15mm Wargaming for Fun and Sanity: Of Gods And Mortals Playing with "Reduced Gods"

I admonish, trust and abdure you to join the Facebook groups Of Gods And Mortals and BronzeAge Wargaming. Or I'm going to come round there and drink your coffee until you do. Gorrit? Good.

If, dearest reader, you were familiar with the former (I'm trusting you at your word-) You would have read my monograph postulating using a "reduced" god as a Legend in such cases as there can be shown just cause.

A shout out to https://www.charliefoxtrotmodels.com/collections/movement-trays?page=10 who make (plus a huge range!) these excellent single bases in both 1 & 2p sizes. As part of my general improvement drive, I'm permanently mounting Legends on these. Above I've used a couple of unshielded Museum Miniatures charioteers to make a wee vignette. No, I haven't finished painting them. I also continued rebasing chariots onto 40x40 bases and I was painting Amazon spear 20 minutes before Tony turned up.

Considering the age of these Irregular Miniatures Amazons (20-30 years?) They stand up well in comparison to the latest figures. You get about 7 random variations per code, mostly shields & helmets.

For those used to buying from a single manufacturer: Museum Miniatures chariot carries Irregular Miniatures to confront a Splintered Light Bull.

Here is our play-through games! Enjoy! Copy! DO IT!

Ares Q2 C5 336

Group fighter, cannot be outnumbered.

Combat master, every activation can be used for a separate attack.

Hammering blow.Roll 1, enemy free hack. 6 +2.

Shapeshift Boar Q2 C4

Forester, no reduction for moving through woods.

Long move,

Dashing, attacks in the same activation, without requiring a second activation.
Poison. For every casualty caused, roll a D6, If 5,6 another casualty.

Legends

“Reduced” Aphrodite. Q3 C3 Transfix. Love conquers all. 100

Amazon Princess, Q3 C3 Mounted, Long, Shoot Short, good shot. @ 102

2x Amazon Chariot Heroes Q3 C3 Armoured. Mounted. @ 84 = 168

Mortals

4 Amazon Noble Javelin Q4 C2 Armoured, Greedy, Shoot Short @ 20 = 80

2x 8 Amazon Spear Q4 C2, Greedy @12 = 176

4 Amazon maiden bow Q4 C1 Greedy, shoot medium @10 = 40

8 Amazon maiden javelin Q4 C1 Greedy, shoot short @ 8 = 64

4 Amazon maiden cavalry Mounted, Fast, javelin Q4 C1 Greedy, shoot short @ 15 = 60

God 336

Legends 370 (x3 = 1,110) Sub total 706 giving 404 for mortals.

Mortals 420

1,126

Aphrodite. Q2 C3 Transfix. Love conquers all. Breathtaking beauty. 272

Legends

“Reduced” Ares Shapeshift Boar Q3 C4 114
Forester, no reduction for moving through woods.
Long move,
Dashing, attacks in the same activation, without requiring a second activation.
Poison. For every casualty caused, roll a D6, If 5,6 another casualty.

Minos Taurus. Q3 C3 Dashing. Labyrinth. Mounted 102

Chariot Hero Q3 C3 Mounted, Long, Shoot Short, good shot. @ 102

Mortals.

8 Cretan city spearmen. Q4 C2 Shooter short. @ 18 = 144

12 Cretan city archers Q4 C2 Shooter Long. Good shot. @ 25 = 300

4 Levy javelin. Q4 C1 Shooter. Short. @ 11 = 44

4 Levy bow or sling. Q4 C1 Shooter. Medium. @ 13. = 52

God 272
Legends 318
Mortals 540
Total 1,130.

Hephaestus Q2 C4 212

Short move,

Smithy. Gives Armoured trait to a Legend on deployment.

Legends

Tauroi Khalkeoi (bronze bull) Q3 C4 122 Armoured,

Artificial, no morale, no invocations.

Big, +1 combat +1 shot at.

Combat master every activation can be used for a separate attack.

Artificial

Talos the bronze giant Q3 C4 120

Armoured, Artificial,

Huge, +1 combat +1 shot at. No cover bonus.

Hammering blow. Roll 1, enemy free hack. 6 +2.

2 Hero Q3 C3 @ 60 = 120

Mortals

8 Automata Q4 C2 Artificial = 17 136

4 Armoured Heroes Q4 C3 27 = 108
Armoured
Steadfast +1 morale
Greedy. Q test if destroys enemy, fails lose 1 action next activation.

16 (2x8) Spear Q4 C2, Greedy 12 = 192

16 Javelin, Q4 C1 Greedy, Shooter short 8 = 128

God 212
Legends 362
Mortals 564
1,138

Game 1. "Reduced" Aphrodite supports Ares. I get Ares and attacking. Tony adds 3 patches of marsh/rough ground.

Now comes the "pre game". Deployment. Tony starts with a wedge of spear, but I push my light cavalry forward. As a rule of thumb you place a light screen of troops getting "harder" as you go with the god last. Tony is using his javelins in groups of 8 rather than smaller.

Measures are useful to define usable areas.

Now I start. Bit of a problem, my cavalry have no "wriggle room," do I go all out for the bull? I get 2 so go left with the hope of throwing at the heroes and legends. I have kept a corridor for them to flee.

My better javelins exchange with Tonys. The bull is coming and so are my heroes.

The artificials move in and hit my Princess. Talos moves into my cavalry and 1 goes.

Then the bull moves in and shoves my chariot back.

My Princess & chariot are pushed back. I withdraw my spear to make room.

A slight pause, bar that bull.

My javelins engage the artificials. The Princes gets 1 action and hits their flank. My intention was to leave room for the other chariot to hit the bull.

The bull also gets one activation and uses it to take out my chariot. Initiative swap.

So it's back to the Princess who's a wee bit exposed - same again! To you- to me!

Tony starts with Talos who racks up the pluses and kills all 3 of my cavalry with one swipe!

This is one of those complicated "dice give the narrative" parts. The Princess uses a reaction to pull the bulls tail. Initiative swap back to me! I go for the other chariot and get 2 - the bull uses it to murder my Princess! Proving himself capabull.

A draw. Both saved by their armour.

The javelin go in, but are bounced back. This is unbearabull.

My charioteer is pushed back on reaction by the implacabull foe.

Ares and Aphrodite move forward. Note that there has been no invocation from either side yet.

Ares gets 3 activation and throws the artificials back. They had lost 1 to my javelins earlier.

Tony advances his right to reduce my skirmishers so they cannot invoke.

My javelin harrassabull whilst support rushes in.

Now his left, more javelin go in to the rough.

Ares smites Talos down. He rolls 4, is C5 and gets +1 as he counts as 8 whilst legends only 4.

Hero hits my javelin.

Ares hits Hephaestus striking him down.

Tony's forces goes back on reaction. One spear unit disappears. Aphrodite has transfixed a unit of javelin marked by a white dice.

My chariot goes crapabull! Surges forward to contact the other legend.

So I had a plan- first send my javelins into his, with +3 -- but no. One reaction for Tony and then over to him--.

The remnant of the artificials crunch into Aphrodite, but she wriggles her bot and that's that.

Ares starts to be enveloped. Can he be contained?

Now it begins- Ares gets 4 activations (1 from the archers all the way back there) the legend hero goes down for 1. Now for the armoured - 1 to get there, 1 to hit & Ares is pushed back! He expends his last action and gets pushed back again!

My charioteer polishes off the other hero. Then initiative change.

Once again the gods clash! This time Ares gets it! It was close!

My turn to lose a spear unit and get shoved back to the base line.

My chariot comes under a hail of javelins.

Pop! Ares is back, turns into the boar and goes-.

Here we go - the armoured hero's go for the chariot, Hephaestus for his missus and the Amazons for the Javelins.

6:1! Hephaestus is dead again!

Morale again. Tony's forces are now all the way back. Legends gone and a diminishing choice of those able to invoke.

Now the race is on to get into contact before Hephaestus can reappear.

Just when you think - Hephaestus is back, straight into contact and - equals! The clash awes most, (marked by dice) knocks down my legends. Now it's a race to get back into the fight!

Mine start the grind. Hephaestus makes sure he stays in contact with his troops.

One last fling of the dice! Hephaestus goes down.

Close, but no losses.

Back again! But not for too long.

Now it ends-.

The Amazons go in again, tying up the spear. The javelins behind are only a 3.

Once again Hephaestus returns. He crashes into my Amazons. Greatly outnumbered they are mashed and sent back. The chariot contacts the javelin. First clash Ares is pushed back!

And there we had to leave it! It's so close! We both have 2 4's. It could go either way-.

Aphrodite was useful, I'd call this a win!

Game 2. I thought I'd go through the pre-game setup, which is like a mini game in itself. A bit like those chess problems. Tony swapped to Aphrodite and got defend. He set up the terrain and set the first unit, here is Ares in boar form.

My first, javelins.

Minos Taurus and more javelins. I could have placed legends to match them.

The game. Now we get to the dice! We end up with a huge crump! Everyone contacting but not fighting.

Meanstwhile, on comes Ares! My plan was to swamp him with my jevelins, but they had an "oh crap" moment, 1 reaction then initiative swap.

Which leaves him free to clobber my legend instead of the other way around.

The big mess breaks up (OGAM) is really good at this-. The spearmen keep bouncing off the heroes.

Talos moves into contact with Ares (a theme-) but he risks a free hack to get away and slams into my spear.

Meanstwhile the bull has started an end run!

Chariot moving to support Ares-.

Back on the hill, Ares goes down to the spearmen! Just shows it's possible!

The archers rip into my javelins.

Now 'er advances, wrecking my other javelin unit.

Hephaestus moves up to counter the Minos Tauros.

Bleep. I need to turn him off and on again.

More trouble for my javelins. Lets see, chariot rolls a 6, is a 3, +1 activation, mounted vs, and greatly outnumber. That's 13. I roll 1+1 = 2. Every 3 so that's 3 dead.