Warhammer Weekend (Wood Elf Vs Skaven).

Well I finally got round to playing a game of Warhammer. It was to be Boy!s first game so I decided to make it a 'proper' game, so I decided that we would only use painted figures. Not that big a thing really, I thought, after all I've been painting and playing for 20 years now, I'd have a wealth of things to choose from.  Well surprisingly, no. I have over 200 skaven painted and nearly 100 Wood Elves but as previous blogs have noted, I have a very ecclectic painting schedule, hence for my skaven army, no jezzails (I've only got two finished), no Screaming Bell (it's being repainted), no Doomwheel (again repainted) and none of the really snazzy new stuff from the latest army book - no Warp Cannons, Doom Flayer, Plague Furnace or Poison Wind Globe Mortar. The Wood Elves were hit even worse! I only managed to field 24 Glade Guard and only 14 Wardancers. No Waywatchers, Glade Riders, Treekin or Wild Riders. So after some calculations I worked out 2000 points was the size of battle and the army lists were to be written. As Boy! had no idea what a game of Warhammer entailed (and I didn't know which army he'd pick) two army lists were written by me and he just had to pick the army he liked the look of.

The Forces of Bad

The Flea-Bitten Horde
 Warlord (I didn't bother to name him): Blade of Nurglitch, Heavy Armour, Cowardly Disposition. 100points.

Warlock Engineer (Unnamed, but probably something like Squit Manktail): 3 Warpstone Tokens, 
Spells: Death Frenzy, Skitterleap. 130 points.

Cheiftan Battle Standard Bearer (I'd imagine I'd have called him Shart Poxknee): Heavy Armour, Banner of the Under Empire, The Musk of Fear. 95 points.

Assasin (if I didn't name those above I'm certainly not going to name him): Warpstone Throwing Stars. 170 points.

40 Clanrats with spears, musician, standard bearer and Clawleader. 220 points
Warpfire Thrower. 70 points.

40 Slaves with musician and Pawleader. 86 points.

24 Giants Rats with 5 Packmasters. 112 points.

6 Rat Ogres with 3 Packmasters. 258 points.

15 Gutter Runners with Poisoned Weapons and a Deathrunner. 256 points.

30 Stormvermin with musician, standard bearer and Fangleader. 235 points.
Warpfire Thrower. 70 points.

20 Clanrats with light armour, shield, musician, standard bearer and Clawleader. 110 points.
Warpfire Thrower. 70 points.

Grand Total: 2000 points (Give or Take).

The Forces of Goodness(ish)

The Tree Hugging Collective

Wood Elf Highborn: Eternal Kindred, Bow of Loren, light armour, shield, faint whiff of roses. 196 points.

Spellweaver Level 4 mage: Dispel Scroll, Power Stone, Talisman of Protection, Longbow.
Spells: Tree Singing, Fury Of The Forest, Ariel's Blessing, The Twilight Host. 315 points.

25 Eternal Guard with musician, standard bearer and Guardian. 352 points.


17 Dryads with Branch Nymph. 238 points.

16 Glade Guard with Lord's Bowman. 240 points.

8 Glade Guard with Lord's Bowman. 108 points.

14 Wardancers with Bladesinger. 266 points

Treeman with woodworm. 285 points.


The Battle

Boy! decided he wanted the skaven army, I can't blame him when I set the two armies up next to each other
 the Skaven looked a lot more impressive, 175+ models against 82(ish). I suggested he group them all fairly close together as wood Elves don't have artillery. I on the other hand spread my archers out to maximise shooting with my Eternal Guard behind the smaller unit of Glade Guard. My Dryads, Treeman and Wardancers were hidden behind a wood with the intent of scooting round and  presenting a very hard hitting flank force. In truth as both armies weren't at max strength i.e. lack of jezzails and flying creatures the battle wouldn't be truly representational, but as I said, painted only!

Ratty Goodness!

 The first turn started with Boy!'s Skaven running like buggery across the battlefield, I was dissappointed to lose the first turn as I had hoped to run my treeman into the woods, Tree Sing the shit out of the woods allowing me to charge my second turn and really disrupt the skaven lines, but to no avail. In fact due to the Giant Rats marching they were only  and inch or two from the wood making moving it a largely pointless prospect. The was no Skaven shooting and no magic this turn.

Tactical Error No1: It was only after my movement phase started that I realised that I had stupidly placed my Eternal Guard Unit behind my Glade Guard Unit meaning that only with two crap looking wheeling manoeuvres could I get my best shooter with his Bow Of Loren to fire. D'oh! compounding that I couldn't target the giant rats either it was a rather rookie mistake.So the upshot of my first turns offensive magic and shooting 5 giant rats, 5 Skavenslaves and 2 Gutter Runners.

A Rats-eye view!

Tactical Error No2 The next turn was a lining up by the Skaven with the only offensive action was Death Frenzy being cast on the soon-to-be-charged-by-the-Treeman Giant Rats. I let it go as I thought to myself, they're fucked. My turn consisted of a Treeman charge into the rats, some more shooting and my units of Wardancers and Dryads mooching through the wood to support the Treeman (not that he would need it). The Treeman promptly charged and failed to break the rats in one go, partly due to their immunity to pyschology I bet.

A blurry picture!

Carnage!

Turn three was when I realised the Dice Gods had decided that the luck was only going to one person at the table and it wasn't me! Shooting saw a Warpfire Thrower toast 10 Eternal Guard. The Gutter Runners danced through a storm of arrows into a Glade Guard unit and the Skaven Assasin Skitterleaped behind my archers for a big old portion of stabby in the next turn. The final nail in this turns particular coffin was my treemans inability to hit the rats whereas the frenzied rats caused on wound on him. One failed break test later the Treeman flees like goblin into the woods!

The treeman legs it!

My turn came and I thought it was payback time! I charged into a big block of spear armed Clanrats with my much depleted Eternal Guard whilst simultaneously flank charging them with my Dryads. The Wardancers charged the Giant Rats with the generals unit  a few inches behind so with luck a swift bit of choppy and I'd overrun into them! Predictably the Clanrats were on the end of a -5 break test and subsequently fled. The stupid slack jawed Dryads failed to catch them but my 10 strong unit of Eternal guard did and ploughed straight into the flank of the Rat Ogres! The Wardancer/Giant Rats tete a tete went pretty much how I expected with a total wipeout. I thought a nice overrun into the generals unit and the game is won! They were 4 inches away I rolled a 1 and a 2 ! Not good.

The final turn ended in 20 Clanrats routing a unit of Glade Guard the Gutter Runners and Assasin wiping out the other unit of archers and my Eternal Guard effectively locked into combat with the Rat Ogres. As for the Wardancers they were charged, defeated and slaughtered in short order. This resulted in a defeat for the Wood Elves which did not truly reflect my own ineptitude at my first game of Warhammer for over 2 years.

Release at will!

Score: Skaven 789 Wood Elves 600.


My main objective for the game was to get back into the swing of it and more importantly for Boy! to enjoy it. Both objectives were met and i learned a few things about both armies:
1) Big units of skirmishing Wardancers and Dryads are too big and ungainly, stick to 8-10 models.
2)The Lore of Athel Loren is pants.
3)Putting a wizard in the front rank of your top combat unit is the work of a nonce!
4)If you give someone the Bow of Loren make sure he can shoot the bloody thing!
5)Death Frenzy makes Giant Rats very nasty.
6)I already knew this one but you just can't trust dice, they hate me!

So hopefully I can get my painting hat on and crack on with my plan to field two tasty Warhammer armies so I can actually gain some tactical acumen. Until next time.....