Man vs Orc : Kings of War 2500 points

Having played and enjoyed several Kings of War games we decided to step it up one scale and see how the system works in a slightly larger game, you get a lot of troops for 2500pts in KoW so we had to extend the table out to 7 feet ! My Empire army supplemented by a giant took on a sizeable Orc army. It was numbers vs quality but not necessarily as you would expect as the Orcs had brought a number of quite powerful 'Heros'.

Battlelines drawn

This felt like quite a lot of troops so we settled for a simple kill scenario with 6 turns to do as much damage as possible. With quite a few ranged weapons the 'men' chose to hang back the first couple of turns, but I always get over excited and it didn't feel right to hold back everything so the giant and the heavy knight cavalry pushed forward to meet the orcs head on.

Empire General on his pet griffin "Feathers"

With a shooty army it always feels like you are getting off to a good start but gradually the Orcs started to make it across the battlefield.

Holding the line....but for how long ?

Gunners re-loading frantically 

On the right flank the Empire Knights became too head strong and became isolated having charged out of the line, and a bit like the British Heavy Cavalry at Waterloo once they were blown and isolated they were themselves wiped out.

I hear Goblins in the woods........give them a volley !

Somehow I didn't get many photos towards the end of the battle ?, the Empire troops had won on the right and their line turned to face the Left with the orcs winning on their right flank.

The Orc giant just before he is dragged down and finished off.

In a final twist of evil fate the Orc ''mage' had chosen to target the Empire lord repeatedly with his flame spell and eventually "Feathers" had had enough flying his master to safety. Both armies had lost roughly 50% in the 6 turns and it wasn't immediately obvious who had won, the Empire had plenty of foot troops left on the field but points wise it looked and was quite close. When we added up the retreat of "Feathers" and his master was the deciding factor. So a win for the smelly green orcs and goblins !

So we enjoyed the battle and KoW whilst not as technically complicated as WHFB seems to give a good battle, within a reasonable timescale, If the focus is getting figures on the table and not looking up rules they seem to deliver. Next time we will be trying some Greek on Greek action with KoW.