I finally made it to a tournament in Plymouth! For context I’m just a couple of hours away up the motorway so I really should have made it across the moors by now. The important thing is though I made it and the rats came with me. After some less than convincing attempts to play Basileans I’m starting to get to grips with the differences between third and fourth edition, and whilst I really want to get the Basileans up and running I think the changes I need to make would be better left until after the new list comes out, which is rumoured to be in the next few months.
In the meantime, I decided, by default, to take the rats out. The default was driven by the amount of painting required to get either the Halflings or Rats into a usable state, and the rats won (but even then, two regiments of warriors needed painting that didn’t make it anywhere near a full model count).
The list that I ended up with was a loose take on the list I was running very happily for the last year of third. I figured the core structure, based around hordes of infantry with a decent bit of shooting would translate reasonably well into the new game. I think at this point though I’ve played with rats once, and that game resulted in a very secure second place, so I wasn’t really confident the list would work, but at this stage I’m really just trying things out.
To be honest, I’ve been less than excited about the new rat list the more I’ve played around with it. I think they’ve lost a fair bit of flavour with rallying changing and so many synergies either disappearing or being restricted. I’m also aware of the change to the shooting dynamics so I’m interested to see how that impacts an army I have loved playing since second edition.
Short range shooting is the key mechanic I really want to continue playing. However, I was conscious that there would be some things I would need to work through. I can only get two blight spewers in a battalion. The former weapons teams used to be devastating in threes, and in the spirit of the new edition I decided to stick to one battalion rather than breaking into a second just to spam a particular unit. In order to make up for the drop in shooters I gave the Brood Mother Blood Boil and took a Warlock on a Fleabag with Host Shadow Beast to utilise the gamey loophole that allows yielding characters to engage without blocking shooting to the unit they are engaged with. I did not feel great about myself for that one! Ironically, whilst part of the intention of the army list structure changes was to reduce spamming of certain units the list I ended up with had far less variety than my former list, despite the same number of drops.
Birthing Daughters have become a must for me because Ratkin are fragile and Plague Pots are, in my experience of rolling fives for Basilean commands, unreliable, so two of them had to go in. I then wanted my favourite models in, the Death Spewer war engine and Mutant Rat Fiend. Scurriers were a must, I know, but I actually think they might do quite well under the right circumstances – time will tell. Then I set about spending the rest of my points.
Game one was Hold the Line against a very shooty Elf list. It felt quite comforting throwing down loads of infantry to soak up the arrows. Things started well and within three turns the Mutant Rat Fiend had got hold of the Silverbreeze Cavalry and broken their bows, my own shooting had badly damaged one of the archer hordes and the mighty Scurriers had destroyed the bolt thrower and were holding down the Drakon Lord.
However, the tide started to turn as the Elves managed to shoot off the Spewer Tank in a single turn and then combat was joined in earnest. Although the plague pots were working well, I definitely felt the removal of phalanx on the Shock Troop hordes, fortunately they held against the onslaught from Drakon Riders and Air Elementals. Unfortunately, the curse of fours set in this turn and two key combats ended without either of the flying regiments being routed.
The Air Elementals had manged to survive a battering from elite rats and the Warlock using Host Shadow Beast in their flank. Whilst the Drakons had shrugged off Shock Troops in the front and a horde of spears in the flank. Mathhammer would suggest both of these units should have gone, but the dice ruled against it. To make matters worse, my spear horde now had a Drakon regiment staring at their backs, the next turn would see three vermin hordes, along with any real hope of carrying the game, disappear.
Whilst I did get to successfully execute my gamey shooting/Host Shadow Beast combo and successfully take the Air Elementals off, far too many Elves remained on the table and they took the win. Whilst the dice were unhelpful, even if they had gone the right way in those Shock Troop combats it would have still been a really close game with my badly beaten-up hordes needing to dodge arrows to secure scoring spaces. It was a really fun game and a great way to start the day.
Next up was Kingdoms of Men and Loot. Of the different scenarios loot counter ones tend to me my weakest. My usual play is to let the opponent pick up the tokens, shoot them whilst they do it, then flood forward and emerge out of the melee with shiny objectives clutched in bloody claws.
The first part of the plan worked quite well. The men sent foot knight regiments forward to pick up the tokens. The regiment on the far right of the board took the token without the rats raising a grubby little finger, however in the centre my gunline removed one of the units and wavered the second. The Scurriers turned out to be a bit of a problem (for the men), as their 14” charge range meant I would be able to get stuck into the wavered knights in the next turn and take back the two tokens they had picked up. The men responded (proportionately) by sending a horde of pikes into the flank of the Scurriers to stop their charge, of course the rat scouts perished (were you hoping this episode might end with a double one? Of course I did too).
Over the next couple of turns the rats made short work of a Giant and two hordes of pikes that were sent into gum up their lines. Whilst a third pike block was held up by a lone warrior regiment (Plague Pots) for most of the game, the rest of the rats surged forward in the hope of catching the foot knights making their escape. The only real resistance were the Beast Cavalry that had been hanging about at the back of the table, taking the occasional shot. As the warlock charged forward, the only rat fast enough to catch up with the knights, the Beast Cavalry struck, tearing the lone rider to pieces, whilst the second regiment of flying beasts took out the Mutant Rat Fiend.
As the action settled it became apparent a horde of Shock Troops had managed to put themselves in charge range of the Foot Knights with two loot counters, unfortunately time had run out and whatever glimmer of hope the elite warriors were chasing was also dashed. Another loss to the rats.
The last game was Pillage, against the Undead. I thought this would be an interesting matchup, as I’ve played Undead twice with Basileans and had two losses, so it would be good to see if the Rats could achieve something the Hegemony has yet to. With three catapults to face down and no really fast units I was concerned I was either going to have to take units out of the game to remove them or accept taking a lot of damage from shooting.
The catapults hit hard in the first turn, which I know usually mean their luck’s in and will eventually run out, but it’s still a phase to move through. The way the objectives were placed, and how my opponent had split his forces, essentially split the table into two halves. All this meant that I had to split my army, something I’m not usually excited about because it works best when it’s all together. On the left flank the Scurriers scouted forward and backed up by weapons teams and a Birthing Daughter started shooting at a Soulflayer regiment. Whilst the Scurriers got routed in the process the shooting teams manged to waver and then kill the vampires, before starting to wear down skeletons. Warriors and Shock Troops pulled apart the second vampire regiment, before over running the remainder of the flank.
Realising that I would have to take objectives on the right hand of the board, as well as silencing the catapults, the spears and the Spewer tank managed to get clear charges onto the catapults. Whilst the spears cleared out two, before going on to grab an objective, the tank was held up with an untimely double 1, meaning it had to wait an extra turn before returning to the centre of the table. Whilst this was happening a skeleton horde had shambled from the left flank to the right flank and positioned itself between two objectives.
The right flank also had its fair share of action. Two regiments of Revenant Cavalry and the Vampire Lord rode out to stop the rats, fortunately their charges came in piece meal, allowing the rats to munch through them one after another before grabbing another objective. As expected, grinding through the hordes of skeletons kept the rats occupied, leaving little time for manoeuvring. By the sixth turn the armies were drawing, but the rats had managed to get their positioning sorted out in case a turn seven happened. Fortunately, a turn seven did arrive and the rats unleashed their charges, smashing skeletons and clearing the board to take a sizeable win.
All in all, it was another enjoyable day of fourth edition. The event was really well run, with a great lunch and as much tea and coffee as you could manage, I’ll definitely be looking out for any more one day events there.
Game wise I’m still warming up to the new edition. It is a very different ruleset with different dynamics. The games are definitely enjoyable but finding an army list I’m really excited about is proving a bit of a challenge. Despite the large amount of repeated units in this list I was surprisingly happy with how the shooting performed, and whilst I’m almost certain I’m a lone voice on this one, I actually think Scurriers are really interesting, given the right support. I’ve decided to stick with the rats for the next event in May, although the warlock will be going, it’s a fun combo but is probably a little too conditional to get value out of every game. Thanks to all my opponents and the TO for a great day.
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