My bad, I wrote this on Wednesday and forgot to post. In addition to the below: the semi-official ruling is that characteristic test templates force 2 tests on mounted characters, each at their own values. Maybe my methods of dealing with dragons don't need to be as convoluted as the one I used last weekend.
The Game (damn, I just lost the game)
I played a very
mean list last weekend, and I feel a bit dirty because of it. It won’t be used
again in a friendly game anytime soon.
The game was against High Elves including a Prince on a Star
Dragon, 2 Lvl 2 mages (Light and Beasts), 50 Spears, 2 units of 16
Swordmasters, 20 Archers, some Dragon Princes with the BSB and a couple of
Eagles.
I, on the other hand, had the stock 39 Bloodletters, 4 units
of 4 Flamers (2 with champions), 3 single Fiends, 5 Furies, 21 Daemonettes, 10
Horrors, 2 Tzeralds (Shadow and Life), a Kherald, a Slerald and the Masque. Oh
yeah, and Cyrus as a L4 with a couple of gifts that he never got to use.
His mages got Wildform, Kadon, Shem’s and Banishment, while
Cyrus got Stream of Corruption, Pit of Slime, Shrivelling Pox and Plague Wind.
Turn 1
He got first turn and moved his dragon to hide from Cyrus
and everything else. The Spears, DPs (ok, an army having one unit called Dragon
Princes and also being able to take a Prince on a Dragon. That’s unhelpful for
battle report writing.) and Swordmasters moved forward, while the second Sword
unit garrisoned a farm and the Archers stayed put behind a fence. The Eagles,
of course, got in my way.
Magic went terribly for him, rolling a miscast with 4D6 on
Banishment. This killed one and a half Flamers (I rolled 3 saves from 6 wounds,
then rerolled all of them; nice.), while the resulting Dimensional Cascade
killed all but one Swordmaster in the unit and took away the Light Mage.
Shooting wounded a Flamer from another unit.
My Daemonettes charged an Eagle with the Siren Standard,
preventing the flee. One Flamer unit garrisoned a building while the
Bloodletters got into the other one. Everyone else generally moved up, with the
Furies redirecting the DPs.
Magic was pretty shocking. I rolled double ones and failed
to get the Pox onto his Prince. Still alive though, so I can’t complain.
Shooting was nearly as bad, with a wound on an Eagle and a couple of Archers
and Spears dead. Combat saw the Eagle annihilated.
Turn 2
Poor judgement by me had the Flamers charged by the Spears,
with a potential overrun into the Masque. With little other choice, DPs charged
the Furies. The Prince flew out of the charge arc of Cyrus while maintaining a
view to him and the Daemonettes. Swords left their building and the lone Sword
got out of my Fiend’s charge arc.
After seeing what happened to the Light Mage, the Beasts
Mage decided that failing to cast Kadon was a suitable alternative to
miscasting, and promptly did so. A couple of shots did next to nothing and the
DPs shredded the Furies. Crucially, the Spears only got one model in contact
with the Flamers and despite fighting in 4 ranks, only killed one.
Despite movement being what you could refer to as the
reliable phase, I failed 5 Leadership tests for marching or reforming.
Daemonettes turned their back to the Swordmasters (with a Fiend redirecting)
and moved toward the Prince. Bloodletters abandoned their building and everyone
else moved toward their targets with the exception of the Horrors and Tzeralds,
who reformed and got away from the Prince.
Magic went almost exactly according to plan, getting
Mindrazor on the Daemonettes with the unfortunate side-effect of a Cascade
killing the caster, while the Masque danced at the Prince. Shooting took out
the second Eagle and a few Archers. Combat killed the Flamers, with the Spears
reforming.
Turn 3
Part 2 of Operation Kill the Damn Dragon came into effect
when the Slerald used her Siren Song on the Prince. He charged while the DPs
went after some Flamers, with the effect of the DPs partially blocking the
Prince’s charge, contacting 3 models instead of 4.
Magic saw Wildform miscast on the Dragon and a successful
Kadon. Shooting was minimal once again. Mindrazor worked to great effect,
taking 6 wounds off the Dragon. If Wildform weren’t on and the Prince could
maximise it would have been quite dead, but as is the 7 extra attacks plus
Thunderstomp won him the combat.
Bloodletters moved an inch away from the Spears. The
uncovered unit of Flamers moved behind the Archers.
Cyrus hit the Spears with Plague Wind, somehow only getting
16 of the 50 despite T3. They fled, leaving 5 Nurgling bases in their wake.
Archers were shot down to 4 left, but passed their test (a fail would have been
awesome, taking their Monster Mage with them off the board). The Dragon finally
died to a couple of sixes from me and 3s from him. I won combat there, but he
held on Ld 5.
Turn 4
Swords finally got the charge on the Daemonettes’ rear after
clearing the Fiend, sealing their fate. DPs moved to charge the Horrors next
round, while the Mage-dragon flew away from the archers. Spears reformed.
In magic I dispelled Kadon, which let him Wildform the
Swords. Combat saw my Daemonettes die to a combo of combat res and stabbing.
Flamers left their house and the Tzerald got away from the
Horrors. Nurglings got out of the way of the Bloodletters, who moved nice and
close to the Spears again.
Magic didn’t achieve much, although I hit the DPs with
Awakening of the Wood. This did nothing. Shooting finished off the Archers and
whittled down the Swords a bit.
Turn 5
DPs charged the Horrors and wiped them out, choosing to
reform rather than overrun. Prince joined the Swords. Mage re-Kadonned.
Bloodletters charged the Spears and the Flamers moved over
to the Swords. Cyrus charge-blocked the DPs away from the Tzerald.
Magic was very effective, getting Stream of corruption onto
the DPs and taking out 4, Followed by Pox on the BSB, finishing him off. This
unfortunately removed enough models to open the Tzerald up for charging again.
The combo of the Masque’s dance and Flamers made the Swords and Prince flee
dangerously close to the edge of the board.
Spears directed most of their attacks at the Kherald, not
getting rerolls and therefore only getting 2 wounds in, which I saved with the
armour alone. The horde and Kherald did enough wounds to break Steadfast,
making the Spears flee off the table. I then reformed to face 3 Swordmasters
and the Prince.
Turn 6
Despite a difference of opinion on the 25% rule, the tiny
unit reformed an inch from the table edge. Princes charged the Tzerald. I
dispelled Kadon again, then used the spellbreaker to prevent Wildform on the
tiny Swordmaster unit. Again, he transformed. DPs slaughtered the Tzerald and
overran into the flank of the Bloodletters.
For my final turn, the Flamers moved to shoot at the (now a
Hydra) Mage and the last Swordmaster of the Cascaded unit, who had been buzzing
around the table all game. Cyrus moved right next to the Prince and his
buddies.
Magic had further dancing at the Prince, followed by a
Stream of Corruption. They fled off the table. Flamers killed off the last
Swordmaster and did a second wound on the Hydra-Mage who would have died to a
dispel if we weren’t at the end of turn 6. Three DPs did next to nothing
against the Bloodletters, and a Killing Blow knocked them down to 3.
There we go. An epic game and I rolled a 4 on resolution, so
his army is destroyed (until the end of the season. Which is almost now. We
still have to resolve injuries and the victory and defeat tables, which we will
get to next time. The end of season event will be coming up shortly, which
should be mad fun.
So 4 units of Flamers, Siren Song, Masque, Siren Standard
and Despair Banner. In the interest of fairness, I won’t be using that
particular combination again. Except when I really really feel like I need to.
The sight of elves failing leadership tests is particularly entertaining
though.
Sorry about the lack of pictures, I’ll post one up of my
Bloodletters when they’re done. Here's the right now though:
"Run Away!!"
-King Arthur in Monty Python and the Holy Grail
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