The Great Ooze!

Long ago a dragon battle resulted in one dragon plummeting to the ground dead. The impact created a huge divot filled with Dragon goop. Over the years this slowly became a swamp with reputed magical properties known as "The Great Ooze." 

This bit of terrain has been hotly contested ever since and recently the Orcs and the Umenzi gave it a go. The scenario was Key Objective, basically Total Warfare with the objective worth 500 points. I decided to give picmonkey a go, to add zest to the photos. The photos turned out so bad that I instead am using it primarily to identify units. Picmonkey is free and all the stuff you see was part of the free stuff. The way they make their money is by having really cool stuff available if you pay extra. My wife uses it quite extensively and has the premium stuff, but I wasn't signed in under her account, and for this first experiment I had my hands full with just the basics.

Of note for this scenario is the two Goblin Bomb Chucker Battery. I wanted to see how well they did with this basic orc army. I chose an Umenzi army with a Great War Elephant to give the GBC's something to shoot at AND to see how over committing points to the GBC's would work.

Below you see the setup with the troops all labeled. behind the GWE, off camera, is another Umenzi Warriors unit that is attempting to place itself between the GWE and the board edge. This it does, but not fast enough to prevent a pinch.

On turn 1 the plan was for the SpearOrcs to occupy the swamp whilst the SwordOrcs seized the shrubbery. In order to protect the mid board orc flank, the Wolfriders were set to circumnavigate the board and pounce in if the Umenzi ignored them. The Umenzi were planning on driving strongly into the Great Ooze and clearing the shrubbery whilst the right flank units demonstrated against the Wolfriders and closed in on the GBC Battery.


                                                          Turn 3

By turn 3 the opposing armies have joined and the battle plans are unfolding as planned. Lots of card love has kept the SpearOrcs facing the GWE in the green. The Action Cards you see laying on the gameboard are what the players (me) have in their hands. Since it is pointless to hide them, I just lay them out in front of me.

                                        Turn 6

On turn 5 the GWE was pinched and the GBC Battery finally got the aiming thing down and did 5 wounds in addition to the pinch hth damage which dropped the GWE. All fotos are at the beginning of the Orcs turn. The Umenzi Shamans have been very busy hexing/blessing and even healed a point on the Umenzi Warriors facing the SwordOrcs. The Worthy in the center are wearing down the SpearOrcs facing them, but with the GWE gone the Battery begins dropping all kinds of hateful shit on them. They are much harder to hit than the GWE, so the damage is reduced, but not enough. Still, thats 864 points committed to their elimination, so they do alright considering.

What isn't caught in the previous pic is the ground action around the GBC Battery. Not shown here is one unit of Wolfriders that continues to circumnavigate the board. Meanwhile, these Wolfriders are attempting to buy a few turns more for the Battery. If the worthy don't engage them, and final rush the GBC, then the Wolfriders will rear attack pinch them, so they plan on engaging the wolfriders, pinching them with the Warriors. This of course buys time for the GBC to do a little more damage at the real site of the battle. Note that by this time the Battery has chipped off all the green boxes from the Worthy.



                                                  Turn 9

This could get a little confusing, but the blue arrows show the path followed throughout the game by the Wolfriders in the upper right corner. The other Wolfriders get Direct Controlled and thread the needle between the two Umenzi units.


                                                               Turn 11

Now you can see that the Wolfriders have given up drawing off the assailants from the GBC Battery and are rejoining the effort in the center. Of note at this point, The worthy are in the red the Shamans are in the green while the remaining SpearOrcs are in the yellow. The Warriors are undamaged as are the Wolfriders.

                                              Turn 12

At this point the clock is worn down and the game ends with an Orc victory.
Orc Heroes - Both units of Wolfriders did just what Wolfriders should do, they rode around threatening and never got dirty.
Goats - SpearOrcs that took three turns to eliminate Umenzi Warriors in the red!
Umenzi Heroes - Those Warriors that absolutely would not die!
Goats - Worthy that were most unworthy chasing Wolfriders.

End notes.
I'm sure if anyone bothers to look closely they will see spots where this unit or that unit should have been direct controlled or had its orders changed (especially the Worthy), but what may not be so apparent from the pictures is the epic battle in the Great Ooze that was just sucking down Action Cards and special abilities into the muck. If either side had let up for even a turn to spread the love to the outside areas, the swamp would have been lost and with the die ticking down towards one it was imperative that the swamp be held. Not saying that some points weren't spent elsewhere, but it was a great sacrifice to do so.

At the end of the game the Orcs had 3 cards in hand and 3 cards undrawn, and the Umenzi had 6 carda undrawn and 2 in hand. 12 turns times 4 Action points means 48 Action points. 48 - 27 cards drawn +2 points spent playing green cards leaves 17 Points on DC's and Lashing for Orcs. 48 - 24 cards drawn leaves 24 points spent on DC and special abilities. Also for Changing SO's.

GBC stats: The main reason for the game was to check out the GBC battery effectiveness.
Over the course of 13 turns 124 to hit dice were rolled converting to 19 wounds (10 on GWE, 6 on one Worthy and 3 on the other). Doubles were rolled 4 times, 11 was rolled twice all other rolls were under 10 (one doubles was a 12). Most dice rolled in one turn was 16, which caused 5 wounds on the GWE (this was the turn it was pinched and dispatched).

The unit cards in this game were simply resting on felted bases. Simpler, better bases.