Ouch - What a Warhammer Massacre !

The Nauticans suffered severely at the verminous claws of the plague ridden hamster impersonators (can you tell it upset me ?). 

The purpose of this post is two-fold. Firstly, I thought I'd better let you know that I haven't forgotten or abandoned my Nautican project. I'm afraid that real-life took over for a while but my Warhammering ways are fighting back and I should now have more free time to get back to the real business of enjoying myself :)

Secondly, I had a 3,000pt battle about 3 weeks ago against my regular opponent who once again brought his horrible furry critters with him.

In a nutshell, he gave me a very good and thorough kicking ! I've tried to analyze what happened and if I did anything seriously wrong or he did anything seriously right.

I think my opponent summed it up nicely. I simply took the wrong army against his hordes of rats. His army totally overwhelmed the Nauticans who were few in number. I was fighting on all fronts and against multiple units. It was just too much for my fishy lads :(

I did make a couple of silly mistakes, I misjudged how far his Doomwheels were likely to move and he routed my Stingrays, which were about t take out some jezzails and he also managed to get a Doomwheel "charge" into another unit which wreaked havoc on my plans.

The Nauticans did bravely dispatch numerous Skaven units but they were mainly slaves and at the end only the King of the Seas, some Weresharks and a very depleted Trident Guard unit remained.

My opponent on the other hand chose his army very wisely and didn't make any mistakes, as far as I could tell. Boooo ! Every commander should be forced to make a mistake or forget something important during the course of a fantasy battle :D

Anyway, I'll be back with some Nautican updates soon. I'm ordering some more units and have quite a few tweaks to make to the army list. I still haven't got anywhere with the painting but at least I now have the time to try.

Joel, if you're reading this, I'm sure you must have cheated to beat my noble and proud Nauticans because that's simply the Skaven way. The only problem is, I haven't worked out how !  ;)
Thanks for continuing to follow the project guys,
Sigmar

The King of the Seas, Weresharks and Octobipods wreak carnage upon the Saurus ranks leaving the dead and dying sprawled across the battlefield.

In this 3000 point Fantasy Battle the dice gods did truly smile upon The Nauticans and laugh at the plans of the Slann Ancients.

From Nautican_Arwork_Only

It was certainly a game of two halves (I've always wanted to say that !). The Nauticans were firmly on the back flipper for the first three turns. They took numerous coral hunter and crest rider casualties and lost a Tripoon battery, which had not inflicted a single casualty, to a unit of Cold One Riders.

My dice luck was bad in the first three turns but once the dice gods had turned their attention to the battle things improved dramatically for the Nauticans and the Lizardmen might as well have been rolling number 1 weighted dice.

The Nauticans had held back for the first 3 turns but after disposing of almost all of the skink skirmishers and chameleons they began to advance.

The skinks had, as usual, inflicted numerous casualties but only against the weaker, expendable Nautican units. I have begun to realise that this will be the normal course of things for a Nautican army. At 3 points for a coral hunter and 6 for a crest rider it didn't bother me too much. They had been an excellent missile shield and even if the chameleons had taken out about 150 points, they were much depleted and of little threat to my real battle winning units.

My battle buddy "J" was getting ever more optimistic and, I think, he was sensing a big victory but it was not to be. Muhahahaha.... :D

When the Nauticans began moving forward, little could stand in their way (thank you dice gods !)

The 3 weresharks including a Tiger Wereshark champion had 10 attacks and used them to great effect cutting down many Saurus Warriors and routing a unit of 20 in their second combat phase after, if I remember correctly, the Saurus had made an insane courage roll. I believe the Weresharks (accompanied by a unit of Wavebreakers) did not take a single wound.

The Octobipods and flanking King of the Seas did almost aswell against the Temple Guard.

It was quickly turning into a rout !

The Lizards brought in a unit of Cold Ones that had lost one of their own to, incredibly, a sandganger. They charged the Weresharks but were quickly destroyed.

It was utter slaughter and a nice result for the Weresharks who have twice fled the field without causing any casualties in previous games. The Octobipods also showed their worth having achieved little in the past.

The King of the Seas did not dish out a lot of hurt. I think he killed about 5 Saurus but he was rock steady and held up one unit of Saurus with an Oldblood all on his own.

The Lizardmen did have some success late on with their Oldblood mounted Carnosaur and second Cold One unit. They managed to rout a unit of 15 Trident Guard and had got around my flank. Unfortunately, I forgot that the Trident Guard were bearing the Bullshark Banner making them permanently frenzied (I think they lost 6 or 7 str5 attacks because of my error which may have been enough for them to hold their ground against the Cold One's charge).

We ran out of time in turn 5 but had it gone on I was confident of a solid victory. I had lost 2 tripoons, 40 coral hunters, 20 crest riders, most of the sandgangers and 15 Temple Guard which accounted for about 750 points which left 2250 pts standing and nearly all my best combat troops in tact.

My enemy had lost a lot of quite expensive combat troops and were about to lose another unit of 17 Saurus who were being held up by the King of the Seas and were about to be charged in the rear by 3 angry Weresharks.

His army was in a pretty bad position and he would really be relying on his Oldblood Carnosaur and remaining 5 Cold Ones to do a lot of damage.

I just don't think he had the troops left to win the day especially given that he would have to break down a unit of 24 trident guard carrying the Millenial Fathom (95pts banner - unbreakable). They have 10 str5 armour piercing, Ws4 attacks and they are -1 to hit (due to scalemail) and have a 4+ armour save and 5+ regen.

At the end of the day we agreed to a draw, I didn't think it wise to further upset "J" my regular gaming buddy by making my case for a victory. He was already fuming at my ludicrous luck and his total loss of fortune. If I hadn't kept rolling 5s and 6s and he hadn't kept failing his saves then I think it would have been much more even in combat.

In any case, even though I think I probably would have gone on to win, the Lizardmen did still have both of their Oldbloods (one on a Carnosaur), 5 Cold Ones and quite a few Saurus (I mean shark meat) left so I simply hadn't made enough inroads to claim a certain victory.

"J" was clearly shaken (but not stirred) and was kind enough to remind me at the end of the battle that he is still 4 wins up on me !

I'm now worried about our next encounter, it could be brutal - "J" even started talking about Dark Elves - my new "most hated". I hope he doesn't bring them !

It's time to return to the birthing pools to raise some more Weresharks. Oh hold on, I don't need to, my others are all still alive and errr.... very well fed ;)

Unchaining the Cresters

Nautican Warhammer Battle Playtest Findings

This won't be a full battle report just a summary of the "findings" from the Nauticans last outing against the Lizardmen.

This was a 2250 point battle. The Lizards didn't bring a Stegadon much to my suprise.

Instead there was a rock hard unit of Cold One riders which included a nasty Oldblood on a rather angry Carnosaur.

There were more Saurus rank and file this time and some temple guard, 3 razrdons, 3 terradons and a bunch of those ever annoying pesky skink skirmishers and cameleon skinks.

I fell back on the Trident Guard again after suffering a seious bloody nose in the previous encounter.

I had one well tooled up Trident Guard unit with battle standard bearer holding aloft the Millenial Fathom (making them unbreakable) .

I took another Trident Guard unit with my army general. They had the Bullshark banner making them subject to frenzy.

I also had the ever reliable Tripoon, a Leviathan and the ever unreliable Weresharks. Plus a few units of sandgangers, coral hunters and 2 units of crest riders.

I actually broke the army list rules by taking the crest riders because I should have had at least a level 2 siren. However, I had already decided that this army restriction needed to change and my opponent "J" wasn't at all bothered - we're just playtesting so playtest we did.

Right, thus is where I cut things short.

The overall outcome was a draw but it was leaning heacily in the Lizardmen's favour.

The Weresharks copped out yet again and ran - cowards, the Trident Guard showed how excellent they are in offensive and defensive combat again, the tripoon failed to score a single wound (I think) and leviathan was slauthered by the Oldblood.

Now, onto the important stuff. None of the units tested or the army selection proved to be in anyway "broken" or badly unbalanced. There did however emerge a general consensus on army composition.

Two things:-

1) The army really needs to include Crest Riders and
2) The army is too reliant on the Trident Guard

Crest Riders

As the draft 3.7 rules currently stand you can only take one unit of crest riders per magic level of the most powerful magic user in the army.

Because we feel that crest riders are so important for getting to grips with enemy flyers, missile troops and delaying the advance of cavalry this rule seems to restrictive.

In our opinion most armies will want to include crest riders against missile heavy enemies and the current rule means that these armies would have to take at least one magic user of probably level 2.

This means the army is forced to become more magic oriented that the Nautican player might want.

In addition, if the player only takes a single siren for the sole purpose of including the crest riders then the crest riders become too costly to deploy given how vulnerable they are to missile fire and how weak they are in combat.

The crest riders might be deployed like rank and file but they are really utility troops whose purpose is to quickly take on enemy missile troops and to generally get in the enemy's way and disrupt their plans.

The crest riders are in effect the Nauticans version of fast cavalry although they are very much a "one-use" unit because each unit can only summon a single wave throughout the course of a battle.

The Rule Change
------------------
As a result the Nautican player will no longer be forced to take a magic use to be able to include crest riders in their army.

The crest riders will not be counted as a core unit for the minimu number of core units that must be selected.

Finally, to ensure there is some limit on the use of this tactically excellent unit, one power dice must be expended when a unit makes it's Breaking Wave charge. Note, each crest rider unit is still restricted to only one Breaking Wave charge per battle.

We feel the above changes will make the unit's more accessible and broaden the Nautican army's tactical options while keeping some limits and reasonable "cost" on the unit's use.

Oceanic Trident Guard

To very quickly summarise:-

We're happy with the Trident Guard rules. They are very good combat troops with some nice options and will remain the corner stone of a Nautican force.

They are limited to one unit per Nautican Lord or hero (not mermaid, siren or special character) which we think is reasonable. With a toughness of 3 they are by no means invulnerable.

The problem lies with the army having nothing inbetween the much weaker rank and file and the Trident Guard. There are the Interceptors but they are more special use utility troops rather than combat res rank and file.

So the plan is to fill that gap.

This post has become quite long and I'm out of time right now so we'll return to Trident Guard later.

Thanks for reading,
Sigmar

The Nauticans ventured too far into the Jungles of Lustria...

The Lizardmen exacted their revenge on the Nauticans at the weekend and dealt them a crushing blow in a 2000pt battle.

Well, it was a massacre and a lesson to all Nautican commanders planning to field an army with no elite fighters.

The Nautican Army list...
(from memory)

General : Prince (hero) on The Great White Titan

20 Wave Breakers
40 Sand gangers (4 x 10)
20 Coral Hunters (2 x 10)
30 Tide Watchers (2 x 15)

2 Tripoons
1 unit of Giant Crabs
15 Interceptors (incl. Destroyer)

Giant Octopus
Leviathan

The Lizardmen Army list (from memory)

Stegadon Ancient with the Engine of the Gods and level 2 skink priest.

Saurus Oldblood on Carnosaur with blade of striking

2 units of 20 Saurus Warriors with full command
10 Cameleon Skinks
10 Skink Skirmishers
3 Terradons
5 Cold One Riders
1 unit of 3 Razordons

I decided before the battle to try to test out the Nautican core rank and file and not to rely on the ever effective Oceanic Trident Guard.

I also wanted to try out the Leviathan again, it had been locked in it's under water cage for too long. Likewise with the Octopus Giganteus.

I was expecting my opponent "J" to bring 3 Stegadons. I'm not sure why, in retrospect I think he may have "planted" this sublimally when my mental defences were relaxed at the end of our last game ;-)

As it happened, I was only going to face 1 Steg and I was confident that it wouldn't cause me too much trouble. The reptilian monstrosity would either be "pin cushioned" back to it's dinosaur ancestors by the tripoons or become a rare treat for my Leviathan's dinner.

It turned out that the Steg, which was an ancient, didn't cause too much trouble. The Engine of the Gods and it's skink chief were a bit of an irritation though.

Deployment
------------------
I was reasonably happy with the setup. I outnumbered the Lizardmen and was fairly sure I'd have the chance to flank charge. I'd need it, his rank and file were a lot more powerful then mine.

I had set up the terrain and "J" had chosen the side with the hill... Grrr.... He didn't have any use for it but wanted to make sure my tripoons couldn't occupy it.

I think I may have made one error. The Leviathan was too far away from the main combat. That's the second time I've done that !

"J" thought I got the setup wrong with respect to my tripoons. He thought I should have split them and deployed one on each side of the battlefield.

On reflection "J" may have been right. My plan though was to deny the enemy the quarter that the tripoons were in and 'persuade' his forces to mainly deploy on the opposite flank. That way, I figured, I could deploy all of my rank and file forces on the non-tripoon flank to allow me more units in one place to outnumber and thus to flank charge. This ploy would also afford my Tripoons an unrestricted field of fire in front of them on the left flank.

I had a lot of units with the Creatures of the Shores rule in this game. So, the crabs, tide watchers, wave breakers and sandgangers all benefitted (or not !) by being deployed 6 inches further into the battlefield.

When introducing the Sea Creature Origins rule I had wondered if this extra 6 inches might prove unbalancing. But now I reconsider it, I don't think it's unbalancing at all. Sure, it will make the sandgangers more of a pain but the other units really need some backup in the form of more combat effective units. So deploying the Creatures of the Shore 6 inches in front of the main army could even be a drawback if they get isolated.

The Battle
---------------
The battle got off to a bad start for the Nauticans. The Octopus Giganteus failed it's stupidity test and nestled itself into the ground to patiently await it's foe (which was not part of the plan !) Before any units even entered combat a Giant Crab was killed by the Cameleon skinks and, it's partner was so depressed at the loss of it's mate, it dug itself into the ground to await death and played no further part in the action.

Even worse... My Nautican General (a hero) failed a panic test and headed right back to the table edge, he almost fled off the battlefield !

The skink skirmishers also proved a pain in the Nautican's flank by picking off tide watcher after tide watcher (which carried on for much of the game).

On the left flank the Leviathan moved forward. The great sea monster was keen to get to grips with the enemy and I wanted to move him as far away from my tripoons as possible in case he failed his Instinctive Killer rules and attacked his own side !

The Lizardmen had smartly placed their Terradons and Razordons opposite the Leviathan. The terradons would be able to march block if they wanted and the razordons knew they would get a double shot on the Leviathan when it charged into combat. The double shot would be the Razordons best chance of getting woulds on the Leviathan, they wouldn't be able to do much damage to it in close combat with it's toughness of 6.

The Leviathan did take 3 wounds from the razor barbs although it soon wiped out the 3 razordons and handlers when they fleed. Honours were about even from their encounter although the Lizardmen were better off with the Leviathan now stuck in the middle of nowhere. Even the terradons had deserted that flank, flying off for a session of carpet bombing against the Interceptors.

In the middle of the field there was a wood, it was a pain in the fish tail (mammals and other land based beings should translate this accordingly).

I was fully expecting my enemy to deploy cameleon skinks in the wood but he declined that most obvious of choices. As a result my skirmishing Interceptors were wasted because I had planned to use them to "clear out" the pesky skinks from the wood.

The Interceptors did however see some combat and destroyed the Terradons after taking several casualties from rock bombing.

On the right flank things just went from bad to worse. There was little I could do against the Old Blood on Carnosaur with 5 Cold One riders. They just cut everything down in their path. The Oldblood was devastating.

The Octopus finally managed to make it into combat against the Stegadon Ancient ut with only a few sandgangers to keep it company it's fate was assured. It had already taken some wounds and quickly became in effective*

* the octopus starts with 8 str 5 attacks and 8 wounds but as it takes wounds it's number of attacks diminishes so an octopus with just 3 wounds will have only 3 attacks.

Well, I cannot recall a lot more other than the steady unrelenting whittling down of my army.

The unit of the game must be the cameleon skinks and the Oldblood on Carnosaur. They were well worth their points.

The Nautican Army as a whole was a disappointment. I really needed some more steadfast fighters like the Trident Guard. My experiment to try to beat my enemy without elite rank and file by simply outnumbering and flanking had failed dismally. The Nauticans simply were not resilient ebough.

There was one major mistake I made. I should have deployed a sand ganger missile shield. I actually lined them up adjacent to the other Nautican units with the Creatures of the Shores rule in the hope of getting in multiple flank charges.

Oh well, the Nauticans will be facing off against a 2250pts lizardmen army again soon so at least I will get another crack at them.

Better luck (and planning !) next time I hope.

Thanks for reading,
Sigmar

Image is © Games Workshop Ltd. All rights reserved. Used without permission.

The winning Nautican Warhammer Army list

Here's the Nautican Army that swept the Jungle Jockey's back to their humid swamps and dusty relic temples

That is to say... here are the Nauticans that beat the Lizardmen in the 2250pts battle


Characters

Nautican Lord - 228pts
(oceanic trident, scalemail, clamshield, crystal crown, shell horn)

Nautican Prince (Battle Standard Bearer) - 138pts
(oceanic trident, scalemail, Bull Shark banner)

both Lord and Prince above were included in the Trident Guard unit

Nautican Prince (mounted on The Great White Titan) - 215 pts
(oceanic trident, clamshield, spirit shroud)


Core

40 Sandgangers - 240pts
(4 units x 10 models)

45 Coral Hunters - 135pts
(3 units x 15 models)


Special

20 Trident Guard (full command) - 320pts
(oceanic trident upgrade, Venomous Spine banner)

Tripoon Battery (including Range Fathomer) - 110pts

Tripoon Battery (including Range Fathomer) - 110pts

7 Lobstrosities (including Grandimanus) - 238pts


Rare

5 Octobiopds (including Blue Ring) - 260pts

4 Were Sharks (including Tiger Wereshark) - 255pts


Most valuable units were:-

Sandgangers for holding the enemy for a couple of turns

Tripoon batteries for taking out both Stegadons before they could do much damage

Trident Guard with Lord and Prince for sweeping all before them despite taking a lot of casualties

Biggest Disappointments were:-

Coral Hunters - that did hardly except acting as a very temporary missile shield and generally getting in the way (such is the way with sprats !)

Lobrstrosities - which only managed to kill 3 Saurus, before being wiped out. They did have to take a Stegadon charge in the flank while fighting 17 Saurus though !

Weresharks who fled and never made it into combat !

Artwork provided by Gareth Pannan
(see his other artwork and contact details on the Nautican artwork page)

After a 2250pts battle it's now skink soup and barbequed stegadon steak all round !

The beaten Lizardmen skulked back to their jungle hideouts to lick their wounds as the Nauticans prepared to lick their sticky barbeque sauce fingers.

After an epic Warhammer encounter the Nauticans claim their first victory in a 2250 pts game (and their second only victory in 10 outings)

This was the first battle I had fought with the draft 3.6 Nautican army. It was also the first time I had faced the new edition 7 Lizardmen army and the first time my opponent had brought his reptilian "pets" to the battlefield. So, there were a lot of firsts.

As it happened the latest units added to the Nautican army had very little impact on the final result (except for the 2 tripoon batteries which came good near the end).

The 3 weresharks fled before they made it into combat and the Octobipods were held up by a unit of Cold One riders and a Scar Veteran as a Nautican Hero and his Great White Titan mount gradually whittled down the Cold One unit (the hero died in the process).

The real heroes of this battle were the Nautican Oceanic Trident Guard (more on them later). The 2 tripoon batteries failed dismally in turns 1 and 2 despite firing 12 bolts and having a Range Fathomer champion attached to each unit - they killed just one skink of the 2 stegadons crew. The tripoons were then out of action in turns 3 and 4 because they could not fire into combat but they did improve their aim in turn 5 and 6 and dispatched both enemy Stegadons and a skink chief before the end of the battle.

The sandgangers proved very useful and despite causing very little damage, they held up the Lizardmen battle lines. This prevented the Stegadons from getting off all but one of their important charges and impact hits.

The 45 coral hunters (3 units of 15) were soon brushed aside by the Lizardmen and they achieved little other than acting as a missile shield for the all important Trident Guard.

I took a big risk in my army selection and I was somewhat lucky that it paid off. I decided against taking any magic users whatsoever. This gave the enemy lvl 4 slann and level 2 skink priest almost total control of the magic phase. They were using metal lore and lore of the heavens and caused lots of casualties from turn 3 onwards (my opponent had some unlucky casting dice rolls in turns 1 & 2).

When they eventually managed to get into combat, the lobstrosities were useful in holding up a large 20 strong unit of Saurus although they only managed to kill 3 lizardmen. The lobstrosities were finally wiped out by a ferocious stegadon charge, the only successful impact hits that the stegs delivered.

The single Trident Guard unit was the most valuable contributor to the Nautican's victory. I had invested a lot of points in the unit which included the Nautican Lord and a Prince acting as battle standard bearer carrying the Bull Shark banner (permanent frenzy). The unit was also equipped with a unit standard bearer holding aloft the Venomous Spine banner (poisonous attacks and regen of 4+ against enemy poison). Along with their 5+ regen (Creatures of the Deep save) against normal attacks and a 4+ armour save, scalemail (-1 to hit) and Oceanic Tridents (+1 str, armour piercing) they were a formiddable unit. They were also carrying Kraken (to be renamed Leviathan) shields which gives Magic Resistance (1) but I totally forgot about this. To top it all off I gave the army general in the unit the Crystal Crown. This meant that the lord had a leadership range of 18" rather than the usual 12". In addition, any unit within range could use his unmodofied leadership of 9 for their first break test. These attributes saved the unit and those nearby on a couple of occassions.

The Trident Guard simply proved too much for the Lizardmen in combat. The presence of the extra attacks from the Lord and BSB helped a lot. Even when the Lizardmen managed to charge the unit in the rear with 20 Saurus, the lizardmen were soon routed. In one of those strange battlefield incidences when the dice gods favour the weaker models (usually cavalry horses) a unit of skink skirmishers managed to inflicted 3 kills on the Trident Guard, who with a toughness of only, 3 clearly remain vulnerable when they do not strike first.

My opponent conceded when it became clear he could no longer win or draw. The Nauticans had dispatched 2 Stegadons, a Saurus unit, a unit of Cold One Riders (including a scar veteran), most of the skink skirmishers and most of his temple guard leaving the level 4 Slann dangerously exposed.

In return the Lizardmen had taken out all 40 sandgangers, about 40 coral hunters, a Nautican hero, the lobstrosities and about 15 of the Trident Guard out of a unit of 22 (which included the Lord and BSB).

It was a very interesting game and exciting because it kept swaying one way and then back the other way. The key moments were the loss of the Stegadons and the Trident Guard's 3 combats.

I think things might have been different had my opponent managed to engage my tripoons and prevent the death of one of the Stegadons.

Many thanks to my regular opponent "J" for courteously offering to let me take the Nauticans out for another test drive. Also, for his patience with my over excited (and probably quite irritating) glee over the performance of the Trident Guard.

Drawing of a Nautican Trident Guard trooper is by Gareth Pannan
(see Nautican Army list artwork)