This Saturday I played in a three game tournament at the always-excellent Danger Planet in Waltham,
MA using Chaos Mortals. My 2nd, 3rd, and 4th full-sized games with the new get-you-by list from
WD.
The tournament format did include painting scores in the overall, as I understand it (though I didn’t get a full scoring breakdown), and maybe Sports as well (or those points might have just been their own prize). The battle points were 7/4/1 for W/D/L, with a 3pt major objective and two 1pt minor objectives, which was cool.
Here’s the list:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/212975.page
Exalted Champion, Mark of Slaanesh, Daemonic Mount, Armor of Damnation, Sword of Might, Shield = 210
Aspiring
BSB,
MoS, Sword of Striking, Enchanted Shield = 155
L2 Sorcerer, Daemonic Mount, Sword of Battle, Dispel Scroll = 185
L2 Sorcerer, Chaos Familiar = 150
17 Chaos Warriors w/Mark of Slaanesh, Shields, Full Command, Banner of Wrath = 326
15 Marauders w/Flails, Mus = 96
12 Marauders w/Great Weapons, Mus = 90
5 Warhounds = 30
5 Warhounds = 30
6 Chosen Knights,
MoS, Mus, Std, War Banner = 308
6 Knights,
MoS, Mus, Std = 223
2 x chariot,
MoS = 240
5 Marauder Horse w/Flails, Throwing Axes, Mus = 86
2 Spawn = 120
Total: 2249
Round 1 was against High Elves. Highborn on Star Dragon, L2, L2, block of spears, two units of 10 archers, two
RBTs, lion chariot, unit of dragon princes, and a unit of white lions.
The scenario gave 3pts to whoever had the most magic items at the end, including those captured from the enemy, using the same rules as capturing a Battle Standard. 1pt for holding an enemy quadrant, and 1pt for killing the enemy general.
This was a pretty terrifying matchup as I really don’t have much answer to the dragon, and had never faced it before. I weighted to the left flank, facing off against the dragon princes, one mage, and one unit of archers, as well as the the spears (who were left-center) and avoiding the
RBTs (which were on the opposite flank), a unit of archers, and to some extent the lion chariot (far right flank) and white lions (center-right). I sacrificed a unit of marauders and a spawn, and used my marauder cav (who ended the game over half, holding my right quadrant, hiding behind a wood) to divert and hold up the lion units. Naturally my opponent placed the dragon across from the bulk of my army, though hidden behind a hill.
He took first turn and moved the dragon well forward, easily in reach to charge most of my army. His big error, though, was being too close. I was in range to charge with my Exalted and one chariot. I said "screw it", and sent both in. I managed to get a wound on the dragon and a wound on the highborn, past the re-rollable save and 4+ ward. He put all his attacks on my exalted (mistake #2), and thanks to the armor of damnation managed to miss with virtually all of them. And then the dragon rolled a 1 to wound with its single hit. And then he rolled a 10 on his break test. And then I ran him down.
After that it was a relatively straightforward cleanup exercise. His two L2s got more done than mine (especially since he kept getting Drain Magic off as his final spell), but I just had too much stuff, and wound up killing all the left flank stuff, the spears, and both mages. His lions and right flank shooty stuff were fine at the end, though I can’t recall if I ever killed the chariot. I wound up being half an inch short of charging it with my
BSB using Steed of Shadows. So my poor
BSB ate Lion Chariot to the face and died. Stll, I managed a full 12pt win.
Round 2 was Lizards. Quite a nice, very fighty list. Oldblood with 7(!) attacks on cold one with 0+ save and 4+ ward against S5+ attacks, two scar vets on foot, one with
GW, the other with
BSB and Sword of Might. Skink Shaman with the diadem for storing dice. Multiple Tepok marks on the Saurus heroes too for extral dispel power. Units were two big blocks (20 with attached characters) of saurus, 3 units of Skinks with blowpipes (not scouting), 3 terradons, two units (3 and 4 strong) of kroxigors, unit of 3 salamanders, unit of 5 cold one riders with Huanchi banner.
The secondary objectives in this mission were kill the general and kill the most expensive unit (
IIRC). The primary objective was to hold an objective on the center line, which scattered
3d6” to the right or left. It scattered to my right. I mostly stacked up my infantry near it, and my heroes as well, though went more central/left with my cavalry and one chariot. My exalted and wizards took on the skinks and kroxies on the right, and his big infantry blocks were basically central, with the sallies and some skinks being right on/around the objective. His cold one riders and terradons went left.
The saurus took out my marauder cav over on the left turn 2, but got charged in return by my chariot, which gradually beat them down to oblivion. I drew his oldblood out of his unit (the left block) and charged him with my Chosen. The Chosen lost a few, but eventually broke him, sadly not running him down. I fed him a chariot later after he rallied to keep him out of the important fight. The Chosen were eventually finished off by the saurus block, but kept it tied up for several turns and away from the objective. The sallies destroyed a unit of marauders with shooting, but no one near them cared, and one of my chariots got into charge range. The chariot ate the sallies.
My other knights, warrior block, and
BSB (solo) wound up facing off against the other saurus block and both the scar vets for control of the objective. Things started off well, but the
GW scar vet and S6
BSB started killing regular knights and warriors, and both of those units would have broken if not for the
BSB re-roll. Once he charged in he was able to challenge, killing the
GW scar vet and swinging the outcome of the battle. The lizards broke, and were run down by my knights, with the warriors and
BSB restraining to stay near the objective.
My Exalted did yeoman’s work against the Kroxigors. Four S6 attacks and 2 S5 from the Daemonic mount, combined with the kroxies needing 5s to hit followed by re-rolling to try for 5s again, meant that he beat the stuffing out of both units. My foot mage was pretty useless, and my mounted mage first helped out against Kroxies, then killed a unit of skinks while keeping another away from the objective, before dying to blowpipes.
IIRC all my opponent had at the end were a unit of skinks, the general, and the other block of saurus. I wound up with an 11pt win since I had failed to run down the Oldblood.
Round 3 I was on the top table, up against Beasts of Chaos. He had a proper mass of beasties. Doombull in unit of 20-ish Khorne Bestigors with
GW. Three herds (two cheap and one with extra guys and full command). Two chariots. Two units of 5 Centigors. Two units of four Khornate Minotaurs. Four units of five Warhounds. Shaggoth and Giant! There may have been a partridge or pear tree in there somewhere.
The mission was Pitched Battle. Ten points just for winning, with +1 for killing the General and +1 for the most expensive unit.
He deployment spanned the table, being hounds in front of centigors, big tough beast herd, two chariots side by side, hounds in front of minos, herd in forest, next unit of minos with hounds in front, giant, bestigors w/doom bull, herd, shaggoth, and other centigors. I matched this with chariot, marauder cav, chariot, spawn, marauder infantry in the center supported by Exalted and Chosen knights, Warriors on the right flank supported by mages,
BSB, a spawn and regular knights to their right. I forget where the dogs went. They didn’t really matter.
We got into it quite fast, with my Exalted going for broke and charging one unit of minotaurs in the center on turn 2, hoping to repeat his success against the Kroxigors (though not expecting quite as good results against WS4). He got smushed, as 12 attacks resulted in 11 hits the first time, and even after re-rolls and some poor wounding, he still got two wounds through to kill my general. Ouch. I also was pressured into a bad charge on the left flank of marauder cav into the tougher beast herd, which resulted in dead horseyboys.
In better news, my chariot on the far left accepted the bait of a warhound unit and couldn’t quite roll high enough to reach the centigors behind. It beat them up when they charged it, however.
On the far right flank my opponent’s other centigors fared equally poorly, first losing two of their number to a fireball from my mounted sorcerer, then having the last three beaten by him in combat! Go go combat mage! My foot mage Steed of Shadowsed himself behind the enemy lines to the right, using Crown of Taidron to good effect, amazingly, by putting a wound on the Shaggoth, killing a Bestigor or two, and wiping out a screening unit of hounds. He eventually ran from Terror of the Giant! But distracted said Giant into chasing him off my opponent’s table edge, thus getting the giant the heck away from combat with my army.
My regular knights went into the Shaggoth early, getting the charge after a spawn held him up for a turn longer than math said he should have. And despite some nasty early casualties, they eventually pulled him down! Well done on the right! The center looked dicey after the loss of my Exalted, especially when my other chariot got stuck in the woods and killed itself trying to get out. But my Chosen smashed the minotaurs in revenge for my general (losing half their unit in the process, though undaunted), and then beat a chariot which flanked them. Pursuing the Chariot allowed them to get around behind the OTHER unit of Minos, and in combination with my centigor-smashing left-flank chariot, they butchered the second unit of minos. Lots of lots of S5 hits = yum! My Chosen then took out the other beast chariot, and for an encore my chariot killed the remaining tough herd of gors/ungors. Nice work, guys.
Two herds of beasts wound up busting through my center-left in the midst of all the excitement, and one unit of my marauders died a messy death facing them. My
BSB and the other unit of marauders killed the one that my chariot had left.
But it was on the center-right flank that the most critical combat would happen. The Doombull and Bestigors had originally started out indecisive, facing a piece of impassible terrain which separated the right flank (my warriors, regular knights,
BSB and mages) from the center (my exalted, marauders, and chosen knights). They eventually decided to head right, looking to help the shaggoth out and earn some points killing characters. After the knights finished off the shaggoth the frenzied bestigor/doombull block had to charge their flank. The doombull easily killed the two or three remaining knights, but thanks to the blood feast (or whatever it’s called) rule, the unit could not overrun to get out of the charge range of my warrior block. My warrior block (sans
BSB, who had sensibly moved over behind the impassible ruin) went into the flank, killing a few bestigors and winning combat, and breaking the unit! Sadly a roll of 4 to pursue didn’t allow me to catch them. They rallied on the bottom of turn 5, and unfortunately there was no way for my Warriors to get away from them. On the bottom of turn 6 the bestigors + doom bull charged into my warriors, and even without Frenzy beat them by a few points, and broke them despite the proximity of my
BSB. This 526pt swing (with the loss of my banner and recovery of his own) brought the game into a tie, approximately 1500pts to me, 1540 to him. I got no bonus points, and his points (
IIRC bought him second place, after Chris Hammond’s Tomb Kings beat Brian Kelly’s High Elves on table two.
I wound up tied for third place and winning (to my surprise) the Best Painted award, my army actually being a point behind Hammond’s in the voting, but him having won Overall.
Overall I was pleasantly surprised by how well the Warriors of Chaos list did, though I would have lost game 2 without the
BSB, and it was the expensive and underperforming Warriors who finally cost me the win in game 3. I bought a chariot at
DP, and will probably resign myself to fielding either the Banner of the Gods or three or four chariots at Crossroads. I enjoyed the heck out of the wizard on daemonic mount with sword of battle; his 18” charge with 2 WS5, S4 attacks and 2 WS4, S5 attacks was a great little force multiplier. I now finally see what all the fuss is about with the Armor of Damnation. Beating up those Kroxigors sure was sweet.
Overall the list is a lot of fun to play, and does seem to require a good bit more skill than my super-mobile Wood Elves. I’m not sure what I’m going to do against some armies (*cough* Star Dragon *cough* heavy magic *cough cough*), but overall the more complex interplay of setting up charges and counter-charges with this slower, very combat-focused army is very satisfying, both for me and (seemingly) for my opponents.
