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
