The Gates of Kislev: turn 6, results and conclusions (english version)

Greetings, commanders,

thanks to arrive at this point and follow us every week until reaching the epic ending (because will be epic, you'll see!) of the Battle at the Gates of Kislev. As we announced in the last article, this 6th turn was something special. Here we tell you in detail.

If you want to read previous turns, click here: turn 1, turn 2, turn 3, turn 4, turn 5

Turn 6: the duel

So it was; 6th tun was a duel between two main characters of this story: Magnus the Pious and Asavar Kul the Annointed.

We reached the end of turn 5 with no more time for gaming. But we didn't want to finish with five turns, nor ending the battle without a duel that was so close at that point. On the table, things were pretty equalised and it wasn't clear at all who would win the clash. Asavar Kul had been wainting to fight against Magnus and for a matter of space and visibility he couldn't charge against him. So we decided to dedicate that 6th turn on a fight between the two generals; a fight that would not end until one of them bit the dust.

In order to make it more interesting, each member of each Team would rol the dice of an entire combat round.

A priori, Chaos champion stats seemed better. However, Magnus not only had the Blessing of Sigmar (which gave him a special guard save 4+, and he could repeat it, if he fails), but he was also carries the Ghal Maraz (two-handed weapon, Death Strike and Multiple Wounds (1D3)). On the other hand, Kul had received a wound in the previous turn, fighting against the knights of Middenheim and an Empire commander on griffon, so that both fighters began the challenge with three wounds in his profile.

In the first combat round, Kul released the power of U'zhul, which gave him nothing less than 10 attacks, although with the drawback that all the results of "1" in the roll to hit, would be resolved against him. In this way, Kul managed to cause two wounds before Magnus could even attack.

However, the human proved to be much tough in the following rounds. He saved every single wound with the Blessing of Sigmar during the next three combat rounds and also managed to cause two wounds on Kul during the process.

In the 5th round, both fighters had only one wound left. Asavar Kul attacked first. Diosko rolled the dice and managed to cause four wounds. Kratos responded by saving two of them in the first special save roll. He repeated the roll with the two remaining wounds and saved only one. The general of the Empire, Magnus the Pious, finally fell.

But it was not all over... Team Kul had three "1" results when hitting in that round, and they had to be resolved against Kul himself. Two of the three impacts hurt the Annointed, and they ignored the armour save, so those wounds had to be saved with the special save 3+. The dice jumped across the table and one of them marked a "2". Failure. Asavar Kul died because of his own weapon and, in a poetic ending, both contenders died on the very same combat round!

Undoubtedly, an epic ending for an epic battle.

Results of the game

On the next morning I count all the victory points for both sides. And I spent several hours on it! Finally I wrote separately victory points, special characters points and scoring areas points. And although the result was very tight in the three categories, the truth is that there was the same winner in each of them.

Team Kul
Victory points: 21.164
Special characters points: 20
Scoring points: 2

Team Magnus
Victory points: 24.893
Special characters points: 28
Scoring points: 3

So we have a winner! TEAM MAGNUS!

Conclusions

Team Magnus

Pep

I have to admit that when we spoke for the first time of playing a “great battle” I couldn’t even imagine that we would end up working on a project for years and reaching what it has torn. This madness has been totally worthwhile, and although it will be difficult to overcome (especially in number of models), I'm already starting to think about what would be the next project!

In terms of gaming, despite the outcome I think that from Imperial side we did not perform an appropriate deployment, which meant that many units of Handgunners, Crossbowmen and my beloved Helblasters did not shoot until the last turns or not at all. In the same way, some Kislevite cavalry reinforcements did not enter in combat. There are always things to improve and we take note for the next time, to make a deployment estimate in advance.

On the other hand, the infantry regiments of the provinces lasted the massive Chaos assaults, while the knights carried suicide charges; Special mention to the Demigryph Knights and the Tilean Heavy Cavalry, who crushed the chaotic west flank in a prodigious succession of pursuits!

Arnau

It's almost impossible, in a game of these characteristics, to make a detailed balance of each turn and sector and not die in the attempt. I will focus on my position, which was the defense of the left flank of the imperial army. I can say I am satisfied with my work in restraining the hordes of Chaos and retaining them just across the river. No doubt we have to thank the numerical superiority of the imperial troops and their characters, although without the support of units such as the Lanship and Maneaters, I doubt they could have faced the Chosen of Engra. Perhaps we should regret the deployment of war machines, too far from the enemy lines to make the most of their potential. However, the infantry units themselves did their job. I do not venture too much if I say that, at the end of turn 5, the situation was clearly in favor of the imperial side, waiting for the arrival of two units of Demipryph Knightd and Maneaters who had just occupied the center .

on a big focus, one can only end up with the feeling of having participated in something HUGE. The project has been full of difficulties and it has cost us more than two years, but it has certainly been worth it. I am convinced that many timewill pass until we can experience something similar.

Team Kul

Diosko

What can I say about the greatest and epic warhammer battle ever played in history and in my life. In the first place, it is necessary to mention that most of this has been possible thanks to Rogers, who has put a lot of time, effort and enthusiasm to this whole project, but also without detracting the great work of the rest of us.

Es una pena que finalmente no se pudieran acabar los 6 turnos completos de partida, se hubiesen igualado mucho las cosas, aunque no hace falta decir que el Team Magnus se mereció la victoria debido a que llevaban un plan de batalla más mesurado que en nuestro caso. Aunque hubieron fallos en el despliegue por ambos bandos (en serio, es muy difícil desplegar bien en una partida de tales dimensiones, ni punto de comparación con las las partidas a 4500 puntos de 9th age), la gran cantidad de unidades hacía que hubiesen hasta 3 o 4 líneas de batalla que, a veces, suplían los fallos del despliegue. Sobre todo me refiero a las unidades más rápidas como los personajes de Slaanesh o paladines disqueros, no se jugaron nada bien, se desplegaron en medio de las líneas y se quedaron bloqueados hasta morir por rebotes de balas cañón. Lo mismo sucedió con los mastines del caos, la típica unidad re-directora, fueron desplegadas hasta 3 unidades en la cuarta línea de Batalla xD….Desde mi punto de vista, estos errores en el despliegue del caos permitió que los tanques de vapor avanzaran a sus anchas para bloquear el avance del caos, lo que en gran parte fué el motivo de la victoria imperial.

Unfortunately, we couldn't finish the entire 6 turns. I'm sure many things wouls be equalised. Although the true is Team Magnus deserved the victory because they had a more measured battle plan than us. There were flaws in the deployment by both sides (seriously, it's very difficult to deploy properly in a game of such dimensions, totally different from 4500 points of 9th Age battles), the large number of units made them up to 3 or 4 battle lines that, sometimes, supplied the deployment failures. Especially for the faster units like Slaanesh characters or Tzeentch champion on disk, who didn't play very well. They were deployed in the middle of the deployment lines and they were blocked until they died by rebounds of cannonballs. The same happened with the Cahos hounds, the typical re-director unit, deployed up to 3 units in the fourth line of the battle xD ... From my point of view, these errors in the chaos deployment allowed the Steam Tanks to advance easily and to block the advance of chaos, which was largely the reason for the imperial victory.

Por finalizar, únicamente apuntar 3 de los momentos más épicos vividos desde la comandancia en el centro del ejército de Asarval Kul. Comenzando por el tercer lugar, me quedo con el momento en que aplasté al todo-poderoso Altar de Guerra de Sigmar de Volkmar con el aún más descomunal Dragón emperador del Caos después de 2 turnos y sus 4 rondas de combate correspondientes; me produjo gran placer y satisfacción ;D. En segundo lugar me quedo con el avance implacable de la unidad de minotauros, son alucinantes, comenzaron reventando a los espadachines de ostermark junto a la gorgona en el 3er turno. Ya estaban tocados por los disparos imperiales, pero gracias a que les puse regeneración de 5s (abundancia carnosa de Nurgle) sobrevivieron a una segunda ronda de disparo mientras miraban fijamente a la unidad de guardia del mar con Teclis a 1 um de distancia después de arrasar en el turno anterior. Lo mejor vino cuando cargué a los elfos y destripé a Teclis con el Minotauro de la Condenación. Y por último y en primerísimo lugar me quedo con el gran momento ÉPICO de la partida: el combate entre el Paladín del Caos anónimo que iba a pata por el campo de Batalla después de haber muerto su dragón y el Conde Elector de Ostermark. En realidad el Paladín hizo un movimiento suicida para redirigir a la caballería de Ostermark y evitar que cargaran al gran Dragón Emperador que ya solo le quedaban 2 heridas. Lo bueno vino cuando Pep vino y me dijo: “Pero qué guarrada! Redirigiendo con un Paladín, esto solo sucede en esta partida!”, inevitablemente tenía que cargar con la caballería al paladín, que estaba dispuesto para que la unidad de caballería se quedase mirando a Cuenca, dando todo el flanco a otras unidades caóticas. Y vino el momento del combate, por supuesto el Paladín del Caos atacaba primero por su mayor iniciativa, pero decidió atacar con todo al Conde Elector: impactaron todos y cada uno de los ataques e hirieron todos, Pep salvaba a 3s, pero por la bendita fortuna del Caos Absoluto no salvó ni una! Entonces hubo gran regocijo entre los Dioses del Caos y el Paladín Anónimo fué ascendido a Principe Demonio XD.

Finally I would like to mention three of the most epic moments lived from the command in the center of the army of Asavar Kul. Starting with the third place, the moment when I crushed the all-powerful Sigmar War Altar with the even more massive Chaos Emperor Dragon after 2 turns and his 4 corresponding combat rounds; it gave me great pleasure and satisfaction; D. Secondly the relentless advance of Minotaurs. Such a great unit! they began to bust the Swordsmen of Ostermark (with the aim of he Gorgon) in the 3rd round. They were seriously wouded by the imperial fire, but they survive thanks to Fleshy Abundance of Nurgle. Then destroyed the elven Seaguard with the Doombull crushing Telis beneath his hoobs. And finally, in the very first place, I pleasured remember the great EPIC moment of the game: the fight between the anonymous Chaos Champion on foot and no magic items -who previously lost his Chaos Dragon-, and the Elector Count of Ostermark. The champion of Chaos made a suicidal move to redirect the Ostermark cavalry and prevent them from charging the Chaos Emperor Dragon who was only 2 wounds left at that moment. So then, Pep exclaimed "But what a bitch! Redirecting with a Champion, this only happens in this game!", Inevitably, he had to charge the Champion. Of course the Champion of Chaos attacked first for his higher initiative, but decided to attack the Elector Count himself: they hit each attack and wounded the same. The Elector Count had an armour guard save of 3+, but thanks to Chaos Gods, none wound was saved! Then there was a great rejoicing among the Gods of Chaos and the Anonymous Champion was promoted to Demon Prince XD.

We'll see you in the next battles!

Jordi

El gran trabajo que hay detrás de esta partida es inmenso y muchos ya os hacéis a la idea después de seguir durante tanto tiempo el blog. Mi impresión al entrar en la sala donde había la mesa de juego fue una cara de asombro brutal; y el sacar la miniaturas de la maleta, montar las unidades y desplegarlas comentado la jugada con los demás, es algo que difícilmente olvidaré. Fue un fin de semana intenso en el que me levantaba, me entonaba con una ducha fría y un café, y nos encerrábamos en la sala para jugar; un parón para comer, y a volver a jugar. Me encantó. Después de tirar centenares de dados, mover y retirar centenares de bajas, qué más os puedo decir, menos mal que la artillería imperial se encontraba lejos desde un principio sino el resultado de la victoria de Team Magnus hubiese podido ser mayor.

The great work behind this game is immense as many of you, if you are reading the blog, surely know. My impression when entering the game room was brutal astonishment. I will hardly forget taking the models out of the suitcase, assembling the units and deploying them, commenting the battle with the rest of the players. It was an intense weekend in which both days I got up, took a cold shower and a coffee, and then we fought; only making a break to eat, and then, playing again. I love it. After throwing hundreds of dice, move and remove hundreds of casualties, what else can I say? Maybe if the imperial artillery deployed better the victory of Team Magnus would been greater.

Steam tanks were like immovable rocks, which slowed down our troops and, with the table so  congested, it was very hard to move. It was a great trouble losing large miniatures in the shooting phase, as some of you, have already commented, especially Kholek and the two War Mammoths. As the commander of the Asavar Kul's right flank, I would like to mention the stellar job of Chaos Trolls. Warriors of Chaos also did their job, killing 20-30 models per phase. Crazy.

I would like to say that the Battle at the Gates of Kislev has changed my way of enjoying the hobby. It's not the same as when I was a kid motivated to play competitive games. Currently, and more after this GREAT GAME, nothing will be the same, my hobby has matured. Now I enjoy painting, making transformations and making new projects with more enthusiasm.

Finally, I want to thank all my companions, because without their perseverance and enthusiasm this would not have been possible.

Rogers

Let me say this: we got it. We have played a battle of 40,000 points per side (and no magic items, except for special characters!), on a nearly 7m long gameboard; almost 3,000 painted models, with an entire city build on an ordinary-measure board. As far as we know, the largest Warhammer Fantasy battle to date. And also, recreating a battle with which I dreamed on when I was a child!

Beyond the game itself, this has been a personal challenge that has been forging over two and a half years. And finally he has seen the light. There are many things to improve and others that are worth remembering, but the work is not over yet. It remains the video-battle report.

In gaming terms, Team Kul had no time to plan a strategy, and this was the main reason no to enjoy the battle as good as I planned. But, sincerely, I’m satisfied. In fact, the morning before deploying I was still fixing grass and waiting the river water dries (something that did not happen 100% and a die that fell on it stuck there!).

So stay tuned, this is not over yet. But before closing these lines I want to thank each of you, those of who are reading these lines, for the moral support you have given to us. Undoubtedly, we would not have come this far without this support, either on a personal level, or in forums or on the blog. And of course also thanks to my battle brothers, for having endured this pace until the end. Thank you very much to all.

""Hey Rick, ¿what do you see in the horizon?" "Only war and destruction, captain" "Good... 'cause this is the way"