Thursday, May 21, 2015

WarCry Skirmish

I'd just finished reading a book about the American Civil War, but still had some spare time. It was too late to play a more intensive game like Bolt Action or Field of Glory, so I pulled out my current "filler" rules of choice, WarCry. I don't mean "filler" in a bad way, I just mean this is a fun, simple game to play when you don't feel like allocating the brain cells for a major war, and don't have the time for a huge campaign. I made army lists, set up and played the game in about half an hour.

Orc Army
Wizard, 5 spells. One No-Attack spell, 3 No-Move spells of various strengths, and a Mage-Kill which was wasted as there was no enemy mage. None of the No-Move spells got used either.
Champion with Rally ability. This lets him bring a dead comrade back on a roll of 6.
5 Archers
10 Warriors

Dwarf Army
Champion with Immune to Magic ability. Didn't come in handy, but very Dwarvish.
10 Rangers with Crossbows
8 Heavy Foot

I've recently been reading Donald Featherstones "Complete Wargaming". It has some great, simple generic rules on weather, so I decided to use those just to liven things up a bit. I rolled up "torrential rain"...so the bows and crossbows would be useless! Looks like the missile troops will be fighting with swords today. Incidentally, WarCry feels sort of like if Donald Featherstone wrote fantasy. Simple, straightforward rules, with just enough flavour to keep them interesting, but not overly complex.

Let battle begin!

The Dwarves.

Orc archers and mage on the hill, warriors to the right.

Dwarves surge forward through the rain.

Orc archers are ineffectual in spite of being uphill, in the distance the Orc warriors are slaughtering the dwarf heavy foot. A No Attack spell cast by the Orc mage slowed down the Dwarves at the foot of the hill.

But the delay accomplished nothing, orc archers dying quickly, while the orc warriors destroy their enemies.

Dwarf rangers getting flanked. They fought bravely and killed the orcs on the hill, but died at the hands of their flankers. Victory orcs!
Simple, fun and effective.