Not only did I remember to take photos for every battle (a rarity), but I also had the advantage of a long and delayed train journey home, which meant I could write them all up from fresh memory.
Round 1: versus Tomb Kings
Armies
Tomb Kings
- Tomb Prince
- Liche Priest
- 19 x Skeleton Archers
- 5 x Skeleton Chariots
- 3 x Necropolis Knights
- 1 x Khemrian Warsphinx
- 1 x Casket of Souls
Wood Elves
- Durthu, Eldest of the Ancients
- Glade Captain (BSB)
Hail of Doom, Obsidian Trinket - Spellweaver
Lv 2 Life, Dispel Scroll, Talisman of Protection - Shadowdancer
Bow of Loren - 10 x Glade Guard
Musician, Trueflight Arrows - 10 x Glade Guard
Musician, Hagbane Arrows - 10 x Glade Guard
Musician, Starfire Arrows - 7 x Wardancers
- 5 x Wild Riders
Shields
Battle
My first game was against East, a more experienced player than myself and very generous in gameplay and advice (such as pointing out before we'd started that I'd neglected to give any musicians to my archer units and letting me make a last-minute rewrite to my army list - that kind of thing is very much the spirit of the WoffBoot).However, East does an unfortunate habit of beating me during tournaments. He was fielding a lovely-looking Tomb Kings army, a race that was wholly new to me and while it's meant to be sub-par, I was taking nothing for granted.
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| The pillars in the middleground are obelisks. The pillars in the background are chairs. |
The field had been set up as something of a hazard-fest: lots of obstacles and an enormous hill off-centre. I lost the roll to choose ends, but used my free wood to make matters worse and block up the only path through the middle - no chariots getting through there.
I put my Trueflights in the corner tower (which had tempted me, but was really too far to make an impact), set up the rest of my line to the left of it and vanguarded the Wild Riders into the woods.
I picked King of the Castle as my boast, reasoning that I had more units that were actually capable of taking and holding terrain.
East got the first turn and put me on the ropes from the start. I soon learned about a Casket of Souls when it took off a third my Hagbane and Starfire Glade Guard. This was followed up by a Screaming Skull catapult landing directly on Durthu and taking off four wounds (as they were flaming, it would only have needed one more to remove my general outright!). I had even taken my turn yet, and I was contemplating defeat.
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| Gulp. |
While the Chariot unit took the long way around the hill, the Warsphinx went straight for me, and got a unit of Wild Riders up in his grill. Unfortunately, that grill contained a breath weapon which killed two of my cavalry, but even three Wild Riders are sufficient to show their mettle and despite losing one, I did enough damage to destroy the construct on the crumble.
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| First the WarSphinx, then the Casket lurking behind it. |
The pair that remained went on to kill the Casket of Souls, and started to attract some arrow fire by this point. The last surviving Wild Rider smashed through the Screaming Skull Catapult (that never managed a repeat of its initial shot) before getting shot down and awarded a posthumous MVP badge.
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| Wild Riders. One is all you need. |
Back on my side of the board, the collapse of my battle line continued with the appearance of the Necropolis Knights behind my archers, smashing into and running down both units before charging the Wardancers in the venom thicket.
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| Head for the trees! (they don't make it) |
On the hill in the centre of the field, the Hierophant and his skeleton archers had taken up residence in the building, flinging out magic and recovering whatever casualties I was able to inflict. Durthu was the only thing I had that could push them out, but I wasn't convinced he could keep them out, which mean my Trueflights had to stay put in the tower to keep my boast in contention (far away from action - but it was probably safest there).
Back in the venom thicket, the Necropolis Knights' overrunning party was over. The wood elves cut down the Knights before they could even strike back (I'm not even sure I remembered their Murderous Prowess or Poisoned Attacks - the Wardancers were just lethal).
The Tomb Prince's chariots finally finished circumnavigating the hill, then charged into my Wardancers.
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| Impact Hits you say? |
Impact hits did their thing, and the unit (including the three characters, who I neglected to bail out of the unit) were annihilated before they had a chance to swing a blade. With the loss of my big points sink, the balanced battle had just swung decisively against me.
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| Hey, where all my Wardancers at? |
Durthu came to the rescue - after lumbering around for most of the battle, trying to get his wounds back up and failing to hit anything with Lamentation of Despairs, he finally had a chance to charge something.
He ploughed into the chariots and I threw everything I had into buffing him with Beast magic. Sadly, Savage Beast of Horros was blocked, but I managed to get Pann's Impenetrable Pelt to make him effectively invulnerable. Between the damage Durthu did, and the inability of the chariots to get anything on him, the whole unit crumbled in a single round. So that turned things around.
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| DURTHU SMASH! |
There was nothing else after that: the Hierophant wasn't coming out of his building and I had nothing to force him. With Durthu occupying the wood, I got my boast, and on the final count-up, I had managed to squeak a win.
Result: 12:8
(1431 : 1155)
East is always a fun opponent and did well with a tough army to play. I thought I was looking at a medium defeat until Durthu thundered in to save me (there was some debate about whether the Tomb Prince issuing a challenge or not would have helped - but I think the writing was on the wall for that combat).
A great game to begin the WoffBoot (and the first time I've started on a win for three years).
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