Everything was stacked against me, he was using a strong skaven army, he was more experienced than me and had won the tourney last year and his army was dragon death personified: 2 warp lightning cannons, 3 x 9 poison sling gutter runners, plague magic!
For a recap, here is my army list:
Prince on Star Dragon, with Great Weapon, Armour of Caledor and Guardian Pheonix.
Dragonmage on Sun Dragon, Amulet of Endurance and Sword of Might.
Level 2 Mage with the Annulian Crystal (high magic).
25 Lothern Sea Guard, Full Command
25 Spearelves, Full Command
18 Swordsmasters, Full Command, Champion with the Talisman of Loec.
20 Pheonix Guard, Full Command.
As you can see, 3 beater units and 3 anvils with the level 2 there purely for magic defense.
Pete had (roughly, can't remember exactly) :
Lord Skrolk.
Plague Priest, Lvl 1, Flail
Warlord with Halberd
Battle Standard Bearer with Halberd.
Warlock Engineer, Level 2 with Warp Lightning Generator
Warlock Engineer with Doomrocket
50 Plague Monks
50 Clanrats
Doomwheel
3x9 Poison Sling Gutter Runners
2 Warp Lightning Cannons
Plague Claw Catapult.
I was surprised not to see a Hell Pit, but Pete assured me that the army was incredibly nasty and that my low toughness elves were about to be turned into puddles of goo. Oo-er.
First round was Battle for the Pass, and Pete won the roll off for deployment. I cocked up and didn't spread my dragons out enough, which allowed his gutter runners into my deployment zone. Luckily I rolled a 6 and got the first turn, or it could have ended very badly in turn 1!
To the far left are my dragons (represented by blue rectangles) cowering from the WLcannons, but unfortunately they were now exposed to the gutter runners (my error). The long thin rectangle is the LSG, the furthest north is the spearelves and sandwiched intbetween is my PG. Down at the bottom of the map are my SM. The skaven are all in black, the rectangle closest to the elves is the plague monks with skrolk, plague priest and warlock engineer. Behind them is the clanrat horde with the other charcters, the doomwheel is against the top edge of the board and his warmachines are against the back board edge.
High Elf Turn 1
I took one look at the gutter runners and decided, sod it! I moved both dragons 20" forwards, into the path of the warp lightning cannons.... Everybody else pushed up their full movement in order to get to grips with the rat menace.
I magicked up 12 power dice and promptly cast all four of my spells without any successful skaven dispels, so my star dragon got a ward save, a plague monk died to fury of khaine, the flaming sword of rhuin was active on my dragonmage and drain magic was also in effect.
No combat or shooting, so onto skaven turn 1....
Skaven Turn 1
Predictably all three units of gutter runners moved 12" to draw a bead on the dragons, but the rest of the skaven army stayed put (except the doomwheel, which tried to ram into the plague monks but failed!).
The skaven magic phase was nullified entirely, a combination of poor rolling for the power pool, the annulian crystal and drain magic making it impossible for the skaven to cast.
Shooting also went my way, one warp lightning cannon misfired and blew itself up, the other failed to wound with a strength 2 shot. Then the gutter runners started...and took two wounds off the sun dragon and one off the star dragon! Still, it could have been a lot worse.
High Elf Turn 2
I wanted my dragons in combat, where they would no longer be targets and so declared a charge with my star dragon on the plague monks. The charge failed, and so I didn't charge the sun dragon in but moved it up 20" to hopefully draw a charge from the frenzied mob and thus expose their flank.
Aside from that all units moved full steam ahead except the sea guard, who swift reformed to face the gutter runner menace behind me.
My magic phase allowed me to give my star dragon a ward save again and also to re-cast drain magic.
In my shooting phase three gutter runners were transfixed by arrows and the template from my sun dragon hit 20 plague monks. Despite it's strength 2 against their toughness 4, 6 plague monks died.
Now it was time for the skaven reprisals though......
Skaven Turn 2
Pete weighted up his options, and decided to hell with it....chaaaarge!
His plague monk horde charged into my sun dragon, and the gutter runners all moved closer to my lines.
His magic phase was again inneffectual, his shooting phase did however see 2 swordsmasters die to the plague claw catapult, and the remaining warp lightning cannon killed my general! Luckily my star dragon is made of stern stuff and passed his monster reaction test.
The combat phase saw my dragonmage make light work of the plague monk champion, but lost the fight due to their static combat resolution. I failed the break test and fled....the plague monks only managed a 3" pursuit though, leaving them stranded in front of my battleline with the dragon flying away a mighty 11".
High Elves Turn 3
I could see only one way to win this battle, and that was to take care of the plague monk deathstar. To this end my swordsmasters and pheonix guard charged their front and my star dragon charged into their flank.
My sea guard killed another two gutter runners, but then the mayhem began in combat...
To begin with I issued a challenge with my swordsmaster champion, and Lord Skrolk stepped forwards to accept. With a very skaven-esque sneaky trick skrolk nearly lost his life in this challenge-I had taken the talisman of loec, which allows re-rolls to hit, re-rolls to wound and forces enemy models to re-roll all successful saves of any kind. All for 10 points! The only drawback is that you take an unsaveable wound when you use it, so it turns unit champions into kamikazes.
Skrolk took two wounds, clinging to life but still able to take the maximum +5 overkill bonus for combat resolution with his return attacks. The swordsmasters chopped down swathes of plague monks, the pheonix guard killed three or four and then the plague monks hit back. And killed 5 swordsmasters, a pheonix guard, my level 2 mage and put a wound on my star dragon.
And the the star dragon attacked. Firstly it's strength 4 breath weapon hit, followed by 7 strength 7 attacks, and d6 strength 7 thunderstomp attacks!
When the dust settled, the skaven had lost combat by 33, and had also lost steadfast. The double one never materialized and so the plague monks ran, and were run down by my vengeful elves!
Skaven Turn 3
A huge chunk of Pete's army had just been obliterated, but he still had plenty of threats on the board. His horde of clanrats moved backwards 2.5" to try and avoid any charges next turn, and is doomwheel ran into my star dragon-eek!
With every spellcaster in either army either dead or fleeing, no magic happened and we moved on to shooting. With my dragon now in combat the warp lightning cannon took aim at my swordsmasters but then misfired and was unable to shoot next turn. He also used his doomrocket, killing a solitary pheonix guard, and his plagueclaw catapult couldn't find a way past their ward save. The gutter runners thinned down the ranks of LSG, hoping to eventually kill them off and swing the battle.
The doomwheels impact hits didn't do anything, and neither did it's normal attacks. Surprisingly though my dragon only caused 2 wounds back, locking them both in combat for at least another turn.
High Elf Turn 4
I had the skaven on the ropes now and I wanted to finish them off while I had the chance. With this in mind I charged in my swodsmasters and spearmen into the doomwheel, and my pheonix guard made a long range charge into the clanrat horde.
No magic, and another 3 gutter runners dead from shooting later, and we moved on to combat.
Where my remaining seven swordsmasters turned the doomwheel into kindling, allowing my units to reform towards the clanrats. Amazingly only two PG died in return for 5 or so rats, and I won the combat! However with a warlord, 3 ranks and bsb in the unit the skaven held.
Skaven Turn 4
Not many options left now, but Pete stuck to it. His plagueclaw catapult killed a swordsmaster and my lsg were further reduced, only 5 were left now. The clanrats somehow lost combat again, but again held.
High Elf Turn 5
A multicharge only seemed sensible, and so my star dragon, swordsmasters and spearmen all joined the clanrat combat with predicable results. After losing combat heavily the skaven only fled 4" and were easily caught. I'd won, but we played on....
Skaven Turn 5, High Elf and Skaven Turn 6
This mainly consisted of my sea guard finally dying to the poisoned slings of the gutter runners, and the plagueclaw catapult was destroyed by my pheonix guard. My sun dragon also flew off the board, after failing about 4 attempts to rally. Grrrrr.
I'd won, giving me 5 points, and against last years winner too. But then we totalled up the tie-breaker points by seeing just how points of the enemy we had killed.
The High Elves killed 2,055.5 points of Skaven.
The Skaven had killed 1472 points of High Elves.
What effect this will have I will find out over the next two rounds, but in the meantime I do have some observations:
The spearmen are useless. For the next game I will be scrapping them and using the points to bulk up my lothern sea guard, giving them the flaming banner too to make them more dangerous.
A level 2 mage is great for controlling your opponents magic phase. Dispelling as a level 3 and using drain magic to increase the casting value of spells by three means that even a level 4 opponent has a two point disadvantage before rolling any dice. Unless they would like to waste some power dice dispelling drain magic of course, which is where the annulian crystal comes in. By stealing one of their power dice and adding it to your dispel pool, any low or mid range amount of power dice will cause a lot of thinking. A high roll for power dice will bugger you anyway, but if your opponent rolls 8 power dice and 5 dispel dice, but is then reduced to 7/6, he has to decide whether to try and force spells through despite your advantage of 2, or to waste one or two dice removing drain magic from play but leaving you with a larger dispel pool than his power pool. A level 4 mage would be overkill, allowing you a 4 point advantage over a level 4 opponent!
Dragons are awesome. To look at, to fly around the table whilst making sound effects, to roll lots of attack dice and say 'nom, nom, nom' as they munch their way through the enemy. Awesome!
Until next time peeps,
Neil