8th Ed. Lizardmen vs. Vampire Counts 2500 pts (pic heavy)

[Switchblade]

I do not have army lists, as this game was played over a week ago. Also, forgive any mistakes that may appear in Battle Chronicler, this is my first time using this program, and I quite like it.

This was also the VC player's first time playing VC, and it did not help that he was using my VC tourney list from a few weeks ago, so I knew it inside and out. He was considering buying the army from me, and even though I tabled him, he still did, what a good sport!

DEPLOYMENT:



As you can see, fairly simple battle line formation, I had my Slann(life) in the TG, and he had several vampires and necros spread out across each of his units.

I won deployment and first turn.



I moved up my Sally and Skinks, shuffled Saurus and TG.
Magic phase gave me 12 dice, which I casted all the buffs and augments I could, with him failing to dispell everything. Shooting gave me a few kills on zombies from Skirmishers.



He shuffles forward, only able to march on the right-hand side, due to his general being in the block of Ghouls. He rolls double 1s for magic, and nothing happens.



I charge my Cav into his varghulf, and rest of my blocks shuffle a little bit. I'm not concerned with his ability to ping my guys from distance, as he didn't roll Gaze of Nagash (2d6 S4 hits) on his magic.
Magic was uneventful, killed a few zombies with Dwellers, and augmented the rest of my guys.
Shooting saw a few more zombies killed, nothing from the Sally.
Cav wipe the floor against the Varghulf and overrun into Grave guard (shown on next slide)



Varghulf on the right side charges into my Saurus block, rest of his forces shuffle slowly, finally starting to bridge the gap and getting his zombies into charge distance. His vargulf manages to stomp a saurus, leaving it with only 1 wound remaining from combat resolution, while my Cav munch on Grave Guard, killing the whole unit through combat resolution (gotta love using unstable against the enemy!)




Cav charge into the side block of Zombies, Temple Guard shuffle forward, not wanting to overcommit.
Shooting saw little to no wounds, salamander did nothing the whole game, not seeing what everyone is going crazy about with them, only ever did 1 wound out of 6 games, maybe i'm using them wrong?
Cav destroy zombies, overrun into next block and also destroy (again, got that on the wrong slide)



His zombies charge into my TG, and his ghould charge my Saurus. Magic has remained uneventful, as I dispel his every attempt to Nehek, and I continue to augment my troops. We actually forgot to Proc shield of thorns about three times, but wouldn't have changed the game at all.



Cav charges into side of that zombie block, they win that fight, Cav and TG combat reform, as I can't fit the movement trays past eachother to get the side charge in. We shook hands and he walked away from the table at this point.

It was great game, and I was rolling very well on my magic phases to shut him down during his. He was only able to get one good nehek off the whole game, but was out of position to resurrect massive numbers of troops. My Cav did their job astoundingly well, destroying many large blocks of his chaff troops. They definitely got hte MVP award for this game.

If anyone sees any issues, I would love if you pointed them out, as I'm still finetuning battle chronicler.

 

[Qupakoco]

My Cav did their job astoundingly well

Dude, seriously. They were amazing. Your opponent should not have turned his flank to them. But since he did, they worked beautifully! That's exactly how cavalry is supposed to work. No archers to shoot them, no magic to get in their way, no terrain to hinder their path of destruction, flank charges galore, etc. Anyway, that was a poor tactical decision on his part. Your lucky rolling didn't help him much either.

Can't believe I missed this thread. Very nice report. Good use of Battle Chronicler. I may steal your idea...

 

[Switchblade]

Thank you very much for their reply. I agree with the Cav statement, but I also learned a valuable lesson the next day about knowing your opponent's army. Was playing vs. Skaven, and I ran the exact same unit into a Plague Furnace with 20 monks. Four turns later, they were still there, didn't know it was unbreakable. That game hurt when my hammer couldn't find the anvil.

 

[Wistrel]

Wow, thats a great report, the chronicler software is really good, as for your cavalry, they were amazing, and I think I may actually use them in the future, how many do you run in a unit?

 

[Switchblade]

I run a scar-vet cowboy with the sword of +1 attack, cold one, shield light armor, and dawnstone. This gives him a 1+ armor save (rerollable) and 6 s5 attacks. I back him up with 9 cav, giving me two ranks. This unit has WS4, S5 on the charge, and have 2+ armor saves, which is really nasty! I also typically give them the banner that allows 3d6 on 1 charge, giving me an impressive threat range at 3d6+7". This unit puts out 19 s5 attacks on the charge, with 5 more s4 attacks from the coldones themselves.

 

[Scalenex]

How long did this take you to do? My friend and I tried keeping track of things with Battle Chronicler once but it took so much extra time to record things we found we could almost fit a second game in that amount of time.

Also since I'm working on becoming a skink zombie master, I could use the perspective of one who has LM and VC. What is the appropriate way to use zombies effectively?

 

[Switchblade]

How long did this take you to do? My friend and I tried keeping track of things with Battle Chronicler once but it took so much extra time to record things we found we could almost fit a second game in that amount of time.

I spent more time trying to remember exactly what happened, as the game took place a few days prior. I have entered into a tourney (2000 pt) on sat, and will be posting battle reports hopefully sunday night or monday afternoon.

Chronicler is a wonderful system as it's very drag and drop. My saurus moved up 3 inches? okay! click the unit, drag it to where they went, and drop 'em. BC adds the arrows, but you can change the color for charge, flees, etc.

Also since I'm working on becoming a skink zombie master, I could use the perspective of one who has LM and VC. What is the appropriate way to use zombies effectively?

There is one particular way that I play VC that has bagged me several victories, and 1st and 2nd in two different tourneys. I bring 3-5 20 zombie units, castled across the deployment zone, scattering lvl 1 necros into as many of them as I can. The rest of my army is clustered into one corner, using blocks of similar sizes and lots of nasty chars to "hide" where my hammer is. My opponents USUALLY misinterpret my deployment as a balanced one, and deploy to match, which leaves me the opportunity to just steamroll from one side of the board as I take 1500 pt units vs. their 500 pt units.
The zombies I just pop Nehek as much as I can, to boost their numbers and keep focus on them. When people start seeing that I can res 30-60 zombies a turn, they start to get nervous. Don't be afraid to only take 25% core with VC, as you can always increase the starting size of units. Even with lvl 1 necros, 2d6+1 each cast of Nehek for EACH UNIT within range can add up quickly, and as the lore signature spell, it can be spam-casted by each wizard.

 

[Oldblood89]

Hey, I am new here and to warhammer. I have played a couple of games with a friend who runs VC. I constantly get hammered by his Vargheist. The 20 inch fly always makes me play defensive and then I end up getting flanked anyway when his 2 bunkers of 40 ghouls hit me.

This last game he had a unit of 5 vargheist and other of 8. The one of 8 got wrecked by my skink skirmishers but between his Strigoi ghoul king, banshees, terrorgeist, and the other unit of vargheist, my one flank got wrecked. Those Vargheist are not fun to play against because 4 attacks each and their higher initiative always eat up my saurus flank.

 

[Switchblade]

Yes, but Vargheist are glass cannons, hit them with a few skinks and they're toast. They have no armor save, and at T4, even shooting can take them down, especially with poison.

 

[Rhodium]

The saurus cav completely ruined his battlefield, pretty good example of how destructive cav is in the right situation

However, I'm not convinced they should have been there in the first place

As you say "Cav wipe the floor against the Varghulf and overrun into Grave guard (shown on next slide"

You only get a wheel in an overrun if you are going to hit an enemy unit with the overrun normally, which must be straight ahead, yet the drawing has the cav making an almost 90 degree turn during the overrun, there is no way according to the drawing, that the cav moving straight forward would clip the grave guard so should never make the turn during the overrun

Alternatively, if the drawing is slightly askew and the grave guard are slightly to their right and actually the cav would hit them when overrunning, there is no way the cav would end up in their flank.

Surely what should have happening is the cav reform from victory to prepare for the charge next turn, the grave guard reform to face the charge and a front on front battle occurs, rather than the seemingly illegal overrun which meant the cav got right through the battle line

 

[Caprasauridae]

Yeah, the thing Rhodium points out bothers me as well. Also, did you fight against two zombie units in one turn? This shouldn't happen as if you overrun into an enemy that is not in close combat, the combat is played next turn. Only if the enemy unit overrun into is in CC already and hasn't battled yet, your victorious unit can join the fray. Maybe I got it wrong from the pictures, though.

Anyway, thanks for the battle report, it was a nice read. I'd very much like to use Battle Chronicler myself, but as it only works on Windows and I'm on a Mac. Well, maybe someday....

 

[Switchblade]

Yes, the pictures are not 100% correct, was still figuring out the timeline aspect of BC.

 

[Caprasauridae]

There's a small tutorial at the Tomb Kings forum, maybe it provides some help:

http://z4.invisionfree.com/Khemri/index.php?showtopic=11939

 

[makash]

I run a scar-vet cowboy with the sword of +1 attack, cold one, shield light armor, and dawnstone. This gives him a 1+ armor save (rerollable) and 6 s5 attacks. I back him up with 9 cav, giving me two ranks. This unit has WS4, S5 on the charge, and have 2+ armor saves, which is really nasty! I also typically give them the banner that allows 3d6 on 1 charge, giving me an impressive threat range at 3d6+7". This unit puts out 19 s5 attacks on the charge, with 5 more s4 attacks from the coldones themselves.

just a query how u worked out the attacks, scar-vet is standard 4 attacks + sword is 5. how did u up it to 6? I must be missing something, did u mean old blood?