My local gaming group is currently running an escalation campaign to introduce a bunch of first time players to warhammer fantasy. We have a about 8 to 10 players with about half that (myself included) being brand spankin' new to the game.
If memory serves, the represented armies are:
Lizardmen (me)
Bretonnians x 2
Warriors of chaos x 2
Tomb kings
Demons of chaos
Dark elves
Skaven
Wood elves
Dogs of war (using rules from some previous edition, I think)
Orks
We are currently allowed to have armies up to 1000pts and there are some house rules governing list building which are: no lord choices, max 250pts for hero choices (max 2), max special at 25%, core min of 50%, rare max at 15%.
My list was:
Lvl 2 skink priest (that I call Oxycontin)
glyph necklace
plaque of Tepok 145
Stegadon with giant bow
25 saurus warriors with hand weapon & shield with full command 305
2 units of 12 skink skirmishers with blowpipes (referred to as Skink 2 and Skink 3)
1 unit of 10 skink skirmishers with blowpipes (referred to as Skink 1)
1 salamander hunting pack
Army total 998
I squared off against Bretonnians with:
2 x 8 knights of the realm each joined by a level 2 damsel (that might be a house rule thing-some minor custom characters are allowed)
20 archers
1 trebuchet
The field had three pieces of terrain; a house and well on the left flank and a long, narrow hill (impassable cliffs on both sides) running up the middle, effectively splitting the field.
Deployment from left to right:
10 skirmishers to the left of the building (to blitz up the flank and hopefully take out the trebuchet and archers…or at least distract).
Stegadon to the right of the building (hopefully take out the block of knights arranged directly ahead in 3 across formation)
12 skirmishers to the right of the steg and left of the left cliff face (hopefully prevent/redirect charge from knights and allow steg to charge)
Skink priest to the right of the right cliff face (forgot that I could take three spells thanks to the plaque so I only had iceshard blizzard and wind blast as spells)
25 saurus warriors (hopefully take out the other block of knights)
12 skirmishers (same as the other group with the steg)
Salamander hunting party (BBQ cook out team)
The Bretonnians player won the dice roll and went first and sacrificed her turn to "pray" (I was later told that we did this wrong and that for turn purposes, my turn represented the top of turn one instead of the bottom. Ultimately, I don't think this would have made any difference on the game).
Everyone marched forward except for the skink priest and the steg (who each moved up 6).
The magic phase saw my skink priest, Oxycontin, blizzard the trebuchet and wind blast the archers into the trebuchet (who were both set up centerfield on the opposite side). The wind blast only killed 1 archer and failed to hurt the trebuchet because of it's T7.
The steg bow missed in the shooting phase and I didn't fire the salamander (though, in hindsight, I should have).
On the Bretonnian turn, both groups of knights cautiously advanced forward (the Bretonnian player is also brand new to the game like me) instead of risking a long charge attempt.
On the magic phase, each lady attempted to cast earth blood, one of which I was able to dispell. (Around turn three, after resurrecting a few knights in prior turns, we realized that we were accidentally using the rules for regrowth instead of earth blood-whoops! At that point, we decided to keep going forward instead of trying to figure out what should have happened and make changes since it was an honest mistake).
Iceshard blizzard prevented the trebuchet from firing and the archers fired at the saurus warriors, maybe killing one. I don't remember. All in all, it was pretty ineffectual.
Lizardmen turn 2
Skink 1 continued marching up the left flank but was too far away to effectively shoot at the knights. Skink 2 marched up within a couple of inches of the left block of knights and prepared to fire. The steg moved up a bit too, wary of the knights charge range and prepared to fire as well. Oxycontin stayed put, the saurus warriors marched forward as well as the skinks and salamander team.
The magic phase didn't go as well this time because Oxycontin calamitously detonated himself (failing his ward save) while casting iceshard blizzard on the trebuchet again. Wind blast was dispelled. Fortunately, by staying put, the advancing saurus warriors were out of range of the blast.
Skink 2 double tapped the knights and scored 2-3 wounds which were all saved by their armor. The steg bow hit and was stopped by the 5+ ward save of the first knight thanks to his prayers being answered (bummer). Skink 3 shot at the other block of Knights with no kills and the salamander managed to land a shot that touched the knights, archers and trebuchet which killed 2 knights, 3 archers and nothing on the trebuchet. Unfortunately, I forgot about the panic check rule which might have helped me out.
Bretonnian turn 2
Both blocks of knights charged skink 2 and skink 3 respectively who were too close to allow them a stand and shoot attack. The archers stood where they were.
In the magic phase, the lady in the group of knights that lost two to the salamader shooting "regenerated" two of them back to life (doh!)
I don't recall the archers doing much shooting-wise, but the trebuchet passed it's blizzard check and managed to drop a rock on the saurus warriors which killed a rank and narrowly missed Oxycontin.
In hand to hand, the skinks landed some hits which were all saved and promptly got creamed and run down. The knights on the right slammed into the saurus warriors but the knights on the left didn't move far enough to come into contact with the steg.
Lizardmen turn 3
The steg charged the left block of knights. Skink 1 marched up to target the trebuchet and the salamander team moved up on the right flank to target the archers (since I couldn't fire into close combat).
All of my magic was dispelled in the magic phase.
For shooting, most of Skink 1 was at long range for the trebuchet, so the shooting was ineffectual. On the right flank, the salamander, at point blank range, rolled a 10 on the artillery dice and lobbed the shot over the archers' heads (doh!).
The steg rolled poorly for impact hits and only did 2 which were both saved and in the end, the combat was resolved with the knights winning and me failing my coldblooded check and getting run down. This was the decisive point of the battle because my left flank had pretty much evaporated and the knights were only down a knight or two.
On the right, the knights and the saurus warriors exchanged wounds and resulted in a tied result (we both had musicians).
Bretonnian turn 3
The knights on the left reformed to turn completely around but missed their leadership check to charge and so only moved their regular movement toward Skink 1. The archers wheeled to face Skink 1 as well inspite of the fire breathing mini-dragon behind them.
The magic phase really did nothing except that we discovered our error about regeneration.
For the shooting phase, the archers opened up on Skink 1 and didn't manage to hit a thing despite being at close range. Unfortunately, the luck ended there as the trebuchet was bang on target dropping a large rock on top of Oxycontin whose glyph necklace failed to save him for a second time.
The Knights and the saurus warriors ended up with a tied result again.
Lizardmen turn 4
Probably a big error in judgement here, but the salamander decided to charge the trebuchet while Skink 1 moved up to double tap the archers at close range.
No magic for me this turn since my skink priest was "hiding" under a rock.
Shooting actually went pretty well, surprisingly. Skink 1 scored 4 wounds on the armorless archers which failed their Ld check and ran off (the closest knights were greater than 6" away and couldn't use their Ld).
Close combat for the knights and saurus tied again and stayed locked in place, but the salamander team won combat by a score of one and the trebuchet crew ran off the field!
Bretonnian turn 4:
The knights on the left charged Skink 1 in the rear and to make a long story short, ran down the skinks and into the salamander team. The archers rallied and turned around but did nothing else.
I don't recall anything happening in the magic phase.
The saurus warriors won combat and the knights fled, but the lizards lizards weren't able to catch them and they were a bit too far to the right to catch the other group of knights in a the flank. The reformed to face the direction of the knights to prevent getting charged in the rear.
At this point, I only had 10 warriors and a salamander with one wound and one handler left to face two fairly strong units of knights so I conceded the fight. All in all, I was still pretty happy with how well my army did even with the abysmal dice rolls on my part and the awesome dice roll's on my opponent's part (by the time we got to the last turns of the game, we had gathered a pretty good sized crowd and they were all cracking jokes and making comments about how consistently lop-sided the dice results were). It was a fun game and I'm looking forward to the next one.
On to the questions…
Should I have tried to maneuver my units of skink skirmishers to try to flank charge the knights? I could have easily flank charged the knights on the left with Skink 1(10 strong) on the turn that the steg got the charge off. Would that have eliminated the rank bonus for the knights (which would have meant that I would have won the combat result and not gotten my steg run down)?
Same thing on the right-would flank charging the salamander hunting pack into the knights have helped me there, either with a fear check or with denying the rank bonus?
Even though things worked out pretty well for Skink 1 shooting at the archers, I should have shot at the trebuchet instead (going for the auto wounds) and repositioned the salamander to enfalade fire on the archers, right?
Should I change the line up to be a block of 20 SW, HW/S, standard bearer and musician, a block of 15 SW with HW/S, standard, no musician, and two units of 10 skink skirmishers? If skink skirmishers can flank charge and deny the rank bonuses, I may try my line up above again, but otherwise, maybe the two saurus units would work better for that.
Any other glaring game errors that you can see that I made? I'm sure there are a bunch…
Thanks!
If memory serves, the represented armies are:
Lizardmen (me)
Bretonnians x 2
Warriors of chaos x 2
Tomb kings
Demons of chaos
Dark elves
Skaven
Wood elves
Dogs of war (using rules from some previous edition, I think)
Orks
We are currently allowed to have armies up to 1000pts and there are some house rules governing list building which are: no lord choices, max 250pts for hero choices (max 2), max special at 25%, core min of 50%, rare max at 15%.
My list was:
Lvl 2 skink priest (that I call Oxycontin)
glyph necklace
plaque of Tepok 145
Stegadon with giant bow
25 saurus warriors with hand weapon & shield with full command 305
2 units of 12 skink skirmishers with blowpipes (referred to as Skink 2 and Skink 3)
1 unit of 10 skink skirmishers with blowpipes (referred to as Skink 1)
1 salamander hunting pack
Army total 998
I squared off against Bretonnians with:
2 x 8 knights of the realm each joined by a level 2 damsel (that might be a house rule thing-some minor custom characters are allowed)
20 archers
1 trebuchet
The field had three pieces of terrain; a house and well on the left flank and a long, narrow hill (impassable cliffs on both sides) running up the middle, effectively splitting the field.
Deployment from left to right:
10 skirmishers to the left of the building (to blitz up the flank and hopefully take out the trebuchet and archers…or at least distract).
Stegadon to the right of the building (hopefully take out the block of knights arranged directly ahead in 3 across formation)
12 skirmishers to the right of the steg and left of the left cliff face (hopefully prevent/redirect charge from knights and allow steg to charge)
Skink priest to the right of the right cliff face (forgot that I could take three spells thanks to the plaque so I only had iceshard blizzard and wind blast as spells)
25 saurus warriors (hopefully take out the other block of knights)
12 skirmishers (same as the other group with the steg)
Salamander hunting party (BBQ cook out team)
The Bretonnians player won the dice roll and went first and sacrificed her turn to "pray" (I was later told that we did this wrong and that for turn purposes, my turn represented the top of turn one instead of the bottom. Ultimately, I don't think this would have made any difference on the game).
Everyone marched forward except for the skink priest and the steg (who each moved up 6).
The magic phase saw my skink priest, Oxycontin, blizzard the trebuchet and wind blast the archers into the trebuchet (who were both set up centerfield on the opposite side). The wind blast only killed 1 archer and failed to hurt the trebuchet because of it's T7.
The steg bow missed in the shooting phase and I didn't fire the salamander (though, in hindsight, I should have).
On the Bretonnian turn, both groups of knights cautiously advanced forward (the Bretonnian player is also brand new to the game like me) instead of risking a long charge attempt.
On the magic phase, each lady attempted to cast earth blood, one of which I was able to dispell. (Around turn three, after resurrecting a few knights in prior turns, we realized that we were accidentally using the rules for regrowth instead of earth blood-whoops! At that point, we decided to keep going forward instead of trying to figure out what should have happened and make changes since it was an honest mistake).
Iceshard blizzard prevented the trebuchet from firing and the archers fired at the saurus warriors, maybe killing one. I don't remember. All in all, it was pretty ineffectual.
Lizardmen turn 2
Skink 1 continued marching up the left flank but was too far away to effectively shoot at the knights. Skink 2 marched up within a couple of inches of the left block of knights and prepared to fire. The steg moved up a bit too, wary of the knights charge range and prepared to fire as well. Oxycontin stayed put, the saurus warriors marched forward as well as the skinks and salamander team.
The magic phase didn't go as well this time because Oxycontin calamitously detonated himself (failing his ward save) while casting iceshard blizzard on the trebuchet again. Wind blast was dispelled. Fortunately, by staying put, the advancing saurus warriors were out of range of the blast.
Skink 2 double tapped the knights and scored 2-3 wounds which were all saved by their armor. The steg bow hit and was stopped by the 5+ ward save of the first knight thanks to his prayers being answered (bummer). Skink 3 shot at the other block of Knights with no kills and the salamander managed to land a shot that touched the knights, archers and trebuchet which killed 2 knights, 3 archers and nothing on the trebuchet. Unfortunately, I forgot about the panic check rule which might have helped me out.
Bretonnian turn 2
Both blocks of knights charged skink 2 and skink 3 respectively who were too close to allow them a stand and shoot attack. The archers stood where they were.
In the magic phase, the lady in the group of knights that lost two to the salamader shooting "regenerated" two of them back to life (doh!)
I don't recall the archers doing much shooting-wise, but the trebuchet passed it's blizzard check and managed to drop a rock on the saurus warriors which killed a rank and narrowly missed Oxycontin.
In hand to hand, the skinks landed some hits which were all saved and promptly got creamed and run down. The knights on the right slammed into the saurus warriors but the knights on the left didn't move far enough to come into contact with the steg.
Lizardmen turn 3
The steg charged the left block of knights. Skink 1 marched up to target the trebuchet and the salamander team moved up on the right flank to target the archers (since I couldn't fire into close combat).
All of my magic was dispelled in the magic phase.
For shooting, most of Skink 1 was at long range for the trebuchet, so the shooting was ineffectual. On the right flank, the salamander, at point blank range, rolled a 10 on the artillery dice and lobbed the shot over the archers' heads (doh!).
The steg rolled poorly for impact hits and only did 2 which were both saved and in the end, the combat was resolved with the knights winning and me failing my coldblooded check and getting run down. This was the decisive point of the battle because my left flank had pretty much evaporated and the knights were only down a knight or two.
On the right, the knights and the saurus warriors exchanged wounds and resulted in a tied result (we both had musicians).
Bretonnian turn 3
The knights on the left reformed to turn completely around but missed their leadership check to charge and so only moved their regular movement toward Skink 1. The archers wheeled to face Skink 1 as well inspite of the fire breathing mini-dragon behind them.
The magic phase really did nothing except that we discovered our error about regeneration.
For the shooting phase, the archers opened up on Skink 1 and didn't manage to hit a thing despite being at close range. Unfortunately, the luck ended there as the trebuchet was bang on target dropping a large rock on top of Oxycontin whose glyph necklace failed to save him for a second time.
The Knights and the saurus warriors ended up with a tied result again.
Lizardmen turn 4
Probably a big error in judgement here, but the salamander decided to charge the trebuchet while Skink 1 moved up to double tap the archers at close range.
No magic for me this turn since my skink priest was "hiding" under a rock.
Shooting actually went pretty well, surprisingly. Skink 1 scored 4 wounds on the armorless archers which failed their Ld check and ran off (the closest knights were greater than 6" away and couldn't use their Ld).
Close combat for the knights and saurus tied again and stayed locked in place, but the salamander team won combat by a score of one and the trebuchet crew ran off the field!
Bretonnian turn 4:
The knights on the left charged Skink 1 in the rear and to make a long story short, ran down the skinks and into the salamander team. The archers rallied and turned around but did nothing else.
I don't recall anything happening in the magic phase.
The saurus warriors won combat and the knights fled, but the lizards lizards weren't able to catch them and they were a bit too far to the right to catch the other group of knights in a the flank. The reformed to face the direction of the knights to prevent getting charged in the rear.
At this point, I only had 10 warriors and a salamander with one wound and one handler left to face two fairly strong units of knights so I conceded the fight. All in all, I was still pretty happy with how well my army did even with the abysmal dice rolls on my part and the awesome dice roll's on my opponent's part (by the time we got to the last turns of the game, we had gathered a pretty good sized crowd and they were all cracking jokes and making comments about how consistently lop-sided the dice results were). It was a fun game and I'm looking forward to the next one.
On to the questions…
Should I have tried to maneuver my units of skink skirmishers to try to flank charge the knights? I could have easily flank charged the knights on the left with Skink 1(10 strong) on the turn that the steg got the charge off. Would that have eliminated the rank bonus for the knights (which would have meant that I would have won the combat result and not gotten my steg run down)?
Same thing on the right-would flank charging the salamander hunting pack into the knights have helped me there, either with a fear check or with denying the rank bonus?
Even though things worked out pretty well for Skink 1 shooting at the archers, I should have shot at the trebuchet instead (going for the auto wounds) and repositioned the salamander to enfalade fire on the archers, right?
Should I change the line up to be a block of 20 SW, HW/S, standard bearer and musician, a block of 15 SW with HW/S, standard, no musician, and two units of 10 skink skirmishers? If skink skirmishers can flank charge and deny the rank bonuses, I may try my line up above again, but otherwise, maybe the two saurus units would work better for that.
Any other glaring game errors that you can see that I made? I'm sure there are a bunch…
Thanks!
