Fantasy League, Week Four

Well, week four was a bust, on pretty much every level. I recently rolled my ankle playing futsal in a fairly spectacular level.

Notice the wonderful blood pooling in multiple places. Suffice to say, standing up for a few hours playing warhammer just didn't sound appealing to me.

Unfortunately, it was a scenario that gave out a lot of points, and I missed out on all of them. :(

So my brief rise to the top has been quickly squashed for missing this week. So now I need to start crawling back up the ladder once more. Which means I can't miss week 5.

To that end I've been trying to get my hands on various models. Since I'm doing undead, I want to try to keep some sort of cohesive theme. So I'm trying to find old undead models to stand in for TK versions.

The first was a viable liche priest. A friend has an old undead (5th ed) model that would go great, but we haven't connected yet for the trade. So that meant diving into my figure bin and finding an old empire light wizard model. What better to use now that End Times fluff is out? I have an empire light wizard that dabbled too much into research of Khemri and its magics, and now he is under the thrall of Nagash.

My search for a tomb prince didn't go quite as planned either, but inspired by the above, I found a really old wight model from the 5th ed era. He's going to be my barrow king tomb prince.

My big problem right now is what to do with the war sphinx. It is an awesome addition to my army. However, it looks really Tomb Kingy. I need to either find a way to mod it to fit in more with the barrow kings idea, or vamp it up somehow.

Till next time.

Fanasty League week 3, where the F have I been??

So wow, this week has just flown by. I've had everything from injuries to PC issues and of course the ever present work. Sorry for the late update this week.

In terms of gaming and such, I played in week 3 of our Warhammer Fantasy League on Sunday. I brought my undead and this time I left the Morghasts at home and brought a bone giant (ie colossus) instead. The stone cat was still the big hero of the day. Helping to take out a nasty unit of nurgle deamons and then holding up a skaven doom wheel. The bone giant did less than spectacular.

This week it was an odd scenario where you tried to get your units off by touching an objective in the opponent's deployment area. You got no points for enemy units, only points for your units that made it off. So basically the middle of the field was a huge scrum to try to get through to your objective. Also, game could end at end of turn 4.

My first opponent was deamons..and I thought for sure I was screwed. My etheral unit of spirit hosts was toast...and while I had the sphinx and giant, he had plenty of magic, and a deamon prince, plus a chariot and other goodness and he was immune to my fear and terror. Well, as it turned out, he let me get the charge off on his nurgle guys with my two big creatures which eventually spelled their doom (thought he giant did die). I also was able to take out his unit of horrors with my vamp + skeletons. He rushed his DP off the board as fast as possible. But due to him losing those two units, and the game going on for the full 6 turns, I got enough stuff off to get the win in points.

My second game was against skaven. That doomwheel is a freaking beast! even though I got the combo charge off with the giant and sphinx again, it wiped out the giant. He made a huge mistake in counter-charging in with slaves that corner touched the sphinx. My guys held, I then countered with my skeleton unit, and the TK blew away 20+ slaves with a spell, and then the sphinx was able to put all attacks into the slaves, creating an Insane Courage for him, which he failed. He then rolled triple 1's for the wheels flee move. End result, I was able to get my sphinx, skeletons, and some wolves into the objective. He got a few units too, but I had the points.

Oh, and my stupid bone giant broke on the way over there even though it was in a foam case. What a crap model. I will now have to pin every single component of it. Gah!

This week the morghasts are returning and the bone giant is going away. Not sure what else I'm going to do though. We are up to 1200pts. Oh..I did paint a unit of 5 dire wolves for the week too, and they didn't turn out so bad. Once I base the models, I think they will look even better.

Fantasy League, week two

Howdy Sports Fans,

So week two had a new scenario, the checklist. Basically, you played an 1100 point game and you had a checklist of things that can happen in games. You received a point for each item you were able to accomplish. So for instance, getting your wizard sucked into the warp was one of the items. Passing a leadership test with insane courage was another. There were about 25 of these items that you could check off if all went well.

The list I brought this time was a bit heavy handed. Though some trades and sales, I was able to get my hands on a war sphinx and a screaming skull catapult. The sphinx was just sort of dumb luck, but I had to put it in my army. The catapult was actually my painting project for the week. It was the old version of the model, pre tomb kings. Since I am running mostly vamp units, I thought it would fit better. I also added a liche priest to my list because their magic is pretty sweet.

Level 2 necro with channel staff and 5+ ward.
Level 2 LP with 6+ ward vs war machines

20 vamp skeletons with full command
15 ghouls
5 dire wolves

war sphinx

2 morghast archai
screaming skull catapult

I was able to fit in two games. The first versus an all marauder army. It had a large block of marauders with a sorcerer and general in it, another smaller block of marauders, a unit of horsemen, two chariots, and a unit of hounds.

The table was nearly split by a river, and we were playing on 4'x4' areas, with quite a bit of terrain, so it was tight. I can't remember enough to give you a blow by blow, but I'll highlight the cool stuff. Going right to left from my point of view....
His horsemen took a bit of beating from the sphinxes flaming breath and then they charged into my ghouls. The ghouls eventually tore them down. My sphinx was double charged by his two chariots, and took two wounds without giving any back, but thanks to construct, he didn't pop. After that, my skeletons charged in, providing CR boost and the sphinx avoided any other wounds. Both chariots fled and were cut down. My morghasts failed a charge with triple ones against his big block, but it worked out as eventually they were able to charge his big block, which failed their terror check and were run down.  My wolves charged his dogs and held them up for a round before being wiped out. My spells healed most of my stuff and eventually all he had left were his dogs and his smaller marauder unit, which had gotten hit by the SSC, and in the end, the dogs got killed by the morghasts and the last marauders fled from the sphinx. All total, I lost a unit of wolves.

It was a very fun game though and actually had quite a bit of back and forth. We both missed some big charges and for the most part, the magic phase was uneventful. The huge turning point was the sphinx surviving the chariots, and his main block failing the terror test. We both quite quite a few points on the checklist.

My next game was against a fairly elite dwarf list. He had a lord and runesmith, plus a large unit of longbeards with GWs (lord went here), and then a unit of ironbreakers (runesmith), a unit of irondrakes, and a cannon. Again, just a brief synopsis.

I'll go left to right this time as the action sort of happened that way. My wolves vanguard up within charge range of his cannon, but he got first turn. His cannon fires, misfires, but due to rune, rerolls, and bounces a ball that falls short of my sphinx. The wolves fail a charge to the cannon by one inch. However, the SSC lands a shot right on top of it and blows it up (first time that ever worked for me). This lets the wolves and sphinx combo charge his ironbreakers, the sphinx to the front, the wolves to the flank. The tomb guard on the sphinx killing blow the runesmith. In abysmal rolling, his iron breakers don't do any wounds. And despite being steadfast, fail their Ld 10 test and flee directly towards the longbeards, letting my sphinx and wolves flank charge that unit. During this time, the morghast did a long 20" charge against the irondrakes, causing them to flee and get run down. My liche priest got off the big 5+ ward save to everyone spell, and then got sucked into the warp. My skeletons eventually charge the long beards that were fighting the sphinx and wolves. This let me counter his ranks and remove his steadfast, causing that unit to eventually flee. It then got burned by the fire breath of the sphinx as well and they eventually ran off the board, taking the dwarf lord with them. The iron breakers rallied and charged the ghouls in the flank, but was unable to crumble the unit. This led to counter charges from the morghasts and skeletons, which eventually led to the ironbreakers getting run down after fleeing 12" by the ghouls also rolling 12"! All total, I lost only my liche priest by the end of the game.

This game was fun as well, and could have totally turned out differently based on the dice. The fact that my sphinx dodged a cannonball was pretty spectacular, but then to have my SSC take it out in one shot was just amazing. The dwarfs also failed too many Ld 10 tests. And unlike my first game, I didn't fail any charges.

Hero unit: The war sphinx. Wow, this guy did his job. He held up units I could never have hoped to counter with just undead infantry. His toughness 8 stopped all comers. The four KB attacks it has makes it a threat to any character, and then it has four more, plus thunderstomp. It can deal out the wounds. The fire breath is a must.

Surprise unit: The ghouls. These guys just did their job. I knew if I could whittle down the marauder horsemen(10), then they could win against them, and they did. What really surprised me was how well they did against the dwarfs. Even against ironbreakers, these guys were killing off a model or two every round, and took surprisingly few wounds in return. They also held up after taking a flank charge. A unit of twenty would be better, but the fifteen is working out.

Notable Mention: The liche priest. Wow, TK magic rocks with End Times. The ability to march now and march again with the signature spell means these guys are incredibly mobile. Plus any buff spell they have will restore wounds. Granted, they can only restore once to some of the units, but it really worked out. The Vampire Magic was less impressive. However, with invocation hanging out there, and the winds spell, now I have two spells that my opponent needs to stop each phase.

Disappointment: Morghasts. Yeah, I know, how can I be disappointed with these guys after taking out a huge block of marauders, hounds, irondrakes, and then ironbreakers? Well, its like this, in combat, these guys actually didn't do much. Terror did a lot, and the super far charge range is great. But once stuck in, these guys were just not putting down the wounds. Seems like they should. I don't know, they just whiffed against the iron breakers time and time again. Basically, if not for stomps, they would have done almost nothing in that combat. But they are such a good utility unit. I think they really need four to be a real combat threat. But that is outside of the point value for this league.

So next week should be 1200 points. Maybe I'll add a BSB. That way the sphinx has -3 to crumble if the morghasts are close by. :)

And yes, I totally forgot to take pictures again. But I will take pics of the painted SSC crew and share.

Fantasy League, week one

So I trotted out my Vampires for the first week in the league. It was a four player game where you had to go after tokens placed by one of your opponents. The hope there is that it encourages people to go after them instead of just ganging up on one player or making it two one on one games.

The first issue came up with how deployment was done. In the hopes of speeding things up I'm sure, everyone was supposed to just put your models down and go. Well that led to basically whoever finished first, kind of got screwed a little as opponents could then react. It wasn't too big of a deal, and maybe didn't have an impact at all, but due to the small deployments, I deployed to the long face since I had a large army. Well that may have made the lizardmen player across from me think I was going after him...so he counter deployed accordingly..in theory.

Anyways, I actually went before him, and did a big swing with all my units to point towards my tokens. Well he decided to come after my now exposed flank. Hmmmmm. Well so much for going after tokens. Now I had to guard against the lizards (who was the player on my left/across). The player to my ride side was high elves...who had a nice shooty list. Thankfully I was able to convince him to shoot the lizardmen scouts as they were highly mobile, in the middle of the battlefield already, and could easily get to their tokens. His shooting was not great, but did kill a skink here and there. Unfortunately for him, he had ogres coming straight at him. The ogre player did toss a cannon ball at one of the lizardmen monsters....but he knew his dice and knew that the '1' to wound would pop up. Uncanny.

So basically, it ended up with me trying to go after the scouts so that I could then get to my tokens, while half my army turned to face the lizards, which had a whole freaking lot coming at me. A stegadon, a armored dino with a spell jewel on top, his scar vet, his caster, javelin skinks, and a saurus unit! Thankfully, my Morghasts are very scary looking, and once they turned towards his line, his line sort of stopped. That lasted for a few turns thankfully.

However, I was short on time, and though I knew it was a four player scenario...I stupidly had thought it would go quick. Well it didn't and I had to scram. So I tossed some units out to see what would happen. The morghasts charged his saurus. They did win combat by one, but he stayed...however I totally had goofed and didn't realize that those guys cause terror. Because he has failed his fear check against them...which would have been a terror check and those guys would have fled. That would have meant his stegadon would have charged, but it wouldn't have been in a flank and who knows how that would have turned out. In the end though, his steg countercharged in the flank and the unit popped. I tried to get my crypt horrors in combat, but their targets kept fleeing. Boring!

I hope this is not a sign of things to come. Don't get me wrong, I understand that fleeing a charge is a very useful tactic. But this was a four player game all about getting tokens. At some point, you want to roll dice. That being said, my undead did actually run down two of the units that fled them...so not too bad. So hopefully next week..which is going to be one on one games I believe...should go better. I've already got my list sorted.

I met new players, played warhammer fantasy again and had fun. So it was a cool time. And I even gave everyone else bonus points for being me. Yay!