I've had a long-running fantasy campaign going that I occasionally play a few campaign turns and then play out any battles using Command & Colors: Ancients. I use Ancients over Battlelore (the fantasy version) because I like the card decks better in that they emphasize lines more so than the Battlelore deck. Eventually, I'll probably incorporate the magic from Battlelore into the Ancients version so I can have the best of both.
Anyway, there are four main factions in the campaign, which is played out using the Mighty Empires rules from Games Workshop (available online for free). There are two human factions -- the Lord of the Lake and the Coastal Confederation plus elves and orcs. The Coastal Confederation is a resource-poor faction that's pinched between a strong Elven Empire and a rapidly expanding Lord of the Lake. (The orcs are east and are just now starting to butt up against the other factions.) The two human factions have been at war for about a year and a half in game terms, and the Confederation is pretty much playing defense, trying to hang on to what they have. Until the Elves and/or Orcs come into play, they probably don't have much hope.
This battle follows a recent victory by Confederation forces who routed one Lake army, only to be attacked a month later by a very strong Lake army led by one of the princes of the Lake realm. Tired and heavily outnumbered, the Confederation forces are forced to make a stand as they retreat west. Here's the battle in photos (as best as I remember it...)
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| Lake forces at the bottom. You can see they have quite an advantage in numbers, though the Confederation forces are better led. Lake forces have lights in front, backed up by medium troops and heavies in the rear. There's hardly room to deploy everyone. The "board" edge ends where the shallow river ends. |
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| Lake forces, eager to avenge their sister army's recent loss. |
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| Confederation forces...both sides use barbarian mercenaries, hence the similarity in some units. |
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| Lake forces send out their lights, particularly the bowmen, to try to soften up the Confederation defenses. Confed forces counter with light and medium cavalry and drive them off with heavy casualties (and yes, that's a cossack unit filling in for a light cavalry unit -- I was one short for this battle). |
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| Lake forces counter with their own cavalry, including a recently commissioned heavy chariot, driving off the medium cavalry. |
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| Confederation forces reorganize their lines and are in pretty good shape, managing to bloody a few Lake units. |
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| On the other flank, a general advance starts, with the goal to swamp the Confederation defenders. (cotton balls represent a hit; four hits removes most infantry units). |
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| The chariots flank the line! |
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| Confederation forces counter with a charge by heavy cavalry, driving the chariots off. |
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| On the other flank, Prince Thebe leads a charge of cavalry to try to flank the other end of the line while his light troops continue to soften up the main force. |
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| Breakthrough! But what's that thundering towards us? |
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| Heavy knights and a mammoth charge forward. The prince drives off the knights, but the mammoth destroys his flank support and then attacks his unit. The prince is killed in battle! |
While the loss of their beloved prince was a great blow, the troops redoubled their efforts, brought down the mammoth and broke through the line in several places. The Confederation forces flee, saving some of their units.
The Lake forces occupy the fertile river valley, flipping several villages to their cause. The Confederation survivors fall back west, hopeful to fight another day.
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