http://theverminlord.blogspot.com/2013/01/eshin-scouting-party.html?m=1
Ryan Nicol is a nice guy. He had trimmed up his beard for the evenings activities (which he placed in). His rankings for 2012 were based on Daemons, but he did manage to place top 10 with High Elves at the 2011 Waaagh!PACA. Balance that with my RankingsHQ being based on Skaven and only playing maybe 20 games with Dark Elves with one poor 3 round event under my belt.
I had gotten a non-magical item briefing the night before from one of his friends (nothing that wouldn’t have been shared anyways due to the closed list environment). Besides the lack of sleep it caused, I was glad because Ryan fielded the only special character I saw all weekend, and one I wasn’t familiar with. I had given a briefing to his friend of my list, so Ryan wasn’t at a big disadvantage. Before we started, Ryan shared with me that he has issues with his friend’s Dark Elves.
Ryan’s list was as follows (seems I didn’t grab his list – only one I’m missing, so here is my best try):
Eltharion on Stormwing, General, Death Magic
Noble on Great Eagle, Battle Standard Bearer, Lance, Dragon Armor, Shield
Mage, Level 2, Metal Magic, Annulian Crystal
2 Units of 12 Archers, one with banner and musician
25 Spearman, full command
24 Swordmasters, full command, Standard of Balance
2 Great Eagles
132ish points I couldn’t recall…oh well.
Mission #1:
Victory Condition – 100 points
Bonus Point – Have unit in 2 of 3 deployment areas
Deployment – Dawn Attack – Units with Fortitude don’t roll
Man of Intrigue – Allows for back of board Ambush
Objective Marker – Not Used
Table Sides - Longest Distance Travelled chooses
Go First – person who chose side goes first
The Board:
6 Forests – Automatically [one that hits at end of movement phase on 4+]
River – Dangerous Terrain (doesn’t follow normal River rules)
Building – 3 Stories, one Random caster within 3” knows all spells
I went into this mission knowing that I was going to get first, period. Due to the vanguarding, my list loves to go first. I wanted to go first in every mission but the fourth (and I did exactly that!). The big debate I had was which table side to choose. I went back and forth. The one side had the building, giving me all spells on a lord (not a huge deal as metal didn’t really help and death had what I wanted – all but sun and fear). The second big issue was the river. I didn’t want to be making too many dangerous terrain tests – and I made a lot over the weekend. A up front deployment with full vanguard would allow me, on either side, to get 2 units of fast cavalry over the river through the vanguard, and thus avoid tests. The side with the building forced me to make the push on the right flank, in the open to his archers. The other side would allow me to push more center, and with the building narrowing his range of fire – but would let him have the building. That was my kicker in the end. I didn’t want to open up his level 2 death mage to all spells, nor give him the building to hide a unit.
My Side
Ryan’s Side
So sides chosen, I roll up my army. One hydra came in on the left, and I used him to cover the left side the building. The second hydra and the metal caster came in on the right. I placed my bsb and general near the building, one unit of fast cavalry on the far right and the other two to take advantage of the vanguard over river. His army was left side (from my perspective) weighted, but then he only rolled on 1 unit of archers and the eagles.
Ryan and I had our only rules discussion at this point. The rules called for the ambushing unit to randomize deployment, but also said that units with fortitude didn’t randomize. We decided that having units with fortitude ambush not random was to strong, and therefore would roll even if fortitude was present (which it was in both cases).
I went first and immediately pushed a spirit leech through and killed his metal caster – hydra’s safe. I moved the right flank hydra over more center, but kept them both back in my deployment zone. He had chosen to ambush with the spearmen, and I wanted to make sure I was prepared. I killed an eagle with shooting and revealed the standard of balance as the swordmasters were ITP. I also started putting the pressure on his archers.
On his turn he moved up the sword masters towards the hydra on the left. He moved up his flyers and starting casting death magic at my general. Leadership 10 death magic is harsh even at level 2. Thankfully the hydras seemed to keep him from trying to open up his lore.
This is where things start getting a little fuzzy in my mind, so just some highlights. On my turn 2 the ambushers came on. I started putting shooting pressure on the swordmasters and took out the archers. My magic was relatively ineffective at that point as his bsb had a 2+ to my metal magic and 2/3rds of the metal magic went to the no save great eagle mount. He focused his dispelling on my death magic.
On his turn 2 his ambushers came on in the middle and started running from the hydra that was right there. The sword masters turned to fast my ambushers. Move death magic at my general.
My turn 3 and I jumped my hydras into gear. The one on the left took advantage of the swordmasters turning to drop the flame template, taking out all but 5. The other hydra dropped the spearman to under 10.
His turn 3 and my his bsb charged a unit of fast cav. They would die on my turn 4. The sword masters tried to run, as did the spearman.
My turn 4 and bye-bye sword masters to shooting and the spearman took a hydra in the rear to also go away. On his turn 4 I popped my Black Dragon Egg to discourage his BSB from charging my BSB. It worked and I did some fleeing.
Turn 5 and I boosted metal magic to snipe his general off of the eagle. His turn 5 and he dropped his last remaining 3 units into my deployment zone to get his bonus point. Game ended with him with an eagle with one wound left, bsb at full and a riderless general with a few wound on the mount.
Ryan was a great player. The game was hugely tactical with us both sharing the angle templates every turn for almost every move as we attempted to not only place our units but predict how the other would react and plan for future turns. At any normal even this would easily have been my best game, but this was a GREAT event, and even with this wonderful game it didn’t end up being the best.
So a good start to the weekend, 4 points and another #1 RankingsHQ person on my win tally. Also, unlike Northstar, I got the win against the previous year’s winner. Ryan would still go on to place 7th with 2 best opponent votes and a great paint score.
I lamented at the end that my general died when he rolled a 2 on spirit leach and I rolled a 1 doing the last two wounds. The lamentation was that I forgot I had a reroll for that 1. On the next turn Ryan laminated forgetting he had a reroll to give a second chance at his 5+ ward to keep his general alive. Neither would have affected the outcome of the game. But gamers like to whine.
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