The Battle of Furbie Moss - 10mm Fantastic Battles, ratmen vs beastlings

The Red King was at it again this week, leading the beastlings in the defence of Furbie Moss against the aggressions of Andrew's Rat-kin. As the defender, I played more to my army's racial trope/strengths this game and set the battlefield up with plenty of rough terrain to impede the rat-kin, but still enable the beastlings to skit about and make the most of their dominating shooting capacity.

The beastlings spread across the battlefield, with the bog trolls and levy units in the centre, the moohemoths with a skirmish screen on the left, and the chariots with mjowl supports on the right. The rat-kin massed to their left, opposite the beastling centre and chariots. Mishaps were very minor for both armies (except for the desertion of a company of beastling levy!). The two most important factors coming out of the pre-game sequence was the rat-kin flank march and the rat-seer's prophecy dice (4, 5, 6). There was nothing I could do about the flank march, but it was obvious that if I attached any characters to units that fought a melee or were shot at, the character had an exceptionally low life expectancy - any dice rolled when attempting to kill the character could be substituted for the 5 and/or 6 in the prophecy.

Over the first few of turns, the beastlings attempted to advance and encircle the rat-kin while their flank march was still off the table. We were playing with the optional Random Events and only got two early on on the game - an earthquake on the first turn (preventing me from advancing!), and reinforcements in turn two or three, (uneventful as no units had been lost). 

When the beastlings were able to advance within range, their shooting started to impact badly on the rat-kin. Despite having skirmishing rat gas-grenadiers and flame-thrower teams, the volume of shooting from the beastling skirmishers and levy on the beastling left was brutal. On the beastling right, the great rat-god and the giant wheel came forward, seemingly to pin the beastling chariots in place. The Red King sent the mjowls forward to threaten the rat god's flank.

But before the chariots could engage with the rat-god, the god turned sharply to his right and launched into the mjowls. The rat-kin flank march arrived - four companies of assassins led by a rogue behind my right flank!

The assassins charged the chariots in the flank, while the rat-god and giant wheel made a right mess of my mjowls. The fate of the mjowls was settled when their left flank was also attacked by a unit of storm-vermin hitting their flank (and the small levy unit at the same time). The Red King could do nothing but stand back and attempt to rally flagging units, knowing he was prophesied to die should he enter combat himself.

Over on the beastling left, things were much more comfortable. The rat-kin grenadiers had scattered, and the flame-throwers were so close to breaking, that they were thrown forward in a forlorn hope to cause some sort of damage to the bog trolls. The two large units of rat-kin rabble in the rear came out of the tortoise formation they had maintained so far, and prepared to defend the rat-kin flank.

In the centre, the beastling line collapsed - both the mjowls and the levy unit's scattered, leaving the Red King very much in the open.

On the beastling left, consistently above average shooting saw one of the rat-kin rabble units break after a single volley. The moohemoths and the attached Wyrd Sister started to make their way back towards the centre (or where the centre used to be...). On the right, the chariots could do little damage, but they did hold on against the flank attack of the rat assassins.

The rat-god charged the front of the chariots, preventing them from conforming with the assassins on their flank, while the big wheel charged into the flank of the bog trolls. The rat-kin stormvermin charged the Red King himself, forcing him to flee for cover, joining the bog trolls. In the ensuing combat, the prophecy proved only too true as he fell fighting.

Despite the lost centre, the beastling chariotry on the right showed great tenacity and held on long enough for the beastling skirmishers on the left to scatter the second rat-kin rabble unit, while the remaining beastling levy made their way towards the rat-kin jezails. The rat-kin were now only one company away from reaching their army break point. The beastling army had only lost five of the 10 companies required to break, but both the chariots and the levy were close to scatting.

And then the beastling chariots, bogged down for half the battle in unfavourable combats, managed to ride down the rat-god himself. At the same time, the bog trolls smashed the giant wheel. As splinters of wood scattered in the wind, so too did the rat-kin scatter across Furbie Moss. A victory for the Red King. Long may his sacrifice be remembered by his people and his heirs!