From the Vault: All in the Name of Conquest

Some games live long in your memory. This particular game occurred almost 9 years ago (March 2007), and was peculiar in that it is the only time we have ever played a game, and then been forced to go back and recreate it for a battle report because we found it so entertaining. Obviously this is now a very "obsolete" version of Warhammer and most of us will struggle to remember the nuances of the rules from back then. But I still remember the game fondly and thought I would share it here rather than leaving it languishing upon an old archived version of the club's website. You'll have to excuse the quality of the photos etc. I think we were using my 3.2 megapixel digital camera. Sounds horrific, but I think it was almost respectable back in the day...

All in the Name of Conquest

A 7th edition Warhammer Fantasy battle report by Greg Johnson and Peter Spiller

A group of us recently attended Conquest, which is a long-established Warhammer Fantasy tournament (among other things) held at Melbourne High over Easter. This time there were only 20 players attending, and given that there were 8 HGC members going (and one defacto member who was an old friend over from Germany), there were good odds of us playing games against each other.

Pete and I met in the 4th round and being regular opponents we settled in for a hard stoush. The game ended up being a particularly amusing one, and so after the tournament we decided we should revisit it and turn it into a battle report. Given the well-planned manner in which this was recorded then, you'll have to forgive us if our account is not 100% accurate (though I think it is, and nobody else saw the game so I think we're pretty safe).

Drycha's Vengeful Host

Greg: It took me a while to work out what army I wanted to take into Conquest this year, but in the end I settled for Wood Elves. Even then I had trouble deciding whether I wanted Wardancers, Wild Riders and the rest, but in the end I decided that I would like to take Drycha. Last year a friend took an army that was very similar to this one into the same tournament, and performed moderately (including handing me and my borrowed Vampire counts our biggest win of the tournament - thanks, Aaron!). I figured I could do better, and Drycha looked like fun to use. I was originally going to include a unit of Wild Riders anyway (they are Forest Spirits after all), but in the end I found myself starting to paint them on the day before the tournament. It wasn't long before reason took over and I abandoned them in favour of less ideal (but more painted) options, in a few more Dryads and the mounted mage.

In the end I came equal 4th in the tournament, which was a pretty good result given that I ran into 2 Daemonic Legions along the way. The army has no answer to Greater Daemons (especially the Bloodthirster), and losing all my saves while my opponent keeps all of his makes it a pretty tough assignment. I lost to both, but learnt a few lessons by the second game and came out with a few more points. I had to learn to curb my aggressive playing style, which was somewhat on display in this battle report.

For those who don't know what Drycha can do, she is basically a very angry Dryad Branchwraith with 5 Strength 5 attacks and rerolling failed hits, but only 3 Wounds and Toughness 4. So she's dangerous but weak. She can deploy elements of her army in Reserve and they enter from forests rather than table edges. She can also teleport herself and a unit from one forest to another, but can't charge as she does so. She gains attacks for lost wounds, is a Level 2 mage with 2 bound Treesingings, causes Terror and adds 2 additional dispel dice to the pool. Basically she's a walking basket of special rules. Oh yeah, and in case I missed that point, she's really, really, pathologically, unrelentingly angry. At me. At you. At everyone!

For spells, I rolled Treesinging and Fury of the Forest for Drycha, and Treesinging and Call of the Hunt on my mage. This last one was critical, given that it would go some way to compensating for Pete's Vanhel's Danse Macabre, which he would at least have in the Book of Arkhan. I managed to win the roll-off for table edges, planted my BYO forest in the middle of the table, set up fairly spread out and I was good to go.

Army List:

• Drycha
• Spellsinger
• Elven Steed
• Glamorweave Kindred
• Ranu's Heartstone
• 12 Dryads
• 10 Dryads
• 10 Dryads
• 10 Dryads
• 3 Treekin
• 3 Treekin
• Treeman
• Treeman

Alexei von Carstein's Dread Legion

Pete: The last time I entered Conquest I used Skaven, and while they didn't go too badly some things were a bit beyond them (ie passing Ld10 Terror tests). I felt like a change, so I used Vampire Counts this time. (Nothing to do with not having to take inconvenient Psychology tests or the fact that my re-vamped undead probably look a bit nicer than my 'sea-of-brown' Skaven.)

I took an infantry-heavy list which I'd like to think was reasonably balanced. It had a couple of characters who could fight reasonably well (the Vampire Count and the Vampire Thrall), decent amount of magic (the Count and a pair of Necromancers) and enough infantry to look vaguely Legion-esque. The Grave Guard could actually dish out some pain as well as take it, which was handy. Some Dire Wolves and Ghouls were handy for cleaning up light enemy units and generally getting in the way of things, and a Banshee was usually good for shrieking at things or holding up monsters/chariots/etc when combined with the BSB (or both). I say 'usually', since against an army that was immune to her scream and uniformly equipped with magical attacks she'd probably be as useful as a water-soluble boat, but at least she's only 90pts.

I rolled pretty well for spells - Vanhels Danse Macabre on the Count, Gaze of Nagash on both Necromancers and Invocation of Nehek for everybody. 'Pretty well' is a bit of an understatement since I couldn't really think of a better selection to have against Wood Elves (maybe some Hellish Vigor would be nice, but I'm getting greedy). Even with Drycha generating an obscene number of dispel dice, I was feeling reasonably confident about my magic phase.

When it came to deployment, I did my usual anti-Wood-Elf-huddle-in-the-corner thing. As long as I a) avoided being flanked and b) kept topping up the Skeleton units with Invocation, I could probably hang around in the face of the maddened wooden blender army long enough for the Vampires and Wights to do their choppy thing and save the day. In theory, anyway.

Army List:

• Alexei von Carstein - Vampire Count
• Great weapon
• Level 2 wizard
• Ring of the Night
• Cursed Book
• Wolf Form
• Zlad von Carstein - Vampire Thrall
• Nightmare
• Battle Standard
• Sword of Might
• Flayed Hauberk
• Abel Yemenov - Necromancer
• Level 2 wizard
• Book of Arkhan
• Dispel Scroll
• Vargas Raschid - Necromancer
• Level 2 wizard
• Power Familiar
• Bone Legionaries - 19 Skeletons
• Full command group
• Light armour, shields
• Dust Legionaries - 19 Skeletons
• Full command group
• Light armour, shields
• Legion Militia - 16 Zombies
• Standard, musician
• Flesh-Eaters - 9 Ghouls
• Corpse-Eaters - 9 Ghouls
• Night Stalkers - 5 Dire Wolves
• Night Prowlers - 5 Dire Wolves
• Legion Elite - 20 Grave Guard
• Full command group
• Heavy armour, shields
• War Banner
• Druellagh - Banshee

Deployment

Don't ask me why this particular image is so fuzzy. The better version chopped off the labels.