The Chronicles of Bruzza da Big

(WHFB Fantasy Campaign)

The months of July to August 2003 was a time of great expectations as warhammer fantasy players played the first inter-store campaign with 3 stores participating in this 8 week campaign.

This chronicles the campaign exploits of the Orc Warboss Bruzza da Big during the Campaign.

Week1

1st Battle: Defending against Carlos Sandico (Skaven)

Result: Lost to Sandico( lose territory)
What happened:

This was a very even game with the advantage going back and forth. Highlights of the game were:

• The Rat swarm killing my night goblin shaman and tying the second orc regiment for the entire game as they failed to remove its last wound for two turns.
• Carlos deserves credit for being able to make his panic checks whether it be a ld 6 or a ld 5 he makes it.
• We had forgotten among all things the rule regarding the unit being half its charge range prevents the enemy from a stand and shoot reaction. That cost me a couple of wolf riders and the destruction of my chariot when it attempted to charge the remaining globadiers.

His rat ogres wheeled to face the orc unit that was locked with the last rat swarm. I was able to cast Fist of Gork, killing 2 pack handlers and finally having him fail his panic check, but I still could not kill the last swarm.

Sandico’s warlock once again gets an irresistible force on his warp lightning spell, targeting the unit with my general. Fortunately I had the shining baubles item and it reflected the spell, frying the damned rat (serves him right)

His warpfire thrower finally hits my large unit on the last turn, panicking them and preventing me from rallying them anymore. I lost the game on the last turn because had the unit with the general held then I would have won the game.

After a month of not playing I was rusty and it showed in my playing. I had a couple of mistakes.

The most glaring mistake I had was that I had the night goblins in the middle accept the Rat Ogre charge, I should have just fled with them and had the orc unit counter charge them. Also I let my fear of the warpfire thrower scare me too much and I had my chariots charge headlong into the slaves of all things.

Finally I should have not concentrated my magic on only one unit. Should have just waited till there would be a panic check and then shifted my magic to different units. Next game would be an interesting one.

2nd Battle: Against Mark de la Cruz (Dwarves)

Result: Draw
What Happened: Leary of facing Dwarves and the amount of firepower they can dish out, I opted to use a night goblin wall of bodies for the Big Un unit to reach the dwarf line.

Mindful of the effects that animosity would do to me I used a Black Orc general and I took an orc standard banner with the night banner and stuck it in a unit of 30 night goblins (on hind sight I should have just used a goblin standard banner to save on points).

I elected to not use a shaman as I reasoned that I would face the daunting task of trying to cast a spell through the dwarves dispel dice. I was surprised to see that Mark had elected to use only 10 thunderers and 2 bolt throwers and no runesmith. I had forgotten that he was a combat oriented dwarf army.

I also forgot to bring my bolt throwers and had to replace them with orc chariots. During the entire game I slogged my way through his fire and that annoying gyrocopter. Highlights include:

• my goblin unit charging his gyrocopter, destroying it.
• my big Uns charging the unit of iron breakers, having 8 attacks I only hit with one and I failed to wound. They broke on the last turn causing a draw.

Lessons:

This was a win that ended into a draw. I can’t believe that I got goaded into charging the ironbreakers when they could’nt have reached me anyway. If I stayed put then I would have won.

The game has showed me that I keep loosing the game on the last turn. Maybe on the next games when I win who decides to go first I should play second so that I can at least rally any of my troops that are running away.

WEEK 2

Sensing blood 4 players declared their decision to attack me and have a slice at my territory. This was going to be a bloody week for the Orcs.

1st Battle: Defending versus Mikon (Chaos)

Result: Win
What happened:

Mikon had elected to use his chosen unit of chaos knights while I elected to use my giant. I then proceeded to skewer his knights with bolt throwers and fanatics. My giant barely got to do anything though he did manage to smash the chaos chariot with a thump with his club. I won the game hands down though there were a couple of close shaves.

I talked to him about his army list and told him to downgrade the chaos knights to not chosen. He was able to save enough points to get a sorcerer a second chariot and some furies. I decided to drop the giant and replace it with some wolf riders and my two wolf chariots.

2nd Battle: Attacking vs. Mikon (Chaos)

Result: Win
What happened:

This was actually a closer game than normal. However what gave me the edge was when my chariot wiped out his chaos hounds, forcing his chaos knights to make a panic check. They failed, had their chaos undivided re-roll, and failed again!!! One chaos knight unit gone just like that.

Other things that happened during the game:

• My orc unit survived a chaos chariot charge and I managed to break them but failed to reach by one inch on a pursuit. On the turn I was going to charge to have him flee of-board I rolled a one for animosity and did it again during the re-roll given by the Black Orc Warboss!! Crap.
• My chariot charged the chaos chariot but failed to destroy it and was eventually smashed by the halberdier totting crewman.
• My night goblin shaman dying due to steal soul from the Chaos mage.

The lack of impact hits of my chariot was worrying and I was getting the sinking realization that I couldn’t hit anything again with my dice (luck has a tendency of leaving me at the wrong time). So with trepidation I faced Mark dela Cruz’s dwarves yet again.

3rd Battle: Defending vs. Mark dela Cruz (Dwarves)

Result: Lose (lost territory)
What happened:

Once again I lost on the last turn! It was going well though the wolfriders failing to kill the last crewman of his bolt thrower was annoying. I however managed to down his gyrocopter with one bolt shot!

Still on the last turn I was worried that I would charge the ironbreakers again so thinking discretion the better part of valor I decided to get me some 100 points due to table quarters and avoided them.

He shot me with his bolt thrower and killed four models, I took a panic check, rolled a 10 and saw my general and battle standard bearer run with the orc unit. (Sigh)

My bad luck on trying to hit anything continued in this game. I was hopping that I would finally shake it off me and be able to hit something!!! Well two more games to go.

4th Battle: Defending vs. Joel Padilla (Vampire Counts)

Results: Lose (lost territory)
What Happened:

Never ever fight undead with only Leadership 8. That’s all I’ll ever say regarding them. And there 8 power dice with raising zombies and hitting your flanks really sucks. I would rather forget that this game ever happened so lets move on shall we ?

5th Battle: Defending vs. Orc and Goblins (Ricky Santos)

Results: Won
What Happened:

This was an interesting game. Ricky had a magic heavy but brittle army with nothing but night goblin units and orc chariots plus two bolt throwers and a giant. I had a giant, two units of orcs, two goblin shamans and four bolt throwers.

I manage to stymie him by putting my bolt throwers in the flanks inside a forest, to prevent his chariots from charging my units in the flank.

I failed to ever wound his giant with my bolt throwers but my orc general did me proud by wacking him good and killing him even when the giant was jumping up and down.

As for his shamans – all I had to do was make a panic check at the units next to them or those they were in to make them flee.

Week 3

1st Battle: Attacking Mikon (did not defend ) – won by a bye

Week 4

1st Battle: Attacking vs. Carlos Sandico (Skaven)

Results: Draw
What happened:

This was again an interesting game with both of us grinding each other down in the dirt. He had elected to use a Warp Lightning Cannon and Rat Ogres with a Clan Rat Chieftan with Skaven Brew. This was a close game with a draw. Highlights include:

• I predicted that on the first turn my Wolf Riders would be subject to animosity and then roll a 6 to get a free move, then charge at the Warp Lightning on the First Turn, forcing it to run away. By golly it did happen !!
• His Other Skaven Warlock Engineer cast Warp Lightning at the combat between an overrunning Wolf Chariot and another Warlock Engineer both with one wound each. He hit the chariot and it blew up !!
• The Skaven Brew worked too much and he got Death Frenzy. His Rat Ogre suffered damage per turn but fortunately for him some of the wounds were dealt to the packmasters. As such there was only one Rat Ogre left that charged my unit and it was destroyed but it caused enough damage that it broke my unit, causing a draw on the Last Turn !!!
• His Warlocks needed 5 to rally and makes it. His Clan Rats lost combat by a hefty margin and he makes his break check.
• My chariots once again charged his slaves which exposed there flanks to the Rat Ogres – sigh I gotta ignore them and do something else.

2nd Battle: Defending versus Mark dela Cruz ( Dwarves)

Results: Win !!
What happened:

Getting sick with my orcs running away everytime on the last turn I decided to do something extra to my Orcs. With the game being 1500pts. I had the luxury of upgrading my Orc regimets to make them Savage Orcs.

I did and was pleased with their performance – though the only combat they did was flank charge the unit of miners. In hindsight I should not have created a screen of night goblins in the front of the unit as the Orcs moved very slowly (though this could be my nightgoblins trying to charge the gyrocopter with no such luck thus making a normal move only – which was 4 inches PER TURN)

The giant paid for itself handsomely though it could be said that the wolf chariots and wolf riders also created a threat to the dwarves. For a combat oriented dwarf army he decided to hide behind a hill where his thunderers and bolt thrower were placed.

The giant destroyed a bolt thrower, had a unit of clansmen flee of the board due to terror with no hope of rally (that’s what you get for deploying so close to the edge) and with but one wound left proceeded to jump up and down on a unit of ironbreakers, causing them to break and winning me the game !!

Lessons learned: I have now figured what to configure my army for a 1000 pt game against shooters and the like. It now remains to be seen if I can pull it off or not.

Week 5.

1st Battle: Attacking versus Ronald Benedicto (Dark Elf)

Results: Won (territory gained)
What happened:

We played a 1000point game and Ronald used a “standard” Dark Elf army with 3 Mages and two repeater bolt throwers while I used my now standard Savage Orc units with a Giant as backup and two mages.

I just plowed forward and hit him with enough magic to reduce the number of dark elves with crossbows. My night goblin screen fortunately did not suffer animosity when they where in front of my other units.

Ronald was disgusted with what happened that he decided to counterattack with his Dark Elf Raider group.

2nd Battle: Defending versus Ronald Benedicto (Dark Elf)

Result: Lose (territory lost)
What happened:

Expecting that he would use crossbow armed Dark riders I was surprised to see that he was fielding them with spears. Thus my planned assault with 4 goblin chariots careened to a halt as I tried to figure out if I was going to hit or not. Also I still used the goblin screen even if there was a lack of missile troops in his army. Thus I failed to reach his lines.

My Giant died yet again with multiple bolt thrower bolts skewering him but he never contributed anything to the battle (no terrain in the middle to hide in)

One of my savage orc units managed to survive a charge from both the cold one riders and a witch elf unit and managed to run them over – this proved to be the downfall of the unit as it exposed its flank to the 10 elf unit of executioners.

Oh well you win some you lose some. Patrick Uy (Empire player) has declared an invasion on my lands – we’ll see what happens.

Week 6 - 8

No battles for the 2 weeks with work finally encroaching on my game time, cancelling my game with Patrick which I was waiting for. The campaign had ended with 4 players in the lead as to who would be the winner for the campaign with Freddie, Patrick, Bobby and Roy in the lead.

The final battle was played on an 8x8 table with all four armies duking it out together. After 6 hours of play it was revealed that the Winner was Bobby Pedeglorio !!! The Bretonnians had won the campaign !!!

Obviously Bruzza da big was not happy about this and he would be back to fight again !!!

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