Cinquecento Round 2: Skaven Renegades vs Dwarven Mountain Holds
Second round, first clash
In the first game of today’s second Cinquecento round, End3r’s Dwarven Mountain Holds faced Michał’s Skaven built using the Renegades 2.0 ruleset. It was a tiny 500-point scrap, but absolutely packed with classic nonsense: fireballs, poisoned globes, a Doom-flayer, giant rats, stubborn dwarfs, and one very unfortunate gyrocopter.
Right from deployment it looked like one of those games where every model would matter.
The lists
Dwarven Mountain Holds — “Znowu Mi Leci”
- Thane with handgun, full plate, shield, Rune of Passage
- Engineer with great weapon and handgun
- 11 Quarrellers with great weapons, shields, heavy armour
- 13 Thunderers with full command
- Gyrocopter with clattergun
Skaven — “Myszki i kulki”
Played as Skaven Renegades 2.0 Draft for Warhammer: The Old World:
- Warlock Engineer with warplock musket, Level 1 Wizard, Ruby Ring of Ruin, Battle Magic
- 20 Clanrats with full command and Doom-flayer weapon team
- 30 Giant Rats with Master Moulder
- 6 Poisoned Wind Globadiers
- 5 Poisoned Wind Globadiers
We begin
Once people started arriving, the evening properly kicked off. Ender summed up the mood perfectly with a simple “lecimyyy” — and honestly, that was exactly the energy.
A little later we got another table shot, with the battle developing and spectators gradually joining in. One of the nicest things about these evenings is that even when someone only drops by “for an hour or so to watch,” they inevitably get pulled into the whole atmosphere.
Opening volleys
The Skaven had first turn, and they made it count immediately. The Warlock Engineer opened with not one but two fireballs — one cast normally and the other from the Ruby Ring of Ruin — and followed that up with a musket shot. That opening burst dropped two Thunderers before the dwarfs had really settled in.
At the same time, two skirmishing units of Globadiers started creeping up both flanks, while the Doom-flayer and the giant rats pushed up through the middle toward the hill where the Quarrellers had gathered.
The dwarfs answered in their turn with some efficient shooting of their own. Bombs from the gyrocopter killed two giant rats, and the Quarrellers picked off one clanrat.
The hill fight collapses
Then came the moment that really swung the game.
On the next turn, the Doom-flayer slammed into the Quarrellers from the flank, while the giant rats with the Master Moulder hit them from the front. Faced with a tide of fur, blades and whirring machinery, the Quarrellers lost the fight and fled straight off the board.
And honestly, that is exactly the kind of sentence we love writing about Skaven games.
WHERE WAS THE RAT EXTERMINATION BAIT STATION?
Thunderers strike back
The dwarfs were not done yet. The gyrocopter managed to take down the Doom-flayer, which was a big relief after the collapse on the hill. Then the Thunderers charged into the clanrats.
At that point the Skaven pulled one of the more entertaining tricks of the game: the Warlock Engineer used Verminous Valour to retreat safely into the back rank, leaving the expendable rats to do the dying for him. Very Skaven. Very proper.
A moment later, the gyrocopter joined the combat from the flank. Clanrats started dropping one after another, and the whole fight turned into a messy knot of dwarfs, rats, spinning blades and toxic support fire.
With the melee ongoing, the Globadiers lobbed their poisoned wind globes into the scrum. Some of those shots also hit the clanrats — but, in a beautifully Skaven outcome, they failed to wound them.
Eventually the rat unit was down to just 10 clanrats plus the Engineer, but then the momentum shifted again. The gyrocopter finally broke and fled in panic, crashing straight into the crowd of Globadiers and losing its last wound in the process.
A stubborn end
Despite everything, the dwarven Thane held firm, as hard as the rock he was standing on. But with the battle slipping away and defeat becoming inevitable, he gave ground — two inches of it, to be precise — which brought the battle to an end.
That closed out the second round of Cinquecento.
Confusion
There was also a useful comparison after the game, because not everyone immediately recognizes every piece of Skaven machinery at a glance.
This is the Doom-flayer:
And this is the Doomwheel:
Final thoughts
This was a really fun little battle report: tiny points, lots of movement, and several very cinematic moments. The Quarrellers getting swept away by rats and a Doom-flayer, the Engineer hiding behind his own unit, the Globadiers casually throwing gas into an ongoing melee, and the gyrocopter dying in the middle of the enemy skirmishers — that is exactly the kind of chaotic energy we want from small The Old World games.
At 500 points, every casualty mattered, and every trick mattered even more.
If the rest of Cinquecento’s second round looked like this, we are in for a very good time.