Despite the recent success of SEERBREAKER, I continually feel ripped off by points spent in offensive magic, particularly when I know what 250 points in bonebreaker buys (
this is highly ironic considering the report to come!). So I retooled the old BONEBREAKER list to rock a little taste of plague magic (i.e. PLAGUE
FTW), as well as dropping the WLC for some doom-flayers (!), and advertised for a game last Sunday. Oneball was happy to oblige as always (he’s the beasts, empire, dark elves player from all of these reports), and I told him to bring anything but beasts. Come game time a bunch of dark elves showed up – with 0 shooting! – and it was game time once again.
We rolled up Meeting Engagement, and I made an offhand comment about not liking the reserve rules … and immediately regretted it. Units below with a [*] were held in reserve.
BONEBREAKER 2000 L: Warlord (
GEN) – sword of might, charmed shield, talisman of preservation, bonebreaker
L: Warlord (LT) – ogre blade, armor of destiny, dragonbane gem, shield, bonebreaker
H: Plague Priest – level 2, dispel scroll, opal amulet, ahw
H: Chieftain –
BSB, dragonhelm, shield
C: 30 Clanrats – full command, shields, doom-flayer [*]
C: 30 Clanrats – full command, shields, doom-flayer [*]
C: 30 Clanrats – full command, shields [*]
C: 35 Slaves – pawleader, musician
S: 6 Plague Censer Bearers [*]
S: 6 Plague Censer Bearers
S: 5 Gutter Runners – poison
S: 5 Gutter Runners – poison
R: Hellpit Abombination – warpstone spikes [*]
Priest rolled up pestilent breath and plague!
DARK ELVES 2000 L: Dreadlord – crimson death, armor of 1+ save, seal of +1 dispel die
H: Death Hag –
BSB, manbane, cauldron of blood
H: Sorceress – level 2 (DEATH), dispel scroll
C: 30 Spearelves – full command
C: 30 Corsairs – banner of flaming, full command, ahw [*]
[X: Assassin – rune of khaine, manbane, ahw]
S: 17 Black Guard – full command
S: 7 Witch Elves [*]
S: 7 Witch Elves
S: 7 Witch Elves
R: War Hydra
Sorceress rolled up soulblight and doom & darkness!
TERRAIN & DEPLOYMENT The Mundane Terrain chart puked out 3 walls, 2 impassable pieces and a hill. Then I either won or was given The Roll, so deployed what I had first …
In case you missed that, all I had to deploy was my characters, the slaves and one unit of PCB. Up against no shooting I didn’t feel a compulsion to pile everybody into the slaves, so for the hell of it I formed all the characters into a super unit and awaited the army to arrive (Mistake #0). I almost immediately realized that this was a terrible idea – the plague priest is frenzied, afterall – but kept quiet. He responded as shown, and then the gutters (who weren’t given the option of rolling 1’s, though I’m sure they wanted to
) scouted.
But seriously, already this game had clearly gone crazy
At least he failed to seize, so on to me for some damn reserves.
BATTLE Turn 1 
The bonebreaker general starts the game by quelling the censer bearers’ frenzy, and then the priest only keeps it in his pants thanks to the
BSB’s reroll – yikes! (In hindsight, I likely should have hurled LT into the witches and got the mayhem started, but let’s see what really happened first …) The army itself arrives, and the characters disband and take up residence – priest to clanrats 1 (with flayer), general &
BSB to clanrats 2 (with flayer), LT to clanrats 3. Then the hellpit slurps onto the board edge (in a very very bad spot – Mistake #1).
Magic gives the priest all he needs to IF plague on the black guard, resulting in 9 dead uber-elves and 2 witches from the right unit (2 of 7 = some hearty ladies!) after it jumps. The priest merely explodes a couple clanrats in base and dumps the dice he can’t use anyway.
Skaven domination of the shooting phase results in 1 dead witch to throwing stars
Speaking of hearty wenches, the right witches charge the right censers (with +1A from the cauldron), followed by the arrival of the dark elf reserves and a general advance. Magic puts D&D on LT’s unit (if anything). 3 witches die to smelly censers, then scrape their lumpen faces off and overrun into LT and crew.
Turn 2 
Excited to see what mayhem a doom-flayer can do, I send the priest’s unit and their flayer into the left witches. Sadly the hellpit needs to move next … and I can’t figure out a way to get it closer to the hydra and all the things it wants to fight in the middle of the table. With total resignation, I send it for the flaming corsairs, figuring if the dice are kind he can pull this off (note: I completely forgot about the assassin, and the obviousness of putting him with the flaming dudes. Balls.) I did contemplate bumping into the slaves and crushing a few, to keep the pit in place, but for some reason decided not to (Mistake #2). Other things shuffled.
Magic starts off solid: pestilent breath melts 0-1 witches (dice fail), then plague goes off IF on the black guard again, choking out 5 more elves (including champ). The miscast is made of sadness, with a dimensional cascade that explodes 11 clanrats, 3-4 witches, doesn’t wound the flayer (!), and sucks the priest (including unread scroll) into the Warp.
Combat follows quickly on the heels of this magical disaster. No longer in base contact, the flayer does not get to impact or do anything (
), and without the priest’s 5 S4 I5 attaks no witches die, and in fact the clanrats lose combat but hold on steadfast. Sweet baby cats, that sucked. (LT did break both of his girls' necks before they could strike though. Like a boss
)
Seeing as they’re evil like that, the dark elves pounce on skaven misfortune: black guard remnant charge the flayer (flees) and redirect into the clanrat flank; hydra gets juiced up with killing blow and charges LT and crew. Magic puts D&D on LT (must not have cast first turn then), then on to fighting. LT smashes a wound onto the hydra, the handlers dice up a few clanrats, the clanrats flail at the hydra, and the hydra tries its best but can’t decapitate LT this turn (2
KB wounds = 2 4+ wards!) After t-stomp the rats lose but steadfast. Over on the flank a bunch of clanrats die – but not enough to go below 1 rank (fluffy turn for
DE wounds) – and a witch gets poked in the belly. Clanrats steadfast off general ‘breaker.
Turn 3 
8th edition is about numbers, right? And how much damage can an appropriately costed 175 point monster really do? The general flanks the hydra, with slaves joining in on the other side. The central flayer attempts to charge the black guard, but needing a 6 rolls 2 (which thankfully is so low that it doesn’t block the general’s unit). The hellpit suicidally keeps heading for its flaming demise, the right flayer doesn’t rally, and skirmishers be skirmishing. Magic drops D&D.
Alright, about 500 points in bonebreaker warlords, time to kill me some hydra! The general fails his fear (rerollable 10 ftl) and does nothing; LT wounds it, but the beast happily regens. At this point I confirm that the hydra is still
KB augmented (I knew this, was just checking), but I was about to find out the hard way: handlers allocate to the general, score 3 hits (charmed shield FAILS to block 1), 2
KB wounds, 1 failed 4+ wound = 1 dead general.
Stupidly I move the
BSB into base – I’ve since decided that I was under no compulsion to do this (Mistake #3) – and it’s
KB’d by the hydra. Annnnnd 5 clanrats are t-stomped. A couple clanrats and/or slaves do stab the hydra in the distended gut for 2 wounds (2 left), but the weight of kills to the monster mean we lose by 3. With no general and no
BSB, everybody breaks, and the hydra runs down LT and friends.
NOTE: I still don’t think I was wrong to charge everybody in there, especially considering he wasn’t rerolling from hatred (though he hit most all the time regardless). Really only the
BSB thing makes me feel bad, because I can’t see why he would need to move up, but I automatically did it anyway.
The other combat finished up as expected, though I was surprised that 4 clanrats couldn’t drop 1 naked T3 elf chick. Witch pursues, black guard reform.
The hydra + cauldron combo has won this game at this point, but I still want to see what a doom-flayer does, so continue. Corsairs – and there’s the assassin! – charge the hellpit, lone witch on the left hurtles into the PCB (she is stunk to death, along with 1 censer). Magic is immaterial, and the hellpit is indeed killed by the now-flaming assassin and his corsair buddies.
Turn 4 
Censers flank the black guard and the flayer charges them frontally (mostly to get impacts and keep the dreadlord from moving over to the PCB). Slaves keep running, but clanrats and other flayer rally. In combat, the flayer gets an awesome 1 impact, which fails to wound (3+ dude, come on!), then is cut down by the dreadlord; and the censers poison 2 of their own for 0 black guard, lose none to the flank elf and then shred the remainder. The last 3 beat the dreadlord but he holds (map is wrong, this fight continued).
Hydra charges the rallied clanrats, they terror-panic off the table; it redirects into the flayer, which likewise terror-panics away. I too am terrified of hydras
Also, the dreadlord kills the last PCB and I call it.
HYDRA/CAULDRON VICTORY Blarg, what a failfest. Momentum was certainly mine early on, with plague devastating his scary black guard death squad, but that thrilling charge into 70 points of witches ended up detonating the entire flank and hope of having anything survive the hydra rape in the center. Really though, kicking myself over the hellpit mis-placement, and tossing the
BSB to his demise - even without
KB, and without failing fear, I'd say a hydra can eat that little 3/6+ save toolbag no problem. Certainly with my dice here anyway!
Have been fiddling with the list since then, but nothing very huge, since I learned next to nothing here. Plague priest makes me happy, and you have about a 33% chance of getting plague on a level 2, so I'll take that. Frankly, my grey seer was mostly there to give me a dispel bonus, since I just used him to IF plague anyway
- Salvage
)
