Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Blog - 05/12 Battle Report

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Bolt Thrower
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Re: Brewmaster D's Mighty Empires Blog

#91 Post by Bolt Thrower »

Another great report! I recently lost to WoC so it was timely for me to see how someone else handles them. Two questions:

1. Why did you elect to overrun with the DP's after killing the dogs in turn 2? It seems that electing to just reform may have been more ideal. You didn't lose anything here, just wondering if there was a specific reason.

2. When the White Lions and the Lion Chariot broke the warriors you pursued with the chariot. However, wouldn't the direction of flight have been away from the White Lions directly east? Meaning your chariot would have pursued that direction as opposed to straight ahead and ended up in the chosen?

Congrats on the win! I haven't used Light yet, but I am definitely looking at it more and more.
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Re: Brewmaster D's Mighty Empires Blog

#92 Post by Swordmaster of Hoeth »

Hi Brewmaster!

I am so jealous! It seems everybody has a lot of opportunities to play fantastic battles these days. Good I have a chance to read excellent battle reports :)

I am impressed by your magic. The way you make it work for you is excellent and I am sure many other players should learn from you. I guess you could give some lectures about spell casting at White Tower :) It seems it is a very rare situation when you fail to cast a spell and you choose them accordingly for each magic phase. Your opponent was very unlucky in his though. Was it because he rolled poorly or maybe he risked a little too much and picked too few dice?

As to the Lore of Light I would be tempted to try it on an Archmage just to see how it works in that set-up. What would be the lore for the level 2 then? High magic maybe? I have a feeling, however, that the combination you have at the moment is more efficcient.

Why didn't you charge his warriors on turn 2? You could block his chosen with an eagle and charge his warriors with spears+chariot+white lions. I think it would be enough to break through, pursuit into his chariot in woods and away from his chosen. And judging from the diagram it was not unlikely charge with a distance 10-12".

You recovered from a mistake in a good way and it even seems it was not a mistake but drawing your enemy into a trap :) It was also an interesting moment to see spears with T7 fighting against marauders with hisgh S and all due to spells. Good you had that spell on.

I also like the list of your aopponent. Although you won yet another massacre against him it was not an easy game for sure. I believe, however, that he can improve his deployment and be a little more patient. If he slowed down his advance on western flank to allow his units to form a proper battle line you would have a more difficult job to do. And indeed, lack of magic missiles or even marauder horseman makes him vulnerable to be slowed down by great eagles.

Looking forward that TK battle. New army and a good player? Excellent!
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Re: Brewmaster D's Mighty Empires Blog

#93 Post by Brewmaster_D »

Thanks again for your responses guys!
1. Why did you elect to overrun with the DP's after killing the dogs in turn 2? It seems that electing to just reform may have been more ideal. You didn't lose anything here, just wondering if there was a specific reason.
Mostly about the angle of approach. Either way I'm looking at another full turn of movement before any meaningful charges can happen, so I opted to overrun to try to be a bit farther north to potentially get rear charges. If I had had more of a presence towards the east, I would have likely done exactly what you suggest here.
2. When the White Lions and the Lion Chariot broke the warriors you pursued with the chariot. However, wouldn't the direction of flight have been away from the White Lions directly east? Meaning your chariot would have pursued that direction as opposed to straight ahead and ended up in the chosen?
The lions actually reform here to face east - the original charge had both the lions and the chariot in the front arc of the warriors. Incidentally, this is a great example of the versatility of that chariot in being able to add it's hitting power into very little frontage.
I am impressed by your magic. The way you make it work for you is excellent and I am sure many other players should learn from you. I guess you could give some lectures about spell casting at White Tower :) It seems it is a very rare situation when you fail to cast a spell and you choose them accordingly for each magic phase. Your opponent was very unlucky in his though. Was it because he rolled poorly or maybe he risked a little too much and picked too few dice?
I lol'd at the lectures comment :P I appreciate your kind comments, but by no means am I a master. Posting these reports have been a boon to my ability in this phase; if you look at some of my earlier battle reports, some helpful members on this board pointed out some shortcomings in the way I approached the magic phase, and it drastically improved my ability to make the most out of the magic phase. I've been pretty lucky these last few games with not failing to meet casting values - the relatively cheap casting costs of the lores of light and Life really help! Any time I approach a difficult to cast spell like dwellers or Briona's aura, I'm typically throwing 6 dice at it anyway. The last Briona's of this game, I actually just barely met the casting value!

In terms of my opponent's casting - he was casting with a responsible number of dice, but they just weren't treating him well this game. For example, I'd try casting Enfeebling foe on 3 dice as well!
As to the Lore of Light I would be tempted to try it on an Archmage just to see how it works in that set-up. What would be the lore for the level 2 then? High magic maybe? I have a feeling, however, that the combination you have at the moment is more efficcient.
I'd have to give this more thought, but I'd even consider doing a light only list with just the Archmage. I'd have to get the list down on paper and see how it looks, but I see incredible potential with the invincible archmage with lore of light up in our main battle line, with all the potential auras he can put up.
Why didn't you charge his warriors on turn 2? You could block his chosen with an eagle and charge his warriors with spears+chariot+white lions. I think it would be enough to break through, pursuit into his chariot in woods and away from his chosen. And judging from the diagram it was not unlikely charge with a distance 10-12".
You're right about the distance - it is very likely that I would have made that charge. I'm sure you've noticed at this point, however, that I'm not really a gambling man :P The spears would have pushed out precious Lion real estate, and Briona's certainly wasn't a guarantee. I doubt I could have done near the damage needed to prevent the silly amount of damage the warriors can put back. So I wanted to wait for swordmaster support to mitigate any incoming attacks.

I think the real error in this turn was overrunning with the swordmasters - if I had reformed them to face East, I might have taken the charge from the chariot, yes, but the noble's attacks would have surely helped take it down in one round of combat. This would have opened up the combo opportunity I was after. It worked out in the end, but the way I played it I had to take a bit of a risk, relying on magic to ensure that combat went my way.
also like the list of your aopponent. Although you won yet another massacre against him it was not an easy game for sure. I believe, however, that he can improve his deployment and be a little more patient. If he slowed down his advance on western flank to allow his units to form a proper battle line you would have a more difficult job to do. And indeed, lack of magic missiles or even marauder horseman makes him vulnerable to be slowed down by great eagles.
You're so right here it hurts. Although my ranged was superior to his (re: none) it really wasn't much of a threat for him. There was no need to be so aggressive on the Western front - many of my opponents just seem to run into the jaws of the waiting lion (both figuratively and literally :P). He's one of the newer players in our group, so he's still learning the nuances of the movement phase, as well as the limitations of his army. It's not very often that Chaos Warriors get rolled like that!
Looking forward that TK battle. New army and a good player? Excellent!
Me too! His last list was mostly combat oriented, so I expect to see a bit more of those nasty Tomb Kings arrows this round.



I realize too that I forgot to mention what the other armies are this campaign:

High Elves (me)
Warriors of Chaos (likes taking different lists every time)
Warriors of Chaos (Chosen player)
Lizardmen (a new addition to our campaign, great player, active in our local tournament scene)
Dwarves (the former Lizardmen player)
Tomb Kings
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Re: Brewmaster D's Mighty Empires Blog

#94 Post by Bolt Thrower »

Brewmaster_D wrote:The lions actually reform here to face east - the original charge had both the lions and the chariot in the front arc of the warriors. Incidentally, this is a great example of the versatility of that chariot in being able to add it's hitting power into very little frontage.
Ah, yes that is mentioned in the batrep. Must have read too fast to sink in. Well, played! =D>
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Re: Brewmaster D's Mighty Empires Blog

#95 Post by tethlis the slayer »

Nice report! Great example of using Eagles to stall the Chosen Deathstar so you don't have to fight it in combat. I have to say, Light is looking like an amazing option for an Elite Infantry heavy army, must try it out myself.

A bit puzzled by whats going on with his Warshrine in Turn 4 though. First off, he rerolls the Strength blessing rather than Insanity - as far as I'm aware, you can reroll the blessing for the Shrine that gave the Insanity result, even if the Stupidity effect stays for the whole game. Second:
He exchanges his +1S blessing on his chosen, and once again rolls Insanity! HAH!
Duplicates have to be rerolled, so if one Warshirine is already generating Insanity, the other one can't roll the same result. Not sure what happens if the unit already has Stupidity from a shrine but that shrine has since rolled a different blessing though - the FAQ states that Insanity can still be rolled if you have stupidity from another source such as a spell (it just has no additional effect) but doesn't say whether you can roll it on the same unit twice as a Shrine blessing...

Anyway, I was surprised your opponent didn't remember the 'duplicates have to be rerolled' rule, seeing as a Chosen Deathstar list tends to rely on exploiting Warshrine combos to get the required result, and the 'duplicates' rule is one of the ways this is achieved.
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Re: Brewmaster D's Mighty Empires Blog

#96 Post by Brewmaster_D »

A bit puzzled by whats going on with his Warshrine in Turn 4 though.
We interpreted the wording (incorrectly) that once insanity was rolled, that roll remained for the rest of the game. You're right though, the second time he could have rerolled - it didn't matter much in the end anyway though, since I didn't engage that unit.
I have to say, Light is looking like an amazing option for an Elite Infantry heavy army, must try it out myself.
I would say definitely give it a try! It mixes so well with multiple small unit lists. If you want to see more of it in action, you should check out RogueSun's battle reports too. Some really great use of lore of light in those.
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Re: Brewmaster D's Mighty Empires Blog

#97 Post by RogueSun »

Brewmaster_D wrote:
SwordMaster of Hoeth wrote:As to the Lore of Light I would be tempted to try it on an Archmage just to see how it works in that set-up. What would be the lore for the level 2 then? High magic maybe? I have a feeling, however, that the combination you have at the moment is more efficcient.
I'd have to give this more thought, but I'd even consider doing a light only list with just the Archmage. I'd have to get the list down on paper and see how it looks, but I see incredible potential with the invincible archmage with lore of light up in our main battle line, with all the potential auras he can put up.
Definitely give it a try. I'm working up to an invincible Archmage with Light Lore in the Escalation League I'm in right now. Combined with a proper support mage, some of the defensive and offensive buffs you can start stacking with your army becomes ridiculous.

Additionally you can stack some crazy things with 2 Light mages, so long as one has the seerstaff. For instance doing 2 Aura's of Pha's protection makes your army nigh unhittable against shooting and combat. Or casting Briona's on the same unit twice turns them into massacre machines. Dragon Princes with 4 attacks each and ASF mounts with 3 attacks each? Yes please. :twisted:
Brewmaster_D wrote: I would say definitely give it a try! It mixes so well with multiple small unit lists. If you want to see more of it in action, you should check out RogueSun's battle reports too. Some really great use of lore of light in those.
Aw, shucks. :P :oops:
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Re: Brewmaster D's Mighty Empires Blog

#98 Post by Brewmaster_D »

Additionally you can stack some crazy things with 2 Light mages, so long as one has the seerstaff. For instance doing 2 Aura's of Pha's protection makes your army nigh unhittable against shooting and combat. Or casting Briona's on the same unit twice turns them into massacre machines. Dragon Princes with 4 attacks each and ASF mounts with 3 attacks each? Yes please. :twisted:
Wow, that really got the gears turning. I didn't even think of the possibilities of stacking those buffs! I've got my game versus the Tomb Kings tomorrow, so I'll play out one more game of life/light, but I'm very tempted to give double light a chance as well, swapping out the crystal for the Seerstaff on my Level 2.
Aw, shucks. :P :oops:
Praise where praise is due, my friend!
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Re: Brewmaster D's Mighty Empires Blog

#99 Post by Brewmaster_D »

Hey Guys,

Sorry bout the delay in posting here. Last week's match got delayed due to unforseen circumstances.

We played two consecutive nights, though, so I'll have two battle reports ready to go in the next couple days, including my first experiment with double lore of light!

D
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Re: Brewmaster D's Mighty Empires Blog

#100 Post by Stormie »

Ah, will look forward to reading about it! One little TK tactic I've come up with, with Lore of Light, is the "Light of Battle" spell, which is usually overlooked- but it grants immunity to the Casket of Souls' magic attack (which is a LD test), so might be something worth trying out...
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Re: Brewmaster D's Mighty Empires Blog

#101 Post by KarsaOrlong »

Any body else craving a Brewmaster update? I know I am =).

(I don't think its considered threadromancy if its only been dead a week right? :lol:)


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Re: Brewmaster D's Mighty Empires Blog

#102 Post by akielzather »

Sure am, found the light mage an inspiration and currently trying it out on a support caster. So far so good.
8th 2012 Tournie P12 W8 D0 L4
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Re: Brewmaster D's Mighty Empires Blog

#103 Post by Ragnar1984 »

Hi Brewmaster,

Just wanted to say that as a brand new HE player I have both really enjoyed your blog and found it very useful in building up my understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the list. I have quite a lot of experience with Empire and Dark Elves and from this I picked a HE list which I now think is completely wrong. My gaming group tends to play 3000pt games so I hope you don't mind but I have decided to use your list with the addition of a tooled up Prince to ride with the Dragon Knights and a fe extra things here and there such as giving the WL Amulet of Light for some magic attacks, the Lion Standard for the Spearmen to try and ensure they stay put when big scary things come along etc. I thought that having read your blog I have a reasonable understanding of the use and deployment of the list so hopefully I will be able to get to grips with HE without getting massacred every game as happened when I moved from Empire to Dark Elves.

Please keep the battle reports coming as they are fantastic and it is really interesting to read both your self critique and the opinions of others.

Cheers

Ed
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Re: Brewmaster D's Mighty Empires Blog

#104 Post by Swordmaster of Hoeth »

Yes, I am waiting for new battle reports too! :)
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Worloch
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Re: Brewmaster D's Mighty Empires Blog

#105 Post by Worloch »

Brewmaster D, where are you?!?!

You can't leave us hanging like this. Surely the campaign is over now but you have reports just waiting to be posted, right?


Anyhow, I am curious how you feel about the Lion Chariot now. Popular opinion doesn't rate it too high, not because it doesn't hit hard, but because the cost/benefit ratio isn't great for it.

Do you find it to be worth it's points? Have you considered running dual Tiranoc Chariots for just 30 points more, or perhaps just 1 for much less than the Lion Chariot?

I love the model, but I can't justify the cost in my lists - that's almost 10 more PG, SM or WL's.
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Re: Brewmaster D's Mighty Empires Blog

#106 Post by Brewmaster_D »

Hey there Guys!

My apologies for the absenteeism this summer - it's been filled with lots of moves, events, but alas, not much warhammer.

The reason I like the lion chariot, and that it subsequently found its place in this list is because of the amount of punishment it can put into almost no frontage. Because of the nature of this list, with so many smaller units frontage tends to be at a premium. You'll notice in many of my battles, there is often very little room to fit in another ranked unit. For this task, the lion chariot serves the purpose. Due to it's high volume of attacks beyond just the impact hits, I find it is much more reliable than the Tiranocs. So to answer your question - I think it is a unit that is to be considered when frontage is going to be at a premium.

Remember, the tactical goal of this list, with such small units, is to deal decisive amounts of damage, avoiding attrition wars. For this purpose, the Lion Chariot excels.

The craziness has ended in my schedule, so I should be able to start fitting in some games in the very near future. I believe most of my reports are going to focus on in-store games, to add a new element of unpredictability in terms of players and armies.

Thanks for bearing with me guys!

D
[i]There is nothing do fear but fear itself... well, that and Toughness tests. [/i]

Check out my Army Blog for tactics, battle reports and general ramblings: [url=http://www.ulthuan.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=67&t=35454]Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Army List Blog[/url]
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Re: Brewmaster D's Mighty Empires Blog

#107 Post by Brewmaster_D »

Let the Bully Come

Hey guys,

So for my first match of warhammer in a couple months, myself and the fella I was playing with both agreed that we'd not tell each other which army we're taking (we both have multiple armies), and that we'd try something new.

I decided to try out my own take on the defensive shooty list, for a change of pace from my normal, very aggressive MSU style list. Below are the two lists we ended up fielding (Be lenient on the accuracy of his list, it's off of memory):

Lizardmen
Slann Mage Priest, Focused Rumination, Cupped Hands, Lore of Beasts
Skink Priest, Engine of the Gods, Dispel Scroll
Scar Veteran, Great Weapon, Heavy Armour, Talisman of Protection

30 Saurus Warriors, spears, Full command
24 Saurus Warriors, Hand Weapon + Shield, Full Command
21 Temple Guard, Full Command
10 Skink Skirmishers
10 Skink Skirmishers

5 Chameleon Skinks
3 Salamanders

Slann: Curse of Anraheir, Wissan's Wildform, Savage Beast of Horros, Amber Spear
Skink Priest: Iceshard Blizzard, Comet of Cassandora


High Elves


Lvl 4 Archmage, Ring of Fury, Silver Wand, High Magic
Lvl 2 Mage, Dispel Scroll, Lore of Fire
Noble, BSB, Heavy Armour, Great Weapon, Reaver Bow

27 x Archers, Musician, Standard, Standard of Discipline
28 x Archers, Musician

21 x White Lions, Full Command, Banner of Sorcery
20 x Phoenix Guard, Full Command, Piercing Banner, Champ w/ Ruby Ring of Ruin
5 x Dragon Princes

2 x Great Eagles
2 x Repeater Bolt Throwers

Archmage: Drain Magic, Shield of Saphery, Curse of Arrow Attraction, Fury of Khaine, Flames of the Phoenix, Vaul's Unmaking
Mage: Piercing Bolts of Burning, Fireball

Deployment

Image

With my eagles buying me a couple drops, I could see that his plan was to have the bulk of his army weighted right, I dropped my two groups of archers to take on either the Temple Guard or the Saurus Warriors, should he drop them there. He decided to pair the Saurus Warriors against the archers, and kept his vulnerable skirmishers on the right side.

Turn 1

Lizardmen


Image

His chameleon skinks were blocked from infiltrating my backline by some careful deployment measuring, so they stuck to the right flank as well. A general advance on the part of all of his troops saw him close part of the distance between him and the elves.

Magic is 8 v 5. He starts with a Curse of Anraheir on my unit of 28 archers. I dispel that using my dice. Next is an amber spear on my white lions, which I allow. He takes out 2 of them. Wissan's Wildform on his spear Saurus gets dispelled by my dice, and finally he fails an attempt at casting comet.

His chameleon skinks shoot at the eagle and manage 2 wounds.

High Elves

Image

Realizing my eagle's time on this planet was going to come to a quick end, I decided to get aggressive with them right away. The right most eagle swoops up to use his last wound to redirect the unit of hand weapon Saurus, and the other eagle lands between the skinks and the temple guard.

Magic is 7 v 5. I start with a Piercing bolts of burning with 3 dice, which he dispels with 3. I attempt a 1 dice Ring of Fury, and fail that attempt. I do, however, succeed with the ruby ring, and he dispels that with one. I successfully cast curse of arrow attraction with 1 dice, which he scrolls, and finally manage a Drain magic with one dice, which he fails to dispel. Not bad for 7 dice!

Shooting is focused on his Saurus Warriors, managing to take down 7 despite the 5+ ward given by the Engine of the Gods.

Turn 2

Lizardmen

Image

He issues charges with his Saurus on the eagle, who holds, and his Temple Guard on the second eagle, which flees. Because of the skinks behind, the eagle successfully escapes, leaving the TG to move forward 4". The spear Saurus move up, and the skink skirmishers move up to screen them from incoming bow fire.

Magic is 8 v 5 again. He starts with a curse of anraheir, which he uses 3 dice for due to the increased difficulty, and miscasts. He attempts to use cupped hands, and voila, it finally rolls a 1. His miscast is the small round template. The blast kills 9 temple guard and wounds the slann. He attempts to cast Iceshard blizzard on the archers, but fails to meet the casting value (due to drain magic again).

With shooting he picks off 4 archers and fails to get past the armour of the Dragon Princes with the chameleon skinks. Combat goes predictably, with his saurus gnashing the great eagle and passing their restrain test.

High Elves

Image

With movement, my Dragon Princes charge the blocking skinks, and my great eagle rallies. I'm left feeling underwhelmed compared to my normal movement phases.

Magic is 5 v 1. Snakeyes + 3 from the banner. I start with a one dice Ring of Fury, which he allows. It rolls big, and takes out 7 skinks. Next, I two dice a curse of arrow attraction on his saurus, which he can't dispel with one. I then fail two one dice attempts at the ruby ring and fireball, respectively. Comet doesn't show up

Shooting, with the aid of Curse of Arrow Attraction, but with the partial cover from the skinks and the curse penalty sees me take out 7 more saurus.

In combat, the Dragon Princes rip through the skinks and overrun to just beside the Saurus. I can't figure out if I'm happy or sad about that.

Turn 3

Lizardmen

Image

His Saurus Warriors charge the flank of my Dragon Princes, who hold, and his stegadon charges my eagle who flees. The steg still manages to catch it though, and it winds up just in front of the Phoenix Guard. His chameleon skinks run up to try to block a counter charge. The left side advances, with the skinks moving up to redirect my white lions.

Magic is 9 v 7. He attempts a curse, but fails to meet the casting value. Magic really isn't going his way this game...
Iceshard blizzard gets dispelled by my archmage, at which point he throws his 6 dice at a comet. I look at my 5 remaining dice, and toss them hoping for the best, thinking I'd rather have that scroll for a phase with the slann at full strength. I miss his value by 1! 19 v 18! ohboy.

His Salamanders fire at the Phoenix guard through the gap left by the skinks and steg, and manage to kill 4.

He breaks my Dragon Princes and overruns them.

High Elves

Image

The White Lions and Phoenix guard both charge their assailants. Archers on the far left reform to face the angle of approach of the saurus. Seeing imminent danger, and knowing that the shooting threats were minimized, the mages pop out of their unit, but away from the risk of that pesky comet.

Magic is 8 v 4. I cast a Flames of the Phoenix right out of the gates, which he allows. It kills 5 HW+S Saurus. He fails to dispel a successful casting of Fury of Khaine. The spell is a dud though, with only 2 hits, killing 1 saurus. I fail a one dice attempt at the Ring of Fury, but do manage to get another Curse of Arrow Attraction on the Saurus again. The comet fails to arrive.

The curse proves to be potent with the saurus in close range now - 12 of them fall to the shooting, leaving only 4 remaining, along with the hero.

The Phoenix Guard kill the chameleon skinks and overrun into the waiting stegadon. Meanwhile, the white lions destroy the skinks, and fail their restrain test, so they overrun out of position.

Turn 4

Lizardmen

Image

His temple guard and his scar veteran charge into one of my units of archers; they declare stand and shoot vs. the temple guard. His saurus warriors and salamanders move up, with the salamanders failing their march block test.

Magic is 5 v 4. He begins with a Wissan's Wildform, which I dispel. He casts Savage Beasts of Horros on his scar veteran, which I allow. He then attempts a spear on my archmage, but I use my remaining dice to dispel it.

Combat is pretty predictable; his troops kill a decisive number of mine, and the remaining archers flee. Both of his troops successfully elect to hold.

High Elves

Image

The two mages move up towards the hill for better line of sight, and the white lions reform to face the Temple Guard.

Magic is 12 v 7. Flames of the Phoenix is still in play, and the resulting flames takes out another 7 of the Saurus Warriors. They then fail their break test and flee. I start the phase with a 2D6 fireball on the salamanders and miscast. The resulting fireball kills 3 skink crew, and causes a wound to each of my mages due to the miscast. It also drains 4 dice from my pool. I then cast a Fury of Khaine on the remaining Saurus Warriors with spears, and only manage to kill 2, leaving one lonely Saurus. I fail to cast the Ring of Fury, and he dispels Curse of Arrow Attraction on his Scar Veteran. He tosses his remaining 2 dice to try to dispel flames, but misses the roll by 1. The comet FAILS to arrive.

The shooting phase sees me put a wound on the Scar Veteran with my bolt throwers, and the second wound via. the archers.

The Phoenix Guard manage to kill all the skink crew on the howdah thanks to their armour piercing banner, and their ward mitigates many of the return attacks/stomps. The Stegadon breaks, but the PG fail to catch it.

Turn 5

Lizardmen

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His Saurus Warriors rally, but the stegadon continues to flee. His Temple Guard reform to face the incoming White Lions, and the salamanders move into position to rain down fire. His stegadon fails to rally and continues to flee.

Magic is 10 v 5. He begins with a curse on my archers, which I allow. I also allow his subsequent Wissan's Wildform on the Temple Guard. I then fail to dispel a pumped up spear on my archmage, but the spear fails to wound him. *phew*

THE COMET FAILS TO ARRIVE.

The salamanders unleash on the Phoenix Guard, but only 4 wounds manage to slip past their ward save.

High Elves

Image

There's safe, and then there's fun. I declare a charge on the temple guard with the white lions, and the phoenix guard on the Temple Guard.

Magic is 10 v 6. Flames fire off again, and this time there are only 4 Saurus Warriors remaining afterward. I cast Fury of Khane on the salamanders next, and do a few wounds, then follow it up with another miscast fireball. The fireball manages to take out one salamander, but kills the Level 2 and wounds the archmage with the subsequent magical feeback. The miscast also drains all of the remaining power dice.

LOL FAILCOMET.

With my shooting I take out the final Saurus Warrior and we move to combat.

The PG finish off the Saurus that remain after the Flames of the Phoenix and overrun. The White Lions do enough wounds that only the slann remains, who breaks from combat. The White Lions pursue and catch him, at which point he concedes.


Final Thoughts

Well, S3 bowfire certainly did a lot more than I could have ever hoped. It was a pretty unusual situation for me having those salamanders actually cower in a corner in fear. The defensive style army was pretty effective - the power of the list lies in delaying/redirecting their army and whittling down their blocks via shooting so that when they reach you, our elites can do their work.

The Magic phase was also very potent. Much like has been described in other threads, the ability to cast multiple low casting value spells makes the phase incredibly hard to shut down. With the two bound spells able to cast on one dice, it forces the opponent to make tough choices about whether to risk losing his dispelling bonus over a bound spell by dispelling with one dice, or dispelling with two and falling even further behind.

Things I learned:

1. While effective, this type of list definitely isn't the most interesting to play. pew pew.
2. High Magic exceeded my expectations with its effectiveness. Flames of the Phoenix is great, demanding 3 dice to reliably dispel once it has been cast. Drain Magic is especially great vs. the Slann, as it prevents him from utilizing too many 1 dice + bonus dice spells, mitigating the number of total bonus dice he gets.
3. Don't worry about the comet. Much like a blind date, it never shows up.

Things I'd do differently:

1. I got off easy on the cupped hands. I should have dropped a Vaul's Unmaking on that unit first turn.
2. I'm not sure about the lore on the secondary Mage, or frankly if I even need him. With the ring of fury and silver wand on the archmage, you just have *so* many casting options in one model it's not even funny. I can definitely see why people pick shadow though on the secondary mage; one more way to slow down the enemy just means more shooting.
3. I would reform my archers to rank up before I get charged. They would have still been steadfast vs. the Temple Guard, and I might have been able to get some support in before they died.

As always, comments and criticism are welcome! I'll probably move back to a more MSU style list after this, unless people want to see more of this type.

D
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Re: Brewmaster D's Mighty Empires Blog

#108 Post by Elessehta of Yvresse »

You didn't reform the archer unit to give them more ranks when you knew they were going to cop it next turn, with extra ranks they may have stuck around a turn.
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Re: Brewmaster D's Mighty Empires Blog

#109 Post by Swordmaster of Hoeth »

Hi Brewmaster!

Just a quick questions.

1. Do you think this type of army list which utilises significant shooting and magic missiles barrage with quite strong countercharge is the most efficient way for HE to play?

2. Would Light Lore be as efficient for Archmage as High Magic was?

3. How your opponent felt about this game?

I hope to make more comments later when I read the report again :)

Cheers!
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Re: Brewmaster D's Mighty Empires Blog

#110 Post by Brewmaster_D »

Hey Guys,

Thanks so much for your comments!
Tiralya wrote:You didn't reform the archer unit to give them more ranks when you knew they were going to cop it next turn, with extra ranks they may have stuck around a turn.
Yep, that's point #3 in my "things I would have done differently". Having said that, my reasoning at the time was that I didn't want those units in combat another turn because the White Lions were two turns away yet, and having them out of combat meant I would get a full round of close range shooting on them. It led to me taking out his Scar Veteran in the following turn. It also allowed me to get a great volley of arrows on him in the turn before, with pretty much full numbers resulting in 12 Spear Saurus going down.

I was thinking back to a monicker I would always throw around that "the safest place versus a shooting list is in combat". So I was trying to deprive him of that.

But yeah, I kind of threw them to the wolves lol.
Swordmaster of Hoeth wrote:1. Do you think this type of army list which utilises significant shooting and magic missiles barrage with quite strong countercharge is the most efficient way for HE to play?
Effective, yes. The most efficient, I wouldn't say that. This list, like any, has weaknesses. The functionality of the list is contingent on two things: a) you can provide more pressure on your opponent to move forward than he can on you and b) The opponent doesn't have a means of shutting down the magic phase via. extra dispel dice.

Imagine this list vs. Dwarves or Empire - Their warmachines tip the balance of shooting towards themselves, and their Warrior/Rune Priests would give them the quantity of Dispel dice required to shut down the many small spells. At this point, you're just a crappy close combat army with their pants down.

I'm guessing you're asking this in reference to Furion's thread? While I agree with him that it is a very powerful setup, and he does quite well with it, however it is much more of an "all in" strategy, hence it will have hard counters.
Swordmaster of Hoeth wrote:2. Would Light Lore be as efficient for Archmage as High Magic was?
In this particular list, I would say no. The strength of high magic is the low casting costs, and the ranged threat it presents. Essentially you've got two spells that require 3 dice (Flames and Vaul's), one on 2 dice (Fury of Khaine) and 3 on 1 dice (Drain Magic, Shield, Curse)

Combine that with the two bound items, and the magic phase starts to look like this: Cast one spell on 3 dice, If you've got over 7 power dice originally, cast a Fury of Khaine, then start spamming 2 dce spells. Yeah, there's a 1/3 chance you'll automatically fail on 1 dice casts, but there's the secondary mage and the bound items to pick up the slack at that point.

The rulebook lores, with their higher casting costs, just can't compete with that kind of efficiency. In this type of army that is.
Swordmaster of Hoeth wrote:3. How your opponent felt about this game?
He was a good sport, but I can't imagine he had too much fun. I've faced off against this type of list, but with other armies at the helm, and I have to say that they certainly weren't the most exciting games I've ever played, win or lose.
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Re: Brewmaster D's Mighty Empires Blog

#111 Post by Axiem »

You didn't really mention the Reaver Bow or your Bolt Throwers doing much: your thoughts on them?

Also, you don't have to test to restrain when destroying an enemy unit, only if the unit breaks and flees, so you could have reformed your White Lions instead of running out of position.

Dropping the second Mage (if you decide not to go with Shadow) might also help round out your list a bit more and hopefully make it more enjoyable (and he didn't do much in this game). You could for instance take the five Dragon Princes up to ten and give you a nice power unit. You also don't mention the Ruby Ring all that often: did you find most of the time you were using more dice than the spells you had access to required? You save a good chunk of points dropping it.

I like the inclusion of the Razor Standard on the Phoenix Guard: I myself field them that way seven by three and absolutely love them. In your case however, how did you find they did with the Banner versus without it (some people just don't have luck with it)? Had you swapped them for another unit of White Lions do you think their result would have been different (would they have done just as well as White Lions and saving you the points from the banner)?

As for the core, besides not reforming the archers before taking the charge, how did you like them as opposed to other core options? Would this core setup or something similar appear in your normal MSU style lists?

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Re: Brewmaster D's Mighty Empires Blog

#112 Post by Brewmaster_D »

Axiem wrote:You didn't really mention the Reaver Bow or your Bolt Throwers doing much: your thoughts on them?
Hey Axiem, great questions, thank you!

The bolt throwers were typically firing at the same target as the bowmen, so their kills are lumped in with the Saurus kill count each turn. Curse of Arrow attraction turns these guys into deadly bolt machine guns, and they really helped raise the threat level of my shooting phase. I'd definitely keep them in.

The Reaver Bow managed to take out a couple of chameleon skinks on the right flank, then got stuck in combat for most of the rest of the game. It left my BSB pretty undefended, so I'm not quite so sold on this one. I feel like between magic and the other shooting, the added benefit of this item just isn't big enough to justify the risk of having such a critical leadership piece undefended.
Axiem wrote: Also, you don't have to test to restrain when destroying an enemy unit, only if the unit breaks and flees, so you could have reformed your White Lions instead of running out of position.
My brain has an inability to allow this rule to sink in. Expect me to make this mistake many more times, and feel free to reprimand me for it then too :P
Axiem wrote:Dropping the second Mage (if you decide not to go with Shadow) might also help round out your list a bit more and hopefully make it more enjoyable (and he didn't do much in this game). You could for instance take the five Dragon Princes up to ten and give you a nice power unit. You also don't mention the Ruby Ring all that often: did you find most of the time you were using more dice than the spells you had access to required? You save a good chunk of points dropping it.
I had a couple turns where I attempted the ruby ring, however a) It plays second fiddle to the Ring of Fury and b) The unit ended up in combat, so it fell to the same fate as the Reaver Bow. I think I'd sooner keep it than the Reaver Bow, as it doesn't involve any sacrifice on an important character.

While the second mage didn't do much this game (except almost get my archmage killed with his magical feedback :P), I like the redundancy he brings to an important phase for this list. I think I'll end up keeping him in, should I field this again.
Axiem wrote:I like the inclusion of the Razor Standard on the Phoenix Guard: I myself field them that way seven by three and absolutely love them. In your case however, how did you find they did with the Banner versus without it (some people just don't have luck with it)? Had you swapped them for another unit of White Lions do you think their result would have been different (would they have done just as well as White Lions and saving you the points from the banner)?
I love this setup. The Phoenix Guard are our only combat unit that can actually hold their own in an attrition war. They take so much punishment it's not even funny. The only thing that they lack is a little bit of extra combat punch, which this banner helps with significantly. In this game in particular, that banner helped me clear off all the skinks from the howdah of the stegadon, giving me the combat resolution I needed to win.
Axiem wrote:As for the core, besides not reforming the archers before taking the charge, how did you like them as opposed to other core options? Would this core setup or something similar appear in your normal MSU style lists?
Short answer: No, I don't think this core setup would work in my normal list. The reason? Frontage. The MSU style list functions by allowing the units to create good tactical possibilities by fanning out like a swarm of bees. I already have enough trouble sometimes fitting all the units where I want them, I can only imagine how hard it would be with units of 30 strong archers.

Having said that, I'll give this some thought. Potentially using swift reforms to reposition the archers after the small units have had a chance to move ahead might be an interesting idea.
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Re: Brewmaster D's Mighty Empires Blog

#113 Post by Brewmaster_D »

Age Old Rivalry

So last week I managed to make it out to our local game shop for their league night. As it happened, I managed to draw a Dark Elf opponent. Pretty fitting, I suppose :P

Here's my list:

Archmage, Level 4, Forliath's Robes, Talisman of Protection, Silver Wand, Lore of Life - 360
Mage, Level 2, Annullian Crystal - 175
Noble, Great Weapon, BSB, Armour of Caledor, Dawnstone - 168

35 x Spearmen, Full Command - 340
14 x Archers, Musician - 159
11 x Archers, Musician - 126

18 x White Lions, Standard, Banner of Sorcery - 332
14 x Swordmasters, Standard, Banner of Eternal Flame - 232
14 x Swordmasters, Musician - 218
5 x Dragon Princes - 150
Lion Chariot - 140

2x Great Eagles - 100

2500 points on the money

His List:

Supreme Sorceress, Level 4, Pendant of Khaeleth, Black Dragon Egg, Focus Familiar, Dark Magic - 360
Sorceress, Level 2, Lifetaker, Tome of Furion, Lore of Metal - 180
Sorceress, Level 2, Guiding Eye, Dispel Scroll - 185

Dreadlord, Chillblade, Cloak of Hag Graef, Dawnstone, Dark Steed, Heavy Armour, Shield - 267

Assassin, Additional Hand Weapon, Rune of Khaine, Touch of Death - 151
Assassin, Additional Hand Weapon, Rune of Khaine, Touch of Death - 151

35 x Dark Elf Warriors, Full command, Banner of Murder - 285
12 x Crossbowmen, Musician - 125
12 x Crossbowmen, Musician - 125
12 x Crossbowmen, Musician - 125

6 x Shades - 96
6 x Shades - 96

Hydra - 175
Repeater Bolt Thrower - 100

Total: 2421 -- wft???

But that's not the only wtf. Before the match, he looks at my army and says "How many points is that?"

Me: 2500. Why how many is yours?

Him: I haven't worked it out in a while, I'm pretty sure that it's 2250.

Me: Oh... well do you want to add a bit?

Him: No, it's no big deal

Me: Oh, well here, I'll take out my lion chariot, that should even things up a bit.


Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.................

Also, his lord choices are illegal - he's got 627 points worth of lords in (what I can only assume should be) a 2400 point list. Having said that, he was a really good sport during the game, and a fun guy to play with, so I'll forgive him these transgressions.

Spells are:

Archmage: Throne of Vines, Dwellers, Flesh to Stone, Awakening the Wood and Shield of Thorns
Mage: Pha's Protection, Net of Amyntok

Supreme Sorceress: Chillwind, Bladewind, Soulstealer, Black Horror
Sorceress: Fireball, Burning Head
Sorceress: Final Transmutation, Plague of Rust, Searing Doom

Deployment:

Image

Based on the size of his force, I know he's got shades, so once again I pay special attention to denying him scout deployments behind my deployment zone. Because of his relatively low number of units as well, I manage to fool him with a couple of dummy drops into placing two of his key shooting units on the far flank. So far so good! My forces go heavy right, and the game begins.


Turn 1

Dark Elves


Image

His shooting blocks move up, and his Dreadlord makes a b-line right for my unit of archers.

Forgive me for my tracking of the magic phase this game - it was a league night game, so I wasn't able to write anything down in the interest of time. However, in his magic phase, I caught on pretty quickly that power of darkness *must* be dispelled to keep their phase under control, so typically it was him casting this with each of his sorceresses first, and me doing my best to keep it shut down.

In the first turn, though, he did manage to kill my eagle with chillwind.

In the shooting phase, he manages to put 2 wounds on my left eagle, kill the right one, take out 7 swordmasters and 2 archers. Owie.

High Elves

Image

At this point I'm wishing for a Light archmage and not a Life based one. I opted for Life as I wanted to get another game under my belt with my most familiar setup after my period of inactivity, but I can see the benefit that a powered up timewarp would bring right now - Turn 2 charges would have been nice.

Nevertheless, the Dragon Princes charge the Shades on the left, and one falls to the stand and shoot charge reaction. The rest of the forces move up, trying to keep behind the woods for cover. The eagle with one wound flies to a spot that will force the enemy to at least move to kill him, or else devote the repeater to it.

Magic is a low roll, I believe this one was 7 v 3. I manage to get off pha's protection on the right most unit of swordmasters, and manage to get throne up as well.

Shooting sees me put a couple wounds on his unit of xbows before they get charged by the Dreadlord.

In Combat, out pops the first assassin, who promptly gets three lucky killing blows on my dragon princes. Luckily, the Dragon Princes attack at the same time, and put all their attacks on the shades. The combat resolution is enough, and the cowardly assassin runs off the board. What? Did you expect anything less?


Turn 2

Dark Elves


Image

Dreadlord charges my archers, who stand and shoot. His cloak halves the strength of their shooting, so nothing gets through that and his 2+ rerollable save. His right most troops back up a bit to save them a charge from the approaching swordmasters.

Magic and shooting see him put the pain on me again. Much of his attention goes towards the full unit of 14 swordmasters in the forest - he announces his reroll item and pops off his shots. Despite their minus 2 to hit (Pha's and in the woods), he still manages to take out 4 of them. He gets a black horror off on my unit of spearmen, clearing out 14 of them, and he manages only one more wound on my diminished unit of swordmasters with chillwind. He also gets a plague of rust off on my white lions, who up to this point are unscathed.

In combat, the dreadlord wins combat by charging and killing 4 archers, but the archers are steadfast. I reform them to 5 wide to buy me a couple more turns on that flank.

High Elves

Image

He's left me a corner of those shades in the visible range of my swordmasters, so they charge in - pha's protection is still in play, which helps them vs. the stand and shoot. They only lose one more. The rest of my army moves up as far as possible, with the other unit of swordmasters moving in to a spot to prevent easy access of the hydra to my spearmen. I also move up the unit of archers containing the mage, with the intention of doing an aura pha's protection.

Magic is a decent phase this time - 10 v 6 I think. I manage to get off an aura pha's protection, but it's just a hair shy of getting my swordmasters fighting the shades. I also get off a flesh to stone on the unengaged swordmasters (throne is still up) with a miscast (protected by throne). He shuts down the rest of my spells.

In combat, surprise! Another Assassin. This time he's less successful and takes down 2 swordmasters, who take out the rest of the shades in turn. Once again, the Assassin turns tail and runs, and the swordmasters reform to punish any aggressive hydra tactics.

Things are looking pretty decent for me at this point!

Turn 3

Dark Elves


Image

This is where things get ugly. His two units on the right reform and start making their way towards the white lions. His hydra moves up towards my archers, and the supreme sorceress stays safely hidden behind the tower.

Magic and Shooting - of course, he gets boxcars for this, the most critical phase. Most of his spell attention goes on the spearmen. He manages to get a Black horror on them, and takes the unit down to just 10 models left. He puts some shots on the western-most swordmasters (Toughness 7), and manages to take one down. Most horrifically, his hydra breathes on my unit of archers, passing his pha's test, and hitting every archer in the unit, killing them to a man. The repeater bolt thrower then mows down the now lone mage.

Combat, his dreadlord finally takes breaks my archers, and pursues them off the board.

High Elves

Image

This is the turn where the action needs to happen, I just hope I have enough troops left to make it happen. My flaming banner swordmasters can see the back of the hydra, so that matchup is obvious. My swordmasters are close enough to the xbowmen that he can't stand and shoot, so they charge in, as well as the spearmen. Finally, my white lions charge in to the warriors.

Another important magic phase; it pulls through for me, with 11 v 4 (!!!). "Here's where it all goes bad" he says to me with a laugh. With this many dice advantage, and throne still up (he didn't start dispelling it till after this turn >:D) I put up a flesh to stone on my White Lions (irresistable, miscast saved by throne), shield of thorns (irresistable again, saved again) and get a dwellers attempt on his supreme sorceress dispelled (picture is a bit off, she was in the forward arc).

Combat goes well for me - the swordmasters take down the hydra in one turn with their flaming attacks (he had it on a custom base, which led to more attacks for me). The spears and swordmasters took out all but 2 of the crossbowmen - only the swordmasters pursued. Finally, the lions killed 14 between them and shield, but some lucky wound rolls saw the warriors kill 4 lions in return. The warriors held on steadfast.

Turn 4

Dark Elves

Image

His two units of crossbowmen make their way east in an attempt to get into position if the white lions manage to take out the warriors, and his Dreadlord returns to the field.

Luckily, he rolls a poor phase, 5 v 4, and a plague of rust results in a miscast, with his sorceress getting sucked into the void. The rest of his spells are dispelled.

In combat, his warriors continue to struggle vs. the T7 lions, but remain steadfast despite their growing casualties.

High Elves

Image

My BSB moves to a spot that provides him hard cover, and no line of sight for the bolt thrower, but allows him line of sight to the sorceress. The swordmasters in the north reform and move up to prevent the sorceress from retreating, as well as threaten a flank charge, should the lions need assistance.

Magic, I manage to get all my buffs off again on the white lions, and he finally dispells throne with his remaining dice.

In combat, I issue a challenge versus the champion, and the lions take his warriors down to 3 models.

Turn 5

Dark Elves


Image

His crossbowmen continue their march east, with one unit breaking north in case my unit should pursue the warriors behind the hill. His sorceress moves up, around the BSB and chows down her black dragon egg. He says to me:

"Do you know what that does?"

"Yeah, I know what it does"

"Pretty annoying little thing" he says chuckling

"Your whole army is annoying, what else is new?" I say, chuckling harder.

We both stop chuckling and stare off.

Ok, so I made that last line up. Would have been awesome though.

With two of his mages down, I only take one spell from his magic phase - a bladewind on the easternmost swordmasters, but some horrifically bad rolling sees him do only two wounds. His black dragon egg kills another 5 spearmen, leaving only 5 left, and his Repeater takes the northern swordmasters down to two models. Before his phase ends, I end the Shield of thorns.

My lions kill the remaining two warriors, but the champion and my ethereal archmage remain locked in stalemate combat. It passes its break test.

I'm now in a really tight spot. One volley of crossbow fire, or one wayward spell could potentially give up a lot of victory points.

High Elves

Image

I intend to take full advantage of this situation shaping up in the center. I charge my swordmasters in as well - if the warrior breaks due to combat resolution, then at least both units will hopefully pursue behind the hill, blocking line of sight to the crossbows.

In my magic phase, I get Flesh to Stone up on the lions again.

His warrior manages to roll a 4 for his break test, leaving the units safely locked in combat for another round.

Turn 6

Dark Elves


Image

Not much movement on this, his final turn. My +5 to dispel proves extremely useful, and he doesn't manage any spells this round. None of his shooting units have any valid targets due to cover or combat, so we move to my turn

High Elves

Image

Now, I forgot to put this in the picture, but I'll explain it nonetheless. At the beginning of this turn, I make a pretty big scene about how I think my BSB can take his Dreadlord. I insinuate that I might have some tricks up my sleeve, inferring that flesh to stone makes him extremely resilient to the chillblade. He nods approvingly at my plan, and I charge in.

Magic rolls around. It's 7 v 4. I toss 3 dice at flesh to stone on the BSB, and he smiles as he throws his 4 dice to dispel it. I then smile as I throw my remaining 4 dice at a shield of thorns, which mows down his unit champion which had been locked in combat.

The Dreadlord puts a wound on my BSB, who doesn't wound him back, however the combat is a tie.

The results are:

Dark Elves:

2 x Assassins
2 x Units of Shades
1 x Unit of Crossbowmen
1 x Unit of Warriors
2 x Sorcereses
1 x Hydra

vs.

High Elves:

2 x Units of Archers
Mage
2 x Eagles
1 x Unit of Dragon Princes.

A major (and oh so close...) victory for the High Elves!
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Swordmaster of Hoeth
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Re: Brewmaster D's Mighty Empires Blog

#114 Post by Swordmaster of Hoeth »

Hi Brewmaster!

Thanks for posting your battle report! yes, that was indeed close and bloody battle where you managed to save a lot of points by having these 2-man units left by the end. :)

I was surprised to see Life mage instead of Light, especially after all the advice you gave me :) Good to see Swordmasters performing well too.

As to your adversary army list it was quite interesting one mainly due to the presence of assassins. You do not see these guys often. I wonder if he could have used them more efficiently. It is of course nice to play against DE without Cauldron, Black Guard and double Hydra and as he showed it was not that easy to win against it either.

Are you coming back to Light Archmage after that game or are there any more significant changes to the army list?

Cheers!
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Re: Brewmaster D's Mighty Empires Blog

#115 Post by Elessehta of Yvresse »

What a blood bath, congratulations on the win.
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Re: Brewmaster D's Mighty Empires Blog

#116 Post by Brewmaster_D »

Hey Guys!

Bloodbath indeed. Another turn or two would have been all he needed to secure a victory over me, although I could have continued to play ring around the rosie around that tower.

@Swordmaster: Definitely going to go back to the lore of light Archmage. I wanted to play one more game with my Life/Light setup to get back into the swing of things, but I think this match really made it clear to me that Light has so much more synergy with a MSU list. With so many small units running around, the aura buffs become incredibly powerful. Most notably, the lore of light makes this list fast. One timewarp would have had the majority of my forces into his lines turn 2, which would have drastically changed the outcome of this game.

You're not kidding about it being an interesting list; first of all it's illegal. Second of all, it's like he tried to cram every nasty trick the dark elves have into one list. I personally wouldn't have bothered with the Assassins - close to 300 points that could have made this a truly fearsome shooting list.

Some other thoughts about the match:

- The rerolls to all psychology tests (due to the HE vs DE matchup), although nowhere near as good as infinite hatred, really helped me out this match. I actually failed a couple key tests outside of the BSB's range, only to be saved by that reroll.
- Deployment really served me well, splitting his firing base and keeping the bulk of my army protected from the 48 shots per turn those other two units of x-bows represented.
- Similarly, terrain played a very key role in this match, providing me with cover to mitigate some of that nasty shooting.
- I'm pretty sure his goal with his sorceress setup was to get either flaming sword, or the similar metal buff to fully take advantage of the volume of fire the x-bows give him. Luckily, he didn't roll either.
- His casting strategy was typically 2 dice at power of darkness for each mage, done at the start of the phase. I'd have done this completely differently. I'd have started with some nasty spells, and tried to force out the dispel dice early. Then I'd have tried some one dice attempts at power of darkness to try to prolong the phase. I'm pretty sure this strategy would have put me in a much harder spot.
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Re: Brewmaster D's Mighty Empires Blog

#117 Post by Curu Olannon »

Insane game! Very interesting read and a real nail-biter at times. Very nice work pulling a win through!

A couple of comments:
- playing such a fragile list, going for speed vs survivability can be a tough call. as you played life now, you found out that you favour light - something I can definitely see as life can't really mitigate heavy losses, nor support multiple units very well
- an aggressive magical defense (e.g. daemon double-scroll, HE crystal + scroll, Dwarfs w/destroyer, Empire +Mass dice) can quickly shut your magic down for a crucial turn or two. How do you intend to mitigate this, seeing as these same armies often have enough firepower to bring your small swordmasters down with relative ease (flamers, archers + rbt, war machines)
- have you considered taking another light mage for a pretty nasty banishment cast? this also allows you to take more vital arcane items, should you choose to

As to the battle itself, I believe you didn't make any huge mistakes, at least not that I could spot. How do you intend to develop your army further? Are you satisfied with how it is now or do you want to change something?
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Re: Brewmaster D's Mighty Empires Blog

#118 Post by Brewmaster_D »

Hey Curu,

Good questions!

1. I'm of the mentality that all high elf lists are fragile, however this particular one favours the moniker "The best defense is a good offense". As such, I feel that the same policy should be reflected in my lore choices. I also discovered at the end of my mighty empires campaign that this list struggles with big flying beasties (Once people caught on to the fact that I was taking the same list, they started designing their lists specifically to destroy mine, ending in one Warriors of Chaos player taking Gaulrich and breathing his 3 breath weapons all over my squishy elves). I feel that S5 banishment would definitely help my case here.

2. This actually happened to me during the Dwarf game earlier in the thread. It certainly changes the game in terms of casting. In that game, my solution was to power through it by tossing as many dice as I could at big effect spells and hoping for the best. This worked with some measure of success, however at the time I was playing Life/Light. Double Light mages, however offers quite a bit of flexibility in the form of 7 spells with many offering a low and high casting value option. I'd likely approach it a bit differently with this setup, and begin with low effect, low cost spells until the majority of the defensive items have been used, then start going for the higher effect versions of the spells. Essentially adopting the casting strategy (albeit not quite as effectively) as the shooting/magic based list that is popular right now, then using the flexibility of the light lore later in the match to switch strategies.

3. I've definitely thought about it, but I'm not sure where I'd take the points from. I definitely missed the mobile threat my chariot would have provided, but having said that, for 140 points I could have S6 banishment and potentially either a dispel scroll for rock solid magic defense, or even a seerstaff mage for Banishment x 2. Or even a budget mage with the wand of jet, and use the saved points to boost up the unit of white lions by a model or two.

In terms of developing the list - I'm really happy with how it plays. It has weaknesses - I proved that when I got eaten by that dragon (sorry about no report on that one, things were really busy for me at that point), but the most important thing to me is that it's fun. Having said that, your last point really intrigued me, so I'll probably have one match of Light/Light setup, then I think I'll try experimenting with the idea of 3 mages a bit. I've always loved the idea of the coven of light list. I'd love to hear any ideas people have about this!

D
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Re: Brewmaster D's Mighty Empires Blog

#119 Post by Curu Olannon »

Big flying beasties -

In general, these aren't too common. In an all-comers environment, they usually aren't worth their points and will too often do too little (or nothing!).

As for all HE lists being fragile, I'm not so sure. Seredain's cavalry army, while not super-tough, can't be characterized as fragile in my opinion. Neither can the dual-PG bunker build. Your average run-of-the-mill army focused on Lions and Masters are, however, rather fragile, regardless of how your composition is. I agree that banishment could mitigate things - putting your mages in Archer units improves your target saturation: an opponent is left with choosing to either target the rock-hard Swordmasters OR start engaging the S6+ spam hiding with your weaker elements. To do this properly though you'll probably need more bodies (to hide your mages in) or be prepared to suffer a few. An alternative here is to take the unkillable archmage approach (could even give him jewel of the dusk!) and put him with the Spears.

Your solution vs Dwarfs is a very risky approach, yet often favoured by so many. I do believe however that against certain armies, you can't do anything but strategies like this and hope it works out. With that being said, is there someway to construct your list to prevent or at least reduce these incidents from happening in the first place?

As for points - I'd say drop the Chariot if you want to include another mage. Your problem is hard shooters and heavy flyers. The Chariot doesn't do very well against either of these. The rest of the matchups are easier for you to handle, in which case a theoretical slight advantage of a chariot over a third mage can be mitigated by strategy etc. My point is - try and have a solid core for your list (you already do!) and spend the rest of your points easing up on the hard matchups. In my list for example, I consider Daemons, Skaven and Lizardmen to be a problem. As such, Miasma is a much better tool than Mindrazor. Also, taking Lions over Phoenix Guard means I can reliably deal more damage in close combat, also against said armies, without magical support. This might not always be the best choice, but it eases the worst fights I can have.

So - identify your list's hardest counters and figure out what you can change to make these easier on you while not staying away from your overall concept.

Consider this: S6 banishment wounds war machines twice as often as S5 (2/6 compared to 1/6). As the average hits are 7, this means a single banishment is way more likely to leave a war machine destroyed (14/6 wounds on average). Against heavy flyers, the added benefit of S6 vs S5 is obvious.
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Re: Brewmaster D's Mighty Empires Blog

#120 Post by Brewmaster_D »

Hey Curu,

With a coven of light based list, I think I'd go the route of the invincible archmage - the strength of many of the spells in the light lore are focused around being with your units. Ideally, I'd have the other two move up 5" with the archers to keep them nearby for the first couple turns, to pump out those banishments and chew up their dispelling items, leaving the archmage free late game to unleash with some big aura buffs. Would you go the route of an offensive or defensive 3 mage? My thoughts go towards a setup like this: Invincible Archmage, Level 2 w/ Seerstaff, Level 1 w/ Annullian crystal. Then I get 2 instances of Banishment, and the potential to stack another buff.

With a list like this, my solution vs. the dwarfs would change to a less risky approach; use my plethora of low cost spells to take full advantage of my casting bonus and force tough decisions out of him, ie. spend 3 dispel dice to take out a 2 dice spell, or burn an item.

The more I think about it, the more questions the S6 banishment answers for this list that it previously couldn't. The hardest counter is mobile threats.

D
[i]There is nothing do fear but fear itself... well, that and Toughness tests. [/i]

Check out my Army Blog for tactics, battle reports and general ramblings: [url=http://www.ulthuan.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=67&t=35454]Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Army List Blog[/url]
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