The Battles Amidst the Storm (July 13, 2010)

Hey guys,

Glad to see there were a lot of games that went on last night.

First off, Henri and Jay went up with a Space Wolf VS Iyanden 2k point fight.

Then, my dad(Oberon) and Felix fought Sisters VS Salamanders, with my dad winning by an objective marker as the drop pods of the Adeptus Astartes unfortunately came one by one, allowing the sisters to concentrate their fire against just one or two squads a turn.

I myself was fortunate enough to play three games last night, all of which were glaringly fast.

My first game was against Pat Chua's Chaos Space Marines Undecided Cult list, wherein I was able to score a lucky draw because his first three turns of shooting did nothing (Or because Khorne was protecting my troops from everything). I am scratching the "kill two Slaanesh Demon Princes in a fight" addition to the "Kill List." Lesser Demons killed one of the demon princes. How embarrassing. I can admit however, that there was a lot of bad luck on Pat Chua's part, and we decided to play on and see who would win if we had reached turn 6. After another turn of battle, we decided that Pat would win on kill points, so I was sorta happy the game ended when it did.

My second game was against Mike "The CHAMPIONNNNN" Nievas with his Korsaro Khan led Space Marine Army. Both of us managed to roll four ones in a row. For him, it was when he had to make armor saves for his dying, last man who was testing for his combat resolution saves after failing to escape, and for me, when I rolled for my terminator saves (I rolled each one after the other). The lone terminator that survived was clobbered to death in close combat. That was dumb. Clearly a sad day for Terminators everywhere. ONE FOR THE ONE GOOD. This however, was not as bad as Mike's units arriving on the opposite side of the table, all on turn 4. This was terrible luck on his part. Korsaro Khan screwed another hapless servant of the Imperium once again. I was not able to get KK into combat though, so nothing was added to my "Kill List."

In my last game for the night (which was also my first game of 8th edition Fantasy), I played 1k points of Orcs and Goblins against Jay's 1k points worth of Dark Elves. It seemed straightforward enough, before everything went wrong. xP

Here's how it went:

Khrag stared down at the battlefield. He didn't bring a whole lot of boyz, but they should be enough. The WAAARGH told the shaman to face off against whatever foe they could find on their way to meeting with the Warboss Bazrag Blacktoof.

"Gitstabba, anyfin' yet?" growled the shaman, growing impatient with the lack of violence, sublimating it through the coursing green energy basked his eyes in an eerie glow.

His goblin scurried into the room. "Dem pointy eared ones a' comin'. They gots a w'ayvern with many 'eads boss. Maybe we oughta meet up wiff da Warboss befo-"

Khrag's staff cackled with green WAAARGH energy as he tore the goblin apart with a quick zzap of WAARGHness. "No gobbos eva gon' tell me wot ta do! We Blacksunz'll show dem elfies who da baddest in da Badlands iz!"

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Orc Turn 1: The entire Orcish force moves forward. The spear boyz failed an animosity check and squabbled over what color they thought the sky was. They couldn't decide if it was blue, orange, purple or black as they were too stupid to account for the change in the sky's color as the day went by. The goblin wolf riders marched toward the dark riders on the western flank, preparing to charge the turn after.

I rolled 7 for my power dice, and decided not to cast any spells because all I had were WAARGH and Bash'em Ladz, both of which were not useful as I had nothing in close combat.

The goblin doom diver fires at the Corsairs, killing 4 of their number.

DE Turn 1: Jay chooses not to move anything besides the dark riders, who march out of charge range of the wolf riders.

The sorceress casts Chill Wind, killing three of the choppa boyz unit, then casts Dark Power (+D3 casting dice) and casts it with irresistible force, which in 8th ed, means a miscast. His sorceress blows herself up and wounds the hydra right beside her as he rolls a 4 in the new and more destructive miscast chart.

Orc Turn 2: I was feeling pretty confident with his general gone, so I called for a WAAARGH. Two units surged forward, the Black orcs and the Spear boyz, both of which moved and failed to charge. The goblin wolf riders marched closer to the dark riders' rear.

During my magic phase, I casted WAAARGH with irresistible force, and my black orcs and spear boys managed to get into close combat. My wolf riders rolled double 1 for distance and did not reach the dark riders. The shaman rolls on the now relatively less harmful orc miscast table and suffers a wound.

Shooting saw me shooting at the Corsairs, the only unengaged unit in his army besides the unit of dark riders. I killed two more.

Close combat was abysmal. My black orcs had 16 attacks, first strike and rerolls to hit, and killed 6. His truck back and killed 13. Black orcs were wiped out. NEVER charge Blackguard. EVER.

My spearboyz engaged the hydra, which had 7 attacks and killed all my boys because it had hatred. Then he thunderstomped and killed 4 more boyz. We came, we broke, we got run over.

DE Turn 2: All three units (Corsairs, hydra, and blackguard) charge the choppa boys, which ran from the terror causing hydra and failed to run far enough, wiping them out.

The dark riders marched toward my shaman and shot him to death.

Orcs Turn 3: Wolf riders charged the blackguard from the flank, failing their fear check and thus reducing their WS to 1.

The goblin doom diver misfires and becomes unable to fire this turn and the next.

The goblins kill 3 blackguard and lose 6 of their own in the onslaught. They break and get run down.

It was at that point that I decided the game was over, as I only had a doom diver that should wait two turns to shoot.

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Khrag's head, missing an eye and all his teeth, was presented by the surviving doom diver crew unceremoniously to the Warboss. Bazrag picked his teef, not knowing what to make of this situation. He had just lost his best shaman, alongside some of his killiest boys.

"Serves that git right. E' shoulda waited fer ME! Wot 'appened?"

"Umm...boss? E' was shot in the eye, an' dem elfies tore 'is teef out too." The three goblins, one of them still wearing the doom diver wings, said this and many other accounts of the battle in unison, just as if they had rehearsed it. Each of them were sporting orc toof necklaces (Orc teeth is the currency in these societies), chained together by the thread that seemed to match the cloth used to stitch together the shaman's robe.

"Dey took 'is teef out too eh? Well, we'll jus' 'ave ta take'm back den!" The Warboss' voice boomed with almost unrestrained fury, he unconsciously picks up the goblin wearing the doom diver outfit and tosses him like a paper plane at his wyvern, which was delighted to finally get something to eat.

"You gobbos betta get my other shaman, I need'z ta round of some boyz! It's time for the Blacksunz ta get ta killin!"

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Good game Jay! I learned a lot. Charging a unit of black guard is like charging the embodiment of eternal abuse. Never charge them, and always shoot them first. XP Also, I actually need to think more because I'm no longer leading an army of super elite genetically enhanced blenders with legs, so charging gung ho all the time ain't going to work.

It's a whole new battle, can't wait to play more of it. Ingats guys, see you on the battlefield.

-Lance

PS: Miscasts are awesome. I read on Dakka Dakka that the biggest improvement to the orcish army was that the miscast table was relatively tamer.