Battle for the sarcophagus; a Realm of Chaos battle report

Chaos is a ladder

Last week I had some grand visit as Jean-Baptiste Garidel (also known as JB Assless, of the blog Leadplague) came over from France for a game and a beer. Yes, people will cross oceans to play with me! Well...that and his sister-in-law happens to live in Montreal.

So the day was spent talking about miniatures, the good old days and of course we had to play a game of something Oldhammerish. We decided to go with a small Realm of Chaos Warband clash. You can read about the Duke of Blangis, JB's Slaanesh Champion (and warband) here. As for me, I created a Chaos undivided warband using figures from my Chaos army.

The warband of Doran Greenskull

The man himself

Doran Greenskull, Chaos Champion

Human, level 15 hero.
Armed with chaos weapon, chaos armour and shield (3+ save).
Mark of Chaos Undivided
  
Chaos gifts: Chaos armour, Chaos weapon.
Chaos attributes: Cloven hooves, powerful legs. 

M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	LD	INT	CI	WP
4	5	4	4	4	3	5	3	9+2	7	8+1	8+1

And his retinue...the Marsh Horrors

9 Beastmen

4 Chaos Dwarfs

and last but far from least, the mascot of this company of death, "SlobberPuke", affectionately nicknamed "Slobby"

Before the game started, we rolled for our chaos weapon, and my character got the "Skeleton horde" blade, which I thought worked quite well with his bone armour.

We played using the detailed narratives of Realm of Chaos, more precisely the "sarcophagus" scenario.

You can find the Slaanesh version of the events on JB's blog

Before we start, let's take a minute to admire the brave combatants fighting for blood and glory

JB, in front of his depraved warband

Me, in front of my black & green servants of Chaos

 The table was a small 4x4, representing a forest with a tall Chaos monolith in the middle.

I positioned SlobberPuke (the troll) on one flank, my dwarfs on the other, and in the middle my Beastmen and my Champion. The goal was to reach the monolith with the beastmen, while SlobberPuke would scare anything in front of him and my Champion, hidden behind the beastmen, would challenge the Duke to an easily won combat. Easy as pie, right?

The warband of Doran GreenSkull, son of Chaos

The warband of the Duke of Blangis, servant of Slaanesh

The warband starts moving, as even SlobberPuke remembers to go forward

It started bad early, as in the second turn, before I thought it was necessary to hide my champion behind the Beastmen, the dark elves crossbowmen managed to wound him (who had a 3+ save) from long range! After a nice start (first turn), the Troll forgot where he was and got lost looking at the...oh is that grass...

The dastardly Slaanesh wizard then decided to cast "Pavane of Slaanesh" on my poor Beastmen, rendering them useless as they started to dance (and knowing Slaanesh, god knows what else *shiver*).

Me : "So, how long does that spell lasts?"

JB : "Let me look in RoC. So it lasts...all game"

(ouch)

The Slaanesh minotaurs quickly move next to the monolith

I tried to hide my remaining dwarfs from the murdering crossbows while still (slowly) advancing them and l also kept advancing Doran and SlobberPuke towards the Monolith.

Robbed of the protection of his trusted Beastmen, Doran uses the monolith for cover

On the other side, the Minotaurs wasted no time and reached the Monolith, while the Slaanesh cultists, probably drunk on hedonistic drugs, made the mistake of getting a bit too close to the troll, who, sensing a good dinner of white meat, managed to find the intelligence to charge!

The crazed (and very nicely painted) Cultists of the Duke

The Cultists, completely unaware of the Troll fearful appearance, did not flee and stood their ground.

Doran Greenskull, meanwhile, extremely frustrated at seeing his loyal Beastmen reduced to nothing more than "So you think you can dance" contestants, got around the monolith in an attempt to get in position to charge and cut in half the depraved Duke.

So close...

And then once again the Chaos Gods, fickle masters, abandoned their servant. The three dark elves managed to hit him twice, and twice the Champion of Chaos missed his (very good) saving throw. That was too much for the already wounded Doran, who fell on the ground merely inches away from his target.

Oh the tragedy!

Angered beyond reasons to see his beloved master lay motionless on the ground, a proud chaos dwarf charged the decadent sorcerer.

Vengeance!! Cried the skull masked chaos dwarf

On the other flank, after quite a few minutes of pushing back and forth with the cultists, Slobby (the troll's nickname) found his groove and started eating cultists with appetite. The cultists stood their ground as their numbers kept dwindling. "Hmmm...Slaanesh Cultists"

Hmmm...weren't there 20 of us not long ago?

Never ones to give up, a single dwarf, his brother massacred by the unsporting crossbows, managed to reach the dastardly elves!

Vindication! The dwarf kills one of the dark elves. Ha!

The Minotaurs finally managed to open the sarcophagus, exposing what looked like a magic sword (which turned out to be a daemon weapon!), and then turned their attention on the poor lone dwarf facing the Slaanesh Champion. The Duke managed to deliver the final blow to the dwarf, and to Doran's ego. The battle was lost...

The poor little guy stands no chance...

Conclusion

Doran and his followers managed to escape while the Slaneesh fiends danced and rejoiced in their master's victory. While Doran himself avoided any serious injuries, being only knocked unconscious from an arrow hit to the helmet, others in his warband were not so lucky. Poor Blightaxe, one of the four dwarf, died from his wounds not long after the battle, may he rest in peace. Another of his comrade caught an infection, and was never exactly the same after that (-1 T). But the Beastmen escaped without a scratch...ahem...

As Doran exited the forest, he cursed under his breath "Next time, sorcerer, next time..."

Post-mortem

• Well it went about as bad as it could've for Doran Greenskull. The lack of magic and long distance weapons really hurt him, especially combined with some bad luck throughout the game. At one point SlobberPuke managed to get a "1" (only score needed to fail) for his strength roll three times in a row, while the cultists succeeded numerous rout rolls. And the troll still managed to be by far the most useful member of the warband!

• It had been a while for both JB and me since we had played a WFB game (well in my case since playing unmodified 3rd edition rules). It reminded us of some of the things that did not work very well. For example needing a "5" to hit when troops with identical WS face each other. Or the lack of combat results modifiers to LD during melee. These put together meant the Cultist vs Troll battle literally lasted forever.

• And then of course there is the magic, always so unpredictable and powerful. The spell against my Beastmen meant a quick defeat for me! As JB said, nothing is fair in the Realm of Chaos. Next time, I will split my Beastmen into small units. Lesson learned! 

• It was good clean nostalgic fun and JB was a very good guest. Hopefully I will get a chance to get my revenge one day, although there is literally an ocean between us. Can't believe this is 2015 and we have neither flying cars nor transporters! Get your shit together, science!

• JB came to Montreal with a surprise gift for me; the Oldhammer Goblin, the limited figure sculpted by the master Kev Adams for last year's BOYL (Oldhammer day). I'm collecting a Kev Adam 4th edition goblin army so it was just a perfect gift! Thanks again JB!

Oooh...shiny

•  JB got his first taste of real poutine as we went for dinner after the game in a traditionnal Montreal "casse-croute" (fast food restaurant). Since he finished the whole plate (and the accompanying two hot dogs) I assume he enjoyed it!

• It really does take forever to write an AAR