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Here we are again for another quick hitting installment of Relentless Lite. I brought the camera, but folks were trying proxies and unpainted, so no full episode to be made. I know I owe one of those again soon, sometime, so I'll see what I can line up. In the meantime- 2 games at 2500 points.

Game 1

By now, you should all be familiar with Geist. By the time I made it to pick-up night, he was the only player available, so we went for another round of Purple Sun Roulette. Geist has been tweaking his list, and it now looks like so:

2 x 28 crossbows, shields, full command
2 x cold one chariots
6 shades, crossbows, two hand weapons
2 war hydras
Dreadlord on dark pegasus, heavy armor, shield, cold one cloak, re-roll enemy wards, 2+ ward vs. flaming, reverse ward
Master on dark pegasus, BSB, sword of might, cloak of Hag Graef, 2+ ward vs. flaming
Sorceress on dark steed, opal amulet, power scroll
Supreme sorceress on foot, 4+ ward, possibly something else

Our scenario was Blood & Glory, which I was pretty happy with. I've got a fortitude of 7, so can afford to take some hits and still move. With the Dark Elves, I'd need to drop two banners, or kill his general. Given that at least one of those banners would have to be the repeaters, and I wasn't willing to advance while hydras were still at full strength, I figured I'd more or less have to commit to killing his (reverse ward save) general. However, this iteration didn't have the stubborn crown, and I was pretty sure I'd be able to make it happen with some MR of Challenge and counter-charge shennaningans. Of course, it was all going to swing on what the purple sun did...

Highlights
- Dark Elves go first, and power scroll purple sun. I figure I'm good on a misfire or a 2 on the artillery die, and okay-ish on a 4. Mercifully, it misfires, and bags a hydra to boot. In fact, no other purple suns got off this game, as the next attempt failed to get a pair of 6s on 10 dice (which puts it in scroll territory), and the third attempt failed to meet the casting value on 8 dice.
- This is good, because my cannon spent two turns doing the 2", 2" shot, bounce, and my grudge thrower managed to score only one hit on the other hydra for 2 wounds.
- By staggering the dragonslayer and regular slayers I managed to drop the rest of the wounds from the hydra before it was in to my lines.
- Rangers snuck in behind everyone and jumped the shades who were escorting his level 4. Unfortunately, they lost too many on the stand and shoot, but won the first round anyways, and missed breaking the unit by one. At the least, they kept the level 4 from getting involved in the *real* fight.
- And in the real fight, I managed to get my lord's block into his dreadlord, who still wasn't killy enough to take down my general. I even snuck a wound through, for a massive combat res advantage, and chased him off. I didn't catch him, but the gyro was waiting and finished the job. This is why I still can't let the gyro go!

I definitely got away with one here, not having to see a single purple sun. Geist plans to stick with this list, though I don't think it's the strongest of his builds. He's liking the Dark Pegasi, but I feel like 8th has limited scope for killy solo characters.


Game Two

This time I got to see High Elves for the first time in 8th. Sam had recently picked up Island of Blood (as you can tell from the list) and was running:

Prince on Griffon, 2+re-rollable, 4+ ward, magic attacks, great weapon
3 x Level 2s, w/Shadow, Life, Metal
2 x 21 Seaguard, full command
1 x 20 Archers
30-ish swordmasters, full command, banner of sorcery
5 reavers

We had Blood and Glory again, and once again, I was in a position to win if I could kill the general or the sea guard. Terrain was kind of ludicrous with all kinds of mystical monuments and buildings. After deployment I liked my odds of getting the seaguard banners so long as I could find a way to deal with the swordmasters.

Highlights:

- All my magic prevention efforts went in to stopping the -D3 strength, dwellers combo he rolled, which was pretty scary, but never successfully went off.
- Terrain had a big impact on the game. Wyrding Well and Regrowth kept enough swordmasters alive to come take down my longbeards. The 11 that made it chopped up all 19 of my longbeards, losing only 2 in return.
- I foolishly squandered the MR of Challenge very early, in the kind of mistake I shouldn't be making any more. Basically, a unit of seaguard shrugged, fled, and rallied even farther away than they were, making for an even longer slog.
- And when I got there, 20 warriors and thane charged in, lost 4, killed 2, broke and were destroyed by the seaguard.
- This came at a critical phase where my hammerers had just panicked after the dragonslayer died, and were no longer going to be able to get the other seaguard banner, which basically meant I was going to have to take
- The gyro was absolutely devastating on the elven formations, even with partials. The kill total was in the thirties by the end of the game.
- Reavers were better than I expected. I couldn't really afford to direct shooting at them with the swordmasters needing so desperately to be annihilated. As a result, they were able to get in to my back lines, and were it not for some good luck on my part, would have cleaned up the cannon and grudgethrower easily.
- Despite late setbacks, I was able to get his general for the win by using the organ gun as bait, and trapping his general with rangers and slayers until I could bring enough static combat res to break him and run him down. As a bonus, the slayers managed to kill the griffon out from under him, which made a significant dent in his killing power.
- In that same turn, I also solo charged my dwarf lord into the remaining swordmasters, and used his durability to get through unscathed, break them and run them down. This may end up being my go-to tactic for dealing with swordmasters in future...

So despite facing another scary magic threat, I got off lightly. On the one hand, I felt like the game could have been decided if Dwellers went off, but on the other, I felt like things were at least manageable with only level 2s doing the casting, and no power scrolls in sight.

That's it- I'll see about getting a proper installment in the next week, but until then, thanks for reading!

Nice reports i wanna see some pics =). Your dark elf friend seems pretty unlucky failing to cast with 8 dice and misfiring when he used his power scroll lol, if i was him i would keep trying it has to work oneday. gj

Benny,

It has worked for Geist on many a day... I've played against that list 3 times now. The first time, he cast purple sun with IF 3 times and it devastated my army. The second it crippled my longbeards and destroyed my gyro and organ gun.

Believe me, I was crying no tears for the purple sun suicide caster...

RZ

Interesting list for the HE player. He was new wasn't he?

This was our first meeting. I don't believe he was new, but couldn't say for certain. The griffon prince was in purely because he liked the model, though he's about ready to give up on it...

Purple Sun made me kind of angry the first time I read it. Kind of a one-shot game decider in some situations. Upon actually using it I found its not too bad. Too much can go wrong and its just so much fun! I'm thinking of modeling a huge ball of purple energy to float above the battlefield.

Nice concise reports. I coudn't really visualize the game but you put in enough important point to get the gist across. I'm actually curious about how solo characters are now against blocks. Stubborn sucks but stuff like chaos lords and Dwarf characters should be able to mow down enough to at least not lose combat. You've given me something to think about.

Keep writing please!

Great reports as always zeke short and sweet, like dwarves like it (with ale on top)

powerclaw wrote:Purple Sun made me kind of angry the first time I read it. Kind of a one-shot game decider in some situations. Upon actually using it I found its not too bad. Too much can go wrong and its just so much fun! I'm thinking of modeling a huge ball of purple energy to float above the battlefield.

Nice concise reports. I coudn't really visualize the game but you put in enough important point to get the gist across. I'm actually curious about how solo characters are now against blocks. Stubborn sucks but stuff like chaos lords and Dwarf characters should be able to mow down enough to at least not lose combat. You've given me something to think about.

Keep writing please!

actually dwarf characters are much better at taking hits than giving them. Sure, you could rune up your weapon to always wound on a 2+ but that would cause you a serious hit in the survivability department and with our low Ini we'd be dead before fighting back against the likes of most heroes. On the other hand we can have a lord with a 1+/4+ rerollable and still have enough for a RoMight and Fire which is situational but at the same time potent. The big winner for dwarves is that we can take the blows while our GW squad swings back like madmen....That and most of us bring 3-5 warmachines

Red_Zeke wrote: And in the real fight, I managed to get my lord's block into his dreadlord, who still wasn't killy enough to take down my general. I even snuck a wound through, for a massive combat res advantage, and chased him off. I didn't catch him, but the gyro was waiting and finished the job. This is why I still can't let the gyro go!

I didn't quite follow this part. Was the gyro in the combat and ran them down on overrun? Or did he fail to rally his unit and on the following turn you charged with the gyro and chased him off the board? Or maybe it has a special rule I'm not aware of...

Nice reports, I actually think the dark elf list looks pretty hard! Although I'm not sure about the solo characters, either (I'm assuming dark pegasii means they can't join units and don't get a LOS?). The high elf list looks like it could use the work, and sadly the nice griffon model is probably the first thing that should go

How many IoB sets did he buy??? Or was he using other models for the sea guard / swordmasters? That's a lot of sets! I guess he could have gotten there by buying 2 sets and swapping the skaven for HE.

Nice concise reports

RiTides:

Good catch! I've truncated a turn there. He rallied, and then easily fled the second charge from my lord's block. Unfortunately for the dreadlord, this brought him into the waiting LOS of the gyro, who declared a charge and wrapped the game up.

I don't know how may sets he bought- and I couldn't really tell if there were some metals in there. He'd been playing a little earlier with a skaven buddy, so I expect there was indeed some buy & swap going on there.

The Dark Elf list is hard to evaluate. It's certainly got hard elements, but I think you need to be more disciplined than Geist was in this match. The Dreadlord, BSB, 2 Hydras, chariots, and suicide caster make a pretty scary shock force, the speeds are all fairly different, and it's easy to get stretched out and separated. A dwarf block can easily absorb one of the characters, but not so much if accompanied by chariots or hydras.

He's taken the Stubborn crown off the dreadlord for added killy-ness, but I think it makes him too vulnerable to static combat res. Anyways, word is he's finally going to drop the sun caster and try some other options. We'll see how it goes!

Ah, but that brings up another question for me. I've had people play declaring charges in different ways- sometimes I've gone down the line, declared them all, and then had him react to each in turn. Actually, this seems to be how I usually do it.

The way I think we should be doing it, is I declare a charge, then he declares his reaction, then I move to the next unit.

However, does this mean that we actually play out the reaction (such as a stand and shoot, or flee) before moving on to the next unit declaring a charge? It had never occurred to me to position a unit waiting for another unit to flee, and then declare a charge on it after it fled (because the lazy way we tend to do it wouldn't allow that, if all charges are declared first before reactions were played out).

It sounds like you did it right... it's just rather a revelation to me as many of your tactics tend to be!

Well played, my good dwarf... well played

Red_Zeke wrote:In fact, no other purple suns got off this game, as the next attempt failed to get a pair of 6s on 10 dice (which puts it in scroll territory), and the third attempt failed to meet the casting value on 8 dice.

I thought of another question on the way to work . Shouldn't he only be using a maximum of 6 dice to cast a spell? (Or does DE get some kind of exemption to that rule?)

I don't play a caster army but I'm pretty sure the limitation on dice used per caster level was removed. That's why you see people throwing literal hand fulls of dice into a purple sun casting.

it's a DE special rule. No cap on how many dice they can throw. Almost everybody else is stuck with 6 per spell (empire can take an item boosting them to 7, some other special rules exist.

Malleus has it. Dark Elves are permitted to use as many dice as they want on a spell. One of those rules written for 7th that has a markedly different effect in 8th...

Ah, got it! Thanks for explaining that

Haven't had the pleasure of playing against DE yet in 8th... looks a bit scary though, I must admit!