2400 ETC vs Ogres IrongutStar (with small battle report)

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2400 ETC vs Ogres IrongutStar (with small battle report)

Post by Scyloc »

Hello fellow Druchii-readers.

This tuesday I am playing a tournament game vs Ogres.

It is a tournament where you cannot change your army, but you can tailor your list prior to each match.

Hence. I know for a fact I am facing Ogres in the hands of an extremely good player. He was part of the danish ETC-team last year that came in 2nd, and one of the absolutely best players in the danish tournament scene.
This year however we will not be attending the ETC due to time constraints.

I do not know what he will bring exactly, but the different viable ETC-builds of ogres all consist of a 9ironguts unit tooled up with 4-5 characters including the banner of the great maw, 1 ironblaster, 3 sabretooths and a few gnoblars.

The different variations i might face is the above + one of the units below:
a) 4+2 Mournfangs
b) 9 leadbelchers
c) 6 Maneaters either the poison sniper variant or the scout CC variant.

I expect him to field the maneaters.

If he goes crazy. He might decide to loosen up on characters and field another unit of maneaters (or something else from the list above).


As we all know ogres suffer from poor armor saves and relatively poor leadership. (I would expect him to bring Tyrant and +1 Ld banner though)

But with low armour save they are very vunerable to shooting. Therefore i will bring the max 35 RXB that i can to soften up his Gutstar unit before engaging it.

I need to be able to deal with sabretooths as well. It is a must that i win the flag battle.

What i had in mind so far is this:
Supreme Sorceress, General, lvl4, Ruby Ring of Ruin, Sacrificial Dagger, Lore of Death - 310 Pts.

Death Hag, Cauldron of Blood - 200 Pts.
Master, Lance, HA, Shield, SDC, CO, BSB, Hydra banner - 214 Pts.
Master, HA, Shield, SDC, Dark Pegasus, Pendant of Khaeleth, Dragonhelm - 185 Pts.
10 Crossbowmen, M - 105 Pts.
10 Crossbowmen, M - 105 Pts.
10 Crossbowmen, M - 105 Pts.
22 Dark Elf Warriors, M, S, C - 147 Pts.
18 Dark Elf Warriors, M, S, C, Standard of Discipline - 138 Pts.
5 Harpies - 55 Pts.
5 Harpies - 55 Pts.
5 Shades - 80 Pts.
13 CO Knights, M, S, C, The ohter Trickster's Shard, Std. of Swiftness - 421 Pts.
18 Black Guards, M, S, Std. of Murder - 280 Pts.
Total: 2400

The CoK with HydraBannerBSB will charge the gutstar in turn 3-6 depending on how defensively he plays. But i need to wither them down by 4-5 models before i can engage.
Possibly i will join the PendantPeg with the BGs form them up with him in the front and take the gutstar charge. Should be able to hold 3-5 combat turns in average.

Meanwhile the rest of my army needs to be able to deal with mournfangs/maneaters/leadbelchers.

This means i will have my Lv4 Death and either the BGs+22War+PendantPeg or the CoKunit to handle his other stuff.
Purple Sun is of course a game winner, but also spirit leech and the diferent sniper spells can work on sabretooths as well as mournfangs or maneaters.
Doom and Darkness is what i hope for, as a D&Ded unit will break to a Charge from the PendantPeg 7/10 times.

What do you think?
How should i tweak the list, and how should i handle his Ogres?
Last edited by Scyloc on Thu Jul 12, 2012 9:13 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Saintofm »

I never take that many knights, at leaast 8-10 (normaly 8 as I like to take a Dreadlord with on a cold one with a BSB on a cold one.

THe Hydra banner is good, but replace the sheild and and lance with a halburd so he has some killability outside of the charge as the biggest problem with knights is the same problem all heavy cave have: On a turn they are not charging, they loose the +2 strength mod. The SDC will keep him at a 2+ armor save.

What weapon are you going to give the guy on the pegasus? Again, Halburds, especially crimson death, are the go to weapon of choice here.

I also like to take the ogre blade, one hand magic weapon that is +2 strenght.

2 more black guard, all or nothing with them.
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Post by Dyvim tvar »

Lore of Death is obviously nasty against Ogres if you get Purple Sun, but I prefer Shadow in this case. Miasma is really helpful for minimizing the effectiveness of LeadBelchers. Whithering makes your shooting much more effective, Pit of Shades is really good, and Mindrazor gives you your only real shot to deal with Mournfangs in combat.

The guy on the Pegasus needs a strength boost to have some utility in prolonged combat. Since he has the pendant, he can use a halberd or great weapon without losing much.

I really don't like knights against a big unit of Ironguts. If you get the charge you will do some damage, but you will take a lot in return and then you are in trouble without your lances in later rounds. And if you get charged you are screwed.

Also regular spear elves aren't very good except as dagger fuel. You don't need 2 units.

If you have Witch Elves, this is the battle for them. Use as many as you can.
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Post by Saintofm »

Lore of shadows is also good as regardless of what it is going to mess with them. Lower their strenght; lower their toughness; make them not move as far; big gaping hole of doom; boog swoosh of doom; use your LD value against their toughness instead of strength; move a that one charecter in a better vantage point or out of danger; and I can't think of what that last spell is.


Lore of fire will do so so. Mostly S4 attacks vs T4 guys. It's main advantage is how easy it is to use (I see an enemy, I kill it with fire). Fire bellies excluded that is.

Lore of metal weill not work here. Unless it's an augment spell, forget it. Their WS and Armor is so low it isn't worth it, and since the spells do damage based on their armor value, it's only really worth using on the mournfangs, and maybe some of the bigger monsters.

Not sure about dark yet. Doom bolt, chill wind, and blade wind will do some damage, but mostly on roles of 4+ (doom bolt gets a 3+).

Black horror maybe, but it's a 50/50 chance.

Word of pain still works as them hitting on 5's is better then on 4's.
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Post by Scyloc »

Hello Saintofm and Dyvim Tvar.

Thank you for your input. I largely agree with most of it.

The size of the Knight unit is due to the fact that i WILL take casualties from either charging the gutstar (when it has dwindled in size due to RXBs.

In this setup i have spent 599 on heroes, and therefore i could not find the points for a lance for the pengantPeg, and i decided to favor the 1+ AS over offence as 1+ is vastly superior vs str4 which i will most likely face vs ogres.
Furthermore i will not be engaging in prolonged combats. If i an in one. I will allready have lost the game.

And again i find the 1+ as vastly superior to 2+

Regarding BG. I would love to find the points for the last 2 BG.
I could cut the Banner of Murder. However, if i were to engage Mournfangs i would be much better of with 18+BoM than with 20BG plain.

The choice between shadow and death is a very difficult one.

However i have to keep in mind that most of the rounds my shots will focus on his gutstar, which i due to the banner of the great maw will be unable to land any spells on.

Miasma would be great help if he decides to brings leadbelchers. However almost the entire shadow lore will be unable to touch his gutstar.
On the other hand Purple Sun is not affected by the Banner of the great maw, and will be a constant threat to him. Hopefully i will get D&D which will help me a great deal vs mournfangs/leadbelchers/maneaters as i can force a fateful panic check, or a shaky break test from a Pegcharge.

Mindrazor is a very good spell, but it has been nerfed in the ETC as you can only cast with 4 dice giving you a max of 55% chance to cast it. Thats not enough to dependd on it.
Therefore i am a bit more keen on Death.
What are your thoughts on this?

The pendant Peg would benefit from a better weapon indeed. However as i mentioned before i value the 1+ as, as i can use him as a roadblock more than a killy machine. If i decide to let him take the blunt force of the gutstar charge, he will depend on the 1+ as.

I agree that ironguts vs knights is dangerous. But if i manage to out 4 ogres before the charge with shooting. There should not be much left to strike back at the Knights.
He will probably have the Crown in his unit, so i agree its a real concern what happens in round 2 of the fight. In round2 there should "only" be a couple of characters left. But how do i deal with them?
Hmm im still thinking on that.
One solution would be to switch the Hydra Banner guy with a Sword of Antiheroes + TOTS hero.
This will make the Knights better able to handle the gutstar, but worse of vs everything else.

I forget to mention that he will most likely bring death on his lv3/4 and i really miss MR/ward save.
But i cant find the points.

I have the WEs. I have really pondered to use them vs ogres, which would be great matchup for them.
I am vary of 2 things. Their frenzy (its easy for my opponent to pull them out of positions), and the fact thath they can be stomped and will die in droves.
WE synergize well with shadow, but shadow will not be much help vs his gutstar.
Hmm its not easy.
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Post by Scyloc »

Forgot to mention warriors.

I am a big fan of our warriors, i fint them cheap effective and definately their points worth. (Remeber Skilgannon and Benmannens tactics)

They are cheap enough so they can be a throwaway unit, and they are in fact Excellent flankers!!

One other small trick i have up my sleeve vs mournfangs is to face off 4 mournfangs with the pendantPeg and 22 warriors.

When he moves close i will redirect him with the PendantPeg angling to get a flank charge with the warriors.
The Pendant will hold on his charge, and next turn when the warriors charge they will receive 3,5 wounds, and deal 1 wound themselves.

Furthermore they will have 1 charge, 1 flank, 1 banner, 2 ranks.
Netting a win by 3-4, which should send the mournfangs fleeing. If not i will still have his flank and he will test again next round.
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Post by Scyloc »

Another WE-centered counter could look something like this:

Supreme Sorceress, General, lvl4, Sacrificial Dagger, Lore of Death - 285 Pts.
Death Hag, Cauldron of Blood - 200 Pts.
Master, HA, Shield, SDC, Dark Pegasus, Pendant of Khaeleth, Dragonhelm, BSB - 210 Pts.
Master, HA, Shield, SDC, Sword of Anti-Heroes, The ohter Trickster's Shard - 135 Pts.
10 Crossbowmen, M - 105 Pts.
10 Crossbowmen, M - 105 Pts.
10 Crossbowmen, M - 105 Pts.
23 Dark Elf Warriors, M, S - 147 Pts.
19 Dark Elf Warriors, M, S, Standard of Discipline - 138 Pts.
5 Harpies - 55 Pts.
5 Harpies - 55 Pts.
5 Shades - 80 Pts.
38 Witch Elves, S, C, Manbane, Std. of Murder - 450 Pts.
20 Black Guards, M, S, Razor Standard - 326 Pts.
Total: 2396

But i feel there are some issues with the build- Like the first build, its vulnerable to death magic.
The Master with Sword of Antiheroes is a nice addition, however the only place for him is in the BG. And their job would be to hunt down anything but the gutstar.
This leaves me in this list with 2 units which must take on his gutstar, and nothing to handle the rest exceept the PendantPeg.

I would also loose a lot of maneuverability, and he could move up to me much easier without having to worry about the Knights.
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Post by Dyvim tvar »

The ETC nerf of Mindrazor makes the decision for you on magic it seems. Every time I look at ETC threads it just makes me glad nobody here plays under their stupid restrictions...
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Post by Omnichron »

Dyvim Tvar wrote:The ETC nerf of Mindrazor makes the decision for you on magic it seems. Every time I look at ETC threads it just makes me glad nobody here plays under their stupid restrictions...


I kinda like the ETC restrictions. It means you have less advantages and have to think out new builds, not just mindrazor to kill them all.

Shadow is still a very viable option with the ETC restrictions, you just have to think of the lore without the mindrazor spell. For killing ogres, withering is excellent, and miasma down the BS of leadbelchers will help you survive a lot more. Their low initiative means that Pit might work very well too, and of course enfeeblement is great for close combat.

Death is one of the things I really like to use as well lately... A sorceress of lvl 4 has 9 LD, so you will spirit leech most things rather well, and together with a dreadlord, you get LD 10. I usually go for all three snipe spells, so that I can be a constant threat to heroes and lord, and hopefully I get soulblight too. Against low I armies, the vortex is a must though. The big drawback with death, is the lack of range. You should consider dropping the dagger and just have focus familiar with the sorceress. The dagger is less good in ETC anywas (although still a VERY good item for most lores).

I think the list has some weaknesses... The BG is too expensive, and will most likely be shot down quickly if he fields leadbelchers. I'd consider dropping them and having 2 pegasus masters instead.

Instead of one big unit of witch elves, field 2 units of 21 of them. That way you have an easier time of positioning, and if he gets redirectors and such to get your unit out of the way, it's not as many points wasted.

Remember that leadbelchers will kill a LOT of your troops, so you might have to sacrifice some harpies and even shades as shields for your witch elves or other soft units you will use. You can also use your masters to bug the hell out of those leadbelchers, and with some defensive builds on one of them, you can even survive a volley of shots from them, and engage them in close combat so that they can't shoot anymore.
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Post by Prince fabulas »

I wonder if he took very shooty build i.e. Maneaters and 2 x leadbelchers how would you deal with it.

So I was thinking maybe take two level 2 wizards with shadow and tome of Furion.

But then I thought that if you get a PSun into his gut star it is probably game over.

It is hard to see how he could stop this for the whole game without letting through too many other spells.

It is unlikely you won't get it and if you don't it's not fatal.

So I would take death.

I might take lifetaker on the L4 as it can shoot sabertusks and with the advantage that it cannot be dispelled.

It might help to whittle down the gutstar or cause a panic on some D&D ogres.

WE against a really good player sounds like a choice you might regret.
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Post by Saintofm »

Dealing with a lead belcher: They have improved greatly since their last book.

Each leadbelcher gets D6 multiple shots, armor peircing, and ignore penalties for movment and multiple sots. So with a range of 24" + the 6" formovment effectivly gives them a 36" range of fire.

They however need all the attacks they can get as it's almost like hitting a bird with a shotgun as they still suffer the -1 from over half range and they are BS 3 so they are hitting on 5's.

So a unit of 6 of these guys get anywhere from 6 to 36 shots.

That said, they are ballistic skill 3, and when you add the -1 for half range, they need all the help you can get (they are hitting on 5's, so even if I get a large number of shots, I may not get enough hits).

The unit is also expensive point wise, with 3 of these guys setting you back 129 points. So if you have 10 of these guys, without the two command options, you get 430 points.


Masters are more expensive but have more variety, Heck you can even have all of the above if you wanted.

Great Weapons, 2 hand weapons, ogre pistol, brace of pistols, and any 2 special rules such as scout and poison attacks.
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Post by Prince fabulas »

I was just thinking maneaters that can scout and a brace handguns could be positioned so they could be difficult to shoot with XBows then they could whittle down the CoK.

Some Lead belchers adding to this could whittle it down very quickly.

Add an Iron blaster.

This would be a problem I would be worried about.
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Post by Scyloc »

Update on the battle.

I faced my opponent a couple of days ago, and will give you a quick insight into the battle.

He brought a much less deathstar focused list than expected. Which was a really good choice by him.
The Ogres
9 Ironguts with BSB (Great Maw Banner) and Slaughtermaster
Firebelly with Dispel Sroll and Ring of Ruin
4 Mournfangs
9 leadbelchers
1 Ironblaster
1x40 gnoblars
2x10 gnoblars
3 sabretooth tigers
And a gorger

The Druchii Force:
Lv4 Shadow with 3x Null talisman, Sac Dagger
CoB
Pendant Peg BSB with Beastmasters scourge, HA, SDC Shield, Dragonhelm and PoK

20 RXB, m
15 RXB, m
22 Warriors, m, s Std of Discipline (bunker)
5 DRs
2x5 Harpies

39 WEs ,m ,s Standard of Murder
14 CO Knights, m, c, s, The other tricksters Shard, Std of Swiftness
5 BG

An effort to get best of both worlds. The BG to proved stubborn to the PendantPeg or additional redirector.

Deployment
My left flank: My CO Knights faced off against his leadbelchers and Ironblaster (and a lot of chaff)
My right flank: My 20 shooters, 39 WEs, Lv4 bunker, 5BGs and Peg faced off against his big bunker, 4 mournfangs and some chaff.
Middle: My 15 RXBs faced off against his 40 gnoblars.

All in all an even fight on which the outcame would be dependant on the chaff battle.
I wanted to delay his gutstar while my WEs took care of the mournfangs.
He wanted his gutstar to go rampaging in my lv4 bunker and shooters while delaying and destroying my WEs with his mournfangs.

My Knights would face a tough battle. They would have to weather a lot of punishment, but nothing could oppose them in CC. So if i could kill some of his redirecters, they would be able to sweep his flank and kill the 9 leadbelchers.

Early Game
I moved up hiding the 5BGs with Pendant Peg behind a terrain piece ready to delay his gutstar. My WEs moved forward with a DR unit and a harpy unit ready to redirect.

My knights moved up with a 5+ ward save from the cauldron and moved up full speed towards the leadbelchers using a hill to screen themselves. Making sure a couple of models could see his leadbelchers, while hidden from his moving cannon.

It turned out that the middle terrain that i had hid my 5BGs and PendantPeg behind was actually a ruin and therefore did not block LoS despite its huge LOS blocking nature. That was a big oversight from my part.

Due to failed dispels on my part he was able to get off both a fireball to take out 4 BGs leaving just 1 and the master in the unit. And then flock of dooming 2 wounds off the peg master rendering him almost ineffective.
Damm.

Furthermore he was also able to clear out my 2 harpies and DR unit next turn with his magic. Again my dice were horrible in defending.
On the other hand my shooting and magic just came op short. Leaving 1 guy in his redirecting gnoblar unit, and leaving a tiger on 1 wound. (statistically they both should have died) Since they both passed panic. My shooting was for naught.

He moved redirecting units towards the knights and kept redirecting them.

The knights slowly took casualties, but only a couple each round while killing redirecters.

My pendant Peg retreated to join my bunker for giving his BSB-bubble to my main line and staying safe.

Mid Game
Well after recovering after a horrible couple of first turns. I manged to slow down / redirect his gutstar with my remaining BG and the Cauldron, while my WEs charged a sabretooth blocking an overrun path into a single gnoblar blocking an overrun into his 4 mournfangs.
I charged the tiger, shot the gnoblar in my shooting phase, leaving me free to overrun into the mournfangs killing them in short order. 50 poison AP hatred attacks hitting on 3+ have that effect.

At this point things were really looking my way despite a horrible start.

He had to turn round his bus to face the WEs in his backfield, or he would have been held my the CoB and rear-charged by the WEs.

The knights continued to kill redirectors and slowly loosing numbers.

Gutstar and WEs slammed into each other for the big deciding battle.
Unfortunately for me, my WEs fluffed their rolls and managed to do nothing at all. (4 wounds in total)
10 attacks (the minimum) were allocated to his SM (not much to expect there with no poison, hiting on 6s T5) did a wound.
20 attacks were allocated to his BSB with only T5 4W he should have died netting me 300 victory points. He only took 2 wounds.
10 attacks vs champion He should have taken at least 3W as well and died, but only took 1.
The WEs lost and were run down.

His gorger appeared in my backfield and engaged the 15 RXBs and killed them. From there it made a bealine towards my knights which had finally made it into combat with his now 8 leadbelchers. 8 knights were left at this point, not bad.
His Ironblaster decided to blow up. Happy to see that as well.

My Pendant Peg went for an easy charge against his gorger to help out my knights but alas failed the charge bigtime leaving him out in the open and the gorger to flank charge my knights.

In his turn he flock of doomed my PendantPeg and i yet again failed to dispel with my 6 dice against his 5 and it went though and killed the PendantPeg.

End Game
In the final rounds he managed to get the charge off on the side of knights with the gorger and with above average rolling just managed to kill of the last on in turn6.
My bunkers wihtout the lv4 managed to fail a rerollable 9+ ld test to panic and a rerollable 9+ to rally and ran of the board.
At least his 40 gnoblars did the same (Ld 6+ no reroll)

All in all it ended up a relatively big defeat loosing by 1000 victory points or so.

However i feel that with even rolling on both sides, that it would have been a draw at least.

It was a good game.

I lost the chaff battle and that was important. I failed to support my knights enough vs his redirectors.
The failed charge by the PendantPeg was a huge blow. If he had tied up the gorger, the knights would not have died.
There was a good chance that he would have finished it off as well, and staying alive.

And of course i made the huge mistake of letting him have an opportunity put 2 wounds on my Pendant Peg first turn.

Had i gotten at least his BSB with the WEs that would have been a lot of VPs as well.

Shadow magic was very underwhelming, but that was mainly due to the fact that i did not get pit of shades.

But alas. Not this day.
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Post by Thanee »

Well, those dice weren't on your side for sure. :)

Did you get Withering? Getting that cast on the big ogre unit and then shooting them with tons of RXB bolts could yield quite some wounds after all.

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Post by Prince fabulas »

Thanks for the battle report very interesting.

I was wrong about the WE they seem to have worked well but dice are random.

You seem to have been unlucky overall.

I think though this game highlights the value of chaff and redirectors.

Whenever I play a really good player they seem to usually focus on removing my redirectors thus allowing their main units to operate unhindered later in the game.

If this goes well for them I will usually lose later on especially if I have a combat army.

Having chaff with many wounds e.g. 10 Gnoblars is in some ways better than saber tusks in that it has many wounds and won't panic ogres.

Also it cannot be death sniped like a single troll or eagle.

On shadow magic I have found a big drawback is that it is poor at removing chaff or redirectors.

This is why I think stuff like lifetaker and assassins (Manbane Rending stars) can be really useful as can boltthrowers.

Better luck next time keep writing the story.
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Post by Dyvim tvar »

Lesson to be learned -- always discuss terrain and its effects before the game starts.

Nice report by the way.
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Post by Omnichron »

Nice report, too bad it didn't turn out for the better.

Too bad the dices went awry in such a decisive battle with the witch elves. I've always found them to do most of the killing work in my battles, and they've only failed me a few times.

The chaff part is the reason I often field shades. Of course, they die easily to magic too, but the shades helps my army a lot when I field shadow or death. I guess Ring of Rhuin could have helped a bit for chaff killings.

As I mentioned before, I think also that two smaller units of witch elves works better than a big one. It's good to see you got the mournfangs. I've found them to be effective against them back in the days where I used just 2x5 witch elves and charged into the mournfangs, killing most of them by the sheer number of attacks, even without AP.
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Post by Scyloc »

Hello everyone

Thx for the feedback.

I almost got the worst spell roll possible.

1, 3, 4, 6 and exchanged 1 for miasma.

So miasma, withering, pendulum and mindrazor

His big block was protected by Great Maw banner, so neither of us could land spells on it.

The game was indeed a battle of chaff. A chaff battle that i lost.
It was a mistake from my part not to take Ruby Ring and or lifetaker. Would have made a big difference.

Regarding spell choice i still think it is a very dificult choice between shadow and death.

Prince i agree with you regarding the minimal value of shadow to remove redirectors and therefore the bigger need to focus on combatting redirectors in other ways.

Im one of the few that do not dismiss our RBTs outright. There are some lists and situation where they are really usefull. (I play mostly in comp tournaments, and often RBTs go under the comp radar, while Hydras, pendant and BGs are hit hard)

Hi Dyvim. We did indeed discuss the terrain beforehand. We used ETC map nr5.
However the terrainpiece we used to represent the ruins was a big structure/rock that resembled an impassable terrain. But we were very clear on it from the start. It was simply a mental lapse from my part in my turn1 thinking it would block LOS while i knew it did not.

Shades would have been a nice addition as well to focus on redirectors. And that is a clear flaw (in hindsigt) when looking at the list i brought.
It was poorly equipped to deal with enemy redirectors. It was not a fatal flaw. But if the list was rewritten to include 2-3 answers to redirectors (ruby ring, lifetaker, 5 shades) it would be much better equipped to handle the ogres.

But flaw or no flaw.

The battleplan worked. I was able to slow down / evade his gutstar. Focus on his mournfangs first, and then we got the big battle.

However the WEs lost the big battle. That was in part due to poor dice, but also because i did not whittle them down enough with my RXBs before engaging.
The WEs frenzy was also part of it. When they killed the Mournfangs i had to pursue forward. He then turned his block to face them and i faced his block and received the charge.

If the WEs had been BG or Knights. They would have destroyed the Mournfangs as well, but been able to reform our of his line of sight and get the charge on him instead in my turn where i could support more with CoB and magic.

The other problem with the WEs were that since they had to pursue they ended up a long way from my 18" mindrazor.

The Knights performed as could be expected, but i did not support them enough.

My next game in the tournament is in 12 days against brettonia.
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Tyrannus deathbringer
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Post by Tyrannus deathbringer »

Nice write up.

I liked your strategy and tactics in the game as well. There was definitely some poor fortune to be taken into account as well as the honest mistake of forgetting about the terrain effects.

One question:

How do you think two units of Witch Elves (20,19) would have fared in this battle?
"All who surrender will be enslaved; whoever does not surrender but opposes with struggle and dissension, shall be annihilated."
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