Grimbold Blackhammer:
Every summer and winter we have a local league and since the new Warriors of Chaos book had just been released, I have been neglecting my Chaos Dwarfs. But after each league wraps up I announce it to be mega-battle season. And mega-battle season it is! The realms of Chaos vs the Warhammer world!!
The great project has begun and we have sent ambassadors far across the Chaos Wastes. To the human chieftains and lords we told tales of a people who build their cities of gold and produce great champions to challenge them. And to the Bray Shamans we tempted them with stories of magical treasures as old as the world. Of warpstone caches hidden amongst ruins. And of a feast of flesh waiting to be slaughtered. This and more we offered them in exchange for raising a mighty host to march south with us. The fools do not realize whomever is left, be they an ‘ally’ or enemy, they’ll all be driven back home wearing slave collars when the campaign is done and be fed to the furnaces!
This year my team of three will each bring five thousand points to the table. I will be bringing my beloved Chaos Dwarfs and my two allies will bring Warriors of Chaos and Beastmen for a FIFTEEN THOUSAND POINT ARMY!! Our opponents will be three Lizardmen players who will each bring five thousand points each for a whopping THIRTY THOUSAND POINTS on the table!!! The two big rules are magic is 6D6 with the highest 4D6 forming the dispel pool and no magic item duplication. That means a grand total of ONE Dispel Scroll per side (eep!).
So with that in mind, if YOU were going to field a five thousand point army, what would you bring?
Fuggit Khan:
Interesting…is this 30,000 pts all at once on a big table (or floor)? Or 3 separate battles? If it’s all at once then please be sure to take some pics of the table all set up and share with us. I’ve played games in the past somewhat similar, 6 guys at once on a 4ft x 8ft table but with 2500 pts each. It was quite a traffic jam but lots of fun. So in answer to your question for what to bring, I would first suggest to watch out for hordes of Skinks and skirmishers…so I would suggest plenty of Magma Cannons to thin 'em out. I would also skip K’Daai Fireborn since they will likely get pinned in by cheaper Skink hordes and then just burn themselves out from burning bright. If it’s an all out battle with 30,000 pts played at once I would recommend you take the center and act as the core anvil and let the other 2 guys be the hammers, that’s what those 2 armies do best and your Chaos Dwarfs should go war machine heavy to clear out paths for your allies to break through. Synergy will be your friend.
Grimbold Blackhammer:
It will be 30,000 all on one table. The first two times I ran it was on a 12 x 4’ table but the deployment zone was a traffic jam so I’m raising it up to 16 x 4’.
We were thinking the center should be 8 Hellcannons (four of which I could give rerolls to). On paper that sounds fairly immovable.
Sadly I only own two Magma Cannons so I can’t spam those out =(
Fuggit Khan:
Can you just proxy Magma Cannons? I agree with you that the center should be Chaos Dwarf war machines (the anvil I spoke of), but personally I would be scared to have 8 Hellcannons all at once in a center deployment zone, their “unpredictable” misfire can cause some serious grief for you, especially if they start charging each other. I still think Magma Cannons are your best bet to thin out Skinks (which I’d be shocked if your opponents didn’t try to swarm you with sheer numbers of Skink tarpits and skirmishers)…
Geist:
5k of CD? Man there is so much nasty shit you can do. An ocean of dreadquakes or legions of destroyers. Then there is the truly nasty you can do. Take a crap ton of bulls and and a squadron of taruks, followed up by hordes upon hordes of khans on wolves. You could make it so the other side could not move at all with so many khans out there playing fast cav redirect. Then follow up all those bulls and khans with multiple blocks of dwarfs with blunderbusses. Combine that with the shock troops of bulls and the locking factor of so many khans and those guns will shred anything and everything. My head is kinda hurting from a headache so I have no numbers for you but there are alot of things to consider.
gashnag:
Lets see with grand army rules that gives you 6 magma cannons. Two magma cannons per 24" of your deployment zone one daemon smith per each group center group should also include 3 dreadquake mortars and two additional daemon smiths so a total of 5 daemon smiths 3 center and 1 with each group of magma cannons for a total of 1990 points with the amount of fire you put down range you shouldn’t have much trouble making that back in vp and 2/5 of your armies points in artillery and engineers isn’t that bad since that also gives you 5 channel attempts. Now the point total I gave is bare the only upgrade give was slave ogres to each dread quake mortar. You could then take 2 small 20-30 groups of hobgoblins with bows and shields to protect the flanks of your center warmachine battery. Now many people might say HG aren’t good enough to defend against much I on the other hand have had great results from HG. with the two units of HG that leaves you with 2650 left to work with which is just 150 higher than the points of games that I play normally and with no warmachines to put toward that you could put several units of CDs, K’daii, Bulls and so on.
Abecedar:
I reckon the table even at 16’ long is still going to be very crowded.
Grimbold Blackhammer:
Fuggit Khan - I’d love to proxy up some war machines but there are no proxies allowed (my own rule). Folks can field stuff from Tamurkhan, Storm of Magic, and Monstrous Arcana if they want as Rare choices but they have to have the model. That can of coke is NOT a Bloodthirster! =) Imagine my surprise when last year a kitted out War Mammoth showed up. We had to send a herd of War Hydras after it and the damn thing killed three out of the four…
Geist - those points don’t go nearly as far as you’d think :hashut
Gashnag - I agree with you on having faith in my Hobbos. Mine have taken down a lot more than most folks expect and seem to be able to Parry better than any other model I own. I am definitely fielding a 10 x 10 block with bows and shields just because I can. I have my doubts that their missile fire will kill anything but they should make a darn fine tar pit for something. And of course they’ll be Steadfast 10 to really irritate my opponents.
These battles are so much fun and really turn Warhammer into a different game. The super-duper stuff becomes a lot less super-duper at these point levels because instead of killing 20% of an army they are now only killing 3% of it. And the mega-spells aren’t always worth the risk when there are so many bloody targets! This will be my first big game with Chaos Dwarfs so not sure entirely what to expect.
Fuggit Khan:
... but they have to have the model. That can of coke is NOT a Bloodthirster! =)
Grimbold Blackhammer
Nice! Many, many years ago while playing against a Dwarf player he accidently knocked my Orc rock lobber off the table and broke it during the game, so I took his plate of chili cheese fries away from him to replace the rock lobber as a proxy and told him he couldn't eat them till after the battle. Take that you Dwarf! And a month or so ago I saw a guy use a baby bottle as a unit of Slaanesh....ah proxies :)