Sunday 18 November 2012

WFB Vampires v Warriors of Chaos and Skaven

On Thursday four of us assembled to play some Warhammer.
We're due to kick of a small campaign so this was an excuse to get the armies out for a warm-up.
Sadly my camera saw fit to behave very poorly, so I can but apologise for the poor quality pictures. However, having taken them I figured I might as well slap 'em up.
We played Blood and Glory with a minor variation. In one corner of each side was a terrain feature desirable to the opposition. A Temple of Skulls and a Graveyard respectively. Having a unit of five or more models on the feature counted as an additional point of fortitude for your army.
We also tried out the rules from the BRB scenarios section where each player can only talk tactics with his team mate if he uses up a "messenger". Each player has two messengers, granting three minutes of conversation with his team-mate. Apart from that you can converse about rules, beer and whatever else floats your boat, but not the tactics of the game.
I was using my WoC who haven't had a run out in this edition (or, probably, with the current army book) and was allied with the notorious Hall-Scurry - Skaven warlord of ill repute, facing off against a pair of VC armies. I'd gone for a sorcerer and two units of 18 warriors backed up with five hounds and a unit of Marauder horse. Unlike our undead opponents we failed to make much of an initial plan and so were on the back foot a bit from the off...

 The Chaotic alliance lurches forward

 The undead shamble to their doooom!

 Yikes, a terrorgheist!

 Skellies claim the Temple of Skulls

The chaos and rat alliance edged forward a little and prepared to unleash a storm of magic and war machinery. Hall-Scurry promptly miscast and the Warp lightning cannon hit the terrorgheist only to roll a misfire for strength. This was to form a pattern for the rest of the battle. My marauder cavalry moved between the Direwolves and ghouls, hoping to get around into backfield to cause havoc (or at least some irritation).

 Through the gap lads

 The warriors hold steady

Sadly the Terrorgheist had other plans and breathed on them, leaving just one alive.  Meanwhile the Skeletons led by their vampire made good progress toward the graveyard supported by the Hexwraiths.


 Vampire and his bony chums crash home

Over by the ford Ghoulies clashed with rat Ogres, with poison (and poor dice) helping to even up the fight.


I launched my hounds at the bats, but failed to destroy them, leaving the poor dogs easy prey for another unit of skellies


 The hexwraiths make themselves at home

The Plaguemonks hurled themselves at some undead constructs, but failed (again) to get Deathfrenzy off which might have helped. And the Warp lightning cannon kept right on missing and failing to wound anything.


The Tzeentch Chaos Warriors were giving a good account of themselves, despite the fearsome presence of the vampire, and the hexwraiths were thrown in to help. In the centre the Graveguard got in a long charge to crash into the front of the Slaanesh warriors. The huge unit of clanrats meanwhile was struggling to kill ten Direwolves.




Finally the Terrorgheist (still largely un-singed) was launched across the river into the flank of the Tzeentch warriors, and with that they were wiped out.
At which point my force reached it's break point and disappeared. Although the Skaven lasted another combat it was clearly only a mater of time and the field belonged to the lords of undeath...

I'm coming for ya...

As usual a good fun game. I was pleased with how hard the warriors are and am looking forward to using them in the campaign (though I'd like to get some of the new warrior models painted!). The rules about not talking to your compatriot were fun, but two messages each is probably too many two or three per side in total would add to the hilarity.
In the end we were outplayed and deserved to loose, although seeing my playing partner's dice rolls reminded me that maybe I'm not as unlucky at rolling as some folk...

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