Hey all,
I am going to the Forgotten Heroes tournament in Edinburgh soon, and having formulated a list was eager to try it out against my friend’s Wood Elves. The comp rules for this tournament are:
2,000pts
No Lords or named characters
Up to 35% can be spent on Heroes
I opted for a magic heavy list, utilising Death and Catapults together.
Heroes = 646pts
Tomb Prince, Shield, Dragonbane Gem, Armour of Fortune (142pts) (General)
Tomb Prince, Dragonhelm, Greatweapon (114pts)
Liche Priest, Level 2, Nehekhara (105pts) (Protection, Dessication)
Liche Priest, Level 2, Death (105pts) (Caress, Spirit Leech)
Liche Priest, Level 2, Death, Horse (115pts) (Doom and Darkness, Soulblight)
Necrotect, Ironcurse Icon (65pts)
Core = 505pts
Skeleton Archers, 19, Mus, Std (134pts)
Skeleton Chariots, Std, 3 (175pts)
Skeleton Horse Archers, 5 (70pts)
Skeleton Horsemen, 8, Full Command (126pts)
Special = 533pts
Tomb Guard, 38, Full Command, Sword and Board (448pts)
Tomb Scorpion (85pts)
Rare = 315pts
Casket of Souls
Screaming Skull Catapult
Screaming Skull Catapult
My opponent went a little insane, and took no magic, but lots of treespirits and archers. In comparison to my horde approach, he was distinctly
MSU.
Noble mounted on Eagle, with spear, shield, Light Armour, Dragonhelm, Amaranthine Brooch
Noble, BSB, with Annoyance of Netlings, Sword of Might
12 Glade Guard
12 Glade Guard
11 Glade Guard
8 Dryads
8 Dryads
3 Treekin
3 Treekin
5 Wardancers
5 Wardancers
Eagle
Treeman
5 Waywatchers
We played Battleline, and I won the roll to deploy. Note the angry and demonstrative stance of a Wood Elf player forced to gaze upon the buildings of man.
I deployed a catapult in each corner, to cover the table, with the Tomb Guard horde in the centre. The Archers and Chariots went on the right to try and shoot/delay that side of the table. The Horsemen went on the left, to help support the Tomb Guard flank. I put my Hierophant, Princes and Necrotect into the horde, with one death Liche in each of the Archers and Horsemen.
My opponent deployed the Treeman behind the building, flanked by Dryads and Wardancers. The Glade Guard were deployed opposite my Horde and Archers. One unit of Dryads went behind the Glade Guard on my right, for some reason, while the Eagle and Noble on Eagle were placed on the flanks to take advantage of my deplorable deployment. His Way Watchers hid behind the tower near my Casket and right Catapult.
I won the first turn.
Tomb Kings Turn One
I pushed the Chariots forward, trying to gain a decent charge opportunity on his units. The Archers ambled forward a bit, to ensure that they were all in range of the Wardancers.
My Tomb Guard stormed forward (if moving 4” can be described as such), while the Horse Archers sidled behind the nearest Glade Guard, aiming to shoot them down. Meanwhile the Horsemen used their move to lose a model to the trees. First blood to the forest, as always in Fantasy!
In the magic phase, I wanted to get some damage done, as well as combo Doom and Darkness with the Catapults. The dice gave us 8-4. I started with Doom and Darkness, which my opponent let through onto the Glade Guard on my left flank. Next I cast a boosted Leech onto his Treeman, which was cast but did no damage. Finally, the Casket onto his Eagle was dispelled, which is a shame as it could have bounced a lot in that area.
Shooting saw the leftmost Catapult misfire and lose two turns of shooting, while the right one missed by 10”. Archery cut down four of the Wardancers. I tried to salvage my plan by panicking the hexed Glade Guard with the Horse Archers, but they only took one wound. So much for my shooting-and-magic approach.
Wood Elves Turn One
My opponent began by threatening my warmachines with his flanking units.
His rightmost Wardancers and Glade Guard turned and prepared to obliterate the poor Horse Archers.
Meanwhile, his Treeman stomped behind the central tower, and the surviving Wardancer sprinted out into the centre lines by himself.
With no magic, we moved straight onto his shooting, which was more effective than mine:
Tomb Kings Turn Two
I began the turn by declaring two charges: one by the Chariots against the Treeman (unwisely, but I didn’t want to lose them to shooting without causing any damage), and the other by the Tomb Guard against the Treekin. My opponent was caught off guard by the latter; he forgot that I was cheerfully happy to fail a charge as it wouldn’t impact the speed of a M4 no-march unit. Small benefits.
Both charges succeeded, and apparently I was so pleased that I forgot to take any photos. Whoops.
Anyway, the Tomb Scorpion (here represented by a Genestealer, as I have not yet assembled mine) popped up, and I decided to use him to try and screen my Catapult from the eagle’s charge arc. The Archers reformed and shuffled around in a failed attempt to do the same for the Casket.
This photo is after the shooting phase, during which I managed to kill one of the pesky Way Watchers with the Archers. The Horsemen moved out of the woods and towards the Horde’s combat, losing another model in the process. I should have screened the Catapult from the Eagle Noble, but because of my bad placement this wasn’t an option any more and so I had to leave it undefended.
In magic, we got 10-6 I think. I decided to concentrate on the Treekin combat, and cast both Soulblight and Dessication unopposed. This left them as S3 T3 Monstrous Infantry, a sight which even Ushabti scorn. My opponent apparently didn’t realise that the Treekin had a chance against my unit at all, and so didn’t bother dispelling. The Casket then went off with infinite force, but didn’t do any wounds at all to the Treekin on my right, thanks to the Battle Standard Bearer reroll; it bounced twice, but again to no effect. I need to remember not to try this against units near the
BSB.
Shooting saw one of the Way Watchers punctured, as mentioned above, while the right Catapult put a rock through the head of a Treekin. It also killed a Glade Guard, as I was trying to get partials on nearby units, but the swine passed their panic test.
In combat, my Chariots did two wounds to the Treeman, who reciprocated in kind with two of his own. I won the combat by two, but unfortunately the (stubborn) Treeman didn’t fail his test and so stuck around.
The Tomb Guard combat saw precisely no damage done by the Treekin, while they lost a model to my attacks. I had really hoped to do more damage, but the dice were not with me, while my opponent rolled very well on his ward saves all game. He then proceeded to pass the break test on snake eyes. Not fair.
Wood Elves Turn Two
My opponent decided to plug the looming hole in the centre of his lines by throwing the Dryads into melee with the chariots. The reader, wise and sagacious as he is, will be able to see the way that the Wardancers are blocking the potential pursuit move of my Horde; my opponent really didn’t want them ploughing into the Treeman combat.
Other charges saw the Eagle Noble into my Catapult…
…and his Way Watchers and Eagle into my other Catapult and Casket.
The rest of his line variously shuffled, in preparation to engage my units in the centre or to shoot my Archers. The Wardancer had failed a charge (on snake eyes) to get into the Chariot combat.
Shooting on my right flank saw some more Archers whittled away.
While on my left the entire Horsemen unit was annihilated by a single Glade Guard unit’s fire.
The combats were very bloody, and resulted in the above situation. The Chariots were removed forcibly by the Dryads and Treeman, without doing any more damage. Bad times. Meanwhile, the Tomb Guard killed another Treekin, losing only one wound from the Tomb Prince with Great Weapon. This time the Treekin duly obliged and fled, with the Tomb Guard catching them and pursing into the Wardancers.
My warmachines all died heroically for the cause, and were so eager to do so that they managed to cause not a single wound between them before shuffling from this mortal world.
On the plus side, the Casket had the good grace to explode the Eagle while dying. As you can see, the Way Watchers overran into the Tomb Scorpion; we thought that they would expand, and thus have a wider frontage, during their pursuit move. This may be wrong, but when you are playing without a rulebook (who other than my opponent would store their rulebook in a different city than their army and gaming table?) then one must learn to embrace the unknown!
Tomb Kings Turn Three
With my main combat unit locked into melee, and most of the rest of my army already dead, I suddenly became a very swift player.
The movement phase saw my Archers attempt to Swift Reform to face forwards, which they failed to do; thus my hope of shooting down the Wardancer came to naught.
My magic phase was something like 8-4. I knew that the Treeman was a major threat to me, and so I drew upon my Death snipes (both known by the nearby Liche Priest) to try and deal with him. I would need to boost both spells to get range, and thus intended to use 4 dice on each for the best chance.
I rolled 9 on my boosted Spirit Leech.
So with that plan in tatters, I opted to try and cast Doom and Darkness on the Dryads behind the Wardancer unit, in the anticipation of overrunning into them. But then my opponent successfully dispelled.
Nevermind.
Combat saw the Tomb Scorpion and Way Watchers exchange handbags; with 1 wound done apiece to the Tomb Scorpion, and 2 done to the Way Watchers, nobody was very impressed.
The Tomb Guard demonstrated how it was done, though, by smashing straight through the Wardancers (losing another model in the process) and into the Dryads within the wood.
Wood Elves Turn Three
My opponent had the upper hand by this point, but wasn’t very happy about my Horde running riot within his battle line. He moved a lot of his units in preparation for counter-charging the Tomb Guard: the Treeman angled for a flank charge, while the Dryads shuffled to be entirely within the wood (and thus Stubborn).
My lone Liche Priest, his bunker lying dead somewhere behind him, faced down the barrels of a goodly number of Glade Guard longbows.
The other Glade Guard planned to demonstrate once again to my Archers how it is really done.
I won’t trouble my kind readers with describing the agonising and painful death of my Liche Priests; nor will I mention how the arrows thudded into their bones with such force as to snap vertebrae clean in half and collapse joints into fractured messes of detritus; such things do not need to be elucidated here. But suffice to say that it was horrifying and horrible to behold, such a feat as to inspire a man to start playing an army with armour saves greater than “dreadful”.
The Tomb Guard yet again didn’t do much damage, and conspicuously failed to wipe out the Dryads in one go, remaining locked in combat. Even worse, the Hierophant got himself gutted in that combat. This is why you shouldn’t put Liche Priests into Tomb Guard hordes, children. On the plus side, I didn’t lose any models to crumble for the rest of the game.
The Way Watchers and Tomb Scorpion did a wound to each other, leaving the former with two models and the latter with one wound.
Tomb Kings Turn Four
By this point I had only the Tomb Guard and the Tomb Scorpion left, making strategic decisions as easy as chopping onions.
The Tomb Guard finished off the Dryads, and reformed on the spot a little bit. I believe that at 10-wide I can shuffle over a bit during a reform, as I can pick one of the two guys in the centre to be the actual ‘centre model’. With this (potentially false and illegal) approach, I managed to present the front arc to the Treeman and the Treekin, but the Dryads were 50/50 between front and side. We agreed that this would be a roll off to see where they would go; it ended up rolling for the flank.
The Way Watchers, meanwhile, put the Tomb Scorpion out of its misery, before it had a chance to justify its hefty pricetag and considerable difficulty of assembly.
Wood Elves Turn Four
The Wood Elves celebrated the death of their Dryad compatriots by charging in with every unit close enough; the Eagle Noble went into the rear (always thought that there was something funny about the Wood Elves), the Dryads engaged in the side, and the Treeman and Treekin stormed into the front. This didn’t look good.
Once again I rolled poorly, and especially couldn’t get anything past the Forest Spirit ward saves; the champion took a hit for the unit by challenging the Noble, while the rest of the unit tried to deal out some wounds to their opponents…
…but unfortunately it was all very unpleasant and I lost well over half the unit in one round of combat
Tomb Kings Turn Five
Another round of combat was all that it took to reinstate the deceased status of my army, and leave all hopes of breaking my opponent’s winning streak in the dust.
Tomb Kings tabled; Wood Elves victory!
Thank you for reading, and please post any comments and criticism below!
