The Battle of Corona - Part 1

The Emperor Mordred has swept across the peninsular at the head of his Ferach army, soundly defeating the Dark Elves of Catalucia and their allies, the Goblins of Al-Garvey and the Orcs of Albion.

Lieutenant General Sir Jon Morr now leads the Orcs are in a desperate race to reach the port of Corona ahead of  Marshal General Sault, and escape back to Albion aboard ships of the Britorc navy.
Black Bob Crowfoot commands the Light Brigade and is tasked to cover the movements of Morr's army during their retreat. This results them engaging the Ferach in small rearguard clashes, and what follows is a report of one such clash which takes place just north of the town of Elvira.

Corporal 'Clubber' Fang is in charge of a section of Orcs made up of members of the light company, 67th South Mordor Foot and three Chosen Orcs of the 105th Rifles. The section has been tasked with a scouting mission as far as the road which runs across the base of 'The Heights of Penasquido', and it is here that they encounter Ferach skirmishers (of the 2eme Regt de Ligne and 4er Voltigeur), probing towards Elvira.

I'm using "Song of Drums and Shakos", and the terrain was generated by the rules. Initial deployment was done quite simply with a D3 for left, centre, right for each of the four 'elements'.

Clubber Fang leads fellow Orcs of the 67th South Mordor, while the Chosen Orcs clear the buildings on his right flank.

A sporadic firefight develops, as Capitaine Alex Crement deployed behind the roadside fence line while the voltigeur attempt to outflank the Orcs - unaware of the Rifles in the buildings now behind them!

The position looked like becoming a stand-off since Clubber seemed frozen to the spot, continually failing activation rolls and unable to get around the cottage and co-ordinate the action. However - the Rifles were now taking up fire positions.

An aimed shot from an upper story window.....

..... and the first of the Voltigeur falls!

The Voltigeurs were unable to react fast enough to correct their error and only two of their number managed to retreat to the safety of cover, and from there, retreat to their own lines as Capitaine Alex Crement signals the retreat.

Both sections returned to their parent units with the same information - "Contact with the enemy has been made, so the main forces must be nearby. Prepare for a major engagement!"

An "overview" rather than a blow-by-blow account of a fun game, where the action unfolded at a pace which outran my note taking!

The "Song Of" series of games are very much based around their activation system, where players choose to roll between one and three dice against the figure's 'Quality' - each dice passing the 'Q' value allows one action BUT if two or more failures are rolled, the turn ends and play passes to the opposition.
A simple solo mechanic is to roll three different coloured D6 and a D3. The three colours always represent "choices" (in my case, green = 1st choice, yellow = 2nd and red = third).
Here's the result of one of Clubber's rolls, and the D3 indicates the "choice" was two dice, so the green and yellow count but the red is discarded. (The result was two failures...... again!)

Many apologies to the original artist for doctoring his map of this part of Valon, the port was named Korunna, but under the current circumstances I just couldn't help myself!
Does the Army of Albion escape? Will King Gorge, son of Gorge, son of Gorge be happy?  Please tune in for part two, which I'll post as soon as I've discovered the answers to those very questions!

Stay at home, Save lives and Solo wargame, and if you feel inclined to leave me a comment  or question I'll be only too happy to hear from you during this period of lonely isolation.