Rise of the Orc Lords - AAR

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Through late November and into December, I participated in Mr. Wargaming's fantasy Braunstein/Kriegsspiel exercise, Rise of the Orc Lords. This initially came as somewhat of a surprise to me. True, I had expressed a passing interest a month earlier, but hadn't thought that I'd explicitly signed up. After all, my other hobby is early music, and as a result, my discretionary time in early December is largely taken up with rehearsals and performances, as well as various church activities. The first full week in December is typically one of the busiest of the year for me.

I was also a bit intimidated by the other (elite-level!) players. I get the impression they all knew each other and had all played together in various #BROSR activities. I felt very much the outsider. I almost backed out, but decided to stick to the course and just see what happened. After all, if I got eliminated early, it was no skin off my back. Just surviving to the end would be an accomplishment.

The Draft

When the rules were posted, I never really had a chance to internalize them as much as I wanted to. I was initially drawn to the idea of fighting the elves -- simply because elves. But I eventually realized that would make a poor strategy with a bad ROI, unless you had a very specific set of talents. 

I spent the most time studying the options for the draft. If I wasn't going to have time early in the month to play smart, I needed the biggest head start possible, so I could start out lazy. My early non-signup meant that I had almost first choice, but in return would have almost last choice. After doing the math, it was clear that the biggest starting advantage was 2,000 gp -- that's 20 extra VP right out of the gate, and due to the way the rules worked, it would cause another 100HD of orcs to spawn, which could make up for a deficiency of extra starting troops, and would provide another 10VP at end game, if they survived. That's a very powerful starting position.

As far as what to give up -- extra troops were still important, whether for conducting raids, defending against raids, or just end game points. So was the starting position -- I was afraid of being intercepted in the first turn before caching out my loot, so I wanted to be relatively close. But all of the special abilities seemed pretty decent. Some more situationally than others, perhaps, but all had a use. So, although it pained me, I decided to sacrifice my special ability to the whims of chance. Which ironically led to my being assigned Elf-Killer, coinciding with my originally discarded plan. Fortunately, I at least had a hex that was close to the Nirumbee woods, so a raid on the elves wasn't completely out of the question. But to be truly worth it, it would still require a weathermancer.

It's also worth mentioning that, unlike the BROSR players I hadn't actually played 1e AD&D (I'd only dabbled a bit, solo-only, with a B/X clone earlier that year) so I didn't know exactly what the spell lists were for shamans vs. witches. Since I wasn't planning to play out any of the battles anyway, I never even specified which list my spellcaster used.

Week 1

By design, this was an easy turn to give orders for. Or it should've been. Just deposit all my starting wealth and slaves at Malturrim. But Porcus Orcus' early offer to pay gold to liberate goblin slaves intrigued me. I briefly considered it, but the extra gold just wasn't enough to justify the trade. But it set me thinking about other uses for gold beyond just turning it in to get victory points -- perhaps I could pay someone to do what I wanted. As a result, I made a last-minute snap decision to only cache 2,200 gp of my starting 4,000. This may have been a mistake, because it limited the early growth of my army that I had been counting on. 

I post hoc rationalized this decision as a way to hide my true power level. Don't let people realize how big of an advantage you have just from starting wealth. You're the outsider who no one knows -- let them underestimate you. Besides if your initial caravan gets intercepted, your eggs aren't all in one basket.

To follow up on the idea of distracting folks from my initial starting wealth, I started posting vocally in the discord about eliminating the elves. I wasn't initially expecting this strategy would come to fruition, I was just making noise. In fact, in my initial orders I told Mr. Wargaming I was considering going to Goblin Town next. Which got misinterpreted as orders to actually go to Goblin Town, which is why my party left Malturrim on the SE side that first week. Fortunately, my wagon broke down and my chief caught "orcid-19" which allowed me a chance to correct those orders midweek. After the chaos that Porcus Orcus had caused, I wanted no part of that.

Nevertheless, that noise in the discord caught the interest of Hollyfelled, who had a weathermancer. He, too, was interested in hitting the elves. I couldn't believe my good fortune -- if I could trust him. He suggested a strategy of marching through Nirumbee woods then assaulting Kris Karnhell's stone palisade, because he wanted a new home hex. I didn't know who anyone was, nor what anyone else was doing, but assaulting a stone palisade seemed like suicide. In fact, it seemed like a better strategy for Hollyfelled to get a new homehex would be to trick me into ordering my troops into the woods, than assault my home hex.

Week 2

This was my weakest... week.

I hadn't realized how much we would be playing "ahead" of the calendar -- by about a week or two -- so this week's orders ended up coinciding with the aforementioned "busiest week of the year". I wasn't able to spend the kind of time I would've needed planning or communicating with my potential ally. On top of that, Hollyfelled had brought in Grimdark Morbad (who I was vaguely aware of as having a formidable reputation in the BROSR) into our conversations and started suggesting other plans not involving Nirumbee. I hadn't been tracking what anyone else was doing, and they referenced some animations that Hollyfelled had made which I hadn't seen. I was lost and didn't have time to ask for details or provide a counterplan. 

As I was dressing in Renaissance garb to prepare for my concert Friday night, I realized orders were due. Mr. Wargaming was kind enough to permit me to submit orders on Saturday morning. So I spent Saturday morning finding Hollyfelled's animations on twitter, and trying to figure out what he and Grimdark were up to. Convinced that they might still be plotting to take my homehex, I decided to send some forces to join their assault against Lorem Ipsum (which paid off), and sent the rest of my force to defend my home hex (which did not).

Week 3

My concerts were mostly over, and it was time to start kicking things into high gear. The game was half over, and aside from depositing a portion of my starting wealth, and a joint raid on Lorem, I hadn't really done anything. I decided it was well past time to deposit the remainder of my starting wealth. 

Furthermore, I actually had more time to hash out a proper Nirumbee assault plan with Hollyfelled -- one that didn't end with us crashing against a stone wall at the end. In order to ensure I could trust him, at one point, I heavily hinted that I would be willing to offer him my homehex without bloodshed. If he had shown interest, it wouldn't have been so bad for me to take over his homehex in return. After all, I was beginning to think raiding the Carnatium suburbs would make a more profitable target after hitting the elves. He didn't bite, and stuck to the original plan against the elves. That said, I was still a bit paranoid, and my orders contained contingencies that if he broke off of our pre-planned route, I would follow him. And attack if he made for my homehex. I also had to bring in reinforcements, since I had learned that his forces outnumbered mine.

Week 4

After a hugely successful attack against the elves, I was torn between what should I should do next -- go after Goblin Town which was probably almost empty, go after the suburbs of Carnatium, or go after some of the other orc raiding parties. And then I remembered the portal that had opened. It was between Hollyfelled, Grimdark, and my homehexes -- and Grimdark and Hollyfelled were seemingly allied -- so it would make a natural alliance for the three of us to guard it. So in another last-minute ploy, I suggested this to both of them on our mutual discord channel. When the order resolutions came in, I was quite shocked to realize Hollyfelled and Grimdark were on opposite sides in the ensuing battle. I hadn't paid close enough attention to who was where, and who I would likely be facing. Fortunately, Mr. Wargaming had interpreted my ambiguous orders correctly and placed me on Hollyfeld's side of the conflict.

The second thing that occurred during this week was that I needed to pick up all the reinforcements that had either been left at my capital, or that had spawned there as a result of the elf raid. I had decided that raiding the suburbs would be my most profitable course of action, and would need every hand on deck. However, I discovered... something strange. Unfortunately, I had to ignore it in order to get my troops all in place for the endgame. But I'm really intrigued to learn what I missed out on. I joked that it was probably an elven ambush.

The Final Days

At this point, I realized that, aside from the elven crusade, I still hadn't assaulted anyone other than fellow orcs. I really wanted to wanted to get some of the rich human bounty that others had looted earlier, and I had the forces to do it. 

My earlier thinking was that I would have time to hit a suburb and get back to Malturrim by the end. However, due to an unexpected one day holdup on Christmas (brilliant event!) I realized that was no longer the case. But I would have time to assault Carnatium itself, if I could gather enough allies. I also had substantial loot from the attack on Grimdark that could be returned to Malturrim. But doing so would likely mean walking into another trap at the portal, and would mean that I would have to weaken my Carnatium assault. I had no word from Hollyfelled that he was planning on assaulting Porcus Orcus (probably he didn't trust me to keep my mouth shut!), in fact, I was certain he would join me at Carnatium. So after careful consideration, I decided to avoid the portal, and not to cash my loot from Grimdark. In retrospect, if I had known of Hollyfeld's assault against Porcus Orcus, and chosen to participate, we probably could've knocked him out. Nevertheless, I'm proud of coordinating the attack against Carnatium -- something that, at the beginning of the game, I had no interest in, and would've guessed was impossible.

Closing Thoughts

I survived. I raided the elves. I raided other orcs. I assaulted Carnatium. I even came in third place. I did better than I thought I would, despite working around IRL constraints. I attribute much of my success to my pre-game decision to take the 2,000 gp. And much of the rest to Hollyfelled's honor o7. Critically, I played much too passively and defensively, especially in week 2, which I tried to correct later on.

As far as rules go, my biggest difficulty was that the one-week turns were incredibly granular and difficult to plan for, as a lot can happen in a week, and there's very little chance for feedback. This sometimes led to rather complex orders with multiple contingencies. Having watched several videos from the International Kriegsspiel Society, I know that complex orders are generally frowned upon. 

In a previous "Joy of Wargaming" video on movement rates, I recall Mr. Wargaming discussing that "four" is approximately the right number of turns needed to make it across a wargame map. Given that our map took 10 days to cross, that would suggest 2.5 days per turn. Even if we round that up to two turns per week (3-4 days per turn) that would've still been better, in terms of simplifying orders, and would've given closer to eight or nine turns, which is close to what Kriegsspielers recommend, IIRC.

However, I know I struggled to keep up with one set of orders per week (and I'm sure Jon did as well) so that seems difficult. Two other options present themselves: 

1. Relax the 1:1 time ratio. I know this isn't agreeable to BROSR philosophy, but it is a possibility, and a 3-4 game-day turn occurring once every IRL week would've felt more comfortable. Of course, in order to get an entire month of in-game time, then you would need two months of IRL play. 

2. Double the map size. If everyone is further apart, than a week's order's has less chance for events needing feedback. In order to get the same amount of back-and-forth movement in, you still end up needing to run for two months as before (8-10 weekly turns) you just rescale the map distances so that you're still maintaining the 1:1 time ratio.