Recently my wargames campaign called for me to conduct an invasion by an irregular army on a hostile shore. In fact it was to be a Gobliniod force under the charismatic leadership of Grunk Bentnose. The target for the invasion was the small island kingdom of Wereksolot. The island's defenders knew that an attack was imminent and had been mobilised to meet it. They even knew on which coast the attack was to come but not the actual beach.

I decided then that the defenders would be encamped along the coast. As this battle was to be fought on a six foot by four foot table, a simple die throw decided which of the two longer sides would be the sea and which would be the coast.

Next I divided the coast side up into six equal boxes and threw a D6 for each unit in the defending army, this would be the box they would be in at the start of the battle. The King would automatically be placed in the center, box 3 or 4 along with his bodyguard. Also present would be two couriers who will have a vital part to play. Once our defenders have been set up it is time to start on the attackers.

It must be said that Gobliniods are not known for their seamanship, and although the distance to be sailed from their lands to the island was not great, it was highly likely that the invasion fleet would become split up and scattered to a certain degree. The invasion fleet consisted of one flagship, 5 large warships, 8 medium warships and ten smaller ships. The flagship could carry 8 figures, a large warship 5 figures, a medium war ship 4 figures and a small ship 3 figures. I divided the Gobliniods into troop types and then used the dice to decide which troops would be on which type of ship as follows:

TROOP TYPE	Number of Figures
A Trolls, clubs	5
B Orcs, heavy armour, sword, shield	23
C Orcs, light armour, sword, shield	8
D Goblins, light armour, sword, shield	18
E Goblins, sword, shield	10
F Goblins, bow, sword	31

SHIP TYPE
Flagship:	5x A, 3xF
L Warship:	3x B, 2xF
M Warship:	1xB, 1xC, 1xD, 1xF
S Ship:	1xD, 1xE, 1xF

THE BATTLE

On game turn one, Bentnose's flagship, one large warship and two medium warships arrive at beach area 3 or 4 (use a die to decide). Then every game turn after that four more ships arrive. Throw 4D6 to decide which type of ship, 1,2 = L Warship. 3,4 = M Warship, 5,6 = S ship and then a further D6 to decide on which beach area that force lands.

Once the first Gobliniods land the king can give orders to the defending troops BUT only to the troops that are in the same area box as him! To move the other forces he must send a courier with orders for that unit.

Couriers move at light cavalry speed and once they have delivered their orders they can be immediately return to the king. As you can see, within a few game moves the defenders will have a few problems with boat loads of invaders turning up all across the coast making the deployment of his forces very difficult. By the way, any defending unit that has no orders may only defend itself against a direct attack.

This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com