Ahh spring! Love is in the air... and chaos warriors are in the mountain passes 
And the only thing standing between this bunch and the sleepy mountain town of Watthafeth is Arch Lector Von Tuck and a not so rag-tag band of Stirlanders (OY! Get back here you lot!) who just happened to be in the area on... maneuvers, yeah, that's it, maneuvers
.
In the green and yellow corner we have (me):
Arch Lector Von Tuck: Heavy Armour, Holy Relic, VH's Speculum, Sword of Justice and a Charmed Shield (well the Strigany that he bought it from
swore it was charmed)
Captain Iva Bigflag the
BSB: AoMI, Crimson Amulet, Biting Blade
Tim the oddly dressed level 2 Bright Wizard: Dispel Scroll
Ruprecht the Master Engineer: light armour & Grenade Launching Blunderbuss
Regiment of 41 Halberdiers,
FC; Regiment of 20 Greatswords,
FC; Regiment of 20 Handgunners
FC; 5 Pistoliers,
FC; A Mortar and a Helstorm Rocket Battery
And, in the Blue and Red corner (him, near as I can recall):
Chaos Lord Killyoutodeath and his pet Jugger Spot
Level 2 Chaos Sorc with
MoT and a spell familiar(?)
15
WoC with
MoK and halberds; 15
WoC with
MoT,
HW and shields; 30 Marauders with
MoK and
GWs; 5 Knights;
Here the 2 armies have deployed in a mountain pass amongst a strangely symmetrical scattering of terrain. The
WoC have, unsurprisingly, lined up in the starting blocks as far up as they can. His Lord and Spot are out on his left with the unmarked Knights and the Sorc is bunkered in the
MoT Warriors in the middle.
I've dropped the Handgunners in the edge of the forest at my end (normal, phew!), the Halberds and Greatswords to their left and back a bit, the Rocket Battery on top of the tower with the Mortar on the ground near it and the Engineer on the ground between them. The Pistoliers are out on my left flank and vanguard up to attract the attention of the Marauder block. The
AL and
BSB are in the block of Halberds and the Bright Wizard is hanging out with the guys carrying explosives (no way for that to go wrong
)
WoC get to go first and surge forward and the
MoK Warriors jump into the ruined tower. Magic phase sees Pandemonium go off and I think Treason dispelled. On to Empire 1st turn.
The Stirlanders mostly stay put, I think I nudged the
GSs up a little. Magic phase I end up with enough dice to throw both spells, small Fireball into the
MoT Warriors actually kills a couple, and Flaming Sword is given to the Rocket Battery, but Pandemonium causes a miscast. The detonation ignites the ammo of the two handgunners on that end which covers their fellows in a fine, red mist
Shooting phase sees the handgunners get some payback as they kill a couple more of the Sorc's bodyguards. The mortar crew takes out another with a well aimed bomb, but the rocket battery drops their fireworks display in the middle of nowhere, even with the Engineer's reroll.
On
WoC turn 2, the line again moves inexorably forward. The Lord fails a long charge out of the Knights at the building and the wily pistoleers successfully escape a charge from the frothing Maurauders. At the bidding of the Sorcerer, my Greatswords begin fighting amongst themselves as he gets a Treason off (on double sixes I belive) leaving a handful of Stirland's elite dead as well as one or two evil warriors from the magical feedback.
AL Von Tuck decides that the party is probably going to be on the
other side of the woods and, to the rat-a-tat of the snare drum, reforms the massive, but well disciplined block of halberdiers to face north and begin moving around the woods. The Greatswords sidle forward a bit more, whistling nonchalantly and out on the flank the pistoliers decide maybe they should go just
a bit further before turning back to the battle
Another Fireball is dispelled in the magic phase, but Flaming Sword is cast successfully again, this time on the Handgunners ("Guys, they're getting awful close" observes Tim). The magically boosted bullets account for another handful of
MoT warriors, but the evil bastages hold their ground. The Rocket crew gets it's act together and drops a barrage directly on the block of Khornites who have just exited the tower, but their creepy armour ensures that only a couple are blown into unrecognizable smithereens
On the other flank the Marauders also mostly survive a near direct hit from the mortar.
Turn 3 sees yet more silly, bent-kneed running about by the men from the north. The Lord makes it to the building (guess what happens to the Rocket crew
) and the Knights trample the mortar crew beneath their large, spiky hooves. In the middle, the boys in blue fail a charge at the immensely relieved handgunners who pick off a couple more of them with a Rhuin boosted SandS. Tim burns his scroll to stop a Treason on the Halberds and I think another spell either failed or was dice dispelled.
Shouting prayers to Holy Sigmar, the Stirlanders take it to the invaders in Empire turn 3. General Von Tuck leads the halberdiers charge into the reformed Chaos Knights, while on the other flank the outnumbered Greatswords slam into the block of marauders. The outrider finally raises his hand, "this should be far enough lads!" And, thanks to the motivated Bright Wizard, the handgunners blast another volley of magic enhanced fire into the Tzeentch Warriors, reducing them to a single rank.
After cutting down a handful of brave Stirland lads, one of the Chaos Knights is filled full of halberd shaped holes, but his pals just seem amused by his death throes. On the other flank Greatswords and Marauders trade casualties, but the jaunty tootling of Von Jolson the trumpeter takes some of the fight out of the northmen. Ultimately, everyone decides to hang around for another round and see if it turns into a real fight
WoC turn 4: Both blocks of warriors in the middle complete charges into the handgunners who, to the surprise of no one, die to a man. Tim decides its a good time to get close to nature and heads deeper into the woods, unfortunately a couple of guys in red armour have the same thought and nothing emerges from the woods for a long time (except for girly screams and wet chopping sounds). In the meantiime, the Chaos Lord has maneuvered around to the flank of the halberd block (incidentally keeping the Khorne warriors from pursuing into my flank) while they are busy chopping 3 more of his knights into chopped up knights. The survivor, aware that the boss is watching, decides to stick around a little longer. Slightly more marauders than greatswords die, but even with the boss way over there, the northmen decide to stick.
My turn 4: The pistoliers make themselves useful by getting in front of the remaining Tzeentch warriors and even gunning a few of them down. The armour of the last Chaos Knight holds up and he stays put, obviously showing off for the boss
On the other side of the field, the Marauders and Greatswords have settled in for one of those nice grindy infantry battles that are all the rage these days.
Chaos turn 5, the Lord rears his jugger up on the flank of the Halberdiers and bellows for the "motherless son of a woman with loose morals who is leading this rabble to come forward and die like a dog under his blade," or words to that effect. This prompts Von Tuck, who everyone knows, will not have a word spoken against his sainted mother
, to make his way through the ranks to have a word with the blaggart. After a good talking too and a smack in the chops (with his own stat line, thanks to Van Hortstmann's Speculum) the Lord rolls
, suddenly realizes he left his
BSB at home and hares off through the khorne warriors to find it. The Halberds, after finally seeing to the last knight, try to follow the guy on the Juggernaut, but instead run into a bunch of guys in red armour with bad attitudes.
Apparently busy congratulating themselves on their one round of usefulness, the Pistoliers fail to kill the remaining Tzeetch warrior on the stand and shoot and so are wiped out and overrun by the unit champ and the Sorc. The Greatswords finally break the Marauders and prove fleeter of foot, even in full plate, and run them down.
On Empire turn 5 the Halberds are obviously inspired by the
AL's intestinal fortitude and don't even slow down as they run over the Khornites and pull up next to the fleeing Lord.
Last turn and it's basically a
VP tie. Until the Sorcerer IFs a Treason into the handful of surviving Greatswords (who ALL proceed to whiff their attacks), rolls the small template go boom result on the miscast table and takes out the last surviving member of the unit of
MoT Warriors.
End of the game: Empire 900ish
VPs to 600ish for the
WoC. Victory for Empire
Mostly due to a couple of errors made by my opponent (not to mention several statistically improbable dice results on both sides), but I'll take it as he usually thumps me with anything wearing chaos armour
First battle report for me and if you made it this far, thanks for reading!
