A Place of Slaughter: A Realm of Chaos Battle Report Part One

Ironcron recoiled with fury from the obsidian mirror! A maddening rage burned through his gigantically muscled limbs, the savage scarlet of the anger's inferno dying his vision into a sea of vermillion swirls. 

How dare the infidel? How dare the blasphemer?

Once more he looked, every thread of self control struggling against the welcome urge to raise his axe and shatter the mirror beyond use. Once more he witnessed the white faced warrior deface the ancient pile of bleached skulls, which had been raised by the Thrice Cursed Gielieb Von Draksvald to honour the Blood God, shortly before his ascension to daemonhood. 

The apoplectic rage spilled over, and Ironcron hammered his axe down between the shoulder blades of one of his followers. The beast collapsed with shocking force, blood seeping like a crimson sea from the cleaved wound as Ironcron brutally wretched his weapon free. The wound, though still seeping hideously with blood, began to twist and change shape. Grotesque teeth sprouted from the wound's edges and a lengthy, insidious tongue licked the warm blood from its newly formed lips. The corpse, its skeletal structure shattered by the force of the blow, lay still on the heathen ground as an insane mouth puckered and jibbered in excitement from the remains of the mortal wound.

"KHORNE SAYS KILL! KHORNE SAYS BLOOD FOR BLOOD GOD! KHORNE SAYS VENGEANCE!" A diabolical voice howled in tempestous fury from the writhing mouthwound. 

Ironcron wrenched himself away from the smoking, depthless mirror and stepped over the rapidly disintergrating corpse, its lips still spasming in an appalling mockery of human speech. 

He strode forth to put into action his patron's demand."

Introduction

As regular readers will know, Dan and I have just started attending a wargaming club in Sudbury. This has provided the opportunity for us to play on larger boards with a wider range of scenery and we took full advantage of this fact to play the biggest RoC game we've yet attempted. 

We didn't have long to work on the game so selected to face off Dan's Khornate warband and orc allies with my mixed force of Slaanesh and Nurgle champion's retinues. We used some of the scenery I made from the previous game along with a mix of terrain from the club, most notably the Wizard's Tower seen below!

The Unknown Blasphemer: Caught loitering in the Realms by two approaching Chaos forces. What will his fate be?

We wanted some simple narrative element to the game, so we opted to use the model above as the Unknown Blasphemer who had affronted the chaos god Khorne by defiling one of his shrines. The Khornate objective would be to kill this character while Slaanesh and Nurgle would obviously want to recruit him. We decided that at the end of each turn we'd roll a d6 and that would be the character's move, and that the character would move along a pre-determined route that would represent his flight from the approaching forces.

Dan enthusing over the size of the gameboard we set up. We arrived late and had to make do with a space 'round by the bins.' The associated stench helped re-enforce the illusion of fielding Nurgle forces.

The set up before the game began. Slaanesh on the top left hand corner, Nurgle below while Khorne spreads itself thinly on the other side of the table.

The right flank of my army. Here you can see the minotaur Grizzlegut, Raggedflay the Nurgle Sorcerer, Oozingsore the Blighted, Champion of Nurgle with his thug and beastmen followers.

Here Ironcron leads his followers in search of revenge. Units of beastmen and his chaos warriors are allied with orc and goblin mercenaries.

While on the extreme left side of the board, Dan fielded Gluttonspoor along with Mange and Fang, the chaos hounds.

We rolled off on a d6 to see who would have the first turn. Dan rolled a 5 to my 2 so the opening advantage was held by him. He wasted no time before laughing in my face like a madman and reaching for the tape measure. We ensured that we had stats for all the units, instantly created a few characters using the charts on Slaves to Darkness and spread out the weighty tomes that are required to play. We find the summary published in Warhammer Armies and the summary from Lost and the Damned, particularly useful for jogging memories so laid out some tables to house the reference material.

Dan launches his attack with a tape measure. When he had wearied himself through wild attempts at removing my eyes with the twisted end of the tape, he goaded his wulfboyz forwards towards my static lines. 

Dan moved the rest of his forces twice, as you do in 3rd Edition when you are using the reserves rules. Here are the positions of the Khornate warband after the first turn. 

Goblinoids support the Khorne advance. Dan had to manoeuvre his orcs to ensure that they would pass an obstacle successfully. 

The view to my front as Dan ends his first turn. Damn, those wulfboyz are fast!

Gluttonspoor approaches the Blasphemer at the end of Dan's first turn. Revenge (and probably the eating of warm flesh) very much on the minotaur's, and undoubtably Dan's, mind.

My turn was over quickly. I moved my forces forwards. I planned on moving my Nurgle troops through the tower's boundary while the Slaaneshi warband dealt with the Goblinoids. With three magic users in my army, I wasted no time unleashing a wave of fireballs at all those in range.

Goblins must be flammable as the wulfboyz lost two of their number to magical missiles of hissing flame. Having lost over 25% of their number in a single turn, the unit had to take a panic test. Guess what? They failed and turned and ran back in the opposite direction. Well, that's payback for the last game!

The turned ended with me moving the Blasphemer further down the steps of the wizard's tower.  Gluttonspoor can just be seen lurking around the corner ready to extract the price of treachery. 

So ended the first turn. Two goblins lay smoking on the field. The howls and snorts of the beastmen filled the air as sizzling fireballs streaked towards their targets. Warcries and the mad chants of ecstatic followers of the Pleasure God rang the ears while the very air itself was acrid with the dementing stench of chaos.

More soon...............

Orlygg.