Warhammer Fantasy Battle Report summary:-
Ouch, it was just one of those days ! (a quick read for a 5 minute coffee break)| source : warhammer.org.uk | credit : Atchman | 22-Dec-2008 |
Well the third game with Chaos Mortals has came and gone. It was the classic matchup of Chaos Dave versus the beloved Atchman. We always have tough battles that are almost never one-sided so I was looking forward to trying out the Empire against them.
The Empire Army List
Atchlector, War Altar, VH Speculum, 1+Armor Save, Sword of Fate (his general was the target)Fire Wizard, Level 2 Upgrade,Barded Warhorse, Doomfire Ring (Fireball and The Burning Head)
Beast Wizard, Level 2 upgrade, 2 x dispel scrolls, (The Hunter's Spear, and Bears Anger)
Master Engineer, Hochland Long Rifle, Pidgeon Bombs, Light Armor
Troops:
24 Swordsmen, Full Command
10 Crossbowmen
10 Halberdiers
20 Greatswords, Full Command
5 archers
5 crossbowmen
10 Handgunners, HLR
2 x 5 Knightly Orders, Musician Only
5 Outriders with Champion
5 Pistoliers with Champion (Repeater Pistol)
1 Great Cannon
1 Helstorm
1 Helblaster
About the Army:
This is a practice list for the MOAB coming up soon. If I had to change it, I wouldn't waste any points on upgrades to the Engineer; I'd give him just a repeater pistol for defense. Also the Doomfire Ring is near useless against Chaos.
Warriors of Chaos Army List:
Heroes:BSB of Tzeentch
Bloodcurdling Roar
Talisman of Protection 180
2 Lvl Tzeentch Mage
Infernal Puppet
Spell Familiar 190
2 Lvl Nurgle mage
Conjoined Homonculus
Dispel Scroll 160
2 Lvl Slaaneshii Mage
Steed of Slaanesh
Spopforic Musk
Glaive of Putrefaction
Dispel Scroll 220
15 Nurgle Warriors C/S/M shields 300
15 Nurgle Warriors C/S/M shields 300
3X 10 Slaanesh Marauders flails (M) 192
5 Knights 250
5 Knights 250
Warshrine of Tzeentch 150
5 Hounds 30
5 Hounds 30
TOTAL 2252
List Commentary (by Atchman)
This is a pretty solid list. I've been at a loss to figure out how to get a decent magic attack and defense and this was pretty sound. There was enough fast stuff in the army to rush some shooters, but the Chaos Warriors suffered without something else to draw missile fire. They are a pain to hit with the Mark of Nurgle! The Slaanesh Marauders are annoying as heck since you have to kill them to the man and then you get hardly any points.
Since the game was so tight the entire way, I'll just post up a short battle report with a few pictures and observations.
My new strategy for Empire is pretty simple. I load up both flanks and just fill the middle with missile troops and cheap infantry. On the near flank I had a Great Cannon, a unit of Greatswords with two detachments, a unit of vanilla knights, and the Outriders. This gave me a little of everything on that flank. The Fire Mage hid in the Reiksguard Knights.
On the far flank I had a unit of Pistoliers, another unit of Vanilla Knights Panthers and the War Altar.
In the middle I had a unit of Swordsmen with their detachments, a Helblaster was in the gap between the Halberdiers and the Parent Unit. The Engineer hung out with the Helblaster Volley Gun. On the hill were the handgunners, and the rocket battery. My strategy was to push hard on both flanks and shoot in the middle and taking my chances. It very nearly worked!
The Empire advances...
The other side of the table
The Right Flank:
I pushed hard down this side of the table. My Pistoliers moved up and killed one of the Chaos Knights, their stand and shoot killed another one. They then paid the ultimate price for messing around with Chaos Knights losing three in melee (it could have been worse). They failed to rally and ran off the table.
The Chaos Knights ran into the Vanilla Knights Panthers. In an Atchdice moment I failed ALL of my armor saves and lost the unit! It was pathetic!
The Atchlector charged a unit of hounds and then pursued into the second unit of Chaos Knights. In the magic phase instead of unleashing bound spell hell, I decided to throw a normal magic missile from my Beast Mage and rolled a freaking MISCAST! With the “help” of the Infernal Puppett, the magic phased ended and my Atchlector was screwed. I followed that up with a second Atchdice moment rolling a “1” for impact hits. The Speculum helped me kill the Chaos Knight Champion. In the next turn Chaos Dave rolled an amazing amount of hits and I failed an amazing amount of 3+Armor Saves and had to make at least two ward saves to be alive. While I lived for that turn, the next turn he was killed by the Chaos Knights. The chariot held up those units pretty much for the rest of the game, but the damage was done by my incompetence and the infamous “Atchdice!”
After blowing through my flank the Chaos Knights turned towards my Swordsmen and the Helblaster. I thought to myself “I’ve got this ”, that was before the Helblaster misfired on the first barrel and jammed! OMG I had an Engineer there to allow me to hit them on a 3+ and I rolled a freaking Misfire-the Atchdice were even worse than normal! Oh the misery!
The Knights blew through the Helblaster and the engineer and ran into the Swordsmen. I was shocked when I won melee and the Knights fled! Five CR and a couple of armor saves and I won melee by two. They rallied and re-charged me again on turn 6 with the same result! So my hapless Swordsmen held the charge, ran off the knights, and captured their standard! Not too bad if you ask me. While I was in misery about the incompetence of my Helblaster, I need to lift up how solid my Swordsmen performed.
The Slaanesh Mage saw easy VP standing there and charged the Beast mage which was hiding in the Halberdier detachment. He yelled out a challenge and the Beast mage wet himself and went into the back rank. Over a couple of turns the Halberdiers killed the Chaos Mage/General! On turn six he fell from his saddle.
The Empire Right flank
This was where the game was lost, not because of anything tactically done wrong, but because of ATCHDICE! My shooting on this flank mauled the Chaos Warriors down to only a few models and destroyed the War Shrine (okay that was lucky) and the Slaanesh Marauders. However, I chose to not dispel a Nurgle spell and despite two attempts first with four dice to dispel the RIP, and then with three dice, I failed and my unit melted from Nurgle pus! As it was late in the game, I fled a charge from the Chaos Warriors on my Greatswords figuring I would rally them later. For the next two turns I rolled a “10” for their rally roll and they never came back! ATCHDICE struck twice, snatching easy victory away from me.
In the middle I just held and depleted the other Chaos Warriors down to two models and destroying another unit of Slaanesh Marauders. However on the very last turn of the game a lucky handgun shot killed the Nurgle Mage.
Final Result: DRAW!
Game Summary:
The game was a draw, but I was really fortunate to get one! It was the Halberdiers killing the mage on turn six, the Swordsmen holding off the Chaos Knights on turn six, and a REALLY lucky handgun shot killing the Nurgle Mage on turn six to get a draw.
On the other hand if ANY of my units that fled would have rallied I would have won! The only thing that rallied the entire game was the Fire Mage and it took him two turns to do it. Everything else wanted nothing to do with fighting Chaos.
Really I had a solid plan and so did Dave. It just came down to execution and some luck. Dave wanted to blow through my left flank and roll my lines. The sacrifice of the Atchlector and the War Altar kept that from occurring. The Swordsmen and their detachments held the flank, repulsed the Chaos Knights, killed the Chaos General, and slew many Marauders and Chaos Warriors with their Crossbows. If I hadn’t made the crucial mistake in the magic phase, my General may have lived and the magic edge he would have given me would have been decisive.
On the other flank it was just poor luck that lost me the game. I had a two chances to dispel the RIP spell and failed. I failed twice to rally my greatswords. My Cannon did manage to kill the War Shrine, but that was its only success. The Helstorm is worse than useless!
The idea of my list was for our mega-battle next week. In order to take the Helstorm and the Helblaster I had to include an engineer. I’m working on modifying the list based on my experiences. The Mace of Helstrum may replace the Sword of Fate, Speculum combination. It will work almost as well and isn’t so specific. On the other hand that combination has worked a couple of times now, so I’ll have to ponder on it. The Engineer is going to be downsized and his job will just be to man the Helblaster. I’ll use the points to upgrade the Outriders some more instead of spending points on him.
Stay tuned for next week! Up next is our final battle in our campaign game! Chaos Mortals versus Empire.
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