Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

The kids wanted to play some Warhammer, so I dusted off some minis and we threw down for an 8th ed game of Empire vs Vampire counts . They are still learning so I wanted to keep it simple for them, no magic items and very few spells.


Empire


General of the Empire
Warrior Priest
Battle Wizard
Knights (10)
Knights (10)
Halberdiers (40)
Greatswords (20)
Archers (10)
Handgunners (10)
Handgunners (10)


Vampires


Vampire Lord
Necromancer
Wight King
Banshee
Skeletons (30)
Skeletons (30)
Zombies (20)
Zombies (20)
Zombies (20)
Graveguard (20)
Black Knights (10)





Set Up




Turn 1
Empire wins the first turn and marches forward. Not much going on, everyone just moving up.



Turn 2
Black Knights charge the Archers who flee and slam into the Greatswords. Magic and shooting are a meh. Notice the collection of Legos growing on the mountain thanks to my youngest.



Turn 3
Halberdiers joined by the General charge skeletons in the middle. Knights on the righthand side charge the Graveguard. Archers rally.



Vampire joins the fights on the Halberdiers and they break. On the righthand side Zombies charge the Knights in the flank as the fight the Graveguard. The Knights break from combat and are run down by the Graveguard.



Turn 4

The Halberdiers rally and reform. The fight against the Black Knights is turning into a tar pit. I kill them, they raise em back up .


The Vampire and his skeleton entourage charge the Halberdiers. The General challenges the Vampire. The rest of the undead shamble forward.



Turn 5

Knights on the left get off their rusty dusties and charge the Black Knights in the flank.

Black Knights finally crumble! The Halberdiers are holding but the general take a wound from the Vampire.



The Graveguard join the fray and hit the Halberdiers in the flank.



The Vampire kills the General, that combined with the new weight of the Graveguard is too much for the Halberiders to handle. They are run down by the Skeletons and Graveguard, which panics the Archers who book it. The Skeletons on the left and a unit of Zombies charge the last unit of Knights.



Turn 6

The Greatswords try to add some muscle to the fight on the left, but they are dwindling. The archers rally and the Wizard way out on the right plays avoid the Zombies and throws around some fireballs.



The Banshee screams at the Handgunners forcing them to run. The Necromancer hits the same unit with Curse of Years. The Vampire and his Skeletons take out the Archers. The Graveguard set up to be the hammer to the Zombie anvil on the left.





We call it on Turn 6. The Empire is thoroughly demoralized and the kids had fun beating up on the old man . All in all fun times, maybe next time a few cannon will be in order, Fireballs are not much of a match for Invocation and Curse of Years .

Thanks for the AAR! Always happy to see Ranks and Flanks Fantasy on Dakka. Please continue to post more.

What I love about this batrep is that there is only one horde formation in the entire match. Every unit is a manageable size, and gives a better impression of tactical and strategic applications to the game. Not the autopilot that hyperbole on boards will have you believe.

What fun! How old are your kids? I've got a 2 year old and a (precocious) 6 year old. I don't think my eldest is quite ready for warhammer yet, though!

 pancakeonions wrote:
What fun! How old are your kids? I've got a 2 year old and a (precocious) 6 year old. I don't think my eldest is quite ready for warhammer yet, though!

They are 7 & 9. The older one is starting to get it the younger one jumps in gets distracted and them comes back.
They were painting today





Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Just Tony wrote:
What I love about this batrep is that there is only one horde formation in the entire match. Every unit is a manageable size, and gives a better impression of tactical and strategic applications to the game. Not the autopilot that hyperbole on boards will have you believe.

In 1500-2500 I don't like to see thw field too crowded with hordes. The occasional horde is fun but I think 8th is great for 20-30 man blocks.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 infinite_array wrote:
Thanks for the AAR! Always happy to see Ranks and Flanks Fantasy on Dakka. Please continue to post more.

I hope to get some more in. The boys seem eager to play again, so maybe this weekend or next.

That army is old school. I had a fully plastic Empire army in the early 90's made out of Battle Masters, Advanced Heroquest, Heroquest ogre expansion and character miniatures from Talisman. Still got it somewhere.

 Orlanth wrote:
That army is old school. I had a fully plastic Empire army in the early 90's made out of Battle Masters, Advanced Heroquest, Heroquest ogre expansion and character miniatures from Talisman. Still got it somewhere.

My armies are like myself, old. I have always found the old Battle Masters are a good source for cannon fodder. I have a bunch of the halberdiers, just not painted. Soo we will be adding some of ths Battle Master wolves into the Vampire Count army

The tower was particularly good, and the cannon.

It was a premium set for bitz back in the 90's

Between Battle Masters and a few GW based boardgames you could make everything except musicians for a complete Empire army out of plastic, at a time when there was one single pose model per race and GW hadn't moved from lead to white metal.

And I still prefer the Heroquest ogres to the ones from the ogre Kingdom set, they had so much character, and at that time you could have ogres in an Empire army..

 Orlanth wrote:
The tower was particularly good, and the cannon.

It was a premium set for bitz back in the 90's

Between Battle Masters and a few GW based boardgames you could make everything except musicians for a complete Empire army out of plastic, ...

Back in the 90s I think Empire, High Elves, Lizards, and Brits were the easiest for a young person with little money. High Elves had their basic troops spears & bows in plastic and they were high on points. The 5th ed box made Brits and Lizards explode onto the scene.

Empire players had to be smarter. If you could find Battle Masters you were ok otherwise the only retail plastics were the halberdiers. You also had to be careful what stores you went to. For a while the GW by me would not allow Battle Master models in the store, until someone informed the manager that GW made the models for it.

I remember struggling with my mostly metal dwarfs for a long time. It helped as I got older a bunch of my friends got jobs at GW oh for the days of loose metal bits.

Back to Battle Masters, you can even put those broken models to use. I used the broken halberdiers as the basis for our Graveguard.

 Just Tony wrote:
What I love about this batrep is that there is only one horde formation in the entire match. Every unit is a manageable size, and gives a better impression of tactical and strategic applications to the game. Not the autopilot that hyperbole on boards will have you believe.

I'd say thats largely because this was a for fun game where powergaming was not considered. When played in the spirit of how it was intended, 8th was a lot of fun. When powergaming reared its head, the game fell apart quickly. For my area it was the mega blobs followed by the 6 dice for the win uber spells tactics. I wish GW had fixed those.

auticus wrote:

I'd say thats largely because this was a for fun game where powergaming was not considered. When played in the spirit of how it was intended, 8th was a lot of fun. When powergaming reared its head, the game fell apart quickly. For my area it was the mega blobs followed by the 6 dice for the win uber spells tactics. I wish GW had fixed those.

Any game is is dependable on the people you play with. I agree 8th was a lot of fun. What I liked most about it was that regular units actually mattered. In 5th, 6th, and 7th units like halberdiers were just speed bumps for the opponent. Step Up! and attacking in 2 ranks gave them some teeth.

I played a lot of tournaments in 6th and 7th and it was called the "magic 5" meaning do 5 wounds to a standard size unit and you negate their ranks, standard and outnumber bonus. It was too easy for cav, vampires, Chaos anything, and ogres to wipe out the fron rank and then you were left with nothing but taking your unit off the table. 8th was much better for regular units. Though the magic was better in 6th and 7th.

You aren't wrong. I was a "hardcore" tournament player from 5th to 7th edition. My main armies were chaos and vampire count busses.

I placed top 10 at the GW GT's regularly because the game was broken by running things like the black knight busses loaded with vampire characters.

Only had to wipe first rank out. Then fear and autobreak kicked in.

8th was great with steadfast... but they needed to cap unit sizes. The ridiculous mega blob units needed capped. Cap those off and armies looking like armies started showng up again and it was a lot of fun.

As far as older models go, I have 64 or more of the monopose plastic Beastmen Gors that I use as my Bestigors, and also 27 plastic Minotaurs from the Talisman set. I still need to get a BUNCH more for my army to be complete.

 Just Tony wrote:
As far as older models go, I have 64 or more of the monopose plastic Beastmen Gors that I use as my Bestigors, and also 27 plastic Minotaurs from the Talisman set. I still need to get a BUNCH more for my army to be complete.

In some cases I prefer monoposed models. They look more like well disciplined tropps. Having every model do their own thing is ok for rabble and characters but a big unit uniformed troops looks more menacing. Take 5th ed spear elves or 6th Blackguard they look cool and imposing, not to mention they rank up really well

Its not the monopose I like about them, its the simplicity. I have cut up monopose models to have variety, done a lot of chopping and glueing with my 5th Bret archers for variety in pose and gear.

However I prefer them to later models because there was clear no fuss detail. Newer models are laden down with junk detail, and while I like newer faces I prefer older outfitting. My bret archers come with tunic, hose, coif, bow arrows in the belt or stuck in the ground and an archers vambrace. All done. No skulls on chains, scrolls, roast chickens, bags or rags, just the archer and what he wears.

 Orlanth wrote:
Its not the monopose I like about them, its the simplicity...

Personally I don't care for a lot of the newer models. There is something about the plastic faces that have no expression to me. The older metal, 5th-6th especially, appeal to me more. I agree on the excessive detail of newer models. I don't need each model to be decked head to toe in skulls.

I do agree, that for example older monopose models when looked at unit-wise make a somehow impressive statement of disciplined warriors ranking up "like one"

I also agree with the fact that newer models could use some reduction in these unneccessary "here a skull, there a band, another parchment" accessories that make them also a pain in the ass to paint.

But some old models from 4th/5th just look plain ridiculous compared to the way nicer multipart models of 6th edition.

Nice batreport by the way.