Dakka Veteran
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I was originally supposed to play against a lizardmen army last night (a really lovely matchup for me, as they're slow and my magic defense is good), but my opponent accidentally scheduled two games on the same evening, and the other one was a campaign game. Instead, there was a guy hanging around who played counts and is going to the same tournament I am next weekend, so we decided to give our tournament lists a workout. Mine is:
Runelord with 2 scrolls, a Rune of Stone, and a shield.
BSB thane with 1+ rerollable armor save
Master Engineer with Brace of Pistols (this, I am coming to see, is an epic waste of valuable points).
19 warriors w/shields
19 Hammerers w/shields, banner of immune to fear and terror
S7 bolt thrower, engineer (gives it BS 4)
s6 bolt thrower, flaming, engineer
Cannon, Flaming, reroll misfires
Grudge Thrower, reroll scatter die
Organ Gun
Gyrocopter
10x Thunderers, shields
10x Quarrelers, shields
His list: (apologies, I don't know the book)
Vampire lord on Abyssal Terror (critically, a large target) with 4+ armor save and 5+ ward.
Wight King on horseback (moves like ethereal unit, with the black knights)
2x Vampires, one on foot (but either it could fly or it was hella fast), one mounted (with the blood knights)
3x20 zombies
5x Blood Knights
5x Black knights (I don't know if they came with it or it's an upgrade, but they ignored terrain when they moved and also had a banner that let them march even with no vamp nearby)
Varghulf
7 of whatever kind of dog the vamps get
My thoughts: his lord is EXTREMELY vulnerable, being a large target and having only a 5+ ward (since most of my hardware ignores armor). However, two units of heavy cavalry, one of them cranking out four attacks each, plus a big choppy monster, plus some fast cav that can get in my face very quickly, are very nearly my nightmare list.
I had a hill in my DZ toward the right hand side of the board. It was a two-tiered hill, but we called it one level for simplicity's sake. Directly across from that a bit out of his DZ was a small forest. He had a hill in his dz almost exactly diagonally across the board, and there were a couple of huts (impassable) in no-man's land near the left-hand board edge. All directions are from my point of view.
He rolled Wind of Undeath, summon undead horde, and the #6 spell for his lord, but he defaulted to the level 1 instead of the six. One of his other casters rolled the 1 from vampire lore, the other (mounted) got vanhels danse.
The table was only 3' deep (this is primarily a MTG shop) so we each only got a 6" Deployment zone. With the hut on my left flank, I started with a slightly angled troop of thunderers, then (left to right) organ gun- grudge thrower- hammerers (with BSB)- and then (all on the hill, all RIGHT next to each other) cannon, Quarrelers (2 ranks), S7 Bolt thrower, s6 burning bolt thrower. The anvil was behind the hill and the Engineer went with the cannon, as he does.
He responded with Zombies 1, Lord on terror, Black Knights - blood knights with dogs in front of them to block shooting, more Zombies, and then his foot vampire hidden from view of ALL my war machines (his placement was superb) by a little forest, and finally his last zombie block. the two corner zombie blocks NEVER moved, and were only there to take table quarters.
VC turn 1.
He got the first turn and took it. His foot vampire went from the back of the small forest to the front, remaining in cover but visible if I had wanted to shoot him. Everything else moved up as far as it could. Critically, his Black Knights couldn't QUITE make it to the other side of one of the impassible huts on the left side, and so
effectively had about 5" subtracted from their march move. This was going to matter a great deal in later phases of the game. His blood knights moved not quite their full distance forward, and the doggies did a lot of free reforming to land angled so that the grudge thrower and organ gun couldn't target his knights. Also, the Varghulf used the middle block of zombies the same way (they could march), hiding behind them to stay out of range of any shooting that wasn't on a hill. Lastly, his lord hid between the huts on the left-hand side of the board. I had heard a lot about VC magic phases, and envisioned swarms of zombies showing up right in my face and units of zombies 50 strong making an inexorable advance across the board. However, he only had six PD (to my seven DD), and in this magic phase he accomplished nothing (attempted to vanhels danse the black knights but I dispelled it).
My Turn 1.
I moved the hammerers up and left a bit, since they were positioned to miss the whole battle. I moved the gyrocopter up so that it marchblocked: the varghulf, the zombies, the blood knights, and the dogs. I made a pretty good guess with the cannon in shooting (aimed at the zombies, but I was really hoping for the varghulf) but rolled two 10's and missed everything. In hindsight, I ought to have shot his walking vampire in the forest, which was directly in front of the cannon. GT scattered to nowhere despite an excellent guess and despite the reroll. My s7 bolt thrower had a flank shot on the blood knights, and killed three of them. The gyrocopter steamed the dogs (had a great angle), and got partials on all seven of them... for one hit and no wounds. My plan began to unravel. I shot all but one of the dogs with thunderers and the organ gun, but having to use the organ gun on dogs meant that they had accomplished what he wanted them to do anyway. The quarrelers, way out of position and without full LOS, shot his zombies in the middle and killed a couple (I figured shooting a T5 varghulf with regen was a waste of time). The anvil slowed down the blood knights. In close combat, the vampire killed two cannon crew, but the last one and the master engineer held, doing zero wounds.
His turn 2:
His foot vamp was able to charge my cannon this turn by a couple of millimeters. The Master Engineer hit with both his pistols, but failed to wound. So much for the cannon. His zombies charged the gyrocopter, which fled. His blood knights, declared a charge against the thunderers, but failed it. we later determined that if he had moved his full move distance in the first turn he could have made it in. Crucially, we both forgot that his lord was a large target and could see over the huts; he was within charge range of the thunderers with it, but didn't charge, instead moving right behind them to cause a terror check (they passed it). This was a gamebreaking oversight given what happened next. His zombies in the middle moved forward their 8" with the varghulf in tow, and the black knights continued their end run through the little village. For a second time, they couldn't QUITE march all the way through a hut, and so had their move shortened. He moved his last dog horizontally in front of the organ gun so that it couldn't see the blood knights or the varghulf, which was now beside (not behind) the zombies. However, they were now within charge range of the exposed flank of the thunderers, hut or no hut. In his magic phase, he rolled 11 for invocation of nehek and I failed to dispel it on four dice, and got a blood knight back. Then he rolled a six with one of his other casters, and I didn't get a six on two dice, so now he's back to four knights plus a mounted vampire, and easily within charge range of my warrior block and the thunderers. Valaya was apparently doing her makeup or something. In close combat, the Master Engineer challenged to prevent the combat from ending so soon, and was duly sliced up into bits. Maybe I should buy him some items or something. The last crewman held.
My turn 2: I declared a charge against his vamp fighting the cannon crew with the quarrelers, hoping to combat res him into oblivion. They failed their terror check, though, which also meant that I couldn't shoot anything on the ground with either BT as the quarrelers blocked their LOS to almost everything. My placement there really sucked. The gyrocopter failed to rally and fled off the board. I reformed the thunderers into a two-rank block facing the lord on his scary flying thing (I had thoughts of anvil-charging him or something). The hammerers moved up to within 4" of the zombie block, which had been whittled down a bit by some quarreler shooting. They could have anvil charged the blood knights in the flank but it didn't turn out to be necessary (and they would have been rear charged by zombies AND a varghulf). The warriors on the left reformed to face the (I thought) doomed thunderers and, ultimately, the black knights and the Lord. This opened them up to a flank charge from the Blood Knights, but what I was expecting was that the Lord would overrun into their way (apparently, vamps don't overrun, but I didn't know this).
My thoughts at this point were that he was going to crumple my line from the flank, but he was still awfully far from the anvil and some war machines and maybe I could pull out a draw. However, this shooting phase really changed the game. The grudge thrower shot his middle block of zombies and killed well over 10 of them (I don't know how many, but there were three left), since with that pesky dog still right in my mix I couldn't see much else. I shot his lord with the organ gun, but rolled only 2 hits and got no wounds through. And then I shot his lord with my two bolt throwers, since he was the only thing they could see, being a large target. The first one hit the monster, but failed to wound. The second one, though, rolled a five to hit the lord, a six to wound, and then a six again to do three wounds after he failed his 5+ ward.
I really felt like this was a tough break for my opponent, as even considering I attempted it twice, the odds were extremely low that I'd actually kill his general entirely. My situation, though, was still fairly grim, with two high-leadership (i.e. no crumbles) units of heavy cavalry right up in my mix, plus a terror-causing flying thing. He assured me that his monstrous mount would probably crumble on LD 4, so I was left with some interesting anvil choices: should I try for an ancient power on oath and honor and get a charge off, at least hammerers>blood knights, but maybe also thunderers>terror to overrun them off the board? Should I just do regular oath and honor and only do the hammerer charge? Or should I do ancient power wrath and ruin and try to slow down as many heavy cavalry units as I could? I ended up going with this option, and got THREE targets: Blood Knights, Black Knights, and Varghulf were all prevented from charging my gunline this turn (also, I managed to kill a black knight when he rolled a 1 for his armor save). This was my second amazing stroke of luck in the same phase, and without it the complexion of this game would have been very, very different. His crumble checks, though, were kind to him, with even his LD4 abyssal terror staying alive (albeit with one wound, he rolled a 6). Some of his zombies crumbled, including the remaining 3 from the block he was actually using in the center, but no knights or characters.
His turn 3:
He attempted to declare a couple of charges with his speed-nerfed units. The blood knights failed, but he way the hammerer block was positioned, the varghulf could JUST get 8" to their front, and the foot vampire, ignoring the quarrelers right next to him and the stone thrower in easy reach in the other direction, and the anvil two moves away (he couldn't see it this turn), elected to charge at max range into the rear of the hammerers as well. He said at the time that he knew both units were going to die, but with the game already lost he just decided to go for it. I think this was inaccurate, as I still had no answer for two buff units of heavy cavalry or his remaining characters, except the hammerers which were busy. Be that as it may, I elected (foolishly) to use great weapons for the combat. My reasoning was that since I was going to win combat anyway (3 ranks, 2 banners, outnumber) I should try to do some wounds as well. I should have gone for survivability, though, as it turned out.
His final charge was the now lord-less terror into my thunderers. His black knights could only move 3" forward, as once again they couldn't QUITE get all the way across the impassible hut. For the third time in the game, his cavalry was slowed by terrain, and the total margin by which it happened probably didn't exceed two inches.
His magic, now down to 4 dice, was easily dispelled, and it was on to close combat. Between them, his two characters killed six hammerers (hatred is no joke) and took zero wounds in return (he regenerated three on the varghulf). However, I still won combat by one and so each of the bad guys took his wound. The terror got managed to kill one thunderer and took no wounds back, but since I had a rank and outnumber, he crumbled from combat res.
My turn 3:
I turned the thunderers to face the expected charge from the Black Knights in a full line, and the Warriors marched toward them (left across my board edge). The organ gun finally took a turn to shoot the dog that was in its face, as it couldn't see anything else. That was a very very effective use of a cheap, depleted unit by my opponent. The grudge thrower killed two blood knights, one with the s8 hit and one on a partial (I had partials on all three but missed once). There were now two blood knights left, plus the BSB vamp. Quarrelers, with nothing better to do, shot some zombies in the extreme corner of the board that were going to crumble anyway, and the bolt throwers couldn't see anything with quarrelers in the way (did I mention my deployment was awful?). I anvil-slowed the black knights, rolling a 2 (glad I didn't go for ancient power that time). In combat, the vamp and the varghulf killed two more hammerers, meaning they took three wounds apiece after combat res (I still didn't manage to do any). This was enough to kill the vamp and leave the varghulf at one wound. There were now 11 hammerers in the unit plus the BSB, meaning that if he killed 2 more he'd get half points for them.
His turn 4: His black knights, anvil slowed, were obviously too far away to charge the thunderers, so he marched them and finally got past that pesky hut. His blood knights charged the thunderers in the flank. His magic failed again, so we started close combat. The Varghulf, before succumbing to combat res for its final wound, did manage to get the 2 hammerers he needed to reduce the unit to below half. I really REALLY should have used shields instead of great weapons, as out of all 7 guys the varghulf killed, if even one had made a 5+ save (3+ base but he's s5) I would have still gotten full points for that unit. Ah well. The blood knights killed four thunderers and the rest fled, permitting the blood knights to pursue off the board.
My turn 4: I marched the warriors up to the black knights, having to stop 1" away. I then shot the black knights with the organ gun, killing one, and with the grudge thrower, which misfired and killed a crewman, taking itself out of the game. I then anvil charged them. That was the only thing of note that happened this turn, with close combat resulting in him losing 2 black knights (he killed 3 warriors). He now had one knight, the wight king, two blood knights and the BSB (off the board), as all his zombies have crumbled, including the ones that never moved.
His turn 5: He showed back up on the board with his blood knights and (illegally, I think, but it didn't matter) charged the warriors in the flank while they fought the black knights. I did a couple of wounds to both units from combat res and lost a couple more warriors, costing me a rank bonus.
My Turn 5: The only thing that happened was that his two units of knights killed a couple more warriors (but not enough to take them below half) and then crumbled the rest of the way from combat res, leaving him with zero models in the game. GG.
Thoughts:
1) I tried to issue a challenge in the hammerer combat with my BSB, but was told that a character attacking from the rear can't accept a challenge from my character in the front row. What's the rule on this?
2) There was some ambiguity about large targets. If I'm already on a hill, and my LOS is blocked by units on a hill with me, can I shoot a large target that's standing on the ground?
3) I need to deploy better. Some of my artillery was taken out of the game by my own poor placement.
4) My opponent was a gentleman throughout, and although he gave up too soon (the white flag was that vampire charge into the rear of the hammerers), I really enjoyed the game.
5) I understand now why competitive dwarf lists take 8 bolt throwers, or at least 6.
6) The game dynamic is REALLY different when your opponent cannot be panicked or forced to flee. And I'm not sure I like it.
Thanks for reading. I'm heading to WAAAGH! Paca this coming weekend, and I'll try to post some photos or something.
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