Border Princes: Campaign End

 

For our final turn, the forces of Chaos, already beleaguered from endless conflicts, were thrust into battle and forced to defend their holdings once more. Brad had been stuck in his corner for most of the game and was worthy of mercy, but we had not played a single battle during the campaign which means it had been months since we stood across from one another and threw dice. I also had a great idea for a campaign epilogue that would be well served by the Barrow Legion controlling Aldium. Ian just wanted a chance to crawl out of last place, no doubt.

While the Crimson Host of Maltherion cowered in their makeshift ramparts, the rest of the armies in the Border Princes made one last push before a long winter set in. The Barrow Legion amassed troops around the fortified town of Aldium and the Khorne worshippers gathered their forces to repel the undead. The battle was fought with equal points, though Chaos had a small advantage with their fortifications allowing them to mess with terrain. Meanwhile, the Gnawing Doom emerged from the woods for one final border skirmish near the Covenant's fortress. For maybe the first time all campaign, Ian enjoyed a points advantage!

For our game, Brad and I setup the table as though the Barrow Legion were emerging from the forest surrounding Malko to assault the besieged merchant town. Since he was fortified, he was allowed to remove one piece of terrain and add a randomly generated one anywhere he liked. He chose to remove a forest that was next to the swamp and hill in the Barrow Legion deployment area and added a sacred Tower of Soured Cream atop a central hill. Chaos worshippers, am I right?

I deployed one of my Skull Chukkas in difficult terrain to dissuade charges and the other behind my lines so it could use its debuff on the inevitable ambushers Brad would deploy back there. The catapults both can make one enemy unit within 18" be treated as though they were in difficult terrain and limit their movement to 6". Filthy. Brad had more scouts than me and that forced my big block of dire wolves back towards my line since he had the first turn. His general on chaos dragon lurked behind a set of ruins just waiting for anyone to advance. We had 4 objectives running down the diagonal of the board and whoever controlled the most would win.

Brad is a big fan of Barbarian Horsemen and I get it after this game. They had not yet been deployed in the above picture, but he had a unit of ten charge my poor chariot as his first activation of the game and wiped it out! Scout and Fast and 10 Impact hits is pretty good! I had to drop all of my plans and now deal with a crumpled flank that had a bunch of howling marauders itching to charge anything near them. Thankfully, I was able to take out half of them with catapult fire and cause them to be shaken. Then they were in difficult terrain the rest of the game while they endured potshots that caused more shakes. 

Brad had excellent positioning over by the Pringles (an official sponsor of Portcullis) tower, where he had a chaos lord on manticore lurking in the woods and a big unit of barbarians make some really good trades against my poor zombie dragon. An ambushing unit of bloodletters sealed the deal over there and I had to focus on the objectives at the edge of Aldium. I had better luck there, as Brad overestimated how many skeletons his dragon would kill and was unable to reform. My grave guard were able to get a flank charge that shook the beast and it was routed by a rear charge from my other block of spear skeletons. My other catapult kept his demonic hounds from taking advantage of their ambush by putting them in difficult terrain and I was able to control most of the board outside of the forest by the end of turn 4. Aldium had fallen!

I had witnessed the final battle between Skaven and Chaos but all details were lost after a long Christmas break. I reached out to the belligerents to see what they had to say:

 

Fantastic.

Here is the final map of the campaign, the product of 20 rounds of orders and 6 months of gaming. With all the points tallied, here are the final standings:

1. Barrow Legion

2. Crimson Host of Maltherion

3. Covenant of Blood

4. Gnawing Doom

A tide of undead has swept across the land and the living dare not cross the South Road. Wight and ghoul roam the hills and forests freely while necromancers plunder the Geistenmund Hills. The eerie howls of unnatural beasts emit from the walls of the unhallowed fortress Malko!

It is worth noting this is my 6th or 7th campaign season in the Border Princes as well as probably my 10th map campaign. These guys held their own as they made all the normal mistakes one makes when learning a system like this. I have seen many, many players eliminated from the map and everyone hung on to their capitals and managed to hold a little territory, too. That's a great performance for one's first time out. I want to give a big thank you to my friends for dedicating so much time, effort, and enthusiasm to this endeavor. I loved every second of sharing this with you.

If you've followed along on this blog, I hope it inspires you to try something like this with your gaming group. Map campaigns are a multiplier for the fun you have wargaming. You get the joy and excitement of your 2 hours battling on the table, but now can daydream about your moves and develop your strategy while you are commuting home from work or cooking dinner or shoveling your driveway for the fifth time in two weeks. You get to boast of your victories to your adversaries and plan your revenge when they defeat you. As a lifelong New Englander, I cannot in good conscience omit the tremendous shit talking opportunities it provides. I promise it will be worth the effort.

Amazingly, at the end of the campaign, the guys said, "Great campaign. When's the next one?" I have some rough ideas I am fleshing out with an aim to get more of the NEWC involved now that I have some of the basic problems solved. Maybe the original Mighty Empires this time? Like I said above, I also have an idea for a campaign epilogue that would be played out in a series of Warcry games that could be cool. 

Finally, I will leave you with a slightly imperfect gif of most of the turns we played:

⚔️ Ian