Asian Nick is out for my blood - he wants the win and last night (Wednesday) he damn near almost got it. Our rematch from Monday ended up being a draw 93VPs in his favour - a really close game indeed!
As is becoming habit I'm using the playtesting games to try new (for me) and usually stupid things with the Empire. This time I weighted one flank with the infantry and the other with the cavalry and artillery. Yeah - that'll work. In fact it might have gone ok if my Reiksguard Knights (and General) hadn't panicked right off the board when the Hunstmen fled through them. That's right, I finally remembered to deploy the Huntsmen and look what it got me! The Pistoliers survived long enough to take out the Jezzails (just) before dying to poisoned globes of green gassy death but the eventual death of the Huntsmen left the Great Cannon facing off against the full strength Plague Monks and Plague Censer Bearers. On the positive side, with the additional sacrifice of the GW-Knight unit it kept the awful Plague Monks out of the centre.
Combined with some good luck and the quite frankly awesome Mortar of Impending Panic Checks I managed to turn the game. This time the Rat Ogres panicked away (thank-you Burning Head) along with almost two Clanrat units (the BSBs unit panicked but managed to rally, the other fled the board). Taking on the Flagellents the Skaven General's Clanrat unit took a right beating and broke. I failed to catch them but miraculously they also failed to rally in the last turn, panicking off the Globadiers into the bargain and essentially securing me the draw.
On the other flank the Swordsmen felt the wrath of an operational Ratling Gun, losing 10 men in one round of shooting! They eventually took a charge from the full-strength Giant Rats who fluffed trememdously, lost by one and were run down in the last turn. Nice.
Pretty much everything else survived although I lost the Wizard (fled a charge and failed to rally) and the suicidal Warrior Priest who at one point (after beating on some passing Gutter Runners) took on a unit of Slaves and the General's Clanrats (in his flank) singlehandedly. The stupid git failed both of the 2+ saves he was required to make and died to a Slave's rusty blade. Good job - loser.
Anyway, maybe next time I won't try experimenting with deployment in weird and not so wonderful ways when I play Nick. He's really getting the hang of the Ratties and I'm just pushing my luck too far with stupid play.
In the post-battle discussion Nick expressed his dismay at the difficulty he has reacting to the opponent when he encounters a scenario he's never experienced - essentially a difficulty with improvising and formulating a plan when some surprising happens. This is clearly something that one develops over time with more play and experience (I readily admit I too am learning about this still) but I thought more about this later and really, does anyone ever really improvise? If you encounter a situation in Warhammer that you've never experienced maybe you don't improvise as such but rather draw relationship to a similar experience and just alter your reaction based on that and the differences to the experienced situation.
Or not. Maybe the most experienced generals have just seen it all and nothing surprises them any more.
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