So I had a rematch against the Ogre played that a faced last week, report here http://www.lustria-online.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=9983 This time I decided to go for a MSU (kind of) style army without minimal magic just to try it out and see how it would fare. Lizardmen Oldblood (started in large HW&S saurus) Armor of Destiny Arabian Carpet Great Weapon Shield 1+/4++ against shooting 2+/4++ in combat Scar-Vet (goes in large HW&S saurus) BSB Gamblers Armor Burning Blade of Chotec Dragon Bane Gem 2+/6++ 2++ against Flaming attacks Skink Priest lvl 2 (started in Skirmisher unit) Plaque of Tepok Dispell Scroll Iceshard Blizzard/Harmonic Convergence/Curse of the Midnight Wind 20 Saurus HW&S FC 24 Saurus HW&S FC 25 Saurus SP&S FC 10 Skink Cohort 10 Skink Cohort 10 Skink Skirmishers 10 Skink Skirmishers 6 Chamo Skinks Ancient Steg Ogres (AFAIK) Tyrant (goes in Ironguts) Sword of Swift Slaying 3+/4++ Bruiser (goes with ogre unit B) BSB never found out his gear Butcher lvl 2 (goes with ogre unit B) Ironfist Tootcracker/Spinemarrow Firebelly lvl2 (goes in Ironguts) Crown of Command Fireball/Piercing Bolts of Burning 7 Ironguts FC 9 Ogres (Group A) 7 Ogres (Group B) 10 Knoblars Iron Blaster We rolled Battle for the Pass and I got to choose table sides. Descripions are from my (short) table edge Chamo Skinks.....Knoblars.....Building..................................... Ogres (A).Ironguts.Ironblaster.Ogres(B).................................. Forest...........................................Quicksand......................... Saurus.Steg.Saurus.Cohort.Cohort.Skirmishers.Skirmishers..... .....................................Saurus Spears................................. The forest and quicksand played a big role in this battle. My battle line is also defending a ghost fence which I thought would deny him impact hits if he charged me but turns out that’s an old rule. I won the role for first turn LM 1 I didnt want to rush forward too quickly and had a good position behind the fence. My Chamos were just barely able to fit into the board edge, an oversight of my opponent and he had his Knoblars facing East out of range of his General and BSB. I moved the chamos to the Knoblars South flank. The cohorts moved up one behind the other and angled so that they were facing North West. The Skirmishers moved up to the edge of the quicksand. The priest left the skirmisher unit to hang around by the edge of the quicksand hopeing to direct one of the units into the sand and cause some casualties, that stuff is nasty for Ogres. In magic I got off an Iceshard Blizzard onto the Ironblaster hoping to stop its shooting on my opponents turn. Shooting saw three wounds onto the Knoblar unit which failed its panic test and fled off the table allowing my chamos free reign of my opponents backfield. Nothing else was in range. Ogres 1 Im not sure if this was his plan or a reaction to my chamos being right behind it but the Ironblaster charged my front most skink cohort unit and took two wounds from a stand and shoot. Everything else moves up maintaining a line with his left most ogre unit entering the forest (turned out to be an abyssal wood). His magic this turn he got off a +1T buff on the ironguts and Ogres(B) In combat impact hits kill 3 skinks and my skinks pass their Fear check and put a wound on the Ironblaster. It hits back and kills another 4 skinks. My skinks break and flee through the cohort unit behind it, they pass their panic test and the Ironblaster overruns into them. LM 2 Here I'm torn. I want to charge my flying Oldblood out of his unit but can’t decide whether I want to try and assassinate his BSB or try and take out the unit in the woods. In the end I figured if I went for the BSB my Oldblood would probably just get challenged and it would take a few turns to get through them so I go into the unit in the woods making the charge with ease. This skirmishers move into the quicksand and angle themselves away to the right. The priest leaves his skirmisher unit and hands out by the edge of the quicksand out of overrun arcs in case his ogres go through my skinks. In magic my Priest IFs Iceshard Blizzard on the ogre unit which is fighting my Oldblood and losses all of his wizard levels in the process, so no more magic for me!!!! In shooting my chamo skinks plink a few wounds off the Ironguts and the skirmishers do a few to the right most ogre unit. In combat my Oldblood just goes to town on his ogre unit, wounding with all 5 of his attacks. I actually issued a challenge to try and minimize attacks back but he refused. They try to hit back but thanks to Blizzard and my Oldbloods toughness he doesn’t even wound. I have 5 wounds and a charge and he has a rank and a banner do I win by 4. His Ld10 Tyrant and his BSB are both within range so it’s my no means a sure thing. He roles a 6 and in the nick of time I remember that Iceshard Blizzard also does -1Ld so he re-rolls and gets another 6. His unit breaks and I promptly role a 3 for pursuit and the ogres get away and flee out of the woods. Still that unit is taken out of the game for at least a turn and my Oldblood is unharmed… for now. His Iron blaster kills some skinks who do another wound to it. My guys break and he elects to restrain. I flee but everyone passes their panic checks and he reforms to face my Oldblood to put a cannonball into his face next turn. Ogres 2 He declares a charge with his BSB into my skirmishers in the quicksand, quite a gutsy move as hell take a dangerous terrain test and on a 1 or 2 die outright. I stand and shoot and actually put a wound on him before he fails dangerous terrain and is swallowed up by the quicksand. I like to think that the last think he heard was the sound of 10 skink skirmishers falling over laughing at their clever trap No other charges this turn, his ogre unit rallies and turns to face my Oldblood and everything else moves up to easy charge range of my battle line next turn. In magic he doesn’t get a lot of dive but I have no functional wizard to help me dispel. He tries to deal with my front most skirmishers my throwing a Piercing Bolts at them which I let go and it silences their laughter forever. Next he throws a medium sized fireball at the second unit of skirmishers but I dispel it with all my dice as hes out of dice. My first unit of skinks pass their Ld6 break test which I was a little worried about but my BSB was nearby even though he wasn’t needed. He fires the Ironblaster at my Oldblood and gets a direct hit followed by a To Wound roll of 1. I let out the breath I was holding and thank the Old Ones for blessing my Oldblood and for cursing my opponent’s dice. LM 3 No charges this turn but my skinks rally which was nice. My Oldblood takes off and flies right behind his Ironguts, out of line of sight of all his units, ready to rear charge them if (when) they hit my battle line. My chamos also move up to short range behind the Ironguts. My rear most skirmisher unit moves out the quicksand to the flank of the ogre unit. My priest heads for the hills to avoid being easy points!! In magic….yeah…moving on.. With a huff and a puff my skinks fire their giant blow pipes from the back of their steg and take the last wounds off the iron blaster. The skirmishers all shoot at the right most ogre unit and kill a few more guys. The unit has been whittled down to the command group and the butcher at this point. Ogres 3 He does what I expected and charges his Ironguts into my BSB’s unit, in the centre of my battle line. Then he goes and does something which I do not expect and charges the depleted ogre unit into the quicksand skinks and passes all his dangerous terrain tests. I stand and shoot and don’t do much. The left most ogre unit moves forward into the woods trying to get back into the game. In magic he doesn’t get many power dice and tries for the toughness buff on the ironguts. He uses all his dice and roles high and I use my scroll to stop it. We did the ogre vs skink combat first which predictably ended well for the ogres. My skinks were beaten up but a few survived until they got cut down by his pursuit. He once again passed all his dangerous terrain. He rolled an 11 for the charge distance of his ironguts so gets 3D3 impact hits which kills 5 saurus right off the bat. I issue a challenege with my unit champ to try and minimize casualties and he accepts with his unit champ. His tyrant goes first and kills another 5 saurus. My BSB and unit hit back but only kill one irongut. In the challenge I wound his champ once who then pastes my unit champ. His unit hits back and with stomps takes me down to 10 saurus plus the BSB. He has two ranks of three plus another Irongut so I am not steadfast. We didn’t even bother adding up the combat res as he clearly won by a mile and I’m on snake eyes to hold. That’s when the clouds parted and the Old Ones smiled on my once more by granting me double 1’s. My saurus holding was the tipping point of the game. My other two units of saurus, steg and Oldblood could all charge the ironguts which was just going to bring a world of hurt to my opponent. He told me that his plan was to break my saurus and overrun out of my charge arcs and then next turn go into another solo saurus unit and keep doing the same thing until I was dead. Probably would have worked too… LM 4 CHAAAAAAAARGE!!!!! The ancient steg goes into his front, the spear saurus into his right flank and the other HW&S saurus into his left flank. The oldblood went into his rear. My remaining skirmisher unit moves in front of the ogre unit which is playing around in the quicksand and dares them to charge next turn. Chamos move to the west to harass the other ogre unit. The skink priest and cohorts stand around and look pretty. In shooting my skirmishers try to hurt the ogres but do nothing and the chamos pick off another wound or two from the other ogre unit. Combat was a bloody mess!! Steg impact hits go first and kill the last iron gut in the back which moves my Oldblood up into base to base with his Firebelly. I declare a challenge with my HW&S unit Champion which is accepted by the Irongut champion. The Tyrant puts all of his attacks on the flanking HW&S unit and kills 5 saurus. The skinks on the back off the steg can only attack the tyrant and do nothing. My BSB attacks his rank and file Iron guts and causes a few wounds. Next his Firebelly unleashes his breath weapon all over my Oldblood. 8 hits, 2 wounds and all saves makes for a very cranky (but more importantly unwounded) Oldblood. My saurus units kill a few Ironguts and the Saurus unit champ puts another wound on the Irongut champ but then get turned into red mush. His Ironguts do a few wounds along with stomps and my Oldblood puts 3 onto his Firebelly, not quite killing him. I win by a ton but his Firebelly has the stubborn crown and he holds. Ogres 4 He charges the skink skirmishers with the ogres who stand and shoot and he losses his musician to the quicksand. His left ogre unit tries to charge my HW&S saurus in the flank but fails and goes 2inch forward. In magic he gets a good number of power dice but he fell for the bait and moved his Butcher out of range to cast anything on the Irongut unit so does nothing. In combat I issue another challenge with my last unit champion, which he accepts with his champ. His tyrant kills another rank of saurus on my flanking HW&S unit. I kill all of his unit, including the Firebelly, except for the Tyrant. My unit champ finally killed the Irongut champ, avenging his fallen brothers!! His Tyrant breaks and gets run down. Needless to say he smushes my skinks. So here we know the game is mine, all my saurus blocks are intact and my spear block is still at full strength and my steg is unharmed. My Oldblood flies off and kills the Butcher unit and the other ogre unit gets smashed by saurus and steg. In the end there was one ogre left who fled off his board edge. This was a really great game with a lot of back and forth and some fun little side jokes like the Irongut unit champ that eats other unit champs. I found the lack of magic kind weird to get used to but love the utility of having a flying powerhouse. I think skinks testing on their own leadership are fine as long as the BSB is around and having that oldblood just gave me options. I realize now that he should not have been able to start in a unit but I don’t think that would have made a difference to the game. As always any comments or feedback are most welcome. Hope you enjoyed the report!!
Whoa, what an exciting battle! When you first said you are going to try MSU tactic against Ogres, I was all "man, he's doomed", but you did pull it off. Kudos for the victory! When your Oldblood faced an Ogre unit in the forest, you say that he needed a 6 and he got a 6, but then you remembered that Iceshard gives -1 to Ld. He would have failed that Break test anyway, as he cannot get rank bonuses from the forest, unless there's something I missed. Again, thanks for the report and hopefully you'll write more! I really enjoy your style.
a flying Oldblood was a bold general choice at it seemed to pay off but I think your true MVP was the quicksand. Also it's always nice when your opponent leaves you space for your Chamo Skinks. I'm surprised you were able to in battle for the pass because the board is narrower.
Thanks for the feedback guys!! As far as I know you get your rank bonus in the woods but cant be steadfast, it is in rivers where you do not get rank bonuses or steadfast. Yeah the quicksand and the forest where huge in this game but I think one of the key aspects to good generalship and something which can really turn a game is to use the terrain to your advantage. The Oldblood was for a bit of fun, my opponent doesnt bring especially hard lists (no Gutstar, no Mournfang) so every now and again I leave the Slann at home. He was hasty in his set up and didnt measure well enough. Its one of the advantages of taking a smaller unit of chamos. He though I couldnt get behind his knoblars and had them set up if I deployed anywhere else in his deployment zone. I imagine that he will not be making that mistake again!!
Hey great write up... Sorry if this was mentioned somewhere... but I don't think your Oldblood with the Arabian Carpet could be in the Saurus Unit.
the guy above me is correct also your sknk priest is carring 2 arcane items which isnt allowed either, you might not play by all the rules the game brings, or did not know this fun read tho!
Yeah I realized that a few days after the game Nice catch for some reason I got it into my head that PoT was an enchanted item. I certainly try to play by the rules but I am by no means infallible. Thanks for reading!!
yea its cool just i see a lot of people around my place who play with their (i dont care if i take 5 items of the same thing) like back in the old school days carring 5 scrolls around in a battle :d