TOW: VC & CD vs TK and WOC

Just come back from a huge 9k battle, so this is more for the pictures than the results.

Myself (CD) & Vanpire Counts vs Tomb King’s and Warriors of Chaos. It was 2250 per side. Armies were known so lists were slightly tailored for this fight.

My list was as follows:

Weekend Saturday [2250 pts]

Warhammer: The Old World, Chaos Dwarfs, Open War

Sorcerer-Prophet, Darkforged weapon, General, Lammasu [Sorcerous Exhalation], Mantle of Stone, Talisman of Protection - 375

Hobgoblin Khan, Throwing weapons, Cavalry spear, Light armour, Shield, Shortbow (instead Throwing weapons), Giant Wolf - 64

Infernal Seneschal, Darkforged weapon, Shield, Battle Standard Bearer [War Banner] - 122

Black Orc Warboss, Great weapon, Wyvern - 269

18 Infernal Guard, Shield, Drilled (0-1 per 1000 points), Deathmask (champion) [Pistol], Standard bearer - 249

20 Infernal Guard, Great weapons, Shield, Drilled (0-1 per 1000 points), Deathmask (champion) [Hellshard], Standard bearer - 332

10 Infernal Guard, Fireglaives, Shield, Drilled (0-1 per 1000 points) - 170

14 Black Orc Mob, Stubborn, Veteran, 15x Additional hand weapon, Full Command - 229

Deathshrieker Rocket Launcher - 120

Iron Daemon - 275

Hobgoblin Bolt Thrower - 45

-–

Created with “Old World Builder”

[https://old-world-builder.com]

The list was built knowing there would be a lot of flyers, so combat res was important, as the black orcs with additional hand weapon, hoping to get them into Tomb King’s. The naked wyvern was some flying support to deal with Chaos Warriors / Knights whilst keeping everything else in the list.

Plan was for the VC to hold the middle with the CD on each flank. Mainly so we knew our centre would hold!

This was initial deployment. We made a few mistakes here. At the bottom left you can see my CD which is the first until we placed, they should have been closer to the board edge. To their left we also had the black orcs and blood knights squashed behind ghouls.

At the top left we were also too tight. I had to run both my IG and Fireglaives unit in marching formation to fit everything in.

Whilst we were happy with where everything was, we could have spent some more time planning HOW we fit it in that order. Nevermind lol.

They won first turn and ploughed down the board (well, the Tomb King’s shuffled as fast as they could).

The situation after turn 2 looked like this.

From our left to right. The two war machines were charged by Chimera and Bone Dragon their turn 2. Both fled to ensure they were failed charges and out of position. Unfortunately our turn 1 shooting with the Deathrocket Launcher hit, but rolled 1 to wound, so no multiple wounds :neutral_face:. Then my bolt thrower hit the dragon ogres and rolled……1 to wound. Turn 1 I also miscast (the 2D6 str 4 spell).

In the top right you can see the HW Infernal Guard. They were steed of shadows out the way to start hunting down Ushabti and archers which were starting to cause us pain, but also to try and force the Bone Dragon round (success!) and try and gum up our left flank with demon engine and Zombies. Our left flank at the end of turn 2 had turned into damage mitigation.

The fireglaives had marched right up to the tree line to threaten the Ushabti with bows.

In the middle we were confident, 2 units of grave guard, zombies, necromancer on scream machine. Just in front of the grave guard, our blood knights and wyvern had charged the Chaos Warriors with their BSB and Lv4 sorcerer.

Our right flank wasn’t great, but better than our left flank. The Black Orcs were milling around trying to figure out what to do. Side note - a lot of this was due to the problems with our deployment at the beginning.

The Hobgoblin Khan was forcing rhe chaos knights with mentally boosted favour of the gods Lord (+2A!).

The manicure ridden chaos champion was into the GW Infernal guard in their turn 2, I absorbed the challenge and took it with my unit champion (with hellshard :smiling_face_with_horns:). He took a beating but the hellshard went off on dying and gave 3 wounds despite the armour and wards. I rolled 6 for wounds lol. Knowing that we’d beaten him on combat res and that would drop once he started punching through the unit, on our turn 2 we charged the ghouls in to the flank as they also had a sacrificial unit champion……:grinning_face:

We knew we had to hold this flank for another turn or two whilst we took the centre.

Turn 3 & 4 is where the battle turned in our favour.

Getting anxious and unable to get around the Khan, the Chaos lord charged out into the ongoing combat. Uh oh. The knights themselves turned ready to run off and commit violence somewhere else. This was one of our successes, neutralising the chaos knights, the Khan dis his job perfectly.

To push a breakthrough they also committed their orges to the fight on the right, charging the ghouls. The lord wiped out 3 CD and the manticore plus rider and ogres wiped out all by 1 ghould. Time for the CD with GW to shine. 3 successful hits and needed 3 woulds. 3 6’s and no saves made later, manticore was lying broken in the muddy battlefield :smiling_face_with_sunglasses:

But the CD fell back in good order and the lord took the opportunity to get into the Vampire on abysmal terror.

On out turn 3 we moved the banshee over and took all but 1 wound off the lord. The Black orcs charged the ogres. The khan also charged the ogres. We pushed the ogres back with combat res, the Black Orcs and Khan whiffed and it was combat res that helped us. Well it didn’t, that then put the khan in the knights charge arc and in they went. Their turn 4 the knights charged in amd wiped out Khan. The Black orcs finally got their act together and pummeled the orges. Ogres were pushed back and orcs got ready for a charge that never came (game ended turn 4).

Chaos Lord and Vanpire on TTerror beat each other for a few turns before my team mate realised the terror had AP2 on his wicked claws and the lord was dispatched :roll_eyes:

Here is a picture of the end of the game (both players finished turn 4).

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In the middle the wyvern and blood knights were really struggling with the Chaos Warriors once the lance bonus wore off. The wyvern and war boss were really struggling to make much impact. It got worse when the Sphinx charged into the flank…..

I won’t go too much into detail here, but we had to fall back in good order with 2 out of 8 blood knights left. Luckily we rolled high and pushed (ran) through the grave guard who got charged by the Necrosphinx, but luckily the Chaos Warriors were too far away. We needed to get rid of the sphinx so on our turn 3 we screamed it to death. The blood knights resurrected back up to 6 and dithered behind our lines. Mainly because they had no way to get through so we left them there to protect against anything coming in from the flanks.

The Wyvern flew over the top of the grave guard to go and threaten the Casket of Souls. Spoiler. He charged in turn 4 and whiffed yet again :roll_eyes:

Not a lot happend with the grave guard plus zombies against the Tomb guard. Well bot entirely true, a lot happened but it was 4 combat rounds of pushing each other back and forth and resurrecting themselves. Let’s move on!

But before we do, this is the centre when the Necrosphin charged into the flank of the blood knights.

On the left. The Tomb scorpion came up. This flank became a bit of a stalemate. My Demon Engoner charged the hounds, wiped them out and overrun into the flank of the Dragon Ogres. They then bounced off each other for the rest of the game. The Tomb scorpion came in to assist, got killed and the combat carried on.

The zombies shuffled around making sure flyers needed to be careful about coming in close. No one wants to be stuck in a combat with 40 zombies. The Chimera jumped over the top of them and was eventually finished off by the blood knights we held back in the middle.

My fireglaives stood and shot at the Ushabti, eventually started dying and fell back past the zombies. This gave the ushabti a charge into the front of the zombies and rear of my Prophet. A combat of two they were wiped out. To be fair to my team mate he did point out the potential charge on my prophet, but I was fixated with magic missile in the Chimera moving behind us (which he miserably failed to cast).

This them just leaves the mighty story of the chaos dwarfs that had been steed of shadows over the far side of the board. These guys had a banner, BSB and war banner. Their main goal was sacrificial lamb for the Bone Dragon, but they decided to charge the archers. Who stood and shot. And failed to wound. In they went and won combat. Next turn the Bone giant came in into the rear. Not only did they not become the sacrificial lamb, they won combat. Before the Bone Dragon got a chance to finish the job, the game was called and it was bedtime!

Conclusions: This is one of my first big games since 1.5.

Changes to infantry are amazing. Challanging out flyers, outnumber and changes to close order mean taking big lumps of things is really worth it.

I liked the GW equipped IG, but the 3+ save for the unit with HW and shield was also useful.

The khan against an army without much shooting is a nightmare and really helps dictate the flow of the fight. Against a less armoured and/or fear causing army I would like take a unit of 5 to go with him.

The unit of 10 fireglaives was about right. I only gave these guys drilled because I knew the battlefield would be busy. If I was doing this again I might shave a few off the other units and create a second unit of 10.

The wyvern didn’t do badly because of the lack of magic items, but I was happy running him naked in this capacity.

I still hate scream lists despite it working in my favour this battle. I really wish getting into combat protected you from this.

Taking the level 3 in Lamassu was a waste for this battle. He should have been level 4 with less protection and more offense or take him on foot and used the points on another demon engine.

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Amazing battle report, great read, thank you for sharing deamonsmith.

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