Chaos vs Lizards - Battle for the Four Stones

For our annual Christmas break 2025 game of Warhammer Fantasy battle, my son loves creating his own stories and special rules.  He wanted to create his own off-shoot storyline from the running narrative story I've been playing (which he's helped play lots of battles with me).  This is a WHFB 4th edition game.

Here's the scenario he came up with: the chaos army is trying to activate the Four Stones (center) so that the special character "Lil' Rocky" can be used.  Get a unit in contact with the center stone scenery piece and they try to "loosen" the stones.  First attempt, need to roll a 6.  If you fail, each subsequent attempt is easier (5 or 6, then 4,5,6, etc.) as the previous attempt loosens the stones. 

Lil' Rocky is a cool figure my son bought at an HMGS flea market and he made up some special rules for him for use in whichever battle he appears.

Other special scenario rule is that if the stones get activated, the warped mechanical "chaos giant" (represented by his 40k Chaos Plague Dreadnought) gets to use the flame cannon (breath fire like a dragon). Until then, just using the normal rules for a Giant. 

The Lizardmen army is trying to stop them. If they can prevent activation of the Four Stones, then Lil Rocky won't show up until mid-way through the next battle of this small linked campaign.

Roughly 1000pts per side.  From the overhead shot, terrain would be the biggest challenge - maneuvering around it would be critical.

Long-ways deployment. 

The Chaos Army emerging from the forest

The Lizards approaching the stones - the Skinks on the road

Lil' Rocky, watching from the side

Chaos split their forces, the harpies, pack of chaos hounds and the beasts going around the right side of the trees, the minotaurs and dragon ogre around the left side.

Newly painted Harpies make their first appearance...

The Kroxigors were deployed in snake formation, weaving their way through the trees

Two blocks of Saurus Warriors, led by the Skink Shaman general (Level 1 mage).  We would soon find out how tough a huge block of Saurus warriors can be.

In the magic phase, the Skink shaman (on foot) cast Fiery Convocation on the fast-flying Harpies, killing one. We didn't think much of it at the time.  But then I read the spell a little closer...."remains in play", gets stronger each magic phase, including your opponents magic phase.  Oops.  The chaos army didn't have a wizard to help dispel.  This might get ugly. 

The Harpies are now on fire...

The Kroxigors emerged from the trees, reformed and prepared to take the charge from the Dragon Ogre.  By now, you can see the flaming mess that was the remains of the Harpy unit. They managed to make contact with the Four Stones objective and loosen it a bit (making it easier to activate in the next turn). But there weren't many harpies left in the unit and there was basically no way to dispel this thing until a dispel card showed up in the cards...

Stalemate in the combat between Dragon Ogre and Kroxigors

Things started to go south for the chaos army at this point.  The Harpies had fled away after getting charged by the skink skirmishers, then the chaos hound pack charged the block of 30 saurus warriors - lost combat, and left. This caused a number of panic checks and the entire center of the chaos army collapsed.  

Run away!

However, the giant (chaos dreadnaught model) took matters into his own hands.  He charged the Shink Shaman general, and promptly ate him.  Not exactly how we expected to dispel the Fiery Convocation spell, but it worked!

At this point the chaos army recovered most of their nerve and rallied.  The Giant continued his MVP performance, jumping up and down in the other block of saurus warriors, smashing and stomping an entire rank and the unit broke and ran. 

A last ditch attempt to turn the tide for the Chaos army was made with the beastmen unit - they charged the big block of saurus, but couldnt cause enough wounds to overcome the huge rank bonus.  They lost combat and broke, narrowly escaping getting run down. 

There was one last hope, though - in the 6th and final turn, chaos had two units in range to make contact with the Four Stones objective, so two more chances to activate and win.  The minotaurs rolled, needing a 5 or a 6 - no luck.  But that made it easier for the giant.  The final roll of the game - on a 4,5, or 6, the giant could seal the deal.  Would the MVP continue his amazing performance???

...no! Rolled a 2.  The Lizards managed to prevent the Chaos horde from activating the Four Stones quickly and bringing Lil Rocky into the start of the next battle (he'll show up mid-way through Game 2). 

What a great game.  It once again showed the beauty of 4th edition WHFB.  Went all the way to the final die rolls of turn 6.  So much fun.  Every turn was a wild swing - Chaos, then Lizards, then Chaos. Wackiness, epic combats, great tactical challenges.   The #BestHammer.  Can't wait for the next game in the story!

Chaos Harpies

Got these figs at a flea market for cheap and they weee already primed and painted (not well).

Never liked these figures but definitely a good unit to bulk up the Chaos Army.

I rebased them into larger 25mm bases so that they fit a little better and their feet weren’t hanging off the edge. 

Tried to speed paint them.  Heavy wet-brush of a dark red...

Then a few different lighter drybrushes of various reds...

Done. Good enough for the tabletop.  I try not to spend too much time on figures I really don't like.

Need to add a picture to my Chaos army background - The Crimsonblades

Chaos Army - The Crimsonblades

Another new entry into the Warpstone Conflict - a chaos warband. 

Chaos Lord: Marus Crimsonblade on his griffon Chiron

Marus Crimsonblade riding Chiron

Beastmaster - Sigveld the Low and his hounds Balefur and Zuch

The beastmaster and his hounds

Sigveld the Low

Bloodthirster - Bluntergore Skullpile

Bluntergore Skullpile

Chaos Warrior Regiment - The Ragebringers

The Ragebringers

Dragon Ogre - Zargir Tarthaek

Zargir Tarthaek

Chaos vs Dwarfs Remote Gaming

 Played first remote wargame a few days ago and it worked surprisingly well. It was myself as the Dwarf player vs Joshua, of Crown of Command Podcast fame, remotely commanding my newly painted Khorne Chaos army.  We used Google Meet and I attached my iPhone on a stand. Connected a Beats Pill bluetooth speaker to hear the remote player (Joshua) better. 

Joshua is very small in the iphone

14 hour time difference was no problem.  It definitely helped that it was a a small game (1500 points), we used no magic, and had the right attitude. 

Chaos vs Dwarfs, Warhammer Fantasy Battle (WHFB) 4th edition. 

Deployment:

Overhead Deployment

You can see in the above picture the Chaos deployment (left side of picture) with a "Refused flank", to try and take the flame cannon out of the game, as well as the hammerers (the block of Dwarfs on dwarf right flank). 

Dwarf Army

Chaos Army

This isn't a turn by turn battle - we didn't have pictures of the first two turns because I had forgotten to charge the batteries of the "fancy" camera and since the iPhone was hosting the video, I couldn't snap any! Better planning next time.  

Dwarfs had initiative and went first.  Unloaded all 5 barrels of the organ gun, didn't misfire! This decimated the beastmen unit. 

The Khorne Chaos lord on the Griffon flew forward (did NOT fly high), and used his "breath fire" chaos gift, blasting the crew of the organ gun and leaving 1 crewmen remaining.  This proved critical because it meant it would take an extra turn to "reload" the organ gun. (We'll return to that later).

The the most part, the Dwarf shooting was pretty effective.  The flame cannon tried a few ridiculous attempts to shoot the flames over friendly units, and didn't get there, killing Dwarfs instead.

After neutralizing the organ gun, the chaos lord charged the dwarf crossbows, who opted to flee as their charge reaction and which forced the griffon to have a failed charge and get stuck right in front of the organ gun.  When the Dwarfs were about to unload all 5 barrels again, we realized that with only 1 crew remaining, the organ gun would need another turn to reload, so...that didn't work out. It left the organ gun a sitting duck for the ogres (who were on the extreme flank).

The chaos warriors were slowly making there way around the rocks that were in the middle of the table. 

Eventually, the chaos lord slammed into the crossbows, but you can see that the main dwarf clansmen unit had repositioned themselves (with their general) to either help this fight or take on the chaos warriors.

The ogres charged the organ gun, and to everyone's surprise no wounds were caused on either wide, and the lone crewmen won the combat because of the +1 higher ground bonus! we were on edge as Josh rolled the break check...and he barely passed!  Either way, the crewman had done his job.  He tied up the ogres in combat for two turns, basically taking them out of the game.

This picture above was when I realized I made a mistake by letting those final two members of the beastmen unit survive.  I thought they were harmless, but the champ was actually a chaos champion of Khorne (not a beastman champ), and he had frenzy, and something else, and basically when the hammerers failed to break them on the first turn with rank bonus and standard bonus, the champion and beastman standard bearer tore through this unit of hammerers.  It was brutal!

You can see the unit of 6 Dwarf slayers moving across the rear of the dwarf line in a "snake" formation.  Pretty sure that's the first time in my life that I ever moved Dwarfs in a snake. 

You can see above, this is this misguided attempt by the flame cannon crew to shoot the flame over their own units...and hitting the Dwarf General's unit of clansmen instead.

The Slayers got into position, waiting for the eventual destruction of the crossbowmen.  That set up a great combat with the griffon and chaos lord against the slayers.  Well, great because the slayers actually got into combat with a monster.  But they got slaughtered and met a proper "doom".

This set up a final last chance gambit by the Dwarf General and his unit of clansmen.  The charged the chaos warriors, hoping to break them.  They didn't.  The chaos warriors won and broke the unit.  

That was the end of Turn 5 and the final turn. The forces of chaos handily defeated the dwarf army.

All-in-all, it was a great battle.  Lots of fun to play some solid "herohammer" which had wild swings of momentum and general ridiculousness.  I know that 4th and 5th ed get a lot of complaints, but the rules as written hadn't accumulated any of the "cruft" of the later editions.  Sure, there's some ambiguity and grey areas here and there, but the spirit of the game is pretty light and fun.  It wasn't "serious" yet. Which is why it was, and still is, my favorite edition of WHFB. 

Thanks to Joshua for staying up late and playing as the "remote" general!

Chaos Banner!

 As part of my chaos army in the on-going Call of the Crown painting challenge, I decided to finally tackle my favorite chaos banner from the Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness book.

Some quick background. When I first began a chaos army back when I started in WHFB 20+ years ago, I tried to recreate this banner.  It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't good, and eventually I lost it. 

Now, I was determined to finally try again, but also terrified to try and tackle it. I was really afraid I would screw it up.  But over the past few years, I learned some basic tips and approaches for free-handing banners and it has really made approaching banners much less daunting.

Here's a few pictures throughout the stages. 

First, trace it out with a sketch using pencil. it helps to draw very light "guide lines" down the center and halfway point vertical and horizontal.  Then, use a micro artists ink pen, trace over the pencil in black. 

Then start filling in the main colors.  This is regular printer paper.  Make sure to thin down your paints.  Also, I painted the back of the banner first (all black) so that I didn't mess up the completed work when flipping it over. I learned that the hard way.

You can see the artist's pen in this picture. Not too expensive, I picked them up at A.C. Moore (or Michael's art supply store, i forget).   I began filling in the rest of the colors here.  Try to work from the background "layer" forward.  

Here's the completed banner.  I also used the micro pen to write in the text on the scroll. 

...And here's the side-by-side.  I might still go back and add some thin rope (probably sewing thread). 

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with my recreation.  The flames were definitely the hardest part.  I really love the ridiculously large size of the banner from the Oldhammer era.  It looks awesome on the battlefield.  This Chaos army and my orcs and goblins will definitely have lots of unnecessarily large banners.