Of course, I wouldn't be doing myself any favours in the victory department by taking Wood Elves (as the most out-of-date army book available, they're right down at the bottom of the power scale!) but I never intended to go and crush all my opponents (plus, I'm not that good a player!) - I was there for the experience, to mingle with a whole new bunch of players and to enjoy a bunch of games against a new and exciting armies.
The only downside for the weekend was that, as the action was pretty frantic, I didn't have much time or opportunity to take pictures of the games in progress and so I'm afraid you'll have to make do with my memory and dodgy MS Paint maps. I took a few notes after each game to capture the most important events, but I'm bound to have forgotten some details so rather than in-depth accounts I'm going to just try and give a general overview of each game. You'll just have to bear with me I'm afraid!
As I've posted before, the list I took was as follows:
Spellweaver ~ 275pts
- Lv.4, Dispel Scroll
Noble ~ 140pts
- BSB, Armour of Silvered Steel, Luckstone
Eternal Guard (24) ~ 343pts
- Warbanner, Full Command
Glade Guard (16) ~ 220pts
- Standard Bearer, Musician, Banner of Eternal Flame
Glade Guard (10) ~ 126pts
- Musician
Glade Guard (10) ~ 126pts
- Musician
Dryads (8) ~ 96pts
Dryads (8) ~ 96pts
Treekin (6) ~ 390pts
Scouts (5) ~ 85pts
Great Eagle ~ 50pts
Great Eagle ~ 50pts
Total = 1997pts
Day 1
Having not gone up to Nottingham on Friday night to pre-register and with road works on seemingly every road into the city centre this weekend, I erred on the side of caution and got up extra early on Saturday morning to make the drive down. I got to Warhammer World as the doors were opening, headed straight to the Event team to register and then headed into Bugman's Bar to sit down for breakfast and a coffee to wake me up!9.30am came around quickly and it was on with some trepidation to the first game
Game 1: Battleline
John Lammin - Lizardmen
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| John with his "Priest of the Old Ones" Best of Race certificate |
John's army was pretty standard for Lizardmen:
- Slann (with Temple Guard)
- Lv.1 Skink Priest (with Skinks)
- Scar Veteran (with Saurus)
- Scar Veteran (with Saurus)
- 24? Temple Guard
- 24 Saurus
- Stegadon
- Bastiladon
- 10 Skink Skirmishers
- 10 Skink Skirmishers
- 10 Skink Skirmishers
Deployment was as pictured in my dodgy map below:
I had 11 deployment drops compared to John's eight, so the roll-off for first turn was against me and John ended up with the first turn. Naturally, his Skinks all legged it to get into range of their blowpipes as quickly as possible while his dinosaurs and lizards in the centre slogged straight across the centre of the table towards my bowline. Thanks to being magically marched further across the table the Skinks on my right got into range of the lone Eagle, while the Slann casually sucked the souls from 10 (!!) of the Eternal Guard with Soul Quench. When shooting came around it quickly saw both Pigeons collapse in piles of feathers, although I was relieved to find that the central Skink unit hadn't quite managed to get close enough to blast at my Glade Guard. My return fire saw the central Skink unit eradicated, although the lucky Skink Priest survived, while the Eternal Guard and Treekin moved up to take position around the watchtower.
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| The one available photo of the first game, courtesy of Warhammer World's Facebook page. That's my arm! |
John's next turn saw the Lizards in the middle continue advancing, with the Stegadon racing ahead to charge the Eternal Guard and the Saurus entering the watchtower. I lost some Glade Guard to a bit of Skink shooting and more Eternal Guard died to the magical onslaught before being battered by impact hits and Thunderstomp, but they held thanks to Stubborn. My turn saw the Dryad units charge the Skinks and Bastiladon respectively, although both Lizard units managed to hold against the charges. The Treekin milled around on the flank of the Eternal Guard, apparently reluctant to do anything (I can't now remember why they didn't charge into the Saurus in the building - there must have been some reason they couldn't, because it would have been the smart move at this point...). Shooting killed more Temple Guard, while John stubbornly refused to let me cast any spells (all the 1s weren't helping either...).
The subsequent turns saw the Saurus exit the watchtower on the flank of the Treekin, who reformed to face the charge. The Eternal Guard refused to give in to the Stegadon as John had a bunch of fluffed attacks and the Eternals took the Steg down to two wounds, while the Dryads finally finished off the Skinks and took the Bastiladon down to one wound. Unfortunately, the Wood Elves weren't quite getting the job done quickly enough - the untouched Saurus smashed into the Treekin, who decided discretion was the better part of valour, failed their Ld6 Break test (with a reroll) and quickly broke, allowing the Saurus to overrun into the Eternal Guard and slaughter them, while the much-shot-at Temple Guard kept up the advance and charged the big Glade Guard unit who also sensibly fled out of range. The Dryads finally finished off the Bastiladon and Skinks, just in time for the reformed Stegadon to smash through one Dryad unit and then overrun into the next and Thunderstomp all over them. The remaining Skink unit made short work of blowpiping the Scouts and Spellweaver to death. The two small Glade Guard units did their best to whittle down the Temple Guard and get at the Slann, reducing them down to just a Champion and Standard (plus the Frog) but it wasn't enough as the Treekin and big Glade Guard fled the table and left the two small Glade Guard to be slaughtered by Skinks and Saurus.
Result: Loss
Well, I was off to as good a start as expected! You'd think after all the games I've played against Lizardmen in the past few months I'd have a better way of dealing with them by now, but clearly not. They're still tough as nails and John went on to be the Best Lizardmen player for a reason. In all fairness, it could have been a lot worse (or at least, ended just as badly but a lot quicker). Interesting factoid - for the whole game, both of us managed to roll at least one 1 for the Winds of Magic dice, which meant we never got above 7 Power Dice in any turn. I imagine it would have been a lot more painful if John had had a full 12 Power Dice (or even just 11 or 10) at his disposal. The key turning point was of course the Treekin combat. I can't think why I didn't charge them at the Saurus in the tower, but if they had I'd have been much better off - it would have cancelled out all the static Combat Resolution (ranks, standard etc.) the Saurus had and would have not seen the whole flank of the army collapse (although the Eternal Guard would still have died, and then I'd probably have had a Stegadon in the flank, but it would have kept the rest of my army out of trouble). I also really need to stop letting the Eternal Guard take on Stegadons, because it never ends well...
On to Game #2 then!
Game 2: Blood & Glory
Liam Howie - Orcs & Goblins
Ah, the dreaded Blood & Glory, second only to Watchtower in my "least favourite scenario" stakes. With 3 of my 5 Fortitude located in squishy units of unarmoured T3 elves (and the other 2 in a bigger squishy unit of slightly armoured T3 elves...) one wrong move can cost me the game - so it proved against Howie...
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| Howie before the bad times began, and the dice abandoned him... |
Howie's list was something like this:
- Black Orc Warlord
- Lv.4 Orc Great Shaman
- Lv.2 Night Goblin Shaman
- Orc BSB
- Night Goblin Warboss on Great Cave Squig
- Night Goblin Big Boss on Great Cave Squig
- Night Goblin Big Boss on Great Cave Squig
- 3 Wolf Chariots
- 3 Wolf Chariots
- 2 Wolf Chariots
- 10 Orc Arrer Boyz with banner
- 40 Orc Big 'Uns with full command
Howie should also have had two Mangler Squigs, but was unfortunately unable to use them and so had to make up the points adding extra wolves, extra goblin crew, and various other bits and bobs around his army (as he'd brought no more models with him).
Deployment:
Despite having 5 deployments compared to my 11, Howie still lost the roll-off for first turn, but I chose to give it to him anyway. Obviously, Howie advanced his army as much as he could, with the Squigs all bouncing ahead. In response, I declared charges with both units of Dryads - the left unit charged the Goblin Warboss while the right unit failed their long charge against the Goblin Big Boss. My shooting saw one of the left-hand chariots reduced to kindling and the left-hand Boss on Squig plucked from the sky. The Warboss and his Squig made pretty good kindling of the Dryads as well, but I managed to hold with my only Insane Courage of the weekend...
Howie's turn again and things quickly turned sour as first the Night Goblin Shaman IFed while casting Itchy Nuisance on an Eagle, taking a wound from both himself and the Orc Great Shaman, and then the Great Shaman quickly followed suit with a miscast of his own whilst casting Hand of Gork on the remaining unit of 3 Chariots to position them on the EG flank, blowing up himself and the Night Goblin Shaman and taking 16 Big 'Uns with him! Understandably, the Big 'Uns turned tail and ran back to where they'd started the game! To lessen Howie's woes though, his Arrer Boyz felled one of the Eagles, his unit of 2 Chariots ploughed through the Dryads in front of them while the Goblin Boss and his Squig bounced into the Itchy Eagle, and well and truly plucked it. Meanwhile, the two remaining Wolf Chariots on the left hand side had ploughed in alongside the Squig Warboss to finally put paid to the Dryads and leave themselves nicely positioned in front of my bowline.
My next turn saw the Eternal Guard swift reform to take on the oncoming Wolf Chariots, with the Treekin moving up to support if needed. The Glade Guard made short work of the three chariots on the left, leaving the Squig Warboss to face off against 42 bow shots if necessary.
Howie's next turn saw the three Wolf Chariots hit the front of the Eternal Guard while the Squig Big Boss hit the flank, while elsewhere the Big 'Uns managed to rally. The Squig Warboss fell an inch short of bouncing into the big Glade Guard unit, and now he was in trouble. Unsurprisingly, the Eternal Guard took a few casualties (including losing their champion in a challenge with the Squig Big Boss) but held stubbornly, with the Treekin waiting to come in to support. My turn saw the Treekin charge into the Squig Big Boss rather than risk a long charge against the unit of two chariots, while shooting easily plucked the Night Goblin Warboss from his bouncy mount and removed that threat. The big combat resulted in three dead chariots and a few dead elves, but crucially not a dead Squig - the hopper fled, and the Eternal Guard came within an inch of catching him. Tragically though, this left them open and exposed to a nasty flank charge from the last two Wolf Chariots.
Naturally, Howie took his chance and ploughed the Wolf Chariots into the Eternal Guard, while the last Cave Squig somehow rallied and then proceeded to roll the 14" needed to bounce into the rear of the Scouts and Spellweaver that I'd carelessly left exposed (foolishly believing in the Treekin's ability to kill a single puny goblin....). The game hung in the balance - of course, fate had it in for me and the Eternal Guard broke and were run down (leaving me with Fortitude 3...) and the Scouts were likewise broken and rundown, taking the Spellweaver General with them and thus reducing my Fortitude to 1 and handing victory (seemingly against all the odds) to Howie.
Result: Loss
At this point, we still had an hour on the clock and had only reached the end of Howie's T4, so we played on anyway. The Glade Guard took revenge on the last Cave Squig, while in response to the destruction of the Eternal Guard, the Treekin smashed the two Wolf Chariots and overran into the much-reduced Big 'Uns unit (now down to just about half strength and still in horde formation). Clearly, Treekin don't get good until T4 because they inflicted a bunch of casualties on the Orcs and ran them down too! At this point, all Howie had left were his Arrer Boyz, while I had all three units of Glade Guard and the Treekin remaining - I'd killed all but 90pts of Howie's, but in the end I made one crucial mistake (or two, depending on how you look at it). I was somewhat careless in exposing the Spellweaver, but I was sure the Treekin would put paid to the Cave Squig and the Eternal Guard easily took care of the Chariots, as I expected. If I'd have manage to kill the Cave Squig or even just run it down with the Eternal Guard, I could have happily sacrificed the Eternal Guard to the Wolf Chariots with my Fortitude still intact, and the Spellweaver would have got away scot-free (as the Chariots were no danger to her because of the distance, even with an overrun through the Eternal Guard). In the end, I can't complain too much at all - Howie was plagued by the dice all game and his army was being soundly beaten, but he kept his head and took the opportunity he needed to secure victory.
And so we were on to the final game of the day, by which time the fatigue was starting to set in. Fortunately, I came up against the Skaven of Gareth Jones, who was an absolute gent and barrel of laughs, and gave me the most enjoyable game of the tournament
Game 3: Battle for the Pass
Gareth Jones - Skaven
Gareth's army was a nice solid lineup, typical Skaven fare
- Grey Seer (with Clanrats)
- Plague Priest on Plague Furnace (with Plague Monks)
- Warlock Engineer (with Slaves)
- Warlock Engineer (with Slaves)
- 40 Skavenslaves
- 40 Skavenslaves
- 30 Clanrats
- 30 Clanrats
- 25 Plague Monks
- 5 Giant Rats with Packmaster
- 5 Giant Rats with Packmaster
- 5 Giant Rats with Packmaster
- 5 Giant Rats with Packmaster
- Hellpit Abomination
- Warp-Lightning Cannon
- Warp-Lightning Cannon
Deployment was like so:
I won the roll off for first turn and decided to take it in order to try and stall Gareth's advance with the Eagles for a couple of turns. Both birdies flew straight forwards as far as they could, the left eagle landing in the path of the first slaves unit, and the right hand eagle providing bait for the Abomination (hopefully). Both Dryad unit advanced into the nearest forest in the hope of providing a blockade there (thanks to being Stubborn in woods). Shooting and magic did nothing of note, so it was over to the Wall of Skaven. Both Eagles were charged by the nearest Giant Rats units - the right Eagle held to avoid going off the board, plus I thought he might be able to win the combat, while the left Eagle fled and forced a failed charge. Meanwhile, back over on the right, the Slaves and Abomination both charged the nearest unit of Dryads and unfortunately for me they both made it in (they'd clearly been fed their Warpstone Cookies that morning). Exit one unit of Dryads. In a vicious display of reliability, the Warp-Lightning Cannons combined to wipe out half of the Treekin in one go. The Eagle remained locked in combat with the Giant Rats, somehow failing to inflict any wounds!
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| Gareth's Wall of Skaven, with the Suicide Pigeons in position... |
My turn saw the remaining Dryads charge the front of the Slaves in a desperate attempt to break them. The Treekin moved to intercept the Abomination, while shooting started making dents in the Plague Monks and left-hand Slaves. The left-hand Eagle rallied ready to accept another charge, but the right Eagle was brought low by the rats. The Dryads scythed through the Slaves but couldn't do enough to break their Strength in Numbers, and they stood their ground. Gareth took over once again, ploughing the Abomination into the flank of the Dryads, slaughtering them all and overrunning into one of the small Glade Guard units. The Plague Monks attempted a Frenzied charge against the other Glade Guard unit, who fled along with the left-hand Eagle who was charged by the Slaves.
My T3 saw the Eternal Guard pass their Terror test to throw their weight in against the Abomination alongside the poor Glade Guard, while the Treekin pounced on the Slaves that had previously killed off the Dryads. The fleeing Glade Guard manage to rally right at the foot of the watchtower, but the Eagle decides he's had enough and flies 12" towards the back of the table. The little shooting I have left at this point takes out a few more Slaves, but not quite enough to force a Panic test. The combat between the EG and the Abomination ends predictably with elven corpses everywhere, as the EG lose 11 models including the BSB (who gets flopped on). They break and flee, only for the Abomination to catch them and pursue straight into the just-rallied Glade Guard. Meanwhile, in happier news, the Treekin manage the first success of the game as they break the Slaves they're fighting and the rats scatter to the four winds. Unfortunately, it was Gareth's turn again and the Abomination happily munched down the Glade Guard while the Grey Seer casually transformed the Spellweaver and all her Scouts into Clanrats with the Dreaded 13th Spell. The big Glade Guard unit are finally charged by the remaining Slaves and Giant Rats, but they hold their ground while the two WLCs both try to blast the last few Treekin away but miss both shots. My turn saw me with very little left - the Eagle carried on fleeing off the table, the Treekin carefully moved out of the way of the 60 Clanrats bearing down on them, while the last few Glade Guard managed to break the second Slaves unit and blow themselves up in the process.
The last turn saw Gareth make a determined effort to kill off the entire army as he blasted the Treekin once again providing the final comedy moment of the game, as the first WLC took out two of the 'Kin. The second WLC, rather than outdo their colleagues and eradicate the Treekin, chose instead to sabotage their fellow war machine by landing their shot directly on top of the first WLC and providing me with some much-needed Victory Points!
In the end, the death of the WLC made no difference whatsoever to the scores - Gareth had emphatically thrashed me, mostly with the Abomination on it's own! In true Skaven fashion, the majority of his army (including his Grey Seer general) had sat about 6" outside his deployment zone and watched the carnage from a safe distance!
Result: Loss
In all honesty, I don't know what I'd have done to alter the outcome of this game. In theory, the scenario should have played in my favour as the length of the table meant Gareth had a long march to reach me. This was largely cancelled out by the fact that he had substantial cover all along the length of the board though, along with an unhealthy dose of steroids pumped into his Abomination which meant it covered the distance in all of two turns...
All that said, I really didn't mind about losing so emphatically - as I said earlier, Gareth was a real gent and a great laugh, and we probably spent just as much time messing about and joking as we did actually playing, which is why Gareth ended up getting my "Favourite Game" vote at the end of the tournament.
~ ~ ~
So, as predicted, I had come out of Day 1 with not a single Win or Draw under my belt, but with three very enjoyable games nonetheless. It would all remain to be seen whether I could recover some pride on Day 2...
Stay tuned!
Blimey, a proverbial battering but at least you went down fighting and enjoying yourself.
ReplyDeleteYep, a battering by any standards. A bit more concentration and I'd have won that second game though!
DeleteGreat report! Can´t wait for day two and hopefull a win for you! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Ulfast :) I'll write Day Two up as soon as I can!
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