Welcome to the on-going exploits of my Warriors of Tzeentch army, built over the summer but just now hitting the table. Because of school it’s much easier to get in 40k games than fantasy ones (different gaming nights, square-basing conflicts with class), but I’m shooting to put all my games with the WoT up here.

The List

L: Chaos Lord - MoT, aetheraxe, enchanted shield, collar of tzeentch, favor of tzeentch, disc = 335
H: Exalted Hero - MoT, BSB, bronze armor, talisman of protection, bloodcurdling roar, halberd = 199

C: 20 Warriors - MoT, warbanner, full command, shields = 395
C: 19 Warriors - MoT, rapturous standard, full command, shields = 374
C: 5 Horsemen - musician, spears, throwing spears = 81
C: 5 Warhounds = 30

S: 3 Dragon Ogres - great weapons = 231
S: 3 Ogres - great weapons, chaos armor = 150

R: Hellcannon = 205

Total:
2000 points / 61 models / 9 drops / 2 pd & 2 dd

Yep, it’s a Tizz Suicide Army Admittedly, there is very little in this list that I have much experience with - my other armies are ogres and skaven - so this should be quite the learning experience, which is only a good thing I figure.

The 2250 version is disturbingly similar, adding a Giant w/ MoT (245) and light armor for the horsemen (5). I'll be trying to stick to 2k games as the army is designed to function better at that level, but I may bust out the other big guy if I can't convince an opponent to drop a toy or two

The Mini-Game

Since this is far from a WAAC army, I’ll be sticking in a fun fluffy side game, much like my favorite batrep blogs have done. For The Baron White and his standard bearer, The Duke von Dook,. the objective will be to kill sorcerers in challenges and offer their ensorcelled brains up to Tzeentch - if Uncle T’s boys aren’t using magic, you won’t either! Rules-wise, the magic-y character (rune priests and warrior priests and the like count) must be killed in a challenge, so that Tzeentch’s attention is caught and a (dubious) reward dispensed. I figure this might be a rare occurrence, but certainly something to look forward to

The Meta-Narrative

This army is the larger, 7th edition cousin of a 1000 point list I ran under the HoC book, focused entirely around three fighter-caster Tzeentch exalteds. Of the three brothers, two currently appear in the new army - the one with the white helmet having gotten a considerable promotion and the one with the brown (ewww) helm gotten a flag and lost his horse - while the third brother (McRed!) may yet appear in a later version.

Coming Up

Game One, vs. Warriors of Undivided!

- Salvage

Game One: Warriors of Undivided

The White hovered over to where The Duke stood at the head of the battle line, and the standard bearer could tell that his general was less than pleased. He knew the feeling - fighting other warriors of the dark gods was always a trying affair, with an exhausting grind of armor on armor virtually assured.

“Well I suppose it cannot be helped. We are far from out of the Wastes yet,” The White intoned, scanning the enemy line for a suitable target for his wraith. Suddenly both chaos champions’ heads snapped to as they caught the reek of foul magic’s - the enemy had a sorcerer in their midst.

The White smiled beneath his gleaming helm. “Perhaps this won’t be such a waste of time after all …”

His List

H: Sorcerer - level 2, black tongue [Dark: 1 (MM), 3? (Give someone fear)]
H: Exalted - BSB, banner of the gods, shield

C: 15 Warriors - full command, shields
C: 15 Warriors - full command, shields
C: 5 Horsemen - musician, flails
C: 5 Warhounds
C: 5 Warhounds
C: 5 Warhounds

S: 15 Chosen - full command, shields [Fear]
S: 3 Ogres - mutant ogre, great weapons, chaos armor

R: Giant
R: Warshrine

He tossed this together very quickly, purposefully bringing stuff he’s never run and going for an army to get stuck in. Enter my first mistake too: not realizing how many points and how much that BSB needed to die …

The Deployment

(In future this will be a photo when possible)

Board had wood center of left-edge, small hill in his zone, another just out of mine, another in my zone right, and another wood in his zone right. There was also a random impassable obelisk that played no part

Him (L-R): hounds, horsemen, giant, hounds, warriors (warshrine behind), chosen, warriors, ogres, hounds. BSB in left warriors, sorcerer general in chosen.
Me (L-R): drogres, discer, warstar, rapturestar, hounds (ogres right behind), hellcannon, horsemen hard flank. BSB went in rapturestar, where I suppose he will always be going.

The Battle

Undivided 1
Giant boosts forward with hounds and horsemen behind, left warriors + chosen move up (I had deployed harder left, so his wider line was shifting), right warriors hang back a little, ogres move up and right hounds sit on the other side of the hill across from my horsemen. Magic results in nothing. The ‘shrine gives the left warriors +1Ld.

Tzeentch 1
General advance, with warstar preparing to accept the giant and drogres to flank. Discer flies up left flank to stare at a lot of units’ flanks, warhounds shoot up into the no man’s land between our blocks, tempting him to smash them with chosen or warriors and expose some flanks. Horsemen move up and spear a puppy, and the hellcannon keeps its cool and fires at the giant. I overguessed 2”, but a 2” deviation back toward the ‘cannon (!!) ended up one-shoting the giant for all 6 wounds. Some hounds ran off the table in response, but nobody else cared. The Duke roared at the chosen and exploded two (expensive) heads.

Undivided 2
His horsemen and ogres charge the warhounds. I hold, knowing that the ogres are out and thinking that he was charging with his chosen, not his horsemen, when he pointed at something and said they were charging … On the right flank forgets to charge with his warhounds into my horsemen. Magic manages to knock out 1 warrior from the rapturestar, along with its static CR6 :’( The ‘shrine puts +1AS on the left warriors, and the hounds are neatly killed by the horsemen (3 wounds to horses) and my ogres are overrun into.

Tzeentch 2
My horsemen charge his hounds right flank, The White thinks about flanking a CR5-6 unit of warriors but decides against it and hops over to a hill to stare at the rears of many units - as well as the warshrine’s front arc … The hellcannon flips out and rolls an 8 to hit the flank of the horsemen flailing my ogres - except he needed an 8.5 so didn’t make it. The drogres move up to a better flanking position, and the twinstars jockey around to stare at their not-blue counterparts.

Roar explodes another chosen’s head. My horsemen stampede the hounds and overrun into the woods in his zone. His horsemen drop an ogre, lose 4 riders in return, auto-break and are unable to rally.

Undivided 3
The warshrine charges the disc (passes fear) - I had in fact expected this, but had underestimated how hard a ‘shrine is to kill when you have 0 CR on your side to begin with; even parking 1” forward on the lip of the hill would have made a world of difference. His ogres attempt to charge the hellcannon but fail their fear test (#1). He puts some hounds in no man’s land this time, baiting my warstar, and the chosen reform to be 6 or 7 wide. Magic is shut down and the ‘shrine gifts the chosen MR(3) The disc lord manages to wound the ‘shrine, but with outnumbering on its side that’s a draw.

Tzeentch 3
The hellcannon wants to charge the chosen, and easily has 12”, but then I am completely unable to show why the thing charges 12” not 6”. The answer is that the FAQ confirms it can do this, but without the FAQ I had to sit there and be shocked that the big critter had such a ridiculously tiny charge range … So other charges, the warstar charges the who flee and bounce across units to within 2” of the board edge, and the drogres throw themselves into his left warriors in the hops of holding them up. Elsewhere the rapture star moves up to keep even with its twin, as next turn would be rough, and the two remaining ogres hover nearby. The horsemen extricat themselves from the forest and head behind his lines.

Roar does nothing, and the hellcannon slams the untouched right warriors, smashing a handful but no panic. Combat, the drogres manage a solid 4 wounds on the unit, but 2 are saved on 6 and 2 wounds dealt back. The drogres don’t manage to roll a 4 (twice), jumping past the warstar and assuring the undivided warriors of a charge next turn. The warshrine and lord slap at each other, and the lord passes his break @ -1.

Undivided 4
Here we go! Warriors + BSB hit the warstar and chosen + sorcerer go into the rapture star. His ogres attempt to charge the hellcannon again, but fail fear (#2). His last dog squad rallies and looks at my horsemen, and his other warriors don’t move, not wanting to mess up the hellcannon’s range finding. Magic is nil and the ‘shrine tries to give the left warriors something, but can only manage to make them cause fear like the chosen. The twinstars don’t care about either scary unit.

Time for fighting, and the disc lord is, if not this turn than next, run off by the ‘shrine, having taken 0 wounds but unable to make a second Ld8 test. Balls. That’s easily the most points a warshrine has ever earned by its lonesome.

In the two big scrums, a flurry of challenges results in the champion of the warstar smashed by the undivided BSB, and the chosen champion likewise gutted by The Duke. Much bashing and CR-ing later and both his units take stubborn 8 tests, passing with ease. I realize that this is going to be a long fight.

Tzeentch 4
The hellcannon looks at the chosen’s flank (8”), the unhurt warriors (~12”), the ogres (11”) and cries a little bit at its (at least for this game) 6” charge range. My two ogres charge the corner of the chosen, the drogres rally RIGHT behind the warstar, making them pretty useless for anything, and the horsemen move behind his ogres and warriors looking to do … something. They throw some spears at the warriors for no real result. The hellcannon hammers those warriors again, for a casualty or two but no panic.

In the scrums, his BSB hacks up a man or two, my warriors drop some of his and vice versa, but I win on CR and he easily passes. Next door, The Duke challenges and the sorcerer must accept! But just 1 wound through means no brains yet … More chosen get beat up but pass their test.

Undivided 5
Ogres fail to charge the hellcannon (#3), hounds trot over to my horsemen. The ‘shrine boosts somebody with something but to no real effect.

There is fighting, my armor turns on and 6+ ward saves start kicking in, and all combats go my way, though he easily passes with the BotG. But much more importantly, The Duke decapitates the sorcerer, scooping out his glowy grey matter and offering it up to Tizz! He gets … cause fear in return!

Tzeentch 5
Horsemen move up and spear a dog, and are positioned to get a stand-and-shoot when they’re charged next turn. Hellcannon again laments his short-legged handlers, then splatters another warrior, who don’t panic.

With all challengers cut down in both combats the BSB’s go to work in their respective combats, but once again blue plate wins out and the undivided boys pass their breaks no prob.

Undivided 6
Hounds charge my horsemen, who spear one on the way in (no panic). Ogres finally get up the gumption to charge the hellcannon, and the warriors who’ve spent the game bathed in doomfire charge my ogres assisting with the chosen combat. And that leaves just the warshrine unengaged, which wheels up on the hill and gives somebody an ineffectual buffing.

More fighting. The Duke challenges the newly arrived warrior champ and splits him in two, deftly saving the initial wounds. Again both combats to Tizz, but stubborn and Ld7 tests for the new guys go well. The hellcannon takes 2 wounds and puts 1 onto the ogre champ. The hounds pull down 1 horse but are outnumbered and lose by the musician, and run for the edge.

Tzeentch 6
Horsemen back up to secure a table quarter, and everybody else is busy killing (or being blocked, in the drogres’ case).

The hellcannon puts two wounds on a regular ogre, then dies to the return attaks (great weapons bad :(). The twinstars once again have a good showing, but are unable to break the units against them. This turn I finally realize I should be putting as many attaks as possible into that standard bearer, so do 1 wound and get half points (a LOT of half points). I also lose my ogres, but meh.

After all those rounds of grinding, I had killed or halved everything of his but the ‘shrine, and still had the BSB, the twinstars, the drogres and horsemen at full strength. With bonuses it came down to a

TZEENTCH (MARGINAL) VICTORY

Frankly though I ballsed up a good number of things up, whether by being dumb (the lord in general), too risky (the dragon ogre solo charge), unprepared? (the hellcannon's beautiful charges, all "out of range") or what. Not recognizing what needed to die in his army was a big one too - I should have poured attaks into that BSB asap, and the hellcannon could have easily vaped those ogres with 3 rounds of fire that went into the warriors, but I had apparently forgotten what S6 does to T6 (or that they had GWs - my opponent doesn't usually run them as such, but he did tell me). Live and learn though.

Record: 1-0-0
Brains: 1

Coming Up

Friday, Game Two vs. Brettonians

- Salvage

Nice batrep. I like following your lists, as you seem to have good ideas about how to run fluffy lists.

Thanks Cheese

Game Two did happen that Friday, and I think I'm still not quite over how traumatic it was. Fighting brets run by a player who can make his Lady of the Lake saves is a sad time for chaos :(

Will see what I can mash up into a batrep sometime this week.

- Salvage

Nice report, concise and easy to read. Good job on the massacre.

Thanks Mouse

Game Two: Brettonians

All told The White was pretty chuffed to confront the foolhardy Brettonians that had come questing into the Northern Wastes - his aetheraxe did so love to cleave heavy armor when possible. When he smelled the two caster-wenches nestled amongst the knights he could not suppress a chuckle. "This would be delicious ..."

The Duke watched his brother and cocked an eyebrow (metaphorically, it having been burned from his leering skull the year before). Knowing the plan involved having knights crash against his men made him less thrilled about the carnage to come.

His List

General; Gromil Great Helm, Virtue of Audacity - 130 pts

BSB; Virtue of Duty - 111 pts

Damsel; 2 scrolls - 130 pts

Damsel; 2 scrolls - 130 pts

Grail Knights (5); FC - 220 pts

Questing Knights (5); FC - 167 pts

Pegasus Knights (3); Mus - 175 pts

Knights of the Realm (8); FC - 216 pts

Knights of the Realm (8); FC - 216 pts

Knights Errant (5); FC - 141 pts

Knights Errant (5); FC - 141 pts

Skirmishers (10); - 70 pts

Bowmen (10); - 60 pts

Tebuchet - 90 pts

Deployment (L->R)

Brets: pegasi, errants, archers on hill, kotr + damsel, treb, kotr + damsel, grail + general, questers + BSB, skirmishers, errants
Chaos: horsemen, ogres, hellcannon, warstar, rapturestar + BSB, discer, hounds, dragons

Battle

Turn 1
Brets pray, so chaos starts it up ... with the hellcannon rampaging forward 12" or so. The rest of the line moves up, keeping out of 16" of his units. At this point I note that the only reason I went first was to get a nice hellcannon shot in

Brets advance fairly cautiously, being unsure of what to expect. Hill archers put 2 wounds on the ogres (!) and the treb misfires, missing this round's firing. My opponent laments taking 100 points in scrolls against me, and never attempts to cast his 2 spells (oxen stands, mistress of the marsh) all game.

Turn 2
Chaos is still waiting for him to close and get this party started, but the discer is impatient and charges the skirmishing archers, who flee off the table and leave the lord on to reposition behind the bret army next turn. The most notable other movement is the hounds zooming up to divert the grails and questers, and everybody else advances slightly, getting the roaring BSB within range (1-2 knights pop). The hellcannon takes a shot at a kotr unit but misfires - resulting in miscasts for all wizards! One damsel takes a wound and also takes out a knight in base contact, and the other allows my BSB to toss out the bird in lieu of a spell

Charges at last, into peripheral units at least. Pegs charge the horsemen, who flee into a large left-central wood and strand them. Grails and questers charge the dogs in front/flank respectively, and will shatter them and elect to overrun with the questers, bringing them tantalizingly close to the rapturestar ... And the errants on the right flank fail their impetuous test and charge the dragons. In what will be the first of many very disheartening combats for me, he does 0 wounds, I do 4, he saves 3 of them through a combination of 6+ armor & 5+ ward, beats the drogres by 2, they fail their rerolled 6 break, and are caught, sending the errants behind my lines. Shooting is non-evental, the treb missing and the archers unable to wound the third ogre again.

Turn 3
No charges from chaos still, though the horsemen fail to rally and crossfire into the archers on the hill on their way to the Brettonian board edge (?!). The discer repositions to stare at the backs / flanks of many lances pointed towards the twinstars, in anticipation of devastation next turn. The twinstars shuffle up to face the 3 lances pointed at them (kotr x2 + questers), with the rapturestar taking high ground on a small hill (but not moving the BSB into roar range, stupidly). The hellcannon finally landed a shot on the left kotr lance, killing 1-2 knights but more importantly panicing them back to within 5" of the board edge ...

... where they fled 4" (!) more, giving them a second shot at it next time. Charges saw the pegasus knights somehow stuck in the woods (probably charged the ogres and had them flee), and the fresh kotr lance + questers both into the rapturestar on its hill. The errants on the left continued to be intimidated by the hellcannon and gw ogres on the other side of the wood, the ones behind my lines reformed to star at the rapturestar's rear, and the grails pranced about for a second wave attak into the warstar. The archers and treb managed little, and it was onto the Most Important Combat of the game. Rapturestar is sitting on 6 CR vs 6 CR from the knights, so it all comes down to wounds: a mountain of lance attaks results in 1 dead warrior, while the brutalizing from the chaos side is ALL saved through armor + ward, including the BSB's 3 S6 wounds on the questing champ. Brets win by 1, leading to 2 failed 7 breaks (and no insane courage, despite the 69% chance of rolling IC with 2 tries). The rapturestar is shattered, and run down. Much lamenting by the Tizz general.

Turn 4
The ogres fail to rally and head south, the discer zooms over to the hill that the BSB was on to invite the knights errant to charge him, and the warstar takes a deep breath and shimmies around to put itself in a place that wouldn't involve taking the kotr in the front and the grails in the butt in 2 turns. Also, the hellcannon flipped out, raging not-far-enough-to-hit-the-hill-archers. And that was that.

The Brets are still intimidated by the remaining chaos troops, so no declared charges happen. The errants throw themselves into the lord all the same, whilst the fleeing lance rallies at the edge, the grails gravitate in for a 5th turn charge on the warstar and the pegs continue to trapse about in the woods (?). The treb dings 1 warrior from the warstar, making its imminent demise all the more sure. The hill archers down 2 chaos dwarfs from the hellcannon as well. In combat, the errants (CR 2) do 0 wounds against the disc lord (CR 1 for high ground), yet they once again make 3 of 4 5+ wards. The lord breaks against the errant's musician, fails his Ld8 break, flees onto the grails and dies. Guh.

Turn 5
Anger mounting, the game has become a battle to fight conceding to the snobby knights. The warstar turns to look at the questing knights and kotr in the chaos zone, willfully turning its rear to the grails and general. The hellcannon keeps it in its pants and slams the grails, dropping 2 knights and leaving 3 + the general ... The fleeing ogres rally, but are so far removed they won't be countercharging even if the warstar miraculously holds.

The gang bang descends on the warstar, while the knights errant charge the hellcannon and everybody else plays it safe away from the scary chaos guys. The hellcannon chews on the errants, but all wards are passed (nat') and the errants actually put 3 wounds on the beast (and kill the dwarf). In the Epic Last Stand, a single warrior is killed after the avalanche of lances splinter against blue plate and 6+ wards. In return the warstar champion decapitates the questing knight champion, a kotr is dragged down and 2 grail knights are butchered. This eliminates his rear bonus, reactivates the warstar's ranks and combat is entirely drawn on musicians. Hells to the yes.

Turn 6
The ogres pick their noses, and everybody else is fighting. The hellcannon breaks the errants but is unable to catch them, and then the warstar starts warming up ... The champion dismembers the kotr champion, and focused attaks pummel the Brettonian BSB into submission, while killing a questing knight here or kotr there. No warriors die in return, and all 3 units take breaks @ -4, and all 3 fail. The warstar pursues and catches the kotr and questers, recapturing the rapturestars 2 banners while grabbing 3 of their own (and a fourth from the grails).

The grails rally, while the errants flee the table. He opts not to engage anyone, shooting instead at the hellcannon and taking it down to 1 wound remaining. The treb hammers the warstar as well but can't reduce it to half.

A truly frustrating game for me, against an opponent who is really good at rolling ward saves against an army that relied upon him not doing that. Check this out: the Brets caused a total of 4 wounds through combat, but one combat after combat by denying wounds to chaos and hunkering behind their static CR. I feel I flubbed some things again - the lord's placement (his second jump gave him LoS to nobody after they had moved out of his arc) and overly use, the drogres, the horsemen's lame baiting of the pegs - but losing the rapturestar was the make or break moment. Holding would have meant his death, losing perhaps ought to have meant mine until the warstar showed how it's done. All told, with all my captured banners it was a

DRAW

Sadly no damsels were harmed in the making of this battle report, so their brains remained uncaptured

Record: 1-0-1
Brains: 1

- Salvage

I am hooked, more reports please. It is so refreshing to read about battles between non-tuned lists.

- Blackbone

Loosing my Brains to that duke was nasty, and the hellcannon sure was nice (giant killed hurk!) but loosing our minds trying to find that rule was nuts-balls. Next time salvage, next time!

Our store escalation league has begun. Thus, more battles

Plan is to play 4 games each at 500, 1000, 1500, 2250, against a different group of 3 opponents at each level. My starting division pits me against HE, BoC & Lizards, and while I always seem to face HE first and always get shot up, I was definitely the one bringing the heat this time around.

Game Three: High Elves

Battered and bruised, a lone gor messenger staggered into the White's personal command tent and stood at attention. The White did not deign to acknowledge the beastman bleeding upon his newly laid carpet of skulls, nor did he raise his quill busily being put to work defacing a book of prayer lifted from a fallen Brettonian some weeks back. The gor's eyes rolled and flicked to the Duke, but the standard bearer grunted and pointed to a pile of blue robes moving about in a corner of the tent.

"Whatever you've got, give it to the Pimp," the Duke commanded, and the gor snorted and held out a scroll in the pile's general direction. The robes turned and manifested a hood with furred collar, and after a moment of inspection a mailed gauntlet appeared and took the scroll from the beast. Greatly relieved the gor left the tent to tend to its wounds, though shortly after was fed to the hellcannon ...

"Why, it's a summons!" the Pimp exclaimed nasally, causing the Duke to wince and the White to snap the tip off his quill. "We are invited to prove our might in battle!"

The White hurled a heavy set of iron keys into the Pimp and turned back to his work. "Good. Take the 'cannon and leave."

Warriors of Tzeentch 500

H: Sorcerer - MoT, bloodcurdling roar, disc = 145
C: 5 Horsemen - throwing spears, light armor = 75
C: 5 Horsemen - spears, light armor = 75
R: Hellcannon = 205

High Elves 500

H: Noble - reaver bow, dragon armor
C: 10+ Spears - musician
S: 8+ Swordsmen - champ w/ gem of courage
R: Bolter

Scenario
King of the Hill - bonus points for having the most expensive unit of US5+ (not monster, not character) on a central hill

Deployment
He won the roll, chose the side with DZ hill but decided to put his bolter on level ground about mid-DZ. Spears to its left, swords to its right with reaver bow in them.
I put both horsemen behind a large wood mid-left board, out of LoS of anything, discer across from his bolter (so LoS blocked by intervening hill), hellcannon across from swords.

Battle

Turn 1
Tizz wins the roll and moves out. Marauders use fast cav-ness to snake around the left side of the large wood, hellcannon marches 6" forwards, discer mobilizes to vaguely in front of the spears. Flickering fire slammed the bolter with 7 S6 hits, killing the crew and burning the machine down. Roar popped a spearelf or two.

Somewhat taken aback, the elves shuffled to face the encroaching left flank a bit, with the reaver bow hoping out of his unit to target the discer. Thankfully he managed just 1 wound, which the sorcerer's 3/6+ failed to stop. At this point I note that the swordsmen are probably the only thing that can kill the hellcannon ...

Turn 2
Hellcannon rages 15" into the swordsmen! They pass terror fine. Throwing spear horsemen move to flank the spearelves in coming turns, spear horsemen head back around the bottom of the woods to where they started (orbiting for the hill late game mostly), and discer flits behind the spears to look at the reaver bow. Flickering fire frags a couple spearelves with a weak roll, but roar explodes the fire-resistant noble. The hellcannon loses a couple crew and a couple wounds.

Spears wander forward, keeping the DZ hill between them and the t.spear horsemen. Swords drop the hellcannon.

Turn 3
Sad time begins for real for the elves. T.spear horsemen move behind the spearelves and skewer a couple, spear horsemen approach the central hill a bit prematurely, disc floats over to park near the swordsmen. Flickering fire burns them down to a solid 6 or so, and roar flops.

Swords try to charge the spear horsemen but are out of range, spear elves mope forward again for some reason, dragging their wounded companions to the central hill.

Turn 4
T.spear horsemen slam into the back of the spearelves, losing a marauder but smashing through the unit handily. Disc keeps in yelling distance of the swordsmen and evaporates them with another uber flicker cast.

TIZZ MASSACRE (20-0)

Frankly nobody saw my chaos blaster list coming, and unfortunately I think I've sparked a boost in WAACy lists in the league. For example, elf dude is apparently bringing in the sundragon next time Little do they know that starting with 1000 pts I start diverging from this 40k-esque route ...

- Salvage

Looks like the only thing that has a chance at hurting you is that bolt thrower spraying down some of your horsemen if you give him LOS. And even if he gets them all, he gets 150 points while you keep your boss outta LOS, and shell things with the Hell Cannon. Barring a disastrous misfire/miscast/both I think you've got this 'un wrapped up.

RZ

Red_Zeke wrote:Barring a disastrous misfire/miscast/both I think you've got this 'un wrapped up.

You know at some point that's definitely going to happen - 16 games with the hellcannon and a dude casting flickering fire on 2 dice it has to

Game Four: Beasts of Chaos

The Pimp looked down at the charred elf bodies beneath his disc and chuckled. He had no idea he had it in him either.

Beasts 500

H: Wargor - MoCU, gw, chaos armor, shield
C: Chariot - MoCU
C: Chariot - MoCU
C: Chariot - MoCU
C: 5 Warhounds
S: 3 Minotaurs - MoCU, gw

Scenario
Gem of Power - marker in the center of table is impassable terrain, a unit touching it at end of movement phase can dig it up on a 6, revealing a gem carried around as a captured banner that gives MR(2) to the unit, +1 pd to the army and bonus VP. Infantry, particularly lots of them, particularly dwarfs, get bonuses to the roll.

Deployment
Same battlefield as before, except central hill is replaced with the gem marker. He deployed (L2R): chariot on DZ hill, wargor alone behind dogs, chariot, chariot, minos.
I stuck t.spear horsemen behind the wood hard left again, spear horsemen more centrally, hellcannon again rightish of center and the disc far right, facing the minos (big hill in between them).

Battle

Turn 1
Tizz handily wins me the roll and I take it. Disc moves up to flicker the minos, and horses mostly stay and wait to see what chariots do - he had the one on the DZ hill angled to intercept horses snaking through the gap between wood and left board edge. Flicker is dispelled. Hellcannon hits the rightmost chariot supporting the minos and obliterates it.

General advance by the beasts, but not full out anywhere.

Turn 2
Spear horsemen charge the warhounds, intending to overrun into the wargor, though I knew that the left-most chariot had a flank charge on them in return unless I could pop it. Disc hops the minos and starts marchblocking them, but his flicker is dispelled and roar just puts on 1 wound. Hellcannon deviates off that left chariot and tags a dog. Marauders kill 3 puppies and run the last down, hitting the wargor (who doesn't panic).

Chariot slams into the spear horse and vaporizes them with 7 impact wounds, overruning to the right side of the board. Minos stumble towards the hellcannon, and other chariot powers for the cannon as well.

Turn 3
Disc follows the minos along, but tries to flicker the chariot threatening the 'cannon but is dispelled once again. Roar against the minos flops, and the hellcannon scatters off the chariot revving its pigs at him. The t.spear horsemen keep hanging out at the edge of those woods, waiting for an opening.

That chariot charges the 'cannon, the wargor hops into the wood, the other chariot starts threatening the disc, and the minos moo on forward a bit. In combat the chariot puts 2 wounds on the 'cannon but flops all its other attaks. The 'cannon nibbles it for 1 wound, drawing combat.

Turn 4
T.spear horse see their chance and flank the chariot fighting the 'cannon, and the disc keeps away from the other chariot by hugging the minos' flank. Flicker goes off on IF and burns a mino down (panic passed) and roar does 2 more wounds dropping another (panic passed). Fighting time, 1 marauder is killed by the bestigor, the chariot takes 1 wound from somebody and autobreaks vs the hellcannon, and is run down by everybody, though this puts the HC flank to the last mino and the horsemen's to the wargor ...

... who charge their respective targets. HC takes it, the horse's flee and pop over the hellcannon + mino combat. Last chariot gets ready to romp into the HC soon. The mino fluffs it and gets beaten and run down, putting the 'cannon's flank nicely in the other chariot's arc.

Turn 5
T. spears rally and get away from the chariot, the HC looks at the chariot 2" in front of it and waits, and the disc hops over and tries to take care of the pig-cart. Flicker is dispelled and roar did little if anything.

Chariot passes terror and then fear and hits the hellcannon, but fails every roll it needed to do anything. The hellcannon eats it. Meanwhile, the wargor dug around in the gem marker a bit, but rolled a 1.

Turn 6
So with just the wargor left to play with, chaos was mostly done here. The hellcannon scooted over to tempt the wargor with a terror test (probably dumb, half points would have been just 1 wound or 1 dead dwarf away), the horsemen scattered for a quarter and the disc lasered in to 11" to pound the beast general. Flicker got through on an 11+1, but 7 S3 later and nothing had happened. Roar too failed.

Manning up, the wargor charged the hellcannon ... or would have except he failed terror twice.

TIZZ MASSACRE (20-0)

Like he said after the match, only his dispel dice were working for him (his Ld wasn't bad either!), and his attak dice did suck pretty hard. While the Pimp was less awesome this game than vs the elves, the hellcannon really came into it's own.

So this leaves just the lizard dude* next week, then it's 1v2 and 3v4 for the last game, a 500 points tourny, then we reshuffle the divisions and head to 1000 points. Excite!

*We were speculating what he might bring and there were generally fears that he would take an engine + skink blobs. He's a tougher list builder than he looks, but I'm not sure he's quite that mad - not like the dude who brought a doomwheel in his 500 pt skaven (and it beat his dark elf opponent literally by itself) or TFG who brought a hellcannon

- Salvage

After a holiday break, tonight brought a trio of games, and a fairly cold showing from The Pimp all told. Before the league games went down - and the lizard player dropped, so my bracket would be fighting amongst itself again, which meant I was up against the same HE and BoC players for round two - there was a fledgling bret player looking for a mini-scrum. My chaos boys happily threwdown. Note that for all of these 500 point games I went with spears + la on both horsemen, with no throwing spears to be found.

Game Five: Brettonians

Brets 500

H: Paladin
H: Paladin BSB
C: 6 KotR - champion
C: 16 Archers - skirmish
R: Trebuchet

Deployment
The mounted characters joined the lance, while to the right the treb and archers took up position on a hill. Chaos plopped down (L2R) sorcerer, horsemen (across from lance), hellcannon, horsemen (on the other side of a large wood from the 'cannon).

Battle

Turn 1
The bretons pray to their moistened bint of a deity, so tizz happily took first. Disc rockets down the left flank into range of the knights, horsemen move up to bait said knights, HC stays put and right horsemen race to tackle the archers. Flickering fire is dispelled, and will be every time this game - huge dispel rolls from him, with just 2 dice vs my 2 dice +1. Roar drops a knight, and the HC scatters off the KotR but still tags one from the back of the unit.

The lance charges the horsemen, who flee to within 4" of their edge and strand them. The treb misses the hellcannon, but the archers drop 3 horsemen from those breathing down their necks.

Turn 2
Horsemen fail to rally and run off the board ... and the other horsemen charge the archers, who hold but are too close to stand and shoot. The disc marchblocks the KotR some more, flicker fails and roar might have killed a knight or not. HC missed the knights. The 2 horsemen beat the archers by 1 (ponies drop 2 vs outnumber), but they hold.

Lance trots towards the HC, and the treb tags it for 2 wounds. The horsemen's ponies kill another peasant, though a horseman is dragged down and the last marauder breaks. Archers restrain and let him go.

Turn 3
The discer floats after the knights, fails to flicker the treb, but roars out the champ and a grunt knight from the lance (mass randomization at this point), leaving just BSB + general + 1 knight. The HC scatters off the knights once again.

The lance remnants try to charge the HC, fail their terror and run for it. The archers however take aim at The Pimp and ventilate him, doing exactly 2 wounds. The treb misses the HC.

Turn 4
After a moment of silence from Evil Team, the HC decides its time to finally mobilize and marches for the bret side of things.

The knights fail to rally and leave the table, while the archers open up on the hellcannon, perhaps dropping a dwarf. The treb misses it.

Turn 5
Mr. Cannon keeps marching on up ...

... and the peasant firepower keeps pouring in, with archers doing something and the treb tagging another 2 wounds off the beast, leaving 1.

Turn 6
The hellcannon charges the archers, who fail terror and flee through the treb, which fails panic and flees as well. HC chuckles.

Nobody rallies, everybody runs off the table.

TIZZ SOLID VICTORY

Having magic totally locked down was a pisser, even if roar was pretty decent all told. I feel like I really bungled the horsemen, especially with the disc back there on marchblock duty so early. I think he could have taken on the treb crew, and then both horsemen might have tackle the archers instead of getting shot up and beaten. HC scattering every shot was sad times as well, but ah well.

--------------------------------------------------

Beasts reeeeeematch!

Game Six: Beasts of Chaos

The Pimp pulled the last arrow out of his body and paid little attention to the squelching sound that accompanied the wound's uncannily fast healing, as a curious cloud of dust had appeared at the edge of the nearby woods. Clambering onto his disc and gaining some altitude, the sorcerer laughed out loud to see the ramshackle beast charioteers returning for another round. The beastmen looked somewhat less thrilled.

Beasts 500

Same list as last time, with three chariots, etc.

Scenario
Gold Rush, which did nothing for 500 points so pitched battle it was.

Deployment
Beasts (L2R): wargor in woods, minos, hounds, chariot, chariot, chariot.
WoT (L2R): horsemen, hellcannon, horsemen, disc.

Battle

Turn 1
Beasts floored it directly forward. There would be fighting soon!

Left horsemen powered up and to the left, angling for the minos' flank, and the disc zoomed up the right flank for chariot harassment. Flickering fire was shut down, roar stripped off a wound from the rightmost chariot (maybe), and the HC one-shoted the middle chariot.

Turn 2
Less speedy advance, but beasts still moved on up. Warhounds cut behind the minos to stare at the horsemen over there. He had actually set up a lot of great counter-charges. I had charges on the mino flank with horsemen, but would be countered in the front by warhounds and flank by the wargor, and on the mino front with the HC, but would be countered by a chariot in the flank.

But whatev, it was time for fighting. The horsemen left charged the warhounds, the hellcannon made it to the mino front, the other horsemen slammed into the leftmost chariot, and the disc hopped the right chariot to bother it from behind. A hearty flickering fire wrecked the sorcerer's chariot, and combat was quite decisive as well. The horsemen vs chariot caused 2 wounds, took 1 and broke it, but failed to catch. The 'cannon dropped 1 mino, took 0 wounds back and broke them - they were crossfired on the horsemen fighting dogs, and the HC overran into the warhounds, who were vaporized and those horsemen overran to get away from the wargor.

Turn 3
The fleeing chariot rallied, and the wargor charged into the hellcannon to try for some kind of VP. He tagged 1 wound on the beast, but was eaten for his troubles.

The four horsemen charged the rallied chariot and killed it. Everyone else nabbed table quarters ftw.

TIZZ MASSACRE (20-0)

Totally brutal game, with terrible dice on his part. He was failing 4+ chariot saves like I fail regen rolls

Tomorrow morning: High Elves Round 2

- Salvage

Nice reps. Salvage! Glad the Heck-cannon can lay it out.

Would have been nice if Mr. Heck could scatter less often, but that just proves one should be fully prepared to go aggro with the beasty and screw the uber cannon on its back ...

Game Seven: High Elves

Happily feasting upon minotaur steaks roasted on smoldering chariot, The Pimp and his barbaric riders sat and enjoyed a nice post battle picnic. Suddenly a shrill voice pierced the sounds of noshing, startling the hellcannon and setting The Pimp's teeth on edge. The Pimp's hands shot to his ears, smearing BBQ sauce on his blue hood in the process, and looking in the direction of the sound he could saw a bunch of elves yelling something at his heavy recon force. Looking closer, The Pimp recognized a few of the swordsmen, as well as the recently rebuilt bolt thrower he had detonated some weeks before.

The Pimp wiped his hands off on his robe, snapped his fingers and mounted his disc as it obediently zipped over. He could use some dessert, and elf-over-bolt thrower was sounding tasty.

High Elves 500

H: Mage - level 2, reaver bow
C: 10+ Archers
S: 6 Swordmasters
R: Bolter
R: Eagle

Scenario
Secure & Control - 3 markers go down across the center line, worth 50 VP if held (only unit within 6") at the end of game.

Deployment
Elves (L2R): bolter back corner behind a pond, swordmasters + mage to the right of the pond, archers in a long line to their right, eagle behind a building right flank.
Tizz (L2R): horsemen hard left (partially behind a building), hellcannon right-ish near a wood, disc right and behind the wood, horsemen hard right behind the wood.

Mage took shadows and got the first mm and the "I cause fear!" spell.

Battle

Turn 1
Elves start things off, by boltering 3 of the left horsemen gunning for them, and tagging a wound on the hellcannon.

Chaos blitzes up: left horsemen march for the bolter (mostly to draw fire from the right side), hellcannon steams ahead 6", right horsemen zip around the wood to ready a charge on the archers, and the disc hops over to flicer the archers and yell at the eagle. Flicker fails, roar strips 2 wounds off the eagle (!).

Turn 2
The elves feel little need to move, though the reaver mage wheels his unit so he can shoot things and the eagle march blocked the 'cannon. His mm is stopped, the bolter only drops 1 horsemen coming at it, so the reaver bow is put to use dropping that last marauder. The archers target their horsemen but only manage 1 wound.

Recognizing how many ways this turn could go wrong, I tossed the remaining horsemen into the archers (0 lost on stand-and-shoot), and the disc floated over to either kill the bolter or be killed by it next turn. Flicker failed, so he was done for ... but roared at the swordmasters all the same, popping 1. The horsemen lost 2 to ASF (!!), killed 1 archer with a pony kick, broke and were not followed. The HC, meanwhile, shuffled forward 3".

Turn 3
The elves felt no need to move, thanks. The mage got his mm off on the sorcerer, but it was absorbed by armor or bad dice. The bolter had no such problems, spearing The Pimp with a single shot, which hit, wounded, wasn't caught by the tizz ward and did a neat 2 wounds. Much sadness. The archers shot down the running horsemen.

Third time that night it was down to the cannon to win the day. Could he do it?? With the fakking eagle right there, the HC decided to shoot the swordmasters, tagging four of them and splattering them down to mage + 1 SM.

Turn 4
The mage left the SM and commanded him to go chop down the hellcannon, so he obliged and marched over to his doom. Nobody else moved, and the HC lost 2 dwarfs from the fusillade. The mage was shut down.

Mr. Heck frolicked into combat with the swordmaster, shrugging off his puny S5 attaks and splatting him, joyfully overruning towards the bolter. Now, the pond would keep him from charging the bolter BUT if he could rampage, then the cannon could spin 90 degrees to his right and take out the archers and then the mage. I only had 1 dwarf left, and the HE would certainly want to unload into the beast ...

Turn 5
... but he was smart and parked the eagle closer, just in case the cannon survived and flipped out. He did not survive, and was dropped by impressive bow fire.

HIGH ELF MASSACRE

I was as aggressive as I could have been with the hellcannon, so no worries there, but I'm wondering about the disc. Turn two I think I could have pulled off a charge on the swordmasters, which would have seen me challenging out the mage and killing him, hopefully in his next turn, grabbing a roll on the eye (!) as well as one less dispel die and that +1 ... I don't think I really misused him too bad, but I didn't necessarily have to toss him away like that in a Mexican stand off with the bolter. For those keeping track, I attempted flickering fire how many times over 3 games? And got it once. Compare this to my first day of 500 point games and how much flicker was owning things

These games were also a learning experience in what marauder horsemen can handle. Twice I tossed them into a superior number of bowmen and lost them (though against the brets I probably should have won if ANY marauder hit, besides the ponies going to work), but beating a chariot twice was pretty cool against the beasts.

There's a 500 point tournament this weekend, so stay tuned for three more games of mini-carnage. The HE dude will be there with this same list, but there should also be a doomwheeling skaven list, the hellblaster empire ranked just under me in the standings, and other treats.

- Salvage

Yeah, sometimes a Super hero army kind of kills the fun of warhammer...
However, you are Chaos Mortals. A lot of your points should be tied up in characters because that's what you do. Cool heroes are the best part of your army! I do hope that you haven't created an arms race, however. 500 point Skirmishers sound really fun and interesting and it would be sad if they became "alright, we have 500 points to make the best character possible."
A Gladiator-type Tournament would be interesting, however...

If you've done okay so far despite being so heavily weighed in one direction, congrats! I tend to favor more balanced armies. I do play lizardmen though and we get a lot of really cool unit choices so I hate spending too much on any one thing.

Sebulba wrote:I do hope that you haven't created an arms race, however.

It started to seem that way after Day 1, but I think people were getting to grips with how to push 500 competitively. I don't know about you, but we don't really play 500 point games except for these opening escalation games As to unbalanced armies, well in just a moment you can see what my full strength 2250 list looks like, and IMO it does not follow the pace set by my 500 pointer ...

Game Eight: Warriors of Khorne

The White mounted his newly gifted demonic steed and surveyed his amassed troops, freshly joined by the return of The Pimp and his pet hellcannon. He felt strong in the saddle, majestic upon his pulsing power pony, a force to be reckoned with, a destroyer of cities and cowerer of mortals ...

"Why are you not gazing upon my magnificence?" The White demanded of his army, whose attention was collectively focused behind his left shoulder. The Duke pointed and The White rolled his gleaming eyes and turned in the saddle ... and nearly fell right out.

"HOLY FAKK! A khorne dragon?!"

Khorne 2250

L: Lord - MoK, sword of battle, crimson armor, collar, dragon
H: Exalted - MoK, BSB, roar, enchanted shield

C: 15 Warriors - MoK, warbanner, full command, shields
C: 15 Warriors - banner of rage, full command, shields
C: 10 Marauders - MoK, great weapons
C: 5 Warhounds
C: 5 Warhounds
C: 5 Warhounds

S: 5 Knights - MoK, musician
S: Chariot - MoK
S: Chariot - MoK

DictatorGames's angry red wagon, which will be headed to Conflict in a week and change. Best of luck to him there, I know I always dread fighting this army, just so hard to deal with that frenzied dragon. My vermin lord-led skaven died to this meatgrinder a couple weeks back, after I fed an abomination to the beast (got the charge, did 0 wounds, died for real).

Tizz 2250

L: Lord - MoT, aethersword, enchanted shield, collar, demonic mount
H: Sorcerer - MoT, golden eye, scroll, roar, disc
H: Exalted - MoT, BSB, sword of striking, talisman of protection

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

S: 3 Dragon Ogres - great weapons
S: 6 Forsaken

R: Hellcannon

This is the latest iteration of the list I've been shopping since before last summer, and I'm just about 100% happy with it - up until now I've used a disc lord as detailed here, but the demo-horse offers a number of options the disc doesn't (like hiding in units and passing on fear immunity, good for Tizz). It's got everything I want in it, has a couple unknown things - forsaken I've never run until this game, drogres I'm nowhere near figuring out how to use - and puts all the models I want to on the field. I've got a tizz giant I keep wanting to swap in for the hellcannon, since I seem to fight with the HC more than shoot with it, but the T6, unbreakable and big gun on the HC keep me sticking with her.

Deployment
Khorne (L2R): knights, chariot, marauders, dogs, warbanner warriors + BSB, chariot, rage warriors, dogs, dragon (behind a forest right side), dogs
Tizz (L2R): horsemen, sorcerer, warbanner warriors + aetherlord (left flank protected by a forest), dogs, rapture warriors + BSB (right behind dogs, on hill), hellcannon, drogres, horsemen, forsaken (right behind horsemen)

The Pimp took flicker, and prepared for a dice off every time he tried casting.

Battle

Turn 1
Khorne won on +1 and took it. Everybody moved on up, and the dragon hoped the wood to stare at the forsaken / drogres / hellcannon / horsemen - i.e. the right half of my army.

An early charge saw the tizz hounds charging the khorne dogs in the middle of the board! Left horsemen zoomed up the left flank, the disc followed suit, comfortably marchblocking the knights and preparing to yell. The warstar kept it's flank to the woods and angled a bit toward the dragon, and the rapturestar did likewise, in case of overruns or something. The right horsemen moved up next to the dragon in case it felt like charging into them and diverting over, while the drogres wandered forward and angled to send the dragon into the hellcannon on the overrun, where it could be flanked by the rapturestar ... Flicker against the knights was stopped, though roar dropped 1. The HC scattered 8" off the dragon and expected to die next turn. In the puppy fight 2 dogs died on both sides for a draw.

Turn 2
The right chariot was in range of the drogres so declared the charge, the marauders had to clip in against the hounds nipping at each other, the right hounds (not the RIGHT right, those are sneaking down the right flank for the next couple turns) charged the right horsemen, and the dragon after much deciding charged the drogres. The dragon ogres elected to flee and, needing a 7 or so to live, rolled a 5 on 3d6 and were run down, but pulled the dragon right in front of the rapturestar + hellcannon. Other units moved about as able. Finding himself unengaged, the dragon breathed on the rapturestar (x2) and dropped 3 warriors! In fightland, the single marauder fluffed, 1 khorne dog dropped a tizz puppy, and the blue dogs broke. On the pursuit the marauders slammed into the warstar (11") for next turn. Meanwhile, the right warhounds failed to get through elite horsemen armor and lost 2 in return, were beaten and ran.

Passing terror (yay lord 9 ), the rapturestar charged the dragon in the front and was joined by the hellcannon in its flank. The forsaken charged into the flank of the right chariot and prepared to show me what they could do ... And the horsemen continued around the rear of the chaos army, looking for crossfires later on, as the discer floated after the knights. Flicker went off with a mighty 7 S3 hits on them, but to no avail. Roar likewise sputtered ineffectually. Combat, the warstar lost ~3 warriors, but loads of marauders died in return and were broken but not pursued, the tizz lord letting the naked men get in the way of the warriors behind them. Main event, the rapturestar champion was fed to the dragon and took max overkill, meaning the dragon lost by 1 vs 7 CR, but easily passed. The mighty forsaken would not be as impressive: with a 1+1 for number of attaks, 12 attaks equaled only 1 wound, and the chariot crew hacked down 3 frothers and broke them, easily catching themselves 108 delicious points. Sad times in forsaken land

Turn 3
A number of nasty counter charges on the dragon fight were set up - knights in the rapture flank, chariot in the hellcannon flank - for next turn, and the left chariot slammed into the warstar. The right dogs failed to rally and were crossfired on the horsemen who fought them last turn. The BSB's roar dropped a left horsemen with an impressive 11 hits, but then it was on to fighting. The Duke, who was riding the left corner of the rapturestar, felt no need to slide in against the dragon, meaning the khorne lord had to actually fight some weenie unit dudes. He put his attaks into the hellcannon's crew and killed 2 (half points!), and the dragon slapped against the hellcannon for no wounds. Neither the warriors nor the hellcannon could do anything to the chaos lord, but it didn't matter - with such a weak showing it lost by 4 to static CR, broke, ran a piddly few inches and was caught by the rapturestar. The Duke was so excited that he forgot to roll on The Eye ... Back in the chariot vs warstar combat, the chariot went big with 7 impacts, dropping a couple warriors but failing to damage the unit, and was broken and sent fleeing though the marauders AND the warbanner warriors. Both took 7 impact hits, which vaporized the marauders and irked a couple warriors too.

Finding itself much closer to the rage warriors, the rapturestar charged in ftw. The hellcannon flipped out, but he was 1" from the chariot he wanted to charge anyway, so he did. The aetherlord decided this was a good turn for killing things too, so solo charged out of the warstar and into the 4 knights incoming. Flicker was stopped, roar dropped 1 of the warbanner warriors, and we were back to The Best Phase already. The aetherlord faffed about a bit and only killed 2 knights, took a wound in return and passed his -1 break test with ease. The rapturestar, thanks to static CR and The Duke but no thanks to the rest of the warriors, beat the extra angry khorne boys and grabbed their banner, letting them be crossfired against the horsemen lurking behind. The hellcannon managed 1 wound on the chariot, took 1 in return, beat it on outnumber and auto-broke it, running it down as well.

Turn 4
Khorne troops were seriously running low, but carnage was still to be had. The warbanner + BSB warriors hit the aetherlord in the flank, and the chariot that had creamed all his buddies rallied and pointed at the flank of the rapturestar. After dogs did doggy things, the aetherlord accepted the warbanner warrior champ's challenge, blocked his attaks and vaporized him for 3 wounds. Faced with a -3 break test the aetherlord kept his cool and passed (with BSB reroll admittedly).

The warstar whooped and countercharged their red doubles to held the lord out, the hellcannon stood over by the dogs who had taken the long walk around the right side and into the tizz zone, the rapturestar turned to face the chariot down, the horsemen headed for quarters and the disc floated over to burn the chariot down. He got flicker all right, but 5 S4 didn't amount to much beyond 1 wound. Over in The Fight, the aetherlord challenged the khorne BSB and lasered his head off, rolling +1A on The Eye! The warriors smacked at each other, but both khorne units broke, with the aetherlord heading after the knights (failed to catch) and the warstar after the warriors (caught 'em).

Turn 5
Chariot hit the rapturestar, knights rallied and the fresh puppies failed terror and headed for the board edge. The chariot did not much to the warriors, and was wrecked by The Duke + his friends.

The aetherlord, now extra spikey, charged the rallied knights and killed the last 2 neatly. The Pimp floated over to the last 2 khorne puppies and yelled 1 down, but they passed panic. The hellcannon marched over and sat near them for next turn ...

Turn 6
... when the last puppy failed terror and the other puppies didn't rally and left the board.

TIZZ MASSACRE

With the dragon falling to CR POWER, the heart of the khorne army was pretty well bludgeoned. He had plenty of teeth left, but they either were jumped early (rapturestar vs rage warriors, aetherlord into knights) or bounced off the warstar. My specials as usual sucked, though the drogres are eating well tonight after baiting that dragon for me Forsaken, while they have their uses, are clearly not going to be good against really anything in this army of high armor and better stats ...

Also, rolling on The Eye rocks, maybe in part because it's so seldom

- Salvage

*Shakes fist in air* Damn my "up the guts" attitide. I must be smart. If i had only sacrificed the pups to make the BSB come out and play. . . I'll get you next time SALVAAAAAAAAAGE!!!

Wow, Khorne dragon. Don't see that too often. Seems like Frenzy's such a big liability for a large flier that it would be tough to use it well. At least it would for me...

Quite enjoying the reports, please keep it up!

RZ

Red_Zeke wrote:Wow, Khorne dragon. Don't see that too often. Seems like Frenzy's such a big liability for a large flier that it would be tough to use it well. At least it would for me...

Well I see it too often ...

... which is at least aesthetically pleasing, DG really killed it with a beaut of a centerpiece

IMO there are really only 3 truly scary dragons: star dragon, black dragon, khorne dragon. The star is just a tank, and black and red get the boost from hatred/frenzy that they need to really gauge units up. Having a crimson death / ring of hotek / pendant riding one and a ton of attaks / armor / T5 / MR(2) riding the other helps too

DG has a good lecture he can give on why frenzy on a dragon isn't much of a liability, though a lot of it comes down to being a large target and flying meaning that sure you have to charge, but you have sooooo many choices and the OOMPH to back it up, even in a unit's front.

- Salvage

He's going into the stable soon in 1 1/2 weeks after the conflict gt then the T6 Father will come out to play!!!!

That dude is going to rock, and I can't wait to take an aetherhammer in the jubblies

Lord - MoK, father of blades, skinhidden plate, shield = 335

That's the build, right? So cool

- Salvage

simple and elegant I love this build.

We had a 500 point tournament to cap off the first league tier, as tomorrow we head to 1000 points and a new set of opponents. I'm currently tied for 1st on BP, but have the highest running VP total ... but I don't expect that will stay true after these 1000 pointers go down. My list is going to start diverging from its blasteriness at this point, while my opponents - Empire (hellblaster is insane at low points), High Elves (fighty flavor though, so will be interesting), Brets (he's adding no lances, mostly peasant support + pegs) - I have a feeling may be ramping up accordingly. But we shall see.

We had 9 players, so the tournament was run for 4 games (1 random bye per), with the lowest score dropped. A very cool way to do it, took care of That Game where luck or a bad match up came into play a bit too much. I'll keep these reports brief, as the games were pretty quick all told (30-40 min each) ...

Battle 9: High Elves

This was my opponent from Game Seven, playing the same army, against my same army, with the same spells rolled and a near identical table. Reeeeematch!

I expected to fight this dude again, and sadly I never did figure out how to do anything against him without a good bunch of luck. The plan turned out to be shooting with the hellcannon, while both marauders went for the bolter and the disc sorcerer limited LoS from the bolter and hoped for flickering. This was hurt in his first turn, when I lost 4 of 5 marauders from one unit and 2 of 5 from the other before they had moved, and they were wiped out next turn, leaving me just the big guns to do anything. The Pimp tried for a long charge on the mage + swordmasters, with the full intent of cutting his head off and getting some Eye action, but the charge was about 24", so the disc failed charge and was killed next turn by everything. The HC meanwhile had killed 4 swordmasters with a nice shot, shattered the bolter with another, and would land a blast on the archers + mage for another few dead elves. He finished the game rampaging into the eagle at his flank, terroring it off the board.

HE Survivors: Mage, archers, 1/2 swordmasters
WoT Survivors: Hellcannon (with the toughest 2 dwarfs ever, denying 1/2 points despite rounds of shooting into them)

TIZZ LOSS (4-16)

A rough start to the tournament, but I knew I could have this low score drop as long as I didn't screw up too bad and get zeroed ...

Battle 10: Empire

Annnd here was the hellblaster that everybody had been hating on. How bad could it be?

H: Wizard - rod of power, horse [fireball]
C: 20 Swordsmen - full command, 9 spearmen detachment
C: 5 Knights - champ, standard
R: Hellblaster

I knew the hellblaster needed to die, and as the only really pressing threat everybody went after it, using a building to shelter both horsemen + the disc for a third turn charge. The hellblaster moved within 24" of my HC, then vaporized the first horsemen to appear around the building, then pounded into the 'cannon, and would do so a second time before finally misfiring - on a 6, emptying 30 shots into the beast. Shockingly it didn't die, clinging on at this point with 2-3 wounds and 0 dwarfs. On its part, the HC had been firing at the hellblaster every turn, with only a single hit that resulted in 2 dead crewmen and 1 wound on the machine ... Then Ms. Nibbles rampaged into the swordsmen + wizard and ate the wizard, and spent the next 3 rounds chewing on humans until the unit was down to half points.

Meanwhile, my sorcerer had been putting flickers into the knights - 3 S4, 4 S3, 2 S6, 2 S7 - which combined with roar finally nuked the unit, that spent its brief march-blocked existence thinking about charging the hellcannon. Acceptable.

TIZZ WIN (19-1)

Battle 11: Warriors of Chaos

Ahhhh, I finally got to fight the other WoC guy, a skittles player who's been relying on his knights to carry the battle at these low points. Note that he's picked up a rather sexy sorcerer build

H: Sorcerer - MoT, roar, disc
C: 5 Horsemen - MoS, musician, flails
C: 10 Marauders - MoS, musician, great weapons
S: 5 Knights

We both figured this game would come down to whose sorcerer could take out the other one first, and whether I could trash those knights somehow. He got first and the disc flitted over to flicker mine, but was shut down and 0.25" out of roar range. My disc responded by hoping over, failing flicker and roaring a wound on his doppelganger. Next his disc did the same, flicker flopping and roar knocking a wound off, but next round would prove decisive, with my disc tossing a weak flicker into the other disc for no wounds, but roar striping that last wound and bagging the enemy caster.

Meanwhile, a unit of my horsemen had charged and run down his gw marauders (they fled 2"), EitW-ing into the flank of the flail horsemen and beating them handily, and then failing to restrain and pursuing into the flank of the knights (caught the horsemen though). I was hoping for my horsemen to break and clear out so I could get my anti-armor onto the knights, except the hellcannon rampaged and charged the knights' other flank. This left my disc waiting around for the hellcannon to die, but stupidly I got the idea that I could actually beat the knights, so charged in a fresh horsemen unit into their flank that the other horse had run off of rounds back. Suffice to say, the HC died, the horsemen broke and fled, then fled again when the knights charged them, and with just my last round to go, all horsemen rallied, my sorcerer took a deep breath and tried to wipe out 3 knights in one go. Flicker rolled nothing that mattered, and an AWESOME roar took down 2 knights, but was 1 short of full points for the unit.

TIZZ WIN (17-3)

Battle 12: Brettonians

Remember the new bret guy from Game Five? He had thrown down in the tournament and done very well for himself, and our game would be key in deciding what the top three spots came down to.

He ran the same list as before, and overall I felt pretty confident going into this, partially as he had isolated his treb away from the disc-dropping power of his peasant archer blob. I went aggro and threw everything towards the treb, barring the HC which spent the game shooting at the peasants and deviating a lot - think she killed about 8 peasants total, not quite 205 points

Anyway, the treb deviated wildly with its one shot, was run down by horsemen, and the sorcerer did terrible things to the KotR lance that had come to intercept the fast cav / flying wizard. Flicker hit relatively hard, enough so that roar, after randomization, dropped the last remaining knights and wounded the general, leaving the general and the BSB to split up. Next turn the general was roared to death, and my sorcerer would cruise over and start burning and yelling at peasants until they broke late game. Note that the disc was shot by the dwindling archers every turn, but took 0 wounds from each volley, easily passing the single armor save he was asked to make each time.

My one stupid move was zipping some horsemen right up at the archers with the intent of running them down, but totally forgetting that bret knights charge 16" not 14" ... which let the BSB hit them in the flank and run them down. Ah well.

TIZZ WIN (20-0)

After dropping our low games it came down to:

Skaven (60) - Doomwheel rolling strong!
WoT (56) - Hellcannon ftw!
Brets (50+) - Uh, newbie power? These were his 2nd - 4th games (he got a bye first round) of fantasy possibly ever, which is pretty impressive!

I got $30 for my troubles, which went into a lord on demo-horse, whose currently on the conversion bench getting his gaps filled

And a finally note, I'd like to thank Bloodcurdling Roar for all the hard work throughout 500 points. The thing is golden, and while I expect great things to come, it shines especially well in these low pointers

- Salvage

Nicely done! it seems the marauders didn't go as well as expected in these low pointers. not well armored enough?

They actually got into a lot of favorable fights - vs war machines or cavalry flanks - but I only ever hit with 1 of 4 marauders, max. It's really hard to survive combats when you can't hit

As to being shot, I was pretty happy wit the 5+ and made a bit more than probability worth of saves. Thing is their T3 and 5+ armor makes them the easiest units to beat up on in the list, and I also used them to draw fire too I realize that I lost one or both units in many games, but 75/150 points is fairly cheap to pull people around and get the guns onto them.

I'm heavily debating keeping the forsaken away until 2250, so I can have 2x horsemen @ 1000 and 1x @ 1500 ... I'd like to give the forsaken some practice at lower points before big time hits, but I've gotten pretty used to having 2 units of horse to aggro into war machines and stuff. The awkward thing for 1000 is that I also have dogs now, so the list has 3 'light cav' running about mostly being irritating.

A further caveat: if I swap 6 forsaken for the second horsemen @ 1000, I can make The Pimp level 2 for the first time in his life. Has potential, as I expect more magic defense at this level.

- Salvage

The magic defense is a boon and to be honest ogres hit about as hard as forsaken and move as fast and are 3 for 105. Plus they cause fear and. Onether option for a duplicate unit might be MoK horsemen. Less attacks but the dependability and s5 is huge.

~DG

All I have to say: go Hellcannon. I am building my own WoC army, these battle reports are informative.

DictatorGames wrote:The magic defense is a boon and to be honest ogres hit about as hard as forsaken and move as fast and are 3 for 105. Plus they cause fear and. Onether option for a duplicate unit might be MoK horsemen. Less attacks but the dependability and s5 is huge.

~DG

My ogres have gw and chaos armor, so don't quite clock in that cheaply. In fact, forsaken first entered my list because I was so sick of my ogres sucking and wanted a cheaper but comparable flanker / fast unit. Forsaken have 2 big advantages over ogres for me: WS4, LD8. After playing OK for years I'm overjoyed to not put up with WS3 and LD7 on things

@ Taco - Thanks man, good luck with your horde.

- Salvage

Forsaken are only S4 I think they are only good if you like them.

Knights: 2S5 + 1S4 attack per 25mm
Forsaken: D3+1 S4 attack per 25mm
Ogres, Trolls/ etc: 3/4 S5/67 attacks per 50mm

Personally I think Forsaken are the runts of the litter but I suppose they are OK if all you want is something to hang on the side and hit a flank. And you can give Knights Frenzy anyway.

Lookin' forward to the kick up in points values! Well done at the tournament.

RZ

Tacobake wrote:Forsaken are only S4 I think they are only good if you like them.

Knights: 2S5 + 1S4 attack per 25mm
Forsaken: D3+1 S4 attack per 25mm
Ogres, Trolls/ etc: 3/4 S5/67 attacks per 50mm

Personally I think Forsaken are the runts of the litter but I suppose they are OK if all you want is something to hang on the side and hit a flank. And you can give Knights Frenzy anyway.

#1) It should be noted that I don't actually think forsaken are 'good' but I know for a fact that they're rarely taken while also being one of the only actually new things in the book. 6 of them is cheap so I have no problem sticking 1 unit in @ 2250 for coolness, modeling and to even do useful things - 108 points is a mere 4.8% of total points, so whatever. At 1000 that's not the case, so I'm thinking they'll have to wait.

#2) Something I keep in mind with forsaken is how cheap they are compared to those things people like to compare them to: frenzy warriors, knights, ogres, etc. Minimum khorne warriors? 190 points. Knights? 200. Ogres? 105. Ogres are probably the most appropriate comparison, but like I said I'm 110% unimpressed by non-frenzied ogres, with their lame stats and all. The only thing ogres have going for them over forsaken is fear and being able to conserve their US better, as far as flanking goes.

Looking like I'll be waiting until big points for the frothers to hit the table, but they're definitely in, partially because they're bought, built, and should look pretty tight in a tizz list once painted up

- Salvage

You ever thought about Chariots. Not to derail the thread but I really want to build my army now. Forsaken definitely have the edge on Ogres as far as sheer number of attacks is concerned but don't forget their armour save is only 5+. If you upgrade Ogres with Armour and Additional Hand Weapons they do not really compare to Trolls either, other than the fact they are Ld7 (with no Stupidity mind), which is pretty weak anyway.

Dragon Ogres are maybe looking like a good unit just considering how beefy they are. 3 guys have 12 wounds and a 4+ vs Knights 6 Wounds and a 1+. I mean every army should be able to kill Knights anyway, right. Knights get Musicians, a Magic Banner and a Mark of Chaos maybe Knights win.

Tacobake wrote:You ever thought about Chariots.

Dragon Ogres are maybe looking like a good unit just considering how beefy they are.

Chariots - Love 'em, would happily take 2-3 glowy blue ones for great devastation. Except The Dub refuses to make a plastic chaos chariot. When they do, they'll get $$$ from me.

Drogres - I've got 3 @ 2250, and I dig them for a lot of reasons, none of which is how easy they are to use. I can't understand what they're supposed to do, except be a 231 point support unit incapable of acting on its own

- Salvage

Good job! I've been watching this for a while, and I'm defintely looking at putting Roar on one of my discs.

Pounded out two of four 1000 pointers last night, and was feeling weirdly dirty in the process. I don't think my list is broken by any means, and the hellcannon isn't that good (and gives up 103 points about every game, with the awkward mixed unit rule) ...

Warriors of Tizz 1000

H: Sorcerer - MoT, level 2, golden eye, roar, disc
C: 20 Warriors - MoT, warbanner, full command, shields
C: 5 Horsemen - musician, spears, light armor
C: 5 Horsemen - musician, spears, light armor
C: 5 Warhounds
R: Hellcannon

Going into this new bracket I'm sitting at 1st (61 BP & ~1900 VP), with Empire behind me (61 BP & ~1800 VP), then High Elves (61 BP & ~1700 VP) and Brets (60 BP & ~1800 VP).

Game Thirteen: Empire

Empire 1000

H: Warrior Priest - sword of justice, enchanted shield, barded horse
H: Wizard - rod of power, barded horse
C: 25 Swordsmen - full command, 7-8 spear detachment, 7-8 handgunner detachment
C: 5 Knights - full command
C: 10 Handgunners
S: 6 Pistoliers
R: Hellblaster

Scenario
Messengers - Both sides get 3 infantry models (M6, T4, W2, 5+ ward) that give 100 points for running off the other table edge. May join units, though only 1 messenger can exit through every 2' of enemy board edge.

Deployment
Empire (L2R in a very tight deployment): handgunner detach + messenger, knights + priest, swordmasters + wizard directly behind, spear detach, messenger, handgunners on hill, hellblaster on hill, messenger, pistoliers right flank
Tizz (L2R): messenger far left, horsemen, disc (behind hill), hellcannon, messenger, warriors, warhounds right flank, horsemen directly behind them, messenger far right.

His wizard rolled up rule of burning iron, and The Pimp got flicker & gateway

Battle

Turn 1
Tizz won it and blasted off, with disc flying left of the handgunner detach LoS, everybody powering up full unless it was a hellcannon - including the messengers, boosting 12" for great justice. The horsemen on the right stuck behind the hounds as they both angled to deal with the hellblaster next turn ... 3-dice flicker was shut down, and roar didn't do anything memorable to anybody. The hellcannon however landed a blast right between the knights and swordsmen, splattering 2 knights and ~4 state troopers, though both panics were passed.

Empire opened their game by charging pistoliers into the warhounds, who fled through the horsemen and let them take the charge. Knights rolled towards the warriors cautiously, cutting left so the infantry behind could cut right a bit. RoBI against the warrior champ was dispelled, and the priest put unbreakable on his knights. Shooting saw the hellblaster get out 4 shots on the warriors (0 wounds) before misfiring and missing the next turn of shooting (yes!), and the 10 handgunners bounced off the chaos infantry likewise. The handgunner detachment knocked down 1 of the left horsemen at long range. In the first combat of the game, the pistoliers fluffed with 12 S3 attaks, lost 2 on the return, broke and were caught by the marauder horsemen. A nearby messenger of his paniced back towards hellblaster hill.

Turn 2
Just inches from the hellblaster, the horsemen slammed on in, removing a big source of anxiety for me. The other horsemen charged the handgunner detach + messenger, taking no wounds on the way in, while the warriors marched up, the flank messengers booked it another 12", and the hellcannon rampaged 11" to stand unfortunately close to the priest + knights ... Thankfully the central messenger was up to the task of being thrown under their hooves and stood in front of the knights to distract them. The disc flitted behind the empire lines to do eevil things. But not too eevil - flicker on the knights was shut down, though roar dropped the musician from the unit, leaving champ / std / priest. In combat the left horsemen killed only 1 handgunner, but that was enough to chase them and their messenger off the table. The right horsemen rolled better and killed all the hellblaster crew, overrunning into the flank of the handgunner unit.

Things were certainly looking grim for the Averlanders, with their army disintegrating from the flanks and the warstar descending upon their heart ... The warrior priest solo-charged my central messenger, his knights angled to look at the warrior flank, and the swordmen + detachment got in position to accept the chaos charge next turn with a spearmen counter-charge of their own. RoBI was again dispelled, and the priest soul-flared the messenger down handily (meh). No shooting left, so the horsemen proceeded to trample a few handgunners and break the unit. Cataclysmic panic checks followed, whereby the swordsmen + wizard paniced, as well as their spear detachment (crossfiring into the warriors) and BOTH messengers (Ld9) nearby (another dying as it threw itself against blue plate).

He was happy to call it at this point and get on with other games, and things were indeed looking over, with hellcannon set to charge knights or priest, the warstar untouched, horsemen ready to run down the swordsmen and the disc happy to burn / roar anything not being punched in the face. With two messengers off the table I got 1500 out of a max 1650 VP after all bonuses

TIZZ MASSACRE (20-0)

I have his terrible dice to thank for some of this win, particularly that pistolier power-flop that opened up a much easier, much earlier charge on the hellblaster than I could have hoped for. I was fairly unimpressed by level 2 on the sorcerer, but the ability to throw 3 dice at flicker and have a 4th for remains in play (it helped out here, dropping his unbreakable) was ok, though 4-5 dispel was going to be hard to chew through no matter!

Next game against good old High Elves (a different dude though) this afternoon

- Salvage

Game Fourteen: High Elves

High Elves 1000

H: Noble - gem of level 1 wizardness, great weapon, heavy armor
H: Noble - BSB, reaver bow, great weapon, heavy armor
C: 15 Sea Guard - standard, champion, shields
S: 7 Swordmasters - standard, champion
S: 7 White Lions - standard, champion
S: 5-6 Shadow Warriors
R: Bolter
R: Eagle

Scenario
Pitched Battle

Deployment
HE (L2R): eagle, swordmasters + general, seaguard on hill, bolter on same hill, white lions + BSB off hill
WoT (L2R): shadow warriors (scouted into wood on my left flank, as expected), disc, hellcannon, warriors, (building), hounds, horsemen, horsemen

Noble took drain magic & fury of khaine, The Pimp got flicker & pandemonium.

Battle

Turn 1
Elves win it and head out - shadow warriors break treeline for the disc, eagle books down but keeps a hill between it and hellcannon, swords move up some, lions move up to block horsemen lines into the bolter. Drain magic goes off, shooting fails to wound disc or warriors, but drops 2 puppies, who panic back 4" ... 2 horsemen also died from the reaver bow.

Annnd the hellcannon starts things off by rampaging into the eagle, which flees and puts the 'cannon much closer to swordmasters than I would have liked. The disc flits back to pester said swords, the warriors power 8" forward, the hounds rally and the horsemen head around the lions' flank, wondering what the hell they're going to do this game. Flicker and/or roar killed some swords, leaving noble + 2 command dudes.

Turn 2
No charges, though the eagle rallied, and really no other movement besides lion shuffling. Drain magic was miscast, but a 12 result later it went off IR and was forgotten. Shadow warriors + sea guard (all of them) shot the hellcannon, dropping 2 dwarfs but unable to wound the beast. The reaver bow and bolter went into the warriors, dropping 3 after good armor saves.

The warriors got all excited and charged the noble + remaining swords, while the disc flew behind the sea guard to look at bolter and lions. The horsemen continued around the lion flank and rear, looking to nab the bolter next turn ... unless the sorcerer fragged it with flicker! 4 S7 saw the crew vaporized, though the following roar did nothing to the lions (11 hits). The hellcannon got to fire, so slammed a shot dead into the sea guard - and misfired. A 6 result later and the shot went uber, smashing 8 elves to paste with S10 and then turning off. They passed panic but were pretty sad at this point. Combat time, a warrior fell but so did a swordmaster, and the elves easily broke and were pursued, though not caught.

Turn 3
The sea guard hitched up their skirts and charged the warriors in the flank, and the lions about-faced to tag some reaver shots into the disc. Which was a moot point, as solid armor saves kept The Pimp in the game. Likewise the hellcannon, as shadow warriors plinked off it. In fighting, no warriors died, but 3-4 sea guard did, and the unit was easily broken and chased down. This put the warriors securely in the lion flank ...

... and the 395 point unit, carrying two captured standards and one of its own, gladly charged the lone pansy on the flank end. Meanwhile the unit of 2 horsemen charged the eagle flitting about the elf backfield, and the hellcannon wandered over to terror the shadow warriors. The disc zipped over to vaporize the noble + friend, and flicker did just that, with 6 S5 hits. In combat, the horsemen caused 2 wounds, lost 1 man to the big bird, one by musician and the lone horseman chased the turkey down. Now the warrior combat, time for steamrolling, right? Wrong. The end lion hacked down 1 warrior, didn't die to the champ's 3 attaks, lost combat but held on stubborn 8 easily.

Turn 4
The shadow warriors did indeed fail terror, heading to 2" of the table edge. With nothing else left, it was back to the Main Event. The BSB slid over to the end, challenged the warrior champ and crushed him easily. The lions lost but held no problem.

To ensure their destruction, the hellcannon charged the fleeing shadow scouts and pushed them off the table. The Pimp floated around and watched the warstar vs ASF stubborn combat, and the horsemen hung about as well. This round the BSB hacked down both warriors fighting him, the lions lost, and held with no worries.

Turn 5
The BSB kept on lumberjacking, killing 2-3 warriors, losing combat, and holding on the first roll. Who needs a BSB reroll, eh?

After MUCH debating, I tossed 5 horsemen into the other flank of the lions. I mainly did this as the warriors were down to 10 models at this point, giving them rank, standard, warbanner, flank (4CR), assuming that 2 warriors were killed again and they lost outnumber, vs the lions' 2CR + wounds caused. With the horsemen I had 1) a chance of killing a lion, 2) was only giving up 1 CR when the horseman died like I knew he wound, 3) would have outnumber one more time. As it turned out, the BSB killed 2-3 warriors, the lion dropped 1 horseman, the other horseman did nothing, and I won combat on musician (so didn't need the horse). The lions could care less, and I knew next turn was it.

Turn 6
The BSB hacked down 2-3 warriors, both chaos units broke, and the lions caught the warstar for a 545 point swing. Balls.

The horsemen rallied, and The Pimp swooped in for revenge. Flicker fried the lions down to below half with 5 S6 hits, but roar couldn't seal the deal.

TIZZ VICTORY (13-7)

A frankly shocking result, though it confirms my opinion that white lions are the superior of the HE elite infantry. I have a hard time seeing how the warstar could have failed that match up, but his BSB refused to fluff and my armor saves, which had been sterling against empire and elf shooting, just weren't working out at all at this point. Ah well.

- Salvage

Always a fan of your reports and your scary lists, at least when I am in the audience. They get significantly less fun on the receiving end. Sadly, I think my Skaven of the Whitepaw Clan will get to meet you at 1500.

Enjoying reading your reports - especially with my new army being Warriors of Chaos.... Just for interests sake, have you ever tried (I know you're not planning any more games, but anyway ) running the flying BSB at 1k? Something like the below build seems alright as I plan my first 1k lists - an alternate to a sorc. (although I'm probably going to be running just a sorc. 'comme toi' at 1k insead. I know also that the fluff of your list has the Pimp leading it - maybe he has his powers disrupted by the enemy, or fights in an area of weak magic/magic vacuum (going off Truidi Cannavan here), and picks up a flail.

Exalted Hero (BSB): MofTz., Disc of Tz., Flail/Halberd, (204)
Enchanted Shield, Golden Eye of Tz.

Straight swap for the sorc., (in your case) would give the warrior block re-rolls, and is a very good chariot hunter (if not as good at harassing) - I'd probably run him with a normal shield and roar/book but hey - I used the points available .

What do you think of him as a general buy - if you're not looking to go magic heavy, or just fancy a change for casual gaming/find cool model etc.? I know at 1k it's nice to have the extra dispel dice that the sorc. brings, and the ranged capability. I know also the the only niche he seems to kinda fill is chariot hunter (as the horsemen have war machines covered), wizard/lone char. hunter (and march blocker). I guess he'd be good value in a low-magic blitz list as well - maybe even as a support for Valkia?

Anyway, keep up the great reports, looking forward to seeing the rest of the 1k games.

@ J - If you want a preview of a 1500 list I'm messing with I'd be happy to throwdown vs your rats on Monday. I know Drew stepped up, but he's taking everybody on on Monday apparently ...

@ DFire - Thanks for the kind words, hope your own WoC are having a happy rampage as well! I'm a big fan of the flying BSB, particularly in tizz magic spam lists. Give that man the book and you've got another caster, but he can also fight and make people reroll breaks, etc. I do agree with you, his main niche seems to be war machine obliteration, but he can also take most any cav if he gets a flank charge (4 S7 + CR1 isn't too shabby).

Did you check my recent 2250 game against the khorne dragon? That's my end list for now, and I'm happy to just have The Pimp on roar & march block duties. Up until a couple weeks ago I was set on running a disc lord, but a single disc does all the utility work I need and the demo-horse allows for a better supporting role for the main man. In a way my BSB likewise isn't on a disc because this way he's solidly supporting his boys, instead of flitting around and getting away from his duty as lockdown for my warrior line.

Catch my 1500 point list soon enough (Monday if J steps up to bat!), where the BSB does show up, but in a little different form than I initially intended ...

- Salvage

Back from a weekend of 40k (got 3 games to put up on my blogspot at some point ), spent a long day at the LGS and got another league game in. Warning right now, almost everything that could go wrong did, with dice being quite unkind

Game Fifteen: Brettonians

Brets 1000

H: Paladin - sword of might, 1+ save, lance, warhorse, etc
H: Paladin - BSB, warbanner, lance, shield, warhorse, etc
C: 5 KotR - full command
C: 5 Errant - full command
C: 20 M@A - full command
C: 10 Archers - stakes
S: 5 Yeomen - musician, bows, spears, shields
S: 3 Pegasus Knights - full command
R: Trebuchet

Scenario
Hidden Deployment - Deployment is done by sketching where you want things and then revealing your ingenious plans. He had a hill and I a wood, so I think we both knew what was going to go down.

Deployment
Brets (L2R): archers & treb on hill left side, m@a, errant + BSB, yeomen & pegs right behind, kotr + general
Tizz (L2R): horsemen, horsemen, BIG WOOD with disc behind it, warriors, warhounds & hellcannon right behind

All told we hardly broke into the right half of the table, keeping our deployments pretty focused. The Pimp rolled up flickering fire & transmogrification, my preferred spells.

Battle

Before the game began I had two thoughts: 1) "You know, it's about time Mr. Pimp miscast, what with three-dicing flicker all the time"; and 2) "Wow, with the hellcannon right against the hounds like this, if she rampaged she'd just bump into them and go nowhere." Wait for it!

Turn 1
The hellcannon rampaged on a 6-6 and ran into the warhounds in front of her, going nowhere. Horsemen powered up the flank and got ready to take on the archers and treb next turn, disc got into position to flicker knights and roar at archers, the puppies went zooming up to divert the kotr on the right, and the warriors stumped forward a bit. The Pimp went to flicker the errants - and rolled a miscast. A 10 tagged a wound off him and cost him his flicker, dropping him back to a level 1 In retaliation he roared at the archers for 12 (!) hits, killing 3 and panicing them off the hill.

Many, if largely inconsequential, charges followed. The yeomen charged the hounds, who fled. The pegs (+ errants, against their general's wishes) charged the right-most horsemen, who fled and pulled both units board left. Those archers kept running off the board (roar result!), the m@a turned to keep their front arc to the treb and the horsemen wanting to kill it, and the kotr trotted forward to keep pace with the yeomen. The treb scattered off the warriors and failed to partial two of them, and that was that.

Turn 2
Ready for it? Hellcannon rampaged on a 6-5 and boosted 12" to stare at the kotr. The horsemen who fled those charges failed to rally (on a 9, Pimp + musician) and left the table, and the hounds likewise scampered off the board. The other horsemen however happily charged the treb, angled to zip off the table and out of the m@a arc. The warriors marched up to keep even with the hellcannon and present front to the kotr and/or yeomen but not the errants far to their left. NOTE: My opponent here reminded me that pegs have a 360 LoS. I assured him I knew and so hoped The Pimp over the m@a, keeping him out of charge-ability but still able to mess with errants. It wasn't until I had transmogriphied 1 wound off the pegs and got 0 wounds with roar against the errants that I realized he meant that his pegs had a flank charge on my warriors. I got kinda upset, but reminded myself that I'd still get 6 static CR and would no doubt struggle through a dual charge I hadn't anticipated. In the treb combat the horsemen killed all the crew and did indeed run off the table.

So yea, combo-charge: pegs (1 wound down) into warrior flank, kotr w/ general into front. Yeomen moved backfield a bit to look at the disc or horsemen, and the errants reformed to face the warrior combat. Yeomen did nothing to the disc, and it was on to The Main Event. His dudes hit a LOT more than usual, my saves were decidedly poor (but still functioning, they would entirely give out after this combat) and in the end 4 warriors (1 the warstar champ), 1 knight and 1 wounded peg fell. Having beat the pegs below US5, the warstar beat both units by 1, but the proximity of the bret BSB meant they stuck. Whew - charge survived, next turn was retaliation.

Turn 3
The hellcannon behaved for once! But it didn't matter, as she wanted to flank the kotr 2" in front of her anyway, which she did. The horsemen returned to the field and out of the m@a's charge reach, and The Pimp trailed after the errants. Transmog's Ld test was passed (he only failed it that first time) by the errants, and roar flopped. Over in combat, the hellcannon + warriors dropped 3 knights (leaving champ + general) and wounded 1 peg, 1 warrior fell in return, both units broke and neither were caught - the warriors chased the pegs so they wouldn't be flanked by the errants + BSB, and the hellcannon chased the kotr (nabbing their banner in her jaws) to go terror the peasants.

Which it totally did, sending them fleeing far to the left and on to the ex-artillery hill. Both fleeing bret units rallied, with the kotr remnant presenting rear to the hellcannon's flank as she didn't have arc. HERE is where I noted a rampage would be really helpful, as she could go 360 and jump on them ... The BSB and his errants bit the bullet and charged the 15 remaining warriors, in a combat that we both thought was probably mine but in reality was going to come down to dice. He was sitting on 4CR (with 12US) and I had 4CR (with 15US). 3 warriors dropped (total save failure), 1 errant fell, and the warstar had lost by 1. I obliterated the needed 7 with a 9, fled 7" and was caught for a huge point swing. Sadness reigned across the chaos wastes once more

Turn 4
You know what's about to happen, right? I yelled out "NOW GET ANGRY, BITCH!" and the hellcannon rampaged for the third time (6-6 again!), rear-charging the bret general, who passed terror and held. The horsemen backed up away from the angry m@a block, but kept the hill between them and the pegs, and The Pimp floated over to mess with peasants or something. He tossed a long range transmog on the pegs who didn't care, and roar dropped 2 of the fleeing yeomen purely out of spite. The hellcannon ate the bret general (BWAHAHA!), lost a dwarf to the kotr champ and then ran him down, getting within terror range of the m@a.

Those yeomen rallied and looked at the horsemen about to skewer them, the m@a failed terror and fled between horsemen and yeomen, and the errants prepared to charge the hellcannon soonish. Pegs likewise milled about.

Turn 5
The hellcannon passed her rampage test and prepared to fire for the first time all game! Sadly she would scatter 8" off the errants - better than blowing up! - after the horsemen charged down the m@a and redirected into the yeomen, and The Pimp had drifted across the rear of the bret table edge and failed to transmog the errants. The horsemen easily speared their bret doppelgangers, but were left caught on the hill staring at the scary peg knights ...

After some debate they held the peg charge, deciding that he had to stop hitting sometime, right? Flop for the Flop God? The errants meanwhile cheerily slammed into the hellcannon, netting 103 points by killing a couple dwarfs. The hellcannon, with only vengeance on her mind, put everything into the BSB and did jack. NOTE: It wasn't until my drive home that I realized I could quite tactically have chewed on the unit instead. Ms. Nibbles needed 4+ to hit and 3+ to wound the BSB, vs 3+ and 2+ against the errants, which could have been reduced to auto-break level fairly easily. Bah. Anyway, hellcannon was unbreakable, and the pegs killed all 5 horsemen flat out, something I would have never expected from this player's dice.

Turn 6
Pimp skittered away and hid, scared of the pegs. Ms. Nibbles kept gnawing on the BSB for no return, and ran out of dwarfs if she hadn't already. She took a wound too.

The pegs opt to not terror off the board by trying to fight the 'cannon too. The knights and their horses put another wound on the demo-cannon, and she fails to eat the BSB again.

DRAW (10-10)

I will say I got so bent out of shape in this game not just because I felt like my dice punched me in the stomach early and often (double rampage, miscast, failed 9 rally, failed 7 break, 1 4+ or 5+ armor save made ever with warriors, etc), but because I was sure I had this game. If you read this Jeff, sorry for being a dick against you so often, but I guess your brets just drive me nuts or something Your dudes do deserve quite a bit of credit for hitting and wounding like knights for once, not dudes with nerf lances

Because I'm curious how the numbers run:
15 hellcannon attaks into the BSB = 1.11 wounds
15 hellcannon attaks into errants = 1.85 wounds

Hmm, so not overly significant. With the way I roll (poorly) I would still have been better off going for 3+ and 2+, and the way the brets were rolling armor and wards (poorly, when that's usually his specialty), it might have garnered me another 1/2 a unit or something. Neither 1/2 BSB or 1/2 errants would have tipped in my favor though, as we were about 50 points in his favor anyway. Eh.

One more game of 1000 to go, which could be against any of these dudes (Empire, High Elves, Brets) depending on how their games go against each other. With just 43 BP so far I'm certainly not doing as hot as in the 500 point bracket, but a big win (17+) would get me to 60+ and a commanding place in the overall ranking.

- Salvage

One of the more exciting batreps so far. Really wasn't sure how it was going to go. I appreciate the way you keep things concise while still relaying the critical details...

Thanks!

RZ

Wow Im impresd I must admit. You really knows how to wrtihe good battle reports, so keep em comming but do keep that army away from me, it makes me wnt to hide

Thanks for the kind words

For those waiting anxiously for more carnage (me included), I've got my final 1000 pointer on Wednesday vs the brets again! Excited to see what the rematch holds, particularly here at the heady heights of 1st & 2nd place

- Salvage

No offence, but I'm hoping for another 10-10 draw between you two. Trying to avoid you guys getting to far ahead of my rats.

Your record is much better than the 4-2-1 (without tourney) and 7-3-1 (with the tournament) that the rats are running. I do get to rematch against the High Elves who whipped me 20-0. Here's to hoping my dice do not betray me. Stupid Doomwheel moving 5" on 4D6.....

JJBCollect2 wrote:Your record is much better than the 4-2-1 (without tourney) and 7-3-1 (with the tournament) that the rats are running. I do get to rematch against the High Elves who whipped me 20-0. Here's to hoping my dice do not betray me. Stupid Doomwheel moving 5" on 4D6.....

Looks like my league record is not enormously different: 5-1-1 (without) and 8-2-1 (with tournament). Most of my wins were huge massacres @ 500 points, which it's looking like my army can't really pull off as things keep getting larger. As to our Top 4 matches this week, the cool thing is that barring a 20-0 from me, #2 brets or #3 high elves the pack is still pretty tight - and that includes all the armies in the bottom half of the Top Eight, any of which could jump up with a big win.

I think at this point the only thing I know to expect from Jeff's brets is the unexpected! Good luck to you in your own game, hopefully you'll maul him enough to stay in the top bracket sos we can get a slugfest or two in

- Salvage

Looking forward to more. In my experience, the massacre potential with any list is higher at lower points levels. As you get larger, it's more and more likely that someone has an answer to whatever you've got.

RZ

Hey there Boss - no need to apologize. I was getting pretty ticked at the dice rolls too, although the bad rolls seemed tipped to your side (and not in the good way). Just be thankful you didn't play me last week - I felt pretty bad for the High Elf player I played, my ward save was spot-on against his great weapons his Lions and Swordsmasters were pretending to use...


I am looking forward to this week's game as well. Hopefully the dice act a little more normal, and maybe our war machines won't act as dumb as they have in the past. Although I must admit, I wouldn't be overly disappointed if your dude miscasts again and loses flicker... not in the least.

We'll see - I may change things up pretty considerably, maybe bring something you haven't seen before.

But then again, maybe not.

jayzerus wrote:Hopefully the dice act a little more normal, and maybe our war machines won't act as dumb as they have in the past.

Spoke too soon dude ...

Game Sixteen: Brettonians

Brets 1000

H: Paladin - enchanted shield
H: Paladin - BSB, virtue of duty
C: 5 KotR - warbanner, full command
C: 5 Errants - errantry banner, full command
C: 20 Archers - skirmish
S: 5 Yeomen - musician, bows, spears, shields
S: 3 Pegasus Knights - full command
R: Trebuchet

Believe me, I was surprised to see that massive blob of peasants too! But he had created some nice CR in his two knight units as well, presumably to tackle the warstar with.

Tizz 1000

H: Sorcerer - MoT, blood of tzeentch, talisman of protection, roar, disc
C: 21 Warriors - MoT, warbanner, full command, shields
C: 5 Horsemen - musician, spears, light armor
C: 5 Horsemen - musician, spears, light armor
C: 5 Warhounds
R: Hellcannon

Very little change for me as well, the main thing was trying to figure out a way to not be level 2 but still have some kind of casting pump. I figured I'd give blood a shot, but I do now understand its primary downside: it costs 30 points so doesn't stack with anything very useful. Talisman would mean no sexy 3+ ward against his shooting, but when was the last time his filthy peasants managed to wound him? Also I got another warrior out of the deal.

Scenario
Bitter Rivals - If the enemy general is dead at the end of the game and yours isn't, gain 2x the bonus points for slain general. If your general kills his, gain 3x. An absolutely perfect one to roll for such a reeeeematch.

Deployment
Brets (L2R): KotR + general, yeomen (on hill), errants + BSB, pegs, then over in the NE corner treb with archer blob in front.
Tizz (L2R): disc, warhounds directly in front of warriors (and across from yeomen, so lances to either side), hellcannon (LoS from the treb blocked by a ruined building), both horsemen units right flank to make a suicide run into the archer blob + treb.

I'll note here that whatever follows, I only feel like I really messed up by putting anything across from the treb. With so much small bow fire AND the pegs threatening to intervene, my horsemen were a 162 point gift waiting to happen ...

Battle
All I'll say right now is that I had resolved that, no matter what happened, I would take it with a laugh and shoulder on. Well, I would certainly be put to the test

Turn 1
Ms. Hellcannon starts things off right, by rampaging 14" right at the errantry errants. The warstar stomps up, their dogs split left to interfere with the KotR, the disc scoots up to flicker range off the KotR's left flank, and the horsemen move up in such a way that only one could be charged by the pegs, flee and let the other have a shot at poking peasants. Flicker is blooded up and dispelled anyway, but then it turns out that the disc is just in 12" ...

The Pimp took a deep breath and roared at the knights and their general, sending flecks of blood and wisps of flame along with the wall of noise. Armor plates buckled, reins unraveled and the unit standard shredded under the unstoppable torrent, but the paladin and the champion to his right and standard bearer to his left gritted their teeth and bore out the torment. The three knights behind them however were not able to resist the assault, and their skulls were vibrated to fragments, brains jellying in the barrage. Their general glanced back and was overcome by the eruption of gore out of shining Brettonian plate, and had to stifle the urge to vomit as he rode at full speed away from the unholy chaos wretch.

Roar rolls a 10, randomizes around and vaporizes 3 knights (4x 6!), and the unit box cars its break and leaves the table. Whoa. At this point the bret player contemplates calling it, before taking a turn.

But he stuck it out: Errants actually pass impetuous but slam into the hellcannon anyway, and the pegs charge the horsemen they could see, who flee through a forest and stick the pegs right in front of the other horsemen. Yeomen drop 2 puppies and they fail panic, the peasant blob fells 2 horsemen from the free unit, effectively neutralizing them for anything useful, and the treb misfires just like I asked it too! Fortunately for the brets it had only flubbed the shot and lived on. In combat everybody goes into the hellcannon and cause 3 wounds, while the beast eats a couple knights and doesn't particularly care.

Turn 2
The horsemen fail their 8 to rally and leave the table, while the hounds easily rally (!). The warstar moves up to menace the flank of the errants sometime in the future, while the disc glides over to harass the yeomen, while keeping the hill between it and the treb / archer blob. The 3 remaining horsemen decide to throw themselves away and charged the pegs, knowing they're dead meat. Flicker is blooded and shut down (seriously, he kept matching me, despite the blood boost) against the yeomen, and roar only drops 1. Combat, the horsemen are indeed killed to a man by angry flying horses, and the hellcannon loses a dwarf while it chews up all the errants besides the champ + BSB. Draw combat though, so meh.

Pegs reposition to intercept something chaos-y at some point (i.e. flitted over to board center), and yeomen fast cav over to the disc's flank. The treb slams a rock onto the warriors and kills 6 (!), who pass panic, and the excellent shooting continues with the 4 yeomen tapping a wound onto the disc - a wound, I note, that I would have warded on a 3+ In combat the errant champ is devoured and the BSB broke, and is caught by Ms. Angry.

Turn 3
Time to take a risk ... Hellcannon is in control for once, and turns to shoot the peasant blob and panic them away. The warstar continues its long walk to the NE corner, and the disc snuggles up on the left flank of the hellcannon, using it as a shield against peg charges. Here is where I should note that since I woke up this morning, I knew in my bones that if I fired the hellcannon, it would misfire with a 1 and explode. Not kidding, I knew this. Anyway ... Flicker flops again, and the hellcannon misfires, on a 1. The radius includes the sorcerer - he takes 2 wounds from 5 S5 hits - as well as the warstar, which loses 3 warriors to 6 S5 hits. I laugh at this a lot, but it's game over man, for real this time

The brets blink at the chaos self-destruction and begin harassing the warstar, the only remotely viable chaos threat. The yeomen march block it and drop a warrior or so, the treb might have killed some, and the peasant blob probably helped too. I was easily failing 50%+ of my 3+ saves, and made 1 6+ ward out of the next 3 turns. Now that's not even exciting luck, just bad

Turn 4-6
The warstar struggles toward the NE corner, but being march blocked they never had a chance. In turn 6 they turn to look at the peg knights and expand frontage with the 7 warriors remaining.

Yeomen, peasant blob and treb hammer the warriors down, but do not panic them. Pegs contemplate playing with them but turn it down.

TIZZ LOSS (4-16)

So yeah, that really happened After a phenomenal first turn or two from me, my immanent victory quickly tore itself to pieces. At these low points not getting a single flicker off vs 2 dispel dice really hurts, but in larger points I'm willing to have it just be a cool thing with a low chance of miscast. The hellcannon, well I'm not surprised one bit that it misfired so spectacularly at last, and I'll keep her around because 205 points is pretty cheap for such a lovely huge unbreakable thing. I'd like to use a tizz giant, but 245 is rough, and T5 is really pretty unacceptable

For those keeping track, this makes the Top Four going into 1500 points Brets (113 BP), WoC (110 BP), HE (106), WE (101). It's going to get pretty crazy now, with armored/warded knights vs armored/warded infantry vs shooty/magicy/ASF elves vs shooty/treemonic/skirmishy elves ...

1000 Points Fluff End Cap
An armored boot prodded at the Pimp's congealing remains, disturbing the play of witchfire across the bloodied robes. The sorcerer's form was already re-knitting itself, while his pet disc was fully regenerated and skimming for crows drawn to the slaughter.

"Blood of Tzeentch indeed," The Duke scoffed and motioned his personal retinue of warriors forward. A new crew of mutated dwarfs had gone to work rebuilding the hellcannon, and the Duke had brought along a coven of thrall sorcerers to rebind the machine's demon within its frame. She would not be pleased but the Duke could care less - the Pimp had allowed the she-demon far too much leeway and paid for it with his un-life. The Duke had no intention of letting her, or the enemies that the Pimp had made in this contested realm, walk over his men.

The battle standard bearer shook his head, hefted the horned eye banner and went to speak to the newly arrived barbarian horsemen. There was so much to be done before war was once more joined, and certainly no time for dwelling on the failings of sorcerers.

- Salvage

Tough break in the last game Salvage.

The rats suffered a similar disaster. Having a solid 18-2 lead heading into the bottom of the 4th, until the doomwheel failed a 7 inch charge so they could take one from some pheonix guard. Then the final rat ogre gets cut down by a bolt thrower crewmen, and to end it, the mage panics my generals unit in the bottom of the sixth.

End result 10 - 10 draw

Current record is 8-2-2

You know, I've learned to expect the unexpected, and to count on the dice to work completely backwards anytime I play you.


I kinda surprised myself with the mob - I never really considered doing anything like that before. I liked the potential that they present though - there aren't many fast cav units that can withstand 20 shots, even if they are BS3 ST3. Needing 5s and 4s (or 4s and 4s if within 15") usually means at least a panic test. I'll admit though, I was moderately disappointed that I only nailed 2 of your marauders in that first volley. I agree completely that if you had deployed them differently, the game would have gone much, much different.

So looks like we'll get a chance to square off again next round. I think I'm going to keep the mob, mainly for protection for the treb against fast cav and such, and maybe trying to get a pop-shot on a lone character or two. I'm going to have to figure out how to counter the next deathstar that will be staring at me from across the table. I'm thinking 2 12-man lances should do the trick...


Bummer I don't get to squish rats next round. Stupid elves.

jayzerus wrote:
Bummer I don't get to squish rats next round. Stupid elves.

Same here, especially because SOME ratty generals seem to think this is a competition or something! (I'm at 8-3-1 now )

If you run the numbers on your big blob vs the marauders: 20 shots @ 5+ = 20/3 hits @ 4+ = 10/3 wounds @ (5+ armor) = 20/9 or 2.22 wounds. So just about average

Now if you run the numbers on 4 yeomen vs my discer: 5 shots @ 5+ = 4/3 hits @ 5+ = 4/9 wounds @ (3+ armor) = 4/27 @ (5+ ward) = 8/81 or 0.10 wounds

But since we're at it, how about a 10 roar doing 3 wounds vs KotR: 10 hits @ 2+ (randomize off general) = 25/3 hits @ 6+ = 25/18 @ (6+ ward) = 125/108 or 1.16 wounds ... and that's ignoring the probability of rolling 10 hits on 2 dice. Or of you failing the panic check.

The moral of the story: madness!

- Salvage

Lovin' it! Thanks for the posts. Nice to be reading about non-tournament style armies clashing for a change of pace.

RZ

Got the first of the 1500 block in, against a HE player that you'll all recognize from my other posts. Except now he had a lot more elite troops and a lot more magic than he did at 500

Game Seventeen: High Elves

Tizz 1500

H: Sorcerer - MoT, golden eye, book of secrets, roar, disc
H: Exalted - MoT, BSB, talisman of protection, favor, halberd
C: 20 Warriors - MoT, warbanner, full command, shields
C: 19 Warriors - MoT, rapturous standard, full command, shields
C: 5 Horsemen - musician, spears, light armor
C: 5 Horsemen - musician, spears, light armor
R: Hellcannon

Even though I'm ultra-paranoid of miscasting in general, I decided that I'd suck it up and book it through 1500 points, as I'm pretty fond of two-dicing magic missiles and have some hope one will get through the 2-4 dispel dice I should be up against. Otherwise infantry is the name of the game, though I'm quickly learning just how slow 4" really is - my other armies are skaven (5" but don't want to fight) and ogres (6" ho!) ...

High Elves 1500

H: Mage - extra spell, ring of fury
H: Mage - pick spells, scroll
C: 10 Archers
S: 12-14 Swordmasters - full command, talisman of loec
S: 12 White Lions - full command, lion standard, gem of courage
S: 6 Phoenix Guard - full command, banner of sorcery
S: 5 Shadow Warriors
S: Tiranoc Chariot
R: Bolter
R: Bolter

Whoa. I was pretty surprised this was 1500 points, and I suppose I was fairly worried about his UBER magic phase. But I mean, he'll just miscast right? Right?? Also, isn't that too many special? Bolters aren't 2 per slot, are they? Well, that's what he had

Scenario
Warpstone Hunt - Token goes down board center and scatters D6", a unit holding it gets +1PD / +1DD for its side but also takes D6 S5 hits with no armor save (!!) and end of turn. A side holding it at game end netted +150 VP. Suffice to say, neither of us wanted to hold onto it

Magic
The Pimp: flickering fire, dark hand of death
Elf General: rule of burning iron, law of gold, spirit of the forge
Elf Lackey: second sign, thunderbolt

Deployment
HE (L2R): bolter hard left, white lions + general, chariot, swordmasters, archers + mage on hill right flank, bolter on same hill, phoenix guard in NE corner
Tizz (L2R): horsemen hard left, (wood), warstar, rapturestar + BSB, hellcannon, horsemen right flank, disc (both with large wood between artillery hill and them)

Shadow warriors scouted behind a building hard left.

Battle
Thoughts: This is going to be pretty painful, but if I go first and manage to hellcannon any one unit off the table I'll have half a chance. I roll a 1 for first, and he wins it easily.

Turn 1
The elves pretty much don't feel like moving, except for the PG who shuffle up and the chariot which begins redeploying to the left to threaten the poor horsemen misdeployed over there. I should also note that his line was about 2" back from 12", smart move. Magic is blessedly minimal: the banner gives just +1 PD, and with 7 + ring of fury the only result is second sign giving two rerolls and two warriors from the rapturestar dying. Shooting goes into the horsemen units, dropping one from the left and wiping out the right unit. The Pimp is unimpressed and shakes off the barbarian bits.

Madame Hellcannon opens the game by ... staying sane! She stays still to hammer the swordmasters, while the warrior blocks power up 8", the remaining horsemen hide behind the left building and the disc hops over his wood to sit just out of LoS of the PG. With much cracking of knuckles, the Pimp winds up a two-dice dark hand at the bolter ... . A 3+1 miscast later and he's down 1 wound, and the follow up flicker is easily dispelled. His roar is utterly unimpressive too, with 3 hits doing nothing to the PG. The hellcannon lands a template right at the feet of the swordmasters ... and misfires. She decides to eat all her crew and spend the rest of the game rampaging

So that could have gone worse, but not by much

Turn 2
The HE make sure that really just happened, then shrug and get on with the shooting and magicing. Shadow warriors move out to shoot at the horsemen, the general mage exits his unit for the NW corner, the archers turn to irritate the disc and their mage hops out to avoid being charged. Magic puts up a few rerolls but is otherwise fairly floppy - perhaps a warrior or so from the rapturestar fell. He tries to law of gold the BSB's favor off, but doesn't roll 4+. Shooting, the shadow warriors do nothing to the horsemen, the bolters patter off the rapturestar and clean up a rank (3x5 left), and in an utterly infuriating show of incompetence I fail the single wound put on my general by 8 archers. Seriously: 8 bows @ 5+ to hit = 0.1 wounds against a T4 dude with 3/3+ save .......... At this point my cool shattered and I stomped the die that failed that save, though it cheekily didn't care

With little desire to carry this on, I was happy for once that the hellcannon wanted to do her own thing. Ms. Nibbles rampages many inches after the shadow warriors (behind a forest!), whom the 4 remaining horsemen charge, losing 1 on the stand-n-shoot. The warstar stomps 4" towards the white lions, and the rapturestar heads 8" into the face of the swordmasters. A horsemen is hacked down, but an elf is speared in the process, meaning the SW lose by 1 (but easily hold).

Turn 3-4
The swordmasters charge the rapturestar, the white lions back up (!) from the warstar while the chariot eyes its flank, and there is some token movement from the other elves. Magic nets more rerolls, and between it and shooting 4 warriors from the warstar are killed. The elf general attempts to snipe the warstar champ with RoBI, but he makes his ward! The SW kill a horsemen and restrain from chasing the last one as he runs off, unable to rally. In the main event, the swordmaster champ loec's up and dices the rapture champ for 3CR, the exalted wards 3 wounds () but then fails to hit with ALL 4 attaks, and I don't think a single non-champion swordmaster or warrior dies - elite infantry ftw The SM lose on static CR, break and run 8", with the warriors 1" behind them.

The hellcannon rampages through the woods and terrors the SW away, just out of charge range, and the rapturestar charges the fleeing SM and pushes them off the table. The warstar shuffles 4" after the retreating white lions, cursing bitterly.

Turn 5
SW rally, and the white lions finally man (elf) up and charge the warstar, with the chariot slamming their flank. All magic and shooting goes into the rapture star, reducing them to about half. In Fight Land, the war champ takes a single wound from the lion champ but makes his ward! He retaliates by decapitating the woodself. In fact, the only chaos casualty is a single warrior from the chariot's impacts, while the elves take a wound on the chariot and lose a couple white lions as well. The chariot holds @ -4, and the lions stubbornly stick around.

Sticking with what works, the hellcannon rampages again and charges the SW, who terror a second time and die on the building behind them. The rapturestar, unable to reach the artillery hill (which the archers had cleared off of last turn), reforms to try to get the BSB into 12" of the warstar. Turns out they don't need the help: the chariot is destroyed, some lions die, and the war champ makes his ward after a couple elves try to assassinate him! The lions hold no prob.

Turn 6
PG grab the SE table, and then all magic and fire goes into the rapturestar - it lives with 5 + BSB. The war champ finally succumbs to all that S6, but the lions lose again. The warstar expands to 6 wide (11 remain total).

Ms. Heck continues raging and charges the flank of the white lions, and the Duke leaves his unit to stand nearby the warstar and offer support. Many lions die but not quite all - 3 remain ... BUT they fail their break! Big points!

DRAW (10-10)

What started out truly terribly ended up a mere 2 point win to the High Elves, thanks to warriors being frightening. Our dice turned from 'horrific' (mine) and 'scary' (his) to 'decent but terrible at saving' (mine) and 'floppy' (his) about midway, which I guess I'll credit with some of this draw You'll note that I mashed some turns together there in the middle - wherever the missing turn is, you can bet that my warriors stumbled after their targets and got shot, the hellcannon had a very low roll (turn 3), and actually both elf wizards miscast. Turn 3 I think his general got the 4 result I did (took a wound), and around turn 4 the other miscast (no wound) and ended the phase. So I'll thank his general's miscast and the white lions timely break, without which it'd have been a loss. Thanks elves for coming through when that Pimp bastard couldn't

- Salvage

Nice! Way to pull the draw after a truly appalling opening turn.

I like reading these for some of the non-standard builds and plays. Talisman of Loec on a Swordmaster champ? Weird, but interesting. I mean, it kills the champ, but I guess it gives a pretty good shot at taking down a hero level character.

It was also a pretty bold charge with the swordmasters. I mean, they're good, but that still seemed like a tall order.

RZ

So I was already pretty beat from smashing on my buddy Dictator Games - WHFB: 2250 my Skaven vs his TK, BFG: 1250 my Chaos vs his Orks - but it was time for the next round of 1500 league mayhem. And who was up?

Game Eighteen: Brettonians

Brets 1500

H: Paladin - sword of D3 wounds, e. shield? (1+ save)
H: Paladin - BSB, virtue of duty, questing vow
C: 8 Errants - errantry banner, full command
C: 6 Errants - full command
C: 6 KotR - full command
C: 17 Archers - skirmish
C: 20 M@A - full command
S: 5 Questing Knights - full command
S: 3 Pegs - full command
S: 5 Yeomen - musician, bows, spears, shields
R: Trebuchet

I took the same list as last time, including the book.

Scenario
Harbingers of Doom! - Both sides get 3 models (M5, T4, W2, 5+ ward, unbreakable) that can be exploded in either player's shooting phase. They explode with the big template, S4 AP, and behave as normal unbreakable single model units otherwise. Pitched battle otherwise.

Magic
The Pimp: flickering fire, fireball

Deployment
Brets (L2R): errants hard left, harbinger!, yeomen, archer blob, questers + BSB, KotR, M@A, errantry errants + general, harbinger!, treb on ground level, harbinger!, (hill), pegs
Tizz (L2R): horsemen left, harbinger!, hellcannon center, rapturestar + BSB, harbinger!, warstar, disc (behind wood), harbinger!, horsemen right

Battle
My only thought at this point? That this was the first game against Brets I didn't put much thought into beforehand. After two crazy games were my dice were burning I didn't know what to expect from Uncle Tizz!

Turn 1
Left horsemen boost up to think about messing with the archer blob, rapturestar and warstar shimmy up slightly to keep warstar's right flank to the woods, the discer hops the woods to grab some LoS on the errants while avoiding the pegs on the other side of the Bret hill, and the right horsemen trot up to tempt the pegs with a long charge. The left harbinger powers 10" into board center, the mid zips up 10" to bait the errants, and the right likewise advances 10" to support things. Flicker + fireball are shutdown or do nothing to the errants, roar is out of range, and the hellcannon guesses about 8" too far to hit the errants

First up: errantry errants fail their check and charge my mid harbinger. Other movement sends the left errants down their flank, yeomen show their flank to my left horsemen, some shuffling happens otherwise. The treb scatters off the warstar, the blob drops a rider from the left horsemen, and many harbingers are detonated: his left vs the left horsemen does nothing, and his mid one vs the disc likewise has no effect. My one fighting the errants nukes 1 errant and strands the unit - because they have no opponent they can't overrun and are sitting 8.1" away from the warstar ...

Turn 2
Hellcannon keeps it in her pants again (!!) and hangs out, while the left horsemen charge the yeomen (who flee, not panicing the blob and staying on the table), the warstar marches to just under the errantry errant's nose, the rapturestar keeps close to its left flank, the disc hopes into the Bret backfield to look at the treb, right horsemen fail a long charge against pegs, and the harbingers move out, with the left blocking the questers from charging against either star and the right looking to tackle some peasants. Fireball is dispelled against the treb, while a 5 S2 flicker kills 2 crew and roar flops. Ms. Hellcannon fires another really poorly guessed shot at the KotR, but misfires (!) and devours her crew. I smell some RAMPAGE a-coming!

The Brets know this tune but man up: errantry errants w/ general + KotR combo-charge the warstar. Unfortunately 1 peg knight can see The Pimp, they pass fear, and after a very long debate I hold - and they're @ 21" out. Whew ... Yeomen rally, errants continue down the left flank but are frightened of the 360 charge of Ms. Nibbles, and there's some token movement otherwise. His last harbinger pops on my right horsemen, dropping 1, and the treb copies the hellcannon and misfires, unable to fire next turn. The blob shoots the 4 horsemen looking at it for no wounds, and the yeomen fire at the disc for nothing. Combat: the warchamp parries all the attaks from the bret general and deals none back, and then 4 warriors drop from the storm of lances and hooves. The warstar needs a 6 and rolls it. Hurr!

Turn 3 - The Poundening!
The rapturestar flanks the KotR locked in with the warstar (this exposes the rapture flank to the questers for now, but meh), the left horsemen charge the blob (and lose 2 on the way in), the disc hops to the left of the questers + BSB, the right horsemen head around the NE hill to look at the treb, my left harbinger charges the yeomen, and the right one charges the M@A. Oh, and the hellcannon rampaged towards the KotR but couldn't make contact, so just parked next to the rapturestar and salivated. Flicker (2 S7) + fireball manage 1 dead quester, and roar drops another. The harbinger detonates vs the yeomen and kills 3, and the other explodes against the M@A and nets 8 . In the main event, the warchamp falls to the bret general (D3 = 1 wound), and many many brettonians die. Both units need snake-eyes and fail twice each, and both the twinstars easily catch them (!!), heading board-east and escaping a flank or rear from the questers. The Duke claims both enemy standards for safe keeping. The horsemen meanwhile kill 1 peasant, do not outnumber, but took their horn - the archers easily pass their -1 break.

Fairly demoralized, the Brets begin to play it cagey (cagier). The errants that had cruised the left flank sally out onto the board a little bit, the questers back up to avoid hellcannon range and expose the Pimp to some brutal yeomen fire, the pegs fly back to the NE corner to protect their darling treb from those mean horsemen, and the M@A are taunted with the flank of the rapturestar but won't come play 2 yeomen don't scratch the Pimp, and in combat the blob loses again on musician but passes, dropping a horseman in the process.

Turn 4
And now begins a less exciting half for the infantry player ... The rapturestar turns around and heads back to where the knights are, with the warstar in close pursuit. The horsemen tangoing with the pegs moves up into their face with the intent of being charged and hopefully pulling them off the table when they break, buying me a turn without peg knights for 81 points - a steal IMO! Hellcannon flips out and heads after those 2 tasty yeomen. The Pimp, seeing that those left-flank errants could maybe get him in their arc, backs up about 2", but doesn't take advantage of the ability to check LoS anytime in friendly games ............... He fireballs the 2 yeomen and does 1 wound (5 failed wounds!), flicker does nothing to questers, and roar is a wash. The last horseman fighting the blob wins combat again, but the archers easily pass on -1.

Pegs charge the horsemen, and it turns out that the errants can in fact see and charge the disc. I am saddened this but can only take it - though I will say it's nice to lose something on a purely human error for once . The questers refuse to play with the rapturestar and probably back up 4", while that last yeoman is sent to stand next to the hellcannon and bait the beast. The treb scatters off the warstar (which is at 15 models, by the by). Combat, the disc is killed, the last horseman loses against the blob and breaks, unable to rally, and the pegs kill 3 horsemen, send the last running, fail to restrain but then roll 5" to stay on the table! Blarg!

Turn 5
Madame Smash continues rampaging and chases that yeoman, who flees and won't rally. The rapturestar stomps up and the Duke makes obscene gestures at his French counterpart in the questing knight unit. The warstar walks around and looks at the M@A to its right.

Errants turn to stare at the rapturestar, the questing knights wet themselves at all that CR, and pegs move back to contemplate a final turn combo-charge. The blob tags 1 warrior from the rapturestar, dropping it to static CR 5 The treb misses.

Turn 6
The Duke yawns, takes out a copy of Lolita and gets his Nabokov on. Meanwhile Ms. Nibbles charges the M@A, who fail terror and are run down.

The Brets actually think about sending errants, questers, BSB and pegs into the rapturestar, but decide against it. The errants don't feel the need to rush to their certain doom. Also, the treb kills itself

TIZZ VICTORY (13-7)

So the scenario was certainly odd, and I suppose it favored me by giving me a) more junk units, b) that move 360, c) that hurt T3 guys more than T4 ones. Pulling the errants out was about the best use I could have made with them, but it was somewhat countered by me idiotically getting the Pimp killed. Without that 265 point gift I'd be sitting at a 15-5, if not even better as I would have had something to do for the last third of the game

Not a bad showing though, warstar continues to shine.

This Saturday is a 1000 point tournament, which I'll be taking this fairly familiar list to:

Tizz 1000

H: Sorcerer - MoT, golden eye, book of secrets, bloodcurdling roar, disc of tzeentch
C: 20 Warriors - MoT, warbanner, full command, shield
C: 5 Horsemen - musician, spears, throwing spears, light armor
C: 5 Horsemen - musician, spears, throwing spears, light armor
C: 5 Warhounds
R: Hellcannon

Stay tuned Dakka!

- Salvage

The 1000 point league tournament went down yesterday, and was a pretty simple affair overall, with three pitched battles, rankings by BP, etc. I made a couple mistakes that cost me any prize $, but I had a fun time smashing along on a blustery day in Albany.

Game Nineteen: Tomb Kings

TK 1000

H: Prince - flail, chariot
H: Liche - jar, steed [heiro]
H: Liche - brooch, steed
C: 5 Light Horse - music
C: 5 Light Horse - music
C: 10 Bowmen
C: 10 Bowmen
C? 1 Swarm
S: 3 Ushabti

Ahhh, I finally got to play DictatorGames and his speedy TK. The TK play a much different game from my WoT (or most armies), so I was excited, and also worried I'd get the Pimp killed by all that stuff that could effectively charge 360 ...

Magic
The Pimp: flickering fire, fireball

Deployment
TK (L2R): ushabti, prince, bowmen on hill, horsemen + liche behind hill, horsemen + liche next to hill, bowmen in a line
Tizz (L2R): disc, hellcannon right next to warstar, warhounds, horsemen, (large wood), horsemen

The swarm burrows about 6" in front of the warstar.

Battle

Turn 1
Hellcannon doesn't rage, and won't the entire game. Both horsemen mobilize up for the single rank skeletons, the warhounds power straight up just because. Warstar marches up, with the hellcannon hugging its flank. The disc hops over to engage the ushabti, and fireball / flicker / roar drop 1 construct.

And at this point DG makes it clear how bad I've ballsed up by being greedy with the Pimp: his prince spins around and drives to look at my 195 point general, while the heiro & friends slide over to put another incantation AND the jar within range of the prince. Elsewhere the ushabti move towards the warstar, the other liche & co. slide a bit, and the hill archers turn to look at marauder horsemen. Magic Time: prince wills himself forward on a 6, and I let it go as it was inevitable. The Pimp flees to within ~4" of the board edge. Other incantations move the ushabti up 5" more, and make some archers shoot horsemen. Between that volley and the shooting phase, three horsemen die from the right unit.

Turn 2
The Pimp makes it easy on the prince and fails to rally, leaving the table. The hellcannon and warstar move up again, using a building to protect the left flank of the 'cannon as well. Both horsemen charge into the single-ranked skellies, but the two-barbarian unit fails fear and sits this one out. The dogs boost a further 14" to reach the TK DZ and stare at both liche units. No magic and no shooting now (), so only fighting! The marauders fumble and spear only one deadite, but their horses drop another three; after the other skellies fail to drag down any fleshies, ONE skeleton is left from crumbling, keeping the horsemen from overruning into the liche 2" behind

Ushabti move for the warstar, the prince drives over to gain LoS on the hellcannon & the star, liche slide about with their units, and the hill bowmen turn to look East at the hounds. Magic boosts the prince into combat with the hellcannon, heals back the third ushabti with 1 wound, and makes the hill archers shoot the hounds - 1 drops, the unit panics to the other side of the horsemen / skeleton combat. Shooting faffs into the fleeing dogs (no wounds) or the two horsemen (no wounds). Combat sees the prince power flop, with impacts and flail attaks possibly killing 1 dwarf. Return attaks all go into the chariot, ripping two wounds out of it. CR comes up with -2 for the prince, one of which frags the chariot and the other wounds the prince. I'll say at this point that I was pretty worried about losing all my chaos dwarfs and having Ms. Nibbles eat the prince and have to suffer the curse against her Ld 4 In the horseman combat they pulp the last skelly pretty decisively.

Turn 3
Inexplicably, the horsemen find a liche + cav escort still right in front of them, so they pass fear and charge on in. The hounds meanwhile don't rally and run off the TK table edge, and the two horsemen hide behind the large SE woods to save their delicious 43 points. The warstar stomps up 4" and gestures at the ushabti to bring it. The horsemen drop 3-4 of their undead number on the charge, suffer no wounds in return and dust the liche and unit. They overrun off the table. In the prince / demo-cannon combat, the undead general dropped a dwarf but survived the beast's cuddles to tie combat.

Ushabti head on into the warstar (fear passed), and the heiro & hill archers jockey around to prepare for the ghostbusting horsemen to return. Magic has the prince get a free attak on dwarfs (fluffed), and the heiro make the ushabti attak as well - which goes better, killing 1-2 warriors and removing a rank. In combat proper, the ushabti pummel a warrior and then are reduced to dust through CR and a handful of wounds. The prince batters down a dwarf (netting half points), but then is eaten by the monster. Her remaining dwarf handler passes the curse no problem.

Turn 4
Things are looking grim for the TK, though the remaining chaos troops are outright ponderous versus the zippy heiro and friends. The warstar begins heading to the right of the hill behind which the heiro is sheltered, which will also put them into the ex-hill archers with any luck. The hellcannon marches to the left of the hill, looking to put LoS on both sides of the terrain piece should the heiro try to escape. The horsemen (still at full strength) return to the table and turn their front arc to both the heiro and ranked archers, though their throwing spears fail to wound a light cav skelly.

The ranked skellies power up and charge into the horsemen (fear passed), while the heiro keeps hiding behind his hill. Magic makes the skellies attak, which which results in many hits, a couple wounds and a couple saves. After a brief respite to shoot warriors (no luck), the skeletons continue excelling with their hits, this time tearing two horsemen from their saddles. The horsemen return the favor by smashing three skellies, for a drawn combat (musician pops a skeleton). Oh, and the swarm showed up and began crawling for the two horsemen hiding in my DZ, but is so slow that it never caught them.

Turn 5
Warstar stomps up! Hellcannon stomps up! The corral around the heiro tightens ... Fighting, the skeletons drop another horseman, lose one in return, and auto-break the remaining two off the table. The five skellies continue off the table.

Annnd they return, moving up and angling to divert the warstar next turn. Unfortunately the heiro + friends slide their unit a bit too close behind the frontage of the skellies, lining them up for an overrun.

Turn 6
Warstar passes fear, slams into the skeleton speed bump and vaporizes them, carries into the heiro and boys and ...

... detonates them as well. The swarm doesn't crumble.

TIZZ VICTORY (18-2)

A somewhat disheartening start to the tourny getting my general / 25% of my points / my most versatile and aggressive weapon taken out through being greedy, ended up as a crushing victory mostly thanks to those horsemen smashing their way through 15 skeletons, 5 light cav and a liche. Hellcannon & warstar did well too, but nowhere near the performance of those 86 point barbarians and their ponies

Next Up: DOOMWHEEL at long last!

- Salvage

kool

eldarbgamer13 wrote:kool

Glad you enjoy

Lunch break from reading, how about another round?

Game Twenty: Skaven

Skaven 1000

H: Chieftain 'Steve Handtaker' - sword of might, enchanted shield
H: Chieftain BSB - banner of the under empire, shield
H: Engineer - level 1, staff of sorcery
C: 25+ Clanrats - full command, shields
C: 25 Clanrats - full command, shields
C: 20+ Giant Rats - 3+ packmasters
C: 20+ Giant Rats - 3+ packmasters
S: 4 Rat Ogres - 2 packmasters
R: Doomwheel

There may have been another unit (!) of clanrats in there, but I can't remember if it did anything if so. Props to JJBCollect2 for a fully painted 1000 points and for currently leading the league rankings. His doomwheel has been running amok, and I was more than a little worried about how I was supposed to handle the thing.

Magic
The Pimp: flickering fire, fireball
Engineer: warp lightning

Deployment
Rats (L2R): doomwheel left flank, (large wood), giant rats, rat ogres, clanrats + general + BSB, giant rats + engineer, clanrats
Tizz (L2R): horsemen left flank, disc, warhounds, warstar, hellcannon, horsemen right flank

Battle

Turn 1
Skaven start things off with some contained forward movement, except for the doomwheel slamming ~14" down the flank. Warp lightning makes it through (I rolled 1-2-3 for dispel ) and kills all five right horsemen, and the wheel tags the left horsemen with 3x S10 shots, equaling three more dead barbarians. Panic is passed.

Hellcannon behaves and will do so the entire game (!), and stumps ahead 6". The warriors likewise march up full-ish, with the warhounds jumping in front of them to bait the rat ogres into charge range. The remaining horsemen run up to the wheel's flank, and the pimp scoots over to try desperately to hurt it. Magic is either dispelled or can't wound the wheel, and roar is useless vs T6.

Turn 2
The rogres take the bait, and the hounds flee through the warriors (who don't care) and strand them. Left giant rats move to look at the warstar's future flank, while the general's clanrats loom around the hellcannon's future right flank, the engineer's giant rats continue moving across the table (looking to rear the warriors at some point?) and the other clanrats feel kinda left out on their flank. The doomwheel powers down and to the right, seriously worrying me with a flank on the warstar unless it can get the hell out of there soon. Warp lightning again gets through my 1-2-3 dispel attempt (?!) but rolls a 1 and wounds the engineer. The wheel continues its hyper-powered bolting and lasers the Pimp! Two wounds get through, but both are saved by the golden eye. Whoa.

The warstar and the hellcannon charge the rat ogres, who frothingly take it. The two horsemen continue up the skaven left flank and into their DZ, and the Pimp hops over behind the giant rats, with LoS on the 'wheel. His magic is once again ineffectual between being dispelled or T6. Roar goes into the giant rats, for no real result. In combat the rat ogres lose five wounds to the warriors, none from the hellcannon, and smack down a warrior plus a wound off of the 'cannon. They lose huge, break, are chased but not caught. This saves the warriors from taking any kind of charge, but ensures the hellcannon will be flanked by the general's rats. This is fine by me . The giant rats to the left of the rat ogres panic due to the ogres' break too.

Turn 3
Mass fleeing begins the round for Skaven: giant rats fail to rally and head for their edge, the rat ogres fail and keep running for theirs (about 1-2" from it), and the non-character-laden clanrats fail terror from the 'cannon's proximity and head East. The chieftain's rats feel no such compulsion and charge into Ms. Nibbles to have a go at tipping her over, the giant rats + engineer begin wheeling for the warriors / hellcannon's rear, and the doomwheel, while unable to charge, speeds up to park at the warstar's flank. Magic is shut down, and then the doomwheel lets lose on the Pimp again ... and misfires! The wheel saves me a lot of anxiety by taking 5 S6 hits and killing itself . In fighting, the hellcannon loses one crew and 1-2 wounds, and wounds the BSB with all her attaks.

Chaos continues the fleeing shenanigans: hounds fail rally and leave the board, while the two horsemen charge the giant rats and push them across their DZ a bit. The warstar reforms to put its front towards the clanrats on the other side of the hellcannon and the giant rats looping around from board-south. The Pimp, freed from 'dealing' with the doomwheel, flies over and parks by the fleeing rat ogres. Magic tears into them, combining with roar to leave just 1 rat ogre & 1 packmaster. Combat sees the hellcannon take another wound from Steve, fail to hurt the BSB and no crew die. Note that we were rolling for the BotUE, but with all the dice involved (2D6 hits -> 5+ to hit crew -> 6+ to wound -> 5+ armor) it wasn't having any luck.

Turn 4
The rat ogre rallies as do the terrorized clanrats on the right flank, but the giant rats fail and leave the table. The giant rats w/ engineer head into the hellcannon's rear, contacting the dwarf on that end. No magic, no shooting, just fighting: an avalanche of giant rat and packmaster attaks is unable to wound that dwarf, though the other one falls to the clanrat champion at long last. The hellcannon is reduced to one wound remaining, but she eats the BSB out of spite

Alright, time to make Mistake #2: the warstar, tempted by the flank of the giant rats, charge on in and get ready to bust this combat wide open! Hurr! Elsewhere the Pimp scoots over to keep looking angrily at the rat ogre, and the two horsemen go hide their 43 points behind the wood. Magic + roar reduces the rat ogre & packy to vapor. In combat, the warchamp challenges the clawleader in a battle atop the hellcannon, but the warchamp power flops and thankfully makes his 2+ save in return . The other six warrior attaks amount to 3 dead giant rats. After this lackluster showing, the hellcannon and his little buddy are finally taken down. And now is where we did the math I should have done before charging in. Warstar has 2 ranks + 2 warbanner + 1 flank + 3 wounds = 8 CR; Rats have 3 ranks + 1 banner + 2 wounds + 1 flank (dead hellcannon) + 2 rear (dead hellcannon) + 1 outnumber = 10 CR. I completely forgot that the rear bonus against the hellcannon was a) there, and b) wouldn't be negated by the warriors counter-flanking the rear-chargers. Then again, if the warchamp had gutted the clawleader as expected, we'd be tied ... Anyway, warstar needed 6, rolled 11, then 11" for flee. Giant rats roll 10" pursuit, but the general gets his minions stewed up and they go 11", nabbing 445 points and victory. Bums.

Turn 5
From here it's up to Steve and his clanrats to weather the Pimp's storm and not panic. His remaining three blocks wander around.

The Pimp flies behind the ratstar and unleashes hell: flickering fire, fireball and roar dig into the unit, but can't reach a panic check in either phase.

Turn 6
Rats stumble about on fire, smelling more awful than usual.

The onslaught continues and brings the clanrats below half, but once again no panic comes up.

TIZZ LOSS (6-14)

I knew I was out of contention for 1st or 2nd with this loss, though I couldn't help blaming myself for wanting to fight too much with the warriors. If I had waited, I'm confident the warstar could have taken any of the rat units in the front ... but no, once again got greedy like in game 1. The doomwheel nuking itself was a fantastic stroke of luck, yet that mere 150 point gift wasn't enough to match all the points in those blocks.

Next Up: HIGH ELF REMATCH! In which my dice explode into flames

- Salvage

Not sure if dice exploding into flames is good or bad. I'm going to guess good.

Quite a match against skaven. I was not at all expecting to see you lose given how things were looking around turn 3. Looking forward to the HE game.

RZ

Depends on what side of the table you're on when the flaming dice start ... Need a break from reading about scientific objectivity, so let's do this thing.

Game Twenty-One: High Elves

HE 1000

H: Mage - level 2, ring of fury, +1 spell
C: 18 Spearelves - full command
C: 10 Seaguard
S: 10+ White Lions - warbanner, full command
S: 7 Swordmasters
R: Bolter
R: Bolter

This is the same elf player from so many of these reports, with a strong but not too unbalanced list. He had been having a frustrating tournament though, up against heavy armor after heavy armor: brets (who he smoked), the other WoC guy (loss), me. I never know what to expect against this guy, except for his dice to go cold so I can hopefully capitalize.

Magic
The Pimp: flickering fire, fireball (it's like I wasn't even rolling dice )
Mage: dark hand, doom & darkness, walking death (IMO a somewhat unfortunate spell selection, at least offensively)

Deployment
Elves (L2R): bolter left-ish, lions + mage, spears, seaguard & bolter on hill, swordmasters
Tizz (L2R): warhounds hard left (with a large wood between them and the bolter), hellcannon right of center, warstar right next to it, disc (with a building between it and the right bolter), horsemen, horsemen

Effectively I had deployed in a refused flank, with the hardest (and slowest) elements on the inside of the 'wheel' towards his units and the fast units ready to turn his flank and go for bolters. One of those rare deployments where I felt like a plan was being followed.

Battle

Turn 1
Elves easily win first and shuffle about some, mostly with the lions marching from their end of the battle line towards the chaos bastards. Mage jumps into spears, then attempts to dark hand the dogs, but is out of range. Ring is dispelled against the hellcannon. Shooting fails: warriors save any wounds from the right bolter and the pimp's 3/3+ save absorbs the attention of the left bolter shooting through cracks in his line.

Hellcannon once more passes her rampage check (on 9), and will continue to do so all game, like a good girl. She stomps up 6", with the warstar powering up 8" at her side, the horsemen mobilizing for turn 3 charges on the bolter or swordmaster flank, the pimp hoping to the flank of said elite infantry for roaring and burning, and the warhounds scampering 14" for the left flank of the board. Magic burns the hill bolter's crew to cinders, and the sorcerer follows this up by roaring two swordmasters to death.

Turn 2
The elves shake off the early loses and move on. Lions continue wheeling towards board-center, spears shuffle up, and the mage hops out of his spears to stop those puppies. Dark hand is let through and kills four dogs, though the last passes panic on the first try (!) and readies for his commando run on the bolter in a couple turns. Ring is dispelled again. The bolter goes into the hellcannon and manages one wound on the beast, but she saves on a . The seaguard unload into one of the horsemen units, dropping three but panic is passed.

Still no charges from chaos, with no swordmaster flank for a marauder unit to die against. The warhound powers around the woods and aims at the bolter, the warstar rumbles up into the swordmasters' face, the hellcannon moves a bit more cautiously to protect the warstar from a possible white lion flank in coming turns or possibly jump into the spearelves if the charge looks doable. The reduced horsemen trot 8" to the swordmasters' flank, and the full horsemen unit slams it into the HE backfield. The Pimp flits over to look at the flank of the seaguard (with the hill blocking LoS from the other bolter down the board). Magic lays into the seaguard, combining with roar to drop five of the seafarers. Throwing spears bounce off the swordmasters.

Turn 3
The swordmasters do it to it and charge the warstar. Elsewhere the lions get within the hellcannon's charge range and arc, as do the spears ... Dark hand fails to cast, but the mage wisely decides to put walking death on the lions, which is let through. Ring is dispelled easily. In shooting, the bolter puts a wound on the hellcannon, while the seaguard fail to wound any of the healthy horsemen headed their way. In the first combat of the game, one swordmaster hacks down the warchamp (!) and two other warriors die as well. A single swordmaster falls to the return attaks, the SM lose by 4 but pass on 4. Hmph.

With the warstar locked in place this turn, the hellcannon decides that the white lions need to be delayed from flanking in, so she charges into their S6 embrace (fear passed). The full horsemen charge the seaguard, whose stand-n-shoot is ineffectual - AND that solo hound slams into the bolter crew for great doggy justice! The Pimp, somewhat at a loss for targets - he was tempted to cross the field and cook the enemy mage - heads across the HE edge for the bolter should it fail to fall to the pup, but he spins at the end of his flight to look at the spearelves. He unloads somewhat less successfully than last time, cooking just a couple with a weak weak flicker. In combat the swordmasters deal out three wounds, but Tizz grants a solid armor save roll The SM are hacked down to a single elf in return, who breaks and is crossfired on the horsemen fighting seaguard. The warstar passes its restraint roll, as being flanked by spearelves would have been embarrassing. The hellcannon takes a wound and chomps a couple lions in response - note here that since the beast charged about 10" into combat, the dwarfs ranked up behind, unable to fight or be chopped to bits. The horsemen pound the hell out of the seaguard and overrun (spears passed panic), and the single warhound survives the two ASF attaks but fails to tear the neck out of a crewelf

Turn 4
The elf options had taken a serious beating at this point. Spears don't move much, and the mage pushes south a bit more. He leaves walking death on the lions to avoid auto-break (though actually they still fear the hellcannon's US5 if that was his concern), and the ring is slapped down. Shooting has been neutralized, though the bolter crew dispatch that pesky hound to get back to their weapon. The lions fail to hurt the hellcannon, and lose another couple to her shows of affection.

The warstar wheels into the face of the spears and waits for them to decide how this is going down. The horsemen cruise around to throw spears at the spearelves, while the Pimp floats over to hammer the bolter. Which he does, enveloping it in two flavors of fire before roaring the last crewelf to death (several times). Spears drop an elf, the hellcannon takes another wound but eats around three lions after a fantastic five hits.

Here the high elf player has had enough and concedes.

TIZZ VICTORY (20-0)

So this wasn't a game of nuclear dice vs artic dice in the end, but I certainly did have really solid dice backing up a well-deployed and played army. Thinking about it HE do seem to lack the glut of anti-armor that we're seeing in books recently (Skaven especially, but WoC's roars + nurgle lord and beasts with all their uber-strength + armor negating things), though his dice weren't coming through when he needed them to shine.

I managed 44/60 total points, which apparently got me 4th place. 1st went to the demon player who has finally caved and up-gunned his army (he started on Table 1 and never left it - flesh hounds + flamers in 1000 points will do that), 2nd to the skaven dude, 3rd to the beast guy playing 1000 pointers with his new book for the first time. I was pretty surprised by me not getting 3rd, and when I asked I was told that the beasts got a 20 & an 18, duh! I noted I did too, then I pouted some more

A fun tournament all around though, and I'm pretty thankful that with a LOT of casting from the Pimp (26 two-dice casts) he never miscast, though he never IF'd either ... And you will note that I never shot the hellcannon once, so didn't have a chance to have her explode herself or my discer

NEXT UP: Wood Elves, tomorrow night!

- Salvage

After a long day of class and stuff it was time to hit the LGS and burn down the forest ...

Game Twenty-Two: Wood Elves

WE 1500

H: Wild Rider Noble - hail of doom, stag
C: 10 Glade Guard
C: 9 Dryads
C: 8 Dryads
C: 8 Dryads
S: 3 Treekin - champion
S: 3 Treekin - champion
S: 5 Wild Riders - full command
R: Treeman

Wow, treekin central ! Happy to see some interesting woody stuff (stag, treekin), and his armies are always really nicely converted and built, so a pleasure to play.

Tizz 1500

H: Sorcerer - MoT, golden eye, book of secrets, roar, disc
H: Exalted - MoT, BSB, biting blade, talisman of protection
C: 20 Warriors - MoT, warbanner, full command, shields
C: 19 Warriors - MoT, rapturous standard, full command, shields
C: 5 Horsemen - musician, spears, light armor
C: 5 Horsemen - musician, spears, light armor
R: Hellcannon

My list, since it's been a bit. Note that this is the first game that I have built-to-suit, by swapping the BSB's halberd & favor for a biting blade. Shame!

Scenario
Chaos Unleashed! - Pitched battle, but every turn both players for a die, add them together and check a chart to see what happens. Results range from magic drain (4+ to cast any spell, -1 to casting roll), to D6 S5 'lightning' hits to a unit, to +1 to hit with shooting, to limited sight (artillery x 3", to magic boost (+1 to all rolls, IF on double 5 too).

Magic
The Pimp: flickering fire, fireball

Deployment
Woodies (L2R): treekin left flank behind a large wood, wild riders behind them, great stag (not in WR as we weren't sure they were still fast cav with him?), glade guard on hill, dryads, dryads, treeman, treekin, dryads
Tizz (L2R): horsemen left flank, more horsemen, disc, warstar & rapturestar + BSB behind a small hill, hellcannon

Battle

Turn 1 - CHAOS! = +1 to hit with shooting
Tizz wins it with the +1 for finishing first, and heads on out: horsemen cut up the left flank around the large wood, with the other horsemen following them up, as the warstar and rapturestar move up onto the hill. They position themselves on the edge and I note that now both units have CR7 (HURR!) ... The hellcannon keeps it in her pants, and in fact never rampages this game either, and waddles by the rapturestar's side. The Pimp flits over to the left treekin's flank, and unleashes hell, with two flickering fire wounds turning into a dead tree creature.

Opening mission for the woodies is to kill the Pimp, and the glade guard and stag turn to accomplish this. Meanwhile the wild riders fast cav their way over to look at the lower horsemen unit sneaking around the large wood, the injured treekin bundle into the large woods, and the treeman & other treekin cautiously advance on the twinstars, with dryad clouds moving for the warriors' flanks in future turns. The treeman's treesong is shut down, and then everybody with a bow unloads into the Pimp. The hail of doom goes off with a sad 7 shots = 7 hits = 2 wounds = 2 armor/ward saves. The glade guard's 10 shots @ S3 do no better, unable to wound the tough little wizard.

Turn 2 - CHAOS! = 24" sight range
Arrogantly ignoring the glade guard's S4 short range, the Pimp floats over to the flank of the stag to BBQ it after everybody finishes moving. The horsemen push back against the left board edge to avoid charges from the stag, treekin or wild riders, and the twinstars get off their hill to advance cautiously into treemonic hug range. The hellcannon actually holds still and lines up a shot on the right treekin, lands a perfect shot on the champ, but all 5+ wards are passed! Oh magical doomfire, where are you now? Before this the Pimp had had his fireball dispelled, but 6x S5 flicking fire hits dealt 4 wounds to the stag and 1 to the noble. A blistering 11 roar burst the wee elf general's skull.

The wood elves forced to deal with the twinstars continue circling their prey, with dryads now positioned to the warstar's left flank and front and another unit a bit further out from the rapturestar's right flank. The treeman and 'kin scoot a tad more forward, and the wild riders swoop to get a bead on the warstar's flank / rear. I smell carnage next turn! But first the glade guard unload into the Pimp at point blank range, for no effect thanks to poor rolling from him and nice armor & wards from me.

Turn 3 - CHAOS! = magic boost
The 'stars prepare for a massed woodland assault next round, with the warstar wheeling to take dryads in the front and then dryads + wild riders in the flank, while the rapturestar follows its wheel to take the treeman + treekin in the front, but keep those right flanking dryads just out of range. The hellcannon marches behind the 'stars to prepare a counter-assault into the wild riders, should things lock down. Elsewhere a unit of horsemen zooms along the chaos DZ to likewise counter-charge next turn if needed, and the other horsemen push back into the wood elf side of things on the left flank, skirting the treekin over there. The Pimp floats to the flank of the glade guard and does horrible things to them with the help of the magical boost: fireball removes four elves and flicker takes away four more. The remaining two pass panic, only to have one of their brains detonated by roar. The last guard fails panic and runs back to his treefort.

Here we go! Dryads slam the front and flank of the warstar, with wild riders joining in the flanking fun - the warstar easily passes all three fear tests. The rapturestar is charged in the front by both treeman and treekin, but while the fear test vs treekin comes up , the terror vs treeman comes up ! The rapturestar runs very fast, hoping the hellcannon and making the treemonic monsters fail their charges. The treeman then succeeds in tree-singing his free wood, but whatever. Over in Fight Land, the wild rider champ and the warchamp miss each other (...), and then 12 dryad attaks and a bunch of wild rider strikes account for one warrior (he rolled quite badly to hit/wound). Warrior return attaks are pretty bad too, netting one wild rider. Unfortunately for the hippies the warstar has a lot of CR on its side, and all three WE units fail their break tests. The warstar chases after its flankers, catching the dryads but not the speedy riders - who have fled directly at the marauder horsemen anyway.

Turn 4 - CHAOS! = 12" sight range
Those horsemen charge the wild riders and crossfire them against the warstar's shield wall. The rapturestar rallies and turns around, the warstar turns and scoots back towards the treeman a hair, the hellcannon moves towards the big treemonics, the left flank horsemen leave the treekin for the wood elf DZ, and the Pimp floats down to bake some of the treekin near the treeman (consciously moving into strangle root range). Magic comes through some more, with a fireball crisping a treekin, and the Pimp roars at the fleeing dryads out of spite, though a massive roar nets 0 wounds.

A cagey turn for the treemonic dudes. Those dryads rally, the right flanking dryads decide to head back towards their side, and the treeman / 'kin back up a smidge. Then strangle root does a wound to the Pimp! Embarrassment!

Turn 5 - CHAOS! = N/A
Chaos is getting anxious again. The warstar moves up to tempt the treeman and dryads, the rapturestar moves up to possibly play with the treekin or counter-charge the big tree, and the hellcannon likewise scoots up to the edge of that small hill in case somebody wants to play with it. The Pimp hops over to the rapture flank, where dryads can't jump on him. As horsemen zip down both deployment zones, the Pimp slams more magical fire into the treekin, incinerating the other non-champ critter.

Alright, more fighting! The dryads and treeman hit the front of the warstar, and it once again easily passes fear and terror tests. The treekin champ shambles into the hellcannon too, aiming to assassinate some crew - which it does, killing two and grabbing 103 points. The hellcannon bites into him in return, and the wounded champ breaks and is run down by a quite speedy demo-cannon. In the warstar fight, the treeman smashes one warrior down, and the dryads blend up two other warriors. The warchamp and the standard bearer lay in and smash a couple dryads, and the treemonics lose combat by a bit. The treeman holds, while the dryads scamper away.

Turn 6 - CHAOS! = N/A
Not too much left but that tree fight to wrap up. The rapturestar is out of LoS to counter-charge the big treemonic dude, so stomps 4" somewhere. The hellcannon however is now in charge range of those dryads tactically retreating, so she charges in and prepares for some salad. The Pimp meanwhile wants to finish those treekin on the other side of the table, so urges his disc as far to the West as it can manage, but it's gonna be close ... Fireball casts but is about 2" out, so flicker goes into the fleeing dryads but is dispelled. Roar comes up a weak 3 and doesn't faze the wood chicks. In combat the treeman turns it ON and deals five wounds to the warstar, but in a flurry of shield work four are blocked, leaving just one dead warrior. In return the warchamp hacks into the gnarled monster and wounds it! The tree loses big, fails its stubborn break and is run down by the warstar. The dryads are pursued into, but flee out of range as the Pimp stopped the warstar short. Whilst this epic combat was finishing up, Ms. Nibbles ate a dryad, took no wounds back and tied combat.

Only rallying and nibbling left now. Those fleeing dryads rally, and those fighting the hellcannon put a wound on her. She misses them but is unbreakable.

TIZZ VICTORY (20-0)

I had given up half points for my sorcerer and hellcannon, while he had only 2 dryad units and a treekin block left on the table. We talked about how he could have just ran about and never engaged all game - which I'm used to treemonics doing vs my ogres - but really he needed to neutralize the Pimp in that early stand-off, and a 5-1-1 hail of doom wasn't going to make that happen. His dice were also quite cold until the last couple turns when his stuff started hitting a LOT, which helped me out for sure.

Massive credit to the warstar, these guys always seem to outperform the Duke & his rapturestar. Passing 4 fear & 1 terror test was just the tip of the awesome, netting something like 500+ points ... you know, in exchange for their 400 points. The Pimp has really been getting down to business too, props to that dude.

NEXT UP: The last 1500 pointer, which is probably Brets again as we're at the top of our division

- Salvage

Wow, you handled the wood elves! I'm suprised he includes the one unit of glade guard- he's got an all forest spirit list otherwise.

Did he remember that his noble on great stag has magic resistance (since he must be of the wildrider kindred) when you roasted him with magic? Also, I believe the wildriders should still be fast calvary with him attached- he's basically a wildrider since he has to take that kindred to use a great stag.

So you still dominated with CR from the warstar when he charged you with two units of dryads and the wildriders? I'm suprised, because I would have thought the wildriders would negate your ranks, add a dice for banner, flank, and outnumber (with three units to your one, and the WR counting for 2 US each). Am I missing something there?

Congrats and burning down the forest, even though it brings a tear to my eye

Aye, I let him roll his MR in there too, but I still smashed on through. Like I said, his dice really weren't up to it until the second half, when a lot of things were beaten up

I knew that characters riding a non-monster mount got to move like fast cav if they rode with them, but I wasn't sure if a monstrous mount could. Looking at my book it just says a 'mounted character' joining fast cav can free reform, so yea he could have. No 360 fire arc unless the stag has the fast cav rule (it didn't when he checked), but he could have zipped around.

Remember that fast cav and skirmishers don't negate ranks, so the warstar was rocking hardcore in the CR department. Only the treekin and treeman (and glade guard) could have negated the stars' ranks, hence me keeping them in the front. In the warstar combat the wood elf units didn't lose by much, -2 at the most, but his breaks flopped hard.

Cheers for the reply, at some point I'm up against Those Brettonians again for the final 1500 pointer. And then all hell breaks lose with 2250, with the top bracket pretty much locked into Brets, WoC, Skaven & more WoC

- Salvage

Love these reports Salvage, nice fluffy list ^.^

I'm absolutely loving your battle reports. They're easy to follow and quite amusing to read. Every time I see this post has a reply I check it and almost wet myself hoping it's a new report.

I'm really digging your list, and especially your build on The Pimp. It seems like a really wicked character, and has a big impact on your games.

Thanks for writing them, they brighten my day!

Ah, I didn't realize that fast cav don't break ranks! I don't think I've used them to do that yet... and now I'll know that they can't.

You seem to be on top of things rules-wise, which is why I wanted to ask about those things.

Any ideas what he could have done against your blocks? I'm guessing if he could have used the treekin in the flank, he obviously would have helped his chances, but it sounds like he had to hold them back / be a little conservative with them. In a mostly tree list, I've felt I've had to be very aggressive and use my manueverability to get more of my units against my opponents to be successful.

I'm wondering if he would have been more successful by not engaging (as it sounds like you've experienced before) or by engaging even harder, but more into just your flanks, etc. I guess it also would have helped to have his stag with the wildriders, but it doesn't sound like it would have made too much difference.

I'm a fan of unbalanced lists (all cc for mine) since it makes it easier to play, and overpowers one phase, but you lose flexibility and become a bit of a one-trick pony. I just don't really like the arrow on his stag- if he's paying for that character, he might as well get the Dawnspear (so that if they charge a unit and he causes a wound, they'll hit everyone back at -1 to hit). I don't know if that would have made a difference in that combat, though, since you won through pure static combat res.

Also not sure if he could have gotten the treekin or treeman up enough to break your ranks... if not, it sounds like he hit you with everything he could have at once, but it still didn't work.

I'd love to hear what you think he could have done to win

Actually, fast cav do break ranks. They just don't count their own ranks. It's skirmishers don't break ranks.

RZ

Phew, that's what I thought! I'm relying on those buggers to break ranks for me... otherwise it's just the treekin and treeman, and it's hard for them to get to the flanks.

You should tell this to your opponent so that he knows the rules of his calvary for next time! I bet they would have stuck around that combat with your block with a lower CR loss (at least one of the units). It does look like you had him well handled anyway, though.

Red_Zeke wrote:Actually, fast cav do break ranks. They just don't count their own ranks. It's skirmishers don't break ranks.

RZ

You know, I don't think I've ever played that right, with my own fast cav either Though I keep fighting brets of late, and I know flying cav don't negate ranks, so perhaps I was thoroughly confusing things.

In this game it would have been quite simple to reform the warstar to keep the wild riders in the front, and simply trust in the rapturestar to hold. Which is funny, because it fled terror ...

- Salvage

Who takes enough fast cav to get a rank bonus anyway, even if they got it? I have seen ONE 10-man unit of pistoliers in all the games I've ever played, and that's it.

I love these reports, keep 'em coming!

Orkestra wrote:
I'm really digging your list, and especially your build on The Pimp. It seems like a really wicked character, and has a big impact on your games.

I hate that build on the Pimp.

Seriously, I lay in bed at night trying to figure a way to beat him. Thus far, Ms. Nibbles has had far better luck than I have.

jayzerus wrote:I hate that build on the Pimp.

Seriously, I lay in bed at night trying to figure a way to beat him. Thus far, Ms. Nibbles has had far better luck than I have.

Says one of two (three) players who has taken him down. IIRC I've lost him to your peasant archers (!!!), your errants (because I'm an idiot), Brian's elf bowmen, and my hellcannon exploding ... 4 out of 22 games? Not too bad

A lot of that has been T4 & 3+ armor working out for him, though there have been some fantastic golden eye saves, like absorbing ~6 S10 shots from the doomwheel

- Salvage

Noooo! This Topic has ended :[
I found it some days ago and I had the joy to read mostly every day since then 1-3 Reports and learned a lot of them and it was really refreshing

But now I'm at the end of this topic and I'll have to wait! Nooo!

More Serious:

Very nice reports. I like those experimental lists and your reports have strenghtend my wish to use a hellcannon - but also showed me, what you meant as you sayed in my army-list thread to play those baby a bit more aggressive
And a newbie like me never had thought that this thing can give so much punch without firing! Bäm!

Keep it coming, Boss!

Thanks for the kind words Terro, how about a new report? Feels like it's been forever ... Spent the last couple weeks painting my skaven back up to 2250 for an RTT this past Sunday, which I'll do a mini-report on soon enough and let you know how the vermin lord did

In the meantime, got in the final game of 1500 vs Jayzerus' brets.

Game Twenty-Three: Brettonians

Brets 1500

H: Paladin - sword of might, e. shield, lance
H: Paladin - BSB, virtue of duty, questing vow
H: Damsel - chalice, scroll, horse
C: 8 Errants - errantry banner, full command
C: 6 Errants - full command
C: 5 KotR - warbanner, full command
C: 15 Archers - skirmish
S: 5 Questing Knights - full command
S: 3 Pegs - full command
S: 5 Yeomen - musician, bows, spears, shields
R: Trebuchet

I brought the 1500 tizz list from the other games, though the BSB took his halberd + favor along this time, rather than just a biting blade as vs the woodies.

Scenario
King of the Hill - Pitched battle with 225 VP for standing on a (tiny) hill placed board-center. So now I knew where the Duke and friends would make their stand

Magic
Damsel: wolf hunts
Pimp: flickering fire, fireball

Deployment
Brets (L2R): peasant blob hard left, small errants, yeomen (on hill), questers + BSB / errantry errants + general / kotr + damsel (all packed in dead center), treb, pegs (on hill)
Tizz (L2R): horsemen hard left, (hill), rapturestar + BSB / warstar (dead center, headed for the central hill and carnage), pimp (behind wood), hellcannon, horsemen hard right (wood between them and peg hill)

Battle

Turn 1
Hellcannon starts things out my flipping her gak and rampaging 9-10" for the pegs! Left horsemen concede the flank and head east, rapture & warstars pound up 7" ready to mount the hill next turn, right horsemen head up their flank, sure to keep the woods between them and the looming pegasi, and the Pimp hops to the left flank of the rapturestar, close to max range from the pegs but also denying them any room to land a charge. He opens up with a min-cast fireball at the errantry errants (3+1 [+1] = 5 ) which the damsel knocks down, and his max-range flicker at the questers is likewise dispelled.

Brets declare no charges but play it pretty cagey yet. Blob holds to tag the left horsemen, the small errants head around the left hill and angle for the rapturestar's flank in future turns, the yeomen march up and wheel to break the rapturestar's ranks next turn (I let him know fast cav can in fact do this, thanks dakka!), and his mainline of lances inch up slightly. However the most important move is the pegs, who swoop down and park in front of his errants, partially to limit me from jostling my warriors to suck the errants out without quester support, but also out of paranoia for the Pimp roaring his way through knights as in previous encounters ... No magic, the treb scatters hard off the center of the warstar, and long range fire from the archer blob wounds no horsemen.

Turn 2
Ms. Nibbles continues to be pissed and rampages again, 6" (...) towards the kotr! The rapturestar mounts the central hill, with the warstar off its right flank and slightly back. Left horsemen mobilize up to divert the yeomen away from the rapture's flank, the right horsemen continue around the right flank woods, looking at a turn 4 charge on the trebuchet, and the Pimp hops well past the pegs' LoS to the left flank of the questers + BSB. Magic sees a fireball hit the questers and do nothing, and a min-cast flicker (1+2 [+1] = 4) easily stopped. A powerful 10 roar randomizes around and can't manage any 6's

All down to the brets to bring it, and they do. The yeomen charge the horsemen blocking them, the questers + pegs go into the rapturestar, and the kotr head into the warstar. The small errants head in for the rapture flank or front next turn, and the large errants reform to hope for a wolf hunts into the warstar too. The damsel rolls the 9 she needs, but the Pimp stomps it with a 16 dispel or so. The blob, which had scooted over to tag the Pimp, unloads but the single wound is saved by armor. The treb aims for the center of the hellcannon but scatters off the beast. Mayhem Phase begins with the yeomen killing 2 marauders, losing 3 of their own, but easily holding. The rapturestar combat happens next, as he was worried about the warstar stomping the kotr and persuing into the peg knight overhanging the rapture combat (a good possibility). The Duke challenges, takes a wound from the questing champ (!), then cuts him down (no overkill). The other brets have a stellar round of warrior-killing, dropping 5 maniacs despite their 2/6+ saves, and suffer none in return. Amazingly despite starting with 3 ranks, standard, battle standard & high ground, the rapturestar loses by 4! But they aren't called the rapturestar for nothing: first roll comes up 1+5 and thus insane courage. The warstar meanwhile loses nothing to the kotr, the warchamp decapitates their champion and they break (lost by 4 in fact) twice and flee through the general's errants, who don't care. The warstar pursues into the pegs.

Whew.

Turn 3
The Pimp, not having much luck in his magicing and roaring roles, charges the fleeing kotr and follows them off the table. The HC unfortunately keeps it in her pants this turn and marches up to cuddle errants at some point, whilst the right horsemen get in position to take out the treb next turn. No magic, no shooting, just fighting. The left horsemen embarrassingly lose another marauder to the yeomen, but they kill one and break the last peasant, pursuing into the errants' flank to keep them from flank charging the rapture boys next turn. Speaking of which ... The Duke challenges again and the bret BSB accepts, and in a brutal showing the chaos BSB deals out 3 wounds - EOTG = +1T. A mountain of warrior attaks deals no further wounds, but the bretons manage nothing in return either. It matters not and the massive chaos CR breaks both units, with the rapturestar holding its position atop the hill while the warstar catches the pegs and pursues into the errants (!) behind them.

The fleeing questing knights fail to rally and head off the board, and everybody else is fighting or wants to shoot. To that end, the blob tries to loft for the far right horsemen but is out, and the treb aims for either the rapturestar or hellcannon but scatters quite hard once again. In combat the warchamp challenges the paladin but is cut down, and a single errant dies from the flurry of blades. Any return attaks are fruitless and the errants are swamped with CR once more, breaking and leaving the table while the warstar collects its 4th banner. Meanwhile the errants beat and pursue the marauders pestering them, using the pursuit move to get far into the chaos quarter and away from the chaos scourge.

With just the blob (soon to be ignored), the treb (soon to be eaten by horsemen), and the errants (doomed to spend the rest of the game harassed by the Pimp), he concedes.

TIZZ VICTORY (20-0)

Full credit to J for wanting to fight, but he did give my warriors exactly what they want, with head-on charges that saw the most CR-laden stuff into the rapturestar (on a hill no less) and easily-handled stuff into the warstar. Like he said afterwards, he had pretty much boned himself with that first peg move, when he could have stayed on the hill and continued to exert his 20" charge threat (which was certainly keeping me in check, though not out of threat range) while the significant errant threat was applied to the warstar or the hellcannon, either of which stood a good chance of falling. My own MVP may have been the brets themselves or the rapturous banner for doing what I've been paying it for for 4 games now - the Pimp accomplished nothing but pushing the kotr off (and making J overly cautious), the horsemen either took out chaff or delayed or got into position, the hellcannon did her best to get into position fast (I prefer rampaging to firing personally), and the warriors either killed nothing or failed their armor saves more than half the time.

Rolling on the Eye always makes me happy though, so maybe the Duke van Dook can have the credit

So it's on to 2250 now, and total carnage Though at some point we have a 1000 point team tournament that's happening, so we aren't out of the small scale quite yet. Speaking of tournaments, remember that 1000 pointer I played in and was surprised to get 4th? Turns out the math was wrong and the Tizz boys nabbed 3rd! Score!

- Salvage

Wow, congrats on another resounding victory! Is the 20-0 with this particular list, or are you undefeated with the army itself? Either way... that's incredible!

Looking forward to hearing how your skaven did (although, selfishly hoping it's not quite this good... you're starting to make me feel bad )

20-0 refers to the battle points for the win - I got 20 points and he took away 0. These get added to a running total to decide rankings in the league we're running. You get more or less BP depending on the VP difference, splitting 20 total points with your opponent. My record in our league right now is 12-5-2, though I fear big wins will be tougher when we enter 2250 range.

You'll have to wait and see how the skaven did, though they're pretty soft overall. Hell, all of 2250 armies are fairly soft / de-tuned (or they're ogres!), but WoC certainly seem SO much tougher than squishy little skavens

- Salvage

I'm really mad at myself for putting my Pegs down in front of the knights. I should have dropped them in behind your two units of warriors (I had the distance) and waited one more turn to charge. Then I would have had a rear (or flank at worst). Or, at the very worst, combined the pegs with the KotR. That would have at least been enough to hopefully get them to hold another turn - just enough for me to get my big lance in there.

And I still don't understand why I continue to pound into the Rapturestar. I think its because its the only thing that I've been able to break. Everytime I go balls out against the warstar, it always holds.

Man this game burned my ass. Not so much because I lost - but more because I lost 20-0 and the fact that it was because I was an absolute idiot with my movement.

jayzerus, I feel your pain. I only killed 5 models in a game this weekend, losing all but 2 of mine, and it was due to my own mistakes in movement. Grrr....

Take it out on his army next time by resisting the urge to charge too soon... now if I could only learn that lesson, too

Rapturous banner is... you only need on your break test for insane courage instead of ? Dayum. Any drawbacks to that? And how many points?

Malleus wrote:Rapturous banner is... you only need on your break test for insane courage instead of ? Dayum. Any drawbacks to that? And how many points?

Even better than that. Any double or any one counts as insane courage ... and it's 20 points Yes, that's kinda messed up.

You may have noticed that I've never passed that rapturous test before though, and actually failed it twice with the BSB's help last time J sent two units into the rapturestar (and won by less, -2 not -4). Ignoring my ability to make the impossible possible, the odds of passing a rerolled rapture test is fairly ridiculous

- Salvage

We just had a 1500 point tournament here in Brisbane and that list would have fitted perfectly into the restrictions, and is so left of field to the typical all monted WOC armies we see here it would have done great.

Good work on the reports.

Thanks Waaagh. Speaking of unique tournaments, we had a 1000 pointer random match team tournament yesterday, with pretty cosmic pairings ... My brother was up from Colorado for his birthday and a few days of gaming with my ogre army, so we bashed out a bunch of games. Don't expect reports of any depth, these are more for keeping track of the Tizz boys exploits

Game Twenty-Four: Ogres

He took my last attempt to make a 2k ogre list I like, and the army I'd like to finish painting this summer and call it done until the new book.

Ogres 2000

L: Tyrant - the tenderizer, talisman of protection, fistful
H: Butcher - skullmantle, 2x thiefstones
H: Butcher - bangstick, dispel scroll
C: 7 Ironguts - warbanner, full command
C: 3 Ironguts - bellower
C: 3 Bulls - crusher, bellower, ironfists
C: 3 Bulls - bellower, ironfists
C: 8 Trappers
S: 2 Leadbelchers - bellower
R: 3 Maneaters - handguns, heavy armor
R: Gorger

I rocked my new chaos lord, in a 2250 list from which I cut out the tizz giant and called it good.

Tizz 2000

L: Chaos Lord - MoT, axe of tzeentch, enchanted shield, collar of tzeentch, favor, demonic mount
Disc sorcerer, BSB, warstar, rapturestar, 2x spear horse, warhounds, 6 forsaken (!), hellcannon

This ended up an OGRE WIN, with the breaker being him flanking the warstar + lord with three guts while solo-charging the tyrant into the unit's front. After feeding the warchamp to the tyrant, I easily lost the lord to the beast's S7 D3 wound stick, and lost a lot of my confidence in his ability to tackle big monsters in my league games ... My brother's dice were running HOT with hits, and when that happens with ogres only good things can follow, with him ultimately reducing the warstar to just the warbanner bearer still battling the tyrant at game end. Whoa. The rapturestar for its part took the charge of the gutstar and broke it pretty easily, and the forsaken proved that I don't really want them around - it's the frenzy + random attaks that does it. I can't have a unit that needs babysitting yet can't be depended on to bring more than 12 attaks to the party

Next we got a practice game in for the 1k tournament:

Game Twenty-Five: Ogres

Ogres 1000

H: Bruiser - great weapon
H: Butcher - bangstick
C: 4 Ironguts - bellower
C: 3 Bulls - bellower, ironfists
C: 3 Bulls - bellower, ironfists
C: 8 Trappers
S: 2 Leadbelchers - bellower
R: Gorger

Tizz 1000

H: Sorcerer - MoT, golden eye, book of secrets, roar, disc
C: 20 Warriors - MoT, warbanner, full command, shields
C: 5 Horsemen - musician, spears, t. spears, light armor
C: 5 Horsemen - musician, spears, t. spears, light armor
C: 5 Warhounds
R: Hellcannon

So an uber-striped down ogre list that I was pretty proud of, vs the facebeater list that you know and love/hate.

This was a rough game for my brother, and even I got a real feel for how unpleasant The Pimp is at 1000 points. He lost his butcher in a needless charge into the hellcannon, and from there his main accomplishment was beating Ms. Nibbles down - she didn't go gently though, eating butchers, leadbelchers and an irongut in the process. The Pimp meanwhile roasted nearly anything that mattered to cinders, including the bruiser and his bull escort. A resounding TIZZ WIN.

We actually swapped armies after this so I could 'show him how to win' with ogres vs warriors. I'm sad to say that all I did was trash his chaff units, direct anything with a great weapon into the hellcannon and then stayed away from the warstar while devoting all ranged fire into the disc sorcerer (for no result). His return magic was gentle and I squeaked out the narrowest of OGRE WINs. Not a feel good one though, and I would feel the frustration of the warstar and its M4 being avoided in the team tournament.

Next up, my buddy DG trekked out to my place in the woods and we threw down @ 1k again. He actually fought my bro first and my brother did a nice job rounding him up and beating his TK to dust.

Game Twenty-Six: Tomb Kings

TK 1000

H: Prince - big US5 flaming chariot, flail
H: Liche - [hiero] jar, steed
H: Liche - cloak
C: 5 Light Cav - musician
C: 5 Light Cav - musician
C: 2 Swarms
S: 3 Ushabti
S: Scorpion

My list was the same as before.

This game was pretty much over when DG deployed his hiero outside of a unit, unafraid of being sniped by hellcannon or an aggro roaring sorcerer. Unfortunately for him I got first, skimmed the Pimp over and let the hiero have it with a brutal fireball that burnt him to cinders. His crumbles weren't bad - this list is largely protected with high unit LD - but lack of incantations was telling. There was a moment of real possibility when he had a magically-boosted flank chance with ushabti into the hellcannon already fighting a scorpion, the overrun from which would have given the ushabti a flank charge on the warstar, to help out the prince's frontal charge. But the single incantation was crushed. He managed 1 dead horseman and 1 dead chaos dwarf and was cleared off the table for a TIZZ WIN.

I was inordinately confident going into the team tournament, but that would prove to be premature ... Stay tuned for three more tiny recaps!

- Salvage

Yeah you gave me quite a lesson on leaving the Heiro out for those zippy wizards and magic missiles. I've since learned to protect him from those nefarious utility units.

~DG

Wow, nice rapid-fire summaries . It must be fun to be able to play that many games close together!

So I'm guessing it's your brother on the ogres who teamed up with you for the tournament? Could people team up any two armies? It does seem like having two armies with different strengths would be an advantage, over two that are more straight-up facebreakers

The four team matchups were (in placing order):

1. Vampires & Tomb Kings
2. Bretonnians & Empire
3. Warriors and Beasts of Chaos
4. High Elves and Ogres


Oddly enough, these were random pairings. Only the Ogres and Elves seemed like an odd couple, though looking at the matchups, you would think that they had a bit of an advantage - especially considering the Elves brought a dragon to the party (at 1000 pts???).

The entire day was a quagmire of really bad rolling, unless you were one of the non-living.

Yes, the HE/Ogre pairing does seem a little odd . It must have been a dragon mage, since to get anything else you need to use a Lord slot.

What did the TK player bring? I think there could be some configuration of tomb kings that would complement VC really nicely!

He had a Tomb Prince, Hiero and another prist type character. Aside from that, it was a unit of Ushabti, a Tomb Scorpion, 2 units of fast cav and some swarms.

VCs had two huge blocks of ghouls and a large unit of black knights.

Nice battle reports, I like the story element added into it as well

Hey guys, I had the TK list,

prince:chariot, icon of rulership, chariot of fire, flail

Priest:cloak of dunes

Priest: steed, hieratic jar

5 Light horsemen:musician

5 light horsemen:musician

2 tomb swarms

tomb scorpion

3 ushabti

-999pts


My VC counterpart had 2 units of ghouls with 2 foot vamps and a unit of black knights with a mounted vamp I'm not sure of the specifics on his list.

Hope this helps!
~DG

Sweet I was thinking a fast-moving or chariot-heavy TK list might help out the vamps, yours looks very balanced, though! I can't wait for some new TK models to replace those skeleton horses...

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

n0t_u wrote: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

Yeah its the hell pit abomination. Yes its VERY dangerous. cant do anything from range, but it will pretty much wreck anything it comes into close combat with. (mine has killed a bloodthirster on the charge)

Buddy of mine went to a tourny a few weekends ago. There was a skaven player there with a mean mean list. 3 furnaces, min core of just slaves, 2 units of PCB, and 2 HPA....

It just gets so damn many S6 attacks. Compared to a giant that gets NO impact hits and half the time does random crap that does maybe 1 wound "I pick up a single swordmaster and eat him!" hooray.

And regeneration? And random movement after turning to face? The turning to face I have a bit of a problem with. It actually gives it an extra few inches of movement when you turn it on the spot before rolling, if they're using a chariot base [which most do].

It's just hands-down better than a giant in every way. Faster, tougher, deadlier. And now in the new edition it gets Thunderstomp, too? REALLY?!

HPA getting thunderstomp is going to be hillarious.

If you roll a 5-6 on its attacks it already gets the 2d6 auto S6 hits... So now if you roll that its 3d6 auto str 6 hits plus the initiative tests.

For those wondering what I've been up to, well ...

ShivanAngel wrote:HPA getting thunderstomp is going to be hillarious.

... and indeed it is. Been playing with my skaven, just two games of 8th so far but getting a handle on it since I'm taking the nurglings to Crossroads in September. Have won both games handily, one against VC, one against WoC, and am really loving how level 4 casters work, particularly in conjunction with the army lores and their lower casting costs, compared to jacked up book lores. Yea they don't do as much either, but getting cloud of corruption on 2 dice (+4) and plague on 3 dice (+4) is pretty sexy.

I've only just begun putting some thought into the WoT boys, but I think I have a list I want to test run. Here's where we're at:

L: Sorcerer Lord - MoT, level 4, enchanted shield, collar, infernal puppet = 365

H: Sorcerer - MoT, golden eye, dispel scroll, bloodcurdling roar, disc of tzeentch = 195
H: Exalted - MoT, BSB, talisman of endurance, halberd = 179

C: 20 Warriors - MoT, full command, shields = 370
C: 19 Warriors - MoT, full command, shields = 354
C: 30 Marauders - MoT, full command, great weapons = 190
C: 5 Horsemen - musician, spears, light armor = 81

S: 6 Chaos Trolls = 270

R: Giant - MoT = 245
----
2249

Sorc Lord > No tricks here, just a level 4 with familiar survival gear and a puppet to keep him alive. I'll say this now, I don't intend to use the puppet offensively, only defensively. Miscasts are so brutal as it is that I don't believe the puppet's 35 points justifies the trauma it can dish out. Frankly I'm hoping it's errata'd somehow to take new miscasts into account.

Disc Sorc > No change from my previous roaring sorcerer, we'll see how he turns out. Still level 1 because I only want flicker anyway, as nice as the extra +1 for the extra level is. At 195 points he's tasting a bit expensive for what he can do, but whatev.

BSB > Got himself a 4+ ward instead of a 5+, so that's nice. Also becomes mad important with all the psych rerolling.

Tizz Warriors > So apparently everybody is looking to use tizz warriors with shields now, which makes me somewhat less thrilled to run them myself ... but ah well. The 'stars are still here, but I removed the magic banners for points and because I'm hoping their studliness in combat should mean they win just about any combat. Quite interested to see how they perform in game, with the extra charge boost and not being marchblocked.

Tizz Marauders > I've been wanting to try this unit out for some time, and it looks like 8th makes them all the better with the step-up deal. I see people drooling over 'turtle' tizz marauders with shields, but I personally would rather hack the other guy up than get a handful of S3 pokes. Going last is unfortunate, but really only sacrifices that first round after a successful charge.

Horsemen > Same old, not sure what they do now. Dedicate themselves to war machine death, I suppose. Note the lack of any puppies, as I'm unsure how awesome they are at this point.

Trolls! > Definitely the oddest unit here, never seriously thought about running them before. I love the mutant regen thing, and 8th gives them some ups with rerolling psych, random charge, three to a rank and two ranks fighting. And also kicks them in the face with I1, the changes to regen and the prevalence of flaming ... But I like the idea all the same and these guys are basically replacing the couple great weapon ogres / drogres I was always taking and having little luck with.

Tizz Giant > After a level 4 and a BSB, the third auto-pick for WoC under 8th is looking to be a hellcannon. And you know, for good reason too, with no guessing, no partials, an increase in massed infantry, the changes to monster handler rules, rerolled psych with BSB, t-stomp, etc, etc. But you see, I've done the HC so much, and I have a nice carnosaur-giant primed and ready to go ... So I figure I'll give a t-stomping gigant a shot and see what happens. My guess is "shot to death" most games

I'll see about getting a game in with this lot maybe Saturday. Stay tuned!

- Salvage

Heya! I'm glad to see you back.
And hope we'll get to see your new list in action soon. And concerning your sorrows on too many Warriors with MoZ and Shields...in the last lists of WoC postet with 8th edition thoughts I didn't even saw Warriors. Makes me some kind of depressed - but on the other hand its nice to play with the "underdogs" oder "underused" - one reason why I like your lists.

But I miss Mrs.Nibbels already!

Agreed! Glad to see you back within the grasps of chaos!
Hopefully you read the PM I sent ya

@Terromortis: :O How could you miss my list that incorperated 90 Khorne Warriors

Terromortis wrote:But I miss Mrs.Nibbels already!

Haha! That kind of made my day Terro Yea, I will miss The Madam as well, but here's hoping that Mr. Bitey serves up the antics as only a chaos giant can ...

Buttlerthepug wrote:Agreed! Glad to see you back within the grasps of chaos!
Hopefully you read the PM I sent ya

I did get your PM and went to check out the post, but I generally shy away from armies over 2500 as I just never play at 3000+ nor have any desire too. I suppose with 8th it's not so different from 2000 really, since you can have multiple lords all the time, yet it's still not a scale I have any experience at in fantasy. Mayhaps I'll stop by again?

- Salvage

Another WoC player and I braved the mind-melting heat of the game store's upper floor to get our 8th edition on. These were my 1st & 2nd games with WoC under 8th (3rd & 4th total) and I think his 3rd & 4th, the last one of which I crushed him with vermin lord-delivered plague magic.

I took:

Warriors of Tzeentch 2250

L: Sorcerer Lord - MoT, level 4, enchanted shield, collar, puppet

H: Exalted Hero - MoT, BSB, talisman of 5+ ward, favor, halberd
H: Throgg the Troll King

C: 20 Warriors - MoT, full command, shields
C: 20 Warriors - MoT, full command, shields
C: 6 Trolls
C: 30 Marauders - MoT, full command, great weapons
C: 5 Horsemen - musician, spears, light armor

R: Giant - MoT

Out is the ~200 point roaring, scrolling, flickering disc sorcerer, the various great weapon monstrous infantry, the magic banners off the tizz blocks and the nigh-mandatory hellcannon. In is Throgg (a character who was IMO good under 7th and possibly great under 8th), his trollstar, a bunch of lumberjack 6+ ward marauders, and a tizz giant which I made from a carnosaur and have wanted to use for a year. So many fun units, what's not to like? The lack of roar, for one

His newest list was:

Warriors of Chaos 2250

L: Sorcerer Lord - MoT, level 4, talisman of 4+ ward, spell familiar, roar, disc

H: Sorcerer - MoT, level 2, talisman of 6+ ward, puppet, third eye, barded steed
H: Exalted Hero - MoN, BSB, new +1 to hit sword, talisman of 5+ ward, shield

C: 20 Warriors - MoT, terror banner, full command, shields
C: 17 Warriors - MoN, rapturous standard, full command, shields
C: 6 Horsemen - standard, musician?, flails
C: 5 Warhounds

S: 6 Knights - MoN, flaming banner, standard, musician?

R: Hellcannon

Previously he ran glasscannons and more knights, but is really struggling to find out what works for WoC in 8th. The third eye he's really been pushing and I think it works in concept, with increased LoS and the ability of a level 2 to toss just as many dice as big dudes.

Game 34: Chaos

Terrain
7: mysterious river (SE), building (NE), mysterious woods (NE), portal that casts a random spell at the nearest unit (center), mysterious woods (NW), building (SW), ?

Scenario
Dawn Assault - Split deployment zone into three sections, roll for each unit to see where it shows up, with better chance of center 36" or choice. 24" no mans land, one player deploys entire army first and goes first, unless opponent rolls a 6 to steal the initiative.

Magic
My level 4: flicker, pandemonium, treason, gateway

His level 4: flicker, transmogrification, pandemonium, treason, gateway
His level 2: flicker, call to glory

Deployment (sorry no BC pic)
WoC (N): warhounds, level 2 (left flank), tizz warriors, knights, hellcannon behind, level 4, nurg warriors + BSB, [building], flail horse (all center zone)
WoT (S): giant, tizz warriors + level 4 + BSB, marauders, spear horse (all center), tizz warriors, trollstar (right flank)

So some tizz boys and the stupid trolls got stuck on the right flank, as far from the BSB as they could be. Also, right behind a mysterious river. Poop.

Battle

Turn 1
WoC deploys first, but WoT steals the initiative and takes it!

Giant powers up to jump on some warriors or knights, the hero-laden tizz warriors move up, the marauders shuffle forward unsure what they're supposed to do with the nurgle warriors across from them, the horsemen likewise have no idea what their purpose is (his had moved up a bit using their scout move), and the right warriors and trollstar (stupid passed) walk up to the edge of their mysterious river and prepare to ford it next turn. Magic sees the portal give the tizz warriors speed of light (WS10 & I10) momentarily, and then a lot of not much from flicker or gateway.

The WoC response is equally thrilling. Warhounds head down the flank but have little role to play in this battle, his tizz warriors march forward a restrained 4" or so, the level 2 loops around them to get line of sight on my level 4, the knights line up to intercept the flank of my tizz boys should I charge his, the nurgle block scoots forward, his horsemen carefully advance and his disc flits over to play with my isolated right flank. The portal rips off a curse of rust on the knights, reducing their armor by 1 permanently (!). His level 2 follows this up with a third eye'd gateway (dispelled), and his level 4 hits my right warriors with another gateway, but 3-4 S3-4 nets nothing. The treason that follows is a little better, and one warrior falls as his fellows madly hack into themselves. In shooting, the hellcannon makes my life a LOT easier by blowing itself up (but not wounding the three units around it, including the level 2). Roar does nothing.

Turn 2
After some debate, the giant slams into the tizz warriors and prepares to see what new powers 8th has granted him. Meanwhile the tizzstar moves up to intercept knights or overruning warriors, the marauders continue to waffle, the horsemen stall some more, and the right warriors and trollstar ford the river, which turns out to be a river of blood! Both now cause fear when charging out of it (though the trolls already did)! Magic begins with the portal hitting the knights with the +1S / +1T beast spell (...). Seeing this, my level 4 decides not to target them any longer and slams a flicker into the level 2 in front of him. He lets it through and is promptly burnt to a crisp, despite a 2/5+ save. [Note: He might have been eligible for a 4+ look out sir off of the knights, but I only just remembered.] Treason tags the nurgle warriors, who fight it out and suffer no casaulties from the hugfest. My sorcerer lord decides at this point that any gateway that matters isn't going to care about T5 on the knights. 10 S9 or something later and the knights vaporize.

In the first combat of the game, Mr. Bitey suffers 0 wounds as the tizz warriors fluff all 13 attaks. In return he gingerly picks up the champion in his jaws, paws aside his feeble attempts to escape, and eats him. Then he thunder-stomps the unit for 6 wounds (!!), 2 of which are saved. The enemy tizzers lose, break, break a second time and run 10", pursued by a totally thrilled 245 point giant. Ahhhhh.

The tizz warriors add insult to injury and fail to rally, leaving the board. While his nurgle warriors nervously advance, his flail horse sail in a long charge on their spear counterparts, and the level 4 glides around the flank of the trollstar. The portal decides to hit the tizzstar with the -1S / -1T shadow or death spell, but the real fun is to be had on the right flank. Thankfully the flicker intended to open up the trollstar is dispelled, so that the gateway on the right tizz warriors is absorbed with little fuss.

In combat #2, the flail dudes mash up their counterparts, killing all but 1 and following him off the board.

Turn 3
Exploding from the river of blood, the right tizz warriors manage to charge the flank of the nurgle warriors with a thrillingly long charge (13". With few targets the WoT horde mobilizes for gangbanging in future turns, with everyone advancing on the nurgle boys - except for the marauders, who swift reform to intercept the flail horse upon their return. The portal spits out something unimportant on the tizzstar (-1S / -1T again), but the main event is the gateway into the nurgle block, which we agreed might be castable into combat so what the hell. S11 later and I've just removed my first entire unit with gate. Whoa.

He concedes.

Tizz Victory

High point was definitely the giant wading into the tizz warriors and managing to break their steadfast selves, though I think a lot of credit in general needs to go to my dice. These were the strongest gates I've had, and there really is something obscene about removing an entire unit on S11-12. I offered to make it 'just' S10, but even then 8 dudes died, nowhere near enough to stand up to a flanking tizz block.

With just 2.5 turns played, we decided to reroll some terrain and do this thing again.

Game 35: Chaos

Terrain
7: 3x mysterious river (NW to SE), hill (SE), ghost fence (E), building (NE), arcane ruins which allow for up to 4 channeling dice per wizard within 6" but cause miscasts on 3+ 6's (W-center)

The river running across the board, but primarily in the southern half, was the main feature. We decided to count it all as the same type of river, instead of three separate 'mysterious' rolls.

Scenario
Blood & Glory - The fortitude one, with break points based upon standards and such. His total was 7, mine 6, and are breaking point was 3 or less.

Magic
My level 4: flicker, pandemonium, call to glory, gateway

His level 4: flicker, pandemonium, treason, call to glory, gateway
His level 2: flicker, transmogrification

Deployment (sorry no BC pic)
WoC (N): flail horse, warhounds, knights (mid), tizz warriors, (building), nurgle warriors + BSB, (ghost fence: ), level 2, hellcannon, level 4
WoT (S): spear horse across from counterpart, marauders (mid), trollstar (at river crossing), tizzstar (in river), giant (in river), tizz warriors (in river)

I took the river side primarily to deny him it. With no shooting, one caster and limited mobility (relatively) I wanted to be aggressive and not allow him a nice river to sit behind and shoot from. And yes, I several times said the famous last words "I hope it's not a boiling river!" Wait for it, ladies and gents.

Battle

Turn 1
Flail horse scout up a bit, spear horse don't.

Once again Tizz grabs the first turn, with the help of the +1. The river turns out to be boiling, but after losing 6-7 from the right warriors and 12 from the left warriors I suggest that I don't really want to play with this rule, or possibly continue this particular game. He agrees that it's pretty f-ed up, so we house rule it down to S3 AP like the dwarf steam gun. Now I lose 1 from the right warriors, take 1 wound on the giant (!), and lose 3 from the left warriors. Theme-y and fun? I guess, but no longer game destroying.

So anyway: warriors push forward but don't clear the river, giant just makes it through the other side, and the trollstar makes use of the crossing to escape un-cooked. The marauders move up to the edge of the river but vow to never enter it, and the horse stay where they are, despite having a crossing in front of them. Magic charges up and sees a gate that is dispelled, with flicker out of range.

With no rivers to worry about, the WoC lads head it on out without fun terrain issues. Tizz warriors and nurg knights advance and angle toward the approaching tizz heavies on the right half of the board, the level 2 peeps at my level 4 and his floats over into flicker range of things. His flail horse wait for mine to charge, but he does move his puppies up to bait me in. His magic results in a treason on the right warriors which doesn't kill anybody, and a flicker or gate on the giant which delivers four wounds after two are caught in the 6+ ward

The epic chaos shooting phase begins and ends with the hellcannon trying to snipe my BSB and misfiring like last game, though this time it devours its crew and lives on. Whew #2.

Turn 2
Annnnd in 8th edition fashion, it's time for some gutsy charges. The trollstar needs a 7 to charge the nurgle boys, gets an 8 and heads on in. The spear horse also go for the warhounds, but they flee and strand the ponies 2" ... Meanwhile the two tizz blocks take another round of S3 hits from the river (1-2 dead in the tizzstar) but they finally move out of the blistering soup. The wounded giant contemplates some LONG charges (11-12 on the dice) into wizards, but decides to march 12" forward to tempt the I1 hellcannon. Magic begins with a familiar flicker snipe on the exposed level 2, though the attempt is dispelled. Provided with so many lovely targets, my level 4 decides to hammer his level 4 with gateway, ripping two wounds into the dude's true 3+ ward.

And then, time for fighting. Throgg challenges, takes a wound from the unit champion and then covers him in vomit for two wounds. The enemy BSB and crew lay into the trolls and cause a load of attaks, getting four through after regens. The trolls all vomit in return, melting a handful despite their bizarre ability to parry vomit on a 6+ After a healthy round of stomps the trolls lose on musician, but easily hold. However the mutant regeneration rule kicks in from all the regen saves, and the unit gets a 6+ armor save from the Eye. Ha.

Over to general chaos and it's another turn of maneuver. His tizz boys round the building and look at the troll flank, while the nurgle knights contemplate charging the lumberjack marauders or long-charging somebody in support. The level 2 hides behind his battle line, the hellcannon keeps it in his pants with the level 4's help, and said disc general flits over between my tizz blocks. The level 2 starts things off by flickering the giant, but is dispelled. The level 4 hits the trollstar with gateway, which drops the wounded troll BUT also triggers mutant regen! They roll MR(3) out of spite. Putting the new boundless wounding chart to good use, his level 4 kills the wounded giant with a well-placed roar (2 wounds, 1 6+ ward, 1 fail). Shooting sees the hellcannon try to pin my BSB again, but an 8" scatter sends the template over to partial his own level 4! A 1 to wound kills those dreams though.

Also, more fighting. Throgg challenges again, takes no wounds from the enemy BSB and covers him in vomit for three wounds. He forgets to roll on the Eye for his troubles. The rest of the trolls take just enough wounds to kick in the monstrous regen bonus, then vom all over the smelly nurgle boys and kill a bunch. The trolls win combat, but the rapturous standard kicks in with a 2-2 break. About that monstrous regen: stubborn & 4+ ward. Pity their 6/4/4+ save doesn't stack like old times ...

Turn 3
The only charge in town is my spear horse on his flail horse, but I need a 10 and don't make it, stumbling forward 2". The tizzstar advances full into the face of the enemy tizz block, though they can't block for the trolls' flank. The other tizz boys power forward for the hellcannon next turn. Magic sees flicker and gate into his tizz block, succeeding in stripping off one rank of five.

Over in the vomitous combat, the trolls regen enough times for another go at the chart, then obliterate the unit with vomit. They free reform to face the tizz block (and expose their rear to the hellcannon's affections). Oh, and they roll up +1S on the Eye.

Mass charge time! The flail horse need an 8 but don't manage it, stumbling toward the spear horse 6". The nurgle knights however easily make the tizz marauders, losing none to the (nerfed) boiling river. The hellcannon also spazzes out and charges the rear of the trolls, which mostly could care less. And his tizz boys charge my tizzstar. Magic is exceptionally weak this turn, with him rolling 1-2 and me channeling +1. He tries for treason I think but is shut down.

But right, lots of combat. His knights trample many marauders to paste, lose two in return, and the lumberjacks hold on steadfastly. The tizz vs tizz combat sees his unit champ neatly decapitated by the Duke's halberd, and then after a lot of fluffed slapping on both sides that turns out to be the only wound! He loses but holds. Taking a break from all the vomiting, Throgg beats two wounds into the hellcannon with his new S7 (!!), while his trolls all fluff it and he takes a wound from the machine. The trollstar loses but stubbornly holds, passes LD and turns around.

Turn 4
The spear horse try the charge again on a 6, and make it in against the flail horse. The right-most tizz warriors finally charge in against the hellcannon, after turns of being march-blocked and cooked by that damn river. In the magic phase I finally decide to do what I (competitively-speaking) should have done earlier and smash his level 4 with another gateway, splattering him across the battlefield.

With his general dead, he hits Fortitude 3 and auto-loses. I'm not sure any of those combats would have gone his way, with the exception of the horse vs horse one.

Tizz Victory

Perhaps a few thoughts on the list are in order? I seem to like unit breakdowns, so let's do some of that.

Sorcerer Lord > Still the man, and I'm glad to see he can be run by himself with little problem. There are things I like about the disc level 1 dude - another offensive spell where I need it, a scroll to hold off those big nasty high casts, roar (particularly with the damage chart change, i.e. war machine killing, particularly in conjunction with flicker) - but I like what Throgg brings much more at the moment. Equipment-wise I'm happy with this guy, very simple gear but totally does the job. 2/5+ save, MR(2) for him, his unit and the BSB, and the puppet for saving his ass a bit. Note that there were ZERO miscasts despite all the dice we were both tossing into gateway round after round. Madness.

BSB > Happy with him, though he didn't do too much in the end. 4/4+ save feels safe and S6 is still quite nice. Will be losing the favor to pay for throwing spears on the horsemen though, just more useful / irritating to the other guy.

Throgg > Whoa. Like, whoa. The thing vomited his way through wound after wound of nurgle -1WS nonsense, and all the unit buffs only made him nastier and nastier. I've been a fan of Big T since the book came out, but have only today used him. S6 stomps under 8th are legit, though I realized only after the games that his one-use S5 no armor save breath weapon can be used in combat ala the hydra. So 2D6 S5 no armor hits + D6 S5 no armor hits + 1 S6 stomp? Sweat baby cats that's insane. Also he provides a second break test bubble for his own unit and the giant, should the monsters want to rampage a flank together. Luckily I have a pretty sweat (and HUGE) model ready to go for this guy, cause he's staying around.

Tizz Warriors > Still happy with them, though my opponent wasn't impressed with his. They absorbed some punishment and eventually got where they wanted to be, and the lack of march block coupled with long charges makes them much less frustrating to use. My main concern is running them with no magic banners, with so many great ones available, but I like how striped down it is. The only one I really want is the MR(1) 15 pointer for the brick without the level 4, so they can bask in some boosted anti-magic ward as well.

Trolls > Mostly made great by Throgg and fighting in two ranks, though I'm well aware of their shortcomings. I1 is huge, particularly against the worst spells and abilities out there (seriously, take a look at how many I test super spells are in the BRB or many army lores), but whatever. The mutant regen thing is really tops for me, so so so cool.

Lumberjacks > Had little idea what to do with them against warrior blocks, but they're there for other people's medium infantry really. Not the best tests, though I'm pushing ahead and building the unit all the same.

Horsemen > Likewise seem misplaced against WoC. Will give them throwing spears to take advantage of march + fire and give them more harassment duty ... but ah well. Funny that 86 points is chaff, yet lack of hounds means they are indeed.

Giant > I was ecstatic after that first game and continue to have high hopes for Mr. Bitey. Yea, he's gonna die to magic / shooting a lot as in game two, but that's going to be matched by all the craziness he pulls off in other games. T.stomp and +1CR for charging is legit, and as always a giant CAN beat anything in the game with the right roles. Pity those rolls are totally out of my hands

I think the main take away for me is that this army is really fun to play, more fun than my skaven in fact. It's hard and fairly straight forward in game, has been fun to model and just two minis in is very rewarding to paint. Hopefully I can make the time to keep the paint flowing, these guys deserve it for the 8th edition rampage to come.

(Long post, thanks for reading lads.)

- Salvage

Mr. Salvage, I love your battle reports like a fat kid loves brownies.

I do have a few things to point out: the river can only crisp your guys if you're still standing in it at the end of the turn. I had great fun with a river like this, with my troops standing right on the edge of it in their brand-new steadfast way, and forced my opponent to choose between either charging me and probably ending up standing in the river, or else sit there and look at me while I shot him.

I don't think it's OP at all as it stands, if treated properly. Same with the other terrain. I do, however, thing it's more trouble than it's worth most of the time. Takes forever just to set the board up, and I don't own much terrain.

Cheers and I hope you keep posting!

Is this "fortitude - auto lose" thing something new from the 8th? Sounds not really fun to me :-|

But all the rest sounds pretty nice. Especially the Trolls were nice They seem to be far more effective than you Ogres and DOgres.

Nice report!

Glad to see your battle report thread segue into 8th Edition! Very interesting to see you trying out new units and adjusting to the crazy new rules.

- Blackbone

Excellent Chaos on Chaos madness!!! Personally, I don't think the pupet is overpowered to use offensively- the effects on the miscast table are in larger sections now, so moving the result D3 may mean you can't change it at all, depending on the roll. Throgg is going to be popular, but he's a great fit in this list!!

RiTides wrote:Excellent Chaos on Chaos madness!!! Personally, I don't think the pupet is overpowered to use offensively- the effects on the miscast table are in larger sections now, so moving the result D3 may mean you can't change it at all, depending on the roll. Throgg is going to be popular, but he's a great fit in this list!!

THe nice thing is that with a modifier of 3 and an average of 7 you can drop it down to that that number 4 result

It's so nice to see chaos warriors in action again.

Unfortunately this battle was WoC vs WoC. Most chaos warrior units will be similarly sized and do similar amounts of damage to each other, so we're not really seeing the steadfast rule apply much here. My nervousness comes in seeing my chaos warrior units get tarpitted against massive blocks of light infantry while they slowly chip away at my unit. Looking forward to more battle reports as always, and glad to see some WoC madness in 8th!

Only the trolls in base contact can vomit right?

Not so sure. Vomiting is in place of making your regular attacks. Assuming you have regular attacks to make, you can sacrifice them to vomit instead.

Hmmmm it does say they only make attacks against models in btb though. Seems odd. So you've got 6 trolls. ALL 6 can attack, or 3 can vomit. The back 3 give up their attacks because the whole unit has to, but they get nothing for it. Lame!

Exactly.

Hrm.... will have a read about that, but it does make some sense that you couldn't vomit from the back row (just like you can't get "Stomp!" attacks from the back row). I've committed myself to a troll list, so it is of interest to me! But it definitely makes sense...

Great report man. Really makes me want to throw in Throgg and some trolls to be monster BFFs with my Khornate Ogres. Great modeling opportunity, and who doesn't like all that Fear? (Speaking of which, did you forget about that? You never mentioned it.) All in all, it looks like everything had a pretty decent place and use, even if the horses didn't have any skirmishers or war machines to chew up. Good to see that some of the less obvious choices (trolls, giants) have a good place in the army next to the warriors and marauders.

Duke’s Journal - All Hallow’s Eve

The Old World has gone mad. Forests devour passersby, seep with poison or fume with fungus; rivers boil or transmute to blood, necrotic ooze and purest light; from the noblest mansion to the merest fence, the edifices of man have become saturated with spirits foul and fair - even the ground itself moves under foot, threatening horse and rider alike. And this is to say nothing of the so-called balance of power before the coming of this cataclysm. The ratman, the stunted one and the weakling man have all acclimated swiftest to the rampant warping of the face of the world and of war. Though the tribes of the north have certainly faired well judging by their increased presence in the southern climes - and the Lord of Change must be proudest of the dark pantheon, for He gains new adherents daily, though I have my suspicions of such fair weather worshippers …

The Baron has left us, taking the Pimp and his menagerie of monsters back to his keep. His disgust was palpable on the day that he left - indeed, the ground beneath his demonic mount’s hooves turned to vomit in sympathy. Perhaps he will one day wish to take the field, but for now I have been left with the command of my warrior contingents, along with the warhounds that Miss Nibbles could not consume before the trip to the northern wastes.

This is not to say that we have fallen pray to other chaos hordes or the roving warbands of other races. Far from it, we gain in strength daily. Shortly after the Baron’s departure our tamed kroxigors returned to us, though distinctly traumatized. It would appear that the Pimp had grown bored on the return journey and interfered with their minds, in an attempt to increase their paltry combat prowess and morale. Given that the brutes are now even dumber than before - they refuse to operate as a pack, preferring to drool and shamble about alone - it would seem that he failed, though they do appear to be tougher and perhaps so stupid as to be unbreakable … Time will tell if they will yet serve for battle, or should be ground up for victuals.

And victuals we are in need of, for we have been joined by an enormous beast that calls himself Korg. In fury he matches that of the shaggoths of my boyhood, though in appearance something like that of the lizardmen of the tropics. If nothing else he is ferociously hungry, and we shall have to see combat soon to keep him fed. Korg did not wander into our warband by himself, of course. He is apparently the charge of our new sorcerer, the ostentatious (but what sorcerer is not?) Shreve the Inquisitor. The Inquisitor is swiftly reminding me of his predecessor the Pimp in all of the worst ways, but we are in need of a beast tamer and his magical acuity appears to be even more important in these days, when the winds of magic blow as fickle as our Lord.

Speaking of gods and demigods, the newest and final member of our group is an otherworldly demon prince, which tore itself out of a cliff face we were sheltering against scant days ago. The beast calls itself Skullflux, gibbers incessantly and has thankfully shown no desire to lead, nor demanded anything beyond the first nine maidens we are able to capture in battle, as well as a dainty meal of cheeses served with every dusk. I wish that I could here show ‘our’ prince the respect it deserves, but I fear its mind is so far gone that I would sooner stand in awe of it than salute it - the Baron’s demands of me and mine were sometimes galling, but I did not worry daily that he would reduce me to atoms with a twitch of a finger. Indeed I have no concept of Skullflux’s abilities, though the scions of chaos certainly have a reputation. By which I mean, a reputation for being nigh unseen on the battlefield, and so a complete unknown. My plan at the moment is merely to stay in its good graces.

Blessed though their patience has been these long months in the wilderness, my men have finally become impatient to taste battle again. With our reinforcements - motley though they may appear - I too feel it is at last time to act. Tomorrow we will usher in All Saint’s Day with a massacre, though of who or what we will have to wait to find out. Changer-willing it will not be us!

More to come from the Duke and the boys very soon ...

- Salvage

100% awesome! Totally loved it, and really well written. Looking forward to more reports soon.

Thanks RZ, hoping to bring the mayhem as I get these guys built and at least primed back to strength

Speaking of which:

Game 36: Warriors of Chaos (2000)

Nothing like a WoC grudge match to get the WoT boys back on their feet. Though this wasn't against either of the two resident WoC players, but a 2000 point-familiar dude from north of Albany, who hadn't played against WoC in 8th. Lucky

He had ...

L: Sorcerer Lord [HEAVENS] - level 4, talisman of preservation, puppet

H: Exalted BSB - MoT, talisman of endurance, word of agony, halberd

C: 18 Warriors - MoK, full command?, halberds, shields
C: 18 Warriors - MoT, full command?, halberds, shields
C: 40+ Marauders - MoT, full command, shields
C: 35+ Marauders - MoK, full command, great weapons
C: 5 Warhounds

S: 3 Trolls

R: Warshrine

A truly impressive number of big meaty units for 2000 points, I am quite impressed. The halberd warriors were the most scary, with the turtle marauders being perhaps the biggest problem with their warrior escorts.

And I trotted out my Special Snowflake chaos ...

L: Demon Prince - MoT, level 1, third eye, roar

H: Sorcerer - MoT, level 2, stream, collar, dispel scroll
H: Exalted BSB - MoT, dragonhelm, talisman of endurance, ironcurse, halberd

C: 20 Warriors - MoT, banner of eternal flame, full command, shields
C: 20 Warriors - MoT, full command, shields
C: 5 Warhounds
C: 5 Warhounds

R: Shaggoth - ahw
R: 2 Spawn



Scenario - Dawn Assault

Terrain & Deployment


Self-explanatory enough? The lake is a marsh, and the ruins over there are impassable terrain. Nothing is mysterious, as that is a big pile of dumb IMO, nor did we randomly roll up terrain, though it was alternatively placed and scattered 3D6". His BSB is with the turtle marauders and level 4 is with the khorne marauders, while my BSB is with the left warriors and level 2 is with the right ones. Dawn Assault wasn't too troublesome, though it stranded my left warriors vs both of his tizz blocks, and my shaggoth against his halberd dudes far right.

Magic
His level 4: thunderbolt, chain lightning, comet & the hex
My level 2: flicker, treason
My DP: flicker (+ his heaven spells )

Battle
Despite me deploying first, he actually stole the initiative and started things off!

Turn 1
Showing some hesitance, the chaos line ambles directly forward across the board only a handful of inches. Magic is crushed and the Eye is closed to the warshrine.

Happy to be reactive, the other chaos line mobilzes, with the spawn both heading for the khorne marauders, Korg sprinting for the cover of the ruins (intending to strand the khorne warriors on the flank while getting involved in the central scrum) and Skullflux leaping over the trolls to stare at their rears and the khorne marauder flank. The Duke’s warriors stay in place with the two tizz tanks steaming its way, while Shreve the sorcerer gets his men out of the woods and towards the khorne marauders. A unit of hounds screams up to bait the marauders too. Both Shreve and Skullflux tag the trolls with flicker, cooking 5 wounds off of the beasts, and the prince follows this up by screaming into the marauders - 1,1 for hits + 6,6 for wounds = 2 dead guys

Turn 2
The khorne marauders restrain their frenzy, sending their own dogs into the flank of the warhounds instead, and the trolls see the writing on the wall and charge the shaggoth instead of being charged next turn. On the left the tizz warriors enter the building while the tizz marauders advance, and on the right the khorne warriors wheel towards the gap between woods and ruins to eventually get back to the action. The level 4 is able to start a comet down onto the left spawn’s head (between both warrior blocks), as well as hit the Duke’s warriors with a thunderbolt, dropping 3 of them. The chaos gods listen to the warshrine’s entreaties and gift the tizz marauders with +1T. In the First Combat of the Game, Korg breaks the necks of the two trolls without batting an eye (6 attaks > 6 hits > 6 wounds > 2 regens). And in the Second, his puppies drop one of mine, then my single puppy on the flank tears the throat out of one of his. Despite -2 mine hold off of Skullflux + BSB. They also reform to face.

Really not wanting to deal with the incoming hordes on the left, the Duke bails out of the flaming warriors and joins Shreve in his unit, which had previously moved up a tad. His ex-warriors back up a bit … Skullflux hops to behind the khorne marauders, and both spawn shamble towards the same increasingly-surrounded angry lumberjacks. Korg bides his time behind the ruin, as the khorne warriors have gained LoS through the gap and he has no desire to be flanked by liquid halberd death! His comet doesn’t come down, and Skullflux decides to be awesome by stealing some heaven magic and sending a comet of his own down between the building and the tizz marauders, though magic is a bust otherwise. His roar amounts to another dead marauder, and in combat my hounds shred two of his but the last holds on general + BSB.

Turn 3
Ah, the sound of inevitability! His tizz marauders w/ BSB charge my dwindling warrior block which holds (Mistake #1 Should have fled), despite fully understanding that his warriors were about to exit their building and flank in next turn ftw. Also, they exit the building in order to flank in next turn ftw. The khorne warriors fail frenzy (or not?) and charge my puppies, and the khorne warriors move into the gap of wood and ruin. His comet comes down and smashes both of my warriors blocks and his tizz marauders, resulting in a good number of dead warriors from both units (4-5 each) and about the same in barbarians. Skullflux’s comet adds a counter (+1). The level 4 manages to tag the character-laden warriors with chain lightning, though they absorb all or most of the damage and the lightning fails to arc. Deciding the tizz marauders didn’t need the help, the warshrine shifts the Eye’s gaze over to the khorne marauders, who receive +1LD. In the tizz on tizz violence my warriors are ultimately beaten by 2, fail twice and are run down. Sadness reigns and comments are made about that being game … In the puppy gangbang, my dogs devour his dog and are smooshed in return, with the khorne block overrunning a wee bit.

Sensing that it is time to get extreme, the Duke gestures wildly with his banner and everybody charges the khorne warriors: tizz warriors + BSB + level 2 + spawn in the front, another spawn in the flank, and Skullflux in the butt. Only Korg hangs tough behind his ruins, from where he hatches a clever plan and commands the remaining hounds (who have not moved all game) to rush up and redirect the khorne warriors in such a way that should they charge, the mandatory overrun will, with enough distance, allow him to flank them … Skullflux’s comet adds a counter (+2), and his third eye blazes again as he looks through the combat, spies the level 4 and casts a 6-die Curse of the Midnight Wind onto the khorne warriors, with the intent of miscasting and nuking some little guys. It works and thanks to the enemy puppet a 5 miscast becomes a 4 - not only are the khorne marauders cursed but 10 (!) die in the resulting dimensional cascade, while Skullflux wards off the S10 hit and slaps away the tentacles threatening to pull him back into the warp from whence he came. Speaking of slapping, he pulverizes 2 more marauders, the Duke decapitates a couple more, the spawn (13 attaks total!) flail down a good number themselves, the warriors blend up several and Skullflux gleefully thunderstomps 2-4 more into goo. (Meanwhile the sorcerers had themselves a merry slap fight of a challenge.) The few marauders left manage nothing and break twice over, being run down by both spawn and the prince, while the warriors restrain and face the halberd warriors. (Mistake #2 Should have had faith in my shaggoth trap and faced the tizz marauders on the left, but ah well.)

Turn 4
The khorne warriors restrain their frenzy and hang out, while the tizz warriors advance a bit from the building and the tizz marauders swift reform and scoot into the woods headed towards center. Skullflux’s comet adds a counter (+3), and the warshrine can’t jockey into 12” of anybody so doesn’t activate (though in retrospect he might as well have boosted himself).

A spawn shambles into the warshrine because it can, the warrior deathstar advances a wee bit towards the tizz marauders (Mistake #3 I had intended to move far enough to keep the looooong end of the marauder block in the woods, so as to deny them steadfast, but I immediately forgot this plan when actually moving the unit …), and Skullflux merrily swoops to the left flank of the tizz warriors, looking to magic and flank in next turn. And the shaggo-trap continues. In magic ……… it is pointed out that my demon prince has just plopped down next to a huge stack of comet counters. 11 S8 hits later Skullflux kills himself with his own comet - though I do ward 6 of 10 wounds (Mistake #4 Whoops.) I feel like a total boob, but Shreve snaps me out of it and hits the tizz warriors with flicker (1 dead) and the marauders with treason (7 dead). In the warshrine-spawn junk combat, he does a wound and the spawn doesn’t care.

Turn 5
The marauders fail to man up enough to charge the tizzstar, choosing to march and clear the majority of the unit from the woods (just). The tizz warriors advance to support next turn, and the khorne warriors fail their frenzy roll and charge the dogs. Said puppies vaporize and the khorne boys in their fury overrun an impressive 9”. Korg cracks his knuckles … In the junk combat, the spawn wounds the ‘shrine (!) but is wounded again in return.

So yea: Korg flanks the khorne warriors, the second spawn prepares to assault the warshrine and help its rare slot-mate out, and the tizzstar charges the marauders. In an epic conflict, both halberd-wielding tizz BSB’s enter in a challenge, with his word of pain failing to bother the Duke (“PEANUT BUTTER!”; “… say what?”) and the Duke’s dragonhelm giving him a slight edge in the coming rounds - he suffers 1 wound to my 0. Also, many marauders die to 0-1 warriors, and they hold steadfastly. In another epic conflict, the 9 warrior attaks (!) from the flank put 3 wounds on the shaggoth, and needing 6+ to save, he saves all of them: 666. He lays into the warriors, killing 4-5 between attaks and t-stomp. They are beaten but hold and reform to face. Also spawn1 dies :’(

Turn 6
The warshrine charges the second spawn to insure that Lots of Fighting happens, with which his tizz warriors agree and clip the corner of my tizzstar, contacting only the level 2 riding that corner … Fighting indeed comes around, which sees Korg take 4 wounds from the meany halberds, before mashing them down to 8 models - again, they hold and reform to bring more models into the fight. In the main event the Duke takes a wound from his opponent, the clipping warriors do nothing to Shreve and several marauders die. I lose by one and easily pass. His warshrine does 2 wounds to the last spawn.

As all chaos-chaos matches should be, it’s all fighting to the end. Korg takes 1 wound from the halberds and I declare him dead … until I read my book and discover shaggoths do have 6 wounds! He pulverizes 7 warriors in indignation, breaking and catching the champion for a buttload of points (and a spot in the 2500 version). In the less exciting combat he fails to kill my spawn, who fails to do much against the ‘shrine. But the decider: both BSB’s drive their halberds into each other at the same moment, in a not-homoerotic final embrace of death. Fueled by the ensuing awkwardness, my warriors frappe 7 marauders, while his warriors slap against my sorcerer’s fancy hood to no avail. He loses by a lot, no longer has steadfast or a BSB, fails both tests and gets the poor inferior tizz warriors run down, while the marauders cavort off scot-free.

Result
WOT WIN (but not a massacre since the DP general got himself nuked, giving up 500 VP)

Quite the smashfest and many things worked out for me, despite really ballsing a thing or two up You can’t really tell here but my luck was fairly astounding at times - not just the saves on the monsters, but loads of channels and such. But then of course I made almost no saves on my warriors (ward or armor), and while I got lots and lots of hits I still struggled to wound on 3+, so all is as expected

- Salvage

Looking forward to it. BTW, are there pictures of some of these minis you're describing? Interested in seeing Skullflux and Korg for sure.

Also looking forward to Heavens getting trotted out...

Red_Zeke wrote:Looking forward to it. BTW, are there pictures of some of these minis you're describing? Interested in seeing Skullflux and Korg for sure.

Lamely, I actually brought my camera along to the game but decided to not take pics with it. I'll snap some pics soon, I'm pretty proud of the modeling (if all black prime ) and you guys should probably understand some of the oddities of the Duke, the spawn, and so on based on their models ...

- Salvage

Very nice! Glad to see you back to putting tiny men on the table! Well done on one shotting your own general too; that's gotta be an achievement unlock somewhere

Also

1,1 for hits + 6,6 for wounds = 2 dead guys

You have the strangest dice luck ever.

Great read as always, even if I was a little shocked, shocked!, to see that you misspelled "prey" as "pray". Tsk tsk
Now get pack to reading Proust and painting models!

Absolutely love Skullflux accidentally stepping under his own comet. Hilarious. Great report, though Warriors on Warriors made it require a little more focus to keep track of things.

Thanks for the report, and nice win!