With a friend already thinking about what he’s taking to Clash of Kings this year I thought it would be a great opportunity to put together a fun rat list and take a break from the Halflings. I decided to take as much infantry as I have and a bit of rallying, to taste (so to speak). But once I had put together what I wanted to field I realised I was still a couple of hundred points to mess around with. After a little thought I decided I would spend my points in the most rule of cool possible way possible. With that in mind I decided to grab my vermintide legion off the shelf. Not only do I love the model, but I had also decided to take two mutant rat fiends and the Tangle, which meant there were a few synergies I could play around with.
In an interesting turn of symmetrical fate, it turns out the Ogres had bought a legion of their own, this one was a little punchier than mine as it consisted of ogre warriors. The wider list was fairly interesting as it consisted mainly of warrior units, also with a bit of rallying from a paymaster. Looking through the list it looked as though the ogres had a reasonable amount of synergies to play with as well given the number of warlocks that turned up.
We rolled for scenario and got Compass Points. I’ll be honest, Compass Points isn’t my favourite scenario. It feels very easy to get a draw on, but that was the roll, so we set up.
Given my army is largely infantry, slow moving and each individual element is unlikely to kill anything, I decided it would be best to keep everything together in a refused flank set up. I knew this meant I was probably going to find some chariots tearing up my empty left flank, but that was something I was just going to have to deal with, when it inevitably occurred.
I placed spear hordes at either end of my line and then spread my shock troop regiments between them, and the fiends went right of centre with Cryza. The Tangle went in the centre and I held back the weapons teams until I knew where the boomer chariots were going. The boomers went in the centre, so the weapons teams went to the left.
Orge battle lines always look incredibly solid, unlike Ratkin, that look about as intact as slice of Swiss cheese. Seeing the warrior legion in the centre really ramped up that feeling and so it was with a fair amount of trepidation that I made the first move. With no really impactful shooting my units shuffled forward, doing their best to arrange their lines of sight so future ogre charges could be harshly punished. The ogres took similar tentative steps, but did allow a regiment of warriors to range forward to a position where the vermintide legion would be able to get a charge.
What I like about the vermintide legion is how long it is. Taking the charge into the warrior regiment created lots of issues for the ogres on the right flank. Not only did it end up stopping two warrior hordes on the end of the right flank double charging my spear horde, but the amount of nerve it has, with rallying, meant the ogres were going to have to throw a fair amount of stuff against it to clear it out in one go. To add insult to injury the 36 attacks resulted in the removal of the warrior regiment, whilst shooting from the weapons teams started to hurt the ogres. I think all this forced my opponent’s hand and he went all in with warriors and chariots to remove the vermin in one go, which he did.
The remainder of the army advanced cautiously in the centre, and after a little lack lustre shooting readied for the next turn.
Not surprisingly, the vermintide was crushed under smelly ogre boots, which gave me the choice of charges. Multi-charges are where this army excels, and one of the fiends, a shock troop regiment and an enforcer went into the chariots, whilst Crzya got stuck into the warriors.
In a twist of luck, the lone warrior regiment that had taken on the spear horde had managed to roll a double 6 on the nerve check. Unphased, the spear rats simply took a step back and let the weapons teams go to work, which led to the warriors being waivered in their own turn.
The chariots were destroyed, and it was at this point I realised the ogre legion was now glowering at my little rats. There are very definite similarities between an ogre legion and my Halfling Jugger horde. They both hit very hard, and they both look very scary. However, I believe with both units the threat they represent can massively outweigh their impact on a game if they commit at the wrong time.
So far, they had done the threat thing perfectly, keeping my units back and away from setting foot into their half, and away from their 3 point token. But with the right flank flailing the legion committed, charging into the closest fiend and tearing it apart. At the same time the centre of the ogre line, warrior regiments and boomer chariots, charged across rough ground into my other spear horde.
Unlike the spear horde, the fiend fell to the legion, and I realised that whether I liked it or not the legion was going to end up being committed to the right flank, because turning to face the centre of the board would have left the legion with a shock troop regiment ready to charge it in the rear. This did take a massive pressure of the centre though, and I was able to send 2 shock troop regiments to address the chariots that were speeding up the left flank unopposed.
A quick assessment of the right flank gave me some reassurance that I could keep the pressure on the legion using the shock troops and the weapons teams, although it was likely to cost me a unit a turn, whilst Cryza and the spears fought the damaged ogre warrior horde. If I could finish off the warriors, I might even have enough unit strength left to contest the objective.
The game was far from won though, as I still had to break through the centre, and hold onto my own objective. Despite a bit of a quagmire erupting in the centre as rats failed to hit ogres and ogres failed to do enough wounds to shift blocks of vermin the remaining fiend managed to break through, trample the poor crocodog wrangler underfoot and make a break for the ogre’s central objective.
On the left the shock troop regiments deployed their plague pots and successfully blocked the chariot’s charge, waivering it in return, before going in for the kill in the next turn. With the chariots lost it fell to a warlock to try and hold onto the left-hand objective.
At this stage things were looking good for the rats. Even without the two side tokens the game would fall to the ratkin, but the flanks were now where the most exciting parts of the game were being played out.
On the right flank the legion chewed through the shock troops despite a hindered charge into plague pots. However, I had my next sneaky trick up my sleeve – the weapons teams, and it was not so much about the damage they would cause, more the fact that I had three of them that my opponent would have to roll 108 attacks for each if he wanted to silence them (it’s probably worth noting that I didn’t actually force my opponent to roll these dice, and that I got bored of it far quicker than he did! Also, we weren’t playing on a clock, so I turned out to be the only one who suffered, relatively speaking). Despite my dice-based disruption the warriors ran out of turns to take them all on, and settled on the objective, whilst my spears were being held up by the ogre paymaster. In turn 6 the warriors held the objective on the right and the warlock held the objective on the left.
The dice for turn 7 fell in my favour. The legion had taken a reasonable amount of damage to earn their objective and another round of shooting left Cryza holding it. However, the warlock on the left was not to be undone and managed to survive a charge from the shock troops, keeping them away from the objective and scoring the Ogres a point.
All in all, a very fun game, with a list style that I absolutely love, but I’m not sure I have the confidence in it to take it to a tournament. With the Bullrun tournament just a few days way it’s time to put the rats away again and get the Halflings out.
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