Yes my dear friends, I had another battle vs the HE player last night. Again, a simple battleline will do the trick for us. I changed my list a bit, and he did not. So, the armies: Lizardmen 1K SV-CO,LA,Sh, Sword of Striking, Dawnstome. Skink Priest, Lvl 2, plaque of tepok. With spells: iceshard blizzard, wind blast and Comet of cassandora. 24 SW, Spears, Mu, St (Scar-Vet here) 10 skirmishers 10 skirmishers 6 chameleons 3 terradons 1 Salamander My basic army list really. Only this time with a Lvl 2 wizard made for casting instead of dispelling. My supporting units keep him distracted while the big block steamrolls (that's the idea!) His list: Lvl 2 mage, extra PD, 5+ ward save. Lore of beasts: signature spell+curse of Anrahein (<-how do you pronounce that?! ) Noble BSB, GW, Seafarer Bow. 17 spears+FC, BSB here. 10 Lothern Sea Guard, mage here. 10 Swordmasters 2 RBT Again without special terrain and stuff, we're both still learning all 1.000 special rules and figured we didn't need any more . Some woods and a hill. Nothing spectacular. Deployment looked like this (I might add a map later on), from left to right, my point of view: ----chameleons-woods-LSG-Spears-RBT-Swordmasters-RBT ----------------------------------------woods-------------- --------skink skirmishers----skink skirmishers---- ---------SW, priest, terradons--salamander As you can see, my skirmishers screened all my units. What you cannot see is that all my units (bar the chameleons ofcourse) are withing the Ld bubble of my general. The woods had a 'soft split' of the battlefield, as it split the field; but left room for more units. Thus a soft split. When he deployed his swordmasters near his RBT's, I did not want my Sauri to be facing them directly, because then they would have to face the spears and the swordmasters at the same time. By deploying them on the left hand side of the woods, I had a bit of cover against bolt thrower fire and will only be facing 1 unit at a time: Perfect! He wins the roll-off and decides to go first. HE turn 1: Some shuffling around, LSG and spears move up a few inch. Magic gives him a fair amount of dice, which he uses to boost his spears and curse my spears! But since no combat is on the way, I don't care. Shooting....ugh... He kills 3 skirmishers from my right hand unit and (thankfully) only 1 from my left hand unit. So, I take my panic test, not worrying about failing. I mean, Ld 8 Cold-blooded there's nothing to worry about, right? Well, yes; there is. I roll 5,5,6 and the skirmishers flee 5". My Salamander now has to take a test too, so I'm thinking: 1 failed panic test is ok, 2 is nearly impossible. Well, we have a MI4 on our hands here, because the dice showed 6,6,6 and my salamander has left the building! (fled a whopping 11"...he really was scared!) So, my right flank is...gone. But there were only light troops, so no biggy. Lizardmen turn 1: Skinks rally! The army moves up, terradons land behind the forest for cover. Skinks still screen my Sauri. The chameleons break cover and fire at the LSG, killing 2. Magic: 10 dice! I throw 6 at the comet, because I did not move my mage; so he could not cast the other spells. That was ok, since I only wanted to cast the comet anyways . Unfortunately, he dispelled it. That was it! High elf turn 2: LSG turn around to face the chameleons (??). Spears shuffle, swordmasters move back a bit-> if my terradons were to charge his RBT-> the terradons would be toast. I wasn't planning on this, but it did mean his swordmasters wouldn't see a fight anytime soon! Magic: he bufs his LSG, I dispell his hex. Shooting: Not as disastrous as last time. He kills 3 Chameleon skinks between 1 RBT and his LSG, they hold. His other RBT nails a few more skinks I guess... Lizardmen turn 2: Chameleons sneak behind his LSG and spears (a small gap was there, allowing my now 3 remaining chameleons to sneak past! Skirmishers reform and get out of the way! The spears move up, taunting the HE to charge them (charge, or be charged). Terradons fly over the LSG, landing right in front of them. They kill 5! The coward skinks move up as well...but they are pretty far behind the rest of the army. Magic: 11 dice! I decide to cast the Uber-comet with 7 dice. I don't get IF, but I do manage to cast it (he doesn't manage to dispel)! I plant it near the LSG, spears and a RBT. If he swordmasters come any closer to the fight, they will get hammered too! HE turn 3: His HE spears charge my Sauri. He has only lost 1 from skink blowpipes. I have lost none from his shooting. So I'm confident I will win this fight. But so is he...(he couldn't move back; because his LSG and my chameleons stood there, to the side wouldn't have mattered because I would charge him then)*. His mage departs from the LSG, trying to evade the Uber-comet as well. Hoping it would wipe all my support units out, while leaving his mage unscathed. Magic: The comet lands. His spears were out of the way, so they were in the clear. His LSG get wiped out (only 2 remaining). My 3 chameleons bravely bite the dust, and so do my terradons (12 S6 hits... ). His mage is just inside comet-range and thus: Dies. His RBT was also in range, but is only very dusty. Shooting: skinks fall. They don't panic. Combat: He kills 4 SW, I kill 5 spears. I win combat by 1 but he holds. I have more troops than he has, and usually kill more than he will. I'm not worried. At this point: he is. Lizardmen turn 3: With the left side only consisting of the combat, and the right side is limited to 2 depleted units of skirmishers vs 2 RBT's and swordmasters. I decide to shoot 'em up! I manage to destroy 1 RBT by skink fire! And the other one remains unscathed. This does open a charge from his swordmasters into my skinks, and if they make it in (and subsequently overrun) they are very close to the big fight. Something I didn't want to happen! Magic: Fails. Shooting: kills 1 RBT (as said) Combat: I challenge, his champion accepts (the fool!). My scar-veteran tears his champion to shreds, although with only 1 overkill. His spears+noble kill 4 more sauri, while they only manage to kill 3 in return**. He still loses, but holds. HE turn 4: Swordmasters charge my skinks, who flee (just to be on the safe side). He stumbles a mighty 2" forward, and would not have made it even if I would have held my ground! Shooting: my non-fleeing skink unit is now gone. Combat: I challenge again, he accepts with his BSB Noble. He inflicts 1 wound on my scar-veteran, who then proceeds to kill his opponent. His remaining spears drag down 3 more sauri, and my sauri kill 5. The remaining 2-3 flee and die. Lizardmen turn 4: I move my SW back, behind the forest. Fail to rally my skinks (again: Ld8 CB doesn't matter!). And explain to my opponent that I will not engage, and he cannot engage my spears in 2 turns. Result: win! 1 RBT+10 Swordmasters was about 15 Sauri+general and some fleeing skinks. *: This was a good play by me, if I may say so myself: He could not move back: Chameleons and LSG were in the way. He could not move to the side: a forest+he would be charged by me+he would likely be in range of the comet. He could not move to the other side: He would be charged by me+comet He could not move forward and take the charge: comet. Only 1 result was any good, and that was to charge. **: My Sauri are true 'underperformers'. With 20 attacks that hit at 4+, so the half of 20=6. Wait? Six!? Yep. 3 combat rounds, and they never hit more than 7. 6,6 and 7 attacks hit. Stupid math... The comet was very funny indeed. It wiped out my main supporting cast (chameleons and terradons), and killed his mage and LSG. Although his LSG would have likely been killed by skink fire and with a small amount of luck the mage too; the comet made it look so epic. It also deterred his swordmasters from enganging at all, which was absolutely fine by me. I could not get a shot of at his swordmasters, so they were still at full strenght. And 10 swordmasters look pretty scary to me. It ALSO pretty much 'forced' his spearmen to charge my sauri (as explained above). All in all it was a pretty succesfull comet! It was also a fun game, with my skinks and salamander failing terribly. Those skinks never did anything usefull...my comet wiping everbody out...and with my sauri underperforming again. The dice weren't kind, but my tactics were superiour and thus netted me the win! As always, feel free to comment. The Hunted
Fantastic game! Looked like a lot of fun. I have a couple of pointers from playing High Elves in the past. As you note, Saurus are way better than HE spears and LSG. So taking a dual charge from them would not be the worst thing in the world. From what I see on the map, in my opinion you deployed your Saurus a little too far on the left flank. Had he been really offensive, he might have been able to wipe out the majority of support units with Swordmasters with you having only one big block to stop his. On the note of the Swordmaster, Terradons rocks work wonders on them, and I always pick them as my favoured unit to drop rocks on. With only a 6+ armour save against the rocks, you can kill quite a lot, and it would have neutered the effectiveness of that unit greatly. It was a great game, and played very well. Congrats on the win!
Nice read, love After Action Reports. Playing High Elf myself this weekend so hopefully things go well. Throwing all those magic dice and no miscasts? Excellent.
Indeed, Saurii áre better dan those units; but if I can avoid it: why would I take the chances? I know I could avoid it when he turned his LSG around. I don'tthink I deployed the spears too far to the left, and I also doubt that he would be able to destroy any of my support units with his swordmasters; here's why: He left the SM back to protect his RBT's, I know that he will protect these machines with that unit and that unit will not move. Also, if he advanced aggresively, my skinks would just fall back, or slip through and thus ending behind him. Either way, he would be chasing ducks. If he advanced aggressively and ignored my skinks (with his SM) while engaging them with the RBT's, that would have been the best move; but my terradons would indeed target the SM. Terradons are good vs SM, spears and LSG. This time I chose to target his LSG so I could destroy them easily. His spears were doomed vs my sauri. His swordmasters chose not to engage at all, so I chose not to engage them. You're right about chosing SM as a prime target for terradons, no doubt about that. I just couldn't fly over the SM without taking a turn of RBT fire. We all know how well terradons catch arrows... If I would have gotten the chance to drop rocks on them without taking fire, they would have done it. Because the comet was powerfull enough to destroy the LSG+mage outright, and then the terradons would have been out of harm's way from the comet blast. Thus requiring his RBT's to fire at them. Which isn't good, but at least I forced him to do so and thát ís good. Glad you liked it , I also like to comment on what people think of the battle/writing/tactics; as you see . We were both surprised that no miscasts occured...it would have been quite harmless as my priest stood in my deployment zone all by himself. So it wouldn't have been an epic blast, just a big blast . Good luck vs the High Elves! They are very potent at defending IMHO, with good ranged attacks and strong special infantry (they have high strenght). Their core infantry is only scary vs ranked skinks...but then again: everything is scary vs ranked skinks! The Hunted
I'm afraid you sort of cheated here unless you have house rules that allows you to ignore the 6 dice per spell limit when playing low point games.
Ah, no. We just failed there, miserably. I don't use magic often, he does mostly. That's my best excuse . The Hunted