Topic: LSP goes to the Herne Masters

[Lord Solar Plexus]

Hi all, after somewhat of a lull in gaming here I finally had the opportunity to attend a one-day event nearby, the 7th Master of the TablePott. Suffice to say that I had a blast and three good games against great opponents. Games were 1,500, no Lords/SC's, no #6 spells, fleeing units count as destroyed at the end of the game, hills completely block LoS, buildings are impassable.

My list:

WP - HA, ench. shield, BWH, luck stone, fear blade,
BSB - FP, dragonhelm, shield, pistol
Wizard - L2, Heavens, Channeling Staff

20 Swords, S
2*5 archers
9 ICK - FC, SoD

3 DGK - S, BotEF
5 Pistoliers - M, C, repeater pistol

STank
Hellblaster

1st game: Dark Elves



There was quite a bit more terrain but since it did not affect the game, I left it out. DE deploy 5 Harpies, 12 Repeater Crossbows + L2, Hydra, 35 Execs, Cauldron, more Crossbows, and their fast cav on their far left.

Turn 1


Everything moves up, Crossbows set up a killing field. Magic sees him get a Pit through on the ICK that deviates, auto-killing the Hellblaster and killing one Knight. Pistoliers fail panic test and are gone. 240 points behind, bummer!



I move the Knights and detachments to delay his strong centre and perhaps get a flank charge. I don't fancy fighting Executioners with Knights though. DGK move up behind the house to get into another flank. STank misfires, cannot move, and puts a cannon ball through one Dark Rider. Magic is dispelled (think I had comet and the sig spell).


Turn 2



Harpies charge Archers 1, which flee and escape. Hydra and Execs shuffle. Dark Riders charge DGK. Magic sees me dispelling Pit and that's it. Shooting might have killed an archer.

In melee, the DGK suffer no wound, and kill 5 or so Dark Riders. Regrettably this doesn't kill the whole unit and I promptly fail to restrain and am pulled out of position. The last rider however flees off the board, so I clawed some points back.



I generate 4 Steam points, misfire and only get two. My ICK charge the Harpies which flee. I the redirect into the Repeaters with his Sorceress but although it is 16" or so they also flee, leaving me right in front of the Execs! DGK turn around. Archers 1 rally, archers 2 get in front of the Hydra. Magic is of no concern to anyone. I fire the Cannon at the Cauldron I think but undershoot.

Turn 3



Execs charge ICK which flee and escape. The Hydra charges the archers, destroys them, overruns and then reforms (I didn't know it was possible to overrun AND to reform and didn't get to look it up yet, is that correct?!?). Repeater bolts ping off the DGK. Magic sees a boosted Miasma on my Swordsmen reduce their stats by 2. Harpies btw flee off the board.



I generate 4 SP and misfire. Cannot move. ICK rally, DGK move up, remaining archers get in the way of Execs. I turn the Swordsmen because with M2 they cannot get out of the Hydra's charge arc. My wizard leaves the unit (forgot to show him in the picture). I kill one Exec with bows and 4-5 more with a cannon shot I think.

Turn 4



Hydra charges the Swordsmen and the Execs the archers. The Hydra kills enough that I lose steadfast, so they break, and I lose the BSB. Archers are of course killed.



I generate 4 SP and do not misfire. Finally my DGK get in on the action and charge the Hydra. With S6, S5 AP and flaming, it has no saves. The DGK do fluff a lot of attacks but it is enough to take it out. My ICK move backwards and so does the lone wizard. The last two Swordsmen cannot rally and flee off the board. A final cannonball at the Cauldron undershoots and at this point time is up.

Looking at the scores, we ended up 11-9 (693-405). After the somewhat disastrous first turn, I thought this was okay. My plan was to delay his centre units for as long as possible, and while the Hydra did get into combat, the Execs did not, which was nice. The STank was an utter failure. It misfired three turns in a row while generating steam and once with the cannon. I also made the mistake to leave no room for it in the centre where it would have been direly needed. Here it could have protected my fragile Swordsmen, wizard and BSB all at once without moving much, with my mobile elements threatening flank charges or luring strong units away.

More to follow...

[Lord Solar Plexus]

Game 2: Wood Elves, B & G

Some general
25 or so Eternal Guard
3 Monstrous Infantry
2* 10 Dryads
10 Archers
Treeman

Now I've read and heard a lot of how weak WE are at the moment but I've never met them before, so I wasn't familiar with them at all - an exciting change of pace at least.


Turn 1

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Woodies cover behind the LoS-blocking hill (unlimited height) as good as they can. Shooting does nada, magic they do not have except to move a wood. This is looking bright.

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Everything moves up, left a bit more cautiously then the right. My magic doesn't do anything of not; neither does my shooting. Perhaps the STank kills something, dunno.

Turn 2

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What are they doing? Well, pretty much nothing!

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Demis charge Dryads, kill a few and they fail their break test. They run 9" but not off the table. For very good reasons I do not pursue. Please don't ask which reasons those could have been, I do not remember. Chances were they would rally, perhaps I thought I had enough forces to deal with them...? Everything else moves up, even the Volley Gun. I probably kill an archer or two with bows.

Turn 3

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Some reshuffling. His MI fails a charge on my archers. Treeman shoots at DGK; they suffer a wound I believe.

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At this point my wizard leaves the Swordsmen bunker, which is of course a huge mistake - I wanted to charge them into his Dryads in the wood, together with the STank. As it turned out later, the wizard would have been out of combat anyways. Hey-ho. Anyways, ICK fail a charge on his MI, DGK charge the Treeman, and the STank crashes into the centre Dryads. He only kills three or so, mainly because they have a ward, and they're stubborn, or perhaps even unbreakable, don't remember. The Demis cause two wounds and suffer one but the Treeman holds. In shooting, the Volley Gun can finally see his MI on the hill and causes one wound.

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Woodies shuffle and retreat behind the hill. The Treeman causes another wound and suffers two but it's still standing. Darn. My not-included-wizard gets shot to death while standing behind the STank and Swords. I was so sure he couldn't draw LoS but did not want to argue, so I let it slide.

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My ICK cannot see any target behind the hill. The Demis this time only cause one wound and suffer none but it's apparently not enough to kill the Tree (not sure if it has 6 wounds or if it saved the last one - it did save quite a lot on armous save 6's). The STank grinds a little but again ward saves deny me any meaningful casualties, and my Swords and BSB cannot contribute either. He's still steadfast and doesn't run - and at this point time is again up - aaaaarghh! Not now! Too early! Too slow!!!

The end result is a draw (10:10 or 115 points for WE for my wizard, none for me). Just one more turn, 10 minutes, and I would have killed at least one unit of Dryads and very likely the Treeman for a 12:8 or more...!!! Lesson learned: Play faster. Also, think harder while playing faster. Think faster! Not pursuing those Dryads on turn 2 was a massive brainfart and I have no excuse. Not sure how much they cost but that alone could have netted me an 11:9. Solo'ing the wizard was a bit of a bad idea in principle but as I said, I thought he was well hidden.

But never mind, we both had fun and I finally played my first game against WE, which was nice. Oh, he had a nicely painted army, too. I'll upload some pics tonight.

[Lord Solar Plexus]

tbc

Game 3: Khemri

[Noght]

Awesome stuff.  Thanks LSP!

[Nikali]

Thanks for posting, look forward to the last one. Hope you managed to engage early and dish out some hurt!

How long did you get per game? Only running 3/4 turns is seriously limiting (I'm guessing gun-lines did pretty well!).

Oh and no, you can't over-run / pursue AND reform.

Wood elf game was a bit odd - what were his tactics.... hide?

Nick

[Lord Solar Plexus]

Thanks guys. I understand that the WE player was simply cautious. As a matter of fact, most of my units were stronger 1:1, and he wanted to conserve as many points as possible for a long time. It might appear odd but since we only got to turn 4 it worked. Next turn I would very likely have killed the Treeman and quite possibly the Dryads in the wood. After that, Dryads 2 would have been toast as well and a late game charge from the ICK could have taken out his MI or the archers.

Without getting ahead of me too much, time was an issue in all three games. I'm just not used to that but I think I can get into that habit with a bit of practice. We had 1:45 h for each game, which at the end of the day might be too little, seeing that with two hours, things would have looked quite differently! Btw there were no gunlines; 24 Repeater Crossbows and my own list were the shootiest I think.

I've got some work to do but I'll try to get the last BatRep up in the afternoon and post a couple of pictures when I get home tonight.

[Lord Solar Plexus]

Game 3 - Tomb Kings

Again there was more terrain but it had little effect. My memory of this game is a bit hazy, so please excuse the shortness. Scenario was Unexpected Engagement.

He deployed from the left his War Sphinx, 20 Archers with a block of Skellies, L2 and Prince behind, Casket and Catapult and 5 Light Cavalry. The Necroknights stayed in reserve. Pistoliers vanguard to the flank of his light cavalry.



I had first turn and went full ahead. No charges yet. I cast a Comet right behind his archers. Sadly, we don't have a marker. The Hellblaster is in range for once, rolls two misfires and cannot shoot. The Pistoliers make up for this and kill all his light cav at short distance.



He doesn't move much. Necros come in on his left but cannot charge. We forget about the Comet. The Casket is dispelled; double-shot archers kill a Knight and the Catapult kills a couple of Swordsmen. I also manage to fail both Look outs for my wizard and BSB in the unit. Not sure if he wounded them but it didn't matter in the end.



Charges: DGK charge the Catapult, kill it outright and overrun into the Casket. ICK charge his archers. Yes, that's the ones with the Comet right behind them. I do remember it and slowly the outright stupidity of this charge dawns on me. I'm a bit slow at times. The S7 Comet proceeds to kill a score of archers, 7 Knights and it wounds the Sphinx. Ooookay.  The Priest and the remaining champion take the archers down to two.



Predictably I get a Sphinx in the flank which killing blows the AL. At least the remaining archers also die. The Skeleton block manages a flank charge on the DGK. I knew it was coming but I wanted the Casket dead asap. The Necros charge the Tank and do a couple of wounds. I think the Casket kills off some archers.



I pull my Swordsmen back because while I could get a flank, they're too depleted and I don't fancy a killing blow Prince with my wounded guys. I do kill all Necro Knights except one who's on his last wound or so in this and the following turn but I lose the Demis to wounds and static res and then it's again over all too soon.

Regrettably and against everyone's predictions, it ends up a 12:8 (717:415) in his favour.

Afterthoughts

Well, that was a nice event. I usually don't attend tourneys except a small summer event with half a dozen friends, so I didn't finish my games. Will have to work on this because it did have a huge impact. In game 1, I could have run rings around the Executioners with my mobility and killed off both Crossbow blocks with relative ease. In game 2, I had killed something like 6 or 7 out of 8 Dyrads and would have taken the last wound off the Treeman, with more options elsewhere. In game 3, I was wearing my dunce cap - charging the ICK into the archers was folly but hey, stuff happens, right? Even so, with one more turn I would have killed the NecroKnights and that would probably have been enough for a draw.   

Oh, and one more thing: A lone Volley Gun without an Engineer sucks. I have now tried it in enough games to verify what I thought. Okay, losing it outright wasn't it's fault but range was an issue and so was misfiring. Perhaps in a less rush forward list it would do better but I don't think I'll be taking one without a Technical Expert in the future.

[librisrouge]

Oh, and one more thing: A lone Volley Gun without an Engineer sucks. I have now tried it in enough games to verify what I thought. Okay, losing it outright wasn't it's fault but range was an issue and so was misfiring. Perhaps in a less rush forward list it would do better but I don't think I'll be taking one without a Technical Expert in the future.

Yeah, I've got to agree with that. Against my better judgement I took one bare once (needed the points for something else) and it went from a highlight of the army to accomplishing nothing. The loss of shots (misfiring 50% of the time) and BS does a lot to negate that things benefits.

[Cursain]

Oh, and one more thing: A lone Volley Gun without an Engineer sucks. I have now tried it in enough games to verify what I thought. Okay, losing it outright wasn't it's fault but range was an issue and so was misfiring. Perhaps in a less rush forward list it would do better but I don't think I'll be taking one without a Technical Expert in the future.

Yeah, I've got to agree with that. Against my better judgement I took one bare once (needed the points for something else) and it went from a highlight of the army to accomplishing nothing. The loss of shots (misfiring 50% of the time) and BS does a lot to negate that things benefits.

I have to agree as well.  Many generals on this forum say two is better than one with an engineer.  They are simply wrong.

[Lord Solar Plexus]

Quite so. Pretty sure other people already vetted the theory about the Engineer + HBVG before but I just had to try it out in practice. Ironically, when we started a Mighty Empires campaign over the weekend, I had one such combination in one of my lists and it worked extremely well. Sure, this was in 1k and I usually pointed it at relatively weak targets but it was nevertheless very satisfying to just delete what I pointed it at. Chariot - dead, Mangler Squig - dead. Cool stuff.

[Cursain]

Quite so. Pretty sure other people already vetted the theory about the Engineer + HBVG before but I just had to try it out in practice. Ironically, when we started a Mighty Empires campaign over the weekend, I had one such combination in one of my lists and it worked extremely well. Sure, this was in 1k and I usually pointed it at relatively weak targets but it was nevertheless very satisfying to just delete what I pointed it at. Chariot - dead, Mangler Squig - dead. Cool stuff.

Yea, I'm starting a campaign this week as well.  I'm excited to see how well it works out over the course of all the games.

Wade

[Lord Solar Plexus]

Well, I started with a narrow victory (+112 points) over O & G and a massacre against VC, so I already like that campaign!  The best thing is: There are no Skaven! HE, DE, VC, O&G, DoC and me.