Battle of Jakob's Ribs

Jed and I fought a Hostile Realms "friendly" match yesterday between his Undead and my Middle Kingdoms knights.  Jed wanted to try a new unit mix for his Undead army to see if they could cope better with the extra-heavy knights of the Middle Kingdoms.  1750 points each.

The Undead fielded 24 units and leaders. The Middle Kingdom fielded 19 units and leaders.

Left Middle Kingdon
Right Undead

The Undead army consisted of an undead dragon, wraiths, wights,  vampires, a bone giant, zombie units, ghoul units, skeleton archers, infantry and cavalry, a unit of ghosts, and human minion cavalry.  They were led by the Necromancer, a lich, and 2 wights.

The Middle Kingdom army consisted of extra-heavy household and feudal knights, 2 pike blocks of mountaineers and civic militia, an organ gun, a red dragon, archers from the royal guard, crossbowmen, handgunners, and sergeant cavalry.  They were led by the King of the Middle Kingdoms mounted on a pegasus, Jhone of Orc, and a priest.

The scenario was that the town of Jakob's Ribs was besieged by the undead army and the Middle Kingdoms army was marching to raise the seige.  In the pictures, you can see the brave defenders of the town in the top corner, barricaded in their burning city.

I had 24 morale chips and I think Jed had 28 morale chips.We both rolled excellent generals, so each of us added the Brilliant Leader card to our decks.  I added an extra Courage card to my deck because I was fighting the Undead and my final optional card was Look to the King.

The Undead added a brilliant Leader card, an Uncontrolled Charge card, and a Superstitions and Omens card to their deck.

So as the battle starts, each side rolls initiative dice.  The difference between the initiative dice is the number of cards that each player can play from their decks.  The types of cards pulled dictate what the army can do.  Initially, the Undead had their typical trouble drawing Move cards, but then Jed drew his Uncontrolled Charge card.  This sent the undead dragon and bone giant hurtling across the table and they crashed into the flower of Middle Kingdom chivalry before the poor knights could even get out of their deployment zone!

Undead dragon

Ghouls, zombies, and skeletons

The Middle Kingdom army is deployed

Defenders of Jakob's Ribs

Before the battle, the garrison looks out from their fortifications.
The lord looks out from the church steps while archers in the tower
 seek out new targets.

Unit of ghosts.  These were later breathed on by a red dragon
and crushed.

Jed drew the Uncontrolled Charge cards from his deck
and his bone giant began a charge toward the waiting knights.

The undead dragon joined the giant in the charge and killed
two units of knights before he was driven off.

After the knights drove off the undead dragon, my own red dragon flew across the table and breathed fire on the unit of ghosts.  The dragon then crushed the crispy ghosts and charged into a skeleton unit behind them.  Behind the dragon, the cavalry and pike blocks of the main infantry command advanced.

My red dragon flew across the table and launched itself at the
undead.  After initial success, he routed after being flanked
while disordered.  Too exposed.

The knights led by their Rex grind down the bone giant.

Cool shot from table level shows the chaotic fighting as the
pike blocks and sergeants launch into the battle.  In the background,
the organ gun blasted a unit of wights, killing 3 of the 4 stands.

While the pike blocks fought very well, they faced a real challenge against the skeletons.  Even though the skeletons lost wounds to the pikes, they wouldn't rout, and the human infantry gradually tired as they fought them.  This was the first battle we fought where it really felt like the skeletons were fighting the way we imagined they would.

Cavalry battle on the right flank swirls around the bone giant.
He did a good job of blocking the knights and absorbing damage.

The wraiths killed the organ gun, but the battle continues
to be very confused.  They are hesitant to attack the pikemen

Long shot of the table.  The undead lich has managed to
rally the undead dragon while my dragon is fleeing off the
table.  Bad news for me.

By the time we had to pick up the table, the Undead had run out of morale chips.  Middle Kingdom was leading 12 -0, but the Undead had rallied their undead dragon and their vampires had just landed and begun slaughtering the missile troops of the Middle Kingdom infantry command.  A unit of wraiths fought a knight unit, and because the knights didn't have magical weapons, they couldn't do any damage to the ghostly warriors.  Eventually, the human knights had enough and they fled in fear from these invincible wraiths.

The outcome was still in doubt, but most importantly, the undead showed they could hold their own against the knights of the Middle Kingdoms.  The skeletons were great at slowing down the attack.  The undead dragon and bone giant also used their "Might" special ability to great effect, smashing through the extra-heavy armor of the knights as if were tissue paper.