“Night Goblins! - AAR!”
It’s been almost a month since I posted anything - I’ve barely had time to think!
I did manage to make it out for an Old World Game last Friday, my Night Goblins (which are mostly painted now) VS Empire.
My list was basically (I lost the OWB.json file for this, doh)
Level 4 Night Goblin Shaman, Illusion, Idol of Mork Night Goblin Warboss, Wollapa’s One Hit Wunda Level 2 Night Goblin Shaman, Illusion Night Goblin Big Boss - BSB, Guff’s Windy Banner
40 Night Goblin Warriors, full command, spears, netters, 3 fanatics 40 Night Goblin Warriors, full command, netters, 3 fanatics 20 Night Goblin Warriors, short bows, 2 fanatics
3 Stone Trolls 3 Stone Trolls 8 squig hoppers 8 squig hoppers
Mangler Squig Mangler Squig Giant
This is basically the list I want to take to Richmond Open. It’s very thematic I think!
Opponent had roughly
General on griffon with GW and some magic thingy Level 2 wizard on horsey battle magic
Three blocks of 20 veteran state troops, some with spears some with halberds
20 greatswords
Big unit of inner circle knights
20 handgunners
We rolled the Lonely Tower so setup an appropriately ancient looking tower in the middle of some ancient buildings. The dense terrain in the middle of the board had an impact for sure, my blocks of infantry had a hard time moving around but on the flip side once they got in position easily blocked entire entry points to the “village”.
I setup all my infantry directly opposite the village (and the 200 VP tower) supported by the trolls and the giant whilst the mangler Squigs and squig hoppers formed the “wings” of my army. The horde took up nearly the entire table length in frontage!
The empire formed in a dense “L-shape” in some fields ready to flexibly respond to my deployment. The inner circle knights supported by a wizard lined up a charge on my left flank.
The first few turns went quickly, my infantry marched into the village and quickly got the jump on the tower, forming a line basically with the tower dead center (putting a ton of Unit Strength in control range). My “right” mangler Squig and squig hoppers went waaaaayyy wide, forcing the imperials to turn the handgunners and a unit of state troops to refuse that flank lest a devastating (and bouncy) roll up occur.
On my left flank the mangler Squig got a charge off on the inner circle knights and did some damage - mitigated by the excellent ward save the wizard provided them via spellcasting (I figured out that dispelling ward saves should probably be a priority). The knights rolled dismally but their horses made up for it - I think I lost more wounds to the horses hooves than the knights!
Things ultimately came unstuck for the empire in the center though, as they advanced on my line holding the tower I unleashed a wave of three fanatics (cheekily doing it in their command phase). A combination of fanatics and spells from my two wizards (locking the greatswords down with reduced movement and inability to declare a charge) and some complete carnage from fanatics and the Imperial center quickly looked shaky. My flank mangler Squig landed a devastating charge on some weakened state troops and everything collapsed, cascading panic checks and all. The highlight was the poor greatswords taking panic from a fanatic, failing, fleeing back through the same fanatic. Ouch.
The general bravely charged the giant…flubbed his attack roll terribly and got headbutted/clubbed to death. Ouch again.
Meanwhile on the left flank the knights routed the squig hoppers and forced the mangler Squig back - while a unit of trolls stupided out in the open and got mauled and run down by some state troops. By this point though it was too late - ultimately my “flank hook” landed before the Empire’s and the game ended with a crushing Goblin victory. Fungus wine for everybody!
The game was a lot of fun and I’m really happy with my choice of doing a Night Goblin theme. It’s very fun to play and has a lot of random swingy units which suits my play style. I had to feel for my opponent who rolled dismally - at one point a one wound mangler Squig took zero damage from his knights due to the depressing number of 1’s…
I think my tweaks would be to run the trolls as a huge brick of 6 (it’s probably not optimized by I had trouble using the two small units - too fiddly).
I really like illusion spells with this army - very useful stuff in there and can always get Itchy Nuisance thanks to Lore of Mork.
My army is almost completely painted - as of the time of writing I just have the giant to do and the characters.