We’re crossing a major threshold with this game. With over 1500 points of miniatures, we found that we could barely fit on Gem’s 30inch long board. Regularly playing on such a narrow strip of land has probably restricted the tactics both of us have used. So we’ve moved the gaming location over to my 48inchx36inch board.
As we had agreed to the change before, I had written my list to take into account some extra maneuverability. So rather than go for a show of force, I went for a more numbers approach. Having the advantage of home territory I checked out how it would look on the board and realized that I had possibly over done it as I was beginning to struggle to fit them all into the starting area.
The rolls for terrain, deployment and first turn all went in my favour – this has become a pattern for the campaign. So much so that, I’m considering that perhaps my newly acquired Anne Stokes tribal dice may be loaded. I might have to let Gem take the deployment and setup advantages in the next game to be fair.
Having won the first turn with my ‘loaded’ dice, it was a straight forward movement phase of advancing across the board. I had rolled up Uranon’s Thunder Bolt for a Priest so immediately cast that on a unit of the Tomb Guard, killing one… Not quite as effective as I had hoped it would be.
Gem, realizing she would be in danger of being charged on my next turn by the Saurus Cavalry, set about changing the alignment of her melee units facing it. After some debating about possible strategies, she elected to move her Ushabti in front of the tomb guard, which were in front of the unit of archers that her Tomb Prince(ss) was hiding in. She also decided that her Light Horsemen should venture forth. To begin her sides’ bloodletting, she began to unleash death from above using the Screaming Skull Catapult and Skeleton Archers. Unfortunately, her catapult missed any viable targets. The archers managed to penetrate one of my Saurus Rider’s armor.
Gem’s positioning meant that I simply had to charge the Ushabti or be charged by them myself. I declared the Saurus Cavalry as charging and moved a unit of Skinks in place they could support in the event of the big guys fleeing. Prevented from march moving, the Skinks on the other side of the board started facing off against the Light Skeleton Horsemen O.K. Corral-style. I then a few spells to waste Gem’s dispel dice. Then I cast Comet of Casandora in the middle of her largest troop concentration, hoping that would force her spread out or would do significant damage. I had forgotten that I get a strength bonus from charging but still managed to remove one of the Ushabti – the rest crumbled from combat resolution, allowing me to overrun into the Tomb Guard. That probably was a mistake – I should have remembered that Tomb Guard have near legendary powers against heavily armored opponents. On top of all of that, my Salamanders managed to incinerate Gem’s secondary Liche Priest – the Magic Phase would now be controlled by me.
On Gem’s turn, the comet landed with a grand crater radius of 1inch(!) That meant the mass carnage that I was hoping for, only effected one unit of archers. I was not impressed. Learning that Tomb Kings may have better range but the Lizardmen are the better marksmen, Gem ordered a charge with her Light Skeleton Horsemen into my Skinks that had being peppering them with javelins. Skinks are normally jittery creatures but the presence of the nearby general meant that they were happy to hold. The damage the horsemen did was negible. I was surprised to learn that in close combat that Skinks can be effective in close combat – they killed all but one horseman and he crumbled from combat resolution.
On the otherhand, the Saurus Cavalry were outnumbered, outranked and, apparantly, blind. They broke and started fleeing back to where they came from. The Tomb Guard pursed. The Saurus Cavalry are a heavy point sink for my army so losing them is something I really did not want to happen. Gem’s puruse move should have been bad action to take – Both the skinks and the Salamanders would be shooting into them to remove their bonuses on my turn, but would it be enough?
As it turned out, the size of the Tomb Guards was nearly halved by shooting and Saurus Cavalry managed to rally. I should point here that I did neglect to lose the banner that is held by the cavalry, but by the same token Gem hadn’t registered that her number of dispel dice should have been reduced. The Tomb Guard would however charge again and begin ripping through the cold ones – it was now a matter of time before they reached the lone Skink Priest. That Skink Priest was the one who had rolled up the Comet of Casandora spell – he was too valuable to lose. To top it all, Gem had focused all her firepower on the Salamanders. They had panicked and started fleeing. The only good news for me was the Skinks, that had performed admirably against horsemen, had now turned their attention on the catapult crew, racing through the jungle to get close enough for a charge. My general followed them as fast as he could so they benefit from the leadership.
The crazyness that occurred here was impressive. The Skinks decided that it would be a good idea to help the Saurus Cavalry, but it was already too late. The Tomb Guard cut through them causing break tests and then on Gem’s turn use a Killing Blow to end the life on the remaining one. If I had removed the banner, they probably would have been toast earlier. The Skinks however eventually ended the game forcing the Tomb Guard to crumble one skeleton at a time. The other unit of Skinks swiftly dealt with the catapult and the remaining Salamander and his handler rallied.
Just on kills, I managed to gain a marginal victory but including the table quarters it became a solid victory. However, with the errors on both our parts, we have decided the game was a draw result. Meh.
Filed under: Campaign, Escalation, Games Workshop, Warhammer | Tagged: battle report, gaming mistakes
