Battle report - skaven vs chaos dwarfs

'Bossboss! Manymany short short baddwarfs coming through valley!'

Snikrit Mansbane looked up from the goblin head he was gnawing on and fixed a red eye on his lieutenant. 'How manymany?'

'Manymany!', came the reply.

'Hmm. Manymany baddwarfs, muchmuch loot. Make ready. Time to fightfight.'

Let battle commence!

As well as my wood elves, I’ve recently finished a decent-sized skaven army. If I go a bit over the top with character models and magic items I can just nudge 2,000 points. It was time to give it an outing, and Neville suggested a battle against his chaos dwarfs.

Now, Neville’s chaos dwarf army is something special. It’s made up exclusively of Citadel models from the 80s, and includes both a Whirlwind and a Tenderiser – two models that greatly impressed me back in the day.

A thing of beauty!

 My army comprised literally every painted skaven model I own! The main unit totals 34 clanrats including the general and army standard bearer, with a smaller unit of clanrats, a unit of stormvermin and the compulsory unit of slaves providing the rest of bulk. Four rat ogres and their handlers give me some hitting power, and a selection of specialist troops, giant rats and war machines round out the force.

Manymany skaven

 As far as tactics go, skaven can’t afford to hang around! Low Ld and Cl and no missile fire to speak of means you’ve got to get into combat quickly and use weight of numbers to break enemy units. The warpfire throwers and jezzails can soften up enemy units and plague censer bearers provide a random but potentially deadly boost.

Facing dwarfs meant that I had the advantage of waiting until Neville had deployed his whole army bar the Tenderiser and Whirlwind. I lined by three main units up with his main ones, and deployed the giant rats to go after the artillery, with each one accompanied by a poisoned wind globadier. The fire throwers would sit in the gaps between the units and try to get shots in as the units advanced. The jezzails were paired up on the hill on the right flank. The rat ogres were to provide support on the right flank, and the gutter runners were sent up the left with the slaves stuck there out of the way.

Bipedal man-sized rats as far as the eye can see

 I won the dice roll to start, and moved everyone forward. Instantly I realised my mistake of starting the ogres in the forest! Half move and no reserve move meant that they would spend most of the battle trying to get out of the damn woods! The jezzails shot at the Tenderiser and missed, and my wizard tried a wind blast spell on it but was out of range.

Ready, aim...

 In Neville’s turn my smaller unit of clanrats took a few casualties from the crossbow dwarfs, but the real damage was done by the artillery. The mortars scored direct hits on the jezzails, with only one gunner surviving the blasts. The main unit of clan rats lost 10 of its number – including the champion – to bazuka fire. This was always on the cards, though, so I wasn’t too worried.

Flamethrower's eye view

 Turn 2 saw the skaven advance continue. On the left flank a censer bearer was released from the smaller clanrat unit. The noxious fumes damaged the Whirlwind (don’t ask me how!), causing it to become unstable at high speeds. The warpfire throwers incinerated a couple of dwarfs and the swivel gun crew, which was handy as those things can be lethal against large units. Over on the right, a rat pack charged the Tenderiser, damaging its steering gear so that it could only turn right. The rats drew the resulting combat –result! The dwarf berserker unit was held in place by a well-directed wind blast spell.

Mouse meets lawnmower

 The bazukas again took their toll on the big clanrat unit, wiping out another 8! The Tenderiser pulped the rats, but the mortars took aim at the rats advancing towards them and missed. At this point I was feeling pretty happy about the giant rats! 22.5 points per unit and they’d damaged a war machine and drawn fire from some dangerous artillery.

Build a better mousetrap...

 Combat was well and truly joined in round 3. The stormvermin charged the bersekers, and the smaller clanrat unit charged the crossbows. My elite unit won the combat, as did the clanrats (the dwarfs stood and fired as the skaven charged in, and missed completely!). In the heat of battle I forgot to move the rat ogres, who continued to languish uselessly at the back.

Whirling gaseous death mice

 Neville charged the Tenderiser at a lone globadier, who bravely turned and ran! The war machine instead ran into the surviving jezzail gunner, who I had been manoeuvring to try to get between the Tenderiser and my main force. A second unit of chaos dwarves joined the battle against the storm vermin. Not only did the stormvermin win the round, they routed the dwarfs who had just charged in. Great success!

Greater love has no rat than this: to lay down his life for his friends

Bring back the biff!

 At this point, I thought we’d be done in a couple of turns –units would soon rout and either get cut down in free hacks or disappear off the table edge and we’d had a clear winner.

Suffice to say – that didn’t happen! Instead, it turned into a meat-grinding war of attrition. The slaves charged the whirlwind and held them up for about three turns, passing a couple of rout tests along the way. In fact, passing rout tests was the theme of the evening. The crossbows lost every round of combat, but didn’t give up until they were pushed back off the table edge! As soon as the rat ogres emerged from the woods, they were pummelled by the mortars then charged by the Tenderiser, wiping them out.

Best 40 points I ever spent

 The general’s unit was pushed back by dwarfs with a dread banner (causes fear), automatically routing. They rallied just in time to be charged by both the war machines! I managed to take out the smaller artillery, and the berserkers were reduced to about 3 models, but at half past midnight I threw in the towel!

Run away, run awaaaaay

 It was a fun game, and I learnt a lot. I was happy with my tactic of using the giant rats as warmachine hunters and I don’t think I did much wrong in the centre of the table. I will never again start a unit on difficult ground, as my rat ogres were wasted. I also managed to run a unit of giant rats into a dead end, and my gutter runners were badly positioned at the start and took a while to come into the game. I’ll have to paint up another wizard, as I think more magic would have been handy.

Tight squeeze

It's over, guys

Skaven against dwarfs will often be a slogfest, I think. Their high Ld means they’ll rarely rout, while skaven force of numbers and higher initiative will mean they’ll often win a round of combat, avoiding the rout test they’d be likely to fail.

So I’m off to refine my army a bit and look forward to the next battle!

Battle report - Wood elves v skaven

Kelathorn Swiftsure surveyed the devastation. A few bodies still twitched, but the wardancers were putting them out of their misery. The survivors who had managed to flee the massacre were being hunted down – none would live to see the morning. Kelathorn wiped his blade on the grass and returned it to its sheath. This incursion had been stopped. But there would be another. And another…

My mate, Richard, and I just played a short game of third ed. 700 points each, wood elves vs skaven. It was his first game in about 25 years, and only my third or fourth since the old days so this was really about getting to grips with the rules and giving a run to some of the miniatures I’ve painted up in the last year or so.

Battle lines are drawn...

 I kept the set up pretty simple, as I didn’t want to spend the whole game getting over obstacles or manoeuvring around buildings. And the board is only 3’x3’, and it gets cluttered pretty quick. Richard got the pick of the table ends and opted for the hill. We set up in movement order – slowest first – as per the rules..

For the skaven, going left to right there are stormvermin with the army general, gutter runners, two rat ogres and a beastmaster, a warpfire thrower team, a block of slaves, a poisoned wind globadier and a block of clanrats. Competent generals will spot my first mistake right there!

The elves lined up with two units of archers (25 in total), wardancers, cavalry (and general) and a small unit of falconers.

'Bipedal man-sized rats, sah! Coming right for us!

Wood elves as far as the eye can see...

My thinking with the deployment was to put the stormvermin behind the cover of the woods and march them up the flank, supported by the rat ogres, and send the clanrats into the storm of arrows in the hope that they could soak up the damage and make it to close combat.

The wood elves took the first turn and my plan promptly came unstuck! Both archer units opened up on the clanrats, as I expected, they took a bunch of casualties, failed their rout test and promptly disappeared off the board. This is when I realised that putting your general on one flank means that the ability to use his leadership for rout tests is severely limited. Not that it would have mattered – I rolled an 8 on the rout test, general’s Ld is 7 – but still. Lesson learned!

If we hide behind this tree, maybe they won't see us...

 

Now, I didn’t take a load of pictures as I thought the game would last longer than it did and I’d have plenty of opportunity! So you’ll just have to imagine my remaining units steadily advancing in my turn, with the rat ogres executing a left turn to try to get around the flank of the cavalry that had advanced towards the stormvermin.

Then imagine the wood elves’ second turn, when the falconers managed to pick off the beastmaster, sending the rat gores back into their wild state and heading for the table edge. The slaves got hammered but the plucky little bastards passed their rout test! The wood elf cavalry charged the stormvermin. The two generals clashed – mine managed to take out one of the elves, but the woodies had the better of the encounter and routed the rats off the back table edge. The wardancers charged the gutter runners, to similar effect.

Chaarrge...

 So by the start of my second turn, I had a unit of slaves, a warpfire thrower team and a poisoned wind globadier left on the table (the rat ogres made it to the table edge at the start of the turn)! Carnage. I managed to get a shot off at the elf cavalry with the warpfire thrower. Two elves were immolated and the general became a pile of goo. Success!

Guys? Where is everyone? Guys?

 Next turn saw the inevitable happen. 25 elf archers opened up on the slaves. The one model that survived the onslaught quite sensibly panicked and headed for the hills. The cavalry charged and destroyed the warpfire thrower. Game over! With two skaven models left on the table, we called it a night.

Can't we just be friends?

Despite getting my arse handed to me, it was a fun game! I certainly learned a lot. The main lesson was that I need a bigger board. 3’x3’ didn’t give me enough chance to get away from the table edges before I started failing rout and panic tests. With a move of 5”, this means that skaven will usually be off the board before they can rally especially when they’re hit by massed archers.

Ok, we'll call it a draw

This is compounded in a low points cost game, because the smaller unit sizes mean that it only takes four or five casualties before rout tests come into play. With low Ld for skaven, this is a recipe for disaster! With a bigger table and an army of 1,000 points plus, I think skaven would be more competitive.

That said, in low points value games I think I’d ditch the rat ogres in favour of more clanrats. The ogres are too vulnerable in such a small unit, and I think a bigger unit would be putting too many eggs in one basket in a 700 point game. Either that or get a second handler, I suppose.

But also I think my tactics were a bit lacking. I should have put my general in the middle of the table to take advantage of his Ld and just pressed ahead up the guts. The gutter runners should have gone ahead to screen the units behind them from one of the archer units, with the fire thrower following close to soften up the enemy. The rat ogres could have held the left flank themselves (if the handler didn’t get hit), and the slaves could soak up a bit of attention on the right flank.

So looks like my next big project is making a gaming table! Until next time, happy gaming!