The Chronicles of LoNC's Lizards, Gaming log

[Lord of Nonsensical Crap]

Hey all. After lurking on the batreps thread for years, I've finally decided to contribute something to the forum. Inspired by a few other battle logs on other forums, I've decided to chronicle the ongoing battles of my Lizardmen army. Before you start moving on to another topic, however, I should probably point out that I've decided to keep things interesting by giving my army an overall mission in their battles.

As per my army's fluff, the Lizardman of the lost city of Ux-Mal are on a quest to retrieve the ten lost shards of the Eye of Quetzl. If they succeed in doing so, then not only will they be able to lift the spell on their temple-city, but they will also be able to revive the slumbering Slann Lord Xlantec.

Therefore, I've concocted a special rule for my army: for every victory they achieve, I roll a D6 for every enemy character killed. On a 4+, a shard of the Eye is found. If I collect 10 shards in total, then I may field a Slann in future games. Note that you cannot retrieve more than 1 shard in a single battle.

A LITTLE ABOUT MYSELF: I've been playing Lizardmen for nearly 2 years now....but sadly, work and university have always hampered my gaming time, and as a result, I have had very insufficient playing experience....well, in Fantasy as a whole (I'm a 40k convert). As such, my track record is very, very poor, and it will be quite a while before I attain tournament-worthy skill. Hopefully, though, as this thread progresses, I might improve. You never know.

[Lord of Nonsensical Crap]

Battle 1: the Lady of Death

EXCERPT FROM THE JOURNAL OF TLACEPOTL, SKINK-PRIEST OF UX-MAL:

"Using hidden ways of travel granted to us by the Old Ones before the Fall, the warhost has traversed across the World Pond to the continent of the New Ones. Here, we have arrived in a land ruled over by a living, blood-drinking corpse--an abomination against the plans of the Old Ones. My scrying indicates there may be a shard in her castle, and Ara-kor is already readying the host to crush the unliving ones in battle.

My first game for this thread was a 2000 pt battle against Vampire Counts. Here were our respective armies (from memory):

WARHOST OF UX-MAL (sorry for no points values, but I don't have the list or the book with me at the moment)

Scar-Leader Ara-kor (Oldblood)- great weapon, light armour, shield, Jaguar Charm, Venom of the Firefly Frog, Aura of Quetzl, Spawnings of Sotek, Quetzl & Tepok
Scar-Veteran Tezla-Kar- BSB, Huanchi's Sacred Totem, light armour, Spawning of Tepok
Skink Priest Tlacepotl- level 1, 2 dispel scrolls
20 Saurus- full command
10 Skinks- javelins
10 Skinks- blowpipes
10 Skinks- javelins, Scouts
15 Saurus- full command, Spawning of Quetzl
3 Kroxigor
3 Terradons
3 Salamander Packs
Stegadon

Notes: I may have been a little over-points, since both the Venom on the Oldblood and Huanchi Banner were later additions. The overall plan for this battle was my usual one: use my peripheral units to harass the hell out of the enemy and damage his own peripherals while my Saurus advanced for the kill. Hopefully, my Huanchi Banner might even allow some of my Saurus to see combat. Other than that, this is more or less the same army list I usually use, and one that I have had mixed success with. The main problem for me has always been getting the most out of my Saurus; the more I play Lizardmen, the more I realize that Saurus take a lot of skill to use effectively (since they are, for all intents and purposes, an anvil rather than a hammer unit).


VAMPIRE COUNTS:

Lahmian Vampire Lady- Sword of Might, Innocence Lost, Beguile
Wight Lord- BSB, barded nightmare, Biting Blade, Cursed Book
Necromancer- Book of Arkhan, dispel scroll
20 Skeletons- light armour, shields, full command
20 Skeletons- light armour, shields, full command
10 Zombies
8 Ghouls
7 Dire Wolves- Doom Wolf
6 Black Knights
6 Black Knights- full command, Banner of the Barrows
3 Spirit Hosts
Banshee

DEPLOYMENT:

There were two woods on either side of his DZ, a house on the left hand side of the field, and another wood on the right hand side of my DZ. He his Wolves and BSB Knights on the left flank, the Banshee and Spirits behind the wood, the three infantry blocks near the right-hand flank along with the normal Knights, and the Ghouls in his right wood. I, in turn, placed my two Saurus blocks far opposite his own infantry with my blowpipers screening them and flanked by the Kroxigor on the left and the Salamanders on the right. I placed another unit of Skinks on the far left with the Terradons, while the Stegadon went on the far right next to my wood. Scouting placement was a bit of a disappointement, though, as since the right-hand wood was infested with Ghouls, I was forced to put my Skinks on his left-hand wood, just out of LOS of the Wolves and Knights and not in any real position to do any damage.


Turn 1
I won the roll for turn 1 and moved everything up, with the Salamanders entering a nearby wood, the Stegadon skirting up the flank and my Saurus battle line advancing behind their Skink screen. The Terradons and Skinks, along with my speedy Oldblood, all clustered around the house. Meanwhile, For some reason, however, I ALSO moved my Skink Scouts out of cover into shooting range of the Dire Wolves. Now, in all my previous games, my Skink Scouts have ALWAYS died in the first turn due to me rushing them out of cover to shoot the first unit they see. Logically, I should have learned from my mistakes by this point and simply kept the Scouts back. But no, instead I once again gleefully rushed them in front of a snarling, fanged enemy in the vain hope that their shooting would actually do something.

Skipping the magic phase, the aforemention shooting plinked off two Dire Wolves, and left them as sitting ducks in front of a good chunk of the Undead army.

In his turn, he promtply charged his remaining Wolves into my Scouts, who duly failed their fear test and were run down. Wonderful. :smt011 Everything else of his advancedor got into good screaming positions (as was the case with his Banshee): the BSB's knights zoomed down the left flank, the Ghouls edged closer on the right, etc etc.

In the magic phase, the Vampire Lady and her Necromancer servant combined their powers to bolster their respective Skeleton and Zombie units. I decided to let this go, since neither units were a major threat yet. And then came the howling phase from hell: I had forgotten just how nasty Banshees could be, seeing as it had been a while since I had played against them. As a result, I had quite stupidly left my Oldblood in screaming range of her, and this resulted in him having two wounds scared out of him by that ghostly shrieker. Wow, what a wonderful start to a wonderful battle.


TURN 2

Knowing that my Oldblood was a sitting duck (er...lizard), I decided to charge him into something to keep him safe (and yes, I had quite forgotten that Banshees can scream at you while you're still in combat). Seeing as the Banshee was still out of LOS from within her wood, though, I did the next best thing and charged the Spirit Hosts. Looking back, I'm not quite sure why I thought charging the Spirits was a good idea, since they would keep the Oldblood there forever. Nonetheless, in Ara-kor went, the Froggy Venom of his great weapon glistening menacingly.

Everything else advanced as normal, with the Salamanders moving towards the edge of their wood, the Terrdons flying next to the Zombie bunker, and the Saurus line advancing as usual. Magic was a non-entity (as usual: with a single level 1, you never get much in the way of dazzling magical pyrotechnics), and so shooting began. The Salamanders proved once again why they're my favourite unit in the army by burning 6 Ghouls into cinders, though the 2 survivors held their ground (no doubt feasting on the barbequed remnants of their colleagues). My other unit of javelins Scouts, who had edged to the right flank next to the overunning Dire Wolves, permanently put down another of the doggies with their poisoned missiles, and the Terradons hurled their own javelins and plinked off a Zombie.

In close combat, Ara-kor charged in with his 6 magical, poisoned attacks....and did a single wound. The Spirits did nothing in reply (thankfully), and the battle was a draw. It was clear, however, that the dice had shown me their true colours at this point.

In the Undead turn, the Dire Wolves ignored the Skinks as they continued down the left flank, followed by the Knights. The other Knights angled to meet the advancing Stegadon, while the remaining Ghouls ran back into the wood to avoid more burninating death. And, of course, the Skeletal infantry kept advancing, naturally.

In the ensuing magic phase, more Skeletons and Zombies were raised, with my dispel dice doing little to halt the tide of necromancy. I managed to scroll Curse of Years on my Saurus, but this left me open to the Book of Arkhan, which propelled the Lady's Skeletons forward into my Skink screen, who duly fled, leaving the Skeletons sitting in front of an ugly trio of Kroxigor. In the howling phase, the Banshee once again unleashed an angry tirade of PMS-laden curses at Ara-kor, but this time, he took no notice, and remained unhurt.

Then came the close combat phase. Since he was using his hand weapon and shield instead of his great weapon, Ara-kor this time lived up to his impressive statline and did 4 more wounds, killing off a Spirit base. In exchange, the Spirits did a wound back. I rolled for my armour save....

...and got a one. My yell of despair could be heard for miles as my Oldblood fell to a timely slap from the Spirit Hosts. There went 300+ points down the drain, and my chances of victory suddenly looked a lot slimmer.


TURN 3

With the Skeletons sitting right in front of them, there was nothing for it but for the Kroxigor to charge, while further to the right, the Stegadon bellowed and thundered into the Black Knights. The blowpipe Skinks rallied, and the rest of my movement commenced, with the Sacred Saurus turning around to face the Vampire's flank, and the other unit of Saurus moving up to confront the other Skeleton unit.

In the magic phase, I was practically giddy at the thought of using the Huanchi Banner for the first time, especially in a dastardy charge on the flank of the Vampire's SKeletons. If I pulled this off, then that Vampire was as good as dead. Eagerly, I rolled the dice....

...which came up a 1. I nearly fell over as the Sacred Saurus trundled forwards a single, piddly inch, coming drastically short of the Skeleton's flank and leaving the Kroxigor on their own against the Vampire Lady. I believe I may have said a bad word at this point.

Shooting cheered me up somewhat, as the Salamanders burninated 8 Skeletons and the Skinks plinked off the last of the Dire Wolves. And now came the close combat phase: the Vampire struck first due to Innocence Lost and inflicted two wounds on one of the Kroxigor. In return, two Kroxigor directed all of their attacks on the Vampire, laughing off her downright amusing attempts to Beguile them, and swung out with their great weapons....

...inflicting a single hit, which promtply failed to wound. The third Kroxigor was just as embarassing, killing only a single Skeleton despite hitting on 3's. In return, the Skeletons hacked down the wounded Kroxigor, whose two buddies promtply fled and were run down. To add insult to injury, the nearby blowpipe Skinks panicked and fled right into a woodland, and got destroyed as a result. Yippee.

The Stegadon, however, was a different matter, ploughing right through the Black Knights and leaving them as a big pile of dust in his wake. (I think the Skinks in the howdah even managed a kill in that combat). Without lose stride, the Stegadon trampled onwards towards the Zombie bunker, whose resident Necromancer promptly wet himself.

In the Vampire Counts turn, the BSB's Black Knights charged the javelin skinks, whose stand and shoot reaction did absolutely nothing. The other Skeletons charged the Saurus-- who, surprisingly enough, yelped in feear and fled, escaping their bony adversaries. The Vampire Lady's retinue turned around, and used Vanhel's to complete their about-face so that they were facing the flank of my BSB's Saurus unit, while the Necromancer managed to raise more Zombies around him. When he attempted to use the Book to propel his Lady into combat, however, I very courteously scrolled it.

In the screaming phase, five Sacred Saurus were shrieked to death, and in the following combat, the Black Knights killed 8 Skinks and ran the rest down.


TURN 4

The Stegadon roared and charged the Zombie bunker. The Terradons would have joined him, but were too paralyzed with fear to do so. With the Vampire Lady glaring hungrily across the field at him, the BSB, figuring that his reduced unit couldn't stand up to a big, fear-causing unit of Skeletons led by a Vampire Lady, promtply abandoned ship, moving out of his unit and remaining careful to stay out of screaming range of the Banshee. The other unit of Saurus, meanwhile, retained their wits and rallied.

With no magic, it was on to shooting, with the Salamanders burninating 5 more Skeletons. And then came the most embarassing brain-fart of the game: my Stegadon vs the Zombies. With the Necromancer in the front rank, I could easily have trampled him to dust. Given my recent string of bad rolling however, I was plagued with horrible visions of the Stegadon then losing combat and being run down, and decided to go for CR kills instead of simply squishing the Necro. 5 Zombies fell in total; the Stegadon still lost, but held its ground, while I was left shaking my head and wondering why the hell I had just squandered my chance to kill the Necromancer.

At this point, the VC player had to leave, and we called the game early. It was clear, however, that he had won.

Result: Loss

Shards recovered: 0


Thoughts: Well, that sucked. My glorious plan of flanking the Vampire with a Huanchified Saurus charge fizzled out the window due to some bad rolling. My Oldlblood's demise was even more embarassing-- even more embarassing than the time he was once chopped to death by an Empire Halberdier. All and all, looking back at this battle, I can't decide if I lost more due to tactical boneheadedness or horrific luck.

Anyway, stay tuned as I try to redeem this loss in my next game.

This post has been edited by Lord of Nonsensical Crap on Oct 14 2007, 07:21 PM

[Lord of Nonsensical Crap]

Battle 2: Not All That Glitters Is Gold


For the second battle in my Lizards’ shard-quest, I wound up facing a Dwarf player who requested we do a 1000 point battle. I have quite a bit of experience facing Dwarfs, and I know that, while Lizardmen can outmaneuver them with horrible ease, actually beating them in combat can be tricky…

EXCERPT FROM THE LOG OF TLACEPOTL, SKINK-PRIEST OF UX-MAL

“After the disastrous attack on the corpse-creature’s territory, the warhost fell back into the outlying woods to regroup. At this stage, complications arose: firstly, news of increasing numbers of New Ones encroaching on Ux-Mal meant that we had to sent half of the Saurus back across the portal to protect the hidden paths to the city. Secondly, due to the losses we had sustained in our first engagement, we had to wait for reinforcements to arrive from the city before we renewed our assault on the Vampire’s lands.

At this stage, scouts reported that a force of Dwarfs was in the area, carrying with them an abundance of relics of the Old Ones. It was clear that they were treasure-hunters returning home from a trip to Lustria. We could not allow such transgressions against the temples of the Old Ones to go unpunished, and so Ara-kor gathered a small force to intercept the New Ones and bring them to justice.


My list:

Scar-Leader Ara-kor (Scar-Veteran)- great weapon, light armour, shield, Jaguar Charm, Aura of Quetzl, Spawnings of Quetzl & Sotek- 178
Skink Priest Tlacepotl- 2 dispel scrolls- 105
15 Saurus Warriors- 210
10 Skinks- blowpipes- 60
10 Skinks- javelins- 60
3 Kroxigor- 174
3 Salamanders- 195

982


His list (from memory)

Thane- great weapon, gromril armour and….stuff
Runesmith- great weapon, heavy armour and….stuff
20 Dwarf Warriors- full command, great weapons
12 Ironbreakers
10 Thunderers- Champion
Bolt Thrower
Organ Gun

Looking at his list, I was a little surprised by the fact that he hadn’t given his Warriors shields. This, combined with some of his deployment decisions, gave me the quick impression that he was a new player.


DEPLOYMENT:

There was a large hill on the right side of his DZ, a house in the middle of mine, a small cluster of woodland on his left side and a tiny wood on the right hand corner of the battlefield—meaning that, for the most part, he had a clear shooting range. He predictably placed his Thunderers and artillery on the hill, and put his Ironbreakers (with Runesmith) and Warriors (with Thane) in the center of the field, a little too far away to give adequate support to the missile troops. I, in turn, weight my right flank, with the Saurus, Kroxigor and characters sheltering behind a blowpipe screen, while the Javelin Skinks and Salamanders were placed on the left flank.

My plan was one that I had developed from numerous games against Dwarfs: use Skinks and my JSOD to eliminate his firepower, my Salamanders to thin down his troops, and only engage in close combat when the enemy had been sufficiently weakened. Dwarfs may be slow (in fact, they are ridiculously easy for my Lizards to outmanouvre), but beating them in combat is a tricky matter indeed.


TURN 1

The sunlight glinted off of polished Dwarfen steel as the New Ones arrayed for battle, forming up in disciplined blocks to confront the scaly invaders while artillery and missile troops took up firing positions on the hills above them. Ara-kor shook his head. Part of him admired the Dwarfs and their courage—for truly, the Old Ones had created them as an unyielding bulwark against Chaos – but the situation made it hard for him to do so. These Dwarfs had raided the temples of the Old Ones to satiate their greed, and if Tlacepotl was correct, they might even have a shard with them. As a servant of the Old Ones, he had to punish them for their transgression and retrieve the relics that they had stolen, and as the Scar-Leader of Ux-Mal, it was his duty to retrieve the shard from their cold, dead hands if necessary.

Raising his toothed greatsword to the sky, Ara-kor let loose a predatory roar, giving the signal to attack.

Winning the roll for the first turn, I advanced with everything: on the right flank, the Saurus and Kroxigor turned towards the Ironbreakers, while the blowpipers flitted towards the Dwarf gunline, spreading out to shield the Saurus as Ara-kor joined them to avoid being singled out by Dwarven bullets. On the left flank, the javelin scouts and Salamanders advanced to get within shooting range of the Thane and his retinue.

In response, the two Dwarven blocks advanced while their shooty units opened up. Four Skinks were gunned down by Thunderers, and, from their vantage on the hilltop, the Organ Gun and Bolt Thrower felled an unimpressive 3 Saurus. All in all, not a bad first turn for me.


Turn 2

With the Dwarven artillery crews right in his sights, Ara-kor snarled and charged, slamming into the very surprised Organ Gun crew. The blowpipers again spread themselves out to catch bullets, the Krox and Saurus again advanced, and the javelin Skinks and Salamanders angled to shoot at the Warriors.

In the shooting phase, the Dwarf player found out exactly why he should always give his Warriors shields; although the Skinks did nothing, the Salamanders burned four of the stunties to cinders (thanks in part to their flammable beards). In close combat, Ara-kor did what he does best and ripped the Organ Gun crew to merry shreds.

In response, the Dwarfen gunline held its ground, while the Warriors charged the nearby javelin Skinks. Their stand-and-shoot reaction, much to my surprise, brought down another four Dwarfs, and the charge itself fell short, though they refrained from panicking. The Bolt Thrower, unable to draw a line of sight on Ara-kor, consoled itself by inflicting two wounds on the nearby Kroxigor, while the Thunderers blasted another 3 blowpipe Skinks apart.


Turn 3

Happy to see that there were yet more Dwarfs to kill, Ara-kor hungrily charged into the Bolt Thrower crew, while the Kroxigor launched themselves in a charge against the Ironbreakers. The blowpipers moved in front of the Thunderers, while the Skinks manouvred (in vain) to avoid the Warriors. The Saurus, who were still out of charge range, consoled themselves by moving closer to the Kroxigor/Ironbreaker combat.

In the magic phase, Tlacepotl tried to bless the Kroxigor with Portents of Far, but the Runesmith was having none of these magic shenanigans and dispelled it. The javelin Skinks and Salamanders combined their fire to kill six Dwarf Warriors, and the blowpipers …did absolutely nothing with their shooting. In close combat, Ara-kor wiped out the Bolt Thrower crew in mere seconds, while the Kroxigor slammed into the Ironbreakers and crushed four of them. Striking back, the Runesmith killed the wounded Kroxigor, and the Ironbreakers held their ground.

In his turn, the Warriors again charged the Skinks, losing one to stand-and-shoot, but this time making it into close combat. The Thunderers, meanwhile, for some reason decided that Skinks would die more easily from being bludgeoned to death than from being shot, and charged the blowpipe Skinks, who fled the battlefield, never to return. With no shooting, the Dwarfs moved straight to combat: the javelin Skinks lost four of their number to the great axes of the Dwarfs and fled, only to be cut down by the vengeful beardies. The Ironbreakers, meanwhile, inflicted two wounds on the Kroxigor, while the Runesmith killed the wounded Krox and wounded another one. The last Kroxigor bludgeoned down two more Ironbreakers before turning and running, with the Runesmith and his crew following behind.


Turn 4

With a roar, Ara-kor charged the Thunderers, while the lone Kroxigor rallied in front of the Saurus—much to my irritation, since he was blocking them from charging the Ironbreakers. The Salamanders, meanwhile, continued to manouvre out of the Warriors’ line of sight, ready to flame them some more.

In the shooting phase, the Salamanders burned down another five Dwarfs, though they also ate two of their handlers in the process. Ara-kor, meanwhile, hacked three Thunderers into bloody pieces, though the stout Dwarfs held their ground.

In the Dwarf turn, the Ironbreakers edged away from the Kroxigor and Saurus, while the Thane and his surviving Warriors about-faced to face the elusive Salamanders. In close combat, one of the Thunderers actually managed to inflict an unsaved wound on Ara-kor, who slaughtered three Thunderers in return, though the Dwarfs again held their ground.


Turn 5

The Saurus and Kroxigor again manouvred towards the Ironbreakers, while the Salamanders continued to face off against the Warriors. In the shooting phase, the last two Warriors were burned to a crisp by the Salamanders’ flames, along with the Thane. The Thunderers finally met their end, as all four of them were brutally hacked down by Ara-kor.

Seeing that he had clearly lost the battle, the Dwarf player decided to go out with style and moved the Ironbreakers into charge range of my Krox and Saurus. We agreed the time had probably come for a glorious last stand from the Dwarfs, and I was all too happy to oblige.


Turn 6

Raising his great weapon to the sky, Ara-kor signaled the charge, sprinting down from the hill to charge the Ironbreakers along with the Kroxigor and the Salamanders (the Saurus, once again, were blocked by the Kroxigor, much to their frustration and mine). In the ensuing combat phase, three Ironbreakers fell to Ara-kor, though the Kroxigor and Salamanders did nothing. In return, the Ironbreakers hacked down the last Kroxigor, while the Runesmith managed to inflict a wound on one of the Salamanders. In the end, however, the fear-causing Salamanders outnumbered them, and they autobroke, only to be run down by Ara-kor.

And with that, the battle was over….

Tlacepotl stalked through the smoking, charred pile of Dwarf corpses, taking care not to step on any hot ashes. The entire Dwarfen host was dead, either burned to a crisp by the volatile Salamanders or hacked down by Ara-kor. A just and deserved fate, the Skink thought, for those who would violate the sancitity of the Old Ones’ temples.

Still, something was amiss. For some reason, Tlacepotl felt drawn to the center of the pile of Dwarfen bodies, his magical senses itching curiously. Slowly but surely, he stalked through the blackened bodies towards the corpse at the center—a charred skeleton encased in ornate armour that still glowed red-hot from the flames. The ornate quality of his armour and great axe indicated that he had been the leader of the Dwarf host, no doubt a noble of considerable prestige.

Carefully, Tlacepotl raised his staff and prodded the Dwarf’s corpse, nudging it and causing it to collapse onto its side with a dull crash of armour. There was a tattered, ruined rucksack strung behind the Dwarf’s body. Slowly, Tlacepotl prodded the sack with is staff, causing it to fall apart and spill its contents onto the ground.

There. Lying amidst a pile of golden trinkets and ornamentations that had shamelessly been taken from a Lustrian temple lay a small sliver of black diamond, untouched and untarnished by the flames. It gleamed coldly in the sunlight, and Tlacepotl’s magical senses were aflame just through his looking at it. Slowly, he knelt down and picked it up: the gem shard burst into transluscent colour the moment sunlight touched it, and for a moment Tlacepotl was almost lost in contemplation as he gazed into the shard’s endless depths.

That is, until he sensed Ara-kor walking up behind him. The Saurus was practically drenched in Dwarven blood: he had fought like a god incarnate, unyielding as he slew Dwarfs in droves. Tlacepotl now had no doubt that Ara-kor had been blessed by Quetzl, for only the Protector-God could make such feats of strength and skill possible. The Saurus’ expression was somber as he gazed at the crystal in Tlacepotl’s hand.

“Is that….”

The Skink Priest nodded. “One of the Shards of the Eye,” he said. “Clearly, Quetzl has guided us to this place.”

His pocketed the shard in a special pouch. “We must keep moving, Ara-kor,” he said. “There may be more shards in this area. In all probability, that vampire may have another one.”

Ara-kor nodded. “I shall marshal the warhost,” he replied. “We will march again on the vampire’s keep as soon as we are reinforced, and this time, we will send her back to the grave where she belongs.”

And with that, the Lizardmen dispersed, taking the stolen artifacts with them and leaving a field of dead Dwarfs for the carrion….


RESULT: Lizardmen Victory (by Massacre, I think)

Shards found: 1

Thoughts: Well, all I can saw is that everything went according to plan. True, I was hoping that the Kroxigor would have surived, and I would have liked it if the Saurus had actually made it into combat, but this was mitigated by the fact that I had wiped out the Dwarven host to a beard. If anything, though, this was less because of my own playing skills and more because of my opponent’s inexperience: he left his missile troops alone and unsupported on that hill, sent his Warriors off to chase Skinks and Salamanders rather than support his Ironbreakers, and, of course, neglected to give his Warriors shields. Heck, even the simple addition of a banner or musician for his Ironbreakers would have kept them in the fight for another turn.

Aside from feeling a little guilty for beating up on a newbie (although I gave him plenty of pointers after the battle), I’m satisfied that I at least got a shard. One down, nine to go….

MVP: Without a doubt, my JSOD was the star of the game, wiping out the entire Dwarfen firebase on his own before later charging in and running down the fleeing Runesmith and his Ironbreakers. The Salamanders take second place, though, for burninating an entire Dwarf Warrior unit and the Thane leading them.

This post has been edited by Lord of Nonsensical Crap on Oct 15 2007, 09:21 PM

[Lord of Nonsensical Crap]

Battle 3: In Cold Blood

EXCERPT FROM THE LOG OF TLACEPOTL, SKINK PRIEST OF UX-MAL:

“After successfully destroying the thieving Dwarfs and retrieving one of the shards of the Eye, we have received fresh Skink levy reinforcements from the portal, led by Ixcotl, one of my subordinates in the Skink Council, and Kaxaan, Ux-Mal’s most skilled hunter. Sadly, the remainder of our Saurus had to leave through the portal to deal with the New One threat back home, but Ara-kor is not discouraged. Such is his humility that he does not feel uncomfortable leading a force of Skinks—a fact that has bolstered the morale of the Levy greatly.

It is too soon to feel too optimistic, however, as dark forces are on the move. The Undead whom we battled earlier—the so-called Queen Lahamas—has gathered her forces once more to purge us from the outlying woodlands. With Ara-kor leading us, however, we shall not be purged so easily.


Hi everyone! For my third battle report, I decided to do something different with my army. Normally, I usually play a list that features two or three blocks of Saurus (primarily because….well, I have the models, so I might as well use them). This time around, however, I decided to try the tournie-popular “Skink Horde of Death” list. I did this for the following reasons:
-I’ve never tried it before
-My Saurus, while a reliable anvil unit, have really been underperforming in the last two battles (though their usefulness is always mixed)
-My army background—what with most of the Saurus either dead or in hibernation—doesn’t really make 2-3 Saurus blocks a realistic option.

Mind you, I’m not giving up on Saurus entirely (despite the amount of flak they tend to get from veteran Lizzie players). But I am going to try the skirmishy list for a while, just to see how well I do with it.

My list:

Scar-Leader Ara-kor (Oldblood)- great weapon, light armour, shield, Charm of the Jaguar Warrior, Aura of Quetzl, Spawnings of Quetzl, Sotek & Tepok- 262 pts
Kaxaan the Scout (Skink Chief)- Scout, Sword of Might, light armour, shield, Cloak of Feathers, Sacred Spawning of Sotek- 139
Tlacepotl the Wise (Skink Priest)- level 2, 2 dispel scrolls- 150
Ixcotl the Obsidian (Skink Priest)- level 2, 2 dispel scrolls- 150
10 Skinks- blowpipes- 60
10 Skinks- blowpipes- 60
10 Skinks- javelins, shields- 60
10 Skinks- javelins, shields, Scouts- 70
3 Kroxigor- 174
3 Kroxigor- 174
3 Terradons- 105
3 Terradons- 105
3 Salamander Packs- 195
Stegadon- 235

TOTAL: 1935

Yes, I know I’m several points behind, but I don’t have the models to fill those points up. I noticed this only after the battle.

Coincidentally, my opponent for this batrep was…..(drumroll) the same VC player I fought in the first battle. Rematch time!


His list:

Queen Lahamas (Vampire Lady)- Sword of Might, Black Periapt, Innocence Lost, Beguile, Quickblood
Wight Lord- BSB, barded nightmare, Cursed Book
Necromancer- barded nightmare, level 2, Book of Arkhan, Dispel Scroll
20 Skeletons- full command, shields
20 Skeletons- full command, shields
10 Zombies
8 Ghouls- Ghast
7 Dire Wolves- Doom Wolf
5 Black Knights- full command, Banner of the Barrows
6 Black Knights- full command
3 Spirit Hosts
Banshee


Deployment:

Terrain featured a big wood on the right side of the battlefield, a pyramid near the middle of my side (pyramids in the Old World? Hey, it could happen), a house on the upper right hand side, and I think maybe another wood on the lower left hand side.

I deployed my Skinks in a loose screen in front of my army, with a unit each of blowpipes and javelins on the right hand side along with Tlacepotl, a unit of Kroxigor and the Salamanders, and a unit of javelins and blowpipes on the left along with another Krox unit, Ara-kor, the Stegadon and some Terradons, while another Terradon unit took the centre. In turn, the VC player put his infantry on the right flank, just like last time, along with the Banshee and Spirit Hosts, while on the left and centre he placed both his Black Knight units, the Ghouls and, on the furthest left, the Dire Wolves. Astute readers will notice that I have four Skink units down at this point: this is because, during deployment, I noticed that putting my scouts near the big wood on the right flank would only result in them winding up on the receiving end of Ethereal nastiness pretty early. My Skink Chief, on the other hand, was placed behind the house, ready to fly out and march-block the Undead as soon as possible.

Spells:

Tlacepotl rolled Uranon’s Thunderbolt and Celestial Shield, while Ixcotl rolled Uranon’s Thunderbolt and Portent of Far. I forget what the VC player rolled, though.


Turn 1

I won first turn again (what is that, the third time in a row?) and proceeded to advance with just about everything. Kaxaan flew out from behind the house, landed behind the Wight-less Black Knights and proceeded to taunt them mercilessly. Everything else advanced swiftly, with my Stegadon and Kroxigor advancing up the centre behind a screen of blowpipers (which Ara-kor promptly joined), the right Terradons flying behind the house which Kaxaan had recently been sheltering behind, the left Terradons flying beside them, and so on. In short, everything that could moved forwards.

In the magic phase, I was quite pleased to be able to throw out some offensive spells for once. Sadly, though, I had very little LOS due to having my Skink screens blocking off my Skink Priests, so I had to console myself with having Ixcotl cast Portent of Far on the Stegadon. Which, of course, was promptly dispelled.

In the Undead turn, everything moved up to meet the Lizards: the Spirit Hosts and Banshees floated into the right-hand treeline, and the Skeletal infantry marched forwards. The Dire Wolves and Black Knights, however, shuffled around to try to react to my Terradons and Skink Chief, with the Dire Wolves in particular lining up to gain LOS to Kaxaan. I could already smell a Book of Arkhan ploy in the making.

In the Undead magic phase, the Lahmian Queen laughed haughtily as she raised more Skeletons in the unit beside her own, ignoring my feeble attempts to dispel it. The Necromancer followed suit, but this time found his efforts blocked by my Skink Priests. Annoyed, he tried to read from the Book of Arkhan to propel the Dire Wolves into Kaxaan, but Ixcotl was having none of that and countered with a Dispel Scroll. To add insult to injury, the Book’s batteries ran out at that crucial moment, leaving the Necromancer to wonder why the hell he chose Energizer instead of Duracell.

In the howling phase, however, the Banshee started to rant at my right-hand blowpipe Skinks, killing 3. Despite this, my Skinks held their ground.


Turn 2

With an almighty, high-pitched yell, Kaxaan engaged his magic cloak/jet pack and charged the Dire Wolves, while Ara-kor, seeing an opening, roared and charged in as well, hitting the rotting wolves in the flank. My two Terradons units, meanwhile, flew behind enemy lines, with one landing behind the BSB’s knights and the other touching down next to the Necrobunker. Everything else moved forward, though on the right flank, the Kroxigor edged backwards to avoid the Spirit Hosts, Tlacepotl joined the Salamanders, and my two flanking Skink units circled around the woods in a vain attempt to avoid the Banshee.

My magic phase was….well, uneventful, with two Thunderbolts aimed at the Black Knights and Spirit Hosts being dispelled. The shooting phase was a little better, with the Salamanders torching down 5 of the vampire-less Skeletons, the Stegadon (predictably) missing the BSB’s Black Knights and my Terradons picking up the slack by downing one of the Knights with a javelin through the skull (the Skink rider who threw the lucky shot was later heard shouting “HEADSHOOOT!” in a deep voice).

In close combat, the Doom Wolf shuffled to the side and growled menacingly at Ara-kor, who responded by hacking the aforemention Wolf into bite-sized chunks. Kaxaan, however, was far less impressive, killing only a single Wolf with his 4 S5 attacks, though thankfully the Wolves failed to hurt him in return. After combat resolution was done, only a single Wolf was left against my two characters.

Seeing the tasty morsels in front of them, the Ghouls charged the blowpipe Skinks on my left flank, who fled….and wound up right in front of my Kroxigor, prohibiting them from charging next turn (since Krox cant charge through fleeing Skinks: just the non-fleeing variety, if such a thing exists). The Spirit Hosts and vampireless Skeletons charged my left-hand javelins Skinks, who fled right into a nearby pyramid and were destroyed. Well, on the plus side, at least my Kroxigor and Salamanders didn’t panic. In all of his other movement, the two Knight units spun around to face my characters, and the Vampire’s Skeletons edged left to confront my Kroxigor, Stegadon, etc etc.

In the magic phase, everything was either dispelled or scrolled save for a casting of Invocation, which replenished the casualties suffered by the vampireless Skellies. Elsewhere, the Banshee drifted towards the blowpipe Skinks again and deafened another three of them, though they again held. Finally, in close combat, Ara-kor and Kaxaan wiped out the last Dire Wolf in ways which would make the Animal Rights Society cringe, and with that it was my turn.


Turn 3

Spying an opening between the dividing pyramid and the fleeing Skinks, the Stegadon thundered forwards towards the Ghouls—who, understandably, fled. Ara-kor and Kaxaan, meanwhile, seeing the net closing around them, decided to break out and charged the Wight-less Knights directly below them. Sadly, I couln’t charge the Necrobunker with my Terradons, as if I wound up hitting-and-running, I would have fled directly into the BSB’s Knights. The fleeing blowpipe Skinks rallied, and everything else manouvred to avoid the enemy (save for my right-flank Skinks, who moved directly in front of the Banshee in the woods to prevent it from targeting my Salamanders and Tlacepotl).

In the magic phase, Tlacepotl managed to get a Thunderbolt through and inflict 2 wounds on the Spirit Hosts, though Ixcotl’s spell was dispelled. In shooting, the Salamanders burned down another 5 Skeletons but ate one of their handlers in the process, while one of my Terradons plinked off one Zombie from the Necrobunker. All in all, not exactly an overwhelming magic and shooting phase.

In close combat, Ara-kor slashed left and right, killing four Black Knights despite that annoying Cursed Book, while Kaxaan managed to kill a fifth. With a rasping grunt of “That’s it, I’m outta here,” the last Black Knight crumbled into dust, and the two Lizardman heroes overran.

In the Undead turn, the Spirit Hosts wailed and charged the right-hand Kroxigor, who wisely fled. The Ghouls, having nicely outdistanced the Stegadon, rallied behind my two characters, while the BSB’s Knights turned around so that my characters were in LOS. Hmm, out of the frying pan and into the fire…

Elsewhere, the Vampire’s Skeletons advanced towards the Stegadon, and the magic phase pomtply commenced. Once again, everything was more or less dispelled or scrolled, though the Necromancer got lucky this time, casting an Irresistable Invocation and raising seven Zombies on the left-hand side of my left-hand Krox. In the Howling phase, the Banshee screamed again, but miraculously, no Skinks died. Amazing, I must say.


Turn 4

At this stage, my characters were caught between a rock and a hard place. If they charged the Ghouls, then they still might not overrun far enough to avoid the Black Knights’ charge. If they charged the Black Knights, however, then they probably wouldn’t crumble enough of them to avoid getting charged in the rear by the Ghouls. In short, my characters were trapped.

With a grunt of “No guts, no glory,” I charged both of my characters into the Black Knights, while my right-hand Terradons flew in to help out and hit the Knights in the rear. My left-hand Terradons, meanwhile, swooped down to charge the recently-raised Zombies on the Kroxigor’s flank, while my right-hand Krox rallied at the board’s edge. Elsewhere, my right-hand javelin Skinks, who had been steadily creeping around the edge of the house, ran into shooting range of the Ghouls, the Stegadon moved back to avoid the Vampire’s charge, the blowpipe Skinks edged up to screen them, and everything else more or less stayed put.

As usual, my magic phase was unimpressive, with everything getting dispelled. In the shooting phase, my Javelin Skinks shot down two Ghouls, while my Salamanders killed only a few Skeletons – and, for that matter, ate six of the handlers, though they thankfully passed their panic test. The left-hand blowpipe Skinks failed to hurt the Lahmian Queen’s Skellies, and I think the Stegadon either missed with its giant bow or killed only one Skellie.

In the highly-anticipated close combat phase, my Terradons killed five Zombies for no loss and crumbled the last 2. Against the Black Knights, meanwhile, Ara-kor issued a challenge and promptly hacked the unit champion to bits. Kaxaan managed to kill another, while the Terradons….did absolutely nothing. In return, the BSB and his Knights miraculously failed to either hit or wound Kaxaan. The steeds, on the other hand, turned around and kicked one Terradon out of the air. Tallying up the points, the Lizardmen had lost combat and promptly autobroke. Much to my embarrassment, the Terradons fled into the vampireless Skeletons and were destroyed, while my characters fled into the Ghouls and were….also….destroyed.

So much for the unstoppable high-speed Lizardmen Duo of Doom.

In his turn, his Queen’s Skeletons charged the blowpipe screen, who fled, contacted the pyramid and were destroyed. (Do you see a theme emerging here?) His Ghouls charged my javelin skinks, who fled. The BSB’s Knights moved forward, hopefully to help out his Lady’s Skeletons later on, while his vampireless Skeletons, after a few turns of taking Salamander beatings, edged back, and his Spirit Hosts continued to inexorably advance on my right-hand Krox.

In the magic phase, he managed to not only replenish his battered Skeletons, but also raise more Zombies to the Necrobunker. By this stage, I used up my last scroll to prevent Ixcotl from being fried by a Gaze of Nagash from the Lady. In the howling phase, the Banshee killed two more Skinks, but the last two still refused to flee.


Turn 5

With the Vampire’s unit sitting right in front of me, it would have been rude not to charge: the Stegadon crashed into the front while the Kroxigor slammed into their flank, resulting in a very nice Skeleton sandwich. Eslewhere, the Skinks who had fled the Ghouls botched their rally test and promptly fled off the board. Predictable, really.

After everything else did its usual maneuvering (with my remaining Terradons flying behind the building to get out of LOS of the Ghouls), it was time for my magic pha--- what was that? Dispelled again? Hmmph, never mind. Shooting was a sore disappointement, with my Salamanders only burning down a piddly two Skeletons (though at least they didn’t eat any more handlers).

With that out of the way, it was time for the all-conquering combat phase. Striking first, the Vampire Queen used her feminine charms to Beguile the Stegadon (yeah, like THAT relationship will last) and inflicted two wounds on it. In reply, however, between the Stegadon’s impact hits and attacks and the Kroxigor’s swinging axes, a whopping thirteen Skeletons were smashed apart. Losing by a massive 12, the remaining Skeleton crumbled to dust, and the Vampire Queen could only give one vindictive cry of rage before she, too, crumbled to dust. My smile was practically ear-to-ear as the rest of the Vampire Counts army began to slowly crumble, with the Spirit Hosts actually losing a base.

In his turn, he charged my victorious Kroxigor in the flank with his remaining Black Knights, and hit my right-flank Kroxigor with his Spirit Hosts; since they were right on the board edge, I had no choice but to hold. The Skeletons and Zombies began to move forwards towards the Salamanders, and the Ghouls maneuvered to get LOS on those pesky Terradons.

In the magic phase, the Necromancer managed to boost his Zombies some more, cackling madly about how he was in charge now that the Queen had snuffed it. The Banshee, meanwhile, annihilated my last two Skinks with a final, vindictive scream. Seeing as they had kept the Banshee occupied for the whole battle, however, I wasn’t too upset by their loss.

In close combat, the BSB and his two remaining Knights fought like demons, killing the Kroxigor base contact with them, breaking the rest and running them down, and ending up right next to my Stegadon. To add insult to injury, Ixcotl panicked at the sight of the Kroxigor being run down and promptly fled. On the right flank, meanwhile, the Spirit Hosts inflicted a wound on the other Kroxigor, who held their ground.


Turn 6

In the final turn, Ixcotl failed to rally and continued to run, while the Stegadon about-faced to face the Black Knights, and the Salamanders moved up to burninate more stuff. That was about it—everything else in my army was either dead or in combat.

In the magic phase, Tlacepotl gave a shout of “I HAVE THE POWAH!” and unleashed an Irresistable Thunderbolt which vaporized the BSB and one of the Black Knights. The last Black Knight managed to avoid getting skewered by the Stegadon’s giant bow and promptly gave a dry, rattling laugh, only to then be burned to a crisp by 22 hits from the Salamanders. Boo yah. In close combat, the Spirits failed to hurt the Kroxigor and instead took a wound from outnumbering.

In his turn, the Skeletons and Zombies moved right in front of the Salamanders….for….some reason, the Ghouls continued to chase after the Terradons, and that was that. More stuff crumbled, including (much to my rejoicing), the Banshee, and the Necromancer’s spellcasting attempts were thwarted. All that was left was the Spirit Host combat: the Spirit Hosts actually killed the wounded Kroxigor, broke them, and ran the rest down. And with that, the battle was over.

”Near the close of the battle, the ashen remains of the vampire suddenly lifted up in a miniature tornado and, with a shriek of soul-energy, disappeared. At this, the rest of the Undead withdrew. Though we had thwarted the Undead attack, it was at a heavy cost, and I knew in my heart that we had not truly killed that Vampire, and that the next time we confronted her, she would be out for vengeance.”


Result: Draw (14-13 in my favour)

Shards recovered: 1

Thoughts: Wow! I knew skirmishy Lizardman lists were maneuverable, but actually playing one showed my exactly how maneuverable. By turn 2, my characters and Terradons were already behind enemy lines, and by turn 3, my Skinks, flyers and Salamanders were practically running rings around the enemy. I can now see why skirmishy lists are favoured by Lizardman players and loathed by their enemies, as aside from magic and shooting, the VC player couldn’t attack me unless I let him (in which case I would have countercharges ready).

I was more or less dominating the game through movement alone until I lost my characters to that rather idiotic Black Knight charge. I should have realized that attacking a fear-causing unit that had 2 banners, a Cursed Book and outnumbered me was stupid, but then I had been encouraged by the destruction of the last Black Knight unit. In retrospect, I should have hit the Ghouls instead.

Other than that, a winning draw is a rather nice result for my first game with skirmishy Lizards (and killing off the Vampire was a huge bonus).

Anyway, stay tuned, gentle readers, as next time I will be taking on a crusade of juvenile delinquents!

[Lord of Nonsensical Crap]

Battle #4: When Rowdy Teenagers Attack

EXCERPT FROM THE LOG OF TLACEPOTL, SKINK PRIEST OF UX-MAL

"No sooner had the Undead host of Queen Lahamas retreated into the darkness, than horns suddenly blared on the horizon. A moment later, our Scouts came back and frantically reported a host of human horsemen advancing towards our position, arrayed for war.

After analyzing the situation, I quickly determined that these humans were of the Bretonni tribe, and that they had come to purge the Undead from these lands. Instead of the Undead, however, they found us, and in their ignorance decided that we must be monstrous allies of the Vampire. Ara-kor, still recovering from his injuries, leapt back to his feet and quickly took charge of the warhost as we prepared to fend off the Bretonni...."


For my next battle, I found myself up against a Bretonnian Errantry War list for a 2250 pt game. Now, I've had mixed success against Brets (and by "mixed success," I mean "played a victory against them once and an unfinished loss against them a second time). To keep things interesting, I took the Skinky Death list again.


My list:

Scar-Leader Ara-kor (Oldblood)- great weapon, light armour, shield, Charm of the Jaguar Warrior, Aura of Quetzl, Spawnings of Quetzl, Sotek & Tepok- 262 pts
Kaxaan the Scout (Skink Chief)- Scout, Sword of Might, light armour, shield, Cloak of Feathers, Sacred Spawning of Sotek- 139
Tlacepotl the Wise (Skink Priest)- level 2, 2 dispel scrolls- 150
Ixcotl the Obsidian (Skink Priest)- level 2, 2 dispel scrolls- 150
15 Saurus- full command- 210
10 Skinks- blowpipes- 60
10 Skinks- blowpipes- 60
10 Skinks- javelins, shields- 60
10 Skinks- javelins, shields, Scouts- 70
3 Kroxigor- 174
3 Kroxigor- 174
3 Terradons- 105
3 Terradons- 105
3 Salamander Packs- 195
Stegadon- 235

TOTAL: 2145

Once again, I wound up being below points (by more than a 100 points, at that). Sadly, this was in part due to me not having a good calculation on hand. You'll notice the addition of the Saurus, solely to bump points up: in a mostly skirmishy list, I had no hopes of them doing....well, anything really.

His list was as follows:

Bretonnian Lord- Morning-Star of Fracasse, Gilded Cuirass, shield, Mantle of Damsel Elena
Paladin- BSB, War Banner, Virtue of Duty
9 Knights Errant- full command
9 Knights Errant- full command
9 Knights Errant- full command
9 Knights Errant- full command
9 Knights Errant- full command
9 Knights Errant- full command
15 Peasant Bowmen- full command
15 Peasant Bowmen- full command
15 Peasant Bowmen- full command
15 Peasant Bowmen- full command
15 Peasant Bowmen- full command

In total, a very interesting list with absolutely no magic or special units whatsoever, and the bare minimum in characters. It was, however, a list with lots and lots of core troops. S6, ward-save toting core troops. Whoo boy.

DEPLOYMENT:

There was a big hill in the centre of his DZ, a big wood on the right side of the battlefield, a pond on the left side (excellent for moving my Aquatic troops through), and a pyramid in the middle of my own DZ. A pretty weird setup, if you ask me.

He set up all of his archers on the back field, with 3 units taking up positions on the big hill in his DZ. He then spread 5 of his Errant units in the middile of the table, with his BSB and Lord in the central unit, while a sixth unit was deployed on the other side of the right-hand wood. In turn, I deployed my usual Skink screen, weighting my left flank with both Kroxigor units, the Salamanders, Ixcotl and a Terradon unit, and the rght flank with my Saurus, Stegadon, Ara-kor, Tlacepotl and another Terradon unit, and placed my Scouts and Kaxaan in the big wood.

I rolled Thunderbolt and Comet for Ixcotl, Portent and Comet for Tlacepotl, he prayed, and the battle commenced.

(Note: I don't remember much on a turn-by-turn basis, so I'll be posting events in clumps of turns).


Turn 1

Everything moved up, though my Scouts stayed in the woods. I positioned my Skinks and Terradons to draw in charges, and in the magic phase, Ixcotl blasted two Errants from their saddles with a Thunderbolt, while Tlacepotl summoned a Comet.

In his turn....well, he moved forward, naturally. His archers managed to kill a few Skinks from the unit screening my Salamanders, but that was it.


Turn 2

To my complete and utter joy, the Comet came down on three of the Knights Errant units.....and killed a single Knight. :evil: (Dammit, I miss the S5 Comet of the previous edition.) Once again, my Skinks and Terradons positioned themselves to draw in charges, my Scouts moved to marchblock the rightmost Errant unit, the Salamanders positioned themselves to flame any overrunning Errants.....and that's it. In the magic phase, neither of my Priests managed to cast anything, the Stegadon missed with its giant bow, and it was his turn.

In his turn, he declared with a whole lot of charges, and I responded with a whole lot of fleeing. The end result was two Skink units and a Terradon unit fleeing back to my board edge, and a lot of Errant units left open for counter-charges. In the shooting phase, a few more Skinks from the unit shielding the Salamanders bit the dust, but they held.


Turn 3

Crunch time! Ara-kor and the Stegadon charged the rightmost unit in the big 5-unit formation (not to be confused with the sixth unit that was creeping along the right of the woods), while the Terradons, who had flown below the wood, charged them in the flank. On the left of the field, I declared a charge with both of my Krox units on the leftmost Errant unit. This was a foolish move on my part, as only one unit was in range and made the charge, while the other Krox unit was left as a sitting duck. I should have known that that charge was a long shot just by looking at the distance: what I should have done was have my other Krox unit simply charge the Errant unit directly in front of it instead of attempting a dual charge.

With that little formality done with, my Skinks and Terradons promptly failed to rally and began to flee the battlefield completely. To add insult to injury, they passed by Ixcotl, who turned and fled as well. :x Kaxaan flew out of the woods to marchblock the rest of the Knights, and that was it. In the magic phase, Tlacepotl failed to cast anything, while in shooting phase, only one Salamander was in range of an unengaged Errant unit, and....did absolutely nothing. Fantastic.

In close combat, the Kroxigor killed only 2 Errants thanks to that ever-so-annoying ward save. They took no damage in return, and held their ground. On the right flank, meanwhile, Ara-kor roared a challenge to the Grail Knight champion, who accepted and was heroically hacked to ribbons. The Stegadon, meanwhile, went to town, crushing about four Errants with its impact hits and attacks, while the Terradons did nothing. Still, the Errants did nothing back and promtply broke (despite the BSB reroll), only to be run down. My Oldblood and Stegadon wound up still out of charge range of the Archers, though, but my Terradons did overrun off the board.

In his turn, however, he responded with a crapload of charges. One Errant unit charged my unengaged Kroxigor; deciding that they wouldn't be able to survive the charge, I fled with them, only to watch as they were run down. Two more Errant units -- one of which had the Lord and BSB-- charged the Saurus, who held. The sixth Knight unit continued to circle around the woods, and that was that.

In the shooting phase, most of the Bowmen's arrows did absolutely nothing to my Stegadon. They did, however, porcupine poor Kaxaan, killing hi, and kill a few more Skinks here and there. In close combat, my poor Saurus were reduced to four models, broke, and were run down. To add insult to injury, the Lord's unit overran into the fleeing Ixcotl, who proceeded to flee the battlefield altogther (which hurt, since he was the one with Thunderbolt). In the Errant/Kroxigor combat, the Kroxigor took a wound, killed one Knight back, broke, and were run down. Wow, my forces were well and truly sucking today.


Turn 4

By this stage, a huge chunk of my forces were either dead or had fled the field. Looking back at this turn, what I really should have done was had my Steg and Oldblood continue onwards to charge and kill off the clustered units of Bowmen. Instead, however, I decided to kill more Knights, and promtply turned them around to stomp back towards the centre of the field. The Terradons returned next to the big hill with the three Peasant units squatting on it, the Salamanders about-faced to target the Knights, Tlacepotl moved between enemy units to avoid getting charged, my Scouts continued to marchblock the sixth Knights, and that was that.

In the magic phase, Tlacepotl failed to cast Comet again. In the shooting phase, the Terradons plinked off a Bowman, while the Scouts failed to kill any Knights. The Salamanders, meanwhile, opened fire on the nearest Errants....and proceeded to kill zero Knights and six of their own handlers. To add insult to injury, they panicked and fled towards the nearest board edge. Great. Just effin great.

In his turn, he maneuvred his Knights around in order to engage the rest of my forces; in particular, he shuffled the two units that had killed the Saurus towards the right side. In the shooting phase, he killed a few more Skinks and Skink handlers, but broke nothing.


Turn 5

The Terradons charged the nearest Bowmen in the flank, the Salamanders rallied, the Oldblood and Stegadon moved alongside the wood to get in charge range of the sixth knights, and that was that. At this point I had little left that could actually do anything.

In the magic phase, Tlacepotl again fluffed it, while the Scouts once again threw their styrofoam javelins at the Knights they were tailing. In close combat, however, my Terradons gleefully ripped five Peasants to shreds and ran the rest down, overruning into the next unit on the hill. Sweeeet....

In his turn, he moved his sixth units back to avoid a charge by my Steg and Oldblood, while his Lord's unit and another unit moved into countercharge positions. Two more Errant units moved towards the Salamanders, maneuvering in such a way that they could not escape being charged. His shooting did absolutely nothing, and so we moved straight to combat. My Terradons fluffed it this time, killing only one Bowmen for a wound in return, and hit-and-ran out of combat. Wonderful.


Turn 6

The Stegadon and Oldblood both charged the sixth Knights.....who fled. I was admittedly astounded by this, as I hadn't thought my opponent would sacrifice his Blessing by fleeing. Looking at the two Errants units (complete with Lord) poised to flank charge my Stegadon, I sighed as I realized that I had been led into a trap.

In the magic phase, Tlacepotl did nothing again, and in the shooting phase, the Salamanders, trying desperately to move out of charge range, burned down three Knights from the Krox-damaged unit in a final act of defiance.

In his turn, he charged both his Knight units into my Stegadon's flank and sent another unit thundering into the Salamanders, who had no choice but to hold-- their backs were literally to the board edge. His shooting was uneventful, so we moved straight to combat: his Knights skewered a Salamander and wounded a second one. In reply, my Salamanders failed to do anything, broke, and were run down.

We didn't bother resolving the Stegadon combat, as by that point, I threw in the towel.

Result: Loss (Massacred)

Shards: 1

Thoughts: Euuugh. That went bad all too quickly: I had one turn to set up bait and counter-charges, and after that....everything went to hell in a shoebox. My army panicked and fled in droves, my Kroxigor couldn't batter their way through invisible forcefields, my Salamanders did more damage to themselves than to the enemy, and to top it all off my luck was just plain horrible. The only thing that went right was my Oldblood/Stegadon/Terradon combi-charge. Other than that, my defeat, in part, could be owed to more than a few brain farts on my part. Really, I should have seen the trap the Bretonnian player was setting, as it was that blatantly obvious.

As an interesting aside, after the battle, the Bret player wanted to fight a challenge between our generals, just to see what would have happened. Our two lords battered away at each other for nearly five solid turns, with his lord suffering two wounds and my Oldblood one, before, of all things to happen, my Oldblood failed an outnumbering test, fled and was run down. :x Typical, really.

In light of this defeat, any advice on defeating Brets with Lizardmen (particularly skirmishy Lizardmen) would be appreciated.

[LordChilipepa]

Brets are hard to beat with a skirmishy horde, and even harder to beat with a saurus line. I find the best thing to do if I'm deliberately assembling a list to fight them is to load up on manouevreable hard hitters: krox, cav, stegs, JSOD and a carnie. Combined with a medium-sized bucket o' skinks, and some terradons or a scouting contingent to march-block and mop up the inevitable archers (always worth having the capacity to get to them quickly, as some Brets hide their mages there to avoid paying out for a horse).

The most important thing is not to be left in a position, as you were, where your manouevreable units all have to gang up in order to be able to break one lance, especially if you're still presenting him with static targets (like the Saurii) for him to hit. If you have enough big monsters, some cav and as many Krox as you can field, hopefully you'll be posing enough manouevreable, flank-capable threats to pull apart the speed and concentration of his forces, particularly when you clog his lovely cavalry line with a wave of suicidal skinks. Then, only having to put one or two of your units into a big lance in order to break it, you can simply hit him from the sides, blast through the remnants of the units you trample, and come back to face the survivors as they try to pull their cumbersome formation around to get at you.

I've only ever played half-successfully against Brets with Saurus once. If you're interested, the strategy I used was a line of three units of Saurii, bolstered by a BSB with the Gleaming Pendant and two units of skinks in a long, thin line about an inch in front of them, with flankers holding back to either side behind cover (a Carnie and a Steg). The Brets charged the skinks, who held, got slaughtered, and allowed the Brets to thunder into my braced Saurii and fight in my turn. The Carnie and the Steg then slammed into either flank of the giant chunk of knights in combat infantry, and I activated the Pendant, making two of the units strike last. Unfortunately, even the blizzard of spear-attacks from the central Saurus unit, the Carnosaur and the Steg managed to kill about one knight and his dog, thanks to the usual Bret dice conspiracy.

[Lord of Nonsensical Crap]

Battle 5: Master of the Dark Arts


EXCERPT FROM THE LOG OF TLACEPOTL, SKINK PRIEST OF UX-MAL

After suffering heavy losses from the errant Bretonni, we have retreated further into the woods. After a wekk of continuous scouting and evasion, we have discovered that the region we are currently in has become a warzone, with numerous warmbloods battling against ever-increasing Undead forces. Somehow, the Undead are being draw to this area, and I suspect the Shards may have something to do with it.

Nearby, another Undead host has gathered, this time around a powerful vampire whose presence burns like a dark flame upon the winds of magic. Such a powerful being may very well be sustained by a Shard, so Ara-kor has ordered an assault upon this new Undead host. I only hope that Quetzl and Tepok shall protect us from the creature’s foul magics….




Hey everyone, here’s another battle report for your reading and enjoyment. This time around, the game was a 2250 pointer against—once again—Vampire Counts (Necrarchs this time). I decided to throw in the same list as last time, with a few modifications:


My list:

Scar-Leader Ara-kor (Oldblood)- great weapon, light armour, shield, Charm of the Jaguar Warrior, Aura of Quetzl, Spawnings of Quetzl, Sotek & Tlazcotl- 262 pts
Kaxaan the Scout (Skink Chief)- Scout, Sword of Might, light armour, shield, Cloak of Feathers, Sacred Spawning of Sotek- 139
Tlacepotl the Wise (Skink Priest)- level 2, Diadem of Power- 150
Ixcotl the Obsidian (Skink Priest)- level 2, 2 dispel scrolls- 150
15 Saurus- full command- 210
10 Skinks- blowpipes- 60
10 Skinks- blowpipes- 60
10 Skinks- javelins, shields- 60
10 Skinks- javelins, shields, Scouts- 70
10 Skinks- javelins, shields, Scouts- 70
3 Kroxigor- 174
3 Kroxigor- 174
3 Terradons- 105
3 Terradons- 105
3 Salamander Packs- 195
Stegadon- 235

TOTAL: 2195

As you can see, I gave my Oldblood the Tlazcotl mark, swapped a pair of scrolls for a Diadem of Power, and added another Scouting unit. It was a tough decision, trying to decide which Spawning to swap for Tlazcotl, but in the end I decided to remove the Tepok, since the Sotek was just too good for charging, etc, and I wanted to keep the Quetzl for fluff reasons.


My opponent’s list:

Necrarch Vampire Lord- barded nightmare, level 4, and …..a lot of bloodline powers
Necromancer- level 2, Book of Arkhan
Necromancer- level 2, Cursed Book
20 Skeletons- full command, light armour, shields
26 Zombies
20 Zombies
10 Zombies
5 Dire Wolves
5 Dire Wolves
9 Ghouls
5 Fell Bats
5 Fell Bats
10 Black Knights- full command, War Banner
2 Spirit Hosts
Banshee

So, that would be a total of 10 power dice to my 4 dispel and 2 scrolls. A pretty tall order, but hopefully I’d be able to keep his magic at bay long enough to do some major damage.


SPELLS:

The Vampire rolled everything but Shades of Death on the Death list, while his Necros took the usual Invocations. Tlacepotl rolled Forked Lightning and Thunderbolt, while Ixcotl rolled Portent and Celestial Shield.

DEPLOYMENT:

The Vampires took the upper half while I took the lower. There was a large wood on the upper right corner, a house in the middle of the Vampire DZ, another house near the middle of mine and a hill on the center left of the battlefield. I deployed by weighting my left and centre, with a blowpiper unit in the centre screening my Oldblood, Stegadon and Saurus, another blowpiper unit on the right flank screening a unit of Kroxigor, and a unit of javelins on the left screening my other Kroxigor and Salamanders. My Terradons went behind my Saurus and left Krox, respectively, while my mages took up positions on the left and centre. The Undead, in turn, positioned all of their infantry and characters in the centre (with the Vampire riding in the Skeleton unit and the Necros taking shelter in the big Zombie unit right next to it), placed his Banshee, Ghouls, Hosts, and a unit of Wolves and Bats on his right flank (rather close to the big wood) and another unit each of Bats and Wolves, as well as his big Black Knights, on the left. Once his deployment was finished, I placed one unit of Scouts and Kaxaan in the wood, and another Scout unit behind the left-flank hill, just ahead of the rest of my right-flank forces.

The plan (at the time) was to advance forwards as quickly as possible, eliminate his Necromancers with Terradons, and smash his infantry and Vampire with my heavy-hitters (hopefully getting some flank charges from my Kroxigor). My right Kroxigor would deal with the Black Knights (aided my the Salamanders if necessary), and my Scouts on the right would deal with his peripherals. I was more than a little concerned about that Banshee, since its deployment left it out of Kaxaan’s LOS. Hopefully, my Scouts would last long enough to keep that Banshee under wraps (I was also hopeful that Kaxaan would put his Sword of Might to good use and kill off his right flank stuff before it could threaten me).





TURN 1

Winning the roll for first turn (holy crap, that’s the fifth time in a row I’ve been going first!), I proceeded to advance everything up. In the left and center, the Kroxigor, Stegadon and Oldblood advanced behind their nice Skink screens (with Ara-kor joining one of them), while the Salamanders edged further to the left to gain a nice fire corridor on any Black Knights or Fell Bats foolish enough to move into their firing range. Ahead of them, the leftmost Scouts ghosted forwards. This of course, left them in charge range and LOS of the Black Knights, but if they could divert those Undead nasties for a while, I’d be happy. On the right, the Scouts stayed where they were, the Krox advanced, and Kaxaan flew out from behind cover right in front of his Dire Wolves and Fell Bats. The plan was to make them charge him and chop them to bits with his shiny magic weapon (provided he survived, of course). The Terradons then moved up in front of the Skink screens, each one ready to charge the visible Necromancers on Turn 2. Tlacepotl moved into the slowly-trudging Saurus, and in the magic phase, Forked Lightning on the Spirit Hosts was dispelled, and that was that. Not a very impressive first turn, I must say.

In his turn, the Dire Wolves on his right charged Kaxaan…..who proceeded to fail his fear test, chicken out and flee, flapping his chicken wings and getting away. The Dire Wolves then overran into the Terradons, whom I fled with as well (rather foolishly on my part, since in retrospect, they could have taken the rotters on and won). Much to my severe irritation, the Dire Wolves THEN overran into my screen of blowpipers (“What do you mean they have Movement 9?”) whose stand and shoot reaction did absolultely nothing. Everything else moved forwards, with his infantry shuffling forwards, his right-flank peripherals edging up and his right-flank Bat Swarms zooming straight downwards. On the left, meanwhile, the Black Knights simply trudged forward a few inches, wary of my Kroxigor, and the other Fell Bats hovered behind them. The Necromancers then retreated to go hide in their bunkers, gesturing rudely at my Terradons as they did so. So much for my surgical strike idea. The left unit of Dire Wolves moved in front of my Kroxigor and angled so that if they charged, they would not overrun into the Black Knights, but, rather, would be open to a flank charge. Lovely.

In the magic phase, the Vampire cackled and cast Drain Life, which I promptly scrolled. One Necromancer could see my remaining Terradons and cast Gaze of Nagash. I promptly fluffed my dispel roll and lost 2 Terradons and a wound on the third. Wonderful. (Note: I couldn’t remember from where the Necros could see the Terradons from. Either way, though, I messed up when I removed my dead models and wound up with my remaining Terradon unable to draw LOS to the Necros) The Necros then cast an Invocation to raise a new unit, but I dispelled it. This, however left me open to a dastardly casting of Steal Soul which plucked a wound from poor Tlacepotl. Finally, he tried to read from his Book of Arkhan, but Ixcotl was having none of that and stopped it with his last scroll. Crap, it was Turn 1 and I was already regretting trading away my other 2 scrolls.

In the howling phase, the Banshee sang a high-pitched sonata that caused six of the right Scouts’ heads to explode and made the rest flee for the board edge. In close combat, the Dire Wolves munched through four blowpipers, broke the rest and ran them down, overrunning into my right unit of Kroxigor. All in all, a really crappy turn for me: my Terradons had either been beaten off or mostly killed, and my right flank was in danger of collapse already. Fan-frikkin-tastic.



TURN 2

At the start of my Turn 2, my fleeing Scouts showed me how brave they were by heroically and dashingly fleeing off the battlefield, although Kaxaan and the Terradons had the sense to rally (though at this stage they were back in my DZ, where they were absolutely useless). My Steg, Oldblood and Skink screen, realizing that the Undead infantry line would be charging next turn, shuffled back, while the stuff on my left flank also shuffled slightly, and my other Scout unit moved right next to the Black Knights (although this put them in LOS of the Fell Bats). My last Terradon from the decimated unit, meanwhile, flew behind the Necrobunker, and Tlacepotl, fearing that the Spirit Hosts would charge him next turn, left the Saurus to get out of their charge arc. Note that, for some odd reason, I still kept my Oldblood and Stegadon screened behind the blowpipers, unable to draw LOS and charge any of the Undead infantry. This, boys and girls, is called a brain fart.

My magic phase was once again uneventful, with Forked Lightning and Celestial Shield being dispelled again. In the shooting phase, my Scouts’ javelins failed to hurt the Fell Bats, and the lone Terradon missed the Zombies. And my Salamanders….were once again sitting back and waiting for his fast stuff to come into burninating range. On the plus side, my non-Scouting javelins and my screening blowpipes combined their fire to wipe out the left-flank Dire Wolves. Nice.

In close combat, the Dire Wolves failed to hurt the Kroxigor, and were crushed in return. Unfortunately, because they had been held up by the Wolves, my Krox were now about to be charged by the Spirit Hosts (déjà vu, anyone?).

In his turn, the right-flank Fell Bats charged my rallied Terradons, who held. Due to the long distance of the charge, only one Bat managed to get into base contact (phew!). The Spirit Hosts, meanwhile, charged my right-flank Kroxigor, and I decided to hold in order to prevent the Spirit Hosts from messing up the rest of my army. Finally, his left-flank Bats charged my last Terradon hovering behind the Necronbunker, who fled and narrowly avoided crashing into terrain. Everything else moved up: the Banshee and Ghouls loped towards the centre, the infantry continued their advance, and the Black Knights edged up a little more, still playing it safe against the Krox.

With that, the magic phase from hell commenced. Speaking dark words of power, the Necrarch cast a massive Drain Life spell which, sadly, I failed to dispel. I could only watch helplessly as the spell proceeded to kill Kaxaan, Tlacepotl (I shouldn’t have moved him from the Saurus), 2 Skinks from my right blowpipers, 4 of my non-scouting Javelin Skinks, the lone fleeing Terradon, 1 Saurus, and did one wound to my engaged Kroxigor and 2 wounds to my Stegadon. Holy, effing crap. Thankfully, the Necromancer then miscast with Gaze of Nagash and ended the magic phase. Still, that was just plain brutal.

In the howling phase, the Banshee used her “Haha, I can scream at you even though you’re in combat” rule and targeted my engaged Kroxigor, killing one of the big lizards and wounding another. In close combat, the Spirits, thankfully, did no further damage, and combat was a draw. In the Bat-Terradon aerial battle, meanwhile, the lone Bat in combat fluffed its attacks. In return, I had 9 S4 attacks back…..and inflicted a single, measly wound. Wow, my Terradons just love to disappoint me at times. Combat was a draw, and the battle went on.


TURN 3

Having suffered quite a lot of casualties in the last magic phase, it finally dawned on me that I ought to unleash my Stegadon and Oldblood on his vampire’s unit. To this end, I moved my screening blowpipers out of the way, putting them in charge range of the Ghouls (if they got charged and destroyed, I wouldn’t be too bothered, since I could then simply charge the overrunning Ghouls and overrun myself into the Vampire’s Skellies). Elsewhere, my Kroxigor finally got tired of the waiting game and advanced onto the hill behind my non-scouthing Javs, while behind them, the Salamanders moved to the right to get into burninating range of the Zombies. On the upper-left corner, my remaining Scouts continued to slow down the Black Knights.

Magic was a non-entity at this point, so instead I went to shooting. My Salamanders proceeded to burn 6 Zombies from the smaller unit to ashes, while my Scouts hurled their javelins ineffectively at the Black Knights. To my surprise, though, the Stegadon then fired its giant bow at the Skeletons and proceeded to skewer four of them. After having the bow miss or fail to wound in so many previous games, I was overjoyed to see it do something for once. In close combat, the Spirit Hosts and Kroxigor once again fought a draw on the right flank, and in the aerial battle on my bottom right flank, the Terradons once again unleashed their 9 S4 attacks on the Fell Bats….and did a single wound, downing the damaged bogie. While I was contemplating whether or not I should burn my uncooperative dice, the Fell Bats promptly fluffed their own attacks, and combat was a draw once again.

In the Undead turn, the Ghouls predictably charged my blowpipers….who failed their fear test and fled when I would have much preferred them to hold. Picking up the dice, I prayed for a short flee move, but the Powers That Be were being complete jerks, and instead my blowpipers escaped the charge and wound up in front of the Skeletons, effectively blocking my Oldblood and Stegadon from charging. AAARGH! I’m surrounded by frikkin idiots! To make matters worse, I had quite misjudged the distance between my left-flank Kroxigor and the small Zombie unit, as it proceeded to charge my javelin Skinks, and, when they fled, overran into the Krox. I decided to hold, though, since my Krox would be striking first and hitting on 3s with 9 attacks. On the plus side, my fleeing javelineers didn’t panic the Kroxigor or the Salamanders as they fled through them.

Everything else continued to move up, with the unengaged Fell Bats flying up to threaten my Scouts, and the magic phase began. Once again, the Necrarch through four dice into Drain Life. Frantically, I tried to dispel it with every dice I had, but came short. In the ensuing magical holocaust, one Terradon, one Saurus, and one of the fleeing Skinks were killed, while Ixcotl, the zombie-fighting Krox and the Salamanders all took a wound each. It was then that I realized the colossal error I had just made: by using up all my dispel dice, I was left open to the Book of Arkhan, which propelled the Black Knights into my Kroxgor currently fighting the Zombies. The rest of the magic phase saw the Necromancers boosting the big Zombie unit by 5, and hurling an ineffectual Gaze of Nagash at my Stegadon.

In the howling phase, the Banshee sang another dreadfully high-pitched aria and screeched my Terradons into oblivion. Craptastic. In close combat, the Spirit Hosts and Krox once again fought a draw (by this point I was sure they were busy playing poker instead of actually fighting), while the Black Knights thundered into my other Kroxigor and killed off one of them. Striking back, the Kroxigor killed off three Zombies before breaking and being run down, with the Black Knights overrunning into my Salamanders. Now, I could have held, but I figured that my Salamanders would stand no chance against charging Black Knights, and so fled. Thanks to this example of tactical genius on my part, the Salamanders rolled short on their flee move and were run down by the rampaging Black Knights, who THEN contacted my fleeing Javelin Skinks and destroyed them as well. As an added bonus, Ixcotl promptly panicked and fled. So, all in all, I had lost four units in a single turn and was in danger of losing another two. Great. Just great.




TURN 4

With their LOS to the Vampire’s Skeletons blocked by those idiotic fleeing Skinks, the Oldblood and Stegadon did the next big thing and charged the big Zombie unit on the left of the Skellies. At the time, I was hoping that the Skellies would flank-charge my Oldblood and bring the vampire into GW bashing range. On the upper left-flank, meanwhile, I figured that javelins wouldn’t do that much damage to the Fell Bats, what with my string of pitiful luck, and decided to charge with my Scouts instead. And what happened? You guessed it, dear audience, a failed fear test. Elsewhere, Ixcotl repeated his performance from the last battle and fled the field screaming like a reptilian sissy. The fleeing blowpipe screen, however, rallied right in front of the hungry Vampire and his Skeletal buddies.

With no magic and no shooting, I went straight to combat, and found out that one of the nearby Necros in the bunker was toting the ever-so-predictable Cursed Book. Despite this, the Oldblood and Stegadon flattened 6 Zombies between them and crumbled another two. The Krox, meanwhile, lost a wound to the Spirit Hosts (who were upset at losing at poker), but held their ground.

In his turn, he charged the Skeletons into the recently-rallied blowpipers, who fled and were run down. This, however, left the Skeletons sitting right in front of my grinning Saurus. The Fell Bats, meanwhile, charged the Scouts, who, in an act of uncharacteristic bravery, held their ground. The rest of the Undead army manouvred, and it was magic time. The Book of Arkhan tried to charge the Black Knights into the Saurus’ flank, but this was dispelled. The Vampire then plucked a wound off of Ara-kor with Stead Soul, and used Drain Life to kill a Saurus and kill one of the engaged Kroxigor and wound another. The two Necromancers then turned their attentions to the big Zombie unit my Oldblood and Steg were fighting and, between them, replenished five of them. Finally, in the howling phase, the Banshee gave one final, high-pitched performance and exploded the head of my last Kroxigor.

In close combat, my Oldblood and Stegadon killed 7 Zombies and crumbled 2 more. The Fell Bats, meanwhile, rolled ridiculously well, ripping five of my Scouts to bite-sized shreds. In reply, my plucky Skinks killed off one of the Bats before breaking and being run down, like so many proud Skinks before them.


TURN 5

By this point, I had almost nothing left from my once-glorious army. Seeing the Skeletons right in front of them, the Saurus, quite happy for an opportunity to prove that they weren’t completely useless, charged in, and it was straight to the combat phase for me. The Saurus performed quite well, wounding the Vampire (though he had 5 wounds left due to Steal Soul) and crushing two Skeletons. In reply, the Vampire killed only one Saurus, and another Skelly crumbled. (YAY! My Saurus actually did something! Moral victory to me!) The Oldblood and Stegadon, meanwhile, this time killed only three Zombies, crumbling another. At this stage, though, I finally shook my head and forfeited. I had almost nothing left in my army: my Oldblood and Steg would be killing Zombies all day, and even if my Saurus did avoid getting flank charged by the Black Knights, I doubted they’d be able to hold out for long against a Vampire Lord in close combat.


Result: Loss. (Massacred 1-16)

Shards: 1

Thoughts: Eeuuugh, that was just plain horrific. I was all but wiped out, and all I had to show for it was two dead units of Wolves. Truly a massacre if there ever was one.

So, what excuses can I make about this battle? Absolutely none. The truth of the matter is that I lost because I played like a complete and utter idiot: keeping my hitty units screened by Skinks and unable to charge, putting my Krox into a position where they would be held up by Spirit Hosts, not burninating stuff with my Sallies from the get-go, stacking my units so that they would later flee through each other or else get all run down by the same unit, misjudging the enemy’s charge distances, etc etc etc. To sum it all up, I lost because I didn’t play on my army’s one big strength—the ability to dominate the movement phase. Instead, I wound up playing defensively and reacting to the enemy’s moves. All in all, complete idiocy on my part. The fact that I didn’t really have a coherent plan before the battle started also contributed to this disaster. Of course, I was also severely outgunned in the magic phase—that Necrarch was just plain nasty.

Looking back, I made a few deployment errors: my Oldblood would have been better off on the right flank, where he would have been able to rip through those Dire Wolves, Bats and Ghouls like a hot knife and zoom forward to threaten the Necrobunker. The more I play skirmishy Lizards, the more I realize that coordination, more than anything else, is crucial—in this battle, my units were operating piecemeal rather than acting in concert, hence the reason why they were destroyed so easily. More than anything, I have to learn how to coordinate better –and, for that matter, deploy my forces better—if I want to have any sort of success with my Lizzies.

On a side note, I HATE BANSHEES! In this battle, it wasted no less than three of my units (two of which were in close combat!) At this point, the only way I can actually kill the damn thing is through static CR (yeah, like I’ll actually be able to charge the thing), or magicking it to death (which just won’t be happening against any army with potent magic defense). At this stage, I think my best bet would be to give Ara-kor a magic weapon and go Banshee hunting early on (though knowing my luck, my next VC opponent will probably be light on Banshees and heavy on Black Coaches).

Will LoNC ever escape from his losing streak? Or will he suffer another horrible massacre? And will the Banshee ever succeed in her singing career? Find out next time, same lizard-time, same lizard-channel!

This post has been edited by Lord of Nonsensical Crap on Oct 23 2007, 11:17 AM

[KingTut]

Your not having too much luck are you?
I heartily support your quest for the spirit shard.

[Lord of Nonsensical Crap]

Battle 6: Revenge of the Beards

EXCERPT FROM THE JOURNAL OF TLACEPTOL, SKINK PRIEST OF UX-MAL

It has been several months since we first set out on our expedition across the World Pond. During that time, we have battles New Ones and Undead alike, and have reclaimed one of the lost shards. The other nine, however, still remain beyond our grasp.

But right now, our primary aim is survival: a host of Dwarfs is advancing upon us, and I have good reason to believe that they are kin to the thieves we slew so long ago. Though we may easily evade their slow and clumsy pursuit, there is also the chance that they may bear yet another shard. Hence, Ara-kor is leading us into battle once more….

Felgar Whiteaxe spat as he saw the lizard-things flitting among the trees in the distance. The murderers had clearly seen him and his host coming, and already, regiments of their larger creatures were arraying for battle. The Beasts of Lustira were impressive-looking foes, combining the size and brute bulk of an Orc with a predatory cunning in their eyes and scaly, spined hides that looked to be as hard as iron.

Let them stand before us, Felgar thought. We shall crush them like a hammer upon an anvil. Already, his kin were arrayed for battle, shouting oaths as they crashed their weapons upon their shields, while the artillery was busy being positioned on the adjacent hill. Today, they would have vengeance for the murder of his cousin Durkin and his host. Today, a grudge would be fulfilled.

I’M BAAAAAACK!

(Ahem)

And I’m reporting on another 1000-pt battle between everyone’s favourite Lizardmen, and yet more angry Dwarfs (different player this time). As I was emboldened by my last victory against the Dwarfs, I figured another battle against them couldn’t hurt (much).

THE LISTS:

WARHOST OF UX-MAL

Scar-Leader Ara-kor (Scar-Veteran)- great weapon, light armour, shield, Jaguar Charm, Aura of Quetzl, Spawnings of Quetzl & Sotek- 178
Skink Priest Tlacepotl- level 2- 100
15 Saurus Warriors- 210
10 Skinks- blowpipes- 60
10 Skinks- javelins- 60
3 Kroxigor- 174
3 Salamanders- 195

977


THE AVENGING DWARFS:

Thane- great weapon, Master Rune of Gromril
15 Longbeards- full command, shields, great weapons (??), Rune of Battle
20 Warriors- full command
10 Thunderers
10 Quarrellers
Bolt Thrower- Rune of Penetration, Engineer w. great weapon
Organ Gun


DEPLOYMENT:



Note that this image is a little off: I think my Krox and Saurus were actually further to the left. Anyway, on to the battle….





TURN 1

Winning the roll for 1st turn (Yaaaaay!), I proceeded to move up with everything. My Salamanders skirted around the right flank towards the Quarrellers, my Scouts moved through cover towards his main battle line (hoping to annoy his Thunderers), and on the left flank, my Kroxigor and Saurus advanced behind a swift-moving screen of blowpipes, who were quickly joined by Ara-kor. I realized too late, though, that this left Tlacepotl out of LOS of any units, and I moved him up near the Saurus so that he could start unleashing comets on the Dwarfs next turn.

With no magic or shooting, I handed the turn over to the Dwarf player, who responded by moving his Longbeards up slightly; everything else stood still as he prepared to unleash all of his shootiness on my poor, poor, Lizards, who had never once lifted a finger to hurt him (those nasty, means Dwarfses!)

Ahem, sorry, where was I? Oh right, the shooting phase. His Thunderers opened up on my Skink screen, and, in an amazing display of Dwarfen accuracy, killed only one Skink (the one who, coincidentally, had lost the draw to hold up the unit’s big “shoot me” sign). So far so good, I thought, as I was taking minimal casualties. That was, until I remembered that units on a hill can target any enemy unit they want, even if they’re screened by another, non-monstrous unit. The Organ Gun opened up on my Kroxigor and did 2 wounds to them, though thankfully, the S7 bolt thrower wisely missed. With that unimpressive shooting phase out of the way, it was my turn.



TURN 2

Seeing tasty little Dwarfs lined up in charge range, Ara-kor gleefully ran out of the Skink screen and slammed into the Organ Gun crew. Everything else moved up, with the Scouts leaving their cover, the Salamanders moving into burninating range, and the meatshields advancing in front of the Kroxigor (with the Saurus lagging behind, as usual). Tlaceptol, hoping to get line of sight on those pesky Dwarfs, joined the Saurus, and that was that.

In the magic phase, Comet of Casandora was dispelled (lousy Dwarfen dispels), and it was on to the shooting phase. The Skinks were still out of range, so the Salamanders opened up with 12 hits and killed…..one Quarreller. Oh, and two Skink handlers. Wow. That was so bad it was impressive.

In close combat, Ara-kor predictably ripped the Organ Gun crew to shreds, and, seeing that the Bolt Thrower could simply swivel and target him next turn, overran off the board.

In his turn, the Dwarf player moved….absolutely nothing! (Dun dun dun!) Instead, he moved straight on to shooting. It was then that I realized that, in my movement phase, I had not only left the Kroxigor unscreened from the Thunderers, but also left their flank open to the Bolt Thrower. Both the Bolt Thrower and Thunderers opened fire, and when the smoke and dice cleared, the poor lizards had been utterly annihilated. To rub salt into my open wounds, my two Skink units then took fright at the destruction of the Krox and fled back. The Quarrellers, meanwhile, took some pot-shots at the Salamanders and wounded one of them.

All in all, a bad turn for me: half my army was already fleeing, and my big sledgehammer unit (meant for carving open those armoured Dwarfs) was now little more than a blackened patch of earth. Terrific.


TURN 3

In my turn, both Skink units, thankfully, rallied, and the Saurus continued their implacable advance. Ara-kor returned, advancing to the left of the Bolt Thrower, and that was that.

In the magic phase, Tlacepotl tried to cast Second Sign…and promptly miscast. Thankfully, I rolled a 6, which meant that the Dwarf player could cast a spell of his own. After searching for a wizard in their ranks, however, the Dwarfs grudgingly admitted that they didn’t have any spellcasters, and with that the magic phase ended. In the Shooting phase, the Salamanders must have been irritated by the return fire that they had been getting, as this time they did things right and burned down 5 Quarrellers (oh, and ate another handler). The bearded gits, however, refused to flee.

In his turn, I realized that I had repeated the same mistake from last turn and left my Saurus’ flank open to the Bolt Thrower. In the ensuing shooting phase, a whopping 7 Saurus were either impaled or gunned down, though they passed their panic test with ease. Still, my remaining Saurus didn’t look like so much of a threat any more. In other news, the Quarrellers inflicted another wound on the Salamanders, and that was that.



TURN 4

Charge time! Ara-kor and the blowpiper Skinks both charged into the Bolt Thrower, while the Saurus (who still had Tlacepotl in the unit) thundered into the Thunderers (lolage). Much to my surprise, the Thunderers chose to flee (What? Fleeing Dwarfs? Blasphemy! Madness!) and the Saurus instead crashed into the Thunderers waiting behind them.

This left my Saurus in a pretty bad position: if they failed to break the Warriors (which, let’s face it, was likely), then the Thane and his Longbeards would be waiting to charge them in the flank next turn. Plus, the fact that I had forgotten to move Tlacepotl out of the unit meant that I would have 2 less S4 attacks on the charge (always a bad thing with Saurus, since you need as many attacks as possible with them). I hit in a very faint hope, though, when I saw the Bolt Thrower combat: if my Lizards could wipe out all of the Bolt Thrower crew in one go, then Ara-kor could overrun into the flank of the Warriors and lend a hand with his 5 S7 attacks. It was a long shot, and it still might not break the Warriors, but it could work….

In all other movement, the Scouts and Salamanders moved up, and shooting commenced. The Salamanders finally wiped out the Quarrellers. (with a whopping 8 unsaved wounds….why couldn’t they do that on turn 1?) And then it was crunch time: Ara-kor lunged in with his 5 attacks, and my heart lit up when he hit 4 times. That is, until I rolled a 1 to wound, which meant that his Engineer was still alive and kicking. The Skinks tried to kill him off, but the Dwarf shrugged off their feeble slaps, missed his return attacks, and held his ground. Stupid Dwarfs, not accepting the inevitable…

In the big combat, the Saurus crashed into the Dwarfs and crushed two of them (yaaay Saurus!). In reply, however, the Dwarfs managed to wound Tlacepotl in return. I had lost by 3, but my cold-blooded leadership would see me through, right? Right?

One failed leadership test later, my Saurus fled a measely 3 inches (ZOMGWTF?) and were mercilessly hacked down, along with Tlacepotl, by the avenging Dwarfs. Curses. Just…..curses.

In his turn, the triumphant Warriors charged my Scouts, who fled and, unlike the Saurus, escaped (See, Saurus, why couldn’t you have done THAT?) The Thunderers rallied (Boo! Hiss!) and the Longbeards turned and advanced towards the Bolt Thrower combat. Speaking of which, the Engineer issued a challenge to Ara-kor, and then once again obligingly missed with all of his attacks. Ara-kor took pity on him by only killing him once over.




TURN 5

With my Saurus gone, my chances of victory had just gotten a lot slimmer. If nothing else, I could at least aim for a draw now. With this in mind, Ara-kor zipped behind the recently rallied Thunderers to call them names behind their backs, while the blowpipers shuffled to do some damage to them with shooting. The Salamanders moved up to target either the Longbeards or the Thunderes. Oh yes, and the Scouts rallied.

In the magic phase, I cast--- oh, right, Tlacepotl’s dead. Never mind, everyone! False alarm!

In the shooting phase, the blowpipers targeted the Thunderers, and did absolutely nothing. Peeved, I unleashed the Salamanders on the Longbeards, and did….also….almost nothing. Well okay, I think they ate a few more handlers, so they technically did SOMETHING. But this was the second time in a row they had underachieved in this battle, and at this point I was angrily beginning to mutter things about “Salamander stew.”

In his turn, the Longbeards advanced on the blowpipers, turning to face Ara-kor as they did so. Oh yes, and the Warriors charged the Scouts, who once again fled. The Thunderers fired on the Salamanders, and killed one unfortunate handler. At least he died happy to have not been eaten.

Alright, move along, people, nothing to see here.



TURN 6

With an exuberant roar, Ara-kor charged the Thunderers in the rear, and, unlike the last time, they held. I had actually been debating whether to charge them or not, since if they had fled, then Ara-kor would crashed right into a ranked-up unit of Longbeards (who doubtlessly would have broken him and sent him running). My Scouts rallied, my other units shuffled around, and that was it.

In the shooting phase, the Salamanders must have taken my threats seriously, as thus time around they opened up on the Longbeards, and, together with the blowpipers, killed an impressive 7 of the Dwarfs! BOO YAH! How ya like them apples, Stunties?

In close combat, Ara-kor killed 3 Thunderers, who panicked, fled and were run down. Ara-kor wound up crashing into the Longbeards anyway (though if he hadn’t pursued, they still would have been able to charge him. Besides which, their casualties had denied them their rank bonuses now).

In the Dwarf turn, the Warriors had obviously gotten tired of chasing Scouts, as this turn they didn’t charge. All we had to do left was resolve the Scar-Vet/Longbeards combat. I was eager to claw some points back, and so I issued a challenge, and the Thane accepted. If I could kill his general, then I might be able to score a draw (or a minor win). Cue Epic Duel Music!™

With the force of a speeding comet, Ara-kor came hurtling towards the Dwarfs, his bronze armour and sword stained with the blood of the Thunderers. Enraged, Felgar strode to the front of his unit. “Stand back, my kin!” he roared. “This one’s mine!”

With a roar, Ara-kor hurtled into the Dwarf, his tooth-edged blade meeting the Dwarf’s silver axe with a tremendous crack of metal on metal. The Dwarf gritted his teeth as his ancient weapon was forced back by the Saurus’ tremendous strength, the barbed teeth of the Lizardman’s blade coming with inches of his face.

Snarling, Felgar summoned all of his strength and pushed the Saurus back, and swung out at him furiously. Ara-kor was a fast one, though, side-stepping the first blow and deflecting the second on his toothed greatsword. The Longbeards stood back, silent, as the two warriors engaged in a furious duel, sparks flying everywhere as sword and axe clashing again and again.

Then, to the horror of the assembled Dwarfs, a mighty swing from Ara-kor’s weapon swooped in, slammed home under the defending axe-head and wrenched Felgar’s weapon from his grip, sending it flying far to the side. The Thane didn’t even have time to defend himself before the Scar-Veteran reversed his swing and brought his mighty blade crashing down on him. Felgar was sent hurtling backwards in an explosion of blood, smashing through the assembled ranks of his clansdwarfs.

With a collective roar of rage, the Longbeards fell on Ara-kor. The Scar-Veteran desperately tried to fend them off, batting them away left and right with his greatsword. But the press of numbers was to great, and the Dwarfs had vengeance in their hearts. With a hiss of irritation, Ara-kor leapt backwards and broke into a retreat, easily outpacing the slow Dwarfs as he ran.

Ara-kor charged in, inflicted 3 hits…..and proceeded to roll snake eyes. The one hit that got through bypassed the Dwarf’s armour, but that damnable Thane was still alive. The Thane was obviously related to the Engineer, though, in that all of his return attacks missed. Still, Ara-kor had lost combat by 2. So what, I thought, cold-bloodedness will see him through….

One roll of 7 later, and Ara-kor shrieked like a little girl (because the Dwarf’s banner was so scary!) and ran screaming off the table. And with that, the game ended with me shouting that the dice had betrayed me.


RESULT: LOSS

THOUGHTS: I know this sounds like an obvious excuse, but…..AAAAARGH! THE DICE BETRAYED ME! GAAARAGHARGHFWRU-ahem.

Seriously, though, between the Salamanders killing absolutely nothing at times (that one shooting phase against the Longbeards will haunt me forever), my cold-blooded Saurus rolling like they had Goblin leadership, and my Scar-Veteran’s great weapon suffering a case of rubber bat syndrome, the dice rolls, more than anything else, were what killed my army. Not my tactical incompetence. Oh no.

…..

Well, okay, I was an idiot for not moving Tlaceptol out of the Saurus (so what if the Dwarfs shot him? At the rate the battle was going, I should have skipped on magic altogether). That, and walking my Krox and then Saurus into an absolutely evil crossfire. In retrospect, maybe I should have charged Ara-kor into the Bolt Thrower first, and then the Organ Gun. Then again, the idea of leaving an Organ Gun with free reign in the shooting phase makes me cringe. Really, though, “move up and charge” was the only tactic I had in mind for the Saurus and Kroxigor, since the Dwarfs certainly weren’t going to come to me, being the campers that they were. In retrospect, maybe I should have tried moving the Krox through the treeline….

Anyone else have any tactical observations on hand? If so, then they would be appreciated.

This post has been edited by Lord of Nonsensical Crap on Nov 30 2007, 10:45 PM

[Lord of Nonsensical Crap]

And Now For Something Completely Different: Pointy Ears vs. Pointy Ears!

EXCERPT FROM THE LOG OF LAERITH, LIEUTENANT AND PAYMASTER OF THE FIREHEART MERCENARIES:

The Eagle’s Talon docked in Marienburg on the twenty-fifth day of the Season of Rain (14th Somerzeit by the Imperial Calendar), and upon landing, we immediately advertised our services in case there were any potential contractors in that human city. Marienburg is always a favourite rest-stop for us, as there are numerous Asur merchants in that city, many of whom are distant friends and relatives of ours. Many of these Asur are sensible people who do not look down on us as shamed exiles (though some are openly distasteful of our mercenary profession). Indeed, today I met up with an old friend of mine, Atharis, and we talked and joked about the old times back in Ulthuan. He informed me that my family is still doing well, for which I am grateful.

But I stray off topic. During our re-stocking in Marienburg, we learned of an Asur cohort docked there, from Ulthuan, preparing for some unspecified campaign against an Orc tribe. Initially, Morien decided to avoid contact with them, judging that these Asur would not want to associate with exiled mercenaries. Fortune, however, had other ideas in store, as it wasn’t long before the cohort’s leader approached us in a tavern. The noble in charge—a swaggering Caledorian who was every bit as arrogant as the rest of his people – had heard of us and our exploits, and openly challenged us to a mock battle. His mages would weave spells to make battlefield situations more realistic, he said, and even cast illusions of injuries and deaths. He proposed that a bunch of rag-tag exiles could not possibly beat his glorious warhost.

Morien never earned his last name “Fireheart” for his calmness, and, incensed by the Caledorian’s rank insults (and his general dislike of Caledorians in the first place), he accepted. And so it was that later on, on the fields outside of Marienburg, our two forces prepared for battle….


Recently, I got the new High Elf rulebook, and because I’ve always wanted to try my hand at High Elves (particularly a certain themed army idea I thought up a while back), I decided to take a small list for a spin. Coincidentally, my first opponent for my first game with High Elves was…(gasp!) another High Elf player! We both agreed that Speed of Asuryan would be negated in this game and that we would both strike at initiative order as normal. That said, we drew our forces up for battle:



FIREHEART MERCENARIES (me)

Morien Fireheart (Noble)- great weapon, Armour of Caledor- 118
Ilitha (Mage) level 2, Jewel of Dusk, dispel scroll- 170
20 Spearmen- full command, War Banner- 225
10 Archers- 110
15 White Lions- full command, Lion Banner- 250
10 Swordmasters- 150
Tiranoc Chariot- 85
Tiranoc Chariot- 85
5 Shadow Warriors- 80
Repeater Bolt Thrower- 100
Great Eagle- 50

Total: 1423

I didn’t realize that I was under-points at the time. If I had, then I probably would have boosted the numbers of some of my regiments, and, more importantly, given my White Lions the Gem of Courage.


HIS LIST (from memory):

Mage- level 2, Seer Staff
Mage- level 2, dispel scroll, Silver Wand
Noble- BSB, barded steed, lance, heavy armour
20 Spearmen- full command
20 Spearmen- full command
10 White Lions
Tiranoc Chariot
5 Dragon Princes- full command, Banner of Ellyrion
Great Eagle
Repeater Bolt Throwers


DEPLOYMENT:



Ilitha rolled on the Life table, hoping to get Howler Wind and/or Master of Wood. Instead, though, she got Master of Stone and the Rain Lord (which wasn’t too bad). The enemy mages rolled Commandment of Brass and Distillation of Molten Silver, and Wind of Death, Doom and Darkness, and Drain Life, respectively.


DA PLAN:

My Shadow Warriors and Eagle would slow his Dragon Princes down as much as possible, while my Swordmasters and right Chariot would be there to countercharge if need be. My main infantry line, meanwhile, would clash with his: I was actually looking forward to using my White Lions as an anvil to draw in multiple charges and then countercharge with Spearmen and/or Chariots.



TURN 1

For once, I did NOT get the first turn (maybe it’s a Lizardmen-only thing). The High Elves advanced with everything, moving their Spearmen units and Chariot up down the middle, their Eagle around the wood, and sent their Dragon Princes moving directly into the wood itself, ending 2 inches away from my Shadow Warriors. With these formalities out of the way, the High Elves then just went straight to the magic phase: the Metal Wizard managed to draw line of sight to my right chariot (DOH! My fault for leaving it exposed). Deciding that the Chariot would probably survive, I decided to let it through. Of course, that was BEFORE I remembered that Elven Chariots are T5, not T4 (shoddy Elven workmanship….) An insane number of hits later, my poor Chariot was little more than a misshapen, un-aesthetic lump of metal. Wow. Turn 1, and I’m already losing units.

His Death Mage then cast Wind of Death on my Great Eagle, whom I had also left within line of sight (double D’OH!). Ilitha tried to dispel, but failed, and the Eagle took a wound. The Repeater Bolt Thrower then trained its sights on the said Eagle and finished it off in a hail of bolts. (You monsters! I’m calling the Animal Rights Commission on you!)

Smarting from the loss of two units on Turn 1, I responded by advancing my own army: the White Lions and Spearmen moved up to meet the enemy infantry blocks, while the Swordmasters angled around to confront the Dragon Princes once they exited the wood. Speaking of the wood, my Shadow Warriors edged back, moving out of the 2 inch sight distance from the Dragon Princes while taunting them mercilessly (for no insults are as harsh and tear-inducing as the ones that the Nagarythians can throw out). Oh yes, and my remaining Chariot moved up to draw a charge from his Chariot, angling so that my pursuit wouldn’t crash through his own units.

The magic phase was a no-go, as the enemy Mages blocked off all of Ilitha’s spells (Those mean bullies, picking on a girl! And a blind girl at that!) Deciding to return the favour for my own dead Chariot, I targeted his own Chariot with my Archers and Repeater Bolt Thrower, and proceeded to take 3 wounds off of it. The Shadow Warriors, meanwhile, were at the edge of the wood and could draw line of sight to his rightmost Spearmen. Sadly, however, they missed. (They simply aren’t as good at shooting people as they are at taunting them)


TURN 2

Deciding it was better to smash stuff than to sit back and get shot, his Chariot charged my own. I fled with my Chariot, and proceeded to watch as my Chariot….ran…off…the board….like a sissy Skink unit. Rats. Oh well, at least his own Chariot was still out in the open. His infantry crept forwards slowly, wary of my White Lions, while his Dragon Princes once again moved within 2” of the Shadow Warriors. The Eagle, meanwhile, skirted around the wood, landing just in front of my RBT.

In the magic phase, the Metal Mage once again tried to cast Distillation, only to miscast, drop boiling silver all over himself, and leave himself very badly burned. (To quote a certain Simpsons character: HAW HAW!) The Death Mage tried to make up for the Metal Mage’s incompetence, but Ilitha was having none of that and dispelled it. In the shooting phase, his RBT decided to be mean and targeted my poor Swordmasters, killing 3 of them.

In my turn, Ilitha’s Spearmen charged the Chariot, who fled. In the meantime, Morien and his White Lions moved up right in front of the two Spearmen units and enemy White Lions. I figured that my stubborn warriors could take a charge, dish out plenty of damage back, and leave a few units pinned in combat long enough for my own Spearmen to charge them in the flank or rear. Meanwhile, the Swordmasters angled to counter-charge the Dragon Princes (whom my Shadow Warriors kept taunting) and that was that).

The magic phase was a no-go once again (stupid male mages and their bullying of poor Ilitha). In the shooting phase, my Archers opened up on the fleeing Chariot and destroyed it. Thus far, I was actually liking the longer range and superior accuracy of High Elf firepower. The Shadow Warriors opened up on the enemy Great Eagle, but only took 1 wound off of it, forcing me to fire my RBT at it to finish it off.

With that, all I had to do now was whether the enemy charges….



TURN 3

Predictably, my Dragon Princes charged the Shadow Warriors, who held. Much to my chagrin, however, my opponent wasn’t taking the White Lion bait: instead he arranged his Spearmen units and White Lions in a semicircle, so that if I charge 1 unit, he’d flee and leave me open to be charged by the other two. Curses. That was it for his movement, however: now it was time for the magic phase.

His Metal Mage, having quite forgotten how to distil silver as per his unfortunate miscast, instead cast Commandment of Brass on my RBT. Sadly, my attempts to dispel failed, so my artillery would be silenced for a round while my crewmen tried to find the spare, non-brassified bolts. The Death Mage then tried to cast Steal Soul, but Ilitha countered that with a dispel scroll. In the shooting phase, his RBT once again targeted my Swordmasters….and either missed or failed to wound. Either way, my Swordmasters were high-fiving each other for having survived this turn.

In close combat, the Dragon Princes and BSB did what they did best and annihilated my poor Shadow Warriors (though as they were wiped out, they mercilessly taunted the poncey horsemen one last time). The Dragon Princes chose not to overrun, which was fine by me—this way, my Swordmasters could now charge them.

In my turn, the Swordmasters launched themselves in a charge against his Princes and BSB—only to watch as they chickened out and fled through the wood (at which point I realized that they had the Banner of Ellyrion). My White Lions, meanwhile, charged his White Lions, who ALSO fled through the wood, leaving my Lions’ flank open to two Spearman units. Still, I figured, I was stubborn: I could survive. Ilitha’s Spearmen moved up to support the White Lions when they were inevitably charged, and that was that.

Magic was once again dispelled, so it was on to shooting. The RBT couldn’t shoot, so the Archers compensated by targeting the rightmost Spearmen, hitting maybe 6 or 7 times….and killing 1 measly Spearmen. Crikey.



TURN 4

With yell of “lets get those mercenary bastiches,” the Spearmen and Death Mage charged my White Lions in the flank (and naturally, they held). The other Spearmen turned to face Ilitha and her posse, and the fleeing White Lions and Dragon Princes rallied. If I could just keep his magic under wraps, I’d be fine.

Note the word “if.” His Metal Mage got the ball rolling by once again casting Commandment of Brass on my RBT. I once again threw all of my dispel dice into stopping it, and I once again failed. It was then, however, that my opponent revealed his sneaky plan: with no dispel dice to oppose him, his Death Mage cast Doom and Darkness on my White Lions. I had a sinking feeling in my gut (or maybe it was that sandwich I ate for lunch) when I was informed that my White Lions were now at –3 to their leadership.

In the shooting phase, the RBT brought down another 3 of my poor, exposed Swordmasters. Finally, it was time for close combat: the charging Spearmen killed 2 White Lions, though the White Lions weren’t going to be outdone by a bunch of pointy-hatted geeks, and hacked down 2 of them in return. Still, I had lost be a lot. If I could only roll a 5 on my leadership test…..

“7,” said the dice.

“Boo!” said the Death Mage.

“EEEEK!” said the White Lions.

“5,” said the flee roll, before the aforementioned White Lions (and Morien) were run down by the Spearmen.

“Lol,” said the Mage.

“NOOOOOOOOOO!” said LoNC.

The moral of this story: don’t underestimate morbid, gothy Elves. They really are scarier than they look.

In my turn, Ilitha, mightily enraged by her brother’s defeat, led her Spearmen in a charge against the Metal Wizard and his leftmost Wizard, only to watch as they turned and fled out of harm’s reach. (“Cowardly Elves! By the beards of our ancestors, we will be avenged! Wait, wrong race….)

With almost nothing left to do, it was time for the magic phase. Ilitha must have been pissed indeed, for she proceeded to cast Master of Stone on the RBT with irresistible force (which just comes to show, when you bully someone, they inevitably snap). Sadly, only 1 RBT crewman was KO’ed by the flying rocks, so that RBT would still be operational. Rats.

In the shooting phase, the Archers plinked off another of the rightmost Spearmen. Yeah, like that was going to make much difference now.



TURN 5

Sensing victory, my opponent declared his charges. His White Lions charged my Swordmasters, but fell short. Not one to be discouraged, he charged my Archers with his Death Mage’s Spearmen, forcing them to flee off the board. Meanhile, his Dragon Princes came riding out of the wood and angled to charge my Swordmasters in the flank next turn. Wonderful. Oh yes, and his Metal Mage’s unit rallied.

In the magic phase, he failed to cast Commandment of Brass. His Death Mage then cast Drain Life: remembering how deadly this spell had been against my Lizardmen, I threw everything I had into stopping it, but failed, though the spell only claimed one Swordmaster and one RBT crewman. His RBT then fired at my Swordmasters and killed another one, leaving only 4 left. Wow. Wonderful.

In my turn, my depleted Swordmasters launched themselves into one last, glorious charge against the White Lions. My Spearmen shuffled for a bit, and that was it.

Magic was once again dispelled, so it was on to shooting. My RBT could actually shoot this turn, and it had line of sight to his Dragon Princes. I unleashed a volley, and watched with satisfaction as 3 of the arrogant Knights were felled. Sadly, however, they passed their panic test, but this still meant that I would claim points for reducing them to half strength.

Then came the combat phase: my Swordmasters unleashed 8 attacks on the White Lions, hitting on 3s and wounding on 2s…..and killed only 2 of them. As I lamented the fact that the dice were once again betraying me, the White Lions struck back and killed only 1 Swordmaster. Despite losing combat, the 3 remaining Swordmasters held the ground, deciding that they were just too badass to flee.

I, however, didn’t share their sentiments: with almost nothing left of my army, and his Spearmen and Dragon Princes ready to charge next turn, I threw in the towel.


RESULT: LOSS (MASSACRED)

Wait, sorry, I mean…

RESULT: HIGH ELF VICTORY!

Much better.


At the end of the day, it was clear that the cohort from Ulthuan had won the battle. The Caledorian openly gloated, proclaiming that it was for the better that such a pathetic warhost had left Ulthuan. Many of us were outraged by the Caledorian’s words, but were kept from resorting to acts of violence by Morien himself, who told us to just accept our defeat and let it go. It was easy to see, however, just by looking at Morien’s face, that he dearly wished to silence that Caledorian’s mockery with his fists.

What is done is done, however. The warhost has just left to fight the Orc tribes, and we are still waiting for a contractor here in Marienburg. My only hope is that the men have not been left too demoralized by this defeat: to be beaten in a mock battle by other Asur would suggest to them that they have lost their touch since they left Ulthuan. I hope that we will have an enemy to fight soon, for then we will have a chance to amend our defeat.



THOUGHTS: Well, I’m actually not too disappointed, since I was pretty much expecting to lose: I was fighting with High Elves for the first time, and I was up against an experienced High Elf player, so I was seriously disadvantaged from the get go. All I can say about this game is that I lost because I was out-magicked: those crucial castings of Commandment of Brass, and, more importantly, Doom and Darkness, were what cost me the game. Well, leaving my Chariot and Great Eagle in LOS didn’t help much, either.

My learning points from this game:
-Everything in the HE army is incredibly fragile (even the Chariots!)
-Leadership is everything with High Elves. I’m actually thinking that in future games, I should use a BSB instead of a General Noble: if I had indeed used a BSB, then my White Lions could have actually stuck around in close combat instead of getting scared off via Doom and Darkness
-High Elf firepower is FUN! After using Skinks for so long, it was an enjoyable experience using firepower that had a much longer range and actually hit on 3s. Not nearly as good as Salamanders, but still pretty damn useful.
-More mages! With Lizardmen in 1000-1500 pt games, I can rely on marks of Tepok to boost my dispel dice, or else just let spells hit expendable units like Skinks. High Elves, however, don’t have any cheap means of boosting their dispel dice, nor are any of their units expendable. A second mage would go a long way in both boosting my dispel power and actually letting me cast some offensive spells of my own.

Anyway, stay tuned: next game, LoNC’s Lizards are back in action, with more pointy-ears to fight!

[Lord of Nonsensical Crap]

Battle 7: Into the Woods

EXCERPT FROM THE LOG OF TLACEPOTL, SKINK PRIEST OF UX-MAL

After we narrowly escaped the vengeance of the Dwarfs, my visions drew us further east, towards the forest which the Elves refer to as Athel Loren. From what I have been able to ascertain, the Elves were once populous on the main continent, but a conflict with the Dwarfs forced them to flee across the World Pond back to their homeland. Only this small community of Elves remains on the main continent, and they have since allied themselves with local Tree Spirits-- bizarre, unnatural creatures who do not seem to exist in accordance with the plans of the Old Ones.

It is clear, however, that the next shard of the Eye is in this forest, though I suspect that the Elves and their Tree Spirit allies may not take too kindly to our intrusion. For this reason, I have summoned for a relic back from Ux-Mal—a blade said to have been created by the Old One Chotec. It is written in the annals of Ux-Mal that, during the time of the Fall, the jungle trees surrounding the city were warped by Chaos, and that this blade was use to destroy the abominations. Though Ara-kor remembers it not, it was he who first wielded this blade, and so I have given it to him again to use against the Tree Spirits of Athel Loren.

For my next battle, I found myself up against a Wood Elf army. Now, I had never fought Wood Elves before, but from what I have read in tournament reports, they are one of the most lethal armies out there, so naturally, alarm bells went off in my head. I was up against an army that was just as fast as mine, caused lots of fear (nasty for my poor Ld5 troops) and could potentially defeat me in combat, magic and shooting. So, bracing myself, I nonetheless accepted the Elf player’s challenge and began to pray to whatever dark gods would listen…



MY LIST:

(Note: Though I usually just use a standard, all-comers list, for this battle I decided to make one minor tweak to my list—namely giving my Oldblood the Tree-Burning Blade of Chotec.)

Ara-kor (Oldblood)- Burning Blade of Chotec, Enchanted Shield, light armour, Aura of Quetzl, Charm of the Jaguar Warrior, Spawnings of Tlazcotl, Tepok & Quetzl- 288
Kaxaan the Scout (Skink Chief)- Scout, Sword of Might, light armour, shield, Cloak of Feathers, Sacred Spawning of Sotek- 139
Tlacepotl the Wise (Skink Priest)- level 2, Diadem of Power- 135
Ixcotl the Obsidian (Skink Priest)- level 2, 2 dispel scrolls- 150
10 Skinks- blowpipes- 60
10 Skinks- javelins, shields- 60
10 Skinks- javelins, shields- 60
10 Skinks- javelins, shields, Scouts- 70
3 Kroxigor- 174
3 Kroxigor- 174
3 Terradons- 105
3 Terradons- 105
3 Salamander Packs- 195
Stegadon- 235

TOTAL: 1950


HIS LIST:

Noble- Wardancer Kindred, Blades of Loec
Noble- Alter Kindred, Hail of Doom Arrow, great weapon, light armour, shield
Branchwraith- Annoyance of Netlings, Cluster of Radiants
Spellsinger- Calingor’s Staff, dispel scroll
10 Glade Guard
10 Glade Guard
8 Dryads
8 Dryads
8 Dryads
7 Wardancers
6 Wild Riders- musician
4 Warhawk Riders
3 Treekin
1 Treeman


DEPLOYMENT:



DA PLAN:

My faster stuff like the Terradons would deal with his Glade Guard, while my Oldblood would munch his way through anything that looked vaguely like a tree (Today he would be on a vegetarian diet). My Krox and Stegadons would deal with the lighter stuff like Wardancers and Dryads, and my Skinks, as usual, would make an annoyance of themselves.


TURN 1

The Lizardmen of Ux-Mal began their advance swiftly. On the left flank, a screen of javelin-armed Scouts sprinted forwards ahead of the lumbering Stegadon and Kroxigor, while the Terradons swooped over the forest canopy and landed just ahead of the Skinks, hoping to tempt the Dryads up ahead (or possibly even the Treeman) into a charge so that the Kroxigor would be able to crush them with their axes. In the center, a group of blowpipers skirted towards the woods on the right flank, leaving the Salamanders, along with the two Skink Priests, to advance up the center towards the distant Glade Guard. On the right flank, the Scouts shuffled, while Kaxaan edged close to the edge of the woods so that he would be able to fly at the Glade Guard once the enemy’s fast cavalry and Skirmishers were diverted elsewhere. Another unit of Kroxigor lumberered up near the woods, the right-flank Terradons flew to the rightmost edge of the wood, and Ara-kor himself advanced within cover of the trees.

Calling on the Winds of Magic, Tlacepotl managed to cast a Celestial Shield on the Salamanders, which the enemy mages made no effort to dispel.

In response, the Wild Riders rode around the right flank, eager to hit the Lizardmen from where they were weakest, while the Alter Noble, moving with the speed of a predatory wolf, zipped through the woods to gain line of sight to the right-flank Kroxigor. Warhawk Riders, Dryads and Wardancers all moved down through the wood, while the lumbering Treekin stayed just outside the wood’s edge. In the center, the Glade Guard held their position, while on the left, Dryads and the Treemen all edged cautiously towards the approaching enemy.

Raising their voices, the Asrai spellcasters began a great Treesong. One of their songs got through, as Ara-kor was suddenly attacked by the wood he stood in, a branch impaling him through the chest and drawing blood. Elsewhere, the Alter Noble drew back his bow and unleashed a Hail of Doom Arrow upon the Kroxigor. The arrow split into hundreds of smaller arrows, but, much to the Noble’s chagrin, only one of those arrows pierced a Kroxigor’s scaly hide. The Warhawk Riders added their fire, but had even less luck than the noble, and failed to hurt any of the Skinks screening the Kroxigor. On the right flank, the Glade Guard loosed their bows on the Terradons and brought down two of the winged beasts, while leaving the third badly wounded, but the last rider refused to flee. On the left flank, the Glade Guard trained their bows on the javelin-armed Skinks confronting the Dryads and Treeman and killed 4 of them, while the Treeman unleashed its hidden roots and impaled 2 more, though like the last Terradon rider, the remaining Skinks stubbornly refused to flee.


TURN 2

Seeing the Warhawk Riders just ahead of them, the right-flank Kroxigor bellowed and charged through the startled blowpipe Skinks, only to watch as the Warhawks fled to safety. The sole remaining Terradon rider, seeing the Alter Noble exposed, charged him, while the left-flank Kroxigor hefted their great weapons and, charging through the remaining javelin Skinks, slammed into the Treeman, ignoring its terrifying aspect. The Stegadon edged forwards slightly, ready to confront the Dryads and Treeman in the event that either should break through the Skinks or Treeman, while in the center, the Salamanders moved up within burning range of the Glade Guard. On the right, Kaxaan activated his Cloak of Feathers and flew far to the right, landing behind the second unit of Glade Guard, while the Scouts, seeing the wood now swarming with Dryads, Wardancers and Wild Riders, moved towards the edge of the wood to target the Wild Riders. Finally, Ara-kor moved forwards so that he could confront the Treekin later on, and the other unit of Terradons flew over the intervening wood to land behind the middle Glade Guard regiment and their accompanying Spellsinger.

Both Tlacepotl and Ixcotl tried to cast spells, but the Asrai mages blocked all of their attempts. The Salamanders let loose with a great gout of flame on the Spellsinger’s Glade Guard, incinerating 4 of them, though one Salamander turned and ate 2 handlers instead of spraying flame. The Scouts hurled their javelins and unhorsed two Wild Riders, while on the left flank, the Skinks hurled their javelins at the Dryads, but failed to do any damage.

The Krox crashed into the Treeman with the force of an avalanche, but although they hammered at it again and again with their bronze weapons, only one blow pierced its ancient oaken hide. In response, the Treeman ripped one Kroxigor in half and badly injured another, but the scaly beasts held their ground. Meanwhile, the Terradon swooped down on the Alter Noble, but failed to hurt it, while the Noble couldn’t quite land a killing blow on the Terradon either.

In response, the Warhawks rallied, and on the left flank, one group of Dryads charged the Skinks, losing one of their number to a hastily-thrown javelin, while the Branchwraith and her kin flank-charged the Kroxigor fighting the Treeman. In the forest, on the right flank, another group of Dryads charged the Scouts, who tried to flee, but fell short and were ripped limb from limb by the vengeful tree spirits, and the Wild Riders, whooping in exhilaration, charged the last Terradon fighting the Alter Noble.

While more of the Wood Elven skirmishers milled about in the big wood, the Glade Guard on the right turned around to face the lone Skink Chief behind them. The Spellsinger, Dryad and the Treeman all lent their voices to Treesinging, but all of their efforts were thwarted (with one song even drawing out a dispel scroll). The only spell that got through was targeted against Ara-kor, whose tough scales this time repelled the lashing tree-roots.

The Glade Guard in the middle turned their bows on the right-flank Kroxigor, but failed to hurt them. On the right, however, the other Glade Guard had more success and riddled Kaxaan with arrows, dropping him. In close combat, the Wild Riders charged in to the Alter Noble's aid and skewered the Terradon fighting him, before overunning into a javelin-wielding Skink unit, who fled. Meanwhile, the Dryads and their Branchwraith, along with the Treeman, ripped apart another Kroxigor and dealt two grievous wounds to another. The last Kroxigor missed with all of its return attacks, broke, and fled, only to run right into the middle Glade Guard and fall to their massed knives. The other group of Dryads, meanwhile, ripped their Skink opponents to shreds before overrunning into the flank of the Stegadon.



TURN 3

Seeing the Treekin dead ahead of him, Ara-kor roared and charged them, while the Terradons screeched and charged the Glade Guard from behind. Elsewhere, the unit of Skinks that had been forced to flee by the Wild Riders fled the battlefield entirely, leaving just one unit of Skinks alone on that section of the field. The right-flank Kroxigor manouvred to face the incoming Dryads in the woods.

The Skink Priests tried to bring the heavens crashing down on the Asrai, but once again found their efforts thwarted-- Tlacepotl, while trying to cast Forked Lightning, miscast and injured himself severely. The blowpipe Skinks, meanwhile, turned their weapons on the Wild Riders and killed 2 of them. In combat, the Terradons tore down two Glade Guard, but lost one of their number in return to the Elven knives, and hit-and-ran out of combat. Ara-kor, meanwhile, swung his burning blade and inflicted a deep, flaming wound on the nearest Treekin. Unable to hurt the durable Saurus in return, the Treekin, fearful of the Scar-Leader’s burning weapon, tried to flee, but were hacked down by the swift-footed Ara-kor as they ran.

The Dryads, meanwhile, lashed out with clawed branches and managed to score a wound on the Stegadon. Roaring in rage, the great beast stomped three Dryads down in reply, while the Skinks in the howdah stabbed down another with their javelins, but the tree-spirits held their ground.

Seeing the blowpipers just ahead of him, the Alter Noble gave a great cry, turned into a wolf, and charged them. The Blowpipers were ready, however, and let loose a great volley of darts that riddled the incoming Noble, killing him instantly. The Warhawks, meanwhile, overcame their fear and charged the Salamanders, while in the big wood, the third unit of Dryads shrieked and charged the right-flank unit of Kroxigor. Finally, uttering a great bellow, the Treeman stomped over the fallen bodies of the Kroxigor it had slain and charged into the already-embatttled Stegadon. The middle Glade Guard, meanwhile, turned around to face the Terradons in case they tried to charge them again.

Once again, the Skink Priests thwarted the Asria's attempts as Treesinging. The rightmost unit of Glade Guard, having manouvred slightly around the wood, unleashed a massive volley of arrows on the blowpiper Skinks and killed an impressive seven of them. Despite this carnage, however, the remaining three Skinks held their ground, knowing that they still had a duty to perform.

Shrieking, the Dryads crashed into the Kroxigor, wooden talons slashing against their hard scales. One Kroxigor was wounded, but in reply, he and his kin lashed out savagely with their heavy bronze weapons and smashed four of the Dryads to paste. Shocked, the Dryads turned and fled, easily escaping the lumbering beasts. Elsewhere, the Warhawks and their riders managed to kill one Salamander with their spears and claws, though another Salamander struck back and bit a Warhawk's leg off. The Salamanders refused to flee, and so the Warhawks turned and flew out of combat.

In the big melee on the left flank, the Treeman smashed into the Stegadon with its heavy limbs, inflicting two bone-crushing injuries on the mighty lizard. Roaring in defiance, the Stegadon crushed and gored another two Dryads, and stubbornly refused to run.




TURN 4

Seeing the Treeman fighting the Stegadon in the distance, Ara-kor roared and charged in to help, moving with unnatural speed as he ran at the Treeman. Elsewhere, the Kroxigor stamped through the woods and charged the Dryads they had just beaten, but the Tree Spirits continued to flee out of their reach. The Terradons, meanwhile, once again charged the Glade Guard, who stood and shot, wounding one of the flying reptiles as it charged in.

Once again, the two Skink Priests tried to unleash their magic against the Asrai, and once again, their efforts were thwarted. The Salamanders, however, at the goading of their handlers, unleashed gouts of flame at the Warhawks who had previously charged them. Three of the hawks were burned to a crisp, along with their riders, and the last one cried out in panic and fled. The remaining blowpipers, meanwhile, fired on the Wild Riders, but all of their shots missed.

With predatory shrieks, the Terradons swooped down on the Glade Guard, killing one and wounding the Spellsinger. In reply, however, the Glade Guard managed to kill the wounded Terradon, and combat was drawn. Ara-kor, meanwhile, barreled into the Treeman at high speed and slashed out with his burning blade, hitting the Treeman once, twice, three times. Within moments, the Treeman had been reduced to a burning hunk of wood by the Scar-Leader's enchanted blade. The last Dryad shrieked in rage at the death of the Treeman and clawed futilely at the Stegadon, before being stabbed down by the Skinks in the howdah. Eager to slay more enemies, Ara-kor continued his charge and slammed into the Branchwraith and her unit.

Eager to avenge their kin, the remaining Wild Riders charged the Salamanders, but misjudged the distance and fell short. Ignoring the Kroxigor lumbering past them, the Wardancers skipped out of the wood so that they could assault the Salamanders in future. Each and every Asrai knew that those scaly monsters could not be allowed to live, after seeing what they had done to the Warhawks. Elsewhere, the last Warhawk Rider rallied, as did the Dryads, and the right-flank Glade Guard continued to manouvre around the wood.

Once again, the treesong of the Asrai was nullified by Lizardmen anti-magic, though the Glade Guard did manage to kill one more blowpiper, though the Skinks once again refused to flee. In combat, the middle Glade Guard swarmed the last Terradon and slashed it down with their knives, ending the threat they posed once and for all. Meanwhile, as Ara-kor ran into the Dryads, the Branchwraith stepped forward and shrieked a challenge at him. Suddenly, Ara-kor found himself swarmed by gibbering Spites who wove enchanted spindles around his arms and weapons, restricting his movements. Shrugging off the blows the Branchwraith rained down on him, Ara-kor tried to strike back at her, but with his movements impeded, the Dryad easily danced out of the way of his clumsy blows. Despite this, Ara-kor held his ground, determined not to be undone by the trickery of these forest spirits.


TURN 5

Seeing Ara-kor in trouble, the crew of the Stegadon urged the beast forwards, and it roared as it crashed into the Branchwraith's Dryads. Elsewhere, the Kroxigor charged the rallied Dryads, smashing down trees left and right in their efforts to come to grips with their foes. The last two blowpipers manouvred in order try to shoot either the Wild Riders or the Wardancers.

Once again, the Lizardmen spellcasters fell short in their endeavours-- this time, it was Ixcotl's turn to miscast and injure himself. The blowpipers once again fired darts at the Wild Riders, and once again failed to kill any of them. The Salamanders, on the other hand, unleashed their flames upon the Wardancers, enveloping the entire unit in a mighty conflagration. When the flames cleared, the Wardancer Noble stood alone amidst the charred bodies of her kin, weeping bitter tears of rage at the loss of her entire unit.

The Stegadon's charge hit home with the force of a thunderbolt, sending the bodies of Dryads flying in the air in all directions. Two Dryads were killed in the beast's rampage, and the intervention of the monster caused the Branchwraith's concentration to lapse for one second-- enough time for the Netlings to weaken significantly. The enraged Ara-kor ripped the Spites off of him and slashed down at the Branchwraith, wounding her. This was too much for the Branchwraith, who gave a great howl and fled, followed by the lumbering Stegadon. Ara-kor held his ground, however, turning his gaze to the Glade Guard and Spellsinger in the middle of the battlefield.

Elsewhere, the Kroxigor once again lashed out with their bronze weapons and smashed one Dryad into pulp. The remaining three Dryads tried in vain to avenge their sister, only for their claws to rebound harmlessly off of the Kroxigor's scales. Despite this, they held their ground, shrieking in defiance.

Invoking the name of Kurnous, the Wild Riders charged the Salamanders, only to watch as they, along with their attendant priests, fled out of their reach. The Branchwraith and her kin, reaching the cover of a nearby forest, rallied, and the Wardancer Noble gracefully pirouetted back into the cover of the middle forest.

The frustrated Spellsinger once again tried to punish the foes of Athel Loren with her treesinging, and once again, failed to get past the Lizardmen's defences. Seeing Ara-kor looking hungrily at them, she and her remaining Glade Guard desperately fired their bows at him, only to watch as the arrows bounced harmlessly off of his thick scales. The other Glade Guard, however, had more success, finally wiping out the last two blowpipers in a hail of arrows.

In combat, the Dryads once again failed to harm the Kroxigor. In reply, bronze axes flashed in the sunlight, and all three Dryads were gruesomely hacked and crushed to death.



TURN 6

With a predatory roar, Ara-kor charged the middle Glade Guard, who tried to flee. As swift as the Elves were, however, they were no match for the blessings of Huanchi, and all of the Asrai-- including the Spellsinger-- were hacked down by Ara-kor's burning blade as they fled. The Stegadon, meanwhile, roared and charged the rallied Branchwraith and her attendant Dryads, while the Salamanders, taking inspiration from the destruction Ara-kor was wreaking, rallied.

With the Spellsinger dead, the Skink Priests rejoiced in the fact that the Asrai's magical defences had been weakened, and set about punishing the Wood Elves with the wrath of the Old Ones. Tlacepotl summoned a mighty thunderbolt which crashed down from the heavens, electrocuting the last two Wild Riders. A great shadow passed over the battlefield, meanwhile, as Ixcotl summoned a comet down from the heavens to crush the Wood Elves.

The Stegadon's impact was tremendous, smashing another two Dryads into splinters of wood. The Branchwraith tried to summon Spites to help her, only to have the Stegadon's massive jaws clamp down on her, crushing her instantly and reducing her to a mangled mess of wood and sap. Shrieking in vengeance, however, the remaining Dryads swarmed the Stegadon, ripping away at its scales and flesh, tearing apart its Skink crew, and finally killing it. (NOTE: At this point we got into an argument over the Steg's remaining wounds, since the Dryads inflicted only one wound. I was pretty sure that the Steg had only suffered 3 wounds beforehand, while my opponent was dead certain that it was 4. I didn't want to get into a major debate over this, so I finally consented and removed the Stegadon as a casualty).

The heavens were rent apart as a massive, flaming comet came crashing down on the remaining unit of Glade Guard, hitting the earth like the fist of an angry god. Elves were thrown everywhere by the explosion, and six of them were killed, but the Asrai nonetheless held their ground. The Wardancer Noble, meanwhile, seeing Ara-kor ahead of her, gave a great, vengeful warcry as she leapt out of the wood and danced towards him. The remaining Warhawk Rider, too, was eager to avenge his kin, and flew his mount in a swooping charge towards the Salamanders.

The Wardancer Noble was a blur of slashing steel as she attacked Ara-kor, moving too fast for the cold-blooded lizard to react. Too late, a sword slashed past his defenses and buried itself in his chest. The Scar-Leader swayed for a bit, before collapsing, rendered unconscious by blood loss. The Warhawk Rider, however, had less success, failing to hurt any of the Salamanders. In return, the Warhawk took a deep wound from a Salamander's savage bite, and hit-and-ran out of combat.

And with that, darkness began to fall over the blood-soaked forest, and the two sides withdrew, leaving the field littered with the dead.

The battle with the Elves and their allies was a bloody one, with many losses suffered on both sides, before our respective warhosts were forced to withdraw by the coming darkness. Ara-kor survived, despite his injuries, and Kaxaan, too, recovered from the many arrow-wounds he had suffered.

Although our warhost suffered many losses, it satisfies me to know that their deaths were not in vain: I personally scoured the battlefield later that night, and found that my divinations had been correct. A shard of the Eye was found on the shredded body of the Elven mage, one that the foolish New One must have mistaken for a petty bauble. The warhost has since withdrawn from Athel Loren, though I have a feeling that the Wood Elves may seek vengeance on us at some point in the future.


Result: DRAW (16-15 in my favour)

Shards Recovered: 2

Thoughts: Holy crap, what a bloodbath! That might possibly have been one of the most fast-paced and brutal games of Warhammer I have ever played, and one of the most fun as well. The fact that most of our units were fast-moving and relatively fragile meant that combats didn't last long, and usually ended with one side either broken or completely destroyed.

That said, I'm quite pleased to end with a winning draw against the Wood Elves, given how fearful I was of them at the start of the battle. I've learned that if you can gain the upper hand if you manage to charge them, since so many of their more dangerous units (Tree Spirits, Wardancers, Wild Riders) are Immune to Psychology and therefore cannot flee. That said, my victory came down to me using the right units to counter my opponent's nastier stuff (Salamanders burning down the Wardancers, Steg and Kroxies munching through Dryads, Oldblood burning his way through the Treeman and Treekin, etc). It helped that I had some abnormal luck in this game: my Kroxigor made an incredible number of 5+ saves, and my Skinks and Salamanders passed so many Ld5 tests, it's downright ridiculous.

That said, I still made a few mistakes in this game. My 2nd-turn charge with the Kroxigor against the Treeman was a long shot, and in retrospect, I should have known that the big tree was just too tough for them to tackle. Similarly, a few crucial choices in turns 5 and 6 might have saved me a few points: if I had directed Tlacepotl's Thunderbolt against the Wardancer Noble instead of the Wild Riders, for example, then I would not only have gotten points for the Elven General, but would have saved points from Ara-kor's loss. Similarly, if I had pursued the Dryads with Ara-kor and ran them down, I would have saved for both my Oldblood and my Stegadon (which, by the way, I still find iffy as to whether or not it should have even been killed). In either case, however, I would also have been forsaking points from kills-- as I wouldn't have gotten points for the Spellsinger and both units of Glade Guard-- and the combined efforts of the Warhawk and Wild Riders might have been enough to break my Salamanders and net my opponent a huge number of points.

All in all, though, my first game against Wood Elves was an absolute blast, and I look forward to playing them again. As an added bonus, I got another shard! (Yes, I know, I originally said I'd only get shards from victories, not draws. Given how victory-less I've been lately, however, I've decided to extend the rule to winning draws. Besides, it's my own self-imposed rule, so THERE.)


MVP: My Oldblood was definitely the star of the game, single-handedly mowing through a unit of Treemen, a Treekin, and the Spellsinger and her Glade Guard. I must also give an honourable nod to my Skinks and Salamanders, however, as the sheer number of successful leadership tests they made was just downright astounding (especially those last 3 Skinks down on the bottom right corner of the map, who annoyed my opponent no end with their sheer refusal to run or to die).

[Lord of Nonsensical Crap]

Battle 8: Raiding the Raiders

EXCERPT FROM THE LOG OF TLACEPOTL, SKINK PRIEST OF UX-MAL:

Our warhost had no sooner exited the accursed forest of Athel Loren when, once again, battle thrust itself upon us. Our forwards scouts came retreating back to us, claiming to have been attacked by dark-clad Elven horsemen. After a few minutes of scrying, I quickly determined that there was a small raiding force approaching, one composed of the Elves who now inhabit the northern continent that the New Ones call 'Naggaroth.' Why these raiders were approaching Athel Loren instead of one of the numerous New One coastal settlements, I could not determine. Nonetheless, the arrival of these 'Dark Elves' put our warhost in a dire position, as we were surrounded with the raiders ahead of us and the vengeful Wood Elves behind us. Having suffered tremendous casualties in our previous battle, we could not afford to fight both hosts, and so Ara-kor, still healing from his wounds of the last battle, resolved to lead a breakout against the Dark Elves, who were themselves relatively few in number. If we attacked them quickly, he said, then we would have the advantage of surprise. With Quetzl's blessing, we would prevail and escape with our recently-attained shard.


My next battle wound up being against a Dark Elf player. Now, my battles against Dark Elves have always been inconclusive: in one battle, a Dragon and 4 RBTs inflicted heavy damage on my Saurus-based forces, but, in return, the rest of my army inflicted severe damage on his cavalry and chariots. In another battle, my DE opponent and I were evenly matched in mobility and firepower, and the battle was pretty fast-paced before we were forced to cancel it at turn 3. This game, however, would be played at 750 pts a side


THE LISTS:

LIZARDMEN:

Ara-kor- great weapon, light armour, shield, Glyph Necklace, Jaguar Charm, Spawnings of Quetzl & Sotek- 180
Tlacpotl- level 2- 100
10 Skinks- javelins- 60
10 Skinks- javelins- 60
3 Kroxigor- 174
3 Terradons- 105
1 Salamander Hunting Pack- 65

Total: 744


DARK ELVES:

Noble- Cold One Chariot, halberd, Lifetaker, Blood Armour
5 Dark Riders- repeater crossbows
5 Dark Riders- repeater crossbows
10 Witch Elves- full command
Repeater Bolt Thrower

(I was surprised that the DE player had so few troops, even at 750 points. On the other hand, however, I was relieved that I would not be facing any spellcasters on his side, given my lack of scrolls or magic defence)


TERRAIN

In the middle-left of the map sat a big pyramid (which, we shall assume, was a Wood Elf pyramid. Or an Empire one. Very rare, those), while on the right-hand side of the map sat a pretty large wood. Just directly below the pyramid, at the very bottom of the map (and the DE deployment zone) was a very big hill. I think we can all guess as to what units are going to be going on that particular feature.


DEPLOYMENT:

I placed both of my Skink units in the middle of my deployment zone, with Tlacepotl in the leftmost unit, behind which stood the Kroxigor. On the far left, behind the pyramid and hopefully out of enemy LOS, were the Terradons, while on my right were Ara-kor and the Salamander. The Dark Elf player, predictably, put his RBT on the hill, and his Riders, Chariot, and Witch Elves all in the centre.


DA PLAN:

Seeing our two forces were very mobile, I resolved on a basic plan: send the Terradons to deal with the RBT or Riders as necessary, use Skink or Terradon bait to lure the Chariot and/or Witch Elves into smashing range of Ara-kor and the Krox, and, in the meantime, burninate as much stuff as possible with the Kroxigor.

Rolling for spells, I got Second Sign and Celestial Shield. I was a little disappointed by the lack of killy spells, but otherwise, it was a pretty good spell combo.



TURN 1

Winning the roll for 1st turn (yaaaaay), I began my advance. On the left flank, the Terradons flew up alongside the pyramid, hoping to draw away the attentions of the Dark Riders and RBT. In the middle, meanwhile, the Kroxigor advanced behind a Skink screen—a screen that Tlaceptol left, moving into the comparatively safer Skink unit to its right. Further down the right, Ara-kor zoomed towards the cover of the wood, with the Salamander waddling in its wake.

In the magic phase, Tlacepotl, overjoyed that there were no enemy spellcasters to thrwart him, but annoyed by the distinct lack of missile spells he had rolled, cast Celestial Shield on Ara-kor. Everything was out of shooting range, and so we proceeded to the Dark Elf turn.

Eager to get some reptile-skin shoes, the rightmost Dark Riders turned and charged the Terradons threatening the RBT, who stood and shot, but did nothing. The other Dark Rider unit and the Noble edged up to deal with the incoming mass of Skinks, as did the frothing Witch Elves. In the shooting phase, the crew of the RBT, despite being slightly distracted by the backsides of the Witch Elves, nonetheless unleashed a volley that dealt 2 wounds to my poor Kroxigor (haters!). The Dark Riders followed suit, but either missed or failed to wound the Skinks directly ahead of them (YAAAAY! Let’s hear it for Druchii ineptitude!) The Noble, on the other hand, fired his Lifetaker and killed 2 Skinks, causing his Blood Armour to harden as a result.

Miffed by the lack of results from the shooting phase, the DE player moved on to combat. With a shout of “Leeroy Jenkins,” the Dark Riders slammed into the Terradons and skewered one of them. The Terradons, however, must have remembered all their poor showings in all my previous battles—of how that had constlantly been beaten by Peasants, and Wild Riders, and Glade Guard, and just about any foe you care to name. My poor lizards snapped, and in a whirling orgy of destruction (YAAAY! Orgy of destruction!) killed 4 Dark Riders back. The last Rider was clearly shocked that my Terradons were actually kicking ass for once, but nonetheless held his ground, denying me from charging the RBT next turn.


TURN 2

The Skinks edged closer to the Dark Elves massing ahead of them, hoping to draw them into smashing range of the Kroxigor, while the other Skinks stayed put. The Salamander and Ara-kor, meanwhile, moved into the woods, ready to attack the Druchii from the right flank next turn. Hehehe, I am so sneaky,
heheheheheheheeh……

In the magic phase, Tlacepotl cast Celestial Shield on the Kroxigor, and once again, none of my units were in range for shooting (though I will be a happy, happy man they day they invent blowpipes or Salamanders with a 24” range). In combat, the last Dark Rider, seeing that this was his chance to do something truly heroic….missed with all of his attacks, and was eaten in return. The Terradons, however, were left stranded just ahead of a snickering RBT crew….

In the DE turn, the Noble and the Dark Riders both charged the Skinks ahead of them, who, as can only be expected, fled. My grin was practically ear to ear….until, that is, the Skinks fled past the Kroxigor, who, figuring that anything Skinks were afraid of HAD to be dangerous, turned and fled as well. The sound of my jaw hitting the floor echoed across the greater Toronto region as my fiendish trap was undone by my own troops’ ineptitude.

In all of his other movement, his Witch Elves edged up some more, taking time to imbibe plenty of drugs as they did so. The only unit of his that could shoot this turn was his RBT, which fired a volley at the Terradons, hit and wounded with 4 shots, and promptly blasted my poor Terries out of the sky. Poor, poor Terradons, shot down in their moment of glory…



TURN 3

In my turn, both the Skinks and Kroxigor, well aware of what would happen to them if they displeased me any further, rallied. Tlacepotl left his unit to move into the wood, while Ara-kor zoomed into the open to threaten the DE units from the right. The Terradons might have been dead, but at this stage I still had plenty of units that could deal damage to the fragile Elves.

In the magic phase, Tlacepotl suffered from a bout of incompetence and failed to cast either Second Sign or Celestial Shield. My second unit of Skinks, on the other hand, made of for this failure by hurling their javelins and unhorsing 2 Dark Riders. The Salamander tried to add to this carnage from the cover of the wood, but, much to my annoyance, it was about 2 inches out of range. The Dark Riders passed their panic test, and it was on to the Dark Elf turn.

Much to my surprise, the damaged Dark Riders did not charge the Skinks directly ahead of them, but, instead, angled around to face Ara-kor, as did the Noble. The Noble, Dark Riders and Witches all formed a semicricle just ahead of the Scar-Vet: if I charged the Noble, then it would flee and leave me exposed to either a flank-charge by the Riders or to be shot up by the RBT. The same would happen if I charged the Riders: the only unit that would not flee would be the Witch Elves, who had their rear exposed to Ara-kor (nice), and would no doubt hold and leave my Scar-Vet exposed to a Chariot charge. Decisions, decisions.

In the shooting phase, the Noble, RBT and Dark Riders opened fire on Ara-kor. I simply sat back, however, and laughed as their puny bolts bounced off his scales and ward—that is, until the Noble fired his Liftetaker and actually bypassed Ara-kor’s armour and ward, causing his Blood Armour to strengthen as a result. Nasty Druchii with their tricksy weapons….



TURN 4

In the end, I charged the Dark Riders, who predictably fled. Elsewhere, my rallied Skinks moved forwards to harass the Witch Elves, the Salamander edged slightly out of its wood, and that was that. In the magic phase, Tlacepotl tried to cast Second Sign, but miscast and stepped into a coconut tree, causing a coconut to fall on his head and wound him. My Skinks once again had better luck, hurling their javelins and killing 3 Witch Elves.

In the DE turn, the Noble actually didn’t charge, but instead manouvred once around my Scar-Vet. The Dark Riders, predictably, rallied, and the Witch Elves, predictably, charged the Skinks, who, I realized too late, had been within half range with their javelins and thus couldn’t stand and shoot. I held, deciding that I could afford to lose one Skink unit anyway (I'm such a nice, caring Lizardman general).

In the shooting phase, the Dark Elves once again opened up with everything they had on Ara-kor. Luckily for me, though, he shrugged it all off, and was left in chariot-smashing range of the Noble. In close combat, the Witches went through the Skinks like a blender, killing 7 and running the rest down as they tried to flee. This, however, left the crazed Elf chicks in charge range of my Kroxigor….


TURN 5

Crunch time! Ara-kor charged into the Chariot-borne Noble, who held, while the Kroxigor charged the Witch Elves in the front, and the other unit of Skinks, deciding that it was time for some uncharacteristic bravery on their part, charged the witches in the flank. The Salamander moved out of its wood to threaten the Dark Riders, and Tlacepotl remained where he was, still dancing about in a dazed state as stars circled his head.

In the magic phase, Tlacepotl came back to reality long enough to cast Second Sign and get 2 re-rolls. With that, I moved on to the shooting phase, which saw the Salamander (now in range) unleash a ball of fire that incinerated the last 3 Dark Riders. Hah, take that, you dark and gothy ponces!

Ara-kor sped forwards, feeling the wind whip past his scaled face as he hurled himself at the Elven leader. Too late, the Druchii tugged on the reigns of the Chariot, trying to get the Cold Ones pulling the vehicle turn back. That one moment of hesistation cost him.

Ara-kor's bronze blade swung on, ripping open both of the moaning Cold Ones in a single swing that sent blood cascading in all directions. The Cold Ones' maimed bodies hadn't even toppled over before Ara-kor's blade swung in again: he heard Tlacepotl's voice in his head, telling him that the Chariot would veer to the right suddenly, and altered his swing to anticipate this. The massive bronze weapon crunched downwards, narrowly missing the Druchii Noble as it ploughed through the frail wood of the Chariot, causing the front portion of the vehicle to explode in a hail of wooden splinters.

Moving with a speed characteristic of Elves, the Noble somersaulted over the ruined cupola of his chariot and, in a fluid motion, swung his ornate halberd at Ara-kor's face. The Scar-Leader was a seasoned fighter, however, catching the whistling glaive on the teeth of his sword, before turning it sharply to the side, snapping the glaive's wooden half and carving a deep, downwards gash down the Druchii's chest. The Elf stumbled and fell to his back, blood gushing from the massive rent in his armour. Roaring with exhilaration at the kill, Ara-kor raised his blade for the killing blow....

...and, a second later, felt a sharp, stinging pain in his chest. Looking down, Ara-kor saw a pair of black-barbed bolts protruding from his armoured chest, a repeater crossbow held in the Noble's shaking hand. Staggering back, Ara-kor saw the smirk lighting up on the Elf's face, and would have slaughtered him then and there, had he not toppled backwards, darkness overcoming his vision...

In the epic combat between our generals, the DE player, surprisingly enough, neglected to declare a challenge with his Noble. This allowed Ara-kor to allocate an attack against the chariot, which, annoyingly, I had to use both Second-Sign rerolls to hit, wound and destroy the thing. The rest of Ara-kor’s attacks scored 2 wounds on the Noble, but only one got through the Blood Armour. In reply, the Noble, enraged by the loss of his Chariot (especially since it wasn’t covered by his insurance), lashed out with his halberd and KO’d Ara-kor. Lousy, tricksy Elves….

In the other big combat, the Kroxigor did their thing and crushed 4 Witch Elves, while my Skinks attacking in the flank killed 2 more (go Skinks!) The remaining Witches killed 1 Skink in reply before turning and running, escaping both units. Thankfully, they were below 25 percent of their starting strength, so they wouldn’t be rallying any time soon.

In the Dark Elf turn, the Noble, seeing that the vast majority of his raiding force had been destroyed, moved back towards the RBT. The RBT opened fire, killing the wounded Kroxigor and wounding another, while the Noble sniped down another Skink. The Kroxigor, thankfully, refused to panic.


TURN 6

At this stage, there wasn’t much left to do: the Salamander tried in vain to move into burning range of the RBT, and the Skinks and Kroxigor continued their advance. Sadly, I was out of range for any magic or combat, so I simply proceeded straight to the DE player, who proceeded straight to his shooting phase.

Targetting the Kroxigor again, the RBT unleashed a volley, but only inflicted one more wound on the big lizards. For a minute, I though I was safe….until the Noble fired his Lifetaker at the Kroxes and scored a wound. One failed save later, and another Krox fell, netting the Druchii points for killing half the unit. Thankfully, the Kroxigor didn’t cause me any further embarrassment by panicking and fleeing.

In the end, the Dark Elves broke off, allowing our forces to escape freely. I have sent a message back to the Skink Council in Ux-Mal, and we should be expecting reinforcements from the city soon. Enough time, I hope, for us to confront our Wood Elf pursuers...

Result: Draw (625-605 in my favour)

Shards Recovered: 2

Thoughts: I really don’t have much to say on that battle, other than that a lot of things went pretty much as expected. The Witch Elves were all but annihilated by my Kroxigor trap, and his Dark Riders were destroyed by my shooting and Terradons. So…how was I cheated of victory?

Luck, pure and simple. Two crucial dice rolls were my undoing: the first was the successful LD test from the Dark Riders that allowed them to hold up my Terradons, thus keeping his RBT alive and ensuring that my Terradons would get shot down. If I’d managed to take out that RBT, then not only would I have significantly damaged his firepower, but he wouldn’t have been able to get half-VPs on my Kroxigor in the end. The second crucial roll was, of course, that of the Noble vs Scar-Vet combat. The fact that I rolled a 1 to hit the Chariot, followed by a 1 to wound, forced me to use both rerolls to destroy it, when those rerolls could have been used either to hurt the Noble himself or to save against his return attacks. As it was, Ara-kor got halberded down, which resulted in him denying quite a lot of points to the enemy.

I won’t say I didn’t make a few mistakes—I should have kept the Salamander out of the wood and burninating more Elves. I was just too scared of that RBT (not to mention is Dark Riders and Chariot) to attempt it. If I’d played more aggressively with it, then maybe I would have gotten more VPs in the end. If I were to replay this battle, then I probably would have replaced Tlacepotl for another Skink unit or another Salamander, seeing as I didn’t have to worry about Dark Elf magic in this game.

All in all, though, it was a fun battle against a good opponent.Games of less than 1000 points are quite tense, given that any casualties you suffer will hurt you a lot, lot more than in larger games, and the margin for victory (points wise) is much more narrow. That said, I’m glad I came out with a draw, and I’m glad the game was such a blast.

MVP: Though I’m tempted to give it to Ara-kor for shrugging off two rounds of Dark Elf shooting, I just have to give the MVP to the Terradons for taking a Dark Rider charge and wiping out their attackers—something that they almost never do in my larger games.

This post has been edited by Lord of Nonsensical Crap on Dec 19 2007, 11:14 PM

[Lord of Nonsensical Crap]

Battle 9: The Wild Hunt

EXCERPT FROM THE LOG OF TLACEPOTL, SKINK-PRIEST OF UX-MAL:

After our brief clash with the raiding Dark Elves, our warhost managed to finally leave Athel Loren. Outside the wood, we met up with the Saurus cohorts under the command of Scar-Veterans Tezla-Kar and Goq-Itla, and prepared to march off into the human-inhabited lands, hoping to find more shards. Before we could even leave, however, the woods behind us erupted in a chorus of cries, as the local wildlife shrieked out in one great voice. The winds of magic began to flow like wildfire, and in my minds eye, I sensed a great and terrible presence coming after us, one filled with wild rage.

I quickly surmised that the local Elves had come to avenge their fallen. Although I wished to stand and repel the attackers, Ara-kor insisted that I make my escape with the Shard while he and the Saurus held the Elves off. Ultimately, I agreed with his logic, and headed off with a hand-picked escort. Even as I left, I felt the presence grow stronger on the Winds. I felt a name, being echoed again and again by countless spirits, borne aloft on wisps of hate.

Orion.



This battle actually took place a while ago, when I was preparing a list for a tournament that, ultimately, I never took part in. The basis of the tournament was to create the fluffiest, friendliest list you could think of, and with this in mind, I decided to go with a heavily Saurus-themed list:

Oldblood- great weapon, light armour, shield, Jaguar Charm, Aura of Quetzl, Spawnings of Tlazcotl, Quetzl & Tepok- 262
Scar-Veteran- BSB, Huanchi Banner, light armour, Spawnings of Quetzl & Tepok- 177
Scar-Veteran- great weapon, light armour, shield, Venom of the Firefly Frog, Spawnings of Quetzl & Tepok- 143
20 Saurus- full command- 270
10 Skinks- blowpipes- 60
10 Skinks- javelins- 60
10 Skinks- javelins, Scouts- 70
18 Saurus- full command, Spawning of Quetzl- 245
3 Kroxigor- 174
3 Terradons- 105
3 Salamanders- 195
Stegadon- 235

Total: 1997

All in all, a decent list, in my opinion, albeit one that's a tad bit slow due to the Saurus. The Saurus, however, would act as the indomitable centre of the army, and with rerollable cold-blooded LD, I was sure that they would hold against anything the enemy threw at them, allowing my faster, hittier units to counter-attack.

The army I was testing it out against, however, was, much to my consternation, a Wood Elf list built for speed...

Orion, King of the Woods
Noble- Wardancer Kindred, Blades of Loec
Spellsinger- lvl 1, some other stuff...
6 Wild Riders
6 Wild Riders
6 Wild Riders
7 Wardancers
3 Treekin
1 Treeman


I actually liked this themed Wild Hunt list. I had seen it in battle earlier, and had watched it annihilate the Vampire Counts player who had beat me in Battle 5. All in all, it was a nice, fast and hitty list, but one that suffered from the same Wood Elf drawbacks of being unable to bait-and-flee (unlike me). This should be interesting...



DEPLOYMENT AND TERRAIN:

There was a huge wood dominating the left hand side of the board, along with a smaller wood each on the upper right and lower right hand corners. The Wood Elf player put one Wild Rider unit on the left flank, along with the Wardancers, behind the big wood. His center was dominated by the two Tree Spirit units, and on the right flank, he put his remaining two Wild Rider units, one of which had been joined by Orion. Finally, he put his Spellsinger caddy in the upper right-hand wood to hide. In turn, I put my two Saurus units and characters in the centre, with my blowpipe Skinks, Kroxigor, Terradons and Stegadon facing the Salamanders on the right, and my Salamanders and javelins Skinks on the left. Finally, I put my Scouts in the big wood so they could harass/march block his Wardancers or Tree Spirits.


TURN 1

Because it was the Lizardly thing to do (aside from basking in a sunlamp for several hours, and there were no sunlamps around for miles), the Lizardmen host advanced en mass. My Scouts skirted up a bit to threaten the rightmost Wild Riders next turn, my Saurus blocks marched forwards, and on the right, my Steg and Kroxigor edged up cautiously, casting nervous glances at Orion and his double-posse of Wild Riders and making sure they stayed out of their charge range. And finally, Ara-kor donned his Reeboks (because Nikes are for wusses) and ran upwards towards the northeast corner of the map, hoping to kill some soft, non-wooden targets (especially since he had neglected to bring his Burning Blade to this battle).

The magic phase was a non-entity, and shooting was out of range, so it was on to the Wood Elven turn, which began, shockingly enough, with some charges. First, the Wardancers charged the Scouts, who, because of my ever-so-clumsy manouvering, had a model within spotting distance in the woods. (I believe I said "D'OH!" at that point) I declared a stand and shoot reaction and watched happily as the Scouts plinked off two of the Riverdance rejects. Elsewhere, the leftmost unit of Wild Riders zoomed down the flank around the woods, while Orion and his own two units rode down the right flank, manouvering to hopefully outflank my poor Steg and Kroxies. And, of course, the Treeman and Treekin advanced inexorably down the center, ignoring Ara-kor as they muttered something about "no Chotec."

In the Wood Elf magic phase, the Treesongs from the Spellsinger and Treeman were easily thwarted by a chorus of boos and dispel dice (the Treeman sounded awful, anyway). In the shooting phase, however, Orion chucked his Magic Spear of Doom™ at the Kroxigor and inflicted two wounds on one of them. Next, the Treeman pointed his roots at Ara-kor and tried to do his best giant squid impersonation. To my horror, Ara-kor then proceeded to take two unsaved wounds! It was turn one, and I was already in danger of losing my general.

The close combat phase was predictably brief, with the Wardancers ripping the Scouts to bloody shreds. Oh well, at least they were covered by insurance...

(NOTE: I've completely forgotten about what happened to the blowpipe Skinks in this battle. Maybe they were killed by Wild Riders. Maybe they fled at the first roll of dice. Or maybe they just decided to skip the battle and went to Anime North. Either way, don't expect further mention of them in this batrep.)


TURN 2

"Ah-HAH!" I cried as my Terradons passed their fear test ("Ooooh, Elves on horses, how scary!") and charged the rightmost Wild Rider unit-- the one that was trying to outflank my whole army. Everything else continued to run up, with Ara-kor frantically trying to get out of rooting range of the Treeman, another unit of javelin Skinks going into the forest to speedbump...er, I mean heroically kill the Wardancers, the Saurus continuing to edge up nervously, and the Salamanders turning around the wood to get a bead on the leftmost Riders. A stalemate ensued on the right flank, however, with neither the Kroxigor nor the Stegadon willing to move forwards and get charged by Orion & company.

Once again, there was no magic this turn (one of the Scar-Vets may have unsuccessfully tried to wave his hands in the air and tried to look arcane, but his fellow Saurus just weren't buying it). In the shooting phase, however, the Stegadon's Giant Bow twanged and impaled one of Orion's bodyguards. (HAH! How do you like THEM apples, Big Green and Ugly?) The left Skinks, trying to be as annoying as possibly, javelined another two Wardancers to death, and finally, the Salamanders did what they do best and utterly annihilated the leftmost Wild Riders (and eating one handler in the process, though they figured that they had earned it this time).

In close combat, the Terradons killed 2 Wild Riders. In return, however, thanks to their bizarre "we get more attacks when we're stationary rather than charging" rule, the Riders killed two Terradons back. Annoyed that the Riders had ruined their moment of glory, the last Terradon hit and ran out of combat.

In the Elf turn, the Wardancers charged the Skinks. Because they were too close to shoot, the Skinks tried to flee, but were too slow, and got turned into scaly mini-bites for their troubles. The Wild Riders who had been maimed by the Terradons last turn, meanwhile, tried to flank charge my Kroxigor, but the big lizards managed to flee and escape (unlike the smaller, more agile Skinks....go figure). Everything else maintained its usual advance, with the Tree-Spirits plodding inexorably forwards, and Orion's zooming up to get a flank charge on my Krox and Steggie.

The Wood Elf magic phase was once again a non-entity, with the Lizardmen having absolutely no appreciation for the finer points of Elven opera. So, in true Asrai fashion, they went right to the shooting phase. Orion once again chucked his spear at the fleeing Kroxigor, but there must have been a bit of sap in his eye, as he missed altogether (which resulted in much jeering from the Skinks piloting the Stegadon). The Treeman, on the other hand, had much less issue with accuracy, as he turned and shish-kabobed Ara-kor with a well-placed root. I think I said something similar to "fudge" at this point. (Mmmm, fudge....)


TURN 3

Squawking in vengeance, the last Terradon, having auto-rallied last turn due to hit and run, turned and charged the Wild Riders once more, while the Kroxigor rallied. Everything else aligned to face the oncoming Wild Riders and Orion, with the Stegadon and leftmost Saurus turning rightwards. The Salamanders, meanwhile, edged up to get some line of sight on the now-exposed Wardancers. Barbequing Elves, after all, has always been a pastime favourite.

Once again, magic did nothing, so it was straight to shooting. The Skinks manning the howdah couldn't repeat their earlier success, and their giant bow missed the Wild Riders altogether (though it did impale a few thrushes in the background). The Salamanders, meanwhile, proceeded to eat four more of their handlers, but the one Salamander who did bother to breath at the Wardancers killed the last three of them and wounded their Noble, leaving her all alone and badly over-tanned. In close combat, the Terradon swooped down with an almighty shriek, gutting one Rider on its talons....and, for its troubles, got stabbed out of the sky in return. Wonderful.

In the Wood Elf turn, the lone Wardancer Noble, shouting something incomprehensible in Asrai (something about socks), and charged the flank of the BSB's Saurus. Everything else in the Wood Elf army continued the time-honoured tradition of manouvering and getting closer, with Orion and his buddies zoomed down so that they were standing right next to the Stegadon's flank. And again, the Tree Spirits plodded forward (you'd think they'd move faster, what with movement 6). By this stage, however, the Treekin were now right in front of my BSB's Saurus, and the Treeman was facing the flank of my rightmost unit. Not good.

After some more fake magic, the shooting phase commenced. Orion chucked his gigantic spear at the Stegadon...and missed. Again. At point blank range. At this point, Orion's Wild Riders were desperately trying not to laugh at their Hunter God/King/Big Guy. The Treeman, however, once again showed Orion how it was done by stranglerooting 3 of the normal Saurus to death. Meanie!

In close combat, the Wardancer Noble went into Riverdance Ultrakill mode and dice three Sacred Saurus. Despite the enemy's ranks and big shiny banner, the lone, dance-crazed Elf held her ground.



TURN 4

Once again, my units on the right flank angled to avoid getting flanked by Orion/the Treeman. Everyone except the Stegadon, that is, who was getting sick and tired of all of this dumb turning and wanted to please, please stand still for once. (Seriously, though, I can't remember why I didn't move Steggy) The Krox turned to face the last 2 of the maimed Wild Rider unit, and the Salamanders edged up to draw some line of sight on the Treekin.

In the ma...er, I mean shooting phase, the Salamanders opened up on the Treekin, and for once didn't eat any of their handlers. It seems that eating handlers is a sign that the fire will be good, however, as they did absolutely nothing to the Treekin (Oh GW, why do you mock me with T5, 4+ save, 5+ ward trees?) The howdah skinks did better, upstaging Orion and javelining two of his Wild Riders from their saddles. See, Orion, THAT'S how you chuck pointy objects at people!

In close combat, the Sacred Saurus champion strode forward and growled menacingly at the Noble. In response, she proceeded to do the whole Evolution of Dance routine on him and horrendously overkill him. The Noble still lost, however, and, realizing that she had just gotten a bad review, tried to run. She didn't get far, however, before she fatally mis-stepped and got trampled by rampaging unit of Sacred Saurus. Quite luckily, the pursuit was enough to take the Saurus out of the charge arc of the Treekin.

In the Wood Elf turn, Orion and his Wild Riders finally did what they had been waiting all game to do, and charged the Stegadon in the flank. The depleted Wild Riders, meanwhile, charged the Kroxigor in the front, while the Tree Spirits once again contented themselves with simply advancing, with the Treeman moving right into the faces of the normal Saurus. Oh dear, I sense a Terror test next turn...

There was no shooting at this point, so we skipped straight to close combat. Orion finally proved that he's a lot better at stabbing things than he is at throwing stuff, as he inflicted two wounds on the Stegadon (thus netting him half points for the big lug). His Riders inflicted one more wound without taking any casualties in return, but, in true Stegadon style, my big lizard held.

The other Wild Riders, meanwhile, were equally impressive, killing off the badly wounded Kroxigor. In reply, however, the last two Krox squashed their two opponents, and overran into the flank of Orion's Riders. Boo yah!


Sadly, however, at this point the Elf player had to leave. Before we left, we quickly tallied up the points...


RESULT:

Wood Elves: 695
Lizardmen: 578 (I think)

If, however, the blowpipe Skinks may have been killed (my memory escapes me as to whether they were or not), then that would push the Elf player's points to 755. So, I either got a losing draw or a minor loss there.


THOUGHTS: Well, it was my misuse of my Oldblood that lost the game for me, pure and simple. I had hoped, somehow, that he would be able to avoid getting rooted long enough to run across the board and rip apart the (useless) Elven mage, but that was just not to be. My fault for leaving the Burning Blade at home, as otherwise he could have been gleefully hacking Treemen to shreds. In all other respects, though, I guess I played alright. While my Skinks died in droves, as usual, I was killing plenty of Elves as well, so it was all good. I'm a little annoyed that the game ended when it did, as my Krox were in a perfect position to counter-charge Orion's Wild Riders. With luck, I could have killed the unit off and forced Orion to take some wounds from CR (and after reading the big guy's rules, I found that he isn't really that scary when he's not charging, so I think I could have eventually brought him down). That, and my Salamanders could have hurt the Tree Spirits some.

My only regret in this battle is that the Saurus never had a chance to do much. I was looking forward to using the Huanchi Banner against something, but by the end of the game, my Sacred Saurus and BSB had been drawn far out of position by their pursuit roll.

Still, it was a good game, and I'm pleased that I didn't do so badly against Orion and his stag party (Heh...I made a funny! Stag, get it? Because they're Wood Elves...)


Shards Recovered: 2

MVP: The Salamanders once again showed why they are Elves' worst nightmare, as they killed off both a unit of Wild Riders and a troupe of Wardancers in quick succession. It always brings a tear of joy to my eye to see them roasting pointy-eared things to death.

Next: The Lizards learn to always eat their greens, and their seafood as well!