Lament of a Monkey....

[Monkey King]

Ahhhhh, Nicon has come and gone and I did tell Phil I was going to do some sort of battle report thing (more fool me!) So come with me to a world of excitement, intrigue and romance, where two star crossed lovers......ha ng on, wrong script.....ahh h, here we are....As it is, taking pictures to post up here while trying to play a game is harder then I thought, so much props to those that not only play a damn fine game but also take pics for battle reports, my hat would go off to you if I didn't think someone would steal it.


The hall before the carnage begins…

LAMENT OF A MONKEY:
Act 1 Scene 1

Before I begin, I have one small thing in my defence, I haven't actually played any games in 5 years. In that time I've missed one rules edition change, and although the basics are still the same, a lot of stuff is different. Admittedly, from 5 years no play straight into a tourney isn't the smartest thing to do, I never actually admitted to being smart (this will be very evident to you all later) So, every battle I warned the guy I was playing I hadn't played in a really really long time, so I'll be asking lots of questions, and be prepared to win! (this statement was more accurate then I really wanted it to be)

Anyways, first off I played a lovely gentleman by the name of Hamish (don't expect last names, I never wrote them down) from Tauranga games club who came equipped with a nice army of Orcs and Goblins. I played Orcs and Goblins for a year or so, so kind of know what to expect as not much has changed since then. He didn’t have the new Arachnarok (there was one there but I never got to play it) As it was he had a goblin chariot, an orc chariot, doomdiver, stonethrower, unit of black orcs with a black orc boss of some sort, unit of biguns with a black orc boss of some sort, unit of night goblins with a night goblin shaman, unit of savage orcs with savage orc shaman, squig mangler and a unit of orc boar boyz.


His right flank with the gobo chariot and savage orc boyz…

More of the right flank…


The middle of the table with pretty much everything else bar the orc chariot…


As you can see, my setup and Hamish’s hands…..world famous now!

Hamish was a nice guy, he seemed a bit frazzled but he said he had an emergency before coming to nicon, something with kids, which I can totally get having 4 of my own, and I wasn’t in any rush to be slaughtered.

The scenario was just a basic battleline and Hamish got first turn. He marched forward, setting up for charges and so forth and manoeuvring away. My Dwarfs it seemed were getting into the ale I had hidden away for the celebration afterwards, something I wouldn’t notice until my turn. He fired his stonethrower and clipped my Runesmith. Now, here’s where inexperience comes in, I’ve never used a stonethrower until now, since previous editions you had to guess ranges and I was never very good at that. He clipped my unit, my runesmith failed his look out sir and so Hamish and I believed it was D3 wounds. (afterwards Hamish found out it wasn’t supposed to be and apologised profusely, though I told him it’s fine, I was just happy to be playing!)1

As it was, my first turn, I managed to direct hits on his goblin chariot on the left flank while trying to whittle down his goblins in the middle and blasting away a fair chunk of his boars on the right. The stonethrowers however had obviously fired empty barrels so I wouldn’t see the evidence. The first stone thrower failed to wound and the second caused one wound. An auspicious start to a game, but oh well I thought, for fun!

From there his goblin chariot smashed my left flank of the two stone throwers. His doom diver and stonethrower whittled my ranks of the hammerers a little and the rest of his units moved forward. His savage boys hardly moved a whit during the whole game due to a failed animosity test and the river.


And so the greentide moves forward….

From here, I managed to miss the boar boys with my organ gun, I blame the crew for being drunk, I blew away his mangler, feeling that anything that required him to make a model for was obviously dangerous and sat and waited for the carnage. His goblins got within range to cries of "Release the loons!" and so a couple of fanatics were loosed although thankfully didn't manage to hit my drunken comrades....ye t, and he charged in with his Big uns and black orcs and the two remaining boar boys hit the left flank and the organ gun. So, from here he had the left flank, the right flank and for me, it fell down to the centre and the battle between his black orcs and my hammerers and his big uns with my longbeards. Three words. He. Decimated. Them. He rolled well, I didn't. He killed my hammerers to a man and so I lost stubborn. Then my longbeards were snotted and ran, leaving me with thunderers hit in the side by the sudden emergence of a chariot.

 From there it was just a little mopping up and my pride, as well as my troops were broken. All in all, it was a good game, a few bad rolls for me, especially on the gobbo chariot which just completely owned the right flank.

1: For those of you less than single men, read this as “being allowed to play!”

[Monkey King]

Act 1 Scene 2

So, having being absolutely decimated by Hamish's Orcs and Goblins I was strangely happy as I faced my next opponent, Everett and his Chaos warriors.

Now, Everett is a nice guy, tall as a treeman, but his models were an eyesore, which is evident when you look at the scores where he got second to last in painting, (I'd have gladly swapped with him since I came second to last overall)

The scenario for this one was Dawn Attack, one of the two scenarios I was kind of dreading as it could have spread my dwarfs out across the entire board. As it was, my fears were unfounded as all that happened was a stonethrower was on the far right flank facing his hell cannon which ended up on his left flank.

He went first, since I can't remember what happened in the rolls, but I believed I wanted him to walk to me, having hidden my warmachines from his hell cannon, while still able to see his other troops. He marched forward. The main feature of the battlefield was a huge river which basically cut the place in half, something I was grateful for. Everett had a unit of khorne warriors, a unit of undivided warriors with the banner of rage, a unit of chosen tzeentch warriors, two units of dogs and the hell cannon.


He moved his troops towards the river...

Everett did something strange here, I'm not too sure why, but he had his herald BSB on a disc out in the front of the army. Oh wait I thought to myself thoughtfully, he's looking for the look out sirs from the hounds. I proceeded to obliterate his hounds with a volley from the thunderers then sniped his BSB with the organ gun. 2 wounds, 2 failed saves and 2 failed ward saves and the BSB was left in a sad little pile to the side. My stonethrowers whittled down the undivided troops.

Next turn Everett hit the river and continued to slog his way towards me, the river was going to hold him up for a few turns, so I got out the guns for practise shooting. Now, when I say he moved everything, he moved everything, the hell cannon opting to march forward rather than shoot, sorry, why call it a cannon?

As it was, he did the exact same tactic, this time with his level 4 lord on a disc. It worked the first time, so should do so again? I thought racistly, gunned down his hounds and proceeded to let loose with the organ gun. 6 wounds and 6 ward saves, seems 3+ ward is much harder to beat than a 5+ one, who knew? I whittled some more of his units down, waiting for the inevitable charge.


and so he marches forward...

I managed another turn of shooting while he tried unsuccessfully to cast spells, obviously he hadn't played against dwarfs before. It came down to this, the last 6 guys of his undivided unit with the rage banner charged my organ gun with the sorceror. His main unit of chosen charged my longbeards and his khorne boys charged my hammerers. His sorceror and guys failed to kill all of the organ crew, leaving me with one, which was nice as being stubborn I was quite happy to hold. The longbeards lost the battle but being steadfast I figured I was okay, leadership 10 with a BSB reroll, what's the worse that could happen? I rolled an 11. huh. well I still had a reroll. I watched as the dice bounced across the table and showed 12. Neat. The longbeards ran, and the chosen tzeentch warriors hit my hammerers on the far right, which was where my lord was. The hammerers then smashed the khorne boys and not being able to follow because of the tzeentch ones on them now I watched as victory points took flight. 2

So, my turn, I charged my thunderers into the side of his undivided boys who were still fighting, I mean, come on, what's the worse that could happen? 3
As it turns out, hitting a single model in the side I could have done more damage by flailing my hands wildly above the table while singing Lady Gaga songs, and because of the painting, I feel it would have been more damage to my models. I lost by one. Well, leadership nine, what was there to worry about? I mean, what's the worse that could.....yeah, you see where this is going? I rolled 11, fled and was caught.

So, his turn my lord beat the snot out of several of his chosen and made them flee, escaping as his rallied khorne boys were hit by hammerers, failing to catch his chosen as much as I wished for it to happen. That's pretty much how the battle ended, me just failing to kill an entire unit and just failing to catch him. Oh, and leaderships tests, something that would now plague me through the rest of the tournament.


2: I swear a lesser man would have cried...
3: New lesson, while playing warhammer, never ever ask what's the worse that could happen

[Monkey King]

Act 1 Scene 3

So, having come off a couple of terrible results I leaped over to my next, actually, I didn't make like a wood elf player in Blood Bowl, but even coming off two defeats I was still having a good time and happy with the way the day was going.

I looked at the scenario and shuddered slightly. Meeting engagement, and my dice were punishing me for my 5 years neglect on them, like an old ex girlfriend you never really ended well with who has just walked into a business meeting and found you were the client she has to deal with. 4

I played Jeremy from Remuera in this game,5 He was a nice guy, though it seemed his dice were as angry at him as mine were at me. I ended up not having a BSB or my unit of thunderers at the start of the game, Jeremy had everything, and so we setup. So preoccupied with the fact that my BSB had gotten drunk with the Thunderers in an attempt to 'find' a mate, I forgot to take pictures of the setup and managed one photo for the whole battle. 6

Jeremy plays Vampire Counts, an army I was interested in until I heard the Tomb Kings were being updated, Tomb Kings being the actual reason I started playing Warhammer oh so many moons ago. Jeremy had a large unit of Black Knights, Blood Knights, two units of Ghouls, a unit of skeletons and a unit of wraiths. Jeremy got the first turn and as was expected from Dwarf players worldwide, he marched towards me.

My first turn consisted of moving my BSB onto the table and joining the unit of Hammerers and the Thunderers to the left flank then wheeling them slightly so that I could fire down his flank. There was a bog or marsh just in front of them that had a card so I opted to hide behind it. 7
I'd tell you what my stone throwers and organ gun were doing, but in all honesty, I can't for the life of me remember what they did, maybe killed a couple of black knights and some ghouls?

His second turn he moved forward even more, getting within charge range and things were looking bad for my dwarfs. I opened fire on the Blood Knights with my thunderers and felled four of them. Who knew they were so fragile? I'm pretty sure I pinged off a few more ghouls, but aside from the thunderers, not much else was dropping, that or I had employed the cunning tactic of missing lots and using rubber bullets, one I have implemented to great effect in the past.

Turn three and he charged in with his Black Knights and Blood Knights into my Hammerers. I issued a challenge with my Lord and his Lord accepted. He countered my tactic of bad aim and rubber bullets with blindness and rubber lances. His lord managed 3 hits, 1 wound which was saved, whereas I destroyed his lord. Vampire counts need a decent ward save. From there, his Black Knights inspired by their lord employed the same tactic, killing 3 hammerers in total and the blood knights killed 2. I managed 8 wounds from my hammerers and he rolled his evil upset dice and failed 6 saves, looking at the dice 4 of them showing 1's.

From there it went all down hill for him. His Blood Knights popped, his black knights were reduced to 1 and his BSB and his ghouls were still a ways away. For him, things went pear shaped.


I choose you rubber lance technique!

His next turn his wraiths failed a charge and managed to block the charge of one unit of ghouls and the other unit also failed to charge, and things were starting to pop since his lord was dead. In the end it took 5 turns for his ghouls to get into combat, by the next turn his wraiths were reduced from 4 strong to one on 1 wound because of crumbling and I finally scraped through a victory.


4: I can't be the only one this has ever happened to?
5: don't you guys LOVE how I haven't bothered to get any last names? Carl the TO loved it!
6: Like I said, hats off to those guys who can take pictures while they play
7: Lucky too, it ended up hitting a unit with a random light spell that couldn't be dispelled?!

[Monkey King]

Act 1 Scene 4

There is only one thing I know of more evil then playing four games of warhammer in one day, but I'll leave my Mother in law out of this. As it was, I felt a bit frazzled, a little too giddy from an actual win in the last game and the fact that as pointed out, I hadn't played in 5 years and all this actual concentration was doing my head in.

I managed to pull up ChaosWolf, awesome guy, who was lamenting his first loss of the tourney to an Empire guy who I believe killed his Bloodthirster, but that's his story to tell, mostly because I felt someone had stuck a stick into my head and was pulling out candy floss. Chaoswolf was playing Daemons, mostly Khorne witha  mix of Tzeentch flamers, furies some fiends of Slaanesh, a herald of Slaanesh, Bloodthirster, couple of units of Bloodletters and some spellcasters

The scenario was watchtower and I was enjoying rolling my dice and they seemed to have forgiven me 7, and so I managed to have the watchtower to begin with, since I had 1 unit that could be in the tower, my Thunderers took the place.


I would have managed a proper picture of the Bloodthirster but I failed my terror test....or I forgot to...

Now, before you all scream at me, I was tired, four games is hard core after so long an absence from the game and my brain felt like a leprechaun had not only made hardcore love to it, but left a gift in it as well. My setup was screwed, I had some crazy notiuon I would charge forward and rescue my beleagured thunderers. Now, if I had been thinking at all, some strange light would have come on when I mentioned charging and dwarfs in the same sentence. 8


Just, just don't ask.

Now, a brief run down, my thunderers managed to hold for 4 turns against bloodletters, his flyers rolled my warmachines on the left, his fiends smashed the right warmachine and for some reason my hammerers marched forward with all intents and purposes to save the thunderers.


Lured to the right

Now, turn 4, I still had all my characters, my 2 big units and hadn't really lost all that many points. He had lured my hammerers with his Slaanesh herald, a tactic I love of theirs, though it's better utilised by Keeper, something we both agreed on. Now, most people would be ranting and raving about Purple Sun, why? well, his wizard next to my hammerers got it off. Myself, I was prepared for it, expecting it in the tournament I had taken the spelleater rune for just such a spell, but as the dice bounced across the table double six showed and my spelleater rune, like myself, was impotent to do anything.

Now, I had prepared for the spell, it was just chance luck that it was cast with total power and there was not much for me to do but utter the words "By the power of Greyskull". Chaoswolf is an awesome guy and was more upset then I was of the results of the spell when he found out that I had an intiative of 2, my dwarfs weren't much faster. As it was, my unit of 26 was reduced to 6 as my dice decided to mock me and roll high. His magician had the huge template on him and killed two more. My dice like sadistic S&M dominatrixes laughed and jeered as I then proceeded to roll 12 for my ensuing panic test.

The game ended with Chaoswolf muttering vehemently about Purple Sun and hating how it all turned out, whereas I shrugged. Dice do things like this and in the end, stuff happens, I had other things I needed to run off to.


7: Lulling me into a false sense of security
8: Yes yes, I know this edition Dwarfs have a sudden huge charge range, but you still don't PLAN to charge someone

[Monkey King]

Act 2 Scene 1

A word of warning when going to one of these events, unless you actually live in the city that the tournament is being held, close enough is not close in any respects. I had orginally planned on staying in Hamilton, in fact, on Friday I did. I had organised to go to Nicon waaaaay back in February, maybe March. In April, my partner's work decided they would do a fundraising function that same weekend, and although she wasn't annoyed that I had already previously booked something that weekend, she was disappointed that we couldn't go together as we so rarely get to get dressed up together.9

So, rather than let that one lie as it was, I booked back to the hotel, threw on some fancy dress clothes and booked it back home, a leisurely 1 hour drive to score some major brownie points. As it was, I'm not too sure I can recommend the brownie points over the next 24 hours. I managed a whopping 2 hours sleep, drove back at 7am in the morning making it back just in time to get my stuff from the hotel before they sold it on the black market and back to the hall just in time for game 5 of the tournament.

Now, game five was against Andy, nice guy from Tauranga who played Wood Elves. Now, I don't say this often, but he played Wood Elves down to a tee. Like some fine art he had from the word go. Admittedly, most wood elves run circles around Dwarfs, but Andy just made it look easy, I was jealous. Andy had 3 units of 10 archers, a lord on a stag with a unit of 6 treekin, a unit of dryads, a treeman, a unit of 5 waywatchers, 5 scouts, a mage, a BSB, a branchwaith and 3 warhawk riders

I took lots and lots of pictures, but in the end, I'm just going to post the one.


Not only will I defeat you, but mine is this long!

As it was, the scenario killed Andy. Blood and Glory. Andy had 4 points all up and in turn 2 I sniped his general with an easily placed stonethrow. From there Andy threw the rest of the scenario objectives out the window and then decided to really show me how to play, moving his small units of woodelves around, peppering me with arrows and basically picking the fights he wanted. I was impressed, and I don't say that often.


haha, I lied. The last turn and I took a charge from pretty much everything...

Because I've been looking at changing armies, I asked a helluva lot of questions and Andy was nice enough to answer them all in turn. I will say this, he was a standup player and I hope that the new update to the Woodelves next year really beef them out some more in the shooting and magic phases.



9: Most people would have heard her saying something but all I heard was guilt. guilt, guilt

[Monkey King]

Act 2 Scene 2

My last game was against my friend Dan, know here as Placator and his Ogre Kingdoms. Dan was a nice guy and I ended up running around for him as he put his back out at the hotel on the beds. I wasn't there having already explained I was out of town, so don't look me, for once I was completely innocent.

Now, by this time I had suffered 2 huge defeats, a solid win, a solid win and a draw (wood elves I won but lost in VP's) So all in all, my tournament was already wrapped up and I was tempted to go rock paper scissors with Dan to decide the game so we could pack up. But, in the end we'd figure we would just finish the tournament.

The scenario was secret mission, and as it turned out, mine was the more achievable one, and even then I didn't get it. Dan had a couple of units of Gnoblars, a couple of scraplaunchers, a couple of units of bulls and a unit of ironguts.

I took one picture because I forgot again to take pictures. 10


I think this was turn 1 or 2?

In turn two his scrap launchers had had enough of the tournament and both proceeded to blow up. His Ironguts spent a couple of turns tied up with my longbeards and my hammerers chased down a unit of bulls.

In the end I lost by some 100 VP's, I wasn't too phased.

Basically I was tired, as tired as I am now of typing all these reports, which makes me look in astonishment at Vaul who went up north and came back and wrote up pretty much all his reports within 12 hours or so, then made videos. What a machine!

So, looking back, I made some mistakes, some based on not knowing certain rules. I could have charged more, but the whole edition change passed me by in my absence and so I had it firmly in my head that 6" was my charge.

I also had a lot of bad luck. In battle two I failed 3 crucial leadership rolls with one of the highest leaderships in the game. My stonethrowers were average, having at one point hit a bloodthirster dead on and failing to wound.

But all in all, I had fun, I'm looking forward to next year will be booking my place as soon as I can, but I've also looked back at my entire warhammer time. I've been playing dwarfs now 7 years, and that's NOT including the 5 years I took off. I've taken them to 6 different tournaments. I've fielded them from month to month, from game to game and quite frankly, I'm over them. They were supposed to be just a stop gap, something to do until Tomb Kings came out in force. So, I shall retire my drunken horde, they will hang up their potato shooters, put down their rubber axes. Their cardboard armour will be hung up11

I have my sights on a couple of armies, My Tomb Kings which I have huge plans for and painting and using an army of treehuggers next time if I don't have the Tomb Kings finished since they won't be egyptian at all.

So, I bid you all a good adieu and until next time.

MK, signing off.


10: meh, sue me
11: And probably all be stolen by Auckland Larpers

[Chaoswolf]

Hehe  Actually yes, Everett is rather Tree-man like now that you mention it, his hair a canopy, his limbs branches. Nice enough fellow, not a malicious leaf on him and always keen to learn where and how he could improve. The uncommon bravery of his characters protecting his battleline must be commended.

[Vaul]

He took four units of chaos knights to OTT a couple of years ago, that was a blast ^^

[richardbarby]

i cant wait to read the rest

[Monkey King]

Reports are all up, now with more monkey!

[Derick]

Thoroughly good read, well done!
Looks a lot like how things usually go for me, wouldn't mind giving you a game some time

[wouster7]

Best damn Batrep and read I've had in ages, you're hired

What was your impression of the new 8th rules? Tactica Dwarven charge to your liking?

[Monkey King]

The new 8th edition are okay. The steadfast I haven't even bothered trying to remember, I'm sure it's easy but I had other things on my mind. All I know is blocks of infantry are good, and well with dwarfs, that's kind of a given in many respects.

The charge range thing is difficult to remember from 7th to 8th. Honestly, first few battles I had it set in my head I was only charging 6". When I got it into my head it was a potential 15" and theoretically there wasn't much difference between failing a charge and marching forwards to the enemy charging became easier.

One thing I HAD to remember which was a big change for me was that forests don't actually block line of sight.

I found the not having to guess for stonethrowers and cannons kind of sad. I missed the days when you couldn't measure and just guess away like you were the artillery master, but, with that rule gone, it's a helluva lot easier to ping things with your warmachines.

Oh, I kept forgetting my shieldbearers as well. Fun stuff.