WHFB – Dwarves vs Luke’s WoC – part 2 – Battle report

With barely a rumble, the bridge pivoted up to connect to the causeway that extended out from the other side of the vast chasm, running alongside the side of the mountain. The only sign of the massive counter weights and dwarvern mechanisms powering it were the two enormous chains running from the underside of the bridge into darkened recesses within the cliff. As the two sections smoothly came together, the giant gates set back under the overhanging archway, opened and receded into the statues of the ancestor gods that stood on either side. The air was split with the sound of rasping horns and almost immediately, with iron shod boots striking the ground in lockstep, the dwarves appeared from within the depths of the silver capped mountain that gave the hold its name. The throng of Karak Silvertop once more marched to war!

As covered in my last post about the army lists, this week I had the pleasure of facing off against Luke and his oldhammer Warriors of Chaos.

Pre-match rolls and Terrain

With 5 spells to roll for, the Deamon Princes had everything with the exception of Stream of Corruption and Blades of Putrefaction.

The Dwarf hatred roll was against all characters.

The scenario rolled was battleline.

Terrain

For once we decided to roll everything using the BRB including the terrain and ended up with the following:

Forest (turned out to be a Blood forest)

River (completely forgot to roll for the effects)

Magic circle (MR 2 within 6″), depicted by the blood alter on the map.

Wizards tower (You gain lore master of your chosen lore for the turn).

Building (normal)

Nehekharan Sphinx – If you pass an initiative test you can gain either: HKB, lore master of death or something else that I cannot remember (or be bothered to look up now) for the rest of the game.

We decided that the Sphinx was massively overpowered and that only one death spell could be gained with each test.

I will say, that this is one of the things i really never liked about 8th. Why can’t terrain just be terrain. Why does everything have to have sodding magical properties. It always seemed to be unnecessary and unneeded addition to the game.

As it went all the random terrain was pretty moot, as after I won the roll for sides and we switched over, I promptly stuck the horde of hammerers on the Sphinx to block the prince getting to it and we then proceeded to completely forgot about the terrain special rules!

Deployment

I nearly deployed entirely on my left flank to take advantage of the open terrain but with the sphinx dead centre, I wanted to control that and the house was ready made to protect one flank (and more importantly the organ gun) and allowed me to place the quarreller unit in there, so they would not only be able to shoot in any direction without penalty but it would also protect them in combat and give them stubborn. The two hordes were placed front and centre and the Irondrakes were placed to guard the flank.

Turn 1 – WoC

With a great cry, the forces of the dark gods pushed forward on all fronts. The Juggernauts of Khorne showed an amazing amount of restraint, keeping their wits enough to maximise the range of the organ gun.

The prince called on the favor of his deity and the juggers were the recipients, flesh toughening in response. The warriors on the shrines chanted in unison and the eye of the gods turned on their champions with Thrudd’s muscular caricature growing further.

The depraved, twisted cousins of the dwarves goaded their charge to target the hammerers but the enraged daemon broke free of it’s chains, devouring it’s handlers and wounding the nearby daemon prince.

The hammerers watched, unimpressed, as the hail of javelins launched at them all failed to clear the nearby river.

Turn 1 – Dwarves

The gyrocoptors flew towards the large unit of Warriors and although at the maximum distance for their weapons effective range, still managed to roast 5 of the putrescent ones. The irondrakes stepped up and chargrilled 4 of the dogs in front of them, the stench of cooked tainted meat was not enough to send the final member of the pack running though.

The quarrellers in a rare moment of total ineptitude, all targeted the same dog. That dog obviously died, pincusioned with bolts and with their faces flaming behind their beards the crossbow dwarves were glad the walls of the house hid their shame from their brethren.

The crew of the organ gun, seeing the Daemon Prince had been gravely wounded tried some speculative shots to finish off the fell beast but they all went wide of the mark instead shredding the trees surrounding him.

Turn 2 – WoC

The warriors charged into the nearest of the gyro’s and dispite the warped diseases that threatened to twist the flesh of the flyer, he staved them off, striking a warrior down in the process. The experience was unnerving enough that with his machine rusting before his eyes, his nerve broke and he peeled off and made for the hills.

The Maurauder horse and remaining hound attempted to charge the irondrakes but the runes on their standard flared brightly causing both units to stumble and pull up short of their target. Seeing the failure of the nearby units to charge the drakes, Thrudd instead flew across the river to set up a favourable future charge.

On the other side of the river, the dogs failed to charge the organ gun, thus impeding the ability of the Skullcrushers to do anything. Bellowing in frustration they steered their mounts to the side, determined that they would not be denied their tally of skulls.

The Daemon Prince realised staying put was just inviting the artillery to keep targeting him and determined to share the gifts of the allfather, tore into the warrior horde. Four of the brave dwarves fell beneath his claws and a further warrior was shredded from the miscast explosion that also took a further wound from the prince. (Edit: with a single wound now remaining, Luke was now somewhat concerned for the safely of the Prince!)

Turn 2 – Dwarves

The Gyro finished it’s tactical retreat and once again turned to face the warriors. His squadron partner, used the time to get into a prime position and fired his steam gun at full force. Seven of the Nurgle warriors fell to the ground with the putrid flesh sluiced off their bones as the boiling steam turned the armour into a pressure cookers.

The quarrellers, making up for their early failure, wiped out the remaining dogs, opening up the path for the Organ Gun to then target the Skullcrushers. With typical efficiency the machine cut down one of the monstrous infantry and left a second hanging onto life.

The Hammerers charged into the mauraders who fled, panicking the nearby hound. They then redirected into the trolls who also fled. The Daemon prince continued it’s one man monster crusade of destruction, killing another 5 dwarves and healing a wound in the process.

Turn 3 – WoC

Thrudd and the nearby Warshrine both charged into the Irondrakes. The defensive fire once again proving ineffective against the well armoured BSB. In the ensuing combat the Irondrakes showed their elite status, wounding Thudd and the damaging the warshrine twice for the loss of just two of their number.

The few remaining warriors of Nurgle recharged the damaged Gyro, this time completing what they started and permanently grounding the machine.

The Skullcrushers finally managed to get a charge off, targeting the quarrellers. Much to their frustration they needed to dismount to attack the dwarves and were quickly repulsed from their building assault. The Warshrine supported this by attacking the organ gun and destroying the proud machine. The Prince continued his demolition of the warriors, again gaining a wound but unable to shift the steadfast dwarves.

The marauder horse and single hound continued their run from the battle but the Trolls rallied and turned to face the battlefront.

Turn 3 – Dwarves

In what turned out to be the final turn of the game, the remaining gyrocoptor continued to whittle down the warrior unit, this time taking out just two of them. The Irondrake combat continued with 2 more of the dwarvern elite falling but in return they bought down the enemy BSB and inflicted a further wound on the shrine, that they then proceeded to run down as it fled from the implacable dwarves.

The Prince killed off a handful of the stout warriors and they failed to inflict any damage in return.

Throgg and the Trolls once again fled from the attention of the Hammerers, who pulled up just inside the woods

Results

Running out of time and with so little of the battle played, very little destruction had been achieved. I’d lost my Organ Gun (145pts) and a Gyrocoptor (80pts) and Luke had lost his BSB (241pts), a warshrine (135pts), the hellcannon (210pts) and a pack of dogs (30pts) which, when also factoring in the bonus 50VPs from killing the BSB, gave me a 666 to 225 victory.

Conclusions

On the drive back we had a chat about how we thought the rest of the battle might have played out. We agreed that the Irondrakes killing the bsb and the shrine had given me the edge.

On the left flank, the Warriors were in real trouble, they could have retreated but the Irondrakes would have been able to move across and finish them off (perhaps with the assistance of the Gyro)

It the centre, the hammerers would probably have done a swift reform and moved to attack the Prince in turn 5. If the Warriors were able to hold for another turn or two (which should have been possible due to steadfast) it would ensure the prince was held which should have allowed this. This would have likely resulted in a dead prince. However the nearby shrine might have been able to charge the dwarf Warriors (though I would have used my engineer to try and delay this), which could have swung the combat allowing the prince to avoid the hammerers. Either way the Dwarf Warriors survivability was looking as likely as their chaotic compadres. 

The juggernaut riders could possibly have finished off the quarrellers but with steadfast and Lukes rolls, they likely would have taken all game to do so (especially as the xbow dwaves wouldn’t have to initiate combat in their turn).

I forget how psychological this game can be, especially if you haven’t faced a specific unit before. For Luke it was the Hammerers, he was trying to avoid it (successfully) at all costs. For me it was Throgg and the Trolls. I’ve seen Luke roll a phenomenal number of saves before so that regen was really worrying me.

In terms of the list, it played reasonably well. The ease in which Luke avoided the hammerers just bought to the forefront the major weakness with Dwarf armies, their movement and as such when taking large blocks of troops you need to ensure the options for the enemy are all bad (or that there isn’t one option that is better than another). In hindsight this meant that I should have put at least the lord in the warriors as he would have bolstered the weaker unit making neither of them a good prospect to attack.

The two Runesmiths, Banner of Valaya and 2 dispel scrolls really helped contain the magic phase and the banner especially, gave me a massive  edge vs the bound warshrine spells. As it went I only used one of the dispel scrolls in the last turn and probably wouldn’t have bothered doing so if it hadn’t been the last turn.

My unit of the match was definitely the Gyrocoptors that between them they killed off 14 of the Warriors, though my Irondrakes were probably a close second once again proving their worth.

My next match may be against Luke using a full gunline but I also know that Neil is interested in a game too.

 

WHFB – Dwarves vs Luke’s WoC – part 1 – lists and thoughts.

With the completion of my KOW group games and the new edition of 40k not out until June, I thought i’d try and get in a few games of whfb.

Like me, Luke was a former player who took a break (you can see from the pictures in this post that his figures are very much oldhammer and I love his banners) and came back to warhammer late in the day so both of us are still very much into 8th ed. As such I proposed a series of games against him and having multiple armies I asked him what he had never played in 8th. Of the one’s easily to hand, it was Dwarves and Wood Elves. In order to give him a competitive game I said i’d bring Dwarves to start with and then later on i’d give wood elves a go (and offered him the use of any of my armies for the evening, if he wanted to try something else). Having decided the race, I then offered him the choice of what sort of army he wanted to face: Full gunline, all melee or combined arms. He wanted to try a bit of everything for the first game (and as we were playing a series of games, I could bring something different next time). So with that said (and after some good advice from the EEFL forum – which of course I then mainly ignored ;p), I decided on the following list:

The Throng of Karak Silvertop

Characters – 658pts

Knoffles Silvertop – (General) Lord – Shieldbearers + GW + Ro Fortitude + 2 * Ro Iron – 271pts

Drugin Silvertop – (BSB) Thane – MRo Gromril + GW – 126pts

Harek Silvertop – Runesmith – Ro Stone + Ro Spellbreaking + Shield – 93pts

Barlin Silvertop – Runesmith – Ro Stone + Ro Spellbreaking + Ro Furnace + Shield – 98pts

Burrnoth Strongarm – Master Engineer – 70pts

Core – 626pts

Quarrellers (14) – Standard + GW – 205pts

Dwarf Warriors (39) – FC + GW – 420pts

Special – 749pts

Hammerers (36) – Musician + Standard + Ro Valaya – 589pts

Gyrocoptor – 80pts

Gyrocoptor – 80pts

Rare – 465pts

Irondrakes (17) – FC + Brace of Drakeguns + Ro Slowness – 320pts

Organ gun – Ro Accuracy – 145pts

List thoughts

Though there are elements of what i would normally include the build is somewhat different in order to give Luke a flavor of different dwarf options.

Although I love the model and this is my preferred build if I take him, I would not normally take a dwarf lord, if only because for the points I could fit in another unit! He is however great fun and is the head of Karak Silvertop so for fluff I love taking him in lists (and he is amazingly tanky and it will give Luke a chance to play against him). This build gives him a 2+ armour save, 4 str 6 attacks (and 2 str 4 attacks) and a toughness of 7 with 6 wounds. Almost monster stats, all in someone that still maintains the lookout sir rule!

The two Runesmiths are often staples and with the BSB are known to Dwarf players as the holy trinity. I’ve kept them as bare minimum build so they have a 2+ save and a ‘dispel rune’ each.

I’ve gone for a BSB build I don’t normally take as I wanted to try it out. I have been taking the MRo Grungni because as standard, that gives him a 4+ ward (with a 3+ armour save) and a 5+ ward vs shooting for anything within 6″. I found that this was quite situational so decided to keep him cheap and quite hitty with a 1+ armour save and great weapon. I did toy with giving him a Ro Iron to add another wound but taking more characters than normal meant I tried to keep loadouts at a minimum.

The Master Engineer I would normally give a BoP and Ro Stone but again with points restrictions he is being fielded as standard. I nearly dropped him but with only 1 warmachine in the list, I wanted to maximise it’s potential and use him as a guard.

I’ve fielded shield beards as an anvil recently (mainly as the models were painted) with mixed success, however I decided their defensiveness wasn’t good enough and neither was the damage output. I have found that 8th seems to be more about damage output and so this left me with a dilemma. Having decided I wanted to take a horde, did I take a horde of GW longbeards (this comes to almost 625 on the nose), Warriors or Quarrellers. In the end I went with GW warriors as I have previously taken a horde of Quarrellers (so wanted to try something different) and also it allowed me to include a small unit of quarrellers anyway to make up the core tax and to counter any chaff. It’s worth noting that due to the poor initiative of dwarves, taking great weapons doesn’t really impact them as you normally strike last anyway.

I produced a gzillion lists in the run up to the game (it’s one of the elements that is head and shoulder above KOW) but decided that I wanted to bring a horde of hammerers. The potential damage output of this unit is obscene with 40 str 6 attacks (or str 7 if you charge). I’ve given them the magic banner with Ro Valaya so that, as standard, I am always dispelling on a +4 (or as a lvl 4 wizard lord equivalent). It also allows any remains in play spells to be dispelled on a 3+ each turn. This combined with the 2 channel attempts and 2 dispel runes means it should help to tie down the magic phase.

2 Gyro’s round out the special choices as they are fantastic chaff and the 2 flame templates will mince large low toughness units.

As i’ve stated before, Irondrakes are one of my favorite units and work as both an anvil and highly effective shooting unit (especially with the Ro Slowness). This is one of the reasons I will now rarely take shield dwarves.

The final element of the army is my single warmachine, an organ gun. It has a single Ro Accuracy, which when combined with the Engineer will give it a standard 2+ to hit, or 3+ at long range (15-30″). Added to the ME artillery dice reroll ability should make this pretty effective (assuming I roll well on the 2 art’ dice and it isn’t killed in a turn or 2).

I consider this a true dwarf combined arms list rather than a gunline. Yes it does have a number of shooting units and the number may be greater than other armies but for dwarves this is almost a minimum and only one warmachines is practically unheard of! I’m sure i’ll regret not taking a cannon but this list is not about warmachines. I’ll leave them for another day when I don’t take the lord and so have more points to spend.

The hammerer unit will go front and centre with the lord and bsb in it. The Irondrakes will be set up forward and will do their normal retreat each turn to try and maximise their shooting. Their priority will be the trolls. The quarrellers will likely be to one side of the hammerers (or GW dwarves) and will aiming to remove all chaff. If they are attacked, one of the hordes can counter (though with their stand and shoot and GW’s, they should be able to hold their own somewhat).

Luke’s Warriors of Chaos list

Nurgle Daemon Prince – level 4 Lore of nurgle, flight, chaos armour, charmed shield, sword of striking, dragonbane gem, scaled skin, soul feeder, Chaos familiar – 525pts

Exalted hero (bsb) – Disc of tzeentch, halberd, enchanted shield, MoT, tzeentch third eye – 241pts

Throgg – 195pts

5 chaos hounds – 30pts

5 chaos hounds – 30pts

21 Chaos Warriors of Nurgle – FC, MoN, halberd, banner of swiftness – 444pts

5  Chaos trolls – additional hand weapons – 190pts

Marauder horse – champion, standard, javelins, flails – 110pts

Warshrine – MoT – 135pts

Warshrine – MoT – 135pts

Hellcannon – 210pts

3 Skullcrushers – champion, standard, ensorcelled weapons – 254pts

When he sent it through, he said he wanted to try a double shrine list and the only point of the shrine is to maximise the chances of good rolls on the eye of the gods table and it also has a bound spell that allows D3 eligible characters/champs within 12″ to roll on it when cast. This explains the number of unit champions. I’m not sure if two is over kill though.

He also stated that he wanted to try Lore of nurgle rather than death. The lore is a good all round one. There are no terrible spells but it does also lack a killer spell too.  I will need to be careful of curse of the leper, as that spell reduces toughness which is one of my strengths. One of the spells also increases the regen save by +1 which would be filth on the trolls.

He also got caught out on blood and glory in the recent comp and so has ensured banners in every unit.

I’m also not sure if he has taken a prince before. If he has, he must have been quite lucky as 8th is often a cannon heavy meta and it is not well protected against them. As I don’t have one, I will have to contend with a 1+, 5++ (2++ vs fire). Knows 5 spells, channels on a 5+. Flies. Hits everything in my army on a 2+ and is at -1 to hit (so everything in my army hits on a minimum of 5+) and he regains wounds on a 6 in combat. Frankly this is a beast, though is over a fifth of his points in one model so it has to be high on the list to kill. *sigh* where’s my cannon. 

He also included the standard unkillable (although surprising killable) bsb, with a 1+ (3+ in combat), 3++ save (rerolling ward rolls of 1). I do think that the discs have to be the most under-priced mount in the game (well with perhaps the exception of the shieldbearers).

I’ve not faced Throgg before but he will obviously be going in the troll unit which makes that my number one target for the irondrakes. If they get some hits then the organ gun will be tasked with finishing them off (if it is still there, as it’s primary target has to be the prince and Luke has to be thinking that the organ needs to be gotten rid of early).

He has 3 sets of chaff and the quarrellers will be aiming for them asap with priority going to the unit nearest the organ gun (with perhaps the mauraders first if possible of only due to it having a champion).

 The gyros will generally be a nuisance but will primarily try and tie down the hell cannon as that could mince my large blocks.

And with all that said, I decided to post this early and give him a heads up in case he happens to read this before Friday. I’m nice like that.

Beastmen vs WoC – SELWG stage 2 practice game – Part 2

I will start off with an apology in this post. In my Battle with Luke’s WoC army on Friday, I started out making notes but these went somewhat out of the window as I realised I really needed to concentrate on what I was doing as I didn’t know my own army very well and having played Dwarves almost exclusively for a year, my knowledge of the combat phase was just as ropy (a shocking state of affairs).

As such, this report, even more than normal, is subject to memory rather than notes so may contain a few errors.

A recap of Luke’s list can be found here: Beastmen vs WoC – SELWG stage 2 practice game – Part 1 – lists

A recap of my list can be found here: The Herd of Khazbar the Magnificent

Scenario

We rolled Take and Hold. Played as per the rule book but victory goes to the general who has the most fortitude in their opponents half at the end of the game.

We completely messed this up (my fault really) and played as per the rule book and looked at victory points.

Terrain

Luke rolled just 2 pieces of scenery:

1 * Charnel Pit (units within 6″ are at -1 LD) – represented by the crater.

1 * Forest (turned out to be a fungus forest – causes stupidity)

The crater on the maps represents the Charnel Pit.

Secret Mission

We chose to use secret missions as this was a practice game. I chose the standard, stash the cash (choose a terrain feature outside ur deployment and get points if no nme occupy it). I completely forgot to ask Luke what he chose (are you spotting a trend here).

Pre-match rolls

After chopping and changing, the spell selections were as follows.

The Great Bray Shaman: Melkoths miasma, Enfeebling, Withering and Pit of Shades.

The shaman: Wyssans and Amber spear.

Daemon Prince: Acquiescence, Hysterical frenzy, Slicing shards, Phantasmagoria and Cacophonic Choir.

Sorcerer: Searing Doom and Glittering Robe.

Deployment 

I lost the roll and placed the first unit, we then alternated with Luke getting the bonus to the first turn roll for completing deployment first.

Warriors deployment 

Beastmen deployment 

Full deployment

Turn 1 – WoC

As you might have expected, the warriors started their turn by moving everything up the table. Luke was careful to leave most units at a distance where it would be difficult for me to complete charges.

The chalice of dark rain was invoked to attempt to neuter the hellcannon, so he marched it forward instead.

There was an average magic roll and  the Warshrine cast it’s bound spell and the Ogre champion gained +1 WS. Searing Doom, cast at the Minotaur, was dispelled.

Beastmen – Turn 1

The herd responded as aggressively as the Warriors, with the Doombull charging the Hounds on the left (who fled) and the right Razorgor charging the Hounds on the right, who held, at least until one of their number died when they decided to withdraw with all due haste. The left Razorgor marched up as close to the fleeing hounds as possible and the Ghorgon moved up to block the ogres, whilst remaining outside of the warriors charge arc.

The winds of magic were pitiful and the only thing that went off was a boosted miasma on the warriors reducing WS, M, BS and I by 2 each.

Warriors – Turn 2

The warriors chose this turn to charge in with almost everything they could. The ogres went into the Ghorgan, promptly losing one of their number. The Daemon Prince and BSB thundered into the horde of Gor but the Miasma on the warriors prevented them joining their leaders. The support wasn’t needed as the Prince ripped apart a handful of the Gor, whilst the BSB gutted the unit champion, gaining +1 Str as a reward. The Gor in return nullified the charmed shield and held due to steadfast. The Prince also cast acquiescence on the Doombull reducing him to D6 movement.

On the other flank, the Hellcannon fired at the Bestigor but it scattered, landing dead on the smaller unit of Gor deleting a full rank. The hounds and Skullcrushers charged the harpy unit, decimating them for the loss of one hound.

Beastmen – Turn 2

The Beastmen responded to the warriors in the only way they knew how and charged with everything they could. On the left flank the Razorgor charged the freshly rallied hounds, running them down as they fled. The Tuskgor chariot charged into the ogres to support the Ghorgon. Two ogres died and they failed their break test and were duly run down (I messed up on the battle reporter and showed this in the warriors turn). The Prince and BSB continued to hack through the horde for the loss of 1 wound on the BSB. The horde then reformed to maximise ranks (and conveniently removing any chance of the warriors being able to charge them next turn).

The small Gor unit charged the central hounds, killing them and over running. The Bestigors charged the Skullcrushers and with the help of a flank charge from the chariot, broke them but failed to catch them. The Razorgor charged the Hellcannon and the ensuing combat was a stalemate with a wound apiece. Finally the doombull shuffled up as fast as the random movement would allow.

Warriors – Turn 3

Due to some extremely sneaky play from the Beastmen, placing the Ghorgan 1″ away and the previous reform of the Gor Herd (I will thank Alex for this lesson learnt), the warriors were pretty much stranded. They couldn’t even wheel to aim for the doombull due to the Prince getting in the way, so Luke elected to reform them.

The Warshrine charged into the remains of the Gor horde and with the Prince and the BSB assisting, their numbers were starting to thin substantially. As a parting shot, one of the Gor managed to land a lucky blow on the BSB felling the exalted champion. The Doombull again had acquiescence cast on him much to my frustration.

The Hellcannon broke the  Razorgor but was unable to catch it.

Beastmen – Turn 3

On the left flank, the Razorgor charged the rear of warriors. The Ghorgan and Chariot lining up to assist the following turn. The Doombull again shambled along and was finally not too far from some targets. The small Gor herd charged the flank of the Warshrine but this still wasn’t enough to help the combat and the Gor horde final lost steadfast and buckled under the relentless assault of the Daemon Prince, ran and were utterly destroyed by the monster.

The Bestigor and chariot again charged the Skullcrushers killing another but the combat tied. The remaining Harpies ran down the routing hounds and the Razorgor managed to rally.

This turned out to be the final turn of the game as we blatantly ran out of time.

Result

When working out the result I blissfully forgot the comp rules and instead we looked at victory points. He had killed around 590pts of my stuff vs around 600pts of his.

Looking at the photos if we’d used the comp rules it also would have been a draw as the only fortitude bearing unit of his, on my side of the board, was the Skullcrushers but they were under strength.

Evaluation

I’ll start with talking about the game length. It became very apparent to me that my knowledge of the combat phase is definitely lacking, specifically basic rules around fleeing. There were also a number breaks for rules clarification from both of us. This all combined to not make gameplay as streamlined as it should have been. My note taking was also slowing it down, which is why I stopped after the first turn. 

After writing the above result section, I realised that when his Skullcrushers fled from the initial combat he would have lost another model (his standard bearer). This meant that it definitely would have been a draw. I also need to generally learn my list a little better too as, for example, my Bestigor would have captured the Skullcrusher Standard and added it to their combat res’. I must also remember primal fury for the crew and creatures on the chariots and fear and terror checks!

So what worked and what didn’t on the list. Well i’ll start with not taking a dispel scroll. I felt the lack of it even in the 3 turns we played. A 6+ spell crippled my Doombull for 4 turns. I’m not sure what I was expecting but Magic seemed fairly sparce across the board for the whole game. Luke managed to cast acquiescence twice on the Doombull and the bound spell on the Warshrine once. I managed Miasma once. Three of the casts impacted movement and in each case made a massive difference. I had heard of the rule of one (as in only expect to get one spell off a turn) and this was demonstrated in this match.

I also messed up deployment somewhat. Yes the units were matched up about as best as they could be, however I need to arrange the BSB and General to get the best leadership bubble coverage. Not being in range to use the general’s leadership on the horde for a couple of turns was really felt when they failed their primal fury.

I felt the horde did OK. I was pleased I reformed them when I did. The aim was to get more ranks but stopping the warriors charging was an added bonus.

I chose not to ambush the smaller Gor unit which might have been  a mistake but with 2 of the table edges being impassable and the random deployment for beastmen ambush, I assumed if the roll had been for those edges, they would have remained in reserve.

The Ghorgon did quite well against the Ogres. Although I lost thunderstomp it was a reasonably good match up for him. It may have been a different matter if either of us had remembered the mark of nurgle.

My use of the scouting Harpies was sub-par. Just because they can scout doesn’t mean they have to. I also dithered in their use but at least ran down the hounds to gain some VPs.

It’s a shame the Doombull didn’t get into combat with the combat beast that was masquerading as a Daemon Prince. It would have been an interesting match up and would have given me an idea of his potential in combat.

Overall I was reasonably pleased with how things went, especially for a first game. Am I ready for the 2nd stage of the comp using the Beastmen army? No, but I did have fun with the list and in theory I should only get better with it, so hopefully that will continue when up against the likes of Dan, Paul and Neil. If nothing else, they will help educate me further (as they normal do when playing them) so my playing with the beasts will get stronger.

The main thing was that it was enjoyable to use them and to play against Luke. I still love his army and their paint scheme as it reminds me of my early warhammer playing days. I may well have to dig out my orcs because of this.

Beastmen vs WoC – SELWG stage 2 practice game – Part 1 – lists

On Friday 4 Nov I had the pleasure of facing off against a new club member, Luke and his ancient, child friendly lead (😜) 3rd/4th ed. Warriors of Chaos army.  It is made up entirely of old skool figures that are painted in a suitable chaotic scheme (as displayed in the below photo).

He  had recently gotten back into the game so was still learning 8th ed and had entered into the whfb comp for the 2nd stage (automatically putting him into group C or D) and wanted to try out his list. I will add (to get excuses in now) that he may be new to 8th but he’s probably played more games in the last month or so than I have in the last six.

With myself also wanting to try out the unused Beastmen list, the stage was set for an epic showdown between the Chaos powers, or the battle of ‘I wish I’d put something else in the list’!

So with that said I’ll post his list and then talk through what worries me (errm a lot as it happens!).

Note: This post was written before the game but I held off publishing it as it contained his competition army list so didn’t want to unfairly penalise him by giving his opponents a heads up on his list before the submission deadline. It also helps to explain why I jump between tenses. My use of English isn’t normally this bad!

Characters 

Daemon Prince – 495pts

Level 4 Lore of Slannesh + Chaos Familiar + Chaos armour + poisonous slime + scaled skin + soul feeder + charmed sh + dragonbane gem + the other tricksters shard

Chaos Sorcerer – 190pts

Level 2 – Lore of Metal + Chaos armour + luckstone + dispel scroll

Exhalted Hero – BSB – 241pts

Chaos armour + enchanted sh + disc of Tzeentch + Mark of Tzeentch + Talisman of Preservation + Third eye of Tzeentch

Core

5 Chaos Hounds – 30pts

5 Chaos Hounds – 30pts

5 Chaos Hound – 30pts

29 Chaos Warriors – 538pts

Chaos armour + sh + Mark of Tzeentch + FC + Banner of Movement

Special 

6 Chaos Ogres – 270pts

HA + AHW + Mark of Nurgle + FC

Chaos Warshrine – 135pts

Mark of Tzeentch

Rare

1 Hellcannon – 210pts

4 Skullcrushers – 330pts

Chaos armour + sh + Mark of Khorne + FC
List review

The first thing that was obvious to me upon receiving the list was that I needed to swot up on the WoC army book having not played them in over a year. There were some items (such as the Warshrine) where I had no idea of the rules. (This would be rectified by the bottom of the post!)

The second thing is that jumps out is the large number of high strength, high toughness models, also with high ward saves. I can potentially mitigate the str and toughness but I’m woefully impotent against the wards. About the only thing I can do is pump a high enough amount of attacks in and hope he fails them. Perhaps not the most auspicious of plans.

Characters 

The prince is quite literally a monster with a 1+ 5++ save and 5 WS 9, Str 6 AP + poisoned attacks and knowing 5 spells. He also has a 1/6 chance of healing a wound for every one he causes. He frankly worries me as I don’t have a huge amount that can deal with high armour and anything that could kill him has to survive his attacks before striking back.

The sorcerer not so much. I just need to force the dispel scroll as early as possible.  Metal is not the most frightening Lore for me due to most of my army not having saves. I suspect he will be in the Warriors so the other option is to just allocate attacks to him in combat.
The BSB is a fairly standard unkillable build with a 1+, 3++ save and rerolling ward saves of a 1 (although with a halberd he drops to a 3+, 3++ in combat). There is probably little I can do about him except to ignore him!

Units

The warriors although a solid anvil with a 3+, 5++, should be destroyable if only through overwhelming force (horde target number 1).

The dogs are a nuisance but taking them out with the doombull and Ghorgon will help beef up their attacks!

The Ogres by themselves aren’t hugely worrying compared to some of his list but the Mark of Nurgle definitely makes them far more robust. Not having anything to counter the to hit penalty, bar impacts could cause problems.

Chaos Warshrine – in itself it isn’t too threatening as although it technically counts as a T5 W5 chariot with a 4+, 3++ save (due to the Mark), it doesn’t have impact hits, which is something I guess. It’s main benefit is to allow characters to add an additional D6 when rolling on the eye of the gods table and then allow them to discard one of their choice. This massively helps prevent the bad rolls that can happen on the table.

Skullcrushers can be brutal but I’ll be hoping that I can either use harpies to redirect/frenzy bait them to somewhere useless on the board or failing that see if I can use the Bestigors to whittle them down.

I’ve only faced a hellcannon once before and it spent most of the game trying to charge my gyrocoptor. Perhaps my other unit of harpies can distract it in a similar manner. I definitely don’t want it targeting my large units as the str 5 template would cause issues!