War in the Underway - battle three

Mighty Warlord Gruzzkup hefted his massive choppa and let out a full throated waaagh! The sound was picked up by the assembled Big Uns and the Arrer boyz, echoing and re-echoing around the narrow caverns.
Despite the powerful noise, Gruzzkup frowned. Something, or some things were missing. Casting his eyes around he reached out and grabbed a quivering scrawny snotling by the throat.
“Where’s a da chariot, Bwortryl?” he hissed menacingly at the creature.
“Dey…dey’s frown a wheel boss, be mended by tomorra dey recko…argk”
“And Weblitz ladz, where are dey at you spineless, backstabbing maggot?”
“Spinning accident, boss, they’s all tangled up in dere own webs, be freed up by tom…urghaaaagh”
The hulking warboss hurled the snotling into the wall of the cave.
“If yer wanna job doin’, do it yerself” he grumbled and pointed his choppa toward the end of the cavern.

 Gruzzkup and da Ladz

 Re Cap Gobbos

At least one lot of spiders made it

This was the final battle of the first game/scenario in the campaign. We were level at one game each and I still had my big force to use. Except that when I checked my army lists I realised I was cheating. One force should be twice the size of the others. My opponent had two forces of three units each and one of six. I’d somehow ended up with one of three, one of four and one of five. Now whilst it might be quite in character for a goblin, or Skaven to employ sneaky underhand tactics like that, something clearly had to be done. So I reduced my final force from five units to just three, in effect making the army I’d used in the previous game my “main” force. So I was left with just my warboss, his unit of Big ‘Uns and some Arrer boys to face some night goblins and spider riders led by a shaman.

As Gruzzkup led da boys into the cavern, an unearthly cry rent the air. Gruzzkup raised his arm to halt the column and sniffed the air. Cockytrize. Big gribbly fing, that he didn’t need to complicate his plans. Gesticulating to the left, he marched the lads away from the chaos beast’s nest.

 Skwark!

One of the random events in the Underway is the possibility of a monster turning up and getting in the way. In this case we had a Cockatrice to use, so I placed it to cover one of the cavern sides, hoping to funnel the enemy onto the blades of my Orc Boys. Though it did rather restrict the field of fire of the Arrer boys.

Gruzzkup narrowed his eyes. Through the gloom he could make out a cavorting goblin urging the bow armed night goblins to hold their ground. However the little chaps clearly had other ideas, and after a brief altercation launched themselves toward the Orcs. Order was restored before they crashed home, and Gruzzkup prepared to launch the lads into the puny goblins, but as he turned to urge the lads on, a rock, hurled by one of the Arrer boys clanged off his helmet. Before he could speak the lads were returning fire, and he had to start cracking skulls with the flat of his choppa to restore order.
Turning back to the threatening goblins he watched with glee as the capering shaman grew overladen with raw waaagh power and blew himself apart, taking almost half the unit with him.
Da Boys roared with laughter as the diminutive goblins soiled themselves and fled. But the uproar had a disastrous effect on the roof of the cavern, and with a fearful crash the ceiling came crashing down, burying six of the boys.

 Da ladz get crushed!

It really wasn’t going well for my opponent, failed animosity test followed by a hideous miscast removed the night goblins as much of a threat. A cave-in wasn’t what I wanted, but didn’t really do much damage to my force.

The night goblins somehow got a grip on themselves and turned back toward the Orcs. And then promptly wished they hadn’t as the enraged Big Uns crashed home and butchered them. Holding the boys in check, Gruzzkup turned them to face the remaining Spider Riders. The forest goblin chief hesitated for a second and then decided to seize his moment of glory and charged the lads home, hoping poison would see to Gruzzkup and halt the Orc advance. Gruzzkup and the ladz, grinned, hefted their weapons and slaughtered the entire unit.
Gruzzkup roared in triumph, the field was his!

 Da boyz get da job dun

Eeek Spiderz!

Flush 'em darn da plug 'ole

Another fun game, with random events spicing things up. The Cockatrice didn’t really have any impact on the game, but it was fun to imagine she might.

Stevos Mini Soldiers blog has an alternate view of my heroic triumph.