Hello! Had a friend pop up for a little warhammer weekend and got some solid gaming in! Played a series of battles at different points values but it went unsaid that the 2k fight was the crowning glory of the weekend. My list went something like this: Slann (Light), BSB, Focus, Mystery, Cupped Hands Priest, lvl1, Dispel Scroll, EotG 25 Saurus, FC 2 x 10 Skirmishers 20 Temple Guard 5 Chameleons Salamander plus snack Ancient Stegadon I know, 2 stegadons. I usually look down on double-steg lists but thought I'd try it out and trust me, the look on your opponents face is worth the stick you get for being "that guy"! His list went something like this: Maxed out spellcaster/fighting vampire in a block of ghouls Necromancer in some skellies Wight King with the Grave guard More skellies Varghulf Black Coach Some fell bats Turn 1 He won the toss and marched as far down the battlefield as his movement/danse macabre would allow. His blocks of infantry advancing down one side as his Black Coach and Vaghulf whipped around the other. His coach was a monster and sucked in a MINIMUM of two dice every magic phase. This meant that by his second turn it was a flying, ethereal, killing blow, hatred, impact-causing machine. Not cool. He also took the bloodline that gave him two extra dice so the black coach sucking them in wasn't so much of an issue. In my turn, I attempted a sneaky charge onto the coach with my EotG. I had to stop it getting the charge and figured that if my stegadon could make it the burning alignment would really mess him up. All I had to do was roll straight down the middle and get a 7 on two dice. No such luck. My super-death-triceratops moved 2" forward and sat there looking blankly at it's impending doom. My salamander decided what it really fancied was a little fried skink and the misfire-dice obliged. The rest of my army moved up towards his infantry and readied itself for a charge next phase with some minor buff spells. Turn 2 Just about everything charged at my line, EotG took one from the black coach, saurus block took a hit from the fellbats and some skellies (the saving grace was my skinks failing to kill the fellbats so that they blocked LoS for a Varghulf charge) and on the other side of the board his skellies, grave guard and ghouls charged my templeguard and stegadon. In combat, the saurus destroy the fellbats and a big chunk of skellies, taking little in return, the killing-blow-having black coach wipes out my Skink priest and, because it recently became ethereal, I do nothing in return. Stubborn, re-rollable Ld9. He's going nowhere. Over on the other side his ghouls and whatnot do a horrific number of casualties on my templeguard, but in response I do an equally horrific number back and the combat is a draw. My slann looks a little worried that his prized bodyguards are dying by the dozen but there's a long way to go yet. My stegadon messes up his opponents and turns to face the ghouls. From about this point onwards, there's very little movement or shooting as almost everything is in combat. I really don't like Van Hel's Danse Macabre. Cool name, annoying spell. I charge my stegadon into the fray, the fight on this flank now looks roughly like this; G - Ghouls, Gg - Grave Guard, V - Vamp, WK - Wight King -----------GgGgGgGgGg GGGGGG GgGgGgGgGg STEGADON GGVGGG GgGgWKGgGg STEGADON ----TgTgTgTgTgTg ----TgTgSlanTgTg ----TgTgSlanTg The vampire continues to butcher my supposed-elite infantry, the ghouls score lucky poison hits, the Grave Guard wreck even more and the Wight King mops up the rest. However, my stegadon rolls a commanding '6' on his impact hits and then a '5' for thunder stomp, my surviving temple guard (at least they hit before the great-weaponed grave guard) slash down the unarmoured ghouls and by the end of the phase the combat looks more like this; ---------GgGg----------STEGADON GGVGG GgGgWKGgGg STEGADON ------TgTgTgTg -------Slann -------Slann Worryingly, one more dead TG puts my Slann on the front rank. Eek! Over on the other side, the stegadon and the black coach proceed to miss each other, well, I can't actually hit him in the first place anyway, so the combat draws (get used to this). The saurus almost finish off the skellies but they don't quite manage and the salamander sits around looking pretty because everyone is in combat. Turn 3 He charges in the Varghulf. Balls. In combat, things get silly over on the left flank with another round of devastating killing. By the end of it, he's done some wounds to my stegadon, lost his entire unit of grave guard plus the wight king and my slann is sitting in the front rank like a lemon, looking sheepishly at the last remaining temple guard. Roughly: --------STEGADON ---GV STEGADON Slann TG Slann The varghulf slays like a bat out of hell and my saurus can barely do enough damage to lose the combat by two or three. They pass a crucial break test and the fight continues. The stegadon and black coach do nothing. Not. A. Thing. In my turn, my opponent manages to roll pathetically for the varghulf so the saurii stay solid but the same cannot be said of the other combat. The vampire, smelling old toad blood, leaps onto the frail mage and slays him in a single phase. Seriously, 5 wounds at toughness 4 with a 4++ save. Dead. This does mean that he neglects to kill the final temple guard and claim those victory points, but at that point he probably though he'd won. 99% of the time, killing the slann means winning the game. Not this time! Maddened by the death of his master, the ancient stegadon lines up the undead vampire and, with a healthy roll of a '6', thunderstomps that punk back into the ground where he belongs. Both our generals died in the same combat on the same turn. But my army didn't start to crumble when the slann died! We played out the last few turns but they were short and sweet. The only highlight was him making a charge at the lone temple guard with some raised models, the TG fled 11" towards the table edge and rallied on a snake-eyes the next turn! Victory points tallied he'd killed about 600pts out of 2000 (plus a few for BSB, general etc), whereas he only had 400pts of his army left on the table at the end. Destruction! Like most battles, however, in the after game chat we came across a few mistakes that might have made a difference. For the entire battle, he forgot that his varghulf had thunderstomp. Personally, there are few rules I forget more often than stomp/thunderstomp, but it would have made quite a difference in him killing a block of saurus. Also, after reading the vampire book for a bit I realised his lord was illegal. 150pts of vampire powers (max 100) and 115pts of magic items (max 100). Easy mistake to make as you adjust your list and think "Oooh, I need that, and that, aaand that." but still, nice to beat a broken character! Was a very fun game, but a warning for Lizzies going against the undead: Your temple guard are NOT safe, your skinks are NOT fast (compared to his troops) and stegadons SUCK against ethereal creatures! But that last one shouldn't be a surprise!
Good Battle Rep... Our TG have never been that safe from the VC... they have too much buffing potential. Honestly, I feel like our army has to play completely differently against them. We have to dominate in the magic phase otherwise we won't be able to touch them in cc.