Treachery and treason, there's always an excuse for it

The last few weeks our no-we-re-not-a-club-club played quite a few games of the Triumph and Treachery multiplayer variant of good old Warhammer Fantasy. This add on to the rules allows us to play games of warhammer with

• small armies (so even the found again box of old minnies will do)
• a random number of players (it's alway hard to find the time)
• all in the same game...

One surprising observation is that the game is actually balanced, in a very randomly almost story telling way. Back stabbing, breaking treaties and pacts and intense battles take place on the battle field. And all the while generals and deamon keepers are having a good time (and drinking beers :-)

Key feature IMHO is the way T&T improves standard warhammer by having a more 'interactive' way of playing. The order of play in a round is determined randomly (by cards). Even more important is the way that during a players turn the opponents stay/become involved by the choice of the 'enemy of the phase'. Each phase (movement, magic, shooting, close combat) the operative player chooses one (and only one) enemy whose units can be charged, harassed, shot and fought in that phase. All other models become de facto scenery and are 'safe' in that phase.

This combined with event that cards that can interrupt the 'normal' order and chaos of a warhammer game, makes for a very hectic and alternating battle. Players have to deal with the possibility of a long latency between manoeuvres or in contrast, two turns in direct succession that must be converted into success...

What do we play with then. It all started out with a mad idea for 5 players to start a sort-of-escalation-league. The deamons were beckoning and we decided all to take on one deity with one player being (literally) undivided. 500 points was our starting value and this being ideal to play some small skirmish like games. At the first evening of gaming everyone showed up! Eek! So many games in a row and/or parallel does not fit in one respectable evening gaming. T&T was taken from the shelves and the first game was on the way. The skirmish like setting combined with T&T proved very playable. We played this setup many times now and upped the deamons to 750 pts. Still good play!

Then we got better and the games with 5 or even 6 people took us only 2-3 hours to play! Wow! We also found out a lot of cards from T&T weren not played due to the fact they targeted warmachines or shooting phase. With all deamons and only 750 points this was not really happening.

Exactly the time to introduce other warbands that have been slumbering in the cupboards for a while! Dwarfs, beastmen, ogres and skinks entered the fray. Now gaming was even more diverse with 3-4 player T&T 750-1000 pts games. It keeps the " balanced"  feel as mentioned before. The randomness makes a lot of fun gaming. The introduction of other races in what started out as deamon-escalation-league proved longer and more complicated gaming and thus more challanges, more reading of the rules and longer game nights! :)

Now 3 weeks in a row, friday night was game night and many a WHFB battle was fought with the T&T ruleset. I attended 2 of these 3 games and they were in a setting where we had 3 and 4 players present. 1000pt games they were and with a diversity of armies. I played my Ogres once and in the last battle my dwarfs were present. Being the only one there with warmachines this was directly the focus of attack and I got only 1 shot off!

Interesting to see what tactics work in T&T settings. With the dwarfs a tanked up dwarf lord on shield bearers managed to kill of all monstrosities that were beastmen or skink equivalent. Is a lone super character a good option then is the question that arrises? I still think that good units in these small amount of points can win you the game since maneuvarability is a good asset in these treacherous environments. With all the cards that can be played you're never sure your plan will work out as planned!

So treachery and treason are great ingredients for multiplayer games of WHFB for us. Great fun and continuously new situations to encounter and cope with!

Battle report WHBF dwarfs vs Daemons 2000 pts

Note up front: pictures to be added!

With the new dwarf army book out, I was dying to play a game with the new rules. Recently I acquired some extra dwarfs as well and it was time to give them some action after playing lots of games with the Ogres. Also playing a lot of Mordheim and even Flames of War lately so WHFB was a while ago (I’m still trying to convince everyone to play a game of triumph and treachery, but no success to date).

We fielded 2000 pts against each other and my armylist was mostly shooting with an anvil of longbeards. War machine wise I fielde a cannon, grudgethrower and an organ gun. For the rest 3 blocks of 10 thunderers (because I love the models and the fluff over quarelers) and a block of 40 longbeards. This was topped of with a lord on shieldbearers, a thane BSB (strollaz rune) and a master engineer to help shooting with the war machines.

The scenario rolled was Dawn attack and with a lot of rolling it was defined where our units would land on the battlefield. Of course this was not a preferred scenario, but it was how the dice rolled. My block of longbeards ended all the way to my right side and the rest ended left or in the middle. Very nice, since my opponents daemons ended on his right side (my left) setting our main forces as far apart as possible. Very nice when you can vanguard with your big block of dwarfs en nothing is there to vanguard towards! Argl! Bad start deployment wise.

Start of the game, I shuffled here and there, mostly positioning my shooters and war machines (pivot here and there). Now my main phase: shooting! First shot with my cannon, direct to the great unclean one in order to knock off some wounds. A nice hit, a nice wound and now d6 for the amount of wounds: 6! BLAM! Not saved, great unclean one: DEAD! WOOHOO! What a start of the game for the dwarfs. The canon is known to be the ultimate sniper and I proved this to be very right indeed.

The rest of the game for my dwarfs was mostly trying to shoot off the oncoming plaguebearer squads. Thunderers doing some of the work but not that fast and a tower got in the way. The grudgethrower managed to do mostly nothing and the organ gun was somewhat useful (at least lots of shots were fired each turn). I also had a gyrocopter flying around but the brimstone gun I found not that good an investment and I didn’t get (forgot) to drop some bombs, better luck next time here. The warmachines got swarmed over and killed by loads of fury’s. That was one of the weak parts of my army, I didn’t get to protect the warmachines that good. Part of the scenario and setting up, but also some bad tactics on my side.

During the game my huge block of longbeards and characters managed to shuffle their way to the centre but when turn 6 arrived managed to NOT get into a single combat! How nice. By loosing all the warmachines to fury’s and not being able to shoot of enough plaguebearers the end of the game was a draw, VP wise. Still it was a good game, a fun game and it was nice to see the new dwarf rules in effect.

Overall I’d say the new dwarf army book gives a new feel for playing dwarfs. A tendancy with new armybooks is that new = overpowered compared to “old” other armybooks, this is not the case for us. Only played one game, sure, but I’d say the feel for the dwarfs is balanced and inkeeping with 8^th ed WHFB. Furthermore I have 10 irondrakes waiting to be finished with paint and they must get some action soon. Very curious to see how these new guns play out.

Plans are nothing, planning is everything

This is not a battle report, instead it's gonna be a brief reconstruction of the 'strategic' planning that my fellow general Ludo and I carried out.. Which ultimately led to our cunning plan... that off course failed as soon as the battle started...

Context
Ludo and I were facing Tom's Ogres, in a 1000 + 1000 vs 2000 points battle. We used PBE Games dice roller to determine the scenario and scenery for the battle, that gave us the 'Battle for the pass scenario'. A suitable scenario, since the battle was to be played at my home, and a smaller battlefield fits so much better at our table... Taking into account the size of the table, both sides rolled twice for scenery, ending up with a 'Mist wreathed swamp' and 'Tower of Blood' to be placed by Tom and a 'Raging Torrent' and 'Altar of Khaine' for the forces of evil (that's us!).

So we knew the scenario and conditions for the battle, the lay out of the battle field and its terrain features (but not the exact location of these features) and the type of army we were facing. Furthermore we found out on the interwebs that Tom would field a 'shooty' Ogre army...

Planning
So Ludo and I started planning our armies... First decision to be made was what combination of armies to use. Ludo could field a Vampire army or a Slaanesh daemon army, I had the choice between Daemons or Warriors of Nurgle (Having played mono-Nurgle-armies the last 10 years I feel a bit awkward since the release of the new Army books.. All of a sudden I changed from fluff gamer into power gamer...).
And here our adventure in planning started, resulting in a long hectic mailthread..

Plan 1
Our initial choice was the Vampire/CW combination. At that moment we did not know that Tom was heading for a 'shooty' variant; our main fears were that we would be 'out magic-ed' and the big monsters that were spotted on his painting table.. We were also considering that big blocks of skeletons, zombies and chaos warriors would lead to congestion on the battlefield. So we would need to arrange just a few big 'anvil' blocks and some hard hitting (coping with the high toughness of the Ogres) units with a small frontage to sneak through the lines..
Plan 2
To cope with the big nasties that were supposed to be painted and battle ready by now (Stoned Horns, Mourning Fangs..?) we would field a secret weapon: A deamon prince of Slaanesh! This guy/girl could just fit in a 1000pts, but no upgrades would be allowed.. So a naked prince (fully in theme with Slaanesh). A bsb herald with a small body guard of Daemonettes and two units of Seekers all fitted nicely without breaking the point limits. The daemon prince looked like the only option available for Slaanesh daemons to 'hurt' Ogres and with its speed should be able to pick its fights, supported by the Seekers. Nurgle daemons would support this attack sending in Drones and infiltrating Nurglings. The anvil of the combined army would be formed by a block of Plaguebeares with two heralds inside.
Plan 2b
Then we found out that we were lacking magic defense (and offense, but that was a lesser concern) and that the new rules stated that generals and bsb only supported units devoted to the same God.. So, out went the Nurgle daemons, in came the Warriors. The WoN part would have to take care of magic defense (one level 2 wizard), the main anvil (unit of warriors), some distractions (hounds, marauder horsemen, spawn) and some extra hitting power (knights). All in all not too bad (and in hindsight, perhaps the most potential combination?). But then our spies found out that Tom's army was all about shooting (and probably some magic too...) So time for:
Plan 3
Since the nude non flying prince would be shot to pieces before getting into combat AND there was no way we could organize some sufficient (sufficient for our kind of dice rolling...) magic defense, we would go for an ALL OUT attack variant!! Fully chaotic to the max!!
So into the Slaanesh part came the Fiends and an extra herald to replace the daemon prince. Two heralds would join the daemonettes creating some sort of flanking anvil-in-emergencies block and a speedy threatening group combining the Fiends and Seekers. The Nurgle half of the army would also go for top speed, taking Hounds, Marauders on Horse and Forsaken(!) as core and adding Knights with a Lord(!!!) on steed and a exalted hero in a chariot as extra hammers (who needs anvils anyway?)!
The plan was simple (for once.. does this mean we're in fact learning?): Charge in as soon as possible, safety is to be found in close combat...

Plans are nothing
So, how did we fare? Eventueally we managed to fight off a bloody draw (and dare I say, we were a bit better positioned than the Ogres at the moment when we ended the game). So not too bad, considering the firepower of the Ogres. Six leadbelchers, Ironblasters, a Scraplauncher, a Harpoonist on top of a nasty beast and not to forget 60+ Gnoblars threw in some considerable firepower, making short work of the poor doggies and horsemen, and forcing the Chaos Knights once to roll for panic.. On the other hand, magic was slightly less impressive, certainly when a early miscast resulted in a three level degradation of the poor cook.
Slaanesh deamons turn out to be very good at killing off Gnoblars, but failed to hurt Ogres.. My Lord with his knights retinue performed under expectations (I'm really not suited to play elites), though this was just a bit emphasized by the Scrap Launcher rolling double ones in two successive rounds of combat....
Heroes of the day (for me) were the few remaining dogs that forced a big block of ogres out of the game by blocking the charge into a much more important unit. They died horribly for doing this, off course, it's a dogs life...
If we did not have to cope with the big horny monster, crushing Forsaken and only to be halted by the block of Daemonettes, the plan would have worked (but not as we had forseen ;-)
The Fiends and Seekers managed to execute a nice flank attack, killing the Gnoblars and tying up some Ogre units. On the other flank, the Lead Belchers, Iron Blasters and nasty unit with the Slaughtermaster were kept out of combat and if (and that turned out to be a back if) the Knights had managed to support the Seekers and Fiends, it could have been a decisive attack. In reality the Scraplauncher slowed the Knights down for almost three turns, buying time for the Ogres to rearrange their battleline...


Mistakes and questions
After reading the rules one more time I'm still not sure if we handled the close combats involving monsters and chariots right. I think the rules state that an opponent can choose to attack either monster or rider, in which case the Daemonettes for example should have attacked the rider instead of the T6 monster... On the other side, the Ogres could have attacked my exalted hero instead of the chariot. But I'm not completely sure, so rules lawyers, please enlighten me! ;-)

New dwarves here

Yep, I've been busy finishing some projects lately. A couple of dwarves were waiting the final stages of paint and matt varnish for protection. It's been done. They were already on the battle field but not in this finished state. Now they can shine in their own pictures in stead of in the fray on the battlefield.


First up are the hammerers. Command group and a couple of em. They blend in well with the theme of the rest of the army. The beige and red colors come back in all regiments making them fit together easy. A lot of metal and gold details on these boys to make em look good and hammery (if that's a word?)


Next up are there lads that form the command group for my thunderers. Good looking models, nice pose for the standard bearer, calling commands and the champion with his brace of pistols. He will also do good in my Mordheim war band I'm guessing. Purely as a character he fits there nicely (overprices because of the brace of pistols, but fluff is something you can't buy of course)

2 Dwarf WHFBattles

Not one but two battle reports in one post. Since the battles took place a while ago and there are some notes, it will not be the best battle reports. Let me just tell you what happened to my dwarfs during these two battles. One battle is against warriors of chaos and one battle against deamons of chaos (slaanesh in particular).

First up a small skirmish Battle of Slaanesh deamons against Dwarfs. This is a small 750 point battle that we played the other day: Dwarfs against deamons and fast cavalry deamons that is.


My perception of the battle up front (and for choosing my army) was that some magic would be involved and some big creatures would show up. I invested in a big block of 20 dwarf warriors and a set of 10 thunderers. Backing up the army would be a cannon against the big creatures and a Gyrocopter for harassing the low toughness troops that would march against me. A runesmith leading the army should be there as anti-magic as well.

The following happened when the dwarfs marched to battle. The scenario was a full battlefield with a river of blood, the odd building and fences running along the middle. Also some nice hills obscuring the vision of my canon were present.

I set up as far away from the Slaanesh as possible. Small groups of riders and small groups of warriors were put against me. 2 Slaanesh beasts were put in and a named character: The Mask.

Straight forward the games started with a march move of the riders. Didn’t calculate that! Immediately the game gave me less opportunity to start shooting of the riders. The fact that all troops were small groups and only one or two ranks deep wasn’t helping as well. The canon is not your best friend there.

The fast cavalry was closing in very fast and within two turns my dwarf warriors were in close combat flanked on both sides and my thunderers after shooting once and hitting nothing, ran of the table. Meanwhile the cannon after killing one slaanesh rider, went unemployed after the crew was slain in no time. The gyro was all that was left besides the dwarf warriors. The steamgun was picking some single riders away, but also not the best of throws with the dice here.
The dwarf warriors were engaged in close combat on three sides and this was done quickly, leaving the gyro the only one standing.
That was quick, that was over in a jiffy!

The battle was sponsored with some dwarf ale, but to no avail, the dwarfs lost.


Learning points here: no anti magic needed (costed me a rune of balance, could have more warriors!), canon was useless against single line units (do without, only gyro or maybe organ gun and more points for slayers!), evade being flanked (invest in BSB). Finally: throw better dice! :)


Second battle was against warriors of chaos and was 1000 points. Also a small game and I put in a variety of troops here: 4 slayers, dragon slayer, thane, 16 dwarf warriors, 10 ironbreakers, 10 thunderers, 10 miners, gyro. This was actually my first 8th ed. game and I just wanted to try out all units I have painted the past months en see how they do in the game. Of course I wanted to win!

The chaos warriors fielded a hell cannon! Woah! In one shot I lost half of my unit of dwarf warriors! This was going bad! THe miners didn't turn up to deal with the cannon for 3 turns (and that was with the steamdrill!), but eventually took care of itself by blowing up.
A hefty block of warriors of chaos was moving towards me, Some satelite troops like chaos warhounds and whatnot was also advancing by I could pick them out with the slayers, gyro and thunderers. Good work there. Only to be stuck with the chaos warriors and they were tough! Eventually only my gyro was left to pick at the chaos warriors. This could go a very long time trying to kill a chaos warrior one at the time. Not a good ending for the dwarfs, but closer as with the slaanesh battle.


Learning points here: have to have a cannon to pick on the large units, characters, other artilery. Also bigger unit of dwarf warriors, they were decimated in minutes this small a size. If taking slayers, take more! :)