Warriors of Chaos Khorne & Slaneesh vs Tzeentch & Nurgle 2000 pts battle report

A rare Warriors of Chaos vs Warriors of Chaos fantasy battle report

(an interesting mix of Chaos units; the Khorne / Slaneesh army favours mainly horsemen, marauders and knights while the Nurgle / Tzeentch force favours Warriors)

source :warhammer.org.uk

credit : David L

22-Sep-2009

I'm running Warriors of Chaos and so does this opponent. I have no idea in advance what he runs in the league, but since I've been posting detailed battle reports, he should know I run two or three units of knights. I don't think he's a Khorne guy, so I'm expecting the standard "strategy" of Gateway for the Win! I sort of expect a unit of Chosen, but I resist taking marks of Nurgle just to fight one unit that he might not field.

Khorne / Slaneesh Army List 2000 points

Lord of Khorne on Juggernaut, shield, Aethersword, Armour of Damnation
Exalted BSB of Tzeentch on steed, shield, Axe of Khorne

scroll caddy on steed

5x6 warhounds
always love the dogs!

6 horsemen, flails, musician
6 horsemen, flails, musician
if the enemy fields 5, having 6 is an advantage

27 marauders, light armour, shields, full command, Slaanesh
in case I need rank bonus to support something

4 Dragon Ogres, great weapons
kill enemy knights

7 knights
kill other stuff

7 knights, champion, Banner of Rage
kill everything

Tzeentch and Nurgle 2000 pt Army List

Sorceror Lord of Tzeentch, got Gateway
Sorceror of Nurgle, Buboes and Quagmire
Exalted of Nurgle on steed

15 Warriors of Nurgle, full command
15 Warriors of Nurgle, full command
15 Warriors of Nurgle, full command
15 marauders, flails

5 knights, banner
5 knights, banner
All the knights might have been Nurgle, not certain
Warshrine of Tzeentch


Deployment
Setting up terrain we both throw it around the edges and leave the middle extremely open. We are chaos, we just want to get into it. But then we roll a scenario with angled deployment, so our nice open lanes don't work as well. Particularly, the ruin I put on my right now occupies a chunk of my frontage and my stuff is very squeezed.

I do the usual deployment, with 8 drops of no value to start. So I get to react to his deployment, not that it matters much. Dragon Ogres go on the left, Rage Knights with Lord in the middle, other knights with BSB on the right. Scroll caddy and rank bonus go behind.

His lord goes in the middle warriors, the level 2 in the western ones. Exalted joins western knights.


Turn 1
I go first.
Some dogs try to bait charges, other stuff advances cautiously. I keep my knights and Lord out of sight from Buboes while the Exalted tries to be out of range to the east.

end of my 1

He knows what the dogs are doing and doesn't take the bait. Slight advance. Warshrine grants +1 armour save to Marauders. I dispel Buboes at my BSB and Gateway fails to cast.


Turn 2
He isn't cooperating, so the dogs turn up the pressure. Three units shove themselves into his face while the big hitters wait behind. My Lord decides he wants some right frickening now and goes off on his own. Frenzy won't matter since he will have a wide variety of targets. Western horsemen shift way out to the side.

end of my 2

His eastern knights charge dogs, who flee. Dogs barely hit the trailing knights to jump over and enemy knights barely misses the trailing knights. I was worried I had gotten too close before he declared the charge, but it was about 14.5 inches. Not what I intended, I prefer some wiggle room, but good enough.

Marauders charge dogs, who hold. If I fled the charge, my dogs would go east. That could get in front of my eastern knights who, per above, have just arranged a charge on the enemy knights.

His eastern warriors charge the horsemen, who flee. Horses flee short, staying in difficult terrain. They then fail to rally and roll big to leave the table. Bad horsemen!

His Exalted shifts from the knights to the neighboring warriors, with Nurgle wizard.

He casts Quagmire on my Rage knights. With initiative 5, I should lose one knight and I am more afraid of Buboes. I took 7 knights for a reason - hitpoints. I let it go. I roll 3 6s and lose 3 knights. Oops. Gateway miscasts to no affect.

Marauders kill one dog and break them. Dogs escape, jumping Rage knights. Marauders nearly pursue into Rage's dog screen, but are just short.

end of enemy 2


Turn 3
Charge!!! Khorne Lord charges center infantry, containing enemy lord. Eastern knights (with my BSB) charge enemy knights.
Fleeing dogs to the east rally, but the ones to west keep on going despite the general.

Horsemen move nicely into the flank of the western enemy knights. Those knights can 1) take a flank from 4 flails or 2) charge dogs and get charged by Dragon Ogres.
Rage Knights are blocked by their own screen, which gets out of the way. Rank bonus moves up.

My BSB and knights kill 4 enemy knights and break the last one, running him down. Most importantly, we see the secondary virtue of 7 wide knights. My western-most knight model will hit the enemy infantry with a straight line pursuit. The infantry unit that my lord just charged, and hasn't fought yet. Which means we wheel to maximize and I get 3 knights in close combat for a double combat. My BSB won't get to fight again, being on the eastern end, but 3 knights should tip the combat in favor of my lord.

Khorne Lord challenge is accepted by the unit chump, of course. Who dies 3 times. On average, my 3 non-frenzied knights should kill about 1 chaos warrior. But my opponents armour saves are bad and they kill 3. Not that it matters, the knights provide numbers and the BSB banner. Enemy has 2 ranks and a banner, so the 3 CR from the Khorne Lord is enough to autobreak. The Lord of Khorne runs down the Sorceror Lord of Tzeentch! I was so excited to break the wizard that I didn't pay attention. The knights made a second pursuit move they were not allowed by the rules. Didn't matter, Khorne Lord went further.

I forgot to take a picture. See below.

His Marauders charge the dogs screening the remaining Rage knights. Dogs flee, Marauder EitW into the knights. Better to charge with flails than to be charged.
Western warriors charge dogs, who flee and never rally.

Western knights charge dogs. I was supposed to flee here, ensuring the knights get into charge range of my dragon ogres. For no apparent reason, I declared hold.

Eastern Warriors turn around to face the BSB knights that just blew through.

With Gateway gone, I scroll Quagmire and his magic will not contribute further this game.

Western knights wipe out dogs, then choose not to overrun. Dumb of me to forget to flee, the Dragon Ogres are still out of charge range.

After the Warshrine grants the Marauders Terror, the Rage Knights punish the Marauders, killing 9 of them outright and running them down.

end of enemy 3. Arrows show combat progress of both parts of the turn.


Turn 4
Marauder horsemen have lined up their nice flank charge on the chaos knights, so in they go. Except I should have bought the mark of Slaanesh instead of the 6th horsemen, and they cower instead.

Dog tactical stupidity means I don't think the DOs can reach his remaining knights, but the warriors look to have moved up too far. Dragon Ogres charge them successfully.
Rage Knights turn around to rear charge those warriors if they survive the Dragon Ogres and the Khorne Lord heads that way as well.

BSB and his knights turn east to face the last warriors. Rank bonus moves forward towards Warshrine, but the scroll caddy "re-assigns himself" to the rallied dogs, who are now headed for the southeast corner in a controlled fashion.

Mark of Nurgle makes his Exalted harder to hit (now WS 3), but I roll 2 5s. Then he rolls 2 6s for armour saves. Then I only get one wound on the Nurgle wizard. I kill the champion and 3 other warriors, but the Exalted puts 3 wounds on the Dragon Ogres. Dragon Ogres bravely hold, for the moment.

end of my 4

Given that my horsemen were cowards, the Dragon Ogres won't be holding for long. Knights in their flank.

Warshrine needs a miracle, so charges the rank bonus.

Dragon Ogres get butchered and the one that gets to attack whiffs. He's run down. Warshrine cannot beat static 5 and breaks, but escapes.

end of enemy 4


Turn 5
Rank bonus charges fleeing Warshrine while BSB knights charge eastern warriors. Warshrine escapes, just barely on the table.

Khorne Lord rear charges knights, who flee. Rage Knights rear charge warriors, who flee. COWARDS!!

Cowardly horsemen head south to line up another chance at the chaos knights.

Knights kill 4 warriors, which should autobreak them. But I keep assuming Warriors are Slaanesh (if not Khorne), so they pass a normal break test.

end of my 5

His stuff rallies. BSB knights crush warriors, as his armour saves cease to roll at all, this time breaking and running them down.


Turn 6
Marauder Horsemen get another shot at the enemy knights. And again are cowards.
Khorne Lord and Rage knights go into the warriors. The table edge is nearby and he's lost the game currently, so they hold.

Khorne Lord slaughters the Nurgle wizard. That earns the first Eye of the Gods roll I've ever earned. But its turn 6, so I forgot. Knights kill some warriors, but Exalted gets one Rage knight in return. Doesn't matter, enemy breaks and is run down.

How to beat Chaos Warriors with Chaos !

Conclusions
* Not getting Irresistible Gateway on either of the first turns was probably the game. Failing to make me use a scroll in those turns made it even worse, but his sorceror lord was doomed once my khorne lord charged, baring really bad dice on my part.

* Clear difference was that half an inch on his knight charge. If he reaches my knights, I think I can still win because of my Exalted and I had more knights, but its much dicier.

* Writing this up 4 days later, it looks like I stopped paying attention after his big wizard died. Not consciously, but I started making all sorts of mistakes (pursuit, dogs not fleeing, fear). I think the wizard decided the game, but it bothers me to have gotten careless like that.

* The more I play Warriors of Chaos, the less I like it. No reason to run anything but Knights with dogs and big magic. I can see a reason to have the Dragon Ogres, but just barely. Nothing else even comes close.