Lost colony in 9th age - 2500 vs. VC

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Amboadine
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Re: Lost colony chronicle - 2750 vs. High Elves

Post by Amboadine »

Well done on your awards. Deserved I am sure.
Nice report yet again.
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Re: Lost colony chronicle - 2750 vs. High Elves

Post by flatworldsedge »

Congratulations on all the fantastic awards! Love reading your reports; this one sounds so wild and energetic. Such an ignoble end for the Frost Phoenix!
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Marchosias
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Re: Lost colony chronicle - 2000 fun lists vs. High Elves

Post by Marchosias »

Lost Colony vs. High Elves (2000 points of fun)

This is a game from the beginning of July so no End Times and such.

We wanted to play some fun game. To this end, we created some strange rosters, decided to play meeting engagement and rolled the terrain randomly. As a result, one half of the table was filled with terrain while the other only contained two hills and a fence; luckily, the diagonal halves were more balanced.

Lost Colony:

Supreme sorceress, lvl 4 life, talisman of preservation, dispel scroll: 290
Death hag, witchbrew, BSB: 140

2x 5 dark riders, shields, crossbows, musician, champion: 2x 120
5 dark riders, shields, crossbows, musician: 110
10 witch elves, FCG, banner of eternal flame: 150

20 executioners, FCG: 270
19 black guards, FCG: 315
5 shades, additional hand weapons: 90
3 bolt throwers: 210

2x medusa: 90

Not that much different from my usual lists but there are some unusual elements: I have no hero on pegasus which I am using excessively otherwise; I had to include the dual medusas because, well, we all know how hilarious they can be at this point; I included two relatively large blocks (large in comparison with my usual style) which should have done most of the hard work. I would have liked to give my BSB some kind of magic weapon as well (obsidian blade for example) but there were no points left and I decided it would have been a waste against high elves, anyway.
It would have been nice to give the black guard the razor banner but again, there are not that many free points. I could delete a bolt thrower I suppose but I felt they might come in handy.
And I was right!

High Elves

Archmage on great eagle, lvl 4 life, 4+ ward
Noble BSB on great eagle, dawnstone, enchanted shield, sword of might
Handmaiden, reaver bow

2x 5 elyrian reavers, bows, spears
2x 6 silver helms

3x 2 tiranoc chariots
2x lion chariot
7 shadow warriors

(There might have been three units of silver helms or reavers, I am not exactly sure.)
So, an unusual army indeed! I find it quite comical that for the one game I played with a far slower and less manoeuverable army than usual I was confronted with something like this. How was I supposed to avoid getting charged by five chariot units?
On the bright side, with some magic support surviving the charges should have not been that difficult and in a grind my blocks had no equal. And bolt throwers can be deadly against chariots.

My opponent was deploying first. He prepared his forces as far forwards as possible and spread them over the whole line; he chose the side in such a way that his advance could have only been hindered by a forest, a hill and perhaps a marsh (but the marsh was quite near the board edge and played almost no role).

His shadow warriors entered a venom thicket near the board edge. Some of the scouts died in the course of the game but all of them to dangerous terrain tests – I was unable to do any damage.
By the way, the handmaiden is quite strong herself. When she was shooting on my dark riders she was hitting on 2+, wounding on 2+, leaving a 6+ save, with three shots, so she was inflicting two casualties a turn most of the time. Of course, I was regrowing the riders again. :D Because of this, I never dared to charge her bodyguard shadow warriors as more riders would have fallen to the arrows and with one dark rider remaining I did not like my chances. In the end, she managed to shoot one dark rider unit down but it took her the whole game so I am not really complaining.

Deploying as the second, I concentrated everything close to my short side of the table which meant that many of the chariots had quite a long way to me and I could have fought only with pieces of his army. My executioners were held in reserves, though; thus, the disadvantage of my deployment was that when they arrived, they did so so far from the black guard that I was unable to get the blocks close to support each other.

My initial shooting was very successful: I managed to reduce one unit of reavers to the last one and bring down one unit of tiranoc chariots. Meanwhile, dark riders were trying to encircle the shadow warriors somehow, black guard was backing off and hoping to find an opening and executioners with a medusa were hiding behind a hill and threatening the advance of the southern part of high elven army.

As the chariots have no ranks, I was looking for opportunities to charge them with dark riders but it did not work. I tried it twice during the game: first time, my dark riders did nothing, the charioteers did nothing as well and then, help arrived from the flank and the riders were wiped out; second time, the riders charged the flank of two tiranoc chariots and there was no help available but my opponent passed his break tests, was able to reform eventually to face me and then won by one and ran me down.

The game was mostly decided on turn 3. My opponent, knowing that bolt throwers can be deadly, was always keeping his heroes in hard cover behind some unit. This time, however, the chariots screening his archmage were in the charge range of my executioners – I would have needed to roll 10. When I declared the charge, he elected to flee and suddenly, the archmage was open to all fire. With three bolt throwers and some shades and riders, it was not difficult to bring him down.

My medusas were very useful this game. The first one saved the situation when my frenzied black guard was being redirected by a lone remaining reaver – she charged him in the flank and killed him easily. Then the poor girl died to the handmaiden. The other charged a unit of silver helms, inspired fear in them, killed two, suffered no wounds herself and chased them off the table (well, this was lucky: first the failed fear test on Ld8, albeit without reroll, and then two failed 3+ armour saves out of three wounds; the rest was expectable as six attacks hitting and wounding on 5+ are not that likely to score a wound, a break test on Ld5 is not insanely good either and the helms were very close to the board edge). Later, she was able to run down a chariot fleeing from my executioners with a lucky roll of 11. This girl was really determined to show the High Elves who a true warrior was.

Meanwhile, his BSB destroyed all my bolt throwers (they were so close that he could have overrun to the next one every time; it was the result of my clustered deployment). There was only one turn I could have shot at him and it was the turn the archmage died. In the end, however, he decided he wanted a fight and turned to face my black guard (he knew he had little chances there but it was a fun game so what). I charged; one of my heroes had to be in base contact so I chose the sorceress (one more wound and a 4++ ward). He inflicted almost no wounds on her, I did not even scratch him (3+ rerollable is not bad – the AP banner would have been nice after all) but eventually he fled on static combat resolution.

In the end, he had only some shadow warriors, the handmaiden, one unit of silver helms and one or two units of chariots remaining while I have only lost all bolt throwers, all dark riders and one medusa. This went better than expected with all his mobility – but attacking the big blocks was dangerous for him so while he had far superior mobility his options were limited.

After-battle thoughts:

I am not sure if my army was indeed as funny and unusual compared to his.  Still, a bigger block of black guard is not what you see that often and executioners are not superb against high elves as well.
One interesting observation is that while I brought life magic to protect my big blocks, it was the fast cavalry that needed buffs the most because nothing wanted to touch the “mammoths” anyway. Of course, it could have made a difference should I lose the chaff war. Still, maybe light magic would have been better after all.
I am happy I managed to split the opposing army. I am not so happy that it was at the cost of splitting forces myself. :D Still, the executioners behind a hill made it almost impossible to encircle the black guard and hit it from many angles at once so there was some cooperation after all.
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Re: Lost colony chronicle - 2000 fun lists vs. High Elves

Post by Marchosias »

And thanks to all for your kind words! To be honest, my achievements in the League were not that amazing: I was the only one writing reports at all and the only novice with more than some four battles. :) Still, better than nothing. :)
And yes, this is exactly the fate each Frost Phoenix should suffer *muttering something about overpowered monsters* - at least until the tournamnet scene allows us to field them as well. :D
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Re: Lost colony chronicle - 2000 fun lists vs. High Elves

Post by Amboadine »

An award is an award :)

Thanks for the new write up too. Enjoyable read as per normal.
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Re: Lost colony chronicle - 2000 fun lists vs. High Elves

Post by Lord Drakon »

Hi Marchosias, just a small question. How do you manage to display your shades in loose formation with battle chronicer. I fail to do it !
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Re: Lost colony chronicle - 2000 fun lists vs. High Elves

Post by flatworldsedge »

Lord Drakon wrote:Hi Marchosias, just a small question. How do you manage to display your shades in loose formation with battle chronicer. I fail to do it !


Lol +1
I can get everything to skirmish, or nothing - but not a mix.

RE: The recent post, two medusas just sounds mad in writing. I've still trying to figure out the geometry with the diagonal line splitting the terrain! Interesting to hear the devastation from the handmaiden. Would you rate her vs. a waystalker?
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Re: Lost colony chronicle - 2000 fun lists vs. High Elves

Post by Marchosias »

@ Drakon: When defining a new unit, in the screen where you can set its name, label or base size, there is also an option called "formation". You only need to change it from "tight" to "loose files". I have no idea what is the difference between "loose files" and "loose staggered". You then need to change the size of the gap between the models, otherwise your units would be too wide. That is all. :)

@ flatworldsedge: Two medusas are my favourite setup. :) They are hard to use - most of the time I am failing to make them worth their points - but they have to be useful in SOME way. :D In some cases, they yielded exceptional results. Once my medusa killing blowed a scar-veteran, for example. The guy had dawnstone + dragonhelm so no protection against her shooting. It was quite lucky, though, as most of the time she hits on 5+. On the other hand, she is a reasonable fighter, too so she should be able to find some use against most armies. I am still in the process of justyfying this. :)

Handmaiden with reaver bow has three shots at S5 if I remember correctly so she is far superior to the waystalker when dealing with light troops such as dark riders. In addition, she should come up top against high toughness low armour things such as a kharibdyss. In addition, the girl can turn in an S8 monster for a turn using potion of strength. On the other hand, the waystalker is better at killing 1+ knights (I think, I am lazy to verify this assumption) and can snipe characters in units. Handmaiden is heavy artillery, waystalker a scalpel.
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Re: Lost colony chronicle - 2000 fun lists vs. High Elves

Post by Lord Drakon »

Marchosias wrote:@ Drakon: When defining a new unit, in the screen where you can set its name, label or base size, there is also an option called "formation". You only need to change it from "tight" to "loose files". I have no idea what is the difference between "loose files" and "loose staggered". You then need to change the size of the gap between the models, otherwise your units would be too wide. That is all. :)



What are the size of gaps you use ? That could be the thing I am doing wrong.

EDIT: when using 0.5 - 0.5 It is still showed in tight formation, only when I put model display view you can see them in skirmish formation, but then the other units are divided by stripes (which your rapports don't show).
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Re: Lost colony chronicle - 2000 fun lists vs. High Elves

Post by Marchosias »

The gap should be half an inch.
The gaps are not visible while one is making the map, they only become visible when the Battle Chronicler file is exported to an image. You should be able to notice, though, that the unit of five harpies is wider than a unit of five spearmen. At least this is what my version of BC is behaving like. :)
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Re: Lost colony chronicle - 2000 fun lists vs. High Elves

Post by Lord Drakon »

Marchosias wrote:The gap should be half an inch.
The gaps are not visible while one is making the map, they only become visible when the Battle Chronicler file is exported to an image. You should be able to notice, though, that the unit of five harpies is wider than a unit of five spearmen. At least this is what my version of BC is behaving like. :)


That was what I was doing wrong ! I print screened them and used paint instead exporting them as image, they look much better (and skirmish visible) and take of lot less time. Thank for helping me out, looking forward to make my next battle rapport now.
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Re: Lost colony chronicle - UB tourney w/ HE stardragon - G1

Post by Marchosias »

Many apologies for not writing anything for a long time, I get terribly lazy. Anyway, the UB tournament is a good reason to post something again and because Lost Colony is half High Elf anyway (well, more High Elf than the Ulthuan hypocrites actually but let us leave that :) ), I feel I can do it in this blog to revive it somewhat. :) Besides, a star dragon build is not that far away from what I was playing usually. So let me present you...

D.net UB tourney game 1

For anyone not knowing this yet, this is a small tournament held by the Druchii.net community. Basically, you play 2500 points uncomped with some scenarios, and as the game is held on Universal Battles, you can play any race you want. More info here.

I was contemplating fielding a VC army with many hexwraiths for quite a long time. But first, they are not what they used to be given that WE shooting is magical; second, I have absolutely no experience with vampire counts and would probably need a really long time for each movement phase as this army is quite tricky (even longer than normally and that is something); and third, a few days prior the tournament I read some more of Curu Olannon's reports on Ulthuan.net, featuring a dragon. And I thought I might really like this playstyle. So I basically took his ETC list from last year, put in some more filth (mostly lvl4 with Book of Hoeth) and got curious about my first game. One more good thing is that having a few flying hard hitters backed up by magic and bolt throwers is actually not that far from the pegasus armies I was playing last year.

The scenario was as follows:

Dawn attack
Deployment as per rulebook with the following exception: you are allowed not to roll for any of your units and deploy it wherever you like. However, this unit is then worth 100 points more. Characters may join such a unit for no additional penalty if they have the same rule type (Flyer /Scout/Fast Cav). You gain two points for killing more fast units than your opponent and two more points for preserving more than your opponent, if number of units destroyed or remaining are equal, assign a single point to each player in each case. A fast unit is defined as a ‘Flyer’ or a unit designated with ‘Fast cavalry’, ‘Skirmisher’ or ‘Scout’ rules.


Marchosias – Lost Colony High Elves

prince on star dragon, general, heavy armour, shield, great weapon, star lance, dragonhelm, TOTS: 600
archmage on steed, lvl4 high, book of hoeth: 295

mage on steed, lvl1 high, dispel scroll, ironcurse icon: 125
noble on barded steed, BSB, BOTWD, heavy armour, shield, spear: 168
noble on barded steed, heavy armour, enchanted shield, ogre blade: 134

5 elyrian reavers, bow and spear, standard, musician: 115
5 silver helms, shields, champion, standard: 135
15 silver helms, shields, FCG: 375

3x bolt thrower: 3x 70
frost phoenix: 240
2x great eagle: 2x 50

total: 2497

In a sense, this army is very straightforward. There is the dragon, the bus and the phoenix to smash face; there are some bolt throwers to provide ranged presence; and there is high magic to allow some trickery and adaptation. What more do you need? :) Of course, an opponent to unleash your fury on!

Marky – Dark elves

SSorc lv4, life, dispell scroll, Black Amulet, general 305pt

Master, Dark pegasus, heavy armour, shield, sea dragon cloack, lance, Cloack of twilight 188pt
Master, Heavy armour, sea dragon cloack, enchanted shield, dawnstone, sword of might, BSB
155pt

5 Dark riders, shields, xbows, standard bearer 110pt
5 Dark riders, shields, xbows, standard bearer 110pt
5 Dark riders, shields, xbows, standard 110pt
20 Darkshards, FC, shields, banner of eternal flame 300pt

Cold one chariot 115pt
23 executioners, FC, Banner of swiftness 321pt
Reaper bolt thrower 70pt
Reaper bolt thrower 70pt
6 shades, AHW 108pt
War hydra, Fiery breath 180pt
War hydra, Fiery breath 180pt

7 Doomfire warlocks 175pt

So, this is an army with some elements I have not seen for a long time. Chariot? Two hydras? A medium unit of executioners? In a sense, it feels like coming from the swedish comp, there are no extreme numbers and some rarely seen choices. I will try to only comment the army regarding our matchup.

The main threat here is the sorceress provided she rolls dwellers (which she did). Unlike under various comp systems, there is no look out! against them in this tournament so my heroes can die quite easily. On the other hand, dwellers have a limited range, the sorceress is on foot and the spell is not that strong against dragons and phoenixes.

And that is basically it. Dwellers is something that scares me immensely; the other threats are not negligible but not going to dictate my play that much either. Let us look at them:

Warlocks can kill my phoenix. On the other hand, they will eventually lose to the dragon and the bus and probably even the ogre blade hero alone. The bus and dragon are nearly immune to doombolt (granted, it could kill the prince) and even the phoenix should suffer only a wound or two. A soulblight followed by bolt shots could hurt but it is not straightforward. They can be used to a good effect but only either for claiming small points (killing bolt throwers for example) or in conjunction with something (execs to the front of my bus – or even the peg hero – and warlocks to the side could be nasty, for example). This makes them easier to handle. In addition, they die to shooting relatively fast.

Hydras are only S5. Phoenix and dragon laugh at them (do you start to see a pattern here?). Ogre blade noble likely grinds them down, although this combat might be somewhat risky on my part. And they are only Ld6. Breaking them in combat should be fairly easy.

CoT hero is a strong choice but he is only strong on the charge. If it is me who charges or if I survive the first round somehow he is doomed against dragon, phoenix but even the ogre blade noble. Or actually even against the bus as he will lose on static combat resolution. In addition, his cloak can be unforged.

Executioners were house ruled to have rerolls even against frost phoenix, for example. This way they are dangerous but still, they should not kill it outright. They might run him down if I fluff my roll for thunderstomp, though. On the other hand, after the first round of combat they are hitting without reroll and wounding on 5s against both the phoenix and the dragon. They would destroy the bus terribly but only if fighting from the front. Should I manage to charge them in the flank even the bus alone should be able to defeat them.

To sum up, I was only really fearing dwellers and considered all other threats manageable. Therefore, I decided to keep my bus behind and hopefully out of range and intercept the advancing sorceress with the big flyers. This would, so much the theory, either force a fight that I should win (dragon + phoenix = many dead execs, though bringing in something else to accept challenges would be nice) or make the sorceress retreat, limiting the impact of her most dangerous spell.

Spells:
lvl4 high: soul quench, apotheosis, walk between worlds, arcane unforging
lvl1 high: drain magic

lvl4 life: earthblood, throne of vines, flesh to stone, dwellers below

(not sure about my spell selection, I rolled 1,2,2,2 and then 1 with the small mage but we can discuss this afterwards)

We rolled and I was to deploy my entire army first. I chose bottom because I hoped the rocks might split the dark elven forces. Not sure it was the right decision; I actually think it was more or less insignificant in this particular case.

Deployment

Image

I hope the units are recognizable given how many proxies we had to use. On my side, the white knights are silver helms, the big unit was placed next to the hill to have some protection against shooting, the small unit on the other side to intercept any advance from there or hunt down some bolt throwers. The black rider in the big bus is my BSB; my two mages are in the same unit, not much recognizable this turn. The ogre blade noble joined the smaller silver helms.
The brown and yellow riders behind the hill are my elyrian reavers. They deployed on the hill but vanguarded in safety. RBTs are easy to recognize, they cover most of the board but they are somewhat exposed as I wanted them to be on the hill and in the forest rather than behind (this is a general feature of ETC maps, your bolt throwers are either far back and difficult to access but restricted by terrain or you have to expose them somewhat). The things with bat-like wings are eagles, one is covering behind the bus to better survive potential shooting, the other is hoping to hunt down a bolt thrower soon. The blue chariot is my frost phoenix, the red triceratops the dragon; they are in the middle, ready to countercharge should something advance too boldly. The dragon should have probably been put somewhat closer to the bus so that the two birds cover a larger area. It made little difference though.

By the way, I was quite surprised how BIG the bus is. I should have probably reformed it in wider ranks to put a larger distance between it and the life mage. Laziness most of all.

My opponent put his blue executioners right across my big silver helms, next to the rocks, and joined them by his BSB and life mage. Crossbows went behind this block and a hydra looking just like a goblin wolf chariot was guarding its flank. The white riders that look exactly like my mages are warlocks, safe from most shooting behind the rock but at the same time somewhat away from action.

Thue blue cart similar to my phoenix is a cold one chariot. It is guarding the western flank together with the second hydra and it seemed we might have seen a stand-off between them and my small silver helms. The pegasus hero, looking just like my bat-winged eagles, is hidden behind a cavalry unit, more or less immune to shooting with hard cover and cloak of twilight. Two units of dark riders, looking just liky my own fast cavalry, are held in reserve; the other is attacking my bolt throwers, together with a unit of shades.

I was relatively happy with how the deployment turned out. My opponent was mostly unable to pressure me on the first turns as all his units were quite far away. Therefore, I could move my flyers to intercept his executioners without suffering for the lack of their presence elsewhere. I also knew I had to be swift about this as the executioners could have ran across the board quite fast with banner of swiftness.

What I did not like was how endangered my bolt throwers were. Therefore, I decided to try to protect them.

My opponent did not steal the first turn and so I went to work!

Lost Colony, Turn 1

Image

The western flank was easy. Eagle moved up a bit to give itself a chance to charge a RBT while staying in hard cover. Silver helms advanced slightly to cut the zone where my opponent could feel safe.

The big birds moved to the east and parked next to each other just over 18 inches from the executioners. Frost phoenix was then moved with big Walk Between Worlds to a very lucrative spot offering some interesting T2 charges.

On the west, first and foremost I wanted to spread my characters somewhat to mitigate damage from dwellers. Therefore, only my lvl1 stayed in the helms who backed off a little. In addition, I moved reavers to shoot at shades and let lvl4 join them, being just in soul quench range. The problem with this setup was that should the shades survive, they could have charged a bolt thrower and overrun in the reavers with my precious lvl4. I was not sure what to do about this so I at least positioned the BSB and eagle in a way that would have allowed interception. If someone knows a better solution I am all ears. I could have theoretically left my lvl4 behind the hill but then the shades and dark riders could have just climbed up the hill and shot at her which would have been risky as well.

In the end, however, I managed to shoot down the dark riders with two bolt throwers and the shades panicked. This was quite a relief for me. In addition, four out of five dark riders on the other flank fell as well. Quite a lucky start.

Oh yes, and I killed a reaver with a miscast on three dice.

Dark Elves, Turn 1


Image

My opponent advanced boldly on all fronts. The good part (for him) was that his executioners just barely got out of the charge arc of my phoenix. It was also good that the warlocks were threatening me with a countercharge should I park the phoenix in the crossbows. On the other hand, Marky gave me here quite a few possibiliites to charge without threatening with a response. If nothing else, his pegasus master should have not be looking in the wall.

Magic was 3-2, I dispelled flesh to stone and earthblood failed to cast. Shooting did nothing. Small mistakes on the part of both of us: Marky should have tried to one-dice throne instead and I should have kept dice in reserve for this.

Lost Colony, Turn 2

Image

The first opportunity was a charge with silver helms against the chariot. I measured it incorrectly: I thought it was a 7+ but it turned out a 9+ charge I think. Anyway, I made it.
Then I spotted that my dragon can clip the warlocks corner to corner and so I declared the charge. They fled and I redirected in the hydra which held.
Phoenix, seeing the fleeing warlocks, declared another charge against them. They rolled an 8 and barely stayed on the table. I then redirected in the crossbows. Perhaps I should have let that be. I would have needed double sixes to catch the warlocks but failing a charge would have not been that bad – I wanted to send the phoenix against executioners anyway – while this way I risked being trapped for potentially quite a long time.
I decided not to charge with the eagle as I needed to roll a 9+ and should I fail I would get promptly charged by the hydra. No need to risk.
I rolled double 1s for magic and failed to cast unforging on the mage.
In combat, the hydra managed to put one wound on the dragon with breath weapon and got anihilated. I reformed to hopefully see the executioners no matter what they do .(A long overrun would have taken them out of my view though I think. I really should play more precisely.)
To catch the executioners, I blocked them with an eagle. It was angled so that after the charge my heroes would be out of the life sorceress' front arc. The helms were destined to eat some dwellers, there was no way to prevent this.
I should have moved the lvl1 behind the hill as well. There was enough room and it would have made her basically immune to dwellers (because she would have not been the target no matter what). Next time.
Shooting only killed some two executioners. Combat with hydra went well as mentioned earlier, phoenix killed a nice bunch of crossbowmen, but the silver helms only put two wounds on the chariot which held. In return, my champion was killed by the hateful crew.

Dark Elves, Turn 2

Image

The executioners charged my eagle, butchered it and overran six inches. Pegasus hero flew to the centre, keen to help somewhere, and the hydra looked there as well, probably with the intention to help in the chariot fight.
Warlocks failed to rally on Ld8 and ran off the board.
Shooting did nothing of importance. Dwellers went through on silver helms, killing champion and five others, but the mage survived and panic was passed.
Crucially, frost phoenix killed enough crossbowmen to take down their steadfast (six elves were in forest) and they ran, allowing me a reform towards the executioners. In addition, I was able to get down the chariot, gaining another combat reform, this time in the direction of the pegasus master.

Lost Colony, Turn 3


Image

The big turn of doom came. Phoenix and dragon in executioners, small helms in pegasus hero.
I think I made one risky move and one mistake here. The risky move was advancing the reavers north of the hill. It allowed to pound the dark riders (who miracurously survived despite eating two bolt thrower volleys, reaver shooting and a big soul quench (!) ). The mistake was not redirecting the hydra with my eagle. I was winning by 4 before the first blows were landed so I had a very good chance to break him but still, he could have killing blowed my noble or just stayed on a good Ld roll. Then a hydra in my rear would have killed the unit easily.
Luckily for me, while shooting and magic were poor combats went very well. While I was really scared of a CoT induced killing blow the pegasus hero scored none and his normal wounds were deflected by the noble's armour. My noble caused no wounds in turn (he was obviously scared of the KB thing too and wary to come too close to his foe) but still, charge, banner and rear were enough to break the pegmaster's nerve and my unit ran him down.
In the central combat, the unit champion challenged and was killed four times by my prince. The executioners wounded the phoenix twice (from four attacks wounding at 5+, while I had a 4++ ward!) but many of them died to attacks and thunderstomp. Then they rolled an 11 for their break test twice and were run down. In this combat, my opponent lost his main fighting unit, his lvl4 and BSB. Things were looking grim for him.

Dark elves, Turn 3

Image

There was little my opponent could have done. His hydra charged my small silver helms in the rear and I decided to flee just to be sure. Remaining dark rider hid behind forest. He tried to shoot down my character-heavy reavers: his western RBT hit with a single bolt flank shot and caused two wounds to the lvl4, other shooting put one wound on my BSB and killed three reavers. A few arrows more were needed, though, to gain him some bigger points. The crossbows rallied but were unable to shoot this turn.

Lost Colony, Turn 4

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Now I was just mopping up. Phoenix flew towards the eastern RBT and my mage managed to heal him. Prince decided to destroy the crossbows. Characters hopped to the big unit of silver helms finally and the last reaver hid behind a hill. I was able to kill the last rider from the eastern unit with soul quench.
My small silver helms rallied and turned towards the hydra again.

Dark elves, Turn 4

Here I am missing a picture, my apologies. The shooters were shooting like hell and some six wounds landed on my prince (and only three on the dragon). He armoured the most and only suffered one wound, though, after failing his golden crown save. His hydra and dark rider swept on the western flank towards my bolt thrower, staying in cover behind the house.

Lost Colony, Turn 5

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Prince slaughtered the crossbows, phoenix destroyed the bolt thrower. Helms raced to the west. Shooting and magic were able to wound the hydra three times. I forgot to target the dark rider.
I also managed to cast the most useless spell in the game: I tried apotheosis on my mage to protect her better from miscast. I got IF, healed one wound, caused a detonation, saved the wounds on everyone around and failed it on herself, bringing everything back to the initial stage. Well, what can I do.
I also forgot to hide my last reaver.

Dark elves, Turn 5

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The dark rider and hydra went for one more attack, hoping they could at least kill the bolt thrower. The dark rider shot at the lone reaver I think but without success.

Lost Colony, Turn 6

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I managed to kill the dark rider and the hydra with shooting. Small helms charged the last RBT, and while we forgot to roll the combat I did so afterwards and unsurprisingly, the crew was slaughtered.

In the end, I scored a clear 20:0 victory, having only lost points for an eagle and half a unit of reavers. Scenario points were awarded for killing or preserving fast units so they went to me as well.

After-battle thoughts


First of all, I would like to thank my opponent for a pleasurable game!

Now, what do I thank to such a succesS? One thing is that I probably played a better game than Marky. His confident advance with unsupported executioners was a mistake; he was not setting up countercharges; he should have not attacked the eagle with his execs and instead he maybe should have reformed, backed off a bit and tried to dweller off my lvl4. Besides, he only had limited tools to contain my dragon and phoenix.

I do not think the executioners breaking mattered too much. Yes, the combat could have gone a wrong way if they held, reformed and killed the phoenix but something like this wasn't probable (8 attacks hitting on 4+, wounding on 5+, against a 4++ ward). I had a good chance to heal the phoenix in my next turn. Sooner or later Marky would have lost his BSB and then he would be testing on Ld9 without reroll. This can fail quite easily. And between two thunderstomps and a breath weapon, their steadfast would not last long, either. I am quite positive the execs were dead once the two big flyers hit them, excluding the arrival of some significant support.

However, when writing the report, I was surprised how much luck I actually had in other cases. Those other rolls were not as important individually as the break test I have already discussed but they added up:

- the shades fled the board on Ld8
- Marky's first magic phase did not offer him enough dice to dweller me down so I only had to eat the spell once
- warlocks fled the board on Ld8
- my small silver helms rolled high enough to charge the chariot
- pegasus master failed to killing blow my noble
- pegasus master broke in combat on Ld5
- the flanking single shot did not kill my lvl4
- even my small mage passed her strength test on 3-

If we think about what would happen should the dice in those cases go the other way some of my mistakes become evident:

If the warlocks stayed on board, they would have a chance to get in combat against my phoenix should the bird not break the crossbows in the first or second combat phase. Therefore, I think I should have not redirected with the phoenix. The crossbows were more or less insignificant at this particular stage. Yes, they could have shot at my prince. Who cares.

Not sure what more I could have done to mitigate dwellers and shades but it is clear that if there were some T1 dwellers and if the shades were alive I would have been put under much more pressure. Alive shades could have deterred me from hiding my characters separately behind the hill if nothing else.

Offering that flank shot was a big mistake. I exposed a relatively weak unit – four reavers + BSB + lvl4 – to shooting from two bolt throwers and the only possible gain was deleting a unit of dark riders. I should have waited. The dark riders could have done nothing and I had a good chance to severely reduce them with my bolt throwers alone.

Another mistake was my handling of the the pegasus hero. I should have either ignored him and attacked the hydra (lazy to math it out but I should really be able to kill it easily) or prepared the attack better. If I reformed the helms 1-wide, the pegasus hero would only be able to attack my musician with his killing blow. In the second turn, if he did not break, my ogre blade noble could have challenged or made way and chop him down while being quite safe from his normal S4 attacks. In addition, I should have redirected the hydra with the eagle. In the game, I was counting on a) not getting killing blowed and b) breaking the hero right on the charge which was not that likely in combination.

Contrary to this, while I had my dose of bad luck such as a big soul quench and two bolt throwers only killing four dark riders it had no real consequences. Therefore, while I believe I deserved the win I by no means deserved to win in such a flawless manner.

In conclusion, I would like to thank Marky once more for a pleasurable game and for keeping his spirit high despite the bad dice!

-----

By the way, are the pictures too big? Is the forum able to downsize them or do I need to do it in some graphic program?
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Re: Lost colony chronicle - UB tourney w/ HE stardragon - G1

Post by Calisson »

Good report.
Pics have good size.
Thanks for the report, and compliments for the 20:00 win, obviously your training here in D.net helps (possibly your participation to ETC tourneys too).
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Re: Lost colony chronicle - UB tourney w/ HE stardragon - G1

Post by Amboadine »

Thanks for the report. Benchmark is set.
Looks like you will be getting an exciting draw next round :)
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Re: Lost colony chronicle - UB tourney w/ HE stardragon - G1

Post by T.D. »

Good to see the D.net tourney getting a write up.

It was interesting to see the Star Dragon/Silver Helm list play. One of the strongest Elf builds, especially if you are lacking the tools to deal with it.

Marky had Dwellers to threaten the Bus, but not enough poison, I-bombs or T-nerfs to threaten the Dragon. Shadow magic with Pit and Mindrazor amongst others would probably have served him better in this match up. Metal would be another lore that could threaten both Bus and Dragon.

Regardless, you have to play well to win and all of your play was very good :)
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Re: Lost colony chronicle - UB tourney w/ HE stardragon - G1

Post by flatworldsedge »

Great report - some super notes and thoughts shared, really enjoyed reading it. Wish I could be playing too, though reading the level of thought highlights the extra level of class you guys are all in. Nice job.
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Re: Lost colony chronicle - UB tourney w/ HE stardragon - G1

Post by Marchosias »

Many thanks for all your comments! :)

@ Calisson:
Yes, it is nice making some progress. :) The main reason is writing reports and reading reports of others so I really have to thank D.net (and Ulthuan.net) for this. Tournaments I feel are good for getting to know other armies but one should take some time to become aware what worked and why and there is usually not enough time for this there. And I have still only attended one big tournament (the ETC team event I have reported) and a few small ones (three games, one day, various comps). So I really recommend writing reports to anyone who wants to improve. :)

@ Amboadine: Benchmark is set, true. I am dreading this already. The good thing is that ending a tournament with 20 points is not that bad. :D

@ T.D.: True, withering and pit of shades to threaten me on range (pit is actually somewhat effective against the bus, too, as it does not allow ward saves), withering and mindrazor for close combat. It would have still been an uphill battle for Marky. 8 executioners still inflict two unsaved wounds to the phoenix even if wounding on 2+. Metal could be potent with a bigger unit of executioners as +1 to hit on them is a real boost. It also helps dealing with fast armoured units against which he only has limited tools. Not sure though. This is a playstyle I know little about.

@ flatworldsedge: You might be giving us too much credit. We are good but I fear we would get wrecked in a competition against Ulthuan.net, for example. :) Having read your reports I think you could join a tournament like this without shame should you find the time. :)
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Re: Lost colony chronicle - UB tourney w/ HE stardragon - G2

Post by Marchosias »

D.net UB tournament, Game 2 - Watz with OnG

This is the second round of the D.net Universal Battles tournament. I made almost no changes in my roster, the only difference was that I moved the ironcurse icon from the lvl4 to the lvl1.

There was a different change, however, and a very important one: Rowena decided to improve my experience from playing and her and everyone else's from reading the reports and bought me the PRO account. The pictures looking far nicer than before are to her credit so many thanks to her!

Lost Colony:

prince on star dragon, general, heavy armour, shield, great weapon, star lance, dragonhelm, TOTS: 600
archmage on steed, lvl4 high, book of hoeth, ironcurse icon: 300

mage on steed, lvl1 high, dispel scroll: 120
noble on barded steed, BSB, BOTWD, heavy armour, shield, spear: 168
noble on barded steed, heavy armour, enchanted shield, ogre blade: 134

5 elyrian reavers, bow and spear, standard, musician: 115
5 silver helms, shields, champion, standard: 135
15 silver helms, shields, FCG: 375

3x bolt thrower: 3x 70
frost phoenix: 240
2x great eagle: 2x 50

What I realized just prior to the game, though: not only has my prince no ward save (this was an intentional risk), I actually left out golden crown as well. This made him more vulnerable than I have planned. I will have to find points for some more protection in the future battles I think.

Watz, my opponent, was fielding an army with many war machines and lore of undead, as in the first round.

Orcs and Goblins:
Lords:
Black Orc Waaaghboss on Boar, Shield, Trickster's Helmet, Dragonbane Gem, General
Goblin Great Shaman, Lvl4 Little Waaagh, on Arachnarok with spider shrine, Talisman of 4++, Ironcurse Token, Scepter of Stability

Heroes:
Black Orc Bigboss, Shield, Dragon Helmet, Battle Standard Bearer
Savage Orc Shaman, Lvl1 Undeath, Lucky Shrunken Head
Night Goblin Shaman, Lvl2 Undeath, Energy Stone
Night Goblin Shaman, Lvl2 Undeath, Dispel Scroll, Obsidian Trinket (MR1)
Night Goblin Shaman, Lvl1 Undeath
Night Goblin Shaman, Lvl1 Undeath

Core:
53x Goblins, Shields, bows, 3x Nasty Skulkers, Full command
29x Savage Orc Big'Uns, Additional hand weapons, Full command

Elite:
4x Spear Chukka

Rare:
1x Rock Lobba with Orc Bully
1x Rock Lobba
2x Doom Diver

This is not what I would prefer to play against. I have actually thought about leaving the bus and dragon home and going for a phoenix guard deathstar, PG and WL blocks or something. But then I decided that tailoring is not fair, and if this is a bad matchup, I should cope with it somehow.

There are several elements that make this army dangerous:
First and foremost, artillery. Doom divers inflict D6 S5 no armour hits with extreme accuracy so they can reduce my bus very fast. Perhaps more importantly, they can kill the small units very easily as well so if the small helms for example try to get past the infantry lines to the machines they will most likely not succeed. Catapults are a very good counter to the dragon and phoenix; they might not hit but if they do it can hurt. Last, spear chukkas are not too accurate and have no multishot option but they can still kill some helms and if lucky, even wound the big flyers. Their balistic skill is not great (they are BS3) but when there are four of them some are likely to hit.
Second, lore of undead. This thing is not that dangerous in the first turns – though a pack of wolves attacking the bolt throwers or a redirector summoned right in the way of the bus is never a good thing – but if enough spells went through, I could have easily seen terrorgheists roaming the field and this would have been bad. Under the rules pack used, summoned units were worth no victory points at all.
Third (or two and half or something), magical dominance. First, my opponent had six channels, and because of the arachnarok upgrade, all of them could be succeeding at 4+. That means three bonus dice every magic phase on average! Second, every time a spell from the goblin lore goes through the shaman steals a dispel die on 5+. The goblin spells are not that powerful but they can still hurt – there is a 2d6 or 3d6 S3 missile, a spell granting armour piercing, a spell making me reroll sixes, a spell reducing movement by d6, a spell granting poison attacks. Thanks to the spider, the great shaman is a loremaster. The spells are not game changing most of the time (though 50 goblins shooting poisoned arrows on my phoenix could well be) but they hurt.
In addition, the night goblin shamans add d6 to their casts for magical mushrooms which makes them almost as effective as if they were lvl4. Yes, if they roll a 1 for the mushroom they fail the spell and have a chance to get wounded but still.

Summed up, I was looking at getting shot at by two catapults and two doom divers (I can hide from spear chukkas but not from the rest), never knowing when a terrorgheist pays a visit. My ranged presence was far weaker: three bolt throwers with nothing really worth shooting at, soul quench (short ranged though) and fiery convocation. Therefore, I knew I had to push and I had to do it quickly. Otherwise, I would get shot down with no real way to retaliate other than fiery convocation which might not suffice.

So the plan was:
- deploy as much in cover as possible
- close in turn 1, still in cover
- go in the open turn 2 with everything. He cannot shoot it all down, right?
- charge turn 3
- keep up fiery convocation as the highest priority spell: it reduces the big units heavily and if I get Watz to dispel it in his own magic phase it puts some pressure off me

To this end, I deployed in the following way:

Image

Bus, phoenix and dragon are in cover, eagles had to go in the open.
The black orc general joined the goblins, the BSB the savages. Two goblin shamans remained on their own.
As an alternative, I considered putting the bus right to the western edge. The savages should have been unable to intercept. But keeping them from countercharging would have been difficult so I abandoned the idea.

Spells:
High archmage: soul quench, apotheosis, arcane unforging, fiery convocation
high mage: drain magic
undead lore shamans: able to summon infantry units, swarms and characters/monsters

Lost Colony, Turn 1

Image

Surprisingly, I won the roll off. Without delay, I moved forwards while staying in cover.
One interesting option that I am consiering now is that maybe I could have moved the small helms further. In the game, I placed them just outside of the goblin charge range. If they went further, though, I might have tempted the goblins to charge, abandoning the war machines, and going out of the 4+ channeling bubble. On the other hand, the general was with them so parking the phoenix there would have not been wise. So there would have been negligible benefit probably.

You can see that my dragon is easily visible to two spear chukkas. This was a mistake – I was not aware of that at the time but it was possible to hide the eagle to the west of the bus and shuffle the dragon a bit to the north, as I did Turn 2.

In magic, unforging on the shrunken head was dispelled. Then I failed to cast fiery convocation and forgot my reroll for Book of Hoeth. Stupid. Had I met the casting value he would have either suffered heavy losses or blewn his his scroll. Now I had to anticipate another magic phase doing absolutely nothing.

Shooting did a wound to the spider.

Orc and Goblins, Turn 1


Image

I am not sure if the OnG army moved at all. In magic, I started to understand what nastiness I was about to face when Watz claimed an 8v4 phase to be bad. He one diced a d6 S3 on the small silver helms which I let through in anticipation of worse things. The result was one dead helm and one stolen dispel die. Perfect. :D In addition, Watz managed to summon a unit of skeleton archers and a cairn wraith. This was helped by me failing a dispel roll due to first failing my math skills and second forgetting the book of hoeth reroll again. A goblin shaman got wounded with a mushroom at least.

Shooting put three wounds on the dragon with an indirect shot, wounded the prince and killed five silver helms. On the bright side, skeletons only wounded the eagle once and a doom diver blew up.

HIgh Elves, Turn 2

Image

According to the original plan I was supposed to go in position for T3 charges. However, Watz still had his scroll and scepter of stability so I was unlikely to get any spells off and the dragon had been wounded already so my chances were slimmer than what I had done my estimates for. Besides, I thought I was seeing an opening. Therefore, my dragon and bus stayed behind the hill.

The Big Plan was:

The eagle charged the nearest spear chukka. In an ideal case he would need two combat phases to destroy it; this way he would have been safe during the next shooting phase and able to charge in my following turn. Small helms charged the skeleton archers; I thought I had a very good chance to crumble them right away and overrun in the goblins. There, the general would have been unable to make way because of colliding footprints so I would have been almost sure to hold them down for a turn at least. This would have prevented the general from moving to the savages and the goblins from shooting, which would have been a good insurance should the eagle destroy the spear chukka on the charge. I even tried to get the eagle in contact with the warmachine from the east as it would have prevented Watz to combat reform the general in contact with the helms. My opponent had some doubts regarding the legality of this move, though, so I abandoned this idea as I did not want to lose time seeking quotations.

As I deemed it possible that I would to able to destroy the machines actually, I decided not to risk exposing my main units and instead left them waiting. An attack could wait till the rock lobbas die. I only brought the phoenix nearer in case I would have needed it somewhere. Notice that two spear chukkas were able to see the dragon; I did this intentionally to hide the eagle. I expected to need it for some redirecting or warmachine hunting.

In addition, my reavers charged a spear chukka. I knew that after a reform, they were almost sure to destroy one more spear chukka and overrun into even another. This meant that in the following turn I would have only been shot at by two machines which was worth the wait in my opinion. According to the Big Plan at least.

No spells got through but I drew both scepter of stability and scroll. Shooting killed two savages.

My beautiful plan failed for several reasons. First, the eagle scared the goblin crew to flee and remained in the open. Second, there were actually sixteen skeleton archers and four of them remained after the crumble. When considering the charge I somehow thought there were only ten of them. Third, I did not measure the position of the reavers after they destroyed the spear chukka, chose an overrun and got off the board. This together meant that the goblins were free to reform and shoot at the eagle, the orc general was able to countercharge the helms and reavers had to wait a turn before destroying the remaining spear chukkas. My chance at getting an opening was gone.

I am not sure what was the correct play with the eagle and small helms. Eagle charging the warmachine and helms moving out of the charge arc of the warboss perhaps? The skeleton archers need to be killed, though.

Orcs and Goblins, Turn 2


Image

The orc warboss charged small silver helms. Goblins reformed to shoot at the eagle. Arachnarok shuffled to get the phoenix in sight. There was little movement otherwise; some heroes might have shuffled a bit.

Goblins pin cushioned the poor eagle. Phoenix suffered two wounds, I think from the 3d6 magic missile. Dragon got wounded once more with a spear chukka and five more silver helms died to a doom diver. The bus was starting to look quite sad.

The orc general killed my silver helm champion easily. However, as the elves destroyed all four remaining archers and wielded a banner he lost combat by two actually. He passed his break test, though, so I reformed for at least a small chance of wounding him.

High Elves, Turn 3


Image

I could have tried to get another opening. However, I was slowly getting out of units to do so. Reaves were unable to charge this turn and therefore quite likely to get shot down and the eagle could not go in the open with two spear chukkas still operational. Therefore, I decided to go all in and pray. I hope I managed to set my units up so that nothing besides good shooting could have saved the savages while not offering any flank shots.

In magic, fiery convocation got dispelled but I healed the dragon for two wounds, bringing him to five. Reavers shot two goblins from under the nearest spear chukka. Bolt throwers tried to kill a lone goblin shaman to hopefully force some panics - the machines were outside the range of their general - but they only scored one wound.

Small silver helms did not manage to scratch the warboss and he killed two. The standard bearer died after failing his break test. Pity. If he held for a turn more I would have tried a sinle shot on the orc.

Here we had to stop the game as we had already spent five hours playing and I had to leave.

Orcs and Goblins, Turn 3


Image

Next day we met again and Watz started by agonizing for some 50 minutes if he should charge. Somehow I had hoped he would have decided during the day long pause.

In the end, he did not charge and assumed defensive positions instead. Goblin shamans hid in the big unit, general joined the savages, cairn wraith positioned himself to prevent the overrun of the elyrian reavers in the other spear chukka. Savages reformed for as many ranks as possible.

In magic, I let through a combat hex on the silver helms, intending to drain magic it in my turn. Otherwise, nothing of importance went through; I think Watz lost four dice when his goblin shaman ate a bad mushroom. Nor really sure.

Then the super important shooting phase came. First shot, a rock lobba hit the dragon, five wounds. Bam, dragon down and with it my chance of breaking the savage orcs. The remaining artillery was shooting at the phoenix and failed to harm it.

High Elves, Turn 4


Image

With the dragon dead, charging the savages would have been very risky. It might have worked as the number of return attacks would have been quite low and I should have been able to kill the BSB, meaning a break test without reroll for him; still, with a countercharge of the spider imminent, I could have got in trouble very fast. Therefore, I decided to leave them alone.

Instead, I sent the eagle after the artillery and reavers to kill the spear chukka finally. Ogre blade noble charged out of the unit to singlehandedly destroy one more spear chukka and overrun in the cairn wraith. Phoenix continued to hide behind the house and the unit of helms backed away and got out of the sight of anyone. General hid behind the hill to conserve points.

At this point I knew I was unable to get the full four points for scenario. If I managed to ensure the orcs did not reach my deployment zone, though, I could have got at least three points which is surely better than nothing.

Neither magic nor shooting did much of importance as my opponent chanelled enough to have more dice than me.

The ogre blade noble fluffed and failed to kill his spear chukka. The warmachine held as it was near both the general and the BSB. Reavers destroyed their spear chukka and managed to reform in such a way that the cairn wraith was not seeing them. Eagle broke the doom diver crew and overran in the rock lobba.

Orc and Goblins, Turn 4


I am missing the picture here - many apologies.

Watz pursued my helms with his savages. Before that, his general left the unit and chased my prince instead. Goblins lined up to shoot at the phoenix. Otherwise, my opponent only did a little.

In magic, I let through the -D6 movement spell on helms (might have been a mistake - see my next turn). It only reduced their stats by one, luckily. I dispelled poison on goblins. No more crucial spells went through for some reason - I think Watz miscasted on something not so important and lost dice.

Lacking poison shots, goblins failed to kill the phoenix. Rock lobba scattered to nowhere.

The ogre blade noble finished off the spear chukka at last and I decived to play it safe and reform towards the last rock lobba. This proved as a good decision as the eagle failed to wound the rock lobba crew and the three goblins killed it in return (three wounds out of three attacks hitting on 4+ and wounding on 5+, those little guys were surely cool).

High Elves, Turn 5

Image

First of all, the goblins were outside the general and BSB bubbles and in line of sight of the phoenix. I charged and they failed their Ld6 terror test. If they passed, I was quite certain to win the combat even with nasty skullkers and force a break test on Ld6 again... anyway, the phoenix caught them and reformed towards the warmachines, safely within 12 inches from the rock lobba.

Now, about the general. If I charged with the bus (and he elected not to flee) I had a chance to break him with static combat resolution. However, if he stayed the bus would have been visible to the savages who would have killed them off quickly. Too risky. I originally wanted to go there but changed my mind; this is why I had allowed the movement reducing spell as it made no difference for the charge.

Anyway. Ogre blade hero charged the rock lobba. Bus was in trouble so the archmage and BSB left it and formed a new unit, invisible to the orcs. The helms then reformed and raced directly away. If my archmage stayed here the bus would have been safe as well but it would have meant no offensive magic. There was of course some risk involved as the rock lobba might have succeeded to drop a rock on the head of one of the heroes. I deemed it worth it, though.

And indeed, while arcane unforging got dispelled I finally forced through fiery convocation, reducing the savages to a very sorry state. Shooting killed some more of them and the ogre blade noble dispatched the rock lobba without problems. Things were starting to look bright again.

One more word about the reavers. When I had placed them the spider was unable to charge them because of interfering orcs; I failed to account for the casualties. Tempting the charge had some benefits, though - if nothing else, it meant the spider was unable to charge my bolt throwers and get in my deployment zone. And it might have lured the orc general in the open, under bolt thrower fire.

Orc and Goblins, Turn 5

Image

My oh so mighty plan worked - the spider charged, reavers fled, warboss charged as well, they escaped both. Orc were going forwards (but not at full speed it seems?), only a goblin left them and hid behind the hill.

No important magic again. The orcs had far less channels than before and I used the scroll. Only one rock lobba was left to shoot and it achieved nothing. There was no combat.

Lost Colony, Turn 6

Image

There was little left to do that would have mattered. In addition, I was near midnight and the ninth hour of the game in total, fourth the particular day, so I wanted to get over it quickly. Both noble and phoenix charged the last warmachine (there is no kill like overkill after all), helms hid somewhere behind the rocks, prince ran right away from the savages. Reavers rallied and prepared to shoot the lone goblin. I was measuring the archmage and BSB for a while as I originally wanted them to go under the warboss, in soul quench range from the lone night goblin and at the same time able to cast arcane unforging on the warboss and big soul quench on the savages. This proved quite hard to do so I decided not to waste time trying and just placed them somewhere. Well, it turned out I left them visible to the warboss. I only realized this in my magic phase and Watz said it was too late to shuffle them.

I do not know what I have actually said about the heroes in the Skype call. I certainly said something like "I just place them somewhere to make it quick." I might have said: "I place them somewhere you will be unable to charge them." Then, shuffling a bit would have been only fair. I might have only mentioned the savages. There is no way to find out.

Anyway.

Big soul quench on savages was dipelled but fiery convocation ticked again, killing a few guys. Reavers killed the night goblin. I tried to singleshot the warboss: first shot missed, the second hit and wounded but the roll to wound had to be repeated because of the Trickters helm and I failed to roll my 3+ the second time. Third bolt thrower tried a flank shot on the savages and missed.

Orcs and Goblins, Turn 6

Image

The warboss charged my heroes who fled. No other movements had a chance to be significant. In magic, Watz summoned some skeleton archers and tried to shoot the prince but without success.

In the end, Watz scored points for both eagles and small silver helms but because he also got half of the points for the fleeing heroes the game ended a 13:7 in my favour (and I was 10 points short of a 14:6 which does not make me feel better). If the heroes were not forced to flee it would have been a comfortable 15:5.

In addition, after the game I realized I am stupid and cannot read. I thought I had the scenario in my bag thanks to the phoenix in the OnG deployment zone. However, monsters only count for 0,5 ranks and I would have needed a full rank to score the scenario point. This way, we split the scenario points evenly. This is quite annoying given that my reavers were in excellent position to claim the zone.

After battle thoughts

Well, I have to admit I was frustrated from the game. It is mostly OK now but I feel for poor Rowena who had to listen to my ramble just the day after.

You know, I could have tailored a list against orcs. PG block or maybe two, some archers to shoot manglers and risen wolfs, archmage, flaming BSB to help agains trolls, maybe a fighty lord if I had spare points. A PG block is basically immune to the artillery, goblins can hardly shoot enough to make a difference and it easily grinds down anything OnG can throw its way. Chariots might be bad but even chariots would need to come in great masses - and survive my own shooting first.

It is probably my own fault that I brought the dragonlist nevertheless, fully aware that if luck goes against me I will have nothing to do about it because there is no plan that can survive a few direct catapult hits. As I have said, I did not want to tailor as I consider it ungentlemanly. Still, maybe the PG block would have made the game more interesting.

I think I played reasonably well. I did not hesitate with attacks too much (I am still not sure if I should have gone in the open Turn 2 but there were some reasons not to do that), I created some opportunities, I exploited some openings, I danced out of some charge arcs. There were mistakes of course - overrunning with the reavers and forgetting the BoH reroll at least - but apart from that, I do not see many significant improvements. In addition, those mistakes were imprecisions rather than bad judgements. My thinking was sound, I just forgot some crucial information. :) And still, I was too often left with no other choice than praying for the goblin artillery to miss. It felt that I was trying to come up with something clever while Watz was just sitting in his corner and shooting and that alone was giving him a very good chance at a win. The slow tempo of the game did not help, either. I am rather a slow player as well but I was still twice as fast as Watz and I was at least doing something.

Then, from Turn 4 onwards, I was starting to feel better. With the combination of luck, some good judgement on my part and mistakes on my opponent's, I earned some decent points and more importantly, there were finally no more inescapable threats. It was still a challenge to get everything to safety as the charge arcs of savages plus general were quite big but I was finally able to create the game. I still had to take some painstaking measurements though as evading with the helms was not trivial.

And then, in the last turn, there was nothing more that could have mattered. So I decided to do it quickly and end this agonizing battle that was already spanning over two days and nine hours. And I was punished for it severely. Sure, a 13:7 is still a win and I am more than happy about it as I could have got tabled easily but I cannot avoid the thought that I lost two whole points just because I wanted to go to sleep before midnight.

Enough rambling, analysis time. In general I do not see many things I could have done better. One important thing to note is that my phoenix was quite afraid of the warboss who had four S7 attacks in the first turn and of the spider, too, because that beast has, in addition to its many normal attacks, one special one which can inflict d6 wounds. Furthermore, the it is unbreakable.

I might have missed some nice opportunity Turn 4, however. I had the option to charge the northeastern spear chukka with the whole bus. I would have splintered it terribly and overrun in the cairn wraith, out of the line of sight of the savages. The orcs would have reformed to face me probably but I would have been granted a combat reform after this and so would have been able to react for example by showing them the backs of my helms and racing 18 inches to the east. Should the savages reform incorrectly, however, I might have had the opportunity to, say, reform three-wide, charge the catapult and overrun in the spider. The danger would have been that should this go wrong I might have been shot at directly by two catapults. I actually think I should have done this - or am I oversighting something?

This match also shows a weakness of high magic. If an opponent has so many dispel dice the best way is to cast a lot of small spells so that the +1 to cast high magic and the book of hoeth reroll get to work as much as possible. This would need many small useful spells, though. In this game, there was an extremely important fiery convocation, an extremely important apotheosis and that was it basically. I think it might have been different either with death magic for example (the general is crucial for orcs and purple sun ruins them as well - and most of the spells can be attempted on two or three dice, four in the case of sun) or with high magic + infantry for example (as hand of glory and walk between worlds suddenly become very potent spells). High magic is potent as it has tools for everything but sometimes it is too obvious which tool is useful and which is not.
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Re: Lost colony chronicle - UB tourney w/ HE stardragon - G2

Post by Watz »

I think Marchosias battle report already gave a nice overview of the match.
The magic phase in turn4 saw an 2dice IF with my lvl4 goblin, which prevented me from forcing the poison atacks on my goblins by draining the remaining 6 (or 5?) power dice. The poisoned mushroom fails happened during the turns before (if I remember correctly).

When I first saw both our armies I was quite surprised how my OnG gunline offered a great counter to most of the HE army nastiness. The lack of magic attacks together with the DDs meant the silver helms with the banner of the world dragon would be vulnerable (I always wondered how demons of chaos dealt with the banner) while the dreaded high magic + book of hoeth combo would struggle against all those extra dispel dice. And the 600p dragon prince would be at risk of either beeing killed by a lucky siege shot or beeing stuck at one of the many undead units I would surely summon... So far the theory at least. :roll:

During the game I was somewhat optimistic until turn 3 and even after just reading the report I can barely understand how my situation became so much worse after luckshoting the dragon. In the end I was glad at least some savages and the arachnarok were alive.
In retrospective I wonder if I should have held back during the 2nd half of the game. That decision probably would have reduced my losses (but at the same time robbed me of any chance to get points for the silver helms bus or general).
And of course I learned once again: Never leave your goblins alone if you want them to actually hold the line. :?

My heavy investment into undeath magic sadly didn't pay off at all during this match. I failed to get Akar’aran the dark riders which I had hoped to give me some black knights. And, although my sneaky stealin rolls were lucky; between several mushroom autofails and unplanned IFs - 2dice IF for a 5+, come on !eek! - I only managed to summon two small units of skeleton archers and a single cairn wraith. Overall I had hoped for a more... dominating magic phase with this setup. ;)

Marchosias high magic on the other hand worked well enough, especially if you consider my heavy investment into (anti-)magic with its 3 additional dice on average, scepter and scroll. In the end fiery convocation took its toll on the savages and I don't even want to think about how much worse it could have been with book of hoeth on turn1.

In the end I feel the game didn't go the way it should have been, but at the same time I am not sure what i should/could have done different. I guess I still need alot more experience until I can assess most situations correctly... or even quickly. (Seeing how it took me ages to wrap my head arround movement with all those flying units threatening me. :D )
If I take a look at how lucky my rock lobba hits & sneaky stealin rolls were, how the high magic phases could have been much worse (I didn't even realize Marchosias turn1-mistake until the next day), how the scenario points were split 2-2 even though I had not a single unit in the enemy deployment zone and how the bulk of my points (aka fleeing BSB and mage) were just sheer luck... Well I get the feeling my poor waaagh got beaten pretty badly. :mrgreen:
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Marchosias
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Re: Lost colony chronicle - UB tourney w/ HE stardragon - G2

Post by Marchosias »

Watz wrote:I can barely understand how my situation became so much worse after luckshoting the dragon.

As I am thinking about it, it seems that your defeat more or less boils down to my eagle surviving T3. I was lucky that your goblings failed their swift reform but you should have probably aimed there with everything available after that first catapult killed the dragon. The surviving eagle:
- killed the doom diver
- locked a catapult in combat and should have beaten it statistically
- allowed my ogre blade noble to charge out of the unit by tying and destroying the doom diver, leading to the destruction of a bolt thrower - with the doom diver alive I would not dare going out with the noble probably (not really sure, there was a good chance the noble would stuck but still)
- allowed my lvl4 to leave her unit and cast from behind the hill, leading to the demise of many savages and a goblin shaman. Again, with doom diver alive and catapult able to fire I would hardly dare to do this.

Not sure what were you targetting with the doom diver but the eagle should probably have been the highest priority. The shot might have scattered anyway...

Another possibility to get rid of it would have been to charge it and stop an overrun by putting a unit in their way.

And then there is the mistake with goblins that yielded me some nice points as well of course.

The magic was funny. I only got through two spells actually. One of them was insignificant as it healed the dragon that died to the first subsequent shot anyway. But the one fiery convocation was enough. You were probably somewhat unlucky with magic, indeed - goblin magic needs to be a barrage as no spell there hurts really that bad most of the time but they hurt when they add up. On the other hand, the summoning spells are quite expensive. You were casting them with four dice most of the time. This means it is difficult to cast more than one in a magic phase. Your result was not that much under average, considering that statistically, one of the six spells that should go through fails and another gets scrolled.

The trick is to summon the right thing at the right time. The first archers forced my helms to get themselves killed which is a decent accomplishment. The cairn wraith should have probably walked up to redirect the bus. Or denied some landing zones.

It seems to me your army is too dependant on summoning redirectors. Summoned ones are awesome as they yield no points of course but if your magic is stopped which can easily happen you are in trouble. If you have a shooty army you need to buy time to shoot as long as possible.
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Re: Lost colony chronicle - UB tourney w/ HE stardragon - G2

Post by Amboadine »

Great report again. Thanks for taking the time to write it up.
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Re: Lost colony chronicle - UB tourney w/ HE stardragon - G2

Post by Swordmaster of Hoeth »

Hi Marchosias,

First of all many thanks for providing very detailed reports from the tournament. For many it was not possible to watch the games live and the report is the chance to see what happened. What is more it is always a great opportunity for players to replay the game and check the alternatives. Many thanks for taking time to write up!

I also need to apologize (as usual!) for being late to the party. I intended to comment long time ago but I hope that it is better late than never! And if I am not mistaken, you haven't reported the last game of a tournament yet so maybe it is a good time anyway.

Personally, I find your games interesting because the army list you decided to use seems to be quite popular among HE players at the moment. So learning how it operates based on real games is an important thing. I may face something similar myself after all :)

As always I try not to read the comments made by other forum members so that I don't become biased. Forgive me then if I repeat something you have already addressed.

Armies

As I said your army is strong and some version of it will be present at this year ETC. It looks like an aggressive list with hard hitters in the form of Dragon, Frosty and SH bus. Very fast too so the enemy does not have much time to respond. It does not have many support units but they are very helpful. 3 RBT's are here to remove some of the intervening support regiments but with S6 and no save (as well as rank penetration) they are not to be ignored by lone characters. 2 eagles, reavers and silver helms may preform the same duties as ever, interfere with the movement phase of the enemy and allow hard hitters to do their job.

In addition, you have good magic that may increase the chances for survival, may speed up your advance and even heal your big guys. Some magic missiles will be handy too. Last but not least, BotWD will make sure many magical attacks will bounce off harmlessly and will make your dragon even more scary than it already is.

You faced more friendly army list and from your description it looked like you were not much worried about it. The DE army has good tools to hunt down your war machines though and has an advantage of shooting power that can help dealing with your support troops. I expect then that your opponent is going to get your RBT's, Silver Helms, Reavers and Eagles over the course of battle. He needs to keep tight formation, however, and have something to divert the bus so that it does not charge together with the Dragon and/or Frosty.

Because you will have a choice of targets it is also important not to allow any overruns into fresh units, in particular for Dragon and Frosty. And always be prepared for counter charges. You might not consider Hydras or Chariot a threat but if three of them attack in unison then they can cause trouble anyway.

Oh, btw, I comment while I read so take it into account, I might see how my predictions were in the following turns :)

Deployment

It is interesting to see that you covered your Silver Helms with the shadow of the hill. It means that enemy bolt throwers were deployed before SH bus, is that correct assumption?

I am also surprised you exposed both fliers so much. Warlocks were be able to target them as did enemy bolt throwers. It is quite interesting to see you deployed defensively when you had the aggressive force while your opponent spread his army and looked ready to advance over entire width. I expected opposite approach, him defensing and you attacking.

Ah, I have just reminded myself that it was Dawn Attack. It means you deployed first. It is even more intriguing then that DE had bolt throwers separated. Seeing your army deployed like that I would think it is beneficial to occupy the hill North-West as it puts more distance in between the armies. Knowing you are most likely are going to go first I would put warlocks behind the hill and other fast regiments behind the cover. Shades would have been placed behind the house and jump in there for extra protection and better harassment abilities.

I am not sure what the plan with crosswbows was. Executioners seem to be a little lonely, they would greatly benefit from hydras and chariot support.

Reavers and Shades on the East are very exposed. It is very risky because you may get the first turn more likely and then they are left in the open. 2 bolt throwers can destroy the riders and that means panic check for the shades. Very dangerous.

Turn 1

Very good opening, in particular with deleting almost 3 full enemy support units. Not only they didn't bother your bolt throwers but could not be used for harassment later. I am afraid it was a mistake in DE positioning as I have said earlier.

Frosty goes for the crossbows I think, to pin them down and grind them eventually. Dragon Stays in the open though, which is a little surprising.

I don't think it is a good idea to expose Warlocks like that. First, they show the flank to the Dragon that can bypass Executioners. Even Forstheart can charge them too and flank attack with crossbows may or may not swing the balance in the subsequent turns (provided warlocks would hold). I also think your opponent should use Doombolt spell as with 3-2 he had a chance to score better than you even with the book. 2d6 S5 at phoenix might be what he needed.

Turn 2

Very good with charges of the fliers. Exposed flank of the warlocks was asking for the attack and your opponent had to flee but good re-directs almost chased them off the table. Then you proceeded to eliminate one hydra that alone is not a match for a charging dragon.

While the long charge seems lucky (against chariot) it looks like it is a safe one as pegasus master could not see a thing through the building. The only surprise was that you held Silver Helms far away as otherwise they would be close enough to assist the Dragon in its attack on Executioners.

It looked very bad for DE already and their turn was not good enough to tip the balance. In fact, the lost combat against the Phoenix and Warlocks that fled were tough blows.

Turn 3

Which combat was first? I am wondering if it was possible to resolve Pegasus Rider first and if it allowed (potentially at least as the distance seems long) to overrun into Executioners' flank? Also, why so shy with Silver Helms against the Exacutioners? SH would hit first and with re-rolls too! I think it would also help because you could have accepted the challenge with the champion and direct attacks of the dragon and prince against the unit, adding t-stomps too. No way they would be steadfast. It was unlucky to fail break test on ld9. With SH from the front it would have been a guarantee.

I am afraid that rest of the game was simply collecting points for you.

Bad luck on different rolls was of course contributing to the end result but I think Marky made mistakes and the consequence was that he lost the game. I am sorry to be brutally honest but often the dice rolls are not the main factor even if they can be remembered as such. Many of these failed LD tests, for example, could have been avoided with more careful positioning.

But main thing to consider was a deployment that didn't allow for mutual support and offering the units in a piecemeal fashion. When fighting the faster enemy, especially flying one, it is important to keep tight formation where regiments support each other. I think Marky helped you in actually advancing because you can counter charge easily without exposing your troops.

It is good to know you had a great time!

Once again, thanks for the report! I will do my best to follow with the comments about next game soon!

Cheers!
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Re: Lost colony chronicle - UB tourney w/ HE stardragon - G2

Post by Swordmaster of Hoeth »

Welcome back!

First of all, many thanks to Rowena for providing you with nice "miniatures" :) It is definitely looking much better and I think the investment was worthy!

I forgot to mention something you have just did. Not much protection for the Prince. That is why I was surprised in the previous game that bolt throwers didn't try a luck shot at him. But maybe they did and Marky simply missed?

Armies

Orcs & Goblins are always a force to respect. Somehow they are not as unruly and unpredictable as in the novels, tend to hit hard and with precision. It was very interesting to see Goblins with Undead lore, it is still relatively new and it is a good opportunity to see how that may work. Artillery is always a problem too. I have a feeling this army will castle in the corner :)

Deployment

As expected O&G castled :) I think both armies were using the terrain to their respective advantages and I really like both of them. Of course I would have much preferred O&G in an aggressive formation but for that they would need a different army :)

Turn 1

I wanted to ask why didn't you move Frostheart beyond the building instead of an eagle? I am not sure what would have been better, simply curious!

Well, that's Green Dorfs for you :) They try to magic and shoot you to death!

Turn 2

I don't understand what happened with an eagle. If it charged and won combat to break the crew he could have overrun. Of course it means he would not be able to charge the following turn but I just wanted to make sure I got the situation right. You won the combat, goblins broke and you decided to reform?

That was interesting plan for sure and it could work! I wonder what you think about charging both, Silver Helms and the Eagle against Skeletons? It was possible to position the Eagle so that the overrun would get it into the spear chukka. With 2A and a stomp he could have added the wounds required to crumble the unit entirely.

But I am not sure if it was good idea to keep the bus behind the hill anyway? Of course it was more risky because you would have been exposed to enemy bolt throwers but ... I don't know, what do you think?

Turn 3

It looks like you simply lost momentum at this stage and that was the reason I was considering the option with the bus and dragon moving out. There are many targets to shoot at and then you are already in a position to charge.

That big rock killing the dragon could have happened any time. Such is life but the good thing is you still didn't give up points. I personally hate that rule :) as it makes all the effort useless!

Turn 4

You are very careful and defensive player it seems :) I am not sure if charging recklessly was a good option but going after the artillery was good move. Technically, you could block both Arachnarok and NG with an eagle and charge Frosty and SH into savages but I wonder if that would have been enough to break them?

Turn 5

Very good thinking and well spot on the goblins who lacked the distance to BSB and General! It also seems your defensive game is netting you some gain as you still have tools to use to provide some kills. Well done with the Fiery Convocation. Do you think it was a mistake to dispel Unforging and let this one through?

It was very an interesting turn indeed, suddenly green castle collapsed and the numerous army looked very small now!

Turn 6

Well, you protected the points so it was not too bad! I think you should be rather happy that you didn't give up points for the dragon despite dangerous artillery. It was a very interesting game and while there are always things to do differently, the victory was yours! Of course I perfectly understand the feeling when you could have done things better by being more careful with scenario objectives. But the good thing is you can remember that for next games!

I also much preferred this game with the army that was not tailored. You see, I find such games much more interesting. You had better match up Game 1, now you still won in a game where the enemy had a lot of tools to deal with your dragon (and he did!). I would consider 13:7 victory much sweeter than 20:0 in circumstances that favor you. Adversities show the greatness of a general :)

Indeed, poor Rowena that not only she gave you new and great looking army but you also complained about winning the game :D

Many thanks to both of you for a great game and contribution of both players to the report! It is not often that one can obtain comments from the opponent!

Cheers!
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Re: Lost colony chronicle - UB tourney w/ HE stardragon - G2

Post by Marchosias »

Thank you for such detailed replies! You made some interesting comments and asked some good questions so I will try to answer them one at a time. :)

The role of big helms

In short, they are first and foremost a bunker unit. They are here to provide look out and keep my expensive characters safe. Therefore, they usually try to avoid unnecessary losses. Sure, they can fight reasonably well if they get a charge and they bring in a fight two banners and two ranks but this role is only secondary.

The nature of my army

While it seems like an aggressive force the list is actually quite balanced. Sure, the dragon is here to smash face, as is the frostheart and to some extent the bus (though frosty and bus have to be careful, they can kill many things but many opponents laugh at them in turn). But one more important aspect is point preservation – if all goes well, I should never lose my bus, my dragon or any of the heroes and that is a good chunk of points.

Furthermore, the list has a considerable ranged presence as well. Three bolt throwers can be very dangerous at times, especially with hand of glory. The star dragon has a fiery breath that can, used right, fry a good number of dudes. And five levels of high magic mean that I should be able to be dangerous at range, too. If not unlucky, I can have double soul quench plus fiery convocation which is enough to delete entire units. For handling big nasties, I have soul quench again (with enough hits I should roll some sixes and the spell is cheap), arcane unforging or hand of gloried bolt throwers. It is not enough to outshoot wood elves but it is still solid.

This means that quite often I am not forced to push forwards at full speed. I can prepare my opponent from afar before engaging.

If I wanted a really aggressive army I could field one more frosty instead of the bolt throwers. Or even two star dragons. :shock: Given how many points I stuck in support units instead I should get some mileage out of them by playing from afar at times. :)

DE game - Deployment

In general, I try to avoid any first turn risks if possible. Often there is nothing important a unit can do right from the beginning anyway and so it can safely start behind a hill. It keeps it safe at a negligible cost. This is why I tried to shield my helms with the hill as much as possible. If we were playing battleline I would have put them entirely behind the hill. I was expecting that only light units will be trying to advance right from the start and therefore, I would have nothing worthy of charging anyway. A one-on-one fight with executioners would have been disastrous and one needs a turn or two to set up something better anyway.

This denial of options can be seen by my deployment of smaller helms, too. It was impossible to get them completely safe but at least I made it difficult to target them without cover by a RBT on a hill. In retrospect, I should have probably deployed them in a line to reduce damage from single shots.

On the other hand, given how many units and lone models Marky had I needed to start killing them as soon as possible. This is an important job for my fliers; small helms or bolt throwers can help too, as can magic, but they are far less reliable in this regard. Therefore, I wanted them central, so that they could fly where needed. In addition, this deployment would have made my opponent think twice about advancing too boldly. While being in the open carries some risk I was pretty confident I could survive without getting hurt too badly. And I can heal them back if necessary. The prospect of warlocks and pegmasters advancing at full speed and going where they please is worse than the prospect of suffering a few wounds.

Keep in mind that while doombolt is a good spell it is not easy to cast on 12+. And even if the spell goes through, against T6 or T7 it should not be disastrous. Furthermore, I was going to scroll dwellers anyway so I should have had many dice spare for doombolts. :)

DE game - Random thoughts

A frostheart should never fight warlocks. Too many poison attacks, and under our ruling with hatred as well. Frosty only has four attacks in return which, when the 4++ ward of warlocks is factored in, is not really enough. I would charge a phoenix with my warlocks anytime.

DE game - Executioners combat

Not sure if the combat with the pegasus master was first or second. The overrun would have had to be very long though. 10+ at least, probably more.

Now about the shyness of my silver helms:

First, recall that about the bunker unit. There were still two DE bolt throwers ready to shoot, some crossbowmen and a hydra. At this stage I was pretty sure I could hunt it all down but I was not sure I would have managed it without magic support. Therefore, I wanted my mage in the middle of the field, throwing spells left and right. In addition, a BSB in range of my units is usually a good thing. This would have been impossible without a solid enough bunker though. Therefore, I was vary of losing too many helms. There were nine of them remaining, in the fight I could have easily lost, say, four more (this would have been a bit unlucky but still easily possible).

Second, I did some mathhammering prior to the game and I was pretty confident the two flyers will grind down the executioners eventually even without any help.

Third, the SH champion got dwellered the turn before so I would have needed to accept the challenge with my lvl1. Not impossible but somewhat risky still.

So by not charging with SH, I avoided the risks of losing my lvl1, losing half the points for my SH and having to hide my lvl4 behind the hill for the remainder of the game at the cost of a potentially longer combat. I would do it again.

The OnG battle

I do not have much to add. You identified some moments where I could have decided differently and thruth is, I have no idea if it would have been preferable. By charging the eagle in archers, for example, I would have risked having the bird stranded in the open and eating lots of fire from spear chukkas. Might have still been better though. Hard to say. (You understood correctly: the WM crew broke on Ld6 or 7 and the eagle reformed.)

I am pretty sure though that charging the savages would have not been wise. I would have not killed that many of them with their T4 and 5++ ward and they, thanks to the choppas rule, would strike back at S4 (frost aura included) with 3 attacks per man. And the general has S7 if he chooses a great weapon (and why would he not). I am lazy to math it out but I really think the savages would have been able to grind my helms down. There were only six of them remaining at this stage of the game. Furthermore, black orc bosses are decent warriors – I actually think the general could quite easily kill the frosty if given enough time.

So I do not think I am (that) carefull or defensive. :) I just think that by charging, I would have put almost all my remaining points at a big risk. This game actually illustrates well the point-denial aspect of my army. Despite being shot at from all conceivable weapons, despite losing so many helms and the dragon my opponent only got points for a few support units and for the fleeing heroes which was the consequence of a stupid mistake, not the list itself. And I was pretty confident that if I destroy the warmachines, I will be able to avoid all harm from then on.
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Re: Lost colony chronicle - UB tourney w/ HE stardragon - G2

Post by Swordmaster of Hoeth »

Hi Marchosias,

Thanks a lot for your detailed replies! I understand your point of view much better and with that knowledge I see why did you took certain decisions instead of others. I just wanted to highlight I never have an intention to criticize. Even if I think a player made a mistake it is still a subjective assessment formulated with a benefit of a hindsight and taking the advantage of a relaxed look at the battle report. It is to share my observations and learn from the game you played.

I hope that despite being late the comments can bring your reports back to the attention as they are good games to follow and I am eagerly looking forward to the last installment of the tournament!

Cheers!
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