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Teams were as Jayz has noted, which was quite cool. And once I get around to it I'll post something for each game, but for now you're only getting stubs ...

Game Twenty-Seven: Chaos vs Fatties & Thinlings

Elves brought a dragon with ring of fury mage on the back, plus swordmasters & guns. Ogres brought bruiser, butcher, guts, bulls, bulls, trappers, belchers, gorger.

We needed to drop the dragon and with the Pimp (flicker + fireball) and the hagtree fetish on a bray-shaman we should have been in a good place to do it turn two on. Except I got greedy and boosted the pimp up to begin the fireworks first turn. This resulted in him being charged and beaten up by a butcher over 3 rounds, and us losing any magic advantage. From here the beasts failed every Ld test they were required to make - fleeing, rallying, charging fear causers, etc - and I was simply hamstrung with slow smashy units. Warstar ate some archers, a chariot and a bolt thrower on one flank, but the game was saved by two shots from the HC down the field, panicing the bruiser's guts in turn 5 and then again in turn 6 after they had rallied, sending them off the table.

DRAW

Game Twenty-Eight: Chaos vs Men

The warriors took the empire, but unfortunately this sent the beasts into the brets (the same brets I've faced week after week with decent results). Apart from the hellcannon misfiring and killing herself, the empire was crushed by the warstar and Pimp, while the beasts were likewise trampled into pulp by the bretons. The game ended with the Pimp (made unbreakable and given regen by the scenario) plopping onto the central objective and daring anybody to dislodge him. His 3/3/4+ save absorbed an ENORMOUS amount of firepower - including 2 turns of hellblaster - but survived to claim a large VP bonus and turn the game.

CHAOS WIN

Game Twenty-Nine: Chaos vs Undead

An unholy alliance of VC & TK meant we were woefully under-magicked, but neither army had the hammers to deal with us, so we should be ok, right? Once again we faced off, with the beasts taking the easily-smashed block-heavy VC and the warriors getting the slippery, avoidance + shooting + magic (my favorite ) TK. The Pimp was caught by a scorpion early on - frankly, he was not going to survive the game with both a chariot prince and scorp able to charge 21-24" in any direction - and with that any maneuverability was gone and my warriors had their chaff killed and circles run around them. The beasts, fortunately, did explode the vamps as planned, catching the general early with some minotaur to the face and reducing that side of the undead to just 1 vamp hiding behind a house. Sadly the TK were in such force and their light cav shooting SO on target that the beasts were riddled as the warriors were ignored.

CHAOS LOSS

Undead would go on to win the team tournament, followed by Men, Chaos and HE/OK in last. And me feeling pretty bummed about the Pimp dying in 2 of 3 games, even if he rocked house in #2.

More to the point ...

Game Thirty: Brettonians

<Read about it on DREADTASM!>

Looking like High Elves on Monday, then Skaven at long last afterward

- Salvage

Loving the Batreps, Boss! Very informative for a guy like me that's been out of the game for a while and having a go at it with WoC's.

Gotta agree with you on running the generically "can't miss" Chaos Runesword on the Lord. I can't seem to drift away from it!

Game Thirty-One: High Elves > DREADTASTIC!

Next up is Skaven (6 PD / Furnace / HPA / Wheel) sometime next week. As well as me busting out the level 4 for the first time, 'cause it's time to get serious.

- Salvage

Dice rolls are what keep making me take breaks from fantasy. I never charge a chaos lord at ANYTHING. Your several turns of chaos lord vs errants where he held at -2? Has NEVER happened for me. If anything of mine loses combat, it's GONE, rarely is that not the case.

Chaos would benefit from Hatred IMMENSELY, or even better the Black Guard's "Warrior Elite" rule, since you know....we're frickin' warrior elite!

Spellbound wrote:Chaos would benefit from Hatred IMMENSELY, or even better the Black Guard's "Warrior Elite" rule, since you know....we're frickin' warrior elite!

I haven't posted my rant on chaos lords on Dakka, have I? Because it boils down to one request: hatred on chaos lords, please. Causing fear would be nice too, but if ONE UNIT in the entire army deserves hatred, it's the 1000+ year old veteran who has walked through rivers of molten bone, bathed in the ashes of cities and gutted whole legions of madmen to attain his twisted throne of solidified hate. Dammit.

But I do agree, rolling dice = failure. So far my lord has only been good at two things: armor saves (1+ will do that) and break tests. Note against spirit of the forge you get neither

- Salvage

Honestly I think the WS chart should be fixed, so that at a certain point you re-roll misses versus scrubs. The motto for GW writers in the chaos codex is "give it more WS and I" which are two of the most useless stats in WHFB. WS4 hits WS3 on a 3+. WS10 hits WS2 on a 3+. What's the bloody difference? And they only hit you on a 5+ once you're OVER twice their WS, meaning WS4 hits very very few things, even amongst lord-level characters, on a 5+ and WS5 hits their equals and gods of war on the same numbers - wha?!

Should at least be Double WS = hit on a 5+ [this would actually help chosen out, as well as other infantry like white lions which are also WS6 right?], and if you're double your target's WS you re-roll misses, or hit on a 2+ or something.

I do have to say I like the idea of double WS meaning you reroll misses, or you get an additional attack or something. Though i do have to say I and WS matters heaps for characters. because WS6 brettonnian lords feel mighty puny against elves and Chaos lords, granted magic items help mitigate this but still. with 2 evenly matched characters dukeing it out the Higher I puts the ball securely in their court.

Salvage did mention to me his hatred request and i throw in my own: Enemy hero or lord level characters are the only models who can (and must) accept challenges from chaos lords. He walks up, bats aside all the puny bodyguards and challenges his sought after adversary for the first time. Epic. But then again that's in my crazy fantasy world. Can't wait to see the write up for you versus rats.

~DG

Was supposed to play Skaven today, but rescheduled until Friday afternoon ... In the meantime, I broke down Sunday evening and painted a model for the army?!

TIZZ WARRIOR 01



Truth be told, I'm very very happy with him, and should be able to streamline things just a smidge by cutting out my experiments with a devlan mud wash after the badab black and with a second highlight on the blue. I really love the necron abyss + regal blue edging, makes for a great super dark plate. Combined with the white & boltgun accents, I'm well pleased

I would love to think I could get the army painted this summer in time for Crossroads in September, but I'm thinking I have far too many other plans to make that happen. Also the nurgle-skaven are 100% done, vs just 1.6% of the tizz boys

- Salvage

HMM pic isn't loading. . .

Very awesome!

Played a fairly relaxed game last night, and due to time constraints I'll be tossing it up on Dakka rather than Dreadtasm ...

Game Thirty-Two: Skaven

RATS 2250

L: Warlord - warpforged blade, warpstone armor, rival hide
H: Chieftain - BSB, under empire, shield
H: Plague Priest - level 2, foul pendant, flail, furnace
H: Engineer - level 2, staff of sorcery

C: 30 Clanrats - full command, shields
C: 30 Clanrats - full command, shields
C: 26 Giant Rats - 4 packmasters
C: 25 Giant Rats - 4 packmasters
C: 20 Slaves

S: 27 Plague Monks - full command
S: 4 Rat Ogres - 2 packmasters
S: 10 Gutter Runners

R: Hellpit Abomination
R: Doomwheel

Three of the Big Four, but missing many of the other 'power' units or items (apart from the under empire) and low on magic. An impressive horde all the same, and really, what else do you need besides the HPA?

TIZZ 2250

L: Sorcerer Lord - MoT, level 4, enchanted shield, infernal puppet, bloodskull pendant
H: Sorcerer - MoT, golden eye, bloodcurdling roar, disc
H: Exalted - MoT, BSB, talisman of protection, halberd

C: 20 Warriors - MoT, warbanner, full command, shields
C: 19 Warriors - MoT, rapturous, full command, shields
C: 5 Horsemen - musician, spears, light armor
C: 5 Horsemen - musician, spears, light armor

S: 3 Dragon Ogres - great weapons
S: 3 Ogres - musician, great weapons, chaos armor

R: Hellcannon

My first time running a level 4 - I've held out for a LONG time - and I was pretty giddy with the possibility of actually beating this skaven horde-and-a-half. Being outnumbered 3 to 1 was a bit disconcerting, but I'll address those concerns after the battle ...

Scenario
Pitched Battle

Magic
Plague Priest > pestilent breath, vermintide
Engineer > warp lightning, scorch

S.Lord > flickering fire, treason, call to glory, gateway
Sorc > flicker fire

Deployment


Hopefully those labels are pretty self-explanatory. Warlord & BSB went in with the clanrats to the left of the furnace, engineer joined the clanrats to its right. On the spiky side, BSB rode with his rapturous friends (CW2), while the level 4 (Slord McRed for the curious) hung with the professionals of the warstar (CW1). The Pimp is behind the house ready to start the fireworks against the abomination ASAP. The gutter runners, when they show up, will walk on to where their faded-out icon appears now, behind the rapturestar.

Battle

Turn 1
The boys in blue plate get things started: western horsemen head up the flank, drogres mobilize to tempt the ‘wheel into charging them – hopefully frenzying them in the process – rapturestar moves up and puts the building to its flank, warstar powers up to keep pace and get their gateway launcher into range, ogres move up a bit to watch for opportune flanks, the hellcannon stays leashed and trundles 6” for the rat ogres, and the eastern horsemen prepare to bait some rat ogres in their next turn. And now: magic. Flicker from the Pimp tags one wound off the HPA, ensuring it won’t be coming back, and a strong gateway tags it with 11 S3 (!!) hits! Which result in one wound. Huh.

Ratty movement that matters sees the doomwheel charge the drogres, planning on frying them, but I tell him what dragon ogres do and let him move to the east instead, where some giant rants will hook him up with some needed CR next turn. The slaves likewise head into the western half of the board a bit. HPA powers forward ~8”, the skaven line skitters up ~10” and the rogres advance as well. GR2, the second giant rat block, does not move, and won’t all game. Skaven-y magic results in vermintide going off against warstar and ogres, to no effect. And then the ‘wheel fries some giant rats, ‘cause it can.

Turn 2
The clock is ticking until abomination time … Over in the West, the drogres decide that they can’t take on 20 slaves in a frontal charge (seriously, I do NOT trust these guys), so wheel to face the doomwheel / giant rats, and assume that the giant rats are out, because I can’t judge 12-14” very well. Their horsemen buddies head up the flank and spin to look at said slaves. In the East, the warstar wheels back a bit to expose the flank of the plague unit to an ogre charge, whenever it happens to make the charge. The eastern horsemen move up to bait the rat ogres, and the hellcannon waits to counter-charge said frenzied dudes. The Pimp hops behind the skaven line, casting flicker on the HPA in the process, but it is dispelled. Gateway fails to cast (1-2-3-6), and there is general sadness / disappointment in the chaos lines. The Pimp roars out his anguish on the warlord’s clanrats, killing a few (TRIPLE 6), and the hellcannon slams a shot into the rat ogres for the hell of it, scattering between them and the clanrats but resulting in just two dead rats.

The doomwheel and giant rats make it to the drogres, which is most unsettling not because they’ve now lost on CR automatically, but because the split frontage puts just one S7 masher into base with the ‘wheel. The HPA charges the rapturestar and, I hope you saw this coming because I did, they fail terror and flee 12”, making things … difficult for me. At least they ran way the hell away. The rat ogres also charge the eastern horsemen, but they flee through the hellcannon and will get to be chomped soon. The slaves rotate to face the horsemen, and the rest of the skaven main line moves up 5”. Magic is a non-starter, shooting sees the funky furnace flamer put down on the warstar but nobody dies. In the first round of FIGHT of the game, a drogre falls to the ‘wheel, the rats put on another wound and then the two remaining mighty dragon ogres kill one giant rat. They break but run fast and are not caught by either unit.

Turn 3
With things already going pear-shaped, Tizz really needs to get some gak together: the warstar charges into the warlord’s clanrats, willingly putting its rear to the HPA but hoping that 555 points in magic can drop it. Also, the hellcannon charges the rat ogres, ready for a snack. Rallying was more or less good: the drogres rally and face the ‘wheel again, the rapturestar rallies (WHEW), but the horsemen leg it off the table. The only units left do boring things: western horsemen begin a dance with the slaves that will last until the end of the game, and the chaos ogres back up and wait for the plague furnace to open up its flank by charging the warstar or the other clanrats to do the same by charging the hellcannon … And the Pimp flits over to the other side of the furnace, to give the warstar lots of overrun room. This would be important, because his flickering fire, while cast and not dispelled, is 20” from the HPA, so out. All down to gateway then: TRIPLE 6 sees it IF cast, and a mighty 7 S9 (!!) hammers the beast for 6 wounds, 2 of which are regen’d, leaving it at just one wound. Sadly, it’s game over from here … YET the warstar gets to fight! McRed challenges and the ratty chieftain accepts! McRed activates his bloodskull, tagging both the clanrat next to the chieftain and the chieftain! He rolls ONE for both S8 KB wounds! And then he rolls a 1 for his 1+ save against the chieftain’s return attaks! Lots of attaks later, a warrior has died as well as a couple rats, and the warstar is checking @ -1. They pass easily, but feelings of being ripped off by Mr. Slord continue to rise. The hellcannon at least does her job, doing four wounds to the rat ogres and breaking them, though her 4” pursuit can’t match their 5” run.

The HPA prepares for bloody revenge, rear-charging the warstar. The doomwheel charges the drogres unsupported this time (and they fail fear to make winning extra hard), and the plague unit attempts to flank the warstar, but is so wedged in between the clanrat units that it can’t wheel enough to make it. The rat ogres rally (!!), the engineer’s rats and the furnace scootch around to make some room and the horsemen & slaves continue dancing. Magic sees a scorch onto the hellcannon and crew, but it manages no wounds. In shooting the doomwheel is unable to restrain and electrocutes the drogres, frenzying them (!!). It kills one, but the last angry drogre can’t hit on 6’s so auto-breaks and is pursued off the table. In the main event, the HPA kills 8 warriors of tzeentch between impacts and flailing fists, putting it at +10 CR by itself. The skaven heroes go to work and drop a couple more warriors, and despite the bloodskull working at last (2 dead clanrats) and another warrior putting his sword into a ratman’s face, the warstar lost by 11. They break as hard as they can and run, being caught by HPA and clanrats, which both run toward the rapturestar’s loving embrace.

Also, the gutter runners showed up this turn, walking behind the rapturestar and throwing ninja stars through one warrior’s neck seam.

Turn 4
Hemorrhaging badly, the chaos boys needed to get some points, any points. Hellcannon charges the rat ogres, rapturestar charges the almost-but-not-quite-dead HPA and the ogres charge the flank of the warlord’s depleted clanrats. The rogres (who fail fear) and the clanrats hold, while the HPA chooses to flee through clanrats and plague monks rather than die – impacts are gentle and only a couple die from each block. Horsemen dance with slaves and the Pimp hops around to keep LoS on the HPA. His flicker, however, is dispelled, and his roar drops 0-1 clanrats out of spite. Combat, the hellcannon eats another rat ogre, has two of her crew killed and combat is a tie. The chaos ogres, meanwhile, take a lone wound from the chieftain’s return attaks, but reap down enough clanrats to make the unit test @ -1! They pass with the BSB’s reroll, and that starry look of wonder quickly fades from my eyes. (I berate these lowly ogres continually, so to have them almost do something – and something AWESOME – is a great thing. The warlord’s rats would have slammed into the building 3” away and died.)

With their moment of glory passed, the chaos ogres are flanked by the plaguestar. Elsewhere, the HPA rallies (BOO), the doomwheel returns to the table and heads for the rapturestar, slaves dance with horses and the other two blocks don’t do much. Magic, the priest goes for a pestilent breath and miscasts!! My puppet is gone, so his 4 doesn’t get kicked down to 2, but it still rips through his unit, the S6 hits in base of the furnace dropping half of the monks (!!), while also wounding the furnace and 1 ogre. The engineer keeps the madness going by hitting the Pimp with lightning, but rolling a 1 for hits and wounding himself. In the happy combat, Ms. Nibbles eats another ogre, loses her last dwarf, fails to restrain pursuit and fails to catch them (again), meaning she won’t be able to rampage 180 degrees into the flank of the engineer’s clanrats / rear of the furnace. Sigh. In the sad combat, under empire / fumes / impacts decimate the ogres before they know it, and then the warlord, since moved to the flank, dices the last one. Meh.

Turn 5
The HC does rampage and charges down the rat ogres, and sits staring at the NE corner. The rapturestar is too far away to charge the warlord’s rats, so moves up an agonizing 4”. Pimp repositions again, fails to flicker the HPA, pops 1-2 plague monks with his roar.

After some deliberation, the warlord’s clanrats and the plaguestar both charge the rapturestar. The HPA is worried about charging the hellcannon and losing his last wound (it’s died to the other hellcannon in the league before), but his random move just brings him into her side, so it’s on. The doomwheel moves slowly towards the rapturestar, and other movement is whatever. Magic sends some smelly breath into the rapturestar, maybe killing no one. Then time for all the pre-fight stuff! Under empire (on warriors & monks), fumes (on warriors & monks), impacts (on warriors) result in more dead rats than armored maniacs, then after a whole lot of dice rolling – my champ fluffs against his champ, odd for The Warchamp himself – the rapture boys test @ -3. They pass on the first shot: 3-3. Over in the big monster fight, the HPA between impacts and avalanching rips 4 wounds from the Madame, and she turns and delivers 2 to him. As you guessed, it regens both.

Turn 6
Horsemen dance, rapturestar fights. Pre-fight nonsense continues, again dropping more rats than warriors, and the chaos lads reap through the clanrats and plague monks, actually winning combat. The clanrats, well under half, break, but the furnace, being made of cheddar, sticks around (with its 6 monks), and the rapturestar expands frontage. Also, the hellcannon is avalanched and crushed when she mistakenly puts her head underneath the hellpit.

Doomwheel doesn’t make it into the ‘star, but does tag the Pimp with 1 S6 shot of lightning! Golden eye comes through though. Oh, and the warlord rallies, once again saving a lot of points with supreme LD abilities. The Fight: rapturestar weathers some pestilent breath, some fumes, some wrecker and cuts down all of the remaining plague monks. The furnace, however, remains too addled to care.

In the end the skaven gave up half of the engineer, half of one clanrat block, all of the plague monks and all of the rat ogres. In the process chaos lost everything except for the Pimp, the Duke, half of the rapturestar, and one unit of horsemen. Skaven also grabbed three quarters and dead general. Guh.

SKAVEN WIN (19-1)

Thoughts in a bit, but for now this is abundantly clear: HPA > GATEWAY

Frankly I think it's funny I was so worried about taking gateway and getting called cheesy, etc. I guess when you aren't shooting things with regen (which IMO is still a pretty whack rule, years later) it's hot, and 11-12 is extra sexy, but 12 of 13 casts of it aren't coming up with auto-destroy, and a lot of points are going into some random gak. But ah well.

- Salvage

Shame.

Inorite, those HPA's are INSANE.

Edit: After thinking a bit, it really makes me cringe when you say you fail a panic/fear/terror test....succumb to the lure of Slaanesh!

Karon wrote:After thinking a bit, it really makes me cringe when you say you fail a panic/fear/terror test....succumb to the lure of Slaanesh!

Every time I fail a terror test with one of the stars and my line breaks, a part of me contemplates swapping the ward save I never make for faux-ItP (which costs less).

But then a better part of me reminds myself that I've still got my self-respect. So I'm keeping it dark blue, not electric kool aid acid trip blue

- Salvage

You've just made my new sig (though my old one is pretty awesome) and made my new paint scheme for my beastmen, "Electric kool aid acid trip blue"

A horde of beastmen painted blue, and then washed with leviathan purple.

Yummy yum yum.

Oh, apologies for what could be considered spam, but I updated my Beastmen list, and was wondering if you had any thoughts on it.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/286898.page

You're a better man than me then Boss. I thought I'd swap the Rune of Courage (immune to fear/terror) for Rune of Stoicism (double unit strength) on my longbeards.

I failed the first terror test after making the swap, fled through a warrior block, who panicked and fled through a bolt thrower crew (with attached runesmith!), who panicked and fled. Needless to say, Rune of Courage was back on the longbeards faster than you can say "netlist".

RZ

Zeke, I know it man. I took two runes of battle, thinking of course with scr of +7 (counting the BSB) those hammerers could NEVER lose combat.... guy. RoS is going back in my list too.

(that said, those hammerers held up a plaguebearer block and a GUO for six rounds of combat. But they would still be there if they had a rune of courage).

Hey Boss, i really like this sequence of battle reports. Its great to see your lists adapting and growing between the points levels. The actual reports are awesome as well!

Any chance we could get a whole army shot of your WoCs? (even though they're not painted! )

Cheers for the comments, crew. Final league game looks to be a rematch vs the skaven, possibly with 3rd place and cash money riding on the outcome. I'll be happy if I can drop that HPA finally, though I suppose vs new skaven if/when you drop the HPA then things get a lot easier fast.

I was racking my brain for terror protection options that didn't involve growing three pairs of breasts and/or a bevy of tentacles (), and then I came to a similar realization that I did when I swapped my disc lord to a demo-pony ...

TIZZ 2250

L: Sorcerer Lord - MoT, level 4, favor, enchanted shield, infernal puppet, demonic mount
H: Sorcerer - MoT, golden eye, bloodcurdling roar, disc
H: Exalted - MoT, BSB, talisman of protection, halberd

C: 20 Warriors - MoT, warbanner, full command, shields
C: 19 Warriors - MoT, rapturous, full command, shields
C: 5 Horsemen - musician, spears, light armor
C: 5 Horsemen - musician, spears, light armor

S: 3 Dragon Ogres - great weapons
S: 3 Ogres - great weapons, chaos armor

R: Hellcannon

So not only do I get to use my shiny chaos lord on demonic horse model, but I get some terror protection for one of the stars as well as more attaks and a pretty unique level 4 build. Wondering about swapping the biting blade over for favor (since I'm gunning for big monsters so often), but I figure having a magic weapon in the army isn't a bad idea.

Game might happen this Friday afternoon, but whenever it is I'll try to snap some pics of the army at long last. Will make a couple of my naming conventions a little more clear any way

- Salvage

I hope you drop the HPA, that thing is a real PITA!!!

On another note, i think it would be incredibly hilarious if he rolled a 6 after you finally killed it.....

Like the warrior! Pics for the picture god!!

Still don't know why you like those Ogres/Drogres, boss.(I hope that name gives you a tickle in your brain)

I just cannot justify taking them, ESPECIALLY the ogres, they're expensive as hell with the Chaos Armour and GW's.

How's the SLord working out for you in our opinion? He seems to do below what I would expect from a L4 Tzeentch Caster (IE: Complete Eradication of the enemy)

Its a shame the HPA is so overpowered.
In all 3 games I've fought against it at 2250-2500 points it has singlehandedly killed >1500 points.

If I ever meet Jeremy Vetock I'll either punch him in the face or kick him in the nuts.

Keep up the reports. They are great.

Thanks for the comments lads, hope to have more models painted and more games played ASAP. ASAP being likely after my finals end May 13th (but the league ender vs skaven should be next week with luck)

Karon wrote:Still don't know why you like those Ogres/Drogres, boss.(I hope that name gives you a tickle in your brain)

I just cannot justify taking them, ESPECIALLY the ogres, they're expensive as hell with the Chaos Armour and GW's.

How's the SLord working out for you in our opinion? He seems to do below what I would expect from a L4 Tzeentch Caster (IE: Complete Eradication of the enemy)

Ha, I don't like those drogres / ogres But I like the models (new kroxigors for drogres, 'dancing idiot' kroxigors for ogres) I'm using and I need reliable flankers to help the stars out. Drgores I also have this weird idea can take on the newer generations of big monsters - especially the WS3 skaven ones - with their speed and resilience, particularly against doomwheels with their auto-lightning thing. Hasn't really worked yet, but a man can dream. What I really hate about the drogres is how DRUNKENLY expensive they are, yet how few attaks they have. It's really ridiculous, and mine have run away every game except one, where they were actually shot to death (thanks HE).

Also you should know, I've been following just two rules for this army:
1) No marks unless MoT
2) No knights

Yet these two alone set my lads apart from 90% of all WoC armies

On the level 4, I'm very happy to have him and I now look forward to my games instead of dread them (a plus!), as I feel like I can actually reach out and touch somebody, instead of just getting blue (Tz's fav color ) balls because nobody will touch the 'stars. However in my one game with him he didn't tear everything apart as planned, and his 400 points netted 4 wounds on the HPA and 2 dead clanrats before dying. But it's early days yet, and the demo-pony hasn't failed me with the lord, so here's hoping.

- Salvage

Are you allowed speciaal characters?

Vilitch the cursling is a brutal level 4 mage.
The further into the game (as the enemy runs out of dispel scrolls) and each magic phase he gets, the more powerful he becomes.

Indeed, Gonads, but he needs a bunker, as he is just on foot, and has basically no protection at all

Just played the final game of our escalation league, a rematch vs the skaven of a couple weeks back ... I've got a brutal weekend of paper writing ahead of me, but since I hate working I'll probably pound this guy out before too long.

A warning right now: this game had the most ridiculous rolling I could have ever imagined. Uncle Tizz was flying strong today

Game Thirty-Three: Skaven

RATS 2250

L: Warlord - warpforged blade, warpstone armor, rival hide
H: Chieftain - BSB, under empire, shield
H: Plague Priest - level 2, foul pendant, flail, furnace
H: Engineer - level 2, staff of sorcery

C: 30 Clanrats - full command, shields
C: 30 Clanrats - full command, shields
C: 26 Giant Rats - 4 packmasters
C: 25 Giant Rats - 4 packmasters
C: 20 Slaves

S: 27 Plague Monks - full command
S: 4 Rat Ogres - 2 packmasters
S: 10 Gutter Runners

R: Hellpit Abomination
R: Doomwheel

Unchanged from last time. Still fairly mean.

TIZZ 2250

L: Sorcerer Lord - MoT, level 4, biting blade, enchanted shield, infernal puppet, demonic mount
H: Sorcerer - MoT, golden eye, dispel scroll, bloodcurdling roar, disc
H: Exalted - MoT, BSB, talisman of protection, halberd

C: 20 Warriors - MoT, warbanner, full command, shields
C: 19 Warriors - MoT, rapturous, full command, shields
C: 5 Horsemen - musician, spears, light armor
C: 5 Warhounds
C: 5 Warhounds

S: 3 Dragon Ogres - great weapons
S: 3 Ogres - great weapons, chaos armor

R: Hellcannon

A leap forward in the terror-protection department, if just for one of the 'stars. I also realized that I really need more units on the table, and with how I use my horsemen (i.e. like fodder) I should probably just suck it up and take some real fodder. So I built another (metal) warhound unit, which also netted me points for a dispel scroll just in case.

Scenario
Pitched Battle

Magic
Plague Priest > pestilent breath, bless with filth
Engineer > warp lightning, scorch

S.Lord > flickering fire, transmog, pandemonium, gateway [best possible spell roll IMO]
Sorc > flickering fire

Deployment


Again, labels should be self-explanatory. Warlord & ratty BSB joined the clanrats to left of the furnace-star, while the engineer hung with his buds in the other clanrat block. The chaos level 4 & spiky BSB joined the warstar (for a 5x5 brick of brutality), leaving the rapturestar to fend for itself. The gutter runners will arrive turn four over on the flank, where their icon is currently greyed out.

Battle

Turn 1
Once again taking the initiative, the chaos boys steam up the center and prepare magic, with the Pimp getting within 16-17" of the HPA for some flickering death, supported by the Baron (who has since taken over level 4 duties from his sclub brother McRed). The rapturestar expands frontage to catch some rats later, while the hellcannon charges up its cannon for a change of pace. On the flanks, the horesemen and ogres keep it cagey and actually back away from the doomwheel, and the drogres move up conservatively with the hounds preparing to bait rogres in turn two. Magic sees the Pimp get off flickering fire on the HPA, but 7x S4 hits frustratingly can't manage to wound once. The Baron slams his own flicker into the beast but has it dispelled, though his pandemonium does go off. Shooting, the hellcannon blasts the furnace dead-on, but a 4" scatter sees just five or so frenzied monks die.

Unphased, the furry legions get things started by watching the HPA hurtle 17" into the Pimp! Everyone is shocked by this early pounce, and the Pimp holds ... Other than this excitement the skaven line generally advances, with the wheel zipping 12" (and restraining fire against the rats). Skaven magic is shut down with the help of the Pimp hurriedly reading his dispel scroll, before the HPA smashes into him. And smash it does, though astoundingly the three impact wounds are partially saved by 2x 6+ armor saves! The following avalanche of flesh is somewhat floppy and the Pimp just dies, as the HPA overruns into the western warhounds, who choose to flee into the building and strand the HPA against it, rather than headed past the warstar's flank.

Turn 2
And so sadness begins to reign through the chaos army, though the hellcannon takes the opportunity to get pissed and rampage 8" for the HPA! She falls about 4-5" short though The rest of the eevil guys play it safe-ish this round, with the horsemen and ogres gently backing up a bit more, the warstar rotating to keep the HPA in their front arc, the rapturestar waiting for the furnace / giant rats / clanrats to descend upon them, and the warhounds moving up to divert the rat ogres with their death, to expose their flank to the waiting drogres. Magic sees the Baron miscast a four-dice gateway [1-1-1-6], puppeted down to a S2 hit (no wound) and an ended magic phase. Guh.

HPA-ination continues, as the beast charges the hellcannon! The wheel trundles weakly, and there is general movement across the board. The rat ogres do charge the warhounds, who pass fear and hold (the slaves try to charge their flank but are out). Magic hits the drogres with scorch for three wounds (!!) and the wheel restrains again, so it's HPA fighting time once more - his impacts kill two dwarven crew, and his feed devours the other crewman and wounds the hellcannon once. She returns the favor by wounding him once. Oh, and the rat ogres detonate the puppies, overruning quite far into the SE woods and escaping the drogres S7 lovin'.

Turn 3
The ogres pass fear and charge the wheel which has wandered into 12", but otherwise the chaos line shuffles and prepares for coming carnage - warstar keeps the HPA to its front, rapturestar gets ready to accept combo-charges, drogres turn and prep to pulp some rogres. Magic sees an IF five-dice gateway into the furnace ... but 2x S8 hits only wounds the machine and the priest once each. Lametastic. The HPA flails another two wounds off the hellcannon, who chews a couple from him as well - which is pretty impressive, given that he got 11 S6 attaks and she got 5 S5 (with regen to eat through). But much more impressively, the ogres slam three wounds into the wheel, take one grind in the process, break it and run it down! I pause in my exhultations to note that my 150 ogres have merely paid for themselves, but high fives are handed out to the big dudes all the same.

Here we go: furnace-star and giant rats hit the rapturestar, which prepares for glory. The NW giant rats also spy the flank of the ogres covered in wheel parts and flank them. Elsewhere, the warlord's rats continue to ponder engaging in the future, engineer's rats wander forward, and the rat ogres turn to face the dragon ogres bearing down upon them. Magic actually has him miscast, which is puppeted down to let the Baron cast gateway on the warlord's unit! The gate goes through ... but 3-4x S7 simply cleans up the odd clanrats displaced by characters. Enough of that though, let's fight. The HPA flails the hellcannon to death, no surprise there. The giant rats vs ogres do no wounds and the flank ogre amazingly clubs three rats to death with his three attaks! They need a 5 to hold and smoke it with 1-1 In the main event, furnace fumes + a couple dozen S3 attaks + the wrecker kills two warriors, who dice a handful of giant rats in return. The rapture-champ also enters into an epic fight with the plague priest atop the furnace, though incompetance on both sides will keep this fight going for the next several rounds ... The rapturestar loses by one and easily passes.

Turn 4
Drogres charge the rogres, horsemen move up from their corner to tentatively help out the ogres should they be around, and the warstar keeps its front to the HPA - and everything else is dead or fighting! The Baron attempts to flicker the HPA and miscasts ... on two dice! The resulted is puppeted around to let the plague priest breath plague on the rapturestar (no other spell targets), which amounts to nothing. Undeterred, the Baron charges up a four-dice flicker into something ... and fails to cast. Whatever, at least the rest of my army are professionals: the ogres once more take no wounds, deal three back and hold on a 1-2. The rapturestar continues to punch out giant rats - the plague monks are far too difficult to wound - make all their armor saves and inhale the sweet smell of furnace, whilst their champion swashbuckles the priest for no effect. Combat is actually tied. In the big infantry fight, the drogres splatter two rogres, take four wounds in return, break the mutant rats and run them down, putting the dragon-things deep into the SE woods.

The HPA does some quick math and charges the flank of the rapturestar rather than the front of the CR7 warstar, while the warlord's clanrats simply idle off the furnace's flank and the engineer's clanrats continue skulking about. The gutter runners also show, in position to pester the dragon ogres (their throwing stars have no effect). Magic is smacked down, but speaking of smackdowns ... The giant rats continue to not wound ogres, however that flank ogre finally gets tired and kills just one rat, meaning its snakes to stay. Having run out of ones for break tests, they flee and are run down, as the rats leave the table. In the main event, the HPA continues to boggle the mind: 6 impacts = 6 wounds = 5 dead warriors, with more dying from the avalanching that follows. The rat infantry continue to not kill anybody, and while the warriors do their damnedest they still lose by 10-12. The rapture banner comes through on the first try.

Turn 5
The Baron looks at the Duke, nods and gives the signal to charge the abomination - the warstar passes fear and flanks the wounded beast. Not much else left in the chaos army at this point: horsemen slam 16" behind the warlord's clanrats, and the drogres turn in their wood to face the gutters. Magic sees an IF five-dice gateway into the warlord's unit ... and 10x S9 is certainly large! Seven clanrats die, though the panic (with horsemen to crossfire) is shakily passed. In THE COMBAT, 8x S4 + 2x S5 + 4x S6 attaks put ONE wounds on the HPA, yet even a floppy round from the rapturestar makes the skaven side finally lose, by one. The HPA passes on the reroll and the furnace lads don't care (though frenzy is down). At this point the rapture-champ is still dueling (i.e. sitting around stoned) with the priest and the rapture boys have been reduced to their front rank of six.

The gutters try to charge the dragons but can't muster the courage. Otherwise it's business as usual with token movement, magic being nerfed and more fighting with another ONE wound put on the HPA and the warriors of the rapturestar depleted to just the eternally-challenging champion and the rapture bearer himself. Except the wrecker descends with a massive ten hits, pulping the champ but amazingly leaving the standard unscathed. Breaks are passed by all.

Turn 6
Figuring I need the points and might as well risk it, the horsemen rear charge the warlord's clanrats and the drogres, after fully intending to step to the opposite side of the woods and preserve their 231 points (+ contested quarter), charge the gutters. The Baron revs up yet another gate, which goes IF against the engineer's clanrats ... but 4x S6+ hardly makes a dent. In the less exciting combats, the horsemen actually do win by 1-2, but the warlord passes on the BSB's reroll - admittedly breaking them with 81 points of light cav would have been HUGE. The drogres show why they suck and kill two gutters, taking a wound and drawing combat. MAIN EVENT TIME ...

The Duke von Dook had had enough of this disgusting creature oozing blood and filth all over his men. As one of the beast's several heads swung into view, the standard bearer rammed the twin-horned icon of change into its gaping maw and through the hard palette, pinning it open and exposing the bulbous throat. The Duke drove his halberd into the tender flesh and beyond, deep into the monster's innards. He heard a crunch and then a pop as an internal alchemical reservoir ruptured, and then the hulking abomination retched violently and began to rapidly dissolve. The Duke plucked the army icon out of the soup, blazing with sudden blue fire.

The Baron snorted derisively. Not impressed.

... And the Duke receives +1LD from the Eye for his troubles. Sadly the rapture bearer receives six toughness tests from the furnace, and fails half of them, choking to death. The furnace doesn't care that it just lost, so the warstar sucks over and prepares to be flanked ...

Indeed, the engineer's clanrats head on in to the warstar flank, and the warlord skitters to his unit's back rank to kill some hairy-man-things. Which he does, dicing all but one horseman, who breaks and is pursued (and can't rally). The dragons take a shocking four wounds from the ninjas, smash one and break, outrunning their pursuers but also unable to rally. I am at this point pretty filled with regret, as well as hatred for the drogres incompetance ... But anyway, one more round of central smash, eh? The warchamp climbs aboard the furnace for his go at the priest, and so the slap fight recommences. Ridiculous ... However a hefty toll is reaped by the warstar, resulting in the engineer's death-by-battering and the clanrats testing @ -2. They pass.

With that it was game. I knew I had lost, but the dice were so very weird - not only the magic shenanigans but also ALL those ward saves I made, particularly when I'd call out "Ok, double sixes to live" for my rapture standard and then get them - and gateway is so trippy that it was fun throughout. Only the Pimp failing to wound at all with 7 S4 flaming hits and then getting nabbed, and my throwing away of the drogres, rubbed me the wrong way. Anyway:

SKAVEN WIN (14-6)

- Salvage

Very nice game, Tzeentch certainly favored you over Slaanesh this game.

Great write-up. Skaven are so weird to play. Surprisingly high leadership for what you might expect. And the HPA? I don't talk about the HPA and what it's done to me...

Well, even though its hard to accept that Chaos Armys could possibly lose - its somehow good to know, that your army isn't unbeatable. After many of your games it seemed so - one triumph after the other!

But I hope you're gonna win now in return more often.
For Chaos!

I have to admit, that I'm sad that the Chaos Lord finally went to a Chaos Sorcerer - Terro likes beaty Lords!
And finally it is nice to see that other players have also some ideology behind their army. I have set some rules for my army also (especially marks. Disilke Mark of Slaanesh because of Slaanesh!).

That was an interesting game. I don't know what the HPA is (looking over the list.. Hellpit Abomination?), but it definitely sounds dangerous. Something I'll have to look out for