Army Bios: Warriors of Mayhem

Warriors of Mayhem

Chaos Space Marines

Most wargaming armies contain characters and sometimes these characters are used enough to acquire personalities. To that end, here a few of the personalities from my ever growing chaos space marine (Heretic Astartes?) army.

Organogram

All successful organisations need to know who is in charge of who. Chaos Warbands are no different, so I have produced a handy guide to show the hierarchy amongst my toy soldiers. Some heroes have names, and there's a bit behind them.

Edric Blightbringer

Edric, normally known as 'The Blightbringer', is my main Nurgle Lord. This is the plastic Chaos Terminator Lord kit, without anything special to it. The armour is painted the standard purple and silver of the Warriors of Mayhem warband, but the cloak is the dirty green of my Plague Marine units. In the future I am tempted to replace the model and paint it the same green as his Terminator bodyguard.

The Blightbringer is one of the senior captains in the Warriors of Mayhem, answering only to Rakarath and in charge of a significant sized band of troops. He is rarely seen without his terminator bodyguard to shield him from the worst the enemy can field, and has a preference for fighting on foot rather than teleporting into battle. Alongside the Whispering King, he has most recently been pursuing campaigns against the Dark Angels and the Orks, avoiding fighting enemy leaders to scythe through large numbers of troops with his lightning claws.

The Whispering King

The notorious bounty hunter known only as the Whispering King is the highest ranking Sorcerer in the Warriors of Mayhem beneath Rakarath himself. Commanding the loyalty of the larger sections of the warband who have not committed to a particular god, and leading them in a constant quest for short term glory and power by tracking down valuable bounties, such as most recently Dark Angel Chaplain Rapheal, for those with the right rewards, and also working alongside the warband captains when the situation demands.

The Whispering King is made from a standard Chaos Space Marine with the staff and head from the Plastic Chaos Terminator Lord kit that built the Blightbringer. In games before Traitor's Hate introduced the chaos formations he filled the role of a cheap HQ choice, and has since filled the optional sorcerer slot in the warband formation. With the changes in army selection back to Force Organisation Charts in 8th edition I am fully expecting The Whispering King to make a return to solo leadership.

Rorrik the Packless

Abandoned with a small squad when his Great Company retreated from Espos VII, Rorrik Redaxe continued the fight against the victorious Orks as all Space Wolves would, but for all their skill the numbers of greenskins soon left him fighting on alone. Long he prayed for rescue, for reinforcements, for the power to avenge his packmates on an vicious universe, but when marines arrived they were not wearing the grey of the Space Wolves but purple and silver, or red and brass. The leader of the newcomers tracked Rorrik to his hideout and challenged him to single combat. The Berzerkers howled as their leader matched Deamonaxe to frostblade, but at the critical moment the axe betrayed it's owner and Rorrik tore the Khorne Lord limb from limb. As one the berzerkers fell to their knees, and Rorrik saw a new future opening up, one in service of those who appreciate strength. With his new followers he tore a bloody path through the Ork Hunta Killa Eata patrols searching for him until confronted by the larger part of the Warriors of Mayhem force led by Rakarath himself, pledging loyalty in exchange for power and respect he long desired. Rakarath's campaign against the Orks was short and bloody, ending with the retrieval of a cache of inactive dataslabs used by the Mekboz as decoration on a Stompa's faceplate.

Rorrik is my oldest chaos lord, dating from 2011, which is why he is a slightly different purple to the more recent models. He is a standard metal Khorne Lord, in the purple and silver of the Warriors Of Mayhem. The cloak is painted Space Wolf Grey, and shows his former loyalties. Rorrik is a model who has not been a regular in my armies for a long time, as when I use my deamonkin I tend to use a herald in the single HQ option in the formation, and I often found chaos lords lacklustre in the previous edition. Maybe with the coming of the new edition my original warlord will once again grace the battlefields of the 42nd millennium?

That's all for now. Still to come is the main man(?) himself, and a few other minor characters. I'll also  try and get some pictures of the army itself.

I am Alpharous! The Aftermath

Last weekend we took part in the I am Alpharius event at Warhammer World, and a good time was had by many.

Me and Ash did not have a massive success, winning only one game and being tabled twice, but Luke and Matty had a good run, ending up with the prize for having the most points after everyones victory points had been multiplied by their favourite games votes. Congratulations to them, I'll let them write about makes them both effective and likable later.

Me and Ash went up against Ravenwing / Skittari  and learnt how harsh Tesla weapons can be, although my berzerker champion made it across the board and slaughtered a Skittari squad. Ash's deamon prince wiped out a unit of Ravenwing bikers and was squaring up to Sammeal when he was gunned down. Sammy had vent on the cultists champion, which led to him running down the other 14 cultists.

Our second game was against an implausible alliance of Blood Angels and Dark Eldar. This was the deamon's best game, romping up one flank before turning around to help with a massive unit of Death Company. My Possessed had a brief moment of glory charging a unit arriving by drop pod, but this pulled them into a bad position for a charge from the death company. My Berzerkers charged in and obligingly took a few turns to die to allow us to handle the rest of the army. I summoned a deamon prince of my own with blood tithe points. Once all the Berzerkers were dead our Shooting could handle the remaining death company before Free Prince and a Helbrute charged in to finish off the Chaplain. Ash voted this his favourite game.

We faced Luke and Matty for our 3rd game, and were promptly obliterated by bolter fire. The deamon prince did not do well, the Berzerkers were shot up, the Possessed were killed by a Death Company  (again) and my chaos marine champion fought 4 combat squads of Tactical Marines in the centre of the board, as the only remaining model on our side, for at least 4 rounds of combat, killing a couple of sergeants and chasing off a couple of squads. This dragged the game out until turn 7 letting them grab many objectiveswith the rest of the army, no doubt helping them with the prize at the end. Not deliberate Tyrants tactics, although I did give them my favourite game vote.

After this we headed back to the city centre by tram, and returned by tram the next day. The trams are great and could be my new favourite form of transport, even if the driver wouldn't give us tramming speed when we asked, nor divert all power to the tram reactors.

Game 4 was our second tabling, as we went up against 5 riptide battle suits. This was the obligatory poor game, with only the one Helbrute making it across the board and not kill a riptide in combat. The deamon prince was killed in turn 2 without getting a charge,  the Possessed were poorly deployed (my fault) but are gunned down without achieving anything and even the defiler blazed away pointlessly. The opponents argued amongst themselves over who got to finish us of,  my ally went to the bar and the opponent apologised for their force. If you have to apologise for something like that, don't do it.

Game 5 put us against deathwing and mantis legion with a forgeworld knight. We had some unlucky rolls in this game, failing 3 out of 4 charges onto the knight when we could have ripped it to shreds been 2 Helbrutes, the defiler and Obliterators. As it was we got it down to 2 hull points slowly. This was the only game the deamon prince lived to the end of, after Ash made the sensible decision not to use the black mace anymore and just resort to his ccw. This was one of a few games this event which took a lot longer than I am used to, ending on about turn 4 after the full 2 hours 30 minutes. Maybe I'm just a hasty player.

Still to come: the event as a whole and the exhibition centre.
I'm sure others will have their own thoughts to post.

I am Alpharius! Prologue

One of the highlights of our gaming calendar is our occasional trips to Warhammer World in Nottingham to enter the events they have there. Most recently we went to a Council of War 4-person team event last September, but in the past we've been to Doubles and a Campaign Weekend.

Our next event is to be the Doubles event 'I am Alpharius!' in April, and this looks to be the best attendance record yet for our little group, with either 8 or 10 players travelling down. Most of us will be taking armies we already have, with a few extra units added maybe, but Pad and Steve are taking it seriously by both starting a new Tau army with no time to spare! ( I do hope Pad can spare some time though, to write some blog articles about it)

Currently our contribution looks like this, subject to change:

Tau & Tau (Paddy and Steve)
Space Wolves & Space Wolves (Graham and Dan)
Iron Warriors and Space Sharks (Luke and Matty)
Deamonkin and Chaos Space Marines (Martin and Ash)
Space Marines and TBA (Carl and Lottie)

My Chaos has Alpha Legion Shoulder pads, which sort of makes them appropriate.


Is anyone else planning on going to this event? Is anyone else reading this blog? Let us know below!

Battle Report: Dark Angels v. Orks

Hi,  and welcome to our first battle report. This is very much a test of the process, and features Paddy with his Dark Angels taking on Graham with his Orks. I will be writing it as they play.

Warlord traits:
Graham (Ork Warboss) Divide to Conquer and Strategic Genius
Paddy (Sammeal) Rapid Manouver

The mission is Cloak and Shadows, worth a pitched battle deployment.
Paddy chose table edge, Graham won the roll off for deployment and choose to deploy second.

Deployment
Dark Angels,  from left to right
Tactical squad & Librarian ( Aversion,mind worm, Trephination)
Deathwing knights & Chaplain
Combat squad
Combat squad
Devestators

Reserves
Ravenwing command squad & command squad
Ravenwing bike squad
Dark Talon

Orks, left to right
Slugga Boyz
Slugga Boyz
Ard Boyz,  Warboss, trukk
Ard Boyz, Warboss, trukk
Sligga boyz, truck
Tankbustas
Shoota Boyz & Warboss & Painboy
Deffkoptas (3 separate units)


Paddy goes first.
Movement phase
Slight shuffle along right phase.

Psychic phase
Cast aversion on Tankbustas.

Shooting phas
Tactical squad runs into ruins
Knights run through combat squads
Devastators shoot Ard Boyz trukk,wrecked. (First Blood)

No combat

No victory points (1-0)

Ork turn 1
Deffkoptas fly towards tower.
Slugga Boyz move fowards, suspiciously in a neat formation.
remaining trukks and Ard Boyz move forwards
Slugga Boyz move forwards, some confusion over who belongs to which mob. (Which Nob is da best?)
Tankbustas move to upper stories of ruins.

Shooting phase
Deffkoptas fail to wound Librarian.
Tankbustas kill 1 marine from 1st combat squad.
Trukks go flat out fowards
Other mobs run

No combat

Score 1vp for 'more speed, go fasta' (1-1)

Dark Angel turn 2

Movement phase
Ravenwing reserves arrive automatically on the left flank.
Knights surround the trukk.

Psychic phase
Aversion cast on Tankbustas.

Shooting phase
Combat squad 2 shoots at trukk,  2 hull points lost.
Combat squad 1 shoots at trukk, plasma cannon overheats and dies!
Tactical squad kills 4 Shoota Boyz.
Devestators all miss the Ard Boyz.
Dark Talon falls to wound a Deffkopta.
Ravenwing Command kill a Deffkopta.
Ravenwing bikers wound the Deffkopta behind the lines.

Combat phase
Knights charge trukk and wreck it. Slugga Boyz disembark into convenient ruin.

No victory points this turn.  (1-1)

Ork turn 2

Movement Phase

1 Deffkopta moves behind Dark Talon.
Disembarked Slugga Boyz move towards combat squad 2.
infantry wave continues fowards.
Second unit of Ard boys move behind Devestators and disembark.
Backline Warboss joins Tankbustas

Shooting phase
Deffkopta fails to kill any Tactical Marines
Slugga Boyz fail to wound Sammy.
Tankbustas fail to kill any Tactical marines (Aversion helps a lot)
1 marine in combat squad 2 dies to Slugga fire.
Big slugga mobs run (slowly)

Combat phase

Small Slugga mob charges combat squad 2, 1 killed by overwatch.
1 Ork killed in combat,
35 attacks from the orks (!) kills the 4 remaining marines.

Mounted Ard Boyz unit charges Devestators, 1 killed by overwatch.
1 Ork killed in combat
Devestators wiped out.

1 victory point for objective 3 and 1 for Stomp 'em Boyz. (1-3)

Dark Angel turn 3

Movement phase
Knights move to take on Slugga Boyz with Warboss.
Dark Talon drops the stasis bomb on the shoota boyz.
Ravenwing bikes and command squad zip towards Shoota Boyz.
Tactical squad leaves ruin and Librarian leaves the squad.

Psychic phase
Librarian activates force weapon.

Shooting phase
Librarian finishes off the wounded Deffkopta.
Tactical squad kills 1 Ard boy from the trukk unit.
Dark Talon kills 3 Ard boys and a Warboss in the foot unit. (It's OK boss, don't look out.)
Ravenwing Command kills 5 Shoota Boyz, banner bearer dies from overheating.

Combat phase
Deathwing knights charge Slugga Boyz, overwatch kills none.
29 Ork attacks first as the knights charged through cover,  no wounds.
Knights kill 9 orks
Challenge!
Chaplain batters Nob into ground.
Orks flee 7" as Knights consolidate.

Ravenwing Command charges shoota boyz, overwatch kills none, Ravenwing bikers fail to join them.
1 dead from hammer of wrath
Sammy kills 1 Ork.
Squad kills 5.
none left within 3". Combat ends.

No victory points this turn (1-3)



Ork turn 3
Movement phase
fleeing Slugga Boyz rally
trukk Ard Boyz and trukk Slugga Boyz advance out of ruins.
Shoota Boyz move towards Ravenwing command squad.

Shooting phase
shoota boyz fail to dent Ravenwing command.
Big slugga unit shoots at knights, 21 shots achieves nothing.
Last Deffkopta singles out solo Librarian and wounds, armour save lands a 1 but bounces onto a 2!
Tankbustas kill a Ravenwing biker. Bikers choose to jink.

Combat phase
Shoota Boyz charge Ravenwing command overwatch, kills none.
Squad kills 3 orks,
orks kill no bikers.
Challenge!
Sammy caused 2 wounds on painboy, saved on feel no pain.
Painboy causes 1 wound, saved on armour.
Orks stay in combat thanks to bosspole.
command squad uses hit and run.

Trukk Slugga Boyz charge remaining combat squad and are joined by trukk Ard Boyz.
Marines cause no wounds.
Orks politely stand aside and allow the nobs to kill the marines to save time.
Orks consolidate into the ruin with the Tactical squad.

Orks receive 1 victory point for objective 4, 1 for Hungry for Glory, and 1 for No Prisoners. (1-6)

Dark Angel turn 4
Movement Phase
Deathwing knights move closer to Ork horde
Ravenwing bikers move to engage last Deffkopta.
Ravenwing Command moves back to threaten the much reduced shoota boyz.
Librarian sidesteps outflanking trukk mobs.
Dark Talon enters hover mode.

Psychic phase
Trephination cast on Ard Boyz, no effect.

Shooting phase
Tactical squad pours fire into Ard Boyz, kills all except Nob and Warboss but does 1 wound on each of them.
Ravenwing bikers fire lots of shots but fail to bring down the last Deffkopta.
Ravenwing Command is ineffective against the shoota boyz.
the dark Talon raked the infantry Ard Boyz for 3 kills.
Ard Boyz & Warboss fail panic test but are saved by a bosspole.

Combat phase
Ravenwing bikes try to charge Deffkopta but one dies to overwatch and the others fail to reach the enemy.
hammer of wrath kill 2 orks
Ravenwing kill 4 remaining orks,
Ork Nob kills 2 Ravenwing
Challenge!
Sammy causes 2 wounds on painboy , 1 saved by feel no pain
Painboy finishes off Sammy. (Slay the Warlord)
Despite this, the Nob kills the painboy to prevent himself running away.

Ravenwing Command charges shoota boyz, Sammy wounded by overwatch.

Knights charge weakened Slugga Boyz mob.
Hammer of wrath kills 1.
Chaplain misses the foe!
Knights pound 10 orks, finishing the unit off and letting the Chaplain of the hook

3 victory points for the dark Angels from 'Not One Step Backwards' (4-7)

Ork turn 4
Movement Phase

Big slugga unit bears down on deathwing knights
Remnants of trukk Slugga mob pound through Ard Boyz unit towards Tactical squad.
trukk Warboss squares up to Librarian.
Solo shoota Nob wanders about confused as to why he is alive and where the Ravenwing have all gone.

Shooting phase
Almost all the remaining orks unleash a hail of vaguely accurate shooting at the Deathwing Knights for no effect, except the Tankbustas who cause 2 hull points on the dark Talon and destroy a hurricane bolter.
The last Deffkopta turbo boosts to escape the bikers.

Combat phase
Warboss charges Librarian
Librarian fails to hit.
Warboss only hits once, but snips the psyker in half with his power klaw.

Big mob of Slugga charge deathwing knights, joined by the Warboss from the Tankbustas.
Deathwing knights use smite.
3 wounds caused on Warboss,  2 saved by the beasts cybork body.
1 other Ork killed.
74 standard Ork boy attacks back manages to bring down the Chaplain.
The Warboss kills 1 knight.


Trukk Slugga boyz charge the Tactical Squad, losing 2 boyz to overwatch.
Marines cause 3 casualties.
Orks fail to kill any orks
Challenge!
sergeant kills the Nob
Ork unit passes the break test.

Orks receive  1 victory point for objective 1 and 1 for 'assassinate'. (4-9)

Dark Angel turn 5
Movement Phase
Ravenwing bikers move to avenge the Librarian.

Shooting phase
Ravenwing bikes and Dark Talon don't even wound the Warboss.

Combat phase

Tactical squad kills all except the Nob, who bravely stands his ground.

Knights v. Orks
knights kill none.
Ork Nob kills a single knight.

No objectives achieved. (4-9)

Ork turn 5
Movement Phase
Deffkopta moves and turbo boosts over to objective 4.
Warboss waddles towards Tactical squad.

Shooting phase
nah...

Combat phase

Warboss charges Tactical squad and kills 2 for no comeback. The Tactical squad is stubborn.

Knights v. Orks
knights kill 1
orks kill 1 also. Warboss gets the other 2

Orks get 1 victory point for objective 4  (4-10)

End of game!

Orks get linebreaker for (4-11)


Waaaaghhh!!!!!
despite the end score, the game was quite close up to the last couple of turns. I really struggled against the knights until i managed to get the better part of 4 squads in against them. i was also really lucky with my bosspole rolls, lol. I only had one unit run away, and that was because the nob was dead.Even then, it rallied and helped finish off the deathwing knights. I had hoped to use the deffkoptas to dash about and sieze bjectives but most of the cards i drew were of the kill this/do that type, but they still played their part, a nuisance if nothing else.Unit of the game had to be the shoota mob, with a painboy attached they weathered a lot of flak, and of course, the painboy killed the warlord,samnael. all in all a good game against a great opponnt, but victory went where it belonged, to the orks!!!!

Armies of the Tyrants, part 2

Hi there,
well the Padman got in first, too much time on his hands, lol. I'm the "old man" of the group,war gaming for over 30 years but a comparatively newcomer to warhammer thanks to my son's interest in LOTR  getting me into a GW shop. My prime army is orks, great fun to play, but don't expect to win too often, my other 40k army being Space Wolves, my thunderwolf list currently causing havoc in the group, although I expect this brief moment of glory to end as my fellow gamers adapt to the list. Ah well, back to the drawing board. That's what makes it fun, constantly changing and adapting, although maybe not the first few times your army gets chewed up. Now, I'm not the greatest painter, but I try, and thanks to the Padman, we all endeavour to play with fully painted armies which,if nothing else, will make our battle reports pleasing to the eye. Thanks for reading, and enjoy a few photos of some of my glorious troops.  The "Old Man".

Armies of the Tyrants part 1

Hello gamers.

Welcome to the first in series of posts showcasing the armies of the Tyrants.

The first of these is my Dark Angels army. Based around a Demi Company of the 3rd Company, with detachments of Deathwing and Ravenwing.

I started this army with the old codex, specifically for a doubles event at Warhammer world.  I had Beliel and Deathwing, and Mr. Wilson had Sameal and Ravenwing. We did not do well. Winning two games and loosing three!

Anyway I continued to build up my Deathwing, till the new book was released and normal marines became much more desirable.
So over the course of a month I added the demi company, which has made the force much more rounded,

 

Hope to have a battle report with the Unforgiven wrote up soon. But till then, take care and keep rollng 6's.

Padman.