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Re: Curu Olannon's Vindicators - 2500pts Army Blog

Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2012 9:49 pm
by Brewmaster_D
I borrowed the book to confirm a few things regarding these guys for my own peace of mind. Unfortunately I found none:

On the upside, the Iron Daemon is "only" T7 with a 3+ Armour save. This is a bit nicer for us to handle than T8, as it has our lions wounding on a 5+

On the downside, the exact wording for the -1 to hit on the K'daii is "In addition, any non-magical attacks suffer a -1 penalty to wound them". The context of the paragraph is close combat, however the unclear wording of that sentence means even shooting attacks will be forced to take the -1 penalty.

Which begs the question:

How is this army even tournament legal? It's pretty clear to me that it was not written to even the remotely same standards as the 8th edition books coming out.

Deathshriek rocket launcher - fired like a stone thrower, if the point lands on a unit, use the big template. If the unit is missed, roll the artillery dice again and scatter it that many inches back on to the unit and use the small template. S3, Flaming attacks, forced panic test with any casualties. Can also be fired so that it's a singular point, at S8 doing D6 wounds.

Empire Mortar - 25% more points, large template, S2(6), armour piercing.

Explain that one lol.

Not to mention impossible to wound monsters and S5 templates (in their special section no less!) galore making the cut too.

Sorry for the temporary derail Curu! This was my first actual readthrough of their list.

D

Re: Curu Olannon's Vindicators - 2500pts Army Blog

Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2012 10:05 pm
by Curu Olannon
Iron Daemon is T7 W7 by default I think but I understood it as such that it could take an upgrade, improving its combat capabilities as well as increasing these stats by +1 each. In taking this upgrade, one loses its shooting abilities.

I don't have the book handy, but the wording for the K'daai sounds really strange.

The army is ETC legal simply because the majority of captains voted for it. With that being said, I don't think it's the worst book out there and it's been comped very hard.

I think this list is close to what they can optimally field and I should really have dismantled it completely. The more I look at it, the more sure I am that I should've sent Saerith + Naenor into the Destroyer's flank after they finished the Iron Daemon. With 4W to go and all that power, it most likely would've died and that would give me a 20-0 or thereabouts as I would've had the Swords at full strength and nothing left to threaten me save for the Hellcannon. As such, I don't believe CD to be too broken, at least not with the current ETC comp ;)

Re: Curu Olannon's Vindicators - 2500pts Army Blog

Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2012 10:53 pm
by Brewmaster_D
Iron Daemon is T7 W7 by default I think but I understood it as such that it could take an upgrade, improving its combat capabilities as well as increasing these stats by +1 each. In taking this upgrade, one loses its shooting abilities.
Right, I didn't even notice the upgrade option. Nothing like an 8 wound sphinx that is completely unbreakable lol. There are a lot of armies out there that would struggle to do anything to this thing. 2D6 thunderstomps at S8? Yikes.

Having said that, most of their infantry looks to be pretty overcosted, so I suppose it balances out some of that artillery.

I can see it being reasonable in a comped environment, but I'm reeling at the fact that it was allowed at the uncomped tournament I played in. I could see these guys making a gunline to end all gunlines!

D

Re: Curu Olannon's Vindicators - 2500pts Army Blog

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 7:07 am
by rusty
Brewmaster_D wrote: On the downside, the exact wording for the -1 to hit on the K'daii is "In addition, any non-magical attacks suffer a -1 penalty to wound them". The context of the paragraph is close combat, however the unclear wording of that sentence means even shooting attacks will be forced to take the -1 penalty.
That's the way I read it too, it also applies to shooting. The part about -1 to wound is a separate sentence. Shoddy writing though.

Why not simply bring a Dragonhelm character on a steed or eagle and tie the K'daii up forever? Remember, it is also unstable. A Eagle BSB with dragonhelm/dragonbane gem charging it in the flank will take off three wounds minus whatever passes through a 2+ ward.

Same with Iron deamon, it doesn't do squat if charged by anything non-infantry. Killing it is another matter entirely.

Reading the book now, and I'm tempted to proxy a CD list from my dwarfs just to try them out and learn how they work. They have some major weaknesses, as have already been pointed out. Just as long as one doesn't get spooked by the "unkillable" monsters. I was worried at the thought of having to meet CD during the tournament, now that I've seen the rules I'm less worried.

Re: Curu Olannon's Vindicators - 2500pts Army Blog

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 9:05 am
by pk-ng
rusty wrote:WE list:
* Spellweaver (275pts)
Dispel Scroll (25pts), Lore of Beasts, Wizard level 4 (35pts)

* Treeman Ancient (375pts)
A Cluster of Radiants ancient ja brancwraith (25pts), An Annoyance of Netlings (25pts)

* Noble (192pts)
Battle Standard Bearer (15pts)
Eagle(50pts)
Potion of foolhardiness(5pts)
Amaranthine Brooch(35pts)
Dragonhelm (10pts)

8x Dryads (96pts)

* Glade Guard (208pts)
Banner of Eternal Flame (10pts), 15x Glade Guard (180pts), Musician (6pts), Standard Bearer (12pts)

10x Glade Guard (120pts), Musician (6pts)

10x Glade Guard (120pts), Musician (6pts)

10x Glade Guard (120pts), Musician (6pts)

5x Tree Kin (325pts)

6x Tree Kin (390pts)

* Great Eagles (50pts)

* Great Eagles (50pts)

* Treeman (285pts)

I'll post some comments later.
EDIT: Five treekin is 325, not 285. Total is still 2600.
Is this 2600? From my calculations this is 2624?

Re: Curu Olannon's Vindicators - 2500pts Army Blog

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 9:20 am
by Curu Olannon
@Brewmaster_D - upgrading it makes it VERY hit or miss. If you don't get the charge and you're not fighting infantry, chances are you'll do nothing but hold them still. However, if you get the charge off against elite infantry... As for a gunline ending all gunlines, I still think both Ogres, Empire and Dwarfs can win a ranged fire-fight: cannons are superior when it comes to this kind of matchup and the Ironblaster in particular is king.

@rusty - true, indeed. Plenty of ways to approach it :) Had I gotten the Prince + BSB in against it on their own it would've died easily, no question about it. Proxing sounds like a smart idea!

@pk-ng - I get 2624 as well. Rusty's a cheater, no wonder he won :D Trusting army builder instead of pulling out the good ol' calculator can apparantly be a risky proposition ;)

Re: Curu Olannon's Vindicators - 2500pts Army Blog

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 9:33 am
by rusty
@Curu, pg-ng

My conscience is clean [-o< :wink:

I went back and fixed my post now. I played with 13 GG during the tournament, not 15, at 184 pts total, not 208 pts. That makes the tournament list 2600 pts on the dot. The list I posted here was faulty because it was ripped hastily from Evernote, and then updated to add eagle and protection on the BSB, while forgetting to reduce the archers.

I did however play with one Treekin too many vs Curu in our practice match. Never trust an elf!

Re: Curu Olannon's Vindicators - 2500pts Army Blog

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 9:41 am
by pk-ng
rusty wrote:Never trust an elf!
+1

Can't believe a WE won a tournament though. Good job rusty!

Re: Curu Olannon's Vindicators - 2500pts Army Blog

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 9:45 am
by Curu Olannon
@rusty - That's a bummer! I'm fairly certain you had 15 against me though, and with that extra Treekin that's close to 100 points extra. I guess I'll start bringing an additional 5 DP 'just in case' ;) Joking aside, I hardly think the 2 shots nor the 1 Treekin mattered in our match, besides it was just a friendly and it would've been close regardless. Speaking of friendlies, we should have a look at the calendar with regards to playing that big Storm of Magic game we've been talking about!

@pk-ng - He did play very well and managed the hard matchups he got excellently. I agree it is an impressive achievement still, but I also believe we'll see a fair few successful Wood Elf lists @ ETC '12

I started writing up the 2nd report, should have it done by the end of the day methinks ;)

Re: Curu Olannon's Vindicators - 2500pts Army Blog

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 10:29 am
by rusty
@pk-ng
Thanks! Lots of practice helps. So does people not being familiar with wood elves.

@Curu
May 1. ?

After that, my first free weekend is may 26.-27. (maybe). What if we rather spread the game over several evenings? We'll Just leave my gaming table up until we're finished.

Re: Curu Olannon's Vindicators - 2500pts Army Blog

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 1:02 pm
by SpellArcher
It's always tough going up against a new army for the first time and obviously a strong opponent so not bad Curu! While the Destroyer is scary the guided war machines are the real threat I think.

Obviously the flaming attacks thing was important, this is a major nerf to the K'daai. There's also the toughness test problem, though this probably hurts Fireborn more than the Destroyer.

One thing I don't believe has been mentioned is that the Iron Daemon can only charge directly forwards, it cannot wheel here.

Re: Curu Olannon's Vindicators - 2500pts Army Blog

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 9:17 pm
by Curu Olannon
Curu Olannon presents:


:: 2D6 Crusade - Game #2 - Vampire Counts - 10/10 points before pairing ::

A lot of people got good scores in their first game, so I was hoping that with a mere 10 points, I'd draw someone relatively average. I discussed shortly with Rusty what kind of players are likely to get a draw in their first round, and we agreed that it was likely either a match between two good players or two bad players (naturally ^^). The one I drew however was far from incompetent, as the game would show!

:: Death, Be Not Proud! ::

The lists -

:: High Elves ::

Saerith with GW, AoC, Vambraces, Loec, Star Dragon - 622
BSB Naenor with Sword of Might, HoF, Shield, Dragon Armour, Great Eagle - 208
Olannon with Level 2, Annulian Crystal - 175

Characters - 1005

30 Archers, Full Command, Banner of Eternal Flames - 365
15 Archers, Musician - 170
10 Spearelves - 90

Core - 625

26 White Lions, Full Command, Banner of Swiftness, Amulet of Light - 450
14 Swordmasters, Bladelord w/Skeinsliver, Musician, STD w/Gleaming Pennant - 270

Special - 720

3 Great Eagles - 150

Rare - 150

Total - 2500

:: Vampire Counts ::

Vampire Lord
- Red Fury, Heavy Armour, Sword of Strife, Enchanted Shield, Talisman of Preservation, Ironcurse Icon, Quickblood, Lvl4
Wight King
- BSB, Screaming Banner
Necromancer, scroll, ruby ring
Vampire
- Aura of Dark Majesty, Fear Incarnate, Armour of Destiny

30 Skeletons, full command, +1M banner
30 Skeletons, full command, flaming banner
22 Zombies, standard
5 Dire Wolves
5 Dire Wolves
5 Dire Wolves

22 Grave Guard, full command, banner of barrows
Spirit Host
Spirit Host

Terrorgheist, infested
Varghulf

Total - 2400

:: Pre-battle thoughts and deployment ::

A quick glance at his list showed me that there was nothing in particular to worry about. I wanted to get a combo-charge against his Lord. The terrain favoured my army, in my opinion, as regardless of what side I got it would be easy to pick my battles.

Magic saw me get Vaul's Unmaking and Shield of Saphery. He got all the spells from the Vampire lore but traded Wind of Undeath for a second cast of Invocation.

Image

His Lord was with the Eastern Skeletons, the Necro was in the Zombies behind while his Wight BSB and the last Vampire both went with the Grave Guard. They stayed in these units throughout the game.

I was pretty happy with this start. The idea was to steamroll East and swing around to the West to crush his centre while the Swordmasters held the other flank in the meantime.

I finished deploying first and had Skeinsliver, thus rolling a '5' meant he was powerless to grab first turn!

:: High Elves T1 ::

Lions went up full speed. I took care to advance the flyers so that the Terrorgheist would be out of range regardless of action. The rest held still, save for the big Archers who moved to within 24" of the Lord (Vaul's).

Magic is 7v5 and I start with a 2D6 Drain Magic, which he lets go. I then cast Vaul's on 5D6 and with a good cast, his scroll comes out.

Shooting puts a wound on the Varghulf and kills a Grave Guard.

A pretty decent T1!

Image

:: Vampire Counts T1 ::

His Terrorgheist opts to move west. This creates a 'free fly' zone for me as he can't march it any longer, but on the other hand my Swordmasters suddenly have to be a little careful. The rest of his army moves up, leaving me with a couple of risky - but juicy - opportunities to remove some chaff.

Magic is 4v4 and he throws it all at Curse of Years on my Lions. I manage to beat his casting value, so no harm done! Magic on a budget working a treat, here I am having my 175 point mage getting way more out of my 2 spells than he is out of his X points and 6 spells!

Shooting is non-existant, as is combat.

Image

:: High Elves T2 ::

I charge the Spirit Hosts with Naenor and Saerith. The latter is charged to give the lïons an overrun (needing a 4+).

Naenor has to move into charge range of either the Grave Guard or the Vampire Lord if I make the charge. I need 8+ and if I fail it it doesn't matter a whole lot as his position will still be good. I make the charge and elect to block the Lord with an Eagle and give the GG vision. If he charges me, I can flee and have a pretty good shot at getting away because he has to perform a relatively big wheel (robbing him of ~4"). This has the added effect of the GG being stalled for another turn while my Lions + Saerith tear apart his East. Overall, a pretty decent move I think, although a little risky (losing Naenor would be disastrous).

Magic is a low 4v2 and I go for Vaul's Unmaking - getting IF! No need for this with his scroll gone, oh well... The result puts a wound on Olannon and removes his Vamp's 4+ ward.

Shooting does next to nothing as I fail to hurt the Varghulf. Combat sees me kill the 3 units easily and reform the Lions to face the skeletons + lord.

Image

:: Vampire Counts T2 ::

His Lord + bunker tries to charge the Lions, needing 6 or 7+ but they fail it! If he had gotten into combat, I would challenge his Lord out and massacre the unit (the ensuing crumble would be insane and they would all, probably, eventually die). I guess at this point he realized the Lord and his unit were doomed and he tried to make the most of them.

The Varghulf charges my Archers. Having only put 1W on it, I'm not too confident about this matchup...

Naenor is charged by the Grave Guard and I flee, easily getting away.

Magic is 8v6 and the result is Curse of Years on the Archers (he wanted to get a '6' to kill Olannon) - 8 die but panic is passed.

The Terrorgheist kills my flanking Eagle (not shown in the diagram, apologies).

The Varghulf massacre a few Archers for no wounds in return. I hold on Steadfast.

Image

:: High Elves T3 ::

Lions + Saerith into the Lord, easily making it (both were almost guaranteed, needing like 3+ or something). Naenor rallies.

Magic sees us get 6v6 and there's no effect as he dispels both my casts (Shield on Lions and Drain) on 3v3.

Shooting puts a wound on the TG (I got very few 6's).

The Archers on the East are killed down to a single Elf, who flees. The Varghulf reforms to face my centre.

The big combat is coming up and I declare Loec (basically - if he dies now it's game over). Between my re-rolls he goes down before Faeria even gets to attack. However, as he also has ASF he gets to strike. And oh my, does he strike! First 7 attacks ALL HIT the Lions, despite not having re-rolls and they ALL WOUND as well. He proceeds to pick up another 7, hitting and wounding with EVERY DICE yet again for a total of 14 (!!) dead Lions. Even with breathing fire (which I think is crucial given the 14 dead Lions), I can't crumble the Skeletons completely due to their master's incredible feat: 4 are left alive when we're all done.

The diagram isn't 100% here - crumble tests were generally low but the remaining Skeletons all died, leaving my Prince + Lions unengaged. Unfortunately, I couldn't reform...

Image

:: Vampire Counts T3 ::

He moves up desperately in the middle and I know all I have to do now is stop Vanhel's to buy me some time.

Magic gives us 4v4 but he gets an area-of-effect Vanhel's with IF! The result drain his Vampire of his 1 wizard level.

Shooting sees the Terrorgheist kill a couple of Swordmasters and as there's no combat, it's on to my T4.

Again, diagram a little off here. As the Skeletons crumbled last turn Saerith didn't reform. I also forgot to show SM casualties.

Image

:: High Elves T4 ::

I know that I have to get the Swordmasters away from that Terrorgheist and into the middle. To accomplish this, I combo-charge the 30 Skeletons with them + Naenor, hoping to win in one combat round to turn around help my centre out.

My lone Archer miraculously rallies on a roll of Insane Courage, saving me ~85 points!

Magic is 6v6 and he fears Vaul's again. I start off with a 2D6 Shield on the Swordmasters (which is by far the most crucial here) and he lets it go. Not wanting to risk a miscast, I discard the rest.

Shooting is uneventful and we move to combat:

My otherwise trustworthy elites produce an unimpressive result - I can't hit them enough ('only' 13 hits) but disaster strikes as I roll to wound - six 1's show up and I don't even know what to think. Naenor and his Eagle perform a little better, but again I'm left with like 5 models after crumble, thus not getting me a reform or anything.

The Lions kill the last Necromancer and Zombies, making sure he'll take crumble tests for the rest of the game as his Vampire is level 0!

Again a diagram error here, the Lions wiped the Zombies and the Necro easily

Image

:: Vampire Counts T4 ::

This time the crumble rolls are a little worse as he loses one unit of dogs. The Terrorgheist only takes a wound however, as do the Skeletons in combat!

The Terrorgheist charge my Swordmasters, hoping to bring them down below 25% while the Grave Guard charge the blocking Eagle. The Varghulf also charges a blocking Eagle while his last dogs try and get away (sort of, not really sure what he wanted to accomplish with this move).

Magic is non-existant and shooting kills a couple more Swordmasters.

Combat - I direct as many Swordmasters at the Terrogheist as I can and easily kill the Skeletons with the rest. I lose quite a few in return and they're left with 4 guys (at the time, I thought for some reason that this was below 25% >.<). The beast crumbles though. Both my Eagles die noble deaths. At this point I have to make a decision and I don't want to risk charging my characters in against the Grave Guard with killing blows and all. They'll get so much bonus combat resolution against the Archers and with the breath weapon gone I doubt I can crumble them. I regard it as too risky and there's always the Varghulf to kill for my Prince ;)

Image

:: High Elves T5 ::

Saerith charges the Varghulf, Naenor the dogs. Magic is uneventful and we move to combat.

The Archers lose badly and run, he decides to pursue (Saerith is much further away than it looks like here). The noble Elf Prince slays the Varghulf.

Image

After this he catches my Archers and nothing else happens.

:: Victory Points ::

As I thought my Swordmasters were below 25% I awarded him half points for them. The result after bonuses etc was 1742 vs 760 - a 16-4 win to the High Elves! This should've been 17-3 with proper points for the Swordmasters, but it's my own fault and regardless nothing can be done now as this result affected my next pairings.

:: Evaluation and Conclusion ::

At the very least, this game was a lot easier than my first! With that being said, I think this should've been a clean 20-0 given his list and my good start. I don't know what I could've done differently though, I felt that everything was working as it should. I won't blame the dice either as they weren't really that extreme, though it may seem like it. This game really showed me just how hard it can be to get those last points to achieve the biggest victory. A big part of why I couldn't do this was because his Grave Guard had killing blow, otherwise I could've probably engaged them with my flyers. As it was, they would be facing 4+ attacks each, not a perfect situation.

I think my opponent played fairly well. He made a couple of deployment mistakes, mainly isolating his Lord like that. My list really punishes this though, so you'll have to deploy very well for there to not be anything for me to take advantage of. His mid and end-game play was pretty much perfect, given his position, which helped to prevent me from getting those last 4 points.

Oh and by the way, while I was facing fairly good players Rusty kept meeting people who didn't know all the rules and cruised his way in to another easy victory ;)

I'm sure you have some comments so bring them on :)

~Olannon

Re: Curu Olannon's Vindicators - 2500pts Army Blog

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 9:46 pm
by eladimir
The huge group of 30 archers, what were they shooting at all this time. I kept expecting to read somewher eyou were decimating units of undead. Were shots always at the vargulf? Do you wish you had 30 spearmen in stead?

Re: Curu Olannon's Vindicators - 2500pts Army Blog

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 9:50 pm
by Curu Olannon
@rusty - May 1. sounds good. I'll try and organize some more guys ;)

@SpellArcher - he was lucky to never fail a T test. On average, he's more likely to fail one than not during the course of a game and that would've been the end of his K'daai on a 3+! I'll have to read up on the Iron Daemon indeed...

@eladimir - T1 they shot at the Grave Guard, killing 1. T2 they shot the Terrorgheist and managed 0 or 1 wounds. T3 same story. T4 not much to do than shoot Grave Guard, next to no effect. Spearmen would be equally useless, even more so since the Terrorgheist could've taken up a central position instead (not fearing all those shots). Also remember that Curse of Years took out a lot of them, reducing my firepower.

High Elf Archers, almost regardless of numbers, hardly ever decimate anything without magical support. The thing is though that they fight as well as Spears in melee and I find that the added flexibility of longbows far outweighs the 5+ save of Spears, even at an increased cost.

Re: Curu Olannon's Vindicators - 2500pts Army Blog

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 3:18 am
by Brewmaster_D
This was a great game - not much for me to add here. The Vampire Lord rolling 14 wounds was about the only outlying roll that you could say effected the game much - prevented your reform and slowed your unit's abilities to get back into the fray quickly.

It's funny, you hear undead players always talking about how poor their skeletons are at actually tarpitting due to crumble, and I think this match really illustrates what they mean pretty nicely. You shred through 30 strong units of these guys in essentially one round of combat!

I'm really excited to see if in all of these matches anyone actually manages to take down the Dragon. I'm betting no, but that's only because that's what I want to happen :P

D

Re: Curu Olannon's Vindicators - 2500pts Army Blog

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 2:11 pm
by Curu Olannon
Yeah Skeletons are pretty bad I think. Zombies on the other hand are downright scary due to their insanely low cost. To be fair though, letting relatively intact High Elf elites engage any kind of light infantry should be a massacre.

As for the Dragon - I won't spoil anything but you know it has a fairly decent track record as far as survival's concerned :) Next game's against Dwarfs and it was without doubt one of the more interesting games I've had against them. I'm going to wait a day or two with writing up the report to let people read up on game 2 etc first, however I will give you a couple of teasers:
- the only non-flaming war machine was a Grudge Thrower, which I managed to cast Vaul's at in my T2 with IF to take away its Rune of Accuracy
- the anvil can indeed be annoying!
- rolling two or more 6's on 3D6 is hard :(
- high leadership, even with re-rolls, isn't always enough!

Re: Curu Olannon's Vindicators - 2500pts Army Blog

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 2:23 pm
by Marwynn
Well played, again, sir.

Where do you think his Lord should've been placed for maximum effect?

Re: Curu Olannon's Vindicators - 2500pts Army Blog

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 3:08 pm
by Curu Olannon
Thanks ;)

He would've needed all the characters together I think, with the GG. With this list though I think it would be relatively easy to trap them and combo-charge. As this deployment developed, I think those Skeletons were the worst possible choice - directly where I wanted them.

Re: Curu Olannon's Vindicators - 2500pts Army Blog

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 3:43 pm
by Brewmaster_D
Part of the problem that Curu's opponent faced here is that he really didn't have any decent solutions for that dragon. The terrorgheist is itself very vulnerable to getting mowed down in one round, and beyond that, he doesn't really have any options to deal with the speedy threat.

To me, it doesn't really matter where the vampire is; the Dragon is a hard counter to blocks of infantry, as we've seen time and again. This whole notion makes me crazy happy too, because it is the exact opposite of what the internet told us would be true. "Big monsters aren't viable this edition because steadfast and cannons. Full stop".

The Dragon, it turns out, is so fast that it is normally engaged and chewing through troops T2 onward. This gives most opponents 1 turn to do their damage; I'm not even confident the coven could shut this thing down in a turn.

So back on point - this was just an outright bad draw for the Vamp player. Clearly he was a good player, as his movements towards the end of the game dictated. He just came up against a hard counter, and a guy who knew how to use it ;)

D

Re: Curu Olannon's Vindicators - 2500pts Army Blog

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 9:18 pm
by Curu Olannon
Well, there are plenty of ways to play against the Dragon even without any direct counters. I think rusty's getting pretty good at handling these big bad flyers for example, yet his army wouldn't suggest it.

As for steadfast being a disadvantage, quite often I find the opposite: remember that a Dragon usually wants to be in combat for 2 phases at a time. Steadfast makes this easier as you can expect the enemy to hold for a turn. By combining the right amount of force (Dragon alone, Dragon + BSB, Dragon + Swords etc) this can be used as to further your own goals rather than your enemy's.

As for the Coven, it looks a lot more scary now, given the combat blocks increase. It would probably be a relatively close fight, but it is without doubt one of the stronger builds against this list.

I think my opponent finished in 23rd place or something like that. Given his mediocre start (9-11 loss, 4-16 vs me) he must've done fairly well in his last 3 games. He could definitely use a stronger list though :)

Re: Curu Olannon's Vindicators - 2500pts Army Blog

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 9:55 pm
by Brewmaster_D
As for steadfast being a disadvantage, quite often I find the opposite: remember that a Dragon usually wants to be in combat for 2 phases at a time. Steadfast makes this easier as you can expect the enemy to hold for a turn. By combining the right amount of force (Dragon alone, Dragon + BSB, Dragon + Swords etc) this can be used as to further your own goals rather than your enemy's.
Exactly. This is the point that people seem to miss - the Dragon wants to be "stuck" in combat. It is happy enough to chow down on troops that are hitting on 5's and wounding on 6's.

With regards to combating the dragon - without a doubt, people get more effective as they get used to playing against it. But that's what makes this list so sharp - people aren't used to playing against a Dragon. Even a very skilled player like rusty struggled at first to get a handle on the mobility - imagine your first experience with it is in a tournament setting, and also in a meta that tells you that you won't meet one!

D

Re: Curu Olannon's Vindicators - 2500pts Army Blog

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 9:08 am
by Jadex
Thanks, Curu, for the continuous effort of making battle reports. Always a pleasure reading up on battle reports! It increases others' (our) learning curve a lot!

As an additional comment on the dragon's viability. What also makes it possible is the extreme efficiency of a HE lvl 2 mage (+1 to dispell), with High magic (extra spell "drain") and the 'annulian crystal'. It's a better magic defence than most other armies', with lvl 4's, and you've still got 3 spells and 2d6 powerdice (as everyone else) during your own phase. Basically, you only give up a +2 to casting and 1 or 2 spells. I think other armies would have to give up a lot more magic potential and magic defence if they want to include a dragon.
It must feel good, to have still such a good magic phase (offensive and defencive), knowing you only spent 175pts. on it :mrgreen:

(edit: a lvl 2 with annulian is of course 175, not 140 pts....)

Re: Curu Olannon's Vindicators - 2500pts Army Blog

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 2:52 pm
by Nemo
Hi Curu,

Just wanted to say that this is an amazing thread - the detailed battle reports with the images are certainly helping me to learn whilst I can't play much. I'll admit I originally started reading this thread when you were running with the Cavalry Prince (as that is the build I am trying to put my own spin on), and my attention wavered a little in the middle, but your experiences with the Dragon and the reduced-magic have been very interesting indeed.

A couple of things have sprung to mind recently:

1) You seem to be running well with the Level 2, particularly with the Annulian Crystal in there too. Do you think that a low-level caster would be viable without High Magic, or is it purely that ability to still have 3 spells that makes it worthwhile? Certainly, having less spells almost seems like an advantage - you can throw out all 3 without investing heavily in Power Dice-boosting items (such as the Banner of Sorcery), but I can see that the low-cost nature of High Magic makes this even easier, and Drain Magic is certainly a handy card to play. It is very refreshing to see an army list that is doing well going against the internet wisdom that any army is doomed without a Level 4 and the Banner.

As an aside, whilst talking about Magic, I note that these days you are tending to "discard" unused Power Dice to avoid miscasts, compared to the early days of this thread where you were running the Level 4 with (iirc) Shadow. Is this something that you have learned from those previous experiences, or has taking a lower-level Mage (somewhat ironically, given the dramatic difference in cost compared to an Archmage) forced you to be more careful with your magic strategy in order to preserve the minor-buffs versus out-and-out destructive power? I'm sorry, I've not been able to word that very well - hopefully you understand what I am trying to get at?

2) How often does the BSB's re-roll come up in your games? From reading the reports, it doesn't seem to be that often. You appear to place him near the Dragon, or other vulnerable units for that turn, almost as an insurance choice. I ask because I am wondering if the combination of Gleaming Pennant, Gem of Courage and Dragonhorn (which can all be distributed amongst your units) might not be a better option for you (or, as I have seen for other Dragon builds, finding a way to give the Prince Stubborn - which would be a more radical overhaul). Without the BSB upgrade the Noble as an actual unit is worth less victory points, and your opponent would not get the bonus points for slaying the BSB. Given that he is often thrown into the thick of things in order to aid your Prince against challenges, to strike out at Ethereal units and so forth, he does seem to catch a arrow/cannonball/blade to the head on more than a few occasions. I certainly understand the nature of the BSB, I always take one in my foot-heavy lists (though I sometimes wish I could save the points), but with your archer-core, high-mobility list I do wonder if he is not more of a liability than a help. It seems to me, though please bear in mind I am relatively new to Warhammer, that a regular Noble with (Leadership-insurance elsewhere in the army) would help you get those bigger wins you are looking for.

3) Do you think the success of the dragon-build in particular is down to the sheer power of the Star Dragon, combined with the awesome items available to our Princes and great support units? I've always wanted to run a Dragon, but I don't want to pick up a second High Elf army. The Wood Elves are calling to me for the conversion opportunities, but they have a greatly-reduced Dragon - more vulnerable to warmachine fire, slightly weaker combat stats, very different breath weapon, and don't have a combat unit on a par with the White Lions. I would love to hear your thoughts, given your experience in both friendly and competitive play, as to whether a (non-Star) Dragon build can work in other armies.

I hope I have at least given you something to think about, and that my questions are not too bothersome. I very much look forwards to reading the rest of the reports from the ETC tournament!

Re: Curu Olannon's Vindicators - 2500pts Army Blog

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 4:29 pm
by Curu Olannon
@Brewmaster_D - indeed people aren't used to playing against it. I do find however that people who understand its threat projection usually do quite well against it (a game exactly like this is coming up before I'm done documenting this tournament). I have to figure out what I'm supposed to do in these cases as I'm sure there are other ways of playing (either through deployment or radically different movement) it effectively.

@Jadex - good to know you enjoy the reports mate :) I always appreciate comments, if nothing else they at the very least force me to re-think my train of thought and reasons for unit choices, movement etc. As for the magic investment - it continues to impress me and I find myself asking if investing another 300+ points is necessarily a better approach - even without a Star Dragon! I know for a fact that a very skilled High Elf player (who played WoC at this tournament) has been trying out a similar magic setup: his thing was running a 12-strong DP unit with BSB (Banner of the World Dragon) and 2 (!!) cavalry princes. While I can see some obvious weaknesses with this setup, I can definitely see it being powerful as well!

@Nemo - hey, thanks for weighing in! Some interesting thoughts here, which I will do my best to discuss for a bit:

1) I have been considering other lores. In particular, I see Life (Lifebloom, Flesh to Stone, Regrowth are all good spells here) as a potential candidate. However, with ETC comp rules, you can't cast with more than 5D6 so Dwellers is a very risky proposition. Additionally, 5+ regen to his own unit is no-where near the power of Shield of Saphery - especially once you factor in the casting cost! Also, not only does Drain Magic give you a third spell, it further increases your magic defense. I've found this to be huge, given that I go with a single mage: it is a big threat to the big spells (Mindrazor, Dwellers, 13th...) but it also counters a lot of trickle strategies really well! Last but not least, High Magic possess the potentially game-winning spells Flames of the Phoenix and Vaul's Unmaking. These are both cast at ridiculous values! So, compared to Life (which I consider the second best lore with this setup), you have the following advantages:
- superior default spell
- a third spell for added flexibility
- better magic defense
- a better chance of getting a devastating spell (flames + vaul's compared to only Dwellers)
- a better chance of meeting the casting value of a devastating spell (11+/12+ vs 18+/21+)
- better spell selection (virtually the only spell in High Magic I wouldn't choose is Courage of Aenarion and even this has its uses)
This was my initial thinking and playtesting it has shown it to be correct (as opposed to my original thoughts on core which playtesting showed to be wrong)

As for discarding power dice - I miscast literally all the time. In this tournament, I think I almost had 1+ IF in every single game. The big issue with having a single level 2 is that he has 2 wounds. Therefore, miscasting once means that a second will likely kill you. With a level 4, you still have 2W after the first miscast and thus you don't fear a second one so much. What's more is that I frequently ran Life - where the lore attribute allows me to regain a wound per cast! A level 4 also frequently sports a ward save - further increasing his endurance to miscasts. The result is that I can start out fairly aggressively, but as the game goes on I'll be forced to consider the risk-reward ratio. Even with 4D6, the chance of losing your only mage (and with him a LOT of protection), not to mention the ~170 points, is frequently simply not worth it. It all depends on the game though, as you may have seen I had a game in which I used him as an Eagle because that was the most sound decision at the time.

2) Naenor's re-roll is HUGE. I cannot count the times it's been crucial. Unfortunately my notes usually aren't this detailed, only in a few particular cases do I remember to note this down. LD10/LD8 isn't nearly as safe as you would've thought. Whenever he dies, I really feel the pain not having him around brings.

The problem with reducing him to a normal noble is that I cannot simply replace him with items: the Lions really need their +1M banner and the magical attacks and the same applies for the Swordmasters - I do not want to leave the Skeinsliver at home. I have considered not having him on a flying mount but I can't write a list that I think is good enough with him on anything but an Eagle. While my original strategy of combo-charging with Saerith hasn't been used too much lately (though it certainly helped me to eat that annoying CD champion challenge last game), it's still a nice opportunity to have and the fact that he flies gives me insane flexibility. This might be hard to grasp since you haven't seen the list in play in person, but try and look through the various diagrams and see how big an area his re-roll covers.

To conclude this point, I'm open to the idea that he might not be optimal for a Star Dragon list, but I believe having a BSB is essential. The question then remains, how can the list be tailored to produce a more optimal setup?

3) Long story short - yes, but not necessarily. What people forget about Dragons is that the Dragon is almost never the sole reason why you lose a game! To the contrary, unlike a Bloodthirster, the Dragon can frequently be handled on its own. The problem arises when the synergy is brought to bear: last game I used Lions to devastate a crucial unit, you've seen me have the Dragon soak up loads of firepower vs e.g. Dwarfs so that my Lions rape an entire army on their own, charging in with Naenor helped down the Iron Daemon and so on and so forth. Essentially, the Dragon is a secondary unit of importance, what's important is to figure out what kind of context it needs to thrive. I believe this context is all about board control (e.g. you dominate the movement phase through a combination of mobility and firepower), hitting power per frontage (the more power you can produce per frontage, the better to support the Dragon as its nature is a rather devastating one) and speed + mobility.

Let's take a closer look at these 3 points of the context:
a) Board Control
This one is fairly obvious: One of the Dragon's main advantages is its ability to hugely impact a section of the battlefield. If it cannot move here, for some reason, then that advantage has been removed (at least partially). Therefore, the list has to be built accordingly to capitalize on this vital aspect. For me, this means having Archers which really devastate chaff, a flying BSB to keep up with him and giving the Lions a +1M banner to better provide support where needed.

b) Hitting Power per Frontage
So looking at the Dragon, this is exactly what it does, right? I mean it is the single most devastating thing we can get our hands on at a 50mm frontage. In fact, nothing even comes close (apart from magically buffed stuff of course) to its destructiveness! So, you'd think that to complement this, we need the opposite - resilience and cheap stuff? Wrong! The Dragon needs more of the same, to really enhance this point of the playstyle which allows it to play so blazingly fast and devastating. Imagine you'd ditch the Lions and bring Spears instead, what you'd accomplish is an average damage output per frontage which is roughly comparable to a normal unit of White Lions. If you however have a Horde of White Lions accompanying that Dragon... Well, look no further than last report to see just why this plays so well!

c) Speed and Mobility
Sending the Dragon into something on its own can be a good idea (frequently, this is the best course of action if you face a lot of heat from the enemy's magic/shooting), however it's mostly a bad idea. Assuming that he needs support, you need to build your list around this to ensure that the speed and mobility of the Dragon isn't compromised by its supporting elements: if they cannot keep up, then the list's synergy is far from as good as it should've been!

Add to this, the supreme stats of the Star Dragon are a huge deal (WS/S/W/A above average all mean a great deal, trust me!) as is the perfect item-combination for the Prince on top.

Taken together, this means that other armies have to mimic this approach or find other, unique contexts in which the Star Dragon can still thrive. Personally, I believe a Dark Elf Dragon could potentially work but I don't have any faith in neither Warriors of Chaos nor Wood Elves (sorry!) as I just don't see how these can produce a proper context. Does this make sense?

I'll start writing the report up against Dwarfs in a minute, it should be up before I go to bed tonight. I will admit that it is easily the most interesting game I've ever had against Dwarfs (not that I've had that many, but still...) and for the first time I felt that the army consisted of something else than simply pointing, clicking and rolling artillery + scatter dice!

Regards,
~Olannon

Re: Curu Olannon's Vindicators - 2500pts Army Blog

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 6:29 pm
by Curu Olannon
Curu Olannon presents:


:: 2D6 Crusade - Game #3 - Dwarfs - 26/14 points before pairing ::

By now, a lot of people had 40-0 combined (Chayal, among others!) so I was hoping to get a fairly easy matchup and gather some proper points. Apparantly, being 40-0 by this point wasn't necessary to be a good player: my matchup was another Norwegian ETC player (who also holds the local tournament record of 96 points in 5 games (!)) who played my 'favourite' matchup: Dwarfs.

Going into this game I wasn't sure what to expect: a high-caliber Dwarf player fielding an anvil-based shooting list was surely tougher than what I've faced before, but he had made a fatal mistake: the only war machine in his army not to have a flaming attack was a Grudge Thrower! I was hoping to capitalize on this, which I viewed as my one saving grace in this game, to at least give him a proper match!

:: I Stand Alone ::

The lists -

:: High Elves ::

Saerith with GW, AoC, Vambraces, Loec, Star Dragon - 622
BSB Naenor with Sword of Might, HoF, Shield, Dragon Armour, Great Eagle - 208
Olannon with Level 2, Annulian Crystal - 175

Characters - 1005

30 Archers, Full Command, Banner of Eternal Flames - 365
15 Archers, Musician - 170
10 Spearelves - 90

Core - 625

26 White Lions, Full Command, Banner of Swiftness, Amulet of Light - 450
14 Swordmasters, Bladelord w/Skeinsliver, Musician, STD w/Gleaming Pennant - 270

Special - 720

3 Great Eagles - 150

Rare - 150

Total - 2500

:: Dwarfs ::

Runelord - Gromril, Shield, Anvil, Spelleater Rune, Rune of Stone
Master Engineer - Gromril, Shield, Rune of Stone, 2x Rune of Speed, General
Thane - Gromril, Shield, Xbow, Siren Song Rune, Rune of Stone, Rune of Cleaving, Rune of Fire, Rune of the Brotherhood
Thane - BSB, Gromril, Master Rune of Gromril, Rune of Resistance, Rune of Preservation, Rune of Fire, Rune of Furnace

20 Quarrellers (Rangers) - Light Armour, Xbow, Great Weapon, Full Command
18 Thunderers - Light Armour, Shield, Full Command

21 Miners - Light Armour, Shield, Great Weapon, Full Command, Steam Drill
19 Hammerers - Full Command

Cannon - runestuff (flaming), engineer
Grudge Thrower - runestuff (flaming), engineer
Grudge Thrower - +2S, accurate (non-flaming), engineer

Total - 2400

:: Pre-battle thoughts and deployment ::

The terrain didn't give me much to play with, but with the cannon having flaming attacks it didn't matter too much. Magic saw me roll a 1 and a 6! Great, I thought, at least I have a chance of undoing some runes if I don't get spelleaten first.

Seeing his list I quickly realized that if either the Swords or the Lions got into H2H relatively unharmed, they would devastate everything, given enough time. Ironically, the Dragon didn't matter as long as these two got there safely.

Deployment saw my Eagles a bit off, but with so little combat potential I didn't think I'd need them anyways. Given the situation, I was happy with this phase of the game:

Image

Now, the most important part of any game I have against shooty stuff: could I win the roll-off? This was doubly important against this list because of the anvil being capable of slowing me down - if I got first turn I would essentially deny him one of his slows.

However, I rolled a '1' and even Skeinsliver couldn't help me as he needed 2+ to start and promptly rolled a '5'. Oh well, I've always known that I'll at some point have to go second against Dwarfs. Let's get to it:

:: Dwarfs T1 ::

Nothing moved and there was no magic, so straight to shooting and nail-biting:
- Cannon opens up, killing an Eagle. Panic is passed.
- GT misses Lions, despite re-rolls and all.
- The last GT rolls a 'Hit' on Faeria. It's randomized to the Dragon and he wounds her... The multiple wounds however turns up as a '1' and I'm very relieved! His Anvil then decides to slow the Dragon down, passing its 2+ needed. Not too bad for a first turn!

Image

:: High Elves T1 ::

Well there's not much to a first turn against Dwarfs. I thank whoever wrote our book for making Dragons M6 and not stupid M2 like Eagles and march everything up as far as possible. I know the Archers could very well end up having a vital role, just not yet so nothing's wasted here.

Magic gives me a 5v9000+ split and I decide to try now: if I can neutralize that non-flaming Grudge Thrower then my Dragon stands a really good chance at devastating this game (rules question - how does Vaul's Unmaking actually affect Dwarf runed-up War Machines? It was ruled so that it destroyed all the runes at Crusade, but I only found out about it afterwards). I manage to get two 6's and I remove the accuracy rune!

Suddenly things felt way better. Now, if only I could make it through one more turn...

Image

:: Dwarfs T2 ::

His Miners enter the field and threaten my Archers and Swordmasters. The Siren Song Thane moves out of his unit, placing himself a convenient 21.5" away from Saerith.

We go to the shooting phase, he starts up with the Thunderers against Naenor. He manages a staggering 6W but Naenor isn't intending to go down any time soon, saving all of them with his 4+ re-rollable! His cannon puts 2W on an Eagle while the Grudge Thrower kills a handful of Lions. He contemplates using the anvil to flank my Swordmasters but ends up slowing Naenor to M2 instead. His Grudge Thrower mocks Olannon's skills as it lands a direct 'hit' on Faeria again! She receives the randomization and loses 3 wounds this time, down 4 total.

Image

:: High Elves T2 ::

The Lions are too far away for it to be worth risking a charge, instead I march them up. I make a somewhat curious move with the Swordmasters here: marching up the middle means I must take a lot of heat, instead I go East behind the Lions where the crossbows can't see me. This has the added benefit of concentrating my combat units where I need to kill him the fastest and I'm confident I can make room for it all to happen relatively smooth.

Saerith is of course Siren'd out and fails at rolling 12+ on Swiftstride, thus being left in the open again.

As I don't see any value in casting anything, I skip magic and go to shooting. My Archers perform ok, killing off 2 models each.

Image

:: Dwarfs T3 ::

His Hammerers move up to block my White Lions and his Miners charge my Archers - losing a couple to Stand and Shoot. His Thane and Master Engineer block my Eagle's path to his Grudge Thrower.

Shooting again and his supposedly 'inaccurate' Grudge Trower lands yet another 'hit' on Faeria! This time however he rolls a '1' to wound her and I breath a sigh of relief. The Crossbows then decide to try their luck and manage a staggering 3W prior to saves! I fail 2 of them and she's down to a single wound. His Thunderers then decide to try their luck and they manage to inflict a single wound... I need a 5+ to save her, which I fail and she goes down! Adding insult to injury, the cannon kills an Eagle which panics my Spears while the anvil wounds Naenor and slows him down.

Combat sees the Miners easily kill me down to ~8 Archers and I flee. I roll a crappy '3' for my flee distance but his is just good enough to catch me - a '4'!

Image

:: High Elves T3 ::

Lions charge Hammerers. Now, this is a tricky one: I decide to move my Swordmasters up right behind the Lions. The thought here is to combat reform the Lions in his T4. I can trade a couple of blows for a bit and then reform without much injury (being stubborn most certainly helps here!). This has the benefit of giving everything (including the Swordmasters) hard cover from his Thunderers. Saerith tries as well, needing 6+, but fails and is left on his own in the middle of no-where, feeling a lot smaller than a turn ago when he was riding a mighty Star Dragon. My spears rally and Archers shuffle a bit, taking care to be out of his charge arc. Naenor moves up, though he's fairly slow.

Magic is something I again feel is not worth spending time on so I jump to shooting where I kill a couple of his Miners. The unit is now likely to lose a combat by the time he engages me given their reduced size and another round of shooting + stand and shoot.

Combat sees my Lions roll poorly and lose. I'm stubborn but then again LD8 isn't all that... I fail my break test and my pulse jumps to like 200, but luckily Naenor's re-roll saves me! Phew!

Image

:: Dwarfs T4 ::

No charges are declared and movement is minimal.

Shooting sees his Grudge Thrower AGAIN land a hit on Saerith. He wounds me, I fail my 4+ ward and he rolls the required 3+ to kill me outright, netting him no less than 722 victory points. So much for making use of Vaul's Unmaking... His Thunderers try their luck against Naenor and wound me once! The rest kill the last Eagle and down a few Archers. The Anvil slows Naenor yet again (a wise choice as a charge on a War Machine + pursuit off the table would be perfect!).

Combat - my Lions roll a lot better this time and win combat by 2 or 3. Regardless, he is stubborn and so tests on LD9. As I'm ready to declare my combat reform however he FAILS his re-rollable LD9 and flees! He is so close to his own units that he flees off the table and I pursue into the Thunderers. Wow, so much for that carefully set up position! I actually think this hurt me more than him because now my Swordmasters have to spend yet another turn out in the open while my Lions would've devastated him given another turn (they were 19 strong I think, while he had ~14 left) with a frontage of 8. Regardless, his lines were now wide open. Could I kill enough before the end of T6 to make up for the loss of Saerith? Could Naenor possibly survive with 1W? Would my centre lose out against his artillery + Miners? I had all these questions and a million more racing through my head as we went to my T4.

Image

:: High Elves T4 ::

Ok, first things first: start with the easy part to keep your mind free of nuissances when you have to consider the hard parts. The centre was mine to dominate and I knew it. Turning the Spears around and backing the Archers off (to a position where the Spears could counter-charge) gave me a good starting point. I also took care to place the 1W Olannon on the far edge where he would be impossible to hit if I had to charge in. I didn't want to leave him alone either with all the artillery still alive and pounding. Naenor moved up as well, intent on being in charge range regardless of what would happen next turn.

The Swordmasters then took up a position where they barely had Arc to the Anvil, while keeping a real threat up against his centre. I was betting on the Lions to go through those Thunderers as though they were butter. Magic was skipped yet again and in the shooting phase I killed a couple more Miners. They were now down to 7, while my Archers were just above 20.

Combat saw the Lions easily kill the Dwarfs and I made a mistake as I pursued them: their angle took me off the table (should've seen this coming) which was completely unnecessary: with his lack of firepower I could've reformed instead.

Image

:: Dwarfs T5 ::

He reformed his Quarrellers to 5-wide, facing Naenor and moving up. He decided the Miners stood a better chance of surviving by not charging and so kept them still.

Shooting saw him kill a few Swordmasters, but not enough to stop their advance. One GT was too close however and killed a few Archers instead. He then surprised me big-time as he used the Anvil to charge the Quarrellers into Naenor! Wow, I completely forgot about this possibility and their Great Weapons were now posing a huge threat. His first round of combat wasn't nice to him as he missed 7 out of 8 attacks and the last failed to wound! I lost combat but held on re-rollable LD8.

Image

:: High Elves T5 ::

Swordmasters charge the Anvil, Lions move back in, this time 6 wide. The diagram's a bit off here, but I was unable to position them to get a flank arc to the Quarrellers because of the 1" rule to either side. I made sure that they had a column to his War Machines while letting the Swordmasters pass them to engage the Quarrellers.

Magic skipped and shooting kills 2 Miners, however relatively speaking he's now in a better position than last turn because his GT killed quite a few of mine.

Combat sees the Swordmasters take the Anvil down to 2W for 1W in return. Being unbreakable, he isn't going anywhere. Naenor is wounded 4 times this round, but I save them all!

Image

:: Dwarfs T6 ::

His Miners decide to try their luck - the Archers aren't deep enough for the artillery to be likely to bring them beneath 25%. A good stand and shoot kills 3 however and there's only 2 left!

Combat - the Archers lose but hold on steadfast. Naenor is wounded 3 times, but again i save them all! The Swordmasters finish the Anvil and reform to face the Quarrellers.

Image

:: High Elves T6 ::

The last turn of the game, and I'm desperately looking for more victory points: The Spears counter-charge the Miners, the Lions go against the closest War Machine and the Swordmasters, intent on helping Naenor, flank the Quarrellers.

Magic sees me cast Shield of Saphery on the Archers.

Shooting is void so we go to combat:
The Lions make short work of the War Machine. The Spears and Archers fail to kill the last Miner and he even passes his break test! Naenor and the Swordmasters bring the Quarrellers down to 5 strong. He directs 1 attack against the Swordmasters(max of what he can) but fails to hit. The last 4 go against Naenor, scoring 2 wounds... Again, I manage to save both! Since he didn't kill any Swordmasters he's not Steadfast and fails his break test. I run him down, and that's the game!

Image

:: Victory Points ::

Counting up I've killed 1881 points worth of Dwarfs, while he's killed 1042 points worth of High Elves. The result is a 15-5 win to the High Elves!

:: Evaluation and Conclusion ::

Wow, what a game! A lot of crucial moments, nail-biting dice throws and close calls. This could easily have been a totally different result.

Early-game I think I did what I could, but Saerith's view arc was terrible given that I knew he had the Siren Song Thane and where he was. I probably won't make this mistake again any time soon. Mid-game I should've restricted the Lions since his Thunderers would auto-flee off the table. Really poor mistake, especially given the fact that I had taken a mental note of their angle during deployment. I could blame it on having little time (this was the only game where I was worried about the time actually!) but it's such a basic mistake really. Hopefully, lesson learned!

Late-game - I think it played itself. Arguably, Naenor should've attempted a charge or stayed still. Forgetting about the Anvil's movement-boost almost cost me a TON of points, pure luck prevented him from dying - indeed Naenor's last man stand saved me a solid victory.

A big thanks to my opponent for a truly great game. He was a real sport to the very end - when I kept passing those 4+ re-rollables he swore more than once, but it was with a smile on his face and a laugh right afterwards, as if showing frustration more than anger (which I can completely understand, having played against Rusty's Daemons and uncanny 5+ rolls). I hope he enjoyed the game, too!

As far as luck is concerned, some outrageous rolls definitely impacted the game. However, I think we had a fair share of bad luck/good luck on both sides: the constant 'hit' markers on his Grudge Thrower really killed my General off way sooner than it should've. Indeed, passing that 6+ to charge would see me get into combat with the Hammerers and thus likely save 722 (!!) victory points. Naenor's continuous luck against the Quarrellers was also huge though, but I doubt this had more of an impact than the rolls affecting Saerith.

Anyways, thanks for reading! I hope you found this interesting and that you'll let me know any comments you might have :)

Regards,
~Olannon

Re: Curu Olannon's Vindicators - 2500pts Army Blog

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 8:29 pm
by rusty
Well played. I face Stian last year, and he's good. I'm not really sure how he could have countered you properly in this game, as he didn't have the shooting to stop both the dragon, swordmasters and white lions.

Re: Curu Olannon's Vindicators - 2500pts Army Blog

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 9:51 pm
by Jimmy
Thanks for the reports Curu, always enjoyable to read them.

Certainly some nail biting moments as you've pointed out, I honestly thought it wasn't even going to be a contest but he managed to get those wounds through at crucial times and the poor dragon ate dirt. :(

Re: Curu Olannon's Vindicators - 2500pts Army Blog

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 9:55 pm
by Seredain
Wicked set of battles Curu! My heart was in my mouth when those machines took your dragon down, but all worked out in the end, eh?

I have a quick question if you wouldn't mind (I've skimmed a few pages and I'm not sure if this has been dealt with yet - perhaps I've missed it): how are you finding your local metagame adapting to the dragon?

Great work as ever - I've really enjoyed your in-depth reviews.

Re: Curu Olannon's Vindicators - 2500pts Army Blog

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 10:52 pm
by jwg20
Great report Curu! Really enjoying watching the dragon run rampant (and dying tragically in the last game :( )! I actually directed my girlfriend to your thread as she is starting HE and wants to run a dragon. I am sure she will learn a lot reading your reports!

A quick rules comment:

The Anvil cannot target your BSB with the decrease movement ability (I know this from facing dwarves with my eagle prince). The wording of the rune reads that it cannot target a solo character UNLESS he is a large target (So your dragon is fine, your eagle noble is not). It would have significantly changed the dynamic of the game and allowed you to take out those pesky warmachines earlier and probably netted you quite a few extra VPs. Good thing to keep in mind next time you face an anvil!

Anyway, good win and congrats! Keep the reports coming! :D

Re: Curu Olannon's Vindicators - 2500pts Army Blog

Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2012 3:50 am
by pk-ng
Before I forget to answer your Vaul's Unmaking on runes item I'll answer it.
Vaul's Unmaking will destroy the runic item not the rune.
E.G Runelord might have Runic Talisman - Spelleater & Runic Armour - Master Rune of Gromil & Rune of Preservation.
I target him and say destroy Runic Armour then he loses his master rune of gromil & rune of preservation.

Edit: Finished reading it and good game!