Hi it's Adam with another tale of a far from masterfully played game of Warhammer, this time its a bit unusual as I won, well sort of...
My opponent was Pat, I was due to be playing someone else but when Pat's game fell through I decided to give Pat a game. I always enjoy playing he's a great laugh he doesn't take the game too seriously and neither do I so the games are always fun, that's the point of playing warhammer right?
As usual Pat turned up with a list that was wrong and needed to rewrite it.
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| It's called quartermaster! |
When Pat finally settled on a list he had:
Alith Anar (warhammer batman)
lvl 4 on beasts
level 2 (I think) on beasts
level 1 on shadow
Handmaiden with the reaver bow? The one that shoots 3 times at +1 strength, it's high elves...
BSB with a banner.
2 units of silver helms with musicians
1 unit of archers
1 unit of spears
A large(ish) unit of White Lions I started singing White Lines when he put these down and he said he bought that when it came out, the old bugger!
1 unit of Sisters of Averlorn.
2 bolt throwers
2 eagles
My army was:
Archie Lector He had Van Hostman's Speculum and The White Cloak of Ulric
1 level 4 on Shadow
1 level 4 on Death Magic
1 level 1 on Death Magic with a scroll
'master' engineer (more like YTS trainee engineer)
BSB with a standard of discipline
we played this all game as though this buffed the Arch lectors leadership for the purposes of Spirit Leeching things. Turns out it doesn't work that way... Pat immediately claimed a moral victory, bless. In practice I don't think it made a massive difference.
two units of 35 Halberdiers with 2 detachments of 5 free company each
5 Demigrif Knights with full command and a glittering standard (the one that lets you reroll the first panic test.)
2 Cannons
Steam Tank
Hurricanum
On to the game
I deployed fairly centrally with my all my characters apart from the level 4 on shadow going in one of the halberdier blocks with the four free company screening them. The cannons were on a hill behind them and the steam tank was on my left side guarding the cannons and my demigrifs were behind a wood...
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| part of my deployment |
Turn 1
In the magic phase I tried to put Doom and Darkness on the White Lions block but this was dispelled I also put miasma on the unit with Alith Anar in.
My cannons cut loose in my shooting phase sweeping off both of Pat's bolt throwers and the cannon from the Steam Tank put a wound on an eagle.
In Pat's turn he charged his silver helms on an 11" charge into a unit of free company on my right hand side, hoping to overrun into my unit of halberdiers and assassinate my shadow wizard.
Pat moved his eagle up out of line of sight and pushed his silver helms on the left behind the building on the left.
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| budgy hiding from cannonballs behind a rock |
Pat's magic phase went by relatively uneventfully I managed to dispel an amber spear flung in the direction of my steam tank.
Pat shot at all my free company and annoyingly for him reduced both of them to one model, they both passed their panic tests and so I had 2 single models ideal for redirecting and being generally annoying.
Pat wiped out the free company in the close combat phase and they overrun but not far enough to get into combat with the halberdiers.
Turn 2
In my second turn I charged at the eagle on the right hand side that had came forward to redirect them. I took a wound from dangerous terrain. I redirected to charge after the Sisters of Averlorn but didn't make the charge.
The Steam Tank rumbled over towards the centre I repositioned the halberdier block so that Pat's eagle was in their front arc for spirit leeches.
In my magic phase I rolled low but managed to kill of the wounded eagle with a spirit leech.
In my shooting phase I managed to roll 3 misfire results in a row and my canons did nothing! Thankfully neither of them blew themselves up.
In Pats turn he rallied both his fleeing units and pushed forward with the remains of his army in the centre. He swift reformed his Silverhelms and moved back around towards the cannons around the left hand side of the building.
Pat's magic phase saw me use my dispel scroll to stop a strength ten amber spear from hitting my steam tank.
Pat had a little success with his shooting however and put a couple of wounds on the steam tank with a the combined bowfire of a couple of units and Alith Anar.
Turn 3
At the start of my turn my steam tank failed its engine test and this meant it couldn't do anything this turn. My Demigrifs charged the silverhelms in front of them, they fled again and they took a couple of wounds from dangerous terrain, annoyingly the failed charge did not even take them clear of the woods they were in.
With my halberdier block stuck behind the temporarily disabled steam tank I reshuffled my characters around so that the wizards were safe in case Pat decided to come in on an assassination run.
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| halberdiers stuck behind the steam tank |
In my magic phase I failed to cast doom and darkness on the white lions.
My single working canon finally shot off Pat's last remaining eagle and that was it for my turn 3.
In Pat's turn he didn't charge anything but pushed forwards with the silver helms towards the cannons on my left.
In Pat's magic phase he 6 diced an amber spear at my steam tank and sent a strength 10 spear at it. Taking off a few wounds, the miscast result saw him losing the spell and one magic level. Then in his shooting phase he took of a couple more with the combined shooting of Alith Anar, the Sisters and the handmaiden.
Turn 4
At the start of my turn I rolled for my steam tank generating 2 points for it, as this guarantees it cant kill itself at least! Predictably I failed the test and had to roll on the engine chart for the steam tank but this time the roll meant I could move the tank.
Knowing I had to stop the silverhelms from getting to my cannons I charged out my arch lector at his silver helms, I planned to support him with my steamtank, thinking about it I thought he had a fairly good chance with all the kit on him pat would need 5's to hit him and 5's to wound and I'd be getting a 4+ armour save and a 5+ ward I also had a cunning plan to lure Alith Anar out of his unit give him one shot at my arch lector then try to get him with death snipes, I was pretty sure the unit he was in had the banner of the world dragon.
That was unnecessary though as I rolled high enough on the random move to put the steam tank into the silverhelms.
In my magic phase I didn't manage to get anything of note off.
Then in my shooting phase I fired both cannons at Pat's level 4 hoping to get lucky but he passed both look out sirs and so I had to settle for killing a handful of white lions.
Finally in my combat phase the steam tank crushed the silverhelms before anyone got to take a swing.
In Pats turn he moved Alith Anar out of his unit to take a shot at my arch lector and moved up the white lions.
In his magic phase pat supercharged his handmaiden with savage beasts and killed a demi grif knight with her in the shooting phase.
Alith took as shot at my arch lector hit him but rolled the one and failed to wound.
Turn 5
My Demigrif knights continued their now traditional round of charging at the silver helms who fled and then redirecting at the sisters of averlorn but not making it.
I then pushed one of the single model free company units in front of pats white lions and moved the halberdiers up before rejoining them with the arch lector.
I was up at this point having taken off a lot of the easy points from Pat's army and having lost nearly nothing myself however I knew the steam tank would probably go and I thought that one of the the halberdier blocks would also likely die when Pat's army finally made it over. So in my magic phase I decided to start trying to pick off Pat's characters with death snipes (I thought I was LD 10 when in fact I was ld 9) Despite rolling low for magic I still managed to get a spirit leech off and rolled high for the dice off and Pat's handmaiden fell over.
Then in my shooting phase my engineer again failed me and one of the cannons blew itself up panicking the engineer who ran through the next cannon which luckily held it's nerve.
In my turn Pat charged the single free company militia man and moved up with everything else, I decided to hold. Pat got a Wyssan's off on the white lions to make them strength 7 and toughness 4 in combat!
He shot at my demi grifs with his sisters unit but did nothing.
I just removed the single free company militia to save time and Pat decided to overrun, the overrun taking him into my halberdier unit. Pat thought this meant he could then fight another round of combat but unfortunately on page 58 of the rulebook it states that
'if a unit has been charged as a result of pursuit was not engaged in combat from the beginning of this combat phase, or it was but the combat has already been resolved in this combat phase, the combat is not resolved straight away, but in the combat phase of the following turn.'
This misunderstanding of the rules would cost Pat dearly...
Turn 6
At the start of my turn I rolled for my steam tank and the engine chart was again kind, allowing me to move as normal.I charged my second halberdier block into the flank of the White lions. Finally charged my demi grifs into the sisters and moved the steam tank into the white lions other flank and moved the hurricanum over so that it's bubble would effect all my units involved.
My master engineer rallied
Then in my magic phase Pat failed to dispel doom and darkness and so I was able to cast that and a The Withering on the poor white lions.
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| The result of all that was carnage! |
The sisters of averlorn likewise were destroyed by the demigrifs.
The overrun of the halberdier unit took them into combat with Pats spearmen with his bsb and Alith Anar in. and in Pat's turn they exacted revenge by breaking the halberdiers and running them down.
Alith and the elven spearmen then overran into my remaining halberdiers with all the characters in.
We kept playing to see what would happen over the next few combats and eventually the halberdiers ground down the elves and broke them and wiped out the remains of Pat's army!
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| To the bitter end! |
We never worked out the points but the result would have been a win to me. Although Pat did have the moral high ground.
There were a couple of things I think I would have done differently. Firstly I think I wasted the demigrifs chasing after the sisters all game and they could have come into the spearmen block and done a number on them. I should have fought the combats in a different order with the white lions, because I did the horde combat first it meant that I missed out on potential kills from the second unit.
Thanks for reading!
Adam
