BOYL Sunday

There probably ought to be something here about how belated this post is, but wait until you see my next one...

On my way to the Sunday of BOYL I took a diversion to Warhammer World to pick up a copy of the reprinted 40K, since my old one has the traditional late 80s binding...

It was kind of interesting to see Games Workshop's headquarters, which really brings home how big a company it is. Anyway, I got my hands on the new, much thicker, edition:

Top: original, practically loose-leaf edition. Bottom: thicker and so far pristine!

And then back to Foundry, where I'd arranged to use my accumulated painted chaos force in a 1,000-point-a-side battle against Paul D's orcs and goblins (and goblins). We'd opted for 2nd edition, which remains my favourite edition for nostalgia reasons, although it was interesting to be reminded just how much of what I consider Warhammer hadn't been included by that point (e.g. no beast handlers or minotaurs yet). And to be reminded of the joys of calculating points values down to quarters rather than merely halves.

I'd expected to be outnumbered, but not quite to this extent!

1,000 points buys a lot of goblins and orcs

I started out sending my chaos hounds out on the flank, with a target of the bolt throwers but stopping off via the nearby unit of orcs. I know this isn't the best way to use the hounds, one day I might even remember that! They hit the orcs hard, but not hard enough.

Meanwhile my main force was heading for the enemy centre, in good chaotic tradition. Not unexpectedly the goblins have fanatics waiting for this sort of thing. It turns out that in 2nd edition fanatics don't have quite the impact I'm used to from 3rd edition, so I let disposing of them tie me up rather than ploughing on through.

Oh-oh, fanatics

Part one of Paul's cunning plan was that one of his heroes had a weapon with the Sleep Attack ability. It knocked out the hounds' handler, and deprived of his leadership they routed at their first check. Meanwhile my mortar was killing the odd orc here and there, but overall having very limited impact.

Part two of Paul's cunning plan was a shaman with Zone of Steadfastness. A minor bonus of the zone is that these goblins became immune to psychological effects, but the real point is that it tripled their number of attacks. Even with their low weapon skill that's a lot of fightiness, and they held off the charge of my minotaur and beastmen -

And quite quickly killed the minotaur. Paul was particularly keen that I captured this moment of the battle!

The minotaur falls to the unexpectedly mighty goblins

The goblins versus beastmen battle became the main focal point. The beastmen were slowly whittling them down, but couldn't afford the casualties they took in return. And meanwhile my chaos warriors, having taken a diversion to avoid the fanatics, were very slow in arriving.

By the time they did get to the battle, it was looking like a bit of a lost cause, although in points terms I had the majority of my warband still in action. But this fight was all happening within the Zone.

My beastmen had been very resiliant, passing several rout tests, but eventually the shear numbers of orcs and goblins chewed them up.

I generally find this sort of simple game as a good, relaxing way to spend BOYL Sunday, as everyone tends to be a bit frazzled after a full Saturday. What to start painting for next year and, especially after a lost battle like this, how to play things differently, then tend to occupy the brain on the drive home.

In hindsight I was annoyed with myself for my approach to the second half of the battle (and a bit about the hound deployment). I sometimes wonder if wargaming isn't really the hobby for me!

I try not to meta-game either in army selection or during the battle itself, but to both me and my battlefield alter ego it was fairly apparent that even that number of orcs and goblins shouldn't be all that worrying to a combat-centric chaos force such as this. The shaman was clearly the main threat on the field. Once the trap of the Zone was sprung I should have thrown everything at trying to kill him, certainly my mage's powers and perhaps my un-engaged warriors. But equally I should, contrary to the normal approach for a chaos force, have tried to widen out the battle and not have everything fighting in the Zone.

Still, well done to Paul: his minions' plan was a good one, whereas I didn't really have much of a plan!