8th Ed. The Battle of Aros

In the old days my mates and I used to be regular gamers – playing a few times a week and participating in Danish tournaments etc. Suddenly real jobs, wives, kids and other such monstrous responsibilities stole our time and left us only with the odd weekend a few times a year. Now this year’s weekend is coming up – and this time it’ll be the Battle of Aros. So again armies are dusted off, the odd model is painted, army lists are written and rewritten, the new rules are read and reread and usually we fit in a few test games before our gaming weekend – getting used to the rules (why do they keep changing that stuff – what was wrong with 4ed anyway???)

This post will describe the path towards the Battle of Aros and hopefully I will be able to get into more detail of the games we play that particular weekend.

Last time we met my mighty beast heard won against the good (ghost/spirit themed wood elves), the bad (vile dark elves) and the ugly (actually beautifully converted fire themed demons). This year it’ll be my freshly painted lizards (I lost my undeads, empire, high elf and beast armies in a burglary) against Orcs n’Goblins, Wood Elves and Dark Elves. So my experience with lizards is rather limited but that is just about to change.

We are not power gamers but we all play to win and the banter on the Internet before and after the battles is ruthless.

So far I had four smaller games against the Orc ‘n goblin player where I used a standard small army with approximately

A saurus hero on a cold one and the Steg Helm
A skink level 2 wizard
Some 15 Saurus warriors
Some 5 Cold One knights
Around 2x10 skinks with javelins
A vanilla Stegadon
A salamander

My friend’s army is centered around blocks of orcs, savage orcs, night goblins, boar boys and then he adds different nasty flavors from game to game such as a giant, doom diver, pump wagon, mangler squigs, chariots etc.

Game 1 The greenskins are not part of the Old One’s plan – big win for the lizards
A delightful game for the skinks who kept rolling tons of sixes on their poisonous shots. They killed bucket loads of orcs and even a giant (with help from the stegadon). The salamander blazed away at the big regiment of night goblins panicking them off the board and the Saurus hero (again with help from the stegadon) routed the savage orcs and running them down. The regiment of saurus warriors never even made it into combat.

Game 2 Their arrows blocked out the sun – disaster for the lizards
For the next game my friend turned up with a very sneaky grin on his face. It turned out he had brought a very shooty greenskin army with bolt throwers, doom diver and lots of night goblins and orcs… with bows… I was shot to pieces. In the first turn the doom diver killed all 5 Cold One Knights, several bolt throwers killed the Stegadon and the rest was simply pincushioned while they slowly strolled across the table. I think the Saurus block was the only one that made it into combat and even though it was at that time decimated to a few models it actually broke some green skins – a small ray of light in a very dark night. Being shot up by goblins – how humiliating is that?

Game 3 The biggest gansta in the jungle – comfortable win for the lizards
In this game a bad deployment of my skink units and my skink wizard and a very long and devastating charge from a pump wagon with sails (?) almost lost me the game early on. Fortunately for me the doom diver exploded (or whatever it does) and the bolt thrower suffered a similar fate in turn one and two and as a bonus the goblin shaman blew himself up too (don’t you just love Orcs when the act like this). The saurus block worked wonders breaking several mobs of Orcs and my Saurus hero – now aptly named OrX’fordinna routed a few mobs himself.

Game 4 Ixnogood ponders why there are so few female Slann around – small loss for the lizards
And yesterday we had a slightly larger game at 1500 points

For this game I brought Ixnogood himself – Slann with WD
OrX’fordinna - a saurus hero on a cold one, Steg Helm
Some 15 Saurus warriors
Some 12 temple guards
2x10 skinks with javelins
A vanilla Stegadon
Two salamanders
Three rippers

My friend went to town with an Orc boss on boar chariot, night goblin shaman with big block of night goblins, two more wolf chariots, wolf riders, a block of savage orcs, normal orcs, giant, mangler squig, doom diver and bolt thrower.

The game started well when Ixnogood leeched the soul of the orc general out through his snout and dropped him stone dead in his chariot with a slightly perplexed look on his face. The rippers broke through the wolf chariots and pursued but was soon smashed to pulp by fanatics. The doom diver kept hammering the temple guards throughout the game and somehow that little night goblin shaman kept eating mushrooms and kept throwing Vortex’ that killed bucket loads of orcs and lizard with their subsequent random movement. He also managed to freeze the saurus unit in place most of the game through a spell that reduced my movement – what a nasty little bugger. And somehow Ixnogood never really owned the magic phases – like he was distracted somehow… It went from bad to worse when the giant killed the stegadon with a mighty whack with a tree and then overrunning into the Slann’s depleted temple guard block (who had its movement reduced the previous turn and thus couldn’t get out of the charge range of the giant). We had to call the game (it was midnight on a normal weekday - jobs and wives and kids, remember) and at that time the Orcs had the favourable position and we agreed on a small win for the Orcs.

So in a few weeks I travel to Aros to humiliate my friends and hopefully (again) claim the title “Champion of the Battle of Aros”.

I’ll keep you posted…

Cheers

I enjoyed reading that. Please do more of it.

Where in Denmark are you playing?

And it was nice to read about the fights! Im totally new to warhammer, so I'm trying to learn as much from people I can, and your battle report was nice!

Aros being....Aarhus?
I live there

Yup Phatmotha-phucka - Aros as in Aarhus (a code for true Aarhus lovers - and now for members of this forum ) The city where me and the mates used to study and live and where I picked up Warhammer as my favourite hobby many years ago in a small store called Goblin Gate - oh the memories. Now I live near Copenhagen, but for this particular weekend we all travel back to Aarhus where my Orc and Goblin friend bought a house with a... CELLAR!!!

I know the feeling Bay91 - for month my only "gaming experience" is through Sleboda's, GCPD's and other peoples battle reports posted on this forum (thanks guys).

My next - and probably final test game - will be Thursday night, so stay tuned...

Cheers

Mortelicus said:

Goblin Gate - oh the memories.

Click to expand...

;') now you got me all nostalgic

Game 5 Ixnogood takes a nap during the battle - big loss for the lizards

We played 1500 points again, so I used the same list as last time (see above).

My friend brought his orc general in chariot, level 2 night goblin shaman, block of savage orcs, block of orcs, 2 small units of arrer boys, big unit of night goblins with fanatic, 2 bolt throwers, 2 wolf chariots, 1 doom diver, 1 pump wagon, 1 giant.

What a bummer this game was! Again Ixnoogood really let me down. A lot! And in turn six he was last man standing (actually the Stegadon lived too but last man standing sounds more dramatic) and ended up getting charged by the orc general in his chariot and the giant.

And OrX’fordinna – my valiant saurus hero got stuffed into the giant’s bag or trousers or wherever he keeps his stash. I hate that giant. All my poisoned skink shooting… and a rear charge from the rippers... (with bloated toad on the giant)… and two turns of fighting with my saurus block… and a turn of fighting with OrX’fordinna… inflicted 3 wounds on him. Between them. All in all. In total. The giant on the other hand smashed the rippers, bagged (he he) the hero, turned the saurus unit to pulp and in the end killed (…or seriously hurt as he will be back for more) poor Ixnogood. Man I hate that big fella.

Elsewhere on the battlefield the temple guards defeated and routed a big block of savage orcs. However the battle with the savage orcs ate a good chunk of the unit and the remaining guards were later run over by the Orc general in his chariot. The stegadon ran down a big block of orcs and finally took revenge on the doom diver that in previous battles had flattened so many proud lizards. My skink units put a wound or two on the giant, killed one bolt thrower and killed the two wolf chariots (after that they redirected other units and got smeared into the grass for the effort.

And Ixnogood – oh Ixnogood, why did you let me down? In the first magic phase I got 4 dice and managed to fireball a pumpwagon turning it into blackened twigs. Second magic phase got me 11 dice (I might have laughed like an evil maniac at this time while rubbing my hands in anticipation), but I rolled double six (throwing three dice) on the first lure-out-dispel-dice-fireball which cost me a level and ended the phase (my friend was kind enough not to laugh, but he may have smiled at this point). Third phase got me 5 dice and saw my soul leech scrolled. In fourth phase I got seven dice and managed to cast miasma and iceshard into the combat between temple guards and savage orcs giving me the edge. Fifth and sixth phase Ixnogood apparently fell asleep, I think he managed to get a single miasma through while both soul leech was dispelled. So for 330 points I killed a pumpwagon and helped kill a block of savage orcs. A total… ah let me use the word “letdown” in this forum as there might be kids present...

So what went wrong? I think my army lacks stamina – there simply aren’t enough troops to go into a grind with orcs (I might break one unit but will get hammered by the next) or a few turns of orc shooting leave me with very few models. For the battle in Aros I’ll try to get them to 25 each. I also took a few gambles that didn’t pay off and in small battles you cannot really afford that. OrX’fordinna charged the unit of 30 night goblins (outside their general’s bubble). I had Steg Helm and was fairly confident I could get them to run. I won by a few but they held on their own stubborn leadership (leaving me open for the giant). I probably shouldn’t have made that charge but the pressure was building on me and I had to push back. I probably shouldn’t have thrown my rippers at the giant either, but with all the shooting around 2x10 boys, 30 night goblins, 3 war machines, I reckoned they’d be safer in battle (and they did win the first round, losing only one model). And I really feared the giant and wanted to bring him down. And of course I lack a few good magic phases…

So for the Battles of Aros where we'll play 2000 points, I’ll bring bigger saurus units, another saurus hero, another unit of skinks but I will drop the rippers (fighting wood elves and dark elves I fear for their health). I am tempted to ditch Ixnogood (building a Sleboda type army) but all my fluff and the banter on the Internet have me cornered on that one so I have to bring him now and I feel he owes me now, so he’ll perform alright when the big weekend comes (if you all say a prayer for him).

Too bad I haven’t had any practice games against elves… But then again – they are just elves…

Cheers.

LOVED this! Looking forward to more!

Thanks dbgoldberg323, I am glad you liked it.

The Battle of Aros will take place this weekend and I am very excited. The banter on the Internet has reached astonishing heights and lesser men would have broken down and capitulated by now.

I have some last minute changes to my army (and everybody knows that’s a marvellous idea).

Ixnogood will be using High Magic in the battle of Aros! WD disappointed me – or actually Ixnogood did but rather than blaming him (literally blaming myself) I prefer to blame a poor choice of spells thus WD has to go. Much easier that way – takes less self-realization…

I originally planned on using 3 units of skinks with javelins but I am somewhat scared of all the Orc shooting – especially the Doom Diver, so one unit of ordinary skinks is traded for one smaller unit of ninja skinks who will be using their scout ability and utterly destroy that doom diver on turn one. On turn two they will turn their attention towards the giant and all their poisonous blowpipe shots will kill the giant on turn two and then in turn three… ah – must have dozed a bit there… my bad. Well that’s the dream/plan anyway. When fighting Dark Elves and Wood Elves the chameleon skinks will probably fill the role as pin cushion.

So the list will be (without the secret stuff in case my enemies spies on this forum)

Ixnogood – The Slann of Slanns using high magic
OrX’fordinna - hero on Cold One possibly with magic stuff
D’jenghisKhan - hero on Cold One with battle standard and possibly other magic stuff
Barb’aqua – skink priest possibly with magic stuff
25 Saurus
21 Temple Guards
2x10 skinks
5 Chameleon skinks
2 Salamanders
1 Stegadon

As I mentioned earlier I never tried my Lizards against Wood Elves or Dark Elves and somehow all the battle reports I can find on the Internet shows Lizards getting flattened by those two armies. Luckily we all know how unreliable the Internet can be, and my plan is to pray for bad dice for the elves – that should work.

I’ll also appreciate any good advice and fool proof ways to beat the elves.

So wish me luck and if you haven’t heard from me by next week please send out some patrols to look for me – probably in a ditch in the vicinity of Aros.

Cheers

Very enjoyable reading! I'm in the same boat as you and your comrades it would seem (kids, job, house, etc...). No more late night games for me! Looks like you guys do lots of small battles where as we usually go for massive 4K+ battles that last all day (those rare occasions they occur). I was just wondering, how do you have your Scar-Vet set up?

Wood elves eat skirmishers for breakfast. They are going to be hitting your skirmishers and your chamo skinks on 3s and wounding them on 3s with trueflight arrows.

Best advice I have is to keep your skirmishers away from each other so that they do not panic your other units when they die.

If you still want skinks, bring cohorts. Each unit of 10 to 15 glade guard can reliably take out 4 or 5 skirmishers. This will panic most skirmisher units, but a decently sized cohort takes those losses and laughs. They are still cheap, they can still redirect, and they still can stand and shoot anything dumb enough to charge.


Focus your shooting and magic on taking out the wild riders in the first couple of turns. They are cruise missiles, and will annihilate anything they charge. After that, keep your shooting alive as best you can, because a fast cav wizard bunker is stupidly hard to kill. They run away from everything.

The Battle of Aros starts for real

I turned up at my friend's house Friday at around 6 pm with my suitcase full of freshly painted lizards (and black t-shirts I bought in Greece this summer with motives from the movie 300 and especially saved for this event. Very important with a t-shirt saying "war is in my blood" or "we are Spartans" when you play Warhammer). I immediately noticed the fantastic aroma of roasted pork from a big barbecue in the garden. An hour later and with our bellies filled with plenty of tender pork and strong beer the Battle of Aros could begin properly!

In all my games I used

Ixnogood, the Slann of Slanns, harmonic convergence, channelling staff and focus of mystery (high magic)
OrX’fordinna, Saurus hero on Cold One with great weapon and Helm of Itza
D’JengiXkhan, Saurus battle standard on Cold One, great weapon, dragon helm and dawnstone
Barb’acua, level 1 skink priest w. heaven with scroll.
25 Saurus with spears
2x10 skinks with javelins
5 chameleon skinks
20 temple guards
1 stegadon w. sharpened horns
2 Salamanders w. 7 crew

Game number 1
My first opponent was my wood elf friend... Remember how I asked for advice dealing with the pesky elves? (thanks LawGnome btw) Well... it turned out the test games with his wood elves and all the banter on the Internet from his side was a ruse. Instead he brought his dwarf army (we always play in a friendly spirit and the rule is we use the same army list and the same magic lore for all battles during our weekends, but nothing prohibits bringing another army at the last minute). We all had quite a laugh and a bit of cursing about now-wasted flaming weapons.

Being a very friendly person he used a very friendly list (with approximately - I am not good with dwarf runes and might have gotten it wrong but this was how it felt):

Hero general with rune of insane strength (?) and something that gave him an extra wound (?)
Master engineer using his BS for the Organ gun (?)
Rune smith with dispel rune
Battle Standard with rune of stubborn and rune of ward save (?).
25 normal dwarfs w. battle standard
25 iron breakers w. general
10 gun dwarfs
10 crossbow dwarfs
15 miners
5 rangers
Organ gun with +1 to hit rune
Canon

There were a lot of terrain but most importantly a big hill in the middle of his deployment zone and a piece of impassable terrain splitting his side of the table in two. I haven't played against dwarfs in this edition but I was not too worried (short things don’t worry me). His forces were deployed around the hills (gasp) and everything I had surged forward apart from the cowardly stegadon hiding behind a piece of impassable terrain - scared of the canon... The chameleon skinks started chipping away at the war machines at the hill and my friend ended up spending two turns of very unlucky organ gun shooting to get rid of them. True to form Ixnogood started off very poorly miscasting the very first spell of the game - a four dice Tempest (7% miscast chance if you are interested). I really hoped that would not be an omen for the rest of the battles but read on and find out... Nah - the rest of the game Ixnogood performed miracles (yay!) He killed the organ gun with a big Soul Quench just at the right time, Soul Quenched some gun dwarfs, magic-moved the Stegadon across open ground meaning it was only canon target one turn, healed the stegadon at a critical moment and on several critical occasions rose my initiative just above dwarf level. Way to go Ixnogood! The stegadon went into a grind with the warriors with battle standard and by turn 5 the little garden gnomes were utterly pulverized (battle standard was out of contact with the Stegadon so it was only when there was 4 warriors left that he too was turned into Steggie snack©. The Saurus block presented itself as a tempting target for the iron breakers with killer general but if the Iron Breakers wanted to charge they would end up on the other side of the big piece of impassable terrain leaving them hanging out there probably for the rest of the game.

After much hmm'ing and ahh'ing he decided to charge (he hadn't really killed anything apart from chameleon skinks at this point and needed some VPs). After the same amount of hmm'ing I decided to hold (garden gnomes, how hard could they hit?)… Fairly hard it turned out - the stunts killed 11 or so Saurus on turn one, so they broke but were not caught and ended up far away from their short legged Nemesis, so the Saurus actually survived the game and the iron breakers and killer general ended up earning no vp's at all - apart from the banner from the Saurus unit. Elsewhere OrX'fordinna charged a unit of crossbow dwarfs looking for an easy win. The lazy lizard and his even lazier Cold One ended up in a prolonged fight that lasted three or four full turns before the stunts finally died. The skinks and the salamanders ran around a unit of miners chipping away for four or five turns until none of the miners where left. In the end he had a canon, iron breakers, rune smith and general left having killed only chameleon skinks and skink priest on my side earning the lizards a big win - 1400 vs. 200 VP.

I think three things won me that game: 1) Ixnogood's magic (yay again), 2) the iron breaker's charge that took them out of the game (in hindsight probably a mistake on his part but I would probably have done the same) and the fact that the Saurus got away (pure luck on my side) and 3) the organ gun's inability to thin out my troops before they got stuck in and the canons inability to kill the Stegadon the one turn it presented itself as a target before it too got stuck in with the warriors. And of course he played a friendly dwarf list with little magic defense.

We didn't finish until 1 o'clock and we had plenty of strong beer and peanuts during the game and a glass of good night cognac too... so it will be interesting to see who will have the edge in the next battle early Saturday morning!

Comments are welcome and stay tuned for the next game against my Old Arc Nemesis - the Orc and Goblin player!!!

Game number 2

The next morning at 9.30 it was time to meet my old arc nemesis the Orc and Goblin player and our host for this weekend (he has a lovely wife, a beautiful house and a really nice gaming cellar, with two tables and lots of terrain - what more can a man ask for?) He had actually brought an Orc and goblin list (not like some other sneaky gits ) and as regular readers will know he had trashed me soundly with a similar list in the warm up games so I was more than a little nervous this morning. He brought (approximately)

Orc lord in chariot
Level 2 Orc shaman
Level 2 night goblin shaman
Some Orc hero (?)
5 savage Orc boar boys
20 Orc boys w. hero
20 savage orcs w. shaman
10 archer orcs
30 night goblins w 2 fanatics w. NG shaman
2 wolf chariots
Giant
Mangler squiq
Pump wagon
2 bolt throwers
Rock lobba

We played dawn attack which hurt him quite a bit since it left his general and savage Orc boys; pump wagon and mangler squiq out on my right flank turning up too later for the decisive action in turn 2-4. I was luckier in my deployment rolls, so I got most things in the middle and on my left flank, and chose to concentrate effort to the left.

On turn one I surged forward hoping to bring down a few of his units to the left before the rest from the right straddled across the table. My Saurus unit with OrX'fordinna again presented itself as a tempting target to the two wolf chariots and perhaps a long charge from the Orc boys with hero. I hoped to knock off one wolf chariot with magic and shooting but at this point Ixnogood failed me. I got Tempest off on his orc boys and killed some 6-7 models, but Soul Quench on the chariots where dispelled. So in went two wolf chariots and a long charge from the boys and 11 impact hits + plenty of Orc hits later 14 Saurus lay dead so bye bye steadfast. Even the close by battle standard could not help me and the Saurus unit ran and was crushed into the ground taking poor OrX'fordinna with them. One wolf chariot died in a dangerous terrain test but the other chariot and the boys (and the giant who had marched forward) now threatened my entire left flank (I have really bad experience with that big guy). What should have been a fast and decisive orc collapse on the left flank had turned on me. And his units from the right flank were now a lot closer... Things where indeed looking grim

At this point my luck changed! My stegadon and temple guard with Slann charged the giant, the stegadon causing 4 impact hits of which 3 wounded. My friend picked up his dice, smartly reminding me how the giant in our two previous games had whacked the Steggie to pulp with his massive club when I - rather casually (nah I cackled like an old crone) - revealed that this time I had actually bought sharpened horns for the Steggie. The giant died - a lot (insert more insane cackling here), the nearby boys panicked and later fled off the table, the chameleon skinks lured out the fanatics from the night goblin unit who missed the skinks but in the next turn plowed through the savage Orc boar boys killing all but one. The rock lobba and one bolt thrower misfired and exploded; the doom diver misfired and could not shoot the next turn. And then... Ixnogood... the Slann of Slanns wanted to do something too... (dramatic pause) - which he actually did! He cast Tempest on the big block of night goblins, killing half the unit and panicking them into the mangler squiq who had finally made it across the board. That hurt – gory bits and pieces of gobbos flying everywhere (it brought the goblins below 25 % and killed the squiq) – well done Ixnogood! My skink priest and skink units redirected the general in chariot and the savage orcs on their way at across the table taking them out of the battle for good. Now THAT'S the orcs and goblins I like! In the end it gave me a 1600 vs. 1000 VP win.

I think 3 things won me this game (weird how its always 3 - lets make it 4 then): 1) was his army being split with his general in a chariot and his savage orc boys hanging on the left side easily redirected by heroic skinks with a death wish. 2) stegadon with sharpened horns (muhahaha) 3) Ixnogood’s magic. While the last might not have looked important it really mattered. I closed down his phase entirely, I got Tempest off two times, magic-moved some skink redirectors at a critical point and in the end mobbed up a few units with Soul Quench. And 4 - usually I don’t blame bad luck but he had his share of bad luck in that game.

So two good wins so far – next up are the Dark Elves that everybody is talking so much about. Wonder why there is so much fuzz about those warlocks – they are just elves after all…

Feel free to comment and stay tuned for the next episode when Ixnogood has his first rendezvous with the Dark Elves…

Hey Mortelicus,

your battle reports are a great read. Thanks for the effort. You are actually a better writer then most native... writers.

Ixnogood lxed misleadingly good in the past two games. Could say in the last game he finally had OrX'fordinna, but that would be misleading as well

Thanks for the kind words Hilla, I am glad you liked it. And you are right, this time Ix had OrX'fordinna In earlier games he failed me a few times so I really appreciate when he doesn't screw up... too much.

Game number 3

The next game was against my friend with the dark elves. Now please mind you - he is not of the common look-a-shiny-new-army-with-new-unbeatable-stuff-mommy-I-want-one-for-Christmas players. He has faithfully been playing Dark Elves since… hmm a very long time… I think since I met him back in 1997ish. And I know he has been struggling with those squishy elves in several tournaments. So if anyone deserves to play a rock hard army, it’s him.

For this weekend he brought a rather magic heavy list (with approximately):
Level 4 dark sorcerer with sacrificial dagger
Level 2 death sorcerer with scroll
Hero on Pegasus with a rather insane cloak
20 spear elves, level 4 went in here.
2x10 crossbow elves, level 2 in one of these
2 repeater bolt throwers
5 warlocks
5 wild riders
5-6 shades
6 cold one knights
Hydra with some nasty upgrade

We played with hidden deployment and I really screwed up here. I think Zun Tzu wrote something like “The highest art of war is to control the enemy without fighting” (roughly translated from Danish… Yeah I know Zun Tzu isn’t Danish, but I only remember the quote in… well nevermind, the point is that this happened to me. Being so afraid of his shooting and magic (he had Purple Sun, Blade Wind, several Doom Bolt and lots of debuffs I deployed most of my stuff on my right flank with some impassable terrain between me and the hill is his deployment zone where I anticipated he would deploy his gun eh… crossbow battery. I was hoping to advance on that flank, kill his chaff units and perhaps sneak through a small win... Man was I wrong!

Three turns of skink shooting killed perhaps a single warlock and a couple of wild riders and put a few wounds on the hydra. Ixnogood didn't get a spell through the first 3 phases (failing to cast Tempest on the crossbow men or big Soul Quench on the Pegasus hero or warlocks). The first 3 phases I was out-magicked and out-shot. My units stood in each other’s way on the right flank meaning that I could only advance with one unit at the time (I could almost hear them arguing in their tiny voices - "you go first", "no no you go first"... I lost my big block of Saurus warriors and all my own chaff by turn 4 (ironically what I planned on doing to him – I can almost hear the faint laughter from Zun Tzu’s spirit)

By then things started to look a little better. My temple guards charged and killed the hydra, the stegadon killed the shades overrunning into crossbow elves, killing these too and ending up charging his spear elf block with level 4 general. Even though the Stegadon had its strength and toughness reduced my impact hits still killed five or six elves and for a second my hopes went up - with a few good Steggie attacks and a nice juicy Thunder Stomp I might juuuust nail them. But then the 12 elves left hit with their rerolls, boosted to S4 they scored 3 wounds on the now T5 beast and I promptly missed all three saves by one! Argh! Aarghh!! Aarrgghh!!! Well it was a good game that I ended up losing by 1174 vs. 591 VP (my temple guard unit with Slann and Batlle Standard was all I had left. Had the Steggie broken that spear elf unit with level 4 general (and not died in the process) things would have looked differently. Alas that was not to be...

Luckily I made it to the final (the two highest scoring players would play the finale the two others would play for third and fourth place) and my opponent in the final would be... (anyone with a good guess?)

Stay tuned for the last battle.

Game number 4

Yeah – you are right, none other than my new Arc Nemesis the depraved and wicked dark elf player.

We played meeting engagement – and had before the battle discussed that there was a certain amount of randomness involved when you play a scenario like that. I think my comment was that a good general is one who can overcome a bit of bad luck… (you know the term Hubris, right…) My jaw really hit the floor when half my army ended up being in reserve (rolled three ones in a row). So I had Temple guards with Slann and Saurus battle standard, one unit of skinks with priest and a Stegadon on the table from the beginning. There was nowhere to hide and I set up first so afterwards his entire battery of magic and shooting was arrayed before me. My opponent kindly offered to start over playing an ordinary game for the final instead (see – that’s the gentleman spirit), but since I came up with the scenarios and I wrote the “game plan” for the weekend (and not least since I dropped my ill-timed comment about the good general) I insisted we went ahead.

I got first turn but couldn’t charge and by the end of his turn 1 my big block of temple guards where down to 4 guards and surrounded by Dark Pegasus hero, hydra, Cold One knights and shades. In turn two the rest of my army turned up nearby but they couldn’t charge either and couldn’t move far enough to redirect anything so they couldn’t help poor Ixnogood and his four temple guards. The skinks advanced and shot a wound or two of the hydra but that was all I could manage. As a last act of defiance Ixnogood managed to Soul Quench the warlocks killing them all and the skinks destroyed the dark riders with poisonous javelins. But alas - in the dark elf turn two Ixnogood was multicharged - he fled and was destroyed. Things were indeed looking grim and it would be almost impossible for me to get back into the game by now. Two dark elf mages and all the elf shooting (apart from warlocks and dark riders) intact… I really had to gamble now.

Thanks to some pretty substandard winds of magic and poor shooting with the repeater bolt throwers (2 or 3 ones to hit the Steggie) it got really exciting in the end.

It started with the stegadon making very sneaky charge on the hydra (he had somehow left a gap between his redirection units where the Steggie clearly could charge. I picked up the dice and prayed for a high number of impact hits… and promptly rolled 1 (#%&!). But somehow the wound got through and multiplied into 2-3 wounds – but the hydra still had just one wound left – damn! Really depressed I rolled the five attacks for the skinks on top of the Stegadon scored a low strength wound that wasn’t saved meaning one very dead hydra (yay!).

The Stegadon was then able to overrun into the side of spear elves w. level 4 general while my battle standard charged some crossbowmen. The spear elves and crossbow elves and the level 4 general ran and died!!! (Muhahaha). The stegadon continued his rampage into the other crossbowmen killing them too before it in the very last turn six was charged by the Dark Elf hero on Pegasus with the insane cloak. I had three wounds left, he caused three wounds and I just had to roll a single save of six – but rolled three fours instead – killing the Stegadon and ending the game.

What a game!!! I ended up losing by 1326 vs. 1784 VP. So again one dead hero on Dark Pegasus and one living Steggie would have made a difference. I just love it when the game hangs in balance in the last turn. Especially after a comeback like that. (I love to win even more but this is clearly second best).

So overall I ended up second – quite satisfied with the turn of events.

Now I have to start planning for next year’s weekend.

Stay safe.

I have greatly enjoyed following The Battle of Aros and am looking forward to next year!

Awesome battle reports, Mortelicus! Thanks for sharing!