Club Night June 15th

It was time for my second league game, this time against Duncan. The last few parts had arrived so my Razorgor chariots now have beasts to pull them and crew. Now they just need painting, but they can be seen below.

Duncan had a new Lizardman army that was lots of skink skirmishers and couple of big blocks, with a Slaan mage using a Skink priest as his range extender. We rolled up the battle for the pass which again was advantageous for my opponent as it meant there was a smaller line for the big units to hold with the skirmishers able to act as a screen. Meanwhile I could barely fit all the chariots across the valley! And with Chameleon skinks behind me it could be interesting.

I started by advancing all the force but a unit of hounds forward. I began to get peppered with blowpipes and magic missiles. In response my shamans could manage little except for more miscasts! My BSB had his chariot destroyed and the hounds sent after the Chameleon Skinks had suffered casualties. But by now I had closed the range and was able to start charging and wiping out the skirmish screens. I made hard work of the cold one riders but managed to get them and was also able to deal with the threat of the Terahdons.

Once I had dealt with the screen I was able to start on the big blocks and begin to whittle them down by charging everything I could from any direction possible. In the end I didn't manage to do quite enough. The Kroxigor with their great weapons had made a difference with one block and a failed charge meant that I was unable to finish off the few surviving Temple guard and almost certainly their charge, the Slaan, as well. Unfortunately the few survivors of these big blocks meant that the VPs did not reflect what was an incredibly close run game.

Club Night 25th May

A new Warhammer league has kicked off. Having finished 3rd last year I was looking forward to this and had decided to try something different after a silly conversation earlier in the year. After scouring e-bay I have bought most of the listed Beastmen chariots and am deploying a force with no less than 12 of them, including some Razorgor chariots. Not knowing if this was going to work I hoped at least it would be fun to play. To open the league I booked a game to play Luke's slayer heavy dwarfs with an Anvil of doom. Immediately the gods were not with me as we rolled the watchtower scenario with the Dwarfs starting in it. With only two screens for my Shamans able to attack it, it was going to stay in their hands, just depended what I could do to the rest of the army!

I swept forward around the tower trying to ignore the missile fire. As my spells failed to cast, and actually caused me more losses due to miscasts (by the end both shamans would be dead thanks to their inability to control their magic!). Fortunately the Anvil of Doom was proving equally ineffective.

As my chariots started to impact I started to realise how good this army could be. Attacking in groups of 3 the impact hits could be devastating, and the extra attacks from the Razorgors were proving really useful. Even if I didn't break units I was reducing them so far that it was almost even in subsequent rounds. Gradually I wore down the dwarfs, charging extra chariots in for more impact hits whenever one was killed and a gap created.

Meanwhile on the other flank my hounds and harpies were managing to hold the Thunderers until a chariot arrived to swing the combat. By the end of the game there was only the dwarfs in the tower left, surrounded by Beastmen chariots like some kind of fantasy waggon circle! A good start for the Beastmen Chariot army of doom!

Club Night 6th January

Luke and I played our rescheduled league game after last week. Generally I struggle against Dwarves thanks to their high toughness and my sucky luck, but after the game against Colin and Luke's luck in his last league game I felt slightly confident.

When we rolled up the terrain my confidence changed as we rolled two settlements, plus a bunch of extra buildings and walls, so looked good defensive terrain. However it turned out Luke had no warmachines or missile troops so was going to have to bring the fight to me, as much as I was going to need to close with him. Also the 8th edition rule make moving through obstacles with my chariots a lot easier. My magic also looked good as I got the spells from shadows that reduced the enemies toughness.

We both set up with the bulk of our forces quite centrally. I put my Giant and the Minotaurs on my left and my Ungors on the left against the Iron-Breakers. Both sides moved forward to get to grips. I moved the giant towards the middle, while the Minotaurs moved out further to circle around, while the dwarf warriors moved to face them. On the other flank the Iron-Breakers and the Ungors began a fight, that somehow the Ungors managed to keep losing, but having more ranks were stubborn and kept passing their break tests.

In the centre a general melee had broken out which I gradually got the upper hand in, and then finally broke through, particularly helped by my magic, reducing the enemies toughness and increasing the strength and attacks of my already quite obscene general on his chariot (one turn he was throwing out 14, strength 10 attacks!). Luke continuously failed to stop my magic, despite help from various runes.

Once I broke through the middle, and the Minotaurs swept round the flank, I finally managed to rescue my Ungors and get another victory against the dwarves.

Club Night 9th December

I had finally arranged another Warhammer league game, this time against Colin and his dwarves. With a mass of warmachines and some favourable terrain it looked like it could be tricky. However some gods somewhere were on my side, warmachines misfired and destroyed themselves, thunderers could not hit, even before I used the chalice of dark rain and all my spells went off. Seeing my general under the influence of Mantle of Ghorok chucking out over 10 attacks was an awesome sight! I think my luck was confirmed when they finally killed my giant and for the dirst time ever he fell over on top of the unit he as fighting and took some of them with him

In the end I achieved a good victory and moved up the league table. Whether I can catch Duncan and his Daemons is another issue though.

Club Night 23rd September

I arranged a league game against Laurence and his Dark Elves. We had to leave some forces in reserve and I found myself starting without one of my Shamans, the Minotaurs and the Giant. The rest of my force deployed on my right leaving space for the others to arrive.
I swept my line forward pivoting on the building to close with the Dark Elf line. I came under heavy bow fire and magic as I advanced and my charge rolls seriously let me down. My Bestigors charged forward twice and turned around and charged back after the Shades once, and never moved more than 3" for their failed charges!

However despite my chariots being shot up quite badly they charged into the corsairs and crossbowman and managed to break and chase down both of them. However the Gors got caught up and eventually cut down by the enemy sorcerer, angered by the nearby alter of Khaine and protected from harm by the pendant of Khaleth.

My General had his chariot shot from under him, but at least managed to kill the Shades so he made a slight contribution.On the other flank my reserves arrived and the Giant failed to charge the chariot while my Minotaurs also failed to charge. The Giant was charged by the chariot but survived and managed to crush it before charging in and inflicting heavy casualties on the cold one riders, who then brought him down. The spearmen and their assassin charged the Ungors I had positioned to cover the flank of the Minotaurs, discouraging anyone charging them previously with mind-razor so they where strength 7!

However without the spell to enhance them, they fled and failed to rally, leaving the table. The spearmen redirected into the Minotaurs and fought them to a draw, but with a musician they won, and the Minotaurs failed their break test, fled and also failed to rally, leaving the table very ignobly. Despite bombarding the spearmen with magic I could not break them and the game drew to a close.

I was defeated, and by more victory points than expected, but felt a lot closer and I was pleased with how my tactics worked, even if some key dice rolls let me down too badly to be able to compensate for.

Club Night 5th August

My Blood Angels got their first run out in the club 40k league. I had managed to flat coat them, but unfortunately I got a slight whitening on some of the models so I need to revisit them and see if I can rescue them. Any ideas?

My first game was against Ian's Dark Angels. It was going to be interesting as both being marines we would be fairly similar and I had no idea what I would be facing. It turned out there were two elements to his force, 3 units of Deathwing lead by Belial, and 3 tactical squads led by a chaplain with his command squad, supported by scouts and a vindicator.

I finally decided to deploy some of my army on the table as we played a capture and control mission with spearhead deployment. I started with two assault squads, both with a sanguinary priest and supported by a land speeder on table, with the plan to launch them in opposite directions using the terrain to cover them before they could assault, avoiding the giant shell from the vindicator.

My squads bonded forward, coming under some desultory fire from the scouts and one of the tactical squads, but mostly staying out of sight. My deep striking reserves then arrived with the help of descent of angels. The veterans arrived immediately behind the enemy objective, declaring a heroic intervention to charge the terminators defending it, while the two death company units spread out to support them.

Here is where I took my first serious set-back. Both the chaplain with his combi-melta and the land speeder with the multi-melta missed the vindicator, leaving it free to fire accurately at Astorath and his Death company killing all but the Blood Angel hero and one of his crazed companions, while the chaplain and his squad came under fire from Belial and his escorts and a tactical squad and were also reduced to the chaplain and 1 death company.

Fortunately it wasn't all going against me. I had run one assault squad away from the enemy chaplain when I realised they were too far away to assault, and the other squad was working its way through a terminator squad, despite the re-enforcement of a tactical squad. And the veterans were having more success. Another tactical squad had hurried in to support the terminators that had been their initial target, but having lost the combat, the tactical squad fled from the combat with such speed they left the table.

The land speeder then moved around the rear of the vindicator and destroyed it, while the final assault squad had dropped in ready to support the other assault squads while the chaplain and his companion proved no match for Belial and his terminators, but Astorath and his survivor demonstrated how terrifying a full squad would have been by destroying the scouts in a single combat.

Almost all my unit were now in combat, with one assault squad reducing the command squad to just the Interrogator chaplain, and the other two combining to destroy the terminators and all but one tactical marine who stubbornly held on, while I moved the other units around to avoid Belial until I could launch a co-ordinated attack, but luckily my heavy flamer managed to kill two of them.

I finished off the survivors and moved my assault squads and surviving veterans into a position to attack Belial and his Deathwing, while one assault squad hurried back to claim my own objective. I then launched my final assault and took down Belial by sheer number and some poor armour saves.

I had managed to claim a total victory by wiping out the enemy, but I had learnt a lot. The death company can still get killed by massed small arms fire, and their pistol fire is better to sacrifice in place of a run when they deep strike to spread out so they are not as vulnerable to template weapons. Ian's army was good, but he needed to be more aggressive, probably by deep striking his terminators, and maybe in the longer term getting some Rhinos for his other marines. But at least I managed to start this league with a victory, lets see if I can maintain my momentum.

Club Game Sunday 30th May

Mike has organised both Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 leagues to run over the next 9 months. Since Chris D was off work and I was taking along weekend we decided to meet up for the inaugural game of the Warhammer league, pitting my Beastmen against Chris' Goblins.

And it was a struggle! Chris fielded a pair of giant spiders, but they actually were the least of my worries. He also had 4 units of 40 night goblin archers. And these caused me serious issues. Using volley fire they could chuck out 30 shots a turn, and if I tried to actually attack them, unleash 3 fanatics each.

And this was my downfall. My largely unarmed Beastmen suffered under unending missile fire. It may only be S3 against T4, but with the number of shots the odds were in the Gobbos favour. This was not helped by the unerring accuracy of their bolt shooters bringing down my giant, and failed charge rolls for my minotaurs exposing them to more fire so neither of my elite units even made it into combat.

Although my general on his chariot managed to cleave through a couple of units with some support the rest of my army fell. The only upside is the enemy shaman-general managed to blow himself up repeatedly and give away some valuable victory points. Hopefully the results for the rest of the league will improve!