Paul was kind enough to invite me into his home this past week and
offer me a game in preparation for Adepticon. I gave him the choice of a big game, with my 2400 point list
or a smaller game with my 1000 point empire. Paul chose the larger game, and even designed at the 2400
point level despite my offering to let him keep it simple and use a 2500 point
list he had already developed. Due
to the list being designed right before the game, I didn’t actually see the
list but Paul helped me with the details, so I think the following is correct.
The List
Slaughtermaster, general, level 4, lore of the great maw, talisman of
preservation, dispel scroll, great weapon
Firebelly, level 1, hellheart, great weapon
Bruiser, heavy armor, shield, dragon helm, sword of striking, iron
curse icon
9 Iron guts, full command, standard of discipline
3 bulls, iron fists, champion
3 bulls, iron fists, champion
Sabertusk
Sabertusk
Sabertusk
6 Man eaters, full command, 6x duel pistols, poison, stubborn
4 leadbelchers
4 leadbelchers
Ironblaster
Magic
For my Death wizard I first rolled Doom and Darkness and
Soulblight. I contemplated keeping
them and going triple soulblight, but decided that I would take Spirit Leech
instead. My metal wizard took
searing doom (and probably always will).
Paul took Fireball on the fire wizard and +toughness, regeneration,
magic missile and stubborn on his level 4.
Deployment
At first I assumed we were just going to play Battleline, as that is
what I normally find when I play pick-up games. Paul however wanted to roll off for selection. I suggested instead we just roll out of
the book, as long as it wasn’t Watchtower as I didn’t expect to see that one at
Adepticon. He rolled a 2. I said I thought it was Dawn Attack,
and Paul said he hoped not. It was
Dawn Attack. I offered to switch
back to Battleline, but Paul took it on the chin and said we would move forward
with Dawn Attack. That’s probably
the better option, his goal wasn’t to prep for Adepticon and other events do
run Dawn Attack and he needs to learn to play it. I on the other hand was fine with Dawn Attack as my army is
highly mobile allowing me to overcome whatever the fickle deployment dice
bring.
We rolled off and Paul got the honor of deploying his entire army
first.
Paul deployed both of his Ogre “darts” on the right side. A unit of leadbelchers hid behind the
terrain, ready to move up and support the monster block. The monster block went just right of
center, flanked by the other leadbelcher and the ironblaster. The maneaters got banished to the far
left. Paul managed to place the
three sabertusks in such a way that my picking off one would not cause any
panic tests.
For my deployment I got the dark riders fairly evenly spread center
towards the right with the larger unit ready to claim the hill as a fire/charge
point. The bolt throwers got
spread around the back. I rolled
my choice with the dreadlord bunker and chose to put in on the left to quickly
take out the man eaters. I then
rolled left with the caster bunker making my left flank controlled with all of
my Doom Fire Warlocks.
Plan was simple, take the 2 turns of shooting, and kill the man eaters,
leadbelchers and ironblaster.
I vangaurded up strong, giving him charges across the board needing
12s. I crossed over the two doom
fire warlocks, putting the wall between them and the lead belchers and keeping
me outside 24” to at least make him move up. I considered and then discarded stretching to avoid the
ironblaster and instead just made sure he couldn’t get a flank shot along my
characters.
I rolled and got the mighty 6, stealing the first turn.
Turn 1 – Dark Elves
Showing how long it had been since I had played, I took a few minutes
to consider charges – despite having vanguarded across the table. So instead I move up with the doomfire
warlocks and leave the shooting bases in position.
I roll a 12/6 magic phase, making my only channel for the game. I throw 4 at doom and darkness on the
man eaters, hoping to draw out the dispel dice before opening up with the magic
missiles. Well, I miscast. I roll a hit on each wizard, losing a
warlock off each unit and putting a wound on the metal wizard. I lose 2 dice (10/6). I then 4D a small doom bolt which is
dispelled and fail a 2D soulblight on the man eaters.
My shooting does only puts 6 wounds on the maneaters and 2 on one of
the ogre darts. 2 bolt throwers
fail to do anything to the iron blaster.
Oh, and I put a wound on a saber tusk.
Turn 1 – Ogres
Paul doesn’t work any of the charges I gave him, 12s on the right but
some good charges with the man eaters.
I’d be happy with him charging the dreadlord bunker and if he hit the
wizards I’d flee, leaving him to charge the bunker or get flanked. He doesn’t take the bait. His darts back up a little, happy to
stand off with S3 shooting. The
lead belchers move up to take on some dark riders BS vs. BS. The man eaters move up to shoot at the
wizard bunker and a sabertusk runs up to prevent the dreadlord bunker from
hitting the man eaters… but by moving up with the maneaters it means I only
need a 9 on the over run, and would get a flank. That’s probably the only mistake Paul made all game. Short range shooting just wasn’t worth
it.
Paul rolls an 8/5 magic phase.
He throws 3D at Doom to dispel it.
He then chucks 5D at big fireball, miscasting. He only rolls 7 hits and only kills 1 dark rider. The miscast wounds the firebelly and
puts 2 wounds on the unit. The
audience made noises when the general failed his look out sir, but I would
rather have a 3rd wound on the unit then what happened… dang 4+ ward
(and the fact that the general can heal).
In shooting both Leadbelchers opened up on dark riders, scoring 25 hits
but only killing 5 of the 6 models in the unit. I pass my panic.
The cannon forces a look out sir on my general, which I pass and kills a
doom fire warlock. The man eaters
kill 2 warlocks off of the wizard bunker.
Turn 2 – Dark Elves
With little movement on Paul’s turn, I have little to counter. I do charge the wolf with my entire
bunker. The caster bunker moves up
next to the man eaters, facing the rest of the army. A bubbled soulblight could be good in that position. It also put them in a good spot to
charge leadbelchers or retreat.
The shooting units stay, though I do hide the solo dark rider.
I roll a mighty 3/1 magic phase… so I lied, I did channel a second
time. Seeing me having upwards of
a 5/1 magic phase, and with the 3 wizard unit right in front of his army, Paul
uses the hellheart but fails to roll far enough to touch them.
I roll 2D at doom but fail.
I then power stone and get off a smaller searing doom on the
ironblaster. It takes a
wound. I was sort of hoping to
draw the scroll, but just the hellheart is fine.
My shooting puts 1 wound onto the left lead belcher unit and a wound on
the bunker. All the BTs fail
versus the ironblaster.
In combat I kill the dog; he doesn’t even wait for me to pick up
dice. I then over run and slam
into the maneaters.
Turn 2 - Ogres
With the maneaters engaged, Paul shifts his focus to the wizard bunker,
a solid 460 point unit.
He rolls a 6/4 magic phase.
As he had exposed the flank of the left leadbelchers by shifting, he
throws 2D to put stubborn on the unit.
I let it go without a second consideration. He gains +1 to cast.
He then 2D the ogre magic missile at the wizard bunker, followed by a 2D
fireball. I dispel the first and
scroll the second.
Both lead belchers then proceed to score 37 shots at the unit. First starting with the far left, now
stubborn unit. It needs 7s,
shooting through the advancing ogre bunker. It manages to kill 2 doom fire warlocks, which denies me
character protection exactly. The
second unit then picks up not only the warlocks but both casters. Ouch.
The ironblaster tries to snipe a bolt thrower but misses.
The first 3 characters I roll picks up the 4 maneaters and I overrun
forward towards the bunker.
Turn 3 – Dark Elves
I start my turn with a discussion. I think the smart play is to charge my bunker into the back
leadbelchers, allowing me to either overrun into the iron blaster or at least
past the bunker unit. From there I
could go crazy cleaning up the shooting and just weathering the magic, which
after all was just 2 magic missiles, one of which I could dispel. But this game wasn’t about
winning. This game was about
coming to an understanding of what my army COULD do. I figured the best way to do that was to shove my bunker
into his bunker. Would I win? I didn’t now.
I used both of my potions and declared the charge. I also put 2 units of dark riders off
into the stubborn lead belchers, knowing full well they wouldn’t kill the unit
and would instead get counter charged by the iron blaster. My thoughts were that should I win the
big combat, 2 units of leadbelchers would then open up on my doom fire
warlocks. I didn’t like that, so
tying up one unit of leadbelchers sounded like a great idea.
I roll a 10/6 magic phase and with only 1 spell to cast I chuck 6 at
soublight bubble, but it’s dispelled.
My bolt throwers manage to get 2 wounds on the ironblaster. Even with a third BT, these things are
still trash and if they don’t perform at adepticon (in the 11 games I’m using
them) then they are out. They
aren’t worth the comp consideration.
For the 210 points I could get a hydra with a flame template, and maybe
restructure my points for a second… we’ll see how they perform. But 3 turns in and they got 4 wounds on
maneaters, 2 wounds on an ironblaster… 3 of them.
So anyways, back to the game… my BS core shooting doesn’t do anything,
or maybe a few more wounds on the darts, but who really cares? There are only 6 shooting at this
point.
In combat I do my general’s combat first, hoping to move the unit
forward and move the dark riders into the bubbles. Paul declares a challenge with his champion and I accept
with mine, pushing trapped character back into the combat. I will have to be careful of that, when
I placed my unit I didn’t consider having more than one model that could only
attack a challenging model.
Sloppy. My champion did a
wound and then died but without any overkill. His firebelly did make way, but not the BSB.
My general then does 4 to the firebelly, cleaning him up. My master does 2 wounds from the potion
of strength. My cloak of twilight
does 7 wounds to the unit. The
back rank and a horse each do 1 more wound, leaving him with just the 2
fighting ranks. All my non-general
characters take a wound. The unit
breaks, killing the banner and BSB, but I fail to catch. More disappointingly, neither the
leadbelchers nor the ironblaster fail their panic check.
The dark riders kill 2 models off of the leadbelchers and lose 1 in
return. He holds, but decides not
to reform as it would open up more attacks and possibly block the ironblaster.
Turn 3 - Ogres
The iron blaster does go into the dark riders. Paul wanted to put them into the larger
unit, but couldn’t’ get the angle so put them into the smaller unit. Just mean that there were fewer points
and if the impact hits went crazy he couldn’t get his maximum wounds (and
risked losing his crew attacks).
The ogre darts held pat.
The leadblechers turn to face the bunker and sadly, the general’s unit
rallies.
He then rolls a 7/5 magic phase, and as my fried Van would say, “put
his shields up.” I decided to let
the +1T go through as I had a soulblight and wanted to stop the
regeneration. A 3D +1 did come
first and a 4D regeneration saw me not rolling higher than a 3 and failing the
dispel… ouch.
The leadbelcher opens up with 11 hits on the bunker and I lose 4, failing
4 of 5 4+ saves. It looked for a
second like my dice were turning on me.
The ironblaster only manages 1 hit on the dark riders and kills a
model. I then do 2 wounds to the
leadbelchers and 1 to the ironblaster (thank you horse). Paul’s dice turn and he only kills 1
dark rider and I win combat. The
leadbelchers hold but the ironblaster runs right in front of my bunker.
Turn 4 – Dark Elves
Wanting to get back into the much diminished bunker unit, I charge the
now in the way ironblaster. It
obliges but rolling high and running off the table. I then make it into the bunker. That dark rider unit on the right that hadn’t moved since
vanguard found itself in the perfect place to secondary charge should the
bunker have fled through the ogre dart forcing him to hold. I make it in.
I roll a 5/3 magic phase and chuck them all at soulblight.
My shooting kills a wolf off.
Now in the general bubble, I go with the leadbelcher combat first,
doing 2 wounds while he kills off the smaller dark rider unit. He holds with 1 wound left.
The bunker v bunker combat is eventful. My BSB gets into a challenge with his champion and only
manages 1 wound but makes his save.
I then do 3 wounds to the unit and put 2 on his general. He kills the twilight cloak dread lord
but only does those 2 wounds. I’m
up 4 wounds, rank, charge and banner and he fails his snakes. This time I catch him.
With a unit of leadbelchers, 1 out of position sabertusk and 2 ogre
darts (one missing an ogre left) Paul concedes the game. Probably good, it was after 11 and I
didn’t end up getting up until just past midnight. Had to work Friday.
So after action… Bolt throwers still seem worthless. The character unit is a beast. Maybe more than I need it to be. The magic is weak. I miss my level 4. Right now my first instinct is to drop
a dreadlord down to a master and upgrade the death caster to a level 4. That lets me keep most of my combat,
giving up some synergy. I think
what I would do was keep the cloak and sword of strife on the general for 6
attacks and move the ogre blade to a master for 3 instead of 4 attacks. I would have to lose the dawnstone, but
I could live with that. I would
also lose the ability to dart a survivable character out of the unit, but I
might be able to make that up by adding a charmed shield
in. I don’t think there would be
any savings from that, but I’d have some extra points from dropping the three
bolt throwers for a hydra. The
hydra would become cannon bait, but that might be ok.
We’ll see how Adepticon goes.
