Note: Sorry for the lack of pictures/maps. No camera on scene and I am too much of a novice at GIMP.
Hey all-
A little bit of a wait between first and second games there. Capital City Carnage was going down, and so I had not takers last weekend (as they were all slugging it out downtown). Chris was kind enough to take me on again. He asked if I wanted to run against Warriors of Chaos, Tomb Kings, or Vampire Counts (again- read about my previous massacre
here.) As I didn't want to get tempted away from an 'all comers' style army, I asked him to bring whatever he wanted to have fun with.
Using some of your feedback, and not shorting myself 65 points this time, I came up with this list:
General: Thane,
GW,
MR of Gromril, rune of Resistance, rune of Preservation (134 points)
Runesmith, Handweapon, Shield, Rune of Stone, Rune of resistance, Rune of Iron, Rune of spellbreaking (142 points)
Dragonslayer (50 pts)
25 Dwarf Warriors, Shields, Full command (250 pts)
20 Dwarf Warriors, shields, full command (205 pts)
15 Longbeards, shields, full command, rune of battle, rune of stoicism (255 pts)
11 Thunderers, shields (165 pts)
10 Rangers,
GW, Veteran (120 pts)
6 Miners (66 pts)
Bolt thrower, w/engineer, valiant rune, rune of penetrating, rune of burning (110 pts)
Total: 1497 points
I arrived a little late, as I was finishing up magnetizing both units of warriors and their movement trays, and also- finishing my runesmith. Unfortunately, I left my list at home, so had to rebuild it. This time however, I took an extra couple of minutes to make sure all was kosher. In keeping with the "must be painted" requirement I give myself, I had to drop the thunderers by one to slide a model over to the bolt thrower as an engineer.
It turned out that Chris had elected to stick with
VC, but with changes. His list looked something like this:
General- Vampire w/hellsteed, biting blade, cadaverous cuirass, wristbands of black gold, infinite hatred, beguile
Vampire,
BSB, Nightshroud, Sword of Might, Infinite Hatred, Summon Ghouls, Black Periapt
Vampire, Sword of Battle, Flayed Hauberk, Infinite Hatred, Summon Ghouls
11 Ghouls w/Ghast
12 Ghouls w/Ghast
5 Fellbats x2
6 Blood knights w/Royal Banner of Strigos
Corpse Cart w/unholy lodestone
The fellbats made for a stronger choice than the hounds for screening purposes. Also, raising them would be a lot faster than the hounds. As before, it looked like I would really need to figure out how to lure away his Blood Knights. I felt okay about handling almost anything else. I was prepared to sacrifice the dragonslayer, miners, rangers, whatever it took. As a side note, his army is pretty strongly themed, with some very interesting takes on some of the troop types. The army was an undead crusade- with converted sigmarite priests (w/hoods and evil paint jobs) and all the ghouls looked like ring-wraiths. My favorite were the bats- which were skeletal angels- skeletons with wings, rather than those awful standard bat models.
The terrain set up was interesting. One side of the battlefield was fairly tight- with a hill on the right board edge, and a forest closer to the center, and touching one of the deployment zones. The opposite deployment zone held a hill and a tower close to each other. Chris won the roll for table edge, and kept me out of the tower and hill zone, placing his first unit slightly to the left (all directions from my point of view) of center. I was uncomfortable setting up, but decided to go into the far corner to try to string him out and give me a shot at redirecting or delaying the blood knights.
His deployment was compact, with (left to right) blood knights at the left, both ghoul blocks, and the corpse cart feeding the two, all behind the fell bats for shooting protection. I was deployed (left to right) with longbeards on my left (with thane and runesmith), the block of 25 warriors, the block of 20 warriors, and the bolt thrower right on the table edge. The thunderers deployed in a line in front of my army, covering the opening between the hill and the woods in front of me. My rangers scouted into the woods right outside my deployment zone, hoping to march block his units as they trudged around the woods. The dragonslayer stood behind the longbeards.
His spells came up gaze of nagash (on his general), gaze of nagash (on his
BSB), and curse of years on the remaining vampire.
I had finished deployment first, but he snagged first turn. This was fine by me, as nothing was going to be in range, and I figured it'd be good to have last turn to rally any (inevitably) fleeing units.
Turn 1: He marched everyone into view, splitting the general, blood knights and one unit of bats to go around the woods towards my longbeards, and the others headed for the opposite side, and my warriors. Magic was tame, raising a few ghouls in the
BSB unit.
As the undead came in to view the longbeards complained loudly to everyone who would listen about how it used to be about the music and good times, and not all this mopey business of looking like a cross between Meatloaf and Megadeth album covers. This is so incredibly boring that my infantry blocks fall asleep and forget to move. The thunderers stuffed their ears with cotton and killed some bats screening the rightmost ghoul unit. The bolt thrower then sent a shot through 3 ranks.
Turn 2: Further advances- the vampire general and blood knights are still a turn or two out, while the ghouls have even farther to go. At this point I realize that no one has danse macabre, and Arkhan had taken back his diary to write more terrible angsty poetry in it, so I wouldn't need to be worrying about magical movement. Magic was mostly a flop, as the vampires needed 4+ to raise bats instead of their usual 3+ on ghouls.
Still debating the merits of Bat Out of Hell's powerful, sweaty ballads, the longbeards reformed to face my left where the freight train could be heard coming around the bend. The 25 warriors to their right reformed facing left as well, getting ready to restrict fell bat landing zones where possible. The miners got ready to enter, heard the longbeards singing "Paradise By the Dashboard Light" and decided it would be better to wait. My rangers thrashed up to 1/2" from the edge of the forest for a closer look. My dragonslayer moves up to block a charge on the thunderers' flank in case the bats notice the vulnerability. Thunderers did fairly well again, thinning the right-hand bats enough for a shot at the corpse cart. This struck, but I rolled a one to wound. Woops.
Turn 3: The bats coming around the south end of the forest could probably charge, but wisely do not, instead screening the blood knights and general. The
BSB vampire and his unit advance towards the rangers. Good- I can flee next turn and bog them down in the woods for most of the rest of the game. Magic is a little more successful but not tragic.
The miners come on to the board, marching up behind the vampire general and blood knights. The bats can see them with 360 skirmisher vision, but can't get a charge off as there's no space. I would have preferred to force the blood knights to charge them, but there was no room to set up. So I figure they can walk along behind and maybe score a rear or flank later. The rangers decide to get a head start on their fleeing and slog back a little deeper into the woods. They congratulate themselves on a brilliant plan, and start a drinking contest. The long beards, now well into "Two out of Three Ain't Bad" and steadfastly refusing to acknowledge Mr. Loaf's later work shuffle a little. The 25 warriors shift out to make sure they are blocking any flying charges farther down the line. The dragonslayer advances into the woods to hopefully take the flank of the blood knights as they go by.
Turn 4: Game on! The
BSB ghouls declare a charge on the rangers. All according to plan. Except they're totally drunk, stagger around in frantic circles, collapse in a huge pile, and all get eaten. Yes, I rolled a 1" flee, getting caught despite the difficult terrain. Stellar. The single bat left trying to screen the ghouls swaps places with the five down in front of the blood knights. That lone bat attempts to block the charge lane for my dragonslayer, but won't be able to hold on it's own so... he tries to summon friends. I know what I need to do, but can't do it- the first dice comes up 5 to raise more bats, and I can't beat it even with two dice. The magic phase sees a lot of raising, and I have to spell-break curse of years on my longbeards. The general swings around and sets up about 8" away for a charge on the miners.
Go time... dragonslayer declares a charge on the bats that lie between him and the blood knights. The longbeards, now launching in to a falsetto "You took the words right out of my mouth" declare a charge as well. It will be close, but if they make it, Ive got a real good shot at a draw or better. Their static will blow right through the bats, and put the dragonslayer and them into the blood knights with an over run of about 3". Not that my army has demonstrated any kind of ability to run quickly yet. It is at this point that the nearsighted longbeards get a closer look at the enemy. Banner of hatred, infinite hatred, frenzy... wait a minute... these aren't poseur rockers... these are emo kids! Oh no! Look at the tight, tight girl-jeans on the blood knights! The androgynous haircuts! The horror! The longbeards fail their fear test and don't charge after all, dry-heaving instead. They can't even march up to try to buy time for the other blocks or direct any overruns away from the rest of the army. Disastrous.
The dragonslayer could save the day if he hits and wounds with all his attacks, but this is unlikely. So unlikely that... it doesn't happen. Crap. I'm getting charged by the blood knights. Well... at least it's my toughest block. Maybe I'll be ok.
Turn 5: I'm not ok. The blood knights charge the longbeards who are too busy shuddering at the thought of copiously applied eye-liner to be scared. They pass fear. The hell-steed general rockets into the miners. They fail fear, and will have to hit on 6s. At least this will keep him out of the rest of the fight. The bats up top zip into the bolt thrower crew. Unbreakable means there is, thankfully, no fear check to be taken. Before combat... here comes curse of years. I keep my fingers crossed for a miscast... irresistible force. Four of the longbeards in the back who haven't yet figured out what's going on are still dancing to "Real Dead Ringer for Love" when they suddenly break their (more brittle) hips. The thane also takes a wound. Combat here comes and goes, with the thane getting shredded, and the runesmith surviving (by virtue of his rune of iron (maiden))! Casualties are atrocious, and the runesmith doesn't manage to drag anyone down. I hope I'll be able to roll some Insane Courage up.
I don't roll Insane Courage. Flee! Caught. The blood knights hit the thunderers right on their end and I hold since I don't think I'll outpace the blood knights and can't afford to flee the 25 warriors (as they will hop over everything I have and go right off the board). Here we go tabling massacre. Ye gadz.
The roll well and kill all but the engineer who wounds one back. Unbreakable, he holds.
However... King Emo on the flying Emo Steed completely whiffs. His horse manages to kick a miner's skull in, but even needing 6s, they manage one hit back. It turns out his defense is kind of terrible. One wound each. I outnumber.
BSB is too far... and the general is killed. Whaaaaaaa? 7 of the 9 wounds left on bats fighting the engineer evaporate. Chris is thrown off his game a little and starts to take the whole unit off until I point out that there should be one left. Unfortunately the dice don't quite oblige, and the dragonslayer is still fighting one little bat, so can't go grab the Blood Knights by the tail to hold them still for long enough to save the rest of the army. The ghouls take no wounds, and the corpse cart takes 2 but regenerates one (might be wrong on this- the corpse cart ended the game having taken a wound, and I think it was here).
Bottom of Turn 5: Well, we have a game. Maybe an outside chance at a draw. I go for a gamble and declare a charge with the 25 warriors on the blood knights. The 20 warriors could charge the last bat fighting the engineer. In retrospect, this might have been good, but I was thinking big, about maybe a turn 6 flank charge on the right-most ghouls to drop them below half. That was highly unlikely, but I had a taste of hope and was thinking a little too grand perhaps. The 25 warriors... fail their fear check. They too cannot comprehend the horror that is emo jeans and dare not approach the blood knights. Crap. The miners strut towards the corpse cart, flexing for the cameras. The engineer and the bat head butt eachother and the dragonslayer whiffs on the bat. (At some point he took a wound from this thing too. Yeesh.) The thunderers take a spectacular 8 casualties from the 2 blood knights who can contact them. That still means they're above 25% and could rally... they break, the 25 warriors panic and get the hell out of the way. The 20 warriors now have the blood knights staring at their flank with no way to escape, because it's about to be...
Turn 6: Crumble gets the last fell bat from each unit and some ghouls from each unit. The blood knights charge the 20 warriors. I am trying to set up a flank shot from the bolt thrower. The warriors are dead either way (barring a hold choice and insane courage- and even then they'd need it twice, an even then, I'm not sure the blood knights won't kill 20 in 2 rounds of combat). I flee off the board, the charge fails and comes up short of a flank shot. Woops. Meanwhile the corpse cart trundles forward into the miners to no effect. Obviously exhausted by flexing so hard, the miners fail to do any damage back.
BSB negates my outnumber victory.
Bottom o' 6: The 25 warriors rally, making that perhaps the first leadership test they have passed and saving me a little face. The dragonslayer charges the flank of the corpse cart, hoping to put the hurt on. The engineer tries to shoot a blood knight in the face at point blank with the bolt thrower. He misses. A big whiff fest ensues over at the corpse cart, and that, as they say, is that.
Final result: Major victory to the
VC, 1351-620.
MVP: The miners. These guys scored literally every single one of my victory points- 220 for the hellsteed vampire, +100 for killing the general, +100 for a table quarter, and 200 points for crumbling bats.
Villan of the match: The world destroying meteor that is the blood knights.
This game was actually quite enjoyable. I did much better working the magic phase and felt pretty confident there. Irresistible Force for curse of years was horrible news, but I think the blood knights would have blown right through the longbeards anyhow. My plan seemed pretty solid. I intended to use the slayer and rangers to tag the blood knights in the flank after fleeing other units and either holding them up, or maybe even knocking the frenzy out of them and getting some points. This didn't play when the rangers were eaten and I couldn't stop the bats from growing. I may have been able to work some kind of alternative by bringing the miners on in front of the bats. They might have been able to march in front of the freight train and survive a charge from the bats and could have clogged the lane, preventing the blood knights from sailing in. They could have even angled so that when the mess cleared up they could take the knights right off the board. I didn't see it in the game, so maybe it wasn't there, but I need to keep thinking along those lines.
Other lessons- I do not have a unit that can take a charge from a full up unit of blood knights right now. Even if I get a unit of hammerers together, the BK would have simply killed them all. The valiant rune continues to be a lot of fun. Question is whether it's worth it against non fear causing armies. Or even against the fear causing ones. I know the
BT was rather heavily upgraded, but it'll need to remain along those lines till I get another war machine painted.
Still... I'm encouraged. I improved to Solid Loss from Massacre. That's got to be worth something, right? All in all I did feel more comfortable with maneuvering and what direction units flee. Hopefully see another game this Thursday. More as it comes!
Thanks for (lots of) reading. Recommendations are welcome as always.
RZ
