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Wednesday 22 April 2015

Battle at the Farm (Darkestorme skirmish)

I managed to fit in a game of Darkestorme recently and was able to take a few pictures so I thought I'd write up a quick report. 

In this scenario, Skaven have overrun a small farm in the wilds of the Empire. A Warrior Priest and his retinue have been dispatched to reclaim it!

On one side were two units of Skaven. One was of Clanrats led by an Assasin and the other was of Stormvermin led by a Champion. 

Facing them were the Warrior Priest, his second in command and a mix of handgunners and spearmen. Darkestorme doesn't actually have rules for black powder weapons, but it was easy to come up with something. 

Here is the Skaven set up:


The Clanrats are occupying a defensive position in the farm:


Meanwhile, the Stormvermin plan on outflanking the Empire troops:


The Empire unit advances cautiously towards the farm:


The Stormvermin split into two. One advances round the other side of the forest in the top left of the picture. The other part attempts to attack the handgunners before they do too much damage. Meanwhile the other Skaven wait behind the farm wall: 


Once the handgunners were engaged, the other Skaven launched an attack. At this point the Empire force was also fighting an action to their rear against the Stormvermin who had circled the forest. The Clanrats only advanced because they felt they now outnumbered their opponents enough!:


Here's a picture of the outflanking action. The Empire was hard pushed to withstand it:


Finally more Imperial troops were able to respond to the Stormvermin attack, which left the Warrior Priest free to seek out the Skaven Heroes:


A 'thin red line' holds back the first wave of Skaven:


The Empire Champion gets stuck in and Skaven fall all around:


Meanwhile, the Warrior Priest is locked in combat with the Stormvermin:


The fighting gets desperate at the field as the second wave of Skaven join the fray! At this point there are a lot of dead rats compared to humans, but it didn't stop it from feeling a bit overwhelming!:



The rats try and break through, but the Empire stands firm!:


Finally, the assassin who had been biding his time leaps into combat against the Warrior Priest:
 

A view from the Skaven lines. At this point the outflanking party had all been killed, leaving the Imperial troops to join the main battle. Lots of casualties on both sides at this point!:


The heroes are still locked in battle, but the Warrior Priest is wounded by the Assassin:


A second wound causes him to fall to the ground! Things do not look good for the Empire:


And in the same turn, the Empire Champion is also killed by a lucky blow from a Clanrat! With no more leaders, the Imperial troops are forced to withdraw...:


Victory for the Skaven! It was a fun and brutal game! The Darkstorme rules worked well for this kind of skirmish, with very little need to refer to the rules during play. I look forward to fighting more battles in the future (and maybe finding out if the Empire can retake that farm!

Do you play Darkestorme or other skirmish games with Warhammer figures? I'd like this hear about your experiences. Comments are welcome as always!

2 comments:

  1. Great write-up. Sounds like it might be what I'm looking for. I've always ignored the Darkestorme rules when I saw it on AA's site. I assumed that it was only for much smaller games. This is the first proper report I've seen for it, and now I'll have to order it!

    It looks like the usual forgotten units in skirmish games (chariots and artillery) are in. A couple of small question though, can you easily represent "ogre sized" models? Small units of rat-ogres for example. Same goes for flying infantry-sized models like harpies.

    Thanks!

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    1. Hi there! Pleased you enjoyed the post. The rules include stats for ogres and other large models. For ogres they have better stats and more hits. Flying is a special ability in the rules. So basically, yes, The rules can represent the things you mentioned!

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