Mark's WIP Empire army, soon to be painted in the outstanding Ostermark (purple/yellow) colour scheme received an almost mind boggling NCM of +3 (mind boggling in that I supposed it might get more and *gasp* even be thought of as fluffy!
Mark had:
Templar General with the Sword of That Guy is Dead Meat on a Stick Mate (Sword of Fate - important later...)
Mounted BSB
Wizzo with accursed Burning Head-toting bound item
Fluffy Engineer with Hochland (which was never shot because he was to busy firing off), Pigeon Bombs (which were apparently devastating in a couple of previous games)
The General was leading a unit trying for "Worst Deathstar Ever" award - 8 Knights of the White Wolf (aka Knights of teh Suck) - full command
Helblaster (Engineer goes here for Ballistic Skill funtimes)
5 Pistoliers that looked an awful lot like mine...
The rest of the army was 3 HUGE (30-strong) blocks of Swords/Spears/Halberds with a 15-strong detachment each of Halberds or Swordsmen (that is to say, no shooting troops).
Of great concern (in the grand scheme of things) was the "Deathstar" of GW-wielding Knights. With static 4 (rank, outnumber - possibly, banner, BSB) and some likely kills it was more than a danger to my fragile and mostly unskilled infantrymen.
Deployment was most amusing - the two Pistolier units hid from each other at opposite ends of the board (the premise being that he who gets shot first, dies first), the infantry lined up against each other for some informal playground bullrush and the Knights tried desperately to wait till the last minute to out-deploy the opposing hitty-smashy Knight unit. Fortunately I had more crap than Mark and managed to get the jump on his Knights by placing mine slightly to the flank of his so if they went for the guts of my army they would be hit (moderately hard) in the flank (the Flagellents initially moved to make this happen) by the Reiksguard. I placed by own GW-Knights on the opposite flank (mostly so that they didn't get any traitorous stirrings and nip off to join the opposition!).
Thanks to a handily located forest the Huntsmen rather adeptly ambushed the Pistoliers before smacking into the Helblaster (after the Cannon failed to take it out despite a palpable first turn hit). It took them a couple of turns (and one LUCKY break test at -2) but they eventually did for the Engineer and his apprentice buddies and kept themselves alive for the rest of the game.
The GW-Knights (mine) hid behind the aforementioned forest for 4 turns facing the flank of the enemy infantry. Their patience was rewarded when they got a flank charge on a block of Halberdiers who were engaged against the Swordsmen, Their charge was enough to break the resolve of the enemy and allowed everyone to pursue happily off into the sunset, avoiding a last turn charge by what was left of the rather disgruntled Templar Master and his 3 surviving mates. So how did the Knights end up in that position?
Well! Mark advanced rather cautiously, painfully aware of the Knights on his flank and the Flagellents lurking with a great lack of subtlety just itching to pin him down. Unfortunately for him this allowed my Pistoliers to have a field day sitting behind them and casually riddling 4 with bullets before they were even close to seeing some action (the long-term issue with this Deathstar was that with the Templar General tagging along they were Immune to Psychology and therefore couldn't panicked by a bit of shot and cannon). Mark had carefully explained how the Sword of Fate works and, being the lucky nominated target, my General was rather reticent to go anywhere near the unit (wounding on 2+, D3 wounds, no armour saves... good grief. He sounds like a bloody Vampire!). However this also meant I might be able to tempt the Templar out with a solo charge. The Wizard (Mr Suicide - TM) had the privelege of giving this a go first and succeeded in luring out the BSB. The Empire General took his chance - solo charging the BSB! He managed to dispatch his foe over two rounds combat, leaving just enough time to courageously bury himself in the Reiksguard formation as they turned to face the enemy knights, tempting them to charge. And charge they did! The brave Reiksguard Champion accepted the Templar Grand Master's challenge and survived. I lost a knight but somehow mananged to take two down in return (Hatred being the telling factor in this little skirmish). In the end the White Wolves were down by 3 and broke but sadly I failed to catch them (a turn of the dice I greatly lamented at the end of the game).
That's how they ended up on the other side of the battlefield :)
The Flagellents eventally contacted a giant Spear unit while the nearby Reiksguard Knights obliterated the Spear unit's hapless detachment in a fantastic display of overkill. The Flagellents died to a man - literally - only the Prophet of Doom survived the battle.
Mark's highly annoying Wizard was firing off Burning Heads left, right and centre. The last straw was when he managed to panic the Reiksguard (containing the Priest and General and holding two enemy standards). With one turn left to rally I was lucky to make the rally check and they ended up safe as houses behind a nice big forest, holding on tight to all those juicy victory points.
Totalling up the enormous amount of casualties I was both relieved and somewhat frustrated to end up with a 16-4 win (if only I had caught those blasted Knights and the General!). It was a great end to the tournament and Mark was a gracious opponent who I thought took a really soft army (even the "Deathstar" was soft... as Deathstar's go) and played well with limited resources at his disposal. He was happy to admit his OTT list (complete with Ludwig Schwartzenegger... or whatever his name is) was quite a bit harder and I held him in high esteem for giving this event a go with a largely infantry-based Empire list (especially a Templar Grand Master who, positioned on the flank, meant his infantry were all leadership 7!).
So the 16-4 put me just short of halfway - 58 out of 120 battle points :/
The next couple of posts will be my thoughts on the event, reflections on the performance of my Empire army and a look at my 2250pt list as I prepare for the next great event - Nationals at Easter (8 games! Woo-hoo!) which is only 5 and a bit weeks away! Yay!!!
* Do you know my cousin? His name is Hans.
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