Topic: The Battle of the River Demst

[mr chumley warner]

Chaos Turn 1:

A roar was heard and a large battalion of Marauders lead by the infamous Wulfric emerged from the treeline on the right flank, behind my 30 flagellants !

This only served to stir them into a craze worse than before!

[mr chumley warner]

The marauder horsemen charged the WALTER



The rest of the Chaos right flank advanced



The knights moved up on the left and sought refuge behind the old Wizard Tower

[mr chumley warner]

Magic was denied and the Chaos horde tried to shrug off a devastating EMpire opening.

poor old Brian asked for a large whisky , even though it was 10 am at this point!

[mr chumley warner]

Empire Turn 2.

[mr chumley warner]

The crazies turned to face the marauding horde, trapped between the xbows and the evil Wulfric.

The IC Knights moved  forward , traversing the river , moving in to attack the advancing horde.

The general charged the enemy chariot, taking them by surprise, as my opponent forgot he was hiding behind the house!

Magic took out several chaos warriors, using searing doom.

The mortars found their mark , taking out many of the chaos hounds.

Farmer Fred and his hunters failed to penetrate Archaeon's armour, as did the Pistoliers, both units hoping to take a lucky wound !

The cannons fired across at the giant, but managed only 1 wound with terrible dice rolling!

Overall the empire turn was lacklustre.

[mr chumley warner]

Chaos Turn 2

Archaeon charged forward at the IC Knights, who failed their terror test twice!!!!

(11 and 10 rolled)

Unbelievable, they fled through the 70 Halberds, causing a mass rout!

The Halberds seeing their BSB and Wizard Lord turning tail, Decided that the battle was over , and turned to join the rout, fleeing off the table!!!

They would fight another day , but shamed the general , who would later learn their fate.

(rolled a 10).

Archaeon re-directed his charge at the Hellblaster Volley Gun, who's crew seeing his comrades running, and the Lord of Chaos fast approaching, also turned tail and fled off the board!!

The Empire left flank had taken  a battering, but high on the Artillery hill, our main crews saw Archaeon in open ground and now primed their guns for action!





On the right flank , the marauder horde ate into the crazies, with flails and a frenzied banner, Wulfric and 40 attacks from Marauders with higher Initiative tore apart 30 crazies!!!

A foul end to these brave mens lives!

The marauding horde reformed to face the empire right flank.

The Walter and Genesus both failed to impact their opponents, the Nurgle Lord and Lector fought together with onlookers of chaos chanting, waiting to join the fray once the challenge was decided.

The Giant tore into the Xbows, who took two wounds from the beast, in a stand and shoot reaction. He clubbed them killing only 1 , but they failed their leadership test rolling a 9 and fled backwards into the Marauding horde, and were torn apart!!


The shock for the empire was severe.

The two main characters were left isolated with no Crazies, Xbows, or Halberds to back them up.

 



Empire Turn 3.

We still had enough troops left to make a success of the battle.

The knights rallied with ease!

The Halberds and Handgunners turned to face forest , as they had heard the marauding horde approaching.

Fred swiftly moved up his archers and the pistoliers moved into close range of the Chaos leader.

The pistoliers put the finishing wound on Archaeon, and he groaned as he fell to the ground!

The cannons took shots against the Chaos Ogres , taking 5 wounds from the beasts.

Mortar fire took maybe 10 marauders.

The Arch Lector finished off the Nurgle Sorcerer and the Genesus killed the Chariot..

[mr chumley warner]

Chaos Turn 3.

The Marauders decided they would brave the dangerous terrain, in their arrogance!

The result was hillarious, with Wulfric losing a wound, and 12 marauders being tramped to death by their own men in the charge!


 









The rest of the game became a combat melee between the knights and the Marauders, who were eventually joined by chaos warriors.

The Genesus simply couldn't overpower the ogres and was felled, and the Lector also died heroically against a  superior chaos warrior force.

Artillery and shooting whittled down the chaos marauder horsemen and ogres to 1 wound left in each case, but both units  managed to run behind cover in turn 6?!!!

Cheeky bastuards!
The Ogres quickly engaged the General, and the Giant came around the side of the woods, charging the handgunners, who finsihed him off and he fell over in a heap on the floor!

Wulfrid was slain, but the knights eventually fled.

Only a handful of marauders survived.

If you look at the actual models left on the table, EMpire would have won by around 1000 pts, but playing by warhammer rules we had to count the total unit pts allocation of remaining units!

The cheeky ogre and horseman left hiding meant he could claim for their full unit value!

So the outcome was 1460 vs 1520 chaos with the latter!

He did have 15 chaos warriors left to be fair.

[mr chumley warner]

in conclusion, I had little idea of what I would be facing here.

We called the game a draw, but I was unhappy as I had almost massacred the ogres and horsemen down to 1 wound in each case!

The fact that I managed to ply my mate with enough beer for him to divulge the Wulfric master plan , gave me some room to block the unit entering and eating my entire artillery flank.

My artillery saved the day , but my left flank rout was the real low point, with such epic failures in leadership rolls, who can tell who the Dice gods will favour!

I didn't feel that Chaos were a major threat, it was just the marauders coming in from behind, made it impossible for me to back up my characters.

In hindsight and in future I will probably split the halberds into 3 * 45 ish rather than 2*70 , i could have done with an extra block on my right!

I'll also support my WALTER and Genesus next time, as I had planned to do so with the crazies, who got slaughtered.

MY Xbow crazy shielding plan went to pot also!

The Huntsmen were legendary, 1st time I have used them, and they were incredible!

Chaos knights rolling snake eyes to save against Fred the Farmers boys!

LOL

I need a more effective method of killing his Chaos Warriors, who are impervious to artillery and shooting!

They get given the mark and banner which gives a stacked 4+ ward in the shooting phase...

Harsh ...


I'll take a draw here , but begrudgingly.

Next time I will hammer them!

[sammay23]

Great pics and great report! I play WoC all the time, and I still find them to be one of the tougher opponents out there.

A few comments:

- I find it really hard to set up good matchups for the Flagellants against WoC. EVERYTHING pretty much has higher initiative, which really ruins the effectiveness of the Flaggies. I've been thinking about taking a few smaller units for an all-comers build.

- I feel your pain with the big halberd block fleeing off the board. Those things happen, and they really suck when they do. I think 50 halberds will mostly do what 70 will, and support the idea of 3 blocks instead of 2.

- Artillery and chaos... yeah. A good player will get that 4+ vs. shooting on many blocks. I tend to not shoot at them at all, and try to delay or distract one or more of them with small detachments. Marauders make for good arty targets, as do giants, ogres, and hounds. 

- You did exactly what you should have with the AL. He's great in the challenge, and can sometimes rout whole blocks of warriors with impact hits, charge, and challenge wounds.. sometimes. Once he's out of the challenge, my experience is that he lasts but a few rounds, while warriors chew up the altar. Still... for a Lvl 4 Nurgle sorcerer, it's not a bad trade.

One of the real difficulties with WoC is that their points can be highly concentrated in a few blocks that are as hard as anything anyone can field in this game. Earning points vs. WoC is tough. There are no real easy points. I do think that Life magic is an excellent counter to WoC. If you can get a +4T buff on your big blocks, a few kills and the static CR they generate is often enough to break those big warrior blocks. The 4+ regen save works a charm as well.

Thanks so much for posting the battle report. It's so cool to see so many troops on the board! And so beautifully painted.

Cheers, 

[Swan-of-War]

Great report on a beautiful looking table Chumley - like that Ziterdes manor house!

I recently played WoC too and found that Speed of Light on Flagellants really helps them chew through the Warriors.
Briona's Timewarp works great too

[mr chumley warner]

Yeah next time i'm not taking crazies but instead swordsmen , who will at least get a hit in at the same time vs marauders !

I failed to consider the initiative with crazies, oops.

I think Swordsmen could be a good choice.

[The Village Idiot]

Love the pics! 

TVI

[Von Ulrich]

This was a nice report, Mr. Chumley is not only a prolific painter but he also like to take the boys out of the cabinet for a spin!

[mr chumley warner]

Not enough time or will to do battle chronicler pics i am afraid, or take notes, hence the report was sketchy after turn 3,

but to be fair most of the action was over by Turn 3 ,

enjoy

[Finlay]

Well done on fighting back for an (almost) draw when losing the halberdiers so early.


putting the bsb and the wizard in a unit of knights seems risky though.

[Unuhexium]

Really good report. Enjoyed reading it. I feel that what really raises the quality of a report is good photos. I rate photos (quality ones) over battle chronicler.

[Fandir Nightshade]

Poor Chaos...they never did have a chance.