8th Ed. Battle of Five Armies

Over the weekend, I got together with a few friends for a battle of five armies with a green theme all around. On the one side, a WAAAGH horde of orcs and gobbos spread over three different armies sought to overrun the green forces of order provided by the lizardmen and wood elves. The battle served to reinforce several key “tactics” I have garnered over the years for ensuring battlefield success when operating within a coalition. These insights and a few key moments of the battle are summarized below:

1) No Plan Survives First Contact – With well over 7,000 points of models on each side of the board, the plan was to create a strong centre with rapidly moving flanks to go after the greenskin gunline consisting of a dozen rock lobbas, doomdivers and spearchukkas. Despite being very thin and frail, the woodelves soon began hogging all the best deployment areas at the front of the line, forcing the poor skinks and saurus to try their best to support them “from the rear”.

2) Time Spent on Recce is Seldom Wasted – This military axiom is also true in warhammer. When facing greenskins, it is imperative to find out where all the nasty surprises like fanatics are located. With several units of night goblins quickly marching toward them, the chameleon skinks pondered how best to achieve this mission from within a copse of trees in the centre of the battlefield. Spotting a giant eagle soaring above them, the chameleons tried valiantly to warn their ally of the potential danger ahead but to no avail – their natural camouflage proved too effective for them to be noticed and the eagle dove heedlessly toward the gobbos. Several fanatics later, an eruption of feathers and fowl littered the land. The chameleons advanced cautiously to the edge of the woodline to try and give first aid to their avian ally but were forced to console themselves with taking vengeance by shooting the offending crazies with poison darts before rushing back to report their findings to the slaan.

3) Invulnerability Can Lead to Rashness – Buffed by a full force flesh to stone spell, a unit of wild riders led by a noble laughed off the feeble attempts of doom divers to wound them. Feeling invulnerable, the riders blew upon their hunting horns and charged a distant unit of squigs that appeared to be easy prey. As anticipated, the riders mowed down a bunch of squigs while taking only one casualty themselves. Regrettably, the riders had moved far beyond the slaan’s range to harden their flesh to stone. Consequently, whilst the wild riders stood preening themselves for their martial prowess and prepared to ride down the fleeing foes, they were rudely shocked by a massive detonation of squigs that wiped out all but one rider and the perplexed woodelf noble. A nearby unit of skrox had tried to warn the riders of this hazard but their calls had sadly been overwhelmed by the noise of hunting horns and the pounding of hooves upon the turf.

4) Always Lend Moral Support – It is vital for your ally to know that you are committed to battle and will come to their rescue with a timely charge. This is especially important when one ally needs to “take one for the team” to allow the other ally to get into position for a devastating flank attack. Such an instant occurred when a small unit of dryads in some woods held up a horde of savage orc big’uns and trolls while a steggie and block of saurus moved to the flank. A lone dryad survived the initial charge and was so heartened by the lizzie flank charge that they proceeded to make multiple ward saves and then ran down the fleeing trolls while the steggie trampled the savage orcs under its massive feet.

5) Pride Cometh Before the Fall - Fully confident that they could take on a small block of gobbos and win combat against such feeble foes, a unit of twenty dryads bunkered in a woods and accepted a charge. Unfortunately, their boasts were massively overstated and they lost the ensuing combat. Despite being stubborn in the woods with leadership 10 the dryads proceeded to further disgrace themselves by failing their break check and getting run down. This allowed the gobbos to reach the rear area where they then wiped out a block of archers before some nearby skinks finally turned and killed the gobbos with several volleys of poisoned darts and javelins.

6) If You Want Something Done Right, Do It Yourself – Despite the best of intentions, your ally will often prove to be incredibly inept, dimwitted and incapable of performing even the simplest of tasks. A case in point was the left flank where a giant eagle was tasked to go after enemy war machines in the rear area while a block of saurus marched stoically forward while being subjected to a withering barrage of fire from spear chukkas, doomdivers and rock lobbas. After three failed charge attempts against a doomdiver with the last attempt requiring only six inches on the dice, the eagle fled a boar chariot charge. Seeing the futility of relying on a bird to carry out a single task, the saurus took time out of charging and breaking first the chariot and then a unit of savage orc big’uns to finally turn their attention to the distant war machines. Despite a long range to target, the saurus made it into the enemy rear area where they proceeded to chew up one war machine after another.

7) Even Simple Technology Can be Complicated to Simple Minds – Strongly suspecting that trolls would be present, the planning team equipped a large block of glade guard with flaming attacks and gave the wood elf BSB the machinegun like hail of doom arrow. By deploying the archers directly across from the trolls, it was hoped that they would take the hint and prevent the trolls from regenerating by shooting them with flaming arrows. This theory had a sound basis since along with rocks and pointed sticks, fire was one of the most primitive and basic tools of civilization. Regrettably, this all proved too complex for the woodelves and the treeman ancient decided to tackle the trolls by himself. While the Slaan appreciated the somewhat foolish valour of his forest friend in throwing himself under the bus, he could not in good conscience allow him to be consumed by troll vomit and subsequently spent several spells healing the ancient back from near death. Eventually, the trolls became exhausted and were finally destroyed as additional dryads piled into the combat in overwhelming numbers. In the interim, the archers hid out in a nearby building and spent the game trying to set a distant building garrisoned by a spearchukka aflame.They finally succeeded, forcing the gobbos to abandon their war machine.

8) Write the History Book – The last and perhaps most important task in any alliance is to be the first to print with the battle report. The critical part is to select a narrative and stick to it like a Lustrian vampire leech. First impressions are lasting and thus even if your ally (or foes) later seeks to discredit your completely independent, unbiased and accurate depiction of events, future readers will be assured of seeing through their attempts at revisionist history. In the end, the “truth” or your original report will emerge, ensuring that you rightly receive the many accolades and kudos which are warranted for your tactical brilliance in the face of overwhelming odds!

 

It truelly seems your wood elf ally had the same amount of strategy as a slayer who's gone berserk.

 

Given that we were also playing "beerhammer" that is actually a very accurate description

 

With such a massive battle, we actually only had one combat where more than a single character was involved as both sides had tried to maximize the number of troops in their armies (25+ units per side, not including war machines/single model units). My saurus horde with the slaan & old blood got flanked by savage orc big'uns with a choppy lord and BSB thanks to an 11" overrun. Unfortunately, my slaan was on the flank that got charged. Luckily for me, I got off the flesh to stone buff and directed enough attacks against the orc BSB to kill him and did a couple more wounds to the unit while taking only one in return thanks to the buff and some serious orc whiffling. My saurus won the combat by one, the orcs broke and were run down in the pursuit. The size of the battle really limited what magic could do (apart from this one combat) which made the battle a lot more fun as it involved a lot of separate combats rather than a single, killer spell deciding the game. Best of all, I once again avoided casting dwellers (a ridiculous spell IMHO) while still getting reasonable benefit from the magic phase.