Further Strategic Movement

So with the armies continuing to move on the map, we turn our ear to Mike, commander of the fell Chaos Incursion... 

Warriors of Dunkel Schloss 

Finally map movement and finally a chance to get my army into action.

My plan was to expand where possible but also to try and ensure I have supporting armies where ever possible.

The Chittering horde are quite tough as I remember so I wanted to engage the army with a support to give me extra men whilst facing the Tomb Kings and the Orcs head on.  Only time will tell whether this is a move on genius or a move of a fool.....

Skaven 

Oh dear. The Skaven aren't feeling too well. They're down to only two armies which is particularly annoying because it means the one who has been trying to fight its way through the West Woods since before this blog began has plum vanished. So much for that storyline but I had to keep the majority of the troops around Spike Hole, their capital.

By miraculous luck, the Random Events this turn caused the second Tomb King army attacking Spikehole to disappear. This has basically saved their bacon, and moving first before the Tomb Kings enables them to pin the Tomb King army in place while expanding their realms (possibly in two different places.

What's bugging me most though is that there will be only one Skaven game in the next five months or so while this campaign turn goes on and I potentially have four or five new Christmas-related Skaven units!

D'oh!

Vampire Counts 

Well. The Vampires are also doing very badly. But at least they won their castle back.

Their challenge now is that they are so far from their own borders and so are going to take time to restart expansion. Having said that, they have almost no enemies. If anything, the arrival of the Chaos Dwarfs last turn has helped them because now the Tempestrians (who would otherwise have quickly wiped them out) are going to be kept busy there while they rebuild their strength.

There's not much to be done, just locking the Chaos Dwarfs in place and expanding as best they can.

Beastmen 

Mike: 

I had to a gauge the enemy where necessary but also to get the additional bonus for having a supporting army it was necessary to get them in a supporting role as quickly as possible.

Notice how the rivers become crucial as in both upcoming  anti-Tempestrian games, the river will lie between the two armies!

Wood Elves 

This is a fairly tricky one. The Orcs and Knights of Ebon Scar have invaded my land but the Dwarfs are about to. Meanwhile the Empire is in an offensive position too. Also the section north of the Empire army is a special section, worth double.

What to do?

I have to protect the special section. Then see off my attackers. I don't have much choice. I'm going to ignore the Dwarfs and go for the enemies that are already within my borders.

Tomb Kings 

What a sprawling realm - all along the bottom!

Well, simply, it's a case of sending out the reinforcements to where they're needed, to head off the Empire and Chaos Warriors and go to finish off the Skaven!

New Sylvania

Well the Empire have a comfortable and safe zone and can really choose their own options.

I'm definitely going for the Tomb King and Wood Elf-owned special zones (not shown here) and I want to make headway into the Skaven and Daemon realms.

Trouble is, with the new rules, the river needs a 4+ to cross it and move on so it's a risky move (which I just failed). And (rolling again), my other army fails to move on too. Both cross the rivers but remain on the same section. Damn it!

Chaos Daemons 

With the Empire Encroaching and the Valley of the Skulls (a special map section) fallen under Ogre control, the best actions seem fairly straight forward here:

Stop the interlopers and take back what belongs to the Daemons!

Dwarfs 

Now the Dwarfs haven't been doing that well for a while due to some crazy movement by my friend Joao a couple of turns ago and a massacre or two. But they do have a potentially very secure footing being based in a corner. Both the Wood Elves and Orcs are at risk from all sides and are ripe for the attack.

One of my initial objectives for the Civilised Realms was to create a trade route joining all three lawful realms. The shortest route to do that is straight through the centre of Gaping Jaw, the Orc capital and across the middle of the Realm of Dunkel Schloss. Not an easy or quick endeavour and one liable to lead to stretching (as we've seen on the Tomb King realm.

Having said that, with pressure from two allied sides, the centre may crumble.

The Dwarfs are up for this alliance but I would say that they have two personal objectives beyond this: King Durak Grund is all about recapturing Barak Varr. Meanwhile, Morgrim is all about kicking ass against the Wood Elves and his personal arch nemesis, Maglor Telemnar.

Bearing this in mind, I think I'll assault the Orcs in the special map section where they are, bring some Dwarfs south to support this (and head towards Barak Varr - slowly). THEN I'll send the other stunties off to slay some Elves!

While taking advantage of their distraction with other foes to snatch up some of their realms. Notice, by the way, that in heading downward to Dipswallow, I'm leaving some northern Wood Elf realms for the army coming behind to grab...

Chaos Dwarfs

Last, but certainly not least, we have the evil stunted ones.

With the Tempestrians coming in hard in the north on a special map section supported by two armies and a section already captured by them (during the Random Events phase), there's little choice but to power reinforcements to the area. The Tempestrians are, by far, the greatest threat to the Chaos Dwarfs and they need to be stopped!

And that's it for campaign movement for this turn, leaving the overall map looking like this:

And with the scenery: