Time for a battle report. Haven’t played much Fantasy of late – winter has mostly meant Hordes for me

– but I did get in two games in the last week. First versus
VC with a variant of this list (2x PCB, 1x wheel), which went to hell pretty quickly with everything misfiring then my seer getting
KB’d around Turn 3. Vamps went on to heal everything back up and I walked away with just his terrorgheist and wraiths

No batrep for that, but I will say that I cannot wait for the new
VC book to hit. WS7 regening gravestar, I hope to never see you again (though I hear it will still hit on 2+ and wound on 2+

)
Couple days later I fought my usual High Elf sparing partner, who was trying out a somewhat different list (i.e. eagle prince + no swordmasters). Game on.
SKAVEN 2500 Ruin Seer – D3+2 warpstone tokens, dispel scroll, skalm, screaming bell
Chieftain –
BSB, ruby ring of ruin, charmed shield
Deathmaster Snikch
45 Stormvermin – banner of swiftness, full command
30 Stormvermin – full command, poison wind mortar
30 Stormvermin – full command, poison wind mortar
20 Slaves – pawleader, musician
20 Slaves – musician
5 Gutter Runners – poison, slings
5 Gutter Runners – poison, slings
5 Plague Censer Bearers
Doomwheel
Doomwheel
Snikch is the newest addition, replacing my usual double assassins. I do feel that my twins are quite a bit better than Snikch is, but I recently re-converted an assassin model, so aesthetically don’t want to run one of the old ones too. Also, I’m finding it really difficult to get Death Frenzy off on multiple targets, so just having one assassin to juice up seems more manageable than two. And Snikch might give me a reason to keep Skitterleap if I get it … The mortars are also new to me, and frankly I’m wondering why Clan Internet has (or had) such a hard-on for them. Honestly, all they’ve done so far is misfire catastrophically and kill stormvermin – in the game against the vamps they both went nuclear in the second turn, after both scattering horribly in the first. They’re actually so bad that I may go back to my ratling guns
HIGH ELVES 2500 Prince - rerollable 2+ armor, 4+ ward, the other trickster's shard, great weapon, eagle
Archmage - level 4 (SHADOW), 5+ ward, +1 spell
Mage - level 2 (LIGHT), annulian crystal
Noble -
BSB, 2+ armor, great weapon, dragonbane gem?
30 Spearelves - full command, shields
12+ Archers - banner of eternal flame, standard, musician
12+ Archers - musician
20 Phoenix Guard - banner of sorcery, full command
14+ White Lions - champion w/ ironcurse, musician
6 Dragon Princes - champion w/ amulet of light, musician
Eagle
Eagle
MAGIC Ruin Seer -- warp lightning, death frenzy, scorch, 13th, 5 warpstone tokens
Shadow Mage -- everything good (i.e. not steed, not pendulum)
Light Mage -- net, banishment
DEPLOYMENT Standard battleline game, terrain provided by my mundane terrain chart, scattered
3D6”, I let him drop first …
Light level 2 joins the spearelves, noble
BSB is in with the phoenix guard, shadow level 4 is with the right archers. The left archers have flaming (not that it matters here).
Chieftain
BSB deploys with the left smaller stormies (so did Snikch!) and the bell + seer take a ride in the stormy bus. The elf player was none too surprised at this
GAME Turn 1
Elves win the initiative and mobilize fast things. Magic blows strong (hint - it will continue to do so for the pointy ears thanks to the BoS), but there is only so much to do: the left doomwheel is banished for one wound, but doesn’t freak out. The archers lay in at extreme range and drop the left mortar (needing 7+ to hit), as well as a couple stormvermin.
Skaven return with a massive amount of skittering, combined with some decent wheel rolls (8-9 & 12). Most notably the gutters already on the field enter their building. Magic blows as strong as it ever will for the evil guys (9-1=8), but a Scorch from the bell (dispelled) means that some stuff gets through afterall: the ruby ring and some warp lightning nearly drop a rank of white lions. Both wheels contain their lasery doom, the surviving mortar scatters 10” off the phoenix guard, and the building gutters tag two wounds on the rightmost eagle.
Turn 2
A positively dwarven turn of movement from the elves, with flyers flying and everything else standing or backing up. Magic blows extremely strong (12+!), but a fail cast from the shadow mage means that the light mage is brutally shut down by the grey seer. Shooting is relatively ineffective as well, with a single wound tagged onto the left wheel – he doesn’t flip out this time either.
Despite the blocking eagle, the bell had enough clearance to wheel past it but sadly does not have the angle to tag the phoenix guard’s corner. Sadder still, I had already charged the mortar into the eagle to clear room for the bus’s tail swing, so while I was not forced to declare the bell charge, I had already declared the mortar and couldn’t take it back :’( Adding to the bad charges, the PCB failed to restrain and rushed to their doom on the eagle prince. The movement issues would continue: the left doomwheel could have loved to careen into the left eagle, but the slaves were in the way, so it butted the building and prepared lasers, after which the slaves rushed for the spearelves. The other doomwheel wanted to fly into the right eagle and save the mortar from itself, but again the bus was in the way, so it had to slam into the bell unit and run over a few stormies. And then the bus floored it 12” and parked to take on both elf elites next turn -
but it would turn out that my positioning was off by about 1/4", meaning that instead of taking both units in the front, the guard would be hitting the bus’s flank. Guh.
Otherwise stormvermin advance hard and the
BSB bails for the slaves and their happy-go-lucky pawleader. The winds of magic provide next to nothing (3-1=2), Scorch is stopped and the seer devours four warpstone tokens, but the Death Frenzy he casts with them is exactly squashed thanks to +5 to dispel from the shadow mage. The bell’s unit is well and truly boned now, but weirdly the bell itself feels like celebrating, blamfing out a 24” reroll bubble instead of anything useful.
Shooting has its ups and downs: both gutter units drop a handful of archers, while the left doomwheel misfires its lasers and takes a wound. Crappy combats are crappy, with the mortar and PCB all being cut down before striking.
Turn 3
The fighty elves grip their weapons tight, nod to each other and prepare to slaughter skaven: the white lions frontal charge the bell while the phoenix guard flank in, and the dragon princes slam into the stormvermin heading for their archmage. Who bails from his unit of archers, as the prince gets situated for ratty
BSB assassination and eagles get in the way, blocking the other stormies and ensuring that the central doomwheel cannot turn towards anything useful. Magic hooks the elf wizards up with all they need to bring the pain, successfully miasma-ing the bus’s
WS down by two and withering its T by one. The withering goes IF and the miscast knocks a wound from both casters. Shortly after this the right archers, thanks to swift reform, drop four gutters and send the last running off the table.
Combat with the bell is about as horrific as expected, with over a dozen stormies cleaved into bits for just three white lions and a single phoenix guard. What is surprising is as how painful the
DP are, killing 12 of their stormvermin with 13 attaks for two dead princes. The skaven elite (!) fail their LD9 steadfast check and run 11”, outpacing the elven steeds and actually bouncing all the way across the battlefield! All panics are passed, though two more vermin die scrabbling through the
SW ruins.
Just halfway through the game and the skaven already need a miracle to pull this one out. Or rather, the skaven need
somebody to do their fakking job

The Deathmaster hears the lamentations of the skaven general and charges out into the flank of the white lions, as the wounded doomwheel likewise gets his butt in gear and charges the left blocking eagle. Unfortunately the right wheel has no choice but to ram the bell unit, smashing a few more of its dwindling numbers … The left slaves scamper into the spearelves’ face, the other slaves turn to face the incoming prince, and most importantly, the surviving gutters see their opening and leave their building …… Those fleeing stormvermin rally, preparing to powwow behind the ruins and save their points
Magic sucks hard and can’t get Death Frenzy through, and the bell tries to blow up all T7 models, which doesn’t even drop the nearby building. The wheels unleash their laser show, with both eagles detonating spectacularly (as well as more stormvermin). But let’s get right to it: the gutters hurl 10 poisoned shots at the shadow mage, tag two 6’s, and manage two wounds. The Withering drops, Miasma sticks around for one more turn, and suddenly we have a game again.
Snikch the Deathmaster, Master of Death, trips over his six weeping blades and stabs just two white lions. A couple token elves die later, but first another couple handfuls of stormvermin are liquefied. The bell crew doesn’t care but Snikch fails his LD6 twice and legs it, landing right in front of the left doomwheel
Turn 4
The spearelves dock with the slaves and ready pokey bits, dragon princes flank the unwounded doomwheel, and the prince zips in to kill some other slaves (and their precious cargo). Magic blows strong as always (8 total), but with just the net to cast the light mage is crushed out by the seer. Shooting flubs and it’s on to combat. The spearelves lacerate the slaves, who fail to assassinate the wounded light mage (2 attaks, 4+ to hit, 4+ to wound is pretty decent, but not to be) and explode a couple elves apart. The prince ruins that plucky pawleader, and then passes the LD9 test he’s asked to make from the slave’s musician. Meanwhile the princes lose two of their compatriots to doomwheel grinding, stick one wound on the contraption, and it passes its LD6 break, as well as its reform test to face the two survivors (not shown in the pics). Oh, more of the bell’s unit is shredded by phoenix guard who can’t roll lower than 3+, but at least the white lions are down to one woodsman.
Snikch rallies but is now blocking the doomwheel from being awesome, so said wheel butts back into the ruins for prince intercept later. Gutters begin to plague the archers and the other stormies hope to take on the spearelves soonish. Magic blows weak as ever (6-1=5?), but a Scorch assist from the bell means that the seer is able to get his Scorch off onto the spearelves. Half of the unit burns to the ground, they fail their panic and flee through the archers, who also panic and head to the table edge. Whoa.
A single archer falls to the gutters, and the doomwheels light things up! Things being 3 slaves, 1 stormvermin and two dragon princes

Then in combat the last white lion bites it, but the bell bus has been thoroughly wrecked. And the skaven
BSB is chopped down, his charmed shield failing to activate just to add insult to injury.
Turn 5
Archers face those damn gutters but fail to make it a swift reform, and the fleeing elves all rally behind the marsh. The light mage attempts to do stuff to Snikch but can’t see him through all the pretty elf hair he’s covered himself in

The prince explodes the slaves and the phoenix guard cut the bell stormvermin down to two models, while knocking the seer down to his last wound (he drank his skalm in a previous turn after being wounded by white lions).
Doomwheel rodeo time! Or not, as just one wheel makes it into the prince, with the other stuttering ~6” and readying lasers. Snikch and his old stormvermin buddies feel frisky and sprint for the elves’ marshland bunker, as gutters continue to be irritating. Magic blows strong enough to hit the archers with Scorch, burning the unit down. The bell sends out a mellow single die melody, putting up a 24”
BSB bubble. In the laser phase, the wounded wheel fires first, slamming the prince with S10 lightning! The elf wards the first, then the second, then the third! Clearly as incredulous as me, the second doomwheel misfires its shots and does nothing. In combat it rolls a massive 7 impacts, which turn into 7 wounds, which the elf completely absorbs with rerolled 4+ armor and 4+ ward.
Whoa. The prince carves two wounds into the wheel and combat is tied.
Then it’s bell time and I make the situation clear. The bell has just two stormvermin left, the musician touching the
BSB in the corner of the phoenix guard and the standard on the other side of the bell. If the
BSB can’t cut down both vermin this round, and only drops one, my opponent is going to be stuck trying to drop the bell in two rounds with S4
PG, to get to the 380 point standard bearer on the other side. The
BSB swings with three attaks, needing 3+ (rerolled) to hit and 2+ to wound. For the first time all game he only manages one wound, sliding the bell in and locking the standard out. The phoenix guard retaliate by cutting down the grey seer, though the bell must die to give up any of his points so meh.
Turn 6
The elves hug their corner. The prince drops the wheel. The guard scratch the bell.
Snikch and crew don’t even have a long bomb charge on the spearelves, so just move up to be menacing. The remaining wheel (with one wound remember) scoots past the prince to try one more laser blast. They go off at S2: 1) Wounds, first 2+ armor is failed, second makes it; 2) Wounds, first 2+ armor is made; 3) Wounds, first 2+ armor is failed, second makes it. So close

The bell ends the game with a whimper, rolling a 1 on his single die dirge ...
SKAVEN VICTORY, but not by much, maybe 200 points. Very little gave up any points, despite all the grinding involved. At the time I was furious at myself for not watching my positioning with the bell unit – and sort of mad about continuing to be so aggressive – but in retrospect I could also have very easily kept my
BSB alive, even just by leaving the slaves and keeping within 1” of friendly units, so the prince couldn’t land. Though I’m sure I would have gotten him shot by doomwheel lightning in that case
- Salvage