Uprising 2023 - Part 2

This is the continuation of my report from a recent 6th edition Warhammer Fantasy tournament. You can find the first part here.

I had won my first game rather emphatically, and propelled myself onto what I believe was the top table for the second round. This was not how this was meant to go. Oh well, these things have a way of correcting themselves. 

Game 2 - Hold the Line, Kill the Boss
Jack Norman - Vampire Counts (Blood Dragons)

• Blood Dragon Vampire Lord (Level 3, Lore of Necromancy) with Full Plate Armour, Shield, Sword of Striking, Obsidian Amulet, Master Strike
• Necromancer (Level 2, Lore of Necromancy) with Book of Arkhan
• Blood Dragon Vampire Thrall with Battle Standard, Flayed Hauberk, Biting Blade
• 5 Dire Wolves
• 5 Dire Wolves
• 24 Skeletons with Spears, Light Armour, Shields, Standard, Musician
• 20 Skeletons with Spears, Light Armour, Shields, Standard, Musician
• 5 Black Knights with Barding, Lances, Heavy Armour, Shields, Full Command
• 3 Fell Bats
• 20 Grave Guard with Heavy Armour, Shields, Full Command, Banner of the Barrows
• 3 Spirit Hosts
• Mercenary Cannon
• Mercenary Cannon

Cannons? In a Vampire Count army? Can't say it's to my taste, but hey what do I care? Good thing I didn't bring any chariots. They wouldn't have been happy...

This scenario allowed deployment up to 14" onto the battlefield, and no man's land in the middle was divided in half. Control of one zone at the end of the game gave 150VP. Controlling both gave a total of 400VP. Killing the general was worth 200 bonus VP instead of the usual 100. So it was still probably not going to make a big difference, but it wasn't just a pitched battle.

The terrain was a bit confusing in terms of how to play it - not really great for moving units and all a bit similar. Jack and I showed a similar level of care factor and decided it was all just impassable. We'd just have to move around it all.

My deployment was heavily focused on trying to protect my more vulnerable elements like Bolt Throwers from Dire Wolves and Bats. There are some Wolves hiding behind the terrain top right, but I put the Furies down on the flank as a pretty hard counter. I struggled to set up a proper firing line without any hills, so some of the Crossbowmen were waiting for the Daemonettes to get a move on. They really wanted the Spirit Host, but I doubted my opponent would be quite that obliging.

What better to counter the approach of a flying unit than something that charges 20"? Unfortunately I had one unit here to Jack's 3, counting the Black Knights and Dire Wolves. It was going to be difficult to stop them all.

Here is the gentleman who most concerned my Anointed. Well, the whole unit really. The Blood Dragon Vampire Lord and the his Grave Guard. So much Killing Blow with magical attacks... I would get no save at all against that. Actually, his Vampire would get no save against me either. So... I wasn't sure how I felt about that face-off. My gut told me I'd lose my head.

Once again I finished deployment first, then rolled a 1 and lost the first turn roll. Jack took the first turn and started to advance. A number of things couldn't move all that quickly because they were outside of the general's leadership range. And a few things just decided not to move as quickly as they could. He would spend a fair bit of time during the game trying not to block the line of sight of his own cannons. Like me, he clearly felt the lack of any hills.

So... I let him do this. I figured I had time to deal with a freshly raised group of Zombies, and might as well take the extra victory points. I did make sure he couldn't grow the unit beyond the starting point.

The Grave Guard were feeling a bit cagey. I'm not really sure what they were worried about. They advanced, but only about half as far as they could have.

The Fell Bats emerged, but the other units stayed back a fair bit. Admittedly I don't think the Black Knights could march anyway.

In my turn the Furies charged and wiped out the insolent Dire Wolves (who really should never have ventured so close). The Cold One Knights decided they had to wear the threat of a charge from the Spirit Hosts in order to be relevant, with the prospect of the daemons around them coming to their rescue. This plan was only slightly undermined by the Daemonettes completely failing to hurt the Zombies, and then losing 2 of their own number in return. That wasn't how this was meant to go at all!

What are you doing? You're meant to kill them as quickly as possible so you can help with the Spirit Hosts... What an embarrassment.

This was the only game where I actually managed to roll Doombolt for the Anointed. Unfortunately he was obviously out of range... But not by that much. I figured the template for Arnizipal's Black Horror would just about reach the Grave Guard. I was right. I killed maybe 5 of them, then the shooting started to eat further into their ranks.

The Mounted Daemonettes went into and through the Fell Bats, with their overrun taking them clean off the table. I didn't want to be counter-charged by the Black Knights, but the Bats had to go.

As expected, the Spirit Hosts took the opportunity to charge the Cold One Knights. Thankfully I was able to pass a few saves and beat them in combat, but we still needed a rescue if we were going to break free in a reasonable amount of time.

The Dire Wolves found they could still march this turn and took the opportunity to shoot around the flank of my Crossbowmen. The Black Knights trudged along slowly behind, still unable to march.

The damage I had done to the Grave Guard was so significant that they went for a narrower formation to try to improve the situation of their ranks a bit. One of the Skeleton regiments (with the smaller Vampire at their head) moved in to offer a bit of support.

And then another bonus mob of Zombies popped up in a wide formation in order to provide a screen. This was the second time I elected not to try to block the initial raise, in the hope of containing the rest of the magic phase.

Why is it always 11 Zombies? I was still promising myself bonus victory points as a reward for letting them appear. I'm not sure this is a productive mindset.

In fact, letting bonus Zombies appear can apparently be downright dangerous! Somehow the first regiment was still there, and had just popped my Daemonette unit! We only killed a single Zombie, they continued to over-perform in return, and this time the instability test was too much for my dice... This was indeed a bit of a debacle.

In my turn the Devoted and Anointed decided to charge the new Zombie unit, which freed up the Crossbowmen to increase their ranks and wheel toward the Dire Wolves before opening fire. Unfortunately even with the help of the Bolt Thrower, they weren't quite able to deal with the problem - a single Wolf remained.

The Mounted Daemonettes returned to the field and started to sneak up behind the Black Knights.

My Dark Sorceress was doing her best to move into relevant ranges of the enemy, whilst also finding some semblance of cover. It was a bit awkward with things like enemy Cannons lying in wait. 

The Anointed made short work of the Zombies, powering up his armour before any potential confrontation with something actually dangerous.

Now that the Daemonettes had been banished back to the warp for their stupidity, the Crossbowmen were free to start pouring fire into the Zombies. They made much better progress. They may have been assisted by the Bolt Thrower over there, but it wasn't long before a cannonball sailed through and destroyed the machine (having already damaged it with an earlier shot).

Having failed to properly deal with the Dire Wolves, the Bolt Thrower would now pay the price by being charged by what was left of the unit.

The enemy crept slightly closer to the Devoted, but the main movement involved the Vampire Lord expressing great confidence in his Grave Guard whilst leaving the unit and hiding in among the Skeletons instead.

The Black Knights turned to face the Daemonette cavalry, hoping to witness a glorious cannon shot down their line to wipe them out. Jack was a bit aggressive with his estimates, and this shot (among others) overflew the target due to a big initial roll.

In keeping with the pattern of the turns, another new unit of Zombies appeared next to the Cold One Knights. This time however, there were only 7 of them. Jack had been hoping to Vanhel's them into combat, as well as the Vampire Lord's newly adopted regiment of Skeletons. Given I still had dispel dice and a scroll, this was rather optimistic. Neither unit got to charge magically.

Help! A dog ate my friend!

This was a rather dubious and aggressive move on my part. I could have just moved past the Black Knights and left them adrift, a long way from anything really relevant. But I felt the Daemonettes were a reasonable chance to win this fight, given they had the charge.

The Anointed and his friends had a big decision to make. They could go for the Grave Guard for the easy kill, and hope to overrun past the front of the Vampire's Skeletons with a pretty modest roll. Or they could gamble on charging the Vampire himself, backing the Anointed to take him down. The Furies could have assisted them in the flank, having finished off the Spirit Hosts. But it seemed like a very risky play, so I went for the Grave Guard instead.

This was not what I had anticipated. The Anointed fumbled about like an idiot and only killed a single Grave Guard. His unit fared no better, and lost one of their own whilst the 2 unit champions faced off in a bloodless draw. If we had done more than a single wound, the combat would be over. Instead, we were stuck in the combat and the Vampire Lord was breathing heavily down our necks...

Having been freed up from the Spirit Hosts, the Cold One Knights took the opportunity to charge the Skeletons led by the Necromancer.

Given they had not been called upon to assist the Anointed, the Furies took the opportunity to try to clean up the new Zombie unit.

The Crossbowmen finished off what remained of the first raised Zombie unit, and the Bolt Thrower crew (whose machine had been destroyed) started a journey across to the other Bolt Thrower which was still there, but had been abandoned by its own cowardly crew.

Freed from the threat of the Dire Wolves, the Crossbowmen in the centre wheeled back and took some pot shots at the Skeletons.

As badly as the Devoted had done, the Cold One Knights fared much better. The Noble killed the Necromancer, and the rest of the unit laid into the Skeletons. By the end of the round there were only 3 of them left.

This didn't quite go to plan. The Daemonettes struggled to get through the armour of the Black Knights. Happily they didn't take much damage in return, but they did have to pass an instability test thanks to the enemy banner.

OK, looks like I got distracted by the Warhammers and forgot to take some photos for a bit. Terrible, terrible things happened to my Anointed and his companions. Basically the Vampire and his friends charged into the flank of the unit. The scene would have been set for an epic confrontation between the Vampire (who has to challenge) and the Anointed, except that there was already an "epic confrontation" taking place, between the Devoted champion and the champion of the Grave Guard. This meant the Vampires would both be chowing down on the flank of my unit, whilst the Anointed was able to kill a single Grave Guard. We never really had a chance. The Anointed continued to roll like a potato anyway, and would barely have managed to kill a second Grave Guard had there been one within reach. Maybe it's for the best that he didn't humiliate himself on centre stage against the Vampire Lord. The Devoted champion was cut down by the Grave Guard champion, meaning I had still failed to even claim full points for that unit, and the Devoted lost combat so badly that they were broken automatically, and were unceremoniously run down as they fled.

On the bright side, Jack started failing saves in the second round against my Daemonette cavalry, and the Black Knights crumbled.

Ah yes, this is the scene of my main unit's demise. They all ran into the terrain and stopped their pursuit. I'm pretty sure it was the Grave Guard champion that ran me down, honestly. What a douche that guy was...

At this point Jack got distracted by something, so I was able to sneak over to his side of the table and take a photo, just to confuse you. Having dealt with the Zombies and Black Knights, the Mounted Daemonettes and Furies began to close in on the Cannons. The Cold One Knights might have looked to spearhead a multi-directional charge against the Vampire Lord, but they were busy failing Stupidity. In fact they failed it for the last 3 turns of the game, shuffling uselessly along, away from any meaningful enemy.

Seeing the final Grave Guard alone and worth tons of points, the Crossbowmen (then in 2 ranks) had lined up to fire on him. I think they landed a wound, but he passed his 4+ armour save. Then of all things, he turned and started running towards my firing line. What a guy. So my unit decided to expand its formation to form a proper execution squad, and shot at the guy again. Still they could not kill him... He would then charge the unit (narrowly avoiding a stand-and-shoot reaction due to range), fail to kill anyone, lose combat due to unit strength, but stick around because the army standard was in range. So we lapped around both sides...

The thundering charge of my units against the Cannons was as amazing as you'd expect. Both of them passed their Fear tests, then I proceeded to kill only a single model in each combat. Happily we didn't lose anyone in return and Fear meant they both broke automatically. Otherwise I suspect we'd still be fighting those combats to this day...

It's good that the Vampire and his friends never got close enough for a charge, because those Cold One Knights would have been easy meat. 

My Crossbowman unit worked its way around the terrain and started picking off Skeletons. I had killed half of them by the end.

Here is the Grave Guard champion, chad of the undead, holding off my entire regiment of Crossbowmen as they surround him and try to club him to death with their crossbows. This time I knew I had him, given the flank bonus. He solved that problem by doing a wound where I could not manage one, once again holding his ground. The game had ended. He was still alive. Or undead. Whatever. Dude was now the second most valuable model in the army, and I just couldn't kill him.

I realised near the end that there was a scenario at play, and managed to scramble the Daemonettes across to claim half of the centre zone. The other was contested, and neither general had died.

The game kind of fizzled out in the end, with most of the interest surrounding that lunatic Grave Guard dude. The stupidity of the Cold One Knights denied us any sort of grand stand finish. By the end I had lost a Bolt Thrower (we weren't sure how to tally that - one crew was dead, one machine was dead, so that was like having one alive and one dead?), the Daemonettes, a Sorceress (who got cannoned near the end), the Anointed and the Devoted. I had killed everything but the 2 Vampires, and under half-sized remnants of the Grave Guard, Skeletons and Dire Wolves. Between that, the small bonus for the scenario and the points for cleaning up all the Zombies that kept popping out of the ground, I got a modest win.

Result: 14-6 win

You can find the final part of my tournament report here.