Had an interesting 600 point game of warhammer this saturday past.
Borrowed some of my friend Jonah's night goblins to play against anothers lizardmen, to get my first taste of fielding the little blighters.
I lost, but it was fun.
My opponent, James, used a unit of 20 saurus warriors with an oldblood in them, 2 units of 10 skink skirmishers and a level 2 caster skink priest.
I used the following; 3 x night goblin shamans = 150, 60 x night goblin spearmen inc full command with 3 night goblin fanatics = 285, 20 x night goblin archers inc full command with 3 night goblin fanatics = 165.
We played on a 4x4ft set of realm of battle with some forests, rocks and hills, deciding to leave them as difficult terrain but not bother rolling up what they were, just leave them as simple innocent hills, trees and rocky outcrops.
Just after setting up forces realised I hadn't rolled up spells for the shamans. At this point I discovered that the little waaagh that goblins use is a very mixed bag of powers... I rolled up gift of the spider god twice for the two in the spearmen unit so took the default sneaky stabbing for one of them and rolled up nightshroud for the third in the archer unit.
I didn't get round to reading exactly what the other powers did, but would have preferred something a bit more explosive/ranged damage causing...
(I really should have brought my chaos dwarves with me, but at the time I left home to meet up with people at Jonah and Micki's house I wasn't in a wargaming mood, and just wanted to hang around, as everyone else did whatever they chose to, instead of the cyberpunk game that wasn't running, as the GM was doing some work training and another friend involved in that game was also ill.)
I got the first turn, marched the archers forward to better get them in range for turn two, with the spearmen taking it a little slower behind them. Managed to cast the night shroud spell giving the two units the effect of bieng in soft cover, which seemed a good idea as I hadn't a clue as to what the range of the skinks blowpipes was at the time (quite short it turns out, though I cant remember what? maybe 10"-12"?)
James first turn he moved the skink priest a teeny bit forward, the two skirmisher units along the edge of the board towards my spearmen and his saurus towards my archers. Luckily for me his spells didn't work (can't remember if he rolled badly or if I dispelled them).
Turn two.
I advance both units forward, casting night shroud on both and sneaky stabbin on the archers which helps them take out a saurus warrior in the shooting phase, yes, just the one unluckily for me. I discovered in this game that saurus are rather tough and scary creatures...
Its at this point that james declares his saurus charge my archers... Luckily the dice mean he falls short, but I realise the archers are in way of my goblin spearmen from trying to charge at the saurus next turn, which rather sucked.
The skink skirmishers progress towards the spearmen and the shaman, unfortunately for him, is again denied the powers of the winds of magic.
In the third turn... things decidedly start to not go so well for me...
I manage to reform and move the archers out of the spearmen units way... But I blame the sudden shock of seeing what they were about to run at, for why I ended up on being able to move them 2"... ("ere lads! lets get em" *archers leg it out of way* *momentary silence* "err. boss. there a bit big arnt they..." *unit slows to a halt*)
I fail to cast night shroud, but manage to cast the poisoned weapon spell on the archers... Which I hope helps them in the coming violence I feel will come in James' half of the turn...
With the roar/snarl/hiss of 20 large angry lizards charging into their left flank... I feel very worried for my archers...
(you may notice a lack of whirling fungus fueled death at this point... but after realising I hadn't released them when the saurus came into trigger range I felt it would be cheating on my part as I like the idealogy of, if you forget to do it in the phase it should have happened in, well tough. so the fanatics in the archer unit are assumed to have had a few too many pints of fungus brew and were just getting dragged around by their ankles)
It was this realisation that made me check the distances of things and found out the charging saurus had gotten within range of the fanatics in the spearmen unit. Two of them stopped short of the saurus, another bounced through a unit of skinks squishing one.
Across the way the skink priest moves another small fraction forward and the skinks close in on my spearmen.
The priest manages to blast away a couple of goblins and a fanatic with chain lightning. Followed in the shooting phase by an insignificant lot of rolling for the skinks blowpipes.
In the combat phase, the oldblood challenges the unit... I throw the champion at him (not literally, well maybe the shaman did, 'better im than me' etc) we resolve the challenge first... The champion flails pathetically at the big lizard before getting squished into a greenish red blob.
The rest of the unit doesn't fare well either... With 13 points of difference I fail to roll snake eyes for leadership and the mad horde trips over its-self trying to flee moving a pathetic few inches before getting ran down.
Soo. Turn four!
The fanatic that leapt through the skinks ran into a wall (*splat* *pow* etc) The remaining fanatic near the spearmen and saurus, sort of wandered about aimlessly for a short distance.
Another failed charge and the foreboding sets in. I manage to cast the armour piercing spell. yay!
Aaand am then charged by the now warmed up saurus...
The priest zaps the last remaining fanatic. The skinks get in closer...
A bloody, violent, squishy combat ensues. The champion of the spearmen goes down predictably quickly in the challenge that the oldblood calls. but miraculously its a draw...
Now at turn 5 I have no particular belief in turning this game around,
My magic phase fails me on the armour piercing front, but the unit does gain poison attacks
somehow flukily I manage to beat the lizardmen by a miniscule difference. Though one of my sorcerers gets cutdown in the oldbloods challenge, they pass their leadership.
This turn around, james' skinks charge my flank, the skink priest takes out five goblins before combat begins I lose by a ridiculous amount...
The goblins leg it towards the left hand side of the board with the lizardmen in pursuit.
Turn 6 was a very short one...
The shaman managed to rally the remainder of the spearmen unit (at this point down to around 30 goblins...) failing to cast his spell, the goblin shaman shoves his way to the back of the unit as the saurus charge in with the old blood challenging him... This turns out to be a massacre. the goblins turn to run, and the saurus warriors cut them down...
We didn't actually sort out victory points due to the minimal casualties james' lizardmen suffered versus the total annhilation of mine.
For my force I shall definitely be adding an orc shaman.
It was a fun game, and has helped me learn a little more about both forces. saurus warriors are scarily hard and goblins aren't being the simple one.
Looking forward to getting my force sorted out.
Hope you are having fun, Jess.
Borrowed some of my friend Jonah's night goblins to play against anothers lizardmen, to get my first taste of fielding the little blighters.
I lost, but it was fun.
My opponent, James, used a unit of 20 saurus warriors with an oldblood in them, 2 units of 10 skink skirmishers and a level 2 caster skink priest.
I used the following; 3 x night goblin shamans = 150, 60 x night goblin spearmen inc full command with 3 night goblin fanatics = 285, 20 x night goblin archers inc full command with 3 night goblin fanatics = 165.
We played on a 4x4ft set of realm of battle with some forests, rocks and hills, deciding to leave them as difficult terrain but not bother rolling up what they were, just leave them as simple innocent hills, trees and rocky outcrops.
(Image of set-up)
Just after setting up forces realised I hadn't rolled up spells for the shamans. At this point I discovered that the little waaagh that goblins use is a very mixed bag of powers... I rolled up gift of the spider god twice for the two in the spearmen unit so took the default sneaky stabbing for one of them and rolled up nightshroud for the third in the archer unit.
I didn't get round to reading exactly what the other powers did, but would have preferred something a bit more explosive/ranged damage causing...
(I really should have brought my chaos dwarves with me, but at the time I left home to meet up with people at Jonah and Micki's house I wasn't in a wargaming mood, and just wanted to hang around, as everyone else did whatever they chose to, instead of the cyberpunk game that wasn't running, as the GM was doing some work training and another friend involved in that game was also ill.)
I got the first turn, marched the archers forward to better get them in range for turn two, with the spearmen taking it a little slower behind them. Managed to cast the night shroud spell giving the two units the effect of bieng in soft cover, which seemed a good idea as I hadn't a clue as to what the range of the skinks blowpipes was at the time (quite short it turns out, though I cant remember what? maybe 10"-12"?)
James first turn he moved the skink priest a teeny bit forward, the two skirmisher units along the edge of the board towards my spearmen and his saurus towards my archers. Luckily for me his spells didn't work (can't remember if he rolled badly or if I dispelled them).
(Image - end turn 1)
Turn two.
I advance both units forward, casting night shroud on both and sneaky stabbin on the archers which helps them take out a saurus warrior in the shooting phase, yes, just the one unluckily for me. I discovered in this game that saurus are rather tough and scary creatures...
Its at this point that james declares his saurus charge my archers... Luckily the dice mean he falls short, but I realise the archers are in way of my goblin spearmen from trying to charge at the saurus next turn, which rather sucked.
The skink skirmishers progress towards the spearmen and the shaman, unfortunately for him, is again denied the powers of the winds of magic.
(Image - end turn 2)
In the third turn... things decidedly start to not go so well for me...
I manage to reform and move the archers out of the spearmen units way... But I blame the sudden shock of seeing what they were about to run at, for why I ended up on being able to move them 2"... ("ere lads! lets get em" *archers leg it out of way* *momentary silence* "err. boss. there a bit big arnt they..." *unit slows to a halt*)
I fail to cast night shroud, but manage to cast the poisoned weapon spell on the archers... Which I hope helps them in the coming violence I feel will come in James' half of the turn...
With the roar/snarl/hiss of 20 large angry lizards charging into their left flank... I feel very worried for my archers...
(you may notice a lack of whirling fungus fueled death at this point... but after realising I hadn't released them when the saurus came into trigger range I felt it would be cheating on my part as I like the idealogy of, if you forget to do it in the phase it should have happened in, well tough. so the fanatics in the archer unit are assumed to have had a few too many pints of fungus brew and were just getting dragged around by their ankles)
It was this realisation that made me check the distances of things and found out the charging saurus had gotten within range of the fanatics in the spearmen unit. Two of them stopped short of the saurus, another bounced through a unit of skinks squishing one.
Across the way the skink priest moves another small fraction forward and the skinks close in on my spearmen.
The priest manages to blast away a couple of goblins and a fanatic with chain lightning. Followed in the shooting phase by an insignificant lot of rolling for the skinks blowpipes.
In the combat phase, the oldblood challenges the unit... I throw the champion at him (not literally, well maybe the shaman did, 'better im than me' etc) we resolve the challenge first... The champion flails pathetically at the big lizard before getting squished into a greenish red blob.
The rest of the unit doesn't fare well either... With 13 points of difference I fail to roll snake eyes for leadership and the mad horde trips over its-self trying to flee moving a pathetic few inches before getting ran down.
(Image - end turn 3)
Soo. Turn four!
The fanatic that leapt through the skinks ran into a wall (*splat* *pow* etc) The remaining fanatic near the spearmen and saurus, sort of wandered about aimlessly for a short distance.
Another failed charge and the foreboding sets in. I manage to cast the armour piercing spell. yay!
Aaand am then charged by the now warmed up saurus...
The priest zaps the last remaining fanatic. The skinks get in closer...
A bloody, violent, squishy combat ensues. The champion of the spearmen goes down predictably quickly in the challenge that the oldblood calls. but miraculously its a draw...
(Image - end turn 4)
Now at turn 5 I have no particular belief in turning this game around,
My magic phase fails me on the armour piercing front, but the unit does gain poison attacks
somehow flukily I manage to beat the lizardmen by a miniscule difference. Though one of my sorcerers gets cutdown in the oldbloods challenge, they pass their leadership.
This turn around, james' skinks charge my flank, the skink priest takes out five goblins before combat begins I lose by a ridiculous amount...
(Image - before combat, turn 5)
The goblins leg it towards the left hand side of the board with the lizardmen in pursuit.
(Image - after combat, turn 5)
Turn 6 was a very short one...
The shaman managed to rally the remainder of the spearmen unit (at this point down to around 30 goblins...) failing to cast his spell, the goblin shaman shoves his way to the back of the unit as the saurus charge in with the old blood challenging him... This turns out to be a massacre. the goblins turn to run, and the saurus warriors cut them down...
(Image - end turn 6)
We didn't actually sort out victory points due to the minimal casualties james' lizardmen suffered versus the total annhilation of mine.
For my force I shall definitely be adding an orc shaman.
It was a fun game, and has helped me learn a little more about both forces. saurus warriors are scarily hard and goblins aren't being the simple one.
Looking forward to getting my force sorted out.
Hope you are having fun, Jess.
I told you... A Night Goblin only army is tricky...
ReplyDeleteBut when you figure out little tactics they can work really well, as you saw when I played James and wiped out his army and my casualties could be counted on both hands.
When in the right position and working in tandem with other units, they can steamroll over things.
Squigs... Squigs are a must for dedicated Night Goblin army.
yeah... I really need to get some made or cheaply sourced...
Deleteeither that or lots of stone trolls!?