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
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
