The trials and challenges of Count Charles De Vergy

"Charles De Vegry, Count au Isle de Lyonesse, the grand master of the knights Kathar (of st.Slaar) had gone questing in the lands of Wattonford with naught but his mount, armour and weapons. He had left all his lands and power behind and was risking everything in this war torn province of vampiric power, so that he might claim the hand of his lady. She was the ward of Vyshnevtsky II of Hardenburg and the only way he could attempt to win his patron's approval was to prove his courage in the Sylvanian wastes..."

This was one of the special games held at my local games workshop in the easter holidays. There were three of us playing this game today and we each brought along a monster and a hero from our collection to participate in a LOTR style fantasy battle. The objective was for us to kill as many monsters as possible, so quite simply we each had a hero to slay monsters and a monster to kill other heroes. The player who's hero had killed the most monsters in two hours was the winner. Simple. The players were as follows.

Nordland (Empire)
Grand master with Thunder mace (it changed after game one to wizard lord with power scroll and thunder mace)
Giant (using Orcs and Goblins rules)
Knights Kathar (Bretonnia)
Bretonnian lord on royal pegasus with Giant blade, Enchanted shield, Opal amulet, Pidgeon plucker pendant, Luckstone, Potion of foolhardiness and Warrior bane
Chaos giant with mark of slaanesh (always strikes first giant that can regain wounds... yay)
Wattonford (Vampires - joined in game 3)
Strigoi ghoul king (lazzarus)
Terrorgheist
Tomb kings
Tomb king with great weapon (mounted into chariot after game one)
Tomb scorpion

Leaping down from attop Lazzarus' mighty tower of sorcery, Charles swept from the highest heights upon his heroic mount to crash into the bearded (and icredibly drunk) giant! As de Vegy levelled his lance to face the giant the lance shattered, exploding outwards as the core expanded with enchantment to reveal a mighty club. It was as large as even the mightiest ogres could wield but the knight held it high with ease.

With a great sweep of his giant club, Charles brought it down on the giant's arm, gauging a great chunk of flesh from the behemothic man with one of the metal scraps in the club's side. With that the enraged giant swung down a huge chain at the knight whom had just wounded him so badly.

 But De Vergy spurred his horse quickly out the giant's way, bringing his club straight down in between the giant's shoulder blades. The now enraged giant began to cough blood as it picked itself up from the lake shore. 

The mighty beast rose to its feet screaming and balling like a small child. This sent Charles' horse into flight, but he soon gained control of his mount and crashed back down towards the giant levelling his club at its stomach. Just before impact the club turned back into a lance and pierced straight into the huge creature's belly. It looked stunned for a moment... then it fell backwards into the lake. This most mighty of challenges and slayings earned De vergy great renown and both man and monster fled from him in fear when they saw his questing steed!

The first game was very fun with my knight charging the orcish giant in turn one and slaying it in three roudns of fighting before turning on the tomb scorpion. Unfortunatly the undead construct managed to defeat Charles, though it was on one wound. In turn one I had also charged my Giant into the imperial grand master, the giant had then picked him up and squished him flat. It had then gone on to kill be killed by the tomb scorpion. So far the tally was Bretonnia 1, the rest nil.

Game two was just as fun. My bretonnian lord charged into the tomb scorpion and squished it flat. My chaos giant then went after the empire wizard thumping him with his club before taking out the orcy giant with a chomp followed by a thump. However the Chaos giant then ended its days at the hands of the tomb king. Bretonnia 2, tomb kings 1.

Game three saw the vampire counts enter the game, the tomb scorpion launched itself at de vergy but he slew it and together with both the giants went and ganged up on the terrorgheist. It managed to throw them off a few times before the wizard lord got shouted apart by it. However not before it had taken down the o&g giant. Mr tomb king then chopped up the chaos giant. Bretonnia 3, tomb kings 2, vampire counts 1.

Game four was mixed for me. I did not kill anything and the terrorgheist quick dealt with De vergy while Lazzarus took out the chaos giant. Turn one saw Lazzarus kill the empire wizard, while the tomb kings scorpion managed to take down the other giant, who promptly fell on the scorpion and squished it. The game ended with the terrorgheist blowing the tomb kings head off. Bretonnia 3, tomb kings 2, vampire counts 2 and empire 0.

Quite clearly that meant that killing two tomb scorpions and a massive giant had more than earned De vergy the wright to his lady's hand. (probably an event that owuldn't have occured if they empire had brought along a steam tank... but thats a chariot not a monster so no!)
As I have said many times before CHECK OUT YOUR LOCAL STORES EVENTS!
The next game i having there will eitehr be lotr or a special jousting game (i love these special events)

War in Wattonford: battle of the Scrolls of binding

This was one of those very special games where strange things happen and naught is as it seems. Each player was allowed up to one wizard and three monsters (from their own or the storm of magic rulesbook), in the end it turned out that there were two teams of two wizards and four monsters each guarding an arcane fulcrum. Half way through the game the Daemons (lead by Kairos) entered play from the throne of skulls in the corner.
Having been working the projector and monitors at my church for the easter holiday club all week I was in a bit of a rush to get the bus to my local Games workshop and stupidly forgot my camera (for those of you who have read http://warformiddleearth.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/1912-chinese-campaign-29th-jan-1912.html you will understand why I could not use my phone...), this was a terrible shame as it was an amazingly pretty battle and would have looked great on camera but some pictures of the models we used as wizard generals and some others from previous games with detailed commentory on the battle will have to do (photos from Games Workshop).

The armies were as follows:

From the North they come
Aelfric Cyenwulf, Lvl 4 Chaos Sorcerer lord on disc of tzeentch with channeling staff, power familiar and warrior familiar.
Yoda, Lvl 4 Goblin great shaman with dispel scroll.
Ancient Stegadon
Chaos Giant
Frost dragon
Cygor

The old pact is renewed
Melchior star gazer, Lvl 4 Arch mage
Lvl 4 Liche high priest with dispel scroll
Hell pit abomination
Griffon
Giant
Tomb scorpion

For the glory of Tzeentch
Kairos fate weaver
blood crusher of khorne
blood crusher of khorne

Turn one went to the forces of chaos with Aelfric and the dragon spearheading the attack on the enemy fulcrum from the left while the Giant and Cygor took the right. The Stegadon and Gobbo held back to guard the fulcrum. The magic phase saw the greenskins summon a unit of fifteen "imaginary" orc boyz in the centre facing the skeletal priest on his fulcrum. Aelfric then tried to cast pandemonium (characters may never confer their LD, additionaly any roll of a double automatically miscasts) but the High priest threw up his dispel scroll to parry it, a slightly wasteful use of a dispel scroll so early on especially as it was only cast on an 8+ so could easily be dispelled next turn. Aelfric then cast flickring fire of tzeentch on the hell pit and took it down to two wounds, aslo setting it on fire in the process.

It was then the froces of order's first turn and it started off with the hell pit charging straight into the dragon. Melchior then lept upon the high priest's fulcrum, swapping places with him. The griffon flew round the flanks of the orc boyz and stegadon and the giant (disguised as father christmas) made a strike out for the chaos giant and cygor. In the magic phase they were rather buisy and created an extra fulcrum for the high priest before trying to nulify ours, which brought our greenish dispel scroll.

In the combat the frost dragon accidentaly caught fire from the hell pit and smashed the ratty thing up, such was the ball of flame that it was dead and there was no coming back, the dragon meanwhile took a wound.

Our next turn soon came round and we started drastic action! The frost dragon charged Melchior while the cygor charged into the father christmas giant. The orcs then turned to face the griffon and Aelfric decided to sit in between the opposing fulcrums. In the magic phase we cast pandemonium, and this time no ammount of dispelling could stop it. The rest of my spells were dispelled but the gobbo imbued his stegadon with as many powers as he could. The frost dragon breathed on Melchior and wounded him before failing to wound the dragon, but forstie was forced to step down as he had failed to squish the elf. The cygor then wounded the giant twice, taking but one wound, however it was an eadbutt and he was stunned for a while.

The forces of order then reacted to our assualt, th griffon assailed the chaos giant in the rear while the giant continued to pound the cygor. The magic phase went terribly, forgeting about pandemonium Melchior decided to summon something big (300pts size) but failed to cast and in the process also triggered the pandemonium miscast. The elf suddenly turned into a lvl 3 wizard before his fulcrum sent out a wave of magic turning all four wizards into frogs (the "imaginary" orcs chuckled to themselves that they couldn't tell the differnece in the case of their wizard). This spell apeared to have rather back fired on Tzeentch's sorcerer lord but it drew the magic phase to a swift close.

The christmas giant then smashed a wound off the cygor that was just standing there dazed. The chaos giant then swung his club at the griffon which had wounded him twice, but the griffon dodged it.

Our turn then came round again. The dragon charged back into combat with Melchior while the boyz all went headlong into the rear of the elven griffon as the giant was turning to face it. Aelfric failed his roll and remained a frog on a disc of tzeentch with two puzzeled familiars while the Gobbo managed to change back. So the orcs did a few orcy spells and all was over for that magic phase. The fighting saw the cygor-giant battle continue, while the griffon caused another wound to the giant before it yelled and balled. The griffon fled and the boyz and the chaos giant ran it down, almost hitting the fighting father christmas giant. Next turn the Chaos giant lept into the giant mash up and over two turns managed to smash up the giant, however the cygor was also taken down in the frey. The frost dragon had by now assualted Melchior three or more times and the mage was only on one wound,  but the high priest was in combat with the chaos giant and had just been wounded. However then the Elf cast unbind on my dragon and rolled a 5... This not Dragon's home, dragon go home... oh dear I had lost my dragon. Meanwhile Aelfric had turned back into a "real boy", But before anymore could happen the Daemons arrived.

Kairos fateweaver stepped down from the throne of skulls to cries of "look they are winning help us" from the high priest and "We are all one under Tzeentch" from Aelfric, but the lord of change lost no time in blasting off his spells at everyone, reducing the chaos giant to one wound (from five as he had eaten a bit of the other giant) and the orc boyz to five men. Our turn then came round and we tried to work out how we could counter this. We started with Pandemonium, which cast, before going on to cast infernal gateway at the fate weaver... in away we were so go back the way you came, but we did inflict two wounds on him. The dragon the bit off Melchior's head, however this looked like it might have back fired as Kairos could easily fly onto the pinacle of power and we would all be drawing.

It was then the tomb king's turn and they made quick of triggering pandemonium as the high priest cast the seven sigils of summoning. Gaspar, a lvl 2 high elf mage suddenly appeared on the un occupied fulcrum. The high priest then sent off his miscast, wounding himself and Aelfric before triggering his fulcrum which again leeched power (probably of a long dead bretonnnian maiden) which turned all the wizards (including kairos) into frogs again. The tomb scorpion then appeared next to the greenskin fulcrum.

The game was rapidly coming to an end, but in storm of magic this is the most rapid and exciting part of the game as everyone flings all they have at the fulcrums.

Everyone but the goblin then changed back into themselves and the blood crushers went haring into the remaining orcs and giant who they both slew. The tomb scorpion assualted the goblin mage (or should I say frog) atop our fulcrum not damaging him atall, before the ancient stegadon rear charged it and slew it. Now the elf and the high priest were left without a single servant... so they played dirty. Gaspar managed to nulify our fulcrum putting them 2-0 ahead of everyone. It was then the daemons turn and as always it was pretty nasty... Kairos blasted off a spell at Gaspar and the poor eleven mage threw all three of his dispel dice at the spell (us nasties held onto our four and refused to let them use them). The little elf was balsted into smitherines by the spell before Kairos then tried to cast transgar's transportation (you move to the nearestun occupied fulcrum) on himself but we dispelled it.

One of the blood crushers then squished the High liche priest flat before we put in our master stroke.

It was the last turn, there was little anyone could do to stop us. The goblin was now standing on a working fulcrum while Aelfric  flew up to the orginal elven one upon his disc of Tzeentch, where he pronounced victory in the name of tzeentch and teh Aeslings.

Wow, an incredibly fun game of storm of magic. These  "special" games that the stores hold are always great, and I do encourage everyone to go on Facebook and search their local store's events to see what is on. This also give me an extra 1000 campaign point (I have no idea whether this puts me joint first place with the ogres (who's general was commanding daemons today) or just below), the last storm of magic game was just like this, with myself winning the fulcrum with just seconds to go... but in storm of magic anything can happen and troops really make little difference... so why not go without as we did.

War in Wattonford: Siege of mount Bloodhorn

This was the store's special game: Siege of mount bloodhorn. It was meant to be a siege between two forces fighting over a ghostly garrison... however one of the staff who was meant to be bringing it was unwell and so we had three buildings that counted as objectives, but soon the manager ditched this and turned it into an all out old fashioned Victory points.
One side was composed of 2k of the store's vampire counts plus 750pts of warriors of chaos who arrived in turn 4. Our side was composed of 1k of Tomb kings and 1k of my Warriors of chaos plus 750pts of tomb kings that arrived in turn 4.

Host of Khemri and Slaanesh's chosen
Liche priest
3 chariots
34 skeleton warriors
19 skeleton archers
3 carrion
khemrian warsphinx
Exalted hero Valmir aesling on juggernaut
5 Marauder horse
5 Marauder horse
5 marauder horse
5 chaos knights
Giant
(Liche priest
39 skeleton warriors
6 chariots
tomb scorpion)

Lazzarus Vangheist's Legion of Wattonford and Tzeentch's chosen
Ghoul king Lazzarus Vangheist
Necromancer Scottus II in corpse cart
Necromancer Christofen
40 skeleton warriors
20 crypt ghouls
5 hexwraiths
6 crypt horors
Mortis engine
Terrorgheist
(Tzeentch sorcerer
17 warriors of chaos
5 knights of chaos)

Turn one for the Vampire counts set us back quiet a bit. Their crypt horrors charged my marauders on the left flank, sending them fleeing, whilst the hexwraiths and terrorgheist swapped their positions, which would force my giant and knight to swap as well. The rest of the force advanced.

In our turn one Valmir aesling Charged into the hexwraiths, but sadly the knights failed their charge to support him. The remaining horsemen then manouvered round to face the vampiric flanks with one unit infiltrating enemy lines. My giant, Kholec bone crusher then moved round to try and catch the terrorgheist. The rest of the force simply walked forward.
In our shooting phase the tomb kings opened up with all their bow fire and killed a crypt horror and wounded another.
In the combat Valmir Massacred all the hexwraiths with his sword of battle before overunning straight into the terror gheist's  face (which the manager is gleefully turning to face him).

 In the vampiric turn two the terrorgheist screamed at Valmir aesling, killing the exalted hero. In the magic phase Scottus then raised 6 zombies right in the path of the khemrian warsphinx and Marauder horsemen.

 Our turn three and the Skeletal chariots charged the horde of skeletons, one singling Christoffen out. The Warsphinx and Horsemen then charged into the 6 zombies while their fellows charged the mortis engine. The Giant and the knights then wheeled round onto the vampiric flank.
In the combat the chariots took out 18 of the skeletal horde, also wounding Christoffen twice. The zombies were easily massacred and did no damage themselves, but the mortis engine blasted off it's assailants.
Then the Tzeentchites arrived...

 The vampiric turn four saw the arrival of the forces of Tzeentch from the banks of the river Bloodhorn. Also the Chaos knights suffred a charge from the Terrorgheist. Very quickly all had been popped open by its scream and it was searching for its next victim. That combat then saw the Skeletal horde of Christoffen supported by the flanking ghouls of Lazzarus wipe out the skeletal chariots.
Then it was our turn four. Our Tomb king allies then arrived from behind our forces ready to rebuff the ranks of our dwindling flank. My giant then wheeled to face the rears of both the mortis engine and terrorghiest incase one of them decided to move out the way as they had been doing. The Khemrian warsphinx them charged Lazzarus and his ghouls.
In the combat all four of the tomb guard directed their attacks at lazzarus, one scoring a killing blow and smiting the ghoul king with a well aimed spear thrust. After that the Sphinx then trampled 13 of the ghouls leaving the rest to combat resolution. After that the army started to crumble with a Crypt horror falling dead and the mortis engine and terrorgheist taking a host of wounds each. Not a bad day's work for one sphinx.
And with their turn five came charges! The crypt horrors charged the triumphant warsphinx and the terrorgheist confronted the newly arrived chariots head on!

The superbly converted warsphhinx, i simply love the spears

 In the ensuing combat the crypt horrors easily tore down the warsphinx while the terrorgheist smashed to bits three of the chariots, but took a wound from the charioteers. Also the mortis engine charged into the giant, taking two wounds from the giant's chomp attack.

 It was a game decider for the giant as it took great chunks out of the mortis engine, if it could be killed the vampiric force would start to give way, if not they would have destroyed the entire Slaaneshi host and would become even more powerful as the game went on.

 Our turn five saw the large block of skeleton warriors charge the crypt horror conga line.
In the combat the Giant was in its do or die moments, I rolled a chomp attack... If i could roll a 2 or 3 on a D3 I would have killed the mortis engine, healed my giant to full and possibly saved the game for us. I rolled a 2, but the engine took its regeneration saves and saved one of them... Just one more wound and it would have been dead... However there was still chance! If it failed to wond me I would win combat by one and it would die, but it wounded me once and the combat was drawn.
Over with the "super ghouls" the Skeletons killed one for the loss of only one of their own.

After this the mortis engine used its powers to destroy the giant. To round off the game I can say that the tomb scorpion killed the terrorgheist but not before it has destroyed two chariots, the archers killed Scottus II and his corpse cart and the knights smashed up 72 of the skeleton warriors! Wow!
It was a hard fought game but in the end with two wizards, 32 skeletons, 3 crypt horrors, 5 knights, a mortis engine and all the chaos warriors to only two wizards, a chariot, 19 archers, a tomb scorpion and 3 carrion it was a resounding victory for the legion of Wattonford and Tzeentch.
My force, as always in these big games, had been wiped out.

So after myself and the tomb king's player swearing revenge on the legion of wattonford for our defeats last time we had been defeated yet again