The Old World beckons again!
Wood Elves vs Night Goblins!
This time, Stylus and I (Kraken) will be trying out the Lonely Tower scenario. Two armies, one statue - who will establish the right to carve their face on it?
Wood Like to Meet
I'm sticking with the Wood Elves, but we're both taking a bit more points-wise this time. Having got my head round the selection I took in our last battle, I'm not changing much. Two big units of archers, a mounted champion to lead them, some Wardancers and Wild Riders.
This time, however, I've swapped out the lowly Elven mage for a massive Treeman Ancient. That'll hopefully prove a big tough problem for them to chew on!
- Bee-Feared, Treeman Ancient - level 4 wizard, Elementalism
- Armolad, Glade Champion - mounted on Great Stag, Hail of Doom Arrow, Asrai bow, hand weapon and light armour
- 20 Glade Guard - full command, Asrai bows and hand weapons, Trueflight arrows
- 14 Glade Guard - full command, Asrai bows and hand weapons, Fire and Flee
- 10 Wardancers - full command, 5 with extra hand weapons, 5 with throwing spears
- 5 Wild Riders - Champion, hunting spears, hand weapons and light armour
Night Fever
I'm already leaning into the themed lists, and all-Night Goblins is my very favourite. The selection was simple: everything in my collection. This didn't leave me with much to spend on magic items, but I managed to give Hopsplat, my Warboss on Giant Cave Squig, the infamous Trollhide Trousers, to increase his dubious survivability.
Being able to skirmish the Squig Herd is a new thing, and certainly something to help against the keen-eyed archers. Having a 360 charge arc may also help them get their chompers into something.
Despite wanting to try new things, I keep rolling the same spells for the Waaagh! deck. Fortunately, they're good ones: Vindictive Glare and Itchy Nuisance.
- Blacktoe - Night Goblin Warboss (general)
Light armour, shield - Hopsplat - Night Goblin Warboss on Giant Cave Squig
Cavalry spear, light armour, shield, Trollhide Trousers - Little Guff - Night Goblin Bigboss
Light armour, Battle Standard Bearer - Dipstik - Night Goblin Oddgit
Lv 2 wizard, Buzzgob's Knobbly Staff - 28 x Night Goblin Mob
Command group. Thrusting spears, shields, netters. 3 x Fanatics - 28 x Night Goblin Mob
Command group. Shortbows, netters. 3 x Fanatics - 24 x Night Goblin Squig Herd
14 x Cave Squigs, 10 x Squig Herders - 6 x Night Goblin Squig Hopper Mob
Hand weapons, Huge Gob - Mangler Squig
Colossal Fang Filled Gob, Scaly skin - Mangler Squig
Colossal Fang Filled Gob, Scaly skin
Mission and Deployment
The Lonely Tower is, rather deceptively, not necessarily about a tower. A central and special bit of terrain is what we're fighting over, worth 200 VPs to whoever is holding it at the end of the game. 6 turns, but it may end early, and standard points value for units killed otherwise.
Today, the stepped ruins of a mighty temple are our objective. It's a hill that counts as having a Monument of Glory in the centre of the top, which gives the army holding it various morale boosts. Hatred of the foe plus rerolls to panic tests for the unit claiming it, rerolls for rally tests for the whole army. Good news all round, really!
Deployment sees us line up across the field like so:
We've both gone fairly broad and towards the front of our zones, clearly keen to get on the scoring zone as soon as we can.
We start with the traditional Arrow of Kurnous, which my Glade Captain bounces off the Warboss to no effect. Intent very much signified, however!
Goblins win the roll-off for first turn.
Night Goblins - Turn 1
I'm out of range to cast spells, so that's my opening!
Wood Elf - Turn 1
Night Goblins - Turn 2
Wood Elf - Turn 2
Night Goblins - Turn 3
Wood Elf - Turn 3
Night Goblins - Turn 4
Wood Elf - Turn 4
Night Goblins - Turn 5
Wood Elf - Turn 5
The last Fanatic murders himself in the middle of the field, my elves rest on their longbows as the last few Goblins rout towards the deeper desert. My work here is done, and the game conveniently comes to an end at the same time.
Result - 1,612 : 0
Crushing Victory to the Wood Elves!
Locker Room
Ouch! You expect a bit of mayhem with greenskins, but that fell apart like a house of crepe paper cards. Rather than curse the dice (which probably levelled out, and came in clutch a few times for me), I'm going to blame my appalling generalship.
I should have remembered that, with such an unreliable army, redundancy is everything. The two big mobs should have been backing each other up, so if one fled, the other would be nearby to release fanatics. The Warboss on Cave Squig should have been leading the Squig Hoppers, and so might have had a chance of breaking the Glade Guard.
The Manglers could have been closer together too (this is the first time they're not randomly moving, and I actually have to roll to hit with them) - although you can't do much about getting shot full of arrows. I could have done better with target allocation though - rather than going for the bullseye of the Treeman, the Mangler could have squished the Wild Riders. They were by far the more dangerous unit and it was their killing that broke the Night Goblins.
Also, I think the Squig Herd was just too unwieldy at two dozen models. Two smaller units should give me better counterpunch options.
The overall plan was a bit flawed too. I tried to take on the Wood Elves units one-on-one, but I was never going to match them that way. I should have just hung back behind the hill, ready to jump on it at the end of the game, and tempted the Wood Elves to come to me (Kraken said afterwards that was the one play he didn't want to happen!).
So I certainly learned a lot! But it was great fun to get the gobbos out again. I'll need to scrape up the survivors for a rematch.
I must admit, having been on the other end of similar results against Wood Elves many times in previous editions, there was a great sense of sangfroid as this fight unfolded. Most unfamiliar - an army that did exactly as I hoped it would without seeming to break a sweat? What is this strange nectar?
I like the rule that gets you extra points for holding battlefield locations, that's going to be worth exploring more in future games. And a top-level wizard is clearly a major asset, especially one as durable as a Treeman. A quarter of my points, but worth every one - I bossed the magic all through the game, and those extra trees and elementals had a big effect on the game.
Sorry it wasn't a closer finish, all the same! Looking forwards to the next one.
Good game gents! I'm still not tempted to dip my toe in (mainly because I'm pretty sure I'd end up neck-deep rather quickly) but I am enjoying seeing the batreps
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