Warhammer Fantasy 8th Edition Battle Reports

A superb 10,000pt Fantasy Battle

noreply@blogger.com (Sigmar) — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 23:00:00 +0000

Warning ! This is not a battle report but just some great photos from a 10,000pt WFB game with a couple of excellent all painted armies (High Elves and an Orcs and Goblins, Ogre alliance).

I've been lazy recently updating this blog so, while you wait for the next report, I thought I'd share some great pics that Luis Miguel (one of the Warhammer Battle Reporters Facebook group members posted on my wall).

I'd just like to say that I haven't forgotten about this blog and it is a work in progress so expect more bat reps soon - thanks for your patience.

I don't have a write up for you but if you were wondering... the game was played over 10 turns and the Orcs & Goblins / Ogres gave the High Elves a sound thrashing. They captured the Elven King's Tomb, breached the castle gates (the game objectives) and they killed the High Elf General ! Ouch !

High Elves vs Orcs and Goblins / Ogres Alliance

Orcs Goblins vs Tomb Kings 2 VIDEOS

noreply@blogger.com (Sigmar) — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 19:07:00 +0000

All painted 2000pt Tomb King and Greenskin 8th Edition Armies, a great Fantasy Battle game board, excellent video footage and top quality presentation (with nice background "Lord of the Rings - ish" music).

This is the first "rolling" realtime Fantasy Battle video I've ever added to either this site or my 7th edition Battle Reports hub so it might not be to everyone's tastes but I thought I'd give it a go. You can't deny the quality of the presentation, the battlefield and miniatures look superb and there's plenty of detail in the commentary. The battle report is also quite exciting (thanks to the camera panning to the action) but I personally found it slightly "in your face" at the beginning (but i am a bit of a grey beard !).

Overall, miniwargaming.com done an excellent job and they're fun to watch so hopefully you'll enjoy them.

credit : Matt & Arthur (miniwargaming.com)

12-Jan-2011

10 mins each

Orcs and Goblins vs Tomb Kings part 1

Orcs and Goblins vs Tomb Kings part 2

Warhammer Tournament Battle Report

noreply@blogger.com (Sigmar) — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 21:20:00 +0000

A nicely summarized Fantasy Battle tournament by A Dark Elf army player (AndyP from Warhammer.org.uk). He faced off against High Elves, Warriors of Chaos, Bretonnians, Wood Elves and Dwarfs in a wide variety of battle scenarios.

[Sigmar: I like AndyP's reports they are down-to-earth and full of personality. He says it like he sees it so you know exactly how he feels. The reports are also well written and nicely summarized, he doesn't focus too much on the fine details but tells you what you need to know. All-in-all great reports.]

source : http://warhammer.org.uk

credit : AndyP

4-Jan-2011

INTRODUCTION - This one’s for the Venerable Bede.

A little while ago, circumstances conspired to leave me with some holiday time to use up and some holiday money to spend. I was wondering what to do with myself when I realised that I should probably fulfil an intention I had had for a fair few years now and attend the Giant Fanatic tournament in Denmark. Copenhagen to be exact. So, in true reverse-Viking raid style, I arranged passage on a vessel across the sea and prepared to burn all the monasteries, pillage all the loot and molest all the nuns I could find whilst over there.

One of the reasons that I had wanted to attend GF was the comp restrictions in place, most comped tournaments don’t affect me as I can usually take the same sort of armies that I would take to an uncomped tournament anyway. When I read the restrictions and find that I can’t take what I want – then I enjoy the challenge in having to change up my army a bit. Having played a few games of 8th edition with my existing armies, the games I have enjoyed the most have been with my trusty Dark Elves, so with no time or motivation to alter any of my existing armies to a new style I packed up the evil pointy ones and loaded them onto another flight. This is actually the 4th foreign country that the Dark Elves have raided so they’re used to all the travelling. Sadly I had to go via Easyjet, rather than by Black Ark.

The list I decided upon was based on one of my 7th edition builds, competitive in every phase and pleasing to the eye in terms of battlefield presence. The one big change was that the comp system only allowed a cauldron, a hydra or RBTs. I didn’t give a toss about the RBTs but I sadly had to leave Crutchy 5 heads at home. I replaced him with 6 cold one knights, about the same cost and potentially even killier if I could get a nice cauldron-assisted charge off. My final list was:

Level 4: Shadow Magic, Lifetaker, Focus Familiar, Dragonbane Gem
Death Hag BSB: Cauldron
Master: Pegasus, Ring of Hotek, Dragonhelm, The Other Trickster’s Shard, Lance, Armour, etc
Level 1: Metal Magic
Assassin: Throwing Stars, Rune of Khaine
20 Spears: Full Command, Flaming Attacks Banner
20 Spears: Full Command, Extra Leadership Banner
5 Dark Riders: Banner, Musician
10 Crossbows: Full Command
5 Harpies
5 Harpies
12 Black Guard: Full Command, Banner of Murder
5 Shades: Extra Weapons
5 Shades: Extra Weapons
6 Cold One Knights: Banner, Musician, Gleaming Pennant

So, for a DE army, quite a lot of models on the table. No oversized infantry units as I’m yet to be convinced that they’re any good, apart from some specific cases.

Dark Elves vs High Elves - Capture the Tower

Every time a high elf player complains about having to face Dark Elves* I cry a little inside. As a DE player, I hate facing high elves. The ASF and (now) the re-rolls to hit means that I really can’t play a proper game of warhammer. All my fragile little elves die before they’ve even had their breakfast, forcing me to avoid combat and just ponce around shooting at stuff. The worst bit is that the high elf players then complain that all dark elf players do is ponce around and shoot stuff. It’s a nasty vicious circle.

* the lack of capitalisation for the inferior race is deliberate.

Thankfully I had an absolute gent of an opponent that meant a very enjoyable game was had. The gist of this scenario was that we had to end the game with as many scoring units as possible within 6” of the impassible tower. A scoring unit was anything worth 100+ points and 5 or more models. For this scenario, zero to ten points were available for killing ones opponents and another zero to ten available for achieving mission objectives.* My list wasn’t too bad, with six potential scoring units, meaning I could even lose one and still get maximum points.

* This is by far my favourite means of scoring a tournament. I really couldn’t give a toss if the person on table one has mathematically played enough games to be crowned the winner. It’s much better if all the games give as many people as possible something to play for for as much of the game as possible.

Martin’s list was tough for me to handle, a level 4 (life) and level 2 (fire?) were accompanied by a pedestrian BSB, two units of 20-25 spears and 10 archers made up the core requirements and then the majority of Martin’s points were invested in two large super buzz choppy units. One large block of swordmasters and one large block of white lions. Two elf pigeons were the only rare choices present on the table.

Given the scenario, I knew I had to work this as best as I could as getting a big win in terms of stuff killed was unlikely. With the advantage in deployment, I was able to force Martin to split his troops to either side of the tower, with a spear block and eagle in support of each. I held back my shooters so that I could concentrate them on the swordmasters, who seemed like the best target for shooting away. The rest of my plan was to delay the white lions and other spears, kill the eagles and archers and use my combat troops on the spears supporting the swordmasters.

Martin won the first turn and started advancing, as can be seen in the picture below. The white lions are on the near side of the tower and the swordmasters are on the far side. You can see the quality of the supplied terrain that was on every table at this event - by far the best terrain of any event I’ve ever been to.

One of my shade units got immediately embroiled in a fight, as they were charged by an eagle. Thankfully the stand and shoot, as well as I5 extra hand weapons with hatred meant that I killed an eagle for free. In not-so-good news the swordmasters had been made toughness 7, thanks to life magic and poor dispel rolls by me. In worse news I was learning another facet of 8th edition the hard way - it’s quite tough to get out of the way of very wide killy units. I realised my deployment mistake with my cold ones. Now that they are never able to flee, by placing my cold ones in the middle of the line, I was making things very difficult for myself. I couldn’t move forwards or sideways or backwards and if those swordmasters hit the cold ones, they would hurt a lot. Worse still, the units behind would not be able to flee from any overruns or pursuits. Stupid Andy.

Despite my mistake, fate smiled on me a bit and I shot the spears on the Eastern flank (due to the beefcakyness of the T7 swordmasters making shooting pointless). From two units of shades, ten crossbows and lifetaker, I took down about 15 spears, rendering that unit pretty ineffective. had also reduced the move of the swordmasters, which bought me a bit more time on that flank.

The white lions kept advancing and looked very menacing, they also did a fine job of protecting the high elf wizards from any suicide assaults by my troops. I started to worry about that flank. I spotted a chance for redemption for the cold ones and decided to take the gamble. Martin had turned the damaged spears around to threaten my shades and dark riders, as the spears were in no state to threaten my black guard. They were however within a reasonable distance from the cold ones, who saw a get out of jail card and went for the charge. Wisely, Martin fled, which doomed his spears to being picked apart, but also doomed the cold ones to the choppy fate dished out by swordmasters. In a final act of defiance, the cold ones passed a leadership check and redirected their charge to force the surviving eagle to flee. Then they sat there and waited for the swordmasters...

The swordmasters hit, killed all the cold ones before I got to attack, then overran into the poor crossbows behind. Ouch. That wasn’t part of the plan. The white lions prepared to mince one of my spear units. So, both of the large killy units had made it to my lines intact and would now be able to do all sorts of fancy combat reforms to make mopping up easy.

The next few turns involved me sacrificing, diverting and manoeuvring for all my worth, trying to either draw the swordmasters into the black guard or just keep them and the white lions from killing too much more stuff. I half a unit of spears to the white lions (who decided not to pursue) and then all of another unit. I also lost my harpies and level 1 wizard. On the plus side, I got rid of the other eagle, archers and fleeing spears. The death of one of these units also caused the spear block containing the high elf wizards to flee.

My slow-moving cauldron got caught by the white lions, but only having 6 models able to attack, and my 4+ ward save meant that the death hag was holding out nicely. Landing my pegasus near to the elf mages also meant that I bought myself a turn or two of no magic, so I was also able to start turning my remaining shooting onto the swordmasters. Martin eventually needed a safe place for them to hide and put them into the cauldron fight too.* The brave death hag held out until the second to last turn, even taking a fair few high elves with her. The fight finished just in time for my shooting to take out the last remaining swordmasters.

* 8th Ed question: can multiple units fight a war machine? If so do you have to nominate all 6 fighters from one unit, or can you split?

As the survivors of my battered spear unit prepared to face the full spear unit of the high elves, the game turned big time. A hotek inspired miscast on Martin’s level 4, sucked the high elf into the warp and destroyed 80% of the spear unit. A short mopping-up charge later and I’d killed off the other mage, the unit and got my spear block close enough to the tower to score some points for that too. They joined the dark riders (who had avoided combat all game) and the black guard (who failed to fight all game) in getting me three scoring units near to the tower, compared to zero units for Martin.

I finished the game with 8 points for killing and 8 points for the scenario, giving me a respectable 16 out of 20 and a good start in the event. Martin was great fun to play and I hope I’ve done him justice in trying to explain what a difficult situation he put me under and how lucky I was to get out of it with a win.

Dark Elves vs Warriors of Chaos - Battle for the Pass

A unique aspect of Giant Fanatic that I had not experienced at any other tournaments was the ability for players to have some choice over which scenarios they played. From a total of eight available, players could register on the website which five scenarios (if any) they would prefer to play. Upon sign up, I chose my five scenarios, grateful that I had a good chance to avoid my least favourite. I’m sure everybody can work out where this is going, even if they’re not sure how.

Naturally, being an idiot, I somehow managed to de-register myself from the event and delete my profile. Asger was kind enough to add me back in, but I decided to stay away from the technology and forgot that I would need to re-choose my scenario preferences. Battle for the Pass was not on my list of scenarios that I wanted to play. With an army that relies on coordinating lots of units to hit one target, I find that it’s very tough for my list in Battle for the Pass, especially if the opponent has got multiple tough combat blocks that I have to avoid.

hmmm...

Nikolaj had a Tzeentchian level 4, Nurgle Level 2, Nurgle Level 1 and a Tzeentchian BSB, two huge columns of great weapon armed Khorne marauders, a unit of eleven Chaos Trolls (yes, eleven), three free trolls* and a Hellcannon. Whilst I felt that I could deal with this army quite easily on a wide table, the narrow format made things a lot more difficult for me. My spidey sense told me that engaging in any sort of attrition fight with either of the marauder blocks or the big unit of trolls would be a fight I would regret getting into, but if I wanted some points then I might have to. I decided that my best chance of getting points would be to go for character assassination, then perhaps deal with one or two of the marauder blocks. The chances are that whatever I sent in to kill the characters would also bite the dust, so I’d have to be careful that I didn’t throw too much at it.

* the tournament allowed some armies a free unit of less-common troops. Dark elves got nothing. I would have settled for a sixth edition hydra

With Nikolaj having so few deployments, I had a bit of an edge there but the narrow battlefield was giving me headaches. What I really needed to do against this army was surround it, and I needed the width to divert some elements whilst I dealt with the other parts of the army. The final deployment looked like this:

Nikolaj’s characters were all grouped around the centre of his lines, so I made sure that my black guard with assassin were also there. Their (suicide) mission was to run right at them and (possibly with cauldron killing blow) kill as many of the characters as they could get hold of. My scouts went behind the chaos lines; ready to distract the hellcannon, marchblock the large troll unit and help to whittle down one of the marauder blocks. I made sure that my flaming spearelves were facing off against the large troll unit and way out on one flank. I doubted that they could take on the trolls head on (maybe with extra cauldron attacks) but if Nikolaj wanted to turn his flank to my spears to get in at the fight in the centre, I would be more than happy to have a go there, especially if the trolls were away from the general. I got the deployment of the crossbows and the cold one knights the wrong way round, meaning that I would have to advance the knights through the difficult terrain.

Nikolaj won the first turn and advanced at me. I weathered the magic with no real problems and the hellcannon shooting was mitigated by the fact that it failed it’s rampage test and trundled towards the shades behind it (who promptly moved out of charge arc in their next turn). Seeing that Nikolaj had moved his level 4, level 2 and BSB into one unit of marauders, this is where my black guard headed. My Pegasus hero flew behind the big central rock where he couldn’t be charged but his ring of hotek would cause all sorts of problems for Nikolaj’s casters. I also advanced aggressively with the cauldron, as the limit of six marauders at once would mean that the cauldron was not under much threat from the large chaos blocks - I was confident that the death hag and her assistants could kill 5 or 6 marauders before they could strike. I lost one knight as they walked through the difficult terrain, but I was keen to send them into the small unit of trolls, blast through and then be able to threaten the flanks of one of the marauder columns.

When my first magic phase rolled around, I realised I’d made a stupid mistake - my level 4 was too close to my hotek pegasus. I did have a fair few dice available, so I threw two power dice at a seemingly inconsequential miasma, which Nikolaj let through. My level 4 then swapped places with the level 1, away from the ring and let fly with a large pit of shades, killing twenty marauders from one unit. It’s a start, at least.

Turn two and it all went a bit awry. Nikolaj started his magic phase by casting Rot, Glorious Rot from his level 2. I failed the dispel by one and then cried as it his 6 or so units, causing virtually no hits on my larger units but killing my hotek pegasus rider outright, as well as the complete unit of dark riders standing nearby. At least the resulting hotek miscast saw the nurgle wizard losing 3 magic levels and not being able to threaten me with that spell any more. The follow-up casting of gateway on the cauldron was something I was fairly confident about, with my toughness ten, four wounds and a 3+ ward save. None of that helps when an eleven is rolled for strength. I took off my cauldron too. Just to top off a magic phase where he’s killed my general and BSB (total of 625 victory points), Nikolaj threw his last power dice at a flickering fire for my cold ones and killed all five remaining knights. Not good.

BANZAIIIIII

I charged the black guard at the character bus and just for good measure put a unit of shades into the rear. If I did succeed in killing the characters, then the block would still be steadfast, but I wanted to ensure that I would win the combat and that I would have two chances at pursuit if he failed the leadership 7 test. Naturally the Black Guard rolled like drunken chimps and moved a pitiful 2 inches (I think I needed a five or a six), leaving the shades to charge to their doom. The chaos BSB calmly made way the 10 inches to the back of the unit and butchered the shades.

In his next turn, Nikolaj sent his small trolls towards my crossbows with level 4, but didn’t fancy sending in his weakened marauder block at my spears or black guard, so turned them around to threaten the shades who were dancing with the hellcannon, The character block stayed still as a magical bunker but this was for naught as this magic phase didn’t do much damage (aprt from killing half my black guard) this turn. The large troll block worked to hunt down my (flaming) spear block.

In my turn three, the black guard couldn’t miss and finally hit the front of the marauders, with the assassin jumping out to ‘have words’ with the chaos level 4. Immediately after, my central spear block charged the flank of the small troll unit, with a nice pursuit path taking them into the lone chaos level 1, should I break the trolls. Realising that there was no escape, my flaming spear block expanded to be 7 wide and moved as close as possible to the front of the large troll unit, offset to one side. My intention was that the troll unit would not be able to wheel enough to bring all the trolls into combat and at least I would have to fight less of them. Was this a legal move on my part?

In my magic phase, I took up all of my magic dice in my desperate little fist and threw them at a mindrazor on the black guard. I didn’t get irresistible, but neither did Nikolaj manage to dispel it*. I sensibly skipped my opportunity to challenge and waited to see what Nikolaj would do. Realising that he had no way of escape, the Chaos level 4 challenged and the assassin stepped forwards. Six strength 10 wounds were followed by six successful 3+ ward saves. Feck.

* the now non-wizard nurgle sorcerer had a dispel scroll, but it was ruled that he couldn’t use it. It has since been FAQed that he would have been able to do so. At the time, neither of us knew one way or the other which way to play it.

To make matters worse, of the four strength 9 wounds I scored on the BSB, three of those were saved on a 4+ ward too. The now-useless level 2 was clubbed to death. On the upside, the level 4 only did one wound to the assassin, and the chaos BSB and marauders failed to kill all the black guard. I passed my stubborn check and would get another go.

The spears in the side of the trolls easily broke them (despite the fact that the chaos general and BSB were still alive: grumble, grumble), ran them down and pursued into the lone wizard. There wasn’t much else to my turn.

Next turn, the large unit of chaos trolls charged into the waiting spears, got badly burned and forgot how to attack. With four wounds each, equal ranks, me having a banner, him having charged. I won on musician. The trolls were using their own leadership and were ran down. Turning point in the game!

The lone chaos wizard was broken by the spear block, but I failed to catch him. No Biggy.

In his magic phase, Nikolaj’s level 4 miscast and rolled the lowest result. He avoided relocating relocating relocating to the warp (grrr) and the explosion left me with just the black guard champion and the assassin. Frankly I was lucky to have even them. Just to add insult to injury, the chaos level 4 passed the 3+ ward from the hit from the miscast. With Occam’s Mindrazor still working, the assassin tried again to kill the wizard, scoring another five strength 10 wounds. Naturally, this was followed by another five successful 3+ saves. The assassin just died out of frustration. When his two strength 9 wounds on the BSB were also ward-saved, the black guard champion joined the assassin in the sweet release of death.

In sheer desperation, the spear block that had killed the large troll unit charged the flank of the chaos character’s marauder block. It was a rash and reckless move and they all died for no gain. My metal wizard scored a few more points for me by melting the kneecaps off the fleeing chaos level 1, but that was my last real action of the game. Nikolaj’s last couple of turns were just mopping up, using his magic too kill of my level 4 and crossbow unit and hunting down my shades.

With no scenario points, Nikolaj had racked up an impressive victory point difference over me and I took away 2 tournament points to his 18. Despite the fact that the game was frustrating for me luck-wise and also quite a tough match up, it was still very enjoyable and Nikolaj was a great opponent to play against.

Dark Elves vs Bretonnia - Night / Dawn Attack

Now this definitely was a scenario that I wanted to play and I was glad that it had come up in the randomiser. This was an improved version of the standard hidden deployment scenario. At Giant Fanatic, each of the tables assigned to the scenario were also kitted out with giant self-supporting screens that could be stood along the centreline of the table. This way, both Johan and myself could set up our armies simultaneously without knowing what our opponent was doing.

Johan didn’t have any major-sized lances, so it was difficult for me to predict where his main attack would come from - that would basically be dependent upon the position of his lord and BSB. Knowing then that I didn’t know much, I went for a conservative approach, weighted to my Western flank that would allow me a bit of flexibility in my early moves.

from top to bottom (west to east): Cold ones, Pegasus, Harpies and Spear Unit, Spear unit with Level 1, Cauldron, Black Guard with Level 4, Crossbows, Harpies, Dark Riders.

Johan’s deployment looked like this.

from left to right (east to west): Realm, Errant, Yeomen, Reliquary (free unit), Trebuchet, Peasants with Level 4, Realm with Duke, Realm with BSB, Peasants, Errants.

I scouted one unit of my shades behind the fence by the central building, ready to advance on the trebuchet in the forest (strength 5 template weapons really really scare elves) and the other unit into the far eastern corner of Johan’s deployment zone. With the horse-lovers (most likely) praying to the watery tart, I was confident that the shades could cause all sorts of havoc if I got first turn.

Johan prayed like a good Bretonnian and I put my plan* into action. The central shades ran out in front of the trebuchet. The only combat unit that could draw line of sight was the Level 4’s peasants, which would result in me getting a few whacks at the bint and also drawing her unit forward. My harpies flew forward to also threaten the trebuchet. The dark riders and other shades moved around the side of Johan’s flanking force and the shades started shooting the yeomen. Other units moved up cautiously, weary of insane-length Bretonnian charges.

* I say plan, but really, I only had one unit that I knew what to do with. Everything else I just made up as I went along.

In the magic phase, I successfully cast a movement-reducing miasma on the Bret Duke’s unit, to slow down Johan’s response to the shade situation. As a (very nice) added bonus, the level 1 wizard got an irresistible force melty spell off on the BSB’s unit of knights, killing 5 of them from a lowly D6 hits. Not bad going. The miscast wounded my wizard and killed a few elves, but who’s counting?

The scene of Johan’s first turn.

So, with two of his units reduced to a single model, Johan pulled an ingenious move out of the bag in order to even even the odds. Actually, the keener-eyed reader may well have noticed that it wasn’t just a move pulled out of the bag, but a whole unit of pegasus knights. As a dark elf player, I find this sneakiness* commendable and the tactic well worth stealing. The Pegasus knights took up position where the BSB’s unit had been. The BSB bailed into the Duke’s unit and the sole survivor from that unit ran off into a table corner.

* it should go without saying, but thanks to the rant-inducing nature of the internet I should point out that Johan was very apologetic about forgetting his peg knights and was happy to play on without them, but I insisted that he put them on the table where he would have deployed them.

The Level 4’s unit charged the shades in order to save the trebuchet. With the horse-mounted wizard on the end of the unit, I would only be able to get one shade in contact. I did do a wound to the wizard, as well as a couple of peasants, but lost two shades to the return attacks. Luckily, I held. The rest of Johan’s army advanced a bit but my early successes meant that he had a bit of shuffling to do to counter my moves.

The charge on the shades proved to be unnecessary on Johan’s part as the trebuchet misfired and was easy prey for the harpies in my next turn. I advanced my black guard aggressively to take advantage of the bret level 4 being pinned in place. Hopefully, when they finished with the shades, I would be in a position to deal out some pain.

On the far western flank, my cold ones were facing off against a small unit of errant knights. Knowing that he had 1” charge advantage, I decided to just go for it anyway and declared a charge. I needed to be lucky, but who cares about the odds? If I got lucky and broke through that flank, I could turn and cause all sorts of headaches for Johan’s main force in the centre of the table, his lord wouldn’t know where to turn. Of course, if I got unlucky and he broke through, then those errants could cause all sorts of headaches for my centre forces.. etc etc. Taking an ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’ attitude, I granted the cold ones extra attacks to ensure that if I did make contact, it would be very hitty, very hurty contact.

Naturally, I rolled something craptacular like a triple 1 and utterly failed the charge.

In the magic phase, my level 1 tried to melt the Duke’s unit of knights and this time the Bret sorceress was ready. The silver mirror did its strength 6 hit and I took my wizard off the table. My shades were finished off by the peasants. Once again, my carelessness of moving cost me when Johan was able to march his level 4’s unit right out of the front arc of the black guard. I must remember that this is much more possible now in 8th!

Johan’s errants proved to be much more mobile than my cold ones and crashed into the front of my unit. It was very much a case of handbags at dawn as neither side did much damage to the other. In fact the fight continued for several rounds unit the large unit of peasants joined in at the same time that all the cold ones decided to fail their armour saves. I lost my unit, but Johan later lost his peasants and half of his knights when my nearby spear unit turned around and chased them both away.

Halfway through the game, disaster struck for Johan when a hotek-inspired miscast killed a bunch of peasants and then the level 4’s unit panicked (they had strayed too far from the general and BSB) and ran right in front of my crossbows, who wasted no time in charging them down. The flanking double-entendre of the errant realm moved to avenge the Bret witch but were put off when they got close enough to read the small print on the card that had appeared next to the crossbows.

9x I5, hatred, S8 attacks makes one think twice.

Next turn the crossbows were able to dive into the building and spend the rest of the game fighting the grail reliquary. Late in the game, my hotek-toter, having been made redundant in his primary role, went for a glory charge on the pegasus knights, who were guarding the sole survivor of the BSB’s unit. I figured that with charging, S6, hatred and the re-roll wards item I had a good chance of breaking through and picking up points for both units. Of course I fluffed my attacks and broke. The only saving grace was that my flee path was parallel to the board edge and I had the whole length of the table in which to fail my rally tests, which I did.

The final main action of the game (and the dramatic high point) came when Johan’s lord’s unit, after having blasted through one of my spear blocks, charged into the cauldron, which was blocking the path to the black guard. I knew it was coming, so put killing blow on the cauldron and hoped for some sixes. The death hag failed to kill the Duke in the challenge*, but the duke failed to kill her! I had another go at killing the Duke and failed again. This time the Duke killed the Death Hag, but the rest of the unit could not finish off the regular hags...

* this was before the new FAQ where war machine crews can’t challenge

“err, what’s the initiative of your Duke?” I enquired. When I found out that it was the same as my hag, I opted for killing blow again and went for it. No sixes this time. We were both shocked when the hag survived again and I would get one more chance at killing blow. In the final turn of the game, I rolled that magical six and Johan let out a howl of anguish that turned into a howl of joy as he rolled the six required for his ward save. Not wanting to take any more chances, the Duke killed my final hag and the game ended.

Even though I had quite a commanding battlefield presence at the end of the game, Johan had done well to conserve the remnants of units and deny me points, also the killing and capture of my battle standard cauldron, combined with that ward save meant that he grabbed/denied a big handful of points at the end so the game ended up as a 12-8 win to me. A very enjoyable game against a great opponent.

Dark Elves vs Wood Elves - roll to see where your units are placed !

I know that a lot of people are down on wood elves in 8th edition, but having played both with and against them under the new rules, I think they’re still a very potent army. In the right hands. They’re also a very mobile army with (usually) some repeat choices in the list, meaning that they tend not to be hurt too much by this scenario. Likewise, my list shouldn’t be too badly hurt by some iffy rolls for deployment. Shouldn’t be too badly hurt. Shouldn’t..

… was

From west to east, Nicolai’s list had a unit of archers and a unit of waywatchers in what turned out to be a blood forest, a large unit of dryads with branchwraith, a bunker unit of eternal guard with a life level 4, a large unit of archers, an eagle, treeman, BSB on pidgeon, altar noble, 6 treekin and a small unit of dryads. Basically all of Nicolai’s stuff rolled for a central deployment or the choice of deployments.

On the other hand, my army conspired against me to separate itself out into a horribly disjointed mess. The Woeful Western Warriors consisted of a spear block, crossbows, level 1 mage and pegasus general. The Easterly Beasterly consisted of my Level 4, cauldron, other spear block, black guard, dark riders and harpies, whilst my cold ones and other harpy unit were left stranded in the centre. Awesome.

Right, emergency plan time. I scouted both units of shades into the north west corner, hopefully I would be able to put some early shooting pain into the small archer unit and delay the waywatchers as they tried to deal with my shades. My general would launch a suicide attack at the dryads. If I got lucky on the charge, I might break them. At the least I can sit (semi-) safely in a challenge with the branchwraith and make casting nervy for the level 4. My cold ones would plow through the forest and try and take out the large archer unit and break through there. I had no idea what to do about the treekin. I figured that the best I could do would be to delay their inevitable advance and try to drop some down a pit.

I think I won first turn and started to put my plan into action, with my pegasus general advancing behind the fence, whilst my shades did the “shoot me, shoot me” dance. On the eastern side, not much happened at all. I was not keen on advancing my black guard within range of that large archer unit nor the imposing treekin unit. I think my cold ones may even have gone stupid, just to really make my first turn a non-event.

Nicolai responded by moving to deal with the shades and shuffling his dryads across into the forest, daring my pegasus to charge. The treekin were obviously not as confident of smashing through my lines as I thought they should be, instead hardly advancing at all. This left the small dryad unit to advance alone, which gave my wizard and assassin something to shoot at.

Turn two and I really felt lost, no idea what to do. I decided to stick to my foolhardy plan and charged the general into the dryads. Of course, the challenging branchwraith had the annoyance, but I was banking on the challenge to stop all the return attacks from the dryads. Before the combat could be fought, I managed to get one spell cast during the magic phase - a cheeky miasma on the archers in the forest. The damage from the blood forest did nothing of note, but it did move the forest away from the dryads so that they lost their stubbornness. I scored a cheeky wound in the challenge, plus one wound on the unit from stomp* but took one wound in return. Still I won combat. Unfortunately, the dryads held and next turn they would get their BSB re-roll.

* I know that some people say that stomps can be used in challenges, but I went with the interpretation I feel is most likely

I continued trying to advance through the centre, with my eastern spear block and cold ones moving up through the forest to attack the large archer unit and hopefully pin down the level 4’s bunker. At some point mid-game I horribly mis-calculated what I would need to roll for a charge from the cold ones, declared the charge and then was horribly shocked when Nicolai pointed out my maths error. That cost me a cold one to a stand and shoot and also cost me a lot of respectability. The following turn my two surviving cold ones made it to the archers, only to get wiped out by the unarmoured elves. That was unexpected. And disappointing. Also during the mid-game Nicloai had been dithering with his treeman as well as his treekin so tired of working out whether it would be a threat or not, my level 1 mage just threw all his dice at the melty burny spell and toasted the big tree.

Eventually, my general rolled enough sixes to kill the branchwraith and set about the task of whittling through the dryads. At one point, Nicolai charged his eagle into the side of my pegasus rider, which caused a nervy break check for me this time, but I passed. At this point, I made my biggest mistake of the game. My crossbows had advanced to the fence in order to get some targets to shoot at. With the wood elf eagle stuck n the side of my general, it was now an easy flank charge for my unharmed crossbows. By charging in, I could have gained a rank, flank, charge, banner and maybe a wound or two to add to the combat resolution. Instead, I chose to shoot at the wood elf BSB instead. Naturally, he was well protected with trinkets and I achieved nothing. Next turn, the wood elf BSB charged into to my general and broke or killed him. Bugger.

After this, the game kind of tailed off. My attack (such as it was) was broken and I put my resources into trying to mitigate the loss. Kicking myself for not charging earlier, I charged with my crossbows into the wood elf BSB right at the end of the game and only succeeded in giving Nicolai another handful of victory points.

When the dust settled, Nicolai had beaten me by a fairly decent margin, but thankfully that only worked out as a 8-12 loss. It could have been much worse.

Dark Elves vs Dwarfs - [Sigmar: no photos and somewhat abridged]

I’m afraid that I had full on camera amnesia by this point in the weekend, so forgot to take any pictures. Instead of Steffan, please accept this picture of a beautifully-painted Empire dude.

Okay, as we’re nearing three months after the actual tournament things might be getting a little fuzzy, so please excuse any inaccuracies.

After a game where I didn’t really feel that I’d had much of a chance thanks to a bit of bad luck and my own ineptitude, I was a bit downbeat to see that I was facing dwarfs. Regular readers might recall that I hate the hairy little race of mud-feckers that are the dwarfs. High weapon skill, high-toughness, good armour with nasty armour, powerful shooting and worst of all, The Anvil of Doom. It has to be in my top three most hated things in Warhammer.

Of course Steffan’s army had an anvil, as well as a BSB and another dwarf hero type (who knows what, they’re all the same), three big blocks of troops, a large block of miners, a small block of rangers and a cluster of warmachines (cannon, organ gun and rock lobber iirc). Of course, as well as I, Steffen was in possession of a deadly golden gun. Toted by a rat of dubious backstory, each golden gun could fire three highly-accurate strength 4 shots every turn. Bad for elves, not quite so bad for dwarfs.

I set up with my usual anti-dwarf strategy in mind, namely to try and grab points by killing war machines and the small units as well as maybe picking on one of the larger blocks. I’d tie up the anvil if I could in order to stop it killing units of mine at will. Other than that, I’d try to avoid any direct confrontation with the big blocks except with a boosted black guard unit.

The game started pretty poorly for me, with a shade assassination attempt on Steffan’s golden gun proving unsuccessful. My cold ones failed a re-rolled stupidity check once again and stumbled forwards. Instead of getting a nice first-turn charge on Steffan’s ranger unit, they inadvertently offered up a flank charge to the great weapon wielding stunties. Figuring that with dark rider’s usual life expectancy against dwarfs I was better off keeping the cold ones alive, I charged my dark riders into the rangers flank in order to hold them up for two rounds of combat and give the cold ones time to escape. Not that this was worth doing in the long run, as the only organ gun shot that I allowed Steffan to take at the cold ones did ten hits and deleted the entire unit of six in one go.

One of my spear blocks took a painful hit from the rock lobber, costing me about half of the unit and pretty much rendering it useless. As well as being useless, they were also blocking the charge path of my black guard onto the miners that had just entered the table and chased off my pegasus rider. If I didn’t deal with the miners, then they were going to cause a whole host of problems and prevent me to getting to grips with my objectives in the dwarf lines. I took advantage of the generous 8th edition charging rules and declared a possible, but unlikely, charge with the battered spear unit onto a dwarf block still 16 inches away. Any roll but a double one would have been sufficient to take the spear block out of the way of the black guard and allow me to make the charge I wanted to make.....

Can you tell where this is going?

One double six later and my spear block were across the table engaged in a fight they had no hope of winning. It was a charge that would probably have been a 20” charge in 7th edition. We were both a bit shocked as I moved my spears across the table to their doom. Much to both our surprises, I managed to draw the combat. Not only that turn but the brave/stupid spear block held on for multiple turns after that, delaying any dwarf advance on that flank. They eventually died, but it was well worth the sacrifice, even if I didn’t mean it.

With extra attacks from the cauldron, the black guard and assassin made very easy work of the miners, leaving the two or three survivors to run off the board as they reformed to face the next dwarf block in line - the hammerers, I think. My luck was really boiling this turn, as a nice-dice pit of shades dropped the anvil of doom out of the game* (it also cost me three magic levels from the miscast). Muttering “do I have to do everything around here?” my level 4then took aim with his lifetaker and nailed three shots into Steffan’s Golden Rat. Steffan was generous enough to fail his ward saves and his rat was removed. This pretty much ensured that the worst I could now do was a draw. So it was time to push for the big win.

* if any dwarf players feel that it’s a bit harsh that an anvil is auto-killed vs the pit, take heart that I managed to drop my own cauldron of blood into a pit in my last game with the DE.

As mentioned, the black guard were now facing off against the hammerers and dealt to them the same fate that the miners had received. Although I took a few casualties, it didn’t take long to chew through the elite dwarfs. Next up on the list was a block of longbeards with the dwarf BSB - a much tougher nut to crack. With the hero in there and the dwindling numbers of the black guard, it was a bitter bloody fight, eventually ending with the dwarf BSB and ta solitary longbeard as the only survivors of the fight. Still, the black guard had done well to get as far as they did.

The game petered out, with my harpies taking out the rock lobber but both of the other dwarf machines surviving. My (originally) level 4 even managed to end the game with a net magic level of minus 1. Truly a great achievement.

Thank to the death of the anvil and the two dwarf blocks I did manage to kill, my losses were cancelled out and I was able to use my scenario points to grant me a minor/mid sized win. Despite my dislike of playing dwarfs, Steffen made the game a great deal of enjoyment to play, with many jokes shared on both sides. A great way to end my first Danish tournament.

TOURNAMENT SUMMARY

So five good games, with a particular highlight against Johan in game 3. I would have liked to flatter myself with a bit of a higher game score, but that wasn’t to be. A combination of a lack of experience with 8th edition, no practice with the rules pack, high quality of opposition and (of course) a little bit of bad luck held me back a bit.

Along with about half of the field, I got hit badly on my painting scores due to not having matching movement trays on all my units. A lot of folks were caught out by this, but I was kind of expecting it. I did have some matching movement trays but, in my opinion, the way I displayed my army looked better and I’m not keen on making my army look worse in order to get a few more points.

I really enjoyed my time at Giant Fanatic, as a tournament there were lots of neat little touches that made the event feel like the GTs of old. I really like the way that the team tried their best to add extra little things. I heard about the text message round announcements on the Bad Dice podcast and thought that they sounded a bit gimmicky. However, they actually turned out to be really useful, especially if you’re like me and usually take a a look at the round draw, walk away and then promptly forget what you just read. It’s nice just to check your phone again. Also if you’re like me and can’t remember your opponent’s name come the end of the game, you can surreptitiously check again.

In all, I’ll more than likely try to attend GF again (possibly learning to play first). The tournament was great and the Danes were more than friendly as hosts.They made sure that us foreign types knew where to go to get food and drink and took us out to the bar on Saturday evening. Also, I’d definitely like to see more of Copenhagen* and maybe extend the trip out a bit on either side.

* why is it that lots of cities that appeal to ‘weekend break’ tourists close all their museums on a Monday? Don’t they realise that people might actually want to visit stuff whilst on holiday?

So, I hope you enjoyed reading this belated report. Sorry if I’ve missed anything/anyone out.

Warhammer NZ Tournament Battle - Videos

noreply@blogger.com (Sigmar) — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 18:16:00 +0000

VaulSC took his Empire army to the Warhammer Fantasy Battle Masters tourney in New Zealand and battled Lizardmen (twice), Daemons of Chaos, their Chaos Warrior brethren, Skaven and Dark Elves - check out all 6 battle reports here.

Vaul has kindly put together 6 excellent video (slideshow) battle reports with extremely well painted miniatures and excellent scenery. The thing that sets Vaul's reports apart from some others is the level of detail he goes into, esp. when sharing his thoughts on his army's strengths and weaknesses and his opinion of the battle events. They are amongst the best video battles you'll find.

The Masters tournament in New Zealand is an invitation only event and features the top ranked Fantasy Battle (and 40k) gamers in New Zealand. There were 12 WFB participants, the armies included:-

3x Daemons of Chaos
2x Lizardmen
2x Warriors of Chaos
1x Bretonnian
1x Dark Elves
1x Empire
1x Orcs & Goblins
1x Skaven

An Orcs and Goblins player emerged as the winner. You can find the results here:-
http://thefieldsofblood.blogspot.com/2010/12/new-zealand-masters-results.html

credit : VaulSC;

03-Jan-2011

6 vids, 10+ mins each

The Empire vs Lizardmen

The Empire vs Daemons of Chaos

The Empire vs Dark Elves

The Empire vs Skaven

The Empire vs Warriors of Chaos

The Empire vs Lizardmen

Beastmen vs Warriors of Chaos 2250 pts

noreply@blogger.com (Sigmar) — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 22:32:00 +0000

A great Fantasy Battle report, it's always nice to see Chaos at each other's throats ;-)

"From the throne of changes and magic, Tzeentch blessed his lord with the powers of magic and the winds shaped before him. Fires and ruin were hurled into the gors herd. Still drunk on the destruction of the vaunted warmachine, the gors cared little for the numbers that fell to the lord of change’s servant." (Sigmar: see what I mean about well written !)

Am excellent Warhammer battle report from a great Chaos (mainly Beastmen) blog. Blackspine was kind enough to submit this battle report and one other that will feature in the near future. I can thoroughly recommend his blog, it's been added to the WFB Allies blogroll, go and take a look for yourself there's some excellent content for Beastmen players including conversions, modelling and painting.

source : http://thenerdalsorises.wordpress.com

credit : Blackspine

31-Dec-2010

Battle Report. Tournament. “Lies of the Famine Fiend”

Recently I was involved in a tournament at my local game store “Meltdown Comics”. The tournament was a 2250 point 2 game, all you can drink affair called “Orktoberfest”. How can any self respecting nerd turn down unlimited beer and the chance to sow terror and carnage? You can’t. It’s like a nerd-aphrodisiac.

Wanting to pit my Beastmen army against overly competitive generals, I felt that my underdog team had something to prove. I felt that with enough guile, tricks, combinations and just reckless maneuvers; I could hold my own against the ‘uber-competitive armies’. Sure enough, the armies that were entered were very competitive: Deamons, Skaven, WoC…and me. The under-goat. (make your own ‘bleating’ sounds here)

Granted, I had no idea what armies would be present at the tournament, so I had to make an “all comers list”. An “all comers list” is an army list where you prepare for any and every army. The idea is that you have a list that can deal with most lists out there and can hold its own. This does not let you tailor your list versus particular armies, but you have to gear up for any and all challenges. I’ve never done this before so it was a BLAST! Below is my army list

2250 ORKTOBERFEST list.

2250 pt list “Ork-toberfest”

Lords

Beastlord= HA, Shield & HW, Chalice of dark rain, Crown of command (215)

Unit is stubborn.
Chalice of Dark Rain.
Manbane

Doombull: 340: Axes of Khorgor. Ramhorn Helm, Charmed Shield, Talis-endurance

Axes: reroll to hit CC
Ironcurse: 6+ ward vs. warmachines for unit
Ramhorn helm: any failed attk , make retaliation at basic str.
Charmed Shield: discount first wound at 2+
Talisman of End.: 4+ ward
D3 impact hits
Heroes

Slugtounge =190 (Death lore)

Regen.
Curse of Famine fiend.
Lore of Death.
Poisoned attacks.

Bray Shaman lvl 2: Stone of Spite, AHW, Dispel Scroll: 162 BEAST LORE

Stone of spite: bound 4+
Dispel Scroll
Lore Of BEASTS

Wargor= BSB, Banner of the True Beast, HA, Sh, Gnarled Hide = 206

Banner of true beast: unit and model are +1 str.

Core

Gor Herd x 28 AHW, Musician=248

Chariot= 80

Primal Fury
D6 impact hits

Ungor Spearmen x 32 Spears, Musician = 207

Primal fury.
Spear ranks

Ungor Raiders x5 Musician= 33
Ungor Raiders x 5 Musician = 33

Special

Harpies x5 scout= 70

Fly
Scouts

Bestigor x 23 Musician, Banner of the Eternal flame = 310

Despoilers
Flaming attacks

Minotaurs x 3: AHW 177

Fear
Bloodgreed
1 impact hit per model.

With this list I was hoping to maximize on a few lessons and ideas.

Impact hits: these paid off huge versus Warriors of chaos. A cheap chariot took out many more elite Chosen. The impact hits drove them into the ground and broke them with a combined frontal charge.

Slugtounge: Curse of the famine fiend. This is the beastmen’s most reliable form of ‘shooting’. No, it’s not shooting, but essentially, it does about as much damage as most cannon batterys do. In previous games I’ve broken whole units and forced panic tests from the get go. Nasty as hell….not sure if it’s nice to do in friendly games…but this is a tournament and I expected every nasty trick thrown at me and I wasn’t going to get caught with my pants down for ‘uber attack #4019.9′ without a similar devious trick.

Minotaurs: Honestly, I don’t like minotaurs in my armies. However, after much recommendations from forums and lists I reconsidered. They have great killing potential, but they seldom make it to the fray near full force…or any force. Realizing that skaven were the new “hot army” and it was a guarantee that someone would have them there, I realized that I needed a brutal meat grinding unit that could just hack through ranks and sow fear and even a few stomp attacks.

Harpies: Again, heavily recommended. I had no harpy models. However, I did have some demon models and a few wings from a bits bin. So at 3 am, the night before the game, I was up converting and applying a base coat to these new creations. The idea is that their flight and scouting could put the hurt on enemy warmachines. A job that I usually reserve for my ungor raiders.

Stone of spite: prior to the tournament, I have yet to use this item. It makes arcane items detonate and causes a truckload of hits on typically weak models.

What would any army be without a backstory? Being a tournament list, and my first one, I felt that I didn’t have a real cohesive vibe in the army…then I thought about Slugtongue.

Oozing Pestilence: The famine Fiend’s blight.

Under every rock and stone, the carrion of the world live off decay. In the rotting feast of nature, the centipedes, the worms, the gastropods and all things foul thrive engorge themselves. The larger rocks shelter and yield larger crops of these teeming swarms of creatures that make men’s skin crawl.

Inevitably, if one was to turn over larger and larger rocks, you would find more impressive specimens of rot-eaters. Rocks to stone, stone to boulders…the creatures grow larger and larger. Swarm into horde, horde into army.

Every army has a general. Every army has a banner, a symbol that embodies them. In the foul dark crags of the world, Slugtounge was spawned as the epitome of rot and decay. Slugtounge was spawned to bring the decay and rot from out under the world and to rampage across the face of the world and see the works of men and all things cultured crumble.

As one, Beastmen fight and die in a frenzied effort to ruin the world, to stamp out all traces civilization. The foul pestilence of Slugtongue has imbued the “Famine Fiend” with a holy status among the Beastmen….a prophet of things to come; a harbinger of ruin. Crops wither before his foul hooves; livestock turn sterile when his scent carries on the wind. His words are dark stains on the air and as ominous omens as a murder of crows. Slugtongue is the rusted blade the beasts yield to cleave mankind’s taint from the world.

The sacred pestilence may be worshiped by the beasts, but among those with less savage emotions, those who work and create; his name is an infamous blight. Works of the “famine fiend” are spoke of with revulsion. Villages and provinces wiped out, with nothing left but gnawed bones and poisoned carrion. Death on the battlefield is something most men can face, but to be laid low by pox and boils is a death that causes even the most proud and brave knight pause.

In the grips of winter, the wretched form of Slugtongue calls upon the herd. Bathed in shadow and disease, the Famine Fiend whispers pestilence and promises ruin. With black words upon the chill air, the rotted spawn of ruin incites the Beast-Herd to war. With savage glee, the herd accepts the holy cause.

In the filth of the ground, in the rotting soil, the carrion and foul insects carry the blighted words of Slugtongue. The cacophony of crows and buzzards wail to the winds the whims of the fiend. Nature herself recoils at the disgusting lyrics of decay.

Rusted blades call.
Loathing hearts and tainted Blood.
Keen ear, heed my call.

Spew from the darkness,
Writhe from the encrusted altar,
Stampede to end all.

Dark Wicked disease,
Arm my herd. Strike down my foes.
Fortitude will fail.

The rusted blade calls
Pestilence wipe clean the world.
Rust. Rot. Ruin. Famine.

The Centigors stampeded through the woods, the words of the fiend turned to lice and parasites on their tongues. Bray Shaman felt the lure of ruin in their bones, drawn to war. Proud and mighty Beast Lords and aspiring warlords bowed their horned heads to the embodiment of decay. Minotaurs hefted cleavers and clubs for the wrath of ruin. The winds of magic shifted as the eye of the storm marched.

Slugtongue is loosed upon the world.

On that note…

LET THE PEW BEGIN!

First game was against Warriors of Chaos.

To the best of my knowledge, his army was as follows.

1 lvl 4 Sorcerer of Tzeentch (ouch…)
1 lvl 2 sorcerer undivided.
5 Chaos Knights.
5 Horsemen Maruader
50 Marauders with flails and Mark of Khorne
1 Warshrine (mark of Tzeentch)
10 Chosen
25 Warriors of Chaos
10 warhounds
1 Hellcannon

view 1 of battle lines

(note: it’s been some time since the tourney…and there was a fair amount of beer involved, so please forgive anything that might not make 100% of sense.)

Deployment:

The Battle lines were drawn. Slugtounge watched as the mortals of chaos lined up. They were fighting for the same lords and gods attention. In their eyes, only the strong deserve rewards. Only the cunning and victorious would receive their blessings. Unknowing of Slugtongue’s potential, the warriors lined up, intent on fighting with noble savagery to earn glory in their god’s eyes.

Their center was anchored by a horde of Maruaders, flanked by the infamous and destructive warriors. The warshrine was to support them. The Lord of Tzeentch clearly meant to hit a flanking blow with his knights and horsemen as the enemy would typically falter on the lines of bloodthirsty knornate marauders.

In omens and visions, Slugtongue guided his generals. The Minotaurs of the herd were to hold the right flank and bear in on any enemy foolish enough to engage the herd. The center of the corrupted herd were the gors and Ungors…even enhanced by the ‘banner of the beast’. The general’s elite unit would form the left flank of the army, with ungor raiders running helter skelter to pepper any enemies with incoming fire. Harpies drawn by the slaughter would harass any enemies foolish enough to stray alone or any targets of opportunity.

When the lines were set, the armies staring each other across the battlefield, Slugtongue showed them why he is known as ‘the famine fiend’. Using the curse of the famine fiend, Slugtongue unleashed blighted havoc on the enemy. The toll was high, battle hardened troops fell to boils and puss. Armored killers sank to their knees.

Death toll of the Famine Fiend:

3 of 5 Maruader horsemen.
3 of 4 (or 4 of 5?) wounds on the war-shrine
3 Warriors of Chaos
4 Marauders
1 Hellcannon crew member
2 warhounds
The scent of death and decay on the air, the Warherd let out a triumphant roar and lunged forward.

Turn 1:

Black wings bore the harpies to the decimated horsemen, harrying their flanks and denying them their full gallop. Ungor Raiders ran for the shelter of the woods and let loose an ineffective barrage on the horsemen. Ungor herd and Gor herd surged forward, eager for blood and battle. The elite Bestigors were restrained, they marched to the forests edge and anticipated the Chaos Knights’ charge into their brethren. Happy to sacrifice those weaker than them, the bestigors and the general were willing to let blood be spilled so that they could cleave and hack down the vaunted knights.

Minotaurs and chariots moved into the shelter of the temple ruins. The enemy Hellcannon could not rain down it’s destructive fire there. Ungor raiders moved along their flanks to send more ineffective arrows into the air.

Though promising, the winds of magic were only strong enough to allow Wyssan’s Wildform to go off without the near omnipotent dispelling of the Chaos lord.

The Tzeentch lord sent his minions into battle. The Marauders marched forward, flanked by the Warriors of Chaos…who, like the bestigors, used their brethren as bait. The Horsmen moved to the bestigors, while the knights moved slowly through the terrain. Hounds loped down the flanks, intent on becoming the next meal for the bloodthirsty minotaurs.

The flames of Tzeentch ate at the gor herd, but did little to stop the stampede.

Turn 2:

Ungors threw themselves on the ranks of Marauders, eager for blood. The gor herd, joined by the weak raiders, charged the crippled war-shrine, smashing it into the ground and with the taste of victory on their tusks, faced the marauder’s ranks. The ungors fought with fury and strength, but died in droves. The marauders were winning this fight, but had yet to feel the wrath of the gor herd.

On the flank, the bestigors charged and hacked down the horsemen. Men and animal were cleaved in pieces as the frenzied bestigors over-ran them and were lost in battle thirst.

The minotaurs held their frenzy in check as they moved in the shadows of the temple. The chariot moved forward, setting it’s charge up. The minotaurs knew that the warriors of chaos were near. Their fight would decide the battle….or so the warriors thought….as the hounds fed the minotaurs and only whet their appetite.

The center of the battle swayed as more ungors fell to the marauders. Strength in numbers… and their lines held, for now. The Warriors of Chaos waited for the minotaurs…none too eager to engage the beasts. Even the hellcannon had little effect as all it’s shots sailed wide. Earth was split asunder and rained down upon the battle as the armies hacked and slashed with less finesse than rage.

From the throne of changes and magic, Tzeentch blessed his lord with the powers of magic and the winds shaped before him. Fires and ruin were hurled into the gors herd. Still drunk on the destruction of the vaunted warmachine, the gors cared little for the numbers that fell to the lord of change’s servant.

Turn 3:

Enhanced by Wyssan’s wildform and the Beast Banner, the ungor herd held on to combat long enough for the trap to close. The chariot that lingered on the right flank slammed home into the lines of the Marauders, joined on the opposite flank by the reckless Gor Herd. Throwing men in initial the impact and the tuskagors, the chariot drove deep into the lines of men. The Gor Herd hacked and slashed violently at the exposed flanks of the khornate marauders.

The center of the battlefield was a malestrom of blood and violence. The storm had reached its crescendo and when the slaughter gave way for just a moment, the marauders realized that the battle had turned against them. They were surrounded..they were in peril…they must run!!

Seeing their enemy turn and run, the Gor herd gave chase and hacked the exposed cowards to bloody ribbons. The center of the battlefield was now the domain of the beast.

Seeing their chance, the Minotaurs ran into the fray and smashed into the lines of Warriors that were using the marauders as bait. The poacher was now caught by an unwanted predator….clever girl…

Though the most feared warriors in the lands, the mortals of chaos could not stand strong in the face of a stampeding herd of gluttonous minotaurs. Five warriors died to the inital impact of the minotaurs and four more died to the Doombull’s relentless attacks. Shards of chaos armor flew into the air, mingled with the blood of the former owners as the axes of Khorgor rent armor and cleaved bone, flesh and spirit.

The bestigors, eager to see the battle done, closed in on the flank of the chaos knights and their lord. Seeing the tide of war against him, the Lord of Tzeentch rallied his guard and fled the field, to fight again another day. After all, dying senselessly did not serve his lord….or him for that matter. He was just a pawn in Tzeentch’s eternal game, yet he could not help but to feel the mortal sting of defeat.

The Oktoberfest Temple !

[Sigmar: Archaon out with the boys and his Everchosen beer !]

Dwarfs vs Skaven Battle VIDEO

noreply@blogger.com (Sigmar) — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 19:12:00 +0000

A very descriptive 8th edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle report. Lots of battle detail, tactics, hobby talk (re: customized models) and some some massive rank and file combats !

8th edition Warhammer rules used to the max, there's even a Dwarf Slayer (unbreakable !) horde. A wise use of points ? Watch and see.

Sigmar: I really enjoy Vaul's battle reports, he seems to puts his heart and soul into it and clearly loves the game. There are loads of pics, lots of thoughts on the battle, the rules and the hobby in general. Great stuff. Thanks Vaul.

I think it's a 2,000 pt battle report but Vaul doesn't specify so I'm not totally sure - sorry.

credit : Vaul

30-Dec-2010

5:58 mins + 6:01 mins

Skaven vs Dwarfs Battle Report - part 1

Skaven vs Dwarfs Battle Report - part 2

Beastmen vs Bretonnia Battle (Maps) 1500 pts

noreply@blogger.com (Sigmar) — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 20:06:00 +0000

Argentbadger kindly posted a link to one of his battle reports through my 7th edition warhammer fantasy battle reports hub. This battle is actually 8th edition so I'm adding it to this site (that Argentbadger wouldn't have known about at the time because I hadn't advertised it's existence).

"The gors roll poorly in their attempt to charge the Grail Knights, condemning them to an inevitable fate as a kebab on a Bretonnian lance."

I understand Argentbadger has just picked up 8th edition after a 10 year break (although he was still blasting away with bolters and lasers in Warhammer 40k). He runs a very tidy blog and has added a few other excellent reports which are all Beastmen vs..., if you're of a bestial nature then you should check them out.

source : http://thebovineoverlord.wordpress.com

credit : Argentbadger

27-Nov-2010

Aramoro and I managed to have another game of Warhammer last week. His Bretonnians put my army to shame since he has a load of lovely painted knights from his previous foray into the game, a bit more than 10 years ago. If my Beastmen looked like Aramoro’s Bretonnians, I might have taken some photos. But as it is, the sight of glorious heraldic knights crashing into cardboard unit footprints is less spectacular. Anyway, at Aramoro’s request we moved up to 1500 points, which I soon found out was to allow him a more expensive Lord character.

The Beastmen Army

Beastlord, talisman of preservation, sword of strife, heavy armour, shield
Wargor, BSB, talisman of endurance, heavy armour, shield
Bray shaman, level 2, additional hand weapon (Lore of Beasts)
Bray shaman, level 2, additional hand weapon (Lore of Beasts)
20 Gors,shields, full command
20 Ungors, full command
12 Gors, additional hand weapon, full command
Tuskgor chariot
Tuskgor chariot
9 Ungor raiders
18 Bestigors, full command, banner of eternal flame

The Bretonnians' Army

Aramoro went for (approximately)
Green Knight
Paladin, BSB, warhorse, lance
Damsel, level 2, dispel scroll, horse (Lore of Beasts)
Damsel, level 2 (Lore of Life)
9 Knights of the Realm, full command
15 Men at Arms, full command
9 Grail Knights, full command
3 Pegasus Knights, musician, standard bearer

The mounted Damsel is the Bretonnian general, because the Green Knight can’t lead, and neither can the BSB. Rolling for spells, both Bray Shamans took Wyssan’s Wildform, one getting Amber Spear and the other Transformation of Kadon. The mounted Damsel also took Wyssan’s Wildform and Amber Spear, the one using Longshank’s pony got Earthblood and Dwellers Below. Once again, we just took a bunch of the terrain that was spare from Forkbanger and Gary pounding each other at 40K, set it up to look cool and then rolled for the appropriate parts. We decided that the river would be different on either side of the bridge.

The temple was a Temple of Khaine (causes frenzy) which caused no end of problems as we continually forgot about the extra attacks and that frenzied models can’t use shields. The North-most swamp was a mist-wreathed swamp (or a Fimir-rape swamp as Forkbanger calls it, for aficionados of very old fluff), the Eastern one was an Earthblood mere. Somewhat disappointingly, both hills were just normal. We get the Blood and Glory mission (break points, which was 2) and duly set up. This picture shows the scene after the Pegasus Knights have made their vanguard move.

The Bretonnians take the first turn. The Pegasus Knights zoom forward as fast as they can, and the Green Knight appears out of the river on the flank of the ungors. Everyone else just shuffles a bit to set up thundering charges next turn. Magic is very effective, with a Dwellers Below going off on the Bestigors. A few of the horny beasts are dragged to some unspeakable doom (although surely not as bad as the one potentially awaiting in a mist-wreathed swamp), and the BSB is sucked down too. Ouch!

The beastmen respond by moving most units forward, realising that they’re not likely to be doing much charging anyway. The ungors fail to swift reform, so they just turn to avoid being flanked by the Green Knight and the Pegasus riders. The Bray Shaman behind them joins the unit, although I’m not really sure what difference it was likely to make. The raiders move into the river, which turns out to be a river of Light. Even though almost the whole Lore is made up of augment spells, they manage to roll Net of Amyntok, which will do a lot of damage if they move. Not surprisingly, they stay put. Finally, the ambushers appear on the right flank (as a side note, I have been really lucky with ambushing – in every game I’ve played they’ve arrived on turn one, and never on my own table edge). The Bray Shaman on the left puts Wyssan’s Wildform on the ungors he just joined which I hope might help out a bit against all those armoured maniacs over the river.

This is where it gets messy; you should look away for a few turns if you like Beastmen. The Pegasus Knights and the Green Knight charge the ungors (the Green Knight gets Light of Battle from the river, which is useless since he already automatically passes leadership checks), nuking them for the loss of two of the Pegasi and overrunning toward the Temple of Khaine. The Grail Knights do pretty much the same to the gors on the right, except that they don’t even take a casualty in return. The only light for the Beastmen is that the Knights of the Realm fail a charge on the raiders. This is a part where I’m not really sure if we did it right. The chard only failed because of the way skirmishers rank up when receiving a charge (i.e. the charge would have hit if the raiders hadn’t all huddled around the middle guy). Also, since they had Net of Amyntok on them, it might be that they should have taken a load of hits when they ranked up, and then some more when they returned to skirmishing formation. Anyway, we didn’t make them take hits.

The surviving goat people try to get even. Most of the units shuffle to try and get out of the charge arcs of the knights sweeping all before them. The chariot on the left charges the Knights of the Realm, and does at least manage to kill a couple of them before they beat it senseless and run it into the ground. I’m still a bit disappointed in its performance though. The Bestigors and Beastlord (who I should probably name, but I’ll wait until he gets a model first) crash into the men at arms, smite them mightily and then laugh (or bleat) in triumph as a couple of survivors flee the field, taking the Damsel with them. Incidentally, the Damsel on foot was represented by a miniature of a fat guy with a keg of beer, not very lady-like. The Bestigors reform to face back toward their own table edge.

In turn 3 for both armies, there isn’t much more than a bit of milling around. Both the Pegasus Knights and the Green Knight try to charge the surviving chariot, which sensibly flees, rallying only long enough to find itself right in front of some grim-looking (but brightly coloured) Grail Knights. Otherwise, the only event of note is the Bray Shaman killing 3 Grail Knights with an Amber Spear. Over 3 consecutive turns, he successfully cast it 3 times, and only once did it even hurt the first knight. All 3 times were irresistable force, and he actually survived due to lucky rolls on the miscast chart (and more importantly because we forgot to roll at all the first time).

The Grail Knights charge the newly rallied chariot, which flees again, leaving them standing around in (possible) charge range of the gors. The Knights of the Realm have another go at charging the raiders. This time they succeed and annihilate the little blighters, but the overrun puts them right in front of the Bestigors. The Green Knight uses his magic powers to walk into the river and reappear in another part of the river. Slightly boringly, this turns out to also be a river of Light (so it was all part of the same river after all), and once again he gets Light of Battle, which is useless to him. The Pegasus Knight turns to face the Bray Shaman who has been trying to stay out of his charge arc for a few turns.

The gors roll poorly in their attempt to charge the Grail Knights, condemning them to an inevitable fate as a kebab on a Bretonnian lance. The Bestigors have no such troubles, splattering almost all of the Knights of the Realm. The Beastlord issues a challenge, and duly smites the Knight champion (though I was hoping for a more heroic shot at the Paladin). A couple of survivors flee off the board (they also lose the BSB and standard bearer when fleeing). The Bestigors despoil the remains and then reform to face the Green Knight who is looming behind them.

The Green Knight charges the Bestigors, and will spend a few combat phases enduring a rather limp slap-fest in a challenge with the Beastlord and taking wounds from combat resolution. In fact, if I had remembered about the Despoilers rule (which allows them to use captured standards) the supernatural knight would have evaporated in the first turn. Oh well, we live and learn. The Grail Knights have no such problems, crashing into the gors, pulverising them and making the last few flee in hot pursuit of the chariot. Finally, the Pegasus Knight hits the Bray Shaman, fails to wound, saves all the return attacks, and presumably sighs and throws his lance aside.

The Beastmen turn is fairly dull. The Bray Shaman is killed off by the Pegasus Knight, and the Beastlord and Green Knight trade blows to minimal effect. Everyone else keeps on running.

The Grail Knights move toward the Green Knight so that they can (and do) put Wyssan’s Wildform on him. It doesn’t help, and he loses his last wound to combat resolution. The Pegasus Knight inexplicably doesn’t move a long way away from the bestigors, which will cost him dearly very soon.

The Bestigors charge the Pegasus Knight and grind his bones to make their bread, then the game ends.

So, for those keeping count, neither side reached their Breaking Point: the Bretonnians still had 3 (their General and the Grail Knight banner) and so did the Beastmen (their General and the Bestigor banner). We didn’t bother adding up victory points, figuring that the survivors would be about the same value. So it was a glorious draw! I’m not sure what a draw means in fluff terms. Maybe the Bretonnians stop the Beastmen pillaging a large village, but they ransack a few hamlets instead?

What a nice game. I felt like I was getting a sound thrashing on the first couple of turns, with magic taking out my BSB and lance charges wiping out my units, but I was glad to pull it back and give Aramoro a bit of a challenge (especially since I don’t think he’s actually lost a game of Warhammer since we started playing again).

I rather enjoyed the Bestigors, especially if I ever remember to use the Despoilers rule. I definitely felt that they were more effective than the minotaurs that I thought of them as being comparable to. I think that maybe I would have been better with fewer magic items and more hooves on the field, but magic items (and magic in general) are cool. We’ll see what I feel like next time I make a list up.

Bretonnia v Dark Elves VIDEO Battle

noreply@blogger.com (Sigmar) — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 11:41:00 +0000

A very detailed 8th edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle report - VIDEO

Lots of description of the battle and the reasoning behind tactical decisions. There are also a few insights into the impact of some of the 8th edition rule changes on Bretonnians and Dark Elves.

Sigmar: I think there's a lesson to be learned here (as the narrator points out)... if you spend a lot of points on a key unit then try to make sure it's in the thick of the fighting (a mistake I keep making too).

Oh and something else... Trebuchets are great :)

credit : OnceBitten360

13-Nov-2010

7:35 mins + 10:15 mins

Bretonnians vs Dark Elves 2400 pts - Part I

Bretonnia vs Dark Elves 2400 pts - Part II

Orcs and Goblins vs Empire 2250 pts (maps)

noreply@blogger.com (Sigmar) — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 19:43:00 +0000

A very one-sided Fantasy Battle massacre - I've tried to find a Warhammer lesson here but... I'm not sure where it all went wrong for one player. It's all over by turn 4 !

"The Volleygun empties all their pipes into the Wolf Riders and wipes them off the field. In the south, the Handgunners take out three Spiders and sends them fleeing back to whence they came from. " [Sigmar: Ouch, not a good start !]

BTW, I got the report with permission from Trollhoer's blog which is well worth a visit. It has a nice, tidy layout, very personalized content (it's a personal Hammering record) and is thus a pleasure to visit.

source : http://trollhoer.blogspot.com

credit : trollhoer

06-Nov-2010

I fought my first 8th edition battle last week against one of the store managers. As it was scheduled in a hurry, we decided to play with our fairly recent tournament lists at 2250 points, with minimum changes that took about 10 minutes of rule book browsing to make. I thought this would be a good way of trying out the new edition; use what did work in the last edition and evaluate how they do in the next one, rather than make changes directly from theoryhammering.

The narrative would have the Empire forces of Ostermark defend their land against a Waaagh! from the World's Edge Mountains. The scenario was to be "The Battle for the Pass".

The Empire Army

Arch Lector on War Altar
Captain BSB
Battle Wizard
Level 2
Warrior Priest

20 Swordsmen
Full Command
6 Halberdiers
Detachment
10 Handgunners
Marksman, HLR
10 Archers
7 Knights
Standard bearer, Musician
24 Great Swords
Full Command
6 Halberdiers
Detachment
Great Canon
10 Flagellants
Hellblaster Volleygun
Steamtank

The Orcs & Goblins army

Black Orc Warboss
Boar, Heavy Armor, Enchanted Shield, Akkrit Axe, Kickin' Boots, Best Boss 'At
Black Orc Big Boss
BSB, Boar, Heavy Armor, Spirit Totem
Orc Shaman
level 2, Dispel Scroll
Night Goblin Big Boss
Shield of Ptolos, Martog's Best Basha

2x 25 Orc Boyz
Shields, Full Command
Wolf Riders and Spider Riders
Spears, Musician
4 Snotlings

12 Black Orcs
Shields, Banner of Butchery
5 Savage Orc Boar Boyz
Spears, Shields, Musician
Orc Boar Chariot
Goblin Wolf Chariot
2x Goblin Spear Chukka
Goblin Rock Lobber

Goblin Doom Diver
Giant
3 Trolls

Deployment
The scenario "Battle for the Pass" has each army set up on the short table edges, while the long table edges count as impassable terrain. There were plenty of hills for both forces to deploy their artillery, while in the middle but to the south there were rumors of a magical fountain that could make the drinker unbreakable.

The Waaagh! placed each of their units of Orc Boyz on the sides of the large hill to the west, on which the Black Orcs deployed with Snotlings in front of them. Da Fast Stuff went on each flank.

Meanwhile, the Empire Army placed shooters and artillery in both the southern and the northern side of the eastern pass, while the Archlector and the Knights took up defensive positions on each flank. The troops went in the middle, hidden behind the hilltop.

The Orc Shaman is granted a Headbutt and a Warpath spell, while the Empire Wizard takes a few fire spells that would prove ineffective throughout the game. Unless stated otherwise, the Winds of Magic were not kind to either of the wizards for this battle.

Vanguard move start us out, with both spider riders and wolf riders scouting ahead in search of enemies with missile weapons that they can hunt down.

Turn 1 - The Empire
Flagellants march forward, eager to martyr themselves in battle on the northern flank while the rest of the army hang back, trusting in their artillery to soften the enemy up.

The Canon and the Steamtank take aim on each of the Black Orcs on boars, but some snotnosed goblin must have dampened the gun powder and so they both misfire. The Volleygun empties all their pipes into the Wolf Riders and wipes them off the field. In the south, the Handgunners take out three Spiders and sends them fleeing back to whence they came from.

Turn 1 - Orcs & Goblins
The Squig Hoppers start squabbling behind the hill, while the rest of the army moves forward. The Trolls start drinking eagerly from the magical fountain, but turns out the water is poisoned! This would halt their progress for a turn while they throw up (an experience they probably enjoyed, all things considered).

The Orc Shaman manages to call for a Warpath and Gork stomps all over the canon in the north, inflicting two wounds. The Empire Wizard invokes a magical item which forces the Shaman to re-roll all the dice he used for the spell and for each 5 or 6 he takes a hit (or a wound, not sure). Mork is with him, however, and he survives with one wound remaining.

The Doom Diver takes out two of the Knights, the Spear Chukkas puts a dent or two on the Steamtank, while the Rock Lobber drops a stone on the Greatswords, killing a few.

Turn 2 - The Empire
The Flagellants, eager to meet their doom, charges the Giant but comes up short. The Archers move up around the Swordsmen to get a better view.

The canon still malfunctions, and the Steamtank misfires for a second turn and causes more damage to the hull. Meanwhile, the Volleygun takes out a Savage Orc Boar Boy, while in the south the trolls suffer a wound from missile fire. To add insult to an already miserable Orc Shaman, the Markman among the Handgunners takes out the Hochland long rifle and puts the shaman out of his misery.

Turn 2 - Orcs & Goblins
In the north, the Giant charges into Flagellants and reaches them without trouble. The Wolf Chariot charges an impressive 21" and hits the Volleygun. In the south, the Boar Chariot charges into the Handgunners, who stand and shoot but fails to wound it.

The Doom Diver takes out most of the Knights, who fails their panic test and flees to the east. The Lobba continues to bombarde the Greatsword with rocks while the Chukkas pick their noses.

The Wolf Chariot kills the Volleygun crew and overruns into the Canon, while the Boar Chariot takes out half the unit of Handgunners and sends them running. Instead of pursuing, the crew decides to reform and turn the chariot to the left to threaten the forces north of it. Unfortunately, things aren't going as well for the giant, since the Flagellants get to strike back after his club swing and with Sigmar's aid inflicts nine wounds on the big fellow, killing him outright.

Turn 3 - The Empire
Set in my 7th edition ways, I had placed my center units safely away from the 8" infantry charge range, which of course would cost me in my first 8th edition game. The Greatswords have no problem charging alongside the War Altar straight into the Orc Boyz led by the BSB. Even more upsetting, the Swordsmen charges almost cavalry-like and hits the Black Orcs in the center. Unfortunately, their attachment can't find room. Unsure how to settle it, I allow them to instead charge the snotlings. What remains of the Flagellants eagerly charges to their death against the Savage Orcs. In the south, the Handgunners continue running, but in this edition they apparently run away from the nearest enemy, which is the Boar Chariot so they are still on the field. The few remaining knights manages to rally.

In combat, the Flagellants take out a Boar before they all meet their end. The War Altar and the Archlector does very little, but the Greatswords, spurred on by the eager Warrior Priest, kills more Orcs than the BSB manages to keep in line. Luckily, their flee roll shows a double 6, which is too far for any of their pursuers to match, and the Greatsword detachment overruns to join the Swordsmen against the Black Orcs.

To no avail, as even though they take out 3 of the brutes, the Black Orcs unveil the Banner of Butchery, grabs plenty of their choppas, and proceeds to chop up 11 Swordsmen, putting them on even ranks (none for either). The Swordsmen fail to find their insane courage, breaks and are chased down by the Black Orcs.

The impact hits of the Wolf Chariot takes out the Canon crew, and the chariot reforms to face the center.

Turn 3 - Orcs & Goblins
In the north, the Wolf Chariot charges into the War Altar, hoping to at least keep it occupied for a turn, while the Boar Chariot charges after the Handgunners and catches them. The Trolls, finally done throwing up, charges into what remains of the Steamtank. Sadly for the Savage Orcs Boar Boyz, I forget to declare their charge (even though I rolled to pass their leadership test, doh!) and they're forced to move into a better position for next turn instead. Close to the hill, the broken Orcs manage to rally.

The Doom Diver kills off the remaining two knights and the Rock Lobber rolls a direct hit and takes out half of what remains of the Great Swords.

In combat, the Trolls start smashing the Steamtank, which is below half its original wounds and won't return much carnage. Meanwhile, the Detachment finally goes through the snotlings with only three soldiers still standing, who charge into the rear of the Warboss' unit of Orcs. The Wolf Chariot takes a wound of the War Altar and pins it while waiting for backup to arrive.

Turn 4 - The Empire
Finding themselves right in the middle of so many bloodthirsty Orcs, the Greatswords spots a way out by charging the Squig Hoppers, who had squabbled for two turns and now foolishly had hopped in to join the carnage.

The Archers on the hill spots a Big Boss on a Giant Squig hopping their way and unleashes a salvo straight at it. The Boss reveals the Shield of Ptolos that grants +1 armor save against missiles much to dismay of the Empire hunters.

In battle, the Trolls finally destroy the Steamtank, while the battle between the Wolf Chariot and the Archlector comes to a draw and what's left of the detachment dies at the hands of the Warboss who moves back in the lines to do some chopping. The Squig Hoppers are cut down, but not before bringing the Greatswords and their heroes down to less than a full rank. Even though the soldiers manages to overrun, out of sight from most of the Horde, things are certainly looking grim for the Empire.

Turn 4 - Orcs & Goblins
And things would turn even worse, when the Squig Hopping Boss hits the Archers who can do nothing but hold, and the War Altar is sandwiched between Black Orcs from the south and Savage Orc Boar Boyz from the north. Meanwhile, the Orc Boyz reform to go after what remains of the Great Swords.

It would prove unneccessary, as the Chukkas and the Doom Diver finds their mark and wipes out the few soldiers still standing. That spells the end of the Empire force as they are wiped out on turn 4, giving the Waaagh! their first victory in the 8th edition. Surely they were bolstered by the spirit of Gork (or possibly Mork).

Beastmen vs Orcs Battle VIDEO

noreply@blogger.com (Sigmar) — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 17:37:00 +0000

The first 8th edition Fantasy Battle Report from this gamer (who controls the Orcs & Goblins in a 2,250 pt pitched battle against Beastmen).

This is quite a nice report for new 8th edition players because it's also the commentators first 8th ed. rulebook game so he shares some of his findings with us. Including the impact of mysterious terrain, line of sight, charge ranges and the awesome power of magic and how it can seriously backfire !

MrMalorian's verdict...

"8th is a lot faster and... 8th is fun !"

source :fOpAaVL4DvI

credit : MrMalorian

26-Aug-2010

9:10 mins + 5:12 mins

Orcs and Goblins vs Beastmen 2250 pts - Part I

Orcs and Goblins vs Beastmen 2250 pts - Part II

Empire vs Lizardmen Fantasy Battle Report

noreply@blogger.com (Sigmar) — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 17:36:00 +0000

A written Warhammer 8th Edition Fantasy Battle Report + maps from Battle Chronicler (I think !)

"In an absolute schoolboy error I fought the Archlector fight first, meaning when my knights broke the razordon and pursued into this combat, it was too late for them to fight again"

Sigmar: Don't let the above comment mislead you, this Battle Reporter knows what he's doing, his useful after game analysis is testimony to that (this is just a reminder that even the very best gamers make those irritating mistakes especially when trying to learn a new set of rules !). I like ukko's report and I'm hoping to show some more of them - he's to the point and you feel like you're learning something when you read the report and I felt like nodding my head due to similar shared experiences.

source : http://warhammer.org.uk

credit : ukko

05-Aug-2010

Played a game a couple of days ago with my empire against lizzies. Been trying to put together a decent allcomers but this was only my second game with empire and 4th game of 8th.

The Empire Army List

Arch lector on war altar, GW, speculum, meteoric iron
Lv4 (life), horse, scroll, holy relic
BSB, barded horse, dragonhelm, dawnstone, sword of might
Warrior Priest, barded horse, dawn armour, wyrmslayer sword, shield
2*29 halberers with full command
2*10 crossbows
5 knights with banner and musician
8 inner circle knights with full command and flaming banner
2 cannons
5 outriders with musician
Steam tank
Rocket battery

Lizardmen Army List

Slann BSB, warbanner, extra dice, all lore (life)
Oldblood, blade of realities, potion of speed
Engine lv2(3), plaque of tepok
Scar vet, armour of destiny
2*24 saurus with banner and musician
10 skink skirmishers
16 Temple guard with full command and sword of the hornet on champion
5 cold ones
Salamander pack
Razordon pack

Deployment:

He got first turn and pushed forward, magic was uneventful and shooting was out of range except for his salamander which chanced a long shot at the lv4's unit but misfired and ate its crew (gaining frenzy/hatred as a result). My first turn I pushed the altar and stank in front of his central blocks and shuffled the other things around to enact plan stank-n'-flank (Tm). The knights held back in the centre, hoping he'd throw the saurus into the alter and I could counter charge in my turn. I figure'd the stank could probably hold up the entire left flank on its own for 2 or 3 turns while I regrouped, as he didn't really have any other option but to charge it. Magic didn't do much as i rolled low. Shooting saw one cannon stick in the ground short of the engine, the other going straight through it. I wounded everything except one crew dude and he proceded to roll his 5+ wards on all 3 crew and the prest. However, in a classic example of getting the luck when it matters, he failed the ward on the steg and I preceded to roll 6 yummy wounds. To add insult to injury, I then used the stank's remaining 2 steam points to cannon the priest (rules question: we assumed he still got his 5+ ward but I've no idea if that's right). Crossbows and rocket did nada. Have to admit, at this point I was feeling pretty confident.

Next turn he ploughed into the stank with his cold ones and TG, a mistake he later attributed to just not having enough experience playing empire (he probably liked the idea of keeping those units safe from shooting too). He also managed a mammoth 14" inch charge with the saurus on the halberders on the left flank, who they would then butcher and chase down in the combat phase. Finally, the other saurus went into the altar, along with the frenzied salamander. I managed to keep his magic largely in check, and his shooting only saw his razordon eat its crew as well . In combat, the stank lost a wound to some halberds and the oldblood got speculum'ed but good (again, he just wasn't familiar enough with the empire book - I was shocked when he accepted the challenge). Rules question 2: the blade of realities missed the altar but if it had hit, what leadership would it have tested on?

In my turn the knights charged the TG, as the stank had to realign to close-the-door on the cold one charge (this isn't really captured very well in the diagram). This meant the TG were dragged forwards in front of the saurus and I couldn't squeeze the knights through to the squishier saurus block. Oh well, in for a penny i guess. The halberders charged the salamander in the flank of the altar and the knights charged the lone razordon on the right flank. In an epic display of artillery dice suckery, the razordon demonstrated his eagerness for the upcoming fight by eating his last crew member, instead of standing-and-shooting me (at least he got all hatey though). Now I did something silly. In an absolute schoolboy error I fought the archlector fight first, meaning when my knights broke the razordon and pursued into this combat, it was too late for them to fight again. In said archlector fight, I think I won by one or two but nothing broke. The stank was feeling good about itself and ate all the cold ones with 7 impact hits from 3 steam points, not that the temple guard cared.

The rest of the game was just a slug fest really - I lost a cannon to a misfire, the outriders to keep the saurus away from the rear of the TG fight, and the plain knights, who eventually broke from the combat on my right. He lost all the TG, the scar vet (who dived into the TG combat but broke after I obliterated half a dozen TG with the help of Birona's mindwarp), and the salamander. We didn't bother counting it up at the time but I'd only lost about 400-450 points and he'd lost everything except the slaan, both saurus units and the skinks.

Thoughts after the game:

- Was a bit rash with the archlector. I wanted to pin his eastern block in place but I should have held back and let my shooting have another rip at him on that side. Sending him in front of ranked infantry is a mistake I'll try and avoid in future too, as I really could've paid for it if my opponent had rolled a little hotter.

- Being aggressive with the stank is the way forward. It not only ties down things I want to stay away from, but it also keeps it safe from magic and shooting. I'll also avoid risking extra steam points unless absolutely necessary. I managed to roll 6s on all three occasions where I went for an extra steam point, one less would've been guaranteed points and I would have cracked the TG a turn earlier and got the slaan.

- I need to be braver deploying the crossbows. They get less to shoot at now and really need to make the first two turns count to be worth it. Safety first approach seems to be getting me nowhere with them - in my first two games with the empire they've survived easily but only accounted for 2 harpies and a shade. Next game I'll be more inclined to leave them isolated if it means they can rack up some casualties and impact on the game.

- Loving the +3 DD of the empire. Along with +4 to dispel, it really makes it hard for the other guy to get stuff through.

- Probably drop the rocket battery for another 5 outriders. I wanted the battery to help against big blocks of infantry, which I feel like I'm not very well equipped to deal with. I'm not keen on the randomness though, I think I'd rather more shots to trim ranks off here and there instead.

- I think life is a great deck but I'm not sure it's right for this build. The idea of healing the stank and buffing the knights and halberders to keep them alive seems fantastic but I'm not sure I have the dice to make it meaningful - the slaan is a different story, as are banner of sorcery toting HE. I might try heavens in the next game..

- When playing against this Lizard Slann-life build (which as an aside, I think could be a really effective army), stopping throne of vines is a must. At times, I thought I was over-doing it, throwing 3 or 4 dice at it early on in a few phases and burning my scroll on it later in the game, but I think it was the right thing to do. It forced him to try and plink away with little buffs here and there to avoid miscasting, which usually meant I could stop the one spell which really mattered. I also think that tying down the TG bunker while ganging up on other things to rack up points will be the easiest solution to the match-up in most cases.

Lizardmen vs Ogres 8th edition battle report

noreply@blogger.com (Sigmar) — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 09:30:00 +0000

This sounds and looks like an excellent Warhammer Fantasy Battle. It has some great photos, excellent terrain and scenery, painted miniatures and is written in a nice "punchy" and friendly manner. Magic showed it's power under the 8th edition rules - again !

"The Slann rerolls on the miscast table and gets a Dimensional Cascade which he then very kindly hands-off to my Slaughtermaster with the cupped hands, once again the dice favour me though as the dumb brute narrowly avoids being sucked into the warp"

source : http://warhammer.org.uk

credit : StokeRogue

14-Sep-2010

On Wednesday Rolls Dice, henceforth know as Ade, and myself played a 2400 point 8th Ed game. It was Ade's first game using the new rules and my second. We both kind of like the idea of 2400 points as the new 2250 as it is easy to divide into 25% chunks, so that was the agreed level. We randomly rolled for a scenario and got Blood and Glory (BRB page 148). This gave both armies a breaking point of 3, the Ogres started with a fortitude of 5, whilst the Lizards had a fortitude of 7.

Ogre Kingdoms Army

Tyrant - Great Weapon, Mawseeker, Crown of Command, Armour of Destiny, Luck Gnob 314
Slaughtermaster - Gruts Sickle, Healing Potion, 2x Tooth Gnobs 280
Bruiser - BSB, Golden Sigil Sword, Armour of Fortune, Luck Gnob 223
Butcher - nowt! 130
40 Gnobs 80
8 Gnob Trappers 48
3 Naked Bulls 105
3 Naked Bulls 105
7 Ironguts - Champion, Standard Runemaw Banner 401
7 Ironguts - Champion, Standard 376
Scraplauncha 165
Scraplauncha 165

Lizardmen Army - from memory (Ade please feel free to fill in the blanks!)
Slann BSB - Cupped hands of the Old ones, Standard of Discipline, maybe some other gizmos
Scar-Vet - Cold one, Bane Head, Piranha Blade, 1+ Armour from unknown items
20 Saurus - Spears, Full command
20 Saurus - Spears, Full command
15 Skinks
16 Skink Cohorts + 2 Krox
2 Salamanders with extra crew
1 Salamander with extra crew
2*5 Chameleon Skinks
6 Saurus Cav - Full Command? May have had a magic standard, can’t remember
Steg with giant bow

The Battlefield

The scenery was an Acropolis of Heroes (Greek looking ruin), Magic Circle, a mysterious river, 2 woods, a plain hill and several buildings and fences which were grouped into the village at the far end of the table.

The locals blissfully unaware of what is about to befall them!

Initial deployments

Main Ogre force, the 2 bull units are deployed 1 on each flank just out of shot.

Call pest control! - the Gnoblar Trappers infest one of the buildings

Sneaky Chameleons sneakily sneaking!

The sallies coming straight out of the sun - crafty!

Turn 1

The Lizards get the first turn and go all out for an early win. Movement is mainly jockeying for good charging positions, although the Chameleons nip into my rear where they will harass me for most of the game. Magic, and the Slann goes for a 6 dice Dwellers below on the Ironguts with my Slaughtermaster and Tyrant, and what do you know Irresistible force! Luckily the Runemaw banner deflects the spell onto the 3 bulls nearby and only 1 dies. The Slann rerolls on the miscast table and gets a Dimensional Cascade which he then very kindly hands-off to my Slaughtermaster with the cupped hands, once again the dice favour me though as the dumb brute narrowly avoids being sucked into the warp, 1 Irongut is killed by the resulting ST10 pie plate!

The Ogres move forward as fast as possible. The Chameleons are a nuisance, but I know that chasing them is a lost cause so I try to ignore them and concentrate on the blocks with those all important standards (see the Blood and Glory victory conditions if you don’t know why). The Tyrants Ironguts line themselves up to take the charge from the Saurus Cav, this is a gamble as the Scar-vet has bane-headed the Tyrant, but I am confident that T6 and a 4+ ward plus a magic phase of buffs to come should se me through. Speaking of magic now it is Ade’s turn to be afraid as I introduce him to OGRE MAGIC SPAM tm. Even with an average roll of 7 power dice, the Butchers pump out an impressive array of spells between them. 2 Bonecrunchers on the Saurus Cav draw out Ade’s dispel dice allowing the Tyrant and friends to gain multiple buffs, Gut magic is excellent now they stack!

The other highlight of the Ogres first turn is a direct hit on the Slaans unit with a scraplaucha killing 10 Saurus! Sadly this was to be the only direct hit that I rolled all game.

Turn 2

Once again seeing a chance for a one stroke victory, the Saurus Cav and nasty Scar-vet jump on the Tyrant and Ironguts. The rest of the Lizards hold their ground in the centre and pressurise the flanks. The Skink cohort charge a sacrificial Bull unit whilst the Salamanders and Chameleons close the noose and get into some excellent firing positions.

The Slaan jumps ship from the badly depleted Saurus into the fresh block along side. The winds of magic are week this turn (and pretty much every turn from here on in, averaging about 5 a turn for the rest of the game) so the Slaan contents himself to remove the buffs that I cast last turn. Shooting casualties are acceptable with a unit of bulls panicking off table from a salamander hit (damn those stupid flee from nearest enemy rules) whilst the scraplaunchers easily shrug off the other Salamander and Chameleons. Combat is very much in the Ogres favour, despite the loss of the remaining bulls to the Skinks and their Kroxy minders (their sacrifice was in vain as I forgot that the Skinks could free reform after a combat- D’oh), the Saurus Cav came up short against the Ironguts. As I thought the Scar-vet suffered from a case of epic fail against the Tyrant, and was squished for his troubles. However, despite a fairly convincing loss the Cav stuck around for a second dose.

Ogre turn 2 is very embarrassing, mainly due to me being a complete idiot. My second block of Ironguts declares a charge against the Slaan and his new bodyguard, however they fail to hit the required 12 inches rolling a 4 and a 1. For some reason that I cannot explain, I managed to convince myself and Ade that after a failed charge you move the distance on the lowest dice and not the highest. Being Ade’s first game, he foolishly took my word for it, so that is how we played it until about turn 5 when after a rash of failed chargers moving 1” we looked it up and my blunder was revealed. Also in this turn the right hand scraplauncha charged the skink skirmishers who fled and were caught. The wind of magic continued to be miserable and a few buffs were dealt out to my two main Irongut blocks, but nothing else. Shooting brought a light hearted moment, when the mischievous Scrappers on the left hand launcha lobbed one of their own for a strength 5 killing blow on the Slaan, but sadly he just impacted on the surface. In combat the Saurus Cav were wiped out.

Never trust the word of an idiot - the Ironguts flounder 1” after my mindfart.

Turns 3-6

I am going to lump all the remain turns together from here on in, mainly because nothing much happened. Ade played very well keeping my 2 Irongut units and all my characters at arms length until his shooting and magic had reduced them to the point that he was ready for them. The Steg charged the Scraplauncha that had killed the skinks Skirmishers and destroyed it. He then tuned the Steg into the Flank of the Ogre BSB’s Ironguts who had again failed a charge on the Slaan in turn three and once again only gone 1”. Basically, from that point onward the game degenerated into a battle of the buffs. I kept putting +1T and stubborn on my units, whilst the Steg spent most of the game with T10 and Regen thanks to the Slaan on his Throne of Vines. More and more units piled in until we ended up with this arrangement.

At the rear of the ogre army the Gnoblar fighters, who had been unable to get into the battle line due to the 1” rule and Trappers, tried in vain to contain the lone Salamander and 2 Chameleon Skink units who as I had feared danced around them with ease. It did however produce this fine moment, which Ade was very happy with - the perfect Salamander shot!

Even more amusing was the fact that the remaining few Gnoblars, decided to seek refuse from this maelstrom in a wildwood, even rallying in there to be slowly eaten to death by the trees!

Anyway after something like 6 rounds of ineffectual hacking neither side could gain any advantage in the huge melee, and so the game went to a tie break situation with the Lizards coming out ahead on a victory point count back.

Result aside, both players had an excellent game with much laughter on both sides as weird and unexpected things happened. My faux pa with the charging rules didn’t spoil or change the outcome of the game in any great way, so we just laughed about it and put it down to lack of experience with the new rules. Magic was pretty powerful throughout the game, and that was with terrible rolls for the winds of magic every turn, I shudder to think what a Slaan could achieve with even just average rolls over the course of a game. The other things that I took from the game is that the terrain rules aren’t as bad as I first thought they might be. We rolled the maximum 10 pieces, and I was concerned that the board would be to crowded to actually fight on, but that was not the case. In fact the Magic Circle, Acropolis and river never came into play in the whole game.

Sorry this a fairly thin report, with so much to think about during the game I forgot a lot of the lesser stuff, but most of the major events are covered.

Cheers
StokeRogue