Setting the Scene The british summer is a thing of fleeting conviction. So, not to my surprise I woke up on wednesday to the sound of torrential rain and galeforce winds. I grabbed my lizzardmen, picked my brother and his high elf ladyboys up then went round a friends for an epic battle (he plays chaos btw). We don't much like many of the scenarios in the rule book, we much prefer going head to head, equal points, with the attitudes of those folk that used to go and watch gladiators in ancient times. Scenery? Proffesionally made? Nope. Our arena was my mates kitchen table, 33" by about 8 foot, Candles were ruins of buildings, old CD's and pot puree - forests (obviously), and the castle from my mates fishtank - well, actually that one was a castle, albeit a very small one. Despite it being catergorically (sp?) stated in the rule book, we found that chaos and lizardmen can actually fight as part of an allegiance. You may be doubtful I know, some of you may think us crazy, but we have hard evidence. Me and my friend set up our 2250 armies on the same side of the table, and nothing even remotely terrible happened. It seemed that they were perfectly willing to fight alongside eachother. The Armies Our opponent, my brother, was our opposition, his high elves (4500pts) against our chaos (2250) and lizardmen (2250). Our armies were something like this . . . . . High elves: Tyrion + 14 dragon princes Teclis (lore of beasts) + 24 Swordmasters Koradrian + 24 phoenix guard 5 x 20 archers 2 lion chariots 4 (maybe 5) Bolt throwers Lizardmen: Slann (+power dice, enemy wizard loses 6's, magic resist 3, all spells of Death) (cupped hands, blood statuette of spite) + 21 Temple guard 30 Saurus 2 x 12 skink skirmishers Stegodon 10 Camo skinks 3 Kroxigor 3 terradons 2 salamander Chaos: Chaos Lord + 14 chaos knights, mark of tzeentch Chaos sorceror (dispell scroll) Tzeentch 2 x 25 chaos warriors (additional hand weaps and khorne) 1 chaos chariot The Battle Of The Kitchen Table: If I was even moderately computer literate then I’d have a fantastically detailed image uploaded here, showing our deployment and subsequent turns. Unfortunately I’m not. So I’ll just be painting you a picture with words. On our side of the Kitchen table was a very large candle, I mean obelisk, and a large collection of limp bizkit cds (forest). Obelisk was in the middle, forest off to our right flank. In the high elf deployment zone was another forest on the far left, and the fish castle in the middle. We set up unit by unit. It ends up with most of our blocks of chaos/lizzies and the slann in the centre, supported by the stegodon and and the chaos lord/knights. We deploy our kroxigor, a chaos chariot and skinks on the left flank facing up against lion chariots, and leave the right flank with only some skinks and a unit of chaos warriors facing up against tyrion and the dragon princes. My brother deploys teclis/swordmasters and phoenix guard at the centre of his line, then fills every available gap with bolt throwers and units of archers. To our joy we get first turn. We figure that with so many archers and bolt throwers we need to get into combat fast. The slann would try to snipe characters with his lore of death before combat breaks, this would be tough though since tyrion has a 2+ ward against magical attacks (this is at least what my brother told us, in retrospect, should probably have checked this because he’s a lying git a lot of the time). We move pretty much everything up about 8”, the salamanders and skinks mover up full distance to try and get some damage in before they fall to inevitable missile fire. In the magic phase the Slann rolls big for winds – a 10, excellent. First up is soul blight, reducing the Str/Toughness of his swordmasters by one, weakening them for the salamanders, that with a bit of luck were in range. Then starts the character hunting spells, all are cast on Teclis, all are either dispelled or fail to wound, but my brother was now out of dispel dice. I whip out the Blood statuette of spite, the slann draws his arm back and hurls it with all his might. His aim is true, it hits Teclis square on the head for 2 wounds. Sadly there just wasn’t anything to get the extra wound off yet though. I’ve not until this point played any opponent with rank and file troops of toughness 3 or less (in 8th). Add to this the fact that the Swordmasters toughness was reduced by one, and that my one salamander plopped a flame template right on top of afore-mentioned Hoeth scum, equals 15 dead swordmasters. Horaa! They passed their panic test. Also in the shooting phase, a dragon prince was brought down by one unit of skinks, and a bolt thrower los 2 wounds to camo skink fire. All in all, our first turn had been pretty successful. The massed high elf archery held fast with the bolt throwers, preparing to loose a deadly torrent of fire on the advancing lizardmen.The only charge was from his dragon princes (with Tyrion) into a unit of skink skirmishers I’d left poorly positioned. Needless to say, it was a fairly one sided fight. One unit of dead skinks. His phoenix guard and swordmasters shuffle forwards towards the slanns unit and a chaos warrior unit in the centre. His magic phase saw a moderate 6 dice go his way. He gained an extra one from an item on Teclis and another 2 from a dastardly banner of pointy eared girl childness. We could only watch in dismay as Teclis (with all beast spells) transformed into a dragon (the biggest most horrible one), with irresistible force. (no miscast though, Teclis rolled a double 2). The shooting phase was as horrible as we’d envisaged. Both salamanders snuffed it, aswell as about 10 chaos warriors from the unit in the centre. My remaining unit of skink skirmishers lost half of their number. But it was now our turn 2. On the left flank the small unit of kroxigors charge the foremost lion chariot, with a remarkable display of agility. The chaos knights with Lord charge the advancing swordmasters, the stegodon, one unit of chaos warriors and the 30 saurus block charge bolt throwers and archer units on the middle left of the table. The magic phase blows only 4 dice for the Slann. Life leach puts 2 more wounds on Teclis (who now has only 4 remaining since wounds transfer to the dragon). And Koradrian looses a wound aswell. Our shooting phase had become miserably short. The camo skinks finished off a bolt thrower, and a unit of skinks that had dived into a forest for cover put a wound on a lion chariot. In the combat phase the Chaos knights and lord destroyed the swordmasters and pursued of the board. 2 more bolthrowers and a unit of 20 archers were destroyed by the steg/chaos warriors and saurus on the left, which reformed facing to the right, where most of the high elves were coming from. We made a big mistake here, me and the chaos player really shouldn’t have committed so many of our troops to the right flank just to get some bolt throwers and archers, our units won easily but were positioned terribly out of the way for the following turns. The kroxigor did terribly against the chariot, doing 2 wounds but taking 3 in return. They held the combat but would take another lion chariot charge in the preceding turn. In high elf turn 2 the phoenix guard charged the chaos warrior unit protecting my slanns right flank. The Dragon princes moved carefully to hopefully get a charge on the slanns flank in the following turn. The magic phase turned out to be incredibly valuable to us. Because the only high elf caster was transformed into a dragon, we sat on a huge pile of dispel dice and no spells coming our way. We dispelled transformation of kadon, and since the dragon had take 4 wounds Teclis was killed when he was returned to elven frailness. Excellent! I’ve sadly got to go to work now, but I’ll update the rest of the battle later if anyone is vaguely interested in how it turned out
Darn just when it was staring to get good, I to face Tecelis on a fairly regular basis, good to see him crashing back to the table after that grotesq transformation.
Turn 3 onwards So it was getting to the business end of the battle. With Teclis dead the Slann would have complete control of the magic phase from this point in. Unfortunately Karadryan and his phoenix guard had almost destroyed the chaos warriors supporting my Slanns right flank, and a gap had opened for a charge from the dragon princes. What I should have done at this point was to move the slann COMPLETELY from charge range or los of Tyrion and the dragon princes, but instead I chose to move the slann away from Tyrion to a position which was, with an incredible dice roll still within range, but put my slann in a much better place to cast spells. I just needed a decent winds of magic this turn. The chaos knights and lord moved back onto the table this turn, and my stegodon charged one of the chaos chariots that had now chomped through the remaining kroxigor. By this point the high elfs had destroyed everything on the right flank, and we’d destroyed everything on the left, our troops were competing to reform across the narrow ends of the table. Whoever could form a decent line first would have the battle. My chaos ally put his battle hat on (its an old cotton miners cap that comes out when a particularly decent dice roll is required) and rolls for winds of magic. 3. 3 measly dice. All that got through was a soulblight on the phoenix guard. My camo skinks took out another bolt thrower in the shooting phase, and the stegodon mauled a chaos chariot. Even soulblighted the phoenix guard beat the chaos warriors. The warriors fled, far. The phoenix guard held their position, and I looked worriedly on as a dragon prince/Tyrion charge looked increasingly likely. He declared the charge on the Slann, rolled horribly high, and ploughed into the flank of my venerable leader. With so many dead bolthrowers, and archers out of position and plenty of combat, there wasn’t much of a shooting phase this turn. A few camo skinks bit the dust. The Tyrion fight went badly, as expected, I think about 15 temple guard died in one round of combat, only a 3 Dragon princes were killed in return. Only the temple guards stubbornness kept them from fleeing, and without reinforcements quickly the slann was in grave trouble. We realised by the start of our 4th turn that we’d been outmanoeuvred, our blocks of infantry were still too far away from the main fight. Only the Chaos Lord and his knights made a successful charge, into Koradryan and his remaining phoenix guard. Even with a pile of casting dice the Slann could do little to protect himself other than to soulblight the dragon princes and Tyrion, and hope for the best. The Chaos lord naturally declared a challenge on Koradryan, who was more than happy to accept (he has an ability to do D6 wounds, no armour saves to any model that kills him). Koradryan was indeed beaten, but fortunately he only managed to inflict a single wound back in his death throws. The remaining phoenix guard were hacked apart by the knights. The carnage was’nt quite as horrific as last turn, but my Slann found himself with only 5 temple guard after another bum shafting by Tyrion & co. We deicided to make this the last turn of the battle due to time restraints (the wife), so it would basically come down to wether the slann could survive the last high elf turn and hold on to his massive victory point horde (almost 1000pts :S). He didn’t survive. He died. We lost the battle by only 300 victory points. Summary: Ok so it was a great battle, and we may have been able to claw back a win if we’d of played a few more turns. But a few important lessons were learned. Firstly, keeping your slanns flanks/ass covered at all times. I’ve made this mistake a few times and its almost always cost me the battle. After I make this mistake I usually remember for the next few battles, which I win, then forget it and lose again. I’m gradually getting better at remembering not to forget. Second is magic choice. I really think I should have gone with life in this battle. The toughness bonus would almost certainly if kept my slann/TG alive and dwellers below would have been horrible for the high elves. I’ve taken death in a few smaller games and its always played really well for me, but against high elves, with characters with wards+magic resist, I found myself often struggling for useful things to cast. The other thing that I always regret about not taking life is when your first few TG die, at that moment I always thing “no probs, I’ll bring them back in a few minutes, oh . . actually I can’t”. Salamanders were awesome again. The one that hit the Swordmasters on the first turn payed for both sallies twice over. Camo skinks were faultless, taking out 2 bolt throwers and wounding a chariot. We had a great battle though. Next time it’s high elves and chaos Versus 4500 points of lizardmen
I can't belive you fought against chaos without a major mishap. Whenever i play with my space wolves in 40k and my mate uses his chaos i can never resist the temptation to rip one of his units to pieces even if it's just my rune priest going to lock out a few of his powers or me lobbing things, mostly wolf guard, at his general units but he generally seems to know when i'm about to do it ande it surprises opponents to no end when i attack my "partner"
You have to rule with an iron fist my friend. It helped that the chaos and lizzies both hate the smug ASF pointy eared girl boys equally.