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.

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.

 

The second battle of Praag

This week we played the second battle of Praag.

This battle took place in the planes North of Praag. The chaos army managed to secure the services of a group of renegades from Lustria that traveled all the way to the north and through the chaos wastes, to join in the siege. The mercenaries were a group of Lustrian riding in howdahs on war dinosaurs, they would be a huge asset for the forces of chaos during the siege.

The forces of Praag abandoned the protection of the walls and tried to intercept the column to try and rout the shaky mercenaries.

There would be three dinosaurs moving just behind the Khorne line(controlled by Cyrus) and just charging them would score the humans a VP. For each dinosaur that crossed the table and exited on the south table edge, the forces for the Blood God would score a VP.

The side with most VP at the end of the game would be the winner.

These are a few pictures of the action.

The starting setup

The forces of chaos start to march forward to block the human's advance

The knights on the northern flank start to advance to intercept the dinosaurs as soon as they show up

On the South flank, another unit of slightly less fancy knights starts to move forward to try and gain the Chaos line and act as an obstruction

But the champions of Khorne are of a different advice

 

The table at the end of turn 1, both advanced towards the center, the followers of Khorne more aggressively than the men of Praag.

The mounted thugs of Khorne charge the hesitant knights, while the gray wizard uses a flight spell to move in cover of the mushroom wood, in the meantime, the big block of goblins gains the center of the field ready to face off the spearmen.

The dinosaurs lumber forward under the protection of the giant that the warband of Khorne subdued in a previous game.

The thugs are no match for the noble Imperial Knights and they rout leaving the giant to deal with the problem.

On the other flank, the Fleshhound sneaks in between 2 units of state troops aiming towards the cannon that has caused a lot of damage so far

In the center the goblins loose to the spearmen and start fleeing, while on the North side the knights gather their guts and charge the giant.

The brave humans advance along the center, trying to get closer to their objective.

In the South end the human swordsmen defeat some chaos orcs belonging the the warband of the Khorne troglodyte, but they now risk to be surronded, at the same time, the helbardiers loose a combat to a unit of beastmen and start running, followed by the braying goat men

A couple of rabid chaos hours charge the spearmen, but are quickly dispatched and sent running for the hills

On the North end of the board, the knights manage to put down the giant, but suffering great losses, when the giant falls on the survivors and kills yet another one, even the army general turns tail and flees.

Now it all rests in the hands of the wizards, with another Flight spell and a sudden charge, he gets one of the huge beasts running, the javelins and arrows falling all around him are not enough to discourage him.

The first dinosaur makes it off the table in the same turn, so now it is 1VP per side, the last dinosaur will decide how the game ends.

The fearless wizard realizes he is the las chance the defenders of Praag have to avoid these creatures to take part in the siege, he uses hos flight spell again to get close to the last beast and gets ready to charge...

...but to his dismay, Arnold the Crusher, the champion riding the Juggernout, has a chaos sword that lets him bring some of the fallen back from the dead and they appear right in between him and his target.

Summoning his last ounce of power, knowing it will be his last act before being slayed but the magic hating followers of Khorne, he casts a Vortex of chaos, winning the game for the humans, at the cost of his life.

So ends the second of four battles for the defense of Praag, and it is the second win for the humans, will the forces of chaos manage to wrestle their way to victory?

We will see how the next two games go.

Next should the turn of Slaanesh, maybe the prince of Pleasure will be more effective.