Pride of Lions Playtesting: Hobgoblins of The Jade Flame

David McBride from Splintered Light a producer of 15mm scale fantasy miniatures (LINK) is working on the 2nd Edition of his fantasy battles game Pride of Lions, offering a selection of army bundles for those interested in participating in the Playtesting for the game. These armies provide a mixture of very interesting figures and at 15mm scale represent a very approachable and interesting hobby project.  

The game is played on 2x2 foot squares and focuses primarily on the aftermath of a magical apocalypse in a fantastical world, where the worst excesses of warlocks and other magic users has scoured the traditional fantasy world and left the barbaric tribes of monsters which most of us will recognize (trolls, orcs, beastmen etc) to inherit the remains, not all of the 'civilized' peoples are gone but as mentioned, are greatly depleted in scope and capability. I thought this was a particularly interesting setting and I needed to take a hiatus from 40k for a bit, thus I decided to participate in this playtest. 

I picked up 3 warbands,  those being Hobgoblins, Black Root Bog, and Pig-Faced Orcs, in addition to these warbands I wanted to work on 2x2 boards specific to each one's native territory.  The first of the warbands that I opened up was the Hobgoblins, which included a unit of firey hellhounds, human barbarian infantry, and monstrous flame giants to accompany the metal-clad lines of hand weapon/shield warriors and spear-armed infantrymen. The hobgoblins and their attendant allies and creatures represented one of the more well-equipped and well-armed warbands in the game and I felt that as a result, they must have a territory appropriate to supply this wargear.  I settled on a desecrated Dwarven hold as their territory and went with a simple dwarf icon in the center of a stonework grid.  

An admittedly simple motif, but one that I hope to use in other games and other scales as well.  

Playing around with some potential scatter and Hobgoblin paint schemes this evening. My plan is give the dwarven pillar a similar baleflame green cast as the burning skull held by the wizard. Given the decisive lack of foilage in dwarf mountain-homes, clusters cursed rune stones felt like an interesting alternative to provide scatter for the board. 

Stay tuned for more of Warhammer 40,000's narrative battle reports with Part 3 of the Hamlis Valley Campaign, and for other updates on the Pride of Lions Playtest.

Your Favorite Madman

 

Jornath: Map of the World.

Just a short one this afternoon, I wanted to show the full world map I have made for Jornath. I am going through and creating more specific regional maps to continue to detail the specific areas of combat operations on the world of Jornath. 

In addition to regional maps, I have some infographics and force breakdowns planned once I have posted the third part of the Hamlis Valley fight, which will hopefully establish more clearly the total Ork and Imperial force dispositions of the mid-war period.  

-Your Favorite Madman-

Jornath: The Hamlis Valley (Part 2 of 3)

.26 Months Since Fall of Usamilplatz.

Link to Part 1 [HERE]

After many months of difficult fighting in the Northern theatre, the Imperial forces won a hard-fought victory in the Liberation of Saltzkhost, the breaking of Kaptain Gutpulla's forces in the Katarinaplatz by massed, disciplined las fire would become the foundational stuff of planetary propaganda. The Kaptains death caused a short period of internecine conflict to determine the new regional commander of the 'Dakka Boyz' warband, which ultimately ended in Blood Axe Clan fashion after the wider 'Kore' command structure controlled by Feeld Marshul Skrollbach intervened to "appoint" the Big Mek Bazzgazer Deffzappa to control of the remainder of the Dakka Boyz in the Saltzkhost region. The now Kastallan Deffzappa, enjoyed a sudden influx of Blood Axe clan warriors and light machines which began filtering from the suburbs and villages around Saltzkhost back towards what had once been W542, but was now known as "Fort Squigbelly"  

Beyond the success in Saltzkhost, the rest of the north was in difficult straights, the Mechanicus offensive to free their pledge city of Usamilplatz had completely stalled in the months since the Emerald Scream. Skitarii Formations and Mechanicus-aligned Cohorts or Guildmusters had been totally enveloped by Ork warbands in Korsnokrat, nearly dissolving the Offensive's right flank. A constant supply of aerial supply drops by Precpian and specialist Imperial Guard Regiments have managed to keep the 35,000 Imperial soldiers in Korsnokrat fighting under the weight of strategic alien artillery fire from Fort Squigbelly, and constant hit-and-run raids by 'Speed Freaks' warbands. 

A breakthrough into the Mechanicus' logistics and command train on the C14 Highway had only barely been avoided in a nightmarish confrontation between Marshal Lukos M05's Outrider Cohort and the Dread Mob of Gratzogg Worldfang, which saw over 100 of Prima Jama's Sydonian Dragoons destroyed and countless Seyberys Raiders butchered. Marshal Lukos would die in the resultant explosion of his melta bomb cooking off the ammunition store of an Ork Stompa. 

Seeing the difficulties in the North and with the center theatre heavily suppressed by Astartes and other Transhuman forces, the newly planetside 537th Army Group Vahland of the Imperial Guard, diverted their IX Corp, comprised of the 87th and 50th Divisions into the Usamiljen mountains. The IX Corp would link with the command of the so-called Army Group North or 1AG(L) {1st Army Group - Local} in the staging areas at Guffmans Platz and would use the primary highways to move into position to support the Mechanicus efforts in Usamilplatz

Leading the 87th Division's advance into the Saltzkhost region was the 220th Antinar Deepers, a Mechanized Infantry Regiment with multiple campaigns won against Chaos warbands in the Manchvellian Crusade.  It would be the 220th, backed by two armored regiments from the 1AG(L) , the 9th Uval AgriCav and 1st Vendistad Motorworks Guildmuster (1VMG) which would lead the Divisions' speartip into the Hamlis Valley, part of a larger thrust by IX Corp to break open the Encirclement of Korsnokrat and get the Mechanicus Offensive back on track. 

The 220th Antinar Deepers, 9th Uval AgriCav, and 1VMG would begin preparation for the attack on Fort Squigbelly at Marker 522, right along the edge of the C14 Highway Northwest of Saltzkhost, from there, under artillery cover in the early morning hours the trio of regiments would blitz into close range of the alien installation where the 220th would prepare a fortified beachhead at the Southwestern gates and await the arrival of following infantry and motorized regiments, who would seize the orkish batteries and clear the fortress fully. 

As the 220th Antinar Deepers move through the Hamlis Valley they come under more and more precise alien artillery and exotic weapons fire.

The 8th Company, under Captain Sonos, are met a few hundred meters outside the gate by a counter-assault of Ork armor and heavy infantry. 

Platoons of Guardsmen dismount despite the Aliens crashing into their column, unleashing torrents of close range las-fire into the foe

Elite Ork infantry dismount as more and more Imperial tanks are burst by close assaults from Ork warriors or pierced by long-range Mega-Blastas and Kannons 

It has become clear that the battle is turning against the Imperials, many tanks are destroyed and Infantry Platoons are dismounted and scattered across the area under direct assault by alien infantry or vehicles.

As morning dawns fully, it becomes clear to 87 Division Command that the attack is in a great deal of trouble, requests are made to the Navy for CAS, which materializes around 8 o'clock in the form of lightning and thunderbolt fighters that strike targets for much of the morning, eventually allowing for the withdrawal in order of the 1VMG, and the eventual organization of the scattered 9th Uval AgriCav who had largely been pushed widely off course in the night by Ork armor. 

The 8th Company of the 220th Antinar Deepers would be reduced nearly to a man holding their positions in a rearguard as their remaining companies withdrew under fire back to Marker 522.   Captain Sonos and his command staff would be slain, after they were engaged by Ork Meganobz, who forced themselves inside their command chimera. 

The largest grouping of 8th Company men remaining by 11:00a would stage a final symbolic push to take the alien banner flying outside the Fortress' Southwestern gate. 

The last of 8th Company would fall in the ascent to the banner of the Dakka Boyz warband. Though unconfirmed, estimations are that the final living officer in control of 8th Company was 2nd Platoons Sgt. Nolan Bethilde.  

All members of the 8th Company, 220th Antinar Deepers would be posthumously awarded the Steel Anchor by the Antinar Martial Prefecturite, and the Unity Ribbon of the Jornath Campaign by the Office of the High Civitan Jornath. 

In the late afternoon, following the attack. IX Corp was met with the stark realization that many dozens of armored vehicles had been lost, alongside several hundred men and women without any Imperial asset having even set foot within the Ork Fortress. New plans would be drawn up and static lines several kilometers to the southwest and south would be established, to fence in the worst of the alien fast-moving vehicles. 

With Fort Squigbelly still under Ork control, the 50th Division would have to contend with an additional approach by Ork armor, and the increasingly more precise artillery and laser weapons fire in their effort to free Korsnokrat from encirclement. 

Stay tuned for the next action in the Hamlis Valley. 

-Your Favorite Madman-