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Sunday, May 8, 2011

O&G vs Warriors of Chaos, 2500 pts

This past Saturday offered a set of two good matches, the first of which was a matchup against a solid army of Warriors of Chaos. They were led, as usual you'd say, by a Sorcerer Lord marked by Tzeentch and flying on a disc, and an Exalted Champion with the Battle Standard. The centerpiece of the army was a unit of 18 Chosen with Halberds, marked by Tzeentch and supported by two Warshrines of Tzeentch. Two flanking regiments of Chaos Warriors were going to help out the Chosen - one of them a solid unit of 20, marked by Tzeentch, and a frenzied unit with Halberds who were marked by Khorne. Three small units of Warhounds rounded off the army and a Hellcannon was placed in the back. Very much a standard, extremely tough Chaos army. At least his Chosen did not receive the Stubborn and 3+ ward save Chaos gift to start the game.

The Sorcerer Lord has moved up behind the Giant to watch the Green Horde advance


Things of note:
  • Chosen - Instead of the Divine Greatness gift, the Chosen got +1 to their strength, for a total of 6 when swinging their halberds, and so they slowly walked forward. They were matched up, slightly on their own, against the Savage Orcs, the Black Orcs and the Trolls, with the Warboss flying around in the near vicinity. Since the Chosen didn't receive their ultimate gift by the second turn, I declared a charge against them with every single unit I had within 14" of them. Having to roll 10 or more, the Black Orcs and Savage Orcs both failed their charges, while the Trolls, a Boar Chariot and the Wyvern Warboss made their way in. I knew for a fact that the Chosen were running the Wailing Banner (terror) to optimize their chances on the Eye of the Gods table, and were without flaming weapons, so the Trolls felt fairly safe. That is, as safe as you can be going up against S6 Chosen! A spell of Gork Will Fix It from the Gobbo Shaman definitely helped out in the combat, and the Chosen were only able to take out two Trolls after their regeneration. In return, the combined might of the Greenskins left less than a rank of Chosen warriors standing, who broke from combat and fled, losing their BSB along the way before being chased down. That certainly put the Chaos army back on their heels early on. While Chosen supported by Shrines are powerful, they are not that powerful so that they can easily take on that many hard-hitting greenskins. At least not without Divine Greatness.
  • Chaos Warriors of Tzeentch - A Hand of Gork spell brought the Mangler Squig up close to the Chaos army in the first round, but some slick maneuvering managed to get a unit of Hounds to sacrifice themselves by stepping on the squigs. The resulting slaughter was too gruesome for even Chaos Warriors to behold, and unfortunately that panicked them and they fled towards the very back of the deployment phase. In the later turns, they were charged by the Black Orcs joined by my BSB, who had all brought their great weapons. A frustrating mistake on my part caused me some trouble, as again I had moved my Great Shaman to the wrong corner of the Savage Orcs, too far away from reliably casting 'Ere We Go to help out the Black Orcs. Matters did not improve when my planned backup failed to reach the flank of the Tzeentch warriors with their overrun move. Without re-rolling misses, the Tzeentch Warriors prevailed and the Black Orcs lost the combat by three. Two break tests against 6 failed and they were chased down, bringing the battle to a bit more equal footing.  The Warriors followed that up by charging the Savage Orc Big 'Uns, feeling confident after getting an additional armor save from one of the Warshrines. The first combat came to a draw, but after fighting off S7 Black Orcs and 28 S5 attacks from the Big 'Uns, the Warriors were dropping in numbers, facing 20+ of Orcs with barely two ranks of their own. Slowly but surely they were losing bodies and therefore attacks, but remained for another round or two thanks to their Blasted Standard. But it was not to be and the Warriors were finally all chopped down or chased away at the end of the fifth turn. This allowed the Savage Orcs, still around 10-15 strong, to reform and charge the Sorcerer Lord, who had moved up too close to the action in order to send my Warboss and his Wyvern into the Rift with a Gateway spell. Although the Sorcerer held out for a round, eventually the numbers caught up to him and he was chased down in the final round.
  • Giant - The big guy had to chase off some hounds early on, but finally ended up with his designated target - the Hellcannon. He immediately decided to Thump it with his club, with the cannon failing his dodge roll and taking 9 wounds for his trouble, destroying it completely. The overrun of the Giant would have brought him into the flank of the Tzeentch Warriors who had been charged by the Black Orcs, as was the plan, but a poor dice roll had him arrive too late to save them. He compensated for that though by charging into the flank of the Khorne Warriors later on, who had been struggling with getting away from the Wolf Riders who spent the early game in their close vicinity, plinking arrows at them and making funny faces. The Giant was joined by a combo charge from the Pump Wagon, equipped with Exploding Spores to ignore armor saves, and although they took a few wounds from the Halberds, the Warriors were club-swiped and thunderstomped into a bloody pulp, as the Giant wiped them out completely. A decent debut for the big guy wouldn't you say?

So in the end, a single Warshrine was all that remained of the Chaos army, while the Orcs had their Giant, the Night Goblins, the Trolls and half a Savage Orc unit lurking around the battlefield. This gave me a solid win in a very enjoyable battle. Although it's a very nasty Chaos list, my opponent was a joy to play against and I look forward to the next meeting. Perhaps the Chosen will do better then?