Best Served Cold

Its been a very long time since I've had the chance to post here. Work has been heavier than ever, and on top of that I've been doing some freelance stuff. Many things have happened: another year older for one, forced to miss club nights and D&D nights to hit deadlines, yet there's been Dark Heresy, the Warhammer Vets League at the club, prep for club shows, a taste of D&D... and I finally trashed the Warriors of Chaos! (Woop!)

Back to dungeon to contemplate defeat. Heh.

After Harky's withdrawal, I shamefully made my appearance in the club vet's league as first 'standby' from 9th place in last year's league. The simple league ladder of 'everyone plays everyone once' system had proven cumbersome over time, so we trialled world cup style 'pools' of four players each for this one, with the top two of each group going through to knockout stages. All things considered, I reckoned I was in the easy group. Group A had overall first - Robert (although he opted to take in his daemons rather than continue with dark elves), Craddock with his ogres, Ryan and his High Elves, then Craig with the Greenskins. I landed up in Group B with Jamie's Tomb Kings, Geoffers' Skaven and Tam's Warriors of Chaos.

It takes 6 games in all to play out a group, so it has gone in pretty quickly. As I type this, there is only one left to go - a tense group decider for my pool between Geoffers and Tam. Mine were all very challenging games against tough opponents with good lists. I took Jamie first. My own army list had mainly stuck to one I trialled against Tam in his last foray with the old Warriors of Chaos book. Three screams, one mighty expensive (but alas not bulletproof) Strigoi King, a Mortis Engine, Terrorgheist, Grave Guard for the hard nut and lots of skelly and squishy cheese shepherded along by some low level necromancers.

I didn't deploy very well against Jamie, and I let myself be drawn into his killing zones too easily. He had a large unit of skelly archers, a skull catapult, necroknights on big cobras, a necrosphinx, tomb guard with tomb prince, a couple of wizards and a chariot unit. My terrorgheist did its job and almost took out the necroknights early on before nailing the catapult. The Vampire's unit took some catapult hits and magic damage on the advance. His chariots proved much tougher than I remembered, but once I engaged I was doing real damage. Unfortunately, every time he successfully got spells off (I think he had a level 4 mage if memory serves), then the casualties were standing right back up again. I hate it when that happens! Still, the vampire got his tomb guard unit down to the edge before a lucky hit from a rank and file guard lopped his head off with killing blow! After that I didn't have the teeth to hurt him, especially against that necrosphinx. The hexknights gave him a little fright by marauding over his lines, taking out the lesser mage, the bunker unit and the hierophant to boot - but by then alas it was too late! With no real quality left, he just milled through me.

Necrosphinx: not content with killing thousands, it came back to kill some more.

Tough opponents the TK. Either I seem to plaster them, or they return the favour and nail me. Stamping them out is the key. The number of spells they get off just sees their units continually bouncing back - even though most units don't seem intrinsically that dangerous to start with. He worked an interesting combo with the necrosphinx, taking a necrotect character which gave it a regen. save on top of its humongous toughness and good armour save. Very hard to kill!

Couple of weeks off club and then it was the battle with Tam. We played a river and a village on this one, in diagonally opposing corners. The bridge lay next to the obvious killing zone in the middle of the field. I got to set up on the river side, electing to put the 'soft' wing of the army behind it. The hard punching side would rush the village as his units emerged from round it. On the far of the village, opposing my heavy right, he placed his L4 mage general (3+ ward, rerolls all 1s!) on a disc, and 5 chaos knights. I would have to deal with them first before engaging with his centre. In the middle he fielded his war altar, vortex beastie, 2 units of 18 chaos warriors with heroes / champions, and the hellcannon. The knights would have to go fast - the disc I'd be lucky to catch so I decided to ignore it and focus on what I could actually kill. If I nailed the knights the vampire and his grave guard (supported by the terrorgheist) would swing around and hopefully roll up the flank of his line as they bogged down in my tar pit wing.

Hexknights (or hexwraiths, I suppose). Joyous distraction!

The knights fell after I made a (very) long charge, although they held on until the bottom of turn 2 due to their strong armour - which wasnt to plan. I moved skeletons onto the bridge to block it in the hope that Tam would go there and not actually try to just wade across. This fixed the main locus for the fighting. As the game wore on, my zombie units on the far left crawled ever so slowly forwards and into the river... The terrorghiest snuck around behind buildings to avoid charges and hopefully the attentions of the hellcannon. It went on to nail the vortex beast and decimate a unit of chaos warriors. The hex knights were superb in this battle: as ethereal fast cavalry they threaded through buildings and enemy units with ease. Even though the damage they dealt wasn't great, they held Tam's eye for the whole game and probably saved him from blasting the rest of my army to bits.

In a sweet turn of luck, the hellcannon misfired and immolated itself around turn 3. Shame that, really. The chaos warriors charged the bridge however and made short work of the skeletons. The other unit came around the village and eventually clashed with the vamp and his grave guard (heavily pummelled by the level 4 mage and a hellcannon hit). Nevertheless, the strigoi  proved to be worth his salt and tore them up. Putting the other trickster's shard on him played havoc with Tam's saves, which was all to the good! The screams from skabscrath, the terrorgheist and the mortis engine were also  taking their toll on chaos lines. As I'd planned, once his units were worn down, the rank bonus on my cheese units was helping them to make a mark in combat.

I love it when a plan comes together.

The battle in front of the bridge was tight until turn 5 though. The mortis engine blew after the war altar charged it, and then he used his altar's bound spell to buff up the chaos warriors. The chaos warrior unit on the bridge wiped out the skellies and came about to charge down towards the vampire battling the other chaos warrior unit. In the meantime, the strigoi had milled down the chaos warriors fighting him to a mere handful. Then Tam pulled his trump card and turned the unit hero into a daemon prince! Turns out they aint so tough - the vamp folded him like a pretzel and wiped out the remains of its unit for good measure. Mwahaha I love it when a plan comes together!

As a cherry on the cake - by my turn 6 the zombies had been growing steadily thanks to the necromancers (who both blew their own asses off and cascaded into the warp incidentally - I must be more careful with the minions...) and had finally waded across the river next to the bridge. The remaining chaos warrior unit - fresh from reducing my skellies to bonemeal - now had their backs to them and presented a ripe target. I charged them in the arse with the squishies, clipped one zombie to one chaos warrior (thanks to Craddock we no longer slide to maximise) and won by a landslide on combat res. The chaos boys bricked it and ran, only to be caught and torn to pieces by a 100 points of rotting, shambling tarpit cheese. Happy days!

Zombies attempt the victory powerslide. It cant end well.

Well, that cheered me up no end! No luck this time, Tam, although to be fair his list has taken a knock with the new book. Once he wraps his head around it, I'm sure he'll be back on form, but for now it was rather satisfying to stick the boot in whilst he was down. Yaas!

Last weekend I followed up the triumphant win with my final group game against Geoffers' Skaven. It was horrifying watching him set up. Three blocks of infantry - one of about 50, the others around 80 apiece. So many to kill.... These held the centre, with a war lightning cannon behind them, a doomwheel on his left, and a abomination on his right. I went for my usual cheese wing with the heavy right hook, although I changed deployment when I saw him stick his abomination down across from my cheese wing. I stuck the terrorgheist out there to fend it off, although unfortunately it was well away from the vampire's marching bubble, so was limited to a paltry 10" flying move.

The game started well. Geoffers, crept back towards his own table edge whilst my line lurched forwards to close. His doomwheel and my hexwraiths got into a standoff on either side of a building (I found out the doomwheel's bolts count as warp generated and are therefore magical attacks!), leading to the doomwheel failing its charge on my mortis engine in turn 2. Geoffers was also scared to have the terrorgheist get too close to the abomination, so instead of advancing it tracked right across the front of his own lines towards the centre.

The Abomination proved to be... abominable.

All seemed well - I was closing fast, the warp lightning cannon wasn't able to bring down the mortis engine and Geoffers seemed a bit nervous and made some unforced errors. Then he got off his 13th spell on the vampire and his grave guard, turning 14 of them into fecking rats! He withered them to boot, reducing their toughness permanently by 1. With so many models in front of them (and with ld 10 to boot off their ranks bonus) my army's screams were having little effect. The terrorgheist got the abomination down to half wounds, but then he promptly charged it with his monstrous beast and ripped its wings off. The general's unit engaged, killed shedloads over a couple of rounds of combat, but the skaven unit was always stubborn due to its ranks bonus, and I had nothing to flank with and disrupt him.

The impassible Skaven meatwall. Chewier than dried mutton.

He sealed it in turn 4  - it seemed to be floating in the balance until then - when the doomwheel fired its lightning bolts into combat and blew the mortis engine. The resulting blast killed my withered vamp and the army underwent a crumble test which wiped out the hexwraiths and a fair slice of my tarpit cheese (which had been growing like mould in a warm room until then). I had a few interesting points after: the skeletons actually outranked the skaven meat slab they were fighting at one point, robbing them of their stubborn rule and actually winning combat. It could have been mightily promising, especially as he failed the break - but he passed the reroll due to his battle standard bearer. The tow zombie units mobbed the abomination after the terrorgheist went down (and far too bloody tamely in my opinion!) and experienced some nasty damage from the beast. It has random attacks from a chart, a bit like a giant. Very nasty indeed against expensive well armoured troops, but with zombies who cares! I lucked out, beat it with combat res cos he didn't kill enough squishies, and chased it off the field. Satisfying, but alas it was a Pyrrhic victory. Still though, come on the zombies! Smashing a 300 pt unit of chaos warriors in one game and then bagging an abomination in the next! Just need to get the rest of the army to pull its weight now...

With my games in the pool done, I've scored 5 - not enough to get through, but it was fun and satisfying nonetheless. I had a fair shout at winning in each of the games, even though the TKs and Skaven ended up caning me in the end. Thoughts for the future? Enemy players concentrate all they have on the Mortis Engine and the vampire in that unit of grave guard. The hex wraiths are immensely good fun now I've figured out how to use them, and no one expects the untold powers of a zombie horde! I need to have a good think about army selection next time out though. The Strigoi is hard, but he's too many eggs in one basket, and his save is not good enough. Running him close to the Mortis Engine to up his regen. is too dangerous as it inevitably blows and hurts him. The grave guard are catching too much flak as well. The terrorgheist is a champ though. Maybe next time I should take two?

Time to have a think about it all.

The last month has seen a good few Tuesday RPGs go down too.  Martin ran another session of D&D, with his Ravenloft adventure. This time the party moved from the city down to a good old dungeon crawl as we penetrated into a tomb and began to uncover what the Dark Lord of the place is up to. There was more Dark Heresy too from Robert, which has been pimpass good fun. More of that in the next post however! Times knocking on so for now, its time for bed...