Not Now, I'm Busy

WARHAMMER?? Isn’t that some kind of cladding tool??

So there I was, about to pen my first battle report as requested by my imposing and glorious new editor (you know who you are). I had downed two flagons of Buggman’s finest and a rather comely wench was on her way to fetch me another. Turning my eyes away from the hind quarters of said bar maid and back to my sheepskin parchment I noticed with growing agitation that it remained unmarked, an ink covered quill resting lazily on the thickly stained oak table next to it.

The arcane invention from the school of alchemy that hung on one of the tavern walls told me that it had been many hours since my endeavours had begun; but there was still something nagging at my mind. How was I to write a battle report depicting the glory and carnage of the Warhammer world without first trying to convey what Warhammer is, what it represents, and what it means to gamers like me. Not a “Warhammer is a table top board game matching armies of models against each other with the winner decided at the fall of a dice” no, that’s not enough. I mean what the Warhammer world, and all its weird and wacky inhabitants (like myself) are all about.

So with a healthy mix of inspiration and ale I set about to define a game that has lorded over a special place in my Emperor loving heart for over ten years.

 

The first thing that outsiders will notice about a game of Warhammer is the lack of computer or gaming console. We Warhammer nerds enjoy a social stigma of geekiness that out strips all other forms of gaming, and we don’t even need a power outlet. So why, at the expense of losing face in front of potential geek loving females to x-box, Nintendo, and Warcraft loving nerds, do we do it? To answer this there are a few things we need to consider.

The Call to arms.

Firstly there is no switch on and game on in the Warhammer world. Whether you are a 40k or fantasy player a game of Warhammer starts in the store. There is no single purchase like that of a pc or console gamer, who can pick up the latest “Halo” or “Call of Duty”, install and play. The Warhammer player needs far more time and consideration for his next purchase. The player reads, networks (with REAL people) and considers a variety of rules, opinions, and opponents before he makes his purchase. In a sense the game has already begun, and a Warhammer players next crushing victory or embarrassing defeat can rest solely on which unit, hero, monster or war machine he buys next. This is where the thrill begins, being part of a game that doesn’t switch off when the power does, you don’t even have to be at the table with your opponent to be playing it.

‘I know of players who actually spend the majority of their time on this step. Planning armies and buying up model after model never seeming to get anything assembled or painted.’

Next up there is the painstaking process of getting your new purchase ready for battle. Painting and assembling each model in your new collection are an important step before they reach the battlefield. Each player has a different take on this particular part of the process. Some players rate this as the single biggest factor in their becoming a Warhammer player. The detail on the eyes, the pattern of the insignia on a soldiers coat of arms, the chance to make the models in your army truly unique, Models that can leave your friends and enemies awestruck at the minutest detail.

I have one opponent in particular whose Eldar host is a constant source of jealousy every time he brings his latest masterpiece to the field. All the gamers in the room will literal stop what they were doing in order to gawk at sapphire bladed Avatars or the silky smooth finish on a Falcon grav-tank.

For some gamers it is the conversions that take pride of place in their gaming experience. Altering their models to make them truly unique amongst all other armies. No mods, no colour changes in the character builder screen, truly unique models that can only be seen in your collection.

Personally painting and converting are a part of the gamming experience that is not my forte. My conversions consist of whatever parts I have lying around, and I get frustrated after the second colour goes on my new unit of Beastmen Gors. It is a fact that when my motley men (or beasts) at arms make it to the field there is precious little gawking going on. Even so I cannot help but feel a sense of pride at seeing each and every model in my force painted up and looking the part as they prepare to take on the enemy. (More so if I can snicker at the poor paint job, or plain undercoated models of the opposing force.)

 Assembling the me (or beasts, or aliens)

Again we have a part of the gaming process that splits enthusiasts. Whilst some players are more than happy to show up to an opponents house with their entire collection, their army book, and proceed to come up with an on the spot army list (you know the ones) while you twiddle your thumbs and practice rolling sixes.

Personally I find these gamers more than a little infuriating and take a personal pleasure in meting out pain to those who are unprepared. Not because they are any less adept at playing the game once their armies hit the field, but because I fall into another, very different category of gamer. The lead up to a game of Warhmmer or 40k for me is a busy and painstaking affair. I pour over my army list and army book, tinkering and adjusting as I consider just which enemy I am to face.

This process can take hours the night before a game but here I confess that more often it takes several sessions spread out over the week prior to a match. I have been known to unpack my entire collection for a sort of roll call so that I can visually see how the army looks and get an idea for the way it will deploy and fight on the battlefield. While I am airing my gaming laundry I may as well reveal that I have even gone so far as to set up mock armies of my opponents, using cardboard squares to represent units, and go even deeper into how different army configurations and tactics would work against them. (I had a lot of free time in high school.)

All that being said, I have a set army when gaming that I develop very carefully during its formative stage, doing things like naming all the characters and units and making sure things like war gear and vehicle fit outs never change. This gives the army a very realistic element on the table top like the troops have been fighting together through various wars and engagements, and can be particularly engaging when your horde goes up against their long time rivals, and your generals go up against characters that they have met many times in the heat of combat. The trick with this style of army is to make the adjustments with the units you take on the day, rather than starting from scratch to match your opponent. This makes things a little bit harder as you cant just change all of your imperial guard squads to carry las-cannons when going up against a vehicle heavy opponent, and then back to flamers when taking on hordes. But it does make it all the more rewarding when you get the mix just right to pull off a decisive victory.

My Imperial guard army is an armoured division known as the Carthaginian A.E.F (armoured expeditionary force) led by the fearless Colonel Barca. The entire company is transport mounted with plenty of tanks. The Carthaginians are professional line breakers made up of heavy vehicles and their crew. They don’t have any infantry at all (line breaking being a profession with a high casualty rate). Instead the A.E.F are hired by imperial armies who are desperate to break a deadlock. Barca and his forces provide the tanks and skilled crews, and the imperial Governor or General employing their services supplies the, often reluctant, guardsmen to fill the chimeras. Such is the death toll in these suicidal charges that the A.E.F and their leader have earned many nicknames with guardsmen all over the system. Such as “The rolling Coffins” and “Colonel Barking mad”. It’s an unnerving sight for a soldier of the Imperium to line up in parade formation only to watch as Colonel Barca and his A.E.F roll by, filling their battered chimeras with men hand picked by their staff sergeants.

Charge!

Here I think lies the biggest difference in table top gaming and other styles of equally nerdish entertainment, the game itself. Connecting to an online server may launch you into a war torn landscape with your buddies miles (even hundred of miles) away, but it doesn’t mean a knock at the door, answering it to find a best mate with a cold one or two and a few gingerly balanced boxes in hand.

Taking up a seat on the couch to play the Xbox may be comfortable and quick, but it’s just not the same at taking over your garage, blasting your favourite music and actually facing your opponent while you jeer and cackle at his terrible dice rolling. Poking fun as his favourite preciously painted stone trolls are torn apart in a single round of combat by your Minotaurs, and pointing out that that’s exactly what happened the last three times.

There’s a certain event that comes with hosting a game of Warhammer that you just don’t get from calling a mate and saying “get online we’re about to invade a village”. From the initial struggle with boxes and packaging, to deployment, to battle, there is time to really stand around and catch up with friends you may not get to see everyday. The game of warhammer brings people together who have different talents (i.e tactical prowess, or artistic paint work) to lock horns face to face with armies they have poured weeks, months or even years of their lives into getting just right. 

Finally I believe there is the rush that comes only from watching your opponents face, there and in the flesh, as your unit of orc boys destroys his brand new just painted Silver helm heavy cavalry led by prince Tyrion himself in the first turn of the game.  

Andy Mac.

 

 

To me, attending Dogcon isn’t a question, it is a given. Even with the huge drop-off of the NSW fantasy tournament scene, I had to go, this being my 6th year running.

So I paid my attendance and submitted my list a few hours before they were due, realising full-well I had very limited 8th edition experience (two games over the course of a year).

My mate and I managed to (more or less) learn 8th edition fantasy over a couple of games a few days before the tournament.

Here’s the list i took:

Lizardmen

Oldblood: Blade of Realities, Charmed Shield, Luck Stone, Potion of Speed, mounted on a Cold One.

Scar Veteran: Burning Blade of Chotec, Ironcurse Icon, Talisman of Luck, Shield, Light Armour, mounted on a Cold One.

Scar Veteran: BSB, Great Weapon, Armour of Destiny.

Skink Priest: Lvl 2, Diadem of Power.

Skink Priest: Lvl 2, Dispel Scroll.

31 Saurus: Full Command, Spears.

20 Skink Cohorts: Musician, Standard.

2 x 10 Skink Cohorts: Musician, Standard.

2 x 10 Skink Skirmishers

2 x 3 Terradons

6 Cold One Knights: Musician, Standard, Huanchis Blessed Totem.

Ancient Stegadon

2 x 1 Salamander Packs

So the list was much like my 7th edition Lizardmen army which had worked really well for me. But whether it would prove worthwhile under 8th edition was yet to be shown.

Game 1: Orcs and Goblins

Dogcon was playing with special scenarios for the first time in a tournament in I dont know how long, but it was an interesting change of pace.

This scenario involved getting your own standards in the enemy deployment zone, whilst stopping them from achieving a similar goal (like backwards capture the flag).

I was up against a fluffy orcs list with a fairly new player, so I was confident.

He (roughly) had an Orc Lord, a lvl 4 and lvl 2 wizard, the Spirit Totem (extra dispel dice), 3 fat units of Orcs, some cavalry, chariots and 3 warmachines, which made a fairly standard orcish army.

I dont particularly remember anything too specific from this game (I was running off two hours sleep), but they had weird deployment rules, which meant that your army was set up in different zones on the role of a dice. This meant his line was split up (very bad for him) so I destroyed the isolated part pretty easily.

His shooting and magic wasn’t particularly effective, whilst my knights and his giant and cavalry danced around, not doing much.

In the centre his BSB’s unit got pulled out of position (don’t remember how) which meant my saurus + characters made of meal of him, but his cavalry eventually got mine after they were softened by his magic. His remaining cavalry got cleaned up by some drop rocks from some well-timed Terradons.

Unfortunately we were both a little slow (combination of both having lots of units and being new to 8th edition) so we only made it to turn 4, but if we had played on I am confident I would have had a Solid Victory.

Now the battlepoint scoring system for dogcon was also weird. The initial breakdown was a 0-15 difference (so this meant any combination of 8-7, 9-6, etc… just depending on how big a points difference there was between you and your opponent). Secondly, there were 5 scenario points up for grabs each game, depending on whether or not you acheived the objective. Thirdly, composition was tied in with battle points, so each game you would take the difference between you and your opponents comp score, halve it and adjust your battle points by that much. However, the overall total for each game would not exceed 20 battle points.

So in this game, my comp was 6, his 7 so i got -0.5 and he received +0.5, thus resulting in a 12.5 to 7.5 win to me.

Game 2: Brettonians

This scenario was capture the objective, with a primary and secondary objective placed along the centre line of the table. The table was also using the Battle for the Pass rules, so deployment was lengthways (we set up our armys on the 4 ft side opposite one another, not the 6 ft side).

His list was a fairly straightforward Brettonian army with 3 fat units of knights, a lvl 4 wizard, two lvl 1s, some mounted characters, Pegasus Knights, some Peasants and two Trebutchets.

Now terrain favoured me a lot, since there was a building right in the middle, just next to the primary objective, followed by a series of hills with which I could deploy my redirectors behind. I was also largely shielded from his shooting. The second objective was also behind the building but none of his army was positioned to claim it. Basically it seemed the advantage pointed was mine from the getgo.

The game itself largely involved both of us just dancing around one another waiting to make a move, but I was at the advantage since I had all my redirecting units set up to make sure he couldn’t charge me without getting charged back. Plus I was sitting on the primary objective.

The rules for the objective also stated that if two units are able to claim the objective, the unit with the most models would win out (this favoured me greatly since his biggest unit was 12 or so whilst mine was 33).

Essentially he never saw combat because I blocked all of his charges, whilst my fast stuff took care of his peasants, Pegasus Knights and warmachines.

I managed to panic off one of his fat units of knights threatening my flank that wasn’t anchored by the building with some Salamander shooting which meant he had no chance of cracking my Saurus unit.

I claimed both objectives and got a good amount of points from the unit that panicked, whilst my opponent got very few points out of me (some Skinks and throw units). So the final washup was a 17.5 – 2.5 win for me.

Game 3: Lizardmen

The scenario for this game was a little complicated and involved ‘breaking’ the opponents army. To break them you had to reduce them down to 2 break points, whereby the game would then end with UNLIMITED GAME TURNS….

Each army had a set amount of break points which is determined by how many banners were in the list. Your general is worth 2 break points and every banner in the army is worth 1 break point. So for example, in my list I have 7 break points whilst my opponent had 6.

This was a really tough matchup for me because he took a Slann (considered to be the strongest Lizardmen option) whilst I had an Oldblood to compete with his power.

His list was essentially 3 big units of Saurus, some Skinks and Terradon units, a Salamander, Chameleon Skinks and two Stegadons, a Slann (taking fire magic) and two Saurus characters on foot. The combination of great leadership, multiple Stegadons, fat units of Saurus and strong magic is really hard to beat.

The fact that the game only ended when one army broke also hurt me because it gave him unlimited turns of magic to blast me with.

He killed off some of my throw units very early, but I stuck in the game and played it shrewdly, because engaging him head on I would have left myself wide open to an attack of 3 Saurus units to my 1.

So I rolled around the flank with my Oldblood in the Cold One Knights, thus forcing him to split his battle line.

He was more or less winning the battle against my throw units with his magic and shooting so I had to engage sooner rather than later.

We both played very conservatively because my Oldblood was a serious threat to his Stegadons. I eventually saw combat with my Knights + Oldblood against one of his Saurus units without  (fortunately) getting magicked to bits.

At the same time i went in with my stegadon and my other mounted character against one of his stegs, hoping to break through and help out in the combat my knights were in

Unfortunately I rolled poorly (it was a ballsy move anyway) and didn’t break though which meant one of his characters and his other Stegadon counter-charged, killing them both and leaving the Stegadon I charged with only a single wound remaining (lame).

Meanwhile, the combat with my knights saw me kill lots of Saurus, but due to steadfast and leadership 9 coldblooded with a re-roll, he was staying put.

In my turn I charged my own Saurus to his exposed Stegadon (the one on full wounds) whilst my knights still continued chopping through Saurus.

By this stage we’d played at least 7 turns and my opponent was painfully slow to boot so we called it after that turn with my knights vs his Saurus holding on Ld 4 (also lame). Funnily enough, neither of us were anywhere near breaking by this stage either, but I was gaining the upper hand by this stage since I had all but broken through his line. Had we kept playing I may have picked up the win (it’s hard to say), but in the end it was a 7.5 – 12.5 loss for me. Not too terrible considering it was a bad matchup and bad scenario.

Game 4: Demons

This round was The Wizards Tower, whereby the objective was a building in the centre of the board. This scenario favoured my opponent a lot because it meant I could not remove him from the building since he could not break (being a demon). So I was pushing it up hill and he had a tough list to boot.

His army consisted of a Great Unclean One, a Tzentch Herald (Lore of Shadow), Slaanesh Herald with Siren Song (nasty and annoying), Khorne Herald with the -2 leadership banner, 29 Blood Letters, 20 Daemonettes, 6 Fiends and a single Fiend, 5 Furies and 6 Flamers. So a super small but very solid army. My Blade of Realities would be effective in this game as it kept his GUO largely at bay.

My plan was to try get the jump on his GUO with my cavalry unit which also had both mounted characters in it. He engaged me with his big unit of fiends against my saurus (a mistake I feel) and his furies against my mage bunker after I failed to kill them with an insane amount of attacks, which resulted in me losing one mage after I made a miscast and lost a wound (I’d miscast about 6 times in my games so far).

He rolled badly with his Fiends and my Saurus chopped him up over a few turns of combat. He drew out my Saurus cavalry with his Sirens Song which meant I was about to get hit hard. So I set up some diverters in an attempt to stop the incoming charges.

His next turn he cleared out one of my redirectors through a failed terror test which meant my knights were about to cop it from his bloodletters (not good….). To be fair I was inevitabley going to cop it anyway. His Daemonettes also moved into the building.

The Bloodletter combat was pretty decisive though and would pretty much decide the game (and I wasn’t looking good with all the hatred and killing blows). He challenged out my Oldblood which resulted in one chopped up champion. However, he somehow fluffed his attacks and out of 12 strength 5 attacks with hatred and killing blow, I only lost 1 knight. My attacks back resulted in my mounted Scar Veteran killing his BSB (awesome sauce) and my regular knights killing a bunch Bloodletters. So this basically changed the whole game around, since I had my Stegadon waiting in the wings for a counter charge.

After the failure of the Bloodletters my opponent did his best to distance himself from the combat and my oldblood with his remaining GUO and Flamers.

Meanwhile my Saurus + BSB were assaulting the building every turn to try and budge the Daemonettes.

I cut my way through the Bloodletters which opened up a charge on his Tzeentch Herald and I positioned all my Skinks to shoot his GUO (I took it down to 2-3 wounds), but I lost the remaining 1 Cold One Knight to shooting, but had both characters intact.

Unfortunately again we ran out of time, and if we had had time to play it out I would’ve gotten the objective (I think he had 4-5 Daemonettes left on it vs my 12-15 Saurus) and may well have finished him off with my remaining shooting.

But in the end it was only an 11.5 – 8.5 win to me (the objective gave him a full 5 battle points which hurts).

So overall a pretty good result against a really tough army.

Game 5: Empire

There were a few Empire armies floating around and I was loathe to play against them. The scenario involved capturing a cart that moved away from you every turn (neither of us got it so we got 2.5 points each). The deployment for this game was also diagonal accross the board (so we deployed in opposing triangles along the board). This favoured him a lot because he could deploy his warmachines very deep, making it tough for me to get them.

His army included an Arch Lector on foot, a lvl 3 Wizard, BSB, mounted Warrior Priest, a Captain on Pegasus, 6 Knights, 50 Halberdiers, 30-odd Swordsmen, 30 Greatswords, some warmachines, Pistoliers and some crossbows and Handgunners.

He had about a million (or so) dispel dice so my magic was pretty much non-existent.

First couple of turns involved me getting his Pistoliers with my Stegadon and some Skinks, and my knights + mounted Scar Veteran getting his Knights, with my Terradons getting in behind his flank (off to a good start).

Then things went down hill… my Stegadon was now exposed to his Cannon (which promptly died), whilst I exposed myself to a charge from his Greatswords and Halberdiers (big mistake; I underestimated his units and wasn’t fully thinking through the random charge length. Serves me right for getting precious little sleep all weekend).

He had more ranks than me so I lost and fled (bummer). I did have both Salamanders floating around his big block units so I could put some hurt on them (I panicked his Arch Lector with Halberdiers but overall rolled poorly for shooting).

I managed to rally my big Saurus + lord but i ended up panicking off the board (kinda random), but things weren’t going that well anyway.

The rest of the game involved me finally killing off his warmachines and dancing around shooting his units to no real effect.

Funny moment of the game; he had two Comets of Casandora in my battle line at the same time (which he also had units perilously close to), but he rolled poorly on the distance so only managed to kill some Skinks.

First and only game I had lost my general, BSB or Saurus (for stupid reasons might I add). But all was not lost since I managed to get some points still and we split the scenario points, so in the end it was a 13.5 – 6.5 loss (not terrible considering I got owned).

Game 6: Warriors of Chaos

Now my good mate (the one i went to Dogcon with) and I were only separated by half a point and we were very keen to play since we knew we could have a lazy old game and go for a beer run, so we organised it with our opponents to swap with eachother so we could play (and they were kind enough to oblige).

His list was pretty magic heavy with a Tzeentch level 4, two lvl 2s, a BSB, a big unit of Tzeentch warriors with ward saves against (basically) everything, some Hounds, Marauders, 4 Tzeentch Ogres, 6 Nurgle Knights with Banner of Rage and two Chariots of Khorne.

So a pretty decent list which can hurt me, but I still had the tools to beat him (which I did in our practice games).

The scenario was very straightforward (pretty much just kill eachother with a slight importance on capturing banners).

I knew his magic is powerful (pretty much just avoid Gateway from his lvl 4 at all costs…) so I deployed in a flank away from him (which was a mistake; I should’ve just gone for it because I have the tools to chew through his bunker and characters with my own).

He killed one of my mages early with his feedback scroll (you let the spell go off but roll a dice for each dice the wizard used, on a 5+ he takes a wound. I rolled 6 dice; do the math). This didn’t bother me too much, but he managed to panic the other off the board along with the unit of 20 Skinks through one spell (so i now had no mages vs his 3).

I did get the Comet of Casandora off right in front of his knights and chariots though which helped.

I charged out with my mounted Scar Veteran with the intention of pinning them in place for when the Comet came down. I also charged my Stegadon into his chariot which would then overrun into his second chariot. However disaster struck; the comet comes down and I only rolled a 4 or a 5 for the distance of the comet which meant my Stegadon, his chariots and my Scar Veteran were hit, but not his knights (about the worse case scenario possible).

It killed the chariots and my character and mauled my Stegadon. My knights were also out of position which allowed his bunker unit to charge me (it had been a long weekend and im STILL getting my head around the whole random charge distance, fml).

My Stegadon was now also open for a charge from his Ogres and Marauder cavalry (I went down easily), with his knights facing off against my Saurus + Oldblood and BSB.

My knights got easily killed by his bunker unit, whilst my throw units ate through his remaining chaff.

My Oldblood also got a charge off on his knight unit (very favourable) whilst my Saurus moved in for the kill on his Ogres and I killed off his remaining Marauder cavalry with Terradon drop rocks.

I won the combat with the knights and broke them (did not catch them though) and his bunker unit was blocked in from one of my Skink units.

Next turn I cleaned up the rest of his chaff (I think he only had 3 Hounds left), chopped up his Ogres with my Saurus and finished off the knights with my Oldblood.

His bunker Warrior unit wasn’t in a position to cast any spells so the game ended there.

So from a horrible start I managed to pull it back a fair bit, and in the end (we split the scenario points because we both had the same number of banners captured) we legitimately got a 10-10 draw (and we didnt even stitch it up haha!).

So the final washup put me on 18/45 which isn’t bad for next to no preparation for the tournament.

Overall I had a good weekend and learnt a lot about 8th edition rules.

Things I liked:

Skirmisher rules are great.

Random magic is interesting and im more in favour of it than against it.

Scenario play was a great change of pace but needs some work (it’s only early days though).

The 1 inch between all units I’m unsure about; to be honest it’s probably more of a bad thing because it places less importance on redirecting units, and more importance on big fat unkillable units (which I really dont like). The rule does make things a lot more straightforward because at times it did get very complicated in 7th Ed.

Things I didn’t like:

There are many many rules changes that take much of the skill out of the game. For example, the Make Way rule means character assassination is very hard to pull off (a tactic of mine in previous editions), the Step Up rule means taking MSU units is pointless since they just die horribly even if they rape face first up, now being able to resolve charges in any order takes all the skill out of positioning your units and charging in the correct order, initiative order for combat takes all importance out of charging and the Steadfast rule generates a negative type of play (just take HUGE units of 50 and never break).

However, the worst thing about 8th edition is the fact that the tournament scene and community has all but died (to put it in perspective, there were 45 players this year, last year there were 150).

The game itself is still playable and not as bad as what people say it is, but the NSW tournament scene has seen a massive dropoff, and in turn it makes tournaments much less inviting. To me, the most important part of going to tournaments was for the large and brimming tournament community, which now is almost non-existent.

Probably my favourite quote from my mate talking about 8th edition would be “I feel like such a noob with my army so spread out”, which definitely holds true. I still enjoy the game, but basically the feeling that I get that 8th edition is now ‘Noobhammer’ and not nearly as good as 7th edition was since so much of the things that required skill to use now are irrelevant.

Look out for my next battle report!

Cheers,

Tabletop Trev.