"Swordmaster playtesting" for warhammer fantasy battle tournament :-
"And here come the charges. Of course, because this is a game where I am trying to test the hardiness of Swordmasters, they failed their Terror check and proceeded to flee and get eaten by a Bull Rhinox. Lovely. "(I really like Xtapl's battle reports, plenty of personality, opinion and great maps)
| source : warhammer.org.uk | credit : Xtapl | 28-Mar-2009 |
High Elf Army list 2250 pts
Archmage (360)Level 4, Folaraith's Robe, Talisman of Saphery, Dispel Scroll
Noble (149)
Dragon Armor, Shield, Battle Standard, Barded Steed
Sword of Might, Talisman of Protection
10 Archers (110)
11 Archers (121)
6 Dragon Princes (255)
Full Command
Lion Standard
10 Swordmasters (156)
Musician
10 Swordmasters (156)
Musician
Lion Chariot (140)
Lion Chariot (140)
18 White Lions (350)
Banner of Sorcery
Great Eagle (50)
Great Eagle (50)
Repeating Bolt Thrower [RBT] (100)
Repeating Bolt Thrower [RBT] (100)
Total: 2247
I rolled up Shield, Courage, Flames of the Phoenx, and Vaul's Unmaking for my Archmage. No magic missile. Boo.
I always like to start playing a new list against Ogres, because if I can't beat Ogres, I need to start all over [Ouch ! Ed.] Renaissance Homer was kind enough to oblige, and took a fairly standard Ogres list.
Deployment looked like this:
I was hoping to rush the left flank, using the house to shield my right side from the Ogres, while holding the middle for a little while with the threat of Swordmastery death. The archers got deployed wide right as deployment bait, and kind of did their job in that respect, as RH spread his stuff out more than I expected he would.
I won the roll for first turn, and away we went...
HIGH ELVES TURN ONE
Move out!
Started off the magic phase with Flames of the Phoenix on the bulls/butcher. Got it off IF, but caused no wounds. Vaul's couldn't muster enough juice. Drain Magic got dispelled.
The left side RBT put two wounds on the Bull Rhinox, but the other RBT missed. Note to self: Archers can't wound Bull Rhinoxes. They can, however, kill a Leadbelcher and wound the next.
OGRES TURN ONE
Stuff starts getting closer. We hates that, we does.
Surprisingly, with 4 dice and +1 to cast, you can dispel quite a few spells. It also helps when lots of one die spells come up 1. That lets you also dispel the Bangstick.
In other news, the Tyrant shot a Swordmaster dead. Bet he wishes he had a Lion Cloak.
HIGH ELVES TURN TWO
Hm. To charge the Lion Chariots at the Gnoblars or not? If they flee, I get flanked and that's no good. If they hold, I blow through them into the Bulls and maybe do enough damage that even a flank charge doesn't outweigh the wounds caused.
Bleh. Better safe than sorry. I just moved around.
My super-sweet Archmage totally miscasted Courage on the first spell, took a wound, and ended the magic phase. Thanks, dude.
Highly deadly yet much maligned High Elf S3 shooting killed another Leadbelcher. Take -THAT-, T4!
OGRES TURN TWO
And here come the charges. Of course, because this is a game where I am trying to test the hardiness of Swordmasters, they failed their Terror check and proceeded to flee and get eaten by a Bull Rhinox. Lovely.
Just to the east of that wonderful happening, the Eagle sacrificed itself and fled into house, dying but holding up the Tyrant as he charged into the impassable house and just stood there like a goon. The other Eagle bucked up its courage and held on the charge from the Butcher.
Despite my double-dice dispel attempt, the Butcher managed to cast+1T/Stubborn on himself. Jerk. The other Butcher cast his magic missile on my right archers for 8 hits and 2 wounds. Bleh.
Fortunately, as expected, the Leadbelcher misfired on himself. Because that's what they do. 3 hits and 1 wound later, we were both laughing about it.
Of course, this brought bad karma for me, as Gnoblar sharp stuff wounded my right Lion Chariot. Stupid.
With all that newfound toughness, the Butcher wounded my Eagle and won. This left it in a relatively bad situation, and it had really no choice but to pursue. So pursue it did, although my Eagle got away.
Against the Bruiser, my Swordmasters rolled up 7 hits on 8 swings. Woo! Then, guess what? 1-1-1-2-2-2-2. Not even making that up. Two of them die in return, but they still hold.
Operation Swordmaster isn't going all that well...
HIGH ELVES TURN THREE
No Terror for the White Lions. They barely even registered the giant stinking Rhinox next to them.
RAWR! Apparently, Ironguts don't want to face a double Lion Chariot charge, because they fled. Chickens. Especially since the Gnoblars held the EITW, and passed two Fear tests to boot. Ironguts are wussies.
The Dragon Princes, of course, charged the Butcher. I knew he was going to just challenge me, but I thought I'd sacrifice the Champion and then beat him on CR. This was moments before I realized the stupid Butcher was still Stubborn. Annoying.
The Eagle rallied.
Vaul's got scrolled, Drain Magic was cast and allowed, and I failed to dispel the Stubborn. On three dice. Because that's the kind of night I was having.
To make up for it, the two RBTs killed the Bull Rhinox. 2+/3+ doesn't leave much room for survival for a large target... Continuing their rain of death, the Archers killed a Bull.
Swordmasters decided maybe they'd take their thumbs out of their butts and get to work. They fired off 2 wounds on the Bruiser, but took 2 dead back. The Bruiser held, but was beginning to realize Swordmasters can take his solo charge pretty easily.
The Lion Chariot charge resulted in 10 Gnoblars dead. Nom nom nom! The Lions were so busy mauling Gnoblars that they didn't notice the buggers fulling themselves with Insane Courage...
The Dragon Prince champion speared one wound onto the Butcher in the inevitable challenge, but was wily enough to take none back. That's when the Butcher held. Stupid stubborn.
OGRES TURN THREE
This should get interesting. Bulls charged the Dragon Princes to help out the Butcher, while the other Bulls charged the White Lions, trying to pick off my Archmage. Little did they know.... Meanwhile, the Ironguts rallied.
Had to make sure +1S on the Bulls charging the Dragon Princes was dispelled. This let the other Butcher get another magic missile off and kill four Archers; the Bangstick finished it off. Fortunately for me, the Butcher in combat tried to Heal himself, miscast and the spell was wiped from the game forever.
In combat, the Lion Chariots continued to eat Gnoblars. Lots. The remaining handful fled, and both chariots pursued. Not far enough to get into combat, unfortunately, but that would change shortly.
The Bulls killed a Dragon Prince on impact. The Butcher took another wound, then killed the Dragon Prince champion. The rest of the Dragon Princes did one wound to the incoming Bulls, then saved all the returning wounds, because DP are surprisingly tough. The Butcher hung in, but the Bulls broke and fled.
The Bulls up against the White Lions found out the hard way that ASF+S6+WS5=OUCH. Immediately, they took 5 wounds, dodged the incoming feeble attacks of the remaining Bull, and broke him soundly.
For their own part, the Swordmasters finally kicked it into gear, and the Bruiser got mauled.
HIGH ELVES TURN FOUR
It was time to break the back of the Ogres once and for all. Both chariots charged the Bulls. The Eagle charged the fleeing Bull, while the White Lions charged the Gnoblars. The Eagle caught the poor Bull; the Gnoblars quickly and wisely fled.
Meanwhile, the Archers wheeled big; and the RBT got pushed up onto the hill.
Nothing happened in the magic phase except the Butcher's Stubborn finally got dispelled. This led my Noble to believe it was okay to challenge the Butcher. Then, of course, he totally whiffed. The Butcher wounded him, but it was too little too late. He turned to flee and was run down. This caused the Bulls to have to reflee.
On the other side of the field, the Lion Chariots mauled the Bulls. Just barely close enough to have to test, the Ironguts unfortunately failed and fled off the table in panic. One chariot overran off the table, while the other went not quite as far.
OGRES TURN FOUR
Renaissance Homer was rapidly running out of Ogres. The Butcher tried a magic missile, but I scrolled. His attempt at Regen was dispelled, and so was his Bangstick.
HIGH ELVES TURN FIVE
Both the Dragon Princes and the White Lions charged the Gnoblars, who fled. The Bulls failed to rally and fled off the table.
With much less resistance now, the Archmage was able to Vaul's the Tyrant's Thundermace. That should change his plans significantly. An attempt at Shield failed, and Flames went off on the Tyrant, but he barely cared.
He cared a LOT more when the RBT on the hill put two wounds on him. The other RBT, charged with nothing but shooting a Leadbelcher in the face at basically point-blank range, of course did only one wound and would probably die next turn.
OGRES TURN FIVE
The poor harried Gnoblars fled off the table. Meanwhile, the Leadbelcher, as expected, charged the RBT. The stalwart crew immediately failed its Fear test and fled. Without his Thundermace, the Tyrant seemed pretty loathe to charge the White Lions now. Instead, he pulled out his handgun and killed a Dragon Prince. The Maneater used his own handgun to kill a Swordmaster.
HIGH ELVES TURN SIX
Not much left to do. The Swordmasters charged the Leadbelcher, who ran away. The RBT crew rallied.
In the magic phase, there was not enough juice for Vaul's, but enough to cast Shield on the White Lions.
Shooting did nothing, unfortunately.
OGRES TURN SIX
As I expected, the Maneaters charged the Swordmasters in the flank. The Leadbelcher rallied.
The Butcher cast a spell to try to panic the Lion Chariot, but the LD test was passed.
As expected, the Swordmasters were wiped out.
So, at the end of the game, with a quarter to each of us and RH unfortunately capturing his BSB's standard back, the final score stood at 1577-710 - an 867 point difference for a Solid Victory to the High Elves!
Good, fun game for me on the one hand. On the other hand, it was only Ogres [another ouch ! Ed.] Now, to see if the list can stand up to stouter foes...
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