Border Skirmish
After the recent Isthak incursions into Elvish territory the Thanaril had taken to patrolling their borders more aggressively with local forces. Unfortunately the local leaders of the Empire's southern provinces felt threatened by the more frequent appearance of Elves at their borders and had also started patrolling more intensively with whatever forces they could find in the region. On this day, two patrols met across the river that marks the border between the forest of the Thanaril and the Southern province of Annakam.
The Armies (1200 points)
The Elves had a Thanaril contingent of hunters, spearbearers, archers and skirmishers, supported by the badgers in the center and the Luthari archers under Caliar Ildriel on their right flank. On the very left flank Andor was waiting to cross the river and disturb the attack of the Empire troups.
The Empire had a local force of provincial crossbows and pikemen on their center and left. They were led by the noble mounted knights and supported by the dwarf arquebusiers behind mantlets [yes, we used the 1st edition mantlets]. Their commander was Dar Kilmore in the center. On their right flank, facing the other river fording, the positioned the rolling fortress with flamethrower and the Order's knights on foot with Gordan Orkslayer as their leader.
The Battle
The Empire troups were determined to protect their borders. On their right flank the rolling fortress advanced partly into the river, blocking the small ford completely. Although the Thanaril archers tried hard, they could hardly scratch the massive tower on wheels. The Thanaril spearbearers were stupid enough to try and attack the fortress in the water. However, after getting into contact they discovered how nasty the flame attacks can be and dispersed, with part of the unit staying so close to the tower and the rest so far away that the flames could not reach them.
Because the fortress chose to simply block the ford until the end of the game, it defeated all efforts of the Thanarils left flank to do anything; the unit of Order's knights on foot behind it together with Gordan spent the whole army marching back and forth in beautifully studied formation changes, but without a chance (or a need) to to anything more. Some observers felt reminded of the dwarves' performance in the famous battle of Bassano...
On the left flank of the Empire more action took place. The block of dwarves and crossbowmen advanced very slowly behind their mantlets, not causing or losing many casualties throughout the game. But the mounted knights quickly rode into the river at its wider ford and crashed right into the Thanaril skirmishers who advanced to slow them doen. They did this so skilfully that they even managed to bind the hunters and the Luthari in melee for a couple of rounds until the skirmishers were dispersed and the badgers found the space to crush into the knights and destroy most of them in a single round of combat.
Immediately after the fleeing knights the pikemen had moved up and replaced them in the melee for control of he larger ford, holding their own until nightfall.
At the end of the day, both sides retired fatigued and with limited losses, but knowing that they had defended their honour well in a close fought border skirmish. Unfortunately both knew that their next encounters with Isthak would not be such limited affairs...
Summary, or 'How to play Demonworld'
This game illustrated two simple ways to make Demonworld games fun: simple scenarios, and a roleplaying approach.
In terms of scenarios, terrain can make a big difference. In this case, using a river as the central feature of a small battlefield made all the difference. Fords as the only points wehere rivers can be crossed (or at least crossed fast) focus the game in ways you will never see on other battlefields.
And the choice of armies can be varied to give some color, too. In this game, we both happened to choose armies focusing on standard troups, with only the bare minimum of one two star commander and an extra hero, and few elite troups, on both sides.
This fit in nicely with the roleplaying approach - my opponent started the game looking at the map and the armies and devising a simple background plot (by saying that the river marked the border between Iconessa and the Empire, and defining the goal of his Empire army to keep the Elves off Empire territory). He then used the background plot to bring color into the interpretation of game events (which happen to fit nicely in with games I played earlier against other opponents, so I could even link it together with an earlier battle report), and looked at the background when he needed to make strategic decisions (e.g. how aggressively to attack, or whether to cross the river, or simply block the fords where possible).
Having a small story appearing out of the game, and varying terrain and armies so it's not always the same stuff you see at tournaments, is a wonderful way to make DW gaming fun. So merci, Claude, for a great game!
Copyright Notice: This report (C) Klaus Herrmanns 2001. All rights reserved. Please only pass this on to others for private, noncommercial use. If you want to use this article elsewhere, let me know koljag@SPAMBLOCKyahoo.com (remove the SPAMBLOCK and the following dot before using the mail address. If you quote me as author and add a copyright notice like this, I'm perfectly happy to let you re-use this article.
