Fantasy Warriors

UrogTriumphantCropOnce upon a time there was a home-brew world with orcs. Not stupid, senseless orcs, but orcs that remind one very much of humans. There were merchant orcs that trafficked with humans. There were wild orcs, territorial and war-like. And then there were the feudal orcs, whose society produced weapons and armor that could only be reproduced in 25mm by sculptor Nick Lund. I pulled a box of these beauties out of my husband’s dead lead stash around 1993, knowing they would be just perfect for our Great Northern Orcs. Painting those led to a decades-long obsession with Lund’s orc sculpts.

Recently we started to put together a small army of Lund orcs, and came across his wargame Fantasy Warriors. We’ve been looking for a more satisfying way to resolve mass combat in our role-playing game, and since his orc sculpts fit our world so well, it made sense to give the game they were made for a try. We liked how Fantasy Warriors played, we just needed to make a few tweaks for our game. My husband converted the system from d6 to d10, and made us all cheat sheets with the most relevant rules for ease of play:

Besides the rules, we needed a few things before we could play Fantasy Warriors. Our gaming tabletop is “only” 4 ft x 4 ft 4 in, so we had to build a new tabletop.

Of course, one needs terrain to go on that tabletop so we built hills.

The rules call for standard bearers so we needed some humans. (We already had the orcs.)

With the terrain ready and the armies complete (for now!), we have enjoyed many great game nights of Fantasy Warriors!

  • Raid on Larbro - The first scenario featured our daughter as battle leader of the human village Larbro defending her people against the raiding orcs. She had to get a unit of women and Continued...
  • Skirmish on the Northern Plains - Some of the League of Nil-ith Horn troops crossed over the mouth of the Torgova river and marched overland in an attempt to link up with the landing parties. King Continued...
  • Battle of Turlin - The men of North Gautria gathered outside the town of Turlin to meet the massed forces from the League of Nil-ith Horn. For this battle, my husband did double duty Continued...
  • Jevenkah Battles Teshub at Fantasy Warriors - We wanted to play-test some special abilities we’ve been researching/developing to bring mass combat Fantasy Warriors wargaming in line with the Conan D20 rules for RPGing, so we took to Continued...
  • Ambush on the Road to Kednvald - This Fantasy Warrior battle featured a father-daughter team as a League of Nil-ith Horn Orc relief force ordered to the Vangen capital of Kednvald. They were attacked en route by Continued...
  • Gautrian Games - In the next Fantasy Warriors battle, 2 of our junior players fought against myself in a Gautrian (Red banners and Blue banners) versus Kildarian exercise with equal forces. The girls Continued...
  • Being Thankful- A Fantasy Warriors Battle - Over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend we had the opportunity to introduce another player to “Fantasy Warriors.” Our experienced League of Nil-ith Horn Commander took her smerdi and valdgrafs against our Continued...
  • Birthday Battle - A Birthday Battle with all three of our gaming groups! Continued...

Some of our story-based RPG adventures with Fantasy Warriors battles can be seen here:

 

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