Battle Report: Luto Zerwikaptur vs the White Walkers South of Malko
Battle Report: Luto Zerwikaptur vs the White Walkers South of Malko
Sometimes a battle report deserves a proper opening scene, and this one absolutely did. Stas dropped the following intro the morning after the game, and honestly, we love this kind of thing so much that we had to keep it here.
It was an old forest south of Malko. Luto Zerwikaptur knew that in forests like these, one had to be careful. This time, his instincts told him he had to be very careful.
Frosted mist hung between the trees. Leaves crunched underfoot. The air scratched at his nostrils and throat. His black armour was coated in pale blue rime. Something was wrong here.
“Something is wrong here,” Luto muttered suspiciously.
Beside him, Nośmitopór, his goblin squire-who-carried-his-axe, was admiring his reflection in the weapon’s head. Frost bloomed across the shining blade in a thousand patterns. Nośmitopór stared at the freezing steel for a moment, then pressed his tongue to it. And froze. His tongue stuck fast, and when he tried to pull it back, it only stretched unnaturally. He could not move.
“You absolute idiot, you armoured moron!” Luto grabbed the knife from his belt and cut without hesitation. Blood burst from the goblin’s mouth. Nośmitopór howled in pain. The severed tongue hung frozen to the axe. Red drops fell onto the moss whitened by snow. The other goblins scattered, cackling.
“Quiet, you dimwits,” Luto hissed at them. He was not laughing at all. He already knew what — and who — they had met in the old forest south of Malko.
In the distance, between the trunks, hundreds of icy blue eyes shone.
Right, with the mood set, let’s get to the game itself.
The setup
On Sunday, in that old forest south of Malko, two 750-point forces met:
- Luto’s scouting banner
- a White Walker vanguard led by Nate Higger III
This was a Warhammer: The Old World game featuring Orcs & Goblins against Tomb Kings, with the latter standing in gloriously frosty for “White Walkers” duty.
Before the battle proper, end3r also summed up the day very accurately:
Armies
Greenskins
Luto’s side looked like this:
- Luto, a Black Orc Bigboss
- 11 Black Orcs with him
- 17 Goblins with 3 hidden Nasty Skulkers
- 20 Orc Boyz
- a Boar Chariot
- a Doom Diver
- another 17 Goblins
“White Walkers” / Tomb Kings
On the other side:
- a Tomb Prince in a skeletal chariot, with two more chariots in the unit
- another unit of 3 chariots on the right flank
- a Mortuary Priest acting as Hierophant, inside 7 mounted skeleton archers
- 18 skeleton archers in the centre
- 3 carrion far out on the left flank
Here’s the battlefield and deployment:
A few Tomb Kings rules that mattered
Since Tomb Kings are still pretty new in our group, Stas highlighted a few things worth remembering:
- Arrows of Asaph: their shooting never takes any to-hit penalties
- Immune to Panic
- Unbreakable and Unstable: they always Give Ground, never flee, but lost combat res turns into extra wounds
- Regeneration 6+ on the troops, 5+ on characters
- Fear, which we did in fact forget at one key moment
Also, the undead can’t march unless they can fly, and the Hierophant can bring back fallen models. We misunderstood that rule during the game, so Pegie didn’t really get to use it properly. And of course, if the Hierophant dies, the whole Tomb Kings army starts crumbling from the following turns onward.
Turn 1
Greenskins started.
The infantry in the centre pushed forward. The boar chariot tried to stay out of the carrion’s reach by drifting toward the middle. The Doom Diver fired and… missed. This will become a theme.
The undead answered with several volleys. A first goblin or ork dropped, while the right-flank chariots took up a strong position on the hill. Both heroes stayed cautious for now, and the carrion flew a full 20” toward the Doom Diver.
Turn 2
The orc infantry kept advancing while individual models fell to skeletal shooting. On paper, the Tomb Kings were putting out a lot of arrows, but in practice Pegie’s dice were doing a lot of lifesaving work for the greenskins. There were, apparently, industrial quantities of 1s and 2s.
The Orc Boyz closed to charge range of the archers. The chariot, instead of setting up some elegant flank play, thundered straight down the centre. The Black Orcs veered left toward the chariots on the hill.
Near the Doom Diver, the goblins prepared to receive a carrion charge — but the birds changed plans, flew behind the orc line, and lined up a rear charge on the Black Orcs instead.
Then the Hierophant cast Unquiet Spirits on the Boyz, who had wandered just an inch too close. That spell is 3D6 S2 hits with no armour saves, which sounds terrifying. Thankfully only 5 hits were rolled, and maybe a single ork died.
Turn 3: the lines crash together
This was the turn where the greenskins finally got stuck in.
- the Orc Boyz charged the archers
- the goblins charged the Tomb Prince’s chariot unit
- the Black Orcs charged the chariots on the hill
- the boar chariot tried to behave sensibly… failed… and charged into the same archers fighting the Boyz
That boar chariot only managed 2 impact hits, which is the absolute minimum possible. Very on-brand.
In the fight with the Tomb Prince, the Nasty Skulkers jumped out of the goblin unit and piled all their attacks into the prince himself. They even spiked two 6s for Armour Bane (2) and managed to put the first wound on him.
Meanwhile, the Boyz and chariot absolutely wrecked the archer unit. They won combat by 9, which, because of Unstable, meant another 9 skeletons crumbled away. Half the unit disappeared on the spot, leaving only one model alive. The freed chariot finally turned to line up the charge it had clearly wanted all along: into the Tomb Prince’s flank.
And here’s one more photo from the end of turn three:
The undead answer was a sneaky one: the carrion charged the rear of the Black Orcs.
On paper that sounded nasty. In practice, three carrion pecking with 3 attacks each but no AP did almost nothing to Black Orcs, and the chariots in front were similarly underwhelming. After all the attacks, only one Black Orc had died.
Then the return swings came in. Two carrion were cut down, and once combat res was counted, the surviving undead simply collapsed. The last carrion vanished, and each chariot took a wound as the whole engagement started to come apart.
Turn 4: Luto’s hammer blow
In turn four, the boar chariot finally hit the flank of the Tomb Prince’s unit.
This is also where we should note the rules mistake: the charge should have required an Ld test, because the Tomb Prince’s unit caused Fear and outnumbered the charger. We forgot that in the moment.
Still, what happened next was brutal.
This time the chariot rolled 6 impact hits at S5 AP-2, and against Unstable troops that hurt twice: first from the actual damage, then again from the combat result. The Tomb Prince crumbled away from the lost combat.
At the same time:
- the Orc Boyz finished off the last skeleton from the archer unit and turned toward the mounted Hierophant
- the Black Orcs cleared out the wounded chariots and overran forward
Turn 5 and concession
By turn five, the end was basically inevitable.
The remnants of the goblins charged the Hierophant from the front, while the Orc Boyz hit the unit in the flank. The Black Orcs were closing from the other side, and the chariot was coming in from behind. Both of those units were set up for one final set of charges in turn six.
Turn six never came. The White Walkers conceded.
Final score
The battle ended 823:0 for the greenskins, with no full orc units destroyed.
That is, frankly, a proper drubbing.
MVPs, lowlights, and memorable moments
A few things we definitely want to remember from this one:
- The Doom Diver did absolutely nothing all game. Not one hit. Inspirational levels of incompetence.
- Pegie’s shooting dice were tragic, and probably saved a lot of greenskin lives.
- The Nasty Skulkers actually did their job and put a wound on the Tomb Prince.
- The boar chariot went from awkward positioning and minimum impact hits to becoming the decisive hammer that broke the undead centre.
- Stas tried to dispel spells with Fated Dispel despite not having a shaman in Luto’s army, and rolled snake eyes twice, bringing us all spiritually closer to fiery death under the swords of Chaos.
- We forgot Fear at an important moment, so that should be marked down for next time.
- We also didn’t use the Hierophant resurrection rule properly, which could have mattered in a tighter game.
Closing thoughts
This sounded like a very one-sided result, but also a really fun learning game for a new faction in the group. Tomb Kings have a bunch of rules that make them feel very different on the table, especially once Unstable, Hierophant support, and crumbling start interacting.
And honestly, the whole “frozen Tomb Kings as White Walkers” concept is just excellent. We’re fully on board with Stas writing more little narrative intros for campaign and battle posts, because this one set the tone perfectly.
If this is what happens in the old forest south of Malko, we definitely want to go back.