Battle 1 - Debriefs

WC – After the battle I gathered the broken Empire General and the victorious Khorne Warlord to go over their thoughts on the skirmish and what would be up next. While the Khorne Warlord tucked into the spoils of victory (a banana) I asked Simius about his thought on his first foray back in the Warhammer World.

SiS – Well it’s sort of the same game but it’s sort of not. There were a few things fairly fundamental things that caught me out, but on the bright side having an unpleasant experience usually helps me remember something, a bit like my wife’s anniversary (oh and mine too I suppose!). To be fair a small unit of cavalry shouldn’t be recklessly charging into a 20 strong unit of infantry beforehand (not that it’s stopped me!) but it’s clearly much more dangerous now, which is a shame as there’s nothing finer than seeing a brave charge tearing a hole in the opposition’s battle line.

WC – Given the result what changes would you have made?

SiS – Well where to begin! The Pistoliers didn’t perform well, but they were rather trapped by the Chaos deployment, which prevented them getting in behind quickly and trying to reduce the marching. The Cannon was a bit unlucky as there was a fair number of Chaos Warriors who were hit but rolled a 1 to avoid a wound! Another of those would have probably been more useful than the Knights (sob!). Alternatively Inner Circle or Reiksguard Knights might have been a better bet, with their higher Strength, but what on earth would such high ranking troops be doing fighting in a field in the middle of nowhere! Halberdiers may have performed better than the Spearmen, but frenzied Chaos Warriors are a tough ask, I was stuffed and one of them not even doing anything! Certainly in retrospect charging in with the Spearmen was probably foolish as it would have delayed the Warriors getting into contact for another turn and the Spearmen probably wouldn’t have been wiped out for fleeing. The only other question I have for myself is whether Archers would have done a better job than the Crossbowmen. They would have been able to shoot every turn and the extra firepower might have cut down a few extra Marauders. I don’t think they’d have had any impact on the Chaos Warriors though, which were the problem.

WC – (Turning to the Little Cheeky Monkey) and how about you?

LCM – Hmm, well in a sense it was a complete waste of time hiding my second unit of Chaos Warriors out on the far flank, but then if they hadn’t been there Sims would have been able to flank me with the Pistoliers and possibly restrict my marching, although most of the army could use the General’s Leadership. I was probably a little overly worried about my precious Chaos Warriors though, Toughness 4 is usually OK and 2 units would have split the missile fire. The 2 of them would have managed even more carnage!

WC – Well the final score was 42 to the Empire for seeing off the fearsome Chaos Warhounds, compared to the Khorne Raider’s (nice name for a Blood Bowl team!) 762 for seeing off most of the Empire army plus General! Plenty of food for thought for our returning Warhammer General, and we’ll see how much of an influence that has on his next game!