Battle Report-Empire vs Chaos

2250 points- 1/8 @Games Workshop, Oak Park

This game was against my pal Jeff who runs the Oak Park GW shop, Jeff is undefeated winning by massacre after massacre in our current campaign and I knew it was going to be a brutal game. For moral support I had the local crew routing for me and I also met uber painter Tim Lison who's a buddy of jeff's and told me to crush him with no mercy. He also said he thought my army looked "really great" which was very cool of him ( Tim has big fat collection of Golden Demons and Slayer Swords to his credit)

Being this is a Mighty Empires game, There are certain campaign rules in effect skewing things slightly. Given my Map assets and the weeks events, I have the Scouts campaign rule which has my opponent deploy his entire army before I do, then I get 1st turn. That is pretty huge in itself, not to mention I get "Survey the battlefield" as this weeks event - That lets me reorganize the board terrain, after we deploy it, but before we choose sides. On Jeff's side- he had nice amount of extra army points as he gets 100 for being the board leader, he choose to spend 100 gp for additional points, and his campaign event gives him 50 points of magic items for free. The Point totals where really 2250 vs 2500 for Chaos. Given the set up I had about a good a chance as any to beat Jeff, the odds should have been on my side, but I haven't actually played Chaos before so that would undoubtedly come up to bite me.

Army Lists

Empire

General of Empire w/ Griffon
- Full Plate Armor
- Sword of Power
- Enchanted Shield
- Holy Relic

Captain of Empire
-Battle Standard Bearer
-Armor of Metoric Iron
-Sword of Justice

Battle Wizard
-Level 2
-Power Stone
-Von Horstmans Speculum

Warrior Priest
-Heavy Armor
-Shield
-Icon of Magnus

29 Swordsman / Full Command
w/ War Banner (Ancestral heirloom)
-Detachment
10 Free Company
10 Spearmen

10 Handgunners
-Marksman w/ HLR

10 Crossbows
-Musician

12 Knights of the Blazing Sun
-Full Command


2 Great Cannon
5 Pistoliers
14 Greatswords
-Full Command

1 Hellblaster Volley Gun

2250

Chaos Mortals (Undivided)

Chaos General
Sorceror
Battle Standard Bearer
- Banner of the Gods


20 Chaos Warriors
- Full Command

20 Chaos Warriors
- Full Command
- Chosen

30 Marauders
-Full Command
-Great Weapons

10 Marauders
-Hand weapons

10 Marauders
-Hand weapons

5 Chaos Knights
- Full Command
- Chosen

5 Chaos Knights
- Full Command
- Chosen

5 warhounds
5 warhounds
8 Flayer Kin

2500


deployment diagram

Turn 1- Both sides made basic moves advancing, which dictated how the game was going to play out. After my intial moves it was clear that game was going to break down into two separate battles, My Knights, Pistoliers and General, vs His Knights, hounds and flayerkin, and everyone else on the other side of the field. Magic and Shooting phases delivered a couple minor losses to both sides. I ran my pistoliers up the right side hoping take a quick reform at angle and get a volley off so I retreat vs the oncoming charge, setting my knights up for flank charge. Unfortunately, I could rotate properly because of the woods and then I was short on my shot so I couldn't shoot, on Jeff's turn I end up doing a stand and shoot on some hounds to take two kills fail their break test and run off the board. The charging Chaos Knights bear down on my pistoliers take the charge and get obliterated the Chaos Knights overruning right into my Knights and General. (who make their leadership holding firm) Warhounds also charged my knights but where short. The Flayer Kin (who end up being a nightmare for me this game) fail the terror test from my general's griffon and are bogged down in the woods.

Turn2 -
Advancing movement on the left side continues. I had 5 archers ( that I accidently left of the deployment diagram) screening for my main block of troops. I didn't realize Jeff didn't have any shooting period. so my own screeners end up being a huge pain in the ass as I am trying to use them to block some oncoming units while I position my main force. My Greatswords, take the lead charging some Marauders and In CC, they take out half the unit but they pass their break test.. Shooting and Magic from my side wipe out one small unit of Marauders the few survivors go running. I use my power stone too prematurely here to make sure I got my wall of fire off, I did but too little effect, my artillery is barely connecting and not doing much to these big units. The Hellblaster is sitting idle without a target. Close Combat on the right really goes my way...I take break one unit of chaos knights and am locked in with other unit of hounds. My General is nearby waiting. On Jeff's turn he is really rolling horrible, the Fleeing unit of Chaos Knight runs off the board, the other unit of Chaos Knight charges my General but is blocked by my knights so they lock in with them. My Knights hold and destroy the remaining hounds on the counter attack and my General is ready to flank charge the chaos knight.

Turn 3 - Things are looking good for me at this point but quickly go to hell, chaos style. My General flank charges those Chaos Knights who are locked in with my Knights, together we break them, my Knights pursue and run them down and kill them. the dreaded Chaos Knights are out of the game! great! Stupidly however I have my general restrain (I should have kept them all together) allowing those flayerkin to rear charge my general and his griffon thinking I can handle them, which I should have, but I forgot about "killing blow" jeff lands 4 wounds on my general directly, two of which are killing blows. Amazingly I make both my 4+ ward saves, thanks to his holy relic. Now I only have to make 2 regular 2+ armor saves, no big deal right? WRONG I fail both armor saves, then fail both ward saves so I take two wounds, I'm still ok with 3 wounds right? Wrong again! because I let myself get rear charged like a jackass, and take two wounds I lose combat by 1 and so I need to make a breaktest and of course, I fail. I am 6 inches from and facing the edge of board on a Griffon!! see ya!! with the VP bonus for my general..492 points just flys off the board!! During the Greatswords combat, they hack down a bunch more maruaders but can't break them, because this particular unit is stubborn . Shooting and magic do miminal wounds if any in there respective phases.

Jeff's half of turn three is just as nuts. First of all his Chaos Choosen Warriors with his Sorceror charge my Swordsmen because of those stupid archers my Free Company cannot countercharge, and that allows his huge group of marauders to flank charge me, my spearmen got tied up out of position and cant countercharge either so both my detachments dont make this round of CC and I am going to lose my rank bonus, while he is going to get his. I catch a huge break in the magic phase when Jeff's sorceror miscasts, then rolls "snake eyes" on the miscast table. ripping the fabric of time and space killing his sorceror ( almost my BSB) and a few other guys die as well. unfortunately close combat doesnt go so well and I lose combat and fail my break test (twice with my reroll) because the flank charge broke me, I pivot and run to the right 8 inches, of course the Chosen CW, are closer being they were facing me and only need a 4 to run me down, they do of course and I lose my main block with two banners, 26 guys and my BSB..my Free Company panic and run the spearmen hold, what a disaster. With my General and and my main block gone and the corresponding bonus points, Jeff scored 1000 points this round.

Turns 4 and 5

At this point I have 10 knights left alone on the right side of the board alone with the 4 flayer kin All my shooters and artillery are ok and my Greatswords and Warrior priest are locked in combat with the chaos general, the regular chaos warriors and some straggling marauders who just wont die. I should have used my knights to run down those flayer kin and come around to my deployment zone. But again I hold waiting for the chosen who ran down my Swordsmen to advance as they are heading directly toward me. The damn flayer kin flank charge my knights locking them up until I kill them in turn 6 I just couple finish them off, and they end up killing 5 knights! My greatswords stay until the last man,eventually they and my priest fall to the Chaos General. I had one trick up my sleeve here, which instead of making my Battle Wizard the normal scroll caddy, I gave him Von Horstmanns Speculum, hoping to use my Wizard with my
Handgunners as bait and challenge a powerful unit in single combat. It "almost" worked, when my wizard challenge Jeff's general, he figured the game was almost over and maybe I was just screwing around. Then he played it safe and accepted the challenge with the unit champion. Despite the switched statistics- I roll like crap and don't kill the Champion, the rest of the handgunners fold like a house of cards against the chaos troops and they all die. Nice try. The only saving grace these two turns was I had a "wall of fire" up that those Chaos Warriors had to run through to move My Spearmen detachment also won combat against the huge unit of Marauders, but they held and subsequently wiped me out. That did set the Marauders up to face the Hellblaster Volley Gun point blank, I roll two "10"s then a misfire which is a "1" Kaboom!., it blows up but I get 20 shots landing 10 kills leaving the unit with 8 troops left.

Turn 6

My knights finished off those flayerkin but with 5 guys left, don't stand a prayer against 17 choosen, so I run back to my right table quarter to score with a captured standard from one of the units of chaos knights., After killing my crossbowmen as well in turn 5 Jeff's remaining Marauders take out one of my cannon, but the other one Grapeshots the crap out of him leaving only his BSB and standardbearer alive. It doesnt matter as those two manage to spike my last cannon. speaking of cannons I rolled very few misfires this game only two total with three pieces of artillery, i had two rounds of open fire from both cannons on those chosen and could only kill one guy because despite accurate guessing, I kept rolling "10"s on my first artillery die...instead of when I needed it on the bounce. Oh well. In the end all that was left on the table for me where. 5 Knights and 3 archers, while Jeff have 17 chosen Chaos Warriors, His General, 9 regular Chaos Warriors, His BSB and 1 Marauder Standard Bearer. Jeff picked up 2 table Quarters, 2 Standards, and killed my general so a bonus 500 to him and I got one table quarter and one standard so 200 to me. despite the only 21 unit difference in survivors with the extra points the score was 2572 to 1540, so +1032 to Jeff and a Solid Victory!
Congrats to Jeff, I take solace in not being massacred but it was still only 168 points shy, Until next time!


Turn 2- before my knights get into it with the second group
of Chaos Knights and their hounds



Turn 3, here you can see how my main force is out of formation, and blocked by my own troops and being charged by 50 enemy troops, textbook example of what NOT to do with your Empire troops.


Turn 3, If they just could have survived this one round of CC, I could gotten those spearmen in there and even the odds, C'est la vie!