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.

Weekend Woodies

Hi all,

So this weekend I'm taking part in a Mighty Empires campaign. 2400pts - Runefang comp + each army is allowed 2 sideboards of 200pts that must obey army composition and must be whole units/multiple whole units.

 

The Wood Elves plan world domination

Here's my list:

Treeman Ancient (General)
lvl4 Lifeweaver: scroll

BSB: Asyendi's Bane, Hail of Doom Arrow

17 Glade Guard: Musician, Standard - Banner of Eternal Flame
5x10 Glade Guard: Musician
3x8 Dryads

5 Wildriders: Musician

Treeman
2 Eagles

A nice shooty list with 2 treemen for punch. Wildriders are there to give me speed and because they are cool.

My First Sideboard is 3 Treekin. This is for when I need another frontline unit.
The 2nd Sideboard is 8 Dryads and 5 Wardancers: Champ. This is for when I need more chaff.

I'll take pics of the games for some battle reports and also try to remember to take notes during the "campaign" parts so I can record exactly how the Woodies came out on top.

Relic of an old army finally painted

Hi all,

So back in days before I had my High Elf army I was on the look out for a 3rd army-mainly because I ran out of things to paint. 8th ed had JUST been released and I was obsessed by horde formation (still am-go horde or go home!) and the type of model that in my eyes did horde "best" was the monsterous infantry.

A quick Trademe bid later (NZ's Ebay for any international readers) and I picked up an Ogre army very cheap (well, not as cheap as from the UK-but that was back when I was all innocent and stuff). Then I found out that I didnt really enjoy the playstyle...good thing the new book made them ZOMG good and I managed to flick 90% of it off for a decent price.

However I was left with 2 scraplaunchers (that shall forever stay in their state of kinda assembled pile of stuff I never want to think about), Lots of gnoblars (all painted), the Ninja man eater I refuse to sell (Best. Model. Eva), and 2 gorgers. The gorgers sat on my shelf undercoated, and the Ninja maneater is up there too in display mode.

Come this weekend and I have been invited to a campaign weekend at Petes. Will (Ogre player) has decided to run the Slaughtermaster who makes gorgers better. He's borrowing 2 off Pete, and I offered to paint up one of my gorgers for him because a) I'm nice like that, b) the gorger model is one of my favourites, and c) I've been looking for an excuse to paint one of them up.

The Result, I introduce Scraggy the misunderstood Gorger:

3 layers for the skin (Feneris Grey base, shadow grey/dheneb stone mix mid tone, dheneb stone top). Basing is exactly the same scheme as my woodies. GW green flock and the snow is baking Soda + galeforce9 "snow" stuff to give it texture + PVA glue. I've even chucked on a base resin thing (broken shield in some rubble) from the GW basing kit I bought ages ago for the leaves.

Hopefully this "gift" will cement the Ogre Woodie alliance in the up coming campaign...a close examination will even show that Scraggy is wearing a friendship bracelet.

I'll post up my Campaign list on Friday (to stop people - Looking at you James Millington :P - from do too much anti-Joel list tailoring), and then next week will come the glorious report of how the woodies smashed face and humiliated all the bad guys...except the Ogres whom were were allied with...

Where there's a Will...

Righty,

So headcold induced day off work = time to write up an epic day's gaming at Will's house. I can't think of a cool name for it (Willcon? Willfest?) but what ever it was, it "was".

Ryan, Will, and I all ran 1200pt lists so we could get 3 games in.

My list:
Noble: Radiant Gem of Hoeth (death), Dragon Armour, Great Weapon
BSB: Armour of Caledor, Luck stone, Great Weapon
10 Archers: Musician
19 Spears: Musician, Standard
20 Whitelions: Full Command-amulet of light
5 Dragon Princes: Musician
2 Eagles

Ryan decided to listen to my trollol advice and brought 101 Dalmatians Zombies
lvl3 Necro
2 Wraiths
4x20 Zombies
21 Zombies: standard
corpsecart
6 Vargiests
Terrorgiest

Will has decided to see what the Brets have to offer:
Lord level guy: Ogre blade and probably something else
BSB: Charmed shield and probably other stuff
14 Archers wearing bras
6 Knights Errants: FC
7 Knights of the Realm: FC-get and extra D6 distance first charge
9 Knights of the Realm: FC
4 Grail Knights
Trebuchet

GAME ONE: High Elves vs Brets-Battleline

We deployed:

Rather standard stuff from the Brets. I was going for an entrapment style deep deployment-hoping to pull some s neasky shenagians with the building.

TURN 1
I got the first turn (religious Brets)

The Whitelions are angled like that because the Lance without the characters had a (long range) flank charge on the eagle and I wanted to be able to take advantage of it. Spirit leech is dispelled.

The Brets get their first chance to do something. The errants charge an eagle (flees) and the Realm takes the bait and fails the charge. For some reason only known to Will the Grail knights run up (my) left flank. To make up for the failed charges the Treb gets a direct hit on the Whitelions and squashes 7 :(

TURN 2
Dragon Princes declare a long range charge on the Errants who are not taking any chances and flee. Realising the dumb move and the high risk of fleeing given the eagle, the Grail knights hold a charge from the spears + the General. My Eagle continues to flee.

My archers probably take some token shots at something. In the combat My General strikes 3 times and slays 3 Knights. The Spears put on a good show of looking like they are doing something. Big win to the Elves only to result in...

The character bus then decides that the best course of action is to charge the Whitelions + BSB. The Realm bus fails charge on the eagle (fled) and then fails redirect onto Dragon Princes, The errants rally.

Naturally the Treb hits (again) squashing a single Dragon Prince. The archers then pick 2 wounds off the fleeing eagle. The combat is a win to the Bus, but the whitelions hold. Will, checking the armybook, then notices that all Grail knights can offer and accept challenges = in challenge with General. The blessing works this time and some very scary rolling later the grail knight fails to hurt my general. THIS TIME the grail knights breaks and is run down.

TURN 3
The archers come flying into the flank of the bus. If they cannot kill stuff with arrows, they can kill stuff with combat res! The Dragon Princes fail a long range flank charge attempt on the Realm and there are lots of failed ldship tests (spears fail swift reform and both eagles continue to flee...)

The combat is swift and brutal, however the bus breaks and flees (dead BSB and standard) 12 inches to safety :(

Rightly. The Realm charge into the flank of the Archers. Perfect for me as this sets the Realm up for spears + whitelions + 2 nobles + also potentially Dragon Princes combo charge. The ex-bus rallys and the Errants fail a charge on the Dragon Princes.

 The archers pick the last wound off the fleeing eagle and another Dragon Princes is squashed. (stupid accurate trebs!) The archers lose, break and are run down.

TURN 4
The whitelions have a look at the options and charge the Realm who flee. The Dragon Princes have a go and push the Realm Knights almost off the board (almost...). The Dragon Princes then re-direct into the Errants and FINALLY make a successful charge! The Whitelions re-direct into the bus who flee. A wee bit of de-ja vu here from a couple of games ago when I was in a similar situation where rolling 10 or less = safe and 11 or 12 = of the board....yup off the board.

In other news my remaining Eagle finally Rallys and the General + Spears enter the building. I decide to try Spirit leech the ldship 6 Treb. IF it (of course) and take 1 wound from the Treb and lose a wound. Very Full Metal Alchemist "equivilent trade" right there. The combat is interesting. The 3 remaining dragon princes kill an errant who promptly fail their steadfast test and flee off the board with the Dragon Princes in hot pursuit.

The Realm knights then rally and the Treb (surprise, surprise) kills another Dragon Prince. The archers also pick of a whitelion. 

TURN 5

Nothing very exciting from me. The whitelions move backwards and the Dragon Princes move within Treb minimum distance ready for the kill. 

The Realm knights reform to counter the Dragon princes.

 The archers and Treb hammer the Whitelions. Direct hit (wow-didnt see that coming)...BSB fails Look out Sir! (typical) and dies (sigh). Whitelions down to 2 models promptly flee.

TURN 6
Dragon Princes charge (with tactical wheel) the treb. Kill it and run off board. In a piece of tactical genius the Whitelions fail their snake eyes rally and run move out of the 34 inch archer "threat" range to safety!

RESULT:
A nice victory to the High Elves. A little dumb the BSB died, but can't win 'em all. Will has yet to come up with a convincing reason as to why the grail knights moved up so agressively turn 1.


GAME TWO: Brets vs  Vampires - Battleline

Out of the mist came a groan. The boarder watchmen could not believe their eyes as the remains of those long dead stumbled across the field accompanied by the Lord's evil half step twice removed long lost brother who was banished from the kingdom for dabbling in the black arts. Pity is all that can be had for his twisted, blackened soul. Damaged beyond recognition or redemption in an unholy quest to bring life to the dead...the scent and lust for power is overbearing for the evil creatures of the night who as we [read Joel's really bad fan fic] are now swooping down to take part in the slaughter that is to come...

Deployment:

A typical affair for the Zombie hordes. The Brets have gone for a slightly more unorthadox deployment in an attempt to counter the fast flanks.

TURN 1
The zombie hordes shamble up while the flanks move quick.

Ryan clearly didnt think he had enough zombies on the board so IF's bubble invocate...deploys all his spare (30 odd) zombies before killing 13 with a large blast explosion. Necro dodges the pit.

The brets respond with the Character bus and the Errants smashing into the solo wraiths.

The treb (having finished squashing elves) decides to remember how to missfire. In the combats Wraith vs Errants = wraith needs to do 1 wound to not crumble...fails to pedo-touch and crumbles. Lord character with Ogre blade vs wraith = dead wraith!

TURN 2
Vargiests are overcome with frenzy and charge the grail knights. The Terrorgiest moves in kind to scream at the grail knights as well. Zombies kinda shuffle a bit to get into optimum "tie up the knights" positions.

Scream kills 1 grail knight and the vargiests finish them off with theri bazillion attacks and overrun into the archers.

Errants and the bus charge the zombies while the Realm decide to hang back.

After movement had been completed I suggested that the realm knights should have charged the next zombie block along and gone for a double collapsing flank move. Treb hits Terrorgiest...who regens
In the combats vargiests have fun and overrun into treb. knights crumble the zombies to 4 models.

TURN 3
ZOMBIE CHARGE..well not quite as exciting as that, but zombies flank the errants and the Terrorgiest turns to have a look at the Realm knights.

Curse of Years takes a wound off the BSB. My notes now just state "GATEWAY!" which I think means the Terrorgiest screams off the Realm knights (ouch).

The treb was never going to win the combat vs the vargiests, however the knights win and reform to face the zombies!
Curse is dispelled. Errants fluff and win combat by 1, Character bus wins by 3 (lord cant hit to save himself!)

TURN 4
The corpsecart comes into the errant knights to help swing the combat and grants...ASF ZOMBIES!

Scream kills 2 knights from the bus and the BSB is pulled down to his death by the super fast (killer) zombies! However, the bus still wins the combat by 3. Corpsecart kills 1 errant with impact hits and the re-rolling to wound undead bits hanging off the corpsecart also get a kill. However the zombies STILL lose the combat.
The combats continue and this time the Errants manage to crumble the corpsecart ha! The bus continues to wade through zombies.

TURN 5
Terrorgiest rear charges the Errants and vargiests flank the bus.

The Terrorgiest out does itself again and "gateways" the errants with screaming. The Bus finally dies from around the general who breaks away and does a runner

And then rallies to face what is coming...

TURN 6

...and what is coming is terrorgiest screaming. 4 wounds....2 saves = final 2 wounds lost and the Brets are wiped (screamed?) out.

WIN TO THE ZOMBIES

GAME THREE: High Elves vs Zombies Blood and Glory.

Rolled up a mission this time to mix it up. I have fortitude of 5 (General, BSB, 2 banners), Ryan had a fortitude of 3 (General, banner). Breaking point was 2.

We deploy:

Ryan went for the "rambling hordes" tactic with a fast flank. I went for the "on the board edge-aint going to escape the whitelions or get a turn 1 scream" tactic

TURN 1
Stuff moves up and there are "more" zombies.

I then move the spears + general to within leech range on the Terrorgiest. I get greedy with the Dragon Princes and fail a charge on the vargiests. The archers also march up and the eagles fly fast up the (my) left flank. Magic phase = IF leech (naturally) 9 wounds on Terrorgiest later = no Terrorgiest. However I also kill 9 spearelves and lose my General down a hole, putting me on the back foot a wee bit too early in the game for my liking!

TURN 2
To make matters worse the Vargiests charge the Dragon Princes and the 2 (my) left zombie units move up agressively.

For some reason Ryan curses an eagle (nothing happens-not even an IF to make me feel better) and the vargiests make quick work of the dragon princes-pursuing them off the board.

In reponse I charge both eagles into the corpse cart ha! take that! I win by 1. The whitelions turn to trap the vargiests when then return to the board. The Archers and spears move back out of Zombie charge range.

TURN 3
Now my Spears were out of zombie charge range...but I forgot that wraiths have movement 6. 17 inch charge later and the wraith has the spear's flank...and my game winning prospects held in the balance of the dice.  The vargiests come back on and move away from the battle-as intended.

The Corpsecart gains asf, but still crumbles to nothing. Spears hold and reform to face the wraith...fluffed attacks and SCres are my only hope!

Well, I have the  archers and a free eagles...The archers move up to block zombies with a wraith. 1 eagle moves to block the other unit, while the 2nd eagle moves to shadow the necromancer.
Spears hold again and the whitelions fail a charge on the Vargiests.

TURN 4
Zombie charge! and vargiests charge whitelions #YOLO

Eagle loses and flees (to safety). Archers win combat by 3 BOOM! Whitelions and BSB vs Vargiests was never a good idea and the Vargiests get "whalloped".

IN my turn the whitelions move to give BSB coverage, eagle rallys, spears hold (prayin' on dice fluffs!) and the archers get 10 hits!...for 1 wound gar! They hold.

TURN 5
The necro (and standard) bunker march up to join the fight. The Zombies that fought the eagle move to block the whitelions.

This of course sets up a perfect 1-2 combo of eagles on necro for a sneaky game win for me...foiled by IF gaze on an eagle :( Archers win combat by 1...AND SO DO THE SPEARS. 1 wound left on wraith...tense times!

Eagle charges Necro bunker flank, whitelions charge the zombie blockers.

Whitelions go zombie chopping and crumble them down to an annoying 3. Then, coming out of nowhere, the "now almost dead" zombie unit wipes out the archers! Spears hold (booya!)

...and the eagle fails fear (naturally) but still manages 1 wound on the necro. Drawn combat.

TURN 6
Supporting zombie flank charge on Eagle fails...but the 2nd wraith, now free of the archers, charges into help finish off the last 3 remaining spears. 13 zombies are raised back to help hold up the whitelions....nope-reforms to face the wraiths who finish off the spearelves :( Eagle vs Necro fluffs re-rolling fear but holds.

My whitelions charge in to kill a wraith (magic attacks)

While the heroic eagle finally breaks and is run down.

Result:
Win to the Zombies...just. on VPs I lost by 70ish (including the extra 100VPs for general). Not bad for losing General turn 1.

Foray into Fluff...

Hi All,

Now I had to google the meaning of "foray" to see if it was the correct one to use.

A sudden attack or incursion into enemy territory, esp. to obtain something; a raid: "the garrison made a foray against Richard's camp".

And yes, it is the right word. Anyone who knows me (or has at any point struck up a convo about warhammer with me) will know that my knowledge of the fluff of stuff is rather close to nothing. My knowledge of Empire fluff (favourite army) is that it is some rip off of High Medieval Germany + a wee bit of steam punk. There was this dude called Sigmar who had a hammer, and I assume killed lots of stuff. There are also things called "provinces" that "true" Empire players will align their armylists to. Me? I painted my army the way it is cos I liked the colours and the idea of crap troops winning against the odds in a fantasy world etc.

So when I attempt to write a "fluffy" list I am not necessarily aiming for a list that meets the "fluff", but instead I write a list that I can see a story behind.

Fast forward to this coming Sunday where Will has (kindly) let all us nerds invade his house for a bit of 1200pt goodness. So instead of digging out my Vermintide winning Empire list (ie my stripped down 2400 list) I instead thought I would try out the alternative list I wrote for my High Elves.


What got me into the High Elves in the first place was that I saw a cool Ancient Greek streak in the models. However, when I started writing lists I started to see what my (very limited) understanding of Dark Ages Northern European warband might look like + dragons. This was very influenced by a flatmate during my time at Uni taking a paper in "old english" and me learning (though endless vocab testing) that back then they a) loved their mead, b) had too many different ways of saying "spearmen", and c) whole battles were won by a single archer holding off some dudes on a tidal causeway.

So I present to you my 1200pt list....WITH FLUFF

Noble: Dragon Armour, Great Weapon, Radiant Gem of Hoeth (Death) 144
An aging Chieftain whose words can speak death on this foes.
Noble BSB: Armour of Caledor, luckstone, Great Weapon 148
The prized champion fighter, worthy to carry the banner of the land
10 Archers: Musician 115
Huntsmen of the moor
19 Spear Elves: Musician, Standard Bearer 186
The spear-elves of the Mead Hall
20 Whitelions: Full Command-Amulet of Light 345
The Chieftain's bodyguard who form the Axewall with axes so sharp they can kill the undead.
5 Dragon Princes: Musician 160
Scouts of the boarderland
2 Eagles 100
Trained griffons that come down from the mountains in times of need
1198

And the crappy pics of the warband!

...And now to smash face on Sunday and do deeds that the poets shall sing about down the ages and all that.