The next Old World games day is fast approaching on the Ides of March. I’ve been attempting to get some figures painted up for it (and avoiding the Knights for as long as possible).
However, new events mean a chance to build my list further. After my last game in January, I expressed some concern about my lack of magical defence, although in retrospect that might be because that particular list was incredibly magical focused. The bigger problem (and one I had last year as well) was that the marauders weren’t around in big enough numbers and were not fast enough to perform their screening role. By the time they were across the board, they were so shot up they would be unusable or have fallen too early and the units behind were not taking hits.
My first thought was to swap the marauders out for Warhounds, a cheap and high-speed unit to cross the board and potentially be causing trouble in the early turns. This would be relatively simple to get sorted – print a few of the wolves from Last Sword and then good to go. There is only one problem – Warhounds are boring. Although mentally I could see how they fit the force (the hunting hounds of the lord leading the list), nothing about them excited me.
And then I remembered that I have a model I am VERY excited about putting on the table.
If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you may remember me buying, constructing and converting a Keeper of Secrets model. Unfortunately, the current Old World rules don’t let you include demonic units in a Warriors of Chaos force – at this time in the setting, Chaos hasn’t quite reached the level that you see in something like the Storm of Chaos back in Warhammer Fantasy Battles. This has meant my creation has spent more than a little time on the shelf, unpainted and waiting for a chance for carnage. It is also partially because I am terrified at the idea of getting her painted up – this is a large model, with lots of exposed skin and I don’t think my skills were quite there.
Looking at her again after the goblin shennighans, I started thinking about how I could use her. In the basic list, the closest is probably a Gigantic Spawn of Chaos but things like randomised movement don’t quite tie into my mental image of how she fits in the list. Narratively, the demon prince leading this force is the formerly mortal champion for the Greater Demon, having been gifted her shield and spear early in his rise to demonhood. Having on the field, she should be a nightmarish force, matching some of the Demon Prince’s powers. Luckily for me, the Arcane Journal marked the return of Warpfire Dragons to the Chaos list, giving a flying S6 T6 W6 monster with some funky rules including both a ranged attack (unheard of for Chaos) and the ability to turn off the ward saves of those close by. After looking at the rules (and pondering about using her as the special character dragon, I ended up settling on a regular warpfire dragoon.
Getting her into the list was also part of reconfiguring the essentials. First up, the Chosen on foot found themselves downgraded to mere warriors with great weapons, saving a chunk of points. Elsewhere in Core, the Brick suffered next; for as amusing as it can be, a single chunk limits my ability to take control over the map and can be very easily flanked and outmanoeuvred. Instead, I decided to split it in half, setting up two squads of 14 warriors. I unfortunately lacked enough points to upgrade the second squad to have the command elements, leaving it lacking several multipliers for combat.
This resulted in a trio of core units (ideally deployed in a two forward, one back formation) with knights, demon prince and dragon acting as flanking units. It also provides me more options, with more pieces around to push forward and grab board areas to setup flank charges. Having one flying unit was a massive benefit to allow threat to the enemy’s rear, so having two adds an additional terror on the flank.
The planning is all good but the proof is what it does on the tabletop. Luckily the Dastardly Regular Opponent had a Saturday evening free and the desire to get some games in before the next event. I’d be facing his new Dwarf army, one that has had a few changes – including the fact he had his own Brick!
Across the table from me I had two infantry blocks (hammers and veterans) with multiple characters split between them. One flank had the Rangers forward deployed while the other had a gyrocopter ready to make a move and a team of Irondrakes hanging around waiting for a certain flying pretty boy to turn up.
The proximity of the Rangers on the left flank was just ASKING for me to charge in on them with my Chosen Knight and on turn 1 that is exactly what happened. However, the rangers did manage to take out a knight before I even charged in and then proceeded for the next three rounds of combat to hold my knights in check, dragging them up the board and whittling them down to the champion and the standard. It’s easy to see the Rangers as chaff but in reality they are an absolute pain.
On the other flank, the Demon Prince went in to destroy the gyrocopter, wrecking it in one turn before leaping away from the Irondrakes that were closing in.
In the centre, I was rather surprised to see the Dwarfs taking the initiative and moving forward in columns – highly unusual behaviour! With two separate units, I was able to intercept both of them independently, one block of warriors taking each with the great weapons moving to assist.
Oh, and the dragon came in to flank one unit of dwarves, I’m sure this will go well…
As you can see above, the unit fighting the Dwarf king and Hammerers managed to break and fall back at speed after losing almost an entire rank to the onslaught – turns out Hammerers are very good at dealing with being charged.
The unit of longbards on the other got squished between a warrior block and the dragon. Only causing two wounds and taking five casualties in the fight, an unlucky roll of double 6 on their morale test meant they ended up fleeing – a situation made worse when the dragon pursued, rolled a swiftstride dice and overran them. Not a good start for the Dwarfs.
This now meant that the Dwarf King and his accompanying unit were flanked on two sides by pretty much my entire force. However, some troublesome positioning meant and a sneaky Dwarf charge meant I wasn’t able to engage fully, letting the Hammerers engage my force piecemeal.
First on the chopping block was Chaos Warrior Unit 2 which got absolutely SMOKED on contact. Killed down to a man by the hail of blows, I think we have had the most successful combat I’ve seen to date, winning by 13 points.
However, this simply led into the rest of the force descending on the unit in my turn, leading to three separate charges in three of the four arcs. This fight would then expand as I threw in the rest of the force, with even individual stragglers playing their part.
In the end, with time running out and the King’s unit falling apart under a pile of attackers, we finished off by playing a challenge between the Dwarf King and the Demon Prince. The king landed a few good hits but in the end, the Demon Prince cut down the shield bearers before taking the king’s head off.
Into the Book of Grudges I go.
Having hit the table with an updated list and coming away with a win, I was pretty happy. The dice gods were in my favour (having the Longbeards break and get overwhelmed by a dragon while fleeing was a big help) but the rest of the units felt like they did their jobs. Multiple units of warriors were able to spread out and cover more of the battlefield, making it an area engagement rather than a mess of flanks upon flanks. The Demon Prince, for a change, actually survived this game and was able to do his job of zipping around the battlefield.
I’m having a few changes I now want to make though. The first thing is a slight toning back of the Demon Prince. The Runesword (the replacement for the suicidal Demonsword) is a nasty piece of kit, adding +1 to strength, weapon skill and initiative. However, while this may be incredibly useful on a mortal chaos champion, the demon prince already has a nasty statline with WS7 S6 I7, with the potential to raise it even higher thanks to Gaze of the Gods each turn. One item I am not giving up though is the Armour of Meteoric Iron – always having a 5+ save means I have Triple 5 Save (Armour, Ward, Regen)
This reduction in power allows for some additional spending elsewhere in the list. Splitting The Brick into two smaller units went really well, but unit two was slightly lacking. Well, good news, thanks to the windfall of points, the second warrior unit has a full command – the banner feels like a requirement for combat, the musician is handy just in case, and the champion is handy to tie down anyone attempting to use a multiple wound weapon on the troops.
There are also going to be some changes in the Special slots, something I’m not 100% but I think is worth testing. Chosen are the hammers of my list, and the Chosen Chaos Knights have been chewing their way through everything I’ve thrown them at. I’d also really prefer my Chosen Warriors to be played as Chosen rather than being down turned to regular warriors. This is both a visibility thing (my opponent can tell what they are more easily) but also the improvements that being chosen brings. However, the downside is that the points have to come from somewhere. I’m going to make the risky decision to reduce the Knights from full plate down to heavy armour – they still have the shield and barding to help out with the protection, but shooting with AP will be slightly more likely to crack through. This is something I’m not 100% sold on, but I think I’d rather drop the armour than lose the lance. Hopefully the dragon will distract most of the shooting until the cav slams home.
Speaking of testing, it seems the Creative Regular Opponent is also needing to do a final trial run on his Orcs and Goblins list, so perhaps one more game…
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