Welcome to the first battle report for my High Elves! I've been slowly working on these guys for a while, as you can see from my painting log, and they are starting to come together. When I heard of a local(ish) tournament at 2250pts, I decided that it was time for the Brotherhood of the Bright Blades to make their first sally into the world of competitive Warhammer. Today I'll be telling you about the first game - I lacked energy and time to take enough photographs in my second and third games - but a brief summary of my overall performance shall suffice there, I think.
The tournament was Winter War, which Dunfermline's wargaming club holds every year to raise money for charity. It is a fun tournament, and I had a lot of fun in my Warhammer face. The first round draw saw me on the bottom table (an ominous omen) against an Ogres list being helmed by the gentlemanly Stuart. (He apparently donated a 25 pound prize to be given to the player who ranked last on battle scores with a fully painted army, as a way of promoting more paint on models as tournaments.)
My army was selected largely on the principle of "what models do I own?", but I had included two sizeable infantry blocks, as I prefer actual units on the table, along with a goodly draft of small cavalry units to try and dominate the table. Metal magic I chose for two reasons. Firstly, I really lack armour-ignoring attacks otherwise; secondly, Enchanted Blades and Golden Robe are both godly spells to attach to my units. I rolled Searing Doom, Plague of Rust, Enchanted Blades and Golden Robe; I had the option of Final Trans, but decided against it since Ogres are not the best target.High Elves
Archmage - Book of Hoeth, Metal Magic
Noble - Griffon, Dragon Armour, Star Lance, Golden Crown, Great Weapon
Noble - BSB, Reaver Bow (he went with the Seaguard for more pewpew)
Seaguard - 27, Full Command
Reavers - 5, Mus
Reavers - 5, Mus
Dragon Princes - 5, Mus
Dragon Princes - 5, Mus
Phoenix Guard - 20, Full Command, Razor Banner
Swordmasters - 19, Full Command, Banner of the Internet Rage
Stuart had followed the principle of 'models that he likes', and thus brought an unconventional list. I had no idea what the Scraplauncher did, but had plenty of cavalry to try and remove it. His Mournfang made me nervous, even in a 2-size unit, but Searing Doom gave me options. And his giants were an entertaining addition to the game.Ogre Kingdoms
Bruiser, Fencer's blades
Bruiser, BSB
Bruiser
Butcher, level 2 (got Maw and Bonecrusher)
Ironguts, 8, Command
Bulls, 8, Command
Leadbelchers, 4
Leadbelchers, 4
Mournfang, 2
Sabertusk
Giant
Giant
Scraplauncher (in metal, no less)
Deployment
After the usual chaff-off, I went for a corner deployment, aiming to use the marsh and the impassable terrain in the centre to control combats, while preventing a combined charge. I would also take the chance to let the Seaguard do their pewpew into the Ogre units. The Seaguard had deployed behind the hill, largely because I couldn't resist the urge to SEIZE THE HIGH GROUND! Meanwhile, my Phoenix Guard (unit undercoated red) and Swordmasters (to the right of the Seaguard) were placed to start moving around.
I won the roll for first turn.
Turn One
My photographs are a touch patchy, so bear with me. On my first turn I moved forward with everything, aiming to create a deathtrap of elven blades. The Reavers high-tailed it back to my lines. In Magic I put four wounds on the Mournfang with Searing Doom, and used Plague of Rust to reduce the Ironguts' save to a 6+. In shooting I killed a leadbelcher. Neither unit panicked however, crushing all of my dreams and hopes.
The Ogres, in return, ambled forward with everything. I stopped Bonecrusher, which is a spell essentially designed to kill Elven cavalry. In shooting, his Scraplauncher fired, which forced us to look it up and find out what it actually did. I must say, it sucks pretty badly. Anyway, it got a direct hit on my leftmost Dragon Princes, who lost one model. The Leadbelchers tried firing at my cavalry, but couldn't get any hits.
Turn 2
I opened turn two with some charges, being eager like that. I wanted to achieve dominance in the shooting phase, so the Griffon went into the rightmost Leadbelchers and the Dragon Princes on my left went into the other Leadbelchers. I also had some interesting overrun options on the left, while the right gave my Griffon noble an enticing place from which to view the game.
By now my trap was beginning to form. I'm essentially trying to ensure flank charges from multiple angles. The Phoenix Guard are now anchored by that impassable terrain, giving them a solid place to stand. The Metal mage is also in that unit, so as to be close enough to blow stuff up with Metal magic (= buff my units). Note also that one of my Reaver units has started redirecting the Ironguts, in the hope of generating a flank charge from the Phoenix Guard into them.
I cast Enchanted Blades on the Seaguard on the hill, although I couldn't make Searing Doom stick to the Mournfang. The Seaguard then shot two Ironguts off the table.
The combats went my way: the Griffon Noble savaged the Leadbelchers, and he reformed while they ran off the table. The Dragon Princes lost a model to their Leadbelchers, but broke and ran down the unit. Thanks to that model dying, they rode straight past the Mournfang and into the Giant behind, which suited me just fine. With no armour, the Giants were not susceptible to my Metal Magic shenanigans.
"Why hello there."
The Ogres began by declaring a charge from the Scraplauncher against my Griffon. I was so surprised by this that I elected to hold, in defiance of all logic and sense. Also, to be fair, I didn't realise that it would have such powerful impact hits. The Ironguts went into the Reavers, fairly obviously.
While the Mournfang went into my Phoenix Guard, another move that surprised me. I have this sort of mental break where I keep thinking that my opponent's models can only charge 5 inches or something. Perhaps I've been playing too much 40k.
His Ogre unit moved up, looking to finish what the Mournfang would start. The other Giant angled to get a flank charge on the Dragon Princes, should his compatriot not finish the job.
By this point our armies - both fairly punchy - were mostly locked in combat; but the table next to use (Dwarves versus Vampires) had already finished, with a clean table wipe by the Dwarves. Vicious little buggers.
In magic, he cast Bonecrusher which I didn't stop - even the Book of Hoeth isn't enough, sometimes - and he took three Dragon Princes away. Alas, fallen heroes! They didn't panic though, since that would not be the Dragon Prince way.
This is the table after we resolved all combats. The Giant had taken four wounds from lances, but was sticking around; I didn't lose any models, somehow. My Phoenix Guard also completely eviscerated the Mournfang, claiming his skull for Asurmen's temple. The Reavers got butchered though, and the Ironguts reformed rather than going forward, so that they now faced my Phoenix Guard.
The Scraplauncher killed the Noble on impact hits alone, leaving the poor Griffon to take two wounds off of the warmachine; this wasn't enough, and he broke and was run down. The Scraplauncher was now lurking in dangerous terrain, but had passed its terrain roll.
Turn 3
I ranged off all of my units, considering a combined Phoenix Guard & Dragon Prince charge into the Ironguts, but decided in the end to trust in the powers of the blessed pewpew. I moved the Reavers to railroad the chariot, which is a tactic that only really works on random movement units. Nevermind; it would at least have to do some kind of movement to be able to fire. In the magic phase, I again cast Enchanted Blades on my Seaguard, and also used Plague of Rust on the nearby Ogres unit; I think that I might have cast Golden Robe as well. I had good rolls this game.
After shooting, I had removed three Irongut models, significantly weakening that unit. I was now fairly confident of taking it down in melee.
Meanwhile, the Dragon Princes cut the Giant down, who fell on top of them and killed one. That was pretty funny. They now reformed to face the inevitable Giant charge.
My opponent began by declaring a charge from the Scraplauncher into the two-strong Dragon Princes; having learned my lesson, they fled. But it turned out to not be necessary, as the Scraplauncher threw a wheel in the dangerous terrain and exploded. Hurray!
The other Dragon Princes fled from the Giant charge, and you can see them scampering away in the background. Finally, the Ironguts went into the Phoenix Guard, who were happy to collect more skulls.
I apparently stopped taking pictures at this point, sorry. The game was moving pretty fast by this point, with only one shooting unit on the table. The Butcher couldn't cast Bonecrusher, as it is a Magic Missile and he was in melee, so he reverted to trying to throw a Maw out; it scattered.
The Phoenix Guard combat saw three elves die, in return for the Ironguts being savaged (9 wounds through) and his characters taking a wound or two. The Ironguts fled, and were run down by the Phoenix Guard, who promptly overran into the flank of the big Ogres unit.
Last turns
I declared a charge from the Swordmasters into the front of the Ogre unit, but they couldn't make it in. Regardless, the Phoenix Guard managed to butcher and break the Ogres, who ran away and were cut down. At the same time, the Seaguard executed the Sabretusk, which had sort of sidled around the back of my army. At this point all that was left was for the Giant - who kept failing to catch the fleeing Dragon Princes - to be pincushioned by the Seaguard.
In the event, my opponent had claimed the Griffon Noble and a unit of Reavers, but had otherwise only killed a few models from each unit. It wasn't his game! The terrain really helped me, and my shooting was on fire this game, letting me significantly weaken the Ironguts. Another big help was that I could play the game in the way that I wanted - controlling movement with my cavalry, eliminating his smaller units with my faster elements, and holding my big infantry blocks back until I could win the combats. I did learn not to let chariots charge my squishy Elven characters, though. I had predicted that the Griffon Noble would die to warmachines in every game, but I hadn't quite expected it to happen like this!
Other Games
I had made the mistake of doing too well in my first game, and was punished for thus flying too close to the sun by a crushing defeat at the hands of an Orcs and Goblins army.
A chap named Duffy brought 40 Savage Orcs and 40 Black Orcs led by Grimgor, and basically just walked straight over me; I had some successes, but a critical combat involving my Phoenix Guard, Swordmasters and a unit of Dragon Princes saw my Phoenix Guard dissolve (taking 12 wounds in one go) and the entire lot of them just ran off the board. Bad times.
This was a combat that we were both expecting me to win, but sometimes the dice say no; also I had miscast all my wizard levels away, meaning that the Orcs had Ere We Go while I had no buffs up, giving Duffy's ladz a critical advantage that he made full use of. Oh well.
I then sank to table 12, and was placed against an Epidemous Nurgle Wall, which I couldn't get any damage onto and was basically ground out by. Metal Magic was a terrible lore in this matchup, and my infantry blocks (even the Banner of the World Dragon-clutching Swordmasters) couldn't manage to kill his models off fast enough before the tally made his Beasts godlike. The Swordmasters fled from a flank-and-front charge by two Daemon units, confirming my opponent's win by giving him 700ish points (unit + Archmage + general + banner). I did manage to kill a lot of his stuff in the process though, giving me 8 points.
Overall, I placed 43rd out of 46, but my placing was affected by a -20 deduction for having unpainted models; ignoring that, I would have placed joint 24th, which isn't so bad for my first tournament with the High Elves, and certainly what you would expect from a 20-0-8 run throughout the day.
Thanks for reading, and I hope that you enjoyed this brief battle report! Comments and criticism are always welcome