Halpi's Rift: Salt the Earth

This week we played the penultimate Kings of War game in our Halpi's Rift campaign with the battle taking place on the Ethereal Plane, the home of the Nightstalkers. The scenario channelling table and special rules seem the most lack-lustre of the ones so far and didn't really make any impact on the game, so I won't go through them.

The scenario was Salt the Earth which plays as a standard hold the objective game but adds the twist that at the end of your turn you can destroy any objective that you hold. We took turns in placing objectives and they ended up mostly on the Undead left (Mick placed the red ones and I the blue ones).

The armies were much the same as before but the Kingdom of Men did bring in a Giant and a Troop of Berserkers so dropped a General on Winged Beast and the Archer Troop.

I won the roll for first turn and took first go, my plan was to remove the two objectives I didn't think I had a chance of holding and could reach so I moved then surged my Revenant Cavalry Troops up and removed the blue token on my far right and the red token on my far left. The rest of the Undead line shambled forwards. The KoM moved forwards and let off some shooting which caused a few wounds but did not take any units off.

Turn 2 saw my chaff on the left engage with the Mounted Scouts in the hope they could block up that flank for a while, unfortunately the Wraiths got a bit carried away and removed the Troop they charged. In the centre I continued to push forwards and forgetting about the Wild Charge on the Berserkers left myself in charge range of them and the Giant.

On the Undead right I managed to surge a revenant cavalry troop into the General on Winged Beast and caused some wounds so he was grounded.

During the Men's turn they double charged the Revenant Cavalry with the General and Captain but failed to rout them, right hand Wraith Troop also withstood a double charge for Knight & Mounted Scout Regiments, this kept the right flank nice and stable.

In the centre the Giant and Berserkers double charged a Troll Horde and again failed to remove it, a Knight Regiment did clear the left hand Wraiths though.

Back on the Undead right for the next turn the Undead took out the Knights which had bounced off the Wraiths and also cleared the Giant and Berserkers. The Zombie Legion managed an impressive number of wounds have flank charged the Giant (with the Trolls going into the front) and the Goreblight took care of the Berserkers. The fight between the Revenant Cavalry Troop and the KoM top-brass continued with the Cavalry managing to waver the General on Winged Beast.

On the Undead left the Revenant Cavalry Regiment made a hindered charge into the free Knight Regiment and only managed a few wounds. At this point things looked good for the Undead.

On the Men's turn they managed to bring some good dice and took off all the Cavalry on the left flank and also one-shot the Zombie Legion. This swung the game in the Men's favour.

I seem to be missing a couple of photos at this point but the Undead Goreblight and Troll Horde charged the Polearm Horde and failed to rout it, but crucially they did enough damage to waver the men, the other Troll Horde also did enough damage to waver the Foot Guards alongside the Polearm Horde. On the Undead right the KoM leaders finished off the Revenant Cavalry Troop and the Undead killed the Scout Regiment and started to move the Wraiths back onto the objective on that side.

On the KoM's turn 4 they took off the Goreblight in the centre leaving a Knight Regiment well placed to clean up the Undead in the centre and moved the other Regiment to claim an objective. The Undead did manage in Turn 5 to charge and kill the General on Winged Beast, taking a important flying and scoring unit out of the game. The real hero for the Undead was Revenant King Death who charged the flanking Knights caused two wounds (out of three attacks) and then rolled well enough to waver the knights. This gave the two Troll Hordes enough time to take off the Polearm Horde and Foot Guard. 

During the Men's turn 5 they couldn't do much with one of their scoring units being wavered but the other did charge and remove a Troll Horde which left the Undead with 3 scoring units and the KoM with 2.

When at the start of Turn 6 the remaining Troll Horde took off one of the Knight Hordes it was clear the Undead had done just enough to gain a win and the Men conceded defeat. 

This was a good battle with the result in doubt right up until Turn 6, it could have gone either way with the men suffering 3 wavers in a crucial turn 4 which saw the game swing away from them.

The Kingdom of Men welcomed a new arrival into the army with the inclusion of a giant. With the big 4,000 points a side coming up soon I wanted to add some extra points into the mix for a modest outlay of money and time, the giants fit the bill for this. 

The models are from the Reaper Bones range so under £10 each and I painted them up in pretty much a day with some base colours for the flesh and then contrast paints over the top.

Giants are Titans so come on the 75mm square base and have great nerve and good defence, couple that with Crushing Strength (4) and they are wounding everything on a 2+, which is pretty handy.