Wormaster 2024 - Warmaster event game three

 And so to the final game.

Another new opponent, Neil, and yet another new-to-me army in the shape of Chaos Dwarfs. 

There was some chat on the Warmaster FB group about the lack of some of the traditional armies from the event - no High Elves, Chaos Warriors or Bretonnians - I suspect this has something to do with Wormaster being quite a laid back affair, so people seemed to be taking lists they enjoyed or wanted to experiment with rather than  tooling up for the win - but also the fact that WM now has a plentiful list of balanced armies and the rise of 3D printing makes them achievable to field.

This battle was to be a pitched battle with the twist that any units wiped out in a combat where the general was participating scored double points with all the risks that entailed! Fortunately the whole Tournament used the King is Dead rules which means the death of a general isn't an automatic end of game and it's possible for another character to take over.

The Big Hats wasted no time in hauling their heavy artillery up to the top of the nearest hill.

The Pink Ladies raced forward, a little ill-advisedly.

The Daemons of Tzeentch and Slaanesh decided to spend some quality time in a swamp.

Their friends took an inevitable battering from the battery, however one unit of Pink Ladies charged home!

Hounds romped in to the followers of Hashut too.

Briefly the brigade toyed with the idea of leaving the swamp then realised that might bring them into artillery range so they wisely stayed in the mud.

Fighting was going on all along the line.

The Pink Ladies spilled plenty of blood, but then suffered the consequences.

The followers of Khorne charged defended Dwarfs in a wood. Which went about as well as could be expected. Still, it's all Blood for the Blood God!, innit?

The Chaos Dwarf general threw himself into the fight, racking up victory points.

But then was himself murdered in the face by the Daemon general!

Points for the Points God!

However the substitute Chaos Dwarf general, complete with flying bull then began to hunt down the Daemon Overlord.

A crucial failed charge by the Khorne Hounds left the odds stacked in favour of the Big Hats.

Inevitably my Overlord was cut down and my army broken - but it was a darn close run thing.

A complete bloodbath of a game with not one, but two dead generals and a resultant huge haul of Victory Points for both of us.

The Chaos Dwarfs were a tough nut to crack and Neil was a great opponent.

Wormaster 2024 - Warmaster event game two

And so, as night follows day, game one is followed by game two.

This time I was to be playing Alex with another "new to me" army - Wood Elves. When I worked at GW Rick always resisted the idea of a Wood Elf army for Warmaster, saying they were too small a force and ambushy-skirmish and so not suited to mass battles so I was interested to see how the WMR version played. I was expecting a *lot* of shooting.

The battlefield we would be meeting on was frozen plain, somewhere in Far Cathay to judge by the statues. Quite what the arboreal natives of the Old World were doing in such an inhospitable spot we had no notion. The absence of woods I felt would potentially be something of a hindrance to my opponent. In fact the only terrain was some snowy craters - so I was rather worried about the lack of cover.

The scenario involved the capture of various portable objectives that were spread along the centre line. Alex admitted that advancing was also not necessarily ideal for his army play style.

Sun streaming through the windows of the venue  and bouncing off the snow white battlefield rather played havoc with my camera, so apologies for the picture quality.

In the early morning light the Daemons materialise onto the frozen plains

Where a host of Wood Elves were waiting for them (and probably wishing they'd packed their thermals)

That's a lot of blokes with bows...

Just beyond the giant Cathayan Dog Statue lie the Mystic Beads of the Elder Times.

The horde brigade raced toward the MBotET (as they shall henceforth be known)

The Wood Elves put tennis rackets on their feet and began to push forward across the snowy ground.

And so the lines closed.

The Pink Ladies managed to race forward, scoop up a MBotET and race back in one graceful set of moves.

The Big Beast slithered across the snow and into the squishy elves.

Sluuuuurp!

The Angry Red Daemons found the woodier inhabitants of Athek Loren a bit indigestible - something about the splinters.

The other horde was driven back by shooting, but held it together.

The Beasts continued their slimy consumption of their foes.

Soon after this we were given a twenty minute warning. As I'd just finished a turn we didn't think there was time for us both to go again and so we called it there.

Counting up the VPs I'd squeaked a narrow win, mostly by dint of holding three objectives to two. I suspect another turn of shooting and Daemonic instability may well have handed Alex the win.

Another good fun and well matched game - the Wood Elves do play differently to other Warmaster Armies so it was good to play against them and Alex was a charming chap to play with.

Wormaster 2024 - Warmaster event game one

12 months ago I attended my first Warmaster event for about fifteen years I enjoyed it so much I went back this year for more.
This time I used the upcoming event to get my Daemon army into a usable 2,000 point force

I ended up with:

7 Hordes
2 Cavalry
4 Hounds
2 Beasts
1 Flyers
1 Overlord (General + wizard)
1 Hero (the red one, tooled up for fighting)
1 Sorcerer (with a dispel scroll)

I had intended to paint another unit of cavalry but couldn't find them in the leadpile, so subbed in some hounds and jiggled the magic items around. Two units of Beasts felt unwise but it was either them of a Greater Daemon and everyone says they suck. All models original GW metals - so no chariots available,

I'd had a few warm up type games while getting familiar with the Daemons, but only a single 2k game and I'd not been very successful - but then that's not usually the point of my gaming anyway - unkind regular readers may think I'm making virtue out of necessity with this approach.

First game was to be against an army I'd never played before - Dogs of War, commanded by Adam - last year's winner of the whole shebang no less. 

There were five objectives scattered about the table, with bonus victory points attached for holding them when the game ended.

I had decided my best plan was to mostly charge.

A peaceful hamlet in Border Princes attracts the attention of the fickle powers of Chaos.

Blood for the Blood God!

Bird - man's eye view.

Pikemen - no idea how they work, or what they do - best just charge them in the face.

Adam's army was lovely, all the models based on the old WFB range.

A big mob of light cavalry.

My multi-hued hordes soon overran the hill with an objective on it.

The ladies on lizards set off to deal with the light horse.

That's a big long line of troops!

The Beasts failed a command check or two and lagged behind.

More swift cavalry whipped around the tower.

The bird-men attempted something clever, failed and were left hanging in front of the Khorne hordes.

The ladies had grabbed the hill and a failed command meant they didn't get charged by light horse.

Some of the Khorne doggies had unwisely failed to charge home and were in turn charged in the flank and driven back over a fortuitously placed bridge.

The Khorne hordes revved themselves up for a charge.

While one stand attacked the bird-men the others ploughed on into the pike, with the Beasts finally finding forward gear and joining them.

The ladies charged the light horse. The field meant they wouldn't get a charge bonus, but I hoped more attacks and better armour would be enough. (I hadn't really done the maths).

Over on my right the other Khorne hounds were chewing on some light cavalry.

The centre became a huge scrum.

One which the Daemons mostly got the better of.

However the deaths of the pike came at some cost and the ladies had very much bounced off the light cavalry, leaving them something of a mop up operation.

Although the Angry Red Dogs took some cavalry back to the Skull Throne the game was up as my break point was reached.

I was, TBF, comprehensively outplayed and I also got a bit carried away with charging, which didn't help things. A good fun game though and when the Daemon Beasts were carving through the pike blocks like Oliver Reed at a Bottomless Brunch it was all jolly exciting.

I finished with a paltry 400 or so points, Adam had got three times that many.