There's not been much time to put stuff up on the blog or the web over the last few months, but I've still managed to pack in lots of gaming. Last week at the club I played in a Warhammer doubles game, playtesting the format for the upcoming doubles tournament. Players were allowed 2000 pts a man, giving us 4000 pt armies to face off against each other. Part of the idea behind it is to produce unusual playing situations, so we plan to ignore the usual rules for allies. Consequently, my Vampire Counts alliance with Robert's Empire army (my enthralled stirgany minions, clearly - denial is the first step to acceptance, Robert) squared up against an alliance of Craigs Orcs and Goblins and Angus' Woodies.
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| In a gesture of friendship towards their new allies, the goblins offered to help the tree fairies with some gardening. |
I knew this would be a tough one before we even began. Robert has proven himself to be passing decent as a general, but said his army was going to be absolutely tiny for an Empire force. I'd have to hold the weight of Craig's inevitable massive Orc bus. I'd played Craig once before, during last year's league, and it wasn't pretty. I didn't really make much of a dent if memory serves. Allied to this, he had the most bastardy, nimbly pimbly crackshot missile troops in those Wood Elves to back him up. It seemed like a nightmare combo! Both their armies were pretty much everything mine wasnt. Robert had gone gun line, so our (really bloody) sketchy plan was for me to tar pit them whilst he shot them to pieces.
Over the years I have observed that Robert has mastered just about every aspect of the game to make himself the 'complete' player. Part of that is being a cunning bastard. I arrived at the club to find that he'd already set up the table and that surprise, surprise it had no trees :-) Well done mate! Today, the woodies would fight in the desert! As both armies setup, it quickly became clear both sides were massing their troops at the same end of the table. The bulk of my army would be in the grinder, with Robert's artillery on the hill behind us. Opposite me was the orc bus, a 100 strong single mob of Gobbos about 20 ranks deep (!), two banks of woody archers, wardancers, dryads and doom divers. To hold this I had smartprice soft cheese with a couple of tangy olives chucked in. 60 zombies, 40 zombies, 30 ghouls led by a fighty vampire hero, and my blender lord at the head of 24 grave guard. Robert chucked down his stank at the centre of it to add a bit of backbone, or so we hoped.
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| The Wood Elves and their trusted greenskinned allies were surprised to find themselves fighting for their lives one evening in the deserts of Arabia... |
The opposite wing had our cavalry. Robert's detachment of 5 outriders, 15 inner circle knights led by an elector count with a runefang (faced that before and he is damn scary. Nice he was on my side this time!), a L4 firemage on foot - alone (!) - 3 demigryph knights and my 4 bloodknights led by a fighty vampire hero, protected by the banner of blood keep to keep the doomdivers and woody archers off. Opposite them, they faced a treeman, a unit of skirmishing dryads, 5 spirithost gladeriders (I didn't know either - turned out they were just shitey fast cav) and a rock lobber. Our bold plan was for the bulk of my army to tarpit them and fix them in place whilst our cavalry wing swept all aside, rolled up their flank and arrived in the nick of time to smash into their infantry's exposed rear. As with any VC player relying on zombies to do a job, I had grave misgivings (heh,heh) about what would be left when the cavalry got there...
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| The squishy horde set off to get thumped, whilst controversially this time the Empire handgunners on the hill actually dont unload a storm of lead into their rotting husks. Its a crazy world we live in. |
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| A selection of the views of the steam tank by my nearby ghouls and zombies. No action shots of its demise could be found as everyone nearby died. Next time the empire boys should perhaps give the NOz a miss and stick to shoveling coal. |
The early turns were a waiting game for us on the 'grinder flank'. I tried my best to get the zombies to block the foot of the hill from Angus' advancing wardancers and dryads, whilst the rest spread to form a line between the manor house and the hillside. Roberts gunners on the hill did their best to chip away, his cannon notably scoring long range hits to wipe out a doom diver and ding four wounds off the treeman. On the cavalry flank, the gladeriders jinked past the demigryphs, leaving them taking the long way round to loop towards the greenskin artillery up the back. My bloodknights failed their charge on the dryads, but Roberts knights got there and made short work of them. They then reformed and the elector bagged the treeman with his sexy sword. It always stumps me how cheap empire characters are yet often how dangerous they can be...
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| The ghost scuttle off up front to be annoying, whilst the cheese line struggles to assemble behind them. Just out of shot to the left is a giant smoking crater where my backup used to be. |
Turn two the orc bus failed a charge on me, buying us more time again. The wardancers and dryads however wasted a raised zombie speedbump and then one of my actual zombie units. Once done though, Empire artillery took its toll on them. Through his remarkable run of victorious smiting and reformation, Robert's cavalry completed the 'left hook' for us in turn three. They charged the back of an expensive unit of woody archers in the enemy centre, who broke and allowed the knights to overrun into the back of the orcs. After he weathered a couple of rounds of combat with them, my vampire hero with ghoul pack got in. Even though Angus piled his remaining wardancers into my flank, it wasnt enough. My extra ranks meant the orc bus lost its steadfast, causing it to break and run, where it was chased down.
Well that seemed like it was in bag... but step forward STEEL GOBLIN! The 100 strong goblin horde (only 5 wide) had by now milled through my other unit of 60 zombies. To pin them I charged my hitherto underused bloodknights into their rear. 'Job done' I thought. 'Piece of piss' and 'nice one, get a beer in' also came unbidden to mind. I'd pared a lot of shiny things off the list to afford these: 4 bloodknights led by a vampire hero. Thought if they worked in tandem with some empire knights, they could really smash some shit up. In they went, 16 strength 7 attacks at WS 5, and another 5 S4s off the steeds. Nae danger! Craig's ace up his sleeve was the unit's miniscule frontage. He'd front-rowed it with Goblin bosses with great weapons, and a black orc BSB. The lot of them made way to fight at the back and in a shower of mediocrity I missed with almost everything; in reply he killed three of my knight (ffs!!), and destroyed the rest on combat res. Shite: 400 points straight in the bin and a lesson once again to never, ever take blood knights! Then he reformed 20 wide and 5 deep to face the flank of my ghouls. Double shite.
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| Goblin Boss. I shall call him 'Lil' Bastard'. |
The ghouls couldn't even hold a turn against them, even with the vamp, and melted on res. By now Robert's impeccable knights were off to the far flank mopping up the last unit of woody archers. His rear was also in jeopardy if the overrun from the ghoulish destruction was big enough. The game was back on, and the undead were stinking up the hall big time. Instead of charging in with my lord and his grave guard (the only fight worthy unit I had left) I sat back and we poured the gobbos full of lead and spells. I even got curse off! It did the trick and we took out a good 30 of them. Still a huge unit though. Craig charged in next round, but the lord's 'red fury' did the trick and the grave guard held them. Once some of the bosses started to go down, exposing the rank and file, the little green bodies were piling up nicely. Robert's cavalry (now leaderless after the orcs had gutted the elector for his trouble) made an epic charge and sandwiched the Gobbo unit in turn 6 and Craig called it. A win for the Empire-VC!
It was a stonking game - it looked like a big ask at the outset, came to us by turn three when their right flank collapsed and then swung away in turn 4/5 leaving us sweating like TV personalities from the 1970s. An entertaining win. The greenskin mobs are difficult to handle but the key to it I think rests in disrupting their ranks, going bigger than them to get steadfast off if possible, and killing the characters as quickly. Either that or just kill as many as you can as quickly as possible! Angus' woodies continue to shape up to be tough oppos, with brutal missile fire and magics. Other than the treeman and a limited number of wardancers though, he's not put down anything yet which has much oomph in combat. If he gets treekin, we're shafted but until then I like my odds against him! He's much better with the tree fairies than the dwarves he played in the league. Best thing in the game though was by far and away Robert's Elector Count with his unit of knights. I now eat my hat: cavalry is officially not dead in 8th ed!
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| Found Scibor minis do this wood elf mage for less than a tenner. Angus needs to have this model - its amazing! Wouldn't mind painting something like this myself... |
As for playtesting the format, I felt the points were too large for a club tournament. We were all fairly brusque players and we got going early, but we didn't get done until after 10pm. Slower players simply wouldnt finish a 6 turn game. Craig's rules ideas such as no doubling up on magic items were all good though and added something, as it would force 'teams' to actually get together and discuss selection and tactics. James Craddock suggested 1000 pts a player, as they do in official GW tournaments; I see his point that it would mean we'd always finish, but in my opinion it would be at the price of interesting selection. 1000 pts feels really lean, especially for some of the character driven / elites armies. I think 1500pts a man was settled on after some discussion, so hopefully it will go from this 'happy' medium. Need to go put something together for the club forum for Craig now and get the tournament ball rolling...
I'll be back on here soon and log some of the stuff I've been playing over the last few months. It was easier to start with something fresh to mind for now, however. Off now to have a look at my turn 4 for the Ancient Greek play by mail wargame, which has just popped into my inbox :-) More on that soon...
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