Tin Soldiers - Round Two vs Chaos (Ray)

Round Two vs Chaos (Ray)

Part of the deal with being a newbie (this is just me of course, not necessarily a universal claim) is that you can look at a list, see what things are worth, read the names of the flash magic items, ask lots of questions and after all that still not not understand what you are really seeing. Ray's Chaos army is a good example of this.

Having never played Chaos before I was entirely optimistic about this game - even a smashing loss can be enjoyable against an unknown enemy... sorry, getting ahead of myself here...

Ray had (and deployed my left to right) Chaos Knights with mark of Khorne (with BSB), 2 Slannesh Spawn (3D6" random movement instead of 2D6"), Giant, Slanneshi Chosen Knights with Rapturous Standard (1/2 opponent WS - the full implications of this didn't strike me until I was dead), Khorne chariot, boss on DRAGON (never faced one of these, very exciting!) centigor and some furies. Ray had a tough first round and explained that the army was win-big/lose-big (i.e. it worked or it didn't). I must admit I was hoping for the latter.

Having never faced anything as monumentally hard as Chosen Knights my deployment was rather blase and quite frankly ruled by ignorance. Practically everything that charges Dwarf blocks just bounces right off and I stupidly saw no reason why this army should be any different. Even the dragon and Lord would be in for a tough time going against the front of a ranked unit right? Sigh...

Left to right (and with practically little thought and the more I do think about it the more I wish I'd given Ray a better game...) was the cannon, line of Thunderers (so they'll be facing off against the Khorne knights and BSB then... nice), Quarrellers (facing the Giant and 2 spawn... good matchup there... for the bad guys), Longbeards and Hammerers facing Slaanesh knights and chariots (I ALMOST got that one right...) and the grudgethrower and gyro) behind a building against... well, the dragon, furies and centigor.

So, in summary, I had managed to match up poorly against the Chaos army practically across the whole battleline. But wait... the hard lessons are still coming.

I lost first turn and Ray moved most of his army (everything except the chariot which can't march) over half way across the board. Ace. My turn.

Cannon overshoots the Khorne knights. Thunderers kill one. Organ Gun misfires and explodes. There goes my big plan against the Chosen... Quarrellers take 2 wounds off a Spawn (so close!!!) and finally something went right and the grudgethrower landed one on the head of the chariot driver and pulverised the machine.

And that was almost the game. Khorne knights went in a duffed up the Thunderers and cannon, and the Miners who later came on to "help" (idiots). Dragon went into Hammerers. I should have accepted with my champion - Hammerers static res 7 (7!!!! 3 ranks, outnumber, banner, warbanner, and the BSB was in there too), max overkill on champion 5, dragon loses by 2. Instead I plumped for the brave and stupid option and challenged with my Lord. He took 2 wounds and was lucky to survive but disappointingly only inflicted on wound back on the Chaos Lord (would that I had taken the Rune of Might against the Dragon and been attacking it hitting and wounding on 2s with -7 to save... ah wonderful hindsight...). Anyway, the Lord lost by 1 and held on and the next turn by boss was dead, the dragon broke and fled and I failed to catch it. WORSE - he failed to rally and fled again out of my charge range!!! Then he rallied!!! Sob!

While this was all going on the Chosen were finding out just how squishy Longbeards are, breaking them after 2 rounds of combat and clipping the stupidly positioned Quarrellers. The Quarrellers were shortly engaged against the Chosen, 2 Spawn AND the Giant. They lost. They died.

MEANWHILE, the most epic combat ever was on against the centigor and the gyro (the gyro losing for 4 or 5 turns in a row and passing break tests at -2). Fate eventually caught up with the flying contraption and it broke off the table in the last turn.

The Furies killed and chased down the grudgethrower crew.

The Warriors... ah the Warriors. They had somehow (?!) ended up in the middle of the field after fleeing numerous charges from spawn and about-faced Chosen. They eventually managed to rally and claim a quarter which was nice (after losng over half their number to the dragon's TWO breath attacks). Their most glorious moment however was what gave me the few points I was able to claw back. They fled from yet another charge of the Chosen which put the Hammerers on the flank of the Chosen for one final glorous charge. in went the Hammerers, down went the Chosen, they broke and fled, I captured the accursed banner of 1/2 weapon skill and netter a tasty 490VPs just like that. Suddenly I could see the win-big/lose-big potential of the Chaos army and realised how I should have played the game. Again... wonderful hindsight...

Learning points - lots.

- don't deploy like a moron
- when in doubt, castle up and reduce frontage (the terrain would have allowed me to funnel his through terrain - deploy the blocks in front, line up the missile troops behind, take the charge with 3 blocks with insane static res, shoot the 2 large targets with everything...)
- don't rely on the Organ Gun (actually this wasn't a learning point because I did just that in the very next round proving I really am a VERY slow learner!)
- try thinking when you play. I don't know - I must have dropped my brain when I moved my army over from the last table. I just... wasn't... thinking. What a waste...
- another 5 points despite the caning I had received. The epiphany here is, putting the BSB in the hammerers means he's safe as houses. I actually had ALL the characters in the hammerers in my last game - the hammerer bunker is born!

Great opponent though - a really really nice guy who felt for me and my noobness. Top bloke who I hope to play again in the future.


Loss 15-5