Axemaster 2024 - Part 3

This is the final part of my Axemaster report. You can find the previous part here, or go back to the start here.

Game 3 - Open Battle
Brian Holland - Vampire Counts

• Master Necromancer (Level 4, Necromancy) with Spell Familiar, Sceptre Of De Noirot
• Vampire Count on Zombie Dragon with Beguile, Biting Blade, Armour of Silvered Steel, Talisman Of Protection
• Vampire Thrall (Level 1, Dark Magic) with Battle Standard, Dark Acolyte, Spell Familiar
• 10 Crypt Ghouls with Crypt Ghast
• 5 Dire Wolves with Doom Wolf
• 5 Dire Wolves with Doom Wolf
• 20 Skeleton Warriors with Full Command, Thrusting Spears
• 30 Skeleton Warriors with Full Command
• 40 Zombies with Standard Bearer, Musician
• Corpse Cart with Warped Tintinnabulation
• 20 Grave Guard with Full Command
• 5 Blood Knights with Full Command
• 5 Blood Knights with Full Command, Supernatural Horror (Kastellan)

So I was up to my third and final game, but somehow I had only played a total of 7 turns, and not a lot had really happened. Hopefully this game would improve that.

Brian deployed both units of Blood Knights in a forest because he didn't fully understand how the terrain worked. He had fooled me - I had assumed he had some cunning plan I couldn't fathom.

The Zombie Dragon was lurking behind the hill, and seemed likely to cause me problems unless Ungrim somehow got to grips with it and fired up. Well, I had intentionally made my list to be a bit hardened to the threat of dragons, so maybe it would be OK. The Dire Wolves used vanguard at the same time as my Doomseekers and Dragonslayer did.

Being amazing, I got the first turn and advanced bravely in column formations, mainly because I could, and it was another thing my list had been made to do if it found the chance. My shooting removed one unit of Dire Wolves and a chunk from the other.

Slayers were anchoring both of my flanks. I hoped the Doomseeker would find a way to deal with the Ghouls, because I didn't really want them charging the Trollslayers.

Look at that speed! Beer powered columns of marching Dwarfs. So agile. So beautiful.

The Zombies wasted no time advancing in response, aided by Hellish Vigour. The orange template is a Spiritual Vortex that was cast in the first turn and would remain for the entire game. I simply couldn't dispel it, even though I tried.

The Ghouls and Dire Wolves also headed for my lines, but they were rather lacking support.

I considered whether I really wanted to be bogged in what was obviously intended to be a tar pit of Zombies, but they had advanced so close that some of my troops were going to be unable to avoid it. So the drilled Warriors expanded their frontage and charged with support from the other Doomseeker. Between them they did pretty significant damage to the enemy unit.

The Hammerers also shifted into a more battle-ready formation, right next to the nasty vortex.

The Ghouls had come too close to the Doomseeker on my flank, and he made extremely short work of them. The Trollslayers continued across the rather lonely expanse toward the Skeletons, in the absence of any better target.

The Hammerers had gotten close enough to interest the Blood Knights, and they charged in despite Ungrim's presence. This was apparently a sound plan, as they did enough damage to basically prevent any return attacks from the Hammerers, and Ungrim struggled to make decent headway against them.

The Trollslayers eventually engaged the Skeletons, and would spend the rest of the game struggling against them and very slowly losing their own numbers. The Doomseeker did eventually manage to get in to help (he was meant to be there from the beginning), but my units couldn't do enough damage to make real headway. By the end of the game the Skeletons, Doomseeker and Trollslayers were all still there - but the Trollslayers had been reduced to a single model.

The Vampire on her Zombie Dragon had flown up into a possition of prominence on the hill in the centre of the field, and I had a decision to make - open up on it with my shooting and try to start wearing it down, or go the more direct approach and hope for an exciting performance from the Dragonslayer. It was a Dragon, after all (or what was left of one). He assured me that he had this under control. Unfortunately, he was wrong. He couldn't get a blow past the Vampire's saving throws, and narrowly succumbed in return. The presence of the Trollslayers was not enough for me to win the fight (there were too few of them and they are only Open Order), so they got shoved back and the Zombie Dragon was free.

The Blood Knights had badly dented the Hammerers, and would eventually wipe them out (with the assistance of some undead magic, including some of the fallen Blood Knights being raised back to keep fighting). Ungrim battled on, but couldn't get enough damage past their saves to deal with them. I did at one point send my Thane with the battle standard into the flank to help - it was a mistake. The Blood Knight on the end beat him down without even bothering to look at him. It was extremely disdainful (and some pretty hot rolling). That was the only trick I had to try to free up Ungrim. He was still fighting them at game's end.

The second unit of Blood Knights eventually left the cover of the forest and tried to get involved, but my shooting spotted them and removed the unit. 

Having shoved the Trollslayers back, the Zombie Dragon was able to reform to face along my lines and threaten the flank of the Warriors.

The Warriors had busted through the Zombies after a few rounds, and overran into the enemy battle standard bearer. The Corpse Cart had charged in to support her, but with my Lord on shieldbearers in there, it was a losing fight. The Zombie Dragon first charged the Doomseeker (who had overrun a very underwhelming distance, and was now sitting back next to the flank of the Warrior unit). He died very quickly, allowing the Dragon to overrun and fight again against the Warriors.

To begin with the Warriors were able to hold their own, compensating for the damage the Dragon inflicted by finishing up the Corpse Cart and Vampire Thrall. But then the Lord challenged, again trying to perform the role he was meant for - to tank a high power target and protect his unit, buying time. He did it OK, but was taking wounds faster than I had hoped, whilst offering no chance of doing wounds in return against the Vampire's saves. I sent the Slayers into the rear to try to help us actually win a round of combat, but at didn't work... We won combat, but because the Slayers were behind the Dragon, it couldn't be pushed back. This meant the Warriors couldn't turn to face the enemy because they never had the chance to reform. Very frustrating.

Eventually the Slayers got engaged and beaten by the Grave Guard, and the Warriors fell back in good order away from the Zombie Dragon. At that point we were out of time, and the game had to be halted after 5 turns - the closest I had gotten to actually finishing a game, but still not a full 6 turn battle.

I had lost the Hammerers, my BSB and partial points for one unit of Slayers. I had also lost a Doomseeker and the Dragonslayer, but they didn't give up points (unlike the one who was grumpy about still being alive). In return I had killed a unit of Blood Knights, the Dire Wolves, Ghouls, Zombies, Corpse Cart and Thrall. It was enough to buy me a very narrow win, 867 victory points to 618. Yay, not a draw!

Result: 11-9 Win

So with that, the game was over. In conclusion, I had very nearly had the most Dwarfish of tournaments, with nothing but draws. I had been pushed around enormously by magic, finding myself practically incapable of stopping a spell all day (I dispelled maybe 3). I had also found my games running out of time, really badly. I didn't like that, and resolved that my next list would hopefully do something to address all of these issues. On to Cancon!