SO *just* had a last minute practice game vs James M's High Elves. We were running our Skitterleap lists which you can find here.
To quickly give an idea of what I was up against: Book of Hoeth lvl4 with death and banner of sorcery, 3 eagles, 3 RBT's, solo noble with 1+ re-roll, 5 DPrinces, lots of archers, spear bunker, horde of the Whitelion goodness.
We rolled up battleline. I deployed rather centrally, he cornered on the opposite side of board to my hellblaster (who hid with engineer all game).
The game started with a bit of an artillery vs Archers war. I got 2 of his RBT for the loss of 2 artillery crew and a single shish kebab'ed demigriff (t4 dont help vs that!).
Turn 2 was expensive for me. ldship attack on the Stank = 7 wounds...ouch. I then casually comment that he "might as well" shoot the RBT at it...3 wounds later and the stank is off the board and I'm looking longingly at my painting table at its replacement Dgriffs... The dice luck went my way when James set up a double eagle flee trap on my knights. Both eagles fled, my captasus also made some stuff flee and caught a unit of archers BOOM. basically the eagles fled off the board while the other one wore a cannon. This opened up my options, however James was not keen to commit to combat (obviously) and I was very, very, very aware of the Whitelion horde and didnt want to give it an opening.
On my right flank my chaff knights were sitting back anticipating the Dragon Princes trying something on. The did (charged the knights). I lose by 3, look to the heavens, pray to Sigmar (or is it Myrmidia-I'm never that up on the Empire fluff...I prefer Sigmar anyway) and casually pass a ldship 5 break test. Over the next couple of rounds (with the help of Transmutate) I wear down the Dragon Princes who eventually break and I run them down. This was very, very lucky for me as had my knights ran at any point I basically gave all my artillery, both mages and all my archers away as free VP's...yay for super vanilla knights!
Bottom of turn 5 the confrontation of knights and Dgriffs vs Whitelions is upon us. I set up the knights 9 inches away (when if a tournament game they would have been further back to flee the turn 6 charge) with the Demigriffs ready to flank. I make this aware as I was keen to see what would occur. Transmutate of lead on White lions for good measure.
Counting the VP's before the combat I was winning 11-9 (was 12-8 but James FINALLY killed one of my cannons after 6 turns of trying to roll 3 6's...even I was happy he got it!)
So the Whitelions get in with an impressive charge. Combat is painful as my BSB bites the dust (8 s6 attacks would do that though!) and I lose 3 knights. However in response I take down enough whitelions to win the combat by heaps. James takes the opportunity to reform into a long line to reduce the Demigriff attacks.
My Demigriffs go in. I get a 12 dice magic phase...Blades of Albian on the Dgriffs (his lvl4 fails to dispel-my lvl2 dies from 2nd miscast induced wound) so I throw dice at getting a 5+ ward and re-roll to wound -such an amazing prayer for the round after charge!
For fun my unit champ steps up to challenge the Whitelion champ (would NEVER usually do this-but fun) and dies. My knights and Demigriffs then kill ALL the remaining whitelions BEFORE stomps...and the unit champ is untouchable due to challenge (and would have died to stomp sigh) so iI dont get the points for the unit...but morally I do.
Did the Book of Hoeth break the game?
No, no it did not. Amazingly poor rolling meant that the only wounds I suffered were 7 on the Stank, 2 on a demigriff, and purple sun killed a single knight. All it does is mean that any spell not IF'ed is dispelled. I did however forget to use my scroll when I had the chance....oh well. However in saying that I was very lucky not to lose any characters to it...but if James didnt have the Book I would have said the exact same thing.
A very fun game vs one of my NZTC team mates, and a good last minute warm up for Skitterleap.
Interesting observation about the book of Hoeth. You are right in that basically any spell not IF should be dispelled, but then again, it does introduce the ability to reliably cast the spells that are most needed, and the chance to get them all through with IF.
ReplyDeleteGood luck for Skitterleap!
As the guy using it, I can personally say that most of the time if you have a decent range of spells you can get through the spells you need regardless of IF.
DeleteSo far I can say I'd probably rather have a different Lvl4 setup that would allow me to a)Throw less dice at spells without feeling like I've wasted 100pts and b) take another caster for spell variety (the Book making support casters moot) but I shall persevere and see what happens this weekend!
Cheers for the game Joel, we shall have to play more often in the future.