2500 TK vs WOC Dawn Attack

[Jimmy]

The Battle of Bird###### Hill (Dawn Attack)

My brother was up for the weekend so he opted to face the 6 sphinx list with a chaos list.


Warriors of Chaos Army

Level 4 - Tzeentch, Puppet, Golden eye, Roar, disc, I10 sword
Level 2 - Tzeentch, Blood of Tzeen, Talisman of Pro
BSB - MOT, Banner of the Gods
49 Chaos Marauders of Tzeentch - FC, LA, Shields
20 Chaos Warriors of Tzeentch - FC, Warbanner
19 Chaos Warriors of Nurgle - FC, GW, Festering Shroud
Hellcannon
Chaos Giant of Slaanesh

My list:

Tomb Prince - General, GW, Armour of Destiny, Warsphinx, FB
Liche Priest - Level 2, Feedback Scroll
19 Archers - Std
20 Archers - Std
6 Chariots - Flaming
5 Horse Archers
3 x Warsphinx - FB
Casket of Souls
2 x Necrosphinx

Spells

TK - dessication, vengeance
L4 - gateway, call to glory, flicking fire, baneful transformorgation,
L2 - flickering fire, pandemonium

deployment



I rolled a 6 and got to go first!

TK 1



Movement and nothing else exciting, shooting and magic do nothing.


WOC 1



Magic sees pandemonium dispelled however Infernal gateway goes off on tomb prince. I use my feedback scroll which only yields a single wound. Gatway slays the warsphinx and the prince wards one wound. The hellcannon then kills the tomb prince!!

tk 2



Shooting manages a single wound on the giant.

woc 2



Giant and nurgle warriors charge warsphinx, warriors make it.

Pandemonium goes off. Gateway on warsphinx on IF killing it. Miscast does nothing (7).

2 wounds on casket with roar.

Warriors hold necrosphinx and do two wounds.

TK 3



Warsphinx charges the giant.

I reposition the Necrosphinx in order to trap the Level 4 however of course in the magic phase Light of death kills the lvl 4.

Combat sees the Necrosphinx break and pursue the warriors falling short 1" of the marauders. Warsphinx held with Giant.

WOC 3



Marauders charge into necrosphinx.

Magic phase sees me dispel pandemonium.

2 wounds on southern Necrosphinx with hellcannon.

Giant chomps 2 wounds onto warsphinx I do one back.

Necrosphinx dies to crumble. Marauders overun 10"

TK 4



Warsphinx charges flank of Giant.

Magic sees me get desiccation off on marauders. Archers kill 4 marauders.

Giant kills damaged Warsphinx, charging Warsphinx kills giant, giant falls kills 8 marauders and Warsphinx overruns into Marauders.

WOC 4



Hellcannon drops NS.

Crew KB BSB in combat. Thundercrush hits, does 5 wounds. Thunderstomp does 1 wound. Marauders break, flee 7, I pursue 2".

TK 5



I charge with the Warsphinx into the rear of the marauders who fails terror test/caught/destroyed and I reform.

Magic sees me get desiccation on the Hellcannon negging S/T by 2. Archers do 2 wounds on HC and 2 warriors drop.

WOC 5



Warriors and hellcannon charge and destory horse archers. Overrun 2" short of chariots.

TK 6



Chariots charge into warriors.

Light of death kills hellcannon.

Desiccation on warriors.

Archers kill remaining chaos dwarfs.

Chariots kill 3 warriors, warriors do 7 wounds back, crumble to 2 chariots left.

WOC 6



Warriors fail fear 1 wound on chariots. Chariot do nil back. 1 chariot left on 1 wound.

TK Victory!

Conclusion.

Well unsure about the 6 sphinx list. I was unlucky/stupid to deploy the prince where he was but my brother was damn lucky with his Infernal Gateways and Hellcannon shots!!

Cool list and I will probably invest in another 3 sphinxes to keep playing with it!

[Elessehta of Yvresse]

I list of big monsters, I can imagine it being fun to play with, and beating WoC means it works okay.

[Jimmy]

My own personal review of the game:

Deployment:

Dawn Attack is always going to be a tricky one so it was a real trial by fire, I really should have kept my Tomb Prince a little more central as then he would have been out of range of Gateway (for the first turn at least!)

Turn 1 - Not much to see here, everything rolls up with the chariots beginning to peel around the flank. Horse archers moved up in order to reposition an enemy unit later in the turn and just get in the way and give my opponent something to think about.

Turn 2 - There was no getting away from the cheap magic my opponent had and his uncanny accuracy with his Hellcannon, just frustration watching those great dice rolls!

Turn 3 - I felt this was the turning point of the battle, I managed to nail the level 4 after setting up a trap for him in case he was tempted to charge the casket or archers. He was great at dropping a sphinx per turn with damn gateway so a breath of relief when I finally dropped him. Looking back on this turn a few days after the game there raises the question of reforming with the Necrosphinx rather than overrunning him however this can be examined fairly closely.

If I didn't pursue the Nurgle warriors they would have been blocking the Marauders from any movement the following turn but there was an almost guarantee that they would have rallied with the BSB nearby. I know for a fact I didn't put much thought into this whilst playing the game which really highlights the importance of taking that extra 30 seconds to think of all your options before doing the first thing that comes to mind. The Necrosphinx was only on a single wound as it was and with the Hellcannon still largely active I don't think it would have survived the battle but it would have been nice if it could have achieved a little more.

Turn 4 - The giant taking out a Warsphinx was such a shame! 2D6 wounds with no armour saves - ouch!! I did my best to target the giant with archer fire before the combats but the wounds I did he regenerated with the first chomp attack on the Warsphinx in the previous round so it was a real up hill battle. I ended up using my breath weapon to drop his last two wounds in order to overrun into the Marauders otherwise this could have opened up my entire 'gun line' to the Marauders and it would have been over.

Turn 5 - Dropped the BSB to a lucky killing blow in combat which was great, secondly thundercrush hitting and doing a fair amount of casualties was great with desiccation off on them (do you get parry saves from Thundercrush?). Perhaps I should have just reformed with the Warsphinx to engage the Warriors and used my archers/casket to pepper the remaining Marauders is they rallied.

Turn 6 - This is where I decided to use the Horse archers to force my opponent to give me a target for the chariots. I was extremely lucky that my chariots didn't fully crumble away. Perhaps it was wrong of me to charge the warriors?

To me I almost feel like chariots are throw away units, they do their damage on impact hits and after that they're pretty much going to die first round or crumble shortly after. Add a character to boost their chances and he just gets his mount axed. Great against S3 infantry but who really takes them these days? Skaven......anyone else? Besides when I deployed my unit I broke one of the crew so immediately I was thinking how am I going to remove these fragile units from my army. They do have the flaming banner though so that's something.

Unit evaluations:

Tomb Prince - Not much to say, perhaps I could put him on a chariot instead to support that unit?

Liche Priest - Will be interesting to see how the scroll goes on an opponent without a ward on his level 4/caster which is most armies. Won't drop to level 1 just yet. Desiccation was fantastic to have.

19 Archers - Std
20 Archers - Std
6 Chariots - Flaming
5 Horse Archers

Core was good, tempted to drop the chariots for more archers and horse archers however.

3 x Warsphinx - FB

Solid stone but where is my save??

Casket of Souls

Required.

2 x Necrosphinx

S5 just irks me. How can this thing hit just as hard as an elf with a two handed weapon I ask?

Anyway, I'm certainly not done with this list and it's official I have another 3 sphinxes on the way to make the army up and there could be another battle report up as soon as next weekend with this list.

[krysith]

With as good as the hellcannon was shooting, do you think it would have been a good idea to try to tie up the HC with your horse archers for a turn? They almost certainly would have lost that combat, but they might have saved a necrosphinx from destruction. Also, don't horse archers have scout as well as vanguard (or am I thinking of the other cavalry)? If so, shouldn't you have deployed them closer to the enemy?


I like the idea of a sphinx-heavy TK list, since I think it plays to their strengths. However, in your list as played I see their biggest weakness as well - they are as slow as dwarves. I think a much stronger shooting phase would improve the efficiency of this list by forcing your opponent to come to you. In this battle your opponent equalled your shooting and met you halfway - as hot as their magic and hellcannon dice were they could have sat back, played defensively and possibly won. A second casket, a catapult, or more bows would make for a scarier list. More units of horse archers might be ideal, since keeping warmachines from shooting your sphinxes is key.

[Jimmy]

You bring up some great points krysith.

It never occured to me to charge the Hellcannon, if I charged it in my turn it would have slaughtered me, reformed, and shot in its own turn anyway. If I get in front of it the opponent can either charge it, ignore it and have to roll a rampage test anyway so I figure it was better to just get in the way. You're right, they do have vanguard and it's something I should have used to full advantage early game.

This list is certainly one I'm going to continue to explore. In regards to a stronger shooting phase I have a few options I can play around with. Firstly drop a Necrosphinx and add two catapults. This will surely get the enemies attention. Secondly I have the option of dropping a Warsphinx (or the Prince's mount for that matter) and bringing in some Stalkers which could prove to be a welcome addition to the army.

More on the Prince, he's a huge target and doesn't confer one of the biggest bonuses (My Will be Done) in his current form. Perhaps adding him to the chariot unit could be an idea I'll have to explore, if I do end up leaving him on the Warsphinx then I'd be really interested to drop the chariots entirely and add in a further 5 units of horse archers to really get in the way of the enemy.

If I did end up dropping the prince for whatever reason then there is of course a huge opportunity for a level 4 in this list.

Thanks for the reply krysith, I was beginning to wonder if anyone had actually read the report as I haven't got much feedback from anywhere!

Second report will be up shortly.