I’m sorry this one’s so late, I thought I’d already posted it. Alas, the internet toys with us all. Here is the account of the rather strange, although extremely fun, warhammer game I promised last time.
The most fitting background that we could conceive of was that the wood elves had been corrupted by the insidious whispering of Chaos. The unthinkable had happened: members of the elder race had fallen to the ruinous powers! News of this treachery swept through the lands of the Old World and folk trembled behind closed doors at the thought of such a terrible army as was now sweeping through the Empire.
Empire troops were in short supply with Greenskin and Chaos incursions elsewhere and a rampaging army of the dead massing in the south. The only force which could be mobilised to counter this heretical horde was a brave army of dwarves who issued forth from their mountain stronghold to give battle.
Dwarves: lord with some upgrades, 20 thunderers, 2 cannons with engineers (one of which was a master), flame cannon, 10 long beards, 8 assorted slayers, 10 rangers, 9 miners, tooled up thane.
Wood Elves: 2X 10 glade guard, 8 glade riders, 10 dryads, 6 way watchers, level 2 spell singer, Noble on horse with shiny things.
Hordes of Chaos: aspiring champion on barded steed with toys, 9 chosen knights, chariot, 10 warriors, 15 marauders, 12 hounds of chaos.
This was the first in our new team gaming season. We are coming to appreciate the level of enjoyment which scenarios and missions add to our games. Due to the rules and restrictions for these missions though they are not easy to adapt for multi-player gaming. To resolve this we have started teaming up. This game saw 1000 points of my Hordes of Chaos ally with 1000 points of Johnny’s Wood Elves to fight 2000 points of Olly’s dwarves.
We had more units so were able to keep our best for deployment until last. We were also lucky that the boarded was quite thickly wooded on our side meaning that the tricksy elveses could sneak into effective range without movement restrictions. The knights were able to put a great deal of nice high terrain between themselves and the cannons and the sheer speed of the elves allowed us to run rings around the dwarves.
I had recently read about the “weighted flank tactic of warhammer where one end of the army is comprised of fast assault troops. The other flank should be strong enough to hold up the enemy but this should be a delaying tactic only. The rest of the forces will be deployed in the centre to assist where needed. I thought we should try this out. We deployed the knights with the chaos champion and the elf cavalry on the right flank (and what a sight it was to). The warriors, chariot, glade guard, sorcerer and elf lord made up the centre while the nice cheap marauders and fast but inexpensive hounds made up the left flank. The dryads advanced through a large wood which extended far into the board on the left side.
With the miners burrowing and the rangers infiltrating the dwarves had little to set up. Their war machines all set up at the same time with the two cannons covering either side of the large wood and the flame cannon ominously scanning the centre. The thunderers deployed behind a hill on our weighted flank (dramatically underestimating the speed of our cavalry). The longbeards and slayers held the centre.
Winning the roll for first turn we sent almost everything barreling forward with the spell singer skulking in the ruined building to do his mojo and some of the glade guard pacing themselves to get some shooting in. The way watchers, which had infiltrated, moved out in front of the cannons and let loose with their bows. Their shooting was quite limited with only one dwarf crewman falling victim to the hail of arrows. With noticeably browner trousers they waited to be obliterated by the dwarf guns. The dwarf retaliation was below par. The first cannon fired a wall of grape shot at the way watchers. 4 were hit but only 2 were seriously injured by the scything shrapnel. The second cannon, reloaded too quickly to take care of the nearby threat, misfired and was then unable to fire either that turn or the next. The flame cannon did slightly better by landing a gout of fire on the now visible chaos hounds. Three were incinerated and the rest turned tail and ran but were able to regroup shortly afterwards. The thunderers, choosing to shoot with several of their number rather than moving onto the hill, sent shots towards the galloping knights. Needless to say, they clanged harmlessly from their armour.
Turn 2 saw combat joined. The knights hammered home into the thunderers where the chaos champion and dwarf lord dueled for a turn or two before the lord’s extra wound prevailed and he felled the champion of chaos. Immediately another knight took his place however and the lord was cut down by the chosen warrior’s already blood-slicked blade. The sheer size of the thunderer unit helped the dwarves as the knights were bogged down for several turns allowing the dwarves combat troops to stump about grimly unhindered.
I’m afraid that the turns become a little blurred after this however. The way watchers proved quite limited with their shooting again but the dryads soon reached the cannons and tore their crews to pieces. The flame cannon was destroyed by glade guard arrows and the chariot charged and dispatched the whole unit of longbeards (although their great axes did some terrible damage to its paintwork).
The game did not all go right for chaos. The glade riders executed a flee reaction to a charge by the slayers. Confidently we decided that this was the best course of action. After all, the table edge behind them was quite far enough away… It turned out to be 16 inches away which was quite irrelevant to the elven cavalry which rolled a massive 17 inches for their fall back. The slayers ended up in combat with the chaos warriors and, much to the chagrin of the unholy warriors, beat them. The ensuing flight saw the warriors skulk behind a unit of glade guard who were charged by the berserk slayers. Unfortunately, the knights were free by then and they charged the flank of the depleted slayer unit. The frenzied dwarves were soon destroyed.
The game ended with the miners, the last dwarf unit, being slowly whittled down by elven archery and magic. Their truly terrifying weapons load out saw the entire chaos army desperately trying not to get into combat with them. Desperate to escape the hail of arrows, the few survivors moved into a wood. They were literally surrounded with the knights, chariot, warriors, hounds, marauders, dryads and at least 1 unit of glade guard still above half strength. In the end though wild magicks proved their undoing and the very cover they sought rose against them and smote them down. A fantastic round of elven magic.
Well that was a truly great game. The dwarves had some appalling luck with their usually devastating missile troops proving almost entirely useless in the long turn. The terrain was also extremely favourable for the chaos/elf alliance with woods, hills and buildings offering cover from the thunderers particularly. In the end though it comes down to the power of our alliance. The awesome combat prowess of the hordes of chaos combined with the mobility and firepower of the wood elves makes for a formidable army which I for one would greatly fear to face. After saying that, I did agree to play 2000 points of orks and goblins against an alliance of elves and dwarves. They’ll be picking up the pieces from that one for a long time!
Our next planned session will see a return of Warhammer Fantasy Role-play. I wonder what Sophia and Heini will get up to this time? In the meantime, have a merry Christmas and a happy new year!
Commander Portman
Friday 28 December 2007
Monday 17 December 2007
Friday 14 December-Saturday 15 December, 2007: Warhammer 40,000 Apocalypse
Back again with another cracking report. Read on for the thrilling account of our first Warhammer 40,000 Apocalypse game.
The points limit was 5000 per side. I had a 5000 point Chaos Space Marines army facing off against 1250 points of Orks, Space Wolves, Dark Angels and Tau. I will do my best to remember the army lists but with no notes and such huge forces I apologise if I’ve left anything out.
Chaos Space Marines: 2 units of 3 obliterators, 2 units of 7 raptors, Abaddon, Kharn, Typhus, Chaos lord with jump pack, 4 terminators, 4 units of 12 Chaos space marines, 3 units of 10 Khorne berserkers in rhinos, 2 predators, 2 land raiders, dreadnought, 7 havocs, 14 plague marines. My strategic assets were: jammers, the barrage which attacks characters and vehicles, flank march and disrupter beacon.
Dark Angels: unit of veterans, unit of devastators in a rhino, 2 tactical squads with one in a razorback, Command squad, chaplain, librarian, scouts. Their strategic asset was the one which attacks characters and vehicles before the game.
Space Wolves: Logan Grimnar with wolf guard retinue, blood claws in rhino, grey hunters, long fangs, blood claw bikers. Their strategic asset was a vortex grenade.
Orks: big mech with shock attack gun, huge slugga boys mob, Grotsnik (or whatever the special character is called), weird boy, pain boss with a meganobs retinue in a truck, looted wagon, looters. Their strategic asset was strategic redeployment.
Tau: Commander Shadowsun, 2 hammerheads, stealth team and 3 battle suit teams organised into a datasheet formation. Their strategic asset was a blind barrage.
The Chaos army won the bid for deployment so began feverishly setting up. Although I got around 3 dozen marines and 4 tanks down I under estimated the time it actually takes to set up such a huge force. The chaos side looked rather bare when I removed a half finished squad of Plague Marines. As it happens, I was able to use my reserves to devastating effect (when the dice didn’t fail spectacularly) and so this state of affairs wasn’t so bad.
Despite their jammed communications, the Imperium were able to mobilise a rapid response. In their only marginally longer deployment time they arrayed a terrifying host against me. The only thing in my favour was that the rules said that you have to include setting up infiltrators and moving scouts in your deployment time. They weren’t able to do this as they ran out of time.
The pre-game assets were a mixed lot. My attacks proved fantastically effective with wounds being taken on the chaplain, librarian, big mech and one of Shadowsun’s drones. Luck was important there though as the Dark Angels retaliatory strikes did nothing.
The Tau’s blind barrage prevented Abaddon’s land raider from firing but also protected it and a large squad of Chaos marines from retalliation in his turn. A mixed blessing for both sides that one.
My first turn went badly. I immobilised a hammerhead (on top of a hill where its railgun could see practically everything anyway) – I think that even the plastic Tau were smiling. The rest of my shooting was not all that effective with tank-mounted lascannons doing little – especially with that bloody barrage in place.
The retalliation was swift and uncalled for. My anti-tank predator rolled over in a cloud of smoke as an ion cannon tore into it. Likewise Kharn’s personal land raider was destroyed by the smiling railgun crew. He tumbled from the wreckage confused but unharmed and lurked behind it menacingly in his entangled next turn. I think a couple of other marines were taken down by bolters from the rapidly closing Dark Angels. The narrower no-man’s-land of an Apocalypse game means that it is quite possible to get some units into assault in the first turn and so rapid fire bolter range is almos always likely to be achieved.
Turn 2 saw the clearing of the blind barrage and the arrival of the majority of the Chaos assault troop reserves. Raptors and a jump pack-equipped Chaos lord tore into the Chaplain and a nearby tactical squad while 3 squads of Khorne Berserkers rampaged on from all sides and swept the Long Fangs, big mech, Dark Angels Command Squad and devastaters before them. Shooting was not good however with only minor casualties. The terrifying success of the World Eaters made up for this though with the terrifying WS 5 berserkers utilising their Furious Charge skill to tear their targets to bits, even those in cover.
Reeling, I think almost quite literally, from that ambush, the Imperials brought their reserves on. Some scout snipers came on to the board opposite Abaddon’s land raider and completely failed to do anything. The orks and Blood Claw groups were getting close now though and it would soon start to hurt. The weird boy rolled a random power which caused him to teleport himself and the squad of 30 Ork boys he had joined to another point on the battlefield. Their appearance behind the Chaos lines caused quite a stir. I wished that I had not left my defilers at home when I saw that huge circle of squishy boys packed together in anticipation.
I think it was around this time when Abaddon and Shadowsun joined combat. Olly’s dice shone however and she only lost her drones to his daemon weapons. Similarly, the small terminator squad assigned to Abaddon turned from their Lord to eliminate a threat to his Land Raider. They wiped out the whole fusion-toting stealth team with one heavy flamer. It was also in turn 3 when the rest of the Chaos reserves arrived. Havocs, a dreadnought, typhus and the plague marines streamed on to the board with a squad of obliterators on each side to support them. The shooting was decidedly more telling this time with Abaddon’s land raider sending laser and steel into the scouts. The last few left the field, demoralised. The obliterators on the Chaos board edge fired 3 flamers at the Packed Orks and killed 14. Kharn’s plasma pistol incinerated another boy. Both units then waded into the rapidly diminishing horde as bolter shots tore into them from the other side from a large Chaos marine squad. The Obliterators fired twin-linked meltaguns into the looted wagon and reduced it to smoking scrap. The dreadnought’s heavy flamer roasted 6 of the looters with its lascannon vaporising another. The last three broke cover and ran back directly into charge range of the dreadnought where they were soon minced in his massive claws. Cheered by his success, he turned his lascannon in his next turn and blew up one of the rhinos belonging to the berserkers. The havocs destroyed the ion cannon hammerhead but the anti-tank raptor squad failed spectacularly with their meltagun missing, plasma pistol failing to damage and plasma gun killing its wielder. The tau in the railgun hammerhead once more smiled as their gun slowly turned to find its next target.
In turn 3 the rest of the Imperial reenforcements arrived. There is no scarier sight than 9 crisis battle suits popping into existence around your prized units. Luckily, I was winning and so had the units to counter this. The highlights of this were when Abaddon took 4 wounds from plasma rifles and made 4 invulnerable saves. Although his land raider was blown up the plague marines soaked up the damage of 3 burst cannons, 3 missile pods and 6 flamers and only lost 3 models. Logan Grimnar lost all of his wolf guard to rapid fire plasma from the obliterators but they then learned about his vortex grenade. Unfortunately, they learned too slowly and 3 obliterators – yes, that’s right, 3 of them were just removed from the board because they were clipped by the smallest of the templates. Don’t mess with a vortex grenade, ever!
I’m afraid that memory fails me as to the exact order of events in the following turns. Highlights include abaddon finishing off shadowsun, the librarian and the three battle suits who shot at him. Kharn and the obliterators finally chopped their way through the remaining ork boys and weird boy unit but the damage was beginning to tell on the obliterators, curse the new toughness 4 and nobs with power claws. The last obliterator and Kharn fired at a truly terrifying unit of nobs in megaarmour with a pain boss. Their truck had been destroyed by Chaos marines but they trudged on implacably. This small private battle could only go one way for although Kharn fought bravely and the Obliterator did its best they were hopelessly out-power weaponed and fell. This unit had also torn Typhus limb from limb due to some incredibly rebellious daemons in his Manreaper. He did not do well in this game.
Logan Grimnar then tore the dreadnought apart and turned back to the rest of the battlefield. He didn’t move far from his starting point but he made his points. He and Abaddon began moving towards one another menacingly but Logan was so fixated on his duel with the hated leader of the Black Legion that he didn’t heed the unit of raptors with their jump pack lord leaping in behind him. Although he fought bravely, he was unable to stand against the lightning claws and the lord slew him. Abaddon, who was also doing well and wanted the duel for himself probably broke the lord later. The Imperial army didn’t manage it. He did well for his first time out: a chaplain, one or two marines and Logan Grimnar.
As callous as it sounds, there was just mopping up for the last few turns. The Imperial forces survived just long enough for Chaos infantry to claim 5 of the 6 objectives and ended the game with just something like 5 models left: a couple of marines and a fleeing ork I think.
The battle was amazing – I would say that, I won. The field afterwards looked a sight with nearly a dozen wrecked vehicles strewn about and I think at least 4 more removed due to explosions. The violence was incredible but it was a struggle for the Black Legion, even with the apparent advantages they had. I recommend everyone should play it. We have scheduled another game in for the end of January – one which should include a traitor baneblade (it’s mine so why not?) and a brass scorpeon of Khorne. That should be 6000 points a side of unadulterated carnage!
This week end also saw the first half of another game which was a fvariation of the Take and Hold mission from the 40K rulebook. We adapted it for 3 2000 point armies on an 8 by 4 board – which actually worked quite well. Unfortunately, the fact that we had been playing until nearly 5 the previous morning and had risen early to continue the apocalypse game meant that we had to abandon that game. It was rather fun though with a rather whimsical selection of armies and a truly terrifying number of terminators on most sides. I did learn about giving Chaos terminators the mark of Nurgle which grants them a toughness of 5 and the Feel no Pain ability. Truly terrifying you might think? Well on paper you would be right except that in the apocalypse game where I only had 4 terminators I didn’t lose a single one. Out of the 10 terminators in my 2000 point army I lost 6. The vagueries of war or some crap dice? I also had the misfortune to use 2 Chaos vindicators. They were so fun and violent that I am now compelled to buy some. That is both a curse and a hint for Christmas…
This battle also saw the truly horrifying arrival of a unit of 17 ork storm boys who have a move of between 13 and 18 inches per turn with an assault move of 6 more. This would be fine if Johnny didn’t have so many of them. They were responsible for the destruction of most of the Nurgle terminators. The Dark Angels player tried out a death wing army whose heavy flamer obliterated a unit of fire warriors in one go. More blood claws from the Space Wolves and a crossfire of ion cannon fire from the Tau made that board a bad place to be. Still, we were quite drunk so it seemed like a laugh.
Well I’ll go now but our next report will be a 2000 point a side warhammer game this Wednesday with Dwarves fighting against an allied army of wood elves and either chaos or orks & goblins. Not good story line but an interesting mix. Check back for details.
Commander Portman.
The points limit was 5000 per side. I had a 5000 point Chaos Space Marines army facing off against 1250 points of Orks, Space Wolves, Dark Angels and Tau. I will do my best to remember the army lists but with no notes and such huge forces I apologise if I’ve left anything out.
Chaos Space Marines: 2 units of 3 obliterators, 2 units of 7 raptors, Abaddon, Kharn, Typhus, Chaos lord with jump pack, 4 terminators, 4 units of 12 Chaos space marines, 3 units of 10 Khorne berserkers in rhinos, 2 predators, 2 land raiders, dreadnought, 7 havocs, 14 plague marines. My strategic assets were: jammers, the barrage which attacks characters and vehicles, flank march and disrupter beacon.
Dark Angels: unit of veterans, unit of devastators in a rhino, 2 tactical squads with one in a razorback, Command squad, chaplain, librarian, scouts. Their strategic asset was the one which attacks characters and vehicles before the game.
Space Wolves: Logan Grimnar with wolf guard retinue, blood claws in rhino, grey hunters, long fangs, blood claw bikers. Their strategic asset was a vortex grenade.
Orks: big mech with shock attack gun, huge slugga boys mob, Grotsnik (or whatever the special character is called), weird boy, pain boss with a meganobs retinue in a truck, looted wagon, looters. Their strategic asset was strategic redeployment.
Tau: Commander Shadowsun, 2 hammerheads, stealth team and 3 battle suit teams organised into a datasheet formation. Their strategic asset was a blind barrage.
The Chaos army won the bid for deployment so began feverishly setting up. Although I got around 3 dozen marines and 4 tanks down I under estimated the time it actually takes to set up such a huge force. The chaos side looked rather bare when I removed a half finished squad of Plague Marines. As it happens, I was able to use my reserves to devastating effect (when the dice didn’t fail spectacularly) and so this state of affairs wasn’t so bad.
Despite their jammed communications, the Imperium were able to mobilise a rapid response. In their only marginally longer deployment time they arrayed a terrifying host against me. The only thing in my favour was that the rules said that you have to include setting up infiltrators and moving scouts in your deployment time. They weren’t able to do this as they ran out of time.
The pre-game assets were a mixed lot. My attacks proved fantastically effective with wounds being taken on the chaplain, librarian, big mech and one of Shadowsun’s drones. Luck was important there though as the Dark Angels retaliatory strikes did nothing.
The Tau’s blind barrage prevented Abaddon’s land raider from firing but also protected it and a large squad of Chaos marines from retalliation in his turn. A mixed blessing for both sides that one.
My first turn went badly. I immobilised a hammerhead (on top of a hill where its railgun could see practically everything anyway) – I think that even the plastic Tau were smiling. The rest of my shooting was not all that effective with tank-mounted lascannons doing little – especially with that bloody barrage in place.
The retalliation was swift and uncalled for. My anti-tank predator rolled over in a cloud of smoke as an ion cannon tore into it. Likewise Kharn’s personal land raider was destroyed by the smiling railgun crew. He tumbled from the wreckage confused but unharmed and lurked behind it menacingly in his entangled next turn. I think a couple of other marines were taken down by bolters from the rapidly closing Dark Angels. The narrower no-man’s-land of an Apocalypse game means that it is quite possible to get some units into assault in the first turn and so rapid fire bolter range is almos always likely to be achieved.
Turn 2 saw the clearing of the blind barrage and the arrival of the majority of the Chaos assault troop reserves. Raptors and a jump pack-equipped Chaos lord tore into the Chaplain and a nearby tactical squad while 3 squads of Khorne Berserkers rampaged on from all sides and swept the Long Fangs, big mech, Dark Angels Command Squad and devastaters before them. Shooting was not good however with only minor casualties. The terrifying success of the World Eaters made up for this though with the terrifying WS 5 berserkers utilising their Furious Charge skill to tear their targets to bits, even those in cover.
Reeling, I think almost quite literally, from that ambush, the Imperials brought their reserves on. Some scout snipers came on to the board opposite Abaddon’s land raider and completely failed to do anything. The orks and Blood Claw groups were getting close now though and it would soon start to hurt. The weird boy rolled a random power which caused him to teleport himself and the squad of 30 Ork boys he had joined to another point on the battlefield. Their appearance behind the Chaos lines caused quite a stir. I wished that I had not left my defilers at home when I saw that huge circle of squishy boys packed together in anticipation.
I think it was around this time when Abaddon and Shadowsun joined combat. Olly’s dice shone however and she only lost her drones to his daemon weapons. Similarly, the small terminator squad assigned to Abaddon turned from their Lord to eliminate a threat to his Land Raider. They wiped out the whole fusion-toting stealth team with one heavy flamer. It was also in turn 3 when the rest of the Chaos reserves arrived. Havocs, a dreadnought, typhus and the plague marines streamed on to the board with a squad of obliterators on each side to support them. The shooting was decidedly more telling this time with Abaddon’s land raider sending laser and steel into the scouts. The last few left the field, demoralised. The obliterators on the Chaos board edge fired 3 flamers at the Packed Orks and killed 14. Kharn’s plasma pistol incinerated another boy. Both units then waded into the rapidly diminishing horde as bolter shots tore into them from the other side from a large Chaos marine squad. The Obliterators fired twin-linked meltaguns into the looted wagon and reduced it to smoking scrap. The dreadnought’s heavy flamer roasted 6 of the looters with its lascannon vaporising another. The last three broke cover and ran back directly into charge range of the dreadnought where they were soon minced in his massive claws. Cheered by his success, he turned his lascannon in his next turn and blew up one of the rhinos belonging to the berserkers. The havocs destroyed the ion cannon hammerhead but the anti-tank raptor squad failed spectacularly with their meltagun missing, plasma pistol failing to damage and plasma gun killing its wielder. The tau in the railgun hammerhead once more smiled as their gun slowly turned to find its next target.
In turn 3 the rest of the Imperial reenforcements arrived. There is no scarier sight than 9 crisis battle suits popping into existence around your prized units. Luckily, I was winning and so had the units to counter this. The highlights of this were when Abaddon took 4 wounds from plasma rifles and made 4 invulnerable saves. Although his land raider was blown up the plague marines soaked up the damage of 3 burst cannons, 3 missile pods and 6 flamers and only lost 3 models. Logan Grimnar lost all of his wolf guard to rapid fire plasma from the obliterators but they then learned about his vortex grenade. Unfortunately, they learned too slowly and 3 obliterators – yes, that’s right, 3 of them were just removed from the board because they were clipped by the smallest of the templates. Don’t mess with a vortex grenade, ever!
I’m afraid that memory fails me as to the exact order of events in the following turns. Highlights include abaddon finishing off shadowsun, the librarian and the three battle suits who shot at him. Kharn and the obliterators finally chopped their way through the remaining ork boys and weird boy unit but the damage was beginning to tell on the obliterators, curse the new toughness 4 and nobs with power claws. The last obliterator and Kharn fired at a truly terrifying unit of nobs in megaarmour with a pain boss. Their truck had been destroyed by Chaos marines but they trudged on implacably. This small private battle could only go one way for although Kharn fought bravely and the Obliterator did its best they were hopelessly out-power weaponed and fell. This unit had also torn Typhus limb from limb due to some incredibly rebellious daemons in his Manreaper. He did not do well in this game.
Logan Grimnar then tore the dreadnought apart and turned back to the rest of the battlefield. He didn’t move far from his starting point but he made his points. He and Abaddon began moving towards one another menacingly but Logan was so fixated on his duel with the hated leader of the Black Legion that he didn’t heed the unit of raptors with their jump pack lord leaping in behind him. Although he fought bravely, he was unable to stand against the lightning claws and the lord slew him. Abaddon, who was also doing well and wanted the duel for himself probably broke the lord later. The Imperial army didn’t manage it. He did well for his first time out: a chaplain, one or two marines and Logan Grimnar.
As callous as it sounds, there was just mopping up for the last few turns. The Imperial forces survived just long enough for Chaos infantry to claim 5 of the 6 objectives and ended the game with just something like 5 models left: a couple of marines and a fleeing ork I think.
The battle was amazing – I would say that, I won. The field afterwards looked a sight with nearly a dozen wrecked vehicles strewn about and I think at least 4 more removed due to explosions. The violence was incredible but it was a struggle for the Black Legion, even with the apparent advantages they had. I recommend everyone should play it. We have scheduled another game in for the end of January – one which should include a traitor baneblade (it’s mine so why not?) and a brass scorpeon of Khorne. That should be 6000 points a side of unadulterated carnage!
This week end also saw the first half of another game which was a fvariation of the Take and Hold mission from the 40K rulebook. We adapted it for 3 2000 point armies on an 8 by 4 board – which actually worked quite well. Unfortunately, the fact that we had been playing until nearly 5 the previous morning and had risen early to continue the apocalypse game meant that we had to abandon that game. It was rather fun though with a rather whimsical selection of armies and a truly terrifying number of terminators on most sides. I did learn about giving Chaos terminators the mark of Nurgle which grants them a toughness of 5 and the Feel no Pain ability. Truly terrifying you might think? Well on paper you would be right except that in the apocalypse game where I only had 4 terminators I didn’t lose a single one. Out of the 10 terminators in my 2000 point army I lost 6. The vagueries of war or some crap dice? I also had the misfortune to use 2 Chaos vindicators. They were so fun and violent that I am now compelled to buy some. That is both a curse and a hint for Christmas…
This battle also saw the truly horrifying arrival of a unit of 17 ork storm boys who have a move of between 13 and 18 inches per turn with an assault move of 6 more. This would be fine if Johnny didn’t have so many of them. They were responsible for the destruction of most of the Nurgle terminators. The Dark Angels player tried out a death wing army whose heavy flamer obliterated a unit of fire warriors in one go. More blood claws from the Space Wolves and a crossfire of ion cannon fire from the Tau made that board a bad place to be. Still, we were quite drunk so it seemed like a laugh.
Well I’ll go now but our next report will be a 2000 point a side warhammer game this Wednesday with Dwarves fighting against an allied army of wood elves and either chaos or orks & goblins. Not good story line but an interesting mix. Check back for details.
Commander Portman.
Friday 14 December 2007
Thursday 13 December, 2007: Warhammer 40,000
Finally caught up with ourselves this week. Yesterday was the Ork VS Imperial Guard 1500 point 40K game I promised; and my word it was a good one.
As there were only 2 of us we took advantage of the simpler deployment to play one of the missions from the 40k rulebook. We randomly generated the scenario and it turned out to be take and hold. We set up the plastic Warhammer chapel model in the centre of the board as an objective and put a generator next to it. It could be rassionalised as a desperate enclave of pious Imperial refugees holding out until they could be rescued. Would the Imperial Guard whisk them from danger or would they become just more victims of the merciless greenskin tide… Read on to find out.
The armies were, as best as I remember, as follows:
Orks (new codex, don’t ask) – battle wagon, looted wagon, 10 flash gits, big mech with shock attack gun (ouch), 7 bikers, 2 scorchas (as separate units), 19 slugga boys with nob, 11 slugga boys with nob in a truck, ork dreadnought.
Imperial Guard – 3 troop platoons each consisting of 2 infantry squads with grenade launchers and a command squad with flamers, 2 units of 10 rough riders, unit of 3 sentinels with multi-lasers, command platoon with command squad including commissar and psycher (who had a shotgun for a laugh) and 2 mortar squads and an anti-tank squad with missile launchers, 4 ogryns.
I very quickly noticed that I had no tanks. This was both scary and painful but may well have saved the game for me. With no big targets to attract fire the army was quite spread out. I had never met orks from the new codex before either so this was a learning curve for both of us.
Due to deployment restrictions in the mission, most of the Guard set up as normal whereas a lot of the Ork vehicles were compelled to wait and come on in reserve. I sent a platoon of infantry to occupy the Flash Gits and ork boys on one flank, used the sentinels to control the left flank and sent 2 platoons of infantry and the ogryns up the middle to take the objective. The mortars deployed in cover near my board edge and the missile teams followed the assault forces up the middle to get into better positions for when the horrifically fast ork vehicles turned up.
The big mech deployed in a bunker where he remained, causing a stupendous amount of damage, for the rest of the game. The flash gits moved up on one side and the large unit of boys came on between them and the centre of the board.
Both sides did well with early shooting with a few grenades taking a couple of wounds from the Flash Gits while the big mech mashed command squads with his teleporting doomgun. The as yet small ork presence allowed the guard to advance relatively safely to take up positions around the objective.
Then the orks came. The battle wagon came on and picked up the large boys unit. They zoomed up the board ready to disgorge a horde of roaring greenskins on the objective. And got blown up by a missile launcher. The wagon exploded killing 10 of the orks. The rest lay about in the wreckage looking bemused. Similarly, the first scorcha zoomed on to engulf the sentinels in sheets of promethium. It didn’t reach and was torn apart in a hail of multi-laser fire. The second scorcha zoomed up the flank to assist the flash gits by boiling the platoon of guardsmen in their path. My heroic senior officer fired a plasma pistol shot through a window of the little factory on that side of the board and the oily engine of the ramshackle vehicle exploded. In the end, the flash gits did quite well on that flank as they sent one squad running with bolter fire and assaulted the second squad after it had been engulfed in tiny warp-hurled creatures from the big mech’s shock attack gun. The will of Gork and Mork was finally thwarted when the looted wagon rumbled on to the board. It dropped an ordnance template on top of the sentinels which had become hopelessly close together. The gunners were hoeplessly off target however as the shell exploded at the foot of a hill not far in front of the imperial walkers. Once more they opened fire with a salvo of laser fire and a lucky shot hit a shell being hauled to reload the main gun. One side of the vehicle was blown off and it settled to the ground as a smoking wreck. For the rest of the game the sentinels and dreadnought carried out a long ranged firefight on my left flank with neither side doing anything to the other. The sentinels were incredible in both performance and luck in this game. I have never known a squadron of sentinels to remain intact after a game and take so many expensive enemies with them.
The orks soon began making ground however. The truck mob and the bikes screamed on the centre of the board and roared towards the objective. The truck halted behind the church ready to disembark a horde of heavily-muscled orks into the fray. The bikes sent a salvo of big shoota fire at a command squad menacing the truck with a flamer and tore all 5 men apart in a storm of lead. Meanwhile, one of the grenade launchers (probably now one of my favourite guard weapons) succeeded in immobilising and stunning the truck with a penetrating hit. The orks fell into a flailing heap in the noisy passenger compartment and spent the rest of the turn getting to their feet. They couldn’t disembark and assault from their stunned transport next turn and the Guard had a bit of breathing space.
The bikes took this opportunity to charge the front squad of rough riders which had by now reached the centre of the board. The front squad were decimated and left as a pile of man and horse meat but the second squad counter charged and their explosive lances made short work of the now depleted bike squad.
Still the mech hurled indiscriminate shots, the flash gits ground through the flank and the ork infantry hacked their way slowly through the centre but in the end the mortars and flamers did their work and the much smaller ork infantry units were chased away or killed. At the end of turn 6, with night falling (I quite like the dusk till dawn rule) the objective lay in Imperial hands and the refugees were saved. Even so, there were still greenskins in the area so their fate still hung in the balance. There was no turn 7 though so the Guard remained in control of the objective at the end of the game. This, combined with the better than average shooting, gave them a solid victory.
That was probably one of the best guard games I’ve ever played. I remember one great game where my storm troopers did something heroic to a Grey Knights dreadnought which was really good fun and quite a tactical challenge but this game was brilliant. The thing that really made it was the objective. If anybody wants any advice for playing 40K then it must be to use the missions. When you line up and face off against your opponents you haven’t really got a focus apart from pitting the right gun against the most suitable armour. With other objectives your whole game plan changes. Please have a go!
If there is one lesson I have learned from this game it is that you should not be afraid to experiment with your army lists. I originally made a zealous Imperial cult to represent the defenders of a monastery world. The idea and the doctrines I chose were sound but it severely lacked in hard-hitting firepower. I specifically didn’t want tanks because they are so easy to destroy straight away and because I always use them. Instead I chose to make a “things with legs” themed army. It was genuinely fun to get my rough riders out again and the flexibility of movement offered by the incredibly versatile grenade launcher made my infantry squads much more suitable for a mobility-based mission like the one we ended up playing. The army was a complete whim and it worked perfectly – although it is important to remember that the orks did give as good as they got. Don’t be afraid to play, that’s one of the main reasons the choice of units is there.
I was impressed with the ork army as well. Johnny had a surprisingly good mix of long range template death and fast-moving assault units. His Flash Gits with their more dakka guns offered another flexible option. As far as I can see the orks main problem was their unlucky reserves. Their units came on in a straggling group so that the already entrenched Guard could concentrate fire. If they had arrived together they would have won.
So there you have it. A great game thoroughly enjoyed by both participants. The next report will be of our first apocalypse game this week end where 4000 points of my Chaos Space Marines fight a rather background-defying alliance of Tau, Orks, Space Wolves and either Necrons or Dark Angels. This will be both my first apocalypse game and my first large battle using the new CSM codex. I’ll tell you all about it next week.
Commander Portman
As there were only 2 of us we took advantage of the simpler deployment to play one of the missions from the 40k rulebook. We randomly generated the scenario and it turned out to be take and hold. We set up the plastic Warhammer chapel model in the centre of the board as an objective and put a generator next to it. It could be rassionalised as a desperate enclave of pious Imperial refugees holding out until they could be rescued. Would the Imperial Guard whisk them from danger or would they become just more victims of the merciless greenskin tide… Read on to find out.
The armies were, as best as I remember, as follows:
Orks (new codex, don’t ask) – battle wagon, looted wagon, 10 flash gits, big mech with shock attack gun (ouch), 7 bikers, 2 scorchas (as separate units), 19 slugga boys with nob, 11 slugga boys with nob in a truck, ork dreadnought.
Imperial Guard – 3 troop platoons each consisting of 2 infantry squads with grenade launchers and a command squad with flamers, 2 units of 10 rough riders, unit of 3 sentinels with multi-lasers, command platoon with command squad including commissar and psycher (who had a shotgun for a laugh) and 2 mortar squads and an anti-tank squad with missile launchers, 4 ogryns.
I very quickly noticed that I had no tanks. This was both scary and painful but may well have saved the game for me. With no big targets to attract fire the army was quite spread out. I had never met orks from the new codex before either so this was a learning curve for both of us.
Due to deployment restrictions in the mission, most of the Guard set up as normal whereas a lot of the Ork vehicles were compelled to wait and come on in reserve. I sent a platoon of infantry to occupy the Flash Gits and ork boys on one flank, used the sentinels to control the left flank and sent 2 platoons of infantry and the ogryns up the middle to take the objective. The mortars deployed in cover near my board edge and the missile teams followed the assault forces up the middle to get into better positions for when the horrifically fast ork vehicles turned up.
The big mech deployed in a bunker where he remained, causing a stupendous amount of damage, for the rest of the game. The flash gits moved up on one side and the large unit of boys came on between them and the centre of the board.
Both sides did well with early shooting with a few grenades taking a couple of wounds from the Flash Gits while the big mech mashed command squads with his teleporting doomgun. The as yet small ork presence allowed the guard to advance relatively safely to take up positions around the objective.
Then the orks came. The battle wagon came on and picked up the large boys unit. They zoomed up the board ready to disgorge a horde of roaring greenskins on the objective. And got blown up by a missile launcher. The wagon exploded killing 10 of the orks. The rest lay about in the wreckage looking bemused. Similarly, the first scorcha zoomed on to engulf the sentinels in sheets of promethium. It didn’t reach and was torn apart in a hail of multi-laser fire. The second scorcha zoomed up the flank to assist the flash gits by boiling the platoon of guardsmen in their path. My heroic senior officer fired a plasma pistol shot through a window of the little factory on that side of the board and the oily engine of the ramshackle vehicle exploded. In the end, the flash gits did quite well on that flank as they sent one squad running with bolter fire and assaulted the second squad after it had been engulfed in tiny warp-hurled creatures from the big mech’s shock attack gun. The will of Gork and Mork was finally thwarted when the looted wagon rumbled on to the board. It dropped an ordnance template on top of the sentinels which had become hopelessly close together. The gunners were hoeplessly off target however as the shell exploded at the foot of a hill not far in front of the imperial walkers. Once more they opened fire with a salvo of laser fire and a lucky shot hit a shell being hauled to reload the main gun. One side of the vehicle was blown off and it settled to the ground as a smoking wreck. For the rest of the game the sentinels and dreadnought carried out a long ranged firefight on my left flank with neither side doing anything to the other. The sentinels were incredible in both performance and luck in this game. I have never known a squadron of sentinels to remain intact after a game and take so many expensive enemies with them.
The orks soon began making ground however. The truck mob and the bikes screamed on the centre of the board and roared towards the objective. The truck halted behind the church ready to disembark a horde of heavily-muscled orks into the fray. The bikes sent a salvo of big shoota fire at a command squad menacing the truck with a flamer and tore all 5 men apart in a storm of lead. Meanwhile, one of the grenade launchers (probably now one of my favourite guard weapons) succeeded in immobilising and stunning the truck with a penetrating hit. The orks fell into a flailing heap in the noisy passenger compartment and spent the rest of the turn getting to their feet. They couldn’t disembark and assault from their stunned transport next turn and the Guard had a bit of breathing space.
The bikes took this opportunity to charge the front squad of rough riders which had by now reached the centre of the board. The front squad were decimated and left as a pile of man and horse meat but the second squad counter charged and their explosive lances made short work of the now depleted bike squad.
Still the mech hurled indiscriminate shots, the flash gits ground through the flank and the ork infantry hacked their way slowly through the centre but in the end the mortars and flamers did their work and the much smaller ork infantry units were chased away or killed. At the end of turn 6, with night falling (I quite like the dusk till dawn rule) the objective lay in Imperial hands and the refugees were saved. Even so, there were still greenskins in the area so their fate still hung in the balance. There was no turn 7 though so the Guard remained in control of the objective at the end of the game. This, combined with the better than average shooting, gave them a solid victory.
That was probably one of the best guard games I’ve ever played. I remember one great game where my storm troopers did something heroic to a Grey Knights dreadnought which was really good fun and quite a tactical challenge but this game was brilliant. The thing that really made it was the objective. If anybody wants any advice for playing 40K then it must be to use the missions. When you line up and face off against your opponents you haven’t really got a focus apart from pitting the right gun against the most suitable armour. With other objectives your whole game plan changes. Please have a go!
If there is one lesson I have learned from this game it is that you should not be afraid to experiment with your army lists. I originally made a zealous Imperial cult to represent the defenders of a monastery world. The idea and the doctrines I chose were sound but it severely lacked in hard-hitting firepower. I specifically didn’t want tanks because they are so easy to destroy straight away and because I always use them. Instead I chose to make a “things with legs” themed army. It was genuinely fun to get my rough riders out again and the flexibility of movement offered by the incredibly versatile grenade launcher made my infantry squads much more suitable for a mobility-based mission like the one we ended up playing. The army was a complete whim and it worked perfectly – although it is important to remember that the orks did give as good as they got. Don’t be afraid to play, that’s one of the main reasons the choice of units is there.
I was impressed with the ork army as well. Johnny had a surprisingly good mix of long range template death and fast-moving assault units. His Flash Gits with their more dakka guns offered another flexible option. As far as I can see the orks main problem was their unlucky reserves. Their units came on in a straggling group so that the already entrenched Guard could concentrate fire. If they had arrived together they would have won.
So there you have it. A great game thoroughly enjoyed by both participants. The next report will be of our first apocalypse game this week end where 4000 points of my Chaos Space Marines fight a rather background-defying alliance of Tau, Orks, Space Wolves and either Necrons or Dark Angels. This will be both my first apocalypse game and my first large battle using the new CSM codex. I’ll tell you all about it next week.
Commander Portman
Wednesday 5 December, 2007: Vampire
I am slipping: I need to get these reports up quicker. For this I apologize profusely but claim work and the hectic run-up to Christmas as excuses. Anyway, without further ado let’s get to the rather exciting first week of Vampire: The Requiem.
I have played Vampire: The Masquerade before but this was my first time with the new edition of the World Of Darkness rules. After three weeks of frantic reading I felt just able to begin the game. With greatful assistance from Johnny, we began with character generation.
The two characters are Derek Merryweather, Olly’s Gangrel ex-roadie and Joseph Johnny’s Mekhet failed(ish) student. I can’t remember his surname at the moment though, sorry. The characters seemed interesting to me: nobody went for truly butt-kicking undead terror troops and social and mental attributes seemed to be the order of the day. This, in my opinion, makes for much more varied and interesting gaming. It also means that when – and it will be when – they get into a fight they are more likely to remember it. I liked the backgrounds and the players were impressively good at getting into their characters. I was privileged to witness some of the best, and most natural-sounding, in-character banter of my role-playing career to date.
We went through the preludes of the two characters focusing mainly on the night of their embraces. Looking back at the rulebook we could have spent a little more time on this and explored more rules for learning and frenzy but I think everything went well. After that, with a little XP bonus, we skipped a few months of game time and got stuck into the adventure proper.
We glossed over the kindred learning curve a little more than we should but I had a chronicle in mind in which I hadn’t really accounted for week-old neonates so perhaps that will be something to look at in the future.
The story is set in modern day Cambridge which has a diverse group of vampires numbering around two dozen at present. As per the Shadows Of The United Kingdom supplement I have made the Prince the ruler of the whole county so the vampires represent a cross-section from all across the county (this also allows me to bring in some of the more far-flung vampires as extra characters if I need to later). It also helps with Cambridge having such a huge transient student and tourist population so it is even easier to move characters around and also justify a fairly high kindred population for a city of this size.
In the game the highlights were a rather unexpected attack by a rather blood thirsty vampire who broke the masquerade with more than usual unsubtlety. He leapt from roof to roof across a street and tore the heads from innocent bystanders, showering panicked clubbers with gore and body parts. Derek and Joseph witnessed this atrocity and rushed to tell the Prince. He ordered an immediate ban on hunting for that night and a curfew of kindred to let the mortal police settle down. He involved the city’s sheriff. He sent his two hounds out on fact-finding missions but nothing could be discovered about the mysterious murderer. They did, however, see Derek and Joseph (acting against the express wishes of the Prince) making enquiries of their own.
Derek went back to his haven and found a message written on his mirror in toothpaste. It simply said “you can learn about me”. He asked Joseph to come and investigate and, while looking into the phenomenon, they received a phone call from the Sheriff.
In the meantime, Joseph had been burning the candle at both ends in order to do some research into the brutal acts of the mysterious kindred. Acting without his sire’s knowledge (tut tut) he researched into some pretty dark and occult books in his academic creator’s personal library. He did not find much conclusive evidence however, just some references to Belial’s Brood.
The Sheriff’s phone call turned out to be about their prying into the masquerade breach. He was angry at first but began to calm and recognize their keenness (bloody neonates). He sent them out on some sanctioned research of his own to meet a homeless Welsh Nosferatu named Rhodri. Apart from a lot of nonsense about a rat (which Derek couldn’t catch) Rhodri told them about something frightening – a beast he called it – which left a trail leading to the river. They got little else out of him apart from a rather emotive and garbled diatribe about the man versus the beast in the kindred psyche.
Derek decided to reply to his mirror messenger. He wrote back a single word “How?”.
He received the reply “save the date and the penny will drop”. What is going on? His little mirror is getting full now though so we will see what happens next.
That was the basic story so far. The two characters, as I said, enjoyed a little banter and have developed a grudging association. I hesitate to call it camaraderie though.
Role-playing is difficult with small groups, it is easier to focus and keep tracks but decisions tend to be made quicker and so you need to have more prepared. It will be an interesting challenge. I think it was an interesting and enjoyable evening. The rules are fairly stright forward in so much as being able to use common sense to link relevant skills and attributes in a way which suits your games. I think this was one of our more successful role-playing attempts and we are all looking forward to the next session.
Next Week, Warhammer 40,000. Olly can’t make it so 1500 points of Orks will face off against the same amount of Imperial Guard. Should be fun, check back to see how it went.
Commander Portman
I have played Vampire: The Masquerade before but this was my first time with the new edition of the World Of Darkness rules. After three weeks of frantic reading I felt just able to begin the game. With greatful assistance from Johnny, we began with character generation.
The two characters are Derek Merryweather, Olly’s Gangrel ex-roadie and Joseph Johnny’s Mekhet failed(ish) student. I can’t remember his surname at the moment though, sorry. The characters seemed interesting to me: nobody went for truly butt-kicking undead terror troops and social and mental attributes seemed to be the order of the day. This, in my opinion, makes for much more varied and interesting gaming. It also means that when – and it will be when – they get into a fight they are more likely to remember it. I liked the backgrounds and the players were impressively good at getting into their characters. I was privileged to witness some of the best, and most natural-sounding, in-character banter of my role-playing career to date.
We went through the preludes of the two characters focusing mainly on the night of their embraces. Looking back at the rulebook we could have spent a little more time on this and explored more rules for learning and frenzy but I think everything went well. After that, with a little XP bonus, we skipped a few months of game time and got stuck into the adventure proper.
We glossed over the kindred learning curve a little more than we should but I had a chronicle in mind in which I hadn’t really accounted for week-old neonates so perhaps that will be something to look at in the future.
The story is set in modern day Cambridge which has a diverse group of vampires numbering around two dozen at present. As per the Shadows Of The United Kingdom supplement I have made the Prince the ruler of the whole county so the vampires represent a cross-section from all across the county (this also allows me to bring in some of the more far-flung vampires as extra characters if I need to later). It also helps with Cambridge having such a huge transient student and tourist population so it is even easier to move characters around and also justify a fairly high kindred population for a city of this size.
In the game the highlights were a rather unexpected attack by a rather blood thirsty vampire who broke the masquerade with more than usual unsubtlety. He leapt from roof to roof across a street and tore the heads from innocent bystanders, showering panicked clubbers with gore and body parts. Derek and Joseph witnessed this atrocity and rushed to tell the Prince. He ordered an immediate ban on hunting for that night and a curfew of kindred to let the mortal police settle down. He involved the city’s sheriff. He sent his two hounds out on fact-finding missions but nothing could be discovered about the mysterious murderer. They did, however, see Derek and Joseph (acting against the express wishes of the Prince) making enquiries of their own.
Derek went back to his haven and found a message written on his mirror in toothpaste. It simply said “you can learn about me”. He asked Joseph to come and investigate and, while looking into the phenomenon, they received a phone call from the Sheriff.
In the meantime, Joseph had been burning the candle at both ends in order to do some research into the brutal acts of the mysterious kindred. Acting without his sire’s knowledge (tut tut) he researched into some pretty dark and occult books in his academic creator’s personal library. He did not find much conclusive evidence however, just some references to Belial’s Brood.
The Sheriff’s phone call turned out to be about their prying into the masquerade breach. He was angry at first but began to calm and recognize their keenness (bloody neonates). He sent them out on some sanctioned research of his own to meet a homeless Welsh Nosferatu named Rhodri. Apart from a lot of nonsense about a rat (which Derek couldn’t catch) Rhodri told them about something frightening – a beast he called it – which left a trail leading to the river. They got little else out of him apart from a rather emotive and garbled diatribe about the man versus the beast in the kindred psyche.
Derek decided to reply to his mirror messenger. He wrote back a single word “How?”.
He received the reply “save the date and the penny will drop”. What is going on? His little mirror is getting full now though so we will see what happens next.
That was the basic story so far. The two characters, as I said, enjoyed a little banter and have developed a grudging association. I hesitate to call it camaraderie though.
Role-playing is difficult with small groups, it is easier to focus and keep tracks but decisions tend to be made quicker and so you need to have more prepared. It will be an interesting challenge. I think it was an interesting and enjoyable evening. The rules are fairly stright forward in so much as being able to use common sense to link relevant skills and attributes in a way which suits your games. I think this was one of our more successful role-playing attempts and we are all looking forward to the next session.
Next Week, Warhammer 40,000. Olly can’t make it so 1500 points of Orks will face off against the same amount of Imperial Guard. Should be fun, check back to see how it went.
Commander Portman
Tuesday 4 December 2007
Wednesday 28 November, 2007:
Hello again,
It’s been a little while because we missed a week due to illness and work constraints. Determined not to be put off however we rescheduled our Warhammer three-way for the following week and this is how it went:
The armies were interesting. Everyone had new and horrible units they wished to try out. Johnny had a Treeman and some Wild Riders for his Wood Elves, Olly had a flame cannon and some Slayers for his Dwarves and I had my giant for the Orcs and Goblins. With these units guzzling points, the remainder of the armies were bulked out with:-
Wood Elves – Hero on a horse, 2 units of Glade Guard and a unit of Dryads.
Dwarves – a Master Engineer attached to a normal cannon, a unit of Thunderers and a unit of Rangers.
Orcs and Goblins – Night Goblin Boss on Great Squig, 2 Spear Chuckers, Boar Chariot, unit of Black Orcs, unit of Orc Boys and 2 units of Night Goblin Archers each containing a fanatic.
The Game started with the most amazing piece of Elven bad luck ever seen. The rangers infiltrated right across the board from their gun-toting colleagues but fearlessly marched off to do battle with the elves alone. They failed to be terrified by the Treeman who, startled by this brazen disrespect for his large model status, failed a morale test and lumbered off of the board. In their victory trundle the Rangers also caught up with a unit of Glade Guard and heartily hacked down and scattered them to. With fully half his army off the board the Wood Elf general bravely galloped forward to show his courage. Astonishingly, the power of the Ward Save was demonstrated when he survived – just – a full gout from the flame cannon. Braving a storm of lead, the remaining Elves advanced on the Dwarf line with shockingly few casualties and eventually burst the flame cannon’s bellows (we couldn’t think of any other explanation) with Glade Guard arrows. The bereft cannon crew charged only to be similarly peppered with deadly wooden shafts. The Thunderers, after a rather poor showing considering their usual terrifying performance, were overridden by the Wild Riders and wiped out.
Alarmed by the infiltrating Rangers and the unstoppable dryad horde, the Night Goblins set up a firing line on the Orc left flank to await their inevitable goblin death. Their fanatics proved just as hopeless as usual, one tripped over a bit of swamp his unit was hiding in and strangled himself. The second ran screaming towards the advancing dryads, changed his mind and ran back again. Just when it looked like he would cut a swathe through his allies he fell in a muddy pool and drowned. It should also be mensioned that the 20 Goblin bowshots inflicted not a single wound either. Needless to say the Goblins did meet their being chopped up and running away goblin destinies.
The Giant got all excited and ran off around the back of a farm. He met a cannon ball coming the other way which really hurt. This enraged him so he charged the cannon and its Engineer. His initial charge resulted in him bellowing madly which everyone found highly off-putting so nothing else happened. Seeing the lack of fear in his tiny enemies, the giant proceeded to jump up and down with rage. This proved to be an exciting thing to do as he squashed two of the crew. Seeing the fun and squishy results of this activity, he continued leaping about and succeeded in squashing the cannon flat (all three wounds off in one go) with a single bound. The resulting stumble also pulverised the Engineer. The remaining crewman ran off in terror but the Giant persued him gleefully off of the table to come staggering back a little later to see what else was happening.
The Black Orcs and Chariot waited behind their smaller Orc cannon fodder but were impeded by their unruly brethren stopping in their Wagh to have a minor scuffle amongst themselves. This central block of Orcs achieved absolutely nothing in the game but did survive the carnage to have a loud and violent victory party.
The Spear Chuckers also proved of little worth with one having to spend the entire game moving around terrain and the other rolling three misses and then being stopped by an unexpectedly sturdy piece of Troll Slayer underwear “anything but a 1 to wound…” “And you can wipe that grin off of your face!”
The Great Squig carried its master on an incredibly eratic course which eventually lead into the back of a unit of Wild Riders who were rather heroically cleaving their way through the Slayer unit with several really exciting and close rounds of combat. With his magical weapon-thingy the Goblin smote two riders to their ruin and even the Squig got all excited and bit the back end off of a horse. At that point the Giant wandered back and, seeing such an interestingly noisy fight happening right in front of him got all smily and prepared to charge…
Then we checked the time and noticed it was high time for bed “what with work and all” (youthful vigour? Where?)
The game was an Orc and Goblin victory by dint of there being loads of them left. The Chariot, Black Orcs and scuffling Boys had survived intact along with Lord Boing (not original but still funny) and half the Giant. The two Spear Chuckers were there somewhere but they were boring so I refuse to recognise their tenacity. The Dwarves still had around half the Slayer unit and a worryingly-intact unit of Rangers stumping about where they had no business being. The Elves General was rather dramatically impaled by a Ranger throwing axe in the last turn but the Dryads were hewing their way merrily into Orc territory, a few highly-accurate Glade Guard were flitting about in the background and one or Two Wild Riders were galloping merrily away from a rather rules-intensive three-way combat.
The dwarves still had the afore-mentioned Rangers and Slayers but nothing else.
All in all a great game. We were a lot more confident on the rules this time and the game felt smoother. A great many funny and strange things happened including deeds of both great heroism and courage and outstanding stupidity and humour. It kept close most of the way through. And just think: without the cowardly Ent it could have been so different.
Our up-coming game is a rather exciting sojourn into the plots and shadows of the World Of Darkness story-telling game system from White Wolf. I shall be telling a story of horror in present day Cambridge in Vampire: The Requiem. Come back and see how we get on with our first session.
Commander Portman
It’s been a little while because we missed a week due to illness and work constraints. Determined not to be put off however we rescheduled our Warhammer three-way for the following week and this is how it went:
The armies were interesting. Everyone had new and horrible units they wished to try out. Johnny had a Treeman and some Wild Riders for his Wood Elves, Olly had a flame cannon and some Slayers for his Dwarves and I had my giant for the Orcs and Goblins. With these units guzzling points, the remainder of the armies were bulked out with:-
Wood Elves – Hero on a horse, 2 units of Glade Guard and a unit of Dryads.
Dwarves – a Master Engineer attached to a normal cannon, a unit of Thunderers and a unit of Rangers.
Orcs and Goblins – Night Goblin Boss on Great Squig, 2 Spear Chuckers, Boar Chariot, unit of Black Orcs, unit of Orc Boys and 2 units of Night Goblin Archers each containing a fanatic.
The Game started with the most amazing piece of Elven bad luck ever seen. The rangers infiltrated right across the board from their gun-toting colleagues but fearlessly marched off to do battle with the elves alone. They failed to be terrified by the Treeman who, startled by this brazen disrespect for his large model status, failed a morale test and lumbered off of the board. In their victory trundle the Rangers also caught up with a unit of Glade Guard and heartily hacked down and scattered them to. With fully half his army off the board the Wood Elf general bravely galloped forward to show his courage. Astonishingly, the power of the Ward Save was demonstrated when he survived – just – a full gout from the flame cannon. Braving a storm of lead, the remaining Elves advanced on the Dwarf line with shockingly few casualties and eventually burst the flame cannon’s bellows (we couldn’t think of any other explanation) with Glade Guard arrows. The bereft cannon crew charged only to be similarly peppered with deadly wooden shafts. The Thunderers, after a rather poor showing considering their usual terrifying performance, were overridden by the Wild Riders and wiped out.
Alarmed by the infiltrating Rangers and the unstoppable dryad horde, the Night Goblins set up a firing line on the Orc left flank to await their inevitable goblin death. Their fanatics proved just as hopeless as usual, one tripped over a bit of swamp his unit was hiding in and strangled himself. The second ran screaming towards the advancing dryads, changed his mind and ran back again. Just when it looked like he would cut a swathe through his allies he fell in a muddy pool and drowned. It should also be mensioned that the 20 Goblin bowshots inflicted not a single wound either. Needless to say the Goblins did meet their being chopped up and running away goblin destinies.
The Giant got all excited and ran off around the back of a farm. He met a cannon ball coming the other way which really hurt. This enraged him so he charged the cannon and its Engineer. His initial charge resulted in him bellowing madly which everyone found highly off-putting so nothing else happened. Seeing the lack of fear in his tiny enemies, the giant proceeded to jump up and down with rage. This proved to be an exciting thing to do as he squashed two of the crew. Seeing the fun and squishy results of this activity, he continued leaping about and succeeded in squashing the cannon flat (all three wounds off in one go) with a single bound. The resulting stumble also pulverised the Engineer. The remaining crewman ran off in terror but the Giant persued him gleefully off of the table to come staggering back a little later to see what else was happening.
The Black Orcs and Chariot waited behind their smaller Orc cannon fodder but were impeded by their unruly brethren stopping in their Wagh to have a minor scuffle amongst themselves. This central block of Orcs achieved absolutely nothing in the game but did survive the carnage to have a loud and violent victory party.
The Spear Chuckers also proved of little worth with one having to spend the entire game moving around terrain and the other rolling three misses and then being stopped by an unexpectedly sturdy piece of Troll Slayer underwear “anything but a 1 to wound…” “And you can wipe that grin off of your face!”
The Great Squig carried its master on an incredibly eratic course which eventually lead into the back of a unit of Wild Riders who were rather heroically cleaving their way through the Slayer unit with several really exciting and close rounds of combat. With his magical weapon-thingy the Goblin smote two riders to their ruin and even the Squig got all excited and bit the back end off of a horse. At that point the Giant wandered back and, seeing such an interestingly noisy fight happening right in front of him got all smily and prepared to charge…
Then we checked the time and noticed it was high time for bed “what with work and all” (youthful vigour? Where?)
The game was an Orc and Goblin victory by dint of there being loads of them left. The Chariot, Black Orcs and scuffling Boys had survived intact along with Lord Boing (not original but still funny) and half the Giant. The two Spear Chuckers were there somewhere but they were boring so I refuse to recognise their tenacity. The Dwarves still had around half the Slayer unit and a worryingly-intact unit of Rangers stumping about where they had no business being. The Elves General was rather dramatically impaled by a Ranger throwing axe in the last turn but the Dryads were hewing their way merrily into Orc territory, a few highly-accurate Glade Guard were flitting about in the background and one or Two Wild Riders were galloping merrily away from a rather rules-intensive three-way combat.
The dwarves still had the afore-mentioned Rangers and Slayers but nothing else.
All in all a great game. We were a lot more confident on the rules this time and the game felt smoother. A great many funny and strange things happened including deeds of both great heroism and courage and outstanding stupidity and humour. It kept close most of the way through. And just think: without the cowardly Ent it could have been so different.
Our up-coming game is a rather exciting sojourn into the plots and shadows of the World Of Darkness story-telling game system from White Wolf. I shall be telling a story of horror in present day Cambridge in Vampire: The Requiem. Come back and see how we get on with our first session.
Commander Portman
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