Cinquecento Round 2: Goblins, Daemons, and a Brutal Flank Charge
Battle evening
This one started in the most classic club-that-is-not-a-club way possible: a few messages, some rules confusion, somebody asking where are we even playing?, and Michał generously offering up a temporarily empty flat near Metro Bemowo. Perfect hobby conditions.
We were initially juggling a few ideas. There was some talk about a 500-point game in Warhammer 40k, maybe using special small-game rules, maybe normal matched play, maybe even something campaign-ish like Crusade. In the end though, the actual action that unfolded that evening was very much Warhammer: The Old World — specifically our second round of Cinquecento.
Before the dice started rolling, we also had the usual pre-game theoryhammer. Fear rules got revisited, list tweaks were made, and Ender revealed that he had swapped “the lunatic” for a gyrocopter. Which, naturally, immediately triggered concern levels somewhere between hmm and this seems suspiciously strong.
If you want to see the event page we were using, here it is:
And yes — even parking logistics made it into the pre-battle briefing.
Hobby side quest before the battle
As often happens, not everyone was there only for pure competitive bloodshed. Wilini dropped in later and shared a quick progress shot of models that were “slowly getting some colours”. We always like these little hobby check-ins in the middle of game organisation chaos.
The game everyone kept talking about
The most dramatic report from the evening came from Stas and Pegie: greenskins versus Chaos Daemons, and apparently absolute cinema in the final turns.
According to Stas, what happened in the last round was the kind of sequence that explains exactly why we keep coming back to The Old World. In the final clash, the daemons made one last desperate push. First, they smashed one goblin unit. Then, immediately after that, they charged another goblin unit in the flank.
And that was enough.
Even though the fight itself was close, the goblins had lost their rank bonus and simply could not hold it together mentally. They broke and fled the battlefield.
That moment, as Stas described it, was peak Warhammer: a unit of 22 goblins lost only 2 models in combat, but because of the flank charge and the combat resolution swing, they lost by a single point — and that was all it took for the whole unit to panic and run.
That is such a wonderfully cruel, dramatic, old-school outcome. A tiny tactical opening, a smart flank charge, a bit of pressure on morale — and suddenly an almost intact unit disappears from the game. Brutal. Beautiful. Very Warhammer.
Pegie himself was modest about it and said he had more luck than sense, but honestly, spotting and making that flank charge still mattered.
The battlefield in round four
Stas also shared how the table looked in the fourth round. At that point, four of his units at almost full strength had the last daemon unit cornered. It looked like the greenskins had things under control.
But then came the turning points: first a failed orc charge, then panic in the front goblin unit, and suddenly the whole situation unraveled. That cascade effect is one of those things that can feel absolutely merciless when you are on the receiving end, but it also creates stories we keep retelling long after the game is over.
Replay included
The best part? This one was actually recorded in Toadie, so we can revisit the whole thing instead of relying only on increasingly exaggerated post-battle retellings.
Thanks for hosting
Big thanks go to Michał for hosting the evening and making Kossutha available for round two. There is something very charming about a battle night in a flat that, by the host’s own description, first needed airing out, water turned on, and electricity switched back in. That is commitment to the hobby.
So yes — Cinquecento round 2 delivered. We had list talk, rules chatter, painting progress, spectators dropping in, and at least one battle ending in a completely absurd morale collapse after what looked like a manageable combat.
Honestly, we do not know another game that produces exactly this kind of nonsense in quite the same way.
And that is why we love it.