Over the last four years the competing forces of Throndmaug have jostled for supremacy, we saw the Undead fall to the Night Goblins, then the High Elves to the Daemons of Tzeentch. The Chaos Dwarfs attacked, were repulsed and then defeated by the Night Goblins. This leaves only one match-up remaining to determine the overall winner of the Herohammer Aggression Campaign:

The Daemons led by a shard of Tzeentch (Sorcerer) muster before their unholy icon, intent on the ravaging of

Night Goblin shaman Makarev readies his Greenskins for the final push, to cover the land in fungal spore

The Magic is again, used from 6th Edition while I wait for Battle Magic to arrive, so the Tzeentch Shard as Level 2 gets ‘Comet of Cassandora’ (1-3 increment M, 4-6 D6*M radius 2D6 S5 hit on 10+) and ‘Forked Lighting’ (D6 S4 hits on 7+) as spells. The Shaman gets Fire Blast (2D6 S4 hits on 8+) and Wall of Fire (one S4 hit per rank, stays in play at 12+)

Goblins win the first-turn roll-off, and the army moves forward – in the first magic phase the Shaman is able to cast Fire Blast, incinerating the unlucky Shard of Tzeentch with Total Power and 2D6 S4 hits!

In response the remorseless Demons surge forward, eager to close the distance and consume their fungal foe. The Tzeentch left flank flamers trigger a Fanatic who spins through their midst.

The Wolfriders get the charge in on the Pink Horrors and slay one, and the Giant wades into the Chariot and punts it over a nearby hill:

The nearby Spawn charges the Giant, but is similarly hoofed over the horizon, but the Tzeentch left flank drives away the Woflriders and Archers easily, and the Flamers on their right flank decimate the Goblin archers (who surprisingly stand firm).

The Trolls notice that there is infact a battle going on and saunter forward.

The Giant lopes around into the flank of the Pink Horrors, they are swatted into orbit and the resulting blue horrors flee in panic and are run down, the Giant striding through them into the Spawn as a pursuit move:

The Flamers continue to dominate, burning the Goblin left flank archers to cinders and causing enough wounds on the temporarily-lucid Trolls to have them also turn in flight. The spawn isn’t able to scratch the giant, while in return is belted with a tree branch for D6 S7 hits and mashed to a pulp

The Goblin left flank completes its sorry collapse: the Wolfriders gallop off into the sunset, and both the Trolls and the archers follow at pace. The only meaningful offense of the turn is Makarev’s unleashing of Wall of Fire into the blue horrors opposite him – causing four to burn to a crisp and setting up a barrier preventing them from charging him next turn:

Deprived of their juicy target the Blue horrors pivot to advance towards the Giant in their flank, and the Flamers reap a terrible harvest of goblin spearmen:

The Giant charges the flank of some nearby Flamers but is unable to destroy them, while the Shaman and other unit of Flamers trade magical warpfire.

Both sides are down to their last gasp and the final combat sees the Giant beaten and fleeing towards the wrong lines before being run down by the flamers.

Result

This was an incredibly hard fought battle – the Daemons were on the back foot after the death of their Sorcerer in the first turn, but the devastating power of the Flamers was in evidence. By contrast the Night Goblin unity was fractured from the start, the Giant pulling most of the weight throughout the game.

The Daemons hold one table quarter, while the rest were disputed and were able to inflict 8 Victory Points of casualties. The Night Goblins didn’t hold any table quarters, and inflicted 10 VP of casualties.

Campaign Winner

In a spectacularly unexpected turn of events, the Night Goblins led by Shaman Champion Makarev are the winners of this campaign! Huzzah to the greenskins!

Final Thoughts

Warhammer 4e

This is my first time really sitting down with classic WHFB for an extended period. My previous experience with 3rd Edition was very enjoyable, and this was equally so.

Rules

I can certainly see how some gamers would find the classic Warhammer rules to be pretty bloated and slow – there are many occasions where buckets of dice are rolled, tables and charts referenced, measurements taken and decisions made which have little to no effect on the games outcome.

Magic

I switched from a virtual ‘4e Battle Magic’ to using the 6e Magic system after the first couple of games, because the former was simply too difficult to manage without the physical cards. Therein lies my only dissapointment in this campaign – the 6e may well be streamlined and sensible, but it is also terribly dull!

Balance

There were certainly times that I felt things were a little unbalanced, particularly since in theory you shouldn’t take a full Daemon chaos-list, and I allowed only the Night Goblins the use of a couple of magic items to bolster their terrible morale.

WHFB 3e is designed to be played at 3000pts, and I believe 4e is balanced for 2000pts – so it is not surprising that certain elements tend to dominate a low points count.

Campaign

The result was a surprise to me – I was certain the Night Goblins were going to get knocked out immediately and so for them to win overall was a bit of a shock. The Shaman, Trolls, Giant and Wolfriders all showed their mettle repeatedly in a way I don’t think was reflected in the other armies with the possible exception of the Flamers of Tzeentch and Chaos Dwarf Champion (who led his unit to slay the Giant twice – henceforth Esarhaddon “The Giant Killer”).

The Campaign was a lovely way to get a series of armies out onto the tabletop and really test drive the Warhammer rules. Having completed this I would consider an escalation league alternative, with increasing point counts and reinforcement over time with no knockouts per se.

Thank you!

Thank you for reading, it has been a pleasure to play and document this for you. Please do leave a comment or send me a message if you have found this enjoyable.