My list: Oldblood on Carnosaur with: Sword of the Hornet (always strike first) Maiming Shield (+1 attack) Pigeon Plucker Pendant (5+ ward vs Flyers) Potion of Strength (+3 Strength) Level 2 Skink Priest on Ancient Stegadon with Engine of the Gods with: Plaque of Tepok (extra spell) Talisman of Protection (6+ ward) Bane Head (double wounds on one enemy character) 40 Saurus Warriors with HW&S Full Command 15 Skink Skirmishers with Javelin and Shield 3 Terradons 1 Stegadon 10 Chameleon Skinks 1 Salamander Hunting pack His list: A Ghoul King Vampire Lord with: Regeneration Red Fury The sword of +3 Attacks Level 2 Necromancer 20 Ghouls 40 Ghouls 10 Fellbats 10 Direwolves Varghulf 3 Spirit Hosts 2 Banshees. First Turn: I won the first turn. We had both stacked the left hand side of the board, with only a few token units on the right hand side. I had my large unit of Saurus ranked up 5 wide and 8 deep, and flanked on either side by Stegadons. The theory being that the Saurus could simply march straight at the enemy, and not care about getting flanked or beaten in combat as with such a large rank bonus, they were pretty much guaranteed to be steadfast. In later turns anything stuck in combat with the Saurus would be facing flank and rear charges from Stegadons and Carnosaur. As you'll see, it kinda worked... I marched the Saurus straight towards the enemy, with the Stegs on either side and farther back. My Chameleon Skinks fired at the Direwolves on my right flank. 20 Shots, 1 poison hit. Nice. My skirmishers on my left advanced. My Carnosaur advanced around the left side of a hill that was dominating the centre of the field. My Terradons fly out and land right between the two units of enemy Ghouls. Magic is largely uneventful. My spells were poorly suited to this particular foe, with the exception of Chain Lightening (which I never managed to cast). In his first turn, he charges my Chameleon skinks with both the Spirit Hosts and the Direwolves. I stand and shoot, no casualties. The Chameleons take out four wolves in combat (wtf?) but take nine casualties, flee from the combat and are run down. He moves one banshee to within shooting range of my Carnosaur, and manages to cause five wounds with it. Two land on the Oldblood, and three on the Carnosaur. Ouch. His other banshee leaves the protection of a Ghoul unit and shouts at the Terradons. Three wounds, one dead Terradon. They panic and flee. In my second turn I move the Saurus/Stegadon combo towards the Ghoul blocks, and the Carnosaur ignores the Spirit Hosts, Banshee and Direwolves now threatening his flank, and marches to threaten the flanks of the smaller Ghoul unit. The Skink Skirmishers move to shoot at the Varghulf, but I forget to shoot with them (doh!). Also, in both this turn and the previous turn, the giant bow on the Stegadon has rolled a 6 to hit the Varghulf. By this point I'd caused 5 wounds to it, but they'd all regenerated. Sheesh, can't get a break! In his second turn, things go pear shaped. He charges his Ghoul King out of one of the Ghoul units into the Ancient Stegadon. He scores five (five!) poisoned hits from his eight attacks, and two of the other attacks also wound. The Stegadon fails all of it's saves and dies. The Ghoul King, using the extra attacks generated by Red Fury then finishes off the Skink Priest. Ouch. In my third turn I charge the Saurus into the Ghoul Horde, and the Carnosaur into the flank of the smaller unit of Ghouls. The Carnosaur and Oldblood largely whiff their attacks, with a combined 10 attacks and a Thunderstomp managing to kill only three Ghouls. Never mind, I had a flank, and I charged, so I still win the combat. And next round I'm pretty sure the odds will even out and I should kill a more decent number, right? The Saurus and Ghouls trade blows. He has lots of attacks, I have good Toughness and Armour. I win by a bit. I direct some attacks from the Saurus, and kill his Necromancer. Yay! In his fourth turn the Ghoul King is facing the wrong way for a charge. Thank god for small mercies, right? The Banshee's both attempt to charge the rear of the Carnosaur. One makes it, one fails. Oh well, I've got a magic weapon that always strikes first, should be easily able to handle a Banshee. Or so I thought. The Varghulf charges the skink skirmishers who are predictably butchered and run down, but at least now the Varghulf is a long way from the action. Enter the shooting phase. The Banshee screams at the Carnosaur. "It can do what?" is my reaction. Oh dear. Another four wounds, and that's one dead Oldblood and Carnosaur. Hmm. It's now my turn four. The remaining Stegadon manages to charge into the combat with the Ghoul Horde, and with the combined attacks from it and the Saurus it is reduced to nine models. Nothing else to mention, pretty much the rest of my army is dead or fleeing by this point. His turn four, the banshee charges the Saurus, the Ghoul King charges the Stegadon. It's all now one big massed combat in the centre of the table. Despite my heavy losses, I'm feeling pretty confident. I've got three ranks and a standard, and enough attacks to paste the remaining Ghouls. If I win this combat by four or five points I can destroy the Ghouls, the Banshee, the Ghoul King and have the game pretty much in the bag. The enemy swings, and between the Ghoul King, the Banshee and the Ghouls I lose four wounds. Feeling pretty good now. I take my attacks. Between the Steg and the Saurus I come up with three wounds. Oh dear. We tally up the results. He has done four wounds, and has a flank and rear bonus, and a charge bonus for a total of 8. I have three ranks, a standard, and three kills for a total of 7. Oh dear. Not to worry, I still have more ranks than the enemy, so I'm testing on my unmodified leadership of 8. And I'm coldblooded. I roll the dice. 6, 6, and a 3. Oh dear. I'm now surrounded and fleeing. Both of my units are wiped out (I'm not sure if this is a rule, but we were out of time anyway and I had no chance to rally, so...) and the game ends in a crushing defeat. Thoughts?
Thoughts? Oh Yes. When playing VC, this is my favorite tactic. People don't realize that I can easily sink 1500 points into 4/5s of my army, and stack it all on one side of the field, and then stretch out big blocks of cheap cheap cheap core along the rest of the board and make it look "balanced" Yes, Tomb Banshees are very very very annoying, I bring atleast 2 in any game I play. They can cause massive damage, but I'm not sure he did the rolls correctly. After writing out the following paragraph, which I kept as it contains useful info, I referred to the main rulebook and I quote "Should a unit suffer wounds, you must remove as many whole models as possible." (pg.45) This means that if he did 3 wound on the unit, the oldblood riding a carno, then you would allocate those three wounds onto one target, of your choosing. He wouldn't get to shriek twice, and you allocate wounds as by shooting rules. Also, you still get your ward save, and a save for each wound caused . To do three wounds on the Carno, he would have needed to roll a 9 on his two dice, which is above average. The rule states that you roll 2d6, add remaining wounds of the TerrorGheist/Banshee, and then compare it to the opponent's Ld score. The Carnosaur, being ridden by the oldblood, would be Ld 8, to do three wound, the Banshee would need a 9(+2 remaining wounds) on the roll. That's a damn good roll. Same thing on the Oldblood, he'd need an 8. He's got great rolling skills then, I envy him! Most of my Tomb Banshees roll me 3,4,5, etc. Once I got a 12, plus 5, and slaughtered half a unit of WoC, but that was once! Also, you make no mention of having to take Fear/Terror tests. A fair bit of his army causes these tests, and if he forgot them, luck be to you! Just remind him next time, they can change a battle rather quickly. A bit of advice of playing against VC, yes, they have giant blocks, but all of thier killy stuff, unless they bring Grave Guard or Black Knights, are monsters and Characters. It's more HeroHammer than BlackHammer, that's just how their book plays. Don't let their characters get into flank charge on you, they do alot of damage and can heal 50x easier than you can.
Well, he managed to roll an 11, which gave him a total of 13 and caused five wounds. Randomised as shooting, gave two wounds to the Oldblood and three to the Carnosaur. Do I get armour saves? This was our first game with the new Vampire rules. I'm still in shock that he managed to kill an Ancient Stegadon in one round of combat. Granted, he managed to roll five sixes to hit out of eight attacks. That was pretty lucky. But damn!
That's impressive rolling! You do not get armour saves vs. Death Shriek, however, they're not randomized, you decide the allocation. It's a fuzzy subject, but the FAQ backs it up. It's one of those grey areas because it's a special type of shooting attack, etc. it's all very wishy-washy. I'm not, Strigori Ghoul Kings are nasty nasty nasty. My favorite trick is to run a lvl 4 vampire, that has 10 S10 WS7 Attacks, with Red Fury. He averages 14 wounds a round of combat. It's brutal. I have to take a Lore of Beasts mini-Vamp to do it, but it's worth it. Vamps have some of the best Lord/Hero choices in the game IMO.
Thanks for the report, although it wasn't a happy read. You had way too much bad luck. Apparently you had two Stegadons, although only one is mentioned in the army list. EDIT: In the following example, I'm assuming your unit is facing the most numerous unit head on. And I think that in the case of massed battle, where your unit is surrounded on all sides, your unit flees from the most numerous enemy. If they flee through an enemy unit, all of them need to take a Dangerous Terrain test. The enemy pursues, if they so decide, in the order your opponent has declared before you made your flee roll. If the pursuing units hit another friendly unit, they must stop 1 inch away from them. This makes the pursue order critical. I think that the unit that you fled through can also pursue (even though they will pursue something that went behind them): I also think this unit needs to roll equal or higher than you did, although it's basically closer to you since you start your movement in front of them. I'm not completely sure. Correct me if I'm wrong and sorry for this babble, it's probably a bit hard to follow. It's hard to try to explain things like this...
Wow, did not know that! Yeah, I always knew they were nasty but it was still a shock! I'm not sure exactly how it would have worked but it was game over due to time so we just called it there rather than figure it out
VC's have always been a handful and the dealing with the multiple shriekers makes it even more difficult. While I love my own carnie lord, I have found that it is very difficult to field him in 8th edition since it means giving up a 4th level (very important for magic offence and defence) and, even more importantly, he cannot join units and thus can be picked out by shooting and magic attacks. The easiest way to fight the new VC's is with a slaan. For the same cost as the carnie lord you can field a very well equipped slaan that will increase the army LD to 9 (or 10 if you take the +1 LD banner), make him BSB for re-rolls and give you an excellent magic phase both offensively and defensively. Lore of light is particularly effective vs this type of VC list since the two magic missiles can take out the ethereals from a long way off and the boosted signature is very effective vs Terrorgheists since it is a 2d6 x S6 out to 48" and is flaming. Of course, all of this is contingent on having a slaan available
My friend wanted to try out Vampire Counts by proxy. He usually plays dwarves so I thought, "no cannons I can take a Carnosaur!" Banshees are brutal. He managed to kill the Carnosaur and leave the Oldblood down with his last wound. Then he killed a Skink Chief with the Banshee too. Of course everything else on the list schooled me too. That was just before the new 8th edition book where they closed off some of the nasty combos Vampire Counts had.