Thraundils battle log game 56: UB tournament Round One!

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Thraundils battle log, game 8: 1600 Cavalry vs Empire

Post by Thraundil »

Why hello again! This time, a smaller scale game. My list is created to use all the cavalry models (not chariots) that I own. Opponents list is a rather casual empire list. I had no idea how my cavalry would play, but I think my superior mobility would win me the game. Beware: crazy unluck in the start that might have swung the game in one favour over the other!

Ladrys Cavalry:

Supreme Sorceress, lvl 4 on pegasus
Master BSB on cold one
2x5 DR
8 DR
12 CoK
10 Warlocks

Empire:

Archlector lvl 3
Warrior Priest
Captain BSB
Captain on Pegasus
45 halberdiers
10 Inner circle knights
4 Demis
Cannon

The terrain features 2 big impassables in the centre of the field. He had fewer drops than me, but he deployed his cannon last and I could only hope to hide my sorceress from sight, not my units.

Terrain and Deployment:

Image

Magic: He used heavens, and he got chain lightning, the signature, and I think the first spell. I used dark magic, and with tome of furion i selected soul stealer. Then I rolled word of pain, shroud of despair and black horror.

I started deploying 5 DR in the entre. He responded with the Halbardiers in the centre. I dropped 5 DR on the flank, he put down the 4 demis in front of the gap between the two impassables in the middle. I toss the 8 DR unit in the middle, he deploys 10 ICK on the left flank. Suspecting his cannon would go there at this point. I toss warlocks in the centre, and sure enough his cannon lands in the corner. CoK go facing the demis, his characters all join the halbard bunker and his peg captain behind the forest. My BSB goes with knights, my sorceress out of sight of the cannon on turn 1. I vanguard everything up, and he wins first turn.

Empire turn 1:

Image

Demis charge the centre dark riders. I stand and shoot, but he passes all saves of course.

He then shuffles his knights and halbardiers slightly forward.

Winds of magic sees him 5-dice chain lightning on my warlocks. It goes off with irresistible force, does 1 hit to the warlocks and I make the save. It then jumps to the 8-man dark rider unit, who suffers 4 casualties but passes panic. The resulting miscast sees him roll 4, rerolls due to earthing rod, rolls 3. 9 halbardiers die, and the archlector is sucked into the warp. Daym!

The cannon, on top of everything else, then proceeds to misfire, but only loses the one turn.

In close combat, the dark riders fail do pierce the armour of the demis, who butcher them in return. Demis choose not to overrun.

Dark Elves turn 1:

Image

Charges: Cold One Knights pass stupidity thanks to the BSB reroll, and declare a charge on the demis. He flees, knights run 6" forward.

I move the dark riders behind the demis, ready to redirect them on turn 3 after he (probably) rallies them. Sorceress flies into the open (maybe a bit too agressive, since he had a cannon, but it was either that or a very nonagressive advance with her...). Left dark riders move towards the exposed cannon. Warlocks move just within 18" of his pegasus captain.

In the magic phase, he lets my doombolt onto the pegasus captain through, and he suffers 2 wounds from it. Shroud of despair then goes off on the demis, and I manage a super low roll on black horror which he easily dispels.

My shooting kills one crew from the cannon.

Empire turn 2:

Image

He charge my warlocks with his knights. I flee, loses a model to dangerous terrain, but his charge fails, so well worth it. Halbardiers charge my dark riders who flee just in front of the big cliff (phew, they fled 11" I think!), he fails the charge.

Demis rally, and the captain moves in front of my dark riders to protect the cannon.

In magic, he gets reroll-to-wound prayer off.

The cannon hits my sorceress, but rolls a 1 to wound. His luck just wouldnt give him a break.

Dark Elves turn 2:

Image

Having no charges, my CoK pass stupidity and moves upwards. I am very carefully placing them such that demis cant wheel around the dark rider block to charge the knights. I place said dark riders such that an overrun would lead the demis into the impassable. (Diagram not super; the halbardiers were actually further away than they appear to be). Supreme sorceress positions for a big black horror. Left flank dark riders fail march test, drat! They swing around such that they can shoot the captain if they choose to.

In magic, I shroud his halbardiers and demis, and then proceed to cast black horror. 5 dice, roll 13. +5, sure, but he easily dispels with all of his 6 dice.

Shooting sees me fail to hit anything.

Empire turn 3:

Image

Demis charge the dark riders. They are too close to shoot, so they just stand.

Halbardiers reform so they can assist a potential centre combat. (Their position on the board now is more accurate). Knights move forward. Pegasus captain again blocks me from his cannon.

He prays, gets reroll to wound off again. I was more deliberate dispelling his 5++ in melee prayer.

The cannon then misfires, loses its shot this turn and next!

In melee, I fail to wound the demis and he of course mauls the 4 poor dark riders. He reforms to face me.

Dark Elves turn 3:

Image

Action time! Knights charge the demis, warlocks flankcharge his halbardiers.

Sorceress flies such that shroud hits all 3 of his units. Dark riders move in front of the cannon (this time passing march test) and reforms 2 wide so he cant possibly block it with his pegasus.

Magic sees me cast shroud, which he opts to dispel. I then bubble a soulblight, which he cant stop, so demis, halbardiers, pegasus captain and knights are all affected.

Shooting pops another crewman off the cannon.

In melee, the cold one knights and BSB absolutely brutalises the demigryphon knights, inflicting I think it was 14 wounds of which he saves only 4. 3 of his 4 knights are dropped instantly. He kills 2 knights in return, and my cold one attacks fluff. He needs snakeeye to stay, fails and runs. (Bad image; he runs, but he runs off the board on his turn 4 so whatever). I check to restrain, pass, and reform to face his halbardiers.

In the halbardier combat, he makes way with both BSB and warrior priest. 2 warlocks must hit BSB, who has 1+ AS so they do squat. 2 other warlocks must hit the warrior priest, and get 2 wounds through on him! The remaining warlocks slaugther 7 or 8 halbardiers. In return, his BSB and priest drops 4 warlocks, but his 2 rank-and-file attacks does nothing. He is steadfast, and holds. He then reforms to face me.

Empire turn 4:

Image

Knights wheel to face warlocks. Pegasus captain flies over. Demi fails to rally.

He prays, and gets reroll to wound again. (I needed kills to win combat with his 2 banners and ranks, I knew, so I focused on dispelling the 5++ ward).

In melee, he makes way to just barely bring BSB and priest in bast contact - a mistake by him. My warlocks kill 8 models + the unit champion. In return, his halbardiers drop 4 warlocks. This is enough to leave the master the last man standing, and now out of base contact with his characters, so they didnt get to attack. I won the combat, and he holds.

He decided to call the game here. In my next turn, I could have flanked him with cold one knights, who had 2 full ranks still, which means no steadfast for him. His cannon would be gone, maybe he could have grinded it out with his 10 knights vs my 12, but I doubt it considering I get rerolls and he doesnt, plus I had magic whilst he had none left.

Unfortunate game for him, losing his lord like that on the first spell. Other than that, I think I played it pretty well, I managed to force his demis into charges he didnt want to take or risk passivity as my army closed in around him. If he hadnt charged the 4 DR unit on turn 3, in my turn 3 I could have charged those DR into his halbardiers, which would have opened a charge from my knights onto his. I was just so much more mobile, and in the end that won me the game. Knights did brutally, breaking the demis hands down, but even if he had passed more of his saves he would have still been broken. I won combat by like 13.
Name: Ladry (female)
Class: Mage (Pyromancer)
Equipment: Staff, longsword, dagger, 20 gold, insignia ring.
Skills: Power of Aqshy (2), defensive figthing
WS4, S2, T3, D4, I6.
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Re: Thraundils battle log, game 7: ETC vs Wood Elves

Post by Amboadine »

Well played. Lucky with him losing his lord, but I think you would still have caused him problems anyway.
I like the list you played with. Nicely mobile at that points level.
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Re: Thraundils battle log, game 7: ETC vs Wood Elves

Post by T.D. »

Nice result.

Your opponent needs a 4 leaf clover though :P

Also; Cold One Knights FTW! :D
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Re: Thraundils battle log, game 7: ETC vs Wood Elves

Post by Thraundil »

T.D. wrote:Nice result.

Your opponent needs a 4 leaf clover though :P

Also; Cold One Knights FTW! :D


He rolled insanely unluckily... It was just, everything that could go wrong went wrong. In the halbardier close combat he rolled like a boss, though, but not enough to save him.

Yep, the knights performed admirably. I am still abit torn whether to run big knight units or big exec units, or several smaller knight units. I love the knight models, I just have a fear for stupidity and armor ignoring stuff :p
Name: Ladry (female)
Class: Mage (Pyromancer)
Equipment: Staff, longsword, dagger, 20 gold, insignia ring.
Skills: Power of Aqshy (2), defensive figthing
WS4, S2, T3, D4, I6.
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Re: Thraundils battle log, game 8+9: ETC vs Empire + Daemons

Post by Thraundil »

Hey guys! Played a one-day ETC singles tourney last sunday. Thought I'd share my games here. The first game was a complete fluke, terrain was bad for me and I lost it due to a mistake with my witch elves (which I fully recognise) combined with terrible rolls all around. Examples include failing a rerollable rally test two turns in a row, failing to cast word of pain boosted on 3 dice two turns in a row (rolled total of 5 twice, grr!), and my knights failing a super short charge. Everything just went wrong, so I wont bother writing it up, not much interesting to gather from that game :P (on top of that, my opponent was also kind of gleeing at all of the shitty rolls... Its okay to glee abit when one thing goes wrong, but when he had a huge advantage after the first bad rolls and he still enjoyed himself loads when I failed the 4th rally on LD9, well it took the enjoyment out of that first game kind of.)

Anyways, here comes games 2 and 3, vs first the Empire, and then Daemons of Chaos. Both of these games were great fun, and game 2 really was a nailbiter the first 2 turns of the game. Although after turn 2, it was kind of game over - read on to see why.

The list I used was:

Supreme Sorceress on Dark Pegasus, cloak, MR(1) and scroll
Master BSB, steed, 1+/4++, lance
Death hag on cauldron, cry of war
2x5 DR
31 WE
10 CoK
4 RBT
5 shades
10 warlocks

Game "2" vs the Empire

Empire Army List:

Lvl 4 life, barded mount, "swap stats challenge item"
Lvl 2 heavens, barded mount
Captain BSB, barded mount
Combat lord, barded mount
Warrior priest, barded mount
10 spearmen with 5 archers
14 inner circle knights
5 inner circle knights
7 demi
Buff wagon for +1 to hit, +1 PD
3 cannons

I faced a real tough nut here. 1+ armor save across the board except for the small spear unit. The map offered a single , huge hill on one side of the table, and a small hill and some impassable on the other side, with a forest in the middle of the map. It was paramount for me to get the side with the small hill and the impassable, or my SS would face 3 cannon shots turn 1! Luckily I won the roll to pick sides.

Deployment: My 4 RBTs went on the small hill, witches centrefield between the hill and the impassable, dark riders went to the far right flank facing his spearmen and archers. Warlocks and knights knights with BSB on the left flank (warlocks vanguarded in front of the knights so they would be able to soak cannon shots). SS behind the impassable. Shades in the middle of the board.

He deployed his cannons all in the corner with his Demis in front of them (6 wide). The 5 knight unit sits on top of the hill next, to his bus on the low ground. Archers and spearmen on the flank facing my dark riders. I was happy with the deployment, except for the fact my DR where all off to the side. I should have had them in the centre to charge-block his bus, rather than have them chase spearmen! The shades could have easily dealt with them.

For magic he got throne, regen, toughness and dwellers, along with chain lightning and signature. I got word, soul stealer, shroud and black horror. Vs his lineup I was very happy with those spells. Sadly with the map layout, my SS would be hard pressed finding a safe spot.

Turn 1:

I won turn 1. I advance warlocks and knights ever so slightly, waaaay out of charge range, trying to bait him to come forward abit. Warlocks still in front. WE advance up the center, staying out of charge range. Dark riders move into short range of the spearmen, shades move into short range of the 5 ICK on the hill. Magic saw him dispel doombolt, and my SS was out of range for anything thanks to the limited cover of the terrain. One RBT put a single bolt into the flank of the 5 ICK, killing 3 of them! The 5 shades then landed 6 wounds onto them, of which he rolls 2 1's. Bam, one threat gone! Dark riders then shoots and panics the spears. The remaining 3 RBTs toss a single wound onto the demis.

On his turn 1, he advance his demis and bus slightly, forming one large 1+ AS battle line. Yikes. His archer detatchment charge a DR unit who stands and shoots, killing 2 archers. They panic and flee, and the spearmen fail to rally, and flee off the board. So far, so good. His magic is poor, he tosses 5 dice after a dwellers on the witches, but fail to meet the boosted version cast value. I dispel chain lightning. His first cannon shot then kills my cauldron (statistics: any game I play with a cauldron vs an opponent with cannons, the first shot kills it. Every time. 5/5). The next cannons fail to do much, I believe one misfired.

Turn 2:

I charge the demis with warlocks AND knights. The warlock charge was short, the knight charge I needed a 9. Average roll. I get it! Both units slam into the demis, and I get every model in B2B. I even clear all my dangerous terrain tests on the warlocks for charging though a forest. WE pass frenzy, and holds their ground just out of a 11 charge roll from his knight bus. Dark riders charge the archers off the board and the other DR + shades makes their way towards his cannon corner waaaay on the other side of the board. Curses. SS flies such that cannons cant make the standard '10" from the back of her base' shot due to models in close combat. I land a boosted word of pain on the demis (hehe, I cast low on 3 dice, and he dispelled even lower on 3 dice!), but soulblight is dispelled. Shooting sees me chipping a few wounds off one cannon, and putting a single ICK from the bus down. In close combat I brutally murder 4 demi models before he even gets to strike! He removes models from the side of my knights, such that only a single knight is now in base to base. Drat.
He then directs every hit on warlocks; demis was down to WS2. Knights are WS5, so he would hit those on 4's (5's, but +1 from the wagon). Warlocks he still hit on 3's. He kills 4 models, and I win the combat by a huge margin. He needs snakeeyes. Gets it on the BSB reroll. Gutted!

On his turn 2, he shuffles the bus slightly forward, setting up for a charge on my WE next turn. His buff wagon slams into the flank of the warlocks. Magic gets +2 T onto the demis, regen on his own unit, and -1 to hit -1 LD on the knights. Shooting sees him wound my SS twice, but she makes both saves (she rolled that 3++ like a champ all game). In the demi grindfest, I make a single wound on him while he does 3 or 4 wounds on the warlocks of which I save a few. (He still had word of pain on him). I lose by a few, but with BSB reroll and steadfast on the knights I hold.

Turn 3:

I seriously pondered slamming my SS into the flank of his buff wagon to earn 2 static CR. In retrospect, I should have, but I didnt. She takes a safe position from cannons instead. Realising theres very little chance of escaping a charge from the bus on the WE, I elect to take the charge to deny him S5. Its a long charge needing 8, but they make it in. DR and shades advance upon the cannons.
I try to renew word of pain, but he dispels it. Warlocks then put soulblight on the demis. Shooting sees a single cannon dead from my RBTs who now had no other targets. In the demi grind, he wins by one. He kills 2 knights in order to take away my rank bonus. I hold. In the WE combat, his lvl 4 challenges, and I accept with my champion. He has the "swap statline" item. I manage to drop a large number of knights (I think 6 or 7) with sheer volume of attacks, but without my 5++ he murders some 13 witches in return. I am steadfast, though, and hold.

In his turn 3, he renews -1 to hit and -1 LD on my knights, but I dispel the +2 T and throne. Demi combat he again wins by one or two, he is very hampered by the hexes on the demis, and the fact I still get my 4++ on the warlocks. The ICK vs WE fight again puts down a nice number of knights (he rolled 4 out of 12 1's I believe), and he murders the WE down to 6 models. Snakeeyes! Guess that'd make us even on that account.

Turn 4:

DR and shades advance upon the cannon. SS misplaces herself (or rather, she doesnt move from her safe spot...). Demi grind sees the warlocks down to 1 model, but the demis are down to 2, and I hold again. WE reduces the ICK down to just the unit champion, but are murdered in return. He reforms to a 6 wide unit facing the flank of my warlock/knight fight, and my supreme sorceress which I left there thinking her safe! Huff!

In his turn, he charges the SS. I have to flee with her, she stays on the map but he redirects into the flank of my knights. His unit champion fails dangerous terrain and dies, so at least I also get points for 14 ICK. Magic is rather eventless, I believe I focu son dispelling the toughness buff. In combat his lvl 4 challenges, a big mistake by him as I accept with my unit champion. The champ moves into base contact, and since the entire first rank of my knights where still blocked by a single warlock model, all of his 4 other characters can now not attack. With the flank and charge bonus, and the fact he finally kills my last warlock, the cold one knights need a 6 with reroll. Of course, I fail it and run off the board. He pursues with everything, murders my SS en route, and leaves the board with everything.

Turn 5:

I murder his cannons with one DR unit, and retreat the other DR + shades behind the hill to save their points.

He re-enters.

Turn 6:

I put a bunch of wounds on the buff wagon with RBT fire, but fail to kill it. He charges the RBT and picks up a few of them.

The game ended with a sound trashing for me. By rights, I should have broken the demi unit, and the overrun would have taken out his cannons if not directly, then in turn 3 they would all have been gone. He would've had his bus (which would have been tied up by witches for a few turns, maybe even enabling me to get knights into their flank or rear), at the very least the game would have ended in a draw or perhaps a minor victory to me. But those snakeeyes... In a prolonged grind, nothing save executioners can really do anything to demis, and he was smart to limit my knights' amount of attacks. For all purposes I knew I had lost the game on turn 2. I could maybe have saved my SS from dying, but that would've meant my knights had broken alot sooner since I wouldnt have had the threat of hexes. All in all, I still liked how I played the game, and my opponent was a real good sport too which made it super fun to play. He also agreed I played the game pretty much perfectly in the first 2 turns. Uphill to face a pure 1+ AS army, and when I then even fail to break them charging with 20 bloody cavalry units AND a -2 WS/S hex. frig me.


Game "3" vs Daemons of Chaos

The guy I played here was a standin, he was playing with an army that wasnt his own. I had lost the first 2 games massively, he had lost the first 2 games massively, and we where together at the very bottom of the ranks, so naturally we got paired up. His list:

Greater Daemon of Tzeentch, the Lord of Change
lvl 2 sorcerer with lore of metal
20 "Blue" horrors
30 Plaguebearers
2x5 Furies
2x4 Beasts of Nurgle
5 Plaguedrones
Skullcannon

The terrain was quite nice for me. I had again a large hill to the right in my deployment zone for my 4 RBT. Knights hid behind the same hill with my BSB in, and 5 dark riders behind them. SS behind the hill also. WE centre with warlocks next to them. Other 5 DR on the left flank pretty much alone. Shades deplyed in his corner.
He had his skullcannon behind a small hill in his deployment zone, the lord of change went here also - in sight of a single RBT. Both of his flanks sported 5 furies and 4 beasts each, and his infantry +the lvl 2 went next to the greater deamon. Plaguedrones went directly opposite of my RBT. Nice, nice.

I rolled word of pain, shroud (exchanged for doombolt), chillwind and bladewind. Not the best for this matchup, but at least I got word. He gets pretty much every tzeentch lore spell. Infernal gateway in his blue horrors, and the rest on the lord of change. Metal sorceress got searing doom and golden hounds.

Turn 1:

I had fewer drops than him, helping me to win turn 1. DR had already vanguarded upwards, and moved into 12" of his furies. Warlocks had also vanguarded in front of the WE, and they moved 10" forward along with the WE moving up behind them. SS flew behind the WE, meaning if he wanted to shoot her the shot would go through 3 models with high ward saves. Knights moved on top of the hill, spotting the plague drones. Here I forgot they could fly, the knights where actually in range of a decent charge from him.
Magic saw him let a doombolt aimed at his greater daemon through. Im not sure why he didnt dispel it - granted, I had rolled high, but my SS was not in range for anything serious. In either case, I chipped 3 wounds off the beast. A single RBT could also see it, boldly firing a single bolt which failed to wound. 3 volleys on the plague drones saw 2 of them die. Shades shot I believe a few blue horrors down.

In his turn 1 his greater deamon roared in anger of the doombolts, and charged the nearest unit in sight, my dark riders. They fled, and his charge fell short, leaving the lord of change ripe for the picking, heh heh. Plaguedrones made a charge on my knights, but I knew he had no armor save on them so I was actually fairly confident here. Beasts of nurgle relocated in the center, the beasts on my right flank coming abit forward. Furies headed for my RBT lines. Infantry shuffled around a bit, he even put his 30 plague drones facing my 5 shades. Skullcannon crept up onto the hill.
For magic, he tried an infernal gateway on my warlocks, but failed to meet the casting value. Rains of Chaos even dropped his armywide ward save to 6++. The cannon then planted a shot 10" from the back base of the SS, overshot by 8" which meant nothing in front of her got hurt, at least. He then landed a 1 to wound.
In close combat, my valiant knights put 4 or 5 wounds onto his plague drones. Return attacks killed a few knights, but I won combat by a few. He failed unstable, and another plague drone died, with the remaining guy having 2 wounds left. Instant action!

Turn 2:

My warlocks slammed into the flank of the lord of change, hoping to please Slaanesh with this great sacrifice. On the right flank, 5 DR take the beasts in the flank to stop them short of my knights. On the other side, the fleeing DR rallies and positions themselves in the flank of the 5 furies. WE march straight up, spotting the centre beasts of nurgle and the skullcannon.
Magic sees me put a word of pain on his greater deamon. He dispels soulblight. Shooting sees me put down 3 wounds on the skullcannon. In melee, the warlocks put 5 wounds on the greater deamon! He then rolls 4 out of 5 6's. He murders 4 warlocks for their trouble. My steeds then strike... Wait for it... Dead daemon! Warlocks reform to face his skullcannon. In the knight combat, they kill the final plague drone. I believe I overran, which I shouldnt have been allowed to do. But I didnt make it into contact with his beasts of nurgle, so I guess no harm was done. Those beasts killed a single DR, and reforms to bring all 4 beasts into contact with the remaining 4 riders.

Shaken by the loss of the greater deamon, the blue horrors hold firm. Plaguebearers charge the shades who flee. Centre beasts of nurgle charge the warlocks who also flee, and the beasts are left with no choice but to redirect into the witches. They easily make it. Mwahaha. Magic sees very little action, I believe he tried to gateway the fleeing warlocks but I dispel it. In melee, the dark riders on the flank and butchered, and the beasts reform to eye the flank of my knights. Centre, I kill a beast (13 wounds, 11 succesfull 5++ saves!), and he retaliates with a lot of dead witches. Thanks to my own 5++ and rank numbers though, I manage to squeeze out a won combat. He snakeeyes his save, bringing a beast back.

Turn 3:

Warlocks rally, and again position themselves eying the skullcannon. Knights march away from the beasts towards the cannon, too. Shades rally, on the left my last DR unit flank charges the furies. Magic sees a word of pain on the beasts in the centre, but he dispels doombolt to the cannon. RBTs shoot volleys into the right flank furies to prevent them from charging, and I believe I kill 3 out of the 5. In close combat I drop 2 beasts stone dead, lose a few witches in return for my trouble. -2 S really didnt help him here. He only takes a single wound to unstable, though. DR murders 2 furies, they fail unstable and explode in a puff of smoke.

Ini his turn, the blue horrors form to face the flank of the warlocks. Plaguebearers also give up the chase of the shades, and reform as well to face the centre. Righ-flank beasts tries a desperate 11+ charge on my knights, and fail. The WE finishes off the beasts, and reform (yay for no overrun!) to face the blue horrors!

Turn 4:

This is where I really sealed the deal. Warlocks charge the skullcannon who flees, they redirect into plaguebearers who holds. WE are then free to charge into the blue horrors. Knights move down to push the skullcannon off the board next turn. Magic sees a word of pain on the plaguebearer unit. My RBTs, with nothing better to do, hammers volleys into the right-flank beasts of nurgle. I kill a model, I believe. WE annihilate the blue horrors, and overruns. Warlocks kill 5 plaguebearers, he kills 2 warlocks and loses another 3 models to unstable.

In his turn 4, he rallies with the cannon, moves the beasts towards my knights again. In melee he drops the warlocks to the last model, but I still won combat. He passes untable, though.

Turn 5:

Knights charge the skullcannon right off the board. WE reforms and moves towards plaguebearers. SS moves towards the beasts and doombolts them, while the RBT slam volley after volley into them. He makes a large amount of saves, though. The final warlock finally dies to the plaguebearers.

In his turn, he opts to NOT charge with the plaguebearers into my waiting WE horde. Instead he moves the beasts to where my knights left the table.

Turn 6:

Knights return, and manage to get out of his beasts' charge arc. I could probably have taken them on, though, but no reason to risk. WE charge into the plaguebearers who flee off the table. He meant for my WE to get off the table too, thus giving up 50% VP, but the charge was a short one and they stay in. I fail to drop the beasts down to one model, so he retains their points for that single beast unit. He forfeits his turn 6, seeing as he can accomplish nothing.


Crushing victory! It even brought me to a 13th place out of 20 overall, not so shabby considering I lost 2 games out of 3. He made a few mistakes, again overestimating what a greater daemon can do. (In his 2nd game he had also lost it to similar overeagerness). It showed that he was not a daemons player, rather playing a borrowed standin army. However I still feel I would have won this game, as his deployment left his infantry units out of most of the game, and he overestimated what 3 plague drones can do against heavy cavalry with a static S4 and a high volume of attacks.

The final win felt real good. With the way I had played game 2, I really do feel I should've had a way better score in that game as well, but thats the way dice go sometimes. I feel my army list worked out very well. 2 out of 3 games my flying sorceress was unharmed, and in the vs-Empire game she only got in the line of fire because the terrain on that table was incredibly poor (literally: in the entire centre field there was a forest, that was it). WE needs support vs heavy armor, but game 2 really just was lost due to that one snake eyes. I like having two 10-man strong cavalry units, in all games both units where largely ignored by my opponents firepower because the cauldron and SS are so much more juicy targets. In game 2, that could have been a match winner :P and certainly easier to maneuvre with than executioners would be.
Name: Ladry (female)
Class: Mage (Pyromancer)
Equipment: Staff, longsword, dagger, 20 gold, insignia ring.
Skills: Power of Aqshy (2), defensive figthing
WS4, S2, T3, D4, I6.
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Re: Thraundils battle log, game 8+9: ETC vs Empire + Daemons

Post by Setomidor »

Thanks for the reports, very interesting reads! I'm exited to see the CoK working so well for you, I'm tempted to up my small unit to a full 10.

Also, not to be picky, but Daemons can't flee... :P
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Re: Thraundils battle log, game 8+9: ETC vs Empire + Daemons

Post by Thraundil »

Setomidor wrote:Thanks for the reports, very interesting reads! I'm exited to see the CoK working so well for you, I'm tempted to up my small unit to a full 10.

Also, not to be picky, but Daemons can't flee... :P


Heh, didnt know :P the other guy was also new to the army. There was a last-minute cancel of one of the attending players, and this guy offered to step in if someone would give him an army and armylist.

The 10 CoK's performance this tournament has all but earned them a spot in my standard combat list. They where never shot at, every time they charged they caused a massive impact. And the biggie; they only do have one attack, so double the unit means double the power - here of course not counting the mounts. Mounts just makes the knights scary for medium sized infantry, too! The BSB in the unit meant I wasnt worried about stupidity, and in addition he added a nice punch to the charge. From 11 to 13 attacks. Since I use the cloak on my hypermobile sorceress, its an easy choice to stick a master on a steed, give him a ward save and have him carry my colours in battle.

I ponder playing a similar list but with 30 unsupported witch elves (the cauldron is a liability vs shooting armies, and not really that needed vs non shooting armies?), and a 2nd pegasus character. Probably with 4++, charged with hunting war machines. Due to the way ETC line of sight works, he can castle up with cannons behind his combat units and just wait for me to come to him, a flying combat character would go a long way to battle that. Of course, I could also just hope that the ETC guys will soon realise that cannons are way too powerful if you can shoot through your own troops, and just bloody change that stupid rule.

With regards to dark magic: AWESOME lore for a combat list. Word of Pain, in all three games, prevented several return casualties on my end, leading to large combat resolution results in my favour. I didnt really get much use of the damage spells, but this was mostly a matter of terrain. My sorceress had very few places to land. I should probably just "gamble" her next time, and just toss a big black horror somewhere :P
Name: Ladry (female)
Class: Mage (Pyromancer)
Equipment: Staff, longsword, dagger, 20 gold, insignia ring.
Skills: Power of Aqshy (2), defensive figthing
WS4, S2, T3, D4, I6.
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Re: Thraundils battle log, game 10: Daemons of Chaos

Post by Thraundil »

Little bit of text first, as per usual! :p

Greetings, one and all! Here comes another battle. I fight the grim Daemons of Chaos, building and playtesting a list for an upcoming 1-day singles tournament. The restrictions will be 2MD this time, for those unfamiliar basically you get to pick building 2200 pts with heavy restrictions, 2400 with normal, or 2600 points with very light restrictions.

Going for 2600 pts, Dark Elves must not take more than 35 models which can shoot, max 2 RBT which also counts as 6 models for shooting, and max 12 shades. Also, no death magic allowed, warlocks only know dombolt.

Also, general restrictions cap infantry unit size depending on point cost per model - 25 models max for DE, cavalry unit size cap depend on their armor save; max 11 for 2+, max 16 for 6+ (ie warlocks). In addition, max 2 characters can have a movement greater than 6 (aka mounted characters or flying characters). With this in mind, I have opted for an infantry based semi defensive position supporting my base of magic, and a warlock "bus". So far, the list looks like this at 2600 pts:

Dreadlord, giant blade, OTS, dawnstone, dark steed, full mundane
Supreme Sorc, ToP, dispel scroll, dark magic
Master BSB, AoD, full mundane, dark steed
25 Corsairs
2x5 DR with shields+mus
19 Darkshards
25 Exec, flaming banner
2 RBT
5 Harpies
War hydra with flaming breath
16 Warlocks with champion

I played against a Daemons army, roughly looking like this:

Greater Daemon of Tzeentch, lvl 4 lore of tzeentch.
BSB granting 4+ regen to unit
13 Blue Horrors
10 Blue Horrors
25 Plaguebearers
2x5 Furies
4 Beasts of nurgle
1 beast of nurgle
6 Fiends of Slaanesh
3 Plaguedrones of Nurgle

The battlefield was, from my side of the table, a forest to the left, house to the middle and hill to the right, all just outside my deployment zone. Across the board he had two big impassables on either side of the table, again just outside his deployment zone. I deployed my dark riders to the sides, infantry in the centre-right (between hill and building, darkshards behind the hill, hydra supporting the darkshard flank). Bolt throwers far back, and warlocks to the left of the building with the two mounted characters. SS joined the darkshards. In retrospect, I should have put them on the right flank, with BSB in range of my supreme sorceress ;)

His deployment saw 1 unit blue horrors and the fiends cover the impassable to the left. The other unit of blue horrors along with plaguebearers and beasts of nurgle took the centre, with furies in front of them. Drones behind the beasts, and the greater daemon lurking behind the righthand side impassable. His BSB went with the plaguebearers.

For magic he got treason and some other stuff on his greater daemon, infernal gateway on one blue horror unit and the magic missile spell on the other. His exalted gift he chose that sword that gives +d3 WS, S, I and A, and his small gift was d2 wounds. I forgot all the names.
I got word of pain, doombolt, shroud and black horror.

Initially, I won first turn, but forgot to move vanguard units. My opponent offered that I could take the moves and reroll first turn, and I accepted. Vanguarded my "bus" forward, along with both DR units. Then I rolled 4+1, he nicked it with a 6 of course ;)

Turn 1:

He moved forward with all units. Put a single beast of nurgle blocking the movement of my bus. Sent furies after my RBT. Rain of Chaos saw an 11 go down. A randomly selected wizard must pass a LD test or turn into a nurgle hero. My supreme sorceress was selected, she promptly failed on double 6 with style, and a nurgle hero appeared RIGHT behind my darkshards :) a magic missile then saw a bolt thrower vanish. Infernal gateway IF killed a single warlock, but the unit got regen 6+ in return, and 3 blue horrors died.

On my turn I edged my infantry slightly forward. A mistake, I should have held firm, but I knew without the magic support my entire centre was doomed anyway. I just wanted to bait all his units in. Darkshards reform to look on their former commander, hydra turn to look on the hero too. Winds of magic blew strong again, I rolled 11. Hooray, boosted doombolt on the beast blocking my bus. Didnt get IF, so failed cast. Darkshards managed to hit the hero loads, but only scored a few wounds which he saved.

Turn 2:

Hero charge the darkshards. Beasts of nurgle and plaguebearers both charge the executioners, plaguebearers fall short though. Drones charge corsairs. The rest of his army repositions, and the greater daemon flies right next to my infantry, out of sight of my sole remaining RBT. Furies position to charge it. Winds of magic rolls 11 again! The warlocks pass LD without a sweat, though. Treason on my executioners, and an attempt at infernal gateway which I dispel with all my dice. In close combat, my executioners lob down a beast, takes a massive 20 return hits for a total of 10 casualties! They are steadfast, though, and holds. Corsairs put a single wound on a drone, take some casualties but are also steadfast and holds. My darkshards take one casualty, are steadfast, but runs for it, are caught by their former commander and butchered to the last man.

With the darkshards out of the way, my war hydra has a clean charge on his drones figthing my corsairs, and he makes it in. Bus charges the lone beast, 'cos Im not gonna get it out of the way anytime soon. My remaining RBT shoots a volley on a fury unit about to charge it, and takes out 3 models. In close combat the bus expectedly wipe the lone beast, and overruns 3" -.-. The executioners take vengeance for their fallen comrades and puts 6 wounds in the beasts. This time they only roll a combined 5 return attacks for 4 casualties, and with a rank and banner I believe he unstabilities down to one remaining model. Corsairs and war hydra gives the drones a sound trashing, wiping them out. Corsairs reform 5 wide, hydra overruns into the hero of nurgle.

Turn 3:

The greater daemon flankcharges my executioners. Rest of his centre holds steady, not wanting to get too close to the corsairs. Furies charge the RBT, other 5 furies fly up to block my bus. Magic rolls 10, giving him 4+ ward save. Treason is dispelled, and he cant target anything with infernal gateway so he doesnt get much out of his PD. In close combat the greater daemon and remaining beast of nurgle wipe the floor with the remaining executioners, and the daemon reforms to face my corsairs. Furies kill one RBT crewmember. Hydra draws combat with the hero.

Bus charges the furies. Corsairs march toward the centre, trying to escape the greater daemon even though I know they are surrounded. I charge-block his left-hand side blue horrors with my harpies (the bus could overrun in front of his fiends, with the horrors then prone to flank charge them. I didnt want this to happen). Dark riders set up for a rear charge on said blue horrors. Skipping magic and shooting, I wipe the furies and overrun right in front of the fiends. (we both forgot that I would not get ward saves vs them!). The hydra kills the nurgle hero.

Turn 4:

Plaguebearers charge corsairs who hold. Greater daemon flankcharges the war hydra. Blue horrors reform to face the dark riders I sent at them, with harpies now in their flank. Fiends move up right in front of the bus. Magic again sees him roll 10, keeping that 4+ ward going strong. Bloody hell! Treason was the only spell he could really cast, though, and I dispel it. Summarising: daemon wipes hydra. Plaguebearers wipe corsairs who flee and are run down. Furies kill RBT.

In my turn 4, the dark riders I had placed on the flank to protect my RBT charges the remaining 2 furies. Bus charges fiends. DR and harpies charge blue horrors. In melee, I inflict 7 wounds total on his horrors, he saves 6. He then kills 4 dark riders. (4 wounds, 4 failed 4+ saves). Phew, I hold combat though since my general and BSB are right nearby. In their combat, I manage to kill a fiend and a half. He rolled beastly with his ward saves.

Turn 5:

He positions his greater daemon to rear charge my warlock bus' ongoing combat. His 2 beasts of nurgle that earlier ate my executioners declare a long charge on the rear of the bus, and makes it in. Other units would never be able to make a charge, so he leaves them be. In melee I kill another fiend and also slay a beast, for a few dead warlocks in return. (It didnt matter much that we forgot the daemons of slaanesh rule; he rolled super for wards, but very poorly for attacks, and the few attacks that did wound I failed my save on, anyway). The harpies and dark riders massacre the blue horrors this round, though, he fluffs every ward save and the horrors explode in a puff of blue smoke.

This leaves my lone dark rider to flank his fiends. Harpies and other dark riders hide behind terrain. The bus kills so many fiends that with CR, they all explode. The bus then reforms to accept the greater daemon in the front.

Turn 6:

Greater daemon charges and makes it. His plaguebearers can make the charge on 12, but luckily for me he fails. I challenge the keeper of secrets with my master of warlocks, and here's where it gets funny. He gets +3 WS, S, attacks and I, but fails to hit a single attack. If he had popped the warlock master, I would've had to sac my BSB next in order to keep my lord alive.

But, with that out of the way, the warlock master lived to fight another round of challenge. His heroic sacrifice lost me the combat by a ton, but I still had plenty of models for steadfast, and they easily hold.


He killed everything of mine but the dark riders, harpies, and the bus. I manage to clean up all his beasts of nurgle, his plaguedrones, both furies, one of the blue horror units and his fiends, netting me a 300 VP deficit, which translates to an 11-9 victory for him. Considering turn 1, I was very pleased with this outcome!
Name: Ladry (female)
Class: Mage (Pyromancer)
Equipment: Staff, longsword, dagger, 20 gold, insignia ring.
Skills: Power of Aqshy (2), defensive figthing
WS4, S2, T3, D4, I6.
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Re: Thraundils battle log, game 10: Daemons of Chaos

Post by Amboadine »

Wow, that was a hell of a turn 1 for you...

Good recovery to only have a narrow defeat.
Thanks for the write up.

Interesting comp restrictions, first time I have seen them, do you have a link to the full restrictions somewhere?
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Re: Thraundils battle log, game 10: Daemons of Chaos

Post by Thraundil »

http://www.powerfist.dk/forum/index.php?board=714.0 they are on here, its a danish forum but the restrictions are all written in english of course. Spread between a number of threads.
Name: Ladry (female)
Class: Mage (Pyromancer)
Equipment: Staff, longsword, dagger, 20 gold, insignia ring.
Skills: Power of Aqshy (2), defensive figthing
WS4, S2, T3, D4, I6.
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Re: Thraundils battle log, game 10: Daemons of Chaos

Post by Marchosias »

Trying to understand Danish with the knowledge of English and German is fun! :D

Nice report, thanks for posting.

It is rough losing your sorceress first turn and even more if it is just because of a single failed Ld test. It seems wrong that the demons player can cause you such a massive damage without any effort, just by playing daemons. It should get comped somehow. !lol! But you did a respectable job to recover. I was expecting a serious trashing for you but you saved the day. Congratulations!

By the way, where did your knights go? It seems to me that without them, your list has not much anti-armour options. The comp forbids large units of 1+ knights but not several smaller ones, am I right?
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Re: Thraundils battle log, game 10: Daemons of Chaos

Post by Thraundil »

CoK are max at 11 models, and if you make a category C list, you cannot duplicate special choices. I do however carry 25 executioners, and most MC are capped at 4 models and 1+ cav are capped at 9 or 10 models. My dreadlord hits at S7 and I have my bolt throwers to singleshot stuff. I pondered between executioners or knights for my source of S6, but chose the executioners because if I bus the list as I do, my entire infantry line will want to hold steady. A failed stupidity check at the wrong time can cause my entire line to collapse. Heavy armor will never get the charge on my lockstar, and if they come close to my infantry line I will get them with the executioners.

Stay tuned - I played another game with my ETC list from 2 posts back today against a high elf ETC list. It was a bloodbath! This time it will be with diagrams ;)
Name: Ladry (female)
Class: Mage (Pyromancer)
Equipment: Staff, longsword, dagger, 20 gold, insignia ring.
Skills: Power of Aqshy (2), defensive figthing
WS4, S2, T3, D4, I6.
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Re: Thraundils battle log, game 11: The hated Asur!

Post by Thraundil »

Hello again! Busy weekend so far, 2 games played. Today it was my ETC list described a few posts back, against my good friend who plays HE. He loves playing a very defensive setting, preferring to shoot at me while I walk the long way across the field, and he often succeeds quite well at this. Today, however, he brought a more all-comers ETC singles list, as archer overload really doesnt do wonders against hordes of undead or 1+ AS cavalry lists.

My list:

Supreme Sorceress on Dark Pegasus, cloak, MR(1) and scroll - lore of dark magic
Master BSB, steed, ironcurse icon, 1+/4++, lance
Death hag on cauldron, cry of war
2x5 DR, crossbows and shields, mus
31 WE FC, flaming
10 CoK FC, swiftness
4 RBT
5 shades, AHW
10 warlocks, master

The high elf list:

Archmage, book, 4++, high magic
Mage, scroll, lore of beasts
BSB, reaver bow, potion of strength
2x5 Reavers, bows and mus
10 Silver Helms, FC
16 Archers
24 Sword Masters FC, world dragon
24 Phoenix Guard FC, razor standard
7 Sisters of Avelorn
4 Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers

On paper a game that I should have a decent chance in.

For magic, his lvl 4 got Soul Quench, hand of glory, arcane unforging and fiery convocation, and his lvl 2 got wyssans and curse of anraheir. My lvl 4 got chillwind, word of pain, shroud of despair and soul stealer.

Deployment

Image

I had a deployment disadvantage, with fewer drops than him. He went first, though, and I managed to get a great deployment with all my combat units to the left, and all my artillery to the right. He would be forced to either charge block me, or get the artillery. Never both. In addition, I managed to get shades behind his lines. He vanguarded his reavers into cover from my bolt throwers, whereas I vanguarded my dark riders up to give cover to my witch elves and general. Warlocks headed straight down the flank. With +1 on the roll, I won first turn.

Dark Elves, turn 1

Image

With nothing legally able to charge, my shades moved directly towards the bolt throwers; their target. Warlocks swung up to threaten his flank, and my SS takes position behind the rocks. Dark riders both head up to block the movement of his silver helms, and the witch elves follow. Knights wheel to get into cover from the forest.

Winds of magic saw 6 PD to 3 DD, and I first landed a nice normal word of pain on the sisters, reducing their WS and BS by 3. I then IF'ed soul stealer right on top of the silver helms, 3 fell to the combined damage + attribute. The miscast even failed to wound the sorceress, just icing on top of the cake that it is to score first blood in the most brutal of fashions. Didn't leech any wounds, though.

My shooting on turn 1 was focused on one objective; limit his artillery. Dark riders, shades, and 3 bolt thrower volleys combined to take out one of his eagle claws. The remaining bolt thrower could only hit his archers, and so felled 3 of their numbers.

High Elves turn 1

Image

Silver Helms charged the first dark rider unit, who fled. They redirected the other unit, who also fled, and so ended up going 6" forward. Sisters, being BS2, decided to just march forward. Sword Masters reformed to cover the exposed asur flank. PG moved into the forest, reavers headed towards my artillery position.

Magic saw a low roll. I let curse of anraheir through on my knights, and dispelled an attempt at arcane unforging on my SS. His one remaining dice boosted the ballistic skill of one of his bolt throwers by 3.

Said bolt thrower tossed a single shot on my knight unit. Pling! 6+ ward save made. Another single shot failed to hit, and a volley fire from the third was shooting through a forest, so didnt hit. The BSB drank his potion of strength and shot down 2 knights, though, with the archers failing to kill any. A very reasonable turn for me.

Dark Elves turn 2:

Image

My shades spot their moment of glory, and charge the bolt thrower positions on the hilltop, making it on 8". Both dark rider units rally, having done their duty, and reposition. WE advance carefully through the lake, and the warlocks reform and press up against the board edge to discourage any swordmaster charges. Knights, being cursed, decide not to throw away 33% of their numbers just to move, and after passing stupidity, they just hold firm.

Winds of magic blew low again. I renew the word of pain on the sisters, again getting a -3 WS/BS on them. The warlocks then toss 4 dices after a boosted doombolt, it doesnt IF and so they fail the cast (he had 5 DD for it, so had to go for IF).

The bolt thrower crew saw the advancing ellyrian reavers, and unleashed four deadly volleys against them. One entire unit was felled, and the other killed to the last standing man, who passes his panic check and stays. Brave asur, at least.

In close combat, my shades butcher the high elf crew and overruns into the next bolt thrower.

High Elves turn 2

Image

His Silver Helms charge my witch elves. A mistake, he admitted; he wanted to delay me for a turn, hoping to kill enough witches to win combat or at least have a manageable break test. Anyways, they easily make it in. His lone surviving reaver charge my bolt thrower. His sisters, still heavily reduced in stats, charge my dark riders in the flank and I flee.
His archers turn to deal with the shades, and the BSB leaves his unit to join up with the phoenix guard who march against my knights. The BSB was in cover from all 3 bolt throwers. Still a questionable move.

Magic saw him IF a boosted soul quench on the warlocks, killing 3 members. The miscast saw both his wizards suffer a S6 hit, with the lvl 4 making his save and the lvl 2 suffering a wound.

His last remaining bolt thrower, and the BSB, kill a combined 3 knights. In close combat, the reaver and bolt thrower crew has a nice chat about the harsh life of a soldier. The shades cut their way through another asur war machine crew and overruns 11" towards the next, and last, Eagle Claw. Silver helms fail their fear test as my Death Hag utters Khains glorious name, and only manage 4 wounds of which I save 2. In return I land some 20 wounds on him, he only fails 3 or 4 armor saves, but due to ranks he loses combat by 3, and needs a 6 to hold. He scores 8, runs long, and I obviously pursue, which brings me in easy charge distance of his swordmasters!

Dark Elves turn 3

Image

Witch elves slam into the flank of the sword masters, and the warlocks smash into the front. Shades make an easy charge on the last eagle claw. Dark riders rally and move up to block the advance of the PG against my knights, who swiftly reforms and runs away from the PG; thats not a fight they want to take.

Magic sees me unable to really cast much. I roll very low on soulblight, and he dispels it with ease. The bolt thrower against whom the sisters are not in cover volley fires them, slaying 4. The two remaining bolt throwers shoot single bolts against his BSB, needing 6's to hit. One does, and wounds, but only manages a single wound on him. The dark riders are there to save the day, however, as they fire 10 black bolts at the asur noble, and soon his body, as well as the asur colours, collapse to the ground pierced by many bolts.

The shades easily dispatch the last eagle claw. The death hag roars Khaines glorious name once more, but this time the warriors of Hoeth are not so easily scared. The archmage even steps forth to challenge, and the death hag laughingly accepts. Her laugh is cut short when the archmages sword finds her naked belly and pricks a hole in it. The witch elves are oblivious to this setback, though, and they leap in amongst the swordmasters, hacking and slashing, with the doomfire warlocks offering many a Hoeth warrior up to the migthy Slaanesh. A single warlock loses his life in return, and when the carnage is over, 2 sword masters and the archmage are all that is left. They flee, but the warlocks catch them. In spite of the orders to take the archmage alive, they open him from ear to ear and offers up his life to Slaanesh!



At this point, we called the game. WE and warlocks had both overrun off the board. My knights where too low to be able to handle any combat reliably. We agreed I would realistically take out the 3 remaining sisters, and the archers as well (but not before they reformed to shoot my 2 shades down). The lone reaver vs bolt thrower crew dragged out for like 7 rounds (we rolled it, quickly) before he finally won it xD the phoenix guard would then take my artillery. I said that my crew would get to place 2 hits on his wounded lvl 2, and they actualy manage to drop him. So in the end, the phoenix guard are all that stands of the hated asur, and they are allowed to leave the fields with their lives, while I only give up 4 bolt throwers and 5 shades. A crushing victory to the Druchii!
Name: Ladry (female)
Class: Mage (Pyromancer)
Equipment: Staff, longsword, dagger, 20 gold, insignia ring.
Skills: Power of Aqshy (2), defensive figthing
WS4, S2, T3, D4, I6.
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Re: Thraundils battle log, game 11: The hated Asur!

Post by Amboadine »

Well play. Congratulations on crushing the Asur.
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Re: Thraundils battle log, game 11: The hated Asur!

Post by T.D. »

Good game. Enjoyed the write up too :)
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Re: Thraundils battle log, game 11: The hated Asur!

Post by Setomidor »

Great game, thanks for the writeup and pictures!
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Re: Thraundils battle log, game 11: The hated Asur!

Post by Gerner »

Both great games.
Daemons are more than mean!

What do you think of 2MD? :)
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Re: Thraundils battle log, game 11: The hated Asur!

Post by Thraundil »

Gerner wrote:Both great games.
Daemons are more than mean!

What do you think of 2MD? :)


As far as restriction systems go, I really like it! It sort of leads armies away from the whole "unit X is the best core choice, so I fill my core with only unit X" thought process. I think the list I made for it is a very strong one, I just need to integrate "the bus" a little bit better. The fact warlocks are not comped at all seem brutally evil tbh :P I should skip the other tricksters shard on the lord, though. Pondering hotek on my lvl 4 to give my entire infantry block the miscast bubble, and then a real 4++ ward on both mounted chars.

- another thing I considered is, since war machines seem VERY restricted, if not a bunch of monsters might work. Specifically, dreadlord on dragon, master on manticore, a hydra, a K-beast, a shrine, executioners with the shrine + a lvl 2 with e.g. beast or maybe dark and a scroll. 10 warlocks to go with it. I just dont have the models :P
Name: Ladry (female)
Class: Mage (Pyromancer)
Equipment: Staff, longsword, dagger, 20 gold, insignia ring.
Skills: Power of Aqshy (2), defensive figthing
WS4, S2, T3, D4, I6.
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Thraundils battle log, game 12: 3500 vs Dwarves

Post by Thraundil »

Greetings, one and all!

Here I bring another battle, vs the new Dwarf book, at 3500 points. We had agreed no comps, and LoS rules as per the BRB, which would be a good thing for me compared to the tournament rules I usually play under. Not knowing the list he would bring at all, I decided to go very heavy on the artillery hunting department, hoping that if I could shut down his shooting phase early, I would be able to then control close combat from then on out.

My list:
Dreadlord on dragon, black amulet, OTS, charmed shield. (general)
SS on dark pegasus, lore of death. Powerstone and 4++
Master on dark pegasus, cloak
Master on dark pegasus, 4++
Master BSB on foot, dragonhelm and dawnstone
2x10 corsairs AHW (screening units for my bigger blocks)
2x5 DR with crossbows, shields, mus
45 Dreadspears, FC
28 Exec, FC
5 Harpies
3x5 Shades
4 RBT
2x5 Warlocks

As you can see; lots of small, mobile elements, and two big blocks to provide me with attacks and ranks.


Stunty Force - from memory as usual:

Runelord on anvil, rune of spell disruption (aka dispels scroll)
Thane, general, 4++ GW
BSB, banner of 5+ ward vs missile attacks within 6", 4++ personal. GW.
Runesmith, rune of spell destruction (dispel scroll, and on 4+ the spell is forgotten)
30 Longbeards
15 Quarellers
15 Thunderers
36 Hammerers
10 Irondrakes (or what they are called)
3 Gyrocopters
2x10 Tunellers
Cannon
Organ Gun
2x5 Scouts


When I saw his list, I thought that maybe I had made mine abit too gruesome. I would be able to maneuvre very freely with my fliers, due to him only having a single cannon, but in his words; he had the models to make a cannon fortress, but he hates playing that style. Rather a fun game with a difficult-to-play list, than a boring game with a very easy list. Besides, his two melee blocks are still formidable opponents. Pre-game we rolled for his grudge, and he got the hatred special rule on every dwarf.

Before deployment we then rolled scenario; Meeting Engagement. Diagonal line separated by 12" in the middle, is our deployment zones. Big chance for me! I would be way closer to his side of the board, saving valuable travel time and turning it into stunty killing time! We then rolled and deployed terrain, and I deployed my entire army first followed by him then deploying his entire army - I would get first turn on 1-5 on the dice. Before deploying each unit, a d6 is rolled; on a 1, that unit is in reserve.

Deployment:

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Spells: My SS got spirit leech, caress of laniph, soul blight and purple sun.

Terrain: Village with wizards tower to the left. Screeched hill to the right in his deployment zone (dangerous terrain to move or charge up and down), sigmarite altar in the middle (forces of destruction, aka me, within 6" rerolls succesful ward saves). The two "bumps" next to the altar; to the north, an idol of gork (reroll failed charges within 6"), to the east a sinister statue (units within 6" every magic phase, toll d6. on 4+, takes d6 S4 hits). I should mention the sinister statue didnt proc once during my 6 turns of being too close...

As you can see, I centered my forces in the village, with the SS clsoe to the wizards tower. (She would know all death spells when within 3" in the magic phase). Characters all hide behind obstacles as best as they can. I deploy a small skirmish and vanguard force in the right of my zone. I was lucky; only one unit of warlocks got placed in reserve.

He, however, was unlucky; BOTH his war machines went into the reserve! He placed all of his forces around the screeched hill. My scouts formed a perimeter around him, denying him efficient vanguards. His scouts went behind my army in the village and a unit facing my far left dark riders. I vanguarded first, moving my dark riders on the right forward, effectively blocking his vanguard options completely. I then also move my warlocks out, confident in my chance at first turn. Which, incidentally, I got ;)
The rightmost forest, whom I deployed shades in, turned out to be a blood forest.

Dark Elves turn 1:

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Charges: My leftmost dark riders, whom I did not vanguard, charges his scouts who stand and shoot, but fail to hit. I easily make the distance.

Movement: Warlock reserves enter right next to his other scout unit (easy choice for me). Everything else advances, save for the rightmost shades who stay in hiding in the blood forest. The forest in the middle turned out to be a venom thicket, and one shade died trying to fight off the venomous plants.

Magic: Average roll. I put a spirit leech on a gyrocopter, picking a wound off of it. I then attempt a bubbled soulblight which he dispels.

Shooting: Shades in the venom thicket unload on a gyro, putting a single wound on it. Centre shades put another wound on the already wounded copter. Dark riders on the right put a wound on the last copter. So far, he didnt make a single save with them ;) RBTs pile volleys into his quarellers.

Close combat: Dark riders drop 3 scouts, lose one in return. He sticks around.

Dwarves turn 1:

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Movement: Cannon and organ gun enter on my semi exposed left flank. Centre gyrocopters fly over my shades in the venom thicket and drop bombs; one does 2 hits and kills one shade. The other (the one who had already suffered 2 wounds) misfired and went down in a pile of smoke and fire. Rightmost copter fails to wound dark riders, and lands next to the shades in the blood forest. Runelord moves forward a bit, rest of the army holds. Southmost scouts reform to face my warlocks, throws their axes but fails to wound.

Magic: He puts +1 armor save on the scouts figthing my dark riders. He then attempts to magic-missile my blood forest shades, but I pile all dice on dispelling it and succeed.

Shooting: His entire line opens fire on my two vanguarding cavalry units. All 5 dark riders drop to the floor, 4 warlocks fall also, but the last one makes his panic check.

Combat: Dark riders and scouts fail to wound one another.

Dark Elves turn 2:

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Charges: Warlocks charge scouts who stand and shoot for no casualties.

Movement: Dragonlord, the pegasus guy without cloak, and corsairs all relocate to deal with his war machines. Overkill maybe, but I wanted to make sure. Executioners reform to 8 wide and advance (I should probably just have made them 10 wide here, waste of a movement). Spears advance. SS positions herself on the flank of his longbeards, pegmaster WITH cloak goes between the two blocks. Harpies in front of him (mistake by me). The lone warlock moves behind his shooters. Shades in the blood forest reforms to face the gyro.

Magic: Spirit leech puts 2 wounds on his BSB both of which he saves at 3++. Caress of Laniph is then dispelled.

Shooting: Shades kill his gyro on the right. RBT kills the final gyro. He didnt make a single armor save with them all game. They seem potentially deadly, but we easily have the tools in our army to handle them. Few odd rank and file models are also shot down.

Close combat: dark riders and topmost scouts stalemate. Warlocks kill all 5 southern scouts where they stand, and overruns. At this point I feel in solid control of movement.

Dwarves turn 2:

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Charges: His quarellers on the hilltop could barely glimpse a harpy, and declares the charge. Drat! He fails 3 dangerous terrain tests though, but nevertheless he makes it in with ease.

Movement: thunderers move up to spot targets. Irondrakes reform to find my SS. Runelord moves up abit. One unit of tunellers enter the board behind my artillery hill.

Magic: Nothing of consequence.

Shooting: His irondrakes miss with the rocket launcher! He also misses everything else. Phew. The cannon plows down 2 corsairs but does not hit the master behind. Organ gun fires a salvo on the dragonlord, and puts one wound on the dragon. (12 shots).

Close combat: His lone remaining scout kills one of my 2 remaining DR, the remaining dark rider flees. His quarellers then kills 4 harpies, the remaining girl flee through my pegasus master who panics and runs. Drat! I had actually forgotten they had changed those rules, and I thought he would not need to panic. Bother :( he flees into the venom thicket with the harpy. That was not part of the plan!

Dark Elves turn 3:

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Charges: Dragonlord charges the organ gun. Couldnt possibly fail.

Movement: Harpy doesnt rally, fails dangerous terrain and dies. Pegmaster rallies in the forest, elects not to reform to avoid a dangerous terrain test. Combat units advance. SS flies behind his lines to line up for a purple sun. Shades move for his tunnelers.

Magic: Purple sun does not IF, and he destroys the spell. Drat! A boosted doombolt does get IF'ed by my lone warlock, though. The targeted irondrake unit is wiped out to the champion. The lore attribute then wounds said champion 3 times, and he dies as well. The warlock explodes in a puff of purple smoke as Slaanesh claims his soul, but he died happy!

Shooting: Bolt throwers and shades fire upon the tunellers and kills 4 or 5 of them, I forgot. The bolt thrower in the tower fells a few of the remaining quarellers.

Close combat: Dragonlord mauls the organ gun crew by himself, and overruns. Needs 5 to close in with the cannon... Rolls 4. On 3d6. Yeah.

Dwarves turn 3:

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Movement: the 3 remaining quarellers move out to harass my SS. Longbeards move forward abit, Tunellers charge my bolt thrower, mauls the crew, and overruns into the next. Other tuneller unit enters, poised to take out the final RBT on the ground. His hammerer unit reforms to 10 wide.

Shooting: Thundereres fire upon the central corsairs and kills a few. Cannon needs to roll 2 or 4, so takes the single shot on my dragon because he has a rune to reroll. First he rolls a 10, rerolls, misfire. Bam! Cant shoot next turn.

Dark Elves turn 4:

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Charges: Dragonlord decides to make sure, and charges the cannon crew.

Movement: Stuff repositions. Executioners reform to horde formation. SS moves abit away from the quarellers, and a pegasus master flies behind his hammerers (baaad move, but I was not entirely expecting the consequences!). Corsairs move in to threaten the thunderers. Warlocks move up to try and help the lone bolt thrower on the ground.

Magic is mostly dispelled.

Shooting: RBT on the floor puts a few wounds on the tuneller unit.

In close combat I maul the cannons crew and reform to look towards the action with the dragon. Tunneler unit on the hill finishes the other bolt thrower crew and reforms to look at my shades.

Dwarves turn 4:

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Charges: Longbeards charge spearmen, who holds. Thunderers charge corsairs who holds. The 3 quarellers charge my pegasus master in the rear! Bah! I sort of forgot about them, being 3 models strong is no threat after all... Also, the tunellers charge the bolt thrower, other tunellers charge the shades who stand and shoot, kills 2, and they then fail the charge :twisted:

Movement: Runelord moves up. Runesmith leaves the hammerer unit.

Close combat: RBT dies, tunnelers reform to face the warlocks. Thunderers break the corsairs who flee through 3 units and one building. Out of 17 dangerous terrain tests I fail none!
Quarellers dont wound my master, who kills 2 dwarves. He however has a charge and a rear, so wins by one. I fail the break test and I am run down!
Dreadspears hold their ground against the charging longbeards. I lose the combat but is steadfast. He reforms to be 8 wide to my 6 wide.

Dark Elves turn 5:

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Charges: Pegasus Master into the face of the longbeards. Shades into the flank. Warlocks charge the tunellers.

Movement: SS repositions. Dragonlord races 20" ahead to try and get into combat with the hammerer block. Executioners move forward into the dangerous terrain, and here my 'luck' with the cannonfodder corsairs comes back to me; 7 failed tests of out 29.

Magic: Soulblight onto the tunnelers is dispelled. Soulblight onto the longbeards is then IF'ed, and the resulting template puts a wound on my SS. Good enough, though.

Shooting: I kill the small tunneler unit who fail-charged just before.

Close combat: Spears, shades and pegmaster spills the blood of a terrible amount of dwarves. I think 10 or 11 dead longbeards. They fight back into the ranks of the spearmen and kills 6 or 7. Turns out he has rune of stubborn though, and he holds on.
Warlocks butcher several tunnelers, but lose 2 warlocks in return thanks to his hatred for my kind and all I stand for. I win, but he holds.

Dwarves turn 5:

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Charges: Thunderers slam into the flank of the shades.

Movement: Runesmith positions himself for a charge on the SS. I actually missed this little move. Almost cost me. Runelord sees that the battle might be lost, and withdraws a little to safe distance. Hammerer unit edges a few inches backwards.

Close combat: Thunderers kill 3 shades, but due to still being soulbligthed the longbeards again lost a lot of numbers. I end up winning combat, but just by one, so he holds on.
Warlocks vs tunnelers sees a tunneler die but they also hold.

Dark Elves turn 6:

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Charges: Dragonlord had 22" to the hammerer unit. So I go for it, declaring the charge with both him and the executioners. I pick up the dice... 12! But then it turns out he has a banner allowing him to dubtract d6 from my charge distance, so both units actually end up failcharging. Executioners again lose I think 7 or 8 more models to the dangerous terrain! In the end, I am happy the exec. also failed the charge, because with just 12 models or so left, he would have easily killed me in combat.

Movement: Not much left to move. I should have moved my SS, but I was getting tired and missed it.

Magic: I re-soulblight every unit within 24" of my SS with IF. The resulting S6 hit is saved by her ward.

Shooting: My corsair unit to the left has actually chased the lone dwarf scout around for 3 turns now. My RBT crew has had enough of it, and skewers the dwarf with a volley of bolts.

Close combat: His thunderers manage 1 wound on the shades, and the longbeards are cut down to the last dwarf. However, I forgot to allocate any hits on the champion, so he stands around for another turn. No biggie. I win by a load, and the thunderers break and are caught by the shade who was no longer in base contact with the longbeard unit.
Warlock and tunneler inflict another wound on one another.

Dwarves turn 6:

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Closing time. Hammerers charge executioners who elect to flee. Dangerous terrain is abit kinder to me this time, only killing a few of them off. Runesmith flankcharge my SS.

With no shooting and no magic to speak of, we proceeded to the last remaining skirmishes. My warlocks finally killed the last tunneler, and the runesmith and SS slap at each other with no wounds resulting. He wins the combat by virtue of charge and flank, I make the break test though.

With that, we shook hands. It ended up a pretty convincing victory for me. I think I have up 823 VP (2x5 DR, 5 harpies, 3 RBTs, 5 warlocks and a pegasus master), whereas he gave up some 1900 VP (Every unit but his hammerers and his lone quareller, and all his characters survived thus retaining a lot of points).





Post battle analysis:

First and foremost; wow not a good deployment for him. Both war machines missing turn 1. His gyros also underperformed, but frankly if he had not lost them to small arms fire I think I had just focused RBT fire on them instead of his quarellers, and killed them all the same.

With this in mind, however, I think where I made mistakes was:
1) Wasting a movement turn reforming my executioners twice during the long move. That, and deploying them that far out to the flank to begin with.
2) Letting the rear of a pegasus hero be spotted by 3 quarellers, and losing to them. That was stupid.
3) I went for the war machines with my dragonlord AND pegmaster. The pegmaster had been enough, and in the end it meant my dragonlord never saw serious combat action. (The 4" overrun he pulled off also didnt help on this matter, costing him a turn of movement!)

All in all, my list worked very well. I had a solid grasp of the movement phase and, aside from my few mistakes, he was forced to all the time react to me. The spears did what they where there to do; force him to charge in and get stuck up on steadfast. With some help, they ended up destroying an entire unit of longbeard warriors. It was a fun scenario, a very well mannered opponent (who did curse abit at his many, many failed armor saves ;) ) whom I would definitely play again.

To end this battle report, heres a picture of the gaming table after deployment:

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Name: Ladry (female)
Class: Mage (Pyromancer)
Equipment: Staff, longsword, dagger, 20 gold, insignia ring.
Skills: Power of Aqshy (2), defensive figthing
WS4, S2, T3, D4, I6.
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Amboadine
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Re: Thraundils battle log, game 12: 3500 vs Dwarves

Post by Amboadine »

Very nice write up. Thank you, excellent read and analysis.
Congratulations on the win.
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T.D.
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Re: Thraundils battle log, game 12: 3500 vs Dwarves

Post by T.D. »

Your list including the Sword anvil worked very well :)
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Marchosias
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Re: Thraundils battle log, game 12: 3500 vs Dwarves

Post by Marchosias »

Thanks for writing the report up and congratulations on the win!

One thought occured to me while reading: In retrospect it is actually quite obvious that the tunnelers had to emerge somewhere near the bolt throwers. Do you think you might have saved your artillery if you placed a unit of warlocks for example to protect the hill?

And one question, what was your plan with moving your fast cavalry so near to the enemy shooters in the first turn? It seems to me they died for nothing but I may be missing something.
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Thraundil
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Re: Thraundils battle log, game 12: 3500 vs Dwarves

Post by Thraundil »

The sword anvil actually did end up being a spear anvil, just because I figured the extra attacks would be a welcome sight - I would be steadfast all the same as I really, really doubted he would bring THAT large a block of dwarves. It worked wonders indeed :) I might actually start using steadfast warrior blocks again...

My thought process of moving the cavalry up right in front of his shooters was that I knew he would be forced to shoot them, rather than reform his entire shooting line to face my approaching characters and infantry, thus giving up a turn of shooting at my real hardhitters - whom then all made it, more or less intact (grrrr dangerous terrain!) to the line of battle. 10 shooting casualties on the spearblock and I would not have been steadfast anymore, for example. They died for little direct gain, but I judged it to be okay.

In retrospect I should definitely have held one or both 10-man corsair unit back to protect the artillery. I was not so worried about losing them though; I knew my shades and warlocks would pick up the tunneler points, and the artillery had really done its job at that point; gyros where dead, quarellers where reduced in numbers. Sure, could have saved the points. Another time I would play a lot of things differently ;)

Thanks for the comments :D
Name: Ladry (female)
Class: Mage (Pyromancer)
Equipment: Staff, longsword, dagger, 20 gold, insignia ring.
Skills: Power of Aqshy (2), defensive figthing
WS4, S2, T3, D4, I6.
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Gidean
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Re: Thraundils battle log, game 12: 3500 vs Dwarves

Post by Gidean »

Dwarf Opponent made critical error in the second turn with his artillery targets. Cannon should have targeted DL and Organ gun the corsairs. Moreover he should have kept the gyros close to one another and advanced instead of march fly. Then he could have used overlapping flame templates to pick off your advanced elements one at a time. Well played on your part though! :D I notice you guys use a LOT more obstacles (fences and walls) than we do. Those really hamper cannon shots which do not bounce through obstacles (destroying them instead).
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Re: Thraundils battle log, game 12: 3500 vs Dwarves

Post by Thraundil »

He was quite unlucky to have both his war machines in reserve, too! Allowed me to be so agressive. I think he opted for fly-overs because he had no safe place to land for flame templates, lest I would charge him next turn. He didnt expect to fail ALL of his armor saves on those gyros :P

We used the BRB obstacles. d6+3 I beleive it is, and rolled a 5. Then we randomised what kind of terrain, and pretty much the entire bottom half (the village) is one of those rolls... Came up as a village where I then rolled 3 more dice; a wizards tower, d3 buildings, and d3 fences. Rolled 3 on each. Go figure :) but I think it was a very cool looking battle scene! I was very happy about the whole terrain too. I should maybe have deployed more to the centre - I kinda knew he would have to bunker up around the hill.
Name: Ladry (female)
Class: Mage (Pyromancer)
Equipment: Staff, longsword, dagger, 20 gold, insignia ring.
Skills: Power of Aqshy (2), defensive figthing
WS4, S2, T3, D4, I6.
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