Da Ghostwulfs: Pt 2, Arda, fasta, Stronga

[Sangfroid]

(OOC: so one thing I love to do for my armies is name up the characters and have a backstory as well as mark their adventures in battle reports, I used to have a post going on the old warchiefs forums for my Dark elves in 8th (Lord Sangfroid the magnificent) and have been meaning to get something going here since I joined TGA, with the GHB and now FHGT pack out I'm ready to share at last and so I've condensed the last 9 months adventures into my first post to set the scene for the next few months of ironjawz fun! I'll post some pics of my armies and battle as I go and remember it but if your looking for painting skillz I drink too much coffee and have too little patience for all that stuff). 

 

Da Ghostwulfs beginnings:

Waaargh Grimgor had hurtled across the realm of Ghur for 9 months, the ardboyz and Greenskinz, the Ogors and Grots had flocked to his banner. They said he was the legendary Grimgor reborn, on foot or astride his mawcrusha his slaughta choppa hewing down any and all before him. We're the rumours true? Rotgor Skargut and his boyz weren't gonna sit this one out and get called Grots by the rest of da clans, so they strapped on their pig iron and got stuck in proppa! 

So proppa did they choppa that "Da Ghostwulfs" as the clan was known due to their white armour, worked their way up in to the vanguard of "Grimgors" army. Need something stomped send in Da Ghostwulfs, they started the fights and they finished the fights, even the Great Tyrant Ugg and his Ironguts would step aside when Da boyz got worked up for a scrap. Death, chaos, order other Boyz that called Grimgor a fake, all would break before the sound of their waargh and the fall of their choppas, the few foes that did bounce them off all left the field with broken heads and bloody noses. ("Give as good as you get" was a favourite phrase of Rogtors)

Rotgor Skargut himself was growing in power, and when he bested Skaraac Bloodborn after he had brushed aside Grimgor (who later would scream that he had tripped and lash out at the nearest Neck with his choppa when the subject was mentioned),the ladz started getting antzy
"E just shat iz armour he did wen da big red b'stard ran at im!"
"Da boss dint flinch wapped da ****** on his ed and sent im packing to da skull-lord wiv iz tail tween iz legs" 
"Dats a proppa boss iz r Skargut" 

That's all it took, might is right in a waargh and once the ladz began to question if this was the real Grimgor the momentum was lost. The weaker ladz began sneaking off at night and then in the final battle against the Tyrant Chippy with the beastclaw tribe at his back, Grimgor in a last ditch attempt to reignite his waargh, sent Rotgor and the ardboyz the wrong way so to steal the glory for himself, but by the time they had realised and returned to the field of battle, Grimgor and his mawcrusha were slain, the Greenskinz scattered and Ugg and what was left of his Ogors gone in search of an easier dinner.

With nothing left to do Rotgor and his Ardboyz began the long walk and fight back to their mountain, they scrapped and the smashed their way thru anyone stupid enough to get in their way and by the time they got home, Rotgor was now easily 2 or 3 times the size of when he had left, Da boyz themselves were Brutes of Orruks, Ironjawz the rest of the clan called em and when the ladz recounted the stories of Rotgors kills even da old chief stepped aside and announced Rotgor as "Megaboss". 

That was in the past, the old chiefs head was silent now on a pike in the middle of their camp and Megaboss Rotgor liked to go forwards, "new fightz and bigga fightz is what iz ladz needed". So he left the fireside and made his way up higher into the mountain passes, looking for signs of one of the big beasts, a mawcrusha of his own. 

It didn't take long to get on the trail of one, as subtle as an axe to head was a mawcrusha, belligerent and destructive the beasts would walk thru something rather than fly over it, he liked that as did all of the Orruks. The signs of destruction led up to a clearing and a large cave, judging by the mess this was one big mutha. With the spiked chains he would need to control the beast strapped to his belt he made his way to the cave entrance, the clinking sounds echoing off the hard rockface all around him. He wasn't gonna sneak about like some worthless Grot he wanted the beast to see his new master and if it had any fight in it get it done with here and now. 

Rotgor planted his feet and bellowed "Waaaaaaargh" beating his boss choppa against his chest, the cacophony could be heard for miles around and Inside the beast stirred, he wasn't stupid he was still of dragons blood he understood what the noise was, this wasn't the first Megaboss that had disturbed his peace in his long life and having slept for a couple of days now a snack on some stupid Orruk would settle his bile. He supposed he could go hunting if he could be bothered afterwards or have another nap or maybe two. 

As the beast appeared Rotgor respectfully went silent, and nodded with approval at the sight of it. Easily bigger than Grimgors mount and by the look of it not far off the size of the legendary Bigteef! It was the same red hue that Skaraac had been and to the Megaboss this was a sign from Gorkamorka themselves. 

"I name you Redclaw" he bellowed 
"I iz Rotgor Skargut and I claimz u as mine, be a gud boy and come along wiv me"

The beast let out a long laugh, the sound was something akin to a croak and a ******.
"I will not be named by you Grotspawn Snotgut, i have no need of a name and I have no need of a saddle, why would I wish to fight you little weakling, be a gud boy, go make a fire and cook yourself quickly, I'm in need of a morsel to get me going of a morning"  

The two locked stares and the air around them seemed to crackle with electricity, it could have been a minute it could have been a second but to an observer both sets of eyes had a twinkle and smile in their corner. 

Then quick as a Aelf, much quicker than you could imagine such a hulking beast could move he half flew, half pounced from the entrance of his lair covering the distance to where Rotgor stood in a flash, The Megaboss was just as quick and he knew he could not stand before the Mawcrushas destructive bulk, he vaulted backwards just in time and the whole mountain seemed to reverberate with the beasts impact. He stepped in dipping his shoulder and uppercut the beast with the flat of his axe, a blow that would have torn the head of a gargant off and was severe enough to rock it back on its haunches.  

But it was not so easily cowed shaking its head it aimed its massive fists at the Megaboss, the first Rotgor easily dodged but it was only a feint, its left fist hammered into his side launching him 10 feet in the air and 20 yards across the clearing, Rotgor landed hard but he was as hard as a rock himself and sensing the beast had already launched itself at him again he quickly rolled to the side slashing out with the flat of his choppa where he anticipated the things head would be. He wasn't far off, the blow cracked the side of its skull and for an instant its knees seemed to buckle. Rotgor stood and raised his choppa again and out of the corner of his eye saw a flash of movement, he leant backwards to avoid the blow but he was not quick enough this time, the beasts bladed tail, the tip just reached his left eye and when it recoiled took it out of his socket. Ignoring the searing pain Rotgor attacked, knew he had to cull the beast and if he faltered for a second he was dead meat. 

He hooked his choppa in the join of flesh where the wing connected to its massive torso and swung up on to its back. Landing a hefty blow to the back of its head and stunning it for a split second and he used his boot to bury one of his spiked chains in the fleshy part of its broad shoulders. Another blow and the beast went down on his knuckles giving Rotgor time to stamp in another. It's tail swung at the Orruk but the angle and its increasing dazzlement meant it bounced harmlessly upon Rotgors thick Pig iron armour. With a deafening "Waaaaaaargh" The Megaboss landed a final flat axe blow to the beasts brow, splitting the skin and knocking it out cold before him. 

Later after the beast had regained its wits and Skargut had stopped the blood flowing from his eye with a rock, they were making their way silently and very slowly down the mountainside. It wasn't an easy pairing and the sly mawcrusha had attempted escape, frequently at first, but after a few more hammer like blows from Rotgor the fight seemed to be leaving him for now at least and it was begrudgingly responding to the Megaboss crude instructions. After a time Rotgor smiled, it had been the hardest and costliest fight of his life but he felt elated, the power of them combined would be immense, none would be able to stand before Da Ghostwulfs! 

In triumph let out a bellowing "Waaaargh" that echoed off the mountainside once more. 

"You know beast" he laughed
"You iz da only livin thing that's stolen from me. Redclaw ain't a good enough name for youz" he paused for effect and to see it there was any dissension left but the mawcrusha kept a sullen silence. 
"I fink I will call you "Da Bandit" as you almost robbed me blind" 
The Megaboss howled with laughter at that and a moment later even Da Bandit joined in, after another long silence that lasted a mile or two the creature muttered loudly
"There had better be something to eat where we are going Orruk, or I'll have to take the other one!" 

 

 

[Dez]

Quote

Skargut had stopped the blood flowing from his eye with a rock

This was pure gold

Great story!

[Thanatos Ares]

Not to bad fer a puny Ironjaw.... [emoji6]

Waaagh! Skullcrack iz comin fer ya

[Emicus]

I rate the story fist/fist Choppas and I'm looking forward to more!

[Sangfroid]

(OOC: so first game back and I have Jerry from the club with an experimental tzeentch army he is thinking of collecting which was effectively a tabletop of proxies so I didn't take many pics. He had:

tzeentch Lord on disc (Lord of war)

curseling (crown of command)

tzeentch sorcerer lord

3 x 10 pink horrors

20 bestigors

2 x flaming chariots

3 screamers 

mutuality vortex beast 

i had:

Rotgor Skargut mounted upon Bandit (talisman of protection, and ravager trait)

Okog "da mad" (Megaboss on foot, battle brew)

Warchanter

warchanter

Da Originalz (10 brutes 2 choppas) 

3 x 10 ardboyz

3 goregruntas 

ironfist formation  

we played the Blood & Glory scenario from GHB) 

 

Da Ghostwulfs: Arda, fasta, stronga

Rotgor stood utop Bandit, in the centre of the Battleline, arrayed to his left on the far flank was some ardboyz and a warchanter by a mystical and dingy looking wood, coming back towards him were his goregruntas, Da originalz and Okog da mad. Pushing out right to his other flank where the rest of the ardboyz and another war chanter. 

Rotgor was in as good a mood, in the week since he and bandit had returned from the mountain Da Ghostwulfs had been shook up. The Megaboss had lain down the law and any who dared to dissent had been thoroughly bashed about the ed. He had made it mandatory that any boyz who wanted in on the campaign where fully armoured and he only wanted da biggest of them in his ardboyz formations. those that could bashed out the pig iron themselves, those that couldn't bashed other ladz who had what they wanted. It has the desired effect the ardest, strongest, fastest ladz remained and all of em worthy of the name ardboyz. 

Second he had personally smashed to pieces all of the Grots artillery, inconsistent a pain in the neck to move about and not dependable in the extreme, he had decided Grots were for eating and for camp duties. At first the biggest of them had tried to be sneaky and talk him into letting them stay behind. So he tossed the creature to Bandit for a snack (who gladly accepted the peace offering) and after that the grots happily did what they were told with out question. It wasn't right for his ladz to waste their time cooking or carrying anything but there armour and weapons. 

The final thing had been the hardest to implement, he had never really put any stock in magic, too many times had he seen boyz blasted by the weirdnobz by mistake (or design). He was brutal and kunnin and also a devoted orruk as they all were to Gorkamorka and while he didn't fear an Orruk alive (with the possible exception of Gordrakk who he had once seen and had decided was actually Part of gork himself) he didn't particularly want to incur the wrath of his twin God by offending the weirdnobz and thus get himself exploded. So he had used all of his kunnin and instructed the Grots to poison the lot of em else they fatten Bandit themselves, the chance to avoid becoming the Mawcrushas dinner spurred them on, but he also felt that they needed little excuse to get one up on their larger stronger cousins and seemed to delight in the act. 

Of course he had to feed the culprits to Bandit anyway as he didn't want the little buggers getting ideas about his own good self........

So as he surveyed his battlelines, his ladz armoured bodies straining to be given the nod to get stuck in and not a single weirdnob in sight he allowed himself a smile. 

His enemy today was a force of Tzeetch, magic users and tricksters. He had no idea why they were congregating around the old gargant fight pit, but they were there and that was that.  Wary of the Tzeetch tricks he held his lines and his plan was simple, let them advance into shooting range then bum rush the lot of em in one go, he was confident his ladz could cover the ground in a flash and once up close the choppas would make short work of the fickle force....... 

(OOC I out deployed Jerry thanks to the ironfist, he had though had the chance to see where the bulk of my army was before he deployed so on his right flank set up his sorcerer Lord and two units of pink horrors, a chaos spawn the curseling and his bestigor opposite my goreruntas and ardboyz. His left flank he put his Lord on disc, a chariot, mutalith and the last pink horrors.  In his centre a large building broke up his deployment zone but he placed his screamers and last chariot opposite Rotgor and the brutes. 

His plan appeared to be load the flanks, get his fast units around me and forcing me to split my army into while my strongest units (brutes and mawcrusha) would be out of position or chaffed up a bit in the centre. 

My plan was simple run at him and bash him as I knew I could chew thru the tzeetch but had to get them engaged and particularly kill his fast flyers early to stop them retreating over me or getting around me as they could then score the objectives and even if i smashed the rest of the army prevent the major win. 

Turn 1: I gave Jerry the first turn and he edge forward slightly splitting his army further towards the flanks and getting both chariots just in range to shoot, and on my left flank he killed 3 ardboyz from the middle unit but only 1 wound for the other. He was hampered a little on his right flank by his horrors failing a mystical but otherwise was conservative and ensured he captured the two objectives.

i then unleashed the Ironjawz and we both got to witness first hand the combination of ironfist, destruction allegiance and ravagers trait. I used the movement to manoeuvre the damaged ardboyz towards the screamers and chariot in the centre and Rotgor towards the Lord on disc (he is my only flyer). After charges everybody apart from the footmega boss and left flank war chanter was in combat.  The left ardboyz killed half the pink horrors who couldn't do anything and took off 3 wounds from sorcerer Lord, my goregruntas (with +1 to hit and reroll wounds from mystical) killed 10 bestigor, the brutes who I had strung out in a wide formation, killed 3 more bestigor (1 brute) wiped out the pink horrors but failed to do anything to the screamers (the brutes and everyone else from here had +1 attack from command ability). The damaged ardboyz took a wound of screamers and 4 off the chariot. I had charged the war chanter into the chaos Lord on disc with Rotgor (mainly to get him faster up the board as it was a 10" charge) and he suffered 5 wounds from the Lord, but as expected Rotgor smashed the chaos Lord to pieces, then the last ardboyz (+1 to hit) took 4 wounds off the last chariot and stayed out of 3" to stop mutualith piling in. 

When the dust settled I had a lost a brute to bestigors and screamers, a ardboy to chariots and 3 wounds off goregruntas..... We rolled for priority and I got the double turn. 

Turn 2: 

Second war chanter charges the spawn, Megaboss moves over towards the screamers and Rotgor fails his 3" charge into the mutualith (can't have all the luck can I!) but I clean up the sorcerer Lord, horrors, bestigor and both chariots. So for his turn 2 he retreats the screamers over my head towards left objective, kills my right ardboyz unit with shooting and mutualith ability and combat (and gets 2 chaos spawn too) but the curseling goes down to the brutes.  He also arcane bolted and killed my wounded war chanter. He is really on the ropes but if he can get T3 priority then he can get far enough away and score with screamers, tie up Rotgor with mutualith and spawn for a turn maybe which could stop a major for me but he can't do any better really. 

I get the priority and the foot Megaboss charges and cleans up the screamers and we call it a game there. 

It was brutal for Jerry, the combination of the hero phase, movement and charges particularly the 2" extra charge on the ardboyz meant the game was effectively over from the moment I got the double turn. He was trying out a new army idea and when we debriefed after the battle the ironjawz are pretty much the anti army for him, fast heavily armoured and enough wounds to weather the shooting and magic damage on the way in and then with -1 rend everywhere chew thru the weak saves of his units.  

Even so, I over committed I didn't need all of my army to smash him up and I should have held back a unit other than just by chance the Megaboss, as if he had got turn 3 priority or I hadn't have had the slow Megaboss lagging behind, I don't think I could have caught his screamers and I would have been in the lap,of the dice gods to see if I could get back in time to score the objectives to ensure the major victory. Had this been a tourney and I had allowed this to happen then it would have been me throwing away a major victory and I would have been really annoyed with myself.

As it happens I got the luck but it was an important lesson for me to learn! Great fun and great opponent who I have not actually managed to play before and nice to get back on the green wagon with a win!)