warhammer fantasy battle report :-
"The big tree [treeman Ed.] hits my flank and the pounding continues."(nice vertical photos displaying whole battlefield)
| source : warhammer.org.uk | credit : David L | 24-Jan-2009 |
Lizardmen Army list
2nd Generation Slann, BSB, war banner, Dominion, Tepok, Diadem of PowerOldblood, Quetzl, Tepok, Tlazcotl, Jaguar Charm, Scimitar of the Sun, 5+ ward
Oldblood, cold one, Quetzl, Itzl, Old Ones, Burning Blade of Chotec, Blood Statuette of Spite, 4+ ward vs S5+
Scar-Vet, Quetzl, Huanchi, Sword of the Hornet, Enchanted Shield
Scar-Vet, cold one, Quetzl, Itzl, Sword of Might, Maiming Shield
Priest, level 2, Curse Charm of Tepok, scroll
Priest, level 2, scroll, scroll
17 skinks
13 skinks
12 skinks
10 scouting skinks
(all skinks have javelins)
2 Jungle Swarms
22 Saurus Warriors, full command, Quetzl (6x4 with cold one hero)
25 Saurus Warriors, full command, Quetzl, Tlazcotl (6x5 with Slann)
23 Saurus Warriors, full command, Quetzl, Huanchi (6x4 with foot hero)
2x4 Kroxigors, Ancient
5 Terradons, Brave
6 Saurus Cavalry, banner, champion, Huanchi's Blessed Totem
2x3 Salamanders
Stegadon
Wood Elf Army list
Wardancer Highborn, Blades of Loec, Annoyance of NettlingsAlter Highborn, Amber Pendant
Alter Hero (Helm, HoD)
BSB, Oaken Armour
Branchwraith, level 1, Cluster, Pageant of Shrikes
Spellweaver on unicorn, Wand of Wych Elm, scroll
spellsinger, level 2, two scrolls
spellsinger, level 2, Calaingor's, scroll
2x12 archers
14 archers, musician
8 scouts with march block banner
20 Eternal Guard, full command
12 Eternal Guard, full command
4x8 Dryads
5 Glade Riders, musician
6 Wild Riders with banner of dwindling
6 Wild Riders with war banner
10 wardancers, musician
10 wardancers, musician, champion
3 warhawks
4 warhawks, champion
Treeman
2 Eagles
Discussions afterwards had Rick agree the smaller Eternal Guard unit was a mistake. I suggested they should have been one big unit with rank bonus that won't go away. Afterwards Rick also felt he needs more Dryads to play this size. I think Dryads are incredible, so I agree more of them would make his list stronger, but Dryads are so much better than Saurus I'd need to replace chunks of my infantry with something else to play that game.
My second generation had a bad day. He started by rolling poorly for spells. Three 2s led me to notice that spell number 2 is pretty cruddy in almost every lore. Only Master of Wood is reasonably good and Steal Soul isn't bad, the other numbers 2s pretty much suck. Here I got Conflagaration of Doom (decent), Master of Stone (decent), and the 2s left me with Rule of Burning Iron, Fireball and Dark Hand of Death. My priests followed his example by both getting Dark Hand of Death and Steal Soul. I was so disappointed I would forget they even had Steal Soul and I forgot Drain Magic entirely. Nothing that inflicts more than d6 hits, except maybe Conflagaration. Infinite range on conflag and stone is good though, since two priests should give me near total LOS.
The elves didn't do much better, but you don't expect Wood Elves to do much with magic. Beasts produced Wolf Hunts, Hunter's Spear, Beast Cowers and Bears Anger. Both level 2s got Treesinging, plus regeneration and Call of the Hunt. Branchwraith got Fury of the Forest.
Past experience in normal sized battles says most of the Lizardmen army is ineffective against Wood Elves. Salamanders and JSoD need to carry a heavy load. I hoped throwing down 1000 points in Saurus while still having plenty of other stuff would make the Saurus somewhat effective as well. My basic battle plan was to force him into contact with the Saurus blocks while blasting him with Salamanders. I needed to hold the table flanks only enough to prevent my middle from being flanked. The Salamanders needed to stay near the Slann for leadership and be guarded from enemy charges by my other troops. The plan got hurt once he dropped his free forest in the middle of the table. Instead of the Slann going up the middle, the Huanchi Saurus had to go there. Other terrain meant I didn't want the center of the table to be the end of my Saurus line. With the Salamanders needing the Slann more, the core Saurus got pushed further left and one unit of Salamanders went between two Saurus units.
I made one clear mistake with deployment - the Oldbloods. I went in with the idea that the JSoD should deploy in a Saurus unit so the enemy wouldn't know which model was the Jaguar. But when I only have two Saurus characters on foot, my opponent knows I usually run a Jaguar Oldblood, and the Saurus units are screened by skinks, that isn't a good idea. I also latched onto the idea that the cavalry Oldblood should be with the cavalry, despite my also making a cavalry scar-vet specifically to join Saurus. The Saurus Cavalry don't need an Oldblood to help them against most WE units and that Oldblood (Burning Blade) needed to be hunting the Treeman from turn one. I had to finish deployment before the Treeman went down, but it made sense that would be near the BSB in the middle. So the tree-killer was on my far right flank when he should have been in the middle, and the JSoD was in the middle when he should have been on a flank.
I won the scout roll and occupied the pond on my left. I couldn't fit them in the middle forest. Waywatchers went in the left forest next to my Stegadon and his scouts went in the middle forest.
The entire table
Lizardmen left halfWhich faces the Wood Elf right:
Wood Elf right half
Lizardmen right halfWhich faces the Wood Elf left:
Wood Elf left half----------
I would do a sufficient job of delaying his forces on my left flank and he clearly delayed my right flank, so the game really broke into three pieces. Left, Center, and extreme right. Some Slann spells and my left Salamanders were the only elements not locked into one of those zones.
LEFT
I won the first turn and started movement with my left. Then I realized I had forgotten stupidity tests. The scar-vet on the left prompty failed, causing his Saurus to stumble into their screening skinks and made me move all those previously moved models back where they belonged. The pinned skinks also pinned the Kroxigors trapped behind them. So much for the left flank!
His first turn started with his Waywatchers discovering something unexpected - a BIG dinosaur! Bows aren't going to touch that and they promptly fled in terror. Since the Stegadon had advanced, they fled straight down my line, an inch in front of skinks.
Fleeing waywatchers give skinks an opportunity to feel powerful, so they charged and destroyed them. Scouting skinks charged the Eagle. The Stegadon charged a dryad unit. The skinks and Eagle whiffed, the 6 remaining skinks (turn 1 shooting) winning on flank and numbers and the Eagle breaking. It was run down as the skinks pursued into the flank of the Stegadon vs Dryad combat. I feared adding skinks would cost me the combat, but the Stegadon smashed 5 Dryads and the skinks took down another one. The Stegadon then pursued 12 inches into the flank of an archer unit with a spellsinger!
On that same turn, the Salamanders opened up on the Wardancers, eating 3 skinks and frying 6 Wardancers. The last 4 were still dangerous, but the full unit could shred any unit in my army without help. The remaining 4 would move away from the Salamanders!
His turn 2, the warhawks went into my Salamanders. Their paltry 6 attacks only got 2 skinks and the Salamanders ate a warhawk in return. My agressive Stegadon had also gone so far forward that the Wild Riders rear charged him. Steggy would crush half the archers under his feet, but a couple skinks fell off the howdah in the process and the big dinosaur lost on the war banner and musician. The big dinosaur's big rolls continued on the break test, and steggy was lost. Still, he killed a dryad unit, half an archer unit, and made the Wild Riders waste effectively three turns (turn 1 afraid to advance into his charge range, turn 2 charging him, turn 3 turning around).
Even better, on my turn 3 I walked about 15 skinks into javelin range of those Wild Riders and dropped 2. Salamanders fried half of another archer unit that turn and afterwards the Salamanders were summoned to the center.
His turn 3 the warhawks and wardancers went skink hunting. The warhawk target unit went down, but the last few skinks the wardancers hit rolled Insane Courage.
That let me flank the wardancers with Kroxigors. The dancy elves held a round which let the warhawks jump in. But the one warhawk and 3 wardancers rolled poorly, letting the Kroxigors break both units and the one last skink run them down. The Kroxigors made the Wild Riders worry the following turn, but the charge was out by half an inch.
The other left section unit was the Saurus with mounted scar-vet. He would charge out of the unit at archers, but they would flee and rally. Eventually the unit itself engaged the little Eternal Guard and killed them. The EG really should have just fled.
Ignoring the EG, the left was slightly in my favor. I killed wardancers, waywatchers, warhawks, and half of two archer units for skinks, Stegadon, and half Salamanders. Magic also gave me more points from the left side, see below.
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RIGHT
With Waywatchers on the other side and too heavily scaled to be bothered by other WE bows (0+ armour), the Cavalry Oldblood moved out of the cavalry. The Terradons foolishly flew to a worthless location - within short range of the WE archers, but still beyond 10 inches, and out of leadership range of the Slann.
Shooting gutted my Terradons, who panicced. They would rally and spend the rest of the game fruitlessly chasing an Eagle.
On the right table edge, his Glade Riders parked in blocking position of my cavalry while the Wild Riders waited for my cavalry to expose their flank.
My turn 2, the Jungle Swarms commenced attempting the job I assigned them at deployment - freeing the Saurus Cavalry from annoying elves. They charged the annoying glade riders in the flank. The elves had to hold since fleeing would have taken them off the table. Unhappily, the 10 poisoned attacks would not work out for me. Turn 3 the cavalry would quit waiting and obliterate the elves personally.
The Oldblood, having left the unit previously, was unblocked by those Glade Riders and ran over some dryads. Wood Elf turn 2 the Alter Highborn charged him. Silly elf. The elven great weapon bounced off the 0+ scaly skin save without my needing the 4+ ward save and the Oldblood took two chunks off the elf. Since the Wild Rider unit was sitting right in front of me, I declined to pursue and that Alter Highborn would hide in the woods and survive the game. The Oldblood killed the Wild Riders, but took too long doing it to get anywhere else.
After the Saurus cavalry removed the Glade Rider threat, WE archers destroyed the swarms in one volley. A march blocking Eagle (using my own cavalry to block Terradon LOS) delayed my reaching those archers, then Huanchi's Banner rolled a '1' to not kill them on the last turn.
The right was definitely in my favor, thanks to the Oldblood. I lost swarms and half Terradons while killing Dryads, Wild riders, Glade Riders and half a Highborn.
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CENTER
The Slann got Conflagaration of Doom off just once all game, probably on turn 4, and rolled great for 13 total hits. This was targetted on the left Wild Riders, killing 3 of them and the Spellweaver's Unicorn. Didn't touch the spellweaver. The other major magical success was the Blood Statuette of Spite on turn 3 killing one of the spellsingers. I didn't use the Statuette earlier because scrolls and miscasting meant my opponent had extra dispel dice the first two turns. The Slann would miscast 6 times this game, despite never rolling more than 4 dice (3 plus the bonus dice). I also rolled a '1 2' on a two dice spell at least twice, and a '1 2 2 3' on a four dice spell. Never rolled IF.
In the middle, the Alter noble had moved into the center woods on turn 1, but at the back left. My turn 2, the skink screen could see him, so they charged. I'd have numbers and be within range of the Slann, so I figured the elf would have to kill them all to get out of combat (8 or 9 skinks at this point). The scouts had also moved up to my side of the woods, so the Huanchi Saurus charged them and they fled. Finally the JSoD charged the Branchwraith Dryads (I correctly guessed the nettlings were on his general). The fight with the Alter would work out great for me, as it took 4 combat rounds to kill all the skinks.
Turn 2 the Salamanders fried 7 wardancers, which was big. (same time the left Salamanders fried half of that wardancer unit).
The JSoD did not do well, just killing 2 Dryads. The remaining wardancers then charged the JSoD and the Wood Elf general killing blowed him.
Warhawks tried charging Salamanders, but whiffed on the priest and had to fall back from hungry Salamanders.
After killing my JSoD, the wardancers were open to more Salamander fire. All three remaining wardancers died, but the general only took one wound. The left side Salamanders also turn towards the center and fried most of the rallied scouts. At the same time, I sent Kroxigors into the Dryad unit the JSoD had tried himself against. With 13 attacks, the Kroxigors only killed two. The WE general then jumped in to help and the Kroxigors died. Apparently I wasn't allowed to fight that Branchwraith in close combat.
Turn 3 saw his shooting take out the last Salamander handlers and they failed the reaction test. This would have been a GREAT time to roll 'whimper', but instead they frenzied. That forced them to charge the last two Dryads of a unit the Slann had been trying to kill with magic since turn one. At least the Salamanders killed them and overrun was stopped by the Slann's unit.
My brave skinks finally fell to his Alter hero on his turn 3, leaving the elf standing alone in the forest. Much effort was spent trying to save him and his unfired Hail of Doom during my turn 4 magic phase, but a magic missile eventually blew him away. Another spell removed the scouts that hadn't already been fried by Salamanders.
His Treeman hung out in the center woods, Stranglerooting my Slann's unit. The big tree maintained slight LOS out the side of the forest, so the Slann unit could not walk forward without being flanked. That meant the Huanchi Saurus had to go in after the big tree. They walk to an inch away, then the Wood Elf magic appears. The Treeman bound spell and two other single dice Treesingings (other 2 single dice attempts failed). I roll one dice against each of them, needing just 2+ or 3+. I roll triple 1s. 8 Huanchi Saurus die and they roll 10 for panic, fleeing through the Slann, Salamanders, skinks, and way off to the right and insignificance.
I didn't realize the long term implications of losing my flank guard and left the Slann's unit in place. His turn 4 he charges my front with the Eternal Guard and my flank with Wardancer Highborn, Branchwraith, and 3 Dryads. Dangerous for me, but I have enough armour and attacks at EG I should lose combat by little. Then the Treeman walks out of the woods on my side, facing my trapped flank! Oops!!!
I hold the first round and the frenzied Salamanders jump the Highborn the second. But all that matters is the Treeman, so he gets hit by everything. I should have used Steal Soul from the skink priests on him, but I forgot they had it. Dark Hand from the Slann gets lucky and does a wound, but that's it. Last hope is the Salamanders and they put out a nearly perfect 28 hits. That gets 2 wounds through his saves, doubled to 4, but the big tree stands with one wound left.
The crazed Salamanders (I now realize I forgot they get hatred too) manage a wound on the Highborn (one left on him!) and he wounds a Salamander in return. The rest of that round is mutual incompetence, with only one kill on each side. I win but all the elves hold.
The big tree hits my flank and the pounding continues. A Salamander and at least 5 Saurus fall, but we kill several Eternal Guard in return. I lose combat by 4. First break test fails. Re-roll starts with a '1', giving me hope, but that is followed by an unhelpful '5'. The third dice is a '3' and the Slann survives! Failing that break test would have cost me 1280 victory points.
In total the Wood elves earned 1728 victory points. The Lizardmen got 2883, plus two banners and the table quarter on my left for a difference of 1454 and a solid victory.
