Finally time for the Dragonlord to fly yet again! It's been a relatively long time since I played with this awesome beast and to make matters even better, I had a real challenge on my hands in the shape of one of the hardest lists for me to face: Life Empire with 3 WMs + STank. My opponent did not have a lot of experience with this list however, so how would it play out? Read on to find out more!
.::. Battle Report - 2400 vs Empire (ETC comp) .::.
Lists:
Prince on Star Dragon: General, Dragonhelm, Star Lance, Golden Crown of Atrazar, The Other Trickster`s Shard, Shield, 598
Noble on Ithilmar Barded Elven Steed: Battle Standard Bearer, Banner of the World Dragon, Heavy Armour, Shield, Lance, 172
Noble on Ithilmar Barded Elven Steed: Enchanted Shield, Heavy Armour, Ogre Blade, 134
Mage on Elven Steed: Level 2, Lore of High Magic, Dispel Scroll, 155
Mage on Elven Steed: Level 2, Lore of High Magic, Ironcurse Icon, 135
17 Silver Helms: FCG, Shields, 421
5 Ellyrian Reavers: Champion, Bows (Swap), 95
5 Silver Helms: Champion, Musician, Shields, 135
3x 1 Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower: 3x 70
Frostheart Phoenix: 240
2x 1 Great Eagle: 2x 50
Army Total = 2395
Arch Lector: War Altar, General, HA, Charmed Shield, Dragonbanegem, 264
Wizard Lord: Lvl 4, Life, 200
Battle Wizard: Lvl 2, Light, Dispel Scroll, 125
Captain of the Empire: BSB, FPA, Enchanted Shield, 96
Captain of the Empire: Pegasus, FPA, Lance, Shield, Dragonhelm, 130
Master Engineer: 65
56 Halberdiers: FCG, 366
25 Halberdiers: Detachment, 150
12 Archers: Detachment, 84
5 Demigryph Knights: Mus/Banner, 310
2x1 Great Cannon: 2x120
Helblaster Volleygun: 120
Steam Tank: 250
Army Total: 2400 points
Pre-Battle Thoughts
As the astute reader might notice, I have faced this list before. Despite me being lucky, that game did not turn out well (7-13 loss, if memory serves). This matchup is so hard because the Cannons can line up a crossfire by deploying in opposite corners, making it nigh on impossible to hide. Furthermore, pushing is iffy as the bus can easily be devastated by Dwellers and if I get stuck with the STank with the Dragon, I risk being in combat all game with the rest of his army wiping my bus (Regrowth + STank is nasty).
So, the only chance I have here is to push hard and fast and pray for luck when I need it the most. I got a very good deployment, guaranteed outside of Dwellers T1 and both monsters hidden. My opponent didn't deploy the cannons in the corner but rather close to eachother, so the monsters had a good position. Furthermore, they could advance to a fence T1 to at least help with some of the incoming firepower.
The following pictures show the deployment and early game:
My RBTs had clear lines of fire and his HBVG was far away from making an impact, luckily for me. He got T1 and all 3 cannonballs failed to hurt me at all. I could've used this luck later on, but I'll take it
I responded by moving both monsters up to the fence and have the bus in a counter-charge position should his demis try anything funny. I then IF Walk on the SD to between the enemy cannons. He responds by dual-charging Frostheart with Demis + STank (the latter needed 13+). I had made a mistake with my BSB's position so I didn't have re-rolls and the Frostheart broke, outrunning the Demis.
With the Demis trying to pursue, he exposed his flank to my Knights (the RBTs + Frostheart had dealt quite a bit of damage to them already). The Dragon had lost its Prince, but the good part of this was his inability to challenge me out. Time to strike back!
Dragon goes into big Halberdiers and I position corner-to-corner with his BSB. Knights flank the Demis. Eagle blocks STank from charging bus and locking it down. Frostheart rallies. Magic draws the scroll. Dragon eats BSB. Demis hold on Insane Courage: My Ogre Blade Noble challenges him out to keep my Helms safe (I lost the Champ to T1 miscast so I had a mage in the front rank).
The Demis then break and in my turn the bus goes into the Halberdiers engaged with the Star Dragon. I break their steadfast and run them down. The SD now has 6 wounds, but has to weather a full turn of shooting.
One cannon can only barely touch the Dragon and the STank goes into my bus to lock it down. The HBVG does a lot of the work needed however as it manages a lot of 6s to bring the Dragon down to 2W. This leaves the second cannon with clear LoS to simply roll a 2+, 2+ after hitting the Dragon. The ball lands home and it wounds, however the D6 wounds come up a '1' and the beast lives!
What ensues is a Dragon-combat vs the detachment-Halberdiers, with the last Demi (captain died to IF Arcane Unforging) rear-charging it as well. After wounding me twice (I made both saves on 4+) and killing the Demi, the Halberdiers broke as they sorely missed their BSB. This enabled my Dragon to charge a cannon with Helms T5, allowing the former to overrun out of the table on 1W T6. The bus was stuck in the grind and the Helmdart overran, killing the second cannon.
Counting up the points, I was ~1000 points ahead: Roughly a
16-4 win to the High Elves!
// Evaluation //
This game basically boiled down to a few, key events: My opponent failed to meet Dwellers casting value T2, his deployment allowed my monsters a safe haven and my IF Walk T1 put a LOT of pressure on him.
Other than that this remains one of my hardest matchups for this list. Light Coven is hard as well, but tends to suffer from weak combat buffs as opposed to the OMGWTF power of regrowth on the Steam Tank.