8th Edition Inaugral Battle:5k WoC v. 2500k Skaven/Bretonnians

I had been greatly looking forward to the 8th edition, and the single biggest reason is what many people (myself included) incorrectly call the "step-up rule". That change alone makes Marauders and Chaos Warriors worth taking.


But the old problem remained. I still despised...and continue to despise to the point I have not yet started on tomorrow's list...building army lists. It bores and annoys me.

So I decided I wanted to use Galrauch AND my flying D-Prince, so I chose 5K, got Liam and Kev to throw together 2500 points apiece, and off we went.

Now, although the points levels are even, I have a couple advantages in this format and a couple disadvantages.

Advantage one: I have 1250 points to spend on lord-level characters, they have but 625.
Advantage 2: I have a unified force theoretically designed to work with itself. They have two distinct forces not designed to have synergies with each other.

Disadvantage: against just one army, I know how to handle the elite sections of the army. With two separate armies, I will most likely be facing tough, hard-hitting units more spread out than normal.


As the scenario required them to set up first, it allowed me to hastily build my battle plan. I would use Magic, Marauders, Knights and the Shaggoth to fend off the skaven while the bulk of my army dealt with the Bretonnians. I would then swing over those forces, roll up the skaven flank and walk away talking about my greatness....

Alternatively, the larger numbers of skaven forces, combined with their mighty monsters and war machines could roll up my left flank, I could get clogged up in the middle and end up being flanked/assaulted from behind my lines and bemoan my stupidity (as opposed to granting credit to the greatness of Kev and Liam's battle plan...)


By the way, click on the picture above. Check out his VERY creative h-pit abomination scratch built from bits. Looks like the Loch Ness monster I think.

The brets asked for the blessing, so I got turn 1.

Warriors of Chaos turn 1
On the left I was playing a stalling game, so made at best a modest advance. In the center, I had a trap set up with a small unit of Knights ready to flank any Brets who moved into the middle while my block of 40 (!) Chaos Warriors locked down the middle. My non-fast cavalry Marauder Horsemen would go after the War machines, allowing my big block of Chaos Knights to sweep around and protect the flank of the Warriors.

Seeing his 5 Peasant Men at Arms on horses, I figured the 10 Marauder horsemen with light armor and shield would have an easy time with them and declared the charge. I needed to roll a "6" by rolling 3d6 and choosing the highest two...and promptly rolled a 4. Which meant they moved a whopping 2".

This meant to protect my flanks I had to slow everyone else's advance in the center and my Chaos Knights would be locked into dangerous area, unable to maneuver.

Battle plans are made to alter. One bad roll will not wreck it.

I flew the D-prince up to his right flank with a perfect shot at several units.

For magic, I rolled a "5" and a "1"...meaning I had one more power die than they had...then they channelled 2 additional dispel dice and I scored zero, so they had more Dispel dice than I had power dice.

I put all my eggs in one basket and threw all 6 at the Purple Sun big template. If I got irresistible force, sending that big template through his Knights of the Realm, Grail Knights, peasant bowmen and, if lucky, two trebuchets and several Skaven war machines would be devastating.

Of course, I could also simply fail to achieve the casting value...

On the left, the cannon dropped the template on top of his 5 Jezzails, a weapon I truly fear.

I was fortunate to roll a "hit" so one was under the template and died. The other 4, I just needed a "2" to wound. So I rolled 4d6...and for the second consecutive game, rolled 4 "1"s, slaying zero jezzails.

So the first round was...well..disastrous. I was out of position, did no damage of note, and he was in great shape.


Skaven/Bretonnian Turn 1
His men at arms charged my Marauder horsemen. This was probably a good move in 7th edition...not so much in 8th.

Conversely, seeing my Knights ready to flank him, he did NOT charge my Chaos Warriors with his Knights of the realm. In 7th...probably good idea again as I would have removed his rank bonuses and crushed him on my turn. In 8th...he really needed to get the strength bonus for his lances.

On the other flank there was a general advance.

They channeled a few dice, had about 5 more power dice. I had to use my one scroll to stop his plague spell that would have cost me about 34 marauders had it gone through. That let Liam put regeneration on his peasants.

They also shot down a few Marauders...I fail my first 4 save attempts, all needing 5+.

He manages a wound on my Marauder Horsemen. No problem, But I then unleash the pain and put down all 5 of his men at arms and over-run into the peasants behind.




Warriors of Chaos Turn 2
I have a tough choice. I have a pretty unlikely charge on his Knights of the Realm, a more likely charge on his Grail Knights. If I charge the peasants, I am virtually certain to make it and unleash a huge amount of carnage which should allow me to overrun into their artillery park....but if something goes wrong, I have presented my flank to Grail Knights. This is seldom a good idea...

Shaggy charges his abomination, my Marauder Horde charges...I dunno, skaven clanrats?

Magic goes about the same. I roll a 5 and 1 again. They channel 2, I channel zero. For the second consecutive time, I have fewer power dice than they have dispel. So I go the big Purple Sun rout.

This time it works. Irresistible force. And then...it misfires, lands on my wizard and wounds him, scattering away from their battle lines. Then I roll snake eyes for the miscast and a 2 for Infernal Puppet...fortunately, I am not thrown into the warp, but that was...well...not good.

Time for shooting. After my colossal whiff on turn one, I am expecting good things. I do not get them as the cannon blows up, and I roll a whopping 16" for distance other units are wounded on.

By the time we are done taking wounds from the blow-up I have lost marauders, wounds on Shaggy and a wizard, he has taken a couple on the abomination and a couple clanrats.

A quick points count: I have done 40% wounds to my best wizard, half wounds to another wizard, 33% to my Shaggoth, and killed my own cannon. They have slain I think 4 Marauders at this point...I vote for me as their MVP.

On the bright side, it also killed 3 Jezzail members, and the other would spend the next 4 (!) turns fleeing off the board....

Well, close combat is the key for the Warriors of Chaos. Forgetting great weapons no longer go first on the charge, I inflict mayhem on his clanrats, slaying 13 of his guys. He attacks back, kills 2...and then rolls Insane Courage.

My Warriors cause 13 wounds to his peasants, he saves 3 with the blessing/regenerate. The Marauders and their horse kill 8 more. I am happy. I have had two epic combats that offset my horrific shooting and magic. I rout him.

I then roll horribly and fail to catch him...but it does move my Marauder horsemen to where it seems like an illegal charge in 8th as his Grail Knights, to hit my juicy Chaos Warriors would have to wheel to get around them, but that wheel would lessen the number of troops he got in combat...so I was perhaps fortunate to have awful pursuit rolls...

Skaven/Bretonnian Turn 2

He charges his plague furnace into my Marauder horde.

He gets off the Skaven plague spell, killing 17 Marauders.


The combat is brutal as I do a number on his clanrats, his Furnace does a number on my Horde, but I win the combat. He is down to ONE clanrat by now...

Warriors of Chaos Turn 3

the block of 10 Knights has his Doom Wheel in front of it and charges. I again have a spell dice deficit, but get Infernal Gateway off irresistibly, doing a few wounds to a war machine.

(fair warning; about this point I stopped taking notes so...well...who knows what REALLY happened after this..)

The Knights just barely kill the Doom wheel and overrun into some clan rats or plague monks or whatever. My Warriors go after his Knights of the Realm.

His Grail Knights charge my Knight block in the flank...the key moment in the game.

This is his best Knights, bolstered by their general, getting a flank charge (reducing my armor save by one) with S6 hits on my best unit. My Marauder Horde is dying, the Shaggoth is odds on to die to the Abomination, and magic,...well, for the first 4 turns he had more Dispel Dice than I had Power Dice.

But then something happened...he did indeed put down a couple Chaos Knights. But in return I kill all 7 Plague Monks and kill his Battle Standard Bearer. I win the combat and he epically fails his Leadership roll...not a huge shock as his 2 ranks were easily countered by my BSB/War banner/more kills. He flees a whopping 5"...and I pursue a whopping 4".

My Chaos Warriors run his Knights of the Realm.

Shaggy kills the Abomination while having just 1 wound remaining himself. And Kev promptly rolls a 6 to bring it back and gets fully 4 wounds. Uh-oh...

So now we have an interesting situation. On the left flank I have a foot wizard, 5 Knights, and 1 wound remaining on my Shaggoth. He has the Abomination, some skaven clanrats, the plague furnace, and a couple other miscellaneous units.

meanwhile, on the right I have 35ish Chaos Warriors, 8 or 9 Chaos Knights, another unit of 5 knights, a dragon, and D-prince...so we have done the classic Greek maneuver of each shattering the right flank of the other.

From here on it got bloody (as if, you know, the hundreds of casualties already dealt were not...) as there were charges, counter charges, counter/counter charges...

This just in. His Skaven general with something like a bajillion I9 or 10 attacks allowing no armor save is bad, bad jujupe. He tore up a unit of Knights and everything else he touched.

But I overran their artillery park and by the end it was obvious the game was going to be some sort of Chaos victory.

Ironically, I had one epic charge left where I failed a LD test with re-roll to restrain, thus forcing my corny knights (mark of khorne) to make an unfavorable charge on my 6th turn. I dealt out something like 17 casualties...as Fixed Dice pointed out, had I done just 16, he would have passed his test instead of getting overrun.

He paid me back, killing my BSB with magic when I failed my Initiative test which meant my Knights broke instead of being stubborn with a reroll....

He also wiped out everything I had on the left, including his Abomination taking out my Shaggoth and wizard.

So the epic blood bath ended.

Bretonnia was all but wiped out, with only the peasant bowmen hanging out on my left flank alive.

Conversely, almost all the Skaven were alive.

I started the game with 20 Knights and 2 Knight heroes and an exalted hero on juggernaut. At the end of the game I had 2 Knights left of all that...his Abomination withstood my 5 S7 attacks without taking a wound and slew the jugger rider on turn 1 or 2, killed the Shaggoth, and his clanrats did for 10 more Knights. the others fell to Brets and Magic.

Reflections

Wee totaled the points. They scored something like 2300 points, I scored about 3500 or so.

It was great fun. Much of my conjecture was backed up. The "remove casualties from the back rank" rule makes, to me, this game 1000000% better. It meant peasants, clanrats, plague monks, storm vermin were all a real even to my mighty Knights...who did well but took a TON of damage.

Magic was...well, what it often is for me. I spent far more points on it than they did. And I did have some success...which is nice because in 7th, I would have gotten nothing done. I did think it was funny that on 5 of 6 turns they actually had more Dispel Dice than I had power dice...

and awesome that I still managed to get some stuff off.

I think the Horde rule is awesome, though I doubt I would use it in a tournament or competitive situation.

Not so fond of everything being dangerous terrain as it really restricted my movement, and the placing of templates makes them super powerful. Wish they scattered a bit more.

Overall, the game is much more tactical and much more fun now, with a heavy dose of random swings thrown in. Love, love, love it.

1500 Lizardmen Versus Bretonnians

I had long wanted to play the Lizardmen and Liam wanted another game so we agreed on 1500. I went with a Saurus Scar-Veteran as my general, planted him in a block of 25 Saurus Warriors, added a Skink Priest atop an Engine, put in 2 10 man skirmishing Skinks and a dozen Suarus Cold Ones.

My part of the battlefield had a stream crossing my left flank deployment zone, a hill on the right with a row of fence in front of the hill. He had a castle in his deployment zone on my left flank with rough ground in between the castle and stream and forest on my right flank so he would have to deploy in the middle.

I put some skinks in the stream on my left flank, the others on the hill on my right. the Engine came just inside of the hill, the Saurus with Scar-vet in the middle, and I put the Cold Ones with their flank on the river, angled to counter-charge anyone who charged the Saurus.

He put 25 or 30 bowmen in and around the castle, Knights of the Realm (KoR) facing the cold ones, a grail Reliquae opposite the Saurus, and his Grail Knights (GK) on my right, angled so anybody who charged the Reliquae would get stuck on it and therefore flank-charged by the Grail Knights.

I knew from the set-up I was in trouble. My CoK would not be able to hit his Grail Knights and I have little (read "no") faith in the talents of the Saurus. I find them over costed and under powered. With the current rules, I am always shocked when they do a casualty to any but the weakest of enemies.

Well, he prays to get the blessing, but I need him to move first since my Skinks range is...well...short. 12" and in is where I can shoot which means if I can shoot, he can charge.

Bretonnian Turn 1

He moves his Reliquae straight forward with the KoR and GK pacing it. His archers advance and unleash a mighty hail of arrows at the CoK. Of the 20 shots he takes, just 4 hit. Cool, no problem...what, 3 wounds? No problem, I need 2s to save. Too bad I rolled two "1s" in there and am already down to 10 CoK. Aaaagggghhh! For someone who regularly needs to roll just a 2 or better to save, I lose an awful lot of troops to some soft shooting.

Lizardman Turn 1

I move my Engine over behind the fence, hoping to avoid geting charged by the GK so I can use Burning Radiance or whatever that awesome ability is called. Everyone else makes a slight advance, hoping to avoid getting charged.

Magic: Forked Lightning at the Grail Knights, wound a couple, they fail the Save...justice...but then pass the Ward save. No damage. Grr. Out of range of Burning. I do manage to get Portent of Far off on my skinks so they might hurt the GK.

Shooting; Only 2 skinks have range, neither hits. Round 1 clearly advantage Brets.

Bretonnian Turn 2

The Reliquae advances another 8". The KoR lag about 2" behind so they cannot be charged. Then...Liam makes what I think is perhaps the second biggest mistake he has ever made.

After checking to see what the fence does....he then moves the GK behind the Reliquae, somehow missing that there is no way the Engine could (or perhaps more importantly, would even consider) charging his GK. If I did charge, I would not make it and even if I made it, he starts out outnumbering, with Banner, overall Banner, War Banner and some virtue so he starts out +5 at worst and is going to win the combat.

But part of it might be not knowing that the Skink atop the Engine cannot afford to die, so must be kept out of combat as much as possible. So it was a good learning experience and really would only mean one extra turn before he could flank charge me when I got in contact with the Reliquae.

This turn his Bowmen unleash at the skinks and slay 5 of them. Half my unit wiped out instantaneously...ouch.

Lizardman Turn 2

The Saurus charge the Reliquae. And here Liam makes what I believe is the biggest mistake he has made. That is actually meant as a compliment. For someone new to the game, he usually plays very well, maximizing the use of his best troops. He will start winning a lot when he figures out how to build an army that matches his style. It is unusual for him to make obvious, glaring errors.

But this was one. The whole strategy for the Reliquae is to tie up my units against a Stubborn unit. With LD8 and a BSB-granted re-roll, there is a 93% chance I have to slay every pilgrim to get past the unit and frankly, that ain't happening before he crashes into me with his hammer Knight units.

So to flee with it, as he did, was quite shocking and bizarre and game-breaking.

The CoK therefore are in range of the KoR and charge in. Let me re-phrase that; they are out of range, but based on a conversation we had held (my brothers and I) about the value of a 1-use standard, I had given him the Huanch standard, added d6 to my roll, and only needed 1" for the charge to hit home. So the standard allowed me to get the charge...uh...yeah?

Now time for the best magic phase of the game. I am able to get the Engine on the flank of the GK, safe from being charged and well within range for Burning alignment, which kills two GK. No armor saves is great when using it, and really blows chunks when facing it with guys whose main advantage is having a good armor save.

Well, Forked Lightning passes and he uses all his Dispel Dice trying to block it. It wounds 5 GK, he saves 4 outright, then Ward Saves the other. Ah, the power of a great armor Save! But then I use my one-use item which unleashes Uranons Thunderbolt which slays 3 (this time he can only save and ward save 2). I killed 5 GK in the magic phase!

Then my blowpipes open up, wounding him 4 times (poison RULES!).He promptly (and unsurprisingly) saves 3 and Ward Saves the 4th.

Close Combat; I have been hearing great things from the normal Lizardman player and from the Dark Elf player about how great the Cold One cavalry is. I am looking forward to it. I have 2 ranks, a standard bearer with Huanch, and the charge. Time to do some work!

If by work you mean of my 10 attacks, only 2 hit, one wounded, he saved it, and the Cold Ones all miss...

Coming back at me, he hits once, wounds once, I need a 2+ to save...and fail it. On the bright side, after ALL his horses hit, only 1 wounded and that I saved.

So, uh, yeah. I lost the combat. Took a key wound which meant I no longer had a rank bonus (stupid 2 wounds to his archers!). I was not impressed.

At least I passed my break test and hey...I did a number on the GK this turn.

Bretonnian Turn 3

Since my Saurus were hanging out looking for the long-gone Reliquae, his remaining GK charged them. I was not too bothered, since I had reduced them to not very scary, had 3 rank bonus, a Standard, outnumber, and my General Scar-Veteran in the group.

His cruel archers decided to shoot down the last 5 skinks. What was he thinking? I like my skinks and their poison! *sigh*

Well, his charge seemed a little superior to mine. The GK kill 7 Saurus, their horses kill another, in a challenge he killed my unit champ, and I am in trouble. My Scar Veteran did wound him 3 times, but he saved 2 of them and one more GK died. I failed the break test, he failed to catch me, and I was less than 1" from the edge of the table.

Meanwhile, his KoR hit 3 times, no wounds, his horses wound once but I save it. Ihit him 4 times, wound twice, he saves both. The cold ones then do what mounts do...outperform their riders despite having lower numbers on WS, S, and A. They kill 2...he breaks...I run him down and am ready to hit the Reliqua fleers.

Lizardman Turn 4

I charge his bowmen, too close for stand and shoot. My Saurus rally. My Engine gets right behind the GK.

This time I am ineffective with magic. And shooting.

The bowmen die in droves, flee, I pursue. For some reason, I stopped taking notes, but I more or less know it was going my way at this point.

Bretonnian Turn 5

His GK charge my Saurus again, though by this time they have but one GK, the General, and the BSB. His Reliquae fails to rally, flee the field.

He does a number on the Saurus, kills my General, I break and flee, he does not pursue.

Lizardman Turn 5

The Engine charges his GK unit from behind. The Burning Alignement kills the GK, the impact hits kill his BSB, the General breaks and runs.

Conclusion

When he first set up, I was worried. I knew his GK could do lots of damage to my Saurus. My one hope was to somehow get a flank charge on his GK, hoping magic and poison would have whittled them down enough to give me a chance in the battle.

Instead, he took himself out of a vastly superior tactical position and allowed me to bring more force to bear on each of his units than he could handle. Make a person roll enough dice and they will fail a save here and there (or, if you are me and need a 2+, you might even fail something like 3 out of 5 tries...) and thus become manageable.

I was highly impressed with the Engine. That Burning Radiance was simply awesome. It is fun because it requires some skill to play as you have to maneuver it to be close enough to the target...or preferably multiple targets...to do damage while still being safe from being charged as losing the Skink Priest is devastating.

The saurus would be much better if either A) they could be made stubborn or B) they actually ever got a chance to attack back. I absolutely think the current rules set has made a huge shift to over-valuing the charge by ruling that you cannot attack back even though you can be killed. If I have a block of 25 infantry and do not get to attack back even one time...what is the point to taking infantry at all? Why not just cheese it up with a couple units of skink skirmishers to fulfill the core requirement and go all CoK, Engines, Stegadons, Slann, and so forth? Infantry becomes French for "free points for your opponent".

I think this game would have ended in a solid victory for him had he not made the two huge maneuvering errors, first by taking his GK away from threatening to flank my entire battle line and second by fleeing with the Reliquae.

At the same time, we talked about it later, and he definitely learned from both things so that is a very good thing.

Overall, it was a fun game and I liked playing the Lizardmen. Definitely a change in thinking from either the Warriors of Chaos or the Wood Elf army and I would not be averse to rolling them out a few more times when Fullur isn't looking.