As Trent said in a recent episode of A Dogs Breakfast, one of the great things about playtesting a list in a friendly game (i.e. outside of a competitive tournament envrionment when fame and pride are on the line) is you have the opportunity to try things you would otherwise not normally do. Usually this involves playing the odds attempting a risky manouevre that could pay dividends if it works but if it doesn't will most likely hamstring you for the rest of the game without significant luck or uber-generalship coming to your rescue.
I was able to implement a risky manouevre against Asian Nick* last night in what looked to be a close game but resulted in a win to me by a little over 500Vps (I'm finding most FluffyCon games to be close - rarely are we seeing 20-0 massacre wins and the reduced participation of uber-characters and units - and VCs and Daemons - is really levelling the playing field enormously). The highly experimental risk was charging a unit of Slaves with the Reiksguard Knights accompanied by the Warrior Priest (Slaves fled) and in turn allowing them to be charged by a unit of Plague Censer Bearers. Ordinarily (in fact, in this game too) this is suicide. PCBs force every model in base contact to take a toughness test which if failed results in a wound with no armour save. Then each PCB gets a terrible amount of Frenzied, Hate-filled str5 attacks. Things pretty much went pear-shaped as I lost 5 Knights but in return 3 of Nick's Bearers gassed themselves to death and the surviving Knight (Warbanner-toting Standard Bearer) and Priest accounted for 2 more. The remaining PCBs broke and were run down but unfortunately the damage was done - I had 2 cav models remaining and the whole point of the exercise was to have at least 3 leaving me with the crucial unit strength of 5 to cancel ranks. The plan was to bust through to the Skaven rear with a US5 unit and get a rear charge on either the Warlord's Clanrats or the BSBs Plaguemonks (who went on to cause horrific problems for me). Ok, the plan backfired and although the remaining models survived the game (just) I was still pleased to have given it a go - had it worked out Nick would have had major problems sorting them out and keeping his units safe. The other benefit is this would have allowed a strongish force to get at those cowardly Skaven characters hiding at the back of their units.
The Rat Ogres saw combat in this game, charging the Swordsmen with Empire General. I held just to make things interesting - usually the Rat Ogres have run away and never see combat, so I was interested to see what they could do. With a massive number of attacks the Rat Ogres only lost the opening combat by 1 but with some superior armour saving and skill lost the next round by enough to break. They rallied and took a charge from the Swords and Reiksguard/Priest, broke and were run down which carried both of my units to safety.
The Spearmen saw off a Clanrat block and two units of Slaves but Nick cleverly retreated his Jezzails to prevent them from being charged in my last turn - keeping them alive a far more valuable prospect than shooting at the full strength Spear block.
The Wizard was pretty hopeless, mostly because he was stuck on a flank away from the units I wanted to fry with magic missiles (Poison Wind Globadiers and Gutter Runners).
The MVP of the match without any doubt was the Mortar. It spent two turns raining death on Slaves before turning it's attention to two units of Clanrats who were getting close to charging it. It managed over three turns to cause BOTH units to panic and they never rallied. This also caused a nearby Ratling Gun to flee the board. Nick was beyond frustrated at my incredibly good fortune and the stunning Empire artillerymen managed to earn their points back almost 6 times. Outstanding work chaps! Compare this to the cannon - almost devoid of useful targets against a Skaven army and misfiring constantly - and this was definitely the unit of the match.
Incidentally, I forgot to deploy an entire unit. Again. Yep, the good old Huntsmen didn't see the pitch once more. Sheesh. What an embarassment!
* much like "Phils" and "Daves" there seems to be a preponderance of "Nicks" in Warhammer. To clear this up for future blog entries:
- Asian Nick - Engineering Master (Master of Thesis Extension that is) Nicholas Ng who plays Skaven (regular opponent, figures probabilities by means of an internal calculator, yet to beat me at Warhammer, given to bizarre diagulous diversions at the most inopportune moments mid-game)
- CSS Nick - Captain Soft Score Nick Irvine who plays Wood Elves (I've only played this Nick once a LONG time ago when I borrowed Antony's Dwarfs to learn how to play Warhammer. Nick's been hiding from me ever since)
- Venerable and Ancient Nick - the wise and cynical Nick Buckby who in his time may very well have played every army in existence and some that no longer exist (who I've played a couple of times - smashed his Woodies 19-1 at Fields of Blood then my Dwarfs took a pounding from his recently acquired Orcs and Gobbos at Doug's Farewell)
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