Battle Royale

Deep within the mighty tome that is the big rule book of 8th edition Warhammer lies the Narrative Battles section.  Here you will find many scenarios that can provide a novel twist that you may find worth considering instead of the old Battleline or other basic scenarios.  One of these scenarios is called Battle Royale.  It goes beyond simply providing you with a new two player scenario and offers a completely altered turn structure which accommodates 3 to 5 players.  So, one day me and 4 of my fellow Black Sheep find ourselves ready to play some Warhammer, and a Battle Royale with 5 players commences.

Initial setup - a large part of the Daemon force is not visible due to being deployed in the elven tower (Plaguebearers).

In this battle, a Daemons of Chaos force is in the center of the battlefield, surrounded by Lizardmen, High Elves, Warriors of Chaos, and Vampire Counts.  Each player has placed a gravestone on the table and controlling gravestones and killing enemy generals brings victory.  While the player who rolls lowest and has to deploy in the center is at a disadvantage due to having enemies on all sides, as a consolation they get first opportunity to take action in each of the phases of the game.

In turn one, Warriors of Chaos started off true to their nature, engaging enemies on 2 fronts, rushing into the Vampires on one side and the High Elves on the other.  Lizardmen mostly held still, but sent the stegadon and salamader forward to seek out some opportunistic shooting.  The daemons appeared to be most upset by the presence of lizardmen on the battlefield and the soulgrinder and great unclean one rushed forward over the river to smash them.  They did not much like the High Elves in the distance either and sent the beasts of nurgle off through the forest to harass them.

Soon, the great unclean one was engaged with saurus warriors, and the soulgrinder with a stegadon slowly grinding away the lizardmen.  Warriors of Chaos were taking many casualties from overwhelming numbers in close combat from the vampires and being peppered by shooting from the high elves on the other side.  Besides shooting, the high elves sent a phoenix off to put some heat on the approaching beasts of nurgle and find other targets to engage as well.

As the hour grew late, forces made desperate attempts to take out opposing generals with the lizardmen sending a cohort of skinks and kroxigor on a long charge across the river to engage the vampire general.  The phoenix made his way amidst the melee between the daemons and lizardmen and engaged the lone Slann Mage Priest!  A combination of devastation high elf magic and the unending hordes of undead continued to dwindle the beset Warriors of Chaos.

The high elf dragon is being proxied as a Flamespyre Phoenix here, because the battle took place on the same day as the new high elf models were released.

The vampire and his host of crypt ghouls proved to much for the skink unit, while the phoenix killed the Slann Mage Priest and the daemons wiped the rest of the Lizardmen core force off the table.  The rest of the high elf force was emerging from the forest to secure objectives as the game approached the end, while other armies also sent their mobile troops to nearby objectives.  In the end, most armies managed to come away with 1 or 2 points, but the high elves won the day with 4 victory points.

When setting up a battle royale, it's a good idea to think about the terrain setup to help equalize the engagement for each of the armies that will be deployed.  We provided a border of terrain features around the center deployment zone to help with this, but did not think much about ideas for terrain around the edges.  It might be a good adjustment next time to ensure each corner is either clear or has some screening.  It's impossible to make it perfectly balanced, but the scenario plays well, and is fun on all sides.

There are also other subtle effects that you discover about how the scenario plays that you have to keep in mind.  For example, spells that last until your next magic phase are a little weaker because they only last for one combat phase.  In the movement phase, depending on where you are in the player order, you have to consider all the players who have not moved yet and could still charge you depending on where you move.  It's an interesting twist and I recommend trying it out.

Norse vs. Skaven with Storm of Magic

On Tuesday, I pitted a 3000 point Norse army against Iraf's Skaven.  We played a standard battleline with Storm of Magic added in.  Iraf decided to use his extra points for a pact with the Vampire Counts, and I used mine for a couple wizards, some sabretusks, and a windcatcher prism that never got used.  For some reason, the Norse and Skaven found themselves battling it out in the jungles of Lustria!

To start off the game, the Terrorgheist flew forward to try and scream the Truthsayer off of his arcane fulcrum.  The attempt failed, and the Terrorgheist found him self surrounded by Valkyries, Berserkers, and Sabretusks.  All of my units also had +1 strength and toughness since I got off a sweet cataclysm spell.  Things were not going so well on the other side of the board for me though.  A skitterleaping warplock engineer blew up 14 of my marauders, and the Doomwheel weas heading my way.

With the Terrorgheist dead, my assaulting units were left in a bit of disarray, and the Sabretusks found themselves being slaughtered by a vampire and his small host of zombies.  My Ice Drake in the back on the picture to the left is hunting down a Warp Lightning Cannon.  Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, the Doomwheel creeps closer to my Zoat on fulcrum and other Valkyrie unit, and the Vargheists have charged into those Valkyries in a frenzy.

In a following turn, Iraf has started to get some cataclysm spells of his own off, summoning a pestilent swamp underneath my Ice Drake which could kill it with one failed toughness test when attempting to move.  Thankfully my Vitki was able to move the enchanted swamp under the plague monk unit with a cataclysm shadow spell, killing many of the monks but not the plague furnace as it moved out of it and towards the core Norse forces.

By this time, my core units which had been whittled down were revived back to full strength by a storm of renewal delivered by Zoat.  The core Skaven units were showing significant damage from the pestilent swamp, and some over-indulgence in Skaven brew by the Stormvermin.  Things were looking pretty good for the Norse, and this would have been a good point to charge forward.  Close by in the next turn though, the Doomwheel closed on the Valkyries who had finished off the Vargheists, and a unit of gutter runners entered the table right next to my Zoat on fulcrum.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the battlefield, the vampire made is way to the fulcrum with the near dead Truthsayer on it and finished him off.  In a very short time, I found myself with no arcane fulcrums controlled, suffering from some serious magic deficiency.  Zoat was unbound and turned into a raging lunatic.  Iraf also summoned a Chaos Giant into the middle of the battlefield.

I used a small unit with my king in it to wipe some slaves out of my way which unfortunately left me in a bad position.  Because of this, I fled from a charge, planning to regroup and be in a better position.  The tide of battle decided to leave me like the tide of magic at that point though as another of my units decided to run of the board after being fled through.  Suddenly, the battle was lost, and the Skaven claimed victory.

Storm of Magic games are really fun.  Especially when you don't worry about keeping track of every spell you can cast, and just try to do cool stuff.  Even though my Norse lost... again (that's the one thing they seem to be good at so far), it was an epic and enjoyable battle.  And hey, since I was winning for the first half, in a way, I could call it a tie, right?

The Norse Fail List:

• King, 4+ Ward, Axe of impact hits every combat round
• Vitki, Level 4 Shadow, Poisonous Herbs, Breath Weapon Buckle.
• Skald BSB
• Another Skald
• Jarl on Fenrir Wolf
• Seer Level 1 Fire Magic
• 28 Huscarl
• 40 Marauders with Great Weapon
• 30 Marauders with xtra hand weapon
• 30 Bondsmen
• 10 Berserkers
• Ice Drake
• 3 Valkyries
• 3 more Valkyries
• Truthsayer
• Zoat
• 5 Sabretusks

First Post-OFCC game

VS.

So I went over to Paul's tonight to play a game of Warhammer with the armies that we will be working on for next year.   I threw together a quick Orc and Goblin force and face Paul's awesome Norsemen.  We agreed to play 2400 points. 
I don't really have Paul's list and am not really sure what everything was, but my list is as follows:

Lords

Black Orc Warboss:  Armor of Destiny, Sword of Anti-Heroes, Other Tricksters Shard, Dragonbane Gem, Boar, Shield            287

 

Savage Orc Great Shaman:    Level 4, Skull Wand, Power Stone            300

Heroes

Goblin Big Boss:   BSB, Spider Banner, Shortbow, Light Armor, Shield            151

Night Goblin Shaman            :   Level 2, Feedback Scroll            135

Core

25 gobbos:  shortbows, shield, 3x skulkers, full command            160

27 Orc Biguns            :  Extra hand weapons, Full Command, Banner of Discipline            302

12 arrer boyz            :  84

17 Savage Orcs:  Full Command, additional hand weapons, big stabba            208

Special

Spear Chukka            35

Spear Chukka            35

Spear Chukka            35

Goblin Chariot  50

16 Black Orcs            :  Full Command, Banner of Eternal Flame            242

Rare

Giant:  200

Rock Lobba: Bully    95

Doom Diver:  80

Total Points:  2399

I don't really have a great turn by turn account of the game so I will hit up on some of the highlights.  

Did a few wounds during shooting phase, taking out a couple of Paul's dogs.  Also did a wound to his dragon with my doom diver.    Paul's turn saw him hitting my chariot with a level 2 fireball, but he managed a total of 2 wounds on the chariot while doing a miscast with his sorcerer and took out  a big chunk of that unit.   I killed the dragon with the rock lobber on my next turn and made a number of charges with my units.   My big'uns crushed the marauders they ran into, and went into his General's unit.   My savage orcs did some damage to another unit of marauders but two breath weapons in that unit cleared out most of my boys.  They decided to run, taking my shaman with them.   His unit then hit my Black Orcs, doing a ton of damage to them, but I stayed, rolling snake eyes.    My goblins spent all game assaulting a tower with 10 archers in it, finally getting in on turn 5.  Paul's Valkries ran around making a nuisance of themselves, killing my night goblin shaman, the orc arrer boys and black orcs.   A lack of magic items makes my army very vulnerable to ethereal.     My Big un's bus managed to destroy Paul's BSB, General and their unit, but by then were too far out of range to do much else.   The game ended turn 6 at 1200 to 2000 approximately with the green ones taking the win.   

Some observations:  

• Ethereal is tough.  I don't have enough characters equipped with magic weapons to deal with that special ability.
• Savage Orcs are good, but not enough on their own and in low numbers.    
• Big'uns are worth every point.   So are the warmachines.
• Don't forget to thunderstomp.
• Norse Ballads make the army tough.

Future Plans:  

• Try Night Goblins.  I would have this time, but forgot them at home.
• Get Painting.   I don't want to be painting this army at the last minute.
• Get another Doom Diver
• Get a few more cheap characters with magic weapons.

It was a pretty fun game and I want to play it again soon.  I don't really have much to purchase to make the army playable, but do want to get more metal night goblin models.
Til next time.
Chris

Norse vs. Daemons of Chaos

Yesterday I played my first game with my Norse army un-proxied.  I have gotten quite bit assembled now, so I was able to put together 2400 points to field against some filthy daemons.  Although it has been a long time since I played my other two practice games using proxy models for my Norse, I looked back at my previous post to refine my army list.  I also added some new units to try out, but still have not tried everything I would like to.

Another thing I did to prepare for playing with the Norse army again, was to make some helper tokens for their special abilities.  I made tokens for these three things:

• Berserkergang frenzy for the turn
• Seer/Vitki prophesizing unit buffs
• Skald songs unit buffs.

In my prior games, I found it difficult to keep track of all the buffs that were active on my units, so this was a must to be able to play the army again without my head spinning.  They helped a ton.  Unfortunately though, I completely forgot about the counter-charge ability, and didn't use it once this whole game!  I'll have to think up some aide to help me remember that one too.

Here's what I brought to the battle and the bonuses garnered by what I equipped them with:

• King - +1 Attack, 4+ Ward Save
• Seer - Level 2, Dispel Scroll, D3 bonus dice, but take a wound if fail toughness test.
• Skald - Battle Standard, 3+ Scaly Skin, 5+ Ward Save
• Skald - Extra Hand Weapon
• Jarl - Mounted on Fenrir Wolf, +1 toughness and Strength 3 breath attack
• 24x Huscarl - Razor Standard
• 38x Maraders - Great Weapons
• 10x Hunters
• 30x Marauders - Extra Hand Weapon
• 3x Valkyries
• 5x Giant Wolves
• 5x Giant Wolves
• Ice Drake

The first turn mainly consisted of me misusing my faster units.  I have not used fast redirectors much, which is the role filled by the wolves, so I ended up not using them as well as I could have.  The hunters and valkyries that I put to one side to deal with a unit of flesh hounds unfortunately did not fare well.  They could have done better if I played it a little differently.  Unfortunately for valkyries, their ethereal ability is worthless against an army full of magical daemons!  Not to mention flesh hounds are just deadly.

My ice drake ended up getting tied up with 3 fiends of Slannesh early too, so the rest of the battle consisted of a few big melee brawls of infantry in the middle of the table.  One unit I was interested in seeing perform was my jarl on fenrir wolf in the unit of marauders with extra hand weapon.  I set up the jarl with a magic item called the buckle of hagmar that gives him a breath weapon, and the fenrir wolf also has his own breath weapon, so I figured this would be pretty devastating to let loose in the first round of combat.  I charged them into a unit of daemonettes to find out.  The wolf's breath weapon was terrible against the deamonettes because it wounds when the model hit fails an initiative test, and the daemonettes are very high initiative.  Huh.  Didn't think of that.  So that was not as great as it could have been, but they did eventually take out the daemonette unit.

Magic went pretty bad, hopefully I can fit a higher level wizard into my next list.  I don't think I got a single spell off, even though I had a fireball with a tzeentch sorcerers name on it.  The huscarl unit with my king, battle standard bearer, and wizard in it ended up fighting two units of bloodletters in the front, and they fought very well I thought, but after my king died to a killing blow (bloodletters are awesome), the unit was doomed.  But just to make sure, my opponent brought the Bloodthirster of Khorne around into their flank.

In the end, the Norse suffered a minor loss, and I got to try some new things.  Good game!

Warhammer Armies: Norse

I've been playing my Lizardmen army exclusively for a long time.  I like the idea of starting another army, but none of the other armies currently offered by Games Workshop interest me much.  I stumbled across a fan produced rulebook for a Norse army, and that interested me quite a bit.  It is available at Warhammer Armies Project - click the Norse link on the top bar.  I've decided to embark on a journey to assemble an army of Norse that I can use at relaxed events and casual games.  Last Saturday, I got a game in using the Norse book and other models to proxy the Norse units.

I played against Iraf, who brought a formidable 2800 point Vampire Counts force.  Here's what I brought in my army:

• King on foot - The venerable lord general.
• Jarl on Fenrir Wolf - The hero with a frost breathing mount.
• Vitki - The lord level wizard, I chose shadow magic.
• Skald #1 - Hero that counts as a musician and can give an ability to his unit for a turn, ran in the Reavers unit.
• Skald #2 - Another one for the Huscarl unit.
• 24x Huscarl - This is the main elite infantry unit for the Norse.
• 24x Reavers - Basic humans with weapon skill of 4.
• 36x Marauders - Great weapons!
• 30x Bondsmen - Basic human troops
• 6x Snow Trolls - Armor Peircing and stupid.
• Ice Drake - Mini dragon you don't want to stand next to.
• 3x Valkyries - Flying ethereal awesome chicks.

Iraf had a couple of huge units of skeletons, a horde of ghouls, a big unit of Grave Guard, a Terrorgheist, a couple of Wight kings and Vampire lords, and one Necromancer.   I think Vampires are a pretty good match up for the Norse army, and I didn't feel like I was totally unprepared to deal with anything, but the unit of Grave Guard was very well equipped.  Everything I threw at it just got smacked around, as expected.  It was a good test to get a feel for my units though.

The Norse army has a lot of special rules to keep track of.  On top of the two special rules for the army in general; Counter-charge and Bezerkergang, the wizards and musicians have special effects they can temporarily bestow on friendly units which you have to remember to use and track.  I'm guessing these things will become second nature after a few more games though.

Lessons learned:

1. Jarl with Trolls - I set up my mounted Jarl with some melee bonuses including an item that forces the opponent to accept his challenges and placed him in the unit of trolls.  I figured this will give the Trolls some leadership and put the huge wolf base in a similar sized unit.  On second thought, there were a couple problems with my plan, the character is not the same troop type even though he is the same size, and will not get look out sir.  Also, the breath weapon ability of the Fenrir wolf mount isn't best utilized in a challenge, so I didn't really do his build well.  In the future, I think I will remove the troll unit, and run the mounted Jarl with a regular infantry unit and a different build, making him not challenge focused.
2. Proper use of units - The Norse has many different types of infantry.  I am not used to this, Lizardmen only have three types of basic infantry, only two of which is viable in melee.  I need to think more about how I deploy and use each unit.  I did not get enough use out of the Huscarl.  The Norse don't have a lot of tricks like war machines or special unit types, so getting the most out of the varied infantry types will be important.
3. Basic Marauders are great - I ran my 36 marauders in a horde formation, and they did great, this choice will stick around.
4. Valkyries are useful - The idea of this unit is awesome to me, but I was unsure how useful they would be considering how expensive they are and I only took 3.  I don't have much experience at using units to hold up the enemy as Lizardmen don't have much for that.  The Valkyries ended up holding up the Terrorgheist for the entire game with only one of the 3 dying to a scream.  I think that turned out to be a huge help for me.
5. Skalds are as cool as I thought - I liked the idea of these hero musicians enough to sacrifice enough points to fit a couple in, and they were well worth it.  The abilities they give are very helpful, and can't be stopped like spells.

Time to revise my army list and give it another go!

Warhammer Storm of Magic

Griffon from Games Workshop Storm of Magic book.

Last night, Eli and I waged our first Storm of Magic battle.  It felt a little like playing Warhammer for the first time, such was the impact of the adapted rules.  We just tried out the basic Storm of Magic setup rules, no special scenario.

Eli arrayed a High Elf force made up of a couple huge blocks of spearmen, a unit of White Lions, and one of Swordmasters, a White Lion chariot, and some Dragon Princes.  For his extra Storm of Magic points, he added a unit of Royal Unicorns, a decked out Griffon, and the Dawnseeker sword.

My 2500 points of Lizardmen were a couple big blocks of Saurus Warriors, a couple Stegadons, a pair of Salamanders, some Chameleon Skinks, and a random little unit of skinks. For Storm of Magic, I added in binding scrolls to give me a Zoat and plain Griffon, and threw in the Woodwakers Wand on my Slann Mage Priest.

Lizardmen got the first turn which largely consisted of me forgetting about all the bonuses that are the whole point of Storm of Magic.  I got a couple unimportant spells off after I shuffled my army forward, shot the customary Stegadon giant bow bolt into the ground, then handed it off to Eli.  He learned from my mistake in the magic phase and took advantage of some of the casting bonuses, but his winds of magic roll wasn't nearly as good, resulting in a magic phase similarly underwhelming as mine was.

We played three more turns before running out of time (over 3 hours), in which we bloodied each other fairly well, but showed no decisive winner.  There were a couple of wizard duels, Eli's general with the Dawnseeker sword largely cut through the weaker half of my army, and after getting the Woodwaker Wand bound spell off in the second turn, I proceeded to completely forget about my monstrous awakened forest of death for the rest of the game.  The Griffon fighting for the High Elves did pretty well, bringing the Slann down within 1 wound of death before he transported away to safety on another fulcrum.

It's hard to give a well formed opinion of this expansion after only one game, because it adds so much and will take some getting used to.  I really like the more personal feel it gives to the wizards.  The cantrips add a new element that turns your wizards into individuals struggling for power in your mind rather than just fountains of damage blanket buffs/de-buffs.  The cataclysm spells saw some use in our game, but it was actually pretty balanced.  Eli made a good match with the Lore of Metal and got some good use out of the new spells which tended to complement High Elves well.  I leaned more on the old spells from my lores, as the cataclysm spells at equilibrium only seemed useful at a few points in time for me.  I had also misunderstood how the cataclysm spells worked originally too, thinking you can only cast the specific spell for the level you are currently at (presence, equilibrium, dominance), but you actually have access to your current level and lower spells.

Regarding the scrolls of binding we took, our monsters saw some pretty good use.  Zoat weaved some good spells from the middle of a forest until he got run down by a White Lion chariot (which must have been built quite sturdy considering all the dangerous terrain tests it passed).  Both the unit of Unicorns and the basic Griffon on the Lizardmen side didn't really get a lot of use, so it's hard to judge their worth.  If nothing else, they made great meat for the grinder.  The mythic artifacts seem quite powerful.  The Dawnseeker sword in the hands of a character with a lot of attacks is just devastating, easily worth taking if in the right hands.  Sadly, I will have to save the judging of the Woodwakers Wand for another day, if I ever manage to get the bound spell off again.  I thought maybe if I make a custom terrain piece for it to replace the forest with when it goes off, I might actually remember to make it fight for me.

I'm looking forward to trying out another Storm of Magic game and getting more familiar with how it changes the game.  I'm glad I took four wizards, so will probably stick with that, but change up my Storm of Magic selections other than Zoat.  It seems like as we go through more games, some new strategies will be developed.  You want to make armies better geared to hold up and be defensive on the battlefield while at the same time having key things to own those fulcrum hugging wizards.