My first two battle reports this month were already against the Chaos Warriors, and my opinion of them wasn't so high. So this time, I allowed my Tyler to see my list, and told him about all the Lords, Heros and units that he would have to deal with. I also encouraged him that he should build the best list possible, so that I would be that more challenged. And of course if he had no models to proxy, i had extra bases and models to allow him to proxy. I was really hoping to get beat down, though I had my doubts that I would get beaten too easily. But we shall see.
Skaven 2748.5
Lords
Mordred the Grey Seer (General)
Throt the Unclean
Queek Head-taker
Heros
None
Core
(group 1) 8 Rat Ogres with 4 pack masters
(group 2) 8 Rat Ogres with 4 pack masters
25 Clan Rats
21 Slaves with Mus and shields
25 Stormvermin Body guard with full command
Special
(group 3) 8 Rat Ogres with 3 Pack Masters
(group 4) 8 Rat Ogres with 2 Pack Masters
Rare
Doomwheel
Warp Lightning Cannon
Warriors of Chaos
Lord and Heros:
Lvl 4 Sorcerer Lord
Chaos Lord on Juggernaut
Lvl 2 Nurgle
Wulfrick the wanderer
Core:
2 units of 11 Chaos Warriors
Mauraders
10 War hounds
Special
5 Chaos Knights (this is where he put his Chaos Lord on Juggernaut)
Chosen
Rare
Dragon Ogre Shaggoth
Hell cannon
To start, we rolled to see how much terrain we would have on the board. A die rolled a 6 which means 10+ pieces of terrain. Next we rolled what would be the terrain, we ended up with the following (Note we also rolled a 12 which gives you a building, 2 obstacles and a the hauted mansion mentioned below):
3 Mysterious Forest
1 Mysterious River (Got the T. Raging Torrent that gave unit +3 init, but had to roll for dangerous terrain), and we deployed it straight through the middle of the battle field
2 Sinister Status (These were nasty)
2 Buildings
1 mist wreathed swamp (Very deadly)
Acropolis of Heros
Haunted Mansion
2 Obstacles
Where to put all this? Well we managed, and we putting alot of stuff through the middle and in deployment area, which happens to be very critical because up next we rolled to see what type of match this was going to be. We rolled a 2, which is the Breaking Dawn (or something like that) Basically all troops just wake up where ever they were sleeping for the night, and are deployed in a random zone((1) left flank, (2) right flank (3-5)center, if a 6 was rolled you got to choose a zone) on your side of the board. The person who goes first lays down all his army first, then the second guy lays downs his. I went first. Unfortunately all but the cannon, slaves and the clanrats and stormvermin were placed in the middle, basically all the rat ogres cannon and doomwheel ended up in center, which is kinda blocks since there were a bunch of buildings and forest near the middle. Which also kinda sucks because each center zone had a sinister statue in it (which does d6 str 4 hits to each unit within 6inches). Fortunately Tyler's deployment area (which he placed) had the deathly swamp in there also. But it didn't matter much because he rolled a bunch of 6s and got the majority of his troops on the flanks with only a 2 of them in the center (the warriors).
After deployment, it was a sight to be seen, and I wish I had my camera on me, next time I will (hopefully)
Now we roll to see who goes first, on a roll of 6, Tyler goes first, anything else, i would, but of course a 6 was rolled.
Turn1 (The awakening)
Warriors of Chaos:
With so much stuff on the field , he tried to maneuver towards me. He does get hit by the Sinister Statue that was placed in this center deployment area, doing about 80 points of damage to one of his chaos knights. (Ha, i haven't gone and im ahead already )
On my left flanks, he had his warhounds and Dragon Ogre and hell cannon, on my right flanks he had his choas nights marching, Chosen and Marauders. In the center were his two units of chaos warriors who march straigh up avoiding any forest.
During the Magic phase he rolls he only gets 5 magic dispel dice, and doesn't get anything off.
Shooting phase
Tyler carefully places his hell cannon template over my clanrats that had my grey seer, and gets a direct hit. Killing 13 of the clan rats. The grey seer barely passes the panic test, and holds strong.
Skaven:
Movement phase, I try to get all my units out to the flank so that I can combat his troops. With his Dragon and warhounds facing my seer and a unit of slaves on the left flanks, I take two of my rat ogre (group 1 and 3) units and march them toward the dragon so that I can hopefully block him from getting to my seer, and my other rat ogres I sent off to the right to help queek with the matchup with the Chosen and the chaos knights who on coming up my right flank. With Queek and his Bodyguard on my right flank, eyeing wulfrick who is also on the same flanking sides he marches forward hoping to show he is no dead beat.
My doom wheel rolled a 13, and marching straight forward in the middle of the battle field towards his warriors.
My Warplightning cannon was also placed Center, and it takes a wounds from the Sinister Statue placed in the center of the zone.
Magic phase, the Seer gets of Wither on the warhounds dropping their toughness to 2, all other spells were dispelled.
Shooting, The cannon rolls a miss on the second roll, making the short disperse, and the doomwheel takes out 3 warriors of chaos at str 10
Turn 2:(the Charge)
Tyler decides to charge my unit of stormvermin with his Chosen, he also gets +3 initiative because his army is mostly in the river, and his Warhounds get a charge on my unit of slaves.
He moves forward with his dragon, as his warhounds were blocking his charge to the grey seer, and instead marches towards them. (Scary)
His warriors advances towards doom wheel but had a failed charge on it.
and his other units get in position to attack the next round.
Magic phase:
He gets off infernal gateway, but luckily I dispell it. Other than that, he didn't have enough dice to cast anything else useful.
Shooting:
His cannon decide to shoot the rat ogres that were headed toward his dragon, and does 5 wounds to them, dropping one and heavily damaging another.
Combat:
Queek makes his challenge the champion of the Chosen, and does 6 wounds to him (over kill) but the champion was wielding an item that gave him ASF, and was able to get one wound off on Queek.
As for the unit combat, the wounds were pretty match, but I won combat because I out numbered him and had overkills. But he made his break test, so he wasn't too worried.
The other combat was with the slaves and warhound. Slaves managed to do 3 kills, and the warhounds got 5.
Skaven:
This time the cannon doesn't take a hit from the statue, and decides to stay put
Movement:
The Doomwheel charges a unit of warriors that had his Sorcerer Lord in it, And the Rat ogres (group 2 and 4) on my right flank move closer to combat. On the left flank, the rat ogres(group 1) engage the dragon blocking it from getting to the seer. and group 2 of the rat ogres decide to move towards the other unit of chaos warriors that had a lvl 2 nurgle in it.
Magic:
The Seer gets off plague on the warhounds, which they must pass a toughness test with a toughness of 2. All but two warhounds survive, also since they were in combat the slaves had to take a test, where all but 10 die( ill take that), after which the spell ends.
All other magic was countered including the scorch spell which was dispell scrolled.
Shooting
Cannon hits target, but only with str 2, and does no wounds, and the doomwheel is able to take out 3 more warriors of chaos
Combat
The slaves finish off the warhounds and queek and the stormvermin bodygaurd tears break and pursue the Chosen and run into the Maruders that has Wulfrick waiting in the wings.
Mean while on the other side, the Rat Ogres(group 1) charge the flanks of the nasty looking dragon shaggoth, and get a couple wounds dealt to it while lose a couple more members of its squad.
The doomwheel only gets two impact his, but make them count, and the warriors dont damage the wheel but hold its ground.
Turn 3 (the decisive moment)
The warriors decide to make one last push, have the chaos knights ram into a unit of rat ogres(group 2), and having their only other unengaged unit (other than the cannon) warriors, charge another unit of rat ogres (group 3).
Magic phase
Infernal Gateway was casted on the doomwheel blasting it away into the internal depths of oblivion.
Shooting, Cannon finishes off clan rats, leaving the grey seer lonely.
Shaggoth does another 5 wounds to the rat ogres, and only takes one in return. But The RO hold their ground.
The unit that charged the (group 3) unit of rat ogres flees as they are no match for the mighty rat ogres and gets run down
In the combat with Wulfrick vs Queek, they kill each other in mortal combat as they both have initiative 7.
but the stormvermin body guard win combat, and pursue and destroy the mauraders.
The chaos knights kill three rat ogres, losing only two and win combat and pursue and destroy that unit of rat ogres. Leaving on the right flank one unit of unengaged rat ogres (group 4), chaos knights and stormvermin body gaurd
On the left side of the board we have a grey seer, unit of slaves barely breathing, shaggoth, rat ogres groups 1(badly injured) and 3
Skaven:
Slaves dont do anything because well they are too scared to do anything
The grey seer is tired of the other lord, so tried to make him pay.
Movement. Grey seer moves within a 24" range of the other sorcerer and cast the 13 spell.
Ratogre group 3 joins the fight against the dragon, and
Rat ogre group 4 charges the chaos knights, and the stormvermin setup for a charge for the next round.
Magic phase
with all 6 dice seer cast his 13th spell. Yay no miscast, and it goes off. mutating chaos warriors into clanrats. We decided to eject the sorcerer out of the unit, which doesn't bother me, and apparently in the errata, thats what suppose to happen anyways. No matter, just wait to see what happens next.
That ends the magic phase
Shooting phase, the warlock lightning cannon hits and destroys the sorcerer lord.
Combat:
The rat ogres finish off the Shaggoth, but not before Shaggoth does another 4 wounds.
On the other side, the rat ogres kills remaining Chaos knights leaving the Chaos lord on juggernaut to deal with. They also take several wounds from him. No one breaks.
At this point, the Chaos warriors had only the cannon, and a Chaos lord on juggernaut and decided to conceed.
Though this battle was much closer than it appears, it was very hard fought victory and I learned a few things from it. Hopefully Tyler wont give up on Chaos warriors. I need him to do well in the map campaign that is starting up next thursday.
Cannons are vicious, no guessing, and can place shots exactly where they want (1 out of 6 chance atleast), can be very deadly.
Even though i didn't bring the 18 rat ogre unit, i think splitting them up in 4 groups was well worth it, and probably a lot better outcome. Especially all the terrain we had to deal with.
Im not saying Rat Ogres are the best, but when it comes to skaven stuff, they are pretty good. I just wish they had better Leadership values.
Any suggestions to list ideas, i am very welcomed to having.
It was fun bringing the three lords, even though i didn't have heros, i think they made up for it. I guess i could also have brought a storm banner with the stormvermin. Also i could have gone for a BSB, which could have also helped out a bit. Hmmm....