Dragon Rampant - Chaos and Dark Elves (2)

As the chill winds and rain lashed down on the bleak valley Takra Vilecut strained his keen eyes to see what moved beneath the storm-heavy skies. To his right at the head of the valley he could make out the misshapen followers of Tzeentch as they lumbered their way back North. Vilecut and his followers had tracked the slow moving Chaos horde and he had picked this spot as the perfect place to make his ambush. The followers of Tzeentch would think twice before crossing into his lands again.
A movement across the valley caught his gaze - good, the rest of his force was in position - time to spring the trap!

Domestic travails (me), international travel (Steve)  and going back to work (Gen. B) have all rather put a kibosh on gaming recently. Plus I've been unable to bully persuade any small children into playing with me.

So after last month's solo Dragon Rampant game I decided I'd have another go. I used the same forces as last time. I was intending to give a Warbeast a try or introduce some magic but I ran out of time to fiddle and fettle with the army lists.

I had a quick look in the book and decided the Death Chase scenario made good sense. The Chaos forces, attempting to fell back after their defeat in the last game, are ambushed in Northern Naggaroth....

The dark Elf general and Cold ones lined up on the left flank of the Chaos force.

Whilst the other spearmen, crossbowmen and Dark Riders emerged from the right

The Chaos army had the knights in the centre, flanked by the foot Marauders with the two units of mounted Marauders covering the flanks

The Dark Riders sped towards the Chaos right flank and engaged in a missile duel with the Marauders, to no real effect on either side.
Meanwhile the rest of the Chaos army pushed onward (bar the knights, who failed to move)

Over on the Chaos left the second unit of mounted Marauders moved to block the spearmen

Finally the Dark Riders and Mounted Marauders clashed. Initially the Dark Elves were thrown back but the Marauders were unable to capitalise before they recovered from being battered.

Whilst the left hand Marauders raced toward the valley end, the other unit clashed with the Dark Elf spearmen. Some lucky rolls by the Marauders and a very poor courage test saw the Dark Elves routed from the field.

However shortly after this triumph the crossbowmen finally get going and, together with some Dark Rider shooting managed to destroy the weakened Marauders.
The two mounted Marauder units now began to push toward the centre, hoping to skirt their pursuers.

 The remaining Marauders continued to speed toward the end of the valley.

In the distance the Colod One Knights finally kicked into gear...

Tiring of their slow progress the Chaos Knights decided to pick on some elf spearmen.

They pushed them back, but were unable to rout the doughty elf fighters

Meanwhile the two units of Marauders were  hightailing it for freedom, with the cold one knights in steady, but unspectacular pursuit.

When disaster struck for the elves and the Marauders failed their activation test, allowing the Cold Ones to catch them

Having battered the foot unit, they switched their attention to the mounted Marauders, who promptly failed to evade and were hacked down in a single round!

With blood on their claws the cold ones were able to turn on the Marauders once more and duly smashed them apart as well.

Further up the valley more combined bowfire from the crossbows and Dark Riders wiped out the remaining Marauders and the Chaos Lord and his retinue were left, powerless and defeated in the centre of the valley.


A fun and simple way to pass an evening.
The Chaos forces looked set to get a couple of units off the board, but a failed test got the Cold Ones into action and they did what elite knights do best and munched the Marauders in short order.
Given the difficulty of getting your elite knights moving I think the Chaos Knights would have been better getting stuck in sooner and being sacrificed if necessary to buy time for the rest of the force.

I'm thinking the next stage might be a Druchii punitive raid into Chaos territory. I'm also thinking Tzeentch will lose patience with his hapless human minions fairly soon - time for some Daemons perhaps..