Since we gave Warhammer Fantasy Battle a go inthe last issue I decided to play another fantasygame this time around. I’ve played, and loved,Chronopia since it came out and am really hopingthat Excelsior is able to bring this wonderful gameback in a major way.

I developed kind of a bad habit with Chronopiathat I’m sure many of you can understand andsympathize with. At one time or another I’vecollected and/or played just about everyarmy/race in the game. The only ones I everreally stayed away from were the elves.

I have dabbled in Swamp Goblins, Blackbloods,and the Stygian, but eventually traded off modelsfrom those armies to swell the ranks of others.Right now I have rather sizable Dwarf, Firstborn,Sons of Kronos and Devout armies. I would behard pressed to pick a single favoritefrom out of those four. I’ve decidedto go with the shambling fiends fromthe pit, the Devout for this game.

I bounced the idea of a 1,000-pointgame of Chronopia off of Christopherand he jumped at the chance to play.We agreed to play on a 4’ x 4’ tableand the game would last for 6 turns.We also agreed that we’d keep ourarmy selection secret until we wereabout to play. So, Chris would notknow that I brought my bags o’ bonesand I wouldn’t know who he’d bebringing to the party. Terrain set-upwould be handled by both of usbefore doing anything else on theday of the game. The table would bedivided up into sixteen 1’ x 1’ squaresand we would take tuns placingeither a single terrain feature ornothing in the square. Things like ariver section, woods, single or multi-level hills, or 1-2 houses would countas a single feature.

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On game day, before Christopher and I broke outany miniatures we took care of setting up theterrain. In addition to the guidelines previouslytalked about we also decided that a player coulddesignate one of the squares to be empty as hischoice for terrain.

The result of terrain placement can be seenbelow. Out of sixteen squares seven were leftbare. There were four hill sections of varyinglevels, a small house next to an inn, a wizard’stower, a section of rocky outcroppings and severalsections of crumbling walls.

This was a very interesting way to set up terrain,especially not knowing your opponent’s army. Ihad to work to exploit my strengths withoutunwittingly helping Christopher.

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I’ve got a couple of options with the Devout. I cango heavy into the human-ish troops like DevoutSwordsmen and Blood Hunters (the fastestcavalry in the game by the way), I can go heavyon demon troops like Dusk Realm Warriors,Tormented, and the Damned, load up on Risen(skeletons) or try a combination of everything. Fornon-Chronopia players out there a quick (veryquick and not 100% accurate) way to describe theDevout is to compare them to a hybrid of Undeadand Daemon armies in Warhammer FantasyBattle. That might be a bit overly simplistic, but atleast it gives you an idea.

I’m going to go with a MAJOR load of quantitywith a minor sprinkling of quality for this battle.That means loads and loads of Risen troops anda few powerful Individuals. Risen troops havesome major bonuses, but also some negativesthat can prove to be quite debilitating. On the plusside they are immune to Panic and Fear “Hey,Bob just died…..again. Oh well.” which meansthey just keep coming. They are also immune toarrows and crossbow bolts. This means that anymissile troops that Chris takes will now have torely on close combat skills or act as human(dwarf, orc, goblin, elf, whatever) shields. Thissounds great until you find out that Risen troopsget half as many actions as normal troops andthat they are not exactly combat machines.Especially the Risen Archers who have no hand-to-hand weapon at all. If caught in close combat

They are left with two choices; try to break off andmove away or stand there and get pounded. Ihave had times where the latter was the betterchoice, especially if it meant that some othertroops were kept out of harms way or could getthe benefit of charging in themselves instead ofreceiving a charge. Deciding to go whole hog withRisen I took three warbands of Human RisenSwordsmen and three warbands of Elven RisenArchers. Two of the Swordsmen warbands wouldbe 9 skeletons strong and one would have 8members. Each of the Archer warbands wouldcontain 8 skeletons. With 50 troops I’m positivethat I’ve already outnumbered Chris, unless hedoes something like take nothing but Elven Militiaor Goblin Spearmen. Oh my, how many of thosecrap troops can he throw against my crap troops?Wave after wave of the inept fighting the decayed.

I’ll be going with just two Individuals in this game.The first one is pretty much a given in the form ofa Necromancer. He has access to spells that canincrease the number of actions a Risen warbandcan perform and can also summon more deadguys to play with. So, with both of thoseobjectives in mind I’ll buy him Quicken Undeadand Summon Undead Knight. I thought of takingSummon Greater Undead instead, but if I ever gotthat spell off I would have to wait until the giantskeleton was dead (or let him run amok) toattempt to summon another one. The UndeadKnights are a wee bit less powerful in closecombat, but they are far faster.

My second Individual will be a Soulflayer. Thisfemale(?) demon is just bad all day long. It canfly, breathe fire, is tough as nails, and will justchop up her enemies like hamburger in closecombat. Now, being that bad she will certainlydraw lots of attention from the other side sokeeping her safe, and at a high altitude untilneeded, will be very important indeed. I’vethought of adding a second Soulflayer to myhoard of Devout troops. I have also thought ofpainting up the second one like a dominatrix, butmy wife would probably hit me in themouth……with her car!

After all is said and done I’ve spent 1005 pointson my army and my plan will be to march asquickly as possible right at Chris with as manytroops as I can and just wade into the fray,bringing in the Soulflayer for added punch.

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DEPLOYMENTDEPLOYMENT

for roll call would be the militia. Dirt cheap with ahigh attack damage, these are some of the bestbuys in the army. I chose 8 plus a leader. Youcan buy up to twelve of them in a squad, but theybecome unwieldy. I try to stick with the smallersquad. Now I am down 110 more points.Axemen are the mainstay of the Elven houses,and none should go to war without them so 267points later I have a squad of four plus a leader,an Axemaster, and the standard bearer. I haveyet to see a creature charged by four of thesesurvive. Next come the archers. Many peopleplay with scads of archers. Even though it ispossible to play with one missile squad per non-missile squad, I try to be more modest. Onesquad of five plus leader is enough for me. 195points gone…check please. This is a subject ofdisagreement among some people that I play. Ido not like the optional firing rules with only oneshot a turn. I think moderation keeps the gamefrom being broken. One more squad to go and thedependable spearmen come to mind. With this

When Mark came to me and asked if I wanted toplay a game of Chronopia for a battle report I letout a whoop of joy and strode to my game room togaze at my misused armies. I had four to choosefrom. As we got close to our battle a few groundrules were set up. Terrain would be randomlydeployed and we were not to tell each other whatarmy we are taking. Hmmm…with the uncertaintyof what I was facing and where I decided for myfavorite and most used army: House Helios Elves.Yes, this was a predictable choice, but I figuredfamiliarity would allow me to adapt. To start myselection I started with my leader. Chronopiadoes not allow for a lot of fine-tuning of charactersso this is a good solid place to start. My Redlotus-eater always leads my troops intocombat…well at least he leads from the back. ALotus-eater starts at a mere 39 points beforespells. My first choice is the very powerfulDaughter of the phoenix. Here primary assets areobviously her cheap cost (40 points), her nicedamage, and her blinding speed. The lotus-eateralso took engulfing flames. With this being a two-action spell I can spend one action to maintaincontrol of the daughter while still blasting away atmy opponent. To add insult toinjury, engulfing flames has anunlimited range. All this bringsme to the grand total of 88points for a one wound, lightlyarmored, spell caster. He isalways accompanied by histrusty friend the Warrior of theSun. For a long time I felt thisguy was overpriced. His bowis short range and his missileweapon skill is not very high.Then I learned a few tricks thatmake him worth it. 1) He isbetter in hand to hand than atrange. 2) His flame strikeattack is great. Everyonewithin two inches takes a hitwith no dice roll. 3) His armor isvery good. He is 95 points andis best run alongside thedaughter of the phoenix, asshe is immune to his fire strikeattack. Now, with mycharacters set I proceeded tochoose my squads. First up

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TURN 1TURN 1The first turn consisted mostly ofa lot of movement and not muchelse.

On the Devout side of the table my Necromancertried to summon an Undead Knight, but ended upfailing and just yelling out some dirty word infrustration. Since I had also concentrated (Wholelot of good that did me! Mark) before castingSummon Undead Knight I would be unable tocast Quicken Undead, which means that all of myrotting carcasses are stuck with one action thisturn. Let the slow shamble forward begin!

My Soulflayer bounded higher into the air andswept forward towards the right flank of the elves.

All three of my warbands of Skeleton Swordsmenstarted towards the Elven battle line. Of mythree warbands of Skeleton Archers two of themadvanced to get better shots and the warband onthe rear hill went on WAIT, hoping to get luckyand put an arrow into some unsuspecting elf.

Christopher’s first turn was similar to mine, butmost of his movement was not directed towardsthe line of undead that was advancing towardshim.

His Lotus Eater concentrated and summoned aDaughter of the Phoenix (Dammit! Mark).

The Warrior of the Sun and the Warrior of theGolden Mask both took positions ahead of therest of the Elven army. The Warrior of the Sun ina large patch of brush and the Warrior of theGolden Mask close to the side of a small building.

The Elven Axemen came out of their cover behindsome ruined walls and shifted over.

The Elven Spearmen backed up a bit and theMilitia milled around and reformed their lines.

Christopher’s Archers shifted about, but stayed intheir positions of cover and went on WAIT.

Except for Christopher summoning the Daughterof the Phoenix the first turn was pretty uneventful.As soon as he saw all of my Risen warriorsChristopher knew that walking forward and gettinginto hand-to-hand was going to be the bulk of myactions for a good while.

choice I now have two squadsthat have polearms. Yeah, forattacking up to two inches away!For 187 I get a leader, standard-bearer, and 4 vanilla spearmen.Now I have reached thatawkward point in armyconstruction. If I choose anAxemen I have left over points,but not enough to buy anythingelse. Aha, a Warrior of theGolden Mask fits the bill just fine.A polearm, two wounds,immunity to fire, and a flame-thrower template for a mere 54points. The only thing I wish hehad was an extra wound.

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TURN 2TURN 2Turn two started with me winning Initiative andselecting Christopher’s Elven Axemen to beactivated first. They shifted over to the right somemore.

The Lotus Eater tried to hit the Risen Archers onthe hill with Engulfing Flames, but failed tosuccessfully cast the spell (Whew! Mark).

His Warrior of the Sun moved farther up in thebrush and went on WAIT. My Risen Archers thatwere also on WAIT decided to take a shot at him,but ended up being out of range.

The Daughter of the Phoenix plugged in a freshbattery and moved waaaaaay! Up towards my lineof bones.

The Warrior of the Golden Mask got a bit closer tothe small house and went on WAIT.

The Elven Spearmen shuffledaround and went on WAIT and hisElven Militia thought that was a goodidea and did the same.

My Necromancer again failed tosummon the Undead Knight, but Idecided not to concentrate so I couldalso try Quicken Undead. I wassuccessful at quickening some RisenArchers, but had I concentratedinstead, my Summon Undead Knightwould have been successful.

Again, all three of my RisenSwordsmen moved up towards theElves. What, am I going to wait forthem to come to me?

As one warband was moving up theWarrior of the Sun took a shot fromWAIT and killed it. Christopher and I

decided before the game started that since hedoes not use a ‘regular’ bow that he would be ableto wound the Risen, but at regular damage, notx2.

My Risen Archers that are on the back hill stayedput and went back on WAIT. The quickened oneson the right side of the hill towards the center ofthe board got onto the hill and took some shots atthe Warrior of the Sun, missing of course!

The remaining Risen Archers simply movedforward and my Soulflayer swooped down by thelarger building, ready to get into it.

Again, the summoning abilities of myNecromancer fizzled. This was a bitdisheartening, especially since he has a reallydecent PW rating.

Christopher’s strategy of milling around andrepositioning his main force is taking shape. Icannot blame him for not wanting to get stuck inwith lots and lots of guys that are already dead.

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TURN 3TURN 3

I won the Initiative roll to beginturn four and again choseChristopher’s Elven Axemen tostart things off. They continuedtheir slow shift to the right.

This turn the Lotus Eater castEngulfing Flames and iterupted right under the RisenArchers that were on the hillclosest to the center of theboard. Three of them werestruck by the flames and two ofthem crumbled into dust.

His Elven Spearmen backedup some more, surely worriedabout the Soulflayer that wasgetting close to their position.

The Warrior of the Sun tookthree shots at the RisenArchers on the close hill. Hemanaged to hit two of themand kill one of them.

The Militia fell back some more and went onWAIT (Waiting for Christmas maybe because noskeletons are getting there any time soon.).

His Elven Archers also went on WAIT.

The Warrior of the Golden Mask came around theside of the small building and went on WAIT,readying himself for the inevitable charge fromthe Soulflayer.

The Daughter of the Phoenix charged into theRisen Swordsmen and cut two of them downbefore returning to her cover behind some rocks.

My archers on the close hill sent a volley of shotstowards the Elven Militia and managed topincushion two of them.

My Necromancer decided to pronounce themagic words correctly this time and successfullysummoned the Undead Knight (I use aConfrontation Undead Centaur for the Knight).He also brought one of the Elven Militia back

from the dead to harass the Elves. They promptlyleapt from WAIT to smack him down. I only hopethat it’s not too late for the Knight to do me somegood.

All of my Risen Swordsmen continue their longtrek across the board.

The Risen Archers that got spanked by theDaughter of the Phoenix went on WAIT and theones on the back hill came down and started toadvance.

To end the turn my Soulflayer flies down andbreathes fire on the Warrior of the Sun, whosaves, and then charges in only to be counter-charged. The ensuing combat sees one wounddealt to the Elven warrior and the mighty demon’stough hide deflecting a blow.

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TURN 4TURN 4Turn four saw Christopher winning the Initiativeroll and picking a warband of my Risen Skeletonsto activate first. They, along with the rest of myRisen Swordsmen, advance towards the Elves.

Christopher’s Warrior of the Golden Mask takes aswing at the Soulflayer and manages to hit thebeast twice, but both are saved. In response, theshe-demon swings back and cleaves the Elvenwarrior in two (Rolled a natural 1.). As soon asthe Elf hits the ground the Elven Archers that areon WAIT open up on the Soulflayer. Threearchers plus the leader let fly and score two hits,one being a natural 1. My bad mama is down totwo wounds. Being quite pissed off now, theSoulflayer moves up to the Elven Spearmen andflames away on them. Being on WAIT helps themas one of the two that was hit jumps out of theway and the other makes his save.

My Necromancer’s magical powersfizzle as I try to summon a secondUndead Knight. The Knight movesup towards the center of the board,hoping to see some action before it’stoo late.

Two of my Risen Archer warbandskept moving towards the Elves, whilethe third took some shots at theElven Militia and missed.

When Christopher’s Elven Archersactivated they again shot at theSoulflayer. Five arrows struck herand she saved against all but one.

The Elven Spearmen, seeing thatthe Soulflayer is near death, passed their FEARtest and charged into the hellspawn. It took acouple of them to do it, but they managed to bringthe winged monster down.

Again, the Lotus Eater unleashed EngulfingFlames upon the walking dead. This timetargeting the Risen Swordsmen that the Daughterof the Phoenix had been harassing. Twoskeletons crumbled in the magical fire.

The Warrior of the Sun moved up to the rocks andtook a shot at a Skeleton. He hit, but somehowthe Risen Swordsman saved.

The Daughter of the Phoenix decided to stay andkick some more undead booty. She ran over anddropped two more before retreating to her rockycover.

The Elven Militia fell back a bit, hoping to get outof missile range and the Elven Axemen continuedto shift over to the right.

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TURN 5TURN 5The Risen Archers to the right let fly at the ElvenAxemen and, miracle or miracles, they manage tokill one. Before the blood can run out of his deadbody he is raised as a Risen Swordsman.

The Elven Archers, without any targets within amile, shift their formation around a bit.

The recently raised Risen Swordsman (formerElven Axeman) charges into his brethren andmanages to drop one of them.

The Daughter of the Phoenix charges headlonginto the Risen Swordsmen and rolls a natural ‘20’for her first attack. Sucks to be her!

To finish off the turn my Undead Knight gallopstowards the Daughter of the Phoenix and plants anice big kiss on her, causing one wound.

My lone Risen Swordsman on the left moves alittle bit away from the Warrior of the Sun.

OK, we’re starting to close in on theend of the game and my shamblinghoard is proving to be less thanuseful. For this and the sixth turnwe’ll report in more of the standardChronopia back-and-forth style.

To start off the turn I win theInitiative test, which is a little bit ofgood news.

My Necromancer uses an action tomaintain control of the summonedUndead Knight and is able tosuccessfully cast Quicken Undeadon the group of Risen Archers thatare on the (almost)central hill.

Chris’ Lotus Eater maintains controlof the Daughter of the Phoenix andattempts to cast Engulfing Flames,but he says the magic wordsbackwards. Damn Elven publicmagic academies!

The quickened Risen Archers on thehill all shoot at the Warrior of theSun and all but one misses. Yes, hesaved on the one hit that nailed him.

The Warrior of the Sun leaves open his can ofwhoop ass as he rushes in and hacks up twomore Risen Swordsmen.

In retaliation, the Risen Archers in the clearingbehind the hill shoot and manage to hit him twice,but he saves against both of those hits too.

Chris’ Spearmen take some baby steps uptowards the smaller of the two houses.

The Risen Swordsmen by the large house makeslow tracks towards the smaller house as thesmell of fresh meat wafts in the air.

Wanting to back up their pointy-eared brothers theElven Axemen also head towards the house.

The Risen Swordsmen on the hill make somemore slow forward progress and the Elven Militiaalso shift to the right, following the Axemen.

1111

TURN 6TURN 6

and casts Engulfing Flames on theRisen Archers in the clearing. Threemore skeletons crumble to dust.

The Risen Archer on the hill shootsinto the combat between the variousrisen troops and the Warrior of theSun and from about 5 feet away hemisses.

The Elven Axemen, with a tear intheir eye, are forced to charge theirundead brother (risen last turn) andhack him into many pieces.

The Necromancer mutters his magicwords, that sounds like many 4-letterwords, and while maintaining controlof the Undead Knight he alsoquickens him.

Cautiously, the Elven Spearmenmove around the corner of the smallhouse, being careful not to stray tooclose to the risen troops.

As the end of the game begins the outcome isless than a mystery to me. My chances of gettingmy mass of troops into close combat is aboutzero, so I have to minimize what casualties I maysuffer this turn and try as hard as I can to scoresome points.

Chris wins Initiative and his Warrior of the Sunmoves around the Risen Swordsman and chargesthe Undead Knight, who saves against his hit, andthen he goes critical and drops a Flame Strike.Boom! Three dead Risen Archers and one deadRisen Swordsman.

The Risen Swordsmen on the hill charge in andkill the Daughter of the Phoenix. A few others getto move up and one gets a charge off on theWarrior of the Sun, but cannot hurt him.

The Lotus Eater, not needing to control theDaughter of the Phoenix anymore, concentrates

The Undead Knight attacks the Warrior of the Sunand hits once, but then his sword-arm rots off andhe rolls a natural ‘20’ to just suck a lot. TheWarrior saved off of the first hit though.

The Elven Archers stand around and gauge thewind direction and speed just in case any targetsdecide to present themselves.

My Risen Archers in the back take a few, veryfew, steps forward and Chris’ Militia decide thatbeing caution is better than being dead and try tostay out of bow range.

My Risen Archers on the right did not have LOS tothe combat going on over on the hill so they hadto move forward for the little good that it would do.

My remaining Risen Swordsmen step around thelarge house to see some Elven faces looking backat them from around the small house.

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Mark’s View…

Well, that could have gone better. With an edgeon points killed Chris took the game, but itwasn’t too lopsided. Sometimes too much of agood thing can lead to your downfall, and in thiscase it did. After the game Christophercommented that the three units of Risen Archersis what kept his stationed pretty firmly on hisside of the board. Fewer archers would havepresented less of a ranged fire threat to him andhe could have met the advancing hoard withoutsuffering a brutal number of casualties. Ofcourse, this would have given me more foottroops to use in hand-to-hand combat, but I don’tthink that would have spooked Chris like thehuge bank of archers did.

So, what did I learn here? Well, I already knewthat an all (mostly) risen army is as slow asmolasses, but combining their slow speed, aturn-limit game, and a reason for your opponentto stay away from you just spells disaster.There’s really not too much you can do aboutthe speed of the Risen except for QuickenUndead, but that only affects one warband, notthe whole army. In a last man standing scenarioI think that I would have come out on top, butChris did everything right. There was no reasonfor him to commit his troops to the grave byheading headlong into masses of bow fire.Presenting less of a threat from missile fire wasprobably the better way to go.

The Soulflayer died much sooner than usual, butthis was probably due to her not having anyback up to assist after she got stuck in. Herspeed is one of her big points to exploit, but witha mostly slow army coming in behind her shewould have to take care of her own backyardand, unfortunately, could not.

I still think that an all-risen army can work, but itwill take more tweaking on my part. I had fun(most important) and learned a few things (alsoimportant) that should help me next time out.

From Chris’ Corner…

What could have been billed as being thegrudge match of the century after our

EPILOGUEEPILOGUE

Warhammer Fantasy game last issue turned out tobe a HBO flop.

Every other squad of Mark’s was armed with a bow.With the ability to raise dead troops no matter thedistance there was not a snowball’s chance in hell Iwas crossing the middle of the board. We set upterrain before revealing our armies, and we hadboth chosen to make the terrain rather sparse.When his army was revealed three things came tomind. 1) The Warrior of the Golden Mask isimmune to fire so he should be where theSoulflayer is. 2) Only two things in his army can beaffected by my archers. Congratulations on armyselection 20% of my army is now almost totallyuseless. 3) Flame strike with a Warrior of the Sunand a supporting Daughter of the Phoenix rocks.

The game was very slow. Only one disagreementcame up. Are the risen immune to the Runebow offire? It is a 9x2 weapon so we split the differenceand said it was a straight up normal 9. No dicerolling. Just common sense compromising. I prettymuch spent the entire game staying out of range ofhis archers, except for a few exceptions. I used myWarrior of the Sun to flank Mark’s army. Heattracted some fire, but he could shrug it off. TheDaughter of the Phoenix could easily catch up withhim. On the other flank I baited Mark’s Soulflayerinto flaming the Warrior of the Golden Mask. Bum,bum, bum, Teflon Man!!! (sung to the sound of theTrojan commercial) He was an acceptablesacrifice. It resulted in the Soulflayer becoming theprimary target of…hmmm…everything in my army!!!She fell quickly! Most of the causalities happenedat the end of the game. I had basically consideredthe game over and did not back up my troops. Afew lucky shots (well statistically they should havehappened, but hey we will call them lucky) followedup with a murderous rampage of what used to beone of my troops closed the gap to make the gamevery close indeed. The unlimited range of engulfingflames help out a bunch as the Lotus Eater slowlycooked the archers while he stayed out of range.Mark and I both wished the game had been a bitmore exciting, but I enjoyed playing none the less.Sometimes the best games are just ones in whichyou sit and chat as you play along. Good gameMark.

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GAMESGAMES1. Warzone2. Car Wars3. Warhammer 40K4. Warhammer Fantasy5. Trinity Battleground6. Chronopia7. Flashpoint!8. Battlefleet Gothic9. Clan War10. VOID

WEAPONSWEAPONSA. Nova CannonB. Sword of MightC. Horsefly MissileD. CestusE. NazgarothF. Splinter RifleG. Vulcan MachinegunH. YumiI. Boar Head Pick AxeJ. Aris Sonic Rifle

Back with a new contest, howcool is that?!? Actually, this isthe first of two in this issue.

The guys from Mastabas V (seebelow) have generouslydonated a free paint job of acharacter at a Level 2 rating.Check out their site for furtherdetails on what that gets you.

All you need to do is match upall ten games, listed below, withthe weapon that appears inthem. All entries must be sentto me atmark_theurer@netzero.net andonly the first entry per personwill be accepted.

The contest will run from thetime this issue comes out untilJune 30, 2001. During that timeall correct entries will be savedand on the 30th I will randomlydraw one winner from those thatgot all ten games/weaponsmatched up correctly.

You can match up the numbersand letters or the full names ofthe games and weapons. Aslong as I can identify which youhave paired together and youhave all ten correct you are onyour way to winning. If thereare no entries with all tencorrect I’ll draw a winner fromthose that have nine right, andso on from there.