1500 points DE vs HE

[Iff]

My first battle report here: I played a casual 1500 point game against a club mate yesterday, Dark Elves vs. High Elves. We’re both reasonably new players so there were probably quite some (tactical and rules) mistakes. To help me learn from this game, I’ll type out a Battle Report. We played under the ETC restriction of max 5 dice per spell, max 4 for Death and Shadow.

My army
Supreme Sorceress, lvl 4 Fire, Dispel Scroll. General.
Sorceress, lvl 2 Death, Tome of Furion
Master, BSB, Armour of Darkness, Crimson Death

19 Spearmen, Musician, Standard
19 Corsairs, AHW, FC, Sea Serpent Standard
10 Crossbowmen, Shield, Musician
5 CO Knights, FC, Banner of Eternal Flame, Ring of Hotek
1 Chariot
6 Shades, AHW

His army (approximately)
Mage, lvl 2 High Elf lore, Extra spell item, item to steal one dispel dice
Noble, BSB
15 Archers, FC
15 Archers, FC
1 Eagle
11 Dragon Princes, FC, Banner of Swiftness
18’ish Swordmasters, FC

Opening Thoughts
I originally had my General with Shadow Magic and the Sacrificial Dagger. Due to the magic restrictions I went for Fire lore at the last minute and due to facing High elves, I went for a Dispel Scroll. My Fire Sorceress rolled Fireball, Flaming Sword, Flame Cage and the number 6. My Death Sorceress had Spirit Leech, the -1 S/T spell and Fate of Bjunah.
All in all, this meant I didn’t have anything to deal with the Dragon Princes. All of my damage spells were fire and the CO Knights with their banner would be useless as well. Only the Chariot might pack some punch against them on a charge.

Terrain and deployment
His archers went centrally, opposite my crossbows and spearmen. I positioned my corsairs behind the forest, with the charior central as backup. The CO Knights went to my far right. I had to keep away from my own mages (due to Ring of Hotek) and didn’t want them opposite the Dragon Princes on my left. See the picture for details.



Turn 1
High Elves – Dragon Princes moved up the board at lightning speed, the swordmasters followed. Archers stayed put, the eagle went to intercept my shades. His ‘Curse of Arrow Attraction’ came through, I saved my dispel dice for Phoenix Fire. His archers scored 5 wounds on my crossbows, who didn’t panic.

Dark Elves – I moved my corsairs behind the forest, hoping the force some dangerous terrain check on the Dragon Princes if he went for the charge and hang in due to Steadfast. The chariot was positioned for a flank charge if he took the bait. The CO Knights moved up for a charge on his archers with the mage in it. With Death Magic I dropped the Toughness of those Archers, shooting killed some of them.

Turn 2
High Elves - My opponent didn’t take the gamble to charge my corsairs through the forest. He moved up a bit, waiting for the sword masters to catch up. In the magic phase he let loose some damage spell on the Shades, with went thought with Irresistable Force. Luckily, only two shades were killed. His mage lost 3 levels, leaving him without magic for the rest of the game. Shooting didn’t do much, if I remember correctly.

Dark Elves – The Cold One Knights charged his archers in the flank. Shades charged the Eagle, which my opponent had moved in front of them. The rest of my forces held. In the magic phase, I got off a Spirit Leech on the BSB, but we both rolled a 3 and no wounds were scored. I had Irresistable Force, which meant both of my sorceresses took a wound. Stand and shoot from the archers knocked off a CO Knights. I was in the flank of the archers, so only three of my knights could fight. I didn’t kill enough and he ended up with 4 archers and the mage standing. One full rank, so he was steadfast and held.

Turn 3
High Elves – Little movement this turn. His shooting killed off the last of my four crossbowmen. I was lucky to keep my Death Sorceress, I should have moved her out of the unit. The combat between my knights and his archers wasn´t exciting. We both scored only one wound and the combat had to go another round.

Dark Elves – My Shades charged into the ongoing combat, to ensure I would break the last archers. I wanted to do something about his Swordmasters and charged in with my chariot. No magic of shooting happened. The chariot scored three wounds with impact hits, but was slaughtered by swordmasters in return. Ouch. The shades and Knights finally killed the last of his first archer block and his general. The shades didn´t have the right angle for an overrun, so I reformed both units.

Turn 4
High Elves – With the Chariot out of the way, my opponent could charge the Corsairs with both the Dargon Princes and the Swordmasters. He lost two Dragon Princes to the forest, but it didn’t matter. My BSB scored some kills, but his elites absolutely slaughtered my corsairs. After the combat, only my BSB was left. He broke and fled, but wasn’t caught.

Dark Elves - I charged the second archer unit (with the BSB) with my shades and Cold One Knights. He fled, I didn’t catch up to him. My BSB rallied, my spearmen shuffled backwards, away from his elites. This finally brought the swordmasters in sight of my supreme sorceress, so I could try to make a move against them. Flame Cage was dispelled, but I did hit him with the fire number 6 spell, boosted for a large template. I only scatted 2” and scored about 6 kills.

Turn 5
High Elves – His archers rallied and reformed to meet my CO Knights and Shades. The swordmasters charged my lone BSB. The Dragon Princes charged my spearmen, who chose to flee. He didn’t catch me, Lucky enough. The swordmasters killed the BSB. He tried to overrun into my spearmen, but didn’t make it.

Dark Elves – The shades and Cold One Knights charged his archers. I won the combat and chased him down. I rallied my spearmen and reformed to meet his forces. I threw another big fire template into the Swordmasters. It scattered 6”, right onto my own spearmen. Yikes! I lost about five spearmen and couldn’t cast any more spells.

Turn 6
High Elves –We didn’t play this turn out, due to time constraints. We figured he’d charge my spearmen and would kill them.

Dark Elves – I didn’t have anything usefull to do this turn. Only my Death Sorceress would have a chance at anything, but not enough to kill an entire unit and score more VP.

Conclusion
We tallied the points and came out to a draw, both scoring around 1100 points. A draw, which seems to reflect the game pretty well.

Aftermath
I knew I would have trouble against his elite units, especially the dragon princes who were immune to fire. I should have brought my Fire Sorceress over to threaten the Sword Masters sooner. Once she started casting, she did quite some damage on them. Also, it was stupid to throw away my chariot on a charge like that. I should have stuck to the original plan: Hide behind the forest and wait it out. I had some bad luck with his archers, combat there took longer than it should have. Overall, I think a draw was deserved.
I have some tweaking to do on my list. I should either switch out Fire lore for something else (Dark with Sacrificial Dagger?), of the Fire banner on the CO Knights has to go. Finally, I need more redirecting units: at least one unit of Harpies and maybe Dark Riders.

[Daeron]

If you haven't fought several battles with this list yet, I would recommend to play a few more before swapping things. There's more potential in this list than you scored.

Turn 2 - You charged the Eagle with the Shades. This strikes me a bit as odd. If he placed the eagle within 5-", it probably would be possible to pass a march test and walk out of its charge arc. If it was standing at a further distance, then move the Shades to a 11" distance and shoot the eagle. If he would charge, you'd still have stand and shoot AND a close combat turn. You could even fire the missiles on the archers.

The chariot vs Swordmaster is an expectable outcome. I don't think we have anything that can reliable "hold" a Swordmaster unit. You did a good thing trying to delay the fight there, but you could have tried to do that even more. Had you advanced more to the right to put more pressure on the archers, he may have had to focus on other things than your shooting. The chariot you moved to the DP's flank... could it have run past its charge arc and threaten the archers?

My impression is, had all focus been on bringing down the numbers (not wiping) of the archers in turn 1 to 3, with the Corsairs as bait to delay the battle on the left, you could have saved a few RXBs. This is important, simply because it would have permitted the second stage of the battle to focus on the Swordmasters. The DPs needed to be brought down to 9 to keep them out business. Sure, they could kill a lot, but they'd take time to break steadfast.

The combination of soulblight and shooting on that archer unit is smart, but it works better when all your firepower is ready to focus on it and when you have a bit more of it. I take it you may have had to move your RXBs in range and the Shades either moved or were in long range. Then Soulblight would have granted about 1.5 extra kills. That may not be the impact you were hoping for. Had RXBs been in range without move, and Shades in short range without moving, then the same strategy would have yielded 2-3 extra kills.
Those powerdice may have been better spent on a fireball or destructive spell. Who knows.. it might have caused a panic check..

Either way, with a stronger focus on that right flank in both advancement and firepower, you could have forced him in a tighter corner. That may have helped to delay the Swordmasters even further.

It's a good bat rep though, and certainly not a bad battle Scoring a draw with such a combat heavy army against HE will be a challenge.