3 games, 3 wins; 4 half games, mixed bag

More on the "half games" shortly.


The exceedingly talented and generous Nick Ng, having put together my custom movement trays as only an OCD Engineering Master can dropped them off last week and also dropped himself off for a game. This time a much more consistent and focused list with some familiar choices. Nick fielded:

Seer - Skalm, 2 Scrolls
BSB Chieftain - Warpstone Armour (reflects saved wounds)
Plague Priest - Pendant (5+ ward), Furnace

24 Clanrats - FC and Doomflayer
Same again
24 Stormvermin - FC, Warbanner
6 Giant Rats/Packmaster
Same again
20 Slaves - Muso
Again
Again
... Again
5 Gutter Runners - Slings

25 Plaguemonks - Standard, Banner of triple marching badness
7 Censers
Same again

Doomwheel
Warp Lightning Cannon



The game was characterised by magic - or rather the fact that neither of us could go a magic phase without miscasting at least once. In fact Nick miscast twice in two turns! First up I lost Wind of Undeath and a level. Then Nick took a wound. Then I gave him a free spell (fecking Scorch). Then he lost Warp Lightning. At this point I resorted to micro-casting out of sheer paranoia. Nick went on to lose Death Frenzy and Scorch - at the end of the game he was left with a Level 2 Seer with the highly threatening Skitterleap!

Painful experience (both my own and watching other games) suggests it's "bad" to let the Furnace rumble you wherever it wants so priority one was locking down that unit in combat in the flank. Nick and I went through our usual cagey opening turns of the Varghulf trying to catch the Censers and the Slaves getting in the way and being a right pain in the arse. A solo charge from my General into one unit of Censer Bearers caught Nick off-guard, they were butchered (partly by themselves from gas attacks) and the Vamp Boss overran behind a hill, forcing the Warp Lightning Cannon to flee (but just manage to stay on the table). The other Censer Bearers (derived of the Vampire General - Nick was hoping to stay in the first combat thanks to being Stubborn in close proximity to the Plaguemonks) went into the Varghulf - they 1/2 gassed themselves to death and the Varghulf ate the rest, chasing off the Doomflayers and copping a Doomwheel in his side for his troubles.

The Plaguetrain got clear of this mess and charged some Skellies but got bogged down. The Grave Guard and Wraiths needed no further invitation and spent the rest of the game chewing through the unit, finally killing the last of them in the final combat. The Doomwheel, having eaten the Varghulf in a couple of rounds (I got lucky with some Regen from shooting), hit the Grave Guard who were overhanging from the Monks but got soundly thrashed and fled. Freshly charged by another Skeleton unit it was beaten and caught.

The Strigoi Knights spent 3 very embarassing turns (6 rounds of combat) against one unit of Slaves who refused to be hit, die or flee. In the last turn, with the Stormvermin having hit the overhanging Grave Guard they went into the front and caused immense damage, chasing off that unit and capturing two standards.

After mucking around on the other flank the Unbarded Knights charged the Gutter Runners, fluffed, and were chopped from the saddle in reply!


End-game and Nick had the two Clanrat units, some Slaves and the Gutter Runners still going where I'd lost some Skellies, Wolves, Unbarded Knights and the Varghulf. A fairly convincing 15-5 win again characterised by dodgy dice in the magic phase.



Friday night and some of the lads got together at Ray's for a probably final stoush before DogCon. I drew Ray's Dark Elves first up. Winning first turn I motored across the field hell for leather. The cheeky Manticore tempted in my Unbarded Knights and I clocked up a Killing Blow, running down the poor Manti-Cow at the end of the combat. A buffed unit of Zombies held against the charge of two Cold One Chariots (one Zombie survived!) allowing the General and a unit of Skellies to get in and break them both, pursue into some Spearmen and cut them to ribbons.

We called the game at the end of turn 4 with the unharmed Varghulf about the eat the last Bolt Thrower and the last unit of Shades about to take a magical charge from the Vampire General and some Dire Wolves.

I think Ray was quite surprised at how fast the army moved - he had basically two turns to act. Not quite managing to get the Zombies really propelled my Skeletons and General into his stuff (the overrun to the Spearmen saved me a turn of movement).

On the table next to us Reid was taking on Paul Davison's Skaven. All looked in control until a cleverly rallied unit of Giant Rats allowed a Plaguetrain to charge some Ghouls and the Vampire General. Winning by 10 or so the whole unit (and character) exploded and it was downhill from there. We switched tables and I got ready to play Skaven. Again.


Paul's list had three interesting features.

1) Hell Pit Abomination. Good to face one because I don't have an immediate answer in my list (no Flaming Attacks etc)

2) Slaves with Slings (lots of shots at close range!)

3) Four casters = crapload of magic


I took a hammering from magic as expected and the game eventually came down to a charge from the Grave Guard and some Wolves into the flank of the HPA. I won on static res and of course Paul failed the Stubborn test. Great - solution to the HPA? Dumb luck. Nice.

The Plaguetrain (yes this list had one as well) was tackled by the Varghulf and Wraiths in the flank and eaten up.

The big surprise (for Paul) was one surviving Grave Guard model (with the Warbanner), the BSB and the General slingshotting into his Clanrats bunkering the Seer. One short and very brutal round of combat later and the Seer was a pile of blood soaked rags on the floor and the rats were off. This placed me in the unfortunate position of getting my General flank-charged by some Censer Bearers. True to form of the four that could attack 3 gassed themselves to death and the last one missed or failed to wound. The Vampire didn't miss and this caused a wandering Warlock to Panic off the board.

Last straw was the Doomwheel (yes there was one of those TOO!) charging the untouched Strigoi Knights on a hill in the last turn, causing NO wounds with either shooting OR combat, breaking and being run down.


It's a game of skill.



Half Games


Monday and Tuesday night Reid and I lined up against each other for a couple of half games - 3 turns of play and some theoryhammering of how the battle has gone up to that point.

I was up first playing a spam-casting WoC list with ASF Giant and mostly Slanneshi-marked stuff. The Giant was giving me a headache and I deployed the Wraiths poorly due to all the magic missile death bearing down on them. At the end of turn three I had one flank and the centre sewn up - some Khorne Ogres baited into Wolves overrunning into the Wraiths, and a chariot only having Wraiths as a charging option. On my right though two units of Knights and the Giant looked to be ready to eat the Varghulf and take on my General and a Skellie block. Very iffy game and the WoC list played well with a very efficient magic phase.

The second half-game was against a hellish Dark Elf list with 8PD and more shooting than you can throw a Wood Elf at. Simply awful. I belted forward with no other options. Lost the Varghulf early due to a stupid unsupported move that saw him get shot up. Managed a charge on the Hydra with the Grave Guard but couldn't break it and sucked down a flank charge from RXB Elves. Took them a while but they were getting through the Grave Guard nicely.

Elsewhere I had the Chariots in combat with Unbarded Knights and the Wraiths but it wasn't very convincing.

Tough list and the next night we resolved to turn the tables.


Game one using the Warriors against Reid's Vampires. A fun list for sure, especially when Pandemonium goes off and your Nurgle Sorcerer is pretending to be a magical stone thrower shelling Black Knights. I was cramped by a forest so after baiting the Black Knights in with some Slanneshi Knights (who fled) I hit them with Khorne Ogres but only contacted with two. The Giant and Chariot combo-charged into a Ghoul block but weren't coming up aces and Bats were annoying the hell out of my other Knights. On the flip side it certainly wasn't all going the Vampire's way and giving the comp break the Warriors get I felt pretty good about where things ended up.

Game two and I was relishing breaking out this horrific Dark Elf army. I had this one in the bag until two Ghouls charging the Hydra turned into 21 Ghouls charging the Hydra. Hydra fluffs and gets run down along with some RXBs who flee 3 inches. Varghulf also had the Dark Elf BSB and some more RXBs sorted. Good news though was that while this was going on the two chariots had broken through Zombies in one turn and come round the back of the Vampire General's unit. Faced with that threat the unit had to turn around and couldn't Van Hel's because it was too busy repairing casualties. We stopped the game before the charge went off but two Chariots and some magical goodness like Word of Pain and/or Steal Soul could have spelt doom for the Vampire army. Great fun and a learning experience for both of us in terms of an army we'd like to NOT face at DogCon :)


Heading off on Tuesday. The army is nearly finished (at least to a reasonable standard - won't be winning any awards; we'll leave that to Phil). Hoping to get some games in against the local.

There's also the small and insignificant matter of thrashing the Aussies in the Warhammer Bledisloe on Saturday night. Can't see us breaking a sweat against the B-Team led by the White Weasel Denison. Check out this thread for a fun discussion - Sledgehammer (http://www.wargamerau.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=86897)

Why not Ghouls?

I've been asked why I've taken Skeletons over Ghouls. Here are the reasons:

- Skellies "comp" better than Ghouls due to a perceived difference in their awesomeness

Ghouls are mad good for 8 points. Toughness 4, 2 (!) poisoned attacks each, as easy to raise as Skellies and of course you can get the Raise Ghouls power for more fun. Plus Ghoulkin if you want to be really dirty. By comparison the poor little bony dudes get a 4+ save from hand weapon/shield in combat and the ability to take a unit standard.

So Ghouls are better overall (assumed casualties caused might outweigh the pros - and cons - of a unit standard) in most scenarios. They give big stuff the willies (eat Giants for breakfast with the poisoned attacks). Given the horror that is the rest of my list I felt Skellies would be a more reasonable choice. I've gone the 'wall of bone' option - hit combat and grind while looking for strike options with faster stuff on the flanks.


- Skellies can take magic standards which might be important later on (I plan on sticking with Vampires long-term so will continue collecting and diversifying my lists)

This actually came up as a strong potential for DogCon - give a unit of Skellies the Flaming attacks banner or the extra combat res for 4 ranks banner. The point of the Flaming banner is not to give the Skeletons Flaming attacks. It's to give the Vampires bunkering in the unit Flaming attacks!


- I bought a bunch of Skellies

At NatCon earlier this year there was a lot of stuff on sale and the bring and buy and I picked up a LOT of Skeleton models from various ranges and editions. Made sense to go with Skeletons from a financial standpoint.


- I hate the Ghoul models

The most pressing issue - I don't like the look of the Ghoul models. I have no doubt I'll paint some Ghouls up at some point but it won't be the GW ones which means I'll have to look around (hard) for something appropriate. Definitely not in a hurry to do that when I've got so much more on the painting table after DogCon (Blood Knights, Corpse Cart, more Zombies, more characters, Winged Nightmare/Abyssal Terror).