Well it went OKAY.
We played a scenario where the central hill is worth 250 vps to claim, otherwise normal vps. I claimed the hill, but at a steep cost, and lost by 330 vps.
I took your advice, and dropped the war priest for a bsb and I'm happy with that. I also took the rod instead of the scrolls. I think I should have not bothered being lv2, and taken more men in the detachments instead. I was only able to cast one spell all game.
The table was a little narrow, and had a swamp and forest in each deployment zone, along with the central (vision blocking) hill.
Deployment wise, I went nilla knights, xbows (in swamp), cannon, sneaky pistoliers behind, spearmen with halbardies on left, swordies with FC on right, but back a bit, Inner circle knights in front of them. Huntsmen forced to be a screen as I lost the scouts rolloff. Then cannon, ogres in woods, and handgunner outside.
That was facing off against Cold ones, dark riders, xbows in woods, 10 cosairs, 10 witch elves, 20 spearmen, 10 executioners, 20 spearmen, march, dark riders. And more dark riders behind the woods.
My cannons were firing water balloon, and I think killed a total of 3 spearmen, 1 dark rider, and 1 cold one knight, having hit about twice that, but rolling a heck of a lot of ones. I even got a direct hit on the ballista but no damage.
I made a mistake wheeling the handgunners a little bit too much when they moved up, and he could sneak the dark riders out of the arc. I thought that was too far, but they could conca line on the board edge. That unit played with the handgunners all game, and didn't have much impact.
Ogres moved up slowly, editing the woods at the end of T2. I moved most of my dudes behind the hill, but my knights stuck out a little, and got cut in half by magic and shooting. Those three remaining knights still had a large impact later though.
xbows managed to hurt the cosairs, and then the witch elves before getting shot to bits by the opposing crossbows.
I was neither agressive enough, nor cautious enough with my nilla knights on the left flank. I moved them up T1, and the enemy cold ones failed their stupidity check the next turn, but remained out of range due to how I wheeled I think. I did charge the dark riders (with wizard), who fled, and I was just two inches off of redirecting into the crossbows. But I fled the cold ones charge, and hoped to rally, but instead ran off the table on my next turn with a impressive high roll for both leadership and flee distance.
The pistoliers popped out and shot the crap out of the witch elves, leaving 3 left, and countercharged the weakened cosairs' flank after the halbard detachment fled, and killed them, but were shot to death, and run down by dark riders.
The spearmen got on the hill, killed the witch elves, and stood next to the knights, but when the knights got charged by the executioners, the spearmen got touched onthe flank and we lined up. The executioners did nothing, and the magic war banner helped me not lost combat. Next turn the swordsmen charged the executioners flank and we won combat. The knights ran them down while the infantry held, and the knights pursued all the way bast the elven spearmen over to the right flank.
The FC were covering the swordsmen's flank, and took a charge from a large block of spearmen, and got crushed and run down, but angled them away from my flank, where the spearmen just killed my cannon and ended up in the woods.
The other block of spearmen had the sorceress lord / general, and she charged into my spearmen's front while casting word of pain. But miscast and ended up with a 5, meaning that all my attacks against her auto hit. I had both the BSB and 3 spearmen attack her, and rolled four 1s and two 2s to wound the unarmoured prone enemy general. FAIL. They did run though, but as we had the griffon standard, we had to stand our ground and then let her rally and charge us again T6. If that had killed her, I would have won.
The elves basically played keep away and shot me a bunch for the rest of it. The ogres didn't have a chance to engage. The spearmen block they were targeting went some 20" with a charge and overrun and I never had a chance to charge them.
The last remaining IC knight did kill a balista crew on his own though, and didn't die, so he got his points back no problem.
I think I could have done better. My pegasus got shot to bits as there was little terrain other than the hill, but maybe he could have stayed back a few more turns. Still if the cannon killed their balista after shooting it, maybe it would have been better.
