Shimmergloom's 8th Edition Orc and Goblins and Friends: Battle reports.

[Shimmergloom]

Vs WoC 2500pts.

This is the first of 3 tournament games. The scenarios for this were all storm of chaos based. However the tourney organizer, gave an opt out clause since this was determined last minute and a lot of the players there would just be steamrolled by magic heavy armies when they had not prepared for a magic heavy tournament.

But to opt out you had to do so at the start of the tourney and for all scenarios. So you couldn’t say I want to opt out of scenario one, but then play scenario 2. Scenario 1 was making winds of magic 4D6, which I did not like, so I decided to opt out. So by opting out, all my games were just straight up battlelines.

Now for this first game, there is not much for a reader to leran from because there is a few problems here. First he took 3 warshrines, which I should have realized was illegal, but it just never registered with me. 2nd he took a power scroll which was illegal in this tourney. When he declared he was using it, I thought it was illegal and said so, but a couple people around us said that only special characters were banned in this tourney. About 2-3 turns later, we were informed that the power scroll was not allowed. By then it was way too late to do anything about it. The 3rd thing was that he apparently thought this was a 2250pt tourney and not a 2500pt one. So take out the warshrine and the power scroll and suddenly he had several hundred points less for games 2 and 3(I think he just upgraded/proxied his marauders to chaos warriors to make up the points difference).

So because of all that, the result of this game is heavily skewed.

My army is exactly the same as in the ogre battle report. His army was:

1. Sorc lord w/power scroll and 4+ ward, I think this one had the puppet.
2. Sorc level 2, don’t know what he had.
3. Bsb with banner to make frenzy
4. 35 chaos warriors with halberds, shields and 6+ ward mark.
5. 25 or so marauders w/khorne mark and flails.
6. 5 marauder horsemen w/throwing axes.
7. 3 warshrines


On his first turn his shrines give the warriors +1 to armor save, stubborn, 4+ ward to stack with his 6+ ward for a 3+ ward total and +1T.

I already know then the game is pretty much over. There is really nothing in my entire army that can deal with that.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/o...om1x/vscw1.jpg

I'll give a different sort of synopsis for the rest of this battle. I'll post pics of the battle at the end.

My boars destroy his marauders, but I lose 9 boars in that fight. His power scroll purple sun kills 7 night goblins and 34 orcs in one blow. This changes even the little that I can do, since I was trying to set up night goblins to his front, orcs in one flank and savages in his other flank or rear and try and grind him down. But now that my orcs were combat ineffective, they just charge a warshrine, which breaks but gets away.

I move my savages through a building but then roll double 6’s for eadbutt. I roll a 6 on the miscast chart which he changes to a 4. I kill 4 or 5 savages and do a wound to my shaman, but my shaman survives. I then get my hand of gork off so I can set up a rear charge on his warriors which are tearing into my night goblins(along with one of his warshrines), but I roll IF again, which he is able to change to a 4 again. This time I kill more savages and my great shaman disappears into the warp.

To add insult to injury, by one night goblin, my gobbos lose steadfast and are run down when they break. In his turn he’s able to turn to face my savages, so now I would be facing a frontal charge against 34(I have managed to kill a grand total of 1 chaos warrior with 2 manglers and 100 night goblins + 3 gobbo characters fighting them) chaos warriors, sorc lord, bsb and sorc lvl 2.

So I don’t bother charging, we then find out that power scroll is banned, so he says just put the dead orcs back, this is nice, but the game is too changed by now for that to matter. He then purple sun’s them again, killing 25 this time.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/o...om1x/vscw2.jpg

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/o...1x/vscw2v2.jpg

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/o...1x/vscw3v3.jpg

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/o...1x/vscw4v4.jpg

At the end I do charge my savages, but I look it over and I concede since I cannot conceivably do anything to those chaos warriors, who will likely kill most of my savages before I can even strike.

Horrible loss. If I had really thought I had a chance to win the tourney, I would have probably asked for a draw once it was determined that the power scroll was banned, because that forced me to change my entire plan. Also the 3 shrine powers made it near impossible for me to do anything to the warriors. I cannot believe that they allow 3+ wards on chaos warriors. No core unit should have a ward that good. Sometimes I think the 5+ ward on my savages is pushing it, but at least they have no armor and animosity to balance it out.

The next game is vs another interesting Greenskin army. It was probably the most fun game I've had in 8th, probably because magic played almost no part in it.

[Dungeon_Lawyer]

Tough loss to a very tough list--

[Far2Casual]

Pretty cheesy army. Warrior of chaos is an interesting army to play against, but not when they pick all the super cheesy stuff they have in their arsenal.

Warshrines (ridiculous unit and ridiculous rules/profile/cost), Infernal Puppet + Power Scroll, 3+ Ward Saves everywhere, Frenzied unit that won't loose frenzy ...

[Shimmergloom]

With the 3+ ward and being stubborn at that point, I knew I couldn't win. +1T, frenzy and 2-3+ armor and S5 were all just icings on the cake.

This was a list though that Blood and Glory was created to stop. With fortitude 5, all I had to do was take out the marauders, which I did and then kill the bsb or sorc general. At that point the 35 chaos warriors would not have mattered.

Unfortunately the main scenarios have things like watchtower, which unless it's modified is broken to play. And battle for the pass, which is very difficult to play in a tournament because of space issues.

The other 4 are all good though for tournament play and help curb some of the worse builds.

[Shimmergloom]

Game 2 vs Greenskins.

His army:

1. Orc warboss(general) on wyvern
2. Orc warboss on wyvern
3. Orc bsb w/great weapon and 4+ ward
4. Night goblin shaman lvl 2, scroll
5. 24 savage orcs, full command 2hw
6. 24 savage big’uns, full command, 2 hw
7. 20ish night goblins w/spears, command, nets
8. About 20 squigs and 20 night goblins
9. 2 units of 3 wolf chariots.
10. 1 unit of 2 wolf chariots.
11. 2 mangler squigs.
12. Arachnarok spider

He won roll to go first.

Evil Greenskins Turn 1:

1. He passed animosity
2. He moved his chariots up so be able to shoot at my manglers
3. He was able to get the poison spell off on his center chariot unit.
4. However he did no wounds to my manglers during shooting. He did kill 2 wolves and cause them to panic, they stayed on the table however.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/o...reenskins1.jpg

Closer look at his spider lurking behind the ruined temple.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/o...om1x/arach.jpg
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Good Greenskins Turn 1:

1. I passed animosity and stupidity.
2. My troll was about 13 inches from his mangler, so I could not kill it.
Both my manglers rolled about 5 to move, so barely moved forward at all.
I did rally my wolves.
3. I managed to get gaze of gork off on his chariots, which also hit 3 big’uns. I did not wound the chariot, but did kill 2 big’uns.
http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/o...enskins1v1.jpg
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Evil Greenskins turn 2:

1. He rolled the 1 and 1 for his regular savages and they fought his regular night goblins, doing a couple of wounds.
One of his manglers was able to clip my night goblins, but just land short of my mangler. He killed 8 night goblins.
2. He was able to get his 3D6 S3 spell off on my mangler, which did 2 wounds. It was IF, so he wound up with a wound on his shaman.
3. He then tried shooting my mangler’s again, but could not wound.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/o...reenskins2.jpg
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Good Greenskins Turn 2:

1. My orcs w/bsb failed animosity. I was forced to charge. I was about 15” from his chariots, so I thought, no big deal, I’d fail the charge and keep my battleline mostly together.

So then I rolled double 6’s for my charge and now my orcs and bsb were completely out of my battleline. He held with his chariots, which might seem wrong, but since I was way out of line, he was sacrificing a unit to surround a much bigger unit later.

To add insult to injury, my boars fail animosity. Since you can’t charge manglers, I don’t think I had to charge him there.

2. I rally my wolves. My mangler with 2 wounds just crashes into the mangler In front of it, killing each other.

I think I can just turn my troll around and land on the 2nd one, but we are unsure if a single model unit like this, benefits from those rules, since it is monstrous infantry. Since we don’t know, it’s decided that I can’t pivot freely, so can’t land on the mangler as it’s more than 6” away.

In desperation, I try hopping my other mangler to his mangler(it is right in front of my boars) but roll low again and can’t make it to him.

3. In more desperation I try to hand of gork my boars. We are again unsure if you can hand of gork them if they failed animosity and were squabbling. We just roll off for it and it comes up that I can. I get the spell off, but he wisely scrolls it.

I’ve tried everything and can’t get rid of that mangler. I think I may have even sacrificed my orc big boss on boar if I hadn’t been squabbling.

4. In combat, my orcs w/bsb take out 2 chariots. He flees and I decide to pursue, just because I know I’m gonna be triple charged next turn anyway, so might as well get the +1Cr for charging.

His chariot gets away and I pursue into his night goblins. No one panics from the chariots breaking.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/o...enskins2v2.jpg
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Evil Greenskins Turn 3:

1. He passes animosity.
2. He charges his spider, savages and a warboss on wyvern at my orcs. His general on wyvern charges my troll.
3. His remaining mangler goes through my boars, killing 7 of them.
4. I lost 10 orcs and my bsb to all his units. I kill some night goblins, but lose badly. I do manage to pass my steadfast check though, so hold.
He only does 2 wounds, so doesn’t kill my troll, which I wish he had, since now the fleeing troll was blocking my big’uns.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/o...reenskins3.jpg
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Good Greenskins turn 3:


1. I pass animosity.
2. I charge my night goblin horde into the big battle on the left.
3. I don’t rally my troll.
4. Still not much magic to speak of.
5. In the big fight, I kill a couple of night goblins and savages, but lose about 7 more orcs. He still wins easily. My orcs are still outside general range and this time pay for it by breaking. I get away from his night goblins(the only ones to pursue).

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/o...enskins3v3.jpg
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Evil Greenskins Turn 4:

1. His warboss on wyvern charges my fleeing orcs, cutting them down.
His spider and night goblins, hit my night goblins in the front, while his squig herd hits my night goblins in the front.
His general on wyvern and a chariot unit hits my boars, who I had moved up to try and avoid his mangler.
2. In combat, he cuts apart my boars and wipes them out as they flee.
I throw my nets on his squigs this time since they have more and stronger attacks. In a challenge, I lose a night goblin big boss, but do manage to do a wound to his bsb. I lose bad, but hold due to steadfast, with help on the way.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/o...reenskins4.jpg
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Good Greenskins turn 4:
1 . Waaagh! Declared. Animosity passed. My savage big’uns charge into the fray to try and turn this game around.
3. My wolves land on his mangler killing them both.
4. I get ere’ we go off on my savages.
5. In the big fight, his bsb is now fighting another night goblin big boss. He flubs his rolls and I manage to kill his bsb.
My warboss kills 5 squigs, my savages kill many more. This is a hugh bloodbath on both sides. But thanks to getting +3CR for waaagh! I win the combat by 1. 25 to 24.

He fails every break test. My big’uns chase and cut down his squigs and pursue into his savage big’uns.

However my night goblins only roll double 1’s for pursuit and his spider gets away. His spear goblins, his savages both stay on the table.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/o...enskins4v4.jpg

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The game is turned around, but they say we have to stop. My opponent says that since we are being forced to stop, this should be a draw, eventhough he is ahead on points and would get the victory. He feels that since a large part of his army is fleeing and that since in another turn my big’uns would most likely take out his big’uns + shaman, that I had done enough for it to be a draw.

Conclusion: Draw

I think we could have played another turn since there was another game still adding up their score after I had re-ranked my guys and was going to the bathroom. But also the 2 of us spent a lot of time in game talking about 3 editions of greenskins.

If there was a turn 6 it would have been up to his 2 wyverns to see if they could knock out my night goblins, along with whatever rallied from his 3 fleeing units.

I think if the spider and night goblins did not rally, which is possible needing 6 to rally, that I could have held out during turn 6. But if both wyverns and the spider and the savages were all fighting me, that should have been enough to remove my steadfast and then I break easily.

Anyway, this was a fun one. Lots of huge combats and no superspells that just wipe entire units away.

[Shimmergloom]

Game 3 vs Dark Elves.

His army:
1. Sorc lvl 4(general)
Sacrificial dagger, lifetaker, don’t know what else.
2. Sorc lvl 1(scroll)
3. Hag bsb(banner that gives +1M)
4. 40 spear elves w/command
5. 15 spear elves w/command
6. 20 corsairs. I think they had the handbows and command
7. 20 crossbows, w/command
8. 20 black guard w/command
9. 5 harpies
10. 10 shades
11. 10 shades
12. Hydra

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/o...elvesstart.jpg

Dark Elves turn 1:

I forgot to vanguard. I never remember to do it and when I needed to do it the most, I forgot.

He gets first turn and shoots my wolves with his shades. They panic and flee. My night goblins are in my warlord range, but roll an 11 and then panic and flee off the table as well.

Sigh.

Before that in magic he had given my savage orcs -1S and my orcs -1M.

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Greenskins turn 1:

1. I roll triple 6’s for my mangler in the center and he’s dead right off the bat. This is going to be one of those games.
2. I dispel the -1S spell, but can’t get eadbutt off on his general.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/o...1x/vsde1v1.jpg
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Dark Elves turn 2:

1. He gets -1T on my savages, he miscasts and kills some spear elves and does a wound to himself.
2. His shooting kills my troll, does 2 wounds to my other mangler and kills about 4 savage big’uns.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/o...om1x/vsde2.jpg
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Greenskins turn 2:

1. My boars fail animosity. Then roll the 2nd one and attack the orcs w/bsb. I lose one or 2 boars and orcs. Then both are squabbling.
2. My mangler then goes through the harpies killing them.
3. I don’t bother to dispel the -1T. That’s the best result I can hope for and he’ll just cast it again next turn if he wants it higher.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/o...1x/vsde2v2.jpg
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Dark elves turn 3:

1. He gets -2T off on my big’uns with IF. He does another wound to his sorc.
2. His crossbows, shades, lifetaker and hydra then kill over 20 savages and this is with a 5+ ward. They are now combat ineffective. His other shades kill my remaining mangler.
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Greenskins turn 3:
1. My savages fail animosity again and are forced to charge, but don’t make the charge on his spearelves.
2. I move my orcs into a building. I get my warlord out of the unit and move him to face the hydra. I free reform my savages to face a building, but don’t have enough movement to make it in.
3. I don’t know if I can hand of gork into a building or not. He allows it, so I hand of gork my remaining savages into the building with IF, doing a wound to my shaman.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/o...1x/vsde3v3.jpg
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Dark elves turn 4:

1. He charges his hydra to my warlord, after he gave it killing blow with his cauldron, which was in range.
2. He charges his spear elves to my boars.
3. He then gets mindrazor off on his spears with IF. This kills his sorc lord, but the spell still works. He basically wipes them out in combat.
4. My warlord can only do 2 wounds to his hydra, then he killing blows my warlord and I concede.
This game is almost enough to make me quit 8th edition. I am so tired of 6 dice rolling IF spells that give me -2 and -3T or wipe out entire units with purple sun or gateway.
Greenskins have no magic defense, pisspoor spells of their own and it is magic that decides games.
I love greenskins too much to entirely quit, but I forsee playing a lot more flames of war in my future.

[Far2Casual]

Tough loss indeed.

I don't really agree with your conclusions though. Luck was more the factor than magic in this case. You lost 500 points in turn 1 due to it, then you missed animosity at crucial moments. On the other side, he was pretty lucky to get all these IF with so few consequences. In the end, you missed everything, and he passed everything.
And I would also add the fact that his list was a pretty nice counter to yours. You had no shooting at all and very few magic, so he could stay back and whittle down some of your hordes, while preparing a gangbang on the survivors.
So yeah, 1+2 = huge loss, that's pretty sure.

Thank you for your reports, I'll miss them

[Shimmergloom]

I'll still make reports, because I plan to go to these tournies. I just have gotten tired of these superspells to the point that I will play a lot less warhammer and more fow. Maybe getting to play a 2nd game more will help me keep from being totally over warhammer, like I was in 7th. I gave it up in 7th edition for nearly a year because of the terrible rules in 7th.

I also don't think it is luck, because it's also not just this one game. There's multiple games in these reports where my orcs wind up with -2 or -3T and are suddenly worse than snotlings. Or when someone points at a unit and gateway's them away.

There's 9 reports here and in 4 of them that happened. Having magic with IF happen nearly 50% of the time isn't luck in my book. It's too easy to roll 6 dice and get IF.

Not having any real magic defense is horrible as well. I see countless other armies that can conjure up extra dice for their power and dispel pools in multiple ways, that greenskins can't. Even if that didn't help against IF, having extra dice would at least let you dispel the setup spells for what you know is coming. I can't afford to dispel the -D3 M or S spells now, because I know the -D3T spell or mindrazor or purple sun or what have you is coming up later.

[Sexiest_hero]

Don't play turnies. You'll only see broken gunlines, broken WoC with some skaven and DE. Why waste money playing an unwinnable game when you can just have free fun with friends. Warhammer never was, will be or can be completely balanced. Last edition it was VC thenDE and skaven. Before that it was the Old arrow point Britts and the royal Britt Air force. With the money saved in not driving to and paying to enter Tournies, you can buy what you would win (If you could beat 3+ ward save core, let alone chosen.) Competitive is for sports where things are fair and balanced.

[Shimmergloom]

It's the magic spells that I can't stand. The first list wasn't a legal list, so I can't complain that it was a broken list, the last 2 lists were fine. Even the dark elf one would have been fine if you couldn't just throw 6 dice at every big spell or if at least miscasts worked the way they use to.

Having some magic defense in the greenskin book would be good as well. Instead of the 8 crap magic item nonsense.

[Sexiest_hero]

That will change after all the books get updated, in about 4 years. The trick is finding units in your codex that don't care about Purple sun and dwellers. For me playing VC that means Blood knights. for you it may mean some units you may not like to use. Doom divers are potent, as are mass Gob heroes. WE have some fine OnG players here who make do pretty well, Maybe they can help you.

[TsukeFox]

Pretty cheesy army. Warrior of chaos is an interesting army to play against, but not when they pick all the super cheesy stuff they have in their arsenal.

Warshrines (ridiculous unit and ridiculous rules/profile/cost), Infernal Puppet + Power Scroll, 3+ Ward Saves everywhere, Frenzied unit that won't loose frenzy ...

Ya being able to stack warshrine buffs is absurd & broken, rank and file should never have ward saves better than most characters.
I think tzeentch Mark should give a better armour save, only giving a bonus to ward saves if the armour save gets better than 2+.
And what kinda cheezy player brings the power scroll?

At least you won the moral victory for having a painted army.

[TsukeFox]

It's the magic spells that I can't stand. The first list wasn't a legal list, so I can't complain that it was a broken list, the last 2 lists were fine. Even the dark elf one would have been fine if you couldn't just throw 6 dice at every big spell or if at least miscasts worked the way they use to.

Having some magic defense in the greenskin book would be good as well. Instead of the 8 crap magic item nonsense.

Ya I am afraid when they redo skaven and take away all the good magic item.
Further it is straight up BS that offensive magic has the complete advantage over magic defense. Nothing to stop debuffs. Nothing ?? Sadly I am going to have to find room in my list for that stupid overpriced feed back scroll and hope the enemy wizard does not have a ward save or the doom spell that is cast wins the game despite the death of the wizard.

And yet people are excited about storm of cheese spells. I do not get it. What it should have done is rewrite all the spells so the words "die with no saves" were 86 out of the game. I do not get it.

Your oppenent Orc oppenent had cool chariot conversions.

[Shimmergloom]

Even warshrine buffs would be ok if you had to take a new one each turn like eotg and the cauldron makes you do.

And if they went away when the warshrine died.

[TsukeFox]

So reaaly the stupid Shrine needs to be erated or a new book needs to come-I do not understand why GW are not pumping out two new codexes at a time-lazy jerks.

[Sexiest_hero]

Storm of magic is actually a better magic system.

[Shimmergloom]

How so? I have heard there's 4D6 dice, that doesn't seem better to me.

[Noght]

Hey Shimmer,

Love the reports, keep em coming.

With regards to the last couple of tourney games...
1. If a guy has an illegal list/item, they take it out and play. My buddy had 3 Manglers in his last tourney list, took one out to play. Don't feel bad if your opponent makes a mistake. Ask the TO to enforce it if need be. When a WoC does it I get extremely annoyed, their book is broken and to "oops an extra Warshrine" is BS.

2. Greenskins never seem to have average games, all good or all bad it seems, middle ground seems rare to me, don't know why.

3. Any Orc General that takes Wyverns and Chariots is Ok in my book, that list seemed ok to me.

4. You realize that the Shades (scouts) make the Dark Elves lose the +1 to go first if they have less units than you?

Make sure your opponents follow the Tourney rules, including time and finishing turns and you'll be fine.
Noght

[El Antiguo Guardián]

Really nice army, and really nice reports.

[Shimmergloom]

Hey Shimmer,

Love the reports, keep em coming.

With regards to the last couple of tourney games...
1. If a guy has an illegal list/item, they take it out and play. My buddy had 3 Manglers in his last tourney list, took one out to play. Don't feel bad if your opponent makes a mistake. Ask the TO to enforce it if need be. When a WoC does it I get extremely annoyed, their book is broken and to "oops an extra Warshrine" is BS.

2. Greenskins never seem to have average games, all good or all bad it seems, middle ground seems rare to me, don't know why.

3. Any Orc General that takes Wyverns and Chariots is Ok in my book, that list seemed ok to me.

4. You realize that the Shades (scouts) make the Dark Elves lose the +1 to go first if they have less units than you?

Make sure your opponents follow the Tourney rules, including time and finishing turns and you'll be fine.
Noght

1. The problem was more that I didn't know that 3 warshrines were illegal until our game was over, so that wouldn't have helped. And we didn't know for sure that the power scroll was banned until at least 2 turns later, so we couldn't time travel that far back to really make things right. We tried, by me putting my orcs that died back, but I figured the night goblins who died were not enough for me to keep steadfast for another turn(however there was a warshrine fighting them as well, which may not have been there if there was only 2). But that didn't make much difference either, since I may have played completely differently if I had all those orcs from the getgo, as I would have likely flank charged the warriors with a full complement of orcs.

Which leaves it to the 3rd thing of him being a lot of points short since he appeared to think the points level was less than it was. So add that all together and you can only learn from that game that power scrolls are bad, warshrines are bad.

3. I really liked the greenskin list. It was funny watching us try and outmove each other with our manglers.

4. I didn't know that shades made them lose the +1 to go first. I don't know if that mattered at all. I can't remember what we rolled. I think he rolled a 6, so it wouldn't have mattered, but I will need to remember this for the future.