Tuesday, 24 March 2026

Fantasy Battle Ogres vs Empire : Kings of War

With a lot of Historical games in the last few weeks and several more coming up this week, and looking for a quickish game I unpacked some of my Warhammer collection for a sadly rare outing in the dungeon.

Somewhere in the North the villages of the empire have been marauded by foul Ogres worse than that it appears the ogres have been touched by the evil gods of chaos. An Empire army under the renowned Knight Sir Stephen the Bold has been despatched to deal with the trouble !

Sir Stephen finds his foe in a suitably desolate location, a mixture of sharp impassable rocky outcrops, icy swamps and the decaying bones of giant creatures.

The stalwart men of the Empire, knights mixed infantry and they have managed to drag some cannons with them.

The ogres are a Brutish lot touched by chaos. There is some variation in the deformities but who can tell the difference, they have a lumbering giant with them looking for food and a mammoth  !

Given the short hours of light this far north both sides  charge forward

Crashing through the swamp the knights seek to knock the giant out of the fight, he staggers back but doesn’t fall

Annoyed by the pop pop of a unit of hand gunners the Mammoth charges across the field stomping them immediately, but he may now be trapped but the empire poleaxes ?

The giant is going in the swamp by at least two units of ogres and although the giant succumbs to his wounds limping away to recover, the Empire knights are wiped out and collected up for the stew pot.

The Mammoth is struggling agains the poleaxes, but does eventually break through, a pesky wizard is annoying the ogre Warlord !
General mayhem on the snowy field now, the Ogre armed with rudimentary ranged weapons can’t hit a thing,  it on the Empire right flank their superior ranged weapons bring down an entire horde of ogre caught out on the open snow, food for the crows (or other Ogres perhaps)

Luckily the empire cannons have very limited effect, half of the poleaxe troops have been squashed, the Sir Stephen the Empire General is floating about on his Griffin looking for a target, or is he just looking to stay alive ?

Although the empire has pushed back the Ogre left flank (not sure Ogres would really understand the concept of flanks ?) and are holding their ground there. The empire men are being butchered everywhere else, the swamp is literally turning red with Empire blood and the Mammoth is running a mock in the Empire artillery. The battle is up and the remaining Empire Forces must withdraw (go home for tea) the Ogres of course will have a veritable feast on or the soft squishy bit of men and horses left on the field.

We played using Kings of War which we are now much more familiar with rather than good old Warhammer Fantasy, but still we had a lot of fun. This Ogre army is one of my favourites as they are pretty much all converted in some way. Just getting them out of the box was a joy, and I found plenty of stuff not completed, needless to say we might see these have some attention on the painting table for one thing I never completed the bases which I will now put on the list.

I have a busy gaming week this week, with the Seven Years war Battle of Breslau on the table yesterday, we are off to Sicily on Wednesday WW2 and then ECW Friday……..and potentially a game Saturday as well. Having said that the rain has returned and back to cold weather so I need to stay indoors anyway.

Thanks as always for popping in 🙂

Matt



22 comments:

  1. Some cracking miniatures on show Matt, very enjoyable read.

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    1. Thanks Donnie I have quite a lot of Fantasy figures 🙂 and have always loved the background ‘lore’ for Warhammer fantasy

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  2. Fantasy battle on Matt's blog?
    Woow! Really cool game! Love the massive beasts and Giant in the Ogres army.

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    1. Thanks Michal just showing the hobby and my collection is a pretty broad one. The old world just doesn’t get 9 the table very often

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  3. Looks cool. Thanks for the cracking game yesterday

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    1. Thanks Martin and not an Ogre in sight yesterday 👍

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  4. I don't think I've seen these chaps in action before Matt, but they certainly look rather cool:)! I always liked the Empire troops, even though they tended to get slaughtered with ease when playing against rather competitive players:(.

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    1. Thanks Steve, they haven’t been on the table for quite a few years. Empire was/is one of my largest armies from the Warhammer world. I always enjoyed the Renaissance feel and the dark desperate world in which they live surrounded by beasts and monsters the stuff of fairy tales or perhaps nightmares ?

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  5. Different Matt. You will need some R&R after this week, I have SYW on Friday so a quiet week for a change.

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    1. Yes a busy week, but I guess I need to make the most of it ? We had SYW yesterday in a cracking game

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  6. An entertaining narrative of gnomes and fairies!😉 Enjoy your trip, lots of interest to see we found.

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    1. Thanks David….sadly I have confused you, gaming in Sicily rather than travelling 🙂

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    2. Enjoy your game in Sicily then!

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  7. That was a fun game. The Empire knights didn't last long and I could just imagine the ogre picking them up and rattling them around in their suits of armour.

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    1. Thanks Lawrence, a fun game 👍 the knights are a bit like tinned spam for the Ogres

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  8. A nice change of pace there Matt...you certainly do have a busy week of gaming. Shame about the weather, we have a couple of days of wind and rain forecast here too...bad timing as we were supposed to be taking some customers fishing on Friday but looks like that will have to be canned....

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    1. Thanks Keith, fun gaming if a pain setting up and taking down each day. Certainly cold and wet here in the North 👍

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  9. A splendid looking and sounding trip to the dark side there Matt.

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    1. Thanks Phil….certainly dark for the forces of the Empire !

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