Hey guys, this is my first game vs. the new Vampire Counts with my High Elves so I'm really excited to report the game. I literally just finished playing and I'm pretty tired, but I had to get this BR down before I forget too much stuff. Throughout the game, I managed to snag a few pictures, but nothing too crazy because we were just having a great time. I played against my friend Lucas and he's always a good sport.
Before the game began, I gave my opponent a choice between a competitive list and a casual list. He went with the casual and I took the following:
Lv.4 Archmage, Silver Wand, Robe, Talisman of Saphery, Lore of Shadow
Noble, BSB, GW, AoC, Dawnstone
Lv.1 Mage, Sigil, High Magic
40x Spears in FC w/ Lion Standard
2x 10x Archers
20x Phoenix Guard, FC with Banner of Sorcery
24x White Lions, FC with Banner of Eternal Flame
12x Sword Masters
5x Dragon Princes
2x Great Eagles
I guess I also owe it to some folks over at Ulthuan.net for wanting to see some BRs that feature non-book lists, so here you have it. I literally took out my case, and decided to take a little bit of everything. Overall, I was pretty happy about the list.
I didn't get the full list from my opponent, but here's what he had:
Lv.4 Vampire Lord, caster stuff
Lv.1 Beast Vampire
Wight King BSB w/ Black Knights
A unit of Black Knights
A unit of Vargheists
A big block of Crypt Horrors
A big block of Skeletons (Bunker)
A smaller unit of Ghouls
A larger unit of Ghouls
A Corpse Cart
We played on a map that's pretty straight forward. I had 10 drops total and I managed to outdeploy him in some critical spots. The biggest one is probably the White Lions vs. his Crypt Horrors and the Dragon Princes on his far flank while the rest of his army stayed together.
I'll post some pictures and talk at the same time.. hopefully it all makes sense. Keep in mind some pictures are missing because we were having a ball!
- The game starts off with him going first. He pushes models up and the Crypt Horrors are really aggressive. The Mortis Engine gives them 4+ Regen so he's relying on them to really put some damage down. Things move up but not too aggressively because he doesn't want to face the full might of the Elves! Just kidding, his Vargheists gets really aggressive and he flies them hard at my Archers. He throws big on an army-wide Van Hels and I Sigil it, failing to remove it.
- My first turn looked something like this:
- The Eagles do what they do best and redirect. Red Eagle flies up and shows his flank to the Crypt Ghouls, taunting them to charge and clip the Eagle for a triple front, flank and rear charge from my DP, PG, WL and he knows he doesn't want that. Blue Eagle flies and chills by the Vargheists so they Frenzy test for the Eagle, which then I'll naturally flee and they'll happily go into Sword Masters with a bad roll. Doesn't matter, my units move and angle and doesn't do too much but anticipate his next moves. Magic sees a few spells thrown around but nothing goes through. Shooting sees the Archers down 1 Varighest and put 2 wounds on another. Nice.
- My pictures keep turning upside because Blogger's ass so I'll pass on this next picture. Either way, it doesn't matter. Last turn during shooting, he pulls the Vargheist that can see the Eagle because he doesn't want to be redirected. Unfortunately, he fails to restrain and the Varhgiests go into the Sword Masters anyway. They chop them up to bits and reforms to face the Crypt Ghouls. The Black Knights charge the Red Eagle and from a horrible display of martial skill, fails to kill the Eagle. Instead, he does 2 wounds to it and I fly away. He restrains because he's afraid of getting trapped and die. I let Curse of Years through on my White Lions because he rolls high on his winds. This turn gets a little ridiculous because he IFs Winds of Undeath on my Spearmen unit and I'm sweating beads, but he fails horribly at rolling, misfires with the template and places it on his own unit of Skeletons. To make matters worse, he rolls a 11 on the chart (2 miscast rolls, I make him pick this) which sees him lose 3 whole wizard levels and every spell except for IoN. He loses a whole bunch of Skeletons and we laugh like huge nerds.
- Next turn looks something like this:
- The White Lions go into the Crypt Horrors, the Dragon Princes and Phoenix Guard go into the Black Knights and the Eagle rallies. The Blue Eagle flies towards the Ghouls to be annoying, showing his flank and forcing him to redirect for my Sword Masters. Magic sees the winds heavily go in my favor and I'm liking what I see. Cool, I thought, time to cast a lot of spells! He dispels Withering on the Knights and watches me IF Enfeeble on his Crypt Horrors, making them S2 for the round. I put a small template on myself and lose 3 dice, and kill 8 White Lions. We laugh again like huge nerds. It's pretty sad, I'm pretty sad because I really needed them to be there later. Anyways, I use the rest of my dice to dispel Curse of Years and we enter combat since shooting did squat. The Dragon Princes swing with a crap ton of attacks, hits with a lot and wound with few. The Phoenix Guard had the same exact problem.. so this combined charge didn't go as well as I hoped. He still loses combat narrowly and pulls a few knights in response. Undead is Unbreakable so I'm forced to hang out. The White Lions, however, go buck shit crazy on the Crypt Horrors and I challenge with my Archmage. His Champ accepts, does no damage to me and I stop some of his damage. I did an insane amount of wounds and force a crap ton of additional wounds, but he hangs in there with his Champ that has 1 wound left. Just a little more and I would of overran into his Mortis Engine.
- The next couple of turns turn pretty funny. I don't have pictures because it's really funny, but what happened here was his Black Knights started to res up because of good magic winds rolls and the Peripat his Lord carried. I didn't want his Knights to get to full, so I let the Signature Beast spell go off on the Black Knights. I try to dispel IoN and fails horribly so he gets a few models back. Charges see the Mortis Engine enter combat and impact hits kills a few more Lions. Now that the Corpse Cart is nearby and IoN went through, all the units within 6" of it gains ASF. Well, that kinda sucks because it takes away from my White Lion's killing ability, and it proves to be the case when the Mortis Engine single-handily ties combat with the White Lion's BSB unit as I roll poorly to wound it (only 2 wounds). The Black Knight unit, now with +1S +1T beings to kill the Phoenix Guard and I'm not liking where this combat is going. I swing back, kill just a couple and we tie combat again. His turn also sees the Blue Eagle charged and ran off the board, but in doing so left his rear opened for my Sword Masters to enter.
- I don't have pictures of the next couple of turns, but it basically stays all up in the middle. I charge my Sword Masters in from behind and shit gets real. A couple of Sword Masters die (I think 3), but he loses combat by something like 12. Yeah.. time to pull models. If my Archers would of made it into combat (both failed charge), I would have wiped the unit out in 1 round I think. Magic goes poorly again as he manages to scroll my Mindrazor on the Dragon Princes and throws everything else at my Withering. God damnit, those Black Knights are killing me. My Red Eagle charges the Mortis Engine and combat sees a ton of hits in my favor and S6 was enough to drop the Mortis Engine. It blows up and kills a bunch of units all around the center. I think in total it drops 2x Phoenix Guard, 1x Lion and 3x Spears on my side. It also drops a bunch of weenies on his side but he doesn't care. Anyways, the Eagle overruns an amazing 2 inches (which is kinda good because it helps block his Lord's unit from charging my White Lions), and I restrain with my White Lions. Combat with the Black Knights turn south and my Dragon Princes are cut down to 1 guy (who flees like a coward) and the Phoenix Guard flee as well. He reforms to face the flank of my White Lions.
- I have a good picture of the last turn:
- You see that large template centered over his Lord? That's what happens when you miscast on 5-dice of IoN and roll Dimensional Cascade. To make matters worse, his Lord gets sucked into the void and 17 Skeletons eat massive shit. The Eagle also eats shit but it's hysterical to see that go off in this crazy game. The Black Knights charge the flank of my White Lions and I make way with the Archmage and the BSB. I know he's looking for KB on my BSB, but I swing into the unit and kill 2 of them. The AM challenges and the Wight King accepts (oops, bad choice) and I save a good amount of wounds. I get lucky and there was no KBs to be had, but I managed to take a wound on the BSB. Regardless, the crumble kicks into effect and the Black Knights gets hit hard with boxcars, the Corpse Cart dies horribly and the rest of the units start dying off slowly. His remaining unit of Ghouls suicide charge into my 40x Spear unit in hopes of snagging the Lv.1 for points. My White Lions lose combat but they're Stubborn and don't care. The Spear unit also wins combat and that's pretty much it.
- Next turn just sees the Spear unit and Sword Master unit combo charge the remaining Skeleton bunker. The White Lions, augmented by magic and the Black Knights hexed to death dies horribly. Victory goes the the Asur!
We talk about the game after about some of the tactical mistakes he made during the game. The Eagles were certainly a huge pain to deal with, but I think he could of played his Vargheists better. I'm not entirely convinced on a caster lord, but he was doing it to save points so he can put more in the rest of his army. Crypt Horrors just get dominated by White Lions w/ some magic support and he's definitely more aware of the Challenging Archmage now. The Mortis Engine gave him a pretty strong magic phase with the +2 to cast, but miscasts can still happen and they're a lot more brutal with the engine around. At the end of the night, we were just having a great time. Thanks for the game Lucas!
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