Kill of the Hill: Night Goblins vs Wood Elves

 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

Everything lurches forward, so I guess you could call that going according to plan. Unfortunately the Mangler Squigs aren't feeling too frisky and amble forward slowly.

The Hopper and Warboss move a bit quicker up the flanks (whether I want them to or not) and the main Night Goblin mob hides behind the central hill.

I'm out of range to cast spells, so that's my opening!

Wood Elf - Turn 1

Other than shuffling the larger Glade Guard unit forward and reforming them into longer lines, I don't do much. 

Except shoot and cast spells! The Treeman Ancient is packing plenty of Elementalism today, and manages to get everything cast. Earthen Rampart on the large Glade Guard, so they have a ward save and are defending an obstacle, Plague of Rust on one of the Mangler Squigs, reducing its armour, Tree Singing for a large glade of new trees in front of the Squig Herd and an Elemental Spirit next to it. That's some good roadblocking of the Goblins!

Shooting isn't amazing (we're at long range or moving about, and shooting skirmishers), but it still takes off five of the six Squig Riders. The survivor is too busy clinging on to notice, so I'm expecting incoming next turn. 

Night Goblins - Turn 2

As the Elemental Spirit drifts across the Night Goblins, swatting four of them, there's a bit more energy from the squigs in the compulsory movement phase. 

The two Manglers scamper up the hill, ready to wreak havoc next turn. The lone Squig Hopper bounces into the Glade Guard. As he's too busy bouncing to declare a charge, he can't be shot (but I can't see him breaking their ranks either).

Hopsplat bounds forward, directly in the path of the Wardancers, which may not be the wisest place. The Squig Herd is racing to back him up, hoping to try a countercharge - although they have to take a circuitous route because of the magical roadblocks thrown up.

I'm still out of charge range, and my spells are being handily countered by the Treeman Ancient, although I do manage to remove the Awakened Woods.

The only combat is the Squig Hopper, who manages to gobble up two Wood Elves before getting beaten by bow staves.

Wood Elf - Turn 2

So far so good, and I'm sticking to my plan of sticking to my deployment zone. I know I've got to get into the middle before the end of the game, but there's no hurry yet. 

Unless you're a Wardancer, in which case you're running to attack that exposed Warboss on his Cave Squig. Stylus was hoping to run away from this, leave me extended for a countercharge, but Cave Squigs aren't that obliging. Random Movers can only Hold against charges, which isn't ideal - he takes ten sprightly tapdancers to the puss.

Between magical shenanigans and some on point shooting, the rest of the Goblins take a bit of a whipping. One Mangler Squig drops dead, riddled with arrows, while the other clings on with a single wound left. This causes the shortbow archers to panic and fall back a bit. 

The Cave Squig Warboss is magnificent in his way, though - he rides the wave of attacks on his regenerating trouser saves, killing a pair of Wardancers in return before losing the combat and giving ground. Have I been set up for the counterstrike?

Night Goblins - Turn 3

The surviving Mangler Squig finally rolls big and targets, somewhat optimistically, the biggest prize in the enemy line - the Treeman Ancient.

Showing more survival instinct, Hopsplat continues to flee. The Night Goblin archers reluctantly edge their way forward, plinking off a few Glade Guard with their shortbows. I'm still a bit far to be releasing Fanatics for either unit, much as I'd like to.

The Squig Herd also doesn't attempt to charge the Wardancers, and moves into the forest to brace for impact.

Speaking of impact, the Mangler Squig begins the combat by rolling a whopping six Impact Hits. I then fail most of the wounding rolls. It's a similar story with the number of the attacks and the squig only tears off two wounds before the Treeman Ancient boots it back into the touchlines.

Wood Elf - Turn 3

The Goblins are looking as vulnerable as they're going to, plus the Wild Riders aren't going to be held back any longer. Alongside the Treeman, they charge the spear unit as the Wardancers lay into the Squig Herd and the Glade Guards pepper the Night Goblin Archers. 

It's catastrophic across the line - the Archers panic and flee after the Spearman unit gets wiped out, crushed on the charge thanks to the sheer might of the Wild Riders. It doesn't help that the unit champion takes on the Ancient in a challenge and takes a Tree Whack to the face.

 

Likewise, against the speed of the Wardancers, the poor Squigs take a drubbing. They break from the combat, which means Squigs Go Wild! Angry mouths fly off in all directions, free of the trammels of their Goblin drivers. There's a nasty moment where my Glade Captain looks like he might drown in this chompy tide, but his armour saves him.

I'm in the centre, having overrun right on to the objective. The Treeman plants himself and looks smug. 

Night Goblins - Turn 4

Despair not - there's always the Fanatics. I release all three and fling them at the central objective. One immediately dies from mushroom overdose, but the other two smash two wounds off the Treeman and Wild Riders, respectively.

I try to blast off the rest of the wounds with a Vindictive Glare, but the Treeman Ancient has been bossing the magic all game and he's having none of it.

Hopsplat also rallies to face the enemy. The idiot.

Wood Elf - Turn 4

We're mopping up the remnants here, whilst trying to dodge the Fanatics. The Treeman fails his charge, but the mere fact of him trying causes Terror, and the Night Goblin Archers are off again, fleeing. Apparently you can't shoot fleeing units (it's not sporting), but you can drop Elemental Spirits on them (also not sporting, perhaps, but a Treeman's sense of fair play is very different to yours or mine). 

My Hail of Doom goes wide, the Wardancers bash the Warboss off his Cave Squig - it's all looking under control here. 

Night Goblins - Turn 5

My Night Goblins fail to rally, one of my Fanatics collapses and the other races off in the wrong directions.

So not everything is going to plan.

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.