March of the forest part 2: The savage Dheneb Stone coloured horde

2000 points Woodies vs OnG Dawn attack

Game two for the Woodies, this time at 2000 points. I’ve had limited success vs OnG with the woodies in 8^th. Though my troops are superior, there are also a lot less of me, and the OnG artillery is very scary! Dawn attack compounds my problems as I can’t guarantee favourable match ups. I am, however, very very glad that the orc tactica is no longer “throw 6 dice at waaagh having just declared a waaagh.” On a side note, the camera batteries were running a bit low, so apologies for the lack of "in the moment, up close and personal" photos I'm sure you, my loving fans, have become accustomed to.

So my list:

Lvl4: scroll, beasts

BSB: asyendi’s bane, Hoda

Branchwraith: Cluster of Radiants

Branchwraith

2x9 Dryads

12 Glade Guard: M, SB-flame

2x10 Glade Guard: M, SB

6 Treekin

Treeman

2 Eagles

And I was up against:

Orc warboss: 2HW, crown of command, armour of Destiny

Orc BSB on boar with stuff (I assume a ward and weapons of the usual bashy sort Orcs carry around)

Orc lvl2 scroll

Savage Orc lvl2: shrunken head

Gobbo lvl1

47 Orc boyz: FC

28ish Big Un Savage Orc Boyz: FC

45 Night Goblin archers: FC-1 Fanatic

6 Trolls

Orc Chariot

2 Manglers

So a rather scary Orc army sans artillery...should be an interesting match up.

We roll off, my opponent gets to deploy first. I then roll for my deployment and we end up like this:

I guess the things of note: Orc boyz horde is on my left (Im the guy in green with the book atking notes) = divertable, the flaming archers + BSB are directly opposite the trolls, the rest of my archers + lvl4 are squaring off vs a mangler and the chariot. 

Game plan was to quickly eliminate the chariot with shooting, then swing the shooting around to focus on the Big 'un SOrcs. Eagles will trigger the fanatic and hopefully also get the manglers that the shooting cannot. Hopefully I can gang up on the savage orcs, swing into the N Goblins and avoid the horde of doom! The flame archers were to shoot the trolls down to a mangable level/wipe them out. Treeman is conveniently placed to either swing left or right depending on where he was needed.  

Turn 1

Orcs got the first turn as I failed to seize the initiative. No animosity, so army moves up. 6v4 magic phase, which saw 2 channels from orcs gave the trolls a much needed night shroud to hopefully dampen my flaming arrows. However, this was cast with IF, killing 5 NGobbos from the explosion ("cleaning up the uneven ranks as I call it) and wounding the lvl1.

So the woodies get off the block with one of the eagles flying into the orc lines releasing the fanatic. The fanatic hit the eagle, but only caused 2 wounds. The eagle continued on its course landing in front of the savage orcs in such a way that the overrun would take them into the Treekin line of sight, with dryads lurking for a flank. My Dryads on the left moved to the right to get away from the horde of doom and the mangler. In an 8v7 magic phase I aimed the curse of Anraheir at the savage orcs, which was dispelled along with wildform on the eagle in harm’s way.  10 shots = 1 wound on the orc chariot, while the other unit killed a mangler. The flame Glade Guard fired at the trolls, including the HODA. Even though hitting on 4s, wounding on 4’s and the HODA hitting on 2’s, wounding on 4’s (13 shots), I manage ONE WOUND on the trolls...oh well at least a flaming HODA (woot for it NOT being a magic weapon) sounds good in theory.

Turn 2

So the Orcs turn starts with the Savage orcs rolling a 6 on the animosity table ensuring that they will charge the bait eagle-my “best case scenario” was the SOrc’s standing still for a turn while I get everything into position, though a charge was my “VERY best case scenario.” The Chariot also charged glade guard taking 1 wound from stand and shoot, and failing the charge. The trolls also fail a charge on the flame archers, taking 2 wounds from the stand and shoot. The rest of the army moves up. Magic was 4v4. The mangler was hand of gorked 20 INCHES to right where my Treekin want to be sigh. In the combat, the eagle does 1 wound to the shaman before being beaten into the ground. The Sorc’s, being frenzied, then overrun 11 inches into the mangler, resulting in 7 dead Sorcs. This was the key moment of the game as the overrun also meant that my Treekin were looking directly at the flank of the Sorcs.

So, the woodie turn starts with the Treekin charging the exposed Sorc flank. My dryads that had come across from the left flank moved to front charge the Sorcs given that they should hold 1, maybe 2 rounds of combat due to steadfast. The eagle, no longer having a Mangler to chase, move to redirect/road block the orc horde of doom! The Treeman moved to engage the trolls to stop them charging the glade guard. 

A small magic phase (4v3) sees wildform on the treekin scrolled. In the shooting phase, the chariot passes 2 6+ as to avoid taking any wounds and continue to hold up the bulk of my shooting. Flaming shooting and flaming strangleroot puts another 4 wounds on the trolls. In the combat, the treekin got 6 wounds past the wards and took 1 wound in return. The Sorcs passed their steadfast test.

Turn 3

The Orc horde of doom! is forced to charge the eagle from a failed animosity test. The remaining Trolls charge the Treeman. The Orc chariot then charges the Glade guard who are very, very lucky causing 2 unsaved wounds, killing the chariot with a stand and shoot. In another low dice magic phase (4v3) I manage to stop the hand or gork on the ngobbos that would have moved them into a very unfavourable position for me. In the combat with the eagle, Striking at the same time as the warboss, the eagle fails to wound warboss before being trampled into the dirt. The treeman does two wounds to the Trolls, who fail to do any in return to the Treeman. However, they do hold. The Treekin however, inflict a massive 9 wounds on the Sorcs, breaking their steadfast and running them down (they ran 3 inches).

The treekin, having just run down the Sorcs failed to keep their momentum going by failing a charge on the trolls in support of the treeman. The dryads form up in a 10 long line awaiting the charge of the ngobbos-or charging themselves. I made sure some of the unit was in the forest to get stubborn. The BSB leaves the flaming Glade Guard, who reform to heroically face off with the horde of doom! in such a way that the overrun would not get them anywhere useful. The glade guard begin their slow move back across the board to the action.

I roll a 12 Dice magic phase. A 6 dice curse on the horde of doom! is stopped with all dispel dice. I then 2 dice treesing the free forest forward a bit. Finally I get wildform on the Glade guard to give them a bit of punch before their doom. The doomed glade guard fire off a salvo killing 3 orcs...every little helps. In combat the Treeman inflicts 4 wounds on the trolls (4 1’s rolled for regen...). The trolls get a wound on the Treeman in return before the break and are run down.

Turn 4

The orcs take the bait and charge the glade guard. S&S kills 1 orc. The ngobbos also charge the dryads hoping for a lucky break and keeping steadfast for grind. In the magic phase a token hand of gork was cast and dispelled (was of no real use except to move the lvl2 completely away from the Treeman).

In combat, the glade guard completely fluff their attacks and fail to do anything despite being buffed to s4. In return the orcs had -1 to hit. This did not stop the warboss however who crushed 4 elves underfoot. The BSB killed 2 and the boyz completely fluffed and failed to kill anymore. However it did not matter as the glade guard needed snake eyes, broke and were run down. In the other combat, the dryads killed the lvl1 and 8 other gobbos. 1 Dryad was killed in return. The gobbos, even though steadfast broke and ran 12 inches. The dryads only managed to pursue 9 inches.

In my turn the dryads continued to chase the gobbos who flee another 9 inches. The treeman moves to strangleroot the lvl2. The dryads sans branchwraith move to divert the orcs once more, though I’m fast running out of diverters! In an 8 dice magic phase I get a 5 dice curse on the orcs, and wildform on the dryads fails to cast (rolling a 12 incl lvl4 grrr). In the shooting phase my Glade guard are too far away with too many modifiers to bother shooting. The treeman right on queue misfires with the strangleroot...I need new artillery dice!

Turn 5

So the horde of doom! hungry for more blood charges into the dryads. The curse kills 13 orcs. The ngobbos fail to rally and flee off the board. In combat the dryads kill 4.

They lose combat by lots and run 8. The horde of doom catches them, but due to their width contact the board edge before getting to where the dryads are = dryads are run down and the horde of doom is off the board = good thing as means it cannot charge in the final turn!

In my turn I fail to strangle root the lvl2 AGAIN and we end the game...I don’t bother for a turn 6 strangle root as it was too depressing haha. It didn’t matter though as the woodies were up by lots. 1228  vs 405.

Post battle

So a nice victory for the woodies. I was VERY VERY VERY lucky that the Sorcs had to charge the eagle and then over ran onto the mangler as it was out of eagle range = would have had to throw dryads at it. If the Sorcs had not had done that I believe I could have got the drop on them as I had 2 units of dryads and the treekin to trap them. Even if one unit had to wear a mangler to do so, ItP would have been key. The lack of artillery was also really lucky for me as it meant there was no pressure to push forward to take them out. 

There was also the last combat with the horde of Doom! where I used my dryads as the bait instead of the branchwraith who is worth less points. Although the tactic was sound (get the Horde running off the board for their last turn) it could have been done more cheaply. It's little things like this that need to become natural in game instead of during post battle analysis.

Use of Beasts instead of life

The list I took was designed around the use of the lore of beasts. 2 branchwraiths gave me fantastic targets for the character buffs. As it was I didn’t need to use them, but it was nice to know I could have made them death machines. I think I prefer beasts to life as a lore-but the 6^th spell is sooo stupid unless a High Elf mage with the Mc Hammer robes for much beardy use of "swap back to normal by ending the RiP" (in this game I swapped it for wildform). The only thing I really like about life is re-growth and dwellers-all the other spells I could do without. Having to cast throne to buff the casting is also a real crutch that is easily countered, and I'm not a 6 dice FTW kind of player-so the miscast protection is marginal. Of the 2 lores, the fact that beasts has 2 spells that can affect multiple targets-even though only characters-and also my favourite hex in the game means it will always be my preferred lore + it has the amber spear for the hard to kill things. However, in smaller games where characters are premium points, life will win out for me due to re-growth and dwellers and no spare points for branchwraiths. 

So another very enjoyable game that happened to swing my way a little too early in the game. The woodies definitely earned their repaint that I am currently doing-starting with the glade guard! I also have 2 Ents in the post that will become awesome treekin-giving me the option of fielding 2x6 treekin without having to proxy with ogres.