Night Goblin Fanatics and the fourth ever game!

Ok! This week was full of painting and gaming!  I managed to get my Night Goblins near finished, and completed my Fanatics just in time for the Doubles Game on Thursday evening – which rocked all kinds of socks thanks to those horrible lil’ fanatics!

The Night Goblin scheme I’m working on  is to be included as part of a larger Goblin side-army I’m working on – an all-Goblin, spider heavy army.  I like the original goblins more, especially their size for painting, but the Night Goblins got a good going over as I tried to come up with a scheme to differentiate them from the typical model schemes.

I’ll detail the full account of the Night Goblins in my next post fully, but I’ll focus today on the basics of the Fanatics.  What I came up with as a theme was to work the hood more than the smaller model of the torso.  This was primed in Chaos Black, then layered with Fenris Grey/Chaos Black mix of 3:1.  I proceeded to wash the model in Badb Black and dry thoroughly before applying the primitive design of blue flames to the opening of the hood in Ice Blue.  This was a pattern that was easy to work and modify with touch-ups for the many models that make up a unit of Night Gobbos, so what I was working on here was ease of effort vs. time  vs. size of model.  The Fantatics were a final impulse purchase about three months ago, and sat idling on a shelf while I worked on developing the Dreadfleet project and building up some Orcs.  The truth is, that I didn’t expect much from these little feckers…that is until they made the game table in my fourth ever game of Warhammer just this week.

This game was organised last week as a 10,000 point doubles game.  I’ll leave the names out as I don’t know if they’d appreciate my sharing their info in this humble blog, but let me say first and foremost that they were great partner/opponents that made for a thoroughly enjoyable evening of Warhammer.  I learned more again, but this was a game that I felt was my first real foray with solid experience and some degree of expertise.  Don’t get me wrong, my partner, armed with seemingly every new Empire model was very helpful as we joined our efforts against a Saurus-heavy Lizardmen (same great opponent that had creamed me just a week ago) and High Elf alliance.  In fact, it was the Empire that broke the back of the Lizardmen and their general while allowing my hordes to reduce the gap and charge the bigger blocks of Saurus, Seaguard and Skinks.

The real power players for our team in this game was the Empire’s War Altar, Demi-Griffs, my Night Goblin Fanatics and the Mangler Squig that I managed to get a loan of for the sake of the game.  (PS – how great is that model? When I first thought €50 for a Squig unit, I really figured something much less grand – but definitely worth the money!  Will need to save for one soon!)

The above units were very much the MVPs.   As I shot off magic that used up the enemy dispel pool, the War Altar buffed the closer units hugely, after some initial snake-eyes.  That magic, combined with the incredible Demi-Griff knights just shredded up the flanking salamander and Old One.  (These models to my mind are more ludicrous than anything, but there is no denying their power on the battlefield).  For the first few turns, the centre was avoided, as typical with low movement models not wanting to concede the charge.  The right flank was where I’d positioned the Mangler to draw some attention, while my Spider rider and Boar Chariot cavalry moved up with the main body of troops.  I fully expected the thing to be pumped to pieces by the Elven bowmen opposite them.  Miraculously, and due to some pretty unfortunate dice, they suffered only one wound as they bounced through Salamanders, Skinks and the bonus of all – the Elf General mounted on a flying griffin.  The Salamanders were utterly destroyed, and all but two Skinks bought it too.  The general and  mount got a battering too – but were now an inch away from the Mangler!  On his move, the Elf flew forward to dish out some death from above on my Spider cav, but came into range of the Night Goblin bowmen who released their fanatics towards the griffin.  This resulted in the absolute bashing of the mount, and reduced the general to a single wound, fallen in the very centre of a ring of Fanatics!  This was a sweet moment for me, as they had done precisely what was needed from them (I did feel horrendously bad for the Elf player who had never faced off against the unpredictable greenskins.   He was such a decent bloke, but had the deflated look I knew all too well from the week before).  My problem now became the Fanatics going crazily close to my own blocks of boyz and black orcs, and they did get some damage in before we called it a day.

To sumarise my own experience – it was a really decent game where simple tactics and some good dice rolls won out.  I was helped in no small amount from my partner, who knew more of the gobbos than I did, but really most of the events on my side of the board were set in place by myself with less moderation from outside than previous games.  The Lizardmen and High-Elves did really well to whittle down numbers very quickly, but with the Demi-Griffs dancing through and behind their ranks, and the Orcs working up the field centre, it became a numbers game in the end.  The  Lizardmen folded first, and the High-Elves valiantly held out with two strong remaining units before the result was declared.  While Grimgor Ironhide’s Immortalz had ripped through some sizeable units, it was definitely the Mangler getting very lucky, and the Fanatics taking out the general that made the game for me.  I think that it is a little bit ironic that my best units are also the one that depend largely on chance to make any impact on the enemy – what does that say about my ability as commander?!  Truly, if the general had lived, or if those pesky salamanders had gotten some flame in first, the game could have been a very different story altogether!

I need to take a break next week from gaming due to a prior appointment, but the following week I hope to play against a more local opponent who also fields Orcs.  He is a veteran gamer and seriously good organiser, so it should prove a very interesting game.  Meanwhile, it will be time to get some painting in!