For the third and final game of the tournament, I was asked to go against another Empire army led by an Arch Lector, a Captain with the Battle Standard and a level 2 Wizard schooled in the Lore of Metal. They were leading a 40 strong unit of Halberdiers and 30 strong unit of Swordsmen, who both had two detachment units each of 5 Archers that worked as redirecters. Both big units deployed centerwise, with the western flank being protected by 5 Outriders and 10 Crossbowmen. The army was backed up by a Great Cannon and a scary Rocket Battery.
Turns 1-3
On the first turn, the Rocket Battery rolled a direct hit on my 40 Arrow Gobbos, killing 26 of them, who then failed their panic test (with the BSB re-roll) and fled off the board, taking the BSB with them. The Crossbowmen and the Outriders whittled away on the Squig Herd, before my Doom Diver took out the Outriders with a well-placed gobbo, and my Shaman nailed the Swordsmen with Gork'll Fix it, followed by two shots of the Rock Lobber. The men of Empire did not panic like the gobbos, however.
On the second turn, the Rocket Battery then rolled another direct hit ontop of my Night Goblins and the Warboss, killing 75% of them and causing them to panic too, meaning they'd continue to flee until I rolled a double 1 (which I never did). So with more than half of the game to go, I was down a general, the BSB and both my big blocks of gobbos. I was considering just calling the game right there, but with my teammates doing poorly as well, we really needed the points. So with 75% of my Squig Herd intact, my Great Shaman, a Wolf Chariot, my artillery and Trolls who needed to pass their Stupidity checks on their own leadership, I took the battle to the Empire.
Round 4-6
Finally, the Spear Chukkas hit their mark and managed to take out that horrible Rocket Battery, although its damage had already been done. With the help of a Hand of Gork spell, the Squig Herd went into the flank of the Halberdiers and chewed up tons of enemies, but came one casualty short of ridding them of their ability to be Steadfast (and thus having a -10 on their break test). Instead, they passed their test and reformed, and the Arch Lector and his troops were able to take them down in the second round of combat, but not before losing their wizard to the overeager squigs, and losing even more men when the squig went wild after breaking from combat. Before they could recover, the Halberdiers were hit in the rear by a charging Wolf Chariot, who rolled up an impressive 7 impact hits, took out a few more from the wolf bites, and then didn't die from the retalliations as the Halberdiers still suffered from Gork'll Fix it (6's to 1's). They passed their breaktest (still having a rank left) and eventually got the chariot down, but were then hit by a Doom Diver take cleared out the rest of the unit, leaving the Arch Lector standing on his own.
On the other side of the battlefield, the Trolls had to waste their time fighting off archer detachments, the times when they didn't just wander about being stupid, and so barely made up for their point cost. The Shaman kept running around, evading what remained of the Swordsmen unit that was hunting it, while having free reign to cast spells with no enemy wizard alive. The Rock Lobbers kept dropping stones on the chasing swordsmen, after first hitting the Crossbowmen in the face and panicking them off the battlefield as well. The Chuckas took out the Cannon on the final turn, but the Rock Lobbers failed to hit the lone Arch Lector, but enough damage had been done. Still standing of the Empire forces was a rank of Swordsmen, a lone unit of Archers and the Arch Lector. Meanwhile, the Trolls remained unharmed, as did the Great Shaman and all my artillery. When we added up the scores, it turned out I had actually managed to claw back to win the game by around 120 points. But by Gork that Rocket Battery was a handful.
Result: WIN, and a very rewarding one at that after losing my main forces in the first couple of turns.
Unfortunately, even though I won two close games and only lost the first one by a small margin, my teammates did worse, with my Ogre buddy being massacred in all three of his games, and my Dark Elf friend playing mostly draws. As a result, our team actually finished last of the four teams participating. Still, it was a lot of fun, a friendly tournament that I'll be sure to attend next year as well.
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