Battle Breakdown Part 3

Its been a few weeks since I've done one of these and its about time I got caught up. Since I wrote part 2 I've added a battle log to the blog. You can find it by scrolling down to the very bottom. It contains a list of every game I've played in 2011. I've left out whether I win or lose until I can write these battle reports, so as you can see I've got some catching up to do. This post is pretty long, longer than I originally expected, so you may want to consider getting yourself a Tea or Coffee before reading, although it is easily broken down into separate battles

Game 8

This was another Campaign game, this time verses Jake with his Warriors of Chaos and was my first experience of having to deal with a death star unit, albeit a mini death star as the points for this game was still only 1200pts. His army consisted of a unit of 10 marauders, a Hellcannon and the rest of his points were in one unit of Warriors of Khorne, with a level 2 Sorcerer with Lore of Nurgle and a Khorne Lord on Juggernaut. The scenario was Battle for the pass, which I've played a few times at this kind of point level now, I don't find it makes a huge difference as the armies are so small, but what makes it interesting is that generally, even when randomising terrain, you tend to set it up with a mind to playing games down the width of the table. So when all of a sudden you're playing length ways, I find the terrain is a little more random and interesting.

Anyway I was using the same 1200pt list I've used for the last couple of games. See previous Battle Breakdowns for details. So his Warriors and my Temple Guard and Saurus unit set up opposite each other. I set up a little further back but not much, I wanted the chance to get some magic off to whittle his unit down, although I know I didn't succeed. My Skinks set up on the left of these two units opposite his Hellcannon, both units near the board edge. There was some impassible terrain in the middle of the board so my Cold Ones set up on the other side of it, his Marauders were set up across from them. I had the first turn, I raced the Skinks as far forward as I could aiming to poison the Hellcannon to death. I figured the Warriors would ignore them, my two Saurus units being the bigger threat. My Coldones advanced likewise on the right flank, the plan was to dispatch of the marauders quickly and turn to face the rear of the warriors as quick as possible. My two Saurus Units remained stationary waiting for the Warriors to come to them.

In his turn Jake declared that he had to charge the Skinks because he was frenzied, I cursed myself for forgetting such a simple rule. Of cause upon checking later I realised he could have taken a leadership check not to charge. As it turned out this worked out better for me. I can't remember if I fled and he caught me or if I stood and he slaughtered me (I may have stood as a flee would have likely taken me off the board), either way he ended up in the perfect position for my Temple Guard to charge him in the front and my Saurus with General to charge in the side. Which is what I did in my turn. He of cause had to challenge which he did with his Khorne Lord and I accepted with my Old Blood. This would be the first real test for my Old Blood. The Khorne Lord stuck first but the Old Bloods defences held firm, T5 2+ save and 4+ ward is a tough nut to crack, although he did manage to get one wound off (I believe I forgot the -1 to hit because of my glittering scales, a mistake I keep repeating). At this point I said I may as well do my Lords attacks in the challenge as it doesn't make any difference and I figured it would be more dramatic (a big mistake which I'll talk about in a minute). Now these were ideal conditions for my Lord, 2 characters in his unit meant the sword of anti heroes provided me with +2S and +2A, giving him 7A at S7. He made pretty short work of the Lord despite a regeneration save.

The rest of the combat was bloody so despite killing his Lord I still lost the combat by one although I passed both my saves. Now here was the mistake, well 2 mistakes, that lost me the game. First off, I forgot to add the +1 combat resolution for charging so the combat would have been a draw. Not that big a deal maybe but consider my first mistake. I took my Old Bloods attacks before his warriors. A Lord on a Juggernaut takes up 4 models worth of space. If we had considered it at the time we could have just taken this into account but we didn't. So 4 extra Khorne warriors, two in base contact and two supporting, that's an additional 8 attacks. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to assume he probably would have caused one less wound if not more and it would have only of taken one less wound for me to have won the combat (assuming I remembered the +1 combat resolution for charging). Now he's only Leadership 8 now his Lord is dead so with a couple of modifiers and no Battle Standard he may have run there and then (I don't think he was steadfast but I can't remember), with a good chance at least one of my units would have caught him. More importantly he would have lost frenzy, and with two units in contact that was about 8 or 9 attacks in the following round that he wouldn't have had.

As it was in the following round his Champion challenged and my Old Blood once again accepted. This turn he wasn't quite so indestructible and managed to cause the two wounds needed to finish him off (If he had had one less attack...ho hum). So the lowly champion succeeded where the Lord could not, you can't help but laugh at stuff like that. At this point now my two units are getting too small to put up much of a fight and soon run, the warriors spend the rest of the game finishing off these two units or chasing after them after they've fled.

Meanwhile the Cold Ones go on a bit of a goose chase. The marauders flee at every charge and move as far away as they can in every movement (we played the whole moving backwards rules completely wrong and he was moving much further than he should have been able). The Hellcannon misfired once or twice and spent a couple of turns running towards the Cold Ones firing at them when able and killing a couple of them. My Cold Ones had the opportunity to charge the Hellcannon at one point instead of the marauders, a much more tempting target for sure. However, this was the turn they failed their stupidity test and so instead move D6” forward, which took the Hellcannon out of arc to charge the following turn and so I continued to pursue the Marauders whom I finally caught and defeated in combat. Instead of pursuing, however, I elected to reform as another opportunity to charge the Hellcannon arose on the final turn, these two units were still locked in combat at the end of the game.

What I learnt: Well a lot about the rules, most of which I've already covered. There's definitely a wider point of not being flippant with the rules like I was with the combat order, assuming I knew better or it didn't matter was hubris that just bit me on the ass in the end. This game also highlighted the importance of looking over the rules after a game and considering what happened, many of these mistakes I didn't realise until many hours after the game, but now I've discovered them and considered the implications on the game I've learnt them all the better now.

Game 9

Once again a campaign game, this time verses The Joe of the Black Sun (checkout their new podcast btw, link on the left of the page) with his High Elves still 1200pts. This time it was watchtower which I've not played since my first game.

Not huge amount to say about this one, suffice to say Sword Masters in the tower are difficult to beat. He started in the tower, my Saurus block moved in turn one and shifted his Sea Guard out. His Sword Masters charged in later and made pretty short work of my Saurus. The tactic I've learnt to use against High Elves, of isolating and picking on the Sword Masters, then dealing with everything else is pretty much nullified by the watchtower scenario. Everyone is too focused on the one point. I tried to get my other units around the tower to assault the sides of the Sword Masters but all his other units were in the way. My Temple Guard with General received a combined charge from a Lion chariot and small unit of Sea Guard. The Temple Guard were wiped out forcing the General to flee, only the chariot pursued and failed to catch. My general rallied and eventually managed to destroy the chariot on turn 6 at which point the game ended with the High Elves occupying the tower and with very little of my own troops still on the board.

Just before the game ended I commented that my General was going to try and charge the tower next turn. Joe flippantly remarked that I didn't stand a chance with 10 Sword Masters directing their attacks against me, I thought there was a slim chance, but more importantly it was my only chance. As it turns out we never got to find out. Considering this later I realised I had a much better chance than even I realised at the time. Now first it has to be said it wasn't the shortest of charge distances so I may not have reach anyway, but if I did I probably would have won combat. For a start in a building only 5 models can direct their attacks against single characters. Because of my high weapon skill, high toughness, 2+ save and 4+ ward statistically the Sword Masters should have only done 0.76 wounds. I can't remember now if he had his wizard in the unit, which would have activated my Sword of Anti Heroes, even if he didn't I statistically should have caused 2.5 wounds winning the combat. And this isn't taking to account that my Skink priest was still alive and may have got a buff or hex off. Sure he was still steadfast but I don't believe he had a standard bearer around. If he had fled he may have found it difficult to shift me. Alas we'll never know what may have happened.

What I learnt: Well this was the main thing I learnt, and has made me think maybe I should have stuck the general in the Saurus unit that attacked the tower in the first place. I think what put me off is what Simon said in my first game while he was teaching me, that I may not want to declare my character as one of the ten as he could declare all his attacks against my character and take him off. That's why I sent him off to do other things. But yeah when the character is as tough as mine, and only 5 models can attack the odds are a lot better. I also learnt that flaming attacks re-roll to wound when attacking buildings, it never came up in this game but Joe pointed it out. A handy bit of information for the future.

Game 10

This game was in a new venue, the Warhammer Club in Dorchester, basically a home built gaming room with a small handful of players, and I have to say its a very nice place to play. The Poole Store is great when you have a couple dozen people, but Paul's gaming room is ideal when there's just a couple of you, its the sort of thing I'm sure all us gamers dream of having one day. The first game was against Paul's Wood Elves, the scenario was battle for the pass and this time we were playing 1400pts.

Yep that's right I had an upgrade. OK if you've read the prior post with the big picture of the Salamander this wont be a surprise to you, but yeah I brought two Salamanders on the night I played Joe. I was going around in circles that night deciding whether or not to buy them, basically deciding if I could afford them. After the game with Joe I thought 'you know what would have been handy dealing with those Sword Masters? Some Salamanders' especially with the whole re-rolling wounds with flaming attacks.

Two Salamanders added 150pts to the total so figured I'd add in a few magic items to round the army to an even points number. I added the flaming banner to the Temple Guard (well everyone's got to have one) and The Gleaming Pennant for the Cold Ones allowing them to re-roll their first failed leadership check. I've found I tend to fail one stupidity test over the course of a game so this 5pt magic item I figured would help mitigate that. I also gave a couple of trinkets to my Skink Priest, the Plaque of Tepok and the Curse-charm of Tepok. This guy obviously has a thing for Tepok. These give him an extra spell (incredibly useful) and can force the enemy to re-roll one miscast roll (might be useful if I ever remember I have it)

Anyway back to this game. Paul had 2 Units of Dryads, 3 units of glade guard one with a level 4(?) Life Sorceress in and a unit of Way Watchers with a noble in which deployed annoyingly behind my army. Oh and he had an Eagle, possibly two I can't remember. My plan was to ignore the Way Watchers and move as swiftly as possible towards the enemy, I figured I could leave them behind. But then turn one and his Way Watchers kill my Skink priest and it suddenly occurs to me I've not really played against a shooty army before and definitely against units with the scout rule so I was sloppy with the placement of my priest, I normally deploy him behind a unit and thus I did here without considering the scouting units. Rookie lesson learnt.

I think it was probably around the time my Skink Priest's head hit the floor that I decided I did need to deal with those Way Watchers, if nothing else there was a reasonable amount of points there. Think I was reluctant to waste a turn reforming but luckily Paul gave me a way out, he placed an Eagle in a position to be charged by my Cold Ones, after slaughtering the feathered creature I combat reformed to face the Way Watchers who died just as easily once I caught them, although the Cold Ones did have trouble getting back to the fight after that.

There's not huge amounts to say about the rest of the battle. It was largely me running forward trying to catch his units while he caused as much damage as he could with magic and shooting. When I did make contact I mostly killed what I touched, although I had some trouble with Dryads. The Salamanders had some pretty good shots at one point taking out half the Mage's unit, although many of these came back through life magic. I did get all excited when I flamed the Dryads, they are flammable after all, only to find of cause that flammable means they take double wounds but they only have one wound anyway. That was disappointing. The game was a win for me anyway, not massive win I don't think but fairly comfortable I think

What I learnt: Well first off be careful where you place wandering priests, especially where there's lots of shooting and scouts involved. Salamanders are really fast, they can easily move round the flanks of units and are best doing that to get better shots anyway, but what's interesting at this point it makes them difficult for the enemy to deal with them and I find it quite amusing to force an enemy to spin in circles. Life is a very common lore, I don't think I've actually faced any other lore from the main book, only army book lores.

OK I was going to write another battle but this post is pretty long as it is, possibly my longest. I'm playing my first 'proper' sized game Tuesday and first time with a Slann. Its only 7 weeks till the Weymouth Waaagh so I figured I needed to get practising with a full army as soon as possible. I've got 7 more battles to write about and I want to try and get these finished soon so I can focus on talking about Tournament preparation in my battle reports.

Till next time