With Warhammer: The Old World appearing recently there has been discussion among club members about whether to get into it. We stopped playing Warhammer a few years after Games Workshop abandoned it, mostly moved onto Kings of War.
Today Alex and I got some of our old armies out and played the last edition of Warhammer. This is a 2,500 point game of Dwarves vs Warriors of Chaos.
My army was led by a Chaos Lord, with a Sorcerer and an Exalted Hero, both with the mark of Nurgle. There were Chosen with great weapons, warriors with the mark of Nurgle and additional hand weapons, and warriors with the mark of Khorne with halberds, all of them with shields. I also had two units of Marauders, 5 Chaos Knights and three small units of Chaos Hounds to shield the others from missile fire.
Before the game the Chosen rolled on the Eye of the Gods table and gained an extra attack each for the battle. The sorcerer, having a familiar got an extra spell and rolled Stream of Corruption, and Plague Wind (twice), not ones I would have chosen. I swapped the duplicate for Curse of the leper.
Alex had five war engines, a canon, flame canon, organ gun and two stone throwers. He had four units of infantry including Troll Slayers and Miners, and two Gyrocopters. He set up at the rear of the table and my aim was to get my all-melee army across the table with enough left to fight.
I put the Marauders on my left, the Nurgle Warriors and Chosen with all the characters in the centre, and the Knights and Khorne Warrirors on the right. Chaos Hounds blocked line of sight to my best units, but since the firepower was mostly from artillery, rather than crossbows or handguns this had limited value.
The Chaos Hounds on my right routed after being hit by artillery on the first turn and left the table.
A Gyrocopter moved into the enclosure on the centre-right. The other came down the opposite flank. The The Gyrocopters were soon enfilading my units with teardrop template hitting most of the target unit each turn.
One unit of Marauders was quickly reduced to half strength and ran, rallying soon after, to face off against the Miners who had appeared at my rear table edge. The Miners charged and destroyed them. The other unit was also soon destroyed by missile fire.
The Nurgle warriors were also destroyed, including the Sorcerer. I forgot I'd gained a permanent bonus to his Toughness and Wounds earlier (The Nurgle lore of magic grants this if a six is rolled after casting a spell). He had been casting Curse of the Leper each turn to give my a Toughness boost but to one of the main units there, but fire was then directed at the other one.
The Battle Standard Bearer survived, injured, but routed and was hunted down by a Gyrocopter.
By tun five I had lost more than half my army and the only Dwarf casualty was the Flame Canon which blew up due to rolling a miss-fire.
On the right my Knights were down to two models due to canon fire, and were charged by the Troll Slayers. I won but Troll Slayers don't run. Their extra attack when they died proved more effective than their regular attacks.
The next turn My Khorne Warriors charged the Troll Slayers, winning easily and destroyed them in the following turn. Both unit champions were obliged to make and accept challenges, and mine lost.
My Chosen finally got close the the enemy who charged first. The Chosen Champion was killed in a challenge, a Rune Smith retired to the back of the unit rather than accept my Chaos Lord's challenge. Despite having plus one strength on the charge the Dwarves had little effect and the Chosen, on 3 Attacks with Great Weapons smashed them. The Dwarves routed but I only managed to follow up a few inches.
The Chosen now charged the routing Dwarves. I was hoped I would fail to catch them but still force them to run off the table, allowing me to re-direct my charge into the next unit. In fact I did run them down which left them facing the wrong way to charge anyone else in my next turn. In his turn Alex advanced his units putting them further away from danger.
On the right my remaining Chaos Knight and the Warriors of Khorne each charged a war engine. The Warriors wiped out their target and the Knight killed two crew before being killed by the surviving crewman, failing his 2+ armour save. My Chosen, facing the table edge couldn't charge anything and had nothing to do.
My Chaos Hounds charged a Gyrocopter but neither side did any damage.
The final score was (roughly) 1,450 points losses foe Chaos and 1,000 points lost for the Dwarves, a clear victory for them.
