Previously in my adventures into the Old World, we played the first game between myself and the Dastardly Regular opponent and I talked about the plans for my force. I managed to assemble a few more pieces, such as all the Chaos Warriors and the Marauder Horsemen to the point where the only thing I’m missing is the Chaos Knight command group. It’s a good state to be in, but damn do I dislike assembling the push-fit Chaos Knights. They are very frustrating to build, with parts on the spure that don’t make a huge amount of sense at first glance (a single piece may contains body parts of the knight, part of the horse and a weapon for example). The push-fit rods also often leave gaps between the parts, so I’ve been cutting them down and gluing them together. Combine this with the fact that they do not rank up on the 60×30 bases they mount on in The Old World and there was definitely some grumbly noises during assembly.
In fact, if there is one thing that building this army has taught me, it’s that frankly I’m kind of done with assembling plastic kits – they can be fun and the Games Workshop design team are wizards at making fantastic models that you wonder how the hell they fit together but for me, my end goal is figures on table. When I do my next Old World army (which will probably be Empire) I’ll be taking the route the Dastardly Regular Opponent took and heavily use 3D printing, both to save me time but also get a use out of all Highland Miniatures and Last Sword STLs I’ve bought over the years.
A big step in preparation for September’s Old World game day was getting the actual books. This meant taking a trip to the GW Leeds shop and doing a high-speed raid – go in, grab the books, do not get tempted by anything on the shelves, leave. I managed to chat with the staff behind the counter and mention how I was building a chaos force from all the latest sets (including the fun of ranking them up). And then I also got to mention a friend of mine building an army using 3D printed parts and even I could see the little “oh” in his eyes at hearing that.
In this week’s hobby update, I talked a little bit about the feel of these books but man, I want to mention it again. There is a really premium feel to these books (and there better be with the price) with nice thick paper, colour images and packed full of artwork. The lore section. It’s also obvious this is a ruleset that has been running for a long time – each of the rule sections for the turns has a section that covers oddities that can occur as if someone has been keeping track of all the moments where rules intersected in a strange way that might be unusual. It feels, strangely enough, like a ruleset that has been very well played for a very long time.
All this talk comes to a head on the field of battle! Currently, the Dwarfs are one game in the lead when it comes to victories, having managed to hold the line and send the Demon Prince off the field in the first game. For our second, we once again played 1000 points. The difference this time was that the Dastardly Regular Opponent was playing with his own army that he managed to receive and paint in the intervening time. In contrast I… assembled a few extra units and printed some movement trays. However, I did also work out some tweaks to my army.
In game 1, I went for a very infantry-heavy list, with big blocks of Maruaders, Chaos Warriors and Chaos Chosen. This was fine but it did have the problem that I couldn’t screen my force properly, leading to the enemy firepower picking me apart. This time, I went for two wings – an infantry push with a small screen of Marauders and the Warrior block and a separate Cavalry force with a screen of Marauder Horsemen to protect my mailed fist, the Chosen Chaos Knights. My general, a flying Slaanesh Demon Prince, would flit between the different wings as needed, although his main task would be getting into the back line and ripping enemy ranged positions apart.
Getting to the table on Saturday, I found myself looking at a more numerous Dwarf force than I originally expected, having grown up with the theory that dwarves were expensive and elite. Two big infantry blocks with attached characters (Warriors with a Rune Priest and Longbeards with a Thane) formed the centre around a cannon, while more specialist units protected the flanks; five thunderers backed up the Rangers on the left while on the right Thunderers took to the woods and Miners prepared for a flank strike. The terrain shows off some firing lines I was going to have to cross, but the ruins would hopefully cover my main infantry push.
Beginning on my left flank, one of the first things was the horsemen did their job and got absolutely massacred by the Thunderers. Honestly, I was expecting them to die off pretty quickly (it was their job after all) but seeing them disappear in roughly three turns was a little disconcerting. On the other hand, they basically stopped that group of Thunderers from doing much during the initial advance which was useful for my plan.
Their sacrifice did mean that the Chosen ended up having to reveal a flank to the Dwarven Rangers which, for a moment, did potentially worry me. Luckily I had the perfect unit for flank protection – a flying general. This is kind of ridiculous (he’s a full third of my points in this game) and I am now two for two for dealing with flanking Rangers by deploying a vastly higher-cost unit against them. This isn’t something I do on purpose, it’s just the best unit for the job. The Rangers decided against getting stuck in with a character filled with the powers of the gods.
However, once my general disappeared off for his next role, they sprung into action. The Chaos Knights started to prepare their final charge, leaving them within range to be interrupted by a quick spoiling attack from the Rangers. Choosing to charge in and use their Great Weapons, the Rangers managed to storm through the woods and impact on the flank of the knights. Great weapons slowed down their strike, meaning the lone knight in the fighting rank tore a single dwarf apart – this obviously knocked their performance, as they caused no wounds and were forced to give ground.
As for the Demon Prince’s next role? Well, it was to set up the turning point of the game. I’ve specced my demon prince to be a combat monster, taking advantage of Gaze of the Gods and a Chaos Runesword to slam home. Ditching the Demonsword makes him less hyper-aggressive (those extra attacks were pretty hilarious) but also makes him much more reliable by removing the whole “injury yourself on 1s”. I’d managed to roll reasonably well on the Gaze of the Gods table, with some bonuses to stat line tempered by the effects of Stupidity (a fate easily avoided by a starting Leadership of 9).
Thanks to positioning, I was able to fly over the woods and sit him on the enemy general’s flank. This forced that unit to reform to face the oncoming threat.
Which of course meant in my following turn, I got to achieve a textbook “how to deal with multiple combats” moment. The Chosen Knights, having slapped the Rangers away and charged through the edge of the woods, collided with the flank of the Longbeards, disrupting the units due to the First Charge special rule. In the following combat, the Demon Prince caused two unsaved wounds, the Knights an additional four (clearing the rank they were engaged with) and the dwarves managed to snag one wound on the Demon Prince thanks to the Hatred (characters) rule. Because of this, the Dwarves lost the combat by six points and then the shenanigans began. The Dwarves initially began to flee, but the Thane turned this into a Fall Back In Good Order, a result that was further changed to a Give Ground thanks to the Shield Wall rule. The problem was, in Give Ground you move back 2 inches away from the most threatening unit (in this case the knights due to unit strength). This actually took the unit off the board as we were fighting right on the edge, the unit’s movement carrying them and the Thane out of combat. Not the result I expected (and not very honourable for either side) but I’ll take it!
With the enemy general and his unit gone, it was time for the Demon Prince to continue his work by advancing directly into the gun crew of the cannon. Again, that is 306 points coming to murder roughly 100 points. He proceeded to mince his way through the gunners as you would hope.
Stepping back in time, let’s take a look at the other flank. The Marauders and Warriors advanced through the ruins in a column, the cheaper chaff at the front while the larger column pushed forward. They both got absolutely pummelled by the dwarf cannon, not helped by some impressive bounces that often managed to miss the screen and roll through the Warriors instead. Cannons are incredibly good at the job of removing heavily armoured warriors from the battlefield even if the initial impact and bounce rules seem to have been invented purely for hilarity.
Once the Chaos Warriors actually hit though? Well, they didn’t – instead, the marauders moved to one side to prevent those Rangers from reappearing and then the Dwarf Warriors, led by the rune priest launched their charge. Over the next few turns, the two sets of warriors formed what can best be described as a rugby scrum, knocking off a few figures from both units each round of combat. The Dwarves, helped by the rank bonus managed to keep my Warriors on the back foot, pushing them back slowly.
However, this actually worked in my favour. After the Demon Prince murdered the gun crew, I began to see the possibility for an envelopment. The Marauders did an about-turn and prepared to charge the flank of the Dwarven Warriors. The Knights would then slam into the Miners attempting to protect the rear of the main infantry block while the Demon Prince would, as a fine use of his points, hunt down the Thunderers hiding in the forest.
The final turn saw a bloody clash. The Dwarven Warriors ended up taking casualties on both the front and the flank, while the entire front rank of the Miners was lanced and stomped to death by the Chosen Chaos Knights. The Demon Prince added to the body count, ripping a bloody hole in the Dwarven hand gunners.
The final result was a resounding Chaos win. Although the Dwarves had caused casualties in most units, they hadn’t hit the required 25% to actually gain victory points from them. In contrast, a Thane fleeing off the board, the loss of a cannon and Thunderers gave me plenty of points. Even without the points, narratively the Chaos Force had ripped the Dwarf force apart, scattering them and controlling the board by the end. The Incursion continues!
So victory was mine! I think I managed to use my forces in a reasonable way against a static opponent. The Warriors, in a giant block that slowly ground its way across the board, acted exactly as I intended – distracting the enemy’s gunfire onto them rather than engaging the actual killers, the Chosen Chaos Knights. It did a pretty good job of becoming a meat grinder, chewing its way through the Dwarves slowly but surely thanks to the higher toughness and weapon skill. The marauders (both mounted and on foot) ate up plenty of gunfire, screening the advance properly and allowing the heavy hitters to contact. And speaking of them, both the Chaos Chosen Knights and the Demon Prince did exactly what I had planned for them – hit hard, take names, find a unit in its way and keep going. I definitely had a few early turns where I was worried about how many casualties I was taking on the way in, but the end result made those loses worth while.
We’re planning another game before September, moving up to 1500. I’ve already roughly planned out my changes – increasing the number of Warriors, bringing the foot Chosen in to give me some flank protection for the Warriors (those miners got very close) and adding an Exalted Champion carrying the Demonsword. My plan with this addition is to stick the Exalted Champion in the Chaos Warriors, to turn them from an anvil that the enemy finds themselves stuck upon into something more like an industrial paper shredder – each turn you’re engaged with them, there is a nutcase in the front rank going between 5 and 7 attacks, the rest of the unit acting as ablative armour for any 1s to hit. This is all theory crafting, but it does make it harder to decide what to shoot for any war machine crews.
I’m also aware that so far, I’ve only really fought Dwarves, a relatively static force. In the group that will be getting together in September, there are potentially two Bretonnian lists, as well as an Empire player with a thing for heavy cavalry. Having to deal with a more manoeuvrable army will be interesting, but I’m sure I’ll find out and add to my force as needed.
And speaking of adding to a force, the Dastardly Regular Opponent has put in an order for a few new units… This could be interesting.
