Another one day Old World tournament has been and gone, and I'm here with a bit of a report of how it went. In keeping with the pattern of never taking the same army to an event twice, this time I dug out my High Elves. Truth be told, I expect that pattern will end - not because I've run out of armies, but rather because I'd like to give my old High Elves some love and attention, and using them in more tournaments will probably help with that. Anyway...
The list I decided to take was pretty bad, and basically thrown together from the stuff that I had that was mostly presentable (I told you, they need some love and attention). I did paint up a Caledor archmage for the occasion, which just goes to show you how silly I am. The tournament was 2000 points, however characters were capped at 33%. This wasn't great (I realised very late), but I persisted with my rough plan and just trimmed important things off my characters. What could go wrong, right?
- Prince with Warden of Saphery, Sword of Hoeth, Armour of Caledor
- Archmage (Level 4, Illusion) on Barded Elven Steed with Blood of Caledor, Full plate armour, Meteor Hammer, Dragon Helm
- Noble on Griffon with Great weapon, Full plate armour, Shield
- 20 Elven Spearmen with Full Command, Monster Hunter's Tapestry
- 10 Elven Archers (Detachment)
- 16 Lothern Sea Guard with Standard bearer, Musician (no shields)
- 5 Silver Helms with Champion (no shields, see below)
- 6 Dragon Princes with Full Command
- 16 Swordmasters of Hoeth with Drilled, Full Command
- 1 Tiranoc Chariot
- 5 Sisters of Avelorn with High Sister (Bow of the Seafarer)
Note that neither the Sea Guard, nor the Silver Helms have shields. This is because I was using Maiden Guard as my Sea Guard, and they don't have shields. And it's because I stuffed up with the Silver Helms. I think I flicked them in and out of the list so many times that I ended up missing the checkbox. I played them as though they had shields, so I cheated by 5 points. It didn't matter; they never did anything...
Game 1 - Encirclement
Max Piccione - Dwarfen Mountain Holds
- Burlok Damminson
- Runelord with Great weapon, Full plate armour, Master Rune of Balance
- Thane with Handgun, Full plate armour, Shield, Rune of Accuracy, Rune of Rapid Fire, Master Rune of Bursting Flame
- Thane Battle Standard Bearer with Full plate armour, Shield, Master Rune of Grungni, Rune of Confusion
- 25 Dwarf Warriors with Heavy armour, Great weapons, Shields, Full Command, Rune of Battle
- 18 Quarrellers with Crossbows, Heavy armour, Shields, Full Command
- 16 Hammerers with Great hammers, Heavy armour, Shields, Drilled, Full Command, Master Rune of Hesitation
- Grudge Thrower with Rune of Reloading
- Organ Gun
- 14 Irondrakes with Drakeguns, Full plate armour, Drilled, Champion (Cinderblast bombs)
- Dwarf Cart, Bugman's Cart
The battlefield had 4 objectives as well as baggage trains. Note that I managed to lower the vibe significantly by forgetting to bring anything to represent these, so I was just using sad pieces of paper until Nick showed up to at least give me something to sit on top of them. I deployed my Chariot and Sisters over to the left, put the Sea Guard next to the hill with the Archers on it, then had the Prince leading the Spearmen (which was the general plan for the army), the Swordmasters in a silly squeezed formation due to space (but at least they had Drilled), the Silver Helms and finally the Dragon Princes.
So I stuffed up here. I'm sure we both thought I'd put the Dragon Princes in a marching column, thanks to the cavalry being twice as long as they are wide. But they're actually still in a square here. I had stuffed up by putting too many command models in the unit. Even with the Archmage sitting in the second row, it was not actually a marching column.
The Irondrakes also had Drilled and were lurking on my left flank. I was a bit concerned about what their shooting would do to me.
Look at them, with their fancy schmancy actual marching column. Smug little gits.
Burlok and the handgun Thane went into the Quarrellers in the centre. The BSB and Runelord set up in the Hammerers, ensuring charging them would be a miserable exercise thanks to all the runes in play.
Max got the first turn and celebrated by wiping out my Archers. This resulted in the Sea Guard panicking and shuffling back a bit away from the approaching Warriors.
In my turn the Chariot started to try to sneak around behind the cover of the ruin, whilst the Sisters stepped up into short range to fire at the Irondrakes.
The Hammerers had stepped forward on my right, and I responded by moving forward rapidly, trying to get something around into their flank. I didn't really want to send the Griffon that way, but there was not enough cover for him to make it across to help on the other flank, so here he was.
It's possible this maneuver would have been better executed if I'd waited a bit, in the hope that the Hammerers would move further past the ruins. But I don't know if that would have happened.
Unsurprisingly, the Hammerers shifted to make themselves a bit wider and put all my units into their front. The Thane had also started to wander across in the previous turn, and now joined the unit (thus giving them a very concerning Stand and Shoot reaction). The Quarrellers and Organ Gun turned their attentions to my Spearmen and culled them a bit.
The Irondrakes had formed up and started a shooting match with the Sisters and the Sea Guard. We were doing OK, but 5 Sisters is really not a lot when people start killing them (I wanted more, but couldn't get them ready in time for the event).
I thought quite hard about this before doing it. Charging Hammerers on their own terms is nigh on suicidal. The Griffon should have been going over their heads and into the enemy back field, where it might have caused trouble. But there was not going to be a way to get around their flank thanks to the terrain, and I couldn't just stand off with them when the Spearmen were getting culled by shooting and time was against me. The initiative advantages the Hammerers had didn't really matter because Elves are fast, so there was the possibility that we'd clean off the front rank before they could swing. In the end we went in (including the Griffon because I needed its muscle, given the Swordmasters couldn't fit). Unfortunately I had forgotten that the Dragon Princes would be very susceptible to the rune that negated their lances (I knew he had it, I just forgot about it when making that decision). Without the lances, there was no way we were going to really outfight the Dwarfs.
The combat did not go well. The Archmage failed to cast Spectral Doppelganger despite using a reroll, none of my units rolled well enough to inflict a real number of casualties, then the Hammerers swung back and dented the Griffon along with a large chunk of the Dragon Princes. The Griffon fell back in good order, whilst the Spearmen and Dragon Princes gave ground.
The Hammerers declined to chase my units, but then charged the Dragon Princes alone. Once again I failed to cast Spectral Doppelganger (which might have saved me), the Archmage took 2 wounds, and only a single Dragon Prince survived the combat. We broke and fled, but the Dwarfs again decided not to chase us given what was waiting.
On the other flank I had stepped out of cover with the Chariot, hoping that either Max would ignore it as he engaged in the firefight with my units, or that it would buy a reprieve for the Sisters. I guess in a way it did the latter, but it died in an ugly fashion to a single volley as the Irondrakes spun and fired. They were, however, now facing in a very tempting formation for my Bow of the Seafarer...
In my turn I showed how I was growing in wisdom by the minute, and did not charge the Hammerers again immediately. I planted a Column of Crystal right behind them to prevent them backing up, moved things into their flanks, and sent the (now wounded) Griffon off on the mission he should have accepted earlier - messing with Max's shooting.
The Bow of the Seafarer did indeed kill a number of Irondrakes, and at this point it was looking like I might actually be able to win the shooting duel. Maybe the sacrifice of the Chariot would not be in vain.
Looks like I'm missing a photo (as usual). Seeing how trapped the Hammerers were, Max relented and charged the Swordmasters (which he was really not keen to do). I think I barely lost combat, then sent in the Prince to one flank and the Dragon Princes to the other. This time I did manage to cast Spectral Doppelganger, and the Archmage mashed a handful of Hammerers in a very gratifying fashion. We won combat convincingly, but the Hammerers simply fell back in good order because of Stubborn. Also, the Dwarf Cart had gotten much too close with some sort of uppity behaviour and then fled when the Silver Helms charged at it. Unfortunately I rolled abysmally for the charge and it got away narrowly.
The Griffon had taken 2 more wounds from shooting, but then charged and destroyed the Grudge Thrower. He was even in base contact with the enemy baggage train. Unfortunately everyone else in the area could shoot, and he was down to a single wound...
The Hammerers elected not to charge again, instead giving the Thane a chance to shoot at my units. He killed the last Dragon Prince, and would have the opportunity to Stand and Shoot at the wounded Archmage if he charged.
In the last turn I decided to have one last gasp attempt at breaking the Hammerers. The Prince and Swordsmasters went in again. We did win combat, but not by much, and the unit didn't break.
Wounded as he was, the Griffon had succumbed to the enemy shooting behind the lines. My shooting had dragged the Irondrakes down to 2 models, but they then hid behind the Warriors and I couldn't reach them to try to finish them off. In the end, after all my valiant struggles in combat, I had lost the Spearmen, Dragon Princes, Chariot and Archers (mostly to shooting). Having failed to crack the Hammerers and reach anything else, I had killed only the Grudge Thrower and received some points for effort on the Hammerers themselves. It was not enough and I was about 400 points down. In this event, a difference of over 300 points simply counted as a win, so I had not. Not won. I had in fact lost.
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