A Clash Of Evil – Hyperian Wars Battle Report

It’s customary in many a fantasy trope to regard humanity as besieged on all sides by innumerable hordes of vile creatures, united as one in their desire for destruction – but on the world of Hyperia, this ain’t necessarily so! As it turns out, be they human, elf, dwarf, or Baddie (TM) – pretty much everyone hates everyone else in roughly equal measure.

And so to today’s battle report, which pits Dan’s Orca – the followers of Warchief Ghazhrag The Bloody – against the Virum Nascii ratman horde of Ratticus McStilton III!

As some of you may be aware, we did a fair few HW games in 2019 and the ratmen kicked some ass and took some names… but then The Great Plague struck and gaming (and thus rule development) all went down the pan. Now, mercifully, we’ve just got potential WW3 to worry about, and until someone invents a facemask that can stop a Satan II ICBM warhead… well, we might as well stop worrying, crack open a bottle and play soldiers.

Dan brought everything he’d got finished, including a commander I hadn’t seen before (!), and because our Virum Nascii horde vastly outnumbers… everything, really, I decided to stick to the basics – warriors, slaves, archers, Plague Priests, Stormtroopers and Warlord. All the special weapons stuff would stay home for now. This was a rough estimate in points values, but also so I could beat him without fear of emotional blackmail – the Orca are tough – thick, but tough – and hit hard in big blocks but have little missile weaponry and no magic (yet).

Rules, for those interested:

Orcs:

Orc Warrior:

Speed	Shooting Skill	CCR	Initiative	Armour	Hit Point	Morale	Notes
12	6	4	2	9	2	Regular	Default: Advance (Assault)

Weapon	Rate Of Fire	Close Range	Penetration	Damage
Hand Weapons	1	Melee	8+D6	1

Orc Archer

Speed	Shooting Skill	CCR	Initiative	Armour	Hit Point	Morale	Notes
12	5	3	2	9	2	Regular	Default: Advance (Assault)

Weapon	Rate Of Fire	Close Range	Penetration	Damage
Bow	1	60cm	7+D6	1

Savage Orc

Speed	Shooting Skill	CCR	Initiative	Armour	Hit Point	Morale	Notes
12	6	4	2	8	2	Elite	Default: Advance (Assault)

Weapon	Rate Of Fire	Close Range	Penetration	Damage
Hand Weapons	1	Melee	8+D6	1

Orc General

Speed	Shooting Skill	CCR	Initiative	Armour	Hit Point	Morale	Notes
12	5	6	3	12	4	Elite	Default: Advance (Assault)

Weapon	Rate Of Fire	Close Range	Penetration	Damage
Hand Weapons	1	Melee	8+D6	2

Orc Shaman

Speed	Shooting Skill	CCR	Initiative	Armour	Hit Point	Morale	Notes
12	5	5	3	10	3	Elite	Default: Advance (Assault)

Weapon	Rate Of Fire	Close Range	Penetration	Damage
Hand Weapons	1	Melee	8+D6	2

Filth (4+): Target friendly unit within 12” gets Poison in melee next time it fights.

Cracks (4+): Target enemy unit within 12” takes 2 automatic hits with AP(2).

Sickness (5+): Target enemy unit within 18” gets -1 to hit next time it shoots.

Lightning (5+): Target enemy unit within 12” takes 1 hit with AP(4) and Deadly(3).

Frenzy (6+): Target friendly unit within 12” may immediately move by up to 6”.

Pestilence (6+): Target enemy unit within 6” takes 1 automatic hit per model.

Virum Nascii

Warrior

Speed	Shooting Skill	CCR	Initiative	Armour	Hit Point	Morale	Notes
18	6	3	3	6	1	Poor	Default – Hold

Slaves

Speed	Shooting Skill	CCR	Initiative	Armour	Hit Point	Morale	Notes
18	7	2	3	6	1	Untrained	Default – Panic

Weapon	Rate Of Fire	Close Range	Penetration	Damage
Bow	1	50cm	6+D6	1

Weapon	Rate Of Fire	Close Range	Penetration	Damage
Hand Weapons	1	Melee	6+D6	1

Poison Grenadiers

Speed	Shooting Skill	CCR	Initiative	Armour	Hit Point	Morale	Notes
18	6	3	3	6	1	Regular	Default: Advance (ranged)

Weapon	Rate Of Fire	Close Range	Penetration	Damage
Poison Grenade	1	12+D6	8+D6	3 (Blast 3cm)

Stormtroopers

Speed	Shooting Skill	CCR	Initiative	Armour	Hit Point	Morale	Notes
18	6	4	3	6	1	Regular	Default: Advance (Assault)

Weapon	Rate Of Fire	Close Range	Penetration	Damage
Hand Weapons	1	Melee	8+D6	1

Assassins

Speed	Shooting Skill	CCR	Initiative	Armour	Hit Point	Morale	Notes
20	6	3	4	6	1	Regular	Default: Advance (Assault)

Weapon	Rate Of Fire	Close Range	Penetration	Damage
Hand Weapons	1	Melee	8+D6	1

Warlord

Speed	Shooting Skill	CCR	Initiative	Armour	Hit Point	Morale	Notes
18	5	4	4	9	2	Veteran	Hero

Weapon	Rate Of Fire	Close Range	Penetration	Damage
Hand Weapons	3	Melee	7+D6	1

Plague Priests

Speed	Shooting Skill	CCR	Initiative	Armour	Hit Point	Morale	Notes
18	6	3	3	7	1	Regular	Default: Advance (Assault)

Weapon	Rate Of Fire	Close Range	Penetration	Damage
Hand Weapons	1	Melee	7+D6	2

Weapons Teams

Speed	Shooting Skill	CCR	Initiative	Armour	Hit Point	Morale	Notes
18	5	3	4	7	1	Regular	Independent, Default: Hold (Ranged)

Weapon	Rate Of Fire	Close Range	Penetration	Damage
Vrilrifle	1	48cm	20+2D6	2
Ratling Gun	6	36cm	7+D6	1
Vrilfire Thrower	1	Template	12+D6	2
Vrilgrinder Drill	N/A	N/A	N/A	Sets up Ambush*

*Ambush – This unit begins in reserve. When it is placed, it may pop up anywhere more than 18cm from an enemy unit. Any friendly Virum Nascii units not already deployed may follow through the tunnel and pop and deploy with a unit facing touching the tunnel mouth in the case of a regiment or in the case of an individual character.

Master Of Engineers:

Speed	Shooting Skill	CCR	Initiative	Armour	Hit Point	Morale	Notes
18	4	3	4	9	2	Veteran	Hero

Weapon	Rate Of Fire	Close Range	Penetration	Damage
Vrilfire Pistol	3	24cm	12+D6	2

Dan brought the Orca general, two regiments of 30 Warriors each, a regiment of 25 Savage Orcs and 16 Archers – I brought the Virum Nascii Warlord, a regiment of 32 Slave archers, 2 regiments of 16 warriors each, 28 Slaves, 6 Stormtroopers and 16 Plague Priests.

We decided on a specific objective – controlling the sacred stones within a ruined temple. To win, a player would have to have an unshaken (unsuppressed) unit within half a move distance, so 9cm for the VN, 6cm for the slower Orcs. To war!

The objective – some holy stones within a ruined. “Why’s dey ‘oly boss?” “Cause dey’s full of ‘oles, don’t ask stoopid questions”

Virum Nascii win the deployment roll off, choosing their table edge and forcing the Orca to deploy first.

Hordes of chittering Virum Nascii swarm forth! Using a new deployment rule to simulate the increased flexibility of faster armies, basically everyone can deploy a double move forward onto the board – meant 24cm for the Orca, 36cm for the Ratmen.

Both side close for battle – Virum Nascii archers attempt to provide covering fire… this is comically ineffective

Orca attempt a flanking manouevre

Cunning Virum Nascii warlord uses his slaves as bait to try and lure the Orca into doing something rash…

Orca flanking manoeuvre hurtles ponderously toward Ratmen lines…

Plague Priests ambush a unit of Orca warriors, catching them in the flank

Ratmen warriors ambush a unit of Orca warriors in the rear, causing them to rout!

Orca archers provide counterbattery fire, covering the advance of the Savage/ Feral (choose your poison) Orca – this is somewhat more effective than their Virum Nascii counterparts….

…causing both the slave warriors and slave archers to rout! Warlord Ratticus does his best to rally the troops…

With the Orca flank threat successfully dealt with, the Ratmen encircle the temple ruins…

First Ratmen Warrior unit sent in is duly demolished by superior Savage Orca numbers and strength…

But then (while the slaves are rallying) a second regiment of Virum Nascii Warriors attacks the Savage Orca from behind, routing them!

…Plague Priests catch the fleeing Orca and annihilate them!

Ratmen attempt to press home the attack in the temple, but the Orca are too strong and too many!

Arrow fire routs the Slave archers… again…

Lord Ratticus send in his finest, the Plague Priests – will they get the job done?

At the height of the battle, Warlord Ratticus charges Ghazrag The Bloody!

…and he is no match for his greenskin adversary!

Seeing their warlord fall, the slave archers leg it as the Plague priests start to struggle, with the Stormtroopers looking for an opening..

The slaves rally…

..but the Plague Priests die to a rat to a crushing assault from Orca archers and Warriors!

With just the 6 Stormtroopers and 20 odd largely ineffectual Slave archers against 16 much more effective Orca archers and a block of 20 Warriors, as well as Ghazrag himself, the surviving Virum Nascii realised they had no chance to take the objective and conceded the game. Victory to the Orca!

Although this was by no means a strictly competitive game – we were tweaking the rules on the fly and working out mechanics as we went – it was still really fun and pretty cinematic watching two VERY different flavours of Baddie go against each other! There are still more Orca to come and lots of special units for the Ratmen too so expect another faceoff in the near future… and of course what happens when these meet the Sky Marines of the Grand Alliance or the massed ranks of the Ancien Regime?

Stay tuned for more fantasy wackiness as we get into summer, and who knows, we may even get these rules out and published before the heat death of the universe…..

Stay safe and thrifty out there, slava ukrainia!