The siege of Bogenhafen

"After running through a series of adventures in the Empire, me and Gotreck headed to Altdorf looking for some rest and meeting with my brother Otto me and some nightmarish adventure in which he could found his long desired death my friend. If trouble whas he had been looking for, the desperate situation that engulfed Reikland that season surelly provided ll what he whished for, to my absolute despair. Whe were in route to the capital, in the city of Bogenhafen when it all started"

Felix Jaeger, "my travels with Gotrek, Vol XI, printed in Altdorf 2505

With a friend we decided to start a warhammer fantasy campaign for the dominon of Reikland, the mechanics of the campaign is simple: each player has a turn in wich he can move his forces, the land forces and the fleets moving upstream have up to 10 cmt of movement (the map is a DinA4), fleets moving downstream move up to 20cmt. When an army meets another it stops inmediatly and fights.

Once his army conter collides with another army there is a battle, if the defending army is inside a town it can decide to fight a campal battle or a siege (in wich cas we'll play the siege scenario from 6th edition). The losses are counted by some innovative system: percentages, after the battle you count the total percentage of losses you have suffered and add it to the campaign's control sheet, an arrangement can be made to 25%, 50% or 75% of losses; when tho armies clash you must check the percentatges to determinate the points value of the armies, the one that has most percentatge alive deploys 2000 points (or 1000 defending a siege), the other accordingly to his difference of percentage respect the other. Also each army has a supply base, if it starts a turn without a clear supply line towards his base or a friend's base (because another army blocks the path for exemple) it losses a 10% extra of percentatge due to starvation. The bases can be destroyed just passing over them.

The evil forces  moved first, from the haunted ruins of drachenfels castle (once lair of the dreaded Constant Drachenfels), emerge an undead army that heads for the imperial supply city of Bogenhafen, the imperial forces fortify themselves inside the city and prepare for the siege.

The imperial forces: two units of arquebusiers, one of greatswords, a great cannon, a level 1 fire wizzard, and of course Gotrek and Felix!

Siege preparations

overview of the battlefield

The defenders take the battlements, the piles of skulls represent boiling oil cauldrons,

Gotrek and friends defending the chapel of sigmar

The undead silent horde: a unit of ghouls another of zombies, one of skeletons, two of wights, one vargulf, one spectral host, one necromancer and the vampire lord Luthor von Drak.

The undead start their advance

In the empire's turn, their wizard throws a double one trying tho launch a spell and becomes unable to launch further spells for the time.

The vampire flyes forward with the clear intention of launchng an invocation of nehek inside the town!

The lack of luck of the imperial player becomes evident when after throwing his second misfire of the game the imperial cannon explodes, luckily no one quits the walls

The vampire also thorws a curse of the years over the gratswords

Who after suffering from it tho consecutive turns quit the wall in terror.

Luckily, the vargulf suffers a wound due to harquebus fire.

Also does the vampire who had come perhaps too close of the wall

But the wights and ghouls advance unharmed.

Finally the vargulf is the first undead to reach the walls

A lucky shot of a firearm kills the vampire mount, now he must use a stair to reach the rampart.

The creatures of the night coming closer.

the Vargulf climbs the wall, but due to his disavantageous position finds difficult killing but manages to end off some arquebusers.

But them manages to not to lose the combat for now

Serious peril is reaching menawhile the other end of the line.

But in the empire's turn the arquebusiers kill the vargulf just by making him loose the combat and inflicting one wound. Next to them, the reagruped greatswords prepare to repell further attacks.

The majority of the undeads reach the wall and stairs arise from their ranks to proceed with the storming.

But are meet by a nasty surprise! the defenders pur into them boiling oil with devastating effects, the units suffer casualties by dozens.

Gotrek and felix also bath the wights with the fryer.

Luthor von Drak, furious with the losses sufferd climbs to confront gortek, his wights take rapidly the wall section will it be enough? No! faithful to his anythingslayer reputation Gotrek kills the vampire with just one strike of his ancient axe, suffering in return just one wound. Next to him, Felix is more than able to handle three assaulting wights.

To their left, unfortuanately the arquebusiers lost the combat to the ghouls giving up their section of the walls.

In the empire's turn the reamining arquebusiers manage to kill the undead necromancer and so the opposing army starts to crumble into dust.

After loosing two sucessive rounds of combat and disitnegrating just the champion remains of the units of skeletons, in exchange, the greatswords haven't suffered any casualties.

Last hopes: the tower and the zombies advance against the wall

while the skeleton is beheaded by a greatsword.

Lots of casualties

The spectral host attempts to put the greatswords in the run, but them remain in their place after even winning the combat due to sheer numbers. In the background, gotrek and felix destroy the remmants of the zombies.

The ghostbustres doing their job: in just one round the host is no more.

A solid line against the siege tower

The last attack, the tower reaches the wall, but the wights are unable to cause any casualties loosing half of their strength due to Gotrek, Felix, greatswords and a lost combat.

The outcome:

Empire 25% of losses

Undead 75% of losses

At the end of the battle, the good player makes his move: the dwarf slayer army moves to intercept the dark elves army that's sailing up the reik. The next battle will see the dwarfs and the druchii fighting a battle alon the shores of the reik.