My Choppa is bigger than your Axe!

  We were itching for some gaming over the holiday weekend and decided to get some going.  First, the wife's unbeatable Legion of Nagash destroyed my son's Slaves to Darkness, which led him to revamping his army and challenging me to a game.  The cool part is that I had just finished painting up my Warchanter (only 17 months after I got them- I'm fast!) and I was excited to put down the greenskins to kill some Bloodletters.  We only played 1500 points because, well, I only have 1500 points of Ironjaws.

  We chose to play the Scorched Earth scenario from the GH 2017- there are 6 objective markers, placed in each 'quarter' of the table (there are 6 quarters on a 4'x6' board), each worth 1 point to the player that controls them at the end of their turn.  A player can also destroy an objective in their enemy's deployment zone and gain d3 points, but we didn't take advantage of that in this game.  The battlefield itself was set up as a 'basic' one with trees, hills, and even an Orc fort and Herdstone to mix it up.  I miss the old fantasy setups and figured to go 'old school' with this one...

The battlefield

Blood for the Blood God!

  We each laid out our forces and the Khorne army actually seemed a bit scary.  Including a Mighty Lord of Khorne, a Bloodsecrator, a Bloodstoker, an Aspiring Deathbringer with Impaling Spear, a couple of units of Blood Warriors, some Bloodletters, Bloodcrushers, and Skullcrushers, I realized that this force had a lot of choppiness to it.  Add in a Khorgorath and a Soulgrinder and I knew I was going to have my work cut out for me.  He made the Aspiring Deathbringer the general and gave him the Crimson Plate artifact.

Gork! Mork! Gork! Mork!

  My army consisted of a Megaboss riding the Mawcrusher (which I had just built), a Megaboss, the painted Warchanter, a Warcaster, 2 units of Brutes, a unit of 'Ardboyz, and a unit of Gore Gruntas.  I realized that I was severely outnumbered in both characters and dudes.  But I had a Mawcrusher, so...  He was my general and I gave him the Destroyer artifact so both his axes were damage 2 (I built this model as the big bad character but will use him like this to represent the 'basic' version until I get more greenskins).






  Setup was pretty simple.  He set his forces in a bloodthirsty line across the table and set the two big models right in the middle.  That meant that he was going to be able to challenge me in every direction.  So I went with a bit of a 'refused flank' deployment, placing everything to the left except the Gruntas and Warcaster.  This was to keep him distracted and create a hammer to smash at least half the force up front.  And with no shooting to speak of, I had to make sure that I could have the power once I got there.

Setup.  Notice the objective markers in white and red...

   The Ironjaws won the roll-off for first turn and I easily gave it to the Bloodbound.  Here's where Khorne's mighty plan started to crumble.  The Soulgrinder charged up as fast as it could, followed closely by the Khorgorath.  The rest of the army advanced a bit.  But this was all about that Soulgrinder.  It unleashed its hellish shooting atacks and immediately killed off four of the 'Ardboyz and I knew what my first target had to be.  He finished his turn with 2 points  In my turn, I cunningly (with inspiration from Mork, of course) slid my Gruntas away from the advancing Bloodcrushers while setting a trap.  The Brutes in the middle slowly advanced, waiting to see where they were going to unleash their Gork-driven madness.  Everything else (the other Brutes, the 'chanter, and the 'caster) all stayed and held their objectives.  Then the chopping began.  First, the Mawcrusher charged the Soulgrinder and were supported by the 'Ardboyz.  With all their combined attacks, they took down the Soulgrinder with roars of war while the Mawcrusher took a bit of damage.  When the smoke cleared, the Orks had claimed the fourth objective, giving me 4 points.

Turn 1- Bloodbound 2, Ironjaws 4

   The roll-off for the second turn was won by the Bloodbound and they denied the Orks their back-to-back turns.  They moved the Khorgorath in to fight the 'Ardboyz, a unit of Blood Warriors to try to slow down the Mawcrusher, and the other Blood Warriors down to plug the gap on the other side of the Ork fort.  Meanwhile, the Bloodcrushers moved up to hopefully get in charge range of some casters or boars, but failed to make any charges.  After seeing the Khorgorath get smashed into the ground by the Mawcrusher and losing a couple of Blood Warriors to the 'Ardboyz, the forces of the Blood God saw their hopes disappearing.  Still holding two objectives, they got 2 points.  In return, the Brutes charged around the fort and engaged the Blood Warriors, led by the Megaboss, and killed them off easily.  The Gore Gruntas charged the Bloodcrushers and killed one.  And the 'Ardboyz finished off the Bloodstoker that lost all his support.  Holding 4 objectives, the lead widened for the Ironjaws.

Turn 2- Bloodbound 4, Ironjaws 8

  Still not having lost anything significant, the Ironjaws were emboldened and won the roll-off for the third turn.  Seeing no hope of stopping the beastly boulder-like Mawcrusher and watching as the objectives were taken from them, there was little the Khorne forces could do.  A last hurrah saw some more slaughter in favor of the greenskins and the Bloodbound simply quit the battlefield.  The final score was 11-4 with nothing Khorne could do.

  The lessons learned in this battle- the Soulgrinder should not have jumped out in front so quickly.  All it did was make him a target and he was the one with the ability to hurt the Orks from range.  The deployment wasn't bad, but the forces needed to be a bit more focused on being able to hold objectives.  Most importantly, the Megaboss on Mawcrusher is cheezy!  I mean, seriously!

Hey Mom, I'm a monster!

  Now we did play another game the next day.  I used the same list but my son tweaked his army quite a bit.  We played a different scenario but I took no pictures.  I still won, but only by a score of 12-11.  The main story goes like this- The Mawcrusher charged up and flattened Valkia the Bloody, then charged and took some time to finish off a Lord on Juggernaut and some Blood Warriors.  Having been bogged down, a unit of Wrathmongers wandered over and enticed my Mawcrusher into killing himself in one round!  From that point of the game, a Chaos Giant kicked around the 'Ardboyz but was taken down through poor fighting order and the surviving forces jockeyed around the battlefield trying to get those objective points.  The last turn of the game saw the Ironjaws sneak one out with the Gruntas stealing the point held by Bloodletters now too busy fighting a Megaboss.  It was an awesome game.  However, the Choppa is still mightier than the axe...

  Great games over the weekend and it felt good to both wield the paint brush and the dice again!  Now I'm just waiting patiently for the 2.0 to drop... Until then, Happy Gaming!

It's been awhile

Sorry that I've been gone for so long.  My wife made me do things and now I'm in school and back to work and in a much more stressful position.  Then you add the fact that we moved right in the middle of the holiday season with family over.  Finally, well, life.  Needless to say, I haven't had time to do any hobbying.

That is until this week.  That's right- between August and now, I've had no time.  But I finally got a bit of a break when I finished my finals up (and was sick from work).  What have I done with aaaaaaaaall this free time?  I've built a unit for my Warriors of Chaos army.  And I've written this blog.


So what unit did I build?  Everyone who knows my Chaos army knows that I'm a follower of the Blood God, and the new army book finally allowed the Knights-riding-Juggernauts in a normal army.  Needless to say- done!  Skullcrushers have been built.

(It must be noted that the only reason that I play the Warriors of Chaos was because of the beautiful Lord of Khorne on Juggernaut model released somewhere in 2008-2009 area (it's been a long time and even this guru's brain is fading).  That model convinced me to 'fall to the dark side' and pick up Chaos.  So, of course, a unit of Jugg-knights is an obvious choice)

Now, I know, you're wondering why I don't have any pictures of my progress like I usually try to do.  And I'm kinda missing the random spattering of poor photography to put my toys on display.  But, sadly, I don't know where my camera is.  (Remember how we moved a few months ago?)  Soon...  Plus, this gives me a break from trying to paint anything.  Once I find that pesky photo-machine, I may have to open a paint pot or two.  This is, of course, assuming I have time.

You know what I will have time for?  Using those Skullcrushers to run down stunty Dwarfs.  I know that my army shan't fare too well against that much armor and gunpowder, but I'm certainly going to keep a tally.  In my normal Saturday game-group thingie, I shall be facing a buddy in a 2,500 point Warhammer battle.  Our group has finally gotten into the game, and I am getting a Mighty Empires campaign off the ground.  Oh yeah, fantasy has finally come to!  Now if I could just stop sucking at that game so much...

Wish me luck and Happy Gaming!

2011, A unit a week

Makeup for week 10:

Sprouthoff, the Plague Priest

Warriors of Chaos Sorcerer of Nurgle

I had fun with this model and actually went back to my painting roots-  I didn't use a single wash or drybrush!  This was all layering and highlighting.  Yay!  I can still do it...

Army List Review

This'll be a first for the 'ol Workshop.  Today, I'm going to post my an army list and ask for y'all's feedback.  Over the last week (since I've posted about my Chaos and started that whole process) I've written and rewritten my army list a thousand times.  Last night, around 4:30 in the morning, I finally stumbled upon a list I think I'm happy with.

There are a couple of things that I gotta throw out there first, so I don't get alot of feedback that I can't use.  Here were my 'principles' when writing this list:

• I have a ton of warriors, knights, and marauders.  I have zero trolls, ogres, dragon-ogres, and only a couple of spawn.  I DO have a giant and a shaggoth, which both also rule.
• I wanted to include more than three units (my last list was awesome, but only had three units and a war machine.  That's just not enough doods.)
• I wanted to include Valkia the Bloody.  She's awesome.

At first, I wanted to use all models with a Mark of Khorne.  Unfortunately, that's too many points and severely reduces my model count.  I don't like any of the other gods enough to spend too many points on, so I finally settled on a non-marked army.  That being said, the obvious worship of Khorne is there.  If only because I said so.  Take that!

So finally, here's the army list:

2502 Warriors of Chaos

Lord  (16.4%)

-Valkia the Bloody  410 pts

Hero  (12%)

-Level 2 Sorcerer with mark of Nurgle and dispel scroll  165 pts

-Level 2 Sorcerer with scroll of shielding  135 pts

Core  (26%)

-18 warriors w/shields, full command, and banner of rage  353 pts

-24 marauders w/shields, light armor, and full command  164 pts

-18 marauders w/shields, light armor, and full command  140 pts

Special  (24%)

-10 chosen with great weapons, full command, helm of many eyes, and war banner  300 pts

-10 chosen with add'l hand weapons, full command, favour of the gods, and banner of wrath  290 pts

Rare  (22%)

-Dragon Ogre Shaggoth with great weapon  285 pts

-Hellcannon  205 pts

-Spawn  55 pts

Let me know what you guys think.

My Chaos bastard-child

Today I am going to go and play my first game of Warhammer in the 8th edition.  I will be using my Warriors of Chaos and I believe I will be facing High Elves.  I could be facing Lizardmen or Tomb Kings as well, but I just want to hit whatever it is.  And Warrriors do that well.

So first I need to wax reminder of the new rules.

Movement

This is my favorite part of the new rules.  Apparently, all other things being equal, charge distances are now a matter of luck.  Instead of charging double the unit's move distance, you roll 2d6 and add that to the base move characteristic.  This means that an average unit can charge from 6" up to 16".  Also, there's no more wheeling in the charge moves.  It's measure range, check line of sight, then freely wheel once before executing a straight-line move.  People, I can't lie.  This is by far my favorite part of the new Warhammer.  It adds the strategy of 'hope' to the game, and can make some things really interesting. 

Magic
So magic batteries are back, yay!  But it's totally random again.  The player rolls 2d6 and that's how many power dice he gets, while the opponent has as many dispel dice as the lower die roll.  Add a '6' roll on a d6 for each wizard to beef up the pile, and blammo!  I don't know that I really like this, but it keeps Slaan from creating 212 casting dice in a single magic phase of a 1500 point game...
Casting is easy:  Roll any number of dice, add your level, and beat the casting score!  If you roll a double 6, then you cast the spell too powerfully to dispel AND your head might blow up.  Yes.  Thank goodness I'm not playing my High Elves as they get to ignore the bad side of this rule in some cases.  That just feels dirty...

Shooting
Everything shoots in two ranks now.  Awesome!

Close Combat
This phase is hugely different.  Blows are struck in order of initiative, period.  The charge bonus comes in the Resolution phase (this kinda sucks, especially added onto random charge distances.  But I play high Initiative armies, so I can't complain too much).  Everything fights in two ranks now, just like shooting.  Awesome!  Casualties are removed from the rear instead of the front, nearly guaranteeing that someone will get to fight back.  Fear causes people to fight worse now and can be effective in every round of combat.  All in all, I couldn't be more stoked.  Combat is going to be deadlier, faster, and much more intense.  I just hope I'm on the 'giving end' more often than not...

Army Selection
This is the easiest change to spot in the whole rulebook.  Warhammer armies are chosen again on the 'percentage' system.  Instead of having to take horribly expensive core units by the scores just to meet the requirements, I can knock out the prerequisite points of core and move on.  High Elves got boned by this, but my Warriors of Chaos were certainly benefitted.  I've almost decided to bring a single unit of chaos warriors and be done with it.  Is that cheezy?

Warriors of Chaos

Inarguably the most evil of all the races in the Warhammer world, Chaos is the most basic brute malice given form.

Every year, the Empire braces for the inevitable invasion from the north.  Quickly, armies of massive, bulking, armored warriors appears by the thousands on the horizon.  Not focused on conquering but instead destroying, the armies of Chaos strike terror into the northward lands of the Empire.

The average Chaos warrior stands 2m (almost 7 feet) tall, and weighs hundreds of pounds.  They are armored from head to toe with volcano-forged armor and carry the sharpest, most vicious blades of any army.  They speak little, howl often, and find total joy in slaughter.  A Chaos warrior's bloodlust is matched only by his skill at bloodletting.

There are four major powers, or Gods, that the Warriors of Chaos follow.  These Gods want to see the destruction of all the civilized lands and nothing less.  They gift the greatest warriors in the armies with greater strength, useful mutations, and magical powers.  They also punish failure by turning those champions and non-followers into Spawn and other less-desirable forms.  Of all the Gods, the most powerful is Khorne.

Khorne is the Chaos God of War, Bloodletting, and Slaughter.  He takes the form of a massive beastly canine, so strong and angry that his mere appearance is enough to launch wars.  He demands little of his followers other than the to kill and bring him the skulls to build his great throne.  Those skulls need not be of enemy and sometimes includes the greatest of his own followers!

Chaos armies most often follow the lure of Khorne.  The pure, unadulterated fury that he embodies is easy for warriors to identify with.  Khorne's armies are the largest and fiercest of all of them, but other Warlords tend to trust them little for obvious reasons. 

The Old Days

I am a good-guy player.  As many of my blogs have noted, I'm a human-supremecist and a champion of order.  For many years I actually played High Elves and Empire because of this.  But, after losing my 20th game in a row with the High Elves (thanks last edition codex creep!), I fell to the lures of Khorne.  I wanted an army that didn't instantly die when they got hit, could deal out real damage, and also looked cooler than ballz. 

As it turns out, I've actually really dug Chaos warriors for some time.  As I was packing up to move from the Great White North back to the greatest nation in the world, I found some Heroquest boxes.  With some nostalgia, I happily fondled the contents and remembered fondly the Chaos Warriors- my favorite models.  It figures that those whispers were planted long before I realized it...

My army (or really just my three favorite and painted models)

This model MADE me choose Chaos.  No matter how much I loved my good guys, this model always drew my eye.  In fact, there's probably a few too many Warhammer players with this model for no other reason that they listened to me.  But you gotta admit, what says 'screw you with an axe' more?

This model has a great history.  I had a new player decide to start Warriors of Chaos for Warhammer and I got to teach him all his hobby skills (go go gadget Academy!)  He became really amazing at the painting and modelling side of it and converted up his own Valkia the Bloody model.  I love me some Valkia so I asked him to build me one.  Here's the pieces he used:  old Lelith Hesperax (Dark Eldar), Dark Pegasus wings (Dark Elves), Deamonette head (Daemons), Chaos knight lance and shield (WoC).  I tossed in the skulls from the Warhammer basing kit and went to town painting it.  Is she sexy or what?  Also, throwing some thanx out there to Ryan Murphy for such a cool and simple conversion.  This kind of hobby skill is admirable in anyone, especially newbs!

Finally, this knight is just cool.  I painted him as part of a staff painting contest (and some really cool gamers) and crushed all opposition.  As always, the models look better in person than my camera-work belies.  I apologize in advance. 

If you check out the rear end of the model real close, you'll see the winning brush strokes.  Everyone in the contest was well-known for their painting skills, so I had to take it up a notch.  To win, I painted a Khorne symbol in watermark across the horse's armor.  Hopefully you can see it. 

Hopefully I win today, but moreso y'all are inspired.  Happy Gaming!