19th February
2004
Here are the latest batch of games which took place at the club
on Thursday 19th February 2004...and a proper Battle Report this
week, courtesy of Steve, one of our newer members, with a few additional
comments from me.
Game: 25mm Fantasy
Rules: Warhammer Fantasy
We play all sorts of games at the club, from Ancients to WWII and
of late there’s even been quite a bit of Games Workshop’s ‘Lord
of the Rings’. Axis & Allies even made a recent appearance,
much to the amusement of many club members. Basically, if you
put on a game, someone will play it. That said, very few fantasy
or science fiction games are played, probably because eveyone’s
so engrossed in ther Swedish Gallopers or SS Flammenwerfers.
I recently built up a 2000 point Warhammer Fantasy Battle, fantasy
orc army for the Sheffield Slaughter tournament. There I was duely
slaughtered by some fabulous armies that tore me to pieces! Being
the sort of chap that likes to rise to a challenge, I’ve
discovered that several of the club members here have fantasy armies
as well! In particular, a sub-group of Warhammer 40,000 players
meet on a Tuesday night, away from the regular Thursdays.
So, with some trepidation, Graeme (Webmaster) and I resolved to
have a game or two and I at least am looking at this as training
for
future
tournaments.
The Orcs (Steve)
I’d learned a lot in Sheffield. Particularly that characters
seemed better off unattached from their units and that a unit of
6 trolls was little more than a free 300 victory points to my opponent!
So my army underwent some revision that saw the core troops thinned
out and the addition of some hard hitters like the fabulous Boar
Boyz. The army itself is themed around an orc tribe and so I have
no goblins or lesser species in it. The orcs simply wouldn’t
allow such weedy creatures the honour of fighting alongside them!
I also learned that greenskin magic its not only powerful, but
brilliant fun! More than once, Gork himself helped me by stamping
all over the opposition, although I paid for it with shamans that
regularly exploded! Nevertheless, I wanted more of it in the army.
Graeme has Vampire Counts and so I knew that magic was going to
be a problem. I could do something about this. I also knew that
fear and terror would be a problem for me. There was little I could
do about this. I took along an orc hero for the Leadership of 9
but even so, knew I’d be failing and fleeing fairly regularly.
I had some hard hitting units, including Boar Boyz, Trolls, a
Boar Chariot and my trusty Giant, ‘Lug’. I also had
powerful magical support, with two Level 2 Shamans and one Level
4, and I was confident I could take on the Nechrach army, particularly
with 10 power dice, 6 dispel dice, 5 dispel scrolls and magical
items that meant I could cast my Big Waaagh! Spells twice and reroll
any of those castings. This of course relied on the premise that
the boyz didn’t spot the shambling horde and decide thay
had extremely pressing engagements elsewhere!
The Vampire Counts (Graeme)
Well, I don't think my Magic was quite as fearsome as Steve predicted,
nevertheless, it was pretty darn potent. I fielded a Necrach Vampire
Count army which consisted of 3 Vampires, one of which was a Count
on a Winged Nightmare, a Necromancer, a Banshee, Black Coach and
units of Dire Wolves, Black Knights, Skeletons and a Spirit Host.
I hoped to raise more Skeletons as the game progressed.
Game 1
The set up
Graeme and I set up the terrain in a mutually agreed way, filling
the flanks with forests, villages and hills, while leaving the
centre ground open for the bash. As I prefer a ‘refused flank’ approach
to fighting, this suited me well.
Orcs
Rolling for magic I was happy with what I got. The three big spells
for me are Fists of Gork, Warpath of Gork and Waaagh! And I got
all these. Often I found that the magic phase starts by casting
lesser spells in the hope that the opponent has little defense
left by the time you come to your big spell at the end. With these
three spells I don’t mind which one I get cast!
We deployed the armies one unit at a time and I was quite happy
with the deployment. My hard hitters were facing off against Graeme’s
Black Coach and dire wolves and thankfully, his ethereal troops
(Spirit Host and Banshee) were lined up against my Arrer Boyz.
I see these troops are orcs from the tribe that have committed ‘crimes’ and
have been forced into the shameful role of archers. They are considered
not quite ‘orcky’ enough and highly expendable by the
tribe and funnily enough by me. Hopefully Graeme would send his
ethereals off after these!
Vampire Counts
Setup was predictable, I wanted my Black Coach to tie up his strongest
unit, while my flanks would be protected by the Ethereal models.
Hopefully he would fail a terror/fear test or two and leave some
holes in his line.
Turn 1 - Orcs
I got the first turn and marched everything forwards. My battle
plan is fairly simple, get the boyz into the mixer as early as
possible and smack the opponent about until he gives in! Orcs are
not subtle.
My magic and shooting was fairly ineffective as I concentrated
on trying to destroy his general on a winged nightmare and the
spirit hosts. Neither fell, although I did get three hits on the
host. And so play passed to Graeme.
Turn 1 - Vampire Counts
My magic was equally ineffective....bugger. Time to advance (or
should that be shamble forwards).
Turn 2 – Orcs
I was now in range for my favourite tactic (maching up as close
as possible to the enemy and then using the Waaagh! Spell to press
home the charge) and marched the boyz forwards towards the shuffling
horde. The trolls charged Graeme’s skirmishing ghouls, wiped
them out and overran into his cavalry! Unfortunately, my Waagh!
spell (as so often happens) was dispelled and I was left facing
a full charge. Never mind, at least the trolls were enjoying themselves!
Turn 2 – Vampire Counts
I'd used the ghouls as a skirmish line...big mistake as it turned
out. I moved away from my Battle Plan (never a good idea) and decided
to charge his chariot with my Black Coach. My big mistake was to
voluntarily break my Necromancer who had stryed into charge distance......this
left me some dispel dice short.
Turn 3 – Orcs
Well, I survived relatively intact. Amazingly, the whole army
succeeded in its psychology tests and stood firm! Only the Chariot
had problems, fleeing from the Black Coach. In fact, in all the
games I’ve played, this Chariot has yet to make a successful
charge! It usually gets charged, flees and then rallies just in
time to take no further part in the game. I’ll have to have
words with the crew.
The Trolls were slapping Graeme’s cavalry about in the center
and the Boar Boyz were having similar fun with the dire wolves.
With very little left unengaged and filled with orky ‘Green’ (extra
power dice from the orcs in close combat), the shamans started
babbling and calling on Mork and Gork for aid.
Gork answered and began a rampaging ‘Warpath’, fully
ready to flatten everything. Bizarrely, Graeme chose not to dispel
the Warpath, despite the fact that it was targeting his general!
With a mighty ‘THUMP!!’ Gorks veruca-pocked, cheesy
green heel smacked down on the Nechrach and ground him into the
dirt!!
I couldn’t believe it, the game was effectively over and
Graeme conceeded!!!! Just when it was getting interesting too.
Conclusion – Orcs
Gork won it! All bow before the magificent green orckiness himself!!
That said, given the fact that pretty much my whole army had stood
in the face of the fear and terror, Graeme was going to have a
hard time. The orcs make mincemeat of undead IF they can stand
their ground, so I think I probably would have won it in the long
run.
Conclusions – Vampire Counts
Stupid mistake, I figured that he would need good rolls just to
get the Warpath spell to do even minor damage...how wrong I was.
I was just looking at that big pile of power dice he had left,
and thought maybe I should just hang on for a while.....splat!!!!
Memo to self........learn from mistakes.
As half the evening’s play still remained we decided to
have another go.
Game 2
The set up
Orcs
Rolling for magic I got pretty much the same selection which suited
me fine. We left the terrain as it was and began deploying the
armies in a similar way.
This time however, Graemes ethereal troops were deployed in the
center where they were going to cause me a lot of problems. His
cavalry joind the Black coach out on the flank, facing off against
my hard hitters and his General sat squarly in the center of the
battle line. My deployment was basically the same. The only difference
being that I put one unit of arrer boyz on each flank rather than
both on one.
Vampire Counts
Thought I'd try something different. I'd seen how effective his
trolls could be, so thought I'd tie them up with my 3 Spirit Host
bases. My fast units were on the flanks.
Turn 1 - Vampire Counts
Attack attack attack.....got my magic through as well, which used
up some of his dispel scrolls.
Turn 1 - Orcs
Graeme got the first turn and this time stormed across the battlefield
towards me, really laying the challenge down! His magic phase was
largely ineffective (thanks to my dispel scrolls) and play passed
to me.
This time I was determined that my Waaagh! plan would work and
I marched forward in readiness. The trolls were close enough to
charge the dire wolves, which they duely did.
Once again, with my army stood within charge range of the undead,
my magic phase began with a few ineffective Gaze of Morks. Despite
having a fistful of Dispel dice, Graeme failed to stop the Waaagh!
and all the boyz surged forwards. Unfortunately, with some spectactularly
poor dice rolling, most of them stopped short by a couple of inches...disaster!
the Boar boyz were the oly unit to strike home, crashing into Graeme’s
cavalry.
In the following combats, the trolls performed a fabulously ineffective
scufflew ith the wolves, but the Boar Boyz smacked home in a truly
devastating blast, completely destroying the skeletal horsemen!!
With nothing to overrun onto behind, they stayed put with an extremely
self satisfied look on their faces.
Turn 2 - Vampire Counts
Attack attack attack........this time, i got my terror causing
units into a more effective position and his units duly obliged
by failing some terror tests. Bye bye.....
Turn 3 – Orcs
Oh Dear. Rather more predictably than the first battle, pretty
much my whole army, faced with two terror casuing troops and charged
by fear causers, upped stumps and fled to the hills. From this
point on, the game is pretty much over, but with a Giant, Boar
Boyz, all my characters and Arrer Boyz still in it, things could
swing back my way. The Arrer Boyz mucked in with the Trolls and
killed off the Wolves, overruning into the ghouls behind. The giant
charged into the black coach, yelling and bawling all the way!
Aside from this the Boar Boyz, tried to charge Graems Necromancer
who wisely turned tail and ran, leaving a failed charge that set
them up for a decent charge next turn.
Turn 4 - Vampire Counts
Didn't realise a Banshee could be so effective...routed his Boar
Boyz nicely it did.
Turn 4 – Orcs.
Well, that’s it. The Banshee has routed my Boar Boyz, most
of what’s left is engaged and outnumbered and although I
could probably still put up a hard fight, it was 10:30 and Graeme
pretty much had it in the bag. So I conceded for a very respectable
one all draw finish to the evening!
Overall conclusions
Orcs – Steve
Well, a couple of very fun games. Orcs are a great army to use.
Rock hard and real heavy hitters, they are however, brittle in
the morale. Once it starts going wrong, there’s very little
to stop a full scale rout. When I could get into combat, Graeme’s
units stood little chance, but the cascading failures triggered
by fear and terror destroyed my in the second game.
Animosity isn’t too much of a problem either and the presence
of Black Orcs to quell the squabbling really makes a difference.
It really didn’t affect me at all, except for one internal
squabble among the arrer boyz.
Orcs magic is awesome, with numerous excellent spells. Quite often
it is as destructive to you as the enemy, but in these two games,
it generally favoured me. Coupled with the bonuses for getting
the orcs into melee, I effectively shut down Graeme’s magic.
In the whole two games he got off no more that 2-3 spells and most
of them were innefective. Crucially, he only got a couple of invocations
into play, one to heal the spirit host in game one and one to summon
7 skeletons.
Graeme is, like all the chaps at the club, a great opponent to
play against. The club has a ‘taking part’ ethic that
makes most games immensely enjoyable, good-natured and fun. For
the most part, the results of battles are secondary to the enjoyment
of playing. Grameme usually kicks me at English Civil War battles
and I usually kick him at WWII. In the end, like these two battles
we come out even!
Warhammer Fantasy is an interesting game, with its own strange
play-flows. It is mightily fun and the figure quality is second
to none. There’s not much as impressive of the table top
as two well painted fantasy armies and this element at least, seemed
to impressed the other club members.
I think this may become one of the many regular games we play.
Vampire Counts
Ages since I'd played tis on a regular basis....forgotten how
enjoyable it was. Great fun, and Steve is a good (and sporting)
opponent. Disappointed with the first game, but things worked more
or less how I'd hoped in the second. One footnote though, I may
have to look at the Magic thing as it was nowhere near as dominant
as I'd been led to believe.
Game: 6mm WW2
Rules: GHQ Microarmour
Game: 25mm Rennaisance
Rules: Warhammer ECW With Amendments
Game: 15mm Medieval
Rules: Medieval Warfare
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