Morrslieb hung low in the sky this time as Sven leaned with
an elbow on one knee, foot propped up on a rock, and stared down at the sleepy
river settlement of Dypvann, named after the river that the village clung to.
Below he heard cheers and drunkenly sung ballads from the local tavern. His
unnaturally enhanced vision picked out dogs chasing each other by moonlight and
even from half a league away he could hear the breath of children sleeping in
their cribs.
He itched to slaughter them all but he knew all too well
that they were worth more to him alive than dead, for they were the inhabitants
of this land and knew it better than a foreigner like him ever could.
He was about to give the order to advance when he heard a
great clarion cry that could only come from a great horn being blown somewhere off
down the valley. The villagers scrambled to man the wooden walls that
surrounded their village. Off in the distance the unmistakable howling of orcs
came and Sven almost let go a sigh of relief, for Khorne’s blood lust was upon
him strongly tonight and he was not sure if even his iron-will could resist the
slaughter of the villagers. The orcs though, had been charitable enough to
provide to sacrifice themselves to his murder-greed.
***
None but Svens strongest warriors had made the march to the
battlegrounds quick enough. His chosen retinue of khornate disciples marched
alongside him on foot, while his knights rode out on his flanks. Ahead of him,
he saw the Orc hordes. Savage beasts whose naked bodies didn’t even shiver in
the midst of the harsh winter. Sven yearned to carve them to pieces with his blade and with little else in his
mind, he quickened his pace towards his foe.
For this battle we
played 1,750 points. My army list was this:
Sven (Exalted Hero), Mark of Khorne, Scaly Skin daemonic
gift, the sword of anti-heroes, charmed shield
20 Chaos Warriors, full command, Mark of Khorne, halberds, the
Banner of Swiftness
3 sets of 5 Warhounds
2 sets of 5 Chaos Knights with Mark of Khorne
Hellcannon
The Hellcannon was a bit of an afterthought and ended up
doing almost nothing at all through the game. Certainly not worth bending the
theme of my army for but I felt like I had to have some kind of range and I
think it had a psychological effect on Alex…
For heroes, all I had was Sven and I hadn’t even spent all
of his magical items allowance. I wish I’d had more to spend on characters but
I’ve always gone for troops over characters and in this game I
deliberately didn’t take a BSB for the
extra challenge. I wanted to see if I could position well enough that even a
failed frenzy test would not ruin my battle plans. This partially worked.
The Chaos warriors are the inevitable core. Banner of
swiftness on a movement 4 infantry unit is always, always awesome. If you have
no idea what else to give an expensive infantry unit, I heartily recommend it.
The Chaos Knights were cheap but the most tactically
flexible part of my army. A must have.
Alex’s list was something like (approximately):
Savage Orc lord with ASF sword and 2+ armour save
Savage Orc BSB with initiative 10 sword
Level 2 Shaman with shrunken head
About 30 something savage orc bigguns with extra hand
weapons
About 30 something non-bigguns
2 sets of 8 savage boar boyz
Deployment: I deployed with warriors in the middle and
knights on the flanks and Hellcannon at the back in the centre.
Alex deployed in the corner with both infantry blocks and
deployed the boar boyz in the centre and in the opposite corner.
Turn 1: Alex marched everything forwards and I dispelled his
magic. One set of his boar boyz stood frostily opposite one unit of knights
which Alex carefully stayed a fair distance from, not wanting to give the Chaos
knights an easy charge. I dispelled his magic.
In my turn I marched forward as well. Shoved the warhounds
towards the non-bigguns and angled them so if the non-bigguns charged, their
overrun would either send them off the board or give their flank to the Chaos Knights. Either way,
I wouldn’t have to worry about that unit for a couple of turns.
On the left, I shoved my Chaos Knights right in front of the
boar boyz. My mathammer told me that the Chaos Knights would probably be able
to decimate the boar boyz easily.
In the centre I marched the warhounds closer to the other
set of boar boyz in the centre and the Chaos warriors behind them.
Turn 2: Alex’s non-bigguns charged the warhounds and did go
off the table.
His boar boyz on the left did charge the knights and 7 out
of 8 were cut down before they could strike. They killed no knights in return.
In my turn 2 my knights that were supposed to flank
charge the non-bigguns failed their
frenzy test and charged the bigguns unit with all Alex’s characters in.
They were dead meat but ended up killing Alex’s wizard and his unit champion
which became very important later on.
In the centre was the only interesting maneuvering I did all
game. I charged the 2 sets of 5 warhounds into the boar boyz and marched the Chaos
Warriors up behind them. I left the Chaos warriors angled to face the right,
towards the bigguns. I hoped that the boar boyz would slaughter the warhounds
but wouldn’t be able to kill all 10 of them. Their frenzy would force them to
chase the warhounds and therefore overrun into the Chaos Warriors. Next turn,
the Chaos Warriors would beat the boar boyz up and chase them into the bigguns.
At that moment, the bigguns were currently showing their flank to the Chaos
Warriors so it was all very exciting. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out.
The boar boyz killed 8 out of 10 of the warhounds and did
chase them into the warriors. However, my frenzied charge with the knights into
the bigguns meant they managed to wipe the knights out and so there was no
longer that distraction. The bigguns turned to face the Chaos Warriors. In Alex’s
turn, the Chaos Warriors wiped out the boar boyz and it came down to a straight
charge of the warriors straight into the front of the bigguns. Where Sven would
face the BSB and the Orc Lord and Sven’s 20 Chaos Warriors would face 30 horded
Savage Orc bigguns, each with 3 strength 5 attacks each! *gulp*
***
After the slaughter
of the boar boyz, the bloodlust of Sven’s warriors had been unleashed. Before
them the gigantic orcs bayed and howled at them, shaking massive, jagged stone
bladed weapons at them. Sven didn’t need to say a word for he could hardly keep
his warriors from chagrining even if he’d wanted to. Nevertheless he
raised his gleaming magical blade into
the air and in an earth-shakingly booming voice shouted his order to charge.
Both sides thundered towards each other and met in a titanic
smash of bodies. The Chaos warriors showed their berserker nature as they
plunged their halberds into stomachs and through hearts, lopped of heads and
amputated limbs. They were fast and before the orcs could bring their clumsy
weapons to bear, the warriors had killed almost a dozen of them. The return
strike however, was brutal and Sven saw fully half of his warriors beaten to a
blood pulp by the gargantuan strength of the orcs in but a few heartbeats. Sven
himself wished to maim and slaughter but he felt the tingling of a greater
prize nearby.
His eyes searched around frantically until he spotted the
orc boss cresting a hill of the dead. He and the battle around him almost seemed
to be moving in slow motion as Sven’s mind raced and adrenaline flooded his
veins. The orc was a monolithic slab of muscle, scars and tattoos. There seemed
to be little else. Sven knew that while mighty, he was still on an early stage
of his path to greatness and for a single, fleeting moment he wondered whether
he could truly best such a brute. One look at the tree trunk-sized biceps of
the savage and the monstrous club he hefted with them told Sven that the
creature was the deadliest foe he had yet faced in single combat.
“Aszh ma karagh!” Sven barked as a formal challenge in the
language of his native tribe. In reply the orc bellowed and leapt off the pile
of dead bodies. The light glinted on the beast’s eyes and as quick as
lightning, Sven’s magical blade sliced through the air. The next few moments
passed quicker than mortal sight but when the orcs flight ended he came
crashing down, his body carved into a number of bloody chunks. In appreciation
of his efforts, Sven was engulfed in a crimson column of light that shot out of
the heavens. The eyes of the gods were upon him.
***
The combat ended with
the Chaos warriors killing the BSB and Sven killing the Orc lord. The bigguns
had done themselves proud and seriously messed up the Chaos warriors but in the
end it wasn’t enough and the warriors ran them down. A few turns later, the
non-bigguns met the same fate.
Sven got to roll on the eye of the gods table 3 times,
getting +1 ward save twice and +1 attack once. Truly a great boon.
In the end, the day belonged to Chaos.
Aftermath:
The game went well for me in the end. Alex lamented the
performance of his boar boyz which was understandable, but in this game it was a terrible match up for them. There
were no targets on the table who were lightly armoured enough, low initiative
enough or unkilly enough for the boar boyz to shine against. I think finding
good targets for them is always going to be a toughy.
Likewise, the Hellcannon was garbage. Garbage, garbage,
garbage. I’m not sure if I’ll be taking any again the future.
A khorne hero with the sword of anti-heroes is pretty beasty
as well and next time I’ll probably field Sven as a Chaos Lord with that and
the helm of many eyes. I think he’s earned it. The scaly skin demonic gift is
also really great because it becomes that much more viable to field those
wonderful non-mounted Chaos character models, whereas before it was sometimes
hard to justify taking them when you could just put them on a horse just for
the sake of barding.
It was also fun playing without a BSB in an all-frenzied
army as it meant I really had to think of contingencies. If you ever feel like
you’re going a bit brain-dead from playing games that are too easy (a bit like
playing vampires, daemons or dark elves back in 7th edition), try
playing without a BSB and with lots of frenzy. It really makes you think!
