Friday 17 July 2015

Fun & Games With a Carnosaur

This battle report is an unusual one as I've started writing before it happens. Crazy time travelling, eh? Well Not so much time travelling rather I'm putting my army list and general tactics up before the event. As it stands I will be having a 3000 point games vs Vinny (1500 points of undead) and Pat (1500 points of Warriors of Chaos). I had the pleasure of watching the aforementioned opponents playing out a 1500 point a side game using said armies a fortnight ago so I have a fair idea what to expect - some rather fast moving elite combat troops backed up with cheap as chips immune to psychology undead. Best of both worlds or a hideous abomination of playing styles? The advantage of playing tag team is the benefit of a second opinion as the game progresses. The disadvantages can be the sharing of a magic dice pool, and the sacrifice of units you'd rather not sacrifice. From my point of view the advantages for me is an undiluted battle plan from it's list creation. Disadvantages is brainfarts. No nagging outer voice telling me 6 dicing Fireball isn't a good idea. So anyway, here's my list:

The Enduring Gathering of Gwanolobbi

Saurus Oldblood called Ick
Carnosaur
  • Bloodroar, Loping Stride
  •  Dragonhelm, Obsidian Amulet, Sword of Anti-Heroes
Slann Mage-Priest I think I will name him Munki Gwanolobbi
Disciplines of the Old Ones and other crap:
Lore of High Magic, Wizard Level 4
Becalming Cogitation, Focus of Mystery, Unfathomable Presence
 Fencer's Blades,  - Obsidian Trinket,  - Power Scroll


Saurus Scar-Veteran - Chupa Wotl
Magic Items
  • Battle Standard Bearer, Shield
    • BRB - Dragonbane Gem, BRB - Glittering Scales, BRB - Gold Sigil Sword
Saurus Scar-Veteran - Chocka Wocka
Cold One
Magic Items : Obsidian Lodestone,  Tormentor Sword
Light Armour, Shield,  Cold One


Skink Priest called Itzi Weeni
Magic Items
  • Lore of Beasts, Wizard Level 2
    • BRB - Dispel Scroll
Skink Priest named Ickl Bitti
Magic Items
  • Lore of Beasts, Wizard Level 1
    • AB - Cube of Darkness

Saurus Warriors x 26, full command
Saurus Warriors x 25 full command
Skink Skirmishers x 10 javelins
Skink Skirmishers x10 javelins

Ancient Stegadon named Gack The Honourable Skewer
 Engine of the Gods, Sharpened Horns, Unstoppable Stampede

Bastiladon entitled Blastiboom Of The Radient Effervescence 
  Solar Engine

Cold One Riders x 9 full command. Known as the Entramplers

LIZARDMEN ARE SO COOL!


The Horrible Alliance of Terror AKA H.A.T.

As usual I don't have my opponents army lists but as such I will name them willy nilly in the hope that they may be more forthcoming in the future. 

The Spikey End of H.A.T.

Globbule The Ballsy Chaos Lord (?) of Tzeentch on a Disk
Thighchafe of The Splayed Knees  Chaos BSB on Daemonic Mount
2 x Chaos Chariots
Chimera
3 x Dragon Ogres
2 x 5 Chaos Warhounds
Chaos Spawn

The Dead End of H.A.T.

Knoblbly Nees Master Necromancer, Invocation of Nehek, Vanhel's Dance Macabre, Gaze of Nagash, Raise Dead.
Undead Mike Wight King BSB
30 Ghouls
20 Grave Guard
30 Skellingtons 
Mortis Engine
Spirit Host
30 Zombies
3 Crypt Horrors


Tactical Burbling

Deployment (exludes chaos chariot & Spirit Host)
The last game I had against Pat was vs my Wood Elves and to give him a different enemy I thought I bring my Lizardmen. I decided to just bring stuff I like so that consisted of my two large units of saurus with skink javelins with as many monsters I could fit in the army. As Vinny was tag teaming with him I thought the monsters would be useful against his mainly infantry army (stomps). I also took my Oldblood on a Carnosaur as I like the model and I really think it can do a job on those heavily armoured Chaos Warriors and chariots. two beast skinks meant I would be Wyssaning my way around the battlefield and a unit of Saurus cavalry would hopefully be lawnmowering their way through anything that got in their path. Another consideration I had was having the Bastiladon and Ancient stegadon with their bound spells, to winkle out dispel dice off of my opponents before I cast my high magic spells to get other spells using the ever so useful lore attribute. During set up I went for the old deploy-like-I'm-going-to-deploy-normally-but-then-go-mainly-on-the-right trick. Unfortunately the only units that were deployed on my left were a spirit Host and a Chariot. At least the spirit Host was at least 3 turns away from my Bastiladon leaving me free from reliving the most pointless combat in Warhammer history. I won the dice for picking sides and for going first so all boded well for the upcoming game!



Turn One

Most of my units remained still like a crocodile waiting for a wildebeest to take a drink, ready to pounce. All except my Carnosaur who blundered into a blood forest (ffs). I then realised I'd made an error in placing my Cold Ones. Stuck behind the skinks and possibly having to traverse a river with the inherent DT tests I hindsighted that over to the left of my Carnosaur would have been precious. Anyway, I had a decent magic roll only to curse the Chimera and nothing else. The Bastiladon proved to be a worthwhile addition as the beam of chotek spell caused a rather interesting debate as to whether it should be dispelled. It was dispelled.but if there is something that can put the willes up your opponent, it's the possibility of 2D6 St 6 hits. I then declared I was going to cast Fiery Convocation on the Grave Guard using the Power Scroll so it was a very castable 10 but then Stuart stuck his nose in telling me how the power scroll didn't do what I thought it did but instead something else and rather than argue it out did something else, unsucessfully I might add. 2 minutes later Stuart guiltily confirmed my original proposition after checking it on the errata. As an aside I think I might see that item again in the hands of Stuart's Grey Seer who has a lot of trouble casting Curse of The Horned Rat a fair bit.  No shooting and no combat, my end of turn one.

The Mighty Mustering of Gwanolobbi Advance!


The zombie unit found it was standing in a wildwood (careless). Whilst some of the faster moving chaos units found the river was made of blood. Apt really but it didn't really effect the game much. The Chariot on the left advanced to within a reasonable charge distant of my Carnosaur and the Spirit Host started meandering towards the battlefield's centre. The zombies failed to get out of the wood so it kicked the shit out of 4 of them. In the magic phase they were brought back to life so by the end of the turn it was a case of as you were. Globbule The Ballsy flew his disk to within a rather easy charge range of Stagadon and large Saurus unit. I had heard about unkillable Tzeentch lords and I was soon to find out just how unkillable. I scrolled raise dead as I don't like units popping up all over the place interfering with my cunning reptilian plans.

Globbule The Ballsy laughs in the face of Ancient Stegadons

Turn Two

I declared a charge on the chariot who fled (not very chaosy if you ask me) so I had the choice of redirecting into skeletons or Grave Guard. I picked the grave guard as I had a point to prove with my Carnosaur. The ancient stegadon and saurus unit charged Globule. Wyssan's is cast on the Stegadon to buff his St & T to an impressive 7.  I make a mistake by not casting either beam of Chotek  to target one of the many unpleasant things arrayed before me! My skinks take two wounds off of the chariot shootingwise. Close combat with the Tzeentch Lord was surprising as I rolled one impact hit against him but Pat failed his save. Sharpened horns made 1 wound 3 so he died rather anticlimactically impaled on the face of my dinosaur. The Carnosaur combat was a win for me but certainly not enough to crumble the unit and there were undead units ominously lurking on both of my T Rex  Carnosaurs rather long flanks.

End of Lizardmen movement


The Marauders and Chaos Dags charge a unit of skinks (and due to my ineptitude or Pat's tactical genius, only got 3 shots of which none did any damage). The ghoul unit and Skellington unit charge the Carnosaur. The Chaos Spawn wanders into the other skinks. In the magic phase Invocation is cast on the Grave Guard and Vanhel's is cast on all three units in combat with the Carnosaur. The Chimera halitosises 3 Saurus to death. Pat was going to use his Spawn's breath attack on the Skinks but me (trying to impart my tactical nous upon him thought such an attack would be overkill as "that Spawn will rout those Skinks"). My Skinks then obviously outraged by my flippant disregard for them proceeded to inflict two wounds on the Spawn drawing the combat! In the Carnosaur combat I issued a challenge and Vinny accepted with some Grave Guard champion, and perhaps I was being a bit gammy by challenging but by accepting he totally negated his massively superior number of attacks on me! A fairly hefty overkill on the armoured skellington meant that even with all of Vinny's massive combat res I could stay in combat on a 4 or less. All I can say about that is thank Odin for the cold blooded rule! I actually think that being sandwiched between the Ghouls and Skellys counteracted each others rank bonuses. or something.

End of H.A.T. s movement phase


Turn Three

I'd like to from now on refer to this turn as The Turn of Predatory Fighter Rape. Not very catchy but apt. So I send one unit of Saurus to attempt to save the Carnosaur who in my opinion, wasn't going to get away with another challenge con. I also decided to send in the cavalry, into the BSB skulking around my back line. I also aligned both the ancient Stegadon and other Saurus unit to receive charges from the chariot and Chimera respectively. I manage to cast Wyssan's on the cavalry. That was all I managed to cast (I think I forgot my two bound dinosaur spells again). The Cavalry against the BSB wasn't fun. Pat pulled the challenge stunt that I had against Vinny last turn. I thought I'd see how tough a 1+ save Saurus Scar veteran is. Not very it turned out. I failed to crack the armour and ward saves of the BSB and he twatted the Scar Vet with his big bloody great weapon, killing him! The cavalry didn't run but now I knew I needed combat res to rout this bugger. On the other side of the table my Saurus infantry did a number on the ghouls. Out of the 11 front rank attacks I rolled 8 6's. Coupled with the second rank I managed to inflict awful damage on the Ghouls flank. The Old blood and Carnosaur directed their attacks on the now largest enemy unit - Skeletons and I managed to take a lot of them off thanks to a rather sweet thunderstomp. I was also very lucky Vinny's attacks back as the Grave Guard didn't inflict much damage and neither did the skellys. The Ghouls did wound the Carnosaur but he was at the end of the combat still on a wound. When the combat resolution was totted up I had won combat by 15! The exact number I needed to pop all three units! Yay Predatory Fighter!

End of Lizardmen Movement

Horrible Mess

A Better View of the Horrible Mess


The forces of H.A.T. wanted revenge! The Chaos Chariot and Crypt Horrors charged the Ancient Stegadon and the Chimera charged the Saurus unit containing the Mage Priest. The Spirit Host failed a long charge on the Old Blood backside (that could've been embarrassing). The Mortis Engine did something horrible that killed a Skink Priest who was labouring under the impression that he was safe, along with some Bastiladon and Stegadon crew. A low magic Phase (2 +  2) didn't help the forces of evil. The Stegadon weathers the chariot charge well and only takes a single wound from the Crypt Horrors. Gack sticks around because he's stubborn. The chimera inflicts 8 wounds on the Saurus but steadfast saves the day. The cavalry against the Chaos BSB results in another challenge. This time the Daemonic Beast causes 1 wound on my champion meaning the dude with the great weapon can't attack. He causes 1 wound and I win by 1 with static combat res. Pat wouldn't oblige me by failing his break test twice though. We call the game at the end of turn 3 as time constraints meant another turn wasn't possible. A swift bit of calculating results in a win for the Forces of Order.

Apply Saurus

Remove Undead


Conclusion

I think there is definitely an advantage to playing 2 vs 1 from the perspective of the single player as a single battle plan is probably better than two different ones, especially if the armies involved rely on different methods to win a battle. From my point of view once again the Mage Priest was a waste of points. Dispel-wise he stopped a lot getting through, But I completely forgot my Arcane Vassal rule. Had I remembered that I could've been casting spells through the Skink Priests. My planned single dice bound spell barrage was pretty much forgotten about after the first turn but it is a valid tactic.  My other big mistake was the deployment of my Saurus Cold One cavalry. Had I placed them to the left of the Carnosaur as support and general lawnmowing duties I think they would have achieved more. If I had though, who knows what damage the BSB would've done? I also think another turn or two would have been interesting. My Carnosaur was poised to charge the zombie unit with Necromancer in it and I think the Saurus would've gotten back into the fray as well. Of course it has to be said Pat's crap luck with his general helped my case immeasurably. Vinny's uncertainty regarding challenges was also a factor, one that I'm sure won't be again.










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