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Rogue Trader part 2
by Aaron Tosch
No no, things weren’t that bad. I played three great games and got second place in the tournament (granted
it was out of 4, there’s not much fantasy in Spokane). Here is how they went.
Game 1- The glorious Legio Felix IX versus Bretonnians.
This is the first time I had played Bretonnians so didn’t know much of what to expect, besides lots of cavalry,
and that’s just what I got. He had 5 mounted units, including 5 men-at-arms light cavalry, 10 or so Grail
Knights, and three more blocks of at least 10 cavalry each. There was also a unit of 16 men-at-arms on foot
and a few mounted heroes thrown in, including some level 4 mage chick, which they seemed to hold in high
regard. The mission was to find an objective and hold onto an objective in the center out of a bunch of
possible locations. There were a couple impassable terrain pieces separating us, which hindered movement a
bit but I’d say hurt him worse than me.
He was cautious moving against me, most likely because of my chariots, but this didn’t help much as it only
gave me what I wanted- and that was to avoid close combat. We were able to shut down his magic phase
relatively well and got off some good spells of our own. My repeaters did some damage whenever they hit,
but didn’t hit often. Bretonnians have this weird rule “blessing of the lady” or whatever which means that
when you want to fire at one of their mounted units you must first roll a 4+ or not get to shoot. Obviously this
cut down on my firing quite a bit. I mostly targeted his lead unit of 13 knights, which went straight at us, and
reduced them to 7 by the time they hit my spearmen unit. Since they only got one rank (from their odd
“spear formation”) they couldn’t break my spearmen, and we were able to countercharge with a nearby
chariot, which broke and ran them down. My spearmen followed up into the nearby men-at-arms unit, which
had lost half of it’s number from my commander on great eagle who took great joy in picking on them. We
won that combat easily but didn’t manage to run them down. I had also charged two chariots into the side of
his grail knights (though it didn’t count as a side charge thanks to the arrow formation) and though we
knocked three of them off I ultimately lost the combat and a chariot. Nobody ended the game with the
objective so victory points were pretty light, but we managed a win from this one! Roma Victor!!
Game 2- The considerably more glorious Legio Felix IX versus Chaos.
Ug…Chaos. Easily the most blatantly unbalanced army in Fantasy. It was an ugly one too- 10 knights, 4
chosen knights, 16 chaos warriors, 2 units of 5 hounds, 20 skirmishing gors and ungors, 3 screamers, chariot
with champion (whose bright idea was it to make Chaos chariots a core choice??), two more decked out
champions- one on steed, another on daemonic mount, a partridge in a pear tree, marks of tzeentch all
around which gave them 12 power dice in the magic phase, more then even I could assemble. No matter,
we will ride them down like grass! ... somehow.
We had the diagonal deployment zones again with no actual objective. I formed a nice fire base of three
repeaters behind a difficult terrain ditch in my corner. His army was clumped together so I circled my cavalry
and a chariot around the left flank to give them something to think about. We split our fire a bit at first, wiping
out a unit of hounds in his center to cause break tests all around, cutting down a knight or two, and trying to
send a screamer back to the warp but their ward saves prevented this. The Chaos line moved out cautiously,
as I could tell he was afraid of my chariots. The screamers went for my lone repeater off to the right, so I
moved my flying commander over to fight them. He fluffed and scored no wounds, and with one wound in
return lost the combat and was run down as the screamers caused fear. I fired at the knights again killing a
few more. One of my chariots decided to charge his chariot in the side, scoring 3 wounds, but as the
champion on it was strength 7 (ridiculous!) mine was reduced to splinters. Another chariot had charged his
hounds, which moved out as a decoy to get me to charge. They promptly fled as I suspected, but I did the
same next turn when his stuff tried to charge me. Unfortunately my chariot’s morale wasn’t so good and
never came back! In his next turn the screamers attacked my repeater and took it out. Apparently as flying
skirmishers they can charge anyone within 20” in a 360’ arc, nasty stuff. His knights marched out
dangerously close to my lines, followed by the chosen, beastmen, and warriors. I had a chance to charge his
knights in the side with my cavalry and chariot but opted not to, as even if they had won they’d be in a very
bad place. I decided to shoot them down with repeaters, which left only the champion that had joined them.
All the while we kept getting hit with random strength 1 D6 magic missiles and spells which caused my elves
to attack themselves. Silly Chaos! Even though an Elf can’t take a hit, it can’t give one either, so those spells
usually didn’t do much. I was able to get off a number of my own spells, mostly magic missiles, as he feared
my repeaters rerolling most of all, which helped.
At the halfway point, things were pretty even. My cavalry and chariot were goaded into charging the
beastmen and did just that, figuring once they were dead we could follow up into the chosen knights who
were now turned to face us. The beastmen fled as I kinda suspected so I redirected into the 4 chosen
knights anyways. Unfortunately my chariot was just 2 inches out of range- curses! The silver helms still
managed to take down two and they got one of us in return (strength 5 and they didn’t even charge!) but we
didn’t break them. My magic and artillery opened up on his chaos warriors and hounds, slaying the hounds
and breaking the warriors. His two mounted champions were moving about amongst our lines, though mostly
were casting spells rather then engaging units. One charged the chariot that had failed to reach the chosen
knights, which tried to flee as I imagined this guy was strength 7 as well, but it didn’t matter as he caught it
anyways. The Chaos chariot charged my helms in the side and did some damage, which was quelled
somewhat as the champion on back suffered a miscast and was knocked out that turn. They were wielding
strength 3 attacks all around against toughness 4,1+ armor so obviously did nothing in return, but at least my
single commander with the Banner of Sorcery held. On the last turn of the game my repeaters finally decided
to turn their attention to the two champions. A single repeater shot down his general (the one on the
daemonic steed), sending 4 arrows directly into the rider despite having to randomize between him and the
mount. The mount lived but the rider fell, righteous arrows piercing his black heart. The other two repeaters
shot at the champion on steed, the first causing a wound, the second failing- despite forcing him to make 4 3+
armor saves! The dark gods favored that one for sure. My lone standard bearer was charged by the rallied
beastmen and fought Chaos on three sides now, sadly giving his life. The screamers charged into my archers
(only 5 at this point) who feared them and fled.
The game was over, we lost by about 400 victory points. It was a really good game though and could have
gone either way at some points. Little things like if my chariot had reached combat with his chosen or if his
champion had failed one of those last armor saves could have given me enough for a draw. I also realized
that I shouldn’t fear targeting his champions and should have shot them instead of the chaos warrior unit.
They were more dangerous and were probably worth the same amount of points. Ah well… on to the next
bout.
Game 3- The slightly less glorious Legio Felix IX versus Night Goblins.
This was a fun one. He came in with 6 units total, all carrying approximately 40 models each. Included were
5 units of goblins with 3 fanatics apiece, and one huge mixed unit of squigs, herders, and squig hoppers. On
top of that he had 4 mages, one of them a level 4 great shaman. This meant he was bringing 12 power dice
just like the last game so again I’d have to struggle for magical dominance. The majority of spells he used
were only two from his shaman, a brutal combination of Mork Save Uz! (D3 rerolls) and Gork’s Warpath
(D6 strength 6 hits on any unit on the board, continued onto another unit of his choosing on a 4+, although if
he rolled a 1 I got to choose one of his). He would use the reroll’s whenever Gork failed his 4+ roll to
continue stomping around, which murdered too many Elves throughout the game including my commander on
eagle, silver helms, several spearmen, and a couple chariots =(.
I decided early on that I had to break units and the mages they carried. I was actually able to get off a
considerable number of spells. He rarely tried to stop the Curse of Arrow Attraction spells (which I had two
of this game) and saved his dispel dice for my magic missiles and drain magic against his great shaman. I had
a great time with my archers and repeaters who stitched bloody swathes through the rabble and were the
heroes of the day. I broke a goblin unit on my left flank on turn two which fled all the way off the field and
took a mage and it’s fanatics with it. This was also the turn I sent two chariots out to get some fanatics
released from two other units, all of which luckily failed to reach the chariots. Both chariots fled when
charged next turn (he had no qualms about moving through his fanatics) and unfortunately one never
returned. I sent a lot of firepower into the squig unit throughout the game, simply for the amusement factor
when herders start dieing and can’t control the squigs. Being a huge unit he was hemorrhaging squigs every
turn, everywhere from a couple to ten or more! Between them and the fanatics he spent more time moving
these guys then the rest of his turn. On turn 3 I sent a chariot arching around one of his goblin units on the
right flank so that the unit behind had to release fanatics in such a way that if they wanted to reach the chariot
they had to go through the front unit. Two sailed through (like I said, no qualms!) but failed to reach the
chariot. He tried to charge my spearmen unit at this point, but they failed a fear test and stayed put =)
On turn 5 I answered with a couple charges. Two chariots charged the right foremost unit (with no fanatics
to interrupt) and ran them down. My spearmen charged the goblins that had tried to charge them but
something that could only happen with goblins happened. The unit carrying the great shaman still had fanatics
and they were right behind them. He loaded madcap mushrooms (meaning fanatics do 2D6 damage) sent
them straight forward through his own unit (did I mention he had no qualms about this?). Again we were
fortunate that none reached us, and the charge was halted when the unit we charged literally exploded with
6D6 strength 5 hits that wiped it out completely! There were 20 goblins in it! The squig unit had also been
completely out of control at this point as all the herders had been killed. We managed to break the great
shaman unit with fire and arrows but they rallied. Mostly the fanatics and squigs didn’t harm either of us
much until the last turn, when a bit of luck sent two through my spearmen (reducing them to half) and one of
my repeaters (killing the crew). The great shaman unit and another unit of goblins with a mage were above
half at the end, opposed to my 2 mages, 3 repeaters, half spearmen, 1 chariot, and archers. I was ahead
about 100 VP’s but it counted as a draw. Definitely a game worth remembering! I would have played it
much differently though a second time around. First I would have concentrated more on putting my artillery
in a position to target his great shaman unit (they were behind a wall in the center), or at least used the drain
magic spell more on him. I tried this out a few times and he managed to dispel it most of those. I would have
also spent less firepower on the squigs and more on breaking units with mages and fanatics, but I was unsure
about what this unit could do to me up close and they’re just so fun to shoot at! Come to think of it, I don’t
recall him ever making break tests for this unit or animosity tests for anyone, but no big deal, it was only his
third game in fantasy.
And there you have it, if I haven’t lost you already. I think we did pretty well considering the tough armies
we went up against. I’m already planning the next evolution of this army list, which of course I can’t discuss
as you may be my next opponent! I still think our codex could use some punch, or at least a rearrangement
of our options so that our composition scores don’t suffer so much. We only get 4 options for core choices,
while most armies get 6 or 7. Not only that, but of our core choices only one unit has an attack over strength
3, and that’s the silver helm lances +2 strength on the charge. I’m still crying about repeaters, great eagles,
and phoenix guard (my best painted unit) all being rare choices. Such is the life of the Elves though. It is not
an army for the weak, or those who can easily lose faith in their warriors and turn away. Their commander
must have considerable strength (as they surely do not!) It requires nobility that rivals that of the Elves of
Ulthuan themselves, and for all their faults, they are more than made up for with righteousness!
-Aaron Tosch