Epic Battle -- Khornate forces vs Ogre army

This battle finished up tonight. A quick rundown on the two armies is here as well:

Chaos Khorne Army:

Had a combined unit of about 15 Chosen Chaos Knights of Khorne, which included the Lord on his Daemonic steed and 2 Aspiring champions, one of whom had the Battle Standard. They survived the battle intact, unfortunately the Chaos Lord did not...

2 Units of Warhounds, which came in handy! Out of about 10, 8 survived.

4 Bloodbeasts of Khorne (Chaos Spawn) 3 of them died in the end, but accomplished their missions.

4 Units of 10 beastmen in beast herds. These did well, except their shocking LD tests when trying to charge fear causing ogres, 2 units left at the end both claiming table quarters and running down a unit of Ogres each as well.

2 Chariots of Khorne -- amazingly good, one was popped by the Ogre Tyrant with Strength 7 attacks, the other one charged a unit of Ogres with a Butcher in it, and forced them to flee. Then overran them. Excellent work there!!

The Ogre army included : (among other things i have probably forgotten)

2 Big units of Bulls / Ironguts, which was hiding a Tyrant, a Bruiser and a Butcher. One was killed by the Chariots charge, the other killed by the awesome Knights of Khorne.

1 Big unit of gnoblars, the first to fall from the Knights.

1 Unit of leadbelchers, who didnt shoot at all, just charged into some of my troops. Ended up killing 1 and a half units of beastmen and a Chaos Spawn, so not bad there.

A hunter with his two pets, who charged a Chaos Spawn with his cats -- resulting in one wound to the spawn, and both cats slaughtered. The hunter then finished off the Spawn taking one wound in return, to charge a unit of Beastmen. These Beastmen took a couple of casualties and then overan the hunter to kill him and claim a table quarter.

1 Dogs of war special unit --- something to do with a were-bear. Did alright, was killed off by a Chariot and a Spawn, even though they did kill the spawn eventually.

I think that was about it.

To sum up the fight, Chaos had first turn and positioned his Knights for a handy charge if the ogres dared to advance. Which they didnt, and the Frenzied Knights went for his Gnoblars instead. Charges abound with Spawn and Chariots and Beastmen rocketing into the Ogre lines, most of the combats were won by Chaos with the exception of the Leadbelchers ripping the Beastmen apart.

Ogre magic proved ineffective as Chaos was able to dispel practically every spell with 8 dispel dice - and 2 power dice which got rid of Regeneration from the Butchers unit at a critical time.

As the game progressed, on the right flank of Chaos the Ogres were slowly getting beaten back and lost most of their forces, except for the Leadbelchers. In the middle of the board the Ogres failed a critical leadership test, their second biggest unit getting run off the board. The knights and the Tyrants group dance around each other in an attempt to get the charge off. The Ogres eventually charge at a group of Warhounds, who promptly flee. The charge is redirected at one of the Chaos Chariots, which is quickly pounded into dust, then the Ogres fail their "Remain in Place" test to overrun the Chariot..... putting them within striking distance of the Knights!! A quick attack by a fatalistic Chaos Spawn holds the Ogres in place long enough for the charge of the Knights to land, and the epic battle began.

It went well for Chaos to begin with, 12 or so wounds on the Ogres taking out the majority of the attacks back. The Tyrant lashed out with his Tenderiser, pulping the Chaos Lord where he stood. (2 wounds, failed a 5+ armour save, then a 4+ ward save, then a 6+ regeneration save.... what the hell?)

Within the next turn the Tyrant was overrun, as was the hunter and the leadbelchers --- and thus ended the game with no Ogre models on the board. Massacre to Chaos!!!

The Chaos Spawn ate well that night...

Grand Campaign Chaos versus Lizardmen Part 1

This Campaign was played out over several weeks, 5 battles long and each battle impacted on the one played after it. Henk’s Lizardman army played against my Chaos army for control over a vital magical conduit, which once captured would allow Chaos magic to overpower the remaining defences of the Old Ones around the Talek’kriskov Ziggurat, a vital Lizardman community.

The 5 games that we have planned are as follows:

Rules were any victory meant your army received the bonus for the next game, and any draw result meant the winner of the previous game received the bonus for the next game.

Battle One: 500 Points Border Patrol, the winner of this game becomes the attacker in the next game.

Battle Two: 1000 Points Flank Attack, the winner of this game becomes the attacker in the next game.

Battle Three: 1900 / 950 Points Last Stand, the winner of this game receives +1 special feature in the next game, randomly rolled for at the beginning of the game. (This meant it could provide +1 PD/DD, or cause hatred, or +100 VP)

Battle Four: 2250 Points Battlefield Supremacy, the winner of this game gets +50 Points to spend on their army in the final game per objective they hold.

Battle Five: 3000 + 50x Points Pitched Battle, the winner of this game wins the entire campaign.

As of this posting, (22 August) 4 of the 5 battles have been played, with a current tally of 1 win, 1 loss and 2 draw’s for both armies. The 5^th battle is set to be a massive undertaking and will decide the winner.

In my next posts, I will briefly describe each of the 4 battles already completed from memory. (It’s been a little while, but I will do my best)

Grand Campaign Chaos versus Lizardmen Part 2

Battle One: 500 Points Border Patrol, the winner of this game becomes the attacker in the next game.

The Chaos armies general was a Level 2 Chaos Undivided Sorcerer, along with a small unit of Chosen Warriors and 5 Chaos Screamers was a very small army numerically, but made up of some strong units.

The Lizardman armies general was a Saurus Scar-Vet and the units he took along were a unit of strong Kroxigors (brought because of a tendency I have to use chariots I believe), a 2 salamander strong unit and a unit of poison blowpipe skinks.

The exact details of the match are a little fuzzy, but it ended in a decisive victory for chaos, with the Kroxigors being slaughtered by the magic of the Chaos Sorcerer and the skinks running off the board away from the Screamers, who then went on to ambush the lone Scar-Vet and finish him off. The Chosen warriors went from 12 strong to about 2-3 strong with shooting from the Salamanders, but they provided ample protection for the Chaos Sorcerer and he survived unscathed.

Final Units left were a few Chaos Warriors, the Chaos Sorcerer, more than half the Screamers and the 2 Salamanders.

Victory went to Chaos, meaning my Army was the Attacker in the next battle, the Flank Attack.

Grand Campaign Chaos versus Lizardmen Part 3

Battle Two: 1000 Points Flank Attack, the winner of this game becomes the attacker in the next game.

This battle being twice as big I don’t remember as many details about it… probably also because it did not go very well for me!! J

My army included the regulars, Chaos Chosen to protect the vulnerable Sorcerer and Champion, as well as Warhound screens and 2 Chariots. Then maybe some Spawns… or maybe some Screamers.

The enemy army included the usual strong arm of the Lizardmen, Salamanders and Kroxigors guarded by copious amounts of Skinks. As far as I can remember, it also included a Scar-Vet and a Skink Priest, no doubt to deny me magical domination.

Tactics were terrible on my side, the Flank Attack special rules being that I could bring units in on the side from turn 2 onwards; however they would be worth double victory points!! I chose for 1 chariot and 5 Warhounds to arrive on the flank, leaving me outnumbered with the army set up in front of the Lizardman army. When the chariot and Warhounds finally arrived, and then finally got into combat (turn 5) the rest of my army was already dead.

Victory went to Lizardmen, meaning the Lizardmen were the Attackers in the next battle.

Grand Campaign Chaos versus Lizardmen Part 4

Battle Three: 1900 / 950 Points Last Stand, the winner of this game receives +1 special feature in the next game, randomly rolled for at the beginning of the game. (This meant it could provide +1 PD/DD, or cause hatred, or +100 VP)

This was a very interesting battle, I was the underdog with only 950 points to spend, but on the plus side I only had to do 951 points worth of damage to the advancing Lizardman army to win! The battle began with my army having an 18” square in the middle to deploy, which I was able to do in and around a fortress I had quickly build from random bits of polystyrene and kebab skewers…. Plus a tower in the middle. Lizardmen started on both ends of the board with the tactic of advancing towards me and catching me in the pincer of his two forces, each of which was as big as my entire army!

As the storyline goes, my Chaos warriors were thoroughly massacred in the Flank Attack, leaving only a few straggling survivors. While they ran away to regroup the oncoming Lizardman army, which had swelled in size since the last battle with new spawnings, reached an abandoned Orc fortress… which was now filled to the brim with Chaos Daemons!

They couldn’t afford to leave a formidable fighting force behind them as they advanced on the Chaos regrouping position so they decided to wipe them out, with as little loss to their own lines as possible.

I used a new army list to what I normally use here, opting to try out the new Chaos Daemons Army Book and see how well it went.

The Army I used was a Tzeentch based magic army, led by a Herald of Tzeentch. I also took along the Blue Scribes of Tzeentch, a unique Hero-level unit. For Core choices I had 2 units of Pink Horrors, each 10 strong and counting as a Level 1 Wizard. As well as that I brought along a Beast of Nurgle, (a Chaos Spawn without all the good bits as I found out) a unit of Screamers and a unit of Flamers, 6 strong. (By far the best investment I made)

The army I faced was pretty much the same as the 1k army, Krox’s, Sallies, Skink Priests and Scar-Vets was about the lot of it, as well as an obscene number of skinks and a large unit of Saurus Warriors and Cold One Riders.

The battle started off ok for me, massive amounts of shooting and magic on my side in an attempt to whittle down the enemy forces before they hit my army and squashed it. Best shot of the match was my Flamers, firing at the Saurus cavalry. They only killed 2 out of the 10 or 12 there, but Henk failed his cold blooded leadership test on LD9 – and promptly ran his 600 point unit off the table!

This boded very well for me, only needing to cause another 400ish points damage to win the game. Unfortunately, I sent my screamers out Skink hunting and they got slaughtered by salamanders. I then sent out my Beast of Nurgle to charge and hopefully slow down the large unit of Saurus warriors, but it got annihilated by Combat Resolution and took 4-5 wounds from that alone. The horrors and the herald did quite well, causing some hits on the skinks reducing a few units to less than half unit strength, and ended up scoring some more points when the skink priest miscasted on himself, but a lack of consistent damage got me in the end when the Kroxigors charged my Horrors and slaughtered both groups. Worst choice was the Blue Scribes, who floated around the battlefield doing SFA, casting maybe one spell the entire game. Best choice was the flamers, who lasted a good while and also shot to pieces a good chunk of the Lizardman army.

In the end, I did about 850 VP’s worth of damage, 100 points off the win, but too much for Henk to claim a win as well.

Draw for the Chaos and Lizardman army, but because the Lizardmen won the previous battle they gained the bonus for the next game. (An extra special objective)

Grand Campaign Chaos versus Lizardmen Part 5

Battle Four: 2250 Points Battlefield Supremacy, the winner of this game gets +50 Points to spend on their army in the final game per objective they hold.

This was our big battle that took place last week – and the first battle to include Lord units in the game. (Therefore, I was expecting a dirty great big Slann mage priest to fight) There were 4 objectives on the board to begin with, plus one more for the Lizardmen to put where they wanted to. This extra objective, surprisingly enough ended up right in his deployment zone. It also happened to be the +100 VP objective, but as this battle wasn’t decided by VP’s that became irrelevant.

We put one objective each into our own deployment zone, my objective was a tower, and Henk’s objective was a lake. Then we had two more objectives, one was a forest and the other a rock, which were placed in the middle of the board on the right and left side respectively. To guarantee a win, you needed to hold 3 objectives by the end of the game with a unit of at least US: 5.