First Game with the new Orcs and Goblins book

It seems like forever since the new book was talked about on the web, let alone released to the masses, but finally I have played my first game with the new army list. I simply packed in as much of my existing army plus a couple of new units into 2000 points and played a chaos warrior infantry heavy army.

I was keen to see the look on my opponent's face when he found out how much better the animosity rule has become (worse from his side of the table). I had six units testing and, yes, you guessed it, not once did I roll a 1 in the entire game!

I was also trying out a couple of new to my army units, 4 stone trolls and 24 savage orc biguns. I was hoping that these two units would be adding some real hitting power to the army, which up until now has been provided by black orcs and characters. I must warn you that they are not fully painted and I truly believe that unpainted troops are punished by the dice gods. Let's see how they got on......

The scenario called for random placement of troops, which of course meant the trolls were stranded in one corner with the characters on the opposite side of the table. Drooling and dribbling and wandering forward aimlessly, they were hit in the flank by 3 dragon ogres with extra weapons. Not good. They took a real hammering, but regeneration came to the rescue and all four trolls survived, even managing to get a wound or two back on the dragon ogres. But flank charges and low leadership are not a good combination and off they ran in turn 2. And turn 3. And turn 4. And, well, you can see where this is heading. But wait, it gets better. The best thing was they outran the dragon ogres and survived plowing through two enemy units and a blood forest. Sadly, they managed to stamp on not just one, but two of my night goblin fanatics, who were whirling round dangerously close to lots of heavily armoured chaos warriors. Curses. This took it's toll on the trolls, last time I looked there were just two of them left, standing in front of a large rock asking it for directions back to the battlefield. Ah well, at least they didn't die. In a more standard game with better leadership I have high hopes for them. At 45 points each I think they are an absolute steal.

Surely the savage orcs would do better? 24 biguns with extra weapons, deployed six wide, that's 25 attacks on the charge, S5 with choppas. That's competing even with chaos warriors' bucketfuls of dice. Granted, they are far less resilient, but surely they will cause damage on their first charge. Well, theoretically yes they would. Getting flanked charged by warriors while a giant jumps up and down on them was not my dream first time scenario. I didn't even get to prod the giant with the big stabba, charging is essential for these boyz. Sadly, a very early departure for the tattooed naked ones.

Things can only get better. My lone night goblin shaman had an absolute blast, he was scoffing mushrooms and casting spells all game long. He did swallow a couple of poisonous ones but survived the whole battle. His spells did not have a huge effect, the random nature of the deck didn't go my way this game but I have a sneaky plan to use two of these little beggars in future games for a potentially effective and very cheap magic phase.

In the end, it was down to the old stalwarts of my army, the warboss and black orcs, to dish out the pain. The warboss was an absolute beast, surviving a flank charge from a unit of chaos knights and swatting them into the ground with his ogre blade. The black orcs had a real slugfest with a unit of Khorne chaos warriors, they practically wiped each other out, but a well timed intervention from the orc characters and a chariot finally swung it for the greenskins.

The new book feels good to me, not just from this first game, but from reading about it on the web ( the excellent Troll Tales is an absolute must visit destination for greenskin players). It seems to hit the right blend of brute orc power and sneaky goblin cunning. I am looking forward to adding a few of the more wacky elements, after I have finished painting the savage orcs and trolls of course! By then, my troll-like attention span may well have wandered on to something else, but for the next few months, it's gonna be green.