Artefacts of Kyron Campaign Battle #7

This week we played out the finale of the Artefacts of Kyron campaign with both the armies having made it to the Gates of Power and each side seeking to unlock the artefacts whilst stopping the other from doing so. We agreed that the unit carrying an artefact must spend a hold move an uncontested gate and that each gate could only be used once.

The initial deployment saw most of the forces mustered around the more central gates with the Kin positioning the two artefacts they had opposite them and the Men going for the gate furthest away. The Men aimed to get forward as quickly as possible in order to ensure the Kin could not gain a quick victory.

The Men won the roll off for first turn and pushed forwards onto and over the gates they also launched one charge into the woods against the Kin Shadows but this was repulsed. The giant Oliphant mode was this time being used to represent a Horde of Elephants from the KoW Historical lists and this made it easily the more expensive unit on the table.

The Men had also been expanding their flying Corps so more carpets took to the skies.

Some fire from the central flying carpets wavered one of the Gargoyle units in the Kin's front line which caused some disruption to the following units. The Kin also pressed forwards and engaged some of the leading units in melee and also with ranged fire.

In what became a bit of a theme some poor rolling on nerve checks meant that only one unit of Men's chaff was removed and the other was able to further constrict the advance in the middle. The Buccaneers also failed to clear the central unit of carpets but did manage to lock them down by causing the casualty to stop them from flying.

In the next turn the Men stripped away the chaff units from the Kin but could not leave themselves out of arc or range to be charged in the next turn.

The had however managed to turn the Kin right flank and started to work their way through the artillery units there.

The Kin then launched a series of charges along the line all of which failed to route the enemy and if I recall correctly did not even manage a waver. The Oliphant managed to stop the Dark Knights I think for the first time in the campaign and this then left them in a bad position.

During the next Men's turn the Dark Knights went down as did another artillery unit and the Men caused casualties along the line, with the centre in particular being a bogged down grind. The Dark Lord on Pegasus was also amongst the fallen, this freed up the Men's right flank as well.

 The Kin's turn saw more counter charges and an attempt to shore up their left flank by moving across the Reaper Guard and the central Buccaneers finally routed the carpets and moved forwards to cover the Spear Horde's flank.

During this time the Men had pushed their Artefact upto a gate but a doughty defence by a lone Dark Avenger had keep them from being able to claim the gate.

During the Men's next turn the Kin casualties really started to mount and it became a matter of when not if they lost. Once you can get onto the flank of the enemy especially with heavy hitting units you can quickly roll up the opposition.

So in this turn the Shadows Regiment and Buccaneers routed and also the Lycan Horde was lost.

The Reaper Guard Regiment was also wavered leaving it straight in the path of the Oliphants.
The Kin had one final chance to break the central infantry Horde and again rolled low on the nerve test so did not even waver their opponents.

After that it was all over with the Men making some good nerve check rolls and the Kin being wiped out apart from one artillery unit.

In the end the collapse was swift and pretty much total but once again I came away thinking that even though I had mode some mistakes it could have been a different game with some better nerve check rolls, but such is the life of a wargamer.
So that is the end of the campaign and we had some good battles and it was great to push some models across the table and good to see two painted armies fighting it out.
Next up will be some SAGA with Stu building up a possibly Irish force so we will need to play some practice games for him to get used to the rules.
We both also have our second Kings of War armies under construction so we will need to think up another campaign structure to use once they are ready to be fielded.

Artefacts of Kyron Campaign Battle #6

Battle #6 saw the two sides clash in an Eliminate game as they sought to gain an upper hand before the climactic clash in battle #7 at the Gates of Kyron. Eliminate games involve placing a bounty on each of your three most expensive non-individual units, 1 VP is gained for killing an opponent's unit with a bounty in melee, no VP's for killing them with ranged fire. A bonus objective worth 1 VP is place in the centre of the table.
With the final battle in mind my plan going into the game was to make the capture of at least one of the Artifacts held by the Human forces my priority and then the capture of the bounties as a bonus if possible.
The battle saw the sides increase to 2,500 points with my Twilight Kin adding some more Herd allies in the shape of  Beast Packs and some long range punch with Twilight Bolt Throwers. The Humans opted to make sure the bounties where not placed on all their fastest units by fielding two Hordes of Foot Guards.

The forces of Men

The initial setup was favourable to my plan as the two artifacts where quite close together and one was placed on the squishy flying carpet unit. The other was on a Foot Guard Horde which would be a tough nut to crack but I felt should go down to concentrated fire.

The forces of the Twilight Kin ( and Herd )

After the deployment was completed my brother remembered that possession of an Artifact reduced a units movement to 5" and he asked to move the Banner to another unit as he had put it on a speed 10 flying unit. I couldn't really say no as that would reveal my plan and as these are very much friendly games I took the setback as best I could. The banner did not go far but did end up behind the gigantic Oliphant ( chariot horde stand-in) and not directly faced by any of my units.

The bounties for my forces where placed on my Herd Lycans, my Shadows Regiment and my faithful Dark Knights. I think the Dark Knights have so far been my best performers, they have wiped out more units than any other part of my force and tend to take a lot of killing.

After the roll off Stuart won the right to choose first turn and asked me to go first. I made a general advance with units being careful to stay out of charge range of the plentiful cavalry on the wings and pushed further forwards towards the centre.

My artillery battery opened up on a unit of Human Knights and did some damage but not enough to worry them.

Battery Hill bottom right

The Humans then held the centre and pushed the wings forward, as the Gargoyles and Beast Pack out ranged their cavalry they opted to push forwards quickly in the hope to hem my troops in.

On the Kin left the combined fire of several units wiped out a Beast Pack Regiment (allowing me to get rid of some unpainted stand-ins).

The imposing Oliphant towers over the field

On the second turn I launched the Dark Knights into the Oliphant in the hopes they could wipe them out and then carry on to take a shot at the Berserkers carrying the Banner token, the Gargoyles moved to engage the archer cavalry and in hindsight they may have been better off moving to cover the right flank of the Knights.

Stuart checks for a flank charge

 The Knights wiped out the Oliphant for the third time out of the four battle it has fought in and the rest of the forces pushed up in the middle.

Centre Objective siezed

The artillery battery managed a great round of fire and wiped out a Knight Regiment and the right flank descended into a bloody melee with many units being committed to the fight.

It gets tasty on the right flank

On the left the Dark Knights went down to a charge by a Foot Guard Horde and the Flying Carpets and the Gargoyles and Horse Archers continued to trade blows. The ability of the Gargoyles to regen meant they had the advantage in this fight.

In the centre a nerve roll of double 1 meant that the archers covering the Foot Guard Horde with the Sword Artifact stayed in place but the artillery started to chip away at there nerve.

On the right my Kin had already wiped out the other unit of Horse Archers and in reply lost a Regiment of Buccaneers and the other Beast Pack. The Human Knight Regiment opted to advance to try and avoid a flank charge but got carried away and managed to line themselves up for another unit to be able to charge them.

During the next Kin turn things cleared up on my right as several charges cleared out some of the cavalry but I made a mistake by not turning my Shadows to face the Air Elemental lurking in the bottom right corner. In the centre a nerve roll of double 1 meant that the archers covering the Foot Guard Horde with the Sword Artifact stayed in place but the artillery started to chip away at their nerve.

This allowed it a flank charge which almost routed the Shadows and left them wavered.

In the centre the Humans started to double up on the Kin infantry managing to wipe out a Reaper Guard Regiment.

On the right Stuart sent the Berserkers to help out the Horse Archers who had been wavered by the Gargoyles.

The next Kin turn saw the Air Elemental wiped out in one furious Lycan charge and the blocking Archer Regiment finally dispatched. With a Regiment of Buccaneers on the hill ready to sacrifice themselves I followed up my Reaper Guard charge on the blocking Archers in the centre and moved another Regiment and the Dark Lord on Pegasus into flanking positions for the Human Foot Guard Horde with carried the Sword Artifact. 

The right flank was looking pretty clear at this point and the Artillery continued to add damage to the crucial Human Horde.

During the Human turn the much maligned non-inspiring Hero managed to get a wound off on the Shadows and they failed the nerve check giving the Humans a second bounty. They also charged the hill and took the bonus token so had a 3-0 VP lead.

The Uninspiring Hero wins the day

As time was once again pressing on we agreed that the only move that now mattered was if my forces had enough to wipe out the Foot Guard Horde and claim a token so we worked out only that combat.

Artifact seized

Between them my last Reaper Guard Regiment and the Dark Lord had enough to wipe out the Guards and claim a bounty and more importantly the Sword Artifact. 

So another victory for the Human's (3-1) and another bloody affair which could have gone either way perhaps had I not made a couple of mistakes. But such is the life of an armchair general.

So next is the last battle in the Campaign as the two sides seek to unlock the full potential of the Artifacts whilst preventing the other side from doing so. My aim to carry the majority of the Artifacts into this battle worked out so perhaps a victory is in sight ? 

Artefacts of Kyron Campaign Battle #5

The fifth battle in the ongoing campaign saw the forces engaged in a Push scenario centred around a river. Both sides had 3 tokens they needed to carry into the opponent's half of the table and one extra token up for grabs in the middle of the table. 

The Men brought back the Mamakil after it sat out battle #4 and also swapped a few troops of archers out for another infantry regiment ( I think ). My Kin replaced the crossbow horde with a regiment of crossbows and a regiment of javelin armed Buccaneers in order to increase the number of units available.

The Setup

 Earlier battles had been very bloody with the action kicking off in turn one but this time the game started with less of a bang as both sides pushed up towards the river with the Men's unopposed cavalry wing making the most rapid progress.

Cavalry storm the gap

The Men roll forward

My Kin also pushed forward with the aim being to fight through my right flank and trying to hold the centre long enough to get the tokens over.

The new marsh area terrain hits the table

First contact was made by one of my chaff heroes ( mounted dark avenger ) into the Men's flying carpets, this combat was to last pretty much the whole game as neither side could wear the other down.

With most of the Men's shooting being concentrated in the centre they put the hurt on my Dark Knights in an effort to kill them off before they could charge home. With some poor rolling and some good armour the knights shrugged off the worst of the incoming fire.

The men also launched some spoiling attacks across the river, having a large number of well armoured infantry regiments means that they can be sacrificed more readily than the Kin can afford to lose units.

The Men get stuck in

In the centre the Dark Knights got the charge off against the Mamakil and as the Lycans had got tied up with an Air Elemental I had to commit my flying hero to support the attack. The Dark Knights wiped out the Mamakil in one turn and got in position to launch another attack.

On my right flank the Blade Dancers managed to survive some withering fire ( thanks to Sut rolling double 1's on nerve ) and then took out a regiment of Foot Guard.

Dark Avenger still plugging away

On the left the sacrifice on another Dark Avenger meant that the Dark Knights had the position for one more charge which could then delay the advance of the Men for another turn.

They charged once more and managed to remove another regiment of Foot Guard. By this time the Lycans had managed to over-power the air elemental in time to turn and face the oncoming heavy cavalry.

In the last but one turn the Men started to make real progress wiping out both the Knights and the Lycans but with the Hero on Pegasus and mounted Dark Avenger still holding up across the river.

On the right the Kin had almost cleared the opposing troops and started to make a move across the river.

At the beginning of the last move it was obvious that the Kin would get some tokens across the river but not enough to beat the men. The battle ended with both sides being in relativity good shape compared to previous engagements. Both sides had enough units that the game could have probably gone on a few more rounds.

Dark Avenger finally dies

For the next game we will be playing Eliminate which involves killing the 3 more expensive non-individual units of the opposition. We will also be increasing the army sizes upto 2500 points for the the final two games.