To war!

Brad, Jarryd and Craig came around today to fight the first battles of the campaign. Yes, we are undertaking a campaign, run mostly by Brad. It’s a good idea, as it will give me a chance to run some of my Skaven troops and see what I am going to need. In my usual style I forgot to take pictures of my first battle, and then just couldn’t be bothered taking any of the second one.

The special rule for this campaign is that armies are made up with one less Rare or Special option than normally allowed. I decided to forgo my Rare choice and build an army a little different to what I normally take. I had a Chieftain, 2 Warlock Engineers, 2 lots of 20 Clanrats, 2 lots of 20 slaves, 5 Globadiers, 3 Rat Ogres and 5 Warplock Jezzails.

First I played a 1000 point battle against Jarryd’s Warriors of Chaos. It was a fairly solid list, 2 units of wolves, 2 units of warriors, a unit of knights, a spawn and a sorcerer. Mu initial shooting and magic made a couple of big holes in his army, killing 2 knights and causing some wolves to flee. A unit of slaves went up against the spawn and managed to beat it after three turns. The rest of my army pretty much fell apart, but not after doing a bit of damage to some of the wolf units and a Chaos Warrior unit. In the end I was Massacred, but only just. If my Globadiers had of performed a little better I think that might have tipped the game in my favour, but as it was, they were more effective at killing themselves than the enemy. I also probably don’t need to shoot into my own unit quite so over zealously. In one round of shooting I did more damage to a slave unit than I did to the Chaos Warrior unit it was fighting, pretty much obliterating any chance it had of winning the combat.

Next I fought Brad and his Orcs & Goblins. 1 Boss, 1 Shaman, Wolf Riders, a Squig Herd, a chariot, Boyz, Night Goblins, Snotlings and Squig Hoppers were his go. I have not played against Squigs before. Man! Do they ever hurt! I wasn’t quite expecting such a diminutive fungoid creature to break out such mean stats. I realise they are little bouncing killing machines, but this was painful! I did equally as poorly against Brad, though this time I think this was due to luck and not Brad’s generalship. He used his units sensibly, but there were a couple of times that it all just went his way in spades. Multiple units rolling 6 for Animosity in a single turn and my Globadiers continued inability to hit anything are but a few. This game was a lot closer, though. While his main units ripped into my units pretty badly, my smaller peripheral troops did some shocking damage. A single Warlock Engineer is responsible for causing (what was left of ) the Orc Boyz to run from the battle.

I’m pretty happy with the list, and how it performed. The Rat Ogres could probably be taken out and replaced with something like more Clanrats or Plague Monks. At such a small size I think putting in some more ranked units would be a better idea, and the Rat Ogres just kind of peter around at the moment. I could probably also replace the Jezzails or Globadiers with more ranked units. I like the Globadiers more, but the Jezzails did a much better job against the Chaos and the Orcs. I think two units of Slaves might be one too many for 1000 points, but coming to a total of 80 points for the two of them, it seems silly not to take them. Keeping the Warplighting Cannon out of the battle was a good idea, though. While it can be a powerhouse of a machine, the absence of larger, heftier target for it to shoot at negated it’s overall usefulness. Sure, shooting 20 guys in a line is great, but is it worth risking 100 points over?

Tags: battle, Games Workshop, Orcs and Goblins, Skaven, Warhammer, Warriors of Chaos