My latest battle for the quest of tactical greatness matched me up against Stuarts Daemons of Chaos. As I'm intending to go to a tournament later on in the year, it's a 2400 point all comers list. The title of this batrep is in reference to the large number of mysterious scenery items that seem to be prevalent in my games of Warhammer. In this battle we had: A magic circle (top left in the picture below), an Elven Waystone (the 40kish drop pod in the centre), a sinister statue (bottom right), Wizard's Tower (above & right of statue) and a Bane Stone to the bottom left of the picture - out of shot. Not forgetting some Ghost fences, a hill and a Venom Thicket in the middle.
My army consisted of 16 Glade Guard,10 Scouts,30 Dryads, a unit of Wild Riders, Sisters of the Thorn and a Treeman. a mounted BSB, 2 mouted mages and a Waystalker made up my force.
the Daemons of Chaos were led by a Great Unclean One, Plaguebearers and Beasts of Nurgle made up that pestilent contingent. Khorne was represented by a Skullcannon and some Bloodcrushers, Tzeentch was also present in the form of two units of horrors and the flying Tzeentchian chariot of doom!
I deployed with a fairly strong middle, the skirmishers out to the left, my fast cavalry to the right. I unsuccessfully hid my treeman from the the skullcannon, but due to my drops he placed it after the Treeman. His turns were numbered. My vanguarding Sisters of the Thorn got nice and comfy by the wizards tower whilst my Wild Riders came round the other side ready to chase off any thieving Horrors. The Daemons set up was pretty much based on racial tolerance, the Khorne contingent being the only group who wouldn't mix with their allies. The great Unclean One squatted between a Tzeentch chariot and unit of Horrors. In my day there was a thing called daemonic hatred where that sort of thing just wasn't done!
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| Wood Elf deployment after vanguard |
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| Hazy Chaos Daemons |
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| Less hazy Chaos Daemons |
Turn One
The DoC got the first turn, with the usual amount of bowling forward at high speed. The GUO marched straight into the woods hoping (presumably) to blend in with all that greenery. Magic was fairly muted (can't remember much happening) and then the Skullcannon moved forward and killed my Treeman. So I'm down my best chance of neutralizing the GUO threat. No combat meant the Elves were looking for some payback!
I charged my Wild Riders into the unit of Beasts of Nurgle. Advanced my High Wizard into the woods, the other mage scooted round with the Sisters, mainly to avail of the magical knowledge in the Wizard's Tower. Magic saw me put some protection counters on the High Mage. My shooting was pretty cost effective, the Great Unclean One thought he could hid in the woods (with him being green and all) but my keen eyed archer saw through this ruse and peppered his poxy hide with arrows killing him. Interested question if a GUO falls in the woods is there still a smell of Gonorhea? Shooting over with we had combat, my Wild Riders absolutely annihilated the Beasts of Nurgle leaving me with a warm fuzzy feeling inside as they usually ruin whatever unit I charge into them. So end of turn one and Stu lost his GUO and BoN, I've lost a Treeman. All in all not a bad exchange.
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| The Cylon on the left is a sinister statue. |
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| Dirty old Khorne! |
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| The Great Unclean attempts to hide in the woods. |
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| Shot to Death in the 1st turn Great Unclean One |
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| Wild riders about face after trouncing Beasts of Nurgle |
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| The sisters keep magical control of the wizards tower (just) |
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| Some Shit Dice rolling |
Turn Two
Stuart was on the back foot but didn't look overly worried (he has seen me snatch defeat from certain victory many times before). A unit of Fleshhounds arrived at the back of my deployment zone .He charged his Skullcrushers at the Hagbane Scouts (whom, I thought I had placed cleverly enough so the overrun would take them off the board). The Tzeentchian chariot snuck round the back of the Dryads whilst the Plaguebearers turned to face an inevitable Wild Rider charge. Shooting saw the Skullcannon and Tzeentch chariot kill Dryads. The Scout/Skullcrusher tete a tete went predictably with the exception that both the pursuit and flee rolls were low enough to keep the servants of Khorne on the table! In my turn, I charged the wild riders, BSB and High Mage into the Plaguebearers and made two 9+ charge rolls into the bargain, the Sisters of the Thorn charged into the Horrors as the are probably the weakest combat unit on the table, and they have a 4+ ward save, so they were feeling pretty tough. I turned my waywatchers (who never feature prominently against Daemons) towards the Bloodcrushers and advanced the Dryads forward. Both combats were inconclusive (damn Nurgles -1 to hit) but with the advantage going to the Elves.
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| Sneaky Tzeentch chariot |
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| Scouts bravely get obliterated |
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| The dead Daemons area |
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| Plaguebearers get what for |
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| As do the Horrors |
Turn Three
Turn three was a bit unpleasant for some of my guys. One Fleshhound unit charged the Waystalker (who is generally useless against Daemons).The other Fleshhound unit appeared behind the cavalry in Stu's deployment zone. The Skullduggerymaster about faced to rape my Waywatchers in the following turn the chariot continued to swoop around, this time targetting the glade guard unit. Magic was minor, shooting saw the Waywatchers take some Daemonic grapeshot, making them flee, and the Glade Guard took some horrible casualties to warpflame. Combat saw my cavalry units both vanquish their daemonic opponents and reform. In my turn I charged into the Horrors unit with my depleated Wild riders, BSB and High Mage (who was now rocking 4 protection counters, feeling pretty invincible). I also rallied the Waywatchers. My shooting didn't have much to target, except for large high toughness Khorney units. Combat saw the cavalry destroy the Horrors, but with chaos there always a sting the tail. The blue horrors rule killed my last wild Rider, this would prove to be rather costly. The Waystalker was butchered and the remaining Fleshhounds bundled into the back of the Dryads.
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| Waywatchers are on borrowed time |
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| Even sneakier Fleshhounds |
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| I was pretty confident at this time. |
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| Daemons of Tzeentch? Prepare to die! |
Turn Four
Having only a skullcannon, a wounded Juggernaut ridery type thing, 2 thrice accursed Fleshhound unitsand a Tzeentch Chariot, I was pretty confident of a win. Then the Fleshhounds charged my BSB. The cannon killed a sister or two. The Fleshounds then killed my BSB who was on full wounds and had a 5+ then 4+ save. Even then, after they overran into my High Mage I wasn't panicky as he had 4 token and the fencers blades, what could go wrong? One failed break test saw him flee abysmally get get caught and effectively lose the game for me. The other combat saw my Dryads destroy the other fleshounds (I'm so mad I'm not even giving the a capital letter). In my turn I moved the Dryads to take a charge from the Skullcannon in the hope that they could withstand it and ultimately defeat it, all surviving units attempted to look inconspicuous (this is a valid battle plan).
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| Some sinister Flesh Hounds make an unwelcome appearance |
Turn Five
The wheels had definitely come off the Wood Elf bus, so now it was time for Stuart to turn the screw. The Hellcannon charged the Dryads and the Skullcrusher charged my remaining Glade Guard. The impact hits and all round nastiness of the chariot broke the dryads only to see them run down to the last vengeful spirit. The Skullcrusher also broke the Glade Guard but failed to catch the final two. My turn comprised of trying to get the hell out of dodge! In this I was marginally sucessful. The terrain played its part when the Sinister Statue decided he didn't like the look of the two fleeing elves and fried them, lazer bolt eye style!
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| Rear ended by Khorne |
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| The Dryads,BSB & Elven Spellweaver are no more! |
Turn Six
Turn six was a Skullcannon shooting and killing my wizard and my Sisters of the Thorn (now numbering 1) running round behind the wizard's tower hoping to find some sort of There, There It Was All A Dream Scroll or Wand of Going Home & Getting My Mum. The final result was fairly close, but certainly no cigar for the Wood Elves.
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| A lone sister |
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| Bloody mongrels! |
Conclusions
Well, both Stuart and I agreed that was one of the best games we had played against each other. At the back of turn 2 I really thought I had it but some unfortunate dice rolls and me over extending my thrust (as Sean Connery said to Christopher Lambert in Highlander) led to me being off balance and ultimately defeated. On a whiny note, I really do seem to have terrible difficulties dealing with Chariot/Cannons as a move and fire war machine is very hard to avoid. On a second even whinier note, it's about time one of Stuarts cannons misfired! I was also unimpressed with the plethora of mysterious terrain that stuck it's interfering noses in Wood Elf business! We both agreed to stop using mysterious terrain except for woods and rivers.
Thanks for reading.
