Vampire Counts vs High Elves 2000 points

warhammer fantasy battle report :-

"...this gives me some serious concern, as those fell bats are a legit threat to my Mages"
(one of a number of tournament reports from a successful tournament commander)

source : warhammer.org.uk

credit : David L

04-Feb-2009

[Edition 6 armies in battle]

The awesome Alamo GT took place this past weekend, Nov 3 and 4 in San Antonio Texas. The Alamo is held in a beer hall, so whenever you want a drink, you walk over to the window, pay your two bucks, and come back with your cup of beer. I don't drink, but I do feel this sets the tone perfectly. For even more fun, the organizers arranged a "beer wench" during game 2. She'll get the beer for you so you can keep playing. And she looks good in a short skirt. Again, setting the tone.

I've been playing High Elves for a while, and I really dislike the new book. (In short, I think Always Strike First for an entire army is extremely bad for the overall state of warhammer, and I think the slot changes are a poor decision). While I have a new Dwarf army, the High Elves deserved a last ride. I previously posted a report of a game against Rick Hoy, but I've been playing a similar army since the Chicago GT report.

High Elf Army list

Last Ride of the Silver Helms

Archmage, Staff of Solidity, dispel scroll, Amulet of the Purifying Flame, Seer
Mage, Silver Wand, Ring of Corin
Commander, BSB, mounted, Helm of Fortune, Sword of Might

5 Silver Helms
5 Silver Helms
5 Silver Helms
11 Silver Helms, full command, Banner of Ellyrion
this will be called "the big unit" while the other 3 are just "silver helms"

6 Dragon Princes, full command, Banner of Sorcery
2 chariots
5 Shadow Warriors
9 Shadow Warriors (bodyguard for Mages)

2 Eagles
2 RBTs

Yes, its a High Elf power list. Hopefully without being rude. I didn't feel at all bad about 9-11 power dice plus a bound spell after 7-9 plus a bound got matched or exceeded 4 times at Lonewolf. The big Silver Helm unit usually gets the BSB and can be used to pound medium strength enemies or flank nastier ones.

In deployment, my first 5 drops are the same. The little Silver Helms go in the middle and the extreme left and right. One eagle goes in each gap. That spreads my harassment units out so some of them will be in easy reach of the meatier enemies. The chariots usually go next somewhere in the middle third of the table and adjacent to each other. Dragon Princes tend to go on a flank where the enemy looks weaker and try to avoid combat for the first few turns.

3 HE armies showed up at Alamo. One played by fellow Houstonian Marlon roughly similar to mine, and another by Jason Johnson with a Prince on a Griffon and four chariots. No ranked infantry in any of them. *smirk*

Looking back, I seem to have acquired the task of stopping the Californians. 4 of 5 games were with members of Leadership 2, from Oakland California. There were roughly 10 of them at Alamo (out of 60 entrants). My first west coaster would be David Wiswell...

Vampire Counts Army List

Necrarch Lord, extra power dice, Sword of Might, 5+ ward, Book of Arkhan
Necromancer, black periapt
Wraith, Rod of Flaming Death

22 skeletons, light armour, banner, champion
4x25 zombies, banner
3x9 ghouls
2x5 dire wolves
3x6 fell bats

Essentially a zombie horde, with about as much casting power as I have (8 plus 2 bound). Can I kill them faster than he can raise them? That goal is aided massively by his spell rolls. The Necromancer gets the magic missile to go with the summon, but the Necrarch rolls 1,2,3 and is stuck with hand of dust (literally useless against me) and hellish vigour. Hellish vigour may sometimes be a good spell, but it won't help zombies get past 2+ armour saves.

I got good luck with spells rolls, as the little guy got Flames of the Phoenix. The Archmage of course also took High Magic, choosing Walk Between Idiots as the 4th spell and ACTUALLY CASTING IT DURING THE GAME!!!! (Perhaps the 2nd time that spell has ever mattered for me)

The scenario was a personal grudge. One of your characters picked an enemy model and set out to personally kill it. His Necrarch picked my BSB, my Archmage picked a fell bat. Turned out we didn't do this perfectly correctly, as we selected before deployment and were supposed to select afterwards. Didn't end up making a difference, both targets waded into the fray. Sure my BSB tried to stay the hell away from the Necrarch, but that had nothing to do with the scenario, it's just a good idea!


Deployment

I won the roll for table side and made him take the side with a big forest in the middle. In some ways I wanted the forest for my Mages (fell bat protection), but this made him split up his army, which increases the units outside his general's march radius. My BSB was the general, and VC have no shooting, so he deployed by himself towards the east, to give leadership to chariots on that side. If chariots and cavalry can pass fear tests to charge fell bats, the RBTs can keep shooting down stuff. Central to my plan was march blocking the Lord to keep him out of combat. There wasn't much manuevering room in the east, so I wanted to reduce the blocks some before charging. In the west, I thought I had a chance of achieving a flank charge on the wraith's unit. My big unit went in the west center, since it could deploy in the forest. One RBT took an eastern hill, the other a western forest.

On his side, the wraith is in the western zombie unit, the Necrarch deployed in the middle of the woods, and the Necromancer joined the skeletons just east of the woods. You can see his deployment in the turn 1 picture, except for a unit of wolves out on the extreme west (I also had Silver Helms on the extreme west).


Turn 1

I move up only slightly, sending the Eagles out a bit more.

Ring of Corin goes for the Necromancer and is dispelled (yet Derek rarely remembered to use the black periapt). Archmage shoots Fury of Khaine at fell bats, but it proves to be 24.25 inches and does nothing. Drain Magic is dispelled, then Flames of the Phoenix lights up the skeleton unit.

Shooting takes out 3 Direwolves and 3 Fell Bats, which makes my Eagles feel a bit better.



Derek charges his 2 wolves at an Eagle and his 3 fell bats at the other.
He then moves up slightly, mainly flying the targetted fell bats from behind the woods east. Necromancer leaves the flaming skeletons for the woods, Lord joins skeletons (despite the flames).

Rod of Flaming Death takes one out of my big unit, but they pass panic. I stopped one summon spell and the second provided some skeletons. He ignored Flames of the Phoenix.

Two Dire wolves miss and eagle kills both. Fell bats do a wound and Eagle does one in return for a draw there.

The west side



and the east side



Turn 2

Wanting them taken out, I send the purple chariot into the fell bats fighting an Eagle. Other Eagle jumps behind western zombies, as I forget they cannot march anyway because the general is too far away. Its still a good spot for the Eagle, since nothing can charge him and he can fly just about anywhere next turn. The western Silver Helms advance and angle inward, looking to flank the wraith's unit if he advances.

Magic has me drain magic the Necrarch, then light up western zombies.

The chariot crushes the fell bats, overrunning into the ghouls. The ghouls flee and the chariot overrun distance proves barely too big, hitting the forest by half an inch and killing itself. Oh well, maybe the ghouls won't rally.



My eastern eagle, just rescued from one unit of fell bats, now gets charged by more. As they will have numbers and a flank, I flee. His western dire wolves charge my Silver Helms in the flank. I think they are out and he isn't convinced he's in range, but when you can't march and are going that way anyway, might as well charge. Oops! The wolves are in range!

The ghouls rally and his units shuffle forward some more. The eastern fell bats fly back towards the center.

Rod of Flaming Death is saved by Silver Helm armour and his attempt to dispel Flames fails.

My Silver Helms are armoured against dire wolves and I kill one in return. While I don't like the formation shift, I decide to turn in the hopes of killing off the wolves in a timely manner.



Turn 3

I now attempt to declare two charges. The chariot into the fell bats (didn't we do this last turn?) and central Silver Helms into still burning zombies. Except both fear tests are failed. This gives me some serious concern, as those fell bats are a legit threat to my Mages. I also wanted to wipe out the zombie unit before he gets a chance to replenish it. To make things worse, the fleeing eagle fails to rally.
Eagle moves to march block his general, my other units do little. Except the Mages (march blocked by the fell bats) back up.

Flames burns the zombies down to just 5. He stops the ring of corin and magic missile at the fell bats, but then I light up the skeletons (and Necrarch) again. Shooting concentrates on the fell bats, and drops them to an injured 3.

Silver Helms and dire wolves whiff, popping another wolf on numbers and expanding back out to 5 wide. He removed the more western wolf, which will give the ghouls little frontage to engage.



His western ghouls charge the engaged Silver Helms. The central fell bats charge the fleeing eagle, who flees off the table.

Burning zombies back up, and the Necrach wanders forward. His eastern flank consolidates, the ghouls staying just back of the front zombie line so I cannot pull them in.

He dispel Flames of the Phoenix, but accomplished nothing else magically.

The charging ghouls cannot penetrate my armour, and the Silver Helms kill both wolves in return. This breaks the ghouls who are run down.



Turn 4

Preparation mostly done, time to kill the enemy. Central Silver Helms into 5 zombies. Chariot, BSB, Dragon Princes into zombie block. Everyone passes fear this time.

Plus the most interesting charge I've declared in a long time. My wizards and their bodyguard charge the nearby fell bats. My Archmage has a grudge against one of them, and I'm not certain of wiping them out with his magic missile, so I'll just pop them on combat resolution.

Eastern Silver Helms march up to far eastern zombie block to prevent them flanking the Dragon Princes. Western Silver Helms turn around. Eagle avoids getting charged by ghouls while still march blocking the Necrarch.

I unmake the Book of Arkhan and make the Archmage ethereal. My level 2 then tries to cast and miscasts, inflicting hits on everything in base contact. Which includes the Archmage!! Usually the skirmished bodyguard means this does nothing, but here my Archmage is most displeased. But I maxed Banner dice this turn, so I get Flames on the wraith's unit and many zombies burn.

In combat the central Silver Helms smash the last 5 zombies, taking the banner and overrunning away from a ghoul flank charge. The Archmage and friends kill one fell bat and the last remaining one fails to kill the level 2, so they pop on combat resolution. Objective achieved!

The chariot rolls poorly, but I kill enough zombies they don't even outnumber, so after combat resolution they will have only 1 rank bonus next turn.

The west side


and the east side



I didn't take anymore pictures after this, as it was pretty much done. My big unit ran over the wraith's unit. The eastern Silver Helms kept the unengaged zombies busy while the other zombies over there died. The Necrarch's unit got shot and magiced to death, with my finally taking shots at the lone Necrarch at the end. He survived the game with one wound remaining.

Victory for the Silver Helms and 20 battle points!