CLASH OF CHAOS: Realm of Chaos Battle Report

Things have been pretty hectic for me recently. I am a teacher and have just started at a new school. As with any new job, there are a million and one new things to learn and sort out. Due to the pace of the day (and the fact that I have two children under three) I find myself in bed by about 8pm each evening and have had no time for blogging or painting.

Still, the weekends given me ample time to tap away at the keyboard or splat away with the paints. Today, I present a detailed battle report of Dan and I's last Realm of Chaos battle. It was certainly a momentous occasion, as the game was the culmination of a year's work. I began painting retro miniatures in the summer of 2011 and we had our first game (a long winded affair, played with unpainted figures) in late August and this proved to be the biggest game we have played to date.

The deployment of troops at the beginning of the game. The lines of the Doomaxes of Khorne to the North and the Throng of Exquisite Pleasure to the South. Dan plays Khorne. I, Slaanesh. 

We didn't have long to play so we discarded the idea of a complicated scenario in favour of an old fashioned straight battle. We'd just marched the troops at each other and hack away. We set up the scenery (some of it still damp from my late night session the night before) in a mutually agreeable fashion and placed our units one at a time. This provided the opportunity to make a few strategic plans about where best to place troops. We rolled off to see who'd have first time.

I won so advanced my troops forwards.

A close up of my left flank at the start of the battle. I placed my beastmen here in two units of 5. I planned at this point to crush Dan's Wolf Riders with one unit while the other engaged the orcs. 

My left flank, including a unit of skeleton allies (they have manouvered to pass between the fence and the hedgerow) advancing towards the hated Khornate horde. 

Dan responded with typical maniacal glee... He charged with his fastest moving troops into my lines. The mercenary wolf riders kicked their steeds into snarling action and plummeted across the field into the waiting line of the beastmen. The resulting clash saw a flurry of blows for each side, snarling jaws snapping at weapons and armour and an almighty crash as the steadfast followers of Slaanesh held their ground. After a round of combat, no wounds had been inflicted on either side due to some shockingly poor dice rolling.

My beastman advance after the wolf rider's charge. With no wounds to any of my troops my plan seemed to be developing well. 

These were some of the first models I ever painted for the 'Grand Plan' and they display some of my 80s inspired freehand painted shields. Realm of Chaos games are perfect for this as you (usually) only have to paint up a handful of models after each game so you can really take your time.

 On Dan's right flank he moved his units of beastmen forwards in an attempt to hold the large open ground in front of the abandoned cottage. He could see my skeletons were making slow progress into the area and hoped to set his units up in a favourable position to either receive of make a charge. The awkward position of the dwelling made this a challenging process.

Mange is one of the stand out characters in our campaign. He always astounds us with the damage he inflicts and his resilience. Shame that he has an irrational fear of humans though!

 While on his extreme right, Dan moved his general, Ironcron, and his faithful hound, Mange, past the protection of the building in a daring move designed to unsettle the chaos thugs that were guarding the strange figure of my chaos sorcerer, Jaketh. Unlike the goblins on the other side of the board, Dan restrained his attack dog in the hope of scoring a more useful position with which to charge my thugs... If he passed a fear test first!

The positions of most of my warband at the end of the first urn. Morbius, Slakesin and the ratmen hide behind the relative safety of the hedgerow with Jaketh and Throgg (who had passed his stupidity test with ease) advance against the gigantic threat of Ironcron himself. 

Dan's right flank after the first turn. The placement of the hedgerow would mean that his orcs would take a little time to cross. This was excellent news for my beastmen as it would give me the opportunity to crush them utterly before help arrived. 

Elements of my warband and their allies prepare to engage with the beastmen and war dogs of Khorne. Note the strange position of the troll. They nearly always fail those stupidity tests...

 At the start of turn 2 my troll, Throgg, failed his stupidity test and ended up wandering off in a random direction. I decided to take a charge from Mange and positioned my thugs in front of the sorcerer after checking that the magic user still had line of sight on the four legged fiend. What followed was a magical assault against the chaos hound that did little but singe the poor dog's hair. The skeletons, Morbius and the skaven passed over the hedge to start spilling across the open ground in front of the dwelling.

Dan's second turn saw his beastmen, orcs and characters advance in glorious unison. Even the battle hardened troops of Slakesin must have checked themselves as they watched the slaves of the Blood God advance with terrible purpose. Mange, no longer fearing humans, charged rabidly into the waiting thugs, snapping his jaws wildly as the leash was dropped.

Khornate beastmen fill the open ground as the undead and skaven ready themselves to charge. The orcs pass over the hedgerow in the distance.  

Mange engaged the thugs after passing his fear test. His snapping jaws tear into a thug, ripping the life from his limbs in an orgy of bloodlust. 

Despite poor dice rolling, the strength and toughness of the beastmen begin to take their toll on the goblinoids. 

On Dan's right things started to deteriorate for the wolf riders. After another round of combat, two of their number lay as bloodied heaps as the beastmen stood firm. The unengaged unit of Slaaneshi beastmen advanced further to meet with the orcs.

The battlefield at the end of the second turn. Note the beastmen begin to wrap around the wolf riders on the right flank and the loss of a thug on the left flank. 

The view from behind the middle of the Khornate lines after the beginning of the third turn.

 The beginning of my third turn saw the skeletons returning to their original formation of two ranks of 5. Despite of the angle, I was certain that they would withstand the inevitable Khornate charge (suffering no psychological effects as they do) and secure in the knowledge that the beastmen would have to pass a fear test in order to engage. To buy time, the skaven, their rat like hearts full of roaring pleasure, plunged into the beastmen's line in a suicidal charge of delight. On my left flank, the beastmen held their ground in order to receive the orc charge.

The second unit of beastmen receive the orc charge on the left flank of the battleline.

As predicted, the skaven did not fare long against superior numbers, but they fell in estatic delight, taking a number of wounds from the beastmen. 

I wore my Oldhammer T-Shirt to heighten the Third Edition experience. If you're wondering about the venue, its Dan's rather plush new house. 

Nearly all the units were engaged by this point in the battle, with only the skeletons yet to charge. Magic spells were blasted from the outstretched fingers of Jaketh and Slakeskin, with Ironcron and Mange talking fireballs but little real damage. 

The leaders of chaos engaged in combat as their followers mill around them in melee. 

 Dan's fourth turn saw Ironcron charge into action against his nemesis, Slakeskin. Due to Dan's terrible luck (he always loses his general in action), Slakesin struck the gigantic brute down in a single round of combat, scoring three wounds with his chaos weapon. With the enemy leader down, Slakesin and Jaketh could turn their attention to Mange the Chaos hound. After the beast felled a second thug, the combined magical power of the two Slaaneshi champions burnt the hound to a crisp and left his body a smoking ruin on the battlefield.

Throgg advances as Morbius oversees the skeleton's struggle with the beastmen of Khorne. 

 By my fifth turn, Throgg has recovered enough of his wits to begin to moved towards the action as the skeletons charged home destroying many of Dan's beastmen in their wake. Unfortunately, the survivors rallied and held their ground in front of the doorway of the dwelling. My beastmen also broke the orcs and pursued them across the table, their freehacks doing little further damage. Only the wolf riders held their nerve (and passed Ld test after Ld test) to remain in the battle.

The skeletons struggle with the remaining Khornate beastmen. Despite heavy losses, the followers of the Blood God remain steadfast. 

On my far left flank the wolf riders still hang on. Refusing to break and run despite more Ld tests than you can shake a goblin at. The war of attrition began to take its toll on the goblinoids though, as yet another one of the greenskins fell. 

By this point in the battle I was feeling secure that victory was well within my grasp. I had felled the champion of Khorne, routed a unit of beastmen and chased the orcs across the field. However, I was not to have things all my way as Dan's greenskins fought a startling recovery, breaking my second unit of beastmen and pursuing them back across the board!

It was obvious that something had to be done on my left flank or I could risk losing my beastmen to the ferocity of the greenskin war machine. Despite huge odds, the wolf riders still refused to break and held on like a tick on an ogre's bottom - to use an orcish phrase!

To make matters worse, after a spectacular round of combat, the wolf  riders down two of my beastmen. 

Jaketh cast Flight and sped through the air to land behind the wolf riders. I wanted to cast fireball at the rear end of the greenskins and Dan and I developed a on the spot rule that there was 50% chance of the spell wounding my own troops. In a calamity of gigantic proportions, my fireballs crashed into my own troops, killing two of my followers in an explosion of flame! I had better luck with the fleeing beastmen, who rallied and turned to face their orc tormentors once more.

In my final turn, with my beastmen fled, Jaketh finally managed to destroy the wolf riders. They had hung on, and on, and on and had been a right pain in the green bottom! 

The dead. The rule books. The dice. The debris of a Third Edition game...

The final positions of the troops. End of turn 6.

Sadly, we ran out of time and the game had to end there. As you can see from the final picture, my undead had almost managed to eliminate the Khornate beastmen, with Greykill hanging on to dear life with his double handed axe. Throgg had managed to pass enough stupidity tests to get involve in the melee but hadn't really achieved much damage. With Dan's left flank gone, I still had a single thug lurking around the edge of the house while Jaketh and the remaining beastmen struggled on with the surviving orcs.

Dan conceded defeat and the game was decided to be a Slaaneshi victory. Though a costly one for the Lord of Pleasure.

Orlygg.