Orc raid on a village with nothing but PEASANTS as defenders?

[Cacique Caribe]

I certainly have never seen such a raid.  I would imagine it would be a bloodbath for the peasants, but it would be the most “realistic” thing too, wouldn’t you say?

Has anyone ever seen such a scenario played out?  How badly did it go for the peasants?  Did they ever stand a chance?

Thoughts?

If I ever try it out, it would probably be with these 5 sets here:

Fighting 15s

https://fighting15s.com/product/fe030-peasants-with-improvised-weapons/?v=7516fd43adaa

https://fighting15s.com/product/fe031-peasants-with-pole-weapons/?v=7516fd43adaa

https://fighting15s.com/product/fe032-peasants-with-bows-and-slings/?v=7516fd43adaa

https://fighting15s.com/product/mp001-camp-followers-and-peasant-infantry-1410/?v=7516fd43adaa

Battle Valor

https://www.battlevalorgames.com/product/human-civilians-15-figures-/2958?cp=true&sa=false&sbp=false&q=true



Thanks

Dan

[Lost Egg]

Never seen it but it sounds like a cool idea for a scenario. FireForge do some nice plastic 28-32mm peasants.

You could always have a few peasants that fought in the past and some hunters for a bit of variation. Plus theres always the classic Old War Horse with one last battle left in them trope, like the old pilot from The Mummy.

[Moriarty]

Well, certainly the fictional scenarios involving peasants defending their home have usually included a ‘stiffening’ of heroes -Seven Samurai, etc. Recent Runequest has an Apple Lane scenario where the heroes defend the village against orc-like invaders.

In White Box D&D terms, the Orcs would have better armour, be harder to kill, and have the advantage of numbers and higher level ‘heroes’. The peasants have no advantages, even their homes are only as defensible as the peasant in the doorway, meaning only one Orc at a time can attack.

So, the only successful option for the peasants would be to erect defences in & around the village, and hope to negate the orc advantages. This would obviously depend on how much time the orcs give them to prepare.

[Pattus Magnus]

Not exactly orcs vs villagers, but I did play in a game with Skaven raiding to take captives: http://imostlypaintatnightmostly.blogspot.com/2015/09/warhammer-3rd-edition-aar-1.html?m=1

The skaven had to move fast to get the job done before the village got reinforced. In our game, the village militia put up a stouter defense than expected and the skaven ended up having a bad day…

I think there are ways to make an orc raid scenario interesting, and more than just a bloodbath, but it is all in the scenario design.

A few things to consider that might even the game out a bit:
1) to some extent, villagers aren’t necessarily helpless, they provide a lot of the manpower in a pre-professional army. Think Saxon fyrd or Medieval English archers. So, that village the orcs are attacking may have a resident lord with some followers who are trained and potentially well equipped. Then there are the rest of the fighting age males, who have at least some practice with weapons, and basic gear. If the orcs can pull off a surprise attack, or have overwhelming numbers, they might have an easy time, but if they can’t get a quick victory the peasants might be able to form up in enough numbers to crush them…
2) the village may have a wall or other defenses to keep orcs out (and probably should if raids are likely…). Or the village is constructed in a location that is naturally defensible (Mediterranean coastal villages used to make that a priority to help keep North African raiders out).
3) even if the village isn’t specifically designed to maximize defense, fighting in built up areas could favor defenders in ways that will make the orcs’ day more difficult.

[levied troop]

Who’s to say the Orcs are competent disciplined warriors? They might be a bunch of numpties who shout a lot and wave a few knives around but tend to back off if confronted by a long-range pitchfork.  They might also be organised into small gangs, each of whome want to do better in the looting than the next gang and therefore won’t be supporting each other (but might do a bit of back-stabbing if a discrete chance arises).

And as Lost Egg indicated, peasants aren’t always helpless. They might be used to raids, have looted weapons handy and have organised some local support from neighbouring villages that arrives halfway through the raid.  The Clubmen in the English Civil War certainly made a few regular units think twice and there’s some examples in the Border Reivers period of villages/estates organising against the Reivers.

It’s a good scenario-maker, you could have a lot of fun with this

[has.been]

Not Orcs, but did take part in a multiplayer Viking game.
Each player had a personality/leader figure & some followers.
The villagers were totally outclassed, but as the aim was to
gather as much loot as possible, fights between rival Vikings
broke out during the game. Too many raiders & not enough loot
will do that.
 

[LoxIslay]

Funny enough i plan it the other way around. I have some lovely 15mm Orc villagers and some nasty dwarves who want to plunder their village. Still in the building and painting phase. To much lead to do 

[blacksmith]

There is a scenario called Linden Way from the WHF 2nd edition's supplement called Blood bath at Orc's Drift in which the dwellers organised as a militia, have to fight off some raiding Orcs. Here's my AAR of that in 10mm (the peasants were slaughtered: http://javieratwar.blogspot.com/2009/02/linden-way.html



Now I'm into 1/72 and I'll be using these ones from Zvezda:

[jon_1066]

Sounds good but if only they could recruit a handful of trained warriors (say 7?) to help them.

[ithoriel]

Once played a game where I had a bunch of Byzantine peasants defending their village against Rus raiders while waiting for Byzantine regulars to come to their aid.

15 peasants. Five with pitchforks and scythe blades on poles (counting as spears), 5 with axes and adzes (2 handed weapons) and 5 with rocks they could throw.

Couple of dozen Rus, all better armed, better armoured and better fighters than the peasants ... and most of the Byzantine regular foot too, come to that.

Turn one, Rus leader (3 wounds, 4+ save) rides into the middle of the village, jumps off his horse, sword drawn, ready to charge the five rock throwers cowering behind a stone wall. The rest of the Rus are bustling up behind on foot.

The peasants make a morale check and, thanks to the protection of the wall, manage to stay put and chuck their rocks.

Five rocks, 5+ to hit then a 4+ save .... they might manage a wound if they are lucky. Before the Rus Jarl rushes forward and hacks them to death.

Nope - 5 rocks, five hits, no saves. Jarl has been stoned to death by what is clearly an elite Byzantine execution squad masquerading as peasants!

Rus take morale test, fail, panic, run away.

Cue comment from Rus player (and scenario designer) "Well that didn't go as I expected!"



 

[Elbows]

My buddy and I have been working on a convention game he's wanting to run; a small group of heroes with a couple henchmen each, and the game is based around getting peasants off the table.  The table is generating undead which are swarming a city, etc.

Heroes have certain dice allowing them to order peasants to move, and likewise the Heroes or henchmen can ring the town bell which allows all peasants to move, etc.

The undead generate each turn and move a varying distance determined by cards, etc.  If undead can surround or cut off peasants, then obviously they can stop them from exiting the table (they're trying to make it to a small keep and a boat).

It's a fun and simple goal, with the Heroes being able to fight while shouting at the peasants to flee, etc.  Heroes can only affect peasants within a certain radius, but clever players can daisy-chain their heroes to try to move peasants again and again during a single turn, etc.

So far it's pretty fun.

[v_lazy_dragon]

The assorted peasant uprisings through history that didnt end immediately suggest that peasants might not be as crappy as one assumes...
Many 'proper' weapons are based off tools afterall, so locals turning out with flails, billhooks, hunting spears, bows, slings and axes might not be on too much of a disadvantage. Depending on the time period/location you might be able tk add long knives/short swords to the list (seaxs or bauernwher, etc). Brugel's assorted paintings show pretty low class people with long knives as an example.

In addition to the idea of former soldiers and the lords retainers/village militia you can also add bandits/brigands who are hiding out in the village.

Possible village character ideas could include the strapping blacksmith (damage bonus?), retired soldier, the mysterious stranger/s (wether Conan or Clint Eastwood), the poacher (to hit bonus), the village herbalist/wise woman/witch (either healing the villagers wounds or causing the enemy morale damage through hurling threats), etc etc

I do also like the ideas of raiders who are numerically inferior to the villagers (expecting little resistance) or who are a pillaging rabble used to being bully boys and not expecting a fight.

[Cacique Caribe]

The assorted peasant uprisings through history that didnt end immediately suggest that peasants might not be as crappy as one assumes...

That reminds me of how the Bagaudae peasant uprisings became a big headache for the Roman legions:

https://www.slideshare.net/Roxii16/roxana-bagaudae

Dan

[FramFramson]

Orc's Drift... now there's a classic. Spawned one of the longest and most legendary (multi-session) AAR threads on LAF too.

[Cacique Caribe]

“Orc’s Drift.” 
LOL

“Sounds good but if only they could recruit a handful of trained warriors (say 7?) to help them.”
Pure genius!

Dan