For those who were paying attention last week, you'll remember that i built an insane amount of Dark Elves in an afternoon.
Well, i managed it, surprising even myself on that count. I managed to muster all this:
Note the plastic Executioners, converted from spearmen and green stuff. I'll cover these in more detail later.
Anyhoo, moving on. My first game was pitched battle vs dwarves. Unfortunately, i'd brought a fairly static gunline of 45 crossbowmen, with Executioners, Harpies Corsairs and Cold ones for counter-attack. Outclassed didn't even come close. The game consisted of me trying to close with him before his cannons took me apart, without much luck. The game ended in a massacre to him.
This week, my game was against a bloke named colin and his nurgle chaos horde.
My list was roughly the following:
2 lv 2 sorceresses, one with lore of metal and the other with dark magic
45 crossbowmen
15 corsairs
1 death hag with banner of hag graef and witchbrew
12 exectioners with banner of murder
2 units of 5 harpies
Mission was breakthrough - get more units into the opponents deployment zone than your opponent in yours
The plan: pelt his big blocks of chaos warriors with magic and crossbow bolts,using harpies to slow his marches, then counter-attack with my corsairs and executioners, relying on the powerful death hag and executioner combo to break through.
The reality: Now i knew his army was tough, with me often need 6's then 5's to even force armour saves on them, but i knew if i got a few good spells off (i rolled spirit of the forge for one of my lore of metal spells), then i'd stand a chance. Unfortunatly, the winds of magic were blowing fitfully and i rarely managed to cast any spells for the whole game. the few that did make it were swiftly dealt with by his scroll caddy. Even Power of Darkness couldn't help!
A huge mistake i made was getting over confident with my executioners/death hag and charging a block of 18 chaos warriors in the centre of the table. My dice failed me on damage dealing. Then i found out that what's the equivalant of power armour at range turns into a 2+ save in combat!!! Can you say broken?
Well, unsurpisingly, my unit was ground into the dust, then the warriors overan into my corsairs, who at least died slowly enough to give me some thinking time. One of my units of harpies had fled too far (ie. off the table) from a charge from his chaos knights, turn 2, but i still had a unit of the winged vixens flying around just behind his lines, not really doing very much as he was too close to march anyway. I flew these into his back field, far away from any possible retaliation, giving me a victory point.
Then lady luck threw me a bone. The warriors unit had been joined by a marauders unit in destroying my corsairs unit, but once the pirates had been crushed, it turned out that only the marauders were alined in such a way that they'd end up in my deployment zone, leaving the chaos warriors running lengthways across the board, unable to wheel enough in time to make it (it was turn 5 by this point). All i had to do deal with was bringing the maruaders below scoring, so tbhey didn't count as a unit for the victory conditions.
There were 15 or so of them in the unit, so this was a tall order considering my shooting so far, but the fighting had brought them into short range of all my repeater crossbows and sorceresses and they didn't have the advantage of chaos armour, unlike their borderline broken comrades.
Unsurprisingly, my magic did sod all, bar killing one, but then 45 crossbow bolts were loosed. 8 or so hit their mark and 5 killed, forcing a panic check. Unfortunately they passed it, giving me a turn of my own panic as he strolled right into my deployment zone, smug as anything. Then last turn, another 45. this time about 12 or so hit, 7 of which hit his sorceror!! luckily the sorceror went down and there were enough left on the unit to kill 4, ending it's scoring status and pulling out an incredibly narrow draw for me.
It was a great game and it taught me a great deal about my army and how to play WFB
1. My Dark Elves are best at mid to short range shooting
2. Never charge/engage chaos warriors - shoot them or melt them with magic, but facing 18 terminator equivilants in combat is not good
3. Chaos players fear Lore of Metal and will go to great lengths to stop you using it
4. Relying on magic could be good if you have power stone or two - i didn't, hence my trouble with magic
5. Even if you load up on goodies, you still need to support your Executioners - i really should have combined it with a corsair charge
6. Harpies are useful. Very useful.
Where next?
1. I got a manticore through the post today, so i want to play a game or two with that, see if it works for me or not.
2. I also have a Cauldron of blood that might be interesting to try in conjuntion with the Executioners and Death Hag
As usual, thoughts and opinions are welcome, especially on the style of battle report i used
That was a good game. Power stones would have been a good addition, but such is hindsight. When you play dwarves make sure you have a powerstone on each spellcaster. You will need it.
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