The Grand Coward of Khorne

Tony Ackland, the chaos artist

"Are you right-sure? The stunted night-face is in this man-stone-cave?" Dankpelt simply growled and the albino slunk away. Rain dripped from the end of his snout as he pulled the stolen cloak tighter around him, maintaining his disguise. They had been led here to put an end to a dwarven champion of Khorne, but the half-height had already been captured by the herd-leader of the man-things. So they had killed (and eaten!) the guards and, wrapping themselves in their cloaks, taken their place near the gate. 

The waiting was starting to cause trouble, though, and there might be a challenge soon if he wasn't able to give them a victory. Dankpelt sighed fretfully, knowing it had to be soon if he was going to keep this small warband together long enough to raise true havoc for Tzeentch.

The screaming from inside the fort put an end to such thoughts. Finally! He threw aside his cloak and bellowed for his herd to follow. On, on for glory, on for Tzeentch, on for Dankpelt Goretusk!

The courtyard was rapidly emptying of man-things and Dankpelt saw that his was not the only herd there. The stench of Khorne was flowing outwards from the group in the middle of the cobbled space. A group of female-cultists of a weak man-god were tearing at their robes, snout and horn and fur and claws revealed at last! Dankpelt heard the bellowed challenge of his warband, shouting his name. His herd in truth; now for the blooding. And there, praise be to the Changing One, was Night-face! All his foes placed before him, and they were ready to lock horn-tooth-claw.

A head-sized ball of pink flame flashed past him towards the foe, scorching the fur of one and causing it to yelp like a pup. Battle was joined....

So, on to game 2 of Saturday's gaming. This time I was pitted against Malc's khornate warband; five ordinary beastmen led by a level 10 Chaos Dwarf with Pitch Black skin, chaos armour and a mahoosive double-handed axe. I was down to a beastman champion leading, two more beastmen (one with the fireball-shooting banner) and the undead remains of my previous human champion, Bruchvir, still carrying his daemonblade.

We rolled 66 for the scenario, meaning I had to kill the champion and Malc had to get him to escape... from a castle where my band were disguised as guards and his were disguised as nuns. Yes, really. Hairy nuns - makes me wonder about those GW boys back in the 80s!

The game
(I'm afraid my notes weren't as detailed this time)

To start with, Malc had to go and collect his champion, so for the first couple of turns I pelted him with fireballs from Dankpelt's standard, killing one beastman, and managing to cast Tzeentch's Firestorm once from Bruchvir's sword. Still, at least the numbers were now even: four against four, and I had pink horrors spawning in the middle of the table. Things looked good!

After a bit of humming and hawing about whether to try and get one more magic round in, I charged in and (thanks to the +1s from a banner and charging) pushed the seekers after carnage back towards the pink horrors, who also charged them from the rear.

Now, this was the bit with which I am totally happy with how we played it (antipixi's call as GM), but I'm sure there must be a rule for. My beastmen were fighting Malc's face-to-face, the horrors charged them from the rear and Malc's then panicked, apparently having to rout through the unit they were already fighting. Which is what we did with suitable numbers of free hacks taking place. With the small numbers involved that seemed reasonable, but there must be a rule for what to do. Anyone able to point me to the right bit in the rulebook?

Anyway, the Grand Coward of Khorne kept on routing and, despite suffering a wound each on the surviving beastmen and dwarf himself, they managed to keep on running to get off the table. A victory to Khorne.

Post game

We rolled for casualties. Malc's three were: two full recoveries, one light head wound. I rolled 99 for my casualty. Dead. Again! Out of four casualty rolls I made, three of them hit the 10% chance of total death...

The extent of his victory (from running away) gave Malc 10VP so he rolled on the appropriate chart and his dwarf now has Iron Hard Skin. Dankpelt is up to the astonishing total of.... three VPs, so I need seven more to get a gift from my patron.


Dankpelt swore violently and shouted at his herd to stop. There was no point in chasing Night-face the Grand Coward of Khorne any further, but at least there was no doubt he was the herd-leader for now. They had fought well for him and there was still at least half a guard's body to roast back at the cave they had slept in last night. Perhaps the smell would have drawn a couple of wanderers who would join his herd? He would need more followers to make sure of success in future. Bruchvir's silent, shuffling shell was always there as a reminder of what failure could bring.