I played another game vs Dark Elves last night.
His list was roughly:
Lord on dragon w/crimson death, regen, pendent
BSB w/hydra banner on cold one
L1 scroll caddy
Assassin with
KB, +d3 attacks, -1 attack for enemy
5 Cold one knights w/full command, cold blood banner
3 x 5 dark riders w/musician, rxbs
20 spears (held wizard and assassin)
2 x 5 harpies
2 x chariot
Hydra
So it was speed/hitty
DE.
I fielded:
L4 Sorc Lord w/
MoS, Infernal Puppet, Sword of Might, Third Eye of Tzeentch, Chaos Steed = 379
L2 Sorc w/Daemonic Mount, Scroll, Spell Familiar = 210
Exalted
BSB w/
GW, Shield, Banner of Wrath = 193
10 Warriors w/shields,
MoS, full command = 200
12 Marauders w/Flails,
MoS, Mus = 74
12 Marauders w/
GW,
MoS, Std, Mus = 82
5 Marauder Cav w/Flails, Mus = 81
5 Marauder Cav w/Flails, Mus = 81
5 Dogs
5 Dogs
6 Knights w/
MoS, Std, Mus, War Banner = 305
6 Knights w/
MoS, Std, Mus = 280
Chariot = 120
Chariot w/
MoS = 130
1 spawn = 55
For spells I got Lash of Slaanesh, Hellshriek, Delusions, and the Fear/Terror spell. The L2 got fireball and burning head (I forgot my spell familiar).
Obviously with his mobility he had a big manoeuvre advantage, and controlled the engagement terms a lot during the battle. Against armies with fast cav, I always really feel the lack of shooting.
The table included a hill and wood which each scattered within roughly 6"-8" of either side of the center (hill to my left, wood on the right), leaving a comparatively narrow center area and dividing the table pretty evenly into three zones.
My warriors w/
BSB & sorc lord pressed up the center, supported by both chariots. They were opposed by the warriors (with sorceress and assassin), cold one knights (w/
BSB), and a chariot. My marauder foot, one unit each of mar horse & dogs + the spawn fought on the right, facing off against two units of DR and a chariot. On the left my knights, L2 sorcerer, and a unit each of dogs and marauder horse faced the dragon, hydra, one unit of dark riders, and the harpies.
My dogs on both flanks died quickly, followed by my marauder cav. DR Rxbs did most of the damage, though a single unit of harpies finished off both the left flank dogs and marauders horse.
On the left, one unit of knights got into the hydra turn 2, killed the handlers and dealt two wounds, losing only one knight in return, breaking it and running it down. The other unit got charged by his dragon rider, losing 5 knights in the first round, breaking and dying. The sorcerer played cat & mouse with the dark riders and harpies, fireballing every turn, to little effect due to bad rolls for # of hits and to wound. He eventually died to DR shooting, despite me getting him into hard cover after the first wound.
In the center, one of my chariots failed its charge by half an inch on the CoKs, then fled their charge in turn to let the second chariot get in. That chariot, despite having two wounds on it going in (from Doom Bolt), managed to kill three knights and hold on for three rounds of combat (with the help of
BSB re-rolls) before being broken and run down. My warriors eventually got into his warrior block, and his assassin missed the
KB on my sorc lord, dealing just one wound. I killed two
DE warriors, did a wound to the assassin, and killed the sorceress, breaking and running down the warriors. The dragon circled around behind my warrior block and breathed on it around turn 4 or 5, which caused me to pop both my characters out of the warriors and reform the warriors to flank charge the Cold One Knights, so as to make my opponent pick one thing to charge with the dragon. Thankfully I got Delusions off and he wasn’t able to charge, but his left flank DRs managed to get a second wound on my lord in shooting. In the last turn he eventually rear-charged my warriors with those four dark riders, and flank charged with a cold one chariot, hoping to kill either character (my
BSB was on the side with the chariot). It was a near thing (charioteers are S4 elves with spears!!), but neither of my characters was killed, the
BSB’s great weapon annihilated the chariot, and the Sorc Lord + warriors killed all the dark riders. The Delusions would have basically taken the dragonlord out of the game, but gave me what looked like a sweet rear charge + higher ground opportunity with my remaining knight unit, and I foolishly took it. I rolled well and put three wounds on the dragon, but lost 4 knights. The last knight held the first round, then was destroyed in the second. Never charge a model with 9 S6 WS6+ attacks with re-rolls to hit. Especially when the SOFTER part of the model is T6 with a 3+ save.
My spells didn’t do a whole lot, but helped. I cast fireball, hellshriek, and delusions pretty much every turn, except one turn in which I cast the fear spell to make my non-Slaanesh chariot cause fear so he woudn’t have to take a fear test to charge the cold one knights on the following turn. The left flank Dark Riders panicked from the shriek on turn 1, and I think one of the chariots did once as well. After I killed the sorceress I was able to start getting Delusions on the dragon, which would have limited its damage to the one knight unit and a couple of breath weapon attacks if I had been smart. Which is quite nice. Otherwise I wasn’t too impressed with the new Lore of Slaanesh. I’m particularly depressed by the fact that most of the lore is useless vs ItP armies. Ie: Vampires and Daemons. I took Third Eye of Tzeentch to try and compensate, but that’s hardly guaranteed. My opponent can still bunker his wizard and screw me. And Khornate or Nurgle daemons are likely to have little or insignificant magic. What really sucks is that if you have a god’s mark you’re not allowed to take any of the other Lores. If I had the option to fall back on Shadow, it’d be much better. As it stands I might drop
MoS from my Lord just so I can take Shadow every game and try to lean on Pit, Unseen Lurker, and occasionally flinging my
BSB around using Steed of Shadows.
On the far right flank I lost the dogs, marauder horse, and a unit of marauders, but the spawn and
GW marauders did yeoman’s work, in part thanks to a couple of failed Fear tests for Dark Riders to charge, I managed to kill both units (both because Fleeing the spawn on those turns would have run them into a building or off the table respectively). Still, if he had just played more conservatively and danced a bit more, I would only have been able to get one or neither.
As it was I lost by about 380. If I had resisted the temptation to charge the dragon, I’d have a Draw (still in my opponent’s favour), as I’d have lost out on 160 (half points for the dragon), but not given up 380 (knights + banner).
I'm trying to finalize my league list for submission today- the rules are I have to lock in at least 1500pts including any Lord-level characters and whatever character is my general. The remaining points can be flexed from game to game. The thread for that discussion is here:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/221433.page
Any feedback is very welcome, thanks!
