Another game vs DoC, this time a nasty variant under Northern Warlords comp.
.::. Battle Report - 2400 vs Daemons of Chaos (NW comp) .::.
My list:
Prince on Star Dragon: Dragonhelm, Star Lance, Crown of Atrazar, The Other Trickster`s Shard, Shield = 598
Noble BSB on Barded Steed, Banner of the World Dragon, Heavy armour, Shield, Lance = 172
Noble on Barded Steed, Enchanted Shield, Heavy Armour, Ogre Blade = 134
Mage L2 on Steed, Scroll = 155
Mage L2 on Steed, Ironcurse Icon = 135
Heroes = 596, Characters = 1194
16 Silver Helms, Full Command & Shields = 398
5 Ellyrian Reavers = 80
5 Ellyrian Reavers, Bows (swap) = 85
5 Ellyrian Reavers, Champion = 90
Core = 653
3x1 Repeater Bolt Thrower = 210
Frostheart Phoenix = 240
2x1 Great Eagle = 100
Rare = 550
Army total = 2397
His list:
Metal Herald of Tzeentch: Lvl 2, 125
Metal Herald of Tzeentch: Lvl 2, 125
The Blue Scribes: 81
13 Pink Horrors: Standard, 199
13 Pink Horrors: FCG, 199
14 Pink Horrors: FCG, 212
6 Beasts of Nurgle: 360
6 Beasts of Nurgle: 360
5 Chaos Furies: Mark of Tzeenth, 70
2 Nurglings: 80
3 Fiends of Slaanesh: 195
3 Flamers of Tzeentch: 120
Skullcannon of Khorne: 135
Skullcannon of Khorne: 135
2396 points
// Pre-battle thoughts and deployment //
Going into this game I was looking to assess how the Star Dragon works against DoC. Though this is a far cry from what`s allowed under ETC restrictions, they`re the same units and I was hoping I could extrapolate how this matchup fares under ETC play.
Dobbel Skullcannon and double large Beasts are problematic. The best thing to do here is divide and conquer. To achieve this, keeping the chaff alive is essential while denying him his chaff.
NW uses weird deployment, we rolled off and my opponent won, choosing a Battle for the Pass variant. This is hard to play against because he has so much space to back into with Skullcannons and Horrors, making it hard for my flyers to break through and get to his core. I would have to weigh a flank heavily and hope the bus could thunder up fast, creating space for the flyers to follow through. I placed the RBTs on the opposite flank pretty far ahead, giving him a juicy target for distraction which could prove disastrous, if he`d go for it.
Magic: I got Apotheosis, Walk, Soul Quench, Drain. He got Transmutation of Lead, Searing Doom, Enchanted Blades and Final Transmutation. Horrors had missiles, Glean and Gateway.
Despite him having +1, I managed to grab first turn.
// HE T1 //
Bus marched up max, Dragon followed cautiously to remain in cover. Reavers moved to intercept Nurglings which had scouted near my RBTs. Magic saw IF WBW on the Dragon. I placed it in a position where only 1 cannon could see it if he moved out. Shooting saw me target Furies, I knew these could end up being vital but the RBTs only managed to kill 3 of the 5 needed to wipe them off. 2 is just as useful as 5 in this game.
// DoC T1 //
Central Beasts moved close to the water. Fiends blocked bus, Furies moved to cover, Eastern Beasts moved up. Nurglings charged Reavers. Magic saw IF Gateway on the Dragon, but S4 and few hits meant no wounds, luckily. Cannon put 2W on the Dragon but failed to hurt the Prince. The other cannon misfired and blew up.
// HE T2 //
Remember that I said the deep deployment being an issue? If I sent the Dragon up yet again now I would have to wither another turn of shooting before I could engage anything important. Instead I decided to throw it into the central Beasts. The plan was to lock them until the bus could help out. Chaff moved up, Frostheart came. Magic saw me fail to cast Walk and he dispelled Apotheosis. Shooting saw RBTs target Eastern Beasts in lack of proper targets.
In combat the Dragon was challenged out and the Beasts proved how balanced they are as my 10 S7 attacks caused 0 wounds. Bus killed Fiends and reformed.
// DoC T2 //
Furies blocked bus. I had made a mistake here as they were barely in range and if I had taken the time this could`ve been avoided. Eastern Beasts reformed. Skullcannon moved to shoot the Phoenix. Magic saw a big cast of Final Transformation target my Helms (29 casting value). I took a long time to decide as I had 7DD but in the end decided to scroll. He would basically get one more attempt before I could hit the Beasts as he had no more diverters with the Furies soon to be dead, so I figured I could get lucky and dispel the next or he could get IF, in which case a scroll wouldn`t matter anyway. 29 is very hard to stop, even with 7DD. Shooting put a few wounds on the Frostheart. In combat I managed a wound for a wound with the Prince I believe.
// HE T3 //
Bus into Furies. Reavers into Blue Scribes. Eagle blocked Eastern Beasts, other Eagle moved up. Magic saw Apotheosis stopped, Frostheart was WBW`d next to the Beasts combat. Shooting didn`t do much, still tried to get some Beasts. In combat the Reavers dispatched Blue Scribes and the Furies were killed. I reformed, ready to help the Dragon out. Reavers pursued off table.
// DoC T3 //
Eastern Beasts into Eagle. Magic saw IF Final Trans hit the bus. My BSB died along with a few Helms. The Skullcannon followed up with a shot that hit 4 or 5. My other Noble failed his Look out, Sir! and died as well, the 5++ failing to save him. A few Helms went with him. Disastrous. Combat saw the Prince die but the Dragon dealt a couple of wounds as well, so no break test for me, luckily.
// HE T4 //
The remaining Helms with 2 mages went into the Beasts with the Frostheart. They provide +1CR through banner and he can`t hit me back with much. Besides, mages were outside of combat and with the Frosty in the mix, he`d be look at 2+ armour saves. Second Eagle blocked Beasts. Magic saw Apotheosis go through, healing the Dragon up to full wounds. Shooting from here on out did next to nothing.
In combat the Beasts were beaten, but they didn`t disappear. This was important as I wanted to be locked, safe from Skullcannon madness, during his T4.
// DoC T4 //
Beasts into blocking Eagle. Flamers move after Reavers. Magic, can`t remember, but nothing important as everything was in combat. Combat saw the Beasts finally perish. I had 4 choices: Reform vs new Beasts to charge. Reform vs Flamers to charge (they are stubborn in woods), move up to threaten skullcannon or move back to hopefully survive. With 5 wounds left on the Dragon, it would be risky either way. I decided for the central beasts since I could combo them with the Frostheart.
// HE T5 //
Flyers into Beasts. Magic sees Apotheosis go through as he stopped WBW on the bus to get the change to shoot and magic them. Dragon went up to 7W again.
In combat the Beasts rolled no less than 4 poisoned hits and an additional 2W for the Dragon. I saved 3, so the Dragon was down to 4W. The frostheart didn`t take any wounds and I dealt 3W back so he lost by 1 but passed his daemonic unbreakability test.
After this he set up the Skullcannon for a counter-charge T6. I managed another Apotheosis on the Dragon getting it back up to 6 and in the final turn of the game the Skullcannon killed the Frostheart (I had set up a lone Reaver to block it from charging the Frost with an overrun into the SD). His magic + shooting failed to get the Helms or the Mages and the RBTs had 2 alive at the end as well.
Tallying up the points with bonuses for breaking etc due to NW we were within 100 points of eachother, a
10-10 draw.
// Evaluation //
With the way deployment went and me getting first turn, this was all but my game to win. Where did I go wrong? It`s rare to be able to spot mistakes as clearly as this game. My mistake here was the supporting Reavers` on the Western flank T2 move. Consider the following:
The first shows my T2, including the bus having reformed after beating the Fiends. The second show his T2, including the Furies blocking. The second photo shows the position of the Reavers a lot better: you can see that the bus cannot angle any more because if they do, the Reavers prevent them from hitting the Beasts. The mistake here was that I didn`t measure the Furies` max distance. If I had, I could`ve put the Reavers 2 inches further behind. This would allow me to angle the Helms so that a charge on the central Beasts would be unblockable for the Furies. This would see the Beasts perish a lot sooner and I would have free reign (and probably the bus alive as there would be nothing to cast FT on while in combat) to go wherever I wanted to from the middle.
So, measure the chaff and plan accordingly. I simply didn`t consider the Furies having enough range to block me, but they barely did so and it would be easy to see if I had been aware of it.
Double Skullcannon didn`t prove to be a big problem as one blew up fairly quickly. I can easily see how 2 of them alive is a serious issue though, but with the said I was mostly in combat from T2 on. Double 6-big Beasts on the other hand is the most retarded unit in Warhammer. For less than 400 points you basically get a roadblock that makes a Steam Tank look like paper. The only way to beat this unit significantly is static combat resolution (for High Elves) and this is an important lesson: 4 can largely perform the same role as 6 vs the Dragon so knowing the importance of getting the bus in is crucial.
In the end I believe that an army like this under ETC restrictions is +1 in my favour. With a GUO it`s likely 0 as he can zone the Dragon and/or threaten with Purple Sun. I`ll hopefully get a game vs ETC Daemons as well before the team tournament though, but this game taught me largely what I needed to know about the matchup.
Oh and 6x Tzeentch channelling? Insane...