Or how Skaven are the master race even when everyone picks on them.
Last Sunday my friends and I played a special scenario from an old games workshop book, about a historical battle for an abbey in Brettonia. The players featured in the game were Throt the Unclean and Seer Gnawdoom for the Skaven. Heinrich Kemmler, and Krell for the Vampire Counts and two Brettonian lords made for the scenario Tancred Duc De Quenelles - an undead slaying guy and Bagrian, Abbot of La Maisontaal who was a level 4 of beasts.
There were a few changes we had to make to the original rules due to their being several editions since the scenario was written. The biggest one was magic due to the random power dice in 8th. The player who's turn it was got their power dice as normal. The two other players split the dispel dice as per desperate allies. Then they could channel dispel dice on a 4+. It actually worked quite well as magic wasn't running rampant. Another part of the scenario was if you had models in combat they fought each player turn. This sped things up and no one was sitting around for ages with nothing to do.
Vampires and Skaven both deployed at the same time. Due to the small deployment area Vampires had to keep a few units in reserve. I also kept my Doomwheel in reserve also due to space issues. Two peasant units were deployed in the abbey with Bagrian.
The Brettonian army arrives first turn as per reinforcements and try to arrange themselves so they can actually fit from their 12 inch deployment line. Bagrain gets wildform off on the peasant archers and they shoot a few arrows at the skaven bell unit slaying one or two clan rats. The Vampires (There wasn't any vampires in the army but I will keep calling them that) advanced towards the abbey. a unit of dire wolves and the graveguard deathstar with Hemmler and Krell and a Banshee coming for the poor Skaven. Nothing much happened in the magic phase. Then it was finally the Skaven turn where I essentially won the game. My monk unit charges the direwolves. Thrott and the HPA and Doomwheel which has arrived at the back of my deployment zone head towards the Grave Guard. I ring my bell getting embolden and my spells get dispelled. My cannon kills a few knights. Doom rocket takes out about 20 or so graveguard. Poison wind mortar is ineffective. Then my two warpfire throwers fire at the peasant bowman and the men at arms in the abbey. I cause a couple wounds however both units flee out of the abbey from panic. The monks make short work of the direwolves but I roll low for the over run into the Grave Guard.
Turn two Vampires get about 500 or so free points from the skaven by charging the fleeing peasants and men at arms with Bagrian who then flee right through all the knights and off the board. The last unit to damage/make flee get the points for the target unit in the scenario. The Grave Guard charge the Plague Monks and end up getting a flank charge, we had to dice for it as it was right on the 45 degrees. There was a little movement from the other VC units but as kemmler was getting a bit far from the rest of the army they mostly couldn't march. Magic mostly revolved around replacing the Grave Guard I had killed in my phase. My monks fought valiantly against the graveguard killing one of two but they were defeated and then run down but not very far and not into any of my units in that area. Brettonia shuffled about some more heading towards the Skaven mostly. I think dwellers was cast on me in this phase killing about half my bell unit. Luckily the horned rat was with me and I didn't lose any characters. Then it was my turn and I tried to hit the graveguard with both doomwhell and HPA. Doomwheel came up short but the HPA made contact and mushed quite a few Grave Guard. Unfortunately it turns out that Krell gets heroic killing blow when in a unit with Kemmler so Krell killed my HPA and it died for real. Also my Stormvermin jumped into the abbey where everyone kind of forgot about them for a couple turns.
For the next few turns everyone picked on my skaven the Brettonians charge me with most of their strength I held out for a turn or two but my left flank was eventually destroyed. On the right I threw everything at the Grave Guard unit as there was quite a lot of points there. I sent in Throt's unit of giant rats who lasted a few turns due to some insane courage. Thrott managed to killing blow Krell in the face to avenge his abomination. Thrott was then left alone and was run down. I cast plague a few times on the brettonians. Some Knights killed the terrorgheist then got bogged down fighting zombies and skeletons. By turn 5 I had 3 units left. My Bell unit which was down to about 20 guys. my Doomwheel and my Stormvermin. My Doomwheel eventually managed to charge the Grave Guard unit that was down to 3 guys and Kemmler after having scorch cast on them 3 or 4 times and having half my army thrown at them. So I managed kill the GG and crumble kemmler for some serious points. Some valiant knights assaulted the abbey containing my Stormvermin. My cheiftan killed their BSB with his corrupted blade. Then nine stormvermin killed 7 of the 9 surviving knights and repelled them making it look pretty good that I was going to get the 500 bonus victory points for holding the abbey.
I rang my bell one last time and destroyed the abbey. I lost 3 or 4 stormvermin. Seer Gnawdoom was eventually killed by the two Brettonian units that had attacked him from both sides. Vampires tried to make a few charges etc to get into the abbey but they failed. Then we added up the points and I came out winner by about 200 points or so. Mostly due to taking out the Vampires deathstar and holding the abbey. I am now back to back champion of the Battle of La Maisontaal.
Here's one last picture. It's of the scoreboard we had to use to keep track of who killed what for victory points. It's kinda blurry as it was about 1 am when we finished playing. We started at about 5 pm. Thanks to Lee and Danny for a very fun game. I'm sure they did cool stuff in the game that I didn't cover while writing this battle report. I'm not sure I conveyed how bad it looked for Team Skaven for most of the game.
Finished my first batch of Skeletons. Will write up a bit of a step by step. I sprayed them white, then washed the bone bits with graveyard earth. Dry brushed gleaming skull (bleached bone in the old money) and again with a 50/50 white/bone mix just a little on their faces and things.
