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8th Ed. First report: 11 Krox and a cowboy bus full of death

Discussion in 'Battle Reports' started by Pinktaco, Nov 15, 2013.

  1. Pinktaco
    Skar-Veteran

    Pinktaco Vessel of the Old Ones Staff Member

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    So, as the title says this is my first Battle Report. Since I don't have that much time today it might be somewhat simplified compared to what others have done, not to mention that I might have forgotten some stuff.

    Also, do bear in mind that both my friend and I started playing this summer (around August), so we have a limited experience.

    I was recommened making a Battle Report from Ripperderek after having talked about this army here:

    http://www.lustria-online.com/threads/my-army-of-full-tard-ahead-maxium-damage-edition.13420/


    We played @2500pts and MY army consisted of the following:

    Lord:

    Oldblood on cold one, glittering scale, ward save 4+, great weapon.
    Oldblood on cold one, steg helmet, dawnstone, great weapon.

    Hero:

    Scar vet on cold one, armour of destiny, great weapon, BSB.
    Beast Priest level 2, cube.
    Heaven Priest level 1, scroll.

    Core:

    2 x 30 saurus with banner and sword/shield.
    10 skink cohort.

    Special:

    7 cameleon skinks.
    7 COR w/ banner, musician.
    11 (yes 11) Kroxigors w/ champion.

    Rare: Nothing

    My friends army (Empire)

    Lord:
    General w/great weapon and on barded horse. Don't remember magic weapons.

    Hero:

    Captain BSB, with nothing/light armour (lol, I'll explain why later).
    Level 2 fire mage, scroll.
    Level 2 Shadow mage.
    Master Engineer.

    And then I don't think he had more.

    Core:

    3 (4?) x 10 handgunners.
    45 swordmens (BSB was here).
    14 IC Knights w/ Great Weapon (general was here).

    Special:

    3 Demigryphs.
    5 Pistoliers.
    2 Great Cannons.

    Rare:

    Hellblast Volley Gun
    Steamtank
    Celestial Hurricanum (was wrongfully played since my friend hadn't properly checked - he played it as if it gave +1 to hit to all BS based unit as well, it's only in close combat).



    So before I begin: We play at my friends place. He have gotten himself a nice "board" which is exactly 48" wide and something like 120" long. It's plenty of space. We also you homemade terrain along with our own quick-to-use rules in terms of what pieces we place. Basically we have a bunch of stuff and we roll to whether or not we'll be placing 5 or 6 things. Then we roll to see who gets to start placing terrain. Do mind that the rock doesn't restrict movement in any way.

    After deployment the field looked like this:

    beoa.jpg

    * His pistoliers where placed with his most left handgunners and vanguarded 12 up.

    Unfortunately things didn't go the way I wanted and I sort of messed up. No matter though, at least he didn't get to place a cannon on the hill (he placed the hill and I the mountain.

    Before the game began I got scared that I would lose. My Kroxigor unit was about to take a heavy beating from all kind of shooting (it was my friends first time with this much shooting). The krox' 4T and AS4+ would've been hard pressed against S4 armour piercing handgunners, along with a steam tank and volley gun. Oh and now that I look on the picture I forgot to place his engineer - it was next to his volley gun. My priests where in the skinks.

    Magic: I got Amber Spear and Savage Beast of horror for beast priest. Heaven just choose Iceshard Blizzard.

    He got The infeebling Foe (-D3 to strenght) and Penumbral Pendulum (more cannonballs!) along with fireball and the burning head or whatever it was called.

    Turn 1 (I start):

    Movement:
    So I got to start the first. My army was pretty straight forward: move forward and smash. So I moved the krox up 12", both saurus up 8", my bus moved 14" (and got halfway in front of the saurus unit) so it was in line to either take the hit from his demigryphs or charge them the following round. The skinks eargerly moved to the right and then up, to follow my bus. The cameleon skinks are 12" from his right cannon and moves 8" up towards it.


    Magic:
    I can't remember exactly what I roll, but I try and 6-dice a boosted savage beast of horror (as a counter measure for anyone who would dare to charge my bus). It didn't get off with IF so he dispel scrolls it. I then decides to use iceshard blizzard on the cannon to the right, but fail. No nothing exciting.

    Shooting:
    I kill 2/3 crew member and they fail their panic test and goes to cover for the following round.

    Turn 1 (his turn):

    Movement:
    pistoliers are moved to the left flank of my krox and positioned to face them. IC knights move up a bit. so I'm just 12" from him. Demigryphs moves up a bit. STank moves just a bit further into the center and is positioned to shoot on the krox.

    Magic:
    I let him have a boosted (2D6 S4) fireball off, it kills erh 2 saurus warriors. Infeebling Foe goes off. I dispel scroll it due to high casting and I didn't have that many DD. He tried to use his bound spell on buff wagon, but I dispel it with the rest of my dice and that's it.

    Shooting:
    STank, Pistoliers and 2 x handgunners shoots at krox unit. 2 Bad rolls on his part means the cannon ball from STank does 2 wounds on one krox. The rest of the shots killed the on and made 1 wound on another krox.

    Cannon on the right misses the COR bus. Volley gun and handgunners kills off 2 regular riders.

    Overall it didn't go in his favor.

    Turn 2 (me):

    Movement:
    Krox charges into IC Knights and connects. COR bus fails their charge into demigryphs and stumples 4 inches forward. Saurus units move forward another 8". Skinks moves up so they can amber spear his demigryphs.

    Magic:
    I try to get Amber Spear off. It fails, lol. Iceshard on cannon is dispelled.

    Shooting:
    I kill the last crewmember of the left cannon and then competely forget about my cameleon skinks for the rest of the game :/

    Combat:

    Krox take a wound from the damn horse. Since he has higher initiative he strikes before my. His general get 3 wounds off and I believe the IC Knights kills enough krox so that I'm left with 7 krox to hit back with.
    My krox unit obliterates no less than 12 regular IC knight resulting in me winning the combat and his general flee.

    Due to some unlucky positioning I have a krox who will touch his mage (who's in his HG unit) when they persuit the knights, so I automatically charged his mage bunker and was looking forward of rolling up his entire center.

    Turn 2 (him):

    Movement:
    He completely forget about his IC Knights for whatever reason.

    He then proceeds to go all in and declares 5 steampoints to his STank. He miscasts, BUT he ends up rolling a total of 7 (8-9 it is destroyed). 7 is, for whatever reason what he ALWAYS gets. It basically mean that his STank takes D3 wounds and gains D3 Steampoints (Oh dear...). He now have a f**kton of steampoints and they're all aimed at my krox unit (well not all since he had to use some of movement AFAIK). Angry tank driver is angry. We decided to clear the impact hit first and he gets a staggering 19 S6 impact hits off of my krox unit. Only two models stand left with a combined 4 wounds and they're now engaged with both his mage bunker and the STank.

    Magic:
    Basically nothing happens.

    Shooting:
    The right cannon hits my COR unit, takes down another two riders, so I've now lost 4/7 regular COR.
    His Volleygun and handgunner decides to unleash hell on my Saurus unit in front of them. A bunch of duders die.

    Close Combat:
    Looking awfully bad my krox decides to slaughter his mage and his bunker. The mage dies along with a bunch of handgunners. The rest basically flees the battle. Nothing (more) happens to them this turn!

    Turn 3 (me):

    Movement:
    Left saurus charges his STank and connects. Right Saurus fails their charge (!!!) and is now open to another round of volley gun and handgunner shooting. (this is the same unit who also took a fireball, so they are now somewhat wounded).

    Skinks are pretty much the same spot as far as I remember.

    Magic:
    I get boosted savage beast of horror off on my COR bus. Nothing else of importance happens.

    Shooting:
    Nothing.

    Close Combat:
    My krox are now positioned with their front to the STank. The driver doesn't do much and the krox gets another 3 wounds off on it (so it's down to 6). My saurus does nothing to it.

    Turn 3 (him):

    Movement:
    IC Knights are rallied.

    Swordmen charges my COR unit and connects. He have now unwillingly blocked his demigryphs so they're sitting this one out. He was a bit bummed out about his own mistake.

    His pistoliers moves up right next to my Skink cohort unit and readies themself to bring pain.

    His STank grinds the rest of my poor krox unit to the ground.

    Magic:

    He gets a fireball off on my skink unit and my beast priest takes 1 wound. A couple of skinks die.

    Shooting:
    Pistoliers unload on my skinks and the beast priest dies. I'm now left with iceshard blizzard. The other priest takes on wound. A bunch of skinks die, but they're still hanging around. He unloads his volley gun and handgunner on my saurus unit. More dies and they're now down to half strenght.

    Close combat:
    Saurus unit does 1 wound on the STank. Driver doesn't do much.

    I challenge his BSB which he was surprised about. As I told you we're still somewhat inexperienced so I never really issues any challenge. He didn't expect me to do that so he had left his BSB naked.

    Due to ridiculous rolling he loses 1 wound.

    Swordmens pick out a COR and gets hit by Savage Beast of Horror buff characters. A lot of swordsmen dies, but they're still steadfast, so they hang around.

    Turn 4 (me):

    Movement:
    Saurus unit finally connects with their charge on his handgunner bunker with the final mage.

    Nothing else happens here.

    Magic:

    Nothing really happens since I fail to cast iceshard blizzard.

    Shooting:

    Nothing.

    Close combat:

    Nothing happens on the STank.

    I killed off his BSB and a lot of swordsmen. They're now down to something like 1/3, but still steadfast.
    I believe they kill off another COR.

    Turn 4 (him).

    Movement:

    he charges my saurus unit with his remaining IC knights (they're next to the STank).

    His STank designates 4 Steampoints and he then, for whatever reason completely forgot about it in the movement phase.

    I can't quite remember what his pistoliers did lol. I think they moved behind my skink unit.

    Magic:

    Nothing.

    Shooting:
    The rest of my skink unit dies horribly to pistoliers, the volley gun and his cannon to the right. The skinks were now positioned in a way so they could be hit by it all.

    Since my friend forgot about his STank earlier he still have his 4 steam points. He miscasts and rolls so that he have loses D3 steam points and loses 3 (so he's down to 1). He uses the steamgun and (2D6 S2) and it.. kills 2 saurus.

    Combat:
    saurus kills off an IC knigth and takes some minor beating from his general and the other IC Knight. I win combat due to ranks, but he doesn't flee.

    I kill most of his remaining swordsmen, the rest flees (I catch them) and overrun straight into his demigryphs.

    My saurus unit engaged against his last mage bunker utterly flops their attacks and decided it would be much better to receive more than dish out. They don't flee though and have 9 units left. Unless I'm mistakening they make 1 wound on his mage.

    Turn 5 (me)

    Movement:
    Nothing.

    Magic:
    Nothing.

    Shooting:
    Nothing.

    COmbat:
    So I decided to start with combat to the right, with his birds. They attack first and inflicts 2 wounds on my stegadon helmet cowboy. Bad bird knights. Nothing else really happens from his side in this combat. I retaliate and utterly crushes his birds. Nothing is left.

    I reforms so that I can charge his STank in the following round.

    saurus vs mage bunker: I kill off his mage and a bunch of handgunners. They flee and I persuit into his buff wagon (I end up doing nothing to it in the following round).

    My Saurus unit kills off another IC Knight so now there's only the general and his STank. They inflict no wound on it. He loses combat, but stays put.

    Turn 5 (him):

    He generates steampoints (can't remember how many).

    He grinds some saurus and kills off a few with his general, but I'm still steadfast so while I didn't do much to him I were still steadfast and remained in place.

    He turns his volley gun, pistoliers, his remaining handgunners (who've moved around) and cannon towards my Character "bus". A ton of shooting got off, but only 1 wound was made on my scar vet, my oldblood with his one wound left is still intact. Needless to say my friend was a bit bummed. His volley gun misfires twice, due to his engineer he rerolls and get something like 6 shot off. His cannon hits on of my characters and it bounces off the ward save.

    Turn 6 (me):

    I connect with my characters into his STank, they utterly crushes the it and are now not in B2B contact with his general, so they cannot move any more.

    My friend resigns.

    I had:

    - 2/3 of my left saurus unit remaining.
    - 9 or so saurus left in the other unit.
    - all 3 cowboys left.
    - Cameleon skinks are all alive and well.


    He had:

    - 1 general.
    - 10 handgunners.
    - 5 pistoliers.
    - 1 great cannon.
    - 1 one volley gun.
    - 1 Celestial Hurricanum.

    So. What do I think about this sort of all-in army? It was funny to beat the living crap out of all those heavily armoured units. He always brigns quite a lot of those and they all died without mercy.

    we were both really unlucky in our magic phases and in combat. I mean, sure I instantly killed his demigryphs, but overall I've never seen us roll so bad. His shooting didn't actually do much and I had two failed charges that would've meant quite a lot to get off.

    The ridiculous impact hit from his STank ALWAYS annoys me. I mean ffs 19 S6 auto-hits are just.. it's just too much lol. And this isn't the first time he have done something like this.
    I've read the rules myself and there is nothing wrong about what he does - it's D6 + the amount of steampoints he generated (who are all D3). I've never seen that many 5s and 6s in my live... :(

    IF he hadn't done that we would've stopped aroudn turn 3 or so. It would've left his entire center open to my Krox unit and they wouldn't have been stopped. So while I was at first rather annoyed about this (the entire unit costed me 560pts) it made the game more interesting since I didn't just auto-win.

    Could I have done differently? Well I could've *tried* to charge his STank, but since it was further away I might've ended up failing the charge and get double charged by his IC Knights and STank. That would've been unfortunate. Since I had so few units to place I was limited in the deploytment phase so placing my COR bus where I did turned out to be alright. I was a bit bummed about getting charged by his swordsmen since the unit packs so much pain, but they died quickly.

    Overall we both made some mistakes (Me forgetting my cameleon, not moving my skink bunker enough) and him blocking his demigryphs in - although I suspect they would've been crushed anway.

    It was a fun game for both of us and it wasn't as one-sided as it could've been.

    One could argue that his army wasn't exactly competitive, HOWEVER, against this heavy amount of Kroxigors I'd wager that it wasn't actually the worst choice. He could've killed more of them if he wasn't as unlucky as he was. Instead of his handgunners he could've brought Reikguard knights, but yeah.. It could've changed something, but if they came anywhere near my bus they would've died too.

    So what did I learn from this? 11 kroxigors are AWESOME. Will I take them again? NO. lol. It's 560 points that could go to.. anytihng else. I mean, I could probably get a good amount of Templeguards and an ancient steg for the price.

    I am, however, fond of the character bus. Ripperderek uses it in another way, so I might try out a character bus, just with scar vets, and fit in a slann instead. Then I can go no skink priest perhaps to save points.

    At any rate I know my friend fear when I have a lone oldblood out in the open because they hit like a truck and can take a beating. A bus with 2 oldbloods and 1 scar vet it quite insane in terms of what they can do. Hardly anything stops them and they'll kill off most of what they're put up against.
     
  2. Pinktaco
    Skar-Veteran

    Pinktaco Vessel of the Old Ones Staff Member

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    I don't have the time to read it through and check for mistakes. I hope it makes sense since I've made it in a hurry :)
     
  3. Kimiko
    Skink

    Kimiko New Member

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    19 impact hits? Lovely... sham you can only spend THREE SP in each tank component (engine, steam gun, cannon). So when it charges, it's always D6+3D3 impact hits maximum. So it would at best roll, give 15 impacts hits... It would be lovely if it worked that way... lol
    I'm a Empire player also, have the book next to me, but will wait for other players to come here confirm what i'm saying.
     
  4. RipperDerek
    Kroxigor

    RipperDerek Active Member

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    That's correct. I'm pretty sure the steam tank impact hits are based on number of steam points used for movement, and you're limited on how many you can spend on each action as Kimiko says.

    Good battle report, though! It's very detailed.

    No guarantee what works for me will work for you, but my load out is:

    Slann Mage-Priest (G+BSB)
    - Dragonbane Gem
    - Dispel Scroll
    - War Banner
    - Wandering Deliberations
    - Higher State of Consciousness

    Saurus Scar-Veteran w/Great Weapon, Gambler's Armor, Dawnstone, Cold One
    Saurus Scar-Veteran w/Great Weapon, Armor of Fortune, Luckstone, Ironcurse Icon, Cold One
    Saurus Scar-Veteran w/Great Weapon, Armor of Destiny, Cold One
    Saurus Scar-Veteran w/Great Weapon, Light Armor, Sac. Steg. Helm, Seed of Rebirth, Cold One

    8 cold one riders complete the bus.
     
  5. Sleboda
    Troglodon

    Sleboda Active Member

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    Thanks for the report, but I think you may have a few things to correct for next game. One stands out:

    => Why would the war machine take a panic check for losing wounds? You don't panic based on wounds, but on models lost. The war machine lost no models (and, in fact, cannot lose any models and still be around - it's only one model!).

    Another:
    => His general had a great weapon, just like your Krox. You strike simultaneously.

    => Did you at least compare your pursuit roll to his flee roll? Remember, all that matters is the numbers, not where you end up. If you rolled equal to or higher than he did, then he's dead and you charge the new enemy.
     
  6. hilburn
    Cold One

    hilburn New Member

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    I don't think this is correct, when shooting at a war machine:

    Roll to hit
    Roll to wound (using war machines toughness)
    Roll to save using crews armour
    Remove crew equal to wounds lost
    Take panic check as most war machines have a crew of 3 so you've done 25% if you kill even 1

    It specifically says that war machines dont actually have 'wounds', just a number of crewmen still alive.
     
  7. VampTeddy
    Terradon

    VampTeddy Active Member

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    Page 108 - a warmachines crew are lost as it loses wounds "if a warmachine would lose a wound, simply remove a crew model".
    Otherwise they're treated as if the warmachine is the extent of the unit, and thus Sleboda is correct - the "unit" is the warmachine so it only lost a wound, and wouldn't need to test for panic unless someone fled through it or was destroyed nearby.
     
  8. hilburn
    Cold One

    hilburn New Member

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    Ah ok, my bad. Still got rules hangover from when I last played (6th ed) where war machines were 3 man units with a big chunk of iron/wood to hide behind. I played Dwarves so panic checks were never an issue ;)
     
  9. Pinktaco
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    Pinktaco Vessel of the Old Ones Staff Member

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    Sorry I'm visiting a friend, playing against his skaven and WoC armies. I'll reply when I get home to my pc tomorrow :)
     
  10. Sleboda
    Troglodon

    Sleboda Active Member

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    => Such is the curse of the veteran player. I'm convinced that players who enter the hobby with whatever the current edition is are the ones who likely play the game the most accurately.
     
  11. hilburn
    Cold One

    hilburn New Member

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    At least after the first 3 months of not knowing how to play ;)
     
  12. Pinktaco
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    Pinktaco Vessel of the Old Ones Staff Member

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    I didn't roll higher, but due to PF I HAVE to persuit and thus I charged the new unit. Maybe I didn't make this clear? After all I did write it all in a hurry. :)

    Answers are written in red.
     
  13. Pinktaco
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    Pinktaco Vessel of the Old Ones Staff Member

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    Funny thing is: The moment I read your reply I got a text from my friend saying "I might've accidently cheated you with the impact hits".

    It's alright though. I know he didn't do it on purpose and I've read the rules myself, apparently we both didn't read it carefully lol.

    This, however, makes a HUGE difference IMO. In this particular case He wouldn't have had 15 impact hits, despit rolling quite high. He might've had something like 12. at least some of those would've flopped (maybe one or two) meaning the total amount of wounds taken might've been 10-11 instead of 17. If that was the case I would've been left with enough units to smash the damn tank in the following round. This also means that rolling a 7 on the miscast table isn't as damn good as we've played it with (say you spend 5 SPs and get another 3 for a total of D6 + 8D3 impact hits vs 6D + 3D3).

    This will make a difference in our future games.
     

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