Battle 2 - The Cheeky Ambush

Who would the opposing general be indeed! Who else would be reckless enough to agree to take a ragbag collection of goblins and cheeky enough to ambush their Uncle while on a pleasant march in the countryside!?!
My Goblin force was going to be fairly straightforward based on what was available and the sort of thing one might expect from an ambushing force. No war machines, no Arachnarok (although that’s mainly because I don’t like using models that are bigger than me, especially when they’re large spiders!), no Black Orc heros to quell animosity (and kill half the unit, one of the necessary steps to stop rule benders unfortunately), and no lumbering Trolls. I played around in Battlescribe to see what sort of balance might work and re-read the battle report in White Dwarf 155. In terms of the army I wanted a big unit of Wolf Riders to run around hopefully scaring Sims’ army and getting up to some mischief. I had about 40 Gobbos with short bows so I decided to pop them into 2 units with a Nasty Skulker each. The remaining units would be 2 simple mobs of Gobbos with spears. Hardly a fantastic fighting force but we’d see if we couldn’t upset the Empire recruits, not least by adding a little surprise in the form of a Lvl 2 Shamen!
In the Battle Report the Goblins felt they had lost because they split their army and the ambushers knocked each half of the army off one by one (and they had 1200 points to the Elves 1800!). Despite this I thought I’d also split my army, with the archers on one side of the table and the remaining mobs on the other. The archers didn’t represent much points wise so if Sims went after them all the better. However I didn’t think he would in which case they’d be running across the table as fast as their little legs could carry them to upset his rear, and of course getting off as many arrows as possible. Oh yes, with the little shamen in tow! Now all I needed was to hope against too much animosity…

Battle 2 - The General’s New Position

After the horrific destruction of the town I was garrisoning, and the wholesale slaughter of my army, along with the enthusiastic manner in which I was sacrificed by the unit of Swordsmen I was leading, things hadn’t got off to a good start! The Wise Chimp suggested we could create some sort of dialogue to accompany this tale of woe so I let him knock something up as follows:

“After serious injury at the paws of the fearsome Khorne Hero Little Cheeky Monkey, General Simius Sapiens was carried from the field by the Swordsmen who had eventually plucked up the courage to drive off the Chaos Hero. The Chaotics ignored the remnants of the Empire force as they plundered the town of Bananburg, particularly it’s famed banana warehouses. Burying the cannon the survivors retreated to the nearby town of Lengenfeld to lick their wounds. The Swordsmen and Crossbowmen units were ordered to return to Nuln with the artillery crew while Simius recuperated. Upon his recovery the opportunity to lead some newly trained regiments to a rendez-vous with their new commander in Wolfsback provided a more tempting opportunity than returning to Nuln straight away to face the music, so the General took command!”

Ultimately my aim would to avenge the destruction of Bananburg, especially their “famed” banana warehouses! However in the meantime I would put together another 1,000pt force to represent the new recruits, literally in the case of my Greatswords who had arrived in the meantime. Now all I had to do was find some glue! The idea of the scenario was for an ambush by a Goblinoid army of some sorts. However the family’s Orc player, another nephew who prefers to be known by his surname Kong, due to his quaint first name, was busy with “other commitments”. In light of that we dug around my collection to see what I had, and found a veritable horde of Goblins from edition 4 of WFB, plus a few from Warhammer Quest, Heroquest and Battlemasters. The scenario would be an ambush where the Goblins would charge out and attack my force as we were crossing the River Aver. The inspiration for this was a Battle Report in White Dwarf 155, shortly after WFB 4th ed. was released, named “The Battle of Red Axe Pass” where Goblins ambushed a High Elf force. Given that I was supposedly travelling, and with new recruits, I got into the spirit of things and picked an army with lots of core troops, with no cannon (which wouldn’t be ready for combat if I was really ambushed) or my usual Flagellants. The Pistoliers would have been appropriate, as would the Swordsmen, but both were in the doghouse after the first Battle! I had to pick a unit of Greatswords to try out my new men, plus Hunters to act as scouts for the trip (they clearly did a cracking job as I’m about to be ambushed!). Then the remainder of the force was 2 Halberdier units, a Spearmen unit and a 20 strong Archers unit. There was a certain practicality to the force, the Archers could move and fire which would probably be necessary in the chaos of the ambush, and other than that I wanted as many men as possible to fight back against the inevitable horde of Goblins that would come rushing at me! I wonder who the enemy general would be…

“Come on pull yourself together!”

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!

Battle 1 - The Little Cheeky Monkey’s Raid

WC – Below is the report extracted from Battle Chronicler. I apologise in advance for complete unfamiliarity with the program so any feedback and tips would be much appreciated! Simius Sapiens’ (SiS) and Little Cheeky Monkey’s (LCM) comments for their respective turns are shown below the map for that turn. Technical hitches aside you should be able to click on the maps to get a full size view, fingers crossed! The tale begins with the deployment below…

SiS - The terrain suggested that the wild onslaught would come up 2 obvious channels: between the trees and the pond, or between the trees and the farmhouse. Fortunately I managed to win the choice of table edge, and slapped the Cannon on the hill overlooking the Crossbowmen. The cannon had a view over both channels and the crossbowmen were placed to pick off the charge past the pond (how heroic!). I put my small unit of Knights to their left to help out as it was highly likely the crossbowmen would get overrun if a unit of Chaos Warriors were charging up that channel. The rest or the army would naturally line up to the right of the hill. The Flagellants were placed further forward to invite the charge past the farmhouse (this is starting to sound like something out of Animal Farm, how apt!). The Pistoliers were positioned out on the far right so they could nip between the farm and bother the Chaotic's from the rear.

LCM - The terrain wasn't looking so nice for me, with 2 obvious killing fields overlooked by a hill. Sims may be ancient but it'd be a dark miracle if there wasn't a cannon on that hill. Naturally I placed my Chaos Warriors as far away from the hill as possible. One with the intention of sweeping past the left of the farmhouse, and the General’s unit to cut the other the side. The presence of my Hero in this unit would provide his Leadership to the fragile Warhounds and the Marauders, who's job was to act as a human shield. If everything went to plan I'd be crushing the Empire under my mailed fist by teatime.

LCM - CHARGE!

SiS - So the heroic charge past the duck pond was ignored. However a rather exciting charge past the farm was building momentum after my nephew's first turn. Piling the force on the right meant my Pistoliers were looking rather nervously at a frenzied unit of Chaos Warriors, gulp. The original plan to sneak around the back was right out of the window now so I moved them over to hopefully pepper the Chaos General's unit before they charged. My ignorance of the new rules meant I'd placed my Crossbowmen out in a thin line rather than in 2 ranks. In my day only the front rank could fire, however this broader front meant the Marauders were in arc of vision without them having to also turn around. However when bending down to get a model's eye view I noticed that one of the trees obscured the view of almost half of my crossbowmen so they had to restrain themselves from letting rip and instead settled for repositioning to get a shot in next turn (and ducking). This meant I also had to jog my Knights forward. I was rather surprised to learn that there was no movement modifier for their full plate armour and shield. That would have cost me an inch in the old days (ooh err!). This seems rather ridiculous but then I don't make the rules, and it's to my benefit!

The final task was to unleash my cannon. Unfortunately, and I'm sure quite deliberately, the warhounds obscured the view of the General's Chaotics. However this provided an opportunity to cause maximum carnage, assuming I managed to guess the distance and get lucky with this new fangled artillery dice (we didn't have those in my blah, blah, blah...). Taking into account the approximate distances between the armies when they set up, and the extent of my own disposition, followed by a canny bit of Pythagoras on my calculator I declared I was going to fire 36". My cheeky little cousin found this all rather amusing and informed me that I just had to mark where I wanted to drop the ball! As it happens this was just as well as my calculations appeared to have gone awry somewhere down the line and I'd have seen the cannon ball fly harmlessly over the top of the Chaos Warriors. Humph! I dropped the cannonball just short of the warhounds and watched as I managed to roll just enough to cut through 2 of them before landing at the feet of one of the Chaos Warriors, who I expect said a little prayer to his terrible god. The Warhounds passed their Ld test so that was that for the turn.

LCM - Well that could have been worse! Still Uncle Sims managed to make it entertaining by getting his calculator out for firing his cannon, and then completely misjudging the distance, bless him! The left flank continued their marathon march reaching the trees. I was starting to get the impression that they were going to achieve absolutely nothing but there was precious little else for them to do. The rest of the army trudged forward. There was the enticing prospect of charging the Flagellants next turn, which from the game's point of view wasn't great, but from Khorne's point of view would be a fantastic bloodfest as I cut those fanatical madmen down.

SiS - Unsurprisingly the relentless surge forward continued. My second minor botch up occurred when I realised that the Chaos Warriors were too far away for the pistoliers to shoot them this turn. Maybe next turn! I was briefly tempted to move forward to be sure to get a shot away this turn, but knowing my luck I'd probably end up in charge range of them and get cut to pieces so I refrained from any movement there this turn. The Knights moved forward with the intent to charge forward next turn into the juicy flank of the Marauders. Firstly though a bit of crossbow fire. Inevitably as I lined up the Marauders I found that they were 16" away from the crossbowmen so I'd miss out on the bonus of shooting at half range, which proved vital, tut. Meanwhile the cannonball managed to overshoot the Chaos Hounds before ploughing into the Chaos Warriors. Miraculously of the 3 struck, only one was wounded! My plan of cutting the Chaos horde down to size as they charged across the table was running out of time!

LCM - Well it was slightly difficult to hide my smirk after that. Yes the Knights were set up for a nasty charge into the flank of my Marauders but that could easily be avoided, with the remainder of his army powerless to quickly come to the Knights assistance. Anyway first thing first was to continue the depressingly slow flanking manoeuvre from the 2^nd Chaos Warrior unit. The General's unit was clearly too far away to charge still but they would be in range of a charge from the Flagellants next turn. I decided to charge the warhounds into the Flagellants as their missile screening duties were pretty much complete and they had little else to do. The Marauders wheeled to face the Knights. This left them vulnerable to the flank but their main threat was the Knights after all and they'd distract attention from the Chaos Warriors. Now the carnage was to begin.

SiS - So having finished his moving my little cheeky nephew asked me to sort out my Flagellants. I was blissfully sitting back and relaxed so I was slightly perplexed. I pulled out the rulebook to see what he was talking about. Oh the "End is Nigh". Humph. Still nothing actually happened as a result of this so I was disturbed for nothing.

LCM - Poor old Uncle Sims wasn't aware of the tinkering the Flagellants had experienced in the 8th edition so that was a brief interlude, which didn't actually have an end product. There'd been a disappointing lack of blood for the Blood God so far! The Warhounds managed to get us going in the right direction savaging 3 of the Flagellants. However unfortunately the crazies wiped out my poor little doggies with their flails.

SiS - Well approaching the midpoint of the battle and it seemed that things weren't going that badly, in that I'd managed not to fight any Chaos Warriors yet. I was slightly tempted to attempt to tie them up with a charge from the Flagellants, but I decided discretion was the better part of valour and sat back and waited for the inevitable, as this would give me an extra turn to unleash all my missile troops at them. The Marauders were a different matter however. I fancied a nice charge from the Knights should be enough to see them off so I went to it!

The Cannon struck again, along with my bad fortune as 2 of the 4 Chaos Warriors hit managed not to be wounded! The crossbowmen contrived to kill nobody, and the pistoliers failed to manage 1 hit from 10 shots! I suppose given how this was panning out I was glad the Flagellants didn't charge and get cut to pieces.... Still someone found this all highly amusing as I poured dice ineffectually at them.

So on to the Knights, and a bit of a shock for me. I'd not really been concentrating when the Warhounds fought the Flagellants. The Warhounds charged, attacked and I fought back. However as I readied to nail the Marauders my cheeky little nephew stopped me and revealed 3 important facts:

1) Just because my Knights charged in their inferior Initiative meant I'd attack second. What they were doing with an I less than a warrior who cost 4 points. Oh the injustice. But then it got worse...

2) My cheeky little nephew rolled a load of dice for his second rank as well. While in the cold light of day after the game this makes sense I suppose, I was quite annoyed at the time. Still serves me right for not really reading the rulebook I suppose!

3) Oh yes the third fact was the Marauders having a higher initiative, but that got a bit caught up in the charge. It was still annoying enough to warrant it's own separate entry I thought!

Still in keeping with the rest of the game the Marauders failed to kill anyone, with only 2 wounds requiring saving. By contrast the heroic charge managed to kill 3 of the wild warriors from the north, including the champion. The Knights won the combat 4-1. I thought it was actually 4-2 but I was "schooled" by my little simian nephew that ranks now needed to be 5 models wide not 4 as I'd vaguely remembered. Whatever next! Well whatever next was the steadfast rule which meant despite my heroic and crushing charge the fact that the Marauders had an extra complete rank, to my none, meant that they used their unmodified leadership rather than the depleted version. Rolling the inevitable 6, presumably just to spite me, the Marauders held their ground.

LCM - Poor old Uncle Sims. Between ineffectual shooting and unfamiliar rules the last turn didn't go so well for him. For my part the inevitable trudging around the farmhouse was the first order of business for my 2^nd Chaos Warriors. Between the likelihood of Sim's pistoliers simply running away and the General's CWs wiping out the Flagellants I would be highly surprised if they were going to achieve anything by the end of the day, humph. In the middle however the excitement was beginning. The General's Chaos Warriors charged into the Flags. Amusingly 2 of them killed themselves, correctly predicting that the end was nigh. Fortunately this only drove them into a Fanatical Fury, so they'd only reroll missed hits, rather than gain extra toughness. This scarcely mattered though as the fell frenzied halberds of the Warriors hacked down 14 of the Empire loonies, leaving one who was incapable of fighting back, but also of breaking. Would giving the General an extra hand weapon have been sufficient to finish them off given he's already strength 5? Well maybe but I prefer having the halberd for those extra tough opponents.

The Marauders managed to kill one of the Knights, who in turn managed to kill 2 of my men in return. The combat ended in a tie.

SiS - Well the Flagellant's survival at least held up the Chaos Warriors briefly. The awesome display of slaughter was rather off putting and I'm fairly sure neither the Spearmen or Swordsmen fancied having a go at the Chaos Warriors. Certainly in real life I wouldn't send troops in without an expectation of them surviving. However in real life we were supposed to be defending a town, which would be put to the sword along with us if we just dropped our weapons and fled as fast as our little legs could carry us. So with this rather stark example of Hobson's Choice presented to them the Spearmen charged the Chaos Warriors and the Swordsmen manoeuvred to hopefully charge them in the flank (LCM - fat chance!). The pistoliers, in a fine example of solidarity (or foolishness given that on their horses they'd be over the hills and far away given half a chance!) charged the flank of the General's Chaos Warriors.

As a prelude to the inevitable disappointment of the rest of the turn the cannon managed to kill 2 of the Chaos Warriors who'd only just turned the corner of the farm.

Firstly the simple battle between the Marauders (I4 indeed!) and the Knights kicked off, although no one managed to kill anybody so it kicked off a bit like a scuffle in a pub on a Friday night. This was too much for the Knights and they broke due to the Marauders rank bonus. Fortunately despite the Marauders having a superior initiative they didn't see this coming and the mounted Knights managed to out run them.

The main combat started with the General slaying the remaining Flagellant twice! 2 spearmen were killed, while 3 pistoliers bought it. Not quite the carnage I was expecting. However in the following 5 minutes it took to work out exactly how to establish the combat result, it quickly became apparent that my flank charge wasn't enough to "disrupt" the Chaos Warriors rank bonus (which is only fair I suppose, it's not as if it actually bothered them as all!). Anyway the upshot was the empire had been well beaten 9-5. This was quite enough for the Pistoliers, who hadn't been keen on attacking in the first place and they fled a mammoth 3"! The skittish Spearmen showed them how it was done, sprinting 9” and showing the pursuing Chaos Warriors a clean pair of heels. Given their proximity to the edge of the table, and the tempting rear (ooh err) being presented to the Chaos Warriors, I fully anticipated not seeing them when my next move came around. The final insult would have been the Swordsmen fleeing but they bravely decided to stick around while the world collapsed around them.

LCM - Well that combat phase may have had less bloodshed, but it seemed to have fairly decisively turned the tables in Khorne's favour. The General's Chaos Warriors were faced with the pasty rumps of the Spearmen and charged forward wiping them out. Similarly the Marauders were only 4" off the Knights so it would have been rude not to charge and they wiped out their heavily armoured foes. Lastly the Chaos Warriors couldn't resist attempting to charge the Pistoliers. However they fell 2" short so bumbled forward even more slowly than they had previously!

SiS - Oh dear. Well on the bright side the 2 surviving Pistoliers hadn't been wiped out yet. I reformed the Swordsmen to charge the Marauders and readied the Cannon to attempt to assassinate the Chaos General.

Finally the Crossbowmen managed something, cutting down 4 Marauders. The Pistoliers continued their feeble performance failing to kill any of the frenzied Warriors facing them. However this poor luck didn't completely carry to the Cannon which managed to scythe the ball through the Warriors, hitting 5, including the general, but only killing 3 thanks to the Look Out Sir rule.

LCM - Well the General's Chaos Warriors were pretty much useless so they turned to face the Cannon, no need to provide a deep formation to it. However it occurred to me that there was no need for the General to remain idle so I charged him off into the rear of the Swordsmen. The Marauders decided that this distraction would provide them with an opportunity to take revenge on the Crossbowmen so they charged into them, or at least half of them.

My General decided that being a pain in the behind wasn't sufficient mischief and challenged the Empire General, who was rather reluctantly pushed to the front by his men, in the hope that they could use his leadership in the inevitable break test. Fortunately his sacrifice was not in vain as although the Swordsmen lost the combat they managed not to break.

Lastly the Chaos Warriors over by the Pistoliers finally managed to get into combat. The Pistoliers stood and shot ineffectually before being cut to pieces.

SiS - Hmm, well not much left to do here unfortunately. The Crossbowmen failed to rally and galloped off as fast as they could. The Cannon's ball failed to bounce. The last act in this farce was the Swordsmen managing to put up a bit of a fight with the General, parrying 2 of his killing blows and restricting the fatalities to 2, while managing 2 wounds of their own, which were turned by his vile Chaotic Armour. The rank bonus and Standard meant the Swordsmen actually won the combat 4-2, which saw the fickle General flee! Presumably to the safety of one of the Chaos Warrior units at large on the battlefield. An unexpected high point to finish a disappointing battle.

The Report is Copyright (c) 2009 Simius Sapiens. All rights reserved.
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Built with Battle Chronicler

Battle 1 - Who's a Cheeky Monkey?

Dear Old Uncle Sims has asked me to give him a game of WFB, GREAT! Wise Chimp has promised that Sims won’t be reading this till after the game so I don’t have to worry about giving my secrets away. Why he wanted to take on a Chaos army after so long out in the wilderness is anyone’s guess, I suppose he thinks I’ll be less of a challenge than some other members of our extended family. Well that’s where he’s going to be in for a shock! I may be a little cheeky monkey but on the other hand I’m a Little Cheeky Monkey :)

When I was an even littler cheeky monkey I read some of Uncle Sims old White Dwarf magazines, and one of the issues I really remember was 123, which had a battle report between a Chaos army and an Orcy army, called the Clash of Evil. It was a great ad for WFB and I was really keen on the Chaos Marauders which was basically a unit of champions! I also remembered playing Uncle Sims at Battlemasters and the figures in that gave me a good basis for my own Chaos Army. Unfortunately with updates in the rules I’ve had to shed my Beastmen and concentrate purely on a Chaos Warrior force.

1,000 pts doesn’t give me much to play with and I won’t be able to field a Chaos Lord, which is a bit disappointing! My Chaos army has built up from a small collection of Warriors and I want to make that the core of the force I’ll be fielding today. Sim’s is quite conservative so I’ll give him a shock with a bit of a leftfield army, literally! I’ll use 2 blocks of 20 Khorne Chaos Warriors as my core with Halberds. Frenzied S5 attacks can’t really be turned down! 1 unit will have a bog standard hero equally armed as the General, I can't afford 2 unfortunately. I’ll finish off with a unit of Marauders (not quite in the same league as the class of WD 123) and some Chaos Hounds. This is basically a powerful raiding party looking to punch a big hole in the local Imperial defence force before plundering the town beyond and burning it to the ground. I’ll sit the army tight to the table edge and put the Marauders and Chaos Hounds on the exposed flank to take the heat from the missile troops Sims will be fielding. Hopefully by the time they’ve been destroyed I’ll have the Warriors in position to roll up Sims’ battle line. Whatever happens there’ll be plenty of Blood for the Blood God!

Battle 1 - The General's Preparation

Prior to the first game the Wise Chimp had requested that I explain myself, or at least the army I ended up choosing! Our first battle will be a skirmish with only a thousand points on each side. Given my lack of familiarity with the latest edition we've agreed a few omissions to keep things simple:

i) No magic - Obviously experienced Warhammer players know how important magic is in Warhammer battles but we decided that as I'm a bit out of touch with how the magic system works then we'll let me off having to learn a new magic system just yet. My cheeky little nephew was quite happy to agree to this, but then I think he prefers Khorne so it's probably beneficial for him!

ii) No special characters - Just as Wayne Rooney is rarely seen in my local park running rings about the local pub team, so I don't expect mighty heroes to be clipping on their armour eagerly in anticipation of a scuffle in a small village. Well maybe Khorne heroes, but anyway we agreed no special characters. I'm not a big fan of these fancy dan characters, we didn't have their sort in my day...

So it's time to put an army together. For the time being I'm reduced to borrowing a cousin's copy of the Empire Army Book and skip through it. An initial impression is that it's a lot simpler than the old version I'm used to and has a bit more variety of special troops, although not having foot knights is disappointing. I suppose the Greatswords Regiment goes some way to making up for that and I've ordered some although they're not in any condition to take part in this first skirmish!

I'd pretty much decided that I'd have to base my little force around my current collection, the bulk of which is from the old Battle Masters game, so in many ways the army picks itself. I'm intending to field as many units as possible and swamp the more expensive Chaos army. I chose a block of 20 spearmen (modified halberdiers) and 20 swordsmen to do the bulk of the nitty gritty fighting. I like a couple of reasonably sized blocks like this as they'll have to do the bulk of the fighting in most games, and these have the ability to take a bit of damage and still have a few chaps standing. The halberdiers miss out, despite their better strength, due to the spears being able to attack in 2 ranks, and the swordsmen having a much better save. To help out these units I picked 10 crossbowmen and a cannon (great!) to soften up the inevitable blocks of infantry I'll be facing. I prefer the crossbow over the bow because of its longer range and greater strength. The lack of mobility isn't really an issue as I want these units to sit in the middle of my battle line and pepper the opposition as the come over the table. I'll take a Flagellants unit to cover one flank while a small unit of Imperial Knights will shore up the other. I love fielding large units of Knights despite their large cost for the Empire, and there's nothing that stirs the blood in an old soldier than a charge into the enemy with lances down! A small unit such as this is only really useful for protecting the bigger units from flanking and for charging into the flank itself, very disappointing, but I still can't resist them! I'll also take a unit of Pistoliers (or at least I'm borrowing them!) as I like a unit of fast cavalry to outflank the enemy and deal with any war machines/missile troops (obviously not an issue in this case!). I'll beef up the big units with heroes and take a third hero for the Knights. It's a very defensive army and I'm hopefully that it gives me sufficient firepower and infantry grunt, we'll see...

Introduction

So recently I've had a bit of free time, after a series of campaigns, and decided to dig out my old Warhammer books and maybe have a game or two. Imagine my surprise when I visited Games Workshop's website to see that Warhammer Fantasy is now in it's 8th edition! I quickly put my ancient Warhammer tomes back into my old campaign trunk and set out to update myself. Fortunately in my position I have a few friends who have had the time to keep up their interest and had a few army books plus the current version of the rules. A quick look through revealed no earth shattering changes, but I thought the best way to refresh my memory was to get stuck right into it with some simple games. I've decided to keep track of this return to the Warhammer world online so that I can enthrall people with my military genius (hmm) and get feedback when SNAFUs occur! I'll be looking to include a battle report a week and I've stumbled across an excellent program for producing professional looking online battle reports. It's called Battle Chronicler and can be downloaded from the website below:

To start off easily I'll be pitting my Empire army against my nephew's Chaos army later this week. He's just a little cheeky monkey but these youngsters do like the anarchy of Chaos!