Some of the old game club got together again for another day of WFB gaming. We played two rounds. The army rules were:
- 2000 Points
- No Lords
- 15% Max. Heroes
- 20% Max Special
- No Rare
I drew up two army lists. One for Empire, one for Skaven. I decided to play the Empire list, but when it came time to pack the car, I discovered that the Empire figures were all over the place (some packed in the travel box, some in a cabinet, some out on the desk) and laziness won out. I brought the Skaven. The army looked something like this:
1 Chieftain with heavy armour, shield, warlock augmented weapon
1 Chieftain with battle standard, heavy armour shield, and the magic standard that causes -1 LD to enemies within 12" and units in base contact reroll successful LD tests.
1 Engineer w/ LV1 magic
50 Clanrats with spear & shield
1 PW Mortar
30 Clanrats with shield
1 Warp Fire Thrower
30 Clanrats with shield
1 Warp Fire Thrower
40 Slaves
40 Slaves
30 Monks
6 Rat Ogres + 3 Handlers
2 Swarms
15 Night Runners
1 Warp Grinder
My first game was against a dwarf gunline. It had a bunch of units of 10 dwarfs with either handguns or crossbows, heavy armour and great weapons, three units of 5 miners, each with a drill, a unit of rangers with crossbows, three bolters with engineers, three slayer heroes and a thane.
The dwarfs set up on their back line, with the larger part of the army on a large hill. The slayers and miners were sent out to slow down the advance while everything else got shot up. It largely worked. Most of my Skaven are S3 and it took a ridiculous number of combat rounds to roll just two wounds on each slayer.
The big break for the dwarfs happened when the 50-rat horde, containing both the general and BSB, failed a freak panic test early in the game and spend a couple rounds fleeing, keeping them mostly out of the game.
In the meantime, fire was focused on the unengaged units, whittling them down to numbers too small to be effective by the time they got to combat. It was almost a re-fight of the recent WAB games against Persian and Macedonian missile armies, posted previously.
In the course of the game, I had a pretty freaky dice roll...
Game 2!
Game two was against an Empire army. It was something like:
30 Swordsmen
10 Swordsmen detachment
10 Handgunner detachment
30 Swordsmen
10 Halberdier detachment
10 Handgunner detachment
30 Spearmen
10 Crossbow detachment
10 Crossbow detachment
10 Knights with a Warrior Priest
1 Captain with battle standard
2 Mortars
1 Cannon
1 Engineer
It would be another game of mostly me moving up to contact the enemy. The first turn was brutal, as a couple of mortar rounds dropped my 50-rat horde below half strength. I got my rat ogres into combat with the knights early on, but I rolled horribly, he rolled great, and the result was that I lost combat by a lot and ran away. After a forced pursuit, they turned around, failed a charge and spent a couple turns getting flamed by a fire thrower before blowing a panic test. They rallied at the end, but were effectively removed from the rest of the battle. (At a high cost to me.)
My plan was to stall on one side or the other. I decided on stalling on my right (foreground in the photos) by sending swarms on the far side of the village, and slaves (and the other WFT) "refusing" (I hoped) the flank of the main line. My tunnelers popped up in front of the artillery, but were then charged by the flagellants supporting them from behind. I sent monks over the far hill, but they also got shot to pieces and broke in the second round of combat, after failing to do much of anything in spite of their "buckets o' dice" in combat -- even against mere humans.
The remainder of the horde did win combat in the center, but were then left standing alone just outside of the minimum firing range for the mortars. My only real luck was with a unit of clanrats on my left who made it to combat largely unscathed by missile fire, beat a detachment of crossbowmen, then turned and fought the swordsmen who had defeated my monks. After two rounds of combat, I managed to squeek by with a narrowly won round and lucked out when my opponent failed his break test.
We didn't total points or anything, but looking at the battle, I think it was at best a draw for the Skaven -- and that's being generous. All I had left were a couple units of clanrats. My opponent had lost most of his combat units, but he still had enough shooting to prevent me from turning and charging him effectively. At some point, the knights would be back, as well, though it would probably just be to mop up any remaining rats.
The next games will hopefully be in a couple weeks, and will be Ancients again.