This is the fourth part of my account of the recent Big Old Grudges tournament. You can find the previous part here, or go back to the start here.
Round 4: A Chance Encounter (Baggage Train; Domination)
Geoff Googe – Warriors of Chaos
- Chaos Lord (General) on Gorebeast Chariot with Mark of Nurgle, Great Weapon, Favour of the Gods, Talisman of the Carrion Crow, Potion of Foolhardiness
- Sorcerer Lord (Level 3, Daemonology) with Mark of Nurgle, Spell Familiar, Tome of Spellcraft, Brazen Collar, Favour of the Gods, Enchanting Aura
- Exalted Champion on Chaos Steed with Mark of Nurgle, Great Weapon, Diabolic Splendour, Brazen Collar, Favour of the Gods
- Aspiring Champion Battle Standard Bearer with Mark of Nurgle, Shield, Favour of the Gods, Enhanced Reflexes
- 30 Warriors of Chaos with Mark of Nurgle, Shields, Full Command, War Banner, Enhanced Reflexes
- 9 Marauder Horsemen with Flails, Horsemaster, Unnatural Fortitude, Mark of Chaos Undivided
- 5 Warhounds with Vanguard
- 5 Warhounds with Vanguard
- 7 Chosen Chaos Knights with Mark of Nurgle, Drilled, Full Plate Armour, Lances, Full Command, Totem of Wrath, Dark Hearts
- Spawn of Nurgle (Gerald)
- Spawn of Nurgle (Helga)
- Gigantic Spawn of Chaos (Gunther) – Nurgle
This scenario asked for weird deployment zones in diagonally opposite table corners, with a dead space in the centre. There's meant to be a special feature in the middle, but it was an oversight in the player pack. This picture was after the Warhound units used vanguard. The slightly dark blob in the centre is the Marauder Horsemen on a hill, with the Chaos Knights in front of them.
With the Sorcerer Lord and BSB in there, this unit was worth something close to 1000 points before bonuses. It was also likely to be a hard nut to crack.
I deployed about as aggressively as I could. After all, it's a Chaos army. What else do you do but run at them?
With deployment so close, it felt like the first turn would be important. Probably thanks to me deploying scouts, I lost that roll off.
The Marauder Horsemen and Warhounds scooted around my flank behind the impassable terrain
Gunther the Giant Spawn slid up next to the other Warhounds. I had explained to Geoff how I had been accidentally cheating for much of the previous day by charging in the first turn with my scouts. I was a new and reformed man, and obviously wouldn't be doing that anymore, now that I realised.
The rest of the line advanced very cautiously - almost like they thought I might charge them if they got too close.
The Chaos Knights were indeed close enough, so I did charge them immediately with the Mournfangs. Unfortunately with their Counter-charge, the Knights were going to be fighting with their lances as well.
So. Umm. We did charge in the first turn. Again. Because after vanguards and normal movement and Gunther wandering about and stuff, I had clean forgotten that it was still the first turn over there. Geoff didn't twig either, despite us having talked about it earlier. I suddenly realised about 3 turns later, and we decided that it didn't really matter. But man, I was clearly struggling with this.
Nobody else got to charge, but they really wanted to. In the absence of anything better to do, the Slaughtermaster planted a Column of Crystal shielding his unit's flank from the sneaky things coming around the terrain.
The Mournfang charge did not go well. I basically bounced off the enemy's armour, but the Chaos Knights had no such trouble with mine. It was also the start of me rolling more 6s to hit than I've ever seen before. And with the Mark of Nurgle forcing me to reroll those, I almost always missed. It would be a pattern throughout the game. So many wasted 6s! Anyway, we got pushed back, then died in the next turn when the Knights charged again.
The Chaos Knights carried on into my Ironguts, whilst the pesky flanking units found my very clever vortex a bit of an annoyance.
The Chaos Lord had tried to charge the Stonehorn, even chugging his Potion of Foolhardiness first to ensure he didn't fail the fear test. Instead he just rolled poorly for the charge distance. Poor guy.
The Chaos Hounds I should not have been able to charge had died immediately, and we had carried on off the table edge, and away from the loving attentions of Gunther. When we returned, we made good use of our skirmish formation to hurry around the house and try to put distance between us. Thankfully Gunther never rolled very high for his movement, and couldn't keep up.
Having avoided the impact hits of the Chaos Lord's Gorebeast Chariot, the Tyrant decided he was up for the fight and charged him in return. The Mournfangs charged the Chaos Warriors, with the intention of allowing the Tyrant to fight again provided that he was able to keep going forward.
The Ironguts were as prepared as they could be for the fight with the Chaos Knights, with Regeneration from the Cauldon and Glittering Robe in play.
My Tyrant made hard work of the Chaos Lord, but managed to beat him despite taking a wound in return. The enemy fell back in good order, and the plan of arriving to help the Mournfangs came to pass.
Unfortunately I continued to roll a crazy spate of 6s to hit, which turned into misses. Geoff tried to help by failing his armour saves and we did kill some Chaos Warriors, but they took a real toll on the Mournfangs in return, and we lost combat. The Tyrant found himself fighting on his own as the Mournfangs were pushed back (I think that might have been after the second round of combat, to be honest). The Ironguts had failed to catch the Chaos Knights when they broke and fled after neither side did much damage, and they rallied right in front of us. The Chaos Lord (poor soul), who had squandered his Potion of Foolhardiness the previous turn, promptly failed his fear test when trying to charge the Tyrant again.
At this point I decided to gamble, and threw the Hunter and his friends into the flank of the unit at the same time that the Mournfangs stepped forward again into the fray. I figured the extra muscle might be welcome.
The Ironguts stepped into the Knights once more, again bolstered by Regeneration if not other magical assistance
With the Marauder Horsemen now lurking behind, I wasn't game to leave the Ogres with their rear facing them. My BSB stepped out, figuring he could manage if they tried their luck with him.
The Irongut combat was notable for my Slaughtermaster finally figuring out how to use the Skullplucker, and he promptly plucked the skull of the Exalted Champion. The rest of the unit didn't enjoy this, and being badly outnumbered, they broke.
My gamble to try to make real inroads into the main unit went badly wrong. It was at this point that the Chaos Warriors fired up and started passing armour and inflicting wounds before we could attack. The Tyrant continued to do underwhelming damage for his part, and I generally killed nothing. The Sabretusks had only succeeded in increasing combat resolution for the enemy. They fell back in good order, the Mournfangs gave way, and...
...I had a complete brain fart and rerolled the break test of the Tyrant when he had rolled fall back in good order. Naturally be broke instead, and fled through the BSB and the Marauders, right over near the table edge. I had just given my opponent my most important unit.
The Marauders did indeed scare the Tyrant off the table. The Chaos Lord spun his Chariot around in search of a worthy target. The Chaos Warriors had stepped in after the Mournfangs, making me feel less than great about how I had chosen to face the Ogre Bull unit.
The good news was that the Mournfangs were not wiped out, and the Warriors elected not to chase the survivor. At this point, that counted as good news...
In my turn the Mournfang rallied, and stayed facing the Marauders. I'm not sure why they were still on the table at this point - they should have headed off after the Stonehorn.
Faced with a group of targets we largely couldn't catch, the Ironguts decided to try to march on toward the enemy baggage train. This was a stupid plan, as I promptly failed the test due to nearby enemies, was now never going to make it in time, and had also ensured that I couldn't spin to face one of the nearby threats (or even cast Column of Crystal to block something important). We did have Regeneration and Glittering Robe, and we had ensured that the chariot was too close for impact hits, but...
And then this happened. The Chaos Lord charged the flank of the Ironguts and found himself basically shut down by the Slaughtermaster. He did next to no damage, and lost combat. He immediately broke (with a reroll), and fled through the Chaos Warriors who were now stuck fighting my Bulls (who had surprisingly managed to bog them down with a charge in my turn). The Lord's Chariot emerged right next to the skirmishing Sabretusks, who likely had the speed to run him down. And the Ironguts of course pursued him, which brought them around nicely to look at the engaged enemy's rear. It was all a disaster for Geoff.
The Marauder Horsemen had decided to charge the lone Mournfang, but only managed to get one wound through. He held his own, buying time for my BSB to intervene.
And then my charges crashed home. The Sabretusks caught the fleeing Chaos Lord. The BSB rescued the Mournfang and destroyed the Marauder Horsemen. And the arrival of the Ironguts, impact hits and all, into the rear of the Chaos Warriors finally proved too much for them and they broke and were run down.
Well, that was extremely lucky on my part. The last turn had been a colossal disaster for my opponent. Before that, I had almost no victory points. By the time the turn was over, I had nearly all of them. The luck had been a bit up and down (and we managed to make a couple of mistakes along the way), but Geoff did seem incapable of passing a leadership test, and in the end it cost him the game.
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