Topic: 2500 All Cav list vs VC

[kobahl]

First battle report here and only my 2nd battle with Empire. Trying to do a all cav list for the tourney scene in my area. Please not ehtis is what I hope to be a hard list. I play for fun but I also play to win. And from what I have scene of other tourney armies IE multiple MF's, WoC chariot/chimera/DP spam and others...I don't feel in the least bit off putting up this list..... So with that said hope you enjoy the report. I will be posting more games as I get them in.... Please forgive some proxies and unpainted units. Just picked up the army about a month ago and everything is a WIP.....

Game was against my friends VC list. I think his list was a average VC list. He had:

I think his Lord was L2- Your typical blender Lord-GW, red fury, +1,+4 saves..not sure what else....IoN and Vigor
WK- with GW
L4 Necro with parapit (store up to 2 dice) VC lore...IoN, Winds of death and 2 others
L2 with death.....Caress and ?

2 units of 20 ghouls w/ghast
2 units of 30 zombies
2 units of 5 direwolves

5 hexwraiths
6 BlK knights FC.....not sure if they had a magical banner. Lord and WK went here.

Mortis engine with tome
TerrorGheist

My list was:

Battle Lord Wiz L4: Talisman Preservation, dispel scroll, Pegasus  Shadow Lore.....  Miasma, withering, pendulum and enfeebling.
Luther Huss: 
Battle wizard L1: warhorse, power stone,   metal lore.....  Searing doom
Captain BsB:  Full plate, shield, lance, barded warhorse, Banner of steel 

2x 5 knights: Musician 
14 IC knights: FC,  banner of discipline- Luther and my BsB went here

6 pistoliers:  Outrider w/ reapeter pistol, musician 
3 DGK: standard, musician, flaming banner
4 DGK: standard, musician, Gleaming pennant 

2x Tank

Game was straight up fight, no special terrain..couple hills and couple forest. And 1 ruined building with a fence around it.
His set up was wolves-ghoul unit-more wolves-zombies-ME with ghoul unit in front-BK unit with TG behind and on his left flank the HW's.





From my left to right:

pistoliers- knights-knights-tank-DGK-tank-Cav unit-BWL behind cav-L1 on horse near house and right flank protected by 4 DGK.







We vanguarded up. He won the roll and moved his wolves over towards his right flank and the center wolves moved forward some. I moved my pistoliers towards his wolves on the flank.



Empire turn 1

Left tank generated 4 SP, 1 SP to move and moved towards the middle a little bit. Other tank suffered mishap and lost all his SP's. Cav moved up to the fence. So did my L1. My right flank DGK just moved up a little.

Magic was average and I was able to get of Miasma on his BK's and slow them down to M5

Shooting was ok. My pistoliers unloaded into the wolves and blew them to bits clearing the way for my knights next turn. My main target for my tank was his TG. I tried to put the shot thru his Lord too but it went just past him but fell short of the TG.





VC turn 1

On his right flank he moved his ghould unit to face my 2 khight units and the pistoliers. The center units all moved up a little. he wasn't sure what I could do with Empire so he was playing a little cautious. His ME gave everybody a +6 regen and his TG a 5+ regen. His HW's moved up thru the forest to it's edge sticking a little out.

He got a good magic phase and I let a couple IoN off but shut the rest down. I really didn't care if he raised zombies, I just didn't want anything else going off.





Empire turn 2:....CHARGE!!!!

On my left I charged a unit of knights into his ghoul unit. And I charged my center DGK into the wolves in the middle. Which would lead to a really nice overrun as you can see in the picture. Poor ghouls won't know what hit them. Charged mmy Cav int his HW's. I was hopeing to kill them with CR as I had nothing that could attack them. Left tank generated 4 SP and moved forward using 1 SP. My other tank suffered another mishap and took 2 wounds but had 6 SP. Moved moved with 3SP. Pistoliers and my other knight unit move up bhind the unit engaged with the ghouls. ANd my other DGK moves to the flank of the HW's.

Magic was decent. I got off pendulum but fell short on the roll to reach his TG. I got off searing doom on his BK unit which he decided to gamble and let thru which would turn out to be a big mistake. Rolled a 6 on hits and wiped out the whole unit leaving just his 2 characters. And I was ablt to get of enfeebling foe off on the Lord and WK dropping their S by 3. Which will turn out to be big for me.

Shooting was great. First tank shoots and wounds the TG. Roll a 6 for wounds!! one dead TG! That gunner sure earned a barrel of rum!. So now my other tank who was lined up to hit the TG could only pu a shot across the WK. And just over shot him by a 1/4 inch. Pistoliers had no target.

Combat saw my DGK going first and they had the flaming banner and tore thru the wolves and overran right into the next combat the the knights and ghouls who were going to fight!! So my DGK went first and negated their regen, killed some. My knights units failed their fear test and only killed a couple. He rolled crazy for poison and ended up causing 10 wounds out of 15 attacks on my knights. But I only failed 1. So I killed 9 ghouls and with CR he lost by 11. Wiped out the whole unit. Knights overran into the side of the zombie bunker and the DGK reformed facing the flank of the center ghoul unit. And my Cav vs his HW's he was able to kill 2 knights so I only won combat by 2 so cumbled 2 of them.

Before combat:





After combat:







Things were not looking good for the VC. With his right flank completely gone, TG gone, and BK's gone he knew he was done but we figured let's play it out one more turn or so for fun.

He charged his Lord and WK into the flank of the Cav bus. And in magic he casted Winds of deth vortex and got it off with IF. But it only put ta wound on my DGK unit. And he killed a couple of his own ghouls. His ME aura was only able to hit my knight unit in combat with his zombie bunker but my armor was to tough to take any wounds. With his Lords and WK's S reduced to 4 he wasn't able to hurt my knights and that was pretty much that. He took some crumble wounds and we called it there. Next turn my tank would have charged the WK's flank and with what I would have done to him, a charge and flank, and with the CR from the cav unit he would have been toast. Here are the end game pics:







End game report.

So I really liked how fast I was able to get around and clear his flank with my knight units and pistoliers. I got lucky killing his TG in one shot but I did have another lined up if the first one failed. I'm really wanting to try this list against my hordish armies and see how well it will hold up in grind matches. I think a all Cav list has some nice potential. Look forward to trying it out against some other armies. Hope you enjoyed the read and any comments are welcome.....

[sammay23]

Nice job with charges in turn 2! Setting up the DGs to overrun into the ghouls was very nice.

Awesome first game with the all-cav list. Anything you wish you had done differently? Looks like your big unit of DGs got a bit cramped on the right. Was that the case?

[kobahl]

I don't think I would have done anything differently. My center and left flank were tough so I really had no place to put the bigger DGK unit and thought they would be great to secure the right flank. And when I killed the TG there weren't many targets for them to engage. If we continued the game I would have brought them thru the forest an engaged his zombie unit on the left side of his ME. With the lack of space he had he could not have reformed them deep so I think I could have gotten a flank on them. And that would have tore them up. And yeah the combo charge on the other ghouls unit was great. Pretty much cemented the loss of his flank and then the center was in big trouble with my smaller DGK looking at the flank of his last ghoul unit and my other tank in the front. I had to be careful with my L4 as I could see the danger of him being screamed at by the TG. One good scream and a couple failed saves could have killed him in one turn.

I like my magic selection of shadow and a L1 with metal. Shadow really helped to limit the damage I would have taken from his Lord and WK in the flank of my knight units. Shadow just has so many threat spells and against armies with +1 saves the searing doom spell will be golden.

All in all I like the list. I want to really try it out against bigger infantry units to see how well the list will grind out bigger horde type units.

[sammay23]

Opponents that I haven't had the chance to play yet with all-cav: O&G and Skaven, both of whom have excellent options for foiling all-cav strategies. I'm looking for some games, but haven't found one yet. Those will both, I think, be good tests.

[kobahl]

I have friends who play both those armies so I hope to get in a game with them. And the O&G player has been working on his 2500 tourney list which has a dominate magic phase with a Aracnorok spider with a upgraded dream net thing that allows wizards within 12" to channel on a 4 up I think. And he runs 5 wizards. So he is always having more dice usually in both phases. But the spider is the linch pin to his army. So if my cannons can take of it I think the list will fall apart. I think we have to the tools too deal with the WoC spam that is now taking over the tourney scene. One reason I included a metal wizard.

[Martin123]

well played on some terrible choices by your opponent.

first of all his list is pretty rubbish for a vc list, while your is very strong for an empire list. and why do you let searing doom go off on your main unit, and why did he not dispel enfeebling foe? but inteased cast the rubbish vortex....

you did things which i struggle to do...combo charge i never get them to work lol, its either i roll double 1 for the overrun, or dont line them up correctly.

You will have no worries vs the Orc and goblin aracnorok list, tell him run double doom diver, double mangler, and 4 pump wagons which ignore armour saves on charge, then you will have a challange .

[kobahl]

Well...lol....he does run double mangler, 4 boltthrowers and a doomdiver in the list also.

And we did talk over whether he should let searing doom thru.....he knew it was a gamble and he wanted to keep his dice for other spells he knew I was going to cast. I rolled a 11 for PD and channeled 1 so I had a lot of dice to play with. But yeah, he agreed afterwards he shouldn't have taken the gamble and just scrolled it. With the choices I had for spells and prayers and 12 dice you really have to say.."Well, what do I want to let thru?"

[Aineias The Scarred]

In any case, gambling or not, you should never let searing doom be casted on your 1+AS character bunker. It's like takin a kick on your balls to avoid a nose pinch...

Also, do you feel confortable with your BSB only counting on his 1+ AS for defense? I like the rest of your list... Are the 2 units of 5x Knights armed with lance + shield or GWs?

[Martin123]

Well...lol....he does run double mangler, 4 boltthrowers and a doomdiver in the list also.

And we did talk over whether he should let searing doom thru.....he knew it was a gamble and he wanted to keep his dice for other spells he knew I was going to cast. I rolled a 11 for PD and channeled 1 so I had a lot of dice to play with. But yeah, he agreed afterwards he shouldn't have taken the gamble and just scrolled it. With the choices I had for spells and prayers and 12 dice you really have to say.."Well, what do I want to let thru?"

but really searing doom is the must stop spell, so he made a massive error, i dont even why he thought it was a good idea not to dispel it not worth the risk
4 pump wagons much better then bolt throwers at killing demi's and 1 doom diver is not a problem, if he takes double of them and double rock lobber you will be lucky to get to him alive

[kobahl]

So far I have been running them with lance and shield for the armor save. I've seen the debate between running them with lance or GW's so I'm plan to see how well they do and keep the choice open.

As for running my BsB I am a little bit nervous with just the armor save but I figure if I really need a better save I can always try and push my WP prayer thru. And I really like him running with the steel banner. But I could give up the banner and give him a 5+ ws. Still up on the fence on that one. And I think in my next game I will run my L4 on a warhorse instead of the pegasus. I can use the points saved and get 2 more regular knights and run him in with them. I can always run him out of the unit and keep him near for a LoS roll and he still has good mobility. I think there is just too much danger on the Peg with warmachines and the like and no LoS roll. Hope to get another game in tomorrow so I'll let people now how it goes.

[SevenSins]

Nicely done by the all cav, and a tough matchup for those poor bloodsuckers. Lots of 1+ can seem daunting to many

A minor thing when you crumbled the ghouls you can't overrun, but otherwise everything seemed to be going well

2 stanks though? Get a battle altar

[kobahl]

Check the latest FAQ. They did a 180 on the whole overrun after crumbling. You can do it now.

I would rather have 2 mobile cannons on the field instead of just 1.