The second game of the weekend turned out to be against Skaven. My opponent wanted to try out his army for an upcoming tournament down south, so I had to cut my list down to 2250 points. I dropped my Rock Lobber, Mangler Squig and second Night Goblin shaman to make out the points.
The Skaven army was led by a Grey Seer on foot, a Chieftain with the Battle Standard, three engineerers and a Plague Priest on a Plague Furnace pulled by Plague Monks. There were two crowds of 30 Clanrats, two lines of 30 Slaves, a Hellpit Abominiation, a Doomwheel, a Warplightning Canon and two Weapon Teams: Ratling Gun and Warpfire Thrower. Deploying as scouts were a unit of Gutter Runners with poisoned slings.
For a second straight game the terrain had a building in the middle, so we'd have to split up our forces, with forests and hills on the outskirts. I put the Orc Big 'Uns behind the building, so that I could march to either side of it depending on my opponent, who stacked the western side heavily. I matched that with my Squig Herd, the Savage Orcs and finally my Black Orcs, prompting the Skaven to put the Abominiation on the eastern flank in fear of potential flaming great weapons. They were joined by the Plague Furnace, meaning my Warboss and the Big 'Uns were going up more or less alone against the two most hard-hitting units of the Skaven. Would they be up to the task?
Things of note:
Hellpit Abomination - The Skaven stole the initiative and the Abominiation lumbered forward towards the Big 'Uns. Since the Black Orcs were two rounds away from it, I had no choice but to charge in with my Wolf Chariots in hopes of softening the monster up. The impact hits and spear thrusts inflicted 4 wounds on the beasty, who failed to kill all of the gobbos in return but was Stubborn for its break test. Next round, surprisingly, the Gobbos again failed to die against the attacks of the monster, who suffered another stab wound in its many bellies. By the third round of combat the Gobbos died, and by then my Big 'Uns had charged in to begin fighting the Plague Monks with their Furnace, giving up a tasty flank charge to the Abominiation. So it charged in in earnest, only to realize I had marched my Night Gobbos up so that once it reached combat, it was met by 3 Fanatics that killed it. Only a Rat Swarm emerged from the carcass.
Big 'Uns - The death of the Beasty meant the Big 'Uns were on their own against the Plague Furnace, and the Priest challenged my Warboss to a fight. The Boss unveiled his Great Weapon but suffered two wounds from the Priest's flail that my ward save failed to catch, but luckily the Rat Ogres could not hit him at WS7. In return, the Warboss took off 3 wounds from the Furnace while the Boyz took out plenty of Monks. The next turn I was praying to not only survive the Plague Priests attack, but to kill off the Furnace before the Wrecking Attack turned me into a bloody mess. A Gift of the Spider God from the Night Gobbo Shaman increased my odds, and the Priest failed to wound me, as did his crew. The Warboss raised his poisoned great weapon for the strike, but failed to take out the final wound of the Furnace! Down came the Wrecking Ball... one hit! No wound! Gork was with me, and the following round the Warboss tore down that cursed machine and the Big 'Uns chased down the Plague Monks. That was apparently the first time the unit had been killed off, which was a fine honor for the boyz in green!
Savage Orcs - Things did not look as bright on the heavy western flank, as the Grey Seer had decided on turning the Savage Orcs into rats. For the first four rounds, my opponent threw all his dice, warpstones and all, at the Curse of the Horned Rat, even bringing a Power Scroll into play to make the magic phase such a joy to face. By Gork how happy am I that we usually run restrictions on the magic phase. By the fourth round, my Great Shaman managed to take him out with a well-placed 'Eadbutt straight to the nose, ending that annoyance. As he glanced around though, only the command group of my original unit of 28 were left standing, so the Great Shaman joined up with the Black Orcs instead as the Savages turned around and marched back whence they came from. That prompted one of the Slave units to try their luck and they succesfully nailed a long 15" charge to hit the rear of the Savages. But as it would turn out, three Savage Orcs are still capable of wonders, first warding off both of the wounds the Slaves inflicted, then killed off 8 of the little rats to win combat, and the Slaves broke and ran away!
Black Orcs - With the Great Shaman joining him, the Black Orcs now became an even greater target and suffered a hit from the Warplightning Cannon, which needed to roll a 2 followed by 10 to hit them right on point with the blast. Guess what it did? Exactly. 12 Black Orcs died from the S10 blast right ontop of them. They were then charged by the Doomwheel in the later stages, who hoped to run down the remaining 8 Orcs. Sadly for the Skaven, a single impact hits meant the Black Orcs were steadfast and held on, and in my own turn the Great Shaman implored Gork to grant him his very own Fists to ward off this strange wheel! How about 7 S9 attacks, would that do the trick? Why, yes it would! And down went the wheel.
Squig Herd - Continuing on the theme of nasty units being blown to bits, the Squig Herd suffered a direct hit from a Doomrocket early on and lost half of its number. Desperately the Herders tried to bring the Squigs into combat against the Clanrats waiting on the other side, but in the way stood several brave Engineerers willing to die for the greater cause, continuously redirecting the Squigs away from their prime targets. To the hells with it, I said, and turned my back on a forest where some Slaves were camping on the other side, and instead looked to help out the Black Orcs in case the Doomwheel wouldn't die. A rear charge that could potentially kill off the remaining Herders in the back and make the Herd go wild was too tempting a target for the Slaves, who too went in for the second rear charge of the battle. Two herders died from stab wounds, but step up did the Squigs from the front who killed off 9 Slaves in return. My opponent probably did not consider that, nor that units cannot be steadfast in a forest, resulting in that the second unit of Slaves broke and ran off as well.
So as the dust cleared and the Generals took a headcount, the Skaven had lost their Abominiation, Plague Furnace and Plague Monks from the eastern side, and two units of Slaves from the west. The Wolf Riders had also chased down both of the Weapon Teams and the Warplightning Cannon, and the Great Shaman had killed off the Grey Seer general.
The Greenskins on the other hand had lost the Wolf Chariots to yet another suicide mission, and a Doom Diver to some Gutter Runners. Although 3 Savage Orcs and 5 Black Orcs were left standing, my Warboss had taken two nasty wounds and only two Herders were left and forced to deal with 17 Squigs, my complete losses had been minimal, resulting in a resounding victory for the Greenskins, my second of the day!
