New warbands game

 Last week we had another small game with Chaos Warbands, Cyrus' Slaanesh warband versus my new Khorne one.

The scenario saw the two warbands face each other while attacking a merchant's camp to steal some valuables.

The camp was defended by 10 human guards with crossbows, very dangerous.

The battlefield and a detail of the camp in the middle of the field

The followers of Slaanesh, 5 samurai, the dwarf champion and a sorcerer on the right flank

The warband of Khorne, The champion on the left, a chaos spawn, two skaven and five bestmen Khornegor.

The 2 warbands advance towards the center under fire from the crossbows. The beastmen of Khorne suffer some casualties and end up loosing their cool and routing out of the battlefield.

The assault on the two sides of the camp, the two warbands, by this time start to close on each other as well as the camp guards. The sorcerer of Slaanesh also managed to summon a Daemonic steed.

The chaos spawn is shot and killed in the distance, while the samurai butcher the poor camp defenders.

The champion of Khorne kills and routs the samurai, but finally succumbs to the crossbow bolts of the remaining guards, while the skaven prove ineffectual and ultimately run for their lives.

At the end of the game, both champions survive even if put out of action during the battle, the warbands suffer some casualties and the champion of Khorne, acquires new human followers, some Kislevites and some brigands.

Anther very fun game, next time Cyrus will probably be rolling a new warband and join the forces of The god of skulls again, which sill probably cause some bitter rivalry with my champion, we will see who can offer more skulls for Khorne's throne.

New Realm of Chaos warbands game

 Last Sunday we finally had another game of Warhammer 3rd edition, using the Realm of Chaos rules for Warbands.

It has been quite a while since I last posted something, but in summer people tend to be busier and spend more time outside, so the wargaming suffers a bit for it. Now the weather starts to cool here in Canada, so players should start to be more available.

As usual we had a lot of fun rolling the champions and their retinues.

We had Cyrus that, this time decided to follow Slaanesh, his warband consists of a Chaos dwarf with bestial face and accompanied by a Fiend of Slaanesh followed by a group of 5 Samurai mercenaries and a single sorcerer.

His opponent was Ronan who rolled very well and ended up with a Dragon ogre champion of Nurgle with a Beast of Nurgle followed by a sorcerer and a group of 4 imperial templars led by an overgrown hero.

Nurgle also granted 4 chaos spawns to the dragon ogre, but since it would take very long to roll those profiles and we wanted to start playing, we decided that the spawns were a group of failed Nurgle champions that had been captured by some villagers.

The Dragon ogre had been promised by Nurgle that he could have his gift (the spawns) if he could rescue them, while the champion of Slaanesh had to get to the spawn and take them for a sacrificial ritual.

We set up the two warbands facing one another with a small hamlet in the center of the battlefield and the spawn between the houses.

The warband of Nurgle, the dragon is a stand in for the dragon ogre, the ogre is the templar hero that received a growth chaos attribute and left his horse to the sorcerer (the one with the white and red barding).

The chaos spawn in the center of the village

This is the warband of Slaanesh, from left to right: Fiend of Slaanesh (represented by the Ki-rin, the sorcerer and the samurai led by the chaos dwarf champion.

The battlefield

The followers of Nurgle are ready to rush the village and recover the spawns

The two warbands close in to the village ready for the fight

The templar hero defeats the chaos dwarf with a lucky hit, but the samurai keep on fighting

Eventually the (wounded) templar hero manages to rout the samurai and the Sorcerer of Slaanesh decides to save himself and summons a daemonic steed and leaves the battle.

At this point the warband of Nurgle recovers its prize and we move to the post game phase.

None of the casualties is permanently lost and after assigning victory points to the champions we conclude the game and will be rolling stats for the four chaos spawns.

Overall it was another excellent game, the nature of the rules makes the preparation a bit time consuming (the chaotic randomness of the process is part of the fun), but the game is playable and enjoyable, even if the modern "perception" is that the game is "unplayable" and unfair.

The most important thing is that we had a good laugh and a ton of fun playing, we will definitely try to keep this going.

Sabotage mission

 Last week I had my second game of Warzone second edition, here are some pictures of the game.

This game saw the same forces from the previous one boosted with a few more models per side, we went from 500 to 700 points.

The forces of Capoitol megacorporation received an additional squad of 10 light infantry troopers and a cover ops specialist, the Dark Legion a squad of 5 acolytes, a Supreme Necromagus and a Technomancer.

In this game the Capitolian forces had to sabotage some defence positions of the Dark Legion, in an effort to weaken the defences of a Citadel that would later be assaulted.

The Capitol left flank with the light and heavy infantry led by a Seal Lion hero.

The battlefield with the three objectives in the centre.

The Dark Legion units starting positions.

The Free Marines set explosives on the first objective, a fuel tank.

In the centre the Sea Lions try to set up an ambush in a patch of giant fungi, but surprisingly accurate fire from the Undead Legionnaires takes two of them down.

 

Ilian Templars try to shot down the Free Marine setting the explosive, but have no success and the fuel tank explodes (unfortunately no special visual effect).

On the Dark Legion left flan, troops take up defensive positions covering the two remaining objectives.

The combined efforts of the light and heavy infantry are successful, while the heavy infantry provides covering fire and kills the technomancer, the light infantry storm the ammo dump and, even though they suffer casuelties, they manage to plant a charge and blow it up.

On the right flank, the Praetorian Stalker and the Templars of Ilian destroy all the infiltrators and start converging on the central objective.

At this point, having destroyed two of the three objectives, the Capitol forces decide to retreat and achieve a tactical victory.

Another great game, small enough to be completed in about 3 hours (excluding setup).

Next game should be in a couple of weeks and will be a continuation of this loose mini campaign.

A "new" old game I managed to play recently

 Last weekend I managed to play a game of Warzone second edition after about 15 years.

I remember, around 1998 I was introduced to the game by a group of friends at the games club I attended for about 20 years, before moving to Canada.

I know that many people criticize second edition, I admit it is a flawed game, but I still have wonderful memories of 5 players games that were a blast.

I played the game on and off until 2009, mostly with a friend or two, not from that original group, and I always had fun.

I finally convinced a friend here to give it a go and, after going over the rules and getting a table ready, we had a small but very fun game.

I imagined this being the first contact of the Dark Legion on Venus by a small Capitol force.

The Capitol force, composed of Heavy Infantry, Free Marines and Sea Lions led by a Sea Lions hero and Colonel Mitch Hunter

The forces of the Dark Legion, followers if Ilian, composed of a large unit of Undead Legionnaries, a unit of Ilain Templars and a unit of Brass Apocalypts, led by a Pretorian Stalker.

We had no real scenario, just a meeting engagement to try out the rules, so the Capitol forces, after winning the roll to choose the side of the table, entrenched themselves in a corner with lots of cover and proceeded to shoot the opposition to pieces.

The Dark Legion starts loosing undead legionnaires right away.

The zombie soldiers manage to take down a single heavy infantryman on turn one, and that's all they manage to do for several turns.

 

The infiltrating Free Marines proceed to shoot the zombies to pieces until only the Necromutant commanding the unit is left standing

 

Meanwhile the Praetorian Stalker and Brass Apocalypts start a flanking action and postion themselves on the left of the Capitol force.

Mitch instructs his troops to turn around and start blasting at the big monsters the appeared on their side where the cover is not as good and causing damage.

A protracted gun fight ensues and half of the Sea Lions are killed, as well as both Capitol heroes being wounded.

The Free Marines close in for some hand to hand combat, they are killed to the last men and the game is called as a win for the Capitol force.

It was a fun game and we will have a follow up with a proper scenario. I will also have to add some terrain to make things more interesting.

Conclusion of the Siege of Praag campaign

 Last weekend we played the third game for the siege of Praag.

The Slaaneshi forces had to protect a contingent of goblinoids that were installing a series of war machines to batter the walls of the city and create a breach.

The Kislevite/Imperial forces would sally out of the city to disturb the process, in 6 turns they had to cause as much damage to the war machines as possible.

The army of Slaanesh had a good amount of spellcasters of different power, the defenders only had 2 minor battle wizards, since the head of the Kislevite wizard was killed in the previous battle.

These are a few pictures to show how the battle went down.

The two battle lines, the Kislevites started advancing and pressing from turn one.

The relentless advance of the infantry on the left flank with mounted crossbowmen in the center.

The Slaanesh troops start to redeploy to defend the war machines.

On the Kislevite left flank the mercenary hobgoblins and elements from Doyle's warband try to get in position to push back the enemy.

In the meantime one of the bolt throwers is destroyed with a series of fireballs and the halberdiers are getting dangerously close to the catapult.

A small unit of beastmen valiantly tries to stop the humans, but with little success.

On the Slaanesh left, a champion accompanied by some chaos hounds struggles to repel some human cavalry, the fight is closely fought with the advantage swinging more than once between the contendents.

The final collapse of the Slaaneshi left flank leaves the road open to the destruction of the war machines and a victory for the defenders of Praag.

This was the third win in a row for the humans, so we decided to skip the fourth game with the forces of Slaanesh and declare the campaign a win for the forces of humanity, but the chaos warbands were not beaten too badly and we might play some more games in the future.

For the near future we might move to 6th edition (most players said they would prefer to try a simpler version of the game) or some old school second edition Warzone for something completely different, we sill see.

I really enjoyed playing with the realms of chaos rules after 30 years and would like to do some more of this style of game, but it depends on what my players like the best.