Hobby update: WHFB terrain

Hi all,

Time for a hobby update. I've been a little bit unmotivated re: painting my armies. My Empire are "done" unless for some reason Griffons/luminarcks become the new broken. Woodies are "done" except for the big smashy unit of Treekin I keep thinking about but would never use, and my High Elves are "done" in that everything I use is painted and all new painting is just adding "more" (2nd unit of reavors, 3rd and 4th RBT, Seaguard, more spears/archers etc) and there whispers of a new book around the corner-so saving myself for that!

On the 40K front my orks are just coming along. Dakkajet done, 2nd boyz mob 95% done...but since I dont use them competitively I dont really have much of an urge to get them finished other than a sense of self satisfaction. Then again-looking at the new NZ 40K rankings...3 events...dont come last = possibly ork Icon holder????? tempting.

So instead I have turned to terrain. Like all gamers I prefer to play on tables with cool terrain. I feel it adds to the experience and if I wanted "counts as" stuff I would play computer games. GW have it right (occasionally) in that games are kinda story telling ("and then the dryads d*ck moved and conga-lined in the forest") and a well terrained table is part of that.

Looking over my reports you will notice that most of the non event games suspiciously have the same terrain set. This is my patented "terrain in a bag" set that I carry whenever I go gaming. 2 Hills, building, 2 fences, GW arcane ruins, 3 forests and a swamp. If I'm playing at home I currently add in the Temple of Skulls.

I now introduce 2 new terrain pieces to make my reports a little different to look at, and my tables more fun:

Dreadstone Blight:

And the Wyrding Well part of the Deathknell Watch:

I have the rest of the tower ready to paint up, but it suffers from my one main complaint about GW terrain-it doesn't glue together very well. I've just purchased some Araldite glue so I can get it to stick together (used it to get the top level of the dreadstone to stay up!)

My other complaint about GW terrain is the number of skullz on everything...but only because the Internetz says I have to complain about this. Secretly it doesnt bother me, but admitting that is almost like admitting you are a fan of the Black Caps (good foundation for a successful couple of years. Vetorri who? forget about Ryder and get Guptill back in but down the order until he remembers how to bat for time!)

I've based the terrain because I like how it a) makes the terrain look better, b) gives a clear defined boundary of where it is (sometimes a slightly bigger footprint makes things easier and interrupts movement in a good way) c) gets me more used to it so I am more tournament ready (local events have 99% of all buildings like this. That is not a big reason, but it helps things be consistant. Case in point: tournaments that use pretend TLOS (oh...these tiny hills...yeah they block LOS...right...) screw me up. At masters I played a game where some of the difficult terrain (how I normally play it) was agreed to be impassible...screwed me up completely as I kept seeing it as terrain I could move through. Oh well.

Next terrain on the go: some 40k area terrain barrels, tank trap line and finishing the tower part of the wyrding well + if I can somehow get it past the other half without her noticing (oh these? nar they aren't new I had them for ages...just never got around to assembling them...) I want to get the Skullvane Manse and the Witchfate Tor.

Campaign Day two

Alrighty,

Sorry for the delay - life (well, the Legend of Korra) got in the way. So naturally now it's Friday night = I can watch Conan the Barbarian (original) and type up battle reports. After a mixed bag day 1 (unsurprising thrashing by Skaven, giving it good to the Beastmen, and voluntarily giving 1000pts away last 2 turns and losing to Vamps - I'm still a little sore about that), I was determined to make amends day to and prove that the Woodies can mix it with everyone (except skaven).

GAME FOUR: vs Glen's Vamps Meeting Engagement.

So another game vs the Vamps. Glen's list is very different to Ryan's. He uses a flying Ghoulking in a skele bunker with the 3 wraiths and banner of swiftness. 2 Terrorgiests, lvl2 heavens dark aura vamp on hellsteed + a death lvl4...yeah you can guess what this list is built around. 5 terror causes, 2 superscreams and a potential -5 to Ldship. Basically I love Glen's take on the Vamps as it is not just about pushing a bus into combat.

I won the roll off and deployed first. Both Treemen and a unit of archers were off the board. my plan was to deploy a deep curve so if the terrorgiests wanted to go screaming they would wear arrows to the face. Glen counter deployed and had his lvl4 and lvl1 necro + a unit of zombies off the board.

I didnt vanguard my wildriders just in case I went first so I could still charge with them. Glen failed to steal the initiative, so I went first.

Turn 1:
This mission is made for turn 1 charges, so not to disappoint my wildriders charged some doggies on the right flank while the dryads charged some on the left. Hoping to do a better job with the shooting my archers open up on the (my) left terrorgiest. 5 FLIPPIN' WOUNDS (again). To make matters worse, the last 30 shots failed to take the final wound gar! Oh wellz. The wildriders and dryads both make short work of the doggies.

In response Glen's vargiests frenzy charge into the wildriders, while the unwounded terrorgiest and the dark aura vamp move to get some scream on.

 Whilst the other one went and hid in the corner (boo hiss!)...Glen is a closet Dwarf player :P

The lvl4 IF's Doom and Darkness on the wildriders. Small template kills 4 zombies and 1 skele. Scream is not that impressive with only 3 dying (dropped to ldship 5). To add to it, the Wildriders hold.

Turn 2:
 The central dryads charge into a unit of doggies seeing an overrun into the fellbats and a chance to hold up the zombies. The left dryads move to take the last wound from terrorgiest, the treemen run towards the combat.

Shooting is more about clearing chaff out the way. The Wildriders die in the combat, whilst the middle dryads beat the doggies and get the overrun.

Dryads then promptly get zombies in the front and flank...BRING IT ON! The vargiests fail a frenzy induced charge into 1 of the eagles (thank goodness!).

The terorgiest and vamp move to scream my bunker in the building. The lvl4 IFs Doom and Darkness (again) taking a wound, and wounding the Ghoul King in the process. Scream kills 9 archers and the dryads to enough wounds to negate the SCRes and win the combat by 1.

Turn 3:
The Dryads take the opportunity that is presented and flank the vargiests. In exchange for 1 wound on my lvl4 I IF Dwellers on the skele character bus killing 1 wraith and 23 skelles. My shooting phase gets the final wound on the terrorgiest, 3 wounds to the 2nd terrorgiest, and kill the lvl2 vamp.

In the combats Zombies vs Dryads = Dryads hold and the vargiests lose by 1.

A wraith charges the building...pass my -4ldship terror test boom! and the wriath takes a wound from my BSB's magic bow for the pleasure too. The terrorgiest also declares a charge on the building too. My eagle also passess a terror test from a wriath charge. I scroll Doom and Darkness. In the Combats I beat the vargiests by 2, do 2 wounds to the terrorgiest before the bunker is killed. Dryads kill enough zombies for a draw and the heroic eagle holds!

Turn 4:
The Treemen get into the zombies to rescue the dryads (not that they needed it, but a game without Treeman stomp is a wasted game!)

I Dwellers the bunker again (9 dead skeles - Ghoul King dodged it twice now...) and then get the archers into it (well, 1 unit finishes off the terrorgiest) and drop the unit to unit champ and Ghoul King on 1 wound (that champ passed a few too many armoursaves!). The Treemen have their fun and crumble the zombies (who remembers 7th ed where zombies were the best way to tie up treemen???). The vargiests are also beaten by the dryads. The now t6 Eagle also holds.

Not seeing any other options the Ghoul King tries to get to safely and declares a charge on a unit of glade guard...who prompty kill the Ghoul King with stand and shoot! The resulting crumble kills the remaining wraiths. The lvl4 not seeing many options IF's Purple sun at the Treemen...and thanks to the FAQ misses by an inch!

We call the game there with EVERYTHING looking at the lvl4 and his much diminished bunker.

End Result: Big win to the Woodies!

In the map phase I completely forgot to take one of Glen's territories. I was under the impression all his neighbouring land was in the mountains-clearly missed the one that wasnt!

GAME FIVE: vs  Cody's WoC Dawn Attack.

Alrighty my first game vs the new WoC. Not the Internetz chariot spam ftw list, but what I thought was a reasonably well put together "competes in all phases" and in all missions list. Tznch lvl4 Demon Prince with breath, 2+ armour, fly, 5 spells, 4++, 3rd eye lore of metal, Regen, breath chimera, Hellcannon, 9 Tznch knights with tznch BSB re-rolling 1+ armour, block of tznch board and sword warriors, lvl1 with fire, and 3 units of doggies.

I "deployed" first, but Cody stole the first turn...sneaky sneaky Lord of Change.

Turn 1:
Not really knowing how to handle 70+ shots/turn with split monsters Cody aggressively moves up the Demon Prince and Chimera.

This is then followed by a fluffed magic phase and the hell cannon missing the Ancient (phew!).
In return I move up to bypass the "just a little bit too close" Demon Prince with the Ancient and get my shooting on the Monsters while also blocking the Knights.

I then promptly shoot down the Chimera (gotta love flaming bow), kill a knight, and the 3rd eye was points very well spent as the Demon Prince survives on 1 wound.

Turn 2:
The Demon Prince then tries to get to safety with a charge on the a unit of archers who kill it with stand and shoot! The warriors fail a charge on the Ancient (3 died to strangle root stand and shoot) and the knights charge (and kill) the eagle speed bump. The Hellcannon scatters and kills a wildrider.

I move ANOTHER eagle speed bump in front of the knights, the Ancient charges the warriors. My lvl4 becomes a lvl3 IF'ing thorns on the ancient (nothing and does nothing). My shooting takes down 2 more knights and thanks to the champ Tznch warding everything the Ancient gets to thunderstomp all over the warriors and wins the combat.

Turn 3:
Everything goes according to plan and the BSB helm of many eyes induced stupidity test is failed! The Hell Cannon misses (man this is unlucky shooting!)  and the champ dies.
 Too add to the fun, by Treeman decides to join in thunderstomping all over the warriors. JUST to make sure, my bunker exits the building to get the BSB into range.

Shooting does a token wound to the Hellcannon and kills another knight. Good thing the BSB was in range as I have a crap round of combat, kill the sorcerer and hold.

Turn 4:
The knights aint stupid this time around as they charge into the eagle and kill it. My sneaky placement of everything means the overrun mises my 2 archer units and have to stop 1 inch short of my bunker. On another note, the Hellcannon misses.

My dryads flank into the warriors

My shooting is completely focused on the knights (except for the token unit shooting at the Hellcannon) and due to some fantastically crap rolling to wound ( s4 vs t4 8 hits, 1 wound...repeat sorta rolling) I only kill 2 knights including the unit champ. The Dryads and treemen win the combat easily (thank you t6 dryads)...now if I only had something that broke steadfast!

Turn 5:
With nothing else to do the knights charge the building and kill 5 Glade Guard. The Hellcannon also decides to join the combat in the middle of the board.

The dryads (even with t6) get smashed by the cannon and the warriors (sad face). The remaining dryads then flee while the Treemen's stubborn does them good. Only 4 warriors left...

After my shooting does NOTHING (seriously-how hard is it to roll a 4+ to wound?) my Treemen very efficently kill the remaining Warriors (1 hit from 10 attacks, then only 3 stomps...)

Turn 6:
Hellcannon charges archers (flee) then redirects into Treeman. Knights charge the building. Glade guard hold and the treeman combat is a draw. 


I then have 1 last go at killing the knights...ONE LEFT while the treeman/hellcannon combat goes nowhere.

Result: Comfortable win to the Woodies. Once again the lack of nettlings meant that I chose to shooting the knights instead of charging in the ancient who would have had a better chance of getting the points...but oh well.

IN the campaing I get my build on and build lots of stuff - aided by All or Nothing perk giving me 6 Empire points. I move to top of the middle group.

GAME SIX vs Ryan's Vamps watchtower
SO a repeat game. I spent all day 2 trying to call Will's Ogres to batte to no avial. However I was happy to be playing Ryan again as it gave me a chance to avenge my last game.

Ryan controlled the tower a plonked a unit of 20 zombies in it. We deploy and vanguard.

Turn 1:
Dryads charge the building, archers (all fall off their movement tray...) move to  get shots on stuff while the Treemen redeploy around to the right (avoiding the bus!)

And

Dwellers kills 18 Skeles and 2 wraith. I get all exciting when I see a unit of doggies in the forest so treesing twice and kill 4...Shooting does 4 wounds to the Terrorgiest...thins a few zombies and takes out 2 dog units. Dryads crumble the zombies down to 4...so far going to plan.

And so naturally zombies come back up and the Terrorgiest gains 2 wounds back. A unit of vargiests also moves to threaten my flank.

Turn 2: 
Wildriders charge vargiests to hopefully hold them up and dryads charge into building again.

Onthe other flank my Ancient line breaks to get some strangle action on the skeles and everything else moves to have fun with the very isolated unit of zombies.

Shooting kills a token black knight, some zombies, strangled a few skeles (dwellers scrolled), and the terrorgiest is back down to 1 wound. In the combats the Wildriders pull something out of nowhere doing enough wounds (and warding 4 out of 5 wounds in return) and crumble the vargiests! The dryads hoping to repeat the awesome crumble the zombies down to a single model GRRRRRRRR

Mr Eagle gets squished by Black knights (a unit of zombies failed to join in the fun), solo zombie exits and skeles enter watchtower. Doggies charge gladeguard to get out of the way of black knight overrun. The Terrorgiest also fails to charge a unit of dryads. The doggies crumble vs Glade guard failing to do a single wound and the lvl4 fails to cast first spell.

Turn 3:
Dryads charge building, Ancient charges the terrorgiest. Dryads also charge the solo zombies and on the (my) right flank Dryads flank, and gladeguard front charge  the unit of zombies.

I then channel my inner Joe Dixon and get all my archers out of the way (bottom unit swift reformed facing right 2 wide and moved 5 JUST out of charge arch boom!)

Ancient kills the Terrorgiest and misses the vargiests with the overrun (killed 1 with shooting) Dryads vs Skeles = win by 3. No wraiths came to the party.

Nothing of note happens in the vamp turn. Bus turns around and the vargiest unit moves down to say hi.

Turn 4:
So hindsight screw up-I didnt move the eagle to block 2nd unit of zombies. 1 unit gets sandwiched between Ancient and wildriders and the archers turn to say hi to the vargiests.

Killing zombies is so much fun!

...and so is killing skeles

I also kill 3 knights with shooting.

In the vamp turn the bus fails to swift reform, skeles exit building and zombies enter...Ancient and wildriders finish of the remaining 2 zombies.

Turn 5:
Dryads have to start all over again sigh. I decide to shoot the bus and the first volly from my bigger unit causes this (armour save rolls)

And rest of shooting does this:

...yup. Dead bus, dead hero vamp, and vamp lord on 1 wound!
Lots of zombies die.

Vamp lord then moves to "safety" and raises a few zombies back (regains a wound).

Turn 6:
Wildriders + Ancient engage the remaining skeles + wraiths. Ancient gets stuck in challenge (dead wriath). Unit crumbles down to 1 wraith on 1 wound. Shooting drops vamplord back to 1 wound. The 1 turn I fail to get flesh to stone on the dryads = 2 die.

I then shut down the magic phase and kill the wraith...game goes to turn 7...

Turn 7:
My shooting kills the vamplord...and the sole remaining unit (zombies in building + necro) pass their ldship test grrrrrrrr. I fail to crumble them completly and we call it there.

Result: I lost 1 wildrider, 2 dryads, and 1 eagle...Ryan lost EVERYTHING except 6 zombies and a necro = Ryan wins 11-9 due to watchtower. sigh.

Campaign: I was planning to expand into Ryan's territory with a win, but instead just consolidated in 4th place. Pete had the largest Empire, followed by Will's Ogres, then Ryan, then me.

The key is to get a decent win round 1 to take advantage of the cheaper land. That is what Pete, Will and Ryan did and it kept them good for the rest of the campaign.

A fantastically fun weekend...thanks heaps Pete for letting us all come play (and letting me use your jigsaw to make 40k area terrain...).

Thoughts on list:
I liked it. Throughout the weekend I had moments where I wanted to swap the wildriders for another unit of dryads, but overall the wildriders were really useful. They give my list speed and mobile s5. The one change I am making is to swap out the scroll for nettlings. Without nettlings I cant hold up combat characters = crucial.

I wasnt too impressed with the lore of life due to lack of treekin in list + if you dont roll dwellers I'm not really sure what to do during the magic phase except token t6 eagles/dryads. Shield of thorns was very useful and I only had throne of vines in one game. Re-grow is also not that useful as I either completely lost a unit, or didnt take enough casualties for me to care (not risking a misscast to get 1 dryad back!) However I'm not sure what beasts would add since dwellers was huge when I cast it. 8 s9 attacks from the ancient does sound nice though as does the curse. Better than dwellers though....I'll have to think that one over.

Campaign Day 1

Hi all,

Over the weekend the real warhammer contest was taking place at Chez Dunn with a warhammer campaign.

I took my trusty woodies: list was in my previous post.

we set up the map. I'm the red flags

A bit hard to see, but I have 2 locations on the left of the map and 1 by the coast.


GAME ONE
To get my bad (very bad) match up out the way I challenged Pete who was using his list from Masters. We rolled for a mission and got battleline...looks like we were in for a short game!

We deployed:

and Pete got the first turn.

Turn 1:
Pete Moves his stuff up. He game plan was rather unsubtle from the get go - get in my grill, give me no room to move and blast me off the board. 5 dryads died to warp lightning, 2 dryads died to wildwood (sigh). 1 Eagle dies to gutter runner poison. In some good news (and me avoiding a nudy run) the warplightning cannon kindly decided to blow up.

 I then get a chance to do something...stormbanner up = that something was "nothing"

Turn 2:
Naturally the storm banner comes straight back down. The bell destroys the building, the depleted dryad unit gets wiped out by warplightning. the gutter runners wipe out a unit of glade guard which naturally panics another unit off the board (when it rains, it pours).

Always the optimist I set about redeeming my position in the game. Dryads charged the hamster wheel, eagle does an "unapproved ETC move" on the Hellpit, and the 2 treemen and a unit of gladeguard charge into a unit of slaves (having forced another unit to flee) to try get some momentum.

The remains of the bowline let loose a hail of arrows dropping the seer to 1 wound and putting a few wounds on the bell. Dryads draw vs wheel, slaves get smashed and hold. The other dryads also fail to kill an engineer who flees...

Turn 3:
The Skaven warmachines keep up the pressure. The dryads who failed to kill an engineer get storm vermin to the front and a bell to the flank.

Cracks call pops the treeman. The lvl4/bsb bunker gets 13thed into rats. The remaining Eagle is shot down. The slaves get more beat down and the dryads all run away.

I took a long hard look at the board and the ruthless assault was almost complete. There was nothing left for me to do other than be wiped out so we called it and made coffee...sweet, sweet coffee.




An unsurprising big win to the Skaven and I'm still clueless on how to tackle skaven with woodies after how many years.




This cost me big in the campaign as I only had 1 point to spend on the round land was cheap.



GAME TWO: vs Mike's Beastsmen. I had the grand army perk (I got to pick first due to having the smallest empire) which allowed me to use a sideboard. I used the Treekin. We rolled up Blood and Glory.






We deployed:

Turn 1:
Mike got the first turn and moved all up in my grill....kinda. I pulled out the scroll to stop a purple sun right down my treemen.
The wildriders charged a unit of ungors, a unit of dryads suicided into the beastigors having caused a razigor to flee, and I moved up my trees to get into the gors while the bowline took shape...and killed the Gorgon and a chariot. The Ancient did 2 wounds to the 2nd chariot with some strangleroot goodness while the treeman stranglerooted 2 Gors. The wildriders rundown the ungors and catch the razigor. The Judean People's Front dryads did a wound to the lvl4 and Beastlord before being ritually cut down.

Turn 2:
The remaining chariot on 2 wounds charged the eagle (with shield of thorns...). Eagle flees Beastigor charge who then re-direct into a unit of glade guard (also flee).  The Gors move right into the face of the treemen. Shield of thorns kills the chariot!
So the treeman and Ancient charge the Gors. Due to their placement the Ancient gets a flank and has to clip due to the razigor (who promptly dies to shooting). Other shooting thins out the Beastigors.

The treemen win combat easily...but not before the Treeman forgets how to pass armour and ward saves and takes 3 wounds.

Turn 3:
The beastlord solos out to butcher the eagle. The death shaman IF's leech on my lvl4 (nothing), but kills the unit champ and 2 other Beastigors in the process.Trees continue to stomp all over the Gors.
NOW the Treekin get into the fight.

This means all the Gors and the BSB are cut down and the treekin run through. The Beastlord is also pin coushined. In other news one of my dryad units catches one of the shadow lvl1's.

Turn 4:
The lvl4 shaman leeches the remaining wounds off the Treeman, but in revenge the Beastigors are shot down to 2 + the lvl4. 

Turn 5:
The lvl4 and remaining Beastigors charge eagle - flee, and then redirect into the Ancient. Promptly IF purple sun, roll a misfire and kill the Ancient and the remaining Beastigors!
In return I finish off the lvl4 also nab the remaining lvl1 to finish the game.

Result:
Big win to the woodies and the sideboard was completely unnecessary. This then means I take one of Mike's territories to get myself another beach front property.

GAME THREE vs Ryan's vamps. We rolled up Dawn Attack. Ryan had been doing rather well with his land grab and was one of the largest empires.

We "deployed"

...and I stole first turn!

Turn 1:
I shuffled the line around to keep the Treemen out of scream threat and get my archers in range of the terrorgiest. The flaming banner bunker then fail to wound = terrorgiest is shot down to 5 wounds and regens the 6th GAR!

In return the vamp line shuffles a bit and gazes of 6 glade guard (good thing I didnt roll any of the useful life spells...). The Terrorgiest regains 3 wounds from a round of very unthreatening magic.

Turn 2:
I decide to move closer to the undead hordes to maximise my shooting. Dwellers is scrolled, I do a single wound to a vargiest and kill 2 black knights.

The vargiestsx2 then flank dryadsx2 and must win combat vs 1 and the other unit escapes or holds (notes a little unclear and didnt take pics of the stages).

Turn 3:
Dryads and Treemenx2 take out a unit of vargiests. Dwellers stopped (again). Wildriders kill some dogs and overrun into more dogs.
Ryan then gets really sneaky. The Vamp Hero fails a charge on dryad flank (unlucky) and a wraith attempts a through the gap charge on the archers (rolls snakes eyes...karma). Some zombies fail a charge and it looks like the remaining vargiests go beat up some archers. The rest of the wraiths move out to harass my bowline.The vamp hero vanhels his way out of treeman line of sight.

Turn 4:
wildriders charge and kill a wraith. 2 Trees into the skeles for some stompy stomp. Dryads charge the lone vamp hero. For the 2nd time the terrorgiest is shot down to 1 wound. I think the 2nd unit of vargiests dies in this turn too.

And then in the greatest bit of luck EVA the dryads kill the vamp hero!

The vamp turn consists of lots of zombie and wraith charges and triggered the eagle double flee. The treemen crumble the skeles in a powerful display of awesome smack down.

Turn 5:
My notes here (retrospectively) say "Ballsed up". Basically I was tired, and didnt mentally take note of exactly how many turns were left. I got cocky and charge the dryads and both treemen into the bus...BAD MOVE.

Well, it would have been a great move if I had nettlings on the Ancient..as the Vamplord challenged and cut my ancient into firewood. The treeman held while the dryads fled. In other news I FINALLY AFTER 3 DEDICATED SHOOTING PHASES KILL THE TERRORGIEST...however my wildriders die to the zombies in the rear. The bun

The Vamplord then butchers the treeman just as easily as he did the Ancient. The zombie units then take out a unit of archers and overrun into my bunker. (I need to check these rules. I remember in the old book that zombies couldnt overrun).

Turn 6: 
I win the bunker vs zombies in flank combat and reform to face...however I was careless and...

This happened. I didnt slide across with the reform = vamplord charge into flank. Throw lvl4 under to keep the BSB around = I hold.

RESULT:
Well, way to throw 985pts away in the last 2 turns! This gives Ryan a 265pt win or 11-9. Rather annoying as I could have easily controlled the knight bus for 2 more turns and walked away with a comfortable win.


Day 2 to come tomorrow.