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Watchtower Rematch!

Vampires

Vampire Lord
-Master of the Black Arts, Flying Horror, Wristbands of Black Gold, Flayed Hauberk, Sword of Striking (Raise Dead, Vanel's Danse, Winds of Undeath)
Vampire
-Infinite Hatred, Tomb Blade, Avatar of Death (Shield) (Raise Dead)
Necromancer
-Corpse Cart, Raise Dead, Invocation of Nehek
Skeleton Warriors x 25, Full command
Skeleton Warriors x 25, Full command
Skeleton Warriors x 50, Full command, Spears
Corpse Cart
Grave Guard x 20, Full command
Blood Knights x 5, Banner, musician
Vargulf

Beastmen

Beastlord
-Gnarled Hide, Heavy Armor, Enchanted Shield, Brass Cleaver
Wargor
-BSB, Slughide(?), Heavy Armor, Shield
Great Bray Shaman-Wild
-Level 4 (Beastial Surge, Devolve, Mantle of Ghoros, Viletide)
Bray Shaman-Shadow
-Level 2, Dispel Scroll (Sig spell, Pit of Shades)
Gors x 35, Full command, shields
Ungors x 50, Full command, HW & Shields
Chariot
Chariot
Warhounds x 10
Ungor Raiders x 12
Ungor Raiders x 12
Harpies
Minotaurs x 6, Full command, Additional hand weapon
Cygor


Deployment-

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We rolled up Watchtower again, and Beastmen won control this time around. However, he only had his Ungor Raiders that were below 20 to occupy the tower, so one of those units had to go inside instead of ambush.


Turn 1
Vampires:
Everything surges forward in the movement phase. The Vargulf heads off around the woods towards the harpies and Cygor, with the Grave guard approaching the tower to attempt an assault. Blood Knights move forward 7" straight towards the Minotaurs. Magic is interesting. With MotBA I net 10 power dice, allowing me to raise a new unit of zombies next to my Skeleton hordes, and Wind of Undeath deals a total of 8 wounds across his army and nets me 2 Ghost bases, which materialize near the house to the left of the watchtower. Vanhel's Danse moves the Grave Guard into combat with the tower, where they kill 4 Ungors and lose 2 in return. Ungors pass (barely) they're steadfast breaktest.

Beastman (tower):
Beasts surge forward, except for the Minotaurs, who are scared of the Blood Knights and move backward 2". The Ungor Raiders next to them wheel in front of the Minotaurs at a angle, in an attempt to prevent me overrunning into them. The Harpies fly over the Vargulf's head and land behind him on my flank. Gors charge the ghosts, the Beastlord causes enough wounds to crumble them all, but not before they kill 2 Gors. Magic sees everything successfully dispelled. Shooting sees the Ungors kill a Blood Knight (ack!) and the Cygor drop a boulder on his face.

Turn 2:
Vampires (tower):
Skeletons angle around in the building to prepare for the Gor charge, Vampire Lord flying over next to the Skeleton Horde beside the watchtower, which slowly moves forward, not wanting to charge the Ungors. The Blood Knight ram into the Ungor Raiders, losing none to Stand and Shoot. Magic sees the lost Grave Guard return from the dead, the Zombie unit doubles in size, and both carts activate Miasma of Deathly vigour, giving nearly my entire army Always Strike First and Rerolls (Blood Knights and Vargulf are not in range). Combat sees the Ungors finally killed, and the Grave Guard occupy the tower, mounting their banner on the battlements. The Blood Knights massacre the Ungor Raiders, and pass their redirect test and charge the Minotaurs, killing 3 and putting two wounds on a 4th. The Minotaurs hit back and kill 1, and then run from combat but aren't quite caught by the Blood Knights (I'm 1" behind him).

Beastmen:
Gors charge the Skeleton unit, deciding to deal with the tower later. Ungors and Chariots attempt to chagre the skeleton horde, but only one of the chariots makes it due to horrible luck. Harpies charge the unit of 25 skeletons, Minotaurs rally and turn around to face the Blood Knights, Cygor doesn't move much and looks around for a large rock, warhounds reform to face the Blood Knight's flank. Magic sees Viletide (5D6 S1 hits) deal an amazing.... 2 wounds on the Skeleton Horde, but the Vampire brings those skeletons back with the Tomb Blade, dealing 3 wounds on the Chariot and causing it to Flee! Cygor drops another rock on his head (for only having a 1/6 chance of doing that... he sure was awesome at it!) Beastlord and Gors cut down skeletons, killing 5 and causing 8 crumbles (ouch).

Turn 3:
Vampires (tower):
Vampire Lord charges the Great Bray Shaman, who flees. He only makes it 1" outside my charge (I'm noticing a pattern here). Vampire Lord is now directly behind the Ungor Horde. Blood Knights charge the Minotaurs, Skeleton Horde charges the Ungor Horde with the Corpse Cart taging along behind, and the Vargulf charges the flank of the Ungor Horde. Magic sees everything but Miasma's dispeled. In comabt, the Gors destory the rest of the Skeletons with ease, and reform to face the tower and second Corpse Cart. The Skeletons (with ASF) kill 9 Ungors, and lose 6 in return. The Vampire challenges the Wargor, fails to cause a wound, and is promptly cut down. Skeleton's win combat, but BSB reroll saves them from breaking. Harpies are cut down by skeletons. The Blood Knights slay the remaining Minotaurs before they get a chance to hit back, and reform to face the warhounds.

Beastmen:
The Beastlord roars out of the unit and runs down the Corpse Cart near the tower, sick of it giving out bonuses to the Grave Guard inside. The Great Bray Shaman fails to rally and runs off the table. Warhounds change the Blood Knights, while the chariot charges the flank of the Skeleton horde. Magic sees the Blood Knight's WS, BS, M, and I decreased by 1. The Cygor wisely decides better then to throw a rock (with only a single wound left), and charges the Vargulf. Combat sees the Ungors gain the upper hand in the Battle of the Hordes, but only just, causes 3 crumbles, but with Miasma still in effect the Vargulf was able to kill the Cygor before it could do any damage. The Beastlord easily kills the Corpse Cart and roars in triumph. Warhounds die without doing any damage to the Blood Knights.

Turn 4:
Vampires (tower):
Blood Knights head towards the tower, and the Vampire Lord flies back as well. Not much ease to move at this point though. Magic sees 8 Skeletons raised and 2 Blood Knights! A second casting of Winds of Undeath yields a 4-wound Ghost base. Combat sees all but 9 skeletons die, with the Vargulf crumbling to dust.

Beastmen:
The Gors charge the tower (without the Beastlord) and his second chariot charges my last skeleton unit's flank. Magic again was uneventful with Pit of Shades scattering off of the Blood Knights. Combat sees 3 Grave Guard die and 4 Gors die, but they pass their break test. The Ungors kill the remaining skeletons and reform to go 6x5 ranks. The chariot killing enough skeletons to win combat and cause 2 crumbles.

Turn 5:
Vampires (tower):
The Blood Knights charge the flank of the Gors, and now everything except the Vampire Lord is in combat. Magic sees 4 Grave Guard return to fight, and the Blood Knights are buffed with Vanhel's Danse. Combat was nasty. The Blood Knights killed 12 Gors and lost none, but the Gors held in. Skeletons are further cut down and crumbled by the Chariot, but there's still plenty left.

Beastmen:
Chariot charges the Corpse Cart with Necromancer, and Ungors wheel towards the tower but fail a shift reform. Magic is again uneventful. Combat sees 10 more Gors die, who still don't flee! The Chariot fails it's Fear check and does 1 wound on the Corpse Cart, who deals 3 in return and ties combat!

And we rolled 10 on the dice. Game Over....
Vampire Victory!

Neither of us had too much left on the table, and the game was much closer in terms of victory points, but still clearly a Vampire victory.

Man of the Match: Blood Knights! Hands down, they killed something like 600 points by themselves.
Chump of the Match: Me. I forgot my Vampire Lord had Helm of Command the ENTIRE game I was actually very pleased with the army otherwise.
Opponent Man of the Match: Ungors. They. will. not. die. To anything I throw at them!
Opponent Chump of the Match: Cygor. We both really want him to work, but he just doesn't.

Observations:
-For whatever reason 50 Ungors with a Wargor BSB and Chariot is nigh unstoppable. Next time my entire army is going to be used against that single unit. I will see it die... someday.
-Blood Knights are seriously amazing!
-Beastlords are very nasty. I'd need a tolled up combat-oriented Vampire Lord to even hope of making him sweat.
-Playing the scenario is more important then killing for opponent. The Beastlord should've charged into the tower sooner methinks.
-Seriously... what the hell is wrong with Cygors. My friend has an amazing model he sculpted from scratch but all he ever does is smack himself in the face with rocks and die horribly. He's determined to make him work though, and statisically eventually there should come a game were he kills something.

Yay for more quality reports! A nice read, and I appreciate the BC map to begin (it can be a pain making them for every turn, though it does make things much clearer I find). A few specific things:

Cirronimbus wrote:Great Bray Shaman-Wild
-Level 4 (Beastial Surge, Devolve, Mantle of Ghoros, Viletide)

Whoa, he took Lore of the Wild? His list was already fluffy, but this sent it into Ultra Fluff realms

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We rolled up Watchtower again, and Beastmen won control this time around. However, he only had his Ungor Raiders that were below 20 to occupy the tower, so one of those units had to go inside instead of ambush.

I'm not sure if it's just your BC map, but because the wargor is on a different sized base from the ungors he actually has to sit to either side of the unit, and he also can't Make Way beyond hopping from side to side. Not sure if this is how it was played IRL.

Also, in the Watchtower scenario IIRC there is no compulsion to put anybody into the center tower - his raiders could have ambushed like he wanted. I'd guess his best bet would have been to sprint the ungors for a tower entrance Turn 2, and use all of his magical might to stop you from dansing in Turn 1 (assuming you can use danse to 'move' into the tower).

The Blood Knights massacre the Ungor Raiders, and pass their redirect test and charge the Minotaurs, killing 3 and putting two wounds on a 4th. The Minotaurs hit back and kill 1, and then run from combat but aren't quite caught by the Blood Knights (I'm 1" behind him).

Actually the BK would have to pursue or overrun due to frenzy, most likely revealing their flank to minotaur vengeance (if he was able to angle those raiders correctly). There is no redirect test for declaring a second charge after combat, the only LD test taken is if you win combat (but don't massacre the enemy unit completely) and want to reform instead of pursue (which again BK don't get to take, because of frenzy). And if they were to plow straight forward into fresh enemy, that combat wouldn't be fought until the next combat phase (in most cases), rather than right away like here. Definitely would have hampered the amount of carnage the BK got up to, if not gotten them deaded

-Seriously... what the hell is wrong with Cygors. My friend has an amazing model he sculpted from scratch but all he ever does is smack himself in the face with rocks and die horribly. He's determined to make him work though, and statisically eventually there should come a game were he kills something.

I don't get it either! I love seeing these dudes on the table and I always want to see them rock face ... but over and over all I see is them misfire a lot and get killed. Kudos to your opponent for sticking with it

- Salvage

I have been looking at that lore of the wild more and more boss, and I actually think its not as bad as people say it is...

Of course, the beastmen army looks really really good on paper, but performance wise isnt to hot.

You're right on both accounts, Boss I always remember Frenzy's +1 attack and forget about the other parts, except I usually beeline them to the closest enemy. The Blood Knights might still have been able to clip the Minotaurs anyways, but it would've been very close. Also with BC, I'm still figuring it out and wasn't sure how to attach the Wargor but leave him on the side, so he's in the middle on my deployment, but was on the side during the game.

True, you don't have to put anyone in the tower if you don't want to, but he wanted to at least claim it for one turn. He's not a huge fan of ambush either since he's notorious for rolling 1's, so any excuse not to do it is good enough I also suggested he swap lores for his wizards, and give the Great Bray Shaman Lore of Shadow. He typically runs a Lore of the Wild/Lore of Beasts combo, and last game he turned his Bray Shaman into a dragon so I figured he'd keep Lore of Beasts. I think Devolve has some potential with this list, since most of my leadership is quite low. He was hoping for Traitorkin though, I think. Our typical games see us teaming up against Wood Elves and Brettonians (yeah I know.... weirdest battle in the Warhammer World, I'll post one of those reports sometime) and he LOVES Traitorkin.

We're both trying to figure out good strategies for the Cygor. Hopefully my next Battle Report he kills at least one model.

ShivanAngel wrote:I have been looking at that lore of the wild more and more boss, and I actually think its not as bad as people say it is...

Definitely give it a shot and let us know how it goes. It does have some good spells going for it (viletide + hagtree, bray-scream) and some mediocre-to-ok ones (devolve, traitor kin, mantle) but high casts and sad signature and uber-spells make me just prefer Beasts all the more. But then I'm a raging Lore of Beasts fanboy, so meh

- Salvage

Great to see a Batrep including Beastmen!

Unfortunately your opponents list is illegal. The unit size for Ungor Raiders is only 5-10. It probably wouldn't have made much of a difference however.

Cheers.

I agree with Salvage the map makes it so much easier to picture whats going on. Well done for comanding Vc to victory !

I keep trying Lore of the Wild but its always a bust :(.
Shadows and Beasts are so much better.
All the Beastman monsters are just crud IMO. 200-225 max but 275????
Blech....
GL to your friend and all the best but Cygor is a lost cause :p

His list is not legal. Ungor raiders have a unit size of 5-10

how were the ungors unbeatable their a cheap squishy T3 (think of them as pussy elves) unit?

pussy elves with hate every turn though

Nice rep, and the cygor is , sadly, a lost cause

SevenSins wrote:pussy elves with hate every turn though

Nice rep, and the cygor is , sadly, a lost cause

He might be pretty cool in storm of magic

I didn't think the Ungors would've been too difficult, but the were coming at me with around 30-40 attacks, needing 3's to hit (reroll misses) and 4's to wound. He almost always made most of his rerolls, sometimes only missing 2 or 3 times for ALL his attacks. That's a LOT of incoming damage to soak up. This was one of our first games at this point level, and I sorely underestimated massed Ungors. I've since beaten the unit a few times but I throw a lot at it when I do.

As an added bonus, he did bust out his Cygor a few weeks ago with Savage Dominion (Wild spell) and he popped up right behind my lines and caused all sorts of havoc. It was nice to see him kill stuff for a change.