Ben’s Chaos Gnomes - The Wrap-Up

OWAC VIII - THE END

"We did it with a Bang"

Another OWAC under the belt! Congratulations to each of you for all your hard work! 

Now that the Six Maddening Months were over, I took some time to reflect. The army was done, clocking in at over 3K in 4th/5th edition points, and I was feeling pretty respectable about the whole thing when it hit me that I still had minis tucked away for this army.

Wow, look at those odds and ends! Some leftover bighats, a bunch of HQ options, a half finished K'daii Destroyer conversion, and some other rabble! I couldn't finish all of it, so I made the bold decision to not bite off more than I could chew.

First I started off with a death shrieker and crew, who could rain terror down upon the enemy with primary yellows and reds! I used some alpine gnome bits for the chassis and an old empire mortar for the barrel, and voila! It's another big bad thing what goes boom!

+75 Pts

Then I added a pair of sorcerers, because you can never have too many. Actually, with the pair of schemes I used when doing this army, I sort of built two smaller Chaos Gnome armies that could then battle eachother if no one else was around to scuffle. This is in part thanks to the lore I'd somewhat cobbled, as well as a growing understanding of Nigel Stillman's ethos, thanks to a well done Dana Howl video. 

+118 pts

Actually thought, there's no reason for them to fight each other, especially when I realized I didn't just have spare chaos gnomes floating around.

I also had leftover Alpine Gnomes taking up space. You remember these friends, from the Battle of Tinyfoot Pass, and also last year's OWAC 7? I'm a wee bit tricky, and so I figured I'd paint some of these chums up for the grand finale as well. A hero is only as good as his villains after all, and so making sure there are plenty of villains hopefully shores up any concern for our stoic smashers.

What I managed to (mostly) paint up from this pile was a tidy little force in its own right and could now be added to last year's force for the culmination of these two OWAC (O-whacks? Owaxen?) worth of effort. On a Sunburnt Saturday in late July, my friend Stephen came by for a match to help discover the results of the rematch at Tinyfoot Pass.

And now for a very small battle report for your reading pleasure.

The Battle of Tinyfoot Pass (Rematch) 

*Deployment*

As is tradition, we broke out the whippy sticks and placed some symmetricalish terrain. Stephen played as the Chaos Gnomes, and organized his line like a champ, making sure to give himself plenty of firing lanes for his war machines. I wanted to give myself room to advance all of my units, and thus put foxes in front of infantry so they could soften the enemy for my pike hordes.

The Chaos Gnomes jn all their glory

*Front Half*

I took the first turn and moved up my battle line solidly. Knowing dwarfs to be a reserved castling force (from two games in 2005,) I had to get my gnomes to his gnomes. As I do this, my opponent softens my lines with his battery of bolt throwers (the most effective of which is crewed by the hounds Vinegar and Salt,) and the one death rocket. Stephen's deft sense of approximation withers my second unit of pikemen (he's very at woodworking, but also games.)

I use Lotti's strategem to remove the swamp from the board's center, and lumber my giant up to his blocks of warriors, and...

The giant falls on its butt, tries to scurry away, and gets trampled by a wall of chaos gnomes. The line advances on the heels of failed panic. In a lucky turn of events, the crossbowgnomes do a phenomenal job of bolting half his bolt throwers back to hell.

*Back Half*

I try desperately to recover, pushing my second unit of pikes up to charge the third anvil of warriors, only to be driven back, and have the firing lane of blunderbusses unleashed up on me. Many units flee in chained panics as the bull centaurs maintain pressure on my left flank, and what's left of my forces promptly collapse. The hobgoblins and alpine artillery crews applaud.

 

*Game End* 

To make matters worse, a giant cat decides the game is over. A Major Victory was earned by Stephen, and by association me, who got to see both of my OWAC armies storm across the table in glorious battle. Truly, it was a masterful stroke of generalship that I would have the better player field the featured army, so that it can have won on its first outing (never mind that this is the first outing for both these gnomish armies.) Hurrah!

Lore Wrap

The chaos gnomes did in fact get their bloody vengeance. They also got shawarma, but that was later.

SO, AFTER ALL THAT FUFFING ABOUT

The Spoils of Time Well Spent

THE LIST 

 Chaos Dwarf  Gnomes 4ed - Unnamed list - [3002 pts]

# ++ Warhammer Fantasy 4th Edition ++ [3002 pts]
## Regiments [1704 pts]
Bull Centaurs [357 pts]: Double Handed Axe, Light Armour, Shield, Musician, Standard Bearer
• 5x Bull Centaurs [41 pts]
  Champion (Double Handed Axe, Light Armour, Shield)
Chaos Dwarf Gnome Blunderbusses [140 pts]: Blunderbuss, Hand Weapon, Heavy Armour
• 10x Chaos Dwarf  Gnome Blunderbusses [14 pts]
Chaos Dwarf Gnome Warriors [348 pts]: Double Handed Axe, Heavy Armour, Shield, Musician, Standard Bearer
• 20x Chaos Dwarf  GnomeWarriors [14 pts]
  Champion (Double Handed Axe, Heavy Armour, Shield)
Chaos Dwarf Gnome Warriors [348 pts]: Double Handed Axe, Heavy Armour, Shield, Musician, Standard Bearer
• 20x Chaos Dwarf Gnome Warriors [14 pts]
  Champion (Double Handed Axe, Heavy Armour, Shield)
Chaos Dwarf Gnome Warriors [348 pts]: Double Handed Axe, Heavy Armour, Shield, Musician, Standard Bearer
• 20x Chaos Dwarf  Gnome Warriors [14 pts]
  Champion (Double Handed Axe, Heavy Armour, Shield)
Hobgoblin Archers [55 pts]: Hand Weapon
• 10x Hobgoblin Archers [5.5 pts]
Hobgoblin Warriors [108 pts]: Hand Weapon, Shield, Musician, Standard Bearer
• 15x Hobgoblin Warriors [5 pts]
  Boss (Hand Weapon, Shield)

## Characters [1055 pts]
Chaos Dwarf Gnome General [360 pts]: Lord (Monster (Lammasu))Hand Weapon)
Chaos Dwarf  Gnome Sorcerer [59 pts]: Sorcerer (Hand Weapon)
Chaos Dwarf  Gnome Sorcerer [59 pts]: Sorcerer (Hand Weapon)
Chaos Dwarf  Gnome Sorcerer [369 pts]: Master Sorcerer (Monster (Cockatrice))Hand Weapon)
Hero [104 pts]: Chaos Dwarf  Gnome Hero (Hand Weapon)
Hero [104 pts]: Chaos Dwarf  Gnome Hero (Hand Weapon)

## War Machines [243 pts]
Death Rocket [75 pts]: Hand weapon, Heavy Armour
Hobgoblin Bolt Thrower [42 pts]: Hand weapon
Hobgoblin Bolt Thrower [42 pts]: Hand weapon
Hobgoblin Bolt Thrower [42 pts]: Hand weapon
Hobgoblin Bolt Thrower [42 pts]: Hand weapon

There's probably more possible points than the list implies, but just nudging over 3k is better tv.

AND NOW, REFLECTION

Its not every day that you bring a project to completion. I'm terrible at it, but find myself able to rise to the occasion a little better when its in the company of such good souls. I had a lot of fun sourcing this army, planning it out, and getting stomped by it. I think most of all, it reminds me that I'm still capable of making cool things when I color mostly within the lines. Its an official(ish) army, that's mostly bang on for representation, that I can bring to most places and not get the dreaded side-eye flung at me.

Moments Before Disaster 

As they say in the biz, "no army is ever finished," and having now gotten in a match, I've got some ideas for where I might take things next time I put brush to chome. For now though, I'm just happy to arrange them on the coffee table until my pals de-mothball their models. 

 

Have a great summer everyone, and see you next time!