A Dance of Death

Hey gang, how are we all?
I'm doing pretty well myself. I've been a little lazy of late and haven't done much with the blog or any hobby stuff for a while. I've been in far North Queensland soaking in the sun and drinking. It was nice...

But now it's back to business as usual and I've jumped straight back into a good old Warhammer Fantasy battle. And I'll tell you what too, it was a toughie. I have this mate Will. We go way back (all the way to primary school), in fact this guy got me into Warhammer. Any way he hasn't played for like 10 or so years. But he has been playing heaps of other stuff,, DnD, Eclipse Phase, World of Darkness etc. A whole lot of role playing stuff. Anyway he wanted to get back into Warhammer and decided to pick up his old favorites...the Wood Elves. Honestly when he told me he wanted to get back into the hobby and had put together a 1000 point list, my heart jumped for joy! "He's back," I thought, "Woohoo!. Now how the heck do I deal with Wood Elves..."

So two things threw me about this battle. The first was I haven't played against Wood Elves for a very long time. At least 2 editions ago. So I wasn't very sure what they could throw down. Sure I knew their basics, they're super shooty, super fast, only toughness 3. I knew they had a heap of skirmishers including those dryad things which as far as I could remember basically had the same rules as demons? I knew they had Treemen and War Hawks and stuff but I didn't know any of the stats and didn't know new units or army special rules. Oh well, the best way to learn an army is to fight it, that's what I always found. But I just didn't know what the hell to expect.

The second little hitch was the 1000 point limit. I've been playing a fair bit of my Vampires lately but only in bigger games. With only 1000 points to spend I found myself in a little bit of trouble. You see my main play style is to tar-pit then clean up with a couple of big scary units. But with 1000 points I couldn't really afford many big scary units. No Terrorgheists with Vargheists or that sort of thing. I knew he would be shooting the shit out of me, so I wanted to play magic heavy so I could regenerate my troops, which meant I couldn't even play with my good old Ghoul King! What's an undead boy to do? I had a vague idea of some units of Zombies, Skellies and a couple of casters. Then I needed something quick an punchy. I decided on the Varghulf because he's tough, very fast, very punchy (especially against puny elves) and maneuverable. Because this was a friendly game to get Will back into it, he had shown me his list (2 units of Way Watchers, 2 units of Scouts, a big unit of fast cavalry and a level 4 Spell Weaver) and then I showed him mine. We explained to each other essentially what our stuff could do and then began setting up. "What fun!" I thought. How very wrong I was......

Deployment started off with me placing all of my troops: 1 unit of 29 Skeletons with spears full command and the Screaming Banner, 2 units of 20 Zombies with full command. Then my Varghulf. All of his troops were either scouts or in ambush so he only had to deploy his Spell Weaver. Then I popped my Master and Necromancers into their units. He then he deployed his entire army surrounding mine. A good 30" away too so he was just within shooting range. And then Turn 1 began.

Okay so I'm not going to do this like a normal battle report because really there wasn't much to report. Basically in his turns his skirmishing little elves would dance their way out of all of my forward arcs and then the Spell Weaver would try for a Pit of Shades (undeads worst nightmare). And of course then the sky would fill with arrows and lots of Zombies would die. (Think of the opening scene to Saving Private Ryan). He pretty much had me surrounded for the entire battle and my troops were constantly peppered by arrows. The Way Watchers firing two shots each and the Scouts shooting with poisoned arrows. Death death death!

Tell me about it.

Then in my turns the Zombies would continue their painfully slow and FUTILE march towards the elves. Whilst the Necromancers would furiously raise more and more Zombies. Every turn I would try to Gaze of Nagash his Spell Weaver and every turn it would be dispelled. The slippery little elves were way too maneuverable for my Zombies and I could not catch them and lock them in combat. I had taken the Rod of Flaming Death in the hope that I could wound him with it and he would have to think twice about moving next turn (auto Strength 4 hit for each model in the unit if they move) but it only has an 18" range and he was keeping well out of that AND slowing my movement with Miasma. Grrrr. This little game continued for some time.

IT TOOK ME FIVE FUCKING TURNS BEFORE I SCORED A SINGLE FUCKING WOUND!!! 

That's right! In turn FIVE I finally managed to kill his Spell Weaver with my Rod of Flaming Death which of course was the first time I had a chance to use it and of course it miss casts and renders itself useless. Fuck my unlife. Now I'm sure your thinking "Wow he kicked your undead ass!".  And you know what? He sort of did. Sort of. Because although he was killing like a million Zombies every turn, for every 1 he killed 2 would be raised. By the time I scored my first wound (turn 5 btw, did I mention that?) my army was twice the size it had started. By turn 6 there were 6 units of them! So many Zombies but none could get into combat. This was ridiculous. This was the unstoppable force colliding with the unmovable object. This was Warhammer at it finest. This was painful.

In my final turn, 1 of the regiments of Zombies managed to roll a 10 on their charge and make it into combat. I nearly pissed my pants. Will tried to flee but rolled terribly and the Zombies over ran them and finally got to eat some brains. Although Will had killed tonnes of Zombies through out the game he only managed to destroy one unit. (Bloody Pit of Shades). So technically I won the game. But it certainly didn't feel that way.

All to familiar.

So even though I've bitched and moaned, the game was actually pretty fun. We certainly had a good laugh. Considering Will hadn't played in so long I thought it was going to be a walk in the park but he really played to his strengths and my weaknesses. Really the only thing that saved me was the ability to raise new units in different places, this forced him to split his fire and move in other directions, and I must admit I got pretty lucky with some of those dice rolls. Next time I face him I'll have to get more speed happening. Maybe I'll invest in some Fell Bats and bust out the Vargheists. Flying sounds pretty good to me. It will be good to see the Wood Elves in a bigger game too. I'd be interested to see what other units they have and what they can do. Full credit to Will. His army was scary. Too shooty and too fast. His tactic was simple but perfect: Shoot then dance away, Shoot then dance away. I think if I had been using any other infantry heavy army that wasn't undead it would have been game over by turn 3. But I guess that's just Vampires. Vamps and Wood Elves seem to almost cancel out each others party tricks. It's like an arm wrestle were no ones arm moves until someones bone breaks. I have a feeling me and Will are going to have a lot of fun over the battle field. 

Any way that's it from me. Stay tuned though cause Lord Mantor and his host of High Elves are on the march and looking for vengeance. Full battle report coming up. Also I've been thinking of starting up a new army, Beastmen or Dark Elves, so I may write up a bit of a run down for each. Till then take care and keep dem dice rolling!

Jimzan.