No special characters
No unridden large monsters
No allies
Wizards are limited to a maximum level of 3, no magic items can improve on this
Magic Items with a points value of more than 50 cannot be included
Magic Items with a points value of more than 50 cannot be included
Only one war machine, for each regiment in the army
Our group grew, we were now roughly 6 or 7 players playing & we quickly adopted these rules, Regiments of renown was allowed as allies when they got released & Chaos was allowed to ally within itself.
I remember this time with great joy, even though many people dislike 5th edition & dub it herohammer, I think this came from the fact that players wanted to field 2000 Points & bigger battles as fast as possible & the easiest way to do so was by gearing up your characters. It was more an economic solution to have a reasonably sized game with just a few troops. It also meant that players discovered some kick-ass combinations of characters, magic items and elite units to fill out the points in a cost effective way, and stuck with it, even if their collections grew and allowed for more balanced forces, I could field well above 10 000 Points myself, yet in our 2000 pts games I almost always took the same units & characters, with only minor changes to allow 1 new unit or change a magic item or something similar, characters were good for their value, until people discovered ways to combat them.
Another really good thing with 5th edition was the release of the Realm of Chaos box, while it was sad that they split the forces up a bit, & the new models looked like hunchbacks, at least they showed us that Chaos doesn´t have to be painted in bright red colours!
The new Daemons were a great update as well!
I remember this time with great joy, even though many people dislike 5th edition & dub it herohammer, I think this came from the fact that players wanted to field 2000 Points & bigger battles as fast as possible & the easiest way to do so was by gearing up your characters. It was more an economic solution to have a reasonably sized game with just a few troops. It also meant that players discovered some kick-ass combinations of characters, magic items and elite units to fill out the points in a cost effective way, and stuck with it, even if their collections grew and allowed for more balanced forces, I could field well above 10 000 Points myself, yet in our 2000 pts games I almost always took the same units & characters, with only minor changes to allow 1 new unit or change a magic item or something similar, characters were good for their value, until people discovered ways to combat them.
Another really good thing with 5th edition was the release of the Realm of Chaos box, while it was sad that they split the forces up a bit, & the new models looked like hunchbacks, at least they showed us that Chaos doesn´t have to be painted in bright red colours!
The new Daemons were a great update as well!
It was around this time I decided to enter my first tournament, held at Tradition, Malmö. We were 3 players from my gaming group going to the same tournament, the tournament had a total of 16 people, we were split into 4 groups of 4 players each. the 2 highest scoring players in each group would go to a quarter final.
The tournament used the VP100 system & applied the tournament rules above while adding 3 "rules" of their own.
* At the beginning of each battle you would tell your opponent which magic items your army included & they would then be able to ante 1 single item, which you wouldn´t be able to use, but you got 50+ amount of points the item cost as free victory points.
* No Power 3 spells
* You would get bonus points for having a themed army (a jury decided if the army fit within the races theme).
I had a lousy army, I had gone the Deathstar route & only had 4 units in total (big unit of knights led by Khorne lord, big unit of warriors led by Master wizard of Tzeentch, 6 harpies & 6 hounds). I´d taken subpar magic items as I didn´t want my items to make or break the army due to the ante rule (it would've been better to just overload on good items instead).
The general:
& the sorcerer:
I remember very clearly the 3 battles I fought:
First vs Lizardmen: He trounced me & I relearned that skink champions with Black gem of Gnar is nasty vs Khorne lords, while a Slann with Flail of skulls trounces everything else I got.
Tbh this was a very competetive guy, but boy did I learn a lot from him, he gave me a lot of hints on what magic items to use in the future, what to ante, to have dedicated roles for each character & think about point efficency while not forgetting how useful chaff is.
Second game I faced a Greenskin army: I anted his Black gem of Gnar, started out the game well enough with him being forced to release his fanatics in turn 1 & 2 due to harpies & hounds, then came the backlash.
A lone goblin hero charges my unit of chaos knights, gulps down a potion of strength & challenges my lord. My lord kills him in a single round, the goblin explodes & kills my lord along with 3 chaos knights. a 70 pts model had just killed close to 700 points for me! I can´t really turn it around after this despite my best efforts & get a minor loss in the end
Third vs Undead: I won this game, but I still remember how shocked I was when it turned out his Vampire Count had a heart of Woe along with the Carstein ring, once again my knights got a trouncing from a single model, but at least my lord survived this time & managed to kill the Vampire a second time.
So what had I learned & what did I take with me from this tournament: Each army I faced had the Black Gem of Gnar, this is a very powerful way of taking care of enemy characters, I knew this since before, but I couldn´t avoid it with the Sword of Destruction combo, so only way to remove it was via ante, but even so, then you still have to face the Heart of Woe which 2 of my opponents had. The theme I had of elite warriors was apparently not popular among the judges & I got a bad score, but I also learned that this score mattered less than I thought, you could at best get another 500 points from it.
Remembering the talk I had with the Lizardmen player I decided to redesign the army a bit:
The tournament army now looked like this:
Chaos Hero: Mark of Khorne, Helm of Many Eyes, Jade Amulet, barded Chaos steed, great weapon, lance & shield.
Chaos Master sorcerer: Mark of Tzeentch, Chaos Armour, Destiny of Tzeentch, Staff of Osiris, Dispel Scroll, Flail & Disc.
5 Chaos Knights: Banner of Might
15 Chaos Warriors: Halberds, shields, Chaos armour & Standard of Shielding
1 Marauder Chaos chariot: Scythes & flails
8 Harpies
1 Dragon Ogre: Additional handweapon
6 Chaos Hounds.
More drops, smaller elite units & cheaper characters which delivered just as well as my more expensive ones. The tournament turned out to be the very last time I used a normal Chaos lord up until today, chaos heroes are just as good at doing damage for less than 2/3 of the price!
This was the army I used for my next dozen or so tournaments, no changes at all, in all of them I won more games than I lost but I never reached the final.
Some cheezy comboes I faced during that time was:
Vermin Lord inside unit which had a character with Skavenbrew & warpstone charm: 16 attacks @ Strength 8, causing D3 wounds with 32" charge range.
Elf lord with Bow of Loren & Potion of strength, takes out roughly 3 Chaos knights in a single turn, good for a mere 60 pts
Goblin army with a few regiments of wolfriders, the rest was just chariots, pumpwagons & giants, when you mount level 1 shamans on chariots they don´t count towards your warmachines total....
Wizards using Book of Ashur to gain Necromancy spells with multiple Power Scrolls.
Wizards using Book of Ashur to gain Necromancy spells with multiple Power Scrolls.
Multiple hellblasters that tears everything to shreds.
At the time Mordheim was released (by the end of 5th edition), I decided to give in & build myself a second army to have a shot at actually winning a tournament.
More of that next time!
