Friday 22 May 2015

A Day Out on the Beach

Once again I am roped into writing another battle report for other members of *C.L.A.W. As the gaming group is getting pretty big ( not quite gaming club size - but getting there) we had 3 games of 1500 point a side Warhammer games - Goblins vs Skaven , Wood Elves vs Warriors of Chaos and this game - Goblins against Warriors of Chaos. This game is between Donal & Aaron . I haven't got a copy of Donal's list but it did compose of 2 large units of Night Goblins, a chariot, Bolt Thrower, Rock lobber, Arachnarock and Spider Riders. An interesting all goblin army. Arrayed against him was Aaron's rather unpleasant Chaos Warrior army which is led by Filthmaster Cheeserank and has been unpleasant to my Lizardman army recently. The rather unusual title of this post is mainly because the two tone nature of this table reminds me a bit of a sandy beach. Donal's level two shaman had the spells Gift of the Spider God & Curse of the Bad moon. Cheeserank's spells were Blades of Putrification, Rancid Visitation, Fleshy abundance & Plague Wind.

In the picture below you can see (from left to right) Arachnarock, Goblin Archers, Stone thrower, Goblin Spears, chariot and Bolt Thrower. The Spider riders were ambushers. Opposite them were Chaos Warriors (with BSB), Chariot, Skullcrushers, Filthmaster Cheeserank & the other unit of Chaos Warriors.

So without further preamble here is the story of what happened when Donal took his goblins out to the seaside, and some Warriors of Chaos kicked sand in their faces.

Set Up

Turn One

Donal won the first turn. The wizards unit fails animosity and squabbles (probably due to who gets the first ride on the donkey), doing nothing else this turn. This was annoying for Donal as he couldn't cast spells. The artillery manage to inflict no damage at all so the DP is pretty much unscathed.
The chaos force moves forward. The only successful spell is Fleshy Abundance on the chariot (I like writing up about chaos as I usually get to skip the shooting phase).


Chaos relentless march forward

Turn Two

The Goblin ambushers don't show up (probably having ice creams). The speary Goblin advance up to the fence.A weak 3 + 2 magic phase has no spells cast (level 2 vs level 4 can be like that). One chaos Warrior dies to a cloud of arrows. The artillery is crap again.
The Skullcrushers charge the Goblin Spears, as does the Chariot. Due to the unit being behind the fence both fanatics are pushed out to the side one towards the Warriors on the right, the other out to the left. The Chaos Warriors march through the fanatic - and due to a combination toughness 4 and Donal's spacky rolling - they lose one model.  The Daemon Prince flaps round so a flank charge on the goblin stickas or rock lobber is easy.  He ignores the bolt thrower completely (will he regret this decision?).Rancid visitation kills four goblins, but the toughness test is passed to avoid further dead 2 point models. Due to the barrier the close combat is drawn. 

beginning of goblin turn 3
What Fanatic?

Turn Three

The Goblin Spider Riders finish their ice creams and arrive on the Chaos Warriors left flank ready to creep out the BSB. The Goblin Chariot charges the flank of the Skullcrushers, doing no damage! Then in the magic phase Curse of the Bad moon kills 2 Warriors. It's not going terribly well for the forces of Goblindom at this point. In close combat the goblins lose, causing the chariot to flee through the Chaos warriors on the right (there should be an accidental chariot damage chart when they go through units I think). The main goblin unit remain steadfast.

Cheeserank goes for the tradesmans entrance
The Chaos Warriors charge the flank of the Gobboes, The Daemon Prince charges the Rock Lobber setting off two fanatics who bounce off him. The river also turns out to be a river light that tries to Ney of Amyntok Cheeserank, but he's having none of it. The Chaos Warriors on the left decide to march through the other fanatic as they saw their buddies on the left do (sadly for them they lost 5 pustulent Warriors). Then Aaron rolls a 12 for the magic phase and breaks his concentration first spell! The main goblin unit has both the general and BSB kerb stomped along with quite a lot of weedy goblins, so they flee only to be caught by the rampaging buggers. The Daemon Prince dismantles the Rock lobber and reforms to do some more dismantling next turn.

Impact Hits?

Chariot leaves early to beat the traffic.

The end is pretty nigh

Turn Four

The Goblin Spider Riders charge the flank of the Chaos Warriors. The chariot rallies. At this point you may be wondering whether in the army list for the goblins, the Arachnarock was a typo. No it wasn't and neither was it a piece of terrain. I am not really sure what the problem with it was, but judging how spiders behave when dipped in water the River of Light may have been the thing that kept it transfixed. If, in my notes I neglected to write down what it did, I apologise. I'd like to say that in turn 4 it exploded into action, but it didn't. It just turned to face the Filthmaster. The goblin archers turned to fill the DP with tiny arrows. Close combat and the Chaos Warriors defeat the Spider Riders, amazingly they hold, especially as Snaggla refuses a challenge and hides round the back.

Squishy spiders
This turn the Daemon Prince charges the Arachnarock, the Chaos Warriors charge the bolt thrower. Long story short - Bolt Thrower destroyed, Spider Riders dissected and Arachnarock flees like a frightened child! Resounding Chaos victory. On the plus side the archers may have gone home on the bus despite the probably huge lines of traffic due to a broken down pumpwagon on the World's Edge Bypass.

Chariots play chicken

Conclusion

As arse kickings go this was a doozy. As I had no part in the tactics or army set ups I can be fairly objective. Firstly Donals list wasn't optimal, at least a level 4 goblin mage, they're cheap as chips aren't they? Also 3 fanatic per unit, is what I would go for. No mangler squigs or doom divers - two staples in any self respecting Goblin warlord (if they even have any). Admittedly Donal is only starting out with the greenskins so I can't fault him for that. My two main criticisms though were his use of fanatics and Arachnarock. when you use fanatics, make sure that there is no terrain for them to mash themselves into. Its possible that if the Skullcrushers/Chariot charge on the goblin unit would have been severely dented by 2d6 St 5 hits. unfortunately he couldn't push them out due to the fence. Also advancing the goblins into 8" of the BSBs Warrior unit could have changed the game somewhat. The Arachnarock also should have been attacking the Warriors, nothing beats a good thunderstomp! All thing considered though it was a bad matchup for Donal.
Aaron's list on the other hand is pretty **optimal (some, myself included would say filthy). The only things I would've changed was to probably place the BSB more centrally and not walk through fanatics, he got lucky the first time but the second not so much. Everything seemed to go right for him as it conversely went wrong for Donal.
Summing up, it wasn't so much an uneven fight, more like a UFC fighter going into a school playground and taking on the school bully, an uneven fight definitely, but not one that needed me as the playground supervisor to interfere with.

Thanks for reading.



*Cavan Longford Assorted Wargamers - still a working title.
**So optimal, in fact that he has now been banned from using it.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm still not happy about this ban and have now changed game systems.... I jest my rolls were fairly ridiculous and poor Donald weren't up to par

Jason F said...

The ban has only been imposed by Stuart. I will happily play that filthy list again!