The Sword of Anti-Wood elves...a lament for the fallen

So having taken down the slimy undead with the High Elves and the Empire on home turf, I figured it was only polite to check out Ryan's gaming pad with an expeditionary force. Ryan has given me prior permission to whine about how "broken" stuff is and how much he cheated and then (successfully) tried to bribe me with peppermint tea and brownies.

Anywho my list:

Highborn: Ogre Blade, Stone of Rebirth, AoN                        240

Lvl4: life, Rhymers Harp, Dispel Scroll                                      350

BSB: Silvered Steel, Luckstone                                                   140

32 Eternal Guard: FC-MR(1) banner                                          429

16 Glade Guard: m-SB-flame                                                     220

14 Glade Guard: m                                                                       174

5 wardancers                                                                                 90

5 wardancers                                                                                 90

5 Wardancers                                                                                90

Eagle                                                                                               50

Treeman                                                                                         285

5 Way Watchers                                                                           120

5 Way Watchers                                                                           120

2398

SO a winter themed list for a very, very wintery evening. The Internetz has told me that wardancers suck and Eternal Guard are a waste of space...so naturally I decided to try them out. Hopefully you can see from the list that I was going for a "current meta" style list as described by Pete on fields of blood the other day: big points sink that is hard to move (Eternal Guard "death star") with lots of little super hammers worth nothing (the rest of the stuff). Though I have pre-empted the current meta change with Mr(1) on the Eternal Guard to give them a 4++ vs direct damage stuff.

Ryan's list:

Vamp lord: lvl4, earthing rod, sword of anti-heroes, 4++, Quick blood, red fury

2 wightKings on horse-defensive builds

Vamp lvl1 on foot with 5 attacks (so prop 2hw) and the book of free vanhels

Necro lvl1: scroll

23 zombies: m, sb

40 something zombies: m, sb

30 something skellies: fc-board and sword

2x10 doggies

10 black knights: fc-banner of the burrows

2x1 spirit hosts

corpse cart

2 varghulfs

A much scarier build than his previous list.

We rolled up blood and glory and deployed. We ended up looking like this after vanguard:

I went for a defensive position. My flaming gladeguard are in the complete wrong position-but I was covering the easy approach for them and  deployed before the varghulfs. Bit of a mistake on my behalf, but not the biggest I made all game. My way watchers are placed to get within range of knight bus turn 1, but as you will see, the right unit of way watchers should never have been on that side of the board when there was an easy banner in the 23 zombies on the other side that 16 Gladeguard + 10 waywatchers could have easily dealt with.

Anyway. I got first turn.

Turn 1:

I started by consolidating my position. With 3 wardancer units I knew I had to get the charge for them to be effective. But I also knew that the generous forests on my side (Ryan actively chose other side of the board) gave me a defensive bonus if I needed to anchor my flank...

My first turn of movement looked like this:

Treeman and Eternal Guard have moved up to present a solid line. Archers are slightly further forward to get s4 on doggies + give plenty of flee room. Eagle is behind because it was cold and I wasnt thinking right-but has re-rolling ld10 for any panic so pretty safe.

The waywatchers on the right found themselves in an awkward position because I couldnt get them within KB range of the black knights without being in LOS and awkwardly close to the doggies. Really should have pre measured that when deploying-but had to deploy before vanguard so forgot the anticipate that.

Magic resulted in 6 dice vs 5 that were all thrown at dwellers on the skellies that was dice dispelled (only JUST got 21).

In the shooting I didnt KB a knight-but he rolled two 2's for armour save.... Glade guard opened up on left doggies

and glade guard + waywatchers opened up on right doggies

So the Vamps get their turn and shuffle up. The left doggies pull and crazy long charge on the watwatchers (I held being a little too confident he wouldnt kill enough to pull me out of the forest and lose stubborn...). The corpse cart charged the right waywatchers as I expected it to-fled, but forgot to take into account the doggies getting the charge too = off the board. Silly, silly, silly me.

magic results in a million dice vs not many (bit of a theme all game tbh). I let him cast invocate and raises all bar 1 doggie back -though right unit cannot put back rank down due to varghulf being too close...and 16, yes 16 extra zombies for the massive unit. I then throw all my dice to stop vanhels and (of course) fail meaning the board looks like this:

In combat he kill enough to pull me out of forest, but I killed a fair few myself and held without the stubborn HA!)

Turn 2:

SO my turn. First off my left wardancers charged front of doggies seeing a sweet overrun into uber zombie block. Wardancers next to it charged into skellie block, wardancers on my right charged flank of doggies as the reform meant I could swing into forest for stubborn. I then had a massive choice to make. Stay still and get charged, or charge. I opted for charge the black knights for a number of reasons:

1) why not

2) meant I determined who the black knights were in combat with

3) with the alignment of my highborn to his vamp I could protect the unit by challenging with highborn because I determined the line up

4) I wanted to see what the Eternal Guard block could do

5) was still a little peeved at losing the waywatchers and botching deployment.

however I didnt need to put the treeman in as well. I was a little nervous counter charging with the treeman into the skellies and the Eternal guard into the black knights because if the Eternal Guard failed the charge = bye bye my entire line. If treeman makes it to black guard and eternal guard fail = chancew to hold it up.

However looking back at it, the correct answer was to dump the eagle in front and wait a turn. Instead the eagle moved to sqeeze in the skellies (poorly I might add).

magic phase was another dud. 6 dice vs 4 I threw 3 dice at throne-all dice used to stop. Then 3 dice flesh to stone-scrolled grrr. If I had moved defensively and waited a turn I could have used flesh to stone as a deterant to force aa bad move-but oh well.

Shooting was another dud. 2 wounds on a Varghulf! the flame unit had failed swift reform, so did nothing.

In combat. I killed right dogs and reformed to forest. Killed left doggies for the loss of 1 wardancer-overran and came 1 inch short of zombie block-so no s4 for me. Completely forgot the KB the vamp (what an off day) and died to the vamp alone. In the uber combat I quickly realised putting treeman in was a BAD idea due to sword of anti heroes making vamp lord s8 8 attacks with ASF and get the extra attack thing. 8 attacks didnt take down the treeman-but the next 5 did. my Highborn clearly a little shaken then hit the champ in challenge once and failed to wound....and took a wound back as a result. I did however kill some of the black guard with the BSB and r&f-even though only had first 2 ranks. Still lost and held.

Vamps:                                                                                

Well-what to do. Corpse cart charged the wardancers in forest

and varghulf flanked the eternal guard

Skellies were a little stuck because their tail was too long and zombie horde charges wardancers

                                                                                                

spirit host waltz's into the gladeguard.

another stupid big magic phase and he IFs invoc (only 9 more zombies, all wounds back on varghulf, all black guard back) and loses rest of dice. small explosion one later kills 2 knights, fails to wound vamp, takes wound off highborn and kills a few Eternal Guard.

In combat Ryan realised he forgot to reform end of last phase and the vamp lord is left looking silly as in B2B with highborn who is in challenge (finally kills champ...). I kill a few and we DRAW the combat. Musican stops black guard crumble, but his varghulf suffers yet ANOTHER wound and my muso gets out the vavoozella and drones out the commentary.

corpse cart does nothing to wardancers and we draw. wardancers vs zombies. Extra attack dance = 6 attacks on neco (2 hits) and 6 on zombies (1 hit). Kill necro and 1 zombie and hold out of embarrassment.

Turn 3

What to do? Shooting kills a number of zombies from the small unit. magic = snake eyes = t5 Eternal guard. In combat t5 actually helps as only the vamp lord is killing (very efficiently I might add...). By the by my Eternal guard are killing 2 black guard/turn which is awesome. Wardancers vs corpse cart is another stalemate and wardancers vs zombies = 6 dead zombies and 2 more crumble.

Vamps:

More killing of eternal guard by vamp lord. Highborn celebrates 2nd wound on witeking only to learn they have 3 wounds...BROKEN.

2nd vargulf decides to join in the fun the spirit host is having and gets into the glade guard.

turn 4

Not much to report except I fail to get flesh to stone off and vamp kills everything else-I run and we call it.

End result: very dead woodelves

Wrap Up:

My primary interest going in was to see the durability of wardancers vs masses of chaff and I was impressed however t3 is a concern and they were killing zombies. They also killed a a necro-meaning there was a fair points swap of necro for 1 unit of wardancers. Forgetting to try KB the vamp was a little dumb, but hey I was cold and distracted. 

2nd interest was to see how well the Eternal Guard star would do. s8 8 attack quick blood, red fury vamp aside they did remarkably well and I see their point holding abilities-especially when t5 with 5+/5++.

If I was to play the game again I would have put the waywatchers in a position to threaten the 23 zombie unit and swapped the glade guard  units around. I also would have waited a turn to charge to charge the black knight bus...sit in forest, charged treeman into the skellies to support there instead (would have most likely killed the vamp putting much casting pressure on the lvl4).

I also saw potential for attack allocation mayhem. With the vamp lord where he was, and having only 1 spot he could move to (next one along). If I had then moved my champ I could have wasted another round of his attacks. 8 wounds on champ = 1 extra attack as no challenge.

Is this the best woodie list? No

Is it a list that could do well? probably, but need a few more goes at using it. Not a top 10 list, but a reasonably competitive list that will cause problems for some armies. Only problem I see is that to play it well = to play very, very defensively = could get boring. Also dwellers FTW much? Random deployment could also cause major issues as a lot of the list strength comes from the treeman anchoring the Eternal Guard flank.

Im not actually sure what I would change other than maybe playing with the glade guard sizes. They are "easy" points to take. Might experiment with 3 units of 10 and drop luck stone from BSB to get 3rd muso. smaller units = less points to give away. Also might try list with beasts. I can see the Curse being very useful to support the Eternal Guard-along with character buffs and wildform (obviously). Wildform could also give the wardancers a bit of punch-though I would probably need to get a unit or two of dryads into the list to best benefit from beasts. Obvious drops are the wardancers-but could also play around with glade guard numbers too.

Invasion of the Vampires Part 2

Game 2: Battle of the Pass. Ode to the killer musos

So Ryan only has himself to blame for rolling battle of the pass vs my first ever run with Empire using this list:

Grand Templar Master: Runefang, charmed shield, luckstone, potion of foolishness

lvl4: light, scroll

BSB: bsteed, FPA, sh, SOMight

Warrior Priest: HA, GW

2 Engineers

39 Halberds: FC

10 Xbows

10 Inner Circle Knights: FC

3 DemiGriffs: (lance)

10 Reiksknights: FC

2 Cannons

2Hellblasters

So 4 artillery pieces, 2 blocks of knights and...(somewhat controversially) no steel standard. Most looking forward to seeing how the hellblasters kill stuff and of course the awesomeness of the Runefang-SOOOO EXCITING that it can now be carried by someone who can actually fight.

Anywho deployment:

So VC knights on my right flank being the big concern especially as there was a forest covering their approach. Double varghulf on 1 flank is an exciting chance to see how good knights actually are...

Turn 1:

Due to having  pretty much zero drops I get to go first. My movement consists of the ICKnights swift reforming into a line at base of hill to block the wolves and the demi griffs angling to catch the wolves if they survive the magic/shooting phase and try a sneaky run at my artillery. Ryan casually mentioned that he thought he was playing vs Empire not dwarfs...I pointed out that I hadnt deployed on my table edge, so yes, he was playing an empire army :P

Magic was an epic magic missile fest. Killing the 2 units of wolves on my right. Shooting didnt do much. The cannons opened up with a misfire (6) and a varghulf regening a hit.

Vamps began their turn my moving the left wolves up into the ruin with the varghulfs in tow. Ryan instantly regretted deploying the spirit hosts away from the general as they shuffled forward 6 inch.

The knights moved up using the forest for cover.

In the magic phase the ghouls used the book to move closer (but not the full 8 inch as that would have given my Reiks a fantastic flank charge...). The black knights vanhels'ed into the forest.

Turn 2:

So no pic of my turn. Basically my Riek knights rolled triple 1 for a charge on the ghouls....IF if had the steel standard I still would have failed the charge with my hypothetical re-roll-so points well saved if you ask me! The halberds stumbled forward to line up with the knights. Magic phase was a dud. Shooting phase was more exciting. BOTH hellblasters rolled 1 misfire. 1 re-roll = another misfire, the other a few more shots. Basically hitting on 6's (long range, forest,  bs3) I killed 3 black knights. The cannons then joined in and killed another 4. xbows bounced off (in fact they scored zero kills all game :( ).

Vamps: With 3 units to choose from the Black knight bus decides to choose the hard one and charges the hellblaster. On left flank the wolves moved up to force overrun into double varghulf.

 In the magic phase the vamp decides to IF whatever it cast and get most of the black knights back...and then roll a cheesy IF result.

In the combat the hellblaster dies and the bus over runs into the awaiting engineer.

Turn 3:

GAME ON.  now in the pics the expertly drawn in line is the 24 inch line-ie my deployment zone. Please note that in the following pic my halberds have CROSSED that line.....crazy I know, and proof once again that I am not a closet Dwarf player. So the halberds and Riek knights charge into the ghoul horde. Not sure if aligned right, but had BSB and GTM in the combat and 9 halberds...think that works out. Either way we were both happy with it and I forgot to attack with supporting knights and the BSB only killed 3 ghouls in total so didn't swing it massively in my favour or anything. Demigriffs flank the black knights.

On the left flank I combo charged the wolves to get my awesome on-killing enough to crumble them. Instead of the overrun I passed leadership test and refomed into traditional formation of 5 wide.

Magic phase....I roll up 12 dice with a juicy combat that is in desperate need of buffing. Throw 4 dice at a DISTRACT s6 shems burning gaze on the blood knights....and fail to cast. Instead the warriorpriest takes over and casts re-roll to wound (5++ being dispelled). Shooting...well the hellblaster is my new best friend. Misfire AGAIN...though this time the re-roll = 26 shots....and a wiped out unit of blood knights...Like a boss. In the combat I do epically well Runefang kills a Vamp in a challenge. The other dies to spiky s4 halberds. The halberds to their bit killing heaps, I have my 2nd bullsh*t armour save moment of the day when the warrior priest passes 4/4 5+ armour saves. My halberds took a beating due to vanhels but my re-roll to wound won me the day. Ghouls crumble down to a manageable amount. In the demi griff combat I win by 1 (and engineer lives!)

Vamps: double varghulf charge on ICknights. That combat is good for me as I do enough wounds to the wounded varghulf that I kill it with Crumble. Magic phase Resulted in most of the black knights coming back again and the ghouls getting some new friends...That I ruthlessly kill again thanks to re-roll to wound. Sadly the Warrior Priest dies this time round. Demi Griffs win combat again (by passing heaps of armour saves).

Turn 4:

Not much moving. In Magic phase I cast ws10, i10 on the Demi griffs and then IF ASF, +1 attack on the halberds and avoid the pit. The demigriffs decide to fail armour saves though and run off board with the speed of light... I do a wound on the vargulf due to Cres (he kills 1. I have standard and muso ftw). The halberds finish off the ghouls and everyone reforms to look like this:

Vamps: the vampire then does this:

And promptly IF's raise dead to create zombies to his left suspiciously where my dead pile was (threatening the hellblaster). And then casts the healing spell for good measure (creating more zombies). Spirit hosts ALMOST make it to combat. In the combat the halberds are killed down to Valten who valently flees away! the blood knights rolling a triple 1 to pursue.

Turn 5:

My knights charge into the zombies  (as were now in the front arc of the bloodknights). Magic does nothing to the knights. In the shooting I unleash the hellblaster that finishes off the knights (ANOTHER misfire re-rolling to a misfire...), a cannon explodes trying to kill vamp and the other one gets warded. Xbows bounce off harmlessly. INVINCIBLE VAMPIRE. In combat I kill enough zombies to crumble them and I do another muso wound.

Vamp turn: A SPIRIT HOST MAKES IT TO COMBAT with a cannon (holds) and the hellblaster (fails ld10 re-rolling and dies). Varghulf finally dies-reform to face the flank of spirit host in combat with cannon. Vamp goes and hides, but casts the vortex down the knights killing 4.

Turn 6:

Vortex dissipates. ICKnights vs Spirit host vs cannon = Static Cres FTW. Other one gets runefanged.

Vampire then last turn charges GTM for a fun showdown...heals himself to full wounds and wins the challenge (stupid ward), but doesnt kill my GTM.

Conclusion:

RUNEFANG'ED GTM ROCKS!!!!!!!

Barely left my deployment zone -the Empire way and a comfortable win in a mission that was always going to be an uphill battle for the vampire list that relies on getting the knights on a flank.

I was happy with the 2 knight blocks. For a bit I thought the 2 hellblasters was over kill, but now typing it up I really see the benefit. Was also tempted to drop ICknights for another block of halberds/detachments but vs the varghulfs a block of halberds would have been mince meat. I never had to use the Reik knight stubborn + BSB cold blooded, but that is a good thing. As usual my cannons were a waste of space and are mainly there to scare people (though killing 4 black knights was very, very useful).

Demigriffs were solid holding vs an angry vamp lord, so good first run out for them.

Thinking about how to handle the wider "meta", I think the GTM needs the dragonbane gem, and the BSB could do with the Other Trickster's shard. With these I can rush into flaming units, K'tai's, and warded up annoying stuff and grind them down. I also want to fit the standard of discipline on the Rieks to make them very, very hard to shift. Back to the number crunching I guess. 

A fun game with my wall of Iron, bullets and magic missiles holding out against the undead masses. Now to get my knights looking good...possibly get some new models and all the new stuff painted!

Invasion of the Vamps part 1

YAY battle reports....with PHOTOS

Ryan the vampire player came round the other day for a couple of games. A great chance to try  my High Elves and the new Empire vs a very fun army (didnt think I would use that word to describe vampires).

His list was something like this:

Vampire lord: lvl4 (vampires), Barded nightmare, HA, SoMight, charmed shield, 4++, powerstone, Master of blak arts

Vampire: lvl1 (vampires), HA, sh, Dhelm, book of Arkhan

Vampire: lvl1 (shadow), HA, 2hw, scroll

43 Ghouls: C

4x5 Dire Wolves

10 Black Knights: FC-banner of swiftness

2x1 spirit hosts

5 Blood Knights

2 Varghulfs

So nice and fast list. lvl4 in the black knights means they will be impossible to kill. Double varghulf also creates problems...should be fun.

Game 1: Watchtower

My list:

Prince: "normal" dragon, GW, Armour of caledor, vambraces of defence, other trickster's shard

lvl2: high, scroll

BSB: Dragon armour, GW, reavor bow

2x10 Archers: m

38 Spears: FC-flame

26 Wlions: FC-amulet of light

26 Wlions: FC
2 Eagles

So good on me rolling up watchtower mission. We deployed like this:

 

Turn 1:

Since I didnt control the watchtower I got first turn. All I really could do was move everything up and keep a tight formation as I was conscious of the very fast flanks. Magic phase was uneventful...drain magic dispelled. Shooting from revor bow took  1 wound from the spirit host threatening the tower. My archers shot wolves and dropped 1 unit to 2 and another to 1.

The Vampires then got the chance to march and I learnt one of the new rules-General range for march is no longer measured at beginning of the phase. The bloodknights with general angled to face off with my spears. The wolves on left side moved to spears flank. Spirit host entered tower.

The right side moved fast. Most worrying part was the 2 varghulfs. Magic phase resulted in the spears getting miasma'ed down by 2.

Turn 2:

The FIGHT IS ON! Eagle charged the wolves. BSB jumped ship from spears (who moved back to allow the wlions to squeeze through the gap). Prince flew into position to smash whatever it could (but out of ghoul charge arc).

On right flank my wlions hit and wiped out the final wolf...40VPS YEAH! 2nd Eagle flies up to die  gloriously.

Super BSB did 2 wounds to the spirit host in the tower...my celebration became quickly muted when Ryan told me they have 4 wounds...sad face. Archers did more wounds to wolves. I think I got drain magic off. In combat my eagle killed a wolf and 2 crumbled. BOOM!

Vampires turn, well...the standoff became even more of a standoff as the blood knights squared off even more and the ghouls moved up to close the gap.

Big fail on right flank. Archers fled a flank charge from wolves...and ran 2 inches to their death...sigh. Spirit host then moved up to force overrun into varghulf to set up varghulf sandwich.

 

Magic did scary stuff that wasnt immediately scary. In combat the Eagle lived! fled 10...and was run down.

Turn 3:

GAME ON. Wlions charge Ghouls, Dragon charges Blood knights.

Spears were feeling left out so swift reformed to go see what was happening on the other flank. IN Magic phase I failed to cast 5++ on the wlions in combat with ghouls. Shooting almost wounded one of the varghulfs. Combat...the real phase. Wlions vs Ghouls is a blood bath for the ghouls. Heaps and heaps died + the 2 vampires. In return my BSB passed 4 out of 4 5+ armour saves and the wlions passed 5 out of 6 5+ armour saves. Only 5 ghouls were left after crumble.

And then I challenged the Vampire to a one-on-one test of martial skill. Long story short...dragon suffered 4 wounds and the general died with no vampires left alive = ARMY CRUMBLE...only 2 ghouls and the spirit host in the building died. Spirit host vs magical wlions = over run into varghulf.

Vampires. ANOTHER crumble test (1 blood knight and the 2 direwolves that run down archers).

WLion sandwich with black knights in left flank, varghulf in the right and varghulf in the front = not looking good for me.

In combat the Dragon finished off the bloodknights (1 wound left on dragon). The wlions finished off the ghouls. The other wlions put up a good fight killing a few black knights and putting a wound on the varghulf in front...though lost all but front rank.

Turn 4:

Not much left to do except occupy building, and rear charge dragon into the black knights. Magic failed me again. in the combat dragon, prince, and 1 wlion killed all the black knights and the wlions leaving only lvl2 left....SNAKE EYES!!!!!

Vampire turn...lvl2 dies and we call it a game.

So a resounding victory to the High Elves due to epic wlion vs 43 ghoul combat (stopping van hels there being key!) and Prince proving his better martial skill...when accompanied by a dragon and the other trickster's shard.

Part two "Ode to the Musician" coming soon.