War were declared

Without further ado, the promised post on my first weekend of assembly and battle is here.
I'd been asked to put together a 1600pt list by the weekend for a 2v2 battle, despite not having any assembled models. Vampire counts collectors have no patience, but seem to love numbers easily divisible by 4 for the 25% list limits.

We got a production line going working on bloodletters and horrors: clipping, filing, gluing and basing them (torsos and legs was the goal of the day, heads are for the weak). Managed to get 40 BLs and 20 Horrors out in a couple of hours.

Here's the list I brought for those interested:

40x BLs (FC)
2x10 Horrors
4x Flamers
5x Flamers
4x Screamers
5x Furies
Herald of K with armour of K (General)
Herald of T with BSB of sundering, Flames and Wings

Originally I had 3x3 flamers, I thought it was 3 of a kind for rares, not 2 (although the team point total was 3200, so we were arguably a grand army).

I took the Sundering banner (aka F*!@ up Lore of Light banner) because the game was VC and DoC vs Empire and HE, and this particular HE player always goes LoL. And honestly, who wouldn't against both Daemon and Undead enemies?

The battle had a bit of a twist: each side had an extra wizard (Order had a Truthsayer, Destruction had a Dark Emissary) who was worth double points. On top of that, we had objective markers worth 200pts to the holders at the end of the battle. Instead of being a 'closest army' objective, these could be picked up by finishing movement on them and were only lost when the carrier was killed or fled. Finally, we had 3D6 power dice, with the highest and lowest going to dispel dice.

I didn't take notes during the battle, so this'll be a very sketchy report.
 

Here we have the battlelines just after deployment: my army wasn't exactly small and VC went for his usual "ridiculous number of small units" strategy, which has worked well for him in the past. If it ain't broke...
Empire went for 2 cannon and 2 mortars. Having no artillery access myself, they are strange, different and terrifying to me. Also a couple of units of pistoleers, one of knights, some halberdiers (I think) and another core unit.

HE had 3x7 Swordmasters, some phoenix guard, 2 eagles and some archers. Last time he had a horde of archers, so I was relieved to see only 10 this time.
Some specifics on VC: 3 vargheists, 4 fellbats, a black coach, hexwraiths, grave guard, a banshee, skeletons and zombies and 2 small yet annoying packs of direwolves.

  Direwolves vanguard out and almost take the objectives right away.

 End of turn one and there's been a bit of shuffling. Destruction took first turn and were keen to avoid the river, which led to us tripping over each other more than a little as we funneled into the centre. A lucky roll of the power dice and channeling gave us 18 to play with, an even luckier roll of those charged up the black coach to lvl 6. Ridiculous.
I rolled only 18" magic, so I was out of range of everyone, but the head Vamp grew his skeletons and zombies, then miscast while raising another unit and  made a net loss on zombies.
No combat on ours, but the direwolves moved forward an inch and took the objectives. My flamers also killed 4 swordmasters.

Order moved up, charging the furies with an eagle. Furies did nothing and lost combat, destabilising and going back to their Chaotic home. The eagle overran and discovered that the forest was in fact a blood forest.
An unluckier series of rolls occurred for Order when a pistoleer's horse dipped his hoof into the river, which turned out to be one of Light. The river went on to cast Net of Amyntok and wiped out all but 1 of the unit. A few spells were slung and one of the Archmage's Light spells backfired thanks to my BSB. He was fine, but his protection broke.

End of turn 2 here, and things weren't looking too rosy for Destruction. Elven spears demolished the direwolves as they tried to make off with the objective. The other direwolves turned but couldn't move out of the way for my BLs to charge next turn, turns out they're not fast cav.
An annoying eagle placement made my right Horrors fail a Ld test and not march, leaving their magic just out of range of a cannon. Knights charged screamers and tore them to shreds.
5 Flamers fizzled out to phoenix guard after a failed attempt to make spears take a 25% test, but the BLs stood up to mortar fire with a lot of luck in ward saves.
Order learned to play it safe with Light magic, so they had the LoBeasts Truthsayer turn himself into a Goddamn dragon.
I tried not to smile too much when I saw their eagle placement next to the river there, you'll see why below.

We called it a day then and came back to it in the morning, though VC and I planned our next move after the others left. I didn't take any more photos until the end unfortunately, but the rest I remember pretty well.

Us: Direwolves charge the eagle, river casts light of battle to no effect, eagle flees and gets caught.
Grave guard and skeletons both charge spears and archmage.
The way is now clear for BLs to charge the phoenix guard.
Coach and bats go for the knights while the remaining flamers move away from everyone's forward arcs.
The last vargheist charges a mortar.

The knights lose combat, flee and get caught by both the Coach and the bats (bats chase off the board). Similar deal for the phoenix guard and the elven spears, who now lose their archmage too. BLs overrun into the Truthdragon and his unit.

Them: Not much movement going on due to combat, but the halberdiers and pistoleers charge the skeletons.
 We were planning on dispelling the dragon at the end of their magic, but they rolled poorly and didn't give us enough dispel dice. BLs sh!+ themselves, but survive quite well, doing enough damage to the unit to only lose combat by a little. (BTW, try resolving the "make way" rule when the character is as large as the rest of the unit. Arguments.)

 

Grave guard join the Truthdragon battle and the zombies charge the pistoleers. We dispel the dragon, leaving not enough power for most other magic, but making things less intimidating.

Vargheist finishes off the mortar and the graveguard overrun the Truthsayer's unit while the BLs reform to face the archers and some swordmasters.

The Flamers finish off the swordmasters they halved at the start, while the hexwraiths charge the other mortar.

In an unfortunate bit of scheduling, we did the bigger combat first. This ended with the vampire dying and the hexwraiths crumbling before they did any damage to the mortar.

We called it a game after Order attempted and failed a few charges, although the archers did kill the last Vargheist.

It ended with a victory for the forces of Destruction, HEs were almost wiped out and we killed the Truthsayer while holding both objectives. The pistol, halberd, zombie and skeleton battle could have gone either way, but the coach, 4 flamers, grave guard, and the horrors were all still going strong. Well, they were alive; they didn't get a bit of magic through all game.

Overall an epic game and we've got a tournament scheduled in a couple of weeks. My guys will need heads by then. I should have something more up before then; my army just keeps growing :)