Lizardmen Vs. Daemons of Chaos

As promised, here is my first battle report in a long time!

My army:

Slann Mage-Priest
 - Focus Of Mystery
 - The Focused Rumination
 - The Becalming Cogitation
 - Cupped Hands Of The Old Ones
 - BSB
 - Plaque Of Dominion

Skink Priest
 - Level 2
 - Engine Of The Gods
 - Dispel Scroll
 - Diadem Of Power

Saurus Scar-Veteran
 - Burning Blade Of Chotec
 - Light Armor
 - Shield Of The Mirrored Pool

Saurus Scar-Veteran
 - Light Armor
 - Great Weapon

3 Terradons

16 Temple Guard
 - Musician
 - Standard Bearer

12 Skink Skirmishers

12 Skink Skirmishers

12 Skink Skirmishers

18 Saurus Warriors
 - Spears
 - Musician
 - Standard Bearer

18 Saurus Warriors
 - Spears
 - Musician
 - Standard Bearer

Daemons of Chaos List (Something like this):
Herald of Tzeentch
Herald of Khorne on Juggernaut
Herald Of Khorne BSB
Blue Scribes (General)
5 Chaos Furies
6 Screamers
2 Bloodcrushers
20ish Pink Horrors
20ish Pink Horrors
5 Khorne Hounds with Karanak
20 Bloodletters

Initial setup from my side:

From Lizardmen Vs. Demons

Initial setup (closer look at daemons):

From Lizardmen Vs. Demons

Turn 1 (Lizardmen):  I get the first turn and move everything up.  I fly my terradons into the jungle.  Not a whole lot gets accomplished this turn.

From Lizardmen Vs. Demons

Turn 1 (Daemons):  Everything moves up.  Harpies fly in front of me to try and force an awkward charge.  A lot of magic gets cast including a magic missile at my shield of the mirrored pool.  With typical luck, I roll the 1, have to eat the spell, and no more spells get cast at the unit the rest of the game.

From Lizardmen Vs. Demons

Turn 2 (Lizardmen):  My terradons fly over the blue scribes dropping only 4 rocks and throwing their javelins.  They manage to do 2 of the 3 wounds to him.  My skink skirmishers along the hound flank get in the way of the hounds to draw them out into an awkward charge.  I kill some of the harbies with shooting and spells but not many.  I set up my skinks on the left to try and force the bloodcrushers into an awkward charge and I move my skinks in the middle up to try and pull the bloodletters into a bad charge.

Turn 2 (Demons):  The screamers retaliate against my terradons killing all but 1.  The Blue Scribes books it to the other side of the jungle.  The hounds charge my skinks, catch and destroy them, but are succesfully pulled out of position.  The chaos furies fly to behind my temple guard unit.  The bloodletters charge my middle skinks which stand and shoot (I should have had them flee) and pursue into my temple guard.  And the bloodcrushers charge my left skinks which flee, are caught, and also manage to hit my saurus block on the left.

From Lizardmen Vs. Demons

After combat my saurus block has been mowed down.  My middle skinks have broken and fled.  It's not looking too good for me.  It is also revealed that the Herald Of Khorne has a really nasty area effect banner and I am out of dispel dice when it is used.

From Lizardmen Vs. Demons

Turn 3 (Lizardmen):  I turn my engine to prepare to engage the bloodcrushers when they come around.  Luckily they are so out of position I won't have to worry about them for a while.  I bring my remaining saurus block around to flank charge the bloodletters on the next turn.

From Lizardmen Vs. Demons

Turn 3 (Daemons):  The bloodcrushers and Khorne hounds regroup.  Blue Scribes pulls in closer near the hounds, bloodletters move more models into base contact, screamers come around, and the horrors move towards my last remaining block.

From Lizardmen Vs. Demons

Turn 4 (Lizardmen):  My saurus block charges the bloodletter flank.  My engine turns around and moves swiftly towards the hounds and scribes.  My last remaining skinks move down to stall the bloodcrushers.  My saurus warriors successfully beat the bloodletters in combat but the leadership roll is good and there are minimal casualties to the unit.  My engine of the gods triggers Burning Alignment and rolls an 11!  The Blue Scribes blow up as do some of the hounds!

From Lizardmen Vs. Demons

Turn 4 (Daemons):  The screamers move up.  The pink horrors charge the flank of my saurus warriors.  The hounds charge the rear of my saurus warriors.  The bloodcrushers charge my skinks, who flee and are caught, but successfully pull the bloodcrushers off at another bad angle.  My saurus warrior unit is demolished in combat, the pink horrors give chase (the hounds do not) and pursue into the back of the bloodletters.  The hounds are stuck in position facing the flank of the pink horrors and my lone scar-veteran escapes.

From Lizardmen Vs. Demons

Turn 5 (Lizardmen):  My Scar-Veteran moves to engage the bloodcrushers.  My engine moves away from them and blows up a bunch of the screamers.  My temple guard end up in combat with the pink horrors after the last of the bloodletters blows up.

Turn 5 (Daemons):  The hounds regroup.  The bloodcrushers regroup.  The screamers fly over my engine and scar veteran which survive.

From Lizardmen Vs. Demons

Turn 6 (Lizardmen):  More combat, more aeing things with the engine.

Turn 6 (Daemons):  The bloodcrushers charge my scar veteran overrunning into the back of the Slann.  They do a wound to him but not enough for half points.  My engine survives. as well.

Final result:  Draw just short of a minor victory in favor of the Lizardmen.  If the game had continued much longer, it might have gone a different way but I'm not sure.  The bloodcrushers were nearly defeated and my engine was still in tact so I would say a draw is a fair call.

Wow, an update.

It's been a long time since I've updated.  I'm hoping to get back in the swing of things.  I have a couple of battle reports to put up including a game of Lizardmen vs. Demons and a 2 vs. 2 game of Lizardmen and Empire vs. Skaven and Demons.  Those will hopefully happen some time in the near future.

I've also been looking through the Skaven and Beastmen books.  I don't have any Beastmen models but I'm considering turning them into a side project like my Skaven currently are.  Build them slowly over time because I feel like buying some models for them.  My first order of business for both is to create a list to build towards.

I think I want my first Skaven list to be a Pestilens themed list.  It might change when 8th edition comes out so I probably won't begin work on it until after I see how that affects things but the list is below.

Lord Skrolk

Level 2 Plague Priest on Furnace with Flail and Power Stone

Level 2 Plague Priest with Flail and Warp Scroll

Level 2 Plague Priest with Flail and Power Stone

20 Plague Monks with Musician, Standard Bearer, and Plague Banner
20 Plague Monks with Musician, Standard Bearer, and Storm Banner
30 Plague Monks with Musician, Standard Bearer, and Banner Of The Under-Empire

6 Plague Censer Bearers
6 Plague Censer Bearers

12 Giant Rats with 2 Packmasters
12 Giant Rats with 2 Packmasters

Plagueclaw Catapult
Plagueclaw Catapult

Total:  2248

This list is based around trying to make the Plagueclaw Catapults effective.  While negating armor saves is really good, the fact that they only deal Strength 2 hits is unfortunate.  To counter this I wanted to field a list cramming as much wither as I possibly can in.  Hence, the all caster characters.  Lord Skrolk gives me a way to field my plague monks as core allowing me to take more censer bearers.  The giant rats are in because they are extremely cheap and expendable while able to dish out a decent number of attacks on the charge.  The hope is that they will be able to do quite a bit of damage to lightly armored withered units for little to no cost.  The plague monks and plague censer bearers are there to finish the job.  The censer bearers providing me a good way to do some damage to heavily armored targets that I can't hit with the catapults.

I could probably make a list that works better for what I want using a grey seer and dropping all but one plague monk unit for a bunch of cheap throwaway units but I figured if I was going with the plagueclaw catapults then I might as well go all Pestilens.

Expect upcoming posts to cover the just mentioned Grey Seer version of this list, some thoughts on a Beastmen army, and the battle reports mentioned earlier.

Ogres vs. Demons Game Report 2/27/10

I brought the army outlined here: http://impact-hits.blogspot.com/2010/02/ogres-vs-demons-pre-game.html

Sam brought a greater demon of tzeentch, 5 hounds of khorne, 3 flamers, 20 bloodletters w/ full command, 20 plaguebearers with full command and a herald, and another 20 plaguebearers with full command and herald.

Long story short, this game went horribly for me.  With no way to actually break through any of the demons my ogres were left unable to do anything when they got into combat.

First turn Sam moves everything forward and uses a bunch of spells.  The only ones that get through are two nurgling infestation spells on my unit of gnoblars but I pass the toughness test both times.  I use my only dispel scroll preventing bolt of change from going through.  End of his first turn.

On my first turn, I moved everything up setting up some baits with counter charges in position.  My gnoblar fighters have fled off the board at this point but I move a unit of bulls up to bait the bloodletters into charging so my slavegiant can slam into them and my ironguts + butcher can slam into a unit of plaguebearers.  My ogrestar moves into position to charge the second unit of nurglings on the next turn..  My scraplauncher moves up and misfires giving Sam the opportunity to fire the scraplauncher himself.  My leadbelchers move up, one unloads into the bloodletters, the other unloads into the houds of khorne.  They both manage to do one wound each.

On Sam's turn he takes the bait on my bulls and charges them with bloodletters and plaguebearers.  They flee leaving both units exposed to my charge.  During the magic phase, my unit of ironguts is completely demolished by the greater demon who gets off bolt of change causing 9 Str8 wounds to the unit killing 2 ironguts and dealing 2 wounds to the butcher making the unit virtually useless.

On my turn, the giant charges the bloodletters, flails with chain resulting in 1 attack that gets ward saved.  The giant gets promptly run down.  My ogrestar fails to kill the herald even after the tyrant directed all of his attacks against it (he was the only one in base contact) resulting in a loss by 2 of the plaguebearers and the blowing up of a handful more.  This however leaves me in a position where I have already lost over 500 points of units and my main ogrestar block is about to be flanked charged by the hounds of khorne and I have nothing left to hold up the bloodletters and other unit of plaguebearers.

I concede.

I will have to think further about how I should be playing against demons before I take my ogres against them again.  I'm not sure what I should be doing better but I suspect demons may just be an absolutely terrible matchup for ogres.

Ogres vs. Dark Elves Game Report 2/20/10

I played against Steve's dark elves. You can see his thoughts on the game at his blog.

The list I took:
Lord:
Tyrant
 - Cathayan Longsword
 - Heavy Armor
 - Greedy Fist
 - Beastkiller
 - Wyrdstone Necklace
 - Greyback Pelt
 - 2 Sword Gnoblar
 - Luck Gnoblar

Heroes:
Butcher
 - Bangstick
 - Dispel Scroll
Butcher
 - Skullmantle
 - Dispel Scroll
Bruiser
 - Battle Standard Bearer
 - Sword of Might
 - Heavy Armor
 - 2 Sword Gnoblar
 - Luck Gnoblar
 - 2 Gnoblar Thiefstones

Core:
3 Bulls
3 Bulls
3 Ironguts
3 Ironguts
9 Gnoblar Trappers
24 Gnoblar Fighters

Special:
2 Gnoblar Scraplaunchers
2 Leadbelchers
2 Leadbelchers

Rares:
2 Maneaters
 - Great Weapons
 - Heavy Armor

Initial Deployment:

From Impact Hits

I placed a set of Leadbelchers on each flank to handle the fast cavalry.  I also placed both of my Scraplaunchers on the left flank so that they would have some good shots at his line and later in the battle be in position to slam into the flanks of his main units.

I placed my Maneater/character death star type unit in position where it would for the most part, only have to worry about its left flank.  I staggered my two units of Ironguts behind the two units of Bulls with the intention of using the Bulls to set up charges with my Ironguts.  I also placed my Gnoblar Fighters where I hoped to get some decent Large Target shots with Sharp Stuff before the unit was wiped out or possibly use it to bait a charge from something.

Dark Elves Turn 1:
Steve got the first turn.  He moved his units up, picked off a leadbelcher from each unit and causing my Trappers to panic.  On his magic phase he irresistable forced power of darkness and then promptly miscasted his first spell rolling a 7 on the miscast table and avoiding a wound.  This caused his magic phase to fizzle out early and led into my turn.

Ogre Kingdoms Turn 1:
I moved my Maneater death star up in preparation for a charge from his cold one knights.  I moved my right flank Bulls up hoping to bait a charge from his hydra and my left flank Bulls up hoping to bait a charge from the chariot, hydra, or corsairs.  I also moved up my Gnoblar Fighters.  I set up my two units of Ironguts to countercharge anything that charged the Bulls and I moved my Scraplaunchers up in a flanking maneuver.

My remaining Leadbelchers moved up and unloaded into their respective Dark Rider units.  The leftmost one killed 4 riders causing them to panic and never return.  The rightmost one killed 3 riders but they passed their panic test and remained.  My magic phase accomplished nothing.

Dark Elves Turn 2:
I caught a lucky break and the cold one riders failed their stupidity test and stumbled forward.  The right hydra charged my maneater group.  The left hydra, chariot, and corsairs all charged my Bulls.  My Bulls fled and my Maneaters took the charge.

From Impact Hits

Unfortunately, my Ironguts failed their panic test when the Bulls ran through and my entire unit, Butcher and all, rolled high enough to flee completely off of the board.  My maneaters however pulled off a draw in combat with the hydra and hold.

Ogres Turn 2:
The turn starts with my fleeing Bulls (the ones that panicked a unit of Ironguts and a Butcher off the table) rallying.

I charge the rightmost hydra with both my Bulls and my Ironguts hoping to soundly defeat it in combat and overrun into the cold one riders and thus preventing them from getting the charge in the next turn.  I beat the Hydra in combat by 4 but it still managed to not break.

I charged the chariot on the left in the flank with both of my Scraplaunchers but it chooses to flee from the charge instead.  One of the Scraplaunchers is capable of reaching the Hydra however so it takes a Ld 5 Fear test to try to charge and miraculous passes slamming into the side of the hydra (or at least its handlers).  Unfortunately, even with impact hits, it only manages to kill a single handler and thus the hydra holds.

From Impact Hits

With both of my charges that I thought would win me combats completely failed, I resign myself to what I can tell is going to be a very bad next turn.

Dark Elves Turn 3:
The fleeing chariot rallied.

The corsairs charge my unit of Fighters which flee.  The leftmost hydra battle results in the death of the last handler but the Hydra holds again.

The cold one riders charge into my maneaters and win the battle even though I managed to finish off the hydra.  My maneaters and ironguts hold but my unit of Bulls flees.

Ogres Turn 3:
My unit of Bulls on the left side charge the flank of the unit of corsairs.  My hope is that with the 9 attacks and negating the ranks of the corsairs, I'll be able to win combat and force them to flee.  Instead, the death hag kills an Ogre and the corsairs kill and Ogre completely demolishing me in close combat.

My 2nd scraplauncher fails the leadership test to join the other scraplauncher in combat.

My maneaters and characters slaughter several cold one riders in combat, handily winning the battle but the unit rolls a 4 on its break test and stay again!

Dark Elves Turn 4:
The chariot charges my Scraplauncher stuck in combat with the Hydra.

The corsairs charge my other Scraplauncher.

From Impact Hits

Both Scraplaunchers are completely wiped out.

The Cold One Rider/Maneater combat involves both units completely whiffing and no wounds to anyone.  The dark elf general passes his break test yet again.

Ogres Turn 4:
My Bulls charge the Cold Ones and I finally force the general to flee and run him down.  However, the last of my Ogres are completely in the open for shooting at.  I'm completely out of magic defense.  And the rest of my line is gone.

We play through until turn 6 at which point I give up after all my characters are wiped out and my last unit of Ironguts is charged by the remaining hydra.

Conclusion:

This was easily the best game I have ever played with my Ogres.  I think the game would have gone completely differently if my Ironguts/Butcher hadn't fled off the field so early and the units I beat in close combat had actually broken.  It's really given me hope that a new book coming out this year will make them more competitive and made me excited to play my Ogres again.  I'm also planning to keep seeing what I can do with them and trying to win with the current book.

Ogres vs. Demons Pre-Game

I'm playing against Sam's Demons tomorrow and I'm planning to field my Ogres against him. I'll be taking the following list.

Core:
3 Bulls
3 Ironguts
8 Trappers
24 Fighters

Special:
1 Scraplauncher
2 Leadbelchers
2 Leadbelchers

Rare:
2 Maneaters with great weapons and heavy armor
1 Slavegiant

Heroes:
Butcher
- Bangstick
- Dispel Scroll
Butcher
- Siegebreaker
- Skullmantle
Bruiser
- Battle Standard Bearer
- Sword of Might
- Luck Gnoblar
- 2 Sword Gnoblar
- 2 Gnoblar Thiefstones
- Heavy Armor

Lord:
Tyrant
- Cathayan Longsword
- Greedy Fist
- Heavy Armor
- Giantbreaker
- Greyback Pelt
- Luck Gnoblar
- 2 Sword Gnoblar
- Wyrdstone Necklace

Full write up with my thoughts behind the list after the game tomorrow.

Updated Model Progress

I went through and organized all my models and got them set up on my hobby table so that I could take stock of what needs to be done and start figuring out what order I'm going to do everything in. With all the Ogre Kingdoms rumours that have been flying around lately, I'm thinking I may start painting them while continuing work on my Lizardmen. I have officially put my Skaven on hold while I get some work done on my other armies.

As far as my 40k Orks go. I'm really excited about the new Deff Dread and Killa Kan plastic sets that Games Workshop has just announced. When these hit the stores, I think I'm going to place an order for one of each of these. I'm also contemplating getting the Ork Megaforce as it is a really good deal.

Pictures of my armies:

From Impact Hits

Here is my Ork army consisting of 3 warbikers (1 nob), 3 deffkoptas, and ork trukk, an ork warboss, 7 ork nobs, and 40 ork boyz.

From Impact Hits

Here are my Skaven models consisting of 4 rat ogres, 12 giant rats, 40 clanrats (mostly unassembled), 20 plague monks, and a ratling gun.

From Impact Hits

My Ogre Kingdoms models consisting of 4 leadbelchers, 4 ironguts, 24 gnoblar fighters, 2 gorgers, 2 butchers, 6 bulls, Skragg, 1 tyrant, 1 maneater, 2 hunters, 40 gnoblar trappers, and a gnoblar scraplauncher.

From Impact Hits

The saurus warriors and stegadon I have been working on from earlier. Also, the three terradons I recently picked up.

From Impact Hits

More Lizardmen. This shows my slann, oldblood and carnosaur, 2 razordons, 2 salamanders, 36 skinks, 20 temple guard, and 16 cold one cavalry. I also have an additonal 12 skinks and 20 saurus warriors on the sprue.

Painting Progress

I am incredibly slow at painting but I have been putting more effort into my lizardmen lately. I have attached pictures of the progress they are all making.

First up is my temple guard champion. He is the closest thing I have to a finished model currently. I'm planning to use roughly the same color scheme for all of my temple guard models. For the paint job, I used Liche Purple, a Purple Ink wash, and a Liche Purple drybrush for the scales/skin. The weapons are a combination of Shining Gold and Mithril Silver with a Devlan Mud wash. The Shield is a Regal Blue with a Blue Ink wash to go along with my stegadon color scheme.

I've begun painting my engine of the gods as well. The current plan is to go with a base color of Hawk Turquoise and wash it with either Blue or Black Ink. Then drybrush the scales (maybe the skin too? not sure) with Regal Blue to match the shields that the saurus will all be carrying. The idea is they are using stegadon scale shields.

Another thing to consider is that this is going to be an engine of the gods model. Since that requires an ancient stegadon, I'm trying to think of ways I could make the stegadon look older so that when I paint a regular stegadon, it will look younger.

These are my saurus warriors with spears. In this picture, they are all base coated (skin/scales) with Scab Red. I have also completed the Black Ink wash though I do not have a handy picture of them in that state. The next step is to drybrush them with Red Gore and start detailing the weapons and equipment.