they moved.

·      I thought that the purple worm got multiple attacks but it doesn’t.

·      These are just the mistakes that I’ve caught so far so who knows how badly I am messing this up.

THE BATTLE

Humans win initiative.

Human Turn 1

Movement:

Humans move up the archers stay behind the heavy infantry to provide support and the pikemen rush towards the forest to prevent the goblins from fortifying it.

I feel bad. My blurry camera really doesn't capture how epic
these miniatures look as they march into battle.

Monsters Turn 1

Movement:

·      The Stirge fly towards the heavy infantry and intercept them.

·      The goblins advance and the purple warm advances.

Combat:

The stirge attack the Heavy Infantry. I used the normal rules for combat. Movement stops when the bases touch. But I think in the future I will allow all stirge figures that can move into contact with an enemy unit to attack. Then when an enemy unit is killed replace it with a stirge figure from the back ranks to create the impression of the enemy unit getting swarmed from above and eaten up.

Anyway the stirge only manage to kill 1 soldier.

Once again my camera is really preventing you from taking in all the detail
as the stirge try to prevent the humans from taking the hill.

Humans Turn 2

Movement:

·      The Heavy infantry wraps around the stirge unit.

·      The pikemen advance forward cutting the goblins off from the forest.

Combat:

·      The archers fire killing 1 stirge.

·      The pikemen manage to kill 1 goblin using their ability to attack from 1” away.

·      The Heavy Infantry get really lucky and kill 5 stirge. Ouch!

Morale:

The stirge have lost over half their numbers this turn. If they were being controlled by the stirge mask the would not need to check morale, but here they do. They fail and rout.

This is when things really went wrong for the monsters.

Monsters Turn 2:

Movement:

·      The Stirge run away.

·      The Goblins adjust and rush into the pikemen who are not on open ground and get no special bonus attack.

·      The purple worm burrows into the heavy infantry and erupts from the ground.

Combat:

·      The goblins kill 2 pikemen.

·      The purple worm only manages to kill one heavy infantry with its 3 attacks (it should only have gotten one).

Morale:

Although the pikemen and heavy infantry both took losses they pass their morale checks with ease.

This looks cool if you use your imagination and your camera stays in focus.

Humans Turn 3:

Movement: none

Combat:

·      The pikemen kill 6 goblins!

·      The Heavy Infantry make short work of the purple worm.

·      The archers have nothing in range to shoot at because the monsters are getting massacred so badly.

Morale:  

The goblins rout.

The Humans are again victorious. The goblins flee over the despoiled part of the vinyl mat.

Monsters Turn 3:

Movement: It is a resounding defeat for the monsters. They flee off into the sunset.

Conclusions:

1. Heavy infantry is really good.

2. Stirge might be too expensive.

3. Archers by the book might be a little too good.

4. Hero units are not impactful against a lot of heavily armed targets.

5. These small battles are over really fast. This took maybe 10 minutes.