On the weekend I drove to Ballarat for Uprising 2023, which was a one day, 3 game tournament for 6th edition Warhammer Fantasy. In the end there were 36 players. I still don't fully understand where all these people are coming from in order to play a long-dead version of an abandoned game. Every person I ask seems to have a different story. Some have returned after a long hiatus, some are new to Warhammer, some have clearly been sucked into a time vortex and have no idea what year it is... Anyway, it felt like a lot of people for an event of this kind.
I talked previously about my Cult of Slaanesh army list, but here it is again with a family photo so you can see what I was running:
- Druchii Anointed (Level 2 Dark Magic) with Great Weapon, Shield, Blood Armour, Quickening Blood, Pendant of Slaanesh. Tome of Furion
- Sorceress (Level 2 Slaanesh Magic) with Mark of Slaanesh, Dispel Scroll
- Noble on Cold One with Chaos Armour, Shield, Great Weapon, Seal of Ghrond
- Sorceress (Level 2 Dark Magic) with Darkstar Cloak
- 9 Cold One Knights with Full Command, Banner of Murder
- 14 Devoted of Slaanesh with Full Command
- 10 Warriors with Mark of Slaanesh, Repeating Crossbow, Light Armour
- 10 Warriors with Mark of Slaanesh, Repeating Crossbow, Light Armour
- 5 Mounted Daemonettes
- 2 Reaper Bolt Throwers
- 10 Daemonettes
- 5 Chaos Furies
As usual, I managed to take a good number of photos, which should hopefully help me remember what happened and talk you through my games.
Game 1 - Take What's Theirs
Simon Dunbar - Hordes of Chaos (Undivided)
- Chaos Lord (Undivided) on Barded Chaos Steed with Shield, Armour of Damnation, Sword of Might
- Aspiring Chaos Champion (Undivided) with Battle Standard, Chaos Armour, Talisman of Protection
- Chaos Sorcerer (Undivided, Level 2 Lore of Death) with Chaos Armour, 2 Dispel Scrolls
- 12 Chaos Warriors (Undivided) with Heavy Armour, Shields, Full Command
- 15 Chaos Warriors (Undivided) with Heavy Armour, Shields, Halberds, Full Command
- 19 Marauders with Flails, Champion, Musician
- 5 Chaos Warhounds
- 5 Chaos Warhounds
- Chaos Chariot (Undivided)
- 5 Chaos Knights (Undivided) with Full Command
- 5 Chosen Chaos Knights (Undivided) with Full Command
- 7 Chaos Furies
- Hellcannon
The scenario was basically a pitched battle, but each player placed an objective marker that was worth 250VP to the opponent if they controlled it at the end of the game. So it was meant to be about claiming their marker, whilst denying them your own.
The event was held at the table tennis centre, which meant all the games were actually happening on table tennis tables, which kind of dwarfed the 6x4 mats. There must also have been a particular type of lighting in there, but I don't remember the fuzzy green mat being quite so vivid. Maybe it's my phone. Anyway, I finished deploying first and got the +1 bonus for the first turn. So naturally I rolled a 1 and lost the roll-off. Ah well. At least we weren't far into the game before I remembered to start taking photos.
Simon put both units of Chaos Knights over on my right flank, with the Chaos Lord leading the Chosen unit near the tower. I had put very little on this flank. The Furies and a Sorceress lurking in the forest. Not really an even match over there.
I had concentrated more on the centre-left, where there was a hill to work with. The forests on this table all had thick bases that almost looked like hills, but we just decided they were meant to be normal forests. Simon put both Chaos Warrior units near the tower, with the Sorcerer in the larger unit behind. His BSB was leading the Marauders on the hill. The Hellcannon was well back in the corner, and I had... no real idea how I was ever likely to be able to kill it. Hopefully it would misfire and solve the problem for me.
In my turn I scurried the Daemonette cavalry forward, out of the arc of the Chariot and only at the extreme range of what might have tempted the Hellcannon into a random charge. If it rolled an 11 or so on 2D6, I would be in trouble.
With the enemy Knights and Lord all over on the other side of the tower, I decided that aggression was the order of the day and moved in on Simon's infantry.
This was pretty much all the combat muscle in my army, condensed into a very small space. The Anointed was leading the Devoted (as he would be every game), and the Noble was at the head of the Cold One Knights.
My "army general" (the Slaanesh Sorceress) had decided to join the Crossbowmen in the centre, in order to try to bring her Blissful Throes (a high strength magic missile) to bear. She also had Titillating Delusions to work with.
A Bolt Thrower had a go at the Chaos Hounds on the flank, greatly reducing the unit size but failing to panic the remainder thanks to the close proximity of the general. He was distracted, of course. I had cast Titillating Delusions upon him, and he was on a mission to go investigate something delightful and shiny right over in the corner of the table, beside the Furies.
Blissful Throes had been fractionally out of range of the other unit of Hounds, but the Crossbowmen shot all but one of them. The survivor understandably panicked and fled, and we removed him given he couldn't rally and couldn't panic anything as he journeyed alone off the field.
In my efforts to avoid being seen by the Chariot and eaten by the Hellcannon, I hadn't given much thought to the Furies. This was a potentially dire mistake, given they only needed 4s and 3s to cause wounds I couldn't save.
It did hurt, but fortunately for me we ended up doing equal wounds, had equal unit strength, and the combat was a draw. The following round the Daemonettes would fire up and clean off the remaining Furies. It was a good outcome, even if it was not what I had really been planning.
The Chariot decided it might as well have a crack at the Cold One Knights, but was narrowly out of range. The other units were a bit more circumspect and sat back to let me make the first move.
The Cold One Knights were very happy not be run over by the Chariot, and decided to run over it instead.
The Devoted were only just within range of the front regiment of Chaos Warriors, but that was OK. The Anointed could reach and that was what mattered. The Daemonettes were a little bit concerned about the exposed flank of their friends, and did their best to at least dissuade the Marauders from thinking about it. My shooting was also trying to help them focus on other things - there were only about half as many of them there as there had been at the start.
The Anointed commenced Operation Slicey Dicey, and killed a few of the Chaos Warriors. This also meant his Blood Armour was now improved to a 2+ save - almost maxed out already! The Devoted who could reach bounced off and the Warriors who could reach were dead, so that was the final tally. It was not enough, and the Warriors passed their break test (on maybe Leadership 4, which was a fair effort).
Over on the right, the Furies flew in behind the enemy Knights where they would be safe. The Sorceress poked her nose out the side of the forest just enough to cast Chillwind at the Hounds, but only managed to kill 1 of them. The Crossbowmen and Bolt Thrower both fired at the regular Chaos Knights. The Bolt Thrower killed 2, but the Crossbowmen couldn't get through their armour and toughness.
They were getting a little bit close to charging distance, so my Slaanesh Sorceress nobly volunteered to leave the regiment and hide behind the forest.
Having failed to break the Warriors, the Devoted shifted to Plan B which involved expanding frontage. It was just enough to pull the Marauders into the front arc instead of the flank, but my unit looked a little thin and sad now...
It's a good thing Cold Ones cause Fear (although it's hard to see why), because the unit didn't manage to land a single wound on the Chariot. Happily they took no damage in return, and won combat thanks to their unit size and high standards (so they tell me). The Chariot fled automatically due to Fear and was run down.
The Chaos Sorcerer was really no chance to force a spell past my defences, so he had contented himself with dispelling Titillating Delusions in Simon's previous turn. This meant the Chaos Lord and his entourage were free to turn and start heading in a relevant direction. There wasn't room for a big wheel, so they were left turning and forming a narrow bus-like formation to tuck in line behind the other Knights. I'm pretty sure those Knights had decided to try a charge on the Crossbowmen, found they were out of range, completely shrugged off the stand-and-shoot charge reaction, and just trotted a bit closer like they would have anyway, given they were march blocked.
The Marauders arrived to try to rescue the Chaos Warriors, and a strange round of combat ensued. They were hitting on 5+ due to the Soporific Musk of the Devoted, but they didn't let that hold them back. They murdered 6 of my unit, which was some impressive rolling. Ironically I compensated by murdering 7 of the Chaos Warriors (the Anointed doing good work), and the combat was a draw. Never thought I'd be harvesting the soft meat of Chaos Warriors to compensate for the carnage inflicted by the nasty Marauders. Seems rather backward.
I obviously got distracted and missed a couple of photos. The Daemonettes decided the Devoted still needed to be rescued, and charged into the Marauders alongside them. The Devoted then fired up and with their help, butchered all of the remaining Marauders whilst the Anointed mopped up the Chaos Warriors. This left the enemy BSB on the run (he outpaced me), and was all a bit disturbing for the other regiment of Chaos Warriors who panicked (despite having a reroll), then declined to rally and bolted clean off the table. Very heroic. And I was all fired up to murder them with the Anointed, too. We had been about to hit them with the pursuit roll. Maybe they saw that coming and decided it was time to... not be there.
There appears to be a dead unit being ranked up in the background - ignore them. The Crossbowmen again fired at the Chaos Knights and killed none. The Bolt Thrower did get one, but they didn't panic... I think the Crossbowmen were beginning to get nervous. And probably low on ammo, having spent it all ineffectually on the approaching Knights. The Slaanesh Sorceress had encountered an issue with one of her spells and taken a wound, but the Dark Sorceress finally succeeded in finishing off the last doggy.
Having disposed of the Chariot, the Cold One Knights turned and moved toward the Hellcannon. Apart from the Anointed, they were maybe the only thing that might be able to kill it... I don't have any more pics of this encounter, so we'll cover it now. The Hellcannon finally found its range when it shifted onto this unit, and began blowing it to pieces. 3 direct hits in the last 3 turns, coupled with a failed stupidity test and 2 failed panic tests, meant they never made it to see if they could actually hurt the thing. By the time they panicked the last time, there were only 2 models left in the unit and they couldn't rally.
As the Chaos Warriors and Sorcerer fled the field, the Aspiring Champion showed he was made of sterner stuff. Thankful that no Marauders remained to force him to continue fleeing, he rallied to make a stand against the pursuing Devoted.
The Anointed decided he didn't need any assistance, and set off alone to teach the enemy BSB a lesson. Hey, the guy had a 6+ ward save. He could have survived and fought back. He did not.
This is another jump in time. The Chaos Knights once again charged the Crossbowmen, shrugging off yet another volley of bolts, killed a couple of Dark Elves but failed to break them. The Furies then decided to try to save them with a rear charge, which freaked out the Knights and they fled, narrowly escaping the Furies before rallying. They were then rewarded for their efforts by the Slaanesh Sorceress obliterating them with a nasty blast from Blissful Throes.
The Chaos Lord and his Chosen Knights were of course busy, once again chasing a shiny object on the other side of the field (and parading across in front of all my forces). With the departure of the enemy Sorcerer, my wizards had cut loose with a bonkers series of spells. They cast 4 spells in a row with irresistible force - one of them was a triple 6 on 3 dice, I think. There was nothing Simon could do but watch the fireworks as Knights were vaporised and others were lured helplessly across the field.
And here we have the finale. The Chaos Lord finally made combat as his unit was charged by 3 of mine at once in the flank and rear. The Lord found himself facing the Anointed, and epic music played out of nowhere as we prepared for an amazing duel. Instead, the epic music was replaced abruptly by the Benny Hill theme as they flapped uselessly at each other without even landing a hit. I failed to kill a single model with this charge. I lost only one in return, and being beaten and outnumbered by the Daemonettes, the Chaos Knights broke automatically. They didn't get far - the Furies ran them down.
Result: 20-0 win
You can find the next part of my tournament report here.
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