Welcome to the War Room
The Team Tennessee Chaos Campaign
Game One: Invasion
The Attack on Mortemont Begins!
I hate to say it be Team Tennessee has become burned out on tourney-style Warhammer. In fact we became SO burned out that it was hard to get anyone to play! My personal problem was from a really bad experience at an Ardboyz tourney where I almost came to blows with another player!
So what do we do? We play games just for fun where winning and losing are really irrelevant as the outcome leads to another game. It is more about having friends over and just enjoying the game without the pressure of winning and losing; plus you can always blame someone else if you lose!
Game One: Empire versus Chaos
Chaos Dave decided to setup a game with the new Chaos list. I pulled out my nicely painted (or I think so anyway) Middenland/Middenheim armies and put them all on the table! I had 4500 points of troops to Chaos Dave’s and Tomb Kraig’s 4500 points of Chaos troops. What was funny was that we both had the same idea of an infantry holding force and a fast flanking force. The way the battle developed was that both fast cavalry forces played each other and both infantry forces played the other infantry force.
Empire Infantry Force:
Atchlector, Sword of Fate, Armor of Meteoric Iron, VH Speculum
Battle Wizard Level 2, 2 x Dispel scrolls
Battle Wizard, Level 2, Barded Steed, Rod of Power, Ring of Volans
BSB, FPA, Warhorse, Barding, Sword of Might, Icon of Magnus
25 Swordsmen, Musician and Standard
Det: 10 Free Company
Det: 5 archers
5 Knightly Orders, Musician Only
5 Knightly Orders, Musician Only
20 Greatswords, Full Command
Det: 8 Halberdiers
Det: 5 archers
5 Outriders, Champion, Hochland
2 Great Cannons
Steamtank
12 Flagellants, Prophet of Doom
Empire Cavalry Force:
White Wolf Grandmaster, Hammer of Power, Laurels of Victory
Warrior Priest, Barded Warhorse, Armor of Meteoric Iron, Sword of Might
Battle Wizard, Barded Steed, Sword of Battle, VH Speculum
Battle Wizard, 2 x Dispel Scrolls
9 Knights, Full Command, Steel Standard
9 Knights, Full Command, Banner of the Deamonslayer
5 Knightly Orders, Musician Only
5 Knightly Orders, Musician Only
20 Halberdiers, Full Command
10 Crossbowmen
10 Handgunners
10 Handgunners
5 IC Knights, Full Command, Great Weapons, War Banner
Summary Battle Report:
Chaos Dave loaded up the Chaos Right Flank with Chariots and Knights! Loaded up meant that the cavalry force was facing 8 Chaos Chariots, Chosen Knights, more Knights and TWO Giants, etc, backed by three units of Marauder foot. It was a tough force!
Empire General Kraig had an infantry-centric force on the Chaos Left Flank. It was mostly Chaos Warriors, but it was backed up by a feckin HellCannon.
Dave moved his chariots forward cautiously with my shooting phase being so heavy. He pushed his Chosen Knights forward and I took the bait charging them with the IC Knights and the Warrior Priest. While I knew I would lose some guys, I didn’t count on only killing one guy. Well his Chosen Warriors killed only one Knight, so I was winning so far. THEN the Chaos horses killed two more knights! I rolled two “ones” for armor saves. With a lucky dice roll and the help of the War Banner I held for a turn, but then the Chosen Knights hacked the rest of the unit apart leaving only the Warrior Priest. He outdistanced his pursuers and survived the game; wounded but alive.
An Exalted in a Chariot charged my Grandmaster’s unit of Knights (the one with the fear banner). My banner was of course useless since I didn’t charge. With some OUTSTANDING dice rolling Chaos Dave killed FIVE KNIGHTS! I barely held! His Champion had the Chaos Runeshield, which negated my Sword of Power. I didn’t wound the chariot at all, but my rank, outnumber, and banner, made me only lose by a couple and I just held with a roll of a “six”. The next turn I ran off the chariot, but never caught it or killed it.
I was in a bind since the Chariot held me there and the Grandmaster had to bail out of the knights since they were about to get whacked by a Giant and another chariot. Some nifty shooting saw the Giant reduced in wounds to where I thought I could risk a Grandmaster charge. I left the Giant with a single wound (darn!) and he ATE MY GRANDMASTER! Oh the insanity!
Shooting, magic and the vanilla knights pretty much destroyed the other Giant and the rest of the chariots. A couple survived the battle by fleeing off the table. My Great Cannon destroyed the Chaos General’s Chariot and put a wound on him, but he survived the battle by hiding in the woods. I lost my Grandmaster on that flank and failed to kill any of the Chaos characters.
The Infantry Flank:
I had a significant advantage on this side since I had a lot of shooting and the Steamtank. One of the Knightly orders went forward to challenge the Hellcannon. They lost their lives in the attempt but forced it to charge them keeping it from shooting at my massed infantry.
The Chaos character on that side was in a unit of Slaaneshi Warriors. The Steamtank generated maximum points and all but destroyed the unit on the charge. Because I was out of position I didn’t have a pursuing unit so they got away, mauled but intact. Late the Steamtank got unlucky when a 10” scatter dropped the Hellcannon shot right on top of it! Chaos Dave rolled “SIX WOUNDS”, pretty much taking it out of the game.
My Halberdier unit moved forward and over the course of the game actually took out all three units of Marauders. I was pretty happy with them, but the Marauder units were depleted by the time the Halberdiers got to them.
One of the Chaos units broke from combat despite the Banner of the Gods and was run off the table. Most of the points I garnered were from depleting units and capturing standards. It looked like a complete victory until I charged the Atchlector’s unit of Greatswords into battle. Despite my hatred, Atchlector, etc, I lost the melee on turn six. Even with my BSB re-roll I failed the break test and was ran down and destroyed.
This last turn disaster took the battle from a major victory down to a minor victory. Both Empire General’s were dead or eaten; or both! So despite the win in the game, the Empire forces retreated due to their lack of leadership; setting up the next game.
Minor win to the Empire
Campaign Effect:
We decided at the outset of the campaign that Lord characters lost could not be replaced easily. The loss of my two Lords left me with only a Wizard Lord or Empire General left to use for the remaining games. We also decided that if you didn’t field a Lord in one game that you might get one back as the Hero-level character that took his place is promoted. In my next game I used a Warrior Priest as a General in the hopes of promotion to replace the deceased Atchlector.
Loss of Archlector for duration and Grandmaster plus all of their magic items.
Loss of one Great Cannon for the duration of the campaign (3 remaining)
Loss of White Wolf IC Knights for duration of the campaign