3600 Dwarfs v 3600 Ogres

These young whippersnappers have been keeping me busy doing stuff called NOT playing Warhammer, but Kev the ogre and I decided to correct that so off we went. I wanted to try out the new Dwarf book...yes, it has been so long since I played the Dwarf book is still new to me...

 I wanted to try out the new Irondrakes, etc. I figured he would be playing the Skaven so took a couple cannons, a flame cannon and an organ gun...the cannons would go after the H-Pit Abomination which always rips my lips off, if they found a way of getting it early then I would have something to deal with the Screaming bell and Doomwheel.

 Meanwhile, I put strollaz Runes all over the place so I could Vanguard as many units as possible. I had 2 blocks of Longbeards (20 for potential Watchtower scenario, and 30), a 25 strong Hammerer block, 1 10-strong thunderer, a couple gyrocopters, including one with Vanguard.

 My plan was simple. The Hammerers would go dead-center in my battle line, keeping the other blocks within 12" meant they would be stubborn with a re-roll, allowing me to theoretically whittle them down with shooting and then they would have to slay every dwarf to get points.

 That beardy Kev went and foiled my plan, bringing Ogres and rolling up Dawn deployment.

Most of my rolls were really nice...I planted a cannon in the right corner with beautiful fire lanes and protected by a mysterious river with a 20 strong Longbeard Block with thane to protect it. Next to that was the second cannon and my Runelord on Anvil. Just in front of him were the Irondrakes with Stollaz so they pushed well forward pre-game to control the center.

 In the center were my 30 Longbeards in hoard formation controlling a ton of space. Getting towards the left I had a mini-artillery park of steam cannon and Organ Gun. They were protected by a mysterious forest straight ahead but could easily hit either the killing zone in the center of the table or the left flank should he sweep around that one.

I had one vanguarded Gyrocopter and the Irondrakes, but missed that the 30-strong Longbeards had it. This would turn out to be a fortuitous mistake...

The only problem was the Hammerers, who were meant to be dead center, were stuck on the left flank. Oops...

For his part, his rolls were much worse. His 8-strong (!) Leadbelchers were stuck well off to the left (out of sight on the picture above) and his right flank was very crowded with a stonehorn, unit of...bulls? in fron, another unit of ironguts behind them, and maneaters behind them. He managed to only have 10 units to my 11 so got to go first. Or had to, depending on point of view...

Ogre turn 1
The sinister statue in the center of his line (the OOOOOOLLLLLLDDDD school giant) puts a wound on his regular bulls, then hits the general 4 times....and musters 3 "1"s and a "2". It would be my last bad roll until the game was decided...

The ogre lines made a general advance but had no charges. He gets off Flamestar with irresistible force, only to see the only wound saved, roll an 11 on the mis-cast table essentially making his special character a level 0 speedbump for the rest of the game...

His Ironblaster cannon overshoots the Irondrakes and puts a wound on the Anvil of Doom. His Leadbelchers can only muster 3 hits in 20 shots and kill 1 Longbeard. Overall this turn was a huge fluff for the ogres.

Dwarf Turn 1
I move the 20-strong longbeards towards the Leadbelchers. I really have no interest in getting closer to that firestorm, but this march actually opens an enfilade on his unit of Mournfangs.Ialso do slight retrograde with the Hammerers because I am an idiot.

They are a hard as nails combat unit. Oh, sure, they die easily if anything with decent strength hits them...but they dish out a ton of pain. He has a clogged up flank...I need to keep it clogged.

My cannon enfilade works perfectly as the two cannons both hit the Mournfangs in the flank and there is no more Mournfang unit on the board.

Meanwhile, the Trollhammer Torpedo fires out of the Irondrakes, putting 3 wounds on his Ironblaster and the rest of the unit finishes it off.

The thunderers, organ gun and steam gun combine to take out three bulls.


I have not played a shooting army since trading away the Wood Elves for the Beastmen. This is the most effective shooting phase I have ever had; 3 Mournfangs, an Iron Blaster, 3 bulls, the center of his line ripped out, leaving 8 Leadbelchers with a long shot at some longbeards and 3 bulls to take on 10 Irondrakes...his other flank crowded in on itself...I am instantly in control of this game.

Ogre Turn 2
The dice turn in his favor. His Gorgers, for the first time ever, arrive, 4 strong, and come on my back edge behind my 30 Longbeards. He declares charges all over the field, and they are easy to make charges. It hurts I erred in taking my BSB out of the Hammerer unit thinking A) the Rune of Slowness was on their banner and B) they were going to die to the combined charge they were about to receive. So no -d6" to his charge.

Not that it mattered...he moves forward 1" with the Stonehorn and 2" with the Ironguts as they both fail spectacularly. Meanwhile, his Bulls take 4 wounds when the Irondrakes stand and shoot them to ribbons.His level 0 charges my Gyrocopter and his general breaks out of the now 3 strong unit.

The Leadbelchers get a whopping 34 shots and do a handful of wounds.

The gyrocopter and character cannot hurt each other, but I fail my test, flee and get run down. The Irondrakes beat the Bulls, need a 4 to run down the remaining one...and he lives by an inch.

Dwarf turn 2
Well, that double-failed charge was a stroke of luck, but the Hammerers are still grumbling, knowing they will get smacked around next turn. Where is the rest of the army? Just like those young punks to be off gallivanting doing nothing while the mighty Hammerers do all the work.

At least the BSB rejoined to bolster them and potentially inhibit the forthcoming charge.

I need a 9 to reach his leadbelchers but decide to charge anyway rather than let him keep shooting my Longbeards without fear.

In the center I don't want his Gorgers charging the rear of my Longbeards, and then getting smacked in front by his bulls. I make those combo charges, I don't receive them so needing a 10 I declare the charge.

Both make it.

He needs like 3s to make charges and fails. I need 9 and 10 and make it. Bwoohahaha. As Gimli said, Dwarves are "wasted on cross country. We Dwarves are natural sprinters. Very dangerous over short distances." I am going to count 13" as a short distance...

I have his Gorgers lined up for an enfilade. To cannons speak...4 Gorgers leave the table having done nought but occupy cannons that had no other target.

This lets my steam cannon and Organ Gun concentrate on his general who eats their fire and walks off wounded three times.

In close combat we both expect his leadbelchers to win. This is stupid thinking...I charged (S5) with a strong, tough, armored unit. Sure, he is strong and tough too...but I hit on 3, he hits on 4, we both wound on 5, I have a save.

I beat the Belchers, need a 5 to run them down...he lives by an inch.

The 30-strong Longbeards in the center terrorize his bulls, killing them and running down the BSB. wow, could things be going any better?

Ogre Turn 3
There was an outside shot he could get two units into combat the first turn on my left flank. It is now turn 3 and time for the Stonehorns and Ironguts to charge again.The Stonehorn makes it with ease despite my Rune of Slowness. The Ironguts...are you kidding me? They fail. They needed I think a 4 and could not make it happen even without the rune.

His General charges the hapless Organ Gun. It is not long for this world...

Everyone rallies. Uh oh.

When he had most things running, it looked good. I still do not think I can stand up to him face to face in combat...Ogres are fast, tough and strong. With bad WS.

His name character enfilades the Longbeards with a breath weapon and kills 5.

The Stonehorn does 3d3 Impact hits. He gets...9. Max possible. He does fail to kill 1, but before the battle with his most fearsome troop starts I am down essentially a third of my unit, from 25 to 17. He then fluffs most of his attacks and does no further wounds, and the Hammerers kill the Stonehorn outright in one go.

Wow. behold the power of multiple attack S6, high WS guys v low WS.

Dwarf Turn 3
I charge his Leadbelchers again on the right flank with my Longbeards. Not much else they can do...he wins a shooting battle between his 20-30 shots/turn v my 0 shots, but I figure to do okay in cc. I do NOT charge his 1 bull with my Irondrakes. I want to fire that Trollhammer Torpedo again!

Meanwhile, my Longbeards charge his Level 4 wizard...that should end well for me I should think.

I fly the gyrocopter over to look at his single bull.

Shooting is pretty awesome as I take out his level 0 wizard, kill the single bull with the Trollhammer. His level 4 also dies. His Leadbelchers lose but refuse to break.

 Ogre Turn 4
Two turns too late his Ironguts charge the Hammerers. His general and some random unit of Bulls make a combined charge on the Flame cannon, the Bulls in front and General to the side.

Improbably, the Flame cannon survives and stands. Even more improbably the Hammerers take out his Ironguts in one go. I have no explanation for this.

Dwarf turn 4
The game is flying as there is little left to do. With him having no wizards left I am DOMINATING the magic phase...getting off the armor save boost has twice saved multiple Longbeards, the Wrath and Ruin is wounding Maneaters, Bulls, etc left and right...

I have very few targets left with the cannons as all but one of his 5 remaining units are engaged in combat and that one is behind a forest.

I charge my Thunderers into the Flame Cannon battle thinking I have Resolute and a chance...

The Longbeards force the Leadbelchers to flee off the table and are basically out of the game themselves, being in the far right flank across the board while the only remaining ogres are in my left flank deployment zone...

He finishes off the flame cannon, does lots of wounds to the Thunderers but they stick around.

Ogre Turn 5
His 2 Maneaters charge the flank of the 30-strong Longbeards. Why not, they have nothing else to do...

His Great Weapon Ironguts (?) charge the meatgrinding Hammerer unit. They battle fiercely, heavy losses both sides, I am down to 3 guys, he has 2, both wounded. Unfortunately, his unit Champ killed my BSB in a challenge. Fortunately, I passed the break test.

My General takes his champion in a challenge, he needs 6s to save the 2 wounds, gets them both, then adds insult to injury by wounding the general but I win combat anyway and reform to face them.

He wipes out the thunderers but gets stuck in the worst place possible...in front of the cannons.

Dwarf Turn 5
Unopposed, the Anvil Wrath And Ruins his bulls to death. The Cannons take out his general. The Hammerers and ironguts, both having great weapons, strike simultaneously. He does three wounds, wiping out my Hammerers. I do about 5 wounds...killing his last two unit members as well. Simultaneous mutual death. It was awesome.

His Maneaters break and get so far away that next turn would be me charging, him fleeing, then regrouping. Actually, they went through a mysterious forest, so I probably could not have seen them...we called it off since that was all he had left on the table.


What Went Right
Multiple wound-causing cannons getting enfilades on his Mournfangs and Gorgers before they could engage was unbelievable. I think he made a mistake not taking into account his positioning would allow me to shoot down his flank...but I made the right decision on  what to shoot at.

Additionally, when his already-clogged flank failed charges 3 of 4 attempts it allowed my single unit of Hammerers to take them on piece-meal and grind up the entire left flank, thus allowing the rest of my army to overwhelm him.

Finally, hitting those two low-percentage, high-risk, high-reward charges was a game-winning bit of luck. It got me out of precarious situations...if his leadbelchers get to sit back taking 20,30, 35 S4 shots a turn my Longbeards are going to die.

Meanwhile, multiple multi-wound causing weapons is a REALLY bad match for the ogres. If I enfilade a skaven unit, sure, I might do 5 or 6 casualties...who cares? Do 5-6 wounds (or 16...) to a Mournfang unit or Gorgers...well, that is a different story. I actually thought I would see skaven and against them the cannons would be nice but not stupid powerful. As it was, I think I fired the cannons 4 times each, had to reroll thanks to rune of forgning at least 5 of the 8 shots....and ended up never having a misfire, leading to some HUGE damage.

What Went Wrong
I definitely showed some rust in several decisions, but really, very little went wrong. I had a couple fluffed rolls but they were at times and places that did not hurt me overall.

He did a TON of damage. My 25 man Longbeards ended with 6 or 8 guys left...my 30 strong had I think 14 or so guys left...my hammerers, thunderers, gyrocopter, BSB, Steam cannon and Organ Gun all died...but the damage was spread out.

Really, I think it came down to my cannons being able to enfilade his key units and those failed charges. Do less cannonball damage and he can do some things. Get the Hammerers in a tough spot against a Stonehorn and Ironguts turn 2 and suddenly I don't have one unit holding up 3-4 units.

Final Thoughts
Overall, it was a really fun game. I love that I was able to vanguard 2 9and should have been 3 units, though if my Longbeards were further forward it would not have let me kill his Mournfangs, overshooting into his Maneaters...)

I like the Dwarf army has the option to push forward far enough to not have to sit back and gunline. At the same time, I kind of feel like I might have taken too much artillery...it was nearly 20% of my points, I just added it up. Sadly, Dwarfs are so expensive that taking say 2 less pieces would not let me take another combat unit. As is, nearly 50% of my points were in cc units and, including characters designed to make them even more CC oriented, well over 50% of them.I only had one unit of Thunderers so maybe a second one of them, but the nerf-bat they took makes that questionable.

Regardless, Kev said he liked the combat feel of the army and did not feel overwhelmed by the artillery/shooting and, in fact, thought he had more overall shooting. Not sure about that, though the 8 leadbelchers putting out 8d6 shots, his Ironblaster...they were fierce.

Anyhow, great time with great opponent. Looking forward to the next game. At this rate, that will probably be about 2016...

1500 Orcs & Goblins v 1500 Lizardmen

Have I mentioned lately how much I love 8th edition? Never feel like I am beaten before game starts, never feel I have game won before game starts...to read just the game section, skip to after the row of asterisks.

Anyway, tried to get together High Elf list but it came down to choice between Dragon Mage or Prince on Griffon...so I made the obvious choice of O&G.

I love starting with Gorbad. He is okay in close combat but where he really shines is letting me have an army of S4 multiple attack guys...and S5 on the first turn of combat.

Gorbad filled my Lord points, I took a level 2 night goblin with Dispel Scroll, 20 Savage Orc Big 'Uns with extra hand weapon & full command (& Big Stabbas), 10 Savage Orc Boar riders w/extra hand weapon & full command, and 20 Night Goblins w/2 fanatics, Arachnarok Spider and a Mangler Squig. 1500 points on the nose. I would have a commanding, nigh un-overcomable 1 point advantage as Fullur could merely manage 1499 points.

I like putting the 10 boar riders with Gorbad. If they pass animosity they get in combat lightning quick. If they fail animosity they get into combat ever faster with potentially 25 S5 or 6 attacks without taking into account the 6 more Boar attacks. I like my odds of dealing out some damage.

Meanwhile the 20 strong Savage Orcs are a nasty unit in their own right. The Night goblins with short bows were a nuisance unit meant to whittle down the enemy and throw a few fanatics at them while the Mangler would control a flank with his potential for massive damage.

Meanwhile Deathnarok is a fast, potentially very hard hitting unit that will get where I need it when I need it.

The result is a compact, mobile, tough, hard hitting army (sounds a lot like my Warriors of Chaos, except less well armored. Ironically I have a much better save percentage with these guys...)

*******************************************************************
We rolled up Blood and Glory. Strong. With 3 banners and Gorbad I have Fortitude 5. A Khemrian Marsh and mysterious river bifurcated the field right in the middle, a couple mysterious forests further made it a mystical, anti-maneuverable field.

Unless I put the Mangler on the left with a clear shot, the Boar Riders next to him to crest the hill, the Deathnarok where he could cross the river in one turn. The Night Goblin bowmen held the center of the field and the foot Savage Orcs protected the right flank from his Cold One riders.

He centered his army around several swarms with a large block of Skinks/Kroxigor on my left flank, a bastilidon behind the swarms, a big block of saurus behind the forest and his cold ones on my right flank.

O&G Turn 1
I did a general advance. My 20 strong bowmen could not fire, the Deathnarok riders hit just once and he saved it. I got poison on my foot Savage orcs.

Lizardmen Turn 1
His Cold ones don't move. In fact, let me save time: they never move until I charge them in turn 4. Everything else makes a measured advance. He moves his Saurus into the forest and I realize what a huge mistake I made. He forces the Fanatics into the open.

I can't send them after the Saurus...the forest would kill them. I have to launch them towards his Cold Ones on the right...which effectively takes my Savage Orcs out of the battle unless I want to change taking a massive hit.

Anyway, I have to let the Amber Spear hit Deathnarok, but it fails to wound. His shooting is better, wounding the Mangler twice. Ouch.

O&G Turn 2
I declare a double charge on the Skinks/Krox with my Boar Riders and Deathnarok.I am hoping the Mangler hits them and bounces out of my way first. Meanwhile I get my Night Goblins close enough to shoot at the Cold Ones.

Time to save time: I get off 56 shots with them in this game. I get 1 wound, which he saves. For the remainder of the game this unit fires ineffectually while the shaman goes nuts.

My charge hits home with both units but he stand and shoots down 3 of my Savage Orcs. Ouch. 30% gone already?

I get Bad Moon off and ship the vortex through his Saurus and Swarms. I forget it is a template and have him take just 6 tests. He loses 1 Saurus. Oops, my bad.

Meanwhile, Gorbad is in a challenge with a skink unit champ. I am licking my chops at the overkill. Except I only wound him 1 time. Oops. Warpaint is amazing, though, and I save both wounds his skinks put on me. Deathnarok kills 4 skinks, the Night Goblins on top do 5 wounds (hmm...), my Savage Orcs wound the Krox 5 times,kill off 3 more skinks...he flees, I run him down...and run into the Mangler. Between what he did to me and what I do to myself with the Mangler, I am down to Gorbad and the command models. I have lost 6 of that unit already...this is not good because my 20 man block is locked away on the right wing and the Deathnarok clipped the Swarms in his overrun.

Lizardman 2
His Saurus move to flank the Deathnarok next turn. He dispels Bad Moon, uses the shooting thing from the Bastilidon to put a wound or two on Deathnarok, I can only wound his hero once, the Night Goblins only do 1 wound, his SWARMS do 2 to Deathnarok...only a Thunderstomp lets me win. Well, that and the charge. But his anti-squishy ability saves the crumble. And he then adds a Swarm with the special rule...so they are STRONGER than they were before I attacked. This is not good...

O&G Turn 3
I spin the Boar riders to face the bastilidon, one Fanatic caroms into the forest, I fail to restrain and my Savage Orc block fails their charge, moving just 4 or 5". I finish off his hero, do lots of wounds, but so does he...Deathnarok takes 4 more wounds. I am down to just 2 wounds.

Lizardmen Turn 3
His Saurus flank charge the Deathnarok. The Bastilidon does another shooting wound. He adds another Swarm.

 Deathnarok will not go quietly, doing 4 wounds to the swarms and the Night Goblins do another, but his Saurus do 7 wounds to Arachnarok...who only had 1 left. Down goes Deathnarok as usual.

O&G Turn 4
The Savage Orcs fail to meet their charge distance. The Boar Boys charge the Bastilidon. Bad Moon succeeds, I do two wounds to the Swarms and kill a couple Saurus.

Gorbad hits the Bastilidon twice, both wound...and both multiply to 3 wounds, 1-shotting the poor Bastilidon. I clip the swarms on the overrun.

Lizardmen Turn 4
He flips the Saurus to face the nigh inevitable Savage Orc Boar Boy charge.
Gorbad, who remember does multiple wounds, has 4 attacks needing 3 to hit, 2 to wound, does...2 wounds to the swarms.But the Savage Orcs make up for it, doing 6 and the Boars do a couple more. Finally those obnoxious, lethal swarms (who ever thought I would say THAT?) are gone, gone, gone. Yeah! They go to crumble, so no overrun.

O&G Turn 5
I quickly check. He has 2 banners left. I just need to get one more. Unfortunately, I don't think the 3 remaining Savage Orc boar boys and the underwhelming Gorbad can take on 25ish Saurus. If he beats me in that combat I lose because I will only have 1 Fortitude. Oh, well, we are Orcs. The 20 man block charges the Cold One Knights, I charge his Saurus block. Death or Glory, right?

I get the Poison on the 20 man Savage Orc block with irresistible, do a wound to myself and lose rest of my power dice.

First I do the Savage Orcs on foot v Cold Ones. Our unit champs fight a challenge. I whiff all 4 attacks. His champ misses 2 of the 3 and cannot wound with the 4th. His Cold one hits once, cannot wound. That was...unimpressive.

But my rank & file do me proud, doing 11 wounds and he only saves 1, kills back 2 or 3 Savage Orcs and is run down.

Back to the important battle: if he wins it he wins the game, if we draw or I win it, his army will "break".

My Champ and his champ get in a challenge. Gorbad continues to prove outside of the Bastilidon, he just doesn't have a lot of combat power, doing just 1 wound. My unit champ does better, doing 2 wounds and saving the only wound done to him. (Go go gadget Warpaint!)

Gnarla matches Gorbad's output, the standard bearer does a couple more. He cannot wound Gorbad, does kill the standard bearer. I win the combat...and run him down. He was tabled.

What Went Right
The combo charge was a thing of beauty. He never had a chance. I had so many attacks that even a sub-par outcome was still a devastating win. Gorbad one-shotting the Bastilidon was awesome and, words you have never heard before and will probably never hear again, I DOMINATED the magic phase, getting off Gift of the Spider I think 3 times and Bad Moon twice.

Also, I saved like a fiend. Needing 5's and 6's to save I probably saved 30-40% of the wounds he did.

What Went Wrong
Bad setup of the Night goblins meant my Fanatics held up a powerful unit and did NOTHING to him.
My bowfire was...ineffective.
Dominating the magic phase killed 5 Saurus and 1 Swarm wound...not really a big deal.
Mangler did 3 hits to him...and 3 to me. That hurt me worse.


Overall it was a really fun game. Would have preferred a slightly different outcome, like...NOT tabling him, but I really like the new Lizard book and had a great time.

Warhammer 40k Space marine Paint Scheme

For no apparent reason..

I am not much of a painter but I really like this color scheme.

The purple is Pearlized Amethyst by Plain, the Blue is Pearlized Blue Sapphure, same company. The green and orange were because I could not figure out what to do with those ribbons, they needed to stand out.

On the back I tried to make it look like glowing blue power with a white in the center, blended light blue, darker blue thing...not sure how it will look.

For the base I mixed blue and purple sand roughly half and half, then chipped up a blue "filler marble" and through it on the base to add texture.

I later did my first TRUE blend on the plasma gun. Yellow blending into orange into red to represent heat. I like how it turned out. If I get interest will post pics of that, otherwise just throwing these up for no reason other than to have a record of what I was thinking.

I would be interested to know if people concur with my assessment the gold highlights make the models 'pop"

6500 points WoC v 6500 points Skaven

So this has been...saying a slow year for Warhammer would be an understatement. Spent much of the year playing 8-12 hours of racquetball a week along with spring and summer softball, some biking, a little bit of tennis...and somewhere along the line Warhammer fell off the map.

A recent spate of injuries opened some time...between the torn meniscus in the knee, the pulled hamstring, the tennis elbow in both arms and the torn rotator cuff I don't feel much like all the racquet sports or biking...though I did play racquetball Friday. Kind of felt bad...John is left-handed and I was wrecking him so badly right handed I switched off and played left handed the last 4 games...and won all those, too...

Anyway, I have been painting up models to kill time. And wanted to play a bunch of WoC stuff I had never gotten to play such as my juggernauts, 5 units of Chaos Knights, etc...

 So Kev and I decided to get in a big game.

I used all but I think 2 WoC models I had and it came out to 6500ish when I got them kitted out (6422 before I nudged in a couple extra Marauders). I think he said he proxied a unit but I don't recall which one, he got together the same amount in Skaven goodness and off we went.

Scenario
We actually rolled up battle for the Pass...twice. But since the table is a 12'x4' designed to have 2 games going side by each and since we had such massive armies we agreed to re-roll and got Dawn Deployment. Still crowded and it would result in a couple of my units stuck in corners unable to ever get in action but still fun.

It took us between 45 minutes and an hour to set up. That will happen when one side has something like 21 units and 415 models...and the other has about 18 units and 156 models.

On my left flank I had my chariot which I thought would take it out of the battle with its no march rule and the distance, a shaggoth and a unit of chaos knights.

On the right flank I had Marauder horsemen, 2 more units of knights and my great weapon, khorne marked Corn Thresher unit. They were stacked on each other. My H-Cannon being over there did not help.

But the middle was the worst. I had another Marauder Horsemen, a unit of Forsaken and dogs in the front holding back 2 units of knights, a unit of Juggernauts, Dragon Ogres, a horde of Marauders, and a couple units of warriors marked tzeentch with shield.

.
Kev was nearly as crowded...oh, not overall. Counterintuitively, despite haing more units and out-model counting me nearly 3-1 he had more space for units without needing to deploy in depth. BUT...his big (Warpfire?) cannon was blocked by a forest and would have very limited targets, and a couple other batteries were locked on the back row and behind a hill so they could not unleash a Napoleonic Artillery Park barrage.

I was fortunate to get the first turn. I have played Skaven a few times and they have a habit that disturbs me. The strength of my WoC is 2-fold:1, they dish out a TON of punishment with a narrow frontage and 2, they have great armor saves so are tough to bring down.

The Skaven seem to have a ton of no armor saving allowing weapons. Warpfire cannons, Plague monks, plague furnace, poison wind globadiers...it feels like every wound is a death with no save allowed. Not sure I have all the names right and not sure it matters...the FEELING overrides reality and I play based on perception when I have not played in a while and can't be bothered to look up all the little rules for an army.

I based my plan over eliminating his armor-save denial guns. I ran my Marauder horsemen up in front of two weapon teams and positioned my level 4 to do some damage to the Globadiers.

I had designs for the magic phase that abruptly changed. I cast a calm 4-dice Firestorm trying to draw out his dispel dice, then was going to Treason them and then hit them with damage from my other wizard. Except he used a Feedback Scroll...and promptly threw 3 wounds on my only Level 4. Fortunately I ward saved one to live but it changed my entire magic plan.

Meanwhile, he lost a couple globadiers and of course gained Regen 6 from my warpflame rule. That would later come into play.

Shooting; for the Warriors of Chaos this is not traditionally a very good phase. Marauders with throwing axes are fun, though...and each unit took out a weapon team. The only weapon teams with shots in his first turn.

Then the H-cannon fired at his doomwheel. A hit and...uh oh, mis-fire. A 6. Oops...cannot fire again this game. BUT...it does the hit. Boom, got the wound through and it is d6 multiple wounds...rolled a 6. His Doomwheel is gone...and worse yet, something like 3 units and a character all panicked off the board.

So magic does its traditional hurt me more than the opponent but shooting was DEVASTATING. Yeah, so the cannon can't fire again...just means I now have a vicious, unbreakable close combat monster to hand.

Oh, and he had scouts on the left flank I was able to charge with my Knights. Their stand and shoot wounds one, I just need a 2 or better...who needs to eliminate my awesome saves when I will fail that anyway?

No worries, they chew up his scouts and spit them out, overrunning them in one turn into his slaves behind.

His turn he runs the plague furnace into my 4 strong unit of Great Weapon wielding Dragon Ogres. I have been pummeled by that thing before. I hope at least one guy hangs on and I can get help there next turn in the form of a Shaggoth and maybe some Juggers...except I foolishly fled with both Marauder units and thus clogged up my lines. That was rust on my game.

Turns out against tough, multi-wound models the Furnace does fewer wounds. Also turns out a bunch of decent weapon skill, S7 attacks are not good for the furnace. It was gone in one turn leaving a very manageable bunch of rats.

His slaves survive my second turn and even kill off a second Knight. Yes, skaven slaves stand up to Chaos Knights and do a wound.

On turn two I go to draw out his dispel dice with an Infernal Gateway...and get irresistible force. The miscast reduces a level 2 to a level 0. My magic is getting weaker. But I do get the globadiers down to just 3. And then I use my level 4's breath weapon to wipe them out...except the regen saves him.

Meanwhile his Abomination has pinwheeled into my Corn Threshers and his Screaming Bell runs into my 6 strong knights.

Over the next two turns his A-bomb will kill 9 Corn Threshers and make about 10 ward saves or regeneration saves before dying and becoming swarms which occupy another turn. The Screaming Bell only kills one knight but it is turn 5 before it dies, and that is only when the last 3 Corn Threshers join in with their mighty S6 and finish it off.

In the center I have far too much power for him. That opening H-Cannon shot lets me pound 2 and 3 units at a time into his individual units.

The best moment comes when he unleashes some banner with his Plague Monks and gets 24 hits and like 8 or 10 wounds onto my Dragon Ogres, shrinking them to just one guy left.

On the left flank my chariot is having a grand time doing 7 impact hits on his big gun (which to be fair one-shotted a Chaos Spawn...who cares...and missed the much juicier Knight unit) and running it off the table, thus getting the chariott out of the way of his nastiest unit.

So at this point it looks really good for me. He has lost all three war machines and the HPA along with miscellaneous weaker units.He does have 2 units of knights down to 1 wound apiece, my Giant down to 3 wounds remaining, the forsaken down to 2 models and the Dragon Ogre down to 1.

He also had killed my Level 4 at some point, leaving him dominant in the magic phase.

Then comes a key turn. I have 2 knights behind his level 4/Rat Ogre pair. he tries cracks call, I need them alive to kill his wizard so spin all my dispel dice at them.

I should point out I had some great rolls...but I also had 5 "1"s in 8 tries and 0 hits in 5 tries needing a mere 3. Well, this roll with 7 dispel dice totaled something like 12. So it went off...I think it killed one of the knights. Then I used Dispel on something else knowing if he got the 13th off it would be irresistible anyway. He uses his last magic die...and 5 warp tokens. Gets the 13th off without irresistible.

My untouched 12 strong tzeentch warriors bolstered by a level 2 and a Chaos Lord tooled up for close combat becomes 14 clan rats.

Ouch. That hurt. On the bright side, it gave the H-Cannon and Marauder unit a target and they dutifully wiped out the new unit.

Meanwhile the bright, shiny new Juggernaut unit got a brief run. Along with the giant, they did a number on his last meaningful unit on the right or center.

 Then it was time to deal with that pesky 13th-casting mad-man. This is French for "overwhelming force".

By this time the outcome was again looking like a fore-gone conclusion. With just 2 turns left I could run away from his last unit.

I did not.

He briefly looked like he might make me regret it. With Queek, his general and some other model he had so many high I, decent strength, often no save-allowing attacks it looked like the Shaggoth was done for, he dispatched my last dragon ogre and I was in trouble as I fluffed a ton of attacks.

Fortunately the stomps and chariot impact hits won the combat.

In the bottom of the 6th I finished off all the little guys and Queek in a challenge. The Skaven had enough and left the field unchallenged.

And here is the traditional "We survived" photo.

What went right:
Turn one shooting. When that huge hole was ripped in the middle of his lines it allowed me to separate his forces and defeat them in detail, often teaming up 3 or even 4 units against suddenly badly outmatched, outnumbered skaven.

That shot was so crucial; even though he had nearly a 3-1 model advantage, I routinely had a numerical advantage in each combat after that.

Second, the impact hits and stomps were awesome. At least 3 times I got the max impact hits and/or stomps, turning lost combats into devastating wins.

Third, by keeping him from ramping up his ratling guns and warpfire cannons by either having them blocked in by troops or else killed on turn one, two or charged before they could fire when they were uncovered removed his hard counter to my armor advantage.

Fourth, he did plenty of damage but it was separated too widely. I totaled it up after the game and if he could have done 1 - 3 more wounds per unit he would have had another 2000 points. As it was, he wiped out several units but missed wiping out just as many more units by 1,1,1,1,2, and 3 wounds I think. That turned it from a close game into a rout.

5th, but turn 3 I had invalidated or outright destroyed all his war machines and the HPA.

What Went Wrong
Having not played in some time, I forgot key stuff and made juvenile tactical errors...such as fleeing marauder horsemen that A) had served their purpose and B) would have brought him right into my happy zone, allowing turn 2 charges by such potent forces as my Juggernauts, Marauder Horde, and Chaos Knights.

I also had some badly fluffed rolls, though those were balanced out by some really nice rolls.

In other words, not much went wrong. Well, except his #$%^& H-bomb making more Regen saves than it failed. That thing does so much damage in a short amount of time...

Says the guy who rudely tabled his opponent. Apparently the WoC dish out a ton of damage as well...

In the end it was a great afternoon of gaming with a great friend. I can now say I have played the new Warriors of Chaos book, I have used every unit I have and the same thing as every model, and I look forward to a lot more Warhammer in 2014.

2k Tomb Kings v Orcs & Goblins

Lately I have been experimenting with using Gorbad Ironclaw as my army general. He accomplishes a couple of things; 1, he can more or less negate Animosity within 18" which, if you play your army correctly, encompasses all the important elements.

Also, it makes it so I can turn all my orcs into Big uns. This makes them strong, tough, with plentiful attacks....everything I look for in an army (almost). Ironically, I have usually only ended up with 2 units of big uns in armies at 2800 points...

This time I built it a bit different, going with 2 20 strong units of Savage orc Big Uns with extra hand weapon and full command, 10 Big un Savage Orc boar boys with extra hand weapon and full command, Gorbad, a doom diver, a level 2 Savage orc Shaman with shrunken head, a Savage orc Boss with Crown of Command, and a level 1 Night Goblin with Dispel Scroll...a Mangler Squig, Arachnarok, and I was out of points.

But I like it; I have 2 solid infantry blocks capable both of absorbing a great deal of punishment and of putting a hurting on even the toughest of opponents. I have Deathnarok the Arachnarok to tear up small units, the mangler to deal with tough armor, and my smurf-slapping Boar Boy fast moving, hard hitting unit of doom. And I can possibly use the Doom Diver against anything he brings like a Giant, Necrosphinx, etc.

For scenarios, I am well set for Blood & Glory or Watchtower, and only Dawn whatever it is could be an issue if it yanks my infantry away from the warming bubble of Gorbad's leadership, drop animosity and do untoward things like beat each other up.

We rolled up Battle for the Pass and mass quantities of obstacles.

I put the mangler squig on my left, planning to run up that side dodging obstacles, then come horizontally down his battle line which was lined up behind fences. My Doom Diver went in the tall building next to the Squig, giving them line of sight to the whole field and the reach to hit anything.

Then went the 20 strong Savage Orcs accompanied by the Shrunken Head Shaman and Boss, with the second unit behind them. Deathnarok would use his wall crawler to climb over the building in front of him and the Boar Boys had a clean run up the right flank.

This kept everyone within my LD bubble. Between my him hitting on 5s, my T4 meaning he wounded on 5 and my 5+ ward, I figured he would do 5 or 6 casualties as I crossed the field, so my front unit would be softened but would still be able to participate in a good fight.

Meanwhile, he lined up two catapults in each back corner of the field, the Casket of Souls on the hill in the center, Khalida and his hierophant buffing something like 54ish Skeleton Archers, a block of 20 archers to their left (my right flank) and two units of scouting Skeleton Horse archers behind me to march block the Orc infantry and harass them.


Tomb King Turn 1
He was a couple inches behind the fence line that occupied the center of the field so he made a slight advance to defend the barricade.

 He rolls up 8 power dice and the casket adds just one. He rolls 3 dice at Righteous Smiting. I plan to stop that and the Casket and let everything else go. I figure it up and need to average just 3/die to stop it...and manage to average 1.5 per die. Righteous smiting goes off on his big unit. Oh well, just two ranks this turn. Then he rolls a super high total on the casket so I have to use my scroll...and end up with 3 unused dice.

His catapults scatter...let me save time; after this round, every turn one catapult scatters and the other mis-fires, finally blowing itself up. neither ever does a casualty.

The Khalida-buffed archers turn out to hit on 4s and have poison. Double-tapping thanks to Righteous Smiting he ends up wounding 14 of my Savage Orcs (9 via Poison) and I save 5. I actually feel good losing "only" 9 to it, but now I am nervous. Next turn he will have volley fire, and I have lost nearly half my unit already!

Actually, more than half...the other unit does 4 more wounds and I save just 1. In one turn of shooting I lost 12 orcs! With a 5+ ward save and him needing 5s to wound...this is not good. Even his horse archers pick off one of my back unit.

Where we stand
Shooting is great for softening up, but not usually for wiping out units. In this case, one more turn like that and my unit will be entirely wiped out. I know skeletons are weak in close combat, but I will only have one or two units available to take on his massive horde. I am not nervous yet...but definitely know I am in for more of a fight than I suspected.

Orc Turn 1
Too far to charge, so I am going to march everything. Everybody passes animosity (I never fail it all game, in fact). I decide to see if my Mangler can work over his skeleton horse archers. Unfortunately, needing to go I think 7 inches to smash into them, I roll a 4 and 2 1s...6" on 3d6. Yes, that is typical Orc incompetence.

I debate for a few moments; I want to move my heroes from the unit about to get shot to death back to the trailing unit. But I do not want to lose a turn of advancing and cannot figure out how to do it without moving no distance. So I elect just to march and hope his shooting is a bit less effective. Next turn I will move my heroes back.

I pass all my LD tests and march both blocks of orcs forward. Deathnarok marches forward. I thought about moving 7 and firing bows but 8 Forest Goblin archers are not going to do much...better to get into close combat ASAP.

I forget the Doom Diver does not "fire" as normal and give it poison with my night goblin shaman. He stuffs Fists of Gork and I get Gaze of Mork off, wounding 4 skeletons but one saves with MR. Then the Doom Diver misfires.

Where we stand
I am hopeful at least a couple of Savage Orcs can use the power of the Shrunken Head to withstand the withering bowfire for one more turn. Next turn my Deathnarok will smash into his smaller block of archers and my Boar Riders will set up down their flank and head into the big block. He gets one, maybe 2 more turns of firing and then the Orcs will be smashing bones back to dust.

Tomb King Turn 2
His Knights do not turn up. His Horse archers move up behind my trailing unit of Savage Orcs.
He gets 5 power dice and the casket adds 1. He 6-dices it and gets it off irresistibly. Gorbad keeps his unit from getting hurt, it jumps to the Deathnarok and Gorbad saves that, too. Bullet dodged.

Shooting; this time he unleashes the full fury of the volley firing Khalida poisoning and it is super effective; He kills the last 8 Savage Orcs. Worse, his other unit then fires at the now naked Savage Orc Boss and Shrunken Head bearing Shaman. 8 hits, 4 to each. Needing 6s to wound, he wounds the Boss twice...and I duly fail both saves to die. Ouch. Then he wounds the Shaman twice and of course I fail both of those. This is a crushing blow.

His horse archers take down two more of my second unit of infantry.

Where we stand
I am very worried. I did not think there was any chance I would lose my Shaman and Boss. Even if he shot the unit out from around them...which I thought was a long shot...they should survive, hide in the second block and be fine. Instead he took out a unit I was really, really counting on.

Worse, he is whittling down my second block, too. They are already down almost a quarter of their strength and they are two turns from combat yet...so they will face another round of that horrific volley fire, but with 16% less chance to save....they might die all in one go!

On the bright side I still have Deathnarok and my Gorbad-led Boar Boys, and they can do some damage...but I have seen Deathnarok struggle with some wimpy units and was not wanting to run the Boar boys in because that would take them out of the battle for another turn or two and frankly, the infantry block that is left is probably too weak to take out even the weak-fighting horde. I am in danger of getting blown off the field, my best chance of stopping the Casket is gone...I actually think I am way, way behind here.

I am already down nearly a third of my army and have done like 12 points to him. Hmm.

Orc & Goblin Turn 2
I pass to restrain my Frenzy, charge with the Deathnarok. The Mangler falls 1" short of his unit of Horse archers. Garr. I do set up the Boar Boys to flank this 20 man block or, if Deathnarok does what I think he will, flank the big block next turn and start ripping a hole in him.

The Doom Diver actually splashes down dead center in his big block and kills 5 of them. This is awesome...though in truth probably the wrong target. I am intimidated by the T10 of the Casket, but should probably be targeting it anyway.

Deathnarok has 8 attacks needing 3s to hit and 2s to kill. He can only do in 3 of them. They do nothing back. The crew, with 8 attacks needing 4 to hit and 4 to wound...does 3. Then I roll the highest Thunderstomp I have ever rolled, 4...and promptly only wound with 2. Still, another something like 8 guys melt, he is down to just 4 guys left and I think Deathnarok will take them out in his turn.

Where we stand
His horse archers will continue to be a minor nuisance, doing not enough to be devastating but certainly enough to hurt. I figure to lose a couple models either way from 10 more of the Savage Orc infantry which will reduce them pretty much below any effectiveness, even against wimpy Skeleton archers.

But Deathnarok should clear the way to hit his flank and my Boar Boys are going to lay the wood to him next turn.The question is if they can take out the entire block. I do not know. The game kind of hangs in the balance. And not a good balance...I think it is tilted slightly in his favor but not anything that can be overcome.

Tomb King Turn 3
He rolls on his Knights and they "hit" right where he wanted them, in front of his catapult ready to flank my Boar Boys if they flank his archers.The Hierophant leaves the unit anyway for safety.

He only gets 5 pd so again tosses them all at the casket, and again it is irresistible but I pass both LD tests.

This is the turn one catapult explodes, the other hits for the only time in the game but fails to wound.

His other shooting is more effective; he wounds 10 Savage Orcs, I ward save 2. His horses kill another.

In close combat the Deathnarok unsurprisingly slays his last 4 archers in the small unit and reforms to look the big block of archers right in the flank.

Where we stand
Ouch, ouch, ouch. His Knights are a real threat if they hit me in the flank. I will have to charge them with either the Arachnarok or the Boar Boys. Meanwhile, the other one will have to charge his archers because, even if I charge with Deathnarok and fluff my attacks, I have to stop their shooting.

My original 40 Savage Orcs (in two blocks) have been whittled down to 8 by 3 rounds of shooting. I cannot take any more of that. If I do not do something about the archers I am done for anyway.

 On the other hand, if Deathnarok actually goes all Deathnarok on his big unit I will do lots of damage, stop them from shooting, and with only 3 or 4 attacking back, have an excellent chance of either winning the combat outright or at worst losing by very little; by hitting in the flank and minimizing the attacks back, some of his 3 or 4 point static resolution will be mitigated, and I think I can do 5 or 6 wounds.

Orc and Goblin Turn 3
I send Deathnarok after the flank, specifically because his Thunderstomp will help against them but be pointless against the Knights. I send Gorbad and his Boar Boys after the Knights, hoping Morgor the Mangler can do some damage.

I also take a low risk, high reward chance with the few remaining Savage orc infantry and declare a charge on the front of the unit. I need I think a 10 to reach; if I fail, no big deal as with any luck his big block will be engaged anyway with Deathnarok. If I make it, I avoid the nuisance shots of the horse archers and add, if not what it once was, at least some serious combat ability to the Deathnarok.

Meanwhile, the Mangler finally hits the horse archers and one of his 2 blocks of 5 melts away to nothing. For the rest of the game the Mangler will roam around the backfield missing obstacles by an inch every turn. Random dice for the win.

The Savage Orcs roll 11 and make it into combat. The Doom Diver hits the casket and actually manages to wound it!

I choose to do the wrong combat first; Gorbad and company. His unit champ declares a challenge. I want Gorbad to maximize his multiple wound ability so take it with my champ. He hits just once, but it is a killing blow...which I then Ward save. I see your 6 and match it with my own. But then his snake kills my champ anyway.

Gorbad can only hit twice, but manages to do 2 wounds with each for a total of 4. Gorbad saves a wound and pick up the dice. Needing a 4 to hit, I have 16 attacks; I know I am going to melt his last 2 wounds on the regular guy which will crumble the champ.

Unfortunately, there are only 2 dice in that 16 that manage to hit. At least one of those wounds. None of the Boars does anything. He still crumbles, but wow was that fluffed attack a gut punch. On the bright side, because he crumbled I cannot overrun and instead combat reform to face the big block.

Khalida declares a challenge, my unit champ accepts; she hits 5 times, wounds 5 times, I save zero. This is the most overkill I have ever suffered...and I am worried.

Deathnarok does his customary 3 kills, then the Orcs show they are still a force to be reckoned with; the 7 remaining guys do 9 more. The goblins atop Deathnarok continue to show they are as good at he is at killing dead things, doing three more.

He then kills 2 of the Savage Orcs, I do 4 more with Thunderstomp...best game I have ever had with it....win by 10 and his unit is much less intimidating now.

Where we stand
What a difference a round of combat makes. This game is all but over. Next turn my Savage Orc Boar Boys are going to thunder into the rear of his archers. They cannot stand up to my infantry, Deathnarok and the Boar Boys. Other than that unit, he has a pointless catapult, the Casket,, and a Hierophant. I have this game in the bag.

For all the whittling down he did with shooting, he is done in by having no close combat troops that can stand up to my infantry, much less my cavalry or Deathnarok.

Tomb King 4
His Horse archers try to charge the rear of my infantry. A bold move, and a worthy attempt, though they need a 12 to make it. It is a low risk, high reward gamble; if it succeeds, he adds +2 to his combat resolution and possibly more if any attacks are successful. I already have soft targets, so it adds nothing to my combat resolution.

Meanwhile, if he fails, he had nothing else to do with them anyway...maybe shoot at the Mangler, but it is likely to kill itself running into an obstacle anyway, so why not take the longshot gamble that might have a positive outcome? It fails, but was a brilliant move. No downside.

Ironically, he maxes out power dice this turn. I cannot stop him giving killing blow to the big unit. I can...and do...stop righteous smiting....and cannot stop the Casket which then kills my Doom Diver.

Khalida hits her cutomary 5 times, but can only kill 1. Deathnarok does...wait for it...3. His skeletons then kill the last 4 infantry, but my goblins do...you probably already know. 3. Thunderstomp returns to normal and does just 1. He reforms to face the Deathnarok.

Where We stand
His once mighty unit of archers now has Khalida, some other character, and like 5 guys. I am about to smash into them with my mighty unit of Boar Boys which wiped out his Knights in one go for the loss of their champion, and Deathnarok will do some damage.

I have lost both units of infantry, two heroes, and my Doom Diver...but I think I have this in hand.

Orc & Goblin 4
Sure enough, in go the Boar Boys; Khalida declares a challenge which Gorbad has to take; she has killing blow so I am nervous. Fortunately, my ASF cancels out hers so no re-rolls...and she whiffs 4 of 5 attacks, can cannot wound with the 5th. I only can hit once in 4 tries myself, but that one wounds...and multiplies to 3. Down goes Khalida!

The Curse does 2 wounds, both of which I save. I wipe out the rest of his unit.

At this point I do not think he has anything left that can hurt me.

And indeed the only thing of not that happens is I cannot stop the casket on the next turn, roll a 17 for my LD test on the Deathnarok which would instakill it...fortunately, Gorbad is only 17" away...so his 18" LD bubble lets me reroll and I pass. Next turn I charge the casket and wipe it out.


What Went Right
10 Savage Orc Boar Boys with Gorbad leading them lay out a serious number of high strength, decent WS attacks.

 Deathnarok is lethal against infantry; consider this; he should have been doing 4.42 wounds per turn, the goblins should have done 2, and the Thunderstomp should have been doing 2.9 per turn. So I should have done 9.33 wounds per turn with that model; I did 29 in 4 rounds of combat for a total of 7.25 wounds per turn....meaning Deathnarok actually UNDERPERFORMED in this game, and he was still possibly my MVP. He is AWESOME.

Passing every Animosity test, every LD test and Gorbad just being well worth the points for giving me Big Uns to do massive damage.

And while my dice were at times just awful (I point to hitting 2 times in 16 attempts when odds were I would hit 8 times, give or take one or two), they were awesome when I needed them to be. Timing is more important than consistency; in fact, on the aforementioned turn, I still wiped out his knights, largely due to Gorbad alone. So the poor dice did not hurt me there.

WHAT WENT WRONG
Where to start? Mangler Squig falling nearly 4" short of expected movement on the first turn, costing me several extra casualties from his horse archers.

Not being able to stop Righteous Smiting or the Casket. Not being able to withstand the shooting and seeing both infantry blocks die relatively fast and easy. I am still in shock over that...it was quite unexpected.

Having two heroes shot to death in a turn I thought they were safe. But that was my own fault; spending thirty seconds looking at the rule book means I would have had them in the second unit and "safe" for another turn.

Summing Up
In the end it was a pretty close run thing. Early on it seemed his lethal shooting would be a difference maker; in the end, he desperately needed some decent close combat troops to consolidate what would have been a victory. Unfortunately, the Tomb Kings book has none of those to offer.

I guess he COULD have sacrificed the catapults and smaller shooting block to put in...I don't know, the over priced Ushabti? A Necrosphinx or Warsphinx, which probably cost as much as the Deathnarok without being as valuable? His version of a giant?

I assume you see my point He really had no good options. Maybe a chariot unit hoping to impact hit away some orcs?

His best combat unit went head to head with my best combat unit. He did one casualty; I did (between actually casualties and crumble casualties) 9. And that is arguably the BEST unit in his army.

Khalida probably means no tomb prince or king (whoever has the "my will be done" rule), but without bumping up S, that only prevents a couple casualties and does not swing the outcome.

This is me being sad about the Tomb King book. It has the potential to be really cool; it ends up sucking very badly. Unnecessarily.

Meanwhile, the Orc book is pretty cool. I can do so many different builds; strong infantry, strong cavalry, strong monster, massed but ineffective shooting, fanatics bolstered by squigs of various sorts, and  mixtures of those.

The Empire book is also varied and intriguing. I love the new Warriors of Chaos book. The OGre Kingdoms book is generally acknowledged as slightly stronger than most but generally solid. Same with Vampire Counts.

But the Tomb Kings? Their best units are chaff, their worst units worthless...so disappointing.

Still, thanks Fixed Dice for an entertaining game. Beware the Beastmen.

Another Look at Marauders

When I was reviewing the new Warriors of Chaos book my review was derailed by Mac issues…and after it caused me to have to restart two or three times I put a lot less effort into communicating my thoughts clearly and, to be honest, irritation and frustration no doubt colored some of my responses. Sure, that sounds odd when you think about how I gushed over the quantity and quality of choices…I even found a use for the wildly overpriced Forsaken. At the same time, I think I was pretty overcritical of the Marauders.

Lets go back and look at them from a slightly different angle. For a WS4, S3, T3 guy, they are actually pretty affordable. Better yet, who out there would not GLADLY pay 2 points per model on anything but the cheapest crap troop to give their guy a 6+ ward? I would gladly pay it for my Black Orcs…Goblins…Gor…ungor…Lothern Sea Guard…Dwarf Warriors…Men at Arms…Knights Errant…and those are the ones I might hesitate a half second before paying that price. Ironically, for some of those I add much more in cost than the 18ish% save rate I gain...but I irrationally put a higher value on the chance to save than its actual mathematical value.

My more favored stuff like the Arachnarok Spider, Mangler Squig, Dragon Ogres, Dragon Ogre Shaggoth, etc? Oh, yeah. I would pay that cost without even thinking about it. Auto-take. So it is well worth it for Marauders with their stat line even if it is a mildly inefficient use of points (adding 33% to the cost of the model for an overall improvement in durability of less than 33% is inefficient; it is only a 33% improvement if they only ever fight in close combat where the enhanced parry save is in force and never are subjected to shooting, magic, LD tests, etc.)

 For that matter, Goblins envy their stat line. Dwarf Warriors envy their price. Gor will pick them apart, but then again, the rest of the Warriors core will slaughter the Gor or anything else the Beastmen have in their Core. Or Special. Or Rare.

And there we get to the gist of it.

Sure, in a vacuum the Marauders are not too high priced. They become about right when you improve them, but by then they are getting too expensive in comparison to the Chaos Warriors. Or, alternatively, the Chaos Warriors are too cheap (see Math-Hammer non-sense at the end of this post). But they are not in a vacuum…they are in a book comprising sections including characters, rare and special.

And while I might trade Marauders for Gor, lets say, straight across…unmarked Marauders, that is…would I trade Marauders and Chaos Warriors for Gor and Ungor? Uh…no. And while I would dearly love to have a line of Repeater Crossbowmen lined up next to my Chaos Warriors in lieu of those Marauders and their zero inch range, I would not trade the Chaos Warrior option for anything in the Dark Elf core section. I would rather have the Marauders than Men at Arms straight up…and so forth. It is not the Marauders alone that must be considered, it is how they perform their role in the book they are in relative to their points.

And therein we see part of the problem.

If I have a guy with 1 S3 attack and have the option to give him 2 attacks by marking him and thus giving him Frenzy, it is hard not to. I come close to doubling his overall effectiveness but only add 33% to the cost. Unlike the save, that DOES seem to be an efficient use of points. When I need to pay 3 times as much for another model as I do for another attack, it seems an excellent value to corn it up and take frenzy.

 If I plan for these guys to die in droves but be a problem for high armor guys, it seems silly not to give them S5 via Great Weapon. And of course maximizing the attacks of each model in that scenario is a must, so along comes khorne. But suddenly I have nearly doubled the cost of the model.

And therein lies the rub; the basic, unenhanced Marauder on the surface seems to be a very good value in the book. 50 Marauders in a block will take up a ton of space and do they job I need them to do…namely, pin the opponent in place with superior numbers until my high-priced death units get involved. And when 50 Marauders cost the same as 21.4 unimproved Chaos Warriors it even makes a kind of sense. (Unless you math-hammer it out…if you horde both up, which you would do with the Warriors to take up the same frontage, the Warriors end up with MORE attacks than the Marauders and there are still 16 CW standing when the Marauders are dead…so yeah, even for pure cheapness, Marauders do not make sense.)

But the temptation is always there to enhance those Marauders…a mark here, an equipment upgrade there…and suddenly the price difference between them and the Chaos Warrior shrinks. You see, with the equipment costing basically the same for a Marauder as a Warrior,  even if you add the same equipment to each at the same cost, the cost ends up being higher for the marauders.

Consider this; 7 basic Marauders cost the same as 3 basic Chaos Warriors. But 7 Marauders with say…mark of tzeentch, light armor and shield to provide a steadfast block with a 5+/5++ close combat saves as 4.118 Chaos Warriors with tzeentch and shield…who are better S, T, I, and armor save with a 3+/5++. So when you start adding on options, suddenly you essentially get “free” Chaos Warriors due to the difference in base cost. Adding 67% to the cost of a Marauder to get the same enhancements you get by adding 18% to the Chaos Warrior means the more enhancements you add, the better value the Chaos Warrior becomes in relation to the Marauder.

Worse, there is no role the enhanced Marauder does better than the enhanced Warrior. Trying to be steadfast? Warriors would have to have the help of a character using the Crown of command in theory…but in sheer ruggedness and combat ability, they probably never NEED steadfast…Going after a low quality horde? The Marauders melt away faster than the Warriors. Going after a high T target? The Warriors damage it faster while absorbing less punishment. Unless you are facing something that ignores or eliminates armor, the Chaos Warrior is better in every respect.

Yet I still think the Marauders are a valuable addition. They just make much more sense taken with little to no upgrade. Why do they make sense? Because you might run into someone rolling the lore of metal…or the engine of the gods…or some other armor-ignoring thing such as…oh, I don’t know, every #$%^&%$# Skaven weapon). And then when you sit there having paid a high price for an all-armored army only to see your weaselly opponent disregard it. But when they kill EVEN MORE Marauders with no more effort you can simply laugh and say, “Well, I did not have armor on them anyway.”

Of course, outside of that or needing a 60 point mage bunker…I think the Marauder nerf-bat says leave them at home. Or take them because you want a “friendly” game. Unless you are running into a Dwarf, Empire or Elf gunline, or a Skink horde, or a goblin horde or…okay, point taken. There is really no reason to take them now. Even if your opponent tones down his list to face them, you are behind the 8-ball…

Ironically, I started this post out to praise the Marauders. But the truth is, I think Chaos Warriors are pretty reasonably costed for what they do compared to their weaknesses. And I cannot find any permutation of Marauders that provides even a reasonable facsimile of the same value. As you can see if you waste time on the math-hammer portion of the post...Warriors rule, Marauders drool. 

Lets hope I still take a block as I was doing with the last book just because I have them already...

*************** Here begins the math-hammer ***********************

The Marauders seem over priced in comparison to the Chaos Warriors I spent so much time comparing them to. It is almost certain a guy with better WS, S, T, I, and armor is worth more than the 5ish extra points. We can always math-hammer it out. Figure basic model (and one thing I failed to notice is if Chaos Warriors are still required to upgrade). 7 Basic Marauders cost the same as 3 basic Chaos Warriors, so lets pencil it out.

If we line the Marauders up 5 wide with 2 guys in the second row, they all get to fight. 3 Chaos Warriors swing first; 6 attacks needing a 3, so 4 hit. They need 3s to wound so 2.668 wounds. In this round we will round down just to help the old Marauders out. 5 Marauders swing needing 4s to hit. 2.5 hit so we will round up to 3. They need a 5 to wound so 1 wound, 50% chance to save so we will say he fails. Marauders still have a rank so are steadfast and stay 58.3% of the time so we will go another round.

2 Chaos Warriors hit 1.3 times, say 1 hit, .667% change to wound, we will round up the wound this time so now 4 Marauders left. 4 swings back, 2 hits, a 1 in 3 chance to wound…we will say it wounds, but this time the 50% chance saves. No longer steadfast, now the Marauders need a 6 to stay around so there is actually a 58.4% chance they run…but they are rolling hot dice for this and stay. I am trying to make a case for them so will give them every advantage.

2 Chaos Warriors hit 1.3 times, and if this wounds then over the last three rounds the statistical probability of 2.668+.667+.667 wounds = 2.002 and we are right on schedule. 3 Marauders get to swing back, 1.5 hits, 1 in three chance to wound, we have already given 2 hits in that circumstance so they will miss this time. Again 58.4% chance they run…

Will 2 Marauders take out 2 Chaos Warriors when 7 could not take out 3?

But lets change the game a little bit. Lets say we want them to stick around so we are giving the Chaos Warriors a shield and the mark of tzeentch to give them a 3+/5++ in close combat. We will make the Marauders as rugged as possible with light armor, shield and the same mark. Now we need 10 Chaos Warriors and 17 Marauders. I can already tell this will not end well for the Marauders. I will line the Warriors up just 5 wide (instead of the 6 they should be or possibly even 10 wide). The Marauders will go 7 wide to give them the most possible attacks.

The Warriors go first and have 15 attacks. 10 hit, .6.67 wound so say 6 wound. 1 saves with armor, 1.65 save with ward so lets say 2 save, they take 3 wounds. 14 left. 14 attacks, 7 hit. 2.3 wound. Lets round up to 3. 1.5 Warriors save with armor, .33 with ward. To keep it vaguely fair, I will let a second warrior save, but next round-off, he goes down. So 9 Warriors left. No, we will take the 17%...we want the Marauders to win and are going to twist numbers. 8 warriors left.

13 attacks hit 8.67 times = 9 hits (for math ease with wounds), 6 more Marauders wounded. 1 saves with armor, this time the ward whiffs. 9 Marauders attack with fury, hitting 4.5 times, say 5 =1.65 wounds = 2 wounds. 1.334 save base, we are well over 1 more saving, so all that fury is wasted as no Warriors fall.

13 attacks hit 8.67 times = 9 hits (for math ease with wounds), 6 more Marauders wounded. 1 saves with armor, this time the ward whiffs. 4 Marauders attack, hitting twice, .33 wound, and somehow it goes unsaved.

12 attacks hit 8 times, 5.339 wounds = 5, we will let one save with armor…even if the other saves with ward he is fleeing. Or dying next round to a blizzard of attacks.

In other words, when you make the Marauders better…they get worse in comparison to the improved Warriors. Much, much worse….

But what if instead we go offensive? The Marauders cackle madly as they take up their great weapons and khorne, knowing the superior Warrior initiative is now irrelevant. This is just a slugfest. 19 Marauders show up so armed to take on 11 Warriors. This should be fun. 19 Marauders hit 10 times (as always, we will be nice to the beleaguered Core guys. Their bare chests and bdsm-inspired gear almost require it.) 6.67 wounds rounds up to 7, this is promising. 1 Warrior saves, so 6 will fall. The Warriors have 22 attacks, 14.67 hit, so 14, 11.67 wounds, we will round down to just 11. 5 Warriors now face 8 Marauders. Oh, and with the Marauders NOT having more ranks (I leave it to you to figure out how 19 got to attack…I guess I went 10 wide with the Warriors) they run 97.2% of the time. This time they roll Insane Courage. 8 attacks, 4 hit, 2.668 wound so call it 3, and no Warrior saves. Just 2 warriors left, but on their way out the door the other three still get to swing. 10 attacks, .667 hit this time proper math says 7 wound, so 1 Marauder. 2 Warriors v. 1 Marauder…

That was actually much closer. In fact, this is the closest fight yet. Never mind the Warriors have 58% more points…

Mathhammer says heads up, equal points in Marauders loses quite handily to Chaos Warriors.  In every permutation. Outside forces could affect this...the aforementioned armies that ignore armor, for example. And that is where value must be found in Marauders because it certainly cannot be found in the WoC book.