So I went into town for a friendly game against a player I hadn't faced before. My opponent had decided to field a Dark Elf army led by a Dreadlord on a Black Dragon. Because of his, he was only able to field a level 2 Sorceress of Shadow and a Master BSB on foot.
The list looked pretty aggressive, with a unit of 10 Cold One Knights, a Cold One Chariot, 5 Dark Riders and a Hydra, but at the same time somewhat defensive with a large unit of 50 Spearelves, 2x10 Crossbows and 6 shades. The potential symbiosis between the Black Dragon and the Hydra or the Cold Ones scared me a little bit, although I would have probably tried to find the points to put my Master on a Cold One for the additional punch to the Cold One Knights.
To make sure I wasn't going to surrender an early flank charge to his faster moving force I deployed with my Trolls on the right flank and my Night Gobbos on the left flank, while my two Orc mobz went in the center. Meanwhile, my Giant joined the Night Goblins to the left to force the Cold One Knights there to be honest, as the Giant is a lot more mobile and almost as fast.
The Hydra and the chariot deployed in center opposite my Black Orcs and the Black Dragon started in the back, behind the Dark Elf army.
Things of note:
Black Dragon - The Dark Elves took the initiative but elected not to move much, which surprised me. Magic and shooting did very little, with only two Shadow spells and around 20 crossbow shots. So I countered that by hurling a boulder from my Rock Lobber with a direct hit into the Black Dragon, killing the Dreadlord in round 1 after failing his 4+ ward save. Ouch. That was pretty lucky, but if you're seriously not going to move your Dragon into a round 2 charge while I'm bringing 3 war machines to the fight, then you're sort of pushing it already. Once the General was killed, the Cold One Chariot failed a stupidity test and randomly moved into oblivion by stepping on my Mangler Squig. That was kind of funny.
Cold One Knights - The elves riding their Cold Ones was probably the only unit to put any pressure on my early on. It's a solid unit but it would have been a lot more threatening had it been marching alongside the Hydra or the Dragon, whom both stayed behind a little bit. As a response, I charged my Wolf Chariot into them, hexed them with some Itchy Nuisance and them killed off half the unit after impact hits and spear thrusts, before the chariot was brought down. What remained of the Knight afterwards found themselves in a precarious situation, with a march movement of 2' and only five cold ones still alive, while the Giant was outflanking them. They could do little else but reform to take the incoming charge to their front. The Giant charged in, smashed with his club for only a single casualty (after armor saves), took two wounds, lost combat, fell over, passed his break test, got up again, jumped up and down for another single wound (curse those elven armor saves!), took a third wound himself, passed his breaktest, then jumped again and finally stomped the remaining three knights into bloody pulps. Phew. Finally they were dead after two breaktests and three wounds for the big fellow.
Black Orcs - Although I took an early lead, the Black Dragon passed its breaktest and landed next to the Hydra, as both were staring across at the Black Orcs. I was not about to let both Monsters combo charge any of my units, so in my magic phase I urged Gork to pick up the Black Orcs and pluck them down far on the left flank, where only the Hydra could see them. Smelling blood, the Hydra took the bait and was unfortunately aided by Okkam's Mindrazor after the Sorceress threw 11 dice at the spell to get force it out. Some nice dice rolls saw the monster kill off close to a dozen Black Orcs, but luckily they were sporting the Banner of Eternal Flame and had been imbued with a spell of 'Ere We Go before Gork picked them up and moved them away. Over two rounds of combat against the Mindrazing Hydra and its handlers, the monster was finally brought down, but it left only 3 Black Orcs still standing. The ladz had to work for their kill this time.
Savage Orcs - Feeling the heat of all my artillery pieces firing at it (including losing a wound to a chukked spear in the gut) the Dragon looked around for a target once the Black Orcs were picked up by Gork. It settled on the Savage Orcs right in front of it, which was probably not a good idea without a Dreadlord riding it, but I presume my opponent wanted to try kill off my Great Shaman. The dice felt differently though, and my Savage only took a single wound before the Savage Orcs and my three characters chopped off the Dragon's head.
After that, there was little else to do but to charge the large unit of Spearelves in the front with my Savage Orcs, in the right flank with my Trolls (who so far had only been allowed to chase down some Crossbow elves), in the left flank with my Night Goblins and, finally, the Giant charged in from the rear, creating a nice little orc sandwich. It's a shame I didn't bring my camera for a picture, as the sight of that proved to be pretty funny.
So that meant another victory for the green dudes, who have been doing really well ever since I got back into the game. This time around I only lost my three chariots and my Mangler Squig - all of them quite expendable and 'designed' to go out with a bang. This matchup was far from my most difficult one, but it was still a fun game against a nice guy. Quite a few people were looking on during the game which is always exciting, especially when the good guys win.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
