Wargaming’s most insane game?

The backstory

Gorduz and Dazherak Hashubroth were brothers. Born to a senior sorcerer priest in the dark and remote city of Uzkulak, they enjoyed a fierce rivalry their entire lives. The brothers revelled in the mire of chaos and were preyed upon from a young age, by evil forces looking to lure them away from the patronage of the chaos-dwarf god Hashut.

While Dazherak fell under the depraved and extravagant spell of Slaanesh, his brother Gorduz became swayed by by the menace of Khorne.

Resentful of his brother’s easy command of the winds of magic, Gorduz turned away from them altogether. Always a sickly and stunted example of dwarfkind (shrunken body attribute), he took to wearing a mechanical exoskeleton fashioned by the most cunning and resourceful chaos dwarf engineers, to enhance his weak and crippled frame. This frame led Gorduz to become a fine warrior and the martial superior of his brother.

The brothers rejection of the teachings of Hashut brought them into direct conflict with their father and matters came to a head, when, after a particularly vicious argument Gorduz strangled his father from behind while Dazherak distracted him with religious rhetoric. This act of patricide was the moment that connected them to their evil patrons forever. As he choked the life from his father Gorduz’ hands swelled to monstrous proportions and Dazherak’s taunting and mocking tongue became transformed to that of a Slaaneshi seeker.

With their father’s murder done the brothers fled Uzkulak, Dazherak with a group of Orc slaves and Gorduz a troop of loyal chaos dwarf warriors. Now fugitives from the powers of the capital city Zharr-Naggrund, the brothers strode the ash wastes around their home city, preying upon all they came upon. As they gathered souls for their patrons, their chaos rewards grew, as did their warbands.

The scenario

The scenario for our first game was written by my collaborator in this madness, V, which I include below.

“Setting:

The brothers in damnation seek to create a foothold of their own after being forciblyremoved from Uzkulak, Looking to the skull lands they find a camp of Norscans that have overtaken a watchtower in a section to the north. These trespassers would surely make a worthy sacrifice.

Forces:

Brothers: each of the brothers musters their full warband.

Norsca: the Norse defenders consists of 20 marauders as well as their leader Zerak the vile, a chaos warrior and aspiring champion. The Norse are recovering from a previous battle to take the watchtower as a result only a patrol of 8 start on table to meet the brother’s warbands.

The table:

The table as best as possible should resemble the grounds around a fortified tower that has been littered with debris. On one table edge is the tower, or a token that represents it.

Deployment:

Norse forces deploy 8 marauders around the tables centre. The brothers deploy on any table edge that does not have the tower on it. The brothers take the first turn.

Raise the alarm:

From the beginning of the third turn the warriors in the tower will have had the time to organise and begin to pile out of the tower. 1D3 marauders appear next to the tower, or tower token, but are not able to move. Keep a tally of how many marauders have arrived in this manner. After 12 have arrived, no more can enter the battlefield in this manner. Zerak the Vile will always emerge in this manner on the 3rd turn.

Victory:

The brothers win if either of the following statements is true:

10 or more marauders are out of action.

6 or more marauders and Zerak the vile are out of action.

If both of the brothers’ warbands flee the table then the scenario is lost.

Rewards:

In addition to the standard chaos rewards from the Realm of Chaos campaign book, the following rewards are avaialable for this scenario.

½ a chaos reward to the warband that takes the most models out of action. Both brothers may claim this reward.

1 chaos reward to the slayer Of Zerak the Vile, if he is slain in single combat by one of the brothers.

Zerak the Vile:

M 4 – WS 5 – BS 4 – S 4 – T 5 – W 3 – I 5 – A 3 – Ld 11 – Int 7 – CL 9 – Wp 9

Wargear: Chaos armour, hand weapon, shield, rune of Nurgle”

The rules

The Realm of Chaos supplements were based on rules from the Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3^rd edition (and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay), and it was intended that Chaos warbands would be part of a larger Warhammer Fantasy Battle force in games. We decided we did not want to do this but wanted he warbands to be on the field alone during the scenarios.

Therefore we made the decision to use the Mordheim ruleset as a core basis for our games, at least until the warbands got to the size that they could be fielded as stand alone forces in a larger scale ruleset.

We also wanted to play our initial games in a cooperative fashion to avoid having our warbands depleted too heavily and to give them a chance to build up. This does mean we need to ignore the rule from the book that states that no rewards can be earned for either warband if allied to forces of the opposing chaos god.

The game

The observant among you will notice that the models in the game are not fully painted as shown in our last post. Being typical hobbyists, both V and I did our best to get fully painted before play but that is not always how things go in our hobby.

Turn 1: The first turn was mostly forces advancing into the table centre. Dazherak’s orc archers put down some fire but caused no casualties.

Turn 2: With their higher movement, Dazherak’s hounds made contact with the chaos warriors and took the first blood of the conflict, while other forces continued their advance. In reprisal a chaos hound is downed under the onslaught from the chaos marauders.

Turn 3: Zerak the Vile emerges from the tower with his bodyguard. The vicious hand to hand exchange starts in earnest, but although models are downed no casualties are caused.

Turn 4: Dazherak loses another loyal hound, but his followers take a toll on the marauders in revenge, with two more falling to his forces.

Turn 5: Gorduz’ troops claim their first soul for Khorne and Dazherak gets his first personal kill.

Turn 6: Gorduz’ humiliation at the hands of the dice gods continues as Dazherak’s orcs claim another two kills while his embattled warriors fail to make headway.

Turn 7: Gorduz’ implored his patron to empower his hand against the foe and Khorne heard. 4 chaos warriors fell to the hand of Gorduz’ followers this turn and their forces routed the field.

The aftermath

Rolling for casualties Dazherak lost one of his chaos hounds. Luckily Gorduz’ warriors were injured only slightly and recovered from their wounds.

As their opponents fled the field the brothers patron gods sent them gifts for their efforts.

Dazherak found one of his arms transformed into a huge crab like claw.

Gorduz’ felt his emaciated and weak form wracked with the energies of chaos and his body becomes transformed into a weird hybrid of Khorne flesh hound and dwarf, while 4 of the fallen chaos warriors give birth to twisted demonic chaos hounds from their torn corpses that will now serve loyally their master in his efforts to please Khorne.

Khorne’s gifts were not confined to Gorduz as both his faithful servant units also had ‘gifts’ granted them, The ferocious beastmen were obviously not bestial enough, so mighty Khorne granted them the gift of mindlessness (-2 Int), while a few of Gorduz’ dwarven brothers began to sprout prehensile spiny tails.

Note on cross-breed reward: This is the kind of thing that makes Realm of Chaos so challenging as a game mode. After only a single battle I now have to convert my leader model to a hybrid of my existing model and a Khorne flesh hound. This sort of modelling and remodelling of miniatures after every battle is a feature of the Realm of Chaos campaigns that, in my opinion, caused many to avoid exploring the real potential locked within these books.

The new rewards bestowed upon Gorduz’ carried his legend far across the Ash Wastes and Mountains of Mourn, and in the days following the battle at the tower a group of 8 Skaven and 7 Chaos Dwarfs were drawn to him.

Conclusion

One game down and I now have three new units to model and paint and a massive conversion to tackle. I got lucky with my beastmen, ending up with a mutation that doesn’t require any modelling. The tails for the dwarves will probably have to wait a while, as I already have a ton to do before our next game. I definitely will do the conversions at some point because one of the main things I want to have after this journey is over is a unique collection of converted models that, though I may never use them again, I can display at home as a trophy of my commitment to and enjoyment of this craziest of wargaming releases.

When I was a teenager, back in 1988, I remember my gaming buddy, Chris, had the Realm of Chaos books, which were an accompaniment to Warhammer Fantasy Battles 3^rd edition (and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay incidentally). While we played some small games of WHFB and we did talk about how cool it would be to do a Realm of Chaos campaign, we never had the time or drive to get it done.

For those who don’t know, the idea of the Realm of Chaos books was that you create a chaos champion aligned with one of the chaos gods from the Warhammer universe (Khorne, Slaanesh, Tzeentch or Nurgle). You then roll up some chaos rewards (weapons, armour, mutations etc.) and some followers (chaos dwarves, orcs etc.), using a preposterous amount of random tables, to create small warbands.

These warbands would then participate in games, either as add-ons to larger Warhammer Fantasy armies or, if they are large enough, as forces in their own right.

Well fast forward 35 years and now is the time. This time it is my good friend V who owns the reprint editions of both Slaves to Darkness and the Lost and the Damned. As a fellow Warhammer Fantasy fan, it only took a brief conversation for us to commit ourselves to playing a Realm of Chaos campaign.

Our journey begins at our local gaming club when we sat down after a long evening of gaming with a fistful of dice to roll up our warbands.

The first step was to choose a chaos god. As V is a huge Slaanesh fan it made sense for me to pick Khorne.

The next step was to roll up my champion. The dice decreed I was to be a Chaos Dwarf, with a standard line trooper stat line. For reference the profile values are: movement (M), weapon skill (WS), ballistic skill (BS), strength (S), toughness (T), wounds (W), initiative (I), attacks (A), leadership (Ld), intelligence (Int), cool (Cl) and willpower (Wp).

M 3 – WS 4 – BS 3 – S 3 – T 4 – W 1 – I 2 – A 1 – Ld 9 – Int 7 – Cl 9 – Wp 9

Interestingly V also rolled a Chaos Dwarf as his champion, but this time a follower of the depraved and disgusting Slaanesh. Immediately we decided that for the purposes of narrative we were to be brothers. A thrilling development.

As a follower of Khorne, I immediately get a suit of Chaos armour for free (essentially really good heavy armour) as my first Chaos Gift.

Next, I need to roll a Chaos Attribute, or mutation. The dice gave me overgrown hands which modified my basic profile and gave me my first modelling challenge.

M 3 – WS 3* – BS 3 – S 4* – T 4.5*- W 2* – I 2 – A 1 – Ld 9 – Int 7 – Cl 9 – Wp 9

As per the campaign rules in the Slaves to Darkness book we now have 1 Chaos Gift and 1 Chaos Attribute. This entitled me to my first roll on the chaos retinue table to determine what creatures have been drawn to follow me on my journey to shed blood in Khorne’s name.

However, as V and I wanted to play with just our warbands and not include a full Chaos army in our games, we decided to roll twice more each on the chaos rewards table entitling us to a further retinue roll. With a champion and two small units of followers, the warbands would be substantial enough to play a game with without needing to add other models.

So with this in mind I made two more rolls on the chaos rewards table.

As it is the most likely roll I unsurprisingly rolled 2 further Chaos Attributes but as a) modelling too many mutations so soon after starting my warband was going to be a pain and b) when I gain 6 attributes my champion could easily degenerate into a Chaos Spawn (making for a short campaign) we decided to bend the rules a little and swapped one of the Chaos Attributes for a roll on the Rewards tables specific for my patron god (in this case Khorne), even though Chaos Attributes cannot normally be avoided in this way.

So my Chaos Gift from the Khorne rewards table was the face of a Juggernaut (think massive metal ‘horse’ the size of a rhinoceros) and my Chaos Attribute was a shrunken body, which again modified my base stats. Seriously? A dwarf with a shrunken body? WTF?)

M 1.5* – WS 3* – BS 3 – S 2** – T 4.5* – W 2* – I 4* – A 1 – Ld 9 – Int 7 – Cl 9 – Wp 9

Hardly the combat monster I was hoping for to harvest skulls for the skull throne. Lets hope I can get some followers that are vaguely decent in combat.

For my retinue rolls I rolled a single unit for each, giving me 2 rolls on the follower table.

I gained 5 Chaos Dwarf followers (the story just tells itself) and 5 Beastmen. Not bad. Looks like I’m leading from the rear.

Crafting a model collection for a game system that’s been dead to the world for over a quarter of a century, meant some creative decisions would need to be made.

Not owning a 3D printer, I wanted to get as much stuff as possible from my collection or off-the-shelf.

The 5 chaos beastmen were easy as I already owned a few original metal beastmen from Games Workshop’s range in the 1980s. Shocking, I know. A wargamer with a hoard of unused miniatures from their childhood. How improbable…not.

The paint scheme could only be one thing for a Khorne army. Black, red and brass. No thinking required here.

I had a lot to get done so all the painting was quick and dirty. Base coat, wash, out the door.

Beastmen

All models were primed with an airbrush using Vallejo Ghost Grey primer.

All paints are Vallejo Model Color (VMC) unless otherwise stated.

Skin – Beige Red

Beastman fur and hair – Mahogany Brown

Hooves and horns – Field Blue

Skirts, drum body, knife handles, axe handle loops, stitching on banner bearer’s right bracer, banner bearers left arm wrap – Red

Belts, knife sheathes, axe and spear handles, drumstick shaft, banner bearer’s bracer, leather straps and banner pole – Leather Brown

Bone knife handle on musician – Dark Sand

Drum skin, drum beater head, rope on banner – Tan Yellow

Fur on banner, drum and drummer’s fur wrist wrap – Neutral Grey

Weapon blades, metal bracelets, metalwork on drum, banner bearer’s earring, studs on banner pole, knife handle frame – Black then Natural Steel

Shields, chaos badges on belts and banner, laces on knife sheaths – Black

Studs on skirts, designs on chaos badges and shields, loop on banner top, sword handles – Black then Brass

With everything painted it’s a wash all over with Citadels Agrax Earthshade and we are ready for basing.

Games Workshop beastmen in metal must mean GW chaos dwarves in metal, right? Er…no, and barring a lottery win that isn’t happening anytime soon. So, Mantic to the rescue. Mantic has a range of miniatures called Abyssal dwarfs that would do just nicely and are very reasonably priced. I bought a box of the Blacksouls/Decimators kit and also the perfect model for my warband leader, the Abyssal Dwarf king.

After priming these models got an all over airbrush of the VMC Red. Although their armour is quite busy and varied, I wasn’t going to spend a ton of time picking out all of the small textures and details on these models.

With the armour done the rest of the colours were:

Skin – Dark Flesh

Skirts and gloves – German Uniform

Belts, beards, boots, axes and shields – Black

details on belts and shields, axes – Bronze

skull details on a couple of models – Iraqi Sand

Slap on the Agrax and bish, bash bosh, done.

Now for the centrepiece. Mantic’s Abyssal Dwarf king was a pretty good start. The heavy armour and exoskeleton was a great look for chaos armour.

There were two main conversions I needed to look at. The first was the face of a juggernaut. I managed to find an old metal juggernaut head on ebay for a reasonable price and purchased it. The other was the overgrown hands. After having a shout out at my local club, my pal David gave me a selection of spare Orruk arms from the new Age of Sigmar kits. These seemed just large enough to be out of scale but not so large they be difficult to model on. Changing the hands meant swapping out the weapon too, but the Orruk axe looked suitably Khornate so I was cool with that.

The shrunken body mutation I hand waived as I wasn’t going to be able to model it in a satisfactory way anyway.

The Mantic model has a flatish face with a spiked surround. I was able to file the back of the juggernaut head flat and, after doing the same to the dwarf king’s face pin the two together with a bit of greenstuff to hide the join.

The hands were equally simple with just a quick snip it was off with the old and on with the new. Again a little bit of greenstuff was used to blend the join.

After priming I sprayed the whole model VMC Black.

The armour was first painted Silver then Army Painter Speed Paint (APSP) Slaughter Red to give a coloured metallic look.

The exoskeleton was painted oily steel.

Juggernauts have red skin so I painted the hands and head White then a coat of Vermillion.

Other colours were:

Weapon handle – Yellow Ochre

Teeth and claws – Iraqi Sand

Eyes – Lemon Yellow with Black pupils

Hair – London Grey

Skirt and head details – Brass

After washing in Agrax earthshade, I based this and all the other models using Geek Game Scenics Mediterranean Soil over a coat of US Field Drab, with the bases edged in my usual Black.

I was really pleased with my final efforts and it felt great to finally begin a Realm of Chaos project after all these years.

Next stop our first game.