Adepticon Doubles – Round 1 – Andrew Sherman & Gareth Dicks – Chaos Dwarves & Vampire Counts

Arriving at the table and I see that we are playing our California neighbors, Ed Phillips and Donovan Gilliand, playing Ogres and Orcs.  I know that’s not what the title is, but that’s who our opponents were.  Ed and I discussed and decided we would ask the judge if we could get a switch, and were obliged.

Our opponents were and were were put with the Podcast team of Ohiohammer (Andrew) and Bad Dice (Gareth).  While I knew who they were, listening to both casts, Sean didn’t have a clue.  We shook hands, exchanged lists (even though it was a closed list event) and reviewed the mission together.

The Mission:

Deployment – Battleline
Special rules – an 18” square box in the center of the table.
Victory – 100 or more points
Bonus Battle – 1 for each core unit in the box at the end of the game, max of 3 points
Bonus Objective – 1 point for 1 general in box, 3 points for both generals in box

Fairly simple mission just needed to keep enough core units alive to be able to score… and our generals of course.

Daemonsmith, General, Level 1, Lore of Death, Enchanted Shield, Other Tricksters Shard, Opal Amulet

Infernal Castellan, BSB, shield, standard of discipline
Tomb Banshee
Cairn Wraith
Necromancer, General, Level 2, Lore of Vampires, dispel scroll, Dragonbane Gem

15 Infernal Guard, great weapons, full command, razor standard

20 Zombies, musician
28 Crypt Ghouls, champion
5 Dire wolves
5 Dire wolves

6 Bull Centuars, shields

Magma Cannon
1 Spirit Host
1 Spirit Host
2 Fell bats
2 Fell bats

Hell cannon

Terrorgheist

This list looked like a tough cookie.  Terrorgheists give my army a problem, as I only have a few units with mid-range leadership and next to no wounds.  A full wound terrorgheist only need to roll an 8 to delete a unit of fast cavalry, and only a 5 to give them a chance to kill a hydra (assuming I fail all saves).  The hellcannon is now a very tough cookie, with 4+ armor, 5+ ward and a 5+ armor save (on average it would take 135 poison shots, not hits, but shots, to do enough wounds to kill it).  We also had no idea how we were going to kill the centaurs, with 18 wounds with a 4+ save.

The necromancer rolled rerolling wounds and raise models.  The Daemon smith took spirit leech, which it will be casting at leadership 10.  I rolled Spirit Leech, Caress and Fate, giving me all the character sniping I could handle.  The goal was to no cast much death magic, but to put all we could at the necromancer – at least the fireball would get off each turn.

For deployment our opponents halved their table.  From left to right: a unit of dire wolves, the Bull Centaurs, hellcannon, infernal guard with both characters, the magma cannon, the ghouls with the necromancer and wraith and the terrorgeist hiding behind, a swarm, the zombies with the other ethereal character, the other swarm, the dire wolves with bats behind and the last unit of bats.  Both the dire wolves would vanguard.

For our deployment we went with our standard order.  A unit of skinks, dark riders and more skinks.  Then the banner unit, unit of dark riders and a lot more skinks.  The right flank was held by another unit of dark riders and both unit of terradons along with the salamanders.  My character and the hydra deployed center, far enough back to avoid a first turn scream.  We would vanguard with everything, placing my shades on the left, and the chameleon skinks center, but far enough back to avoid an early charge from the terrorgeist.  With only bats and dogs on the right flank we would vanguard strong, though play ring around the building on the left side.

One criticism is that they didn’t seem to have templates, and while they had the book for the chaos dwarves, they didn’t have the warrior’s book for the hellcannon rules.  They borrowed our templates, but we were forced to borrow the book from a neighboring table.

 
We roll and Andrew and Gareth get the first turn.

To start things off, the bats on the far right declare a charge against the right flank terradons.  The terradons stand and shoot and cause a wound.  Otherwise the line advances, with the chaos dwarves only moving up the bull centaurs.  They roll a 7PD 2LM/2DE DD phase.  First they raise 8 zombies, rolling a 12 but I only roll snakes to dispel.  SL then kills a chameleon, the only thing in range.  Flame cannon then kills 5 chameleons, panicking the unit and the hell cannon misses.  Terradons kill off the bats even after failing their fear test.

On our turn 1, the shades charge the left side dogs that are next to the bull centaurs, allowing the shades to get out of the centaurs arch of site.  Otherwise I the building would have prevented them from moving safely.  The single chameleon fails to rally.  We roll a 3LM/3DE PD 3DD phase, wound a swarm with the ring and failing to cast any Dark Elf magic.  A single fellbat is killed with shooting, along with the flame cannon taking a wound.  The dogs get slaughtered in combat, though the centaurs pass their panic.

On turn 2, the hell cannon charges an advanced unit of dark riders, which flee through the building.  This was my hope as it denied the hellcannon the ability to shoot.  Going through the building, a unit and the forest sees 5 failed dangerous tests.  The cannon redirects to chameleons.  The fell bats flank a unit of chameleons.  The swarm charge the ranked unit, which fleets and redirects into a hydra, needing a 12.  A 8PD, 3LM/4DE DD phase tanks to channel allows for a dispel of Spirit leech on the assassin but does allow for hellish vigor to heal a wound on the swarm.  The screams together kill off a unit of dark riders and the flame cannon kills 5 skinks, which fail their panic.  The chameleons kill the bats.  The cannon kills the chameleons.

To start off our turn 2, the ranked skink unit fails to rally and runs off the table.  So solo chameleon, however, rolls its double 1s and rallies.  A full 10 man unit of skinks also runs off the table.  For magic we roll 5LM/4 DE PD and 6DD.  A big magic phase which has seen the fireball put 4 wounds on the terrorgeist and a scroll used on a spirit leech.  Some chameleons then kill off the terrorgest!  Salamendars open up on the zomblies, killing 6 and overshooting to kill 14 ghouls.  The skinks luckly put 3 wounds on the cannon and kill a handler.  The shades then follow up with another wound to the cannon.

On their turn 3, some charging causing a unit of skinks to flee twice.  The centaurs charge the solo dark rider off the table and take 2 wounds as they hit the forest, catching a unit of skinks in combat.  A 8PD, 3LM/3DE DD magic phase sees them only getting off Spirit Leech, killing the assassin and raising 4 zombies.  I rolled a 1 on the 10 v 10 spirit leech.  The magma cannon is barely out of range of my general and so shoot and kill a terradon, causing them to panic.  The bulls kill the skinks and take a wound moving through the forest, killing a model.

On our last turn, due to time, we do a quick point count and realize that we need the magma cannon (with 1 wound left) and then any other unit in order to get the win.  Failing to do any of that would have it be a tie with us down.  We move to surround the zombies, figuring with less models and lower toughness they would be an easier target then the ghouls.  A 5DE/5LM, 7DD magic phase sees the fireball only killing 1 zombie.  We fail to cast SL with 5 dice to their 7 dispel dice.  The cannon is killed by the shades, and the salamanders open up on the zombies, leaving 7.  The hydra then opens up and does the remaining wounds, giving us the points needed.  We only had 1 partial unit of dark riders left to pick up any straggling zombies, and with an ethereal model in the unit, leaving it small enough to not look out sir would have made it hard.  Luck was with us and we cleaned them up.

The cannon along left us 99 points up, so the zombies gave us what we needed.  We did however fail to kill a general and so did not get any of the objective points.