Pitched Battle (Chaos vs Tomb Kings)

[Augrimm]

Clash of the Chariots

Our Tomb King player threw down the guantlet to finally determine who's chariots reigned supreme.

Tomb King Army

Tomb King with Sword of Might, Enchanted Shield, Golden Ankh, Light Armour, Chariot
Tomb Prince with Greatweapon, Light Armour, Brooch of the Desert, Chariot
Lich Priest with Heiractic Jar, Dispel Scroll
Lich Priest with Casket, Heirophant
2 units of 3 Chariots including Standard Bearer
2 units of 10 Skelton Archers
4 Ushabti
3 Carrion
Tomb Scorpion
Bone Giant

Chaos Army

Lord Tammil Augrimm - Chaos Lord of Tzeentch with greatWeapon, shield, Gaze of The Gods, Staff of Change, Disc of Tzeentch
Anarc, the Change Chosen - Exalted Champion of Tzeentch with barded steed, Armour of Damnation, Sword of Might, shield. Leads Heralds of Change
Gabriel "Doomfire" - Exalted Champion of Tzeentch with flail, shield. Rides in Chariot Doomfire
Malik "DaemonFist" - Exalted Champion of Tzeentch with flail, shield. Rides in Chariot DaemonFist
Heralds of Change - 6 Chosen knights of Tzeentch - full command, war banner
Chariot Doomfire - Chariot of Tzeentch
Chariot DaemonFist - Chariot of Tzeentch
The Winds of Change - 4 Screamers
The Ragewind - 10 Furies

Spells: Lord - Red Fire, Yellow Fire, Blue Fire, Indigo Fire
All 3 Exalteds: Red Fire, Orange Fire

Terrain: The battle was set up to be an engagement outside of a Tomb city, and so was pretty bare of terrain. There were some ruins and rocks on the borders of the battlefield that didn't really matter at all. The only impactful peice of terrain was the large hill/sand dune in the TK deployment zone.

Deployment (from my perspective, left to right)

Tomb Kings: Charioteers with Tomb Prince, Carrion, Archers with Lich Priest behind, Ushabti, Archers with Heirophant (with Casket) on sand dune, Charioteers with Tomb King, Bone Giant. The Tomb Scorpion was deployed via "It Came From Below", it's marker was placed about 8" inches infront of the Chaos Knights.
Chaos: Winds of Change, Heralds of Change, Tammil Augrimm, Gabriel, Malik, Ragewind

T1

Chaos: Most of my army moved about 7-8 inches forward, except the Furies, who swooped off to the far right flank. In the magic phase, the Tomb Kings 4 Dispel dice were totally overwhelmed by my 15 Power dice. My Red Fire was concentrated on the undead contructs. My first Red fire against the Ushabti was dispelled, though the second one inflicted a wound on the constructs. The other 2 Red fires generated a flurry of S5 and S6 hits which stripped 2 wound from the Bone Giant.

Tomb Kings: The Carrion charged the Screamers while the rest of the army moved a full move forwards, the Bone Giant angling towards the Chariot Champions which tearing it apart. In the magic phase, all available efforts were concentrated on magically charging the King's chariot unit forward, but all attempts were dispelled with my 7 re-rollable Dispel Dice. Unfortunately, this left me no defence against the Casket's Light of Death, which killed on of the Chosen, and inflicted 1 Wound of Malik and 2 on his Chariot.
In the shooting phase the air was filled with a hissing rain of asp arrows as the archers and chaiots fired upon my knights and chariots. The TombKing player was surprised to learn that my Chariot Champions had a 1+ armour save as the arrows shattered harmlessly against my armour and toughness.
In combat, the Carrion whiffed their attacks on on the Screamers who in turn inflicted 2 wounds back. The Carrion lost 3 more wounds to CR, leaving just a single wounded model remaining. (I am constantly baffled why our Undead players keep charging small units of Carrion and Fellbats into my more numerous and far more expensive fliers and expecting it to go well......).

T2

Chaos: Gabriel charged the King's Chariot unit, impacting upon 2 of the rank-and-file chariots. Malik overcame his terror and charged into the Bone Giant. Finally, The Heralds attempted to charge into the Princes Chariot unit but failed their fear check(on Ld 9) and thus stood in place.... not good! In remaining moves the Furies moved foward near the Archers on the right, ready to charge over them into the Casket next turn, while Lord Augrimm guided his Disc a bit further forwards, angling towards the other unit of Archers and the Lich priest.
In the magic phase, Tammil's Indigo Fire on the left Archer unit was dispelled with dice. Then both he and Anarc concentrated their Red Fire's on the same unit, killing 6 of them. This opened up the Lich Priest to be targeted by Blue Fire, which was scrolled. Gabriel attempted to invoke the guidance of Orange Fire, but the Tomb Prince invoked his Brooch of the Desert, dispelling it.
In combat, to no one's surprise, the last of the Carrion was torn apart by the Screamers. The impact of Malik's Chariot inflicted a wound on the Bone giant, The screw and Steeds inflicting another. Malik raised his flail and inflicted the final 2 wounds needed to fell the beast, overunning forward. In the Important fight, Gabriel's chariot rolled badly, only inflicting 2 wounds on the chariots that he had charged. The Exalted Chapion showed them how it was done and with 3 S7 wounds from his flail, smashed apart all the rank and file Charioteers. Losing combat by a massive 10 pionts (as he was now also outnumbered as Chaos Chariots have a higher Unit Strength than Skeleton ones), the King suffered a sudden and fatal case of IBS (Insufficient Bodyguard Syndrome) and he and his ride crumbled to dust, but not before leveling his curse upon his destoyer, which caused Gabriel's Chariot to crumble benath him, the victorious Champion taking a wound from the S5 hit caused my the collapse of his chariot.

Tomb Kings: Things were looking bad for the deadites, but they weren't out of it just yet. The Tomb Scorpion erupted from the sands right under my Chosen which meant that they couldn't flee from the charge of the Princes unit. Worse still, it turned out that the Prince's unit was just inside their flank arc and so crashed into their side! The Archers guarding the Casket charged forwards to engage the Furies to delay them for a few turns. The Ushabti continued to walk slowly forward, while the lich priest hurried to join the questionable safety of the other archer unit, who had turned to get a shot at the now wounded and pedestrian Gabriel.
In the magic phase, all attempted invocations were dispelledand while the archers did manage to land a wounding hit on Gabriel, he passed his now 3+ armour save to negate it.
In combat things went really well for the Tomb Kings. The Scorpion managed to Snip the head of 1 Knight with Killing Blow while the Tomb Prince and his Chariots accounted for a further 3, leaving just Anarc and his Standand Bearer. Although they were able to destroy the Tomb Scorpion, they lost the combat by 1 and auto broke from combat. The knights easily outran the pursuing chariots, but the pursuit casued the Charioteers to crash into the front of my nearby Chaos Lord! The Archers killed 1 Fury but lost 3 of their number to the return attacks, losing a further 3 to CR. Still they held the Daemons up and prevented them from assaulting the Casket.

T3

Chaos: Ok, Time to turn this around. Gabriel was in range for a charge into the flank of the Chariots attacking my Chaos Lord, and his flail could reduce them to splinters. My Screamers also had a rear charge into the chariots and so in they came. Unfortunately Gabriel failed his Fear test (on Ld 9) and so stood there quaking in this boots rather than securing the game for me. Typical! At least Anarc and the 1 surviving Herald managed to Rally, turning around to face the Chariots. Malik turned his Chariot and moved into charge range of the Casket on the hill.
In the Magic phase, Malik's Red Fire was dispelled while Anarc's Red Fire inflicted 6 S5 hits, wiping out the archers protecting the Lich Priest. Gabriel earned back some honour by blasting the Lich priest with 3 S4 hits, enough to cause the 2 wounds needed to kil him.
In combat, the impact of the Charioteers inflicted 2 wounds of the Discs, but 1 was saved by it's Daemonic Aura. In order to protect his chariot's from Tammil's great weapon, the Tomb Prince issued a challenge and figuring that the Disc was an easier target, was able to inflict the final 2 wounds on it. Altough Lord Aurimm successfully Slew the Tomb Prince (3 wounds) and his Screamers inflicted 2 wounds on the Charioteers with not losses, the undead still won the combat by a single point (by virtual of Outnumber) and without his Disc, my Chaos Lord was no longer immune to Fear and so auto broke. To make matters worse, the Screamers rolled an 11 for their Instability test and so were banished back to the Realms of Chaos, leaving the Chariots free to pursue Lord Augrimm and run him down, and crashed into the tattered remains of the Heralds! This was too much for the nearby Gabriel, who paniced and began to flee back away from the battle (He will have much to answer for... yes indeed!). The Furies wiped out the remaining archers but overall it had been a disasterous combat phase.

Tomb Kings: The Ushabti continued their slog to get involved in this battle somehow. In the magic phase the Heirophant's attempted incantation was dispeled, as was the Casket. In Combat, my surviving Cavalry rediscovered the joys of passing armour saves and survived the 4 wounds caused by the Charioteers unscathed, inflicting 4 wounds back which was enough to destoy 2 of the Chariots, inflicting a further 2 wounds from CR.

T4

Chaos: Both the Furies and Malik charged into the Casket of Souls while Gabriel finally found his courage and rallied. Gabriel's Red Fire into the Ushabti resulted in 5 S1 hits, accomplishing nothing while Anarc's Orange Fire was dispelled. In combat the Casket Guards were crushed under Chariot DaemonFist's wheels and the Heirophant fell to Malik's deadly flail. Anarc and the Herald dispatched the remaining Charioteers, leaving just the Ushabti to face the remaining Chaos forces. At this point the game was called as the Ushabti would never be able to engage my more mobile forces.

Result: Minor Victory for Chaos.

Afterword: Both my opponent and I were pleased with how the battle turned out in the end. If my knights had overcome their Fear to charge in the 2nd turn, the result of the battle would have been a fairly boring massacre in my favour. What we got instead was an entertaining game, with a lot of back and forth. This result perfectly showcases one of the glaring weaknesses of a Tzeentch army: Psychology. Any other Chaos army (even Undivided with their re-rolls) can pretty reliably ignore Fear/Terror tests and are mostly resistant to Panic as well (besides Nurgle). Tzeentch warriors however have to rely on the same basic leadership as the Empire(7 for basic troops, 8 for elites and heroes, 9 for a warrior lord). It's a chink in their armour that a lot of my opponents disregard when judging the cost of the Mark of Tzeentch. They forget that in addition to the points paid, I'm losing the benefit of the Mark of Chaos Undivided (which has already been factored into my unit/character costs).
as to which chariots reigned supreme, we're not really sure..... I'd like to think mine won out, as there was still one on the table at the end of the battle, but his Prince's unit caused massive damage as well.

Unit of the Match has to go to the Tomb Scorpion. If it hadn't erupted from the sands where and when it did, my knights could have fled the Charioteers' charge and then rallied later on. This ended up costing me most of my knights, my Screamers and my expensive Chaos Lord.

[Jonathan E]

Chaos are always a tough match for Tomb Kings, I find: usually built for solid Dispel power, lots of T4 troops with good saves that the Skeleton profile struggles to grind down, and S5/S7 easily available to Mortal units, the magic numbers for busting up T3 infantry and chariots. You're quite right that psychology is what keeps them in the game against a Tzeentch army. Props to your opponent for holding to a Minor Defeat, to be honest. I'd have done much worse.

[Just Tony]

Another great report and a hard-fought victory for Chaos. Tomb Kings matches don't' come our way currently, but I'm soaking everything in I can read in the batreps so I'm not caught flat footed.