Battle Report Orcs vs Dark Elves: Things got messy!

by | Aug 31, 2013



Friday night was my first large game with the OnG with actual models and I was up against Mike (@stuntymike) and his lovely new dark elves (shaping up to be a very well painted army!) playing at Scott's (@_wee_men) new house. As Mike is preparing for the Forgotten Heroes tournament run by the ELG guys in Edinburgh we played a wee test game and rolled up the Battle for the Pass Scenario. Now as Mike's list is riddled with sneaky little tricks (damn dirty delves!) that he is prepping for the tournament I won't list his army or mention items but he roughly had the following:

Dark Elves (1999pts)
Sorceress Lore of Death lvl2 general
Sorceress lore of Metal lvl 2
Noble on Peg BsB
Noble on Peg

10 Repeater crossbowmen
30 spearmen
5 dark riders with crossbows
5 dark riders 
5 harpies
5 harpies

10 cold one knights

Hydra
Hydra

Orcs and Goblins (1999pts)
Savage Orc Shaman: Lucky Shrunken Head; Level 2 Wizard. 
Savage Orc Big Boss: Obsidian Lodestone; Battle Standard. 
General (Black Orc Big Boss): Talisman Of Protection; shield. 
Savage Orc Big Boss: Armour Of Destiny; War Boar; great weapon. 

27 Savage Orc Big 'Uns: Savage Orc Boss; Musician; Standard Bearer; additional hand weapons. 
10 Savage Orcs: Musician; Standard Bearer; bows. 
10 Savage Orcs: Musician; Standard Bearer; bows. 

8 Trolls 
1 Goblin Wolf Chariot 
1 Goblin Wolf Chariot 
9 Savage Orc Boar Boyz: Musician; Standard Bearer; Banner Of Eternal Flame; spears. 

Doom Diver Catapult 
Doom Diver Catapult 
Mangler Squigs 
Mangler Squigs 


So the game started up with Mike winning the roll for deployment and as per the comp you could not deploy in the back 6" of the battlefield. I liked this addition as it stops people being able to deploy in the back corner with warmachines and play a boring game. 

We traded deployments and ended up with the above layout. Crucial mistakes I made were deploying far too forward with my savage orc bowmen and I forgot to leave decent channels for my manglers to fire out from. I had meant up try deploying them further back but not quite as far as I ending up having to.

Mike deployed pretty well making it difficult for my doom divers to threaten everything due to all the buildings. A wee note on that, Scott has some great scenery that he picked up and it looked like a ruined sacked empire village! The effect was enhanced by the Fires I bought from Lemon painting (@LemonPainting). You can grab these for £2 a pop and really set a great scene, the LEDs flicker so when it's dark the battlefield looked awesome, shame about my unpainted army! Loads of Pictures below :)




Mike finished his deployment first and won the roll off for first turn. His dark riders vanguarded forward and to support his main advance. His BSB on peg moved up behind a tower to hide from the doom divers. His other peg rider moved up my left flank supported by one Hydra. The death sorceresses bunker moved up up get in spell ranged. Meanwhile the cold ones moved up the right flank. The magic phase started badly for me, mike rolled high and channeled and then I failed to dispell his power of darkness. He then proceeded to cast spirit leech on my savage orc boar boss, I rolled a 2 he rolled a 5 and in true new model syndrome I failed 3/5 4+ ward saves and he was taken off!! (Personally I blame the mould lines on his axe, although I do maintain that they are mould lines on the weapon and not on the model and there by is a fluffy modelling omission ;) ) mike then cast purple sun, rolled a 8 for distance: straight through the savage orc big uns killing 11 and my bsb... Bad start for me! Mike also cast searing doom on my left wolf chariot causing 2 wounds! Nothing really happens in the shooting phase :)

Dead first turn, first model, I hate Mike lol!
My turn 1 started poorly with both savage orc bowmen units failing their frenzy tests and charge (foolishly) headlong into mikes hydra and peg hero. I found this kind of funny and have come to just expect utter madness from my greenies! After this all I really did was tweak my chariot positions and charge threat arcs with the trolls and boar boyz. I moved up a little with the manglers but kept them out of range of spirit leech. In my magic phase I just cast a boosted hand of gork on the furthest back mangler to dump it 1" inch right in front of mikes knights. The plan with this was pretty simple, mike was bottle necked by the building and board edge so could not advance (Cold ones do not like 3D6 str 6 armour piercing hits!) so were forced to turn about face wasting two turns or as I vainly hoped, they would fail their stupidity test and amble on top if the crazed fungus! Either way it was a spanner in the works for mike! Shooting went well with one diver hitting and killing 4 cold one knights and the other missed. In combat the savages beat the peg hero (caused one wound miraculously ) but he held firm. On the other hand the hydra wiped out the other savage unit to an orc!

The Manglers causing head aches!
Mikes turn 2 involved sweeping behind my lines with his dark riders to threaten my doom divers, moving up with his spear bunker, swift reforming and buggering off with his knights. His hydra flank charged the savage archers in combat with the peg hero. The magic phase was the beginning of a horrible sequence of events for mike, he irresistibly cast spirit leech on the cutest forward mangler killing it but the cascaded killing his general and half the spear bunker, which promptly buggered off failing its panic test! Not good! The hydra and peg hero finished off the savages and reformed to face me.

My turn started with a failed stupidity test on my trolls, which ambled forwards placing them centre near the hydra and peg hero, not looking promising! I then shuffled about a little and the other mangler wiped out the other dark riders but ended in such a place that it could only move in one direction thanks to a building. My magic phase was pretty in eventful with nothing being cast. Shooting was where it all went wrong for mike. My first doom diver missed but the second hit and killed his peg rider on the left flank. This the panicked his hydra and crossbow unit (containing his lvl2 metal sorceress) which due to the stupidity failing trolls now fled directly off the board.... That one shot netted me around 800pts and collapsed his flank! 

Models of the Match: Da Big Gunz
Mike understandingly gutted decided to push it all forward, his hydra however did not oblige failing its charge... The spearmen rallied and the cold ones turned back around to proceed down the same flank. The shooting phase yielded nothing for mike! 


My next turn involved the boar boys charging the hydra and the savages charging the harpies re directing them. The trolls reformed to face the remainder of the elves. My chariot on one wound also charged his surviving dark riders on the left flank. Magic did nothing for me again but shooting was once again excellent, one doom diver shot killed 5 more cold ones reducing them to 1 model which the other doom diver could not see.... But it could see the nearby harpies.... I aimed at the harpies with a decent scatter and a sneaky redirect I killed the last cold one much to mikes chagrin! The hydra destroyed the boar boyz (predictably) and the savage big uns destroyed the harpies.

The soon to be dead boar boyz
After this the game went pretty quickly and cumulated in a big combat with the savages, a hydra, his bsb peg rider, the final dark rider, the trolls and a wolf chariot. In the end his hydra and dark rider were dead along with my lvl 2 and most of the savages. In all fairness this shouldn't happened either as I easily passed 50% of my 6+ ward saves which was frankly incredible! (element games dice are bent!) The game ended in a 15-5 to me and has to be one of the craziest games of warhammer I've played since 6th edition terror bombing with a giant! Mike really didn't do anything wrong and was disproportionately punished for with BSB being on the wrong side of the battlefield (he even failed a re-rollable leadership 9 test...). That said I think we both had a fun game which will be remembered as an infamous example of the fickle tendencies of six sided random number generators....

The Final Combat