Wargaming with a 6 Year Old! (also weekend progress)

My daughter and I played a fantasy wargame today set in the "Old World" of Warhammer with Orcs fighting against the Empire's state troops.  We played using the simple Neil Thomas "One Hour Wargames" and played with his Dark Age rules which turned out to be a ton of fun.  Forces were arrayed as follows:

Horde of Orcs: (played by my daughter)

1 Unit of Heavy Boar Riders  (CWcalled them the "piggies") 

1 Unit of Light Wolf Riders with bows (CW called them her wolves)

4 Units of Heavy Orc Infantry

1 Unit of Orc Archers

1 Orc Warboss and 1 Shaman (Shaman may reduce hits to a unit)

Altdorf Garrison: (played by me)

2 Units of Halberdiers

1 Unit of Light Infantry

1 Unit of Sword

1 Unit of Crossbowmen

1 unit of Heavy Knights

We played Scenario 1 from the "One Hour Wargames" book.  The objective is to kill more of the enemy by turn 15.

CW's forces.  Apparently she loves playing Orcs.  Who knew?  An brutal Orc commander with dainty tea china and herbal tea!  (take a look at the teacup).

 As an interesting aside, I finished these orcs this weekend!  Based and everything.  They're ready for "The Battle of Skull Pass" that Alex and I are planning using SPEAR TO THE STRIFE.

part of CW's battle line

Warboss and the Shaman

 Christina moves her cavalry out on her left towards me.  She advances the whole line as well.  Not a bad move.  The kid's got skills!

If you're a crossbowman in this army, you'd be forgiven for feeling a little lonely at this point.

 My only recourse is to charge my armored knights towards CW's cavalry.  Not a smart move as her wolf riders have bows and can shoot.  She'll start next turn and will likely assault me.

Note the infantry marching off the hill keeping pace with the infantry on CW's right.

 Christina charges with the piggies into my flank (but I didn't want to confuse her so we're not playing with flanks in this game).  The piggies do pretty well as do the shooting wolf riders.  I allow the orcs to shoot into their own ranks as that is particularly "orc-ish"
I do join the swirling melee with some swordsmen against the piggies.  It's not looking good for my knights...

knights with 9 hits by turn 3!  6 more and they're toast

CW has a solid line of troops anchoring her right.  My skirmishers have bows and can range them but they're minus 2.  I quickly realize this is also a secretly excellent way for her to practice her math and I make her do all of the casualty calculations.

My knights are in big trouble.

CW's Orc Archers are now in range of my troops.  She starts launching arrows at my foot troops on my left.  

 Sometime around turn 4 CW destroys my unit of knights and sets her sights on my crossbow troops.  If I lose them, it's curtains for me.  She launches the wolf riders towards them.  Luckily, I get a couple turns of shots with them against her "piggies" (the boar riders).

Wolf Riders in the center are headed towards my Crossbowmen.  I'm not sure CW knew they were weak in melee combat - I think she just liked "battling" as she called it.

Yellow dice are my casualties.  Red dice are Orc casualties.

CW also kept a reserve.  She didn't call it that, but the old man is impressed.

 By now, my daughter senses the time is right and launches a 3 x unit assault against my left.  It's perfect timing and she gets the breakthrough she was looking for. 

I manage to destroy the wolf riders but it's too late.  CW has reserve and a unit of archers that are untouched.  

 

Empire swordsmen surge forward to assault the Orcs!

An Orc horde moves towards my crossbowmen.  This is going to hurt.

CW is battling with my remaining troops.  Her archers actually make short work of my crossbowmen.  

The last Empire unit of the game!  

 So, in addition to playing a wargame with my daughter this weekend, I did make some serious progress on the '73 War Egyptians.  The Egyptian infantry company is done and ready for battle.  Pretty serious firepower here with 3 full rifle platoons and a weapons platoon. I'm starting on the Israelis now.  The bases for the Israeli armor are done - just need to hit the tanks with the Armypainter darktone wash and they'll be finished and ready for the big Christmas MEGA GAME this year.

Yom Kippur War Egyptians for 6mm "Fate of a Nation"  I'm very happy with them.

Not bad!  Note that some of them are carrying RPKs.  

Weapons platoon with 2 x PKM GPMG teams, 2 x recoilless rifle teams, and 1 SAGGER ATGM team.

RPG team.  each platoon has 2 of them.

There are RPKs mixed in with the squads.

bases for the Israeli Armor.  Once I hit them with the Armypainter "darktone" shade they'll be ready to base.  

 I'm going to make the desert table to match the Egyptian and Israeli bases as well. 

Israeli platoon almost done.

Still working on the Israeli infantry and the carriers for the Egyptians.  Almost done with the whole FATE OF A NATION project and then can move onto the TEAM YANKEE project.  Stay tuned!