Warhammer invasion, 3 game tourney

[Heartsbane]

So, a little one day tourney at Warhammer world, with 10 players in attendance. Armies represented were orcs and goblins, bretonians, tomb kings, ogres (*2), warriors of chaos (*2), dwarfs, high elves and my dark elves.

My list:
Dreadlord on dark Pegasus with heavy armour,SDC, WoA, charmed shield, ring of hotek and other trickster's shard.

Sorceress on dark pegasus with tome of Furion and PoK, level 2 using dark magic

3*5* dark riders, all with repeater crossbow, 3 musicians, 1 banner and one champion.

5 harpies

6 cold one knight with the gleaming pennant

2 cold one chariots

War hydra

Game 1, vs bretonians

His list was 2 units of 20 bowmen, 35 men at arms, 2 trebuchets, 2 units of 9 knights of the realm, lord, bsb and a level 2 life mage.

This started off badly with watchtower being the selected scenario. Gah, only my harpies can even go in the wretched thing! At least I won the roll of to see who controlled it, and against brets I can be pretty sure they'll forgo the first turn. I elected not to start with the harpies in the tower, figuring they'd die early if I did that so I took a chance on having them swoop in late game to snatch the objective. My opponent's deployment was pretty reactionary, and he ended up with a weak centre and a unit of knights on each flank.

Sure enough the bretonians paused to pray and my forces took ruthless advantage of the distraction (is just a shame they were even awake!) to advance up the centre. The dark riders began harassing the flanks or rushing up to stare down the archers.


On my left, his knight shuffled forward, trying to ensure they got the charge on the hydra, whilst on the right they spin around vainly trying to bring the dark riders to battle. One of his field trebuchets landed a direct hit upon my knights, killing 4, whilst the other reduced a chariot to a single wound.

My turn two saw my right most riders give his knights the slip, my knights charge but my Dreadlord failed his charge so kept pace with the chariots. The hydra continued to dance with his knights, if I could stop them without having to fight I'd be happy! In combat my knights beat the lowly peasants but they were steadfast and within range of the knights so held. Magic continued to be ineffectual. Little really happened on his turn except the archers finishing off the heavily depleted centre dark riders.


Turn 3 is where things started to get interesting... My forces slammed into his centre, obliterating the peasants in an porgy of bloodletting. His rightmost knights were facing totally the wrong direction and I moved my leftmost dark riders to block the charge of his knights at the hydra. And then on his turn I discovered they were able to squeeze past me by the narrowest of margins and of they ride to chase the hydra! The dark riders having failed utterly declared a flee from the men at arms to try to be of some use later.

In combat his lord slew my hydra with a heroic killing blow, but than overran a paltry distance leaving his flank exposed to my vengeful forces.

Turn 4 saw my Dreadlord and a chariot slam into the side of the knights, and the harpies move in to take the tower. The cold one knight fail their stupidity and bimble in front of the oncoming knight bus to my right, but at least it'll tempt the knights further from the tower. And my dark riders fail to rally and proceed to leave the table at pace. In the inevitable challenge my lord wounds his only a single time, only to be cut down by another killing blow, but at least my chariot holds. Oh, and my sorceress blows up a bunch of men at arms with soul stealer, mostly out of spite.

His turn 4 sees his lord finish off my chariot with a killing blow (of course, what else would it be?), and a stroke of disaster means that it's close enough to cause a panic test on the harpies, who fail and quit the tower. The other knight run down the two remaining cold one knights before they can recover from their stupidity.


The game continues for another turn, but my chariot fails is stupidity test and the harpies don't really. The sorceress vaporises the remaining men at arms with a double hit of soul stealer and black horror, the sole survivor of the unit turns to flee and doesn't stop Tull he hits the table edge. In hid turn he kills the last chariot, already down to a single wound, with what else but another heroic killing blow. The game then ends, and with no one in control of the watchtower it goes top victory points where I unsurprisingly lost heavily.

The pivotal point for me was failing to redirect properly with my dark riders, had I managed to do that then I don't think he could have come close top shifting the harpies. Instead I tried to wring every last millimetre of displacement out of the riders and ended up not slowing his knights at all. I then compounded that mistake by going in half cocked in such a way I'd cause panic on my one key unit. D'oh!

[Heartsbane]

Game 2 was against a chaos army, consisting of a war shrine, Throgg, 32 nurgle marauders with flails, a level 2 mage of nurgle and 17(!) chaos trolls. Fortunately the scenario was dawn attack, and the shrine and the trolls started off the table. As this turned out to be a rather frenetic game I didn't manage to take any photos after turn 1, sorry.

With half his army of the table, the chaos forces deployed in an uncharacteristically cautious manner. I went forward quotes aggressively, with dark riders screening my flanks to try to stall the arrival of the trolls who I really didn't want to fight. chaos had first turn, and both of our first turns consisted of us moving on and forming ballooned battlelines. Here's the state of play at the end of turn 1.


His turn two and the trolls elected not to try to charge the riders, moving up instead. The shrine took up position on the trolls left flank and the marauders beyond them. A misfire on the wind of nudge saw it kill two marauders, and the shrine grant Throgg +1 toughness.

My turn 2 began with my hydra declaring a charge on the marauders, who promptly fail their terror test and flee. Further charges from my chariot, Dreadlord and dark riders pushed them right the way of the table! Unfortunately it left me quite badly exposed in front of the trolls so my dark riders on that flank moved in to charge block ensuring that the overrun would take them straight towards my long board edge and away from my army (and making sure Rhett wasn't room to simply walk past them this time!). Over on the right flank (top of the above picture) one unit of my dark riders had to declare a very long charge (20") on the Wayne to clear the path for the other unit to declare a the final charge to get the marauders of the table. Of course out came a double 6 and they made the charge, through the wind of Nurgle which killed 3. In combat they managed to wound the shrine for no harm suffered, winning combat by 3, but sadly the shrine passed its break test.

Chaos turn 3 saw the trolls charge the misdirecting dark riders. Magic saw him throw 4 dice at the war shrine's blessing, and my 3 dice weren't enough to stop it. Two of the 3 dice came up with 6s (we had a brief discussion before he went through with this, as the rules apparently say the model is removed as a casualty, but I said I was happy to only count the victory points for Throgg if I killed the newly risen daemon prince. It seems utterly wrong to me that the thing that all warriors of chaos aspire to should give up a load of victory points to the enemy.) and Throgg was transformed into a daemon prince outside of the combat. One breath weapon later and my cold one knights were gone! Both units of riders in combat were predictably obliterated. The trolls reformed to face my chariots, hydra and Dreadlord.

My turn 3 kicked off with my two chariots and hydra all charging the newly daemonified Throgg, with one chariot in his flank and the other two units into the front. A double six for impact hits wasn't enough to kill the fiend, and he wounded the hydra before it mailed him to death. With no way to get out of their charge arc I made the mistake of trying to overrun into the trolls. I say mistake, as without their general the trolls would have been most unlikely to pass the necessary stupidity test to charge me. Fortunately I was saved from myself by the flank chariot only moving forward 4", blocking the other chariot and the hydra.

His turn 4 saw the trolls charge the flank of my chariot having passed his leadership 4 stupidity. The chariot however, miraculously survived and passed its break test, killing a troll in the process.

My turn 4 saw everyone leg it out of the trolls charge arc as they vomited the chariot to death, and then they reformed to face my Dreadlord who'd flown over them and was now only 2" away.

His turn 5 had the trolls fail stupidity (phew!), and my turn 5 had my lord charge the war shrine in the flank. A timely casting of word of pain ensured I won the combat, breaking it and running it down. With the trolls unable to see anything to charge, nothing at all happened on turn 6 for either of us.

Final result was a solid win for my dark elves, having only lost two units of riders, harpies, 1 chariot and my knights, for about 500, whilst I'd scored more like 850.

Looking back on the game, I did get lucky with him failing the terror check, but my list is fast enough to capitalise on such turns of the dice. If I'd been playing totally surgically, I would have disengaged at that point. Sure, odd have lost a unit or two, but no 2 units would have likely cost me enough to loose me the game. As it was I took a few more chances, but they paid off and made for a much more fun game.

[Heartsbane]

Game 3 was a meeting engagement against dwarfs. Knowing dwarfs as well as I do was going to make this interesting and a bit easier for me.

His list had a canon, 2 organ guns, 2 blocks of 30 Quarrellers with great weapons, a Thane, a runesmith and a BSB.

The random selection of table segment for units to deploy in resulted in his force not being able to bunker down right in one corner, but was still fairly heavily concentrated on my left. My army was roughly opposite, with only the harpies out on the empty flank. With only two big blocks and three war machines, they were never going to be particularly well defended, which is good as those organ guns had to die fast otherwise they'd shred my army.


I steal first turn and don't even bother trying to hide from the incoming gunfire; something is going to get shot and ice enough units that he won't stop more than a fraction from getting through so it's best to just get there fast. Magic is stopped, though it costs him a spellbreaker rune to do so.

His first turn and the canon let's fly at the hydra. The flaming canon ball lands snack bang on target, but fails to wound. With its regeneration still functioning a volley of crossbow shots clatter of its hide. The organ guns both let rip at the cold one knights, killing them all, and the Quarrellers kill all but one of a dark rider unit.

On my turn 2, two units of dark riders and my Dreadlord charge an artillery piece each, butchering them all. My chariots and hydra all swing right to focus on the block with his bsb. Magic is once more spotted cold, but his second spellbreaker rune is drawn out.

Dwarf turn 2 sees a bit of a shock; his right hand block of Quarrellers charge 13" to engage my hydra! It makes sense for him as it means only the chariots can charge, not my Dreadlord who is now facing the wrong way.


The hydra goes berserk, biting and flaming all over the place and kills about a dozen dwarfs. In return the dwarfs manage maybe one wound.

My turn 3 sees a chariot fail stupidity, but the second crashes into the beleaguered dwarfs. Magic finally breaks through the dwarf defences, with a black horror engulfing 21 dwarfs. However as it fades, it can be seen that only 4 dwarfs succumbed to the effects thanks to some fantastic rolling. All that luck is balanced out though as the unit fails its panic check and begins to flee! As the Hydra's rampage continues only the BSB survives, only to die on a failed break test. My units positioned to ensure his flee move would take him off the table are not needed, and the victors reform.

The fleeing dwarfs don't rally, and either leave the table or are chased off by the hydra at the start of my next turn, resulting in a crushing victory for the dark elves.

The scoring for the games was weighted to put more emphasis on the later games, so that combined with a good painting score allowed me to sneak first place away from the tomb king player who managed to win all 3 of his games. I also picked up best single miniature, and my friends excellent frost ogres landed best army, so overall a great outing!

Looking back, I think my list performed solidly. I'd like a little more protection on my lord, and ring of hotek didn't come into play (though against a mage with a couple of magic missiles I think it would definitely be worth having). The only game I lost was due to a couple of foolish mistakes from myself. I had enough chaff to control the movement, but rarely had much of it left at the end of the game, suggesting I've just the right amount, and my hammers can smash anything that needs smashing (ie not 17 trolls) so long as 3 or so of them hit at the same time. Magic was a bit of a letdown. I'd been hoping that soulstealer and black horror would thin out hordes for me, but they don't have the punch to deal with big units of reasonably good troops. Doombolt and chill wind aren't great, bladewind is only good against select targets such as war machines. Word of poison is very good though. Perhaps next time I'll give another lore a try.