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Tacobake wrote:Forsaken are only S4 I think they are only good if you like them.

Knights: 2S5 + 1S4 attack per 25mm
Forsaken: D3+1 S4 attack per 25mm
Ogres, Trolls/ etc: 3/4 S5/67 attacks per 50mm

Personally I think Forsaken are the runts of the litter but I suppose they are OK if all you want is something to hang on the side and hit a flank. And you can give Knights Frenzy anyway.

#1) It should be noted that I don't actually think forsaken are 'good' but I know for a fact that they're rarely taken while also being one of the only actually new things in the book. 6 of them is cheap so I have no problem sticking 1 unit in @ 2250 for coolness, modeling and to even do useful things - 108 points is a mere 4.8% of total points, so whatever. At 1000 that's not the case, so I'm thinking they'll have to wait.

#2) Something I keep in mind with forsaken is how cheap they are compared to those things people like to compare them to: frenzy warriors, knights, ogres, etc. Minimum khorne warriors? 190 points. Knights? 200. Ogres? 105. Ogres are probably the most appropriate comparison, but like I said I'm 110% unimpressed by non-frenzied ogres, with their lame stats and all. The only thing ogres have going for them over forsaken is fear and being able to conserve their US better, as far as flanking goes.

Looking like I'll be waiting until big points for the frothers to hit the table, but they're definitely in, partially because they're bought, built, and should look pretty tight in a tizz list once painted up

- Salvage

You ever thought about Chariots. Not to derail the thread but I really want to build my army now. Forsaken definitely have the edge on Ogres as far as sheer number of attacks is concerned but don't forget their armour save is only 5+. If you upgrade Ogres with Armour and Additional Hand Weapons they do not really compare to Trolls either, other than the fact they are Ld7 (with no Stupidity mind), which is pretty weak anyway.

Dragon Ogres are maybe looking like a good unit just considering how beefy they are. 3 guys have 12 wounds and a 4+ vs Knights 6 Wounds and a 1+. I mean every army should be able to kill Knights anyway, right. Knights get Musicians, a Magic Banner and a Mark of Chaos maybe Knights win.

Tacobake wrote:You ever thought about Chariots.

Dragon Ogres are maybe looking like a good unit just considering how beefy they are.

Chariots - Love 'em, would happily take 2-3 glowy blue ones for great devastation. Except The Dub refuses to make a plastic chaos chariot. When they do, they'll get $$$ from me.

Drogres - I've got 3 @ 2250, and I dig them for a lot of reasons, none of which is how easy they are to use. I can't understand what they're supposed to do, except be a 231 point support unit incapable of acting on its own

- Salvage

Good job! I've been watching this for a while, and I'm defintely looking at putting Roar on one of my discs.

Pounded out two of four 1000 pointers last night, and was feeling weirdly dirty in the process. I don't think my list is broken by any means, and the hellcannon isn't that good (and gives up 103 points about every game, with the awkward mixed unit rule) ...

Warriors of Tizz 1000

H: Sorcerer - MoT, level 2, golden eye, roar, disc
C: 20 Warriors - MoT, warbanner, full command, shields
C: 5 Horsemen - musician, spears, light armor
C: 5 Horsemen - musician, spears, light armor
C: 5 Warhounds
R: Hellcannon

Going into this new bracket I'm sitting at 1st (61 BP & ~1900 VP), with Empire behind me (61 BP & ~1800 VP), then High Elves (61 BP & ~1700 VP) and Brets (60 BP & ~1800 VP).

Game Thirteen: Empire

Empire 1000

H: Warrior Priest - sword of justice, enchanted shield, barded horse
H: Wizard - rod of power, barded horse
C: 25 Swordsmen - full command, 7-8 spear detachment, 7-8 handgunner detachment
C: 5 Knights - full command
C: 10 Handgunners
S: 6 Pistoliers
R: Hellblaster

Scenario
Messengers - Both sides get 3 infantry models (M6, T4, W2, 5+ ward) that give 100 points for running off the other table edge. May join units, though only 1 messenger can exit through every 2' of enemy board edge.

Deployment
Empire (L2R in a very tight deployment): handgunner detach + messenger, knights + priest, swordmasters + wizard directly behind, spear detach, messenger, handgunners on hill, hellblaster on hill, messenger, pistoliers right flank
Tizz (L2R): messenger far left, horsemen, disc (behind hill), hellcannon, messenger, warriors, warhounds right flank, horsemen directly behind them, messenger far right.

His wizard rolled up rule of burning iron, and The Pimp got flicker & gateway

Battle

Turn 1
Tizz won it and blasted off, with disc flying left of the handgunner detach LoS, everybody powering up full unless it was a hellcannon - including the messengers, boosting 12" for great justice. The horsemen on the right stuck behind the hounds as they both angled to deal with the hellblaster next turn ... 3-dice flicker was shut down, and roar didn't do anything memorable to anybody. The hellcannon however landed a blast right between the knights and swordsmen, splattering 2 knights and ~4 state troopers, though both panics were passed.

Empire opened their game by charging pistoliers into the warhounds, who fled through the horsemen and let them take the charge. Knights rolled towards the warriors cautiously, cutting left so the infantry behind could cut right a bit. RoBI against the warrior champ was dispelled, and the priest put unbreakable on his knights. Shooting saw the hellblaster get out 4 shots on the warriors (0 wounds) before misfiring and missing the next turn of shooting (yes!), and the 10 handgunners bounced off the chaos infantry likewise. The handgunner detachment knocked down 1 of the left horsemen at long range. In the first combat of the game, the pistoliers fluffed with 12 S3 attaks, lost 2 on the return, broke and were caught by the marauder horsemen. A nearby messenger of his paniced back towards hellblaster hill.

Turn 2
Just inches from the hellblaster, the horsemen slammed on in, removing a big source of anxiety for me. The other horsemen charged the handgunner detach + messenger, taking no wounds on the way in, while the warriors marched up, the flank messengers booked it another 12", and the hellcannon rampaged 11" to stand unfortunately close to the priest + knights ... Thankfully the central messenger was up to the task of being thrown under their hooves and stood in front of the knights to distract them. The disc flitted behind the empire lines to do eevil things. But not too eevil - flicker on the knights was shut down, though roar dropped the musician from the unit, leaving champ / std / priest. In combat the left horsemen killed only 1 handgunner, but that was enough to chase them and their messenger off the table. The right horsemen rolled better and killed all the hellblaster crew, overrunning into the flank of the handgunner unit.

Things were certainly looking grim for the Averlanders, with their army disintegrating from the flanks and the warstar descending upon their heart ... The warrior priest solo-charged my central messenger, his knights angled to look at the warrior flank, and the swordmen + detachment got in position to accept the chaos charge next turn with a spearmen counter-charge of their own. RoBI was again dispelled, and the priest soul-flared the messenger down handily (meh). No shooting left, so the horsemen proceeded to trample a few handgunners and break the unit. Cataclysmic panic checks followed, whereby the swordsmen + wizard paniced, as well as their spear detachment (crossfiring into the warriors) and BOTH messengers (Ld9) nearby (another dying as it threw itself against blue plate).

He was happy to call it at this point and get on with other games, and things were indeed looking over, with hellcannon set to charge knights or priest, the warstar untouched, horsemen ready to run down the swordsmen and the disc happy to burn / roar anything not being punched in the face. With two messengers off the table I got 1500 out of a max 1650 VP after all bonuses

TIZZ MASSACRE (20-0)

I have his terrible dice to thank for some of this win, particularly that pistolier power-flop that opened up a much easier, much earlier charge on the hellblaster than I could have hoped for. I was fairly unimpressed by level 2 on the sorcerer, but the ability to throw 3 dice at flicker and have a 4th for remains in play (it helped out here, dropping his unbreakable) was ok, though 4-5 dispel was going to be hard to chew through no matter!

Next game against good old High Elves (a different dude though) this afternoon

- Salvage

Game Fourteen: High Elves

High Elves 1000

H: Noble - gem of level 1 wizardness, great weapon, heavy armor
H: Noble - BSB, reaver bow, great weapon, heavy armor
C: 15 Sea Guard - standard, champion, shields
S: 7 Swordmasters - standard, champion
S: 7 White Lions - standard, champion
S: 5-6 Shadow Warriors
R: Bolter
R: Eagle

Scenario
Pitched Battle

Deployment
HE (L2R): eagle, swordmasters + general, seaguard on hill, bolter on same hill, white lions + BSB off hill
WoT (L2R): shadow warriors (scouted into wood on my left flank, as expected), disc, hellcannon, warriors, (building), hounds, horsemen, horsemen

Noble took drain magic & fury of khaine, The Pimp got flicker & pandemonium.

Battle

Turn 1
Elves win it and head out - shadow warriors break treeline for the disc, eagle books down but keeps a hill between it and hellcannon, swords move up some, lions move up to block horsemen lines into the bolter. Drain magic goes off, shooting fails to wound disc or warriors, but drops 2 puppies, who panic back 4" ... 2 horsemen also died from the reaver bow.

Annnd the hellcannon starts things off by rampaging into the eagle, which flees and puts the 'cannon much closer to swordmasters than I would have liked. The disc flits back to pester said swords, the warriors power 8" forward, the hounds rally and the horsemen head around the lions' flank, wondering what the hell they're going to do this game. Flicker and/or roar killed some swords, leaving noble + 2 command dudes.

Turn 2
No charges, though the eagle rallied, and really no other movement besides lion shuffling. Drain magic was miscast, but a 12 result later it went off IR and was forgotten. Shadow warriors + sea guard (all of them) shot the hellcannon, dropping 2 dwarfs but unable to wound the beast. The reaver bow and bolter went into the warriors, dropping 3 after good armor saves.

The warriors got all excited and charged the noble + remaining swords, while the disc flew behind the sea guard to look at bolter and lions. The horsemen continued around the lion flank and rear, looking to nab the bolter next turn ... unless the sorcerer fragged it with flicker! 4 S7 saw the crew vaporized, though the following roar did nothing to the lions (11 hits). The hellcannon got to fire, so slammed a shot dead into the sea guard - and misfired. A 6 result later and the shot went uber, smashing 8 elves to paste with S10 and then turning off. They passed panic but were pretty sad at this point. Combat time, a warrior fell but so did a swordmaster, and the elves easily broke and were pursued, though not caught.

Turn 3
The sea guard hitched up their skirts and charged the warriors in the flank, and the lions about-faced to tag some reaver shots into the disc. Which was a moot point, as solid armor saves kept The Pimp in the game. Likewise the hellcannon, as shadow warriors plinked off it. In fighting, no warriors died, but 3-4 sea guard did, and the unit was easily broken and chased down. This put the warriors securely in the lion flank ...

... and the 395 point unit, carrying two captured standards and one of its own, gladly charged the lone pansy on the flank end. Meanwhile the unit of 2 horsemen charged the eagle flitting about the elf backfield, and the hellcannon wandered over to terror the shadow warriors. The disc zipped over to vaporize the noble + friend, and flicker did just that, with 6 S5 hits. In combat, the horsemen caused 2 wounds, lost 1 man to the big bird, one by musician and the lone horseman chased the turkey down. Now the warrior combat, time for steamrolling, right? Wrong. The end lion hacked down 1 warrior, didn't die to the champ's 3 attaks, lost combat but held on stubborn 8 easily.

Turn 4
The shadow warriors did indeed fail terror, heading to 2" of the table edge. With nothing else left, it was back to the Main Event. The BSB slid over to the end, challenged the warrior champ and crushed him easily. The lions lost but held no problem.

To ensure their destruction, the hellcannon charged the fleeing shadow scouts and pushed them off the table. The Pimp floated around and watched the warstar vs ASF stubborn combat, and the horsemen hung about as well. This round the BSB hacked down both warriors fighting him, the lions lost, and held with no worries.

Turn 5
The BSB kept on lumberjacking, killing 2-3 warriors, losing combat, and holding on the first roll. Who needs a BSB reroll, eh?

After MUCH debating, I tossed 5 horsemen into the other flank of the lions. I mainly did this as the warriors were down to 10 models at this point, giving them rank, standard, warbanner, flank (4CR), assuming that 2 warriors were killed again and they lost outnumber, vs the lions' 2CR + wounds caused. With the horsemen I had 1) a chance of killing a lion, 2) was only giving up 1 CR when the horseman died like I knew he wound, 3) would have outnumber one more time. As it turned out, the BSB killed 2-3 warriors, the lion dropped 1 horseman, the other horseman did nothing, and I won combat on musician (so didn't need the horse). The lions could care less, and I knew next turn was it.

Turn 6
The BSB hacked down 2-3 warriors, both chaos units broke, and the lions caught the warstar for a 545 point swing. Balls.

The horsemen rallied, and The Pimp swooped in for revenge. Flicker fried the lions down to below half with 5 S6 hits, but roar couldn't seal the deal.

TIZZ VICTORY (13-7)

A frankly shocking result, though it confirms my opinion that white lions are the superior of the HE elite infantry. I have a hard time seeing how the warstar could have failed that match up, but his BSB refused to fluff and my armor saves, which had been sterling against empire and elf shooting, just weren't working out at all at this point. Ah well.

- Salvage

Always a fan of your reports and your scary lists, at least when I am in the audience. They get significantly less fun on the receiving end. Sadly, I think my Skaven of the Whitepaw Clan will get to meet you at 1500.

Enjoying reading your reports - especially with my new army being Warriors of Chaos.... Just for interests sake, have you ever tried (I know you're not planning any more games, but anyway ) running the flying BSB at 1k? Something like the below build seems alright as I plan my first 1k lists - an alternate to a sorc. (although I'm probably going to be running just a sorc. 'comme toi' at 1k insead. I know also that the fluff of your list has the Pimp leading it - maybe he has his powers disrupted by the enemy, or fights in an area of weak magic/magic vacuum (going off Truidi Cannavan here), and picks up a flail.

Exalted Hero (BSB): MofTz., Disc of Tz., Flail/Halberd, (204)
Enchanted Shield, Golden Eye of Tz.

Straight swap for the sorc., (in your case) would give the warrior block re-rolls, and is a very good chariot hunter (if not as good at harassing) - I'd probably run him with a normal shield and roar/book but hey - I used the points available .

What do you think of him as a general buy - if you're not looking to go magic heavy, or just fancy a change for casual gaming/find cool model etc.? I know at 1k it's nice to have the extra dispel dice that the sorc. brings, and the ranged capability. I know also the the only niche he seems to kinda fill is chariot hunter (as the horsemen have war machines covered), wizard/lone char. hunter (and march blocker). I guess he'd be good value in a low-magic blitz list as well - maybe even as a support for Valkia?

Anyway, keep up the great reports, looking forward to seeing the rest of the 1k games.

@ J - If you want a preview of a 1500 list I'm messing with I'd be happy to throwdown vs your rats on Monday. I know Drew stepped up, but he's taking everybody on on Monday apparently ...

@ DFire - Thanks for the kind words, hope your own WoC are having a happy rampage as well! I'm a big fan of the flying BSB, particularly in tizz magic spam lists. Give that man the book and you've got another caster, but he can also fight and make people reroll breaks, etc. I do agree with you, his main niche seems to be war machine obliteration, but he can also take most any cav if he gets a flank charge (4 S7 + CR1 isn't too shabby).

Did you check my recent 2250 game against the khorne dragon? That's my end list for now, and I'm happy to just have The Pimp on roar & march block duties. Up until a couple weeks ago I was set on running a disc lord, but a single disc does all the utility work I need and the demo-horse allows for a better supporting role for the main man. In a way my BSB likewise isn't on a disc because this way he's solidly supporting his boys, instead of flitting around and getting away from his duty as lockdown for my warrior line.

Catch my 1500 point list soon enough (Monday if J steps up to bat!), where the BSB does show up, but in a little different form than I initially intended ...

- Salvage

Back from a weekend of 40k (got 3 games to put up on my blogspot at some point ), spent a long day at the LGS and got another league game in. Warning right now, almost everything that could go wrong did, with dice being quite unkind

Game Fifteen: Brettonians

Brets 1000

H: Paladin - sword of might, 1+ save, lance, warhorse, etc
H: Paladin - BSB, warbanner, lance, shield, warhorse, etc
C: 5 KotR - full command
C: 5 Errant - full command
C: 20 M@A - full command
C: 10 Archers - stakes
S: 5 Yeomen - musician, bows, spears, shields
S: 3 Pegasus Knights - full command
R: Trebuchet

Scenario
Hidden Deployment - Deployment is done by sketching where you want things and then revealing your ingenious plans. He had a hill and I a wood, so I think we both knew what was going to go down.

Deployment
Brets (L2R): archers & treb on hill left side, m@a, errant + BSB, yeomen & pegs right behind, kotr + general
Tizz (L2R): horsemen, horsemen, BIG WOOD with disc behind it, warriors, warhounds & hellcannon right behind

All told we hardly broke into the right half of the table, keeping our deployments pretty focused. The Pimp rolled up flickering fire & transmogrification, my preferred spells.

Battle

Before the game began I had two thoughts: 1) "You know, it's about time Mr. Pimp miscast, what with three-dicing flicker all the time"; and 2) "Wow, with the hellcannon right against the hounds like this, if she rampaged she'd just bump into them and go nowhere." Wait for it!

Turn 1
The hellcannon rampaged on a 6-6 and ran into the warhounds in front of her, going nowhere. Horsemen powered up the flank and got ready to take on the archers and treb next turn, disc got into position to flicker knights and roar at archers, the puppies went zooming up to divert the kotr on the right, and the warriors stumped forward a bit. The Pimp went to flicker the errants - and rolled a miscast. A 10 tagged a wound off him and cost him his flicker, dropping him back to a level 1 In retaliation he roared at the archers for 12 (!) hits, killing 3 and panicing them off the hill.

Many, if largely inconsequential, charges followed. The yeomen charged the hounds, who fled. The pegs (+ errants, against their general's wishes) charged the right-most horsemen, who fled and pulled both units board left. Those archers kept running off the board (roar result!), the m@a turned to keep their front arc to the treb and the horsemen wanting to kill it, and the kotr trotted forward to keep pace with the yeomen. The treb scattered off the warriors and failed to partial two of them, and that was that.

Turn 2
Ready for it? Hellcannon rampaged on a 6-5 and boosted 12" to stare at the kotr. The horsemen who fled those charges failed to rally (on a 9, Pimp + musician) and left the table, and the hounds likewise scampered off the board. The other horsemen however happily charged the treb, angled to zip off the table and out of the m@a arc. The warriors marched up to keep even with the hellcannon and present front to the kotr and/or yeomen but not the errants far to their left. NOTE: My opponent here reminded me that pegs have a 360 LoS. I assured him I knew and so hoped The Pimp over the m@a, keeping him out of charge-ability but still able to mess with errants. It wasn't until I had transmogriphied 1 wound off the pegs and got 0 wounds with roar against the errants that I realized he meant that his pegs had a flank charge on my warriors. I got kinda upset, but reminded myself that I'd still get 6 static CR and would no doubt struggle through a dual charge I hadn't anticipated. In the treb combat the horsemen killed all the crew and did indeed run off the table.

So yea, combo-charge: pegs (1 wound down) into warrior flank, kotr w/ general into front. Yeomen moved backfield a bit to look at the disc or horsemen, and the errants reformed to face the warrior combat. Yeomen did nothing to the disc, and it was on to The Main Event. His dudes hit a LOT more than usual, my saves were decidedly poor (but still functioning, they would entirely give out after this combat) and in the end 4 warriors (1 the warstar champ), 1 knight and 1 wounded peg fell. Having beat the pegs below US5, the warstar beat both units by 1, but the proximity of the bret BSB meant they stuck. Whew - charge survived, next turn was retaliation.

Turn 3
The hellcannon behaved for once! But it didn't matter, as she wanted to flank the kotr 2" in front of her anyway, which she did. The horsemen returned to the field and out of the m@a's charge reach, and The Pimp trailed after the errants. Transmog's Ld test was passed (he only failed it that first time) by the errants, and roar flopped. Over in combat, the hellcannon + warriors dropped 3 knights (leaving champ + general) and wounded 1 peg, 1 warrior fell in return, both units broke and neither were caught - the warriors chased the pegs so they wouldn't be flanked by the errants + BSB, and the hellcannon chased the kotr (nabbing their banner in her jaws) to go terror the peasants.

Which it totally did, sending them fleeing far to the left and on to the ex-artillery hill. Both fleeing bret units rallied, with the kotr remnant presenting rear to the hellcannon's flank as she didn't have arc. HERE is where I noted a rampage would be really helpful, as she could go 360 and jump on them ... The BSB and his errants bit the bullet and charged the 15 remaining warriors, in a combat that we both thought was probably mine but in reality was going to come down to dice. He was sitting on 4CR (with 12US) and I had 4CR (with 15US). 3 warriors dropped (total save failure), 1 errant fell, and the warstar had lost by 1. I obliterated the needed 7 with a 9, fled 7" and was caught for a huge point swing. Sadness reigned across the chaos wastes once more

Turn 4
You know what's about to happen, right? I yelled out "NOW GET ANGRY, BITCH!" and the hellcannon rampaged for the third time (6-6 again!), rear-charging the bret general, who passed terror and held. The horsemen backed up away from the angry m@a block, but kept the hill between them and the pegs, and The Pimp floated over to mess with peasants or something. He tossed a long range transmog on the pegs who didn't care, and roar dropped 2 of the fleeing yeomen purely out of spite. The hellcannon ate the bret general (BWAHAHA!), lost a dwarf to the kotr champ and then ran him down, getting within terror range of the m@a.

Those yeomen rallied and looked at the horsemen about to skewer them, the m@a failed terror and fled between horsemen and yeomen, and the errants prepared to charge the hellcannon soonish. Pegs likewise milled about.

Turn 5
The hellcannon passed her rampage test and prepared to fire for the first time all game! Sadly she would scatter 8" off the errants - better than blowing up! - after the horsemen charged down the m@a and redirected into the yeomen, and The Pimp had drifted across the rear of the bret table edge and failed to transmog the errants. The horsemen easily speared their bret doppelgangers, but were left caught on the hill staring at the scary peg knights ...

After some debate they held the peg charge, deciding that he had to stop hitting sometime, right? Flop for the Flop God? The errants meanwhile cheerily slammed into the hellcannon, netting 103 points by killing a couple dwarfs. The hellcannon, with only vengeance on her mind, put everything into the BSB and did jack. NOTE: It wasn't until my drive home that I realized I could quite tactically have chewed on the unit instead. Ms. Nibbles needed 4+ to hit and 3+ to wound the BSB, vs 3+ and 2+ against the errants, which could have been reduced to auto-break level fairly easily. Bah. Anyway, hellcannon was unbreakable, and the pegs killed all 5 horsemen flat out, something I would have never expected from this player's dice.

Turn 6
Pimp skittered away and hid, scared of the pegs. Ms. Nibbles kept gnawing on the BSB for no return, and ran out of dwarfs if she hadn't already. She took a wound too.

The pegs opt to not terror off the board by trying to fight the 'cannon too. The knights and their horses put another wound on the demo-cannon, and she fails to eat the BSB again.

DRAW (10-10)

I will say I got so bent out of shape in this game not just because I felt like my dice punched me in the stomach early and often (double rampage, miscast, failed 9 rally, failed 7 break, 1 4+ or 5+ armor save made ever with warriors, etc), but because I was sure I had this game. If you read this Jeff, sorry for being a dick against you so often, but I guess your brets just drive me nuts or something Your dudes do deserve quite a bit of credit for hitting and wounding like knights for once, not dudes with nerf lances

Because I'm curious how the numbers run:
15 hellcannon attaks into the BSB = 1.11 wounds
15 hellcannon attaks into errants = 1.85 wounds

Hmm, so not overly significant. With the way I roll (poorly) I would still have been better off going for 3+ and 2+, and the way the brets were rolling armor and wards (poorly, when that's usually his specialty), it might have garnered me another 1/2 a unit or something. Neither 1/2 BSB or 1/2 errants would have tipped in my favor though, as we were about 50 points in his favor anyway. Eh.

One more game of 1000 to go, which could be against any of these dudes (Empire, High Elves, Brets) depending on how their games go against each other. With just 43 BP so far I'm certainly not doing as hot as in the 500 point bracket, but a big win (17+) would get me to 60+ and a commanding place in the overall ranking.

- Salvage

One of the more exciting batreps so far. Really wasn't sure how it was going to go. I appreciate the way you keep things concise while still relaying the critical details...

Thanks!

RZ

Wow Im impresd I must admit. You really knows how to wrtihe good battle reports, so keep em comming but do keep that army away from me, it makes me wnt to hide

Thanks for the kind words

For those waiting anxiously for more carnage (me included), I've got my final 1000 pointer on Wednesday vs the brets again! Excited to see what the rematch holds, particularly here at the heady heights of 1st & 2nd place

- Salvage

No offence, but I'm hoping for another 10-10 draw between you two. Trying to avoid you guys getting to far ahead of my rats.

Your record is much better than the 4-2-1 (without tourney) and 7-3-1 (with the tournament) that the rats are running. I do get to rematch against the High Elves who whipped me 20-0. Here's to hoping my dice do not betray me. Stupid Doomwheel moving 5" on 4D6.....

JJBCollect2 wrote:Your record is much better than the 4-2-1 (without tourney) and 7-3-1 (with the tournament) that the rats are running. I do get to rematch against the High Elves who whipped me 20-0. Here's to hoping my dice do not betray me. Stupid Doomwheel moving 5" on 4D6.....

Looks like my league record is not enormously different: 5-1-1 (without) and 8-2-1 (with tournament). Most of my wins were huge massacres @ 500 points, which it's looking like my army can't really pull off as things keep getting larger. As to our Top 4 matches this week, the cool thing is that barring a 20-0 from me, #2 brets or #3 high elves the pack is still pretty tight - and that includes all the armies in the bottom half of the Top Eight, any of which could jump up with a big win.

I think at this point the only thing I know to expect from Jeff's brets is the unexpected! Good luck to you in your own game, hopefully you'll maul him enough to stay in the top bracket sos we can get a slugfest or two in

- Salvage

Looking forward to more. In my experience, the massacre potential with any list is higher at lower points levels. As you get larger, it's more and more likely that someone has an answer to whatever you've got.

RZ

Hey there Boss - no need to apologize. I was getting pretty ticked at the dice rolls too, although the bad rolls seemed tipped to your side (and not in the good way). Just be thankful you didn't play me last week - I felt pretty bad for the High Elf player I played, my ward save was spot-on against his great weapons his Lions and Swordsmasters were pretending to use...


I am looking forward to this week's game as well. Hopefully the dice act a little more normal, and maybe our war machines won't act as dumb as they have in the past. Although I must admit, I wouldn't be overly disappointed if your dude miscasts again and loses flicker... not in the least.

We'll see - I may change things up pretty considerably, maybe bring something you haven't seen before.

But then again, maybe not.

jayzerus wrote:Hopefully the dice act a little more normal, and maybe our war machines won't act as dumb as they have in the past.

Spoke too soon dude ...

Game Sixteen: Brettonians

Brets 1000

H: Paladin - enchanted shield
H: Paladin - BSB, virtue of duty
C: 5 KotR - warbanner, full command
C: 5 Errants - errantry banner, full command
C: 20 Archers - skirmish
S: 5 Yeomen - musician, bows, spears, shields
S: 3 Pegasus Knights - full command
R: Trebuchet

Believe me, I was surprised to see that massive blob of peasants too! But he had created some nice CR in his two knight units as well, presumably to tackle the warstar with.

Tizz 1000

H: Sorcerer - MoT, blood of tzeentch, talisman of protection, roar, disc
C: 21 Warriors - MoT, warbanner, full command, shields
C: 5 Horsemen - musician, spears, light armor
C: 5 Horsemen - musician, spears, light armor
C: 5 Warhounds
R: Hellcannon

Very little change for me as well, the main thing was trying to figure out a way to not be level 2 but still have some kind of casting pump. I figured I'd give blood a shot, but I do now understand its primary downside: it costs 30 points so doesn't stack with anything very useful. Talisman would mean no sexy 3+ ward against his shooting, but when was the last time his filthy peasants managed to wound him? Also I got another warrior out of the deal.

Scenario
Bitter Rivals - If the enemy general is dead at the end of the game and yours isn't, gain 2x the bonus points for slain general. If your general kills his, gain 3x. An absolutely perfect one to roll for such a reeeeematch.

Deployment
Brets (L2R): KotR + general, yeomen (on hill), errants + BSB, pegs, then over in the NE corner treb with archer blob in front.
Tizz (L2R): disc, warhounds directly in front of warriors (and across from yeomen, so lances to either side), hellcannon (LoS from the treb blocked by a ruined building), both horsemen units right flank to make a suicide run into the archer blob + treb.

I'll note here that whatever follows, I only feel like I really messed up by putting anything across from the treb. With so much small bow fire AND the pegs threatening to intervene, my horsemen were a 162 point gift waiting to happen ...

Battle
All I'll say right now is that I had resolved that, no matter what happened, I would take it with a laugh and shoulder on. Well, I would certainly be put to the test

Turn 1
Ms. Hellcannon starts things off right, by rampaging 14" right at the errantry errants. The warstar stomps up, their dogs split left to interfere with the KotR, the disc scoots up to flicker range off the KotR's left flank, and the horsemen move up in such a way that only one could be charged by the pegs, flee and let the other have a shot at poking peasants. Flicker is blooded up and dispelled anyway, but then it turns out that the disc is just in 12" ...

The Pimp took a deep breath and roared at the knights and their general, sending flecks of blood and wisps of flame along with the wall of noise. Armor plates buckled, reins unraveled and the unit standard shredded under the unstoppable torrent, but the paladin and the champion to his right and standard bearer to his left gritted their teeth and bore out the torment. The three knights behind them however were not able to resist the assault, and their skulls were vibrated to fragments, brains jellying in the barrage. Their general glanced back and was overcome by the eruption of gore out of shining Brettonian plate, and had to stifle the urge to vomit as he rode at full speed away from the unholy chaos wretch.

Roar rolls a 10, randomizes around and vaporizes 3 knights (4x 6!), and the unit box cars its break and leaves the table. Whoa. At this point the bret player contemplates calling it, before taking a turn.

But he stuck it out: Errants actually pass impetuous but slam into the hellcannon anyway, and the pegs charge the horsemen they could see, who flee through a forest and stick the pegs right in front of the other horsemen. Yeomen drop 2 puppies and they fail panic, the peasant blob fells 2 horsemen from the free unit, effectively neutralizing them for anything useful, and the treb misfires just like I asked it too! Fortunately for the brets it had only flubbed the shot and lived on. In combat everybody goes into the hellcannon and cause 3 wounds, while the beast eats a couple knights and doesn't particularly care.

Turn 2
The horsemen fail their 8 to rally and leave the table, while the hounds easily rally (!). The warstar moves up to menace the flank of the errants sometime in the future, while the disc glides over to harass the yeomen, while keeping the hill between it and the treb / archer blob. The 3 remaining horsemen decide to throw themselves away and charged the pegs, knowing they're dead meat. Flicker is blooded and shut down (seriously, he kept matching me, despite the blood boost) against the yeomen, and roar only drops 1. Combat, the horsemen are indeed killed to a man by angry flying horses, and the hellcannon loses a dwarf while it chews up all the errants besides the champ + BSB. Draw combat though, so meh.

Pegs reposition to intercept something chaos-y at some point (i.e. flitted over to board center), and yeomen fast cav over to the disc's flank. The treb slams a rock onto the warriors and kills 6 (!), who pass panic, and the excellent shooting continues with the 4 yeomen tapping a wound onto the disc - a wound, I note, that I would have warded on a 3+ In combat the errant champ is devoured and the BSB broke, and is caught by Ms. Angry.

Turn 3
Time to take a risk ... Hellcannon is in control for once, and turns to shoot the peasant blob and panic them away. The warstar continues its long walk to the NE corner, and the disc snuggles up on the left flank of the hellcannon, using it as a shield against peg charges. Here is where I should note that since I woke up this morning, I knew in my bones that if I fired the hellcannon, it would misfire with a 1 and explode. Not kidding, I knew this. Anyway ... Flicker flops again, and the hellcannon misfires, on a 1. The radius includes the sorcerer - he takes 2 wounds from 5 S5 hits - as well as the warstar, which loses 3 warriors to 6 S5 hits. I laugh at this a lot, but it's game over man, for real this time

The brets blink at the chaos self-destruction and begin harassing the warstar, the only remotely viable chaos threat. The yeomen march block it and drop a warrior or so, the treb might have killed some, and the peasant blob probably helped too. I was easily failing 50%+ of my 3+ saves, and made 1 6+ ward out of the next 3 turns. Now that's not even exciting luck, just bad

Turn 4-6
The warstar struggles toward the NE corner, but being march blocked they never had a chance. In turn 6 they turn to look at the peg knights and expand frontage with the 7 warriors remaining.

Yeomen, peasant blob and treb hammer the warriors down, but do not panic them. Pegs contemplate playing with them but turn it down.

TIZZ LOSS (4-16)

So yeah, that really happened After a phenomenal first turn or two from me, my immanent victory quickly tore itself to pieces. At these low points not getting a single flicker off vs 2 dispel dice really hurts, but in larger points I'm willing to have it just be a cool thing with a low chance of miscast. The hellcannon, well I'm not surprised one bit that it misfired so spectacularly at last, and I'll keep her around because 205 points is pretty cheap for such a lovely huge unbreakable thing. I'd like to use a tizz giant, but 245 is rough, and T5 is really pretty unacceptable

For those keeping track, this makes the Top Four going into 1500 points Brets (113 BP), WoC (110 BP), HE (106), WE (101). It's going to get pretty crazy now, with armored/warded knights vs armored/warded infantry vs shooty/magicy/ASF elves vs shooty/treemonic/skirmishy elves ...

1000 Points Fluff End Cap
An armored boot prodded at the Pimp's congealing remains, disturbing the play of witchfire across the bloodied robes. The sorcerer's form was already re-knitting itself, while his pet disc was fully regenerated and skimming for crows drawn to the slaughter.

"Blood of Tzeentch indeed," The Duke scoffed and motioned his personal retinue of warriors forward. A new crew of mutated dwarfs had gone to work rebuilding the hellcannon, and the Duke had brought along a coven of thrall sorcerers to rebind the machine's demon within its frame. She would not be pleased but the Duke could care less - the Pimp had allowed the she-demon far too much leeway and paid for it with his un-life. The Duke had no intention of letting her, or the enemies that the Pimp had made in this contested realm, walk over his men.

The battle standard bearer shook his head, hefted the horned eye banner and went to speak to the newly arrived barbarian horsemen. There was so much to be done before war was once more joined, and certainly no time for dwelling on the failings of sorcerers.

- Salvage

Tough break in the last game Salvage.

The rats suffered a similar disaster. Having a solid 18-2 lead heading into the bottom of the 4th, until the doomwheel failed a 7 inch charge so they could take one from some pheonix guard. Then the final rat ogre gets cut down by a bolt thrower crewmen, and to end it, the mage panics my generals unit in the bottom of the sixth.

End result 10 - 10 draw

Current record is 8-2-2

You know, I've learned to expect the unexpected, and to count on the dice to work completely backwards anytime I play you.


I kinda surprised myself with the mob - I never really considered doing anything like that before. I liked the potential that they present though - there aren't many fast cav units that can withstand 20 shots, even if they are BS3 ST3. Needing 5s and 4s (or 4s and 4s if within 15") usually means at least a panic test. I'll admit though, I was moderately disappointed that I only nailed 2 of your marauders in that first volley. I agree completely that if you had deployed them differently, the game would have gone much, much different.

So looks like we'll get a chance to square off again next round. I think I'm going to keep the mob, mainly for protection for the treb against fast cav and such, and maybe trying to get a pop-shot on a lone character or two. I'm going to have to figure out how to counter the next deathstar that will be staring at me from across the table. I'm thinking 2 12-man lances should do the trick...


Bummer I don't get to squish rats next round. Stupid elves.

jayzerus wrote:
Bummer I don't get to squish rats next round. Stupid elves.

Same here, especially because SOME ratty generals seem to think this is a competition or something! (I'm at 8-3-1 now )

If you run the numbers on your big blob vs the marauders: 20 shots @ 5+ = 20/3 hits @ 4+ = 10/3 wounds @ (5+ armor) = 20/9 or 2.22 wounds. So just about average

Now if you run the numbers on 4 yeomen vs my discer: 5 shots @ 5+ = 4/3 hits @ 5+ = 4/9 wounds @ (3+ armor) = 4/27 @ (5+ ward) = 8/81 or 0.10 wounds

But since we're at it, how about a 10 roar doing 3 wounds vs KotR: 10 hits @ 2+ (randomize off general) = 25/3 hits @ 6+ = 25/18 @ (6+ ward) = 125/108 or 1.16 wounds ... and that's ignoring the probability of rolling 10 hits on 2 dice. Or of you failing the panic check.

The moral of the story: madness!

- Salvage

Lovin' it! Thanks for the posts. Nice to be reading about non-tournament style armies clashing for a change of pace.

RZ

Got the first of the 1500 block in, against a HE player that you'll all recognize from my other posts. Except now he had a lot more elite troops and a lot more magic than he did at 500

Game Seventeen: High Elves

Tizz 1500

H: Sorcerer - MoT, golden eye, book of secrets, roar, disc
H: Exalted - MoT, BSB, talisman of protection, favor, halberd
C: 20 Warriors - MoT, warbanner, full command, shields
C: 19 Warriors - MoT, rapturous standard, full command, shields
C: 5 Horsemen - musician, spears, light armor
C: 5 Horsemen - musician, spears, light armor
R: Hellcannon

Even though I'm ultra-paranoid of miscasting in general, I decided that I'd suck it up and book it through 1500 points, as I'm pretty fond of two-dicing magic missiles and have some hope one will get through the 2-4 dispel dice I should be up against. Otherwise infantry is the name of the game, though I'm quickly learning just how slow 4" really is - my other armies are skaven (5" but don't want to fight) and ogres (6" ho!) ...

High Elves 1500

H: Mage - extra spell, ring of fury
H: Mage - pick spells, scroll
C: 10 Archers
S: 12-14 Swordmasters - full command, talisman of loec
S: 12 White Lions - full command, lion standard, gem of courage
S: 6 Phoenix Guard - full command, banner of sorcery
S: 5 Shadow Warriors
S: Tiranoc Chariot
R: Bolter
R: Bolter

Whoa. I was pretty surprised this was 1500 points, and I suppose I was fairly worried about his UBER magic phase. But I mean, he'll just miscast right? Right?? Also, isn't that too many special? Bolters aren't 2 per slot, are they? Well, that's what he had

Scenario
Warpstone Hunt - Token goes down board center and scatters D6", a unit holding it gets +1PD / +1DD for its side but also takes D6 S5 hits with no armor save (!!) and end of turn. A side holding it at game end netted +150 VP. Suffice to say, neither of us wanted to hold onto it

Magic
The Pimp: flickering fire, dark hand of death
Elf General: rule of burning iron, law of gold, spirit of the forge
Elf Lackey: second sign, thunderbolt

Deployment
HE (L2R): bolter hard left, white lions + general, chariot, swordmasters, archers + mage on hill right flank, bolter on same hill, phoenix guard in NE corner
Tizz (L2R): horsemen hard left, (wood), warstar, rapturestar + BSB, hellcannon, horsemen right flank, disc (both with large wood between artillery hill and them)

Shadow warriors scouted behind a building hard left.

Battle
Thoughts: This is going to be pretty painful, but if I go first and manage to hellcannon any one unit off the table I'll have half a chance. I roll a 1 for first, and he wins it easily.

Turn 1
The elves pretty much don't feel like moving, except for the PG who shuffle up and the chariot which begins redeploying to the left to threaten the poor horsemen misdeployed over there. I should also note that his line was about 2" back from 12", smart move. Magic is blessedly minimal: the banner gives just +1 PD, and with 7 + ring of fury the only result is second sign giving two rerolls and two warriors from the rapturestar dying. Shooting goes into the horsemen units, dropping one from the left and wiping out the right unit. The Pimp is unimpressed and shakes off the barbarian bits.

Madame Hellcannon opens the game by ... staying sane! She stays still to hammer the swordmasters, while the warrior blocks power up 8", the remaining horsemen hide behind the left building and the disc hops over his wood to sit just out of LoS of the PG. With much cracking of knuckles, the Pimp winds up a two-dice dark hand at the bolter ... . A 3+1 miscast later and he's down 1 wound, and the follow up flicker is easily dispelled. His roar is utterly unimpressive too, with 3 hits doing nothing to the PG. The hellcannon lands a template right at the feet of the swordmasters ... and misfires. She decides to eat all her crew and spend the rest of the game rampaging

So that could have gone worse, but not by much

Turn 2
The HE make sure that really just happened, then shrug and get on with the shooting and magicing. Shadow warriors move out to shoot at the horsemen, the general mage exits his unit for the NW corner, the archers turn to irritate the disc and their mage hops out to avoid being charged. Magic puts up a few rerolls but is otherwise fairly floppy - perhaps a warrior or so from the rapturestar fell. He tries to law of gold the BSB's favor off, but doesn't roll 4+. Shooting, the shadow warriors do nothing to the horsemen, the bolters patter off the rapturestar and clean up a rank (3x5 left), and in an utterly infuriating show of incompetence I fail the single wound put on my general by 8 archers. Seriously: 8 bows @ 5+ to hit = 0.1 wounds against a T4 dude with 3/3+ save .......... At this point my cool shattered and I stomped the die that failed that save, though it cheekily didn't care

With little desire to carry this on, I was happy for once that the hellcannon wanted to do her own thing. Ms. Nibbles rampages many inches after the shadow warriors (behind a forest!), whom the 4 remaining horsemen charge, losing 1 on the stand-n-shoot. The warstar stomps 4" towards the white lions, and the rapturestar heads 8" into the face of the swordmasters. A horsemen is hacked down, but an elf is speared in the process, meaning the SW lose by 1 (but easily hold).

Turn 3-4
The swordmasters charge the rapturestar, the white lions back up (!) from the warstar while the chariot eyes its flank, and there is some token movement from the other elves. Magic nets more rerolls, and between it and shooting 4 warriors from the warstar are killed. The elf general attempts to snipe the warstar champ with RoBI, but he makes his ward! The SW kill a horsemen and restrain from chasing the last one as he runs off, unable to rally. In the main event, the swordmaster champ loec's up and dices the rapture champ for 3CR, the exalted wards 3 wounds () but then fails to hit with ALL 4 attaks, and I don't think a single non-champion swordmaster or warrior dies - elite infantry ftw The SM lose on static CR, break and run 8", with the warriors 1" behind them.

The hellcannon rampages through the woods and terrors the SW away, just out of charge range, and the rapturestar charges the fleeing SM and pushes them off the table. The warstar shuffles 4" after the retreating white lions, cursing bitterly.

Turn 5
SW rally, and the white lions finally man (elf) up and charge the warstar, with the chariot slamming their flank. All magic and shooting goes into the rapture star, reducing them to about half. In Fight Land, the war champ takes a single wound from the lion champ but makes his ward! He retaliates by decapitating the woodself. In fact, the only chaos casualty is a single warrior from the chariot's impacts, while the elves take a wound on the chariot and lose a couple white lions as well. The chariot holds @ -4, and the lions stubbornly stick around.

Sticking with what works, the hellcannon rampages again and charges the SW, who terror a second time and die on the building behind them. The rapturestar, unable to reach the artillery hill (which the archers had cleared off of last turn), reforms to try to get the BSB into 12" of the warstar. Turns out they don't need the help: the chariot is destroyed, some lions die, and the war champ makes his ward after a couple elves try to assassinate him! The lions hold no prob.

Turn 6
PG grab the SE table, and then all magic and fire goes into the rapturestar - it lives with 5 + BSB. The war champ finally succumbs to all that S6, but the lions lose again. The warstar expands to 6 wide (11 remain total).

Ms. Heck continues raging and charges the flank of the white lions, and the Duke leaves his unit to stand nearby the warstar and offer support. Many lions die but not quite all - 3 remain ... BUT they fail their break! Big points!

DRAW (10-10)

What started out truly terribly ended up a mere 2 point win to the High Elves, thanks to warriors being frightening. Our dice turned from 'horrific' (mine) and 'scary' (his) to 'decent but terrible at saving' (mine) and 'floppy' (his) about midway, which I guess I'll credit with some of this draw You'll note that I mashed some turns together there in the middle - wherever the missing turn is, you can bet that my warriors stumbled after their targets and got shot, the hellcannon had a very low roll (turn 3), and actually both elf wizards miscast. Turn 3 I think his general got the 4 result I did (took a wound), and around turn 4 the other miscast (no wound) and ended the phase. So I'll thank his general's miscast and the white lions timely break, without which it'd have been a loss. Thanks elves for coming through when that Pimp bastard couldn't

- Salvage

Nice! Way to pull the draw after a truly appalling opening turn.

I like reading these for some of the non-standard builds and plays. Talisman of Loec on a Swordmaster champ? Weird, but interesting. I mean, it kills the champ, but I guess it gives a pretty good shot at taking down a hero level character.

It was also a pretty bold charge with the swordmasters. I mean, they're good, but that still seemed like a tall order.

RZ

So I was already pretty beat from smashing on my buddy Dictator Games - WHFB: 2250 my Skaven vs his TK, BFG: 1250 my Chaos vs his Orks - but it was time for the next round of 1500 league mayhem. And who was up?

Game Eighteen: Brettonians

Brets 1500

H: Paladin - sword of D3 wounds, e. shield? (1+ save)
H: Paladin - BSB, virtue of duty, questing vow
C: 8 Errants - errantry banner, full command
C: 6 Errants - full command
C: 6 KotR - full command
C: 17 Archers - skirmish
C: 20 M@A - full command
S: 5 Questing Knights - full command
S: 3 Pegs - full command
S: 5 Yeomen - musician, bows, spears, shields
R: Trebuchet

I took the same list as last time, including the book.

Scenario
Harbingers of Doom! - Both sides get 3 models (M5, T4, W2, 5+ ward, unbreakable) that can be exploded in either player's shooting phase. They explode with the big template, S4 AP, and behave as normal unbreakable single model units otherwise. Pitched battle otherwise.

Magic
The Pimp: flickering fire, fireball

Deployment
Brets (L2R): errants hard left, harbinger!, yeomen, archer blob, questers + BSB, KotR, M@A, errantry errants + general, harbinger!, treb on ground level, harbinger!, (hill), pegs
Tizz (L2R): horsemen left, harbinger!, hellcannon center, rapturestar + BSB, harbinger!, warstar, disc (behind wood), harbinger!, horsemen right

Battle
My only thought at this point? That this was the first game against Brets I didn't put much thought into beforehand. After two crazy games were my dice were burning I didn't know what to expect from Uncle Tizz!

Turn 1
Left horsemen boost up to think about messing with the archer blob, rapturestar and warstar shimmy up slightly to keep warstar's right flank to the woods, the discer hops the woods to grab some LoS on the errants while avoiding the pegs on the other side of the Bret hill, and the right horsemen trot up to tempt the pegs with a long charge. The left harbinger powers 10" into board center, the mid zips up 10" to bait the errants, and the right likewise advances 10" to support things. Flicker + fireball are shutdown or do nothing to the errants, roar is out of range, and the hellcannon guesses about 8" too far to hit the errants

First up: errantry errants fail their check and charge my mid harbinger. Other movement sends the left errants down their flank, yeomen show their flank to my left horsemen, some shuffling happens otherwise. The treb scatters off the warstar, the blob drops a rider from the left horsemen, and many harbingers are detonated: his left vs the left horsemen does nothing, and his mid one vs the disc likewise has no effect. My one fighting the errants nukes 1 errant and strands the unit - because they have no opponent they can't overrun and are sitting 8.1" away from the warstar ...

Turn 2
Hellcannon keeps it in her pants again (!!) and hangs out, while the left horsemen charge the yeomen (who flee, not panicing the blob and staying on the table), the warstar marches to just under the errantry errant's nose, the rapturestar keeps close to its left flank, the disc hopes into the Bret backfield to look at the treb, right horsemen fail a long charge against pegs, and the harbingers move out, with the left blocking the questers from charging against either star and the right looking to tackle some peasants. Fireball is dispelled against the treb, while a 5 S2 flicker kills 2 crew and roar flops. Ms. Hellcannon fires another really poorly guessed shot at the KotR, but misfires (!) and devours her crew. I smell some RAMPAGE a-coming!

The Brets know this tune but man up: errantry errants w/ general + KotR combo-charge the warstar. Unfortunately 1 peg knight can see The Pimp, they pass fear, and after a very long debate I hold - and they're @ 21" out. Whew ... Yeomen rally, errants continue down the left flank but are frightened of the 360 charge of Ms. Nibbles, and there's some token movement otherwise. His last harbinger pops on my right horsemen, dropping 1, and the treb copies the hellcannon and misfires, unable to fire next turn. The blob shoots the 4 horsemen looking at it for no wounds, and the yeomen fire at the disc for nothing. Combat: the warchamp parries all the attaks from the bret general and deals none back, and then 4 warriors drop from the storm of lances and hooves. The warstar needs a 6 and rolls it. Hurr!

Turn 3 - The Poundening!
The rapturestar flanks the KotR locked in with the warstar (this exposes the rapture flank to the questers for now, but meh), the left horsemen charge the blob (and lose 2 on the way in), the disc hops to the left of the questers + BSB, the right horsemen head around the NE hill to look at the treb, my left harbinger charges the yeomen, and the right one charges the M@A. Oh, and the hellcannon rampaged towards the KotR but couldn't make contact, so just parked next to the rapturestar and salivated. Flicker (2 S7) + fireball manage 1 dead quester, and roar drops another. The harbinger detonates vs the yeomen and kills 3, and the other explodes against the M@A and nets 8 . In the main event, the warchamp falls to the bret general (D3 = 1 wound), and many many brettonians die. Both units need snake-eyes and fail twice each, and both the twinstars easily catch them (!!), heading board-east and escaping a flank or rear from the questers. The Duke claims both enemy standards for safe keeping. The horsemen meanwhile kill 1 peasant, do not outnumber, but took their horn - the archers easily pass their -1 break.

Fairly demoralized, the Brets begin to play it cagey (cagier). The errants that had cruised the left flank sally out onto the board a little bit, the questers back up to avoid hellcannon range and expose the Pimp to some brutal yeomen fire, the pegs fly back to the NE corner to protect their darling treb from those mean horsemen, and the M@A are taunted with the flank of the rapturestar but won't come play 2 yeomen don't scratch the Pimp, and in combat the blob loses again on musician but passes, dropping a horseman in the process.

Turn 4
And now begins a less exciting half for the infantry player ... The rapturestar turns around and heads back to where the knights are, with the warstar in close pursuit. The horsemen tangoing with the pegs moves up into their face with the intent of being charged and hopefully pulling them off the table when they break, buying me a turn without peg knights for 81 points - a steal IMO! Hellcannon flips out and heads after those 2 tasty yeomen. The Pimp, seeing that those left-flank errants could maybe get him in their arc, backs up about 2", but doesn't take advantage of the ability to check LoS anytime in friendly games ............... He fireballs the 2 yeomen and does 1 wound (5 failed wounds!), flicker does nothing to questers, and roar is a wash. The last horseman fighting the blob wins combat again, but the archers easily pass on -1.

Pegs charge the horsemen, and it turns out that the errants can in fact see and charge the disc. I am saddened this but can only take it - though I will say it's nice to lose something on a purely human error for once . The questers refuse to play with the rapturestar and probably back up 4", while that last yeoman is sent to stand next to the hellcannon and bait the beast. The treb scatters off the warstar (which is at 15 models, by the by). Combat, the disc is killed, the last horseman loses against the blob and breaks, unable to rally, and the pegs kill 3 horsemen, send the last running, fail to restrain but then roll 5" to stay on the table! Blarg!

Turn 5
Madame Smash continues rampaging and chases that yeoman, who flees and won't rally. The rapturestar stomps up and the Duke makes obscene gestures at his French counterpart in the questing knight unit. The warstar walks around and looks at the M@A to its right.

Errants turn to stare at the rapturestar, the questing knights wet themselves at all that CR, and pegs move back to contemplate a final turn combo-charge. The blob tags 1 warrior from the rapturestar, dropping it to static CR 5 The treb misses.

Turn 6
The Duke yawns, takes out a copy of Lolita and gets his Nabokov on. Meanwhile Ms. Nibbles charges the M@A, who fail terror and are run down.

The Brets actually think about sending errants, questers, BSB and pegs into the rapturestar, but decide against it. The errants don't feel the need to rush to their certain doom. Also, the treb kills itself

TIZZ VICTORY (13-7)

So the scenario was certainly odd, and I suppose it favored me by giving me a) more junk units, b) that move 360, c) that hurt T3 guys more than T4 ones. Pulling the errants out was about the best use I could have made with them, but it was somewhat countered by me idiotically getting the Pimp killed. Without that 265 point gift I'd be sitting at a 15-5, if not even better as I would have had something to do for the last third of the game

Not a bad showing though, warstar continues to shine.

This Saturday is a 1000 point tournament, which I'll be taking this fairly familiar list to:

Tizz 1000

H: Sorcerer - MoT, golden eye, book of secrets, bloodcurdling roar, disc of tzeentch
C: 20 Warriors - MoT, warbanner, full command, shield
C: 5 Horsemen - musician, spears, throwing spears, light armor
C: 5 Horsemen - musician, spears, throwing spears, light armor
C: 5 Warhounds
R: Hellcannon

Stay tuned Dakka!

- Salvage

The 1000 point league tournament went down yesterday, and was a pretty simple affair overall, with three pitched battles, rankings by BP, etc. I made a couple mistakes that cost me any prize $, but I had a fun time smashing along on a blustery day in Albany.

Game Nineteen: Tomb Kings

TK 1000

H: Prince - flail, chariot
H: Liche - jar, steed [heiro]
H: Liche - brooch, steed
C: 5 Light Horse - music
C: 5 Light Horse - music
C: 10 Bowmen
C: 10 Bowmen
C? 1 Swarm
S: 3 Ushabti

Ahhh, I finally got to play DictatorGames and his speedy TK. The TK play a much different game from my WoT (or most armies), so I was excited, and also worried I'd get the Pimp killed by all that stuff that could effectively charge 360 ...

Magic
The Pimp: flickering fire, fireball

Deployment
TK (L2R): ushabti, prince, bowmen on hill, horsemen + liche behind hill, horsemen + liche next to hill, bowmen in a line
Tizz (L2R): disc, hellcannon right next to warstar, warhounds, horsemen, (large wood), horsemen

The swarm burrows about 6" in front of the warstar.

Battle

Turn 1
Hellcannon doesn't rage, and won't the entire game. Both horsemen mobilize up for the single rank skeletons, the warhounds power straight up just because. Warstar marches up, with the hellcannon hugging its flank. The disc hops over to engage the ushabti, and fireball / flicker / roar drop 1 construct.

And at this point DG makes it clear how bad I've ballsed up by being greedy with the Pimp: his prince spins around and drives to look at my 195 point general, while the heiro & friends slide over to put another incantation AND the jar within range of the prince. Elsewhere the ushabti move towards the warstar, the other liche & co. slide a bit, and the hill archers turn to look at marauder horsemen. Magic Time: prince wills himself forward on a 6, and I let it go as it was inevitable. The Pimp flees to within ~4" of the board edge. Other incantations move the ushabti up 5" more, and make some archers shoot horsemen. Between that volley and the shooting phase, three horsemen die from the right unit.

Turn 2
The Pimp makes it easy on the prince and fails to rally, leaving the table. The hellcannon and warstar move up again, using a building to protect the left flank of the 'cannon as well. Both horsemen charge into the single-ranked skellies, but the two-barbarian unit fails fear and sits this one out. The dogs boost a further 14" to reach the TK DZ and stare at both liche units. No magic and no shooting now (), so only fighting! The marauders fumble and spear only one deadite, but their horses drop another three; after the other skellies fail to drag down any fleshies, ONE skeleton is left from crumbling, keeping the horsemen from overruning into the liche 2" behind

Ushabti move for the warstar, the prince drives over to gain LoS on the hellcannon & the star, liche slide about with their units, and the hill bowmen turn to look East at the hounds. Magic boosts the prince into combat with the hellcannon, heals back the third ushabti with 1 wound, and makes the hill archers shoot the hounds - 1 drops, the unit panics to the other side of the horsemen / skeleton combat. Shooting faffs into the fleeing dogs (no wounds) or the two horsemen (no wounds). Combat sees the prince power flop, with impacts and flail attaks possibly killing 1 dwarf. Return attaks all go into the chariot, ripping two wounds out of it. CR comes up with -2 for the prince, one of which frags the chariot and the other wounds the prince. I'll say at this point that I was pretty worried about losing all my chaos dwarfs and having Ms. Nibbles eat the prince and have to suffer the curse against her Ld 4 In the horseman combat they pulp the last skelly pretty decisively.

Turn 3
Inexplicably, the horsemen find a liche + cav escort still right in front of them, so they pass fear and charge on in. The hounds meanwhile don't rally and run off the TK table edge, and the two horsemen hide behind the large SE woods to save their delicious 43 points. The warstar stomps up 4" and gestures at the ushabti to bring it. The horsemen drop 3-4 of their undead number on the charge, suffer no wounds in return and dust the liche and unit. They overrun off the table. In the prince / demo-cannon combat, the undead general dropped a dwarf but survived the beast's cuddles to tie combat.

Ushabti head on into the warstar (fear passed), and the heiro & hill archers jockey around to prepare for the ghostbusting horsemen to return. Magic has the prince get a free attak on dwarfs (fluffed), and the heiro make the ushabti attak as well - which goes better, killing 1-2 warriors and removing a rank. In combat proper, the ushabti pummel a warrior and then are reduced to dust through CR and a handful of wounds. The prince batters down a dwarf (netting half points), but then is eaten by the monster. Her remaining dwarf handler passes the curse no problem.

Turn 4
Things are looking grim for the TK, though the remaining chaos troops are outright ponderous versus the zippy heiro and friends. The warstar begins heading to the right of the hill behind which the heiro is sheltered, which will also put them into the ex-hill archers with any luck. The hellcannon marches to the left of the hill, looking to put LoS on both sides of the terrain piece should the heiro try to escape. The horsemen (still at full strength) return to the table and turn their front arc to both the heiro and ranked archers, though their throwing spears fail to wound a light cav skelly.

The ranked skellies power up and charge into the horsemen (fear passed), while the heiro keeps hiding behind his hill. Magic makes the skellies attak, which which results in many hits, a couple wounds and a couple saves. After a brief respite to shoot warriors (no luck), the skeletons continue excelling with their hits, this time tearing two horsemen from their saddles. The horsemen return the favor by smashing three skellies, for a drawn combat (musician pops a skeleton). Oh, and the swarm showed up and began crawling for the two horsemen hiding in my DZ, but is so slow that it never caught them.

Turn 5
Warstar stomps up! Hellcannon stomps up! The corral around the heiro tightens ... Fighting, the skeletons drop another horseman, lose one in return, and auto-break the remaining two off the table. The five skellies continue off the table.

Annnd they return, moving up and angling to divert the warstar next turn. Unfortunately the heiro + friends slide their unit a bit too close behind the frontage of the skellies, lining them up for an overrun.

Turn 6
Warstar passes fear, slams into the skeleton speed bump and vaporizes them, carries into the heiro and boys and ...

... detonates them as well. The swarm doesn't crumble.

TIZZ VICTORY (18-2)

A somewhat disheartening start to the tourny getting my general / 25% of my points / my most versatile and aggressive weapon taken out through being greedy, ended up as a crushing victory mostly thanks to those horsemen smashing their way through 15 skeletons, 5 light cav and a liche. Hellcannon & warstar did well too, but nowhere near the performance of those 86 point barbarians and their ponies

Next Up: DOOMWHEEL at long last!

- Salvage

kool

eldarbgamer13 wrote:kool

Glad you enjoy

Lunch break from reading, how about another round?

Game Twenty: Skaven

Skaven 1000

H: Chieftain 'Steve Handtaker' - sword of might, enchanted shield
H: Chieftain BSB - banner of the under empire, shield
H: Engineer - level 1, staff of sorcery
C: 25+ Clanrats - full command, shields
C: 25 Clanrats - full command, shields
C: 20+ Giant Rats - 3+ packmasters
C: 20+ Giant Rats - 3+ packmasters
S: 4 Rat Ogres - 2 packmasters
R: Doomwheel

There may have been another unit (!) of clanrats in there, but I can't remember if it did anything if so. Props to JJBCollect2 for a fully painted 1000 points and for currently leading the league rankings. His doomwheel has been running amok, and I was more than a little worried about how I was supposed to handle the thing.

Magic
The Pimp: flickering fire, fireball
Engineer: warp lightning

Deployment
Rats (L2R): doomwheel left flank, (large wood), giant rats, rat ogres, clanrats + general + BSB, giant rats + engineer, clanrats
Tizz (L2R): horsemen left flank, disc, warhounds, warstar, hellcannon, horsemen right flank

Battle

Turn 1
Skaven start things off with some contained forward movement, except for the doomwheel slamming ~14" down the flank. Warp lightning makes it through (I rolled 1-2-3 for dispel ) and kills all five right horsemen, and the wheel tags the left horsemen with 3x S10 shots, equaling three more dead barbarians. Panic is passed.

Hellcannon behaves and will do so the entire game (!), and stumps ahead 6". The warriors likewise march up full-ish, with the warhounds jumping in front of them to bait the rat ogres into charge range. The remaining horsemen run up to the wheel's flank, and the pimp scoots over to try desperately to hurt it. Magic is either dispelled or can't wound the wheel, and roar is useless vs T6.

Turn 2
The rogres take the bait, and the hounds flee through the warriors (who don't care) and strand them. Left giant rats move to look at the warstar's future flank, while the general's clanrats loom around the hellcannon's future right flank, the engineer's giant rats continue moving across the table (looking to rear the warriors at some point?) and the other clanrats feel kinda left out on their flank. The doomwheel powers down and to the right, seriously worrying me with a flank on the warstar unless it can get the hell out of there soon. Warp lightning again gets through my 1-2-3 dispel attempt (?!) but rolls a 1 and wounds the engineer. The wheel continues its hyper-powered bolting and lasers the Pimp! Two wounds get through, but both are saved by the golden eye. Whoa.

The warstar and the hellcannon charge the rat ogres, who frothingly take it. The two horsemen continue up the skaven left flank and into their DZ, and the Pimp hops over behind the giant rats, with LoS on the 'wheel. His magic is once again ineffectual between being dispelled or T6. Roar goes into the giant rats, for no real result. In combat the rat ogres lose five wounds to the warriors, none from the hellcannon, and smack down a warrior plus a wound off of the 'cannon. They lose huge, break, are chased but not caught. This saves the warriors from taking any kind of charge, but ensures the hellcannon will be flanked by the general's rats. This is fine by me . The giant rats to the left of the rat ogres panic due to the ogres' break too.

Turn 3
Mass fleeing begins the round for Skaven: giant rats fail to rally and head for their edge, the rat ogres fail and keep running for theirs (about 1-2" from it), and the non-character-laden clanrats fail terror from the 'cannon's proximity and head East. The chieftain's rats feel no such compulsion and charge into Ms. Nibbles to have a go at tipping her over, the giant rats + engineer begin wheeling for the warriors / hellcannon's rear, and the doomwheel, while unable to charge, speeds up to park at the warstar's flank. Magic is shut down, and then the doomwheel lets lose on the Pimp again ... and misfires! The wheel saves me a lot of anxiety by taking 5 S6 hits and killing itself . In fighting, the hellcannon loses one crew and 1-2 wounds, and wounds the BSB with all her attaks.

Chaos continues the fleeing shenanigans: hounds fail rally and leave the board, while the two horsemen charge the giant rats and push them across their DZ a bit. The warstar reforms to put its front towards the clanrats on the other side of the hellcannon and the giant rats looping around from board-south. The Pimp, freed from 'dealing' with the doomwheel, flies over and parks by the fleeing rat ogres. Magic tears into them, combining with roar to leave just 1 rat ogre & 1 packmaster. Combat sees the hellcannon take another wound from Steve, fail to hurt the BSB and no crew die. Note that we were rolling for the BotUE, but with all the dice involved (2D6 hits -> 5+ to hit crew -> 6+ to wound -> 5+ armor) it wasn't having any luck.

Turn 4
The rat ogre rallies as do the terrorized clanrats on the right flank, but the giant rats fail and leave the table. The giant rats w/ engineer head into the hellcannon's rear, contacting the dwarf on that end. No magic, no shooting, just fighting: an avalanche of giant rat and packmaster attaks is unable to wound that dwarf, though the other one falls to the clanrat champion at long last. The hellcannon is reduced to one wound remaining, but she eats the BSB out of spite

Alright, time to make Mistake #2: the warstar, tempted by the flank of the giant rats, charge on in and get ready to bust this combat wide open! Hurr! Elsewhere the Pimp scoots over to keep looking angrily at the rat ogre, and the two horsemen go hide their 43 points behind the wood. Magic + roar reduces the rat ogre & packy to vapor. In combat, the warchamp challenges the clawleader in a battle atop the hellcannon, but the warchamp power flops and thankfully makes his 2+ save in return . The other six warrior attaks amount to 3 dead giant rats. After this lackluster showing, the hellcannon and his little buddy are finally taken down. And now is where we did the math I should have done before charging in. Warstar has 2 ranks + 2 warbanner + 1 flank + 3 wounds = 8 CR; Rats have 3 ranks + 1 banner + 2 wounds + 1 flank (dead hellcannon) + 2 rear (dead hellcannon) + 1 outnumber = 10 CR. I completely forgot that the rear bonus against the hellcannon was a) there, and b) wouldn't be negated by the warriors counter-flanking the rear-chargers. Then again, if the warchamp had gutted the clawleader as expected, we'd be tied ... Anyway, warstar needed 6, rolled 11, then 11" for flee. Giant rats roll 10" pursuit, but the general gets his minions stewed up and they go 11", nabbing 445 points and victory. Bums.

Turn 5
From here it's up to Steve and his clanrats to weather the Pimp's storm and not panic. His remaining three blocks wander around.

The Pimp flies behind the ratstar and unleashes hell: flickering fire, fireball and roar dig into the unit, but can't reach a panic check in either phase.

Turn 6
Rats stumble about on fire, smelling more awful than usual.

The onslaught continues and brings the clanrats below half, but once again no panic comes up.

TIZZ LOSS (6-14)

I knew I was out of contention for 1st or 2nd with this loss, though I couldn't help blaming myself for wanting to fight too much with the warriors. If I had waited, I'm confident the warstar could have taken any of the rat units in the front ... but no, once again got greedy like in game 1. The doomwheel nuking itself was a fantastic stroke of luck, yet that mere 150 point gift wasn't enough to match all the points in those blocks.

Next Up: HIGH ELF REMATCH! In which my dice explode into flames

- Salvage

Not sure if dice exploding into flames is good or bad. I'm going to guess good.

Quite a match against skaven. I was not at all expecting to see you lose given how things were looking around turn 3. Looking forward to the HE game.

RZ

Depends on what side of the table you're on when the flaming dice start ... Need a break from reading about scientific objectivity, so let's do this thing.

Game Twenty-One: High Elves

HE 1000

H: Mage - level 2, ring of fury, +1 spell
C: 18 Spearelves - full command
C: 10 Seaguard
S: 10+ White Lions - warbanner, full command
S: 7 Swordmasters
R: Bolter
R: Bolter

This is the same elf player from so many of these reports, with a strong but not too unbalanced list. He had been having a frustrating tournament though, up against heavy armor after heavy armor: brets (who he smoked), the other WoC guy (loss), me. I never know what to expect against this guy, except for his dice to go cold so I can hopefully capitalize.

Magic
The Pimp: flickering fire, fireball (it's like I wasn't even rolling dice )
Mage: dark hand, doom & darkness, walking death (IMO a somewhat unfortunate spell selection, at least offensively)

Deployment
Elves (L2R): bolter left-ish, lions + mage, spears, seaguard & bolter on hill, swordmasters
Tizz (L2R): warhounds hard left (with a large wood between them and the bolter), hellcannon right of center, warstar right next to it, disc (with a building between it and the right bolter), horsemen, horsemen

Effectively I had deployed in a refused flank, with the hardest (and slowest) elements on the inside of the 'wheel' towards his units and the fast units ready to turn his flank and go for bolters. One of those rare deployments where I felt like a plan was being followed.

Battle

Turn 1
Elves easily win first and shuffle about some, mostly with the lions marching from their end of the battle line towards the chaos bastards. Mage jumps into spears, then attempts to dark hand the dogs, but is out of range. Ring is dispelled against the hellcannon. Shooting fails: warriors save any wounds from the right bolter and the pimp's 3/3+ save absorbs the attention of the left bolter shooting through cracks in his line.

Hellcannon once more passes her rampage check (on 9), and will continue to do so all game, like a good girl. She stomps up 6", with the warstar powering up 8" at her side, the horsemen mobilizing for turn 3 charges on the bolter or swordmaster flank, the pimp hoping to the flank of said elite infantry for roaring and burning, and the warhounds scampering 14" for the left flank of the board. Magic burns the hill bolter's crew to cinders, and the sorcerer follows this up by roaring two swordmasters to death.

Turn 2
The elves shake off the early loses and move on. Lions continue wheeling towards board-center, spears shuffle up, and the mage hops out of his spears to stop those puppies. Dark hand is let through and kills four dogs, though the last passes panic on the first try (!) and readies for his commando run on the bolter in a couple turns. Ring is dispelled again. The bolter goes into the hellcannon and manages one wound on the beast, but she saves on a . The seaguard unload into one of the horsemen units, dropping three but panic is passed.

Still no charges from chaos, with no swordmaster flank for a marauder unit to die against. The warhound powers around the woods and aims at the bolter, the warstar rumbles up into the swordmasters' face, the hellcannon moves a bit more cautiously to protect the warstar from a possible white lion flank in coming turns or possibly jump into the spearelves if the charge looks doable. The reduced horsemen trot 8" to the swordmasters' flank, and the full horsemen unit slams it into the HE backfield. The Pimp flits over to look at the flank of the seaguard (with the hill blocking LoS from the other bolter down the board). Magic lays into the seaguard, combining with roar to drop five of the seafarers. Throwing spears bounce off the swordmasters.

Turn 3
The swordmasters do it to it and charge the warstar. Elsewhere the lions get within the hellcannon's charge range and arc, as do the spears ... Dark hand fails to cast, but the mage wisely decides to put walking death on the lions, which is let through. Ring is dispelled easily. In shooting, the bolter puts a wound on the hellcannon, while the seaguard fail to wound any of the healthy horsemen headed their way. In the first combat of the game, one swordmaster hacks down the warchamp (!) and two other warriors die as well. A single swordmaster falls to the return attaks, the SM lose by 4 but pass on 4. Hmph.

With the warstar locked in place this turn, the hellcannon decides that the white lions need to be delayed from flanking in, so she charges into their S6 embrace (fear passed). The full horsemen charge the seaguard, whose stand-n-shoot is ineffectual - AND that solo hound slams into the bolter crew for great doggy justice! The Pimp, somewhat at a loss for targets - he was tempted to cross the field and cook the enemy mage - heads across the HE edge for the bolter should it fail to fall to the pup, but he spins at the end of his flight to look at the spearelves. He unloads somewhat less successfully than last time, cooking just a couple with a weak weak flicker. In combat the swordmasters deal out three wounds, but Tizz grants a solid armor save roll The SM are hacked down to a single elf in return, who breaks and is crossfired on the horsemen fighting seaguard. The warstar passes its restraint roll, as being flanked by spearelves would have been embarrassing. The hellcannon takes a wound and chomps a couple lions in response - note here that since the beast charged about 10" into combat, the dwarfs ranked up behind, unable to fight or be chopped to bits. The horsemen pound the hell out of the seaguard and overrun (spears passed panic), and the single warhound survives the two ASF attaks but fails to tear the neck out of a crewelf

Turn 4
The elf options had taken a serious beating at this point. Spears don't move much, and the mage pushes south a bit more. He leaves walking death on the lions to avoid auto-break (though actually they still fear the hellcannon's US5 if that was his concern), and the ring is slapped down. Shooting has been neutralized, though the bolter crew dispatch that pesky hound to get back to their weapon. The lions fail to hurt the hellcannon, and lose another couple to her shows of affection.

The warstar wheels into the face of the spears and waits for them to decide how this is going down. The horsemen cruise around to throw spears at the spearelves, while the Pimp floats over to hammer the bolter. Which he does, enveloping it in two flavors of fire before roaring the last crewelf to death (several times). Spears drop an elf, the hellcannon takes another wound but eats around three lions after a fantastic five hits.

Here the high elf player has had enough and concedes.

TIZZ VICTORY (20-0)

So this wasn't a game of nuclear dice vs artic dice in the end, but I certainly did have really solid dice backing up a well-deployed and played army. Thinking about it HE do seem to lack the glut of anti-armor that we're seeing in books recently (Skaven especially, but WoC's roars + nurgle lord and beasts with all their uber-strength + armor negating things), though his dice weren't coming through when he needed them to shine.

I managed 44/60 total points, which apparently got me 4th place. 1st went to the demon player who has finally caved and up-gunned his army (he started on Table 1 and never left it - flesh hounds + flamers in 1000 points will do that), 2nd to the skaven dude, 3rd to the beast guy playing 1000 pointers with his new book for the first time. I was pretty surprised by me not getting 3rd, and when I asked I was told that the beasts got a 20 & an 18, duh! I noted I did too, then I pouted some more

A fun tournament all around though, and I'm pretty thankful that with a LOT of casting from the Pimp (26 two-dice casts) he never miscast, though he never IF'd either ... And you will note that I never shot the hellcannon once, so didn't have a chance to have her explode herself or my discer

NEXT UP: Wood Elves, tomorrow night!

- Salvage