Battle of Pogo Pass

Battle 1 of the Presteria Campaign
(A 6 x 6 Fantasy Scenario)

Far to the south of Anarendor, lay the kingdom of Presteria. Nestled in the mountains, Presteria features lush jungles and fertile plains, and its people live in plenty and harmony.

Surrounding Presteria are the southern deserts, wherein dwell tribes of barbarians and beast-men. All cast covetous eyes upon the bounty of Presteria, and occasionally they will hazard attacks on the kingdom. However, they strong forces of the Presters (the rulers of the kingdom) have held back the tide of barbarism.

On this occasion, barbarians from the Swartherian tribe try to force their way through a pass in the mountains.

 Swarms of Swartherian riders (coming from the top) try to force the pass but are met by Presteria tribal warriors.

But the warriors are forced to retreat.

Presterian knights counterattack and sweep a band of riders from the field.

The knights get locked into a melee with more riders.

 Disaster! The knights are overrun. As the barbarian swarm through the pass, Presterian archers unleash a volley, skewering one of the barbarian warbands.

Presterian infantry plug the gap and hold of the swarms of the enemy.

Alas! They are also overrun.

A band of riders descends on a little village, where the native warriors have taken refuge.

The warriors hold the village!

 But are in turn overrun by a Swartherian warband.

The warband rushes Presterian archers (who have left the cover of the jungle). The archers mow down the warband.

The Presterian archers seize the village. Swatherian bows approach. A desultory exchange ensues.

Night falls with the Presterians still holding the village. Victory for the kingdom!

Game Notes:

• This is scenario # 24 from One Hour Wargames. The invaders (in this case, the Swartherians) must clear the road of all opposition within 15 turns. Any defenders within 6" (i.e. 1/6th of the battlefield width) will prevent the invaders from winning. I interpreted this as 1 square (which is actually 1/8th of the board).
• The forces are:
• Swartherians - 3 cavalry, 2 warbands, 1 shooters
• Presterians - 1 knights, 1 infantry, 1 native warriors, 1 native archers
• Thomas's map has the road passing between a forest and a lake. In keeping with Presteria's terrain, I changed the lake to an impassable mountain.
• The village is purely there for aesthetic purposes. To prevent from skewing the scenario, it does not provide any combat bonuses.
• This represents the start of a new fantasy campaign. The Presterians now lead 1-0.
• Even though this is set far south of Anarendor, I would like to count it as one of my WISER fantasy games for the 6 x 6 challenge.

Portable Wargame Notes:

• This game was played with my boxed portable wargame set-up, using my WISER rules.
• Here is a view of the box:

• Today's game marked the debut of my new 2mm fantasy armies.
• Each army consists of 10-12 units (of varying type).
• Each unit consists of 1-2 strips of Irregular 2mm miniatures mounted on a single 20mm x 13mm base.
• As I began playing today, I realized I needed a way to count casualties (each unit can take 2 hits). My circular casualty tokens are too big for this board so I needed something different. I improvised with some craft sticks; I thought they worked well. I plan to paint them so they blend in with the board. I also want to make some casualty markers to show when a unit is overrun.
• I've been trying to figure out a way to store the armies. I tried an Altoid's tin but it did not fit into the plastic box. I bought some smaller tins from Amazon. They fit into the box but don't quite hold a complete army. I guess I'll just make do with them (perhaps putting an army into 2 tins).
• To keep the stands from rattling around in the tin, I glued very thin magnetic sheets (from refrigerator magnets) on the bottom of the bases. I'm very happy with how they work out.