SAD Campaign Final Battle - 11,000 points - the Druchii cut

[Paul nettle]

Final SAD Campaign Battle – The Final Showdown


Introduction

This was the final climatic battle for control of the island. It was supposed to be a big multi-player battle, with sides like this:

Baddies
Sean Councill – Dwarves – 2,500 points
Derek Whittenbury – High Elves – 1,500 points
Steve Cochrane – Wood Elves – 1,500 points
Steve Drew – High Elves – 1,500 points
Simon Day – Empire – 1,500 points

Goodies
Craig Holden – O&G – 2,500 points
Paul Nettle – Druchii – 1,500 points
Ben Palfreyman – VC – 1,500 points
Paul Cochrane – VC – 1,500 points
spare place – Chaos Dwarfs - 1,500 points

However, the best laid plans of mice and men can ga’ awry, and in the end 3 players dropped out so there were just 6 of us. Sean, the Dwarf player, was supposed to be the leader of one team. He failed to turn up for the battle (I phoned his house to be told his cat was ill and he had taken it to the vet.) Now, a campaign organiser should e prepared for any eventuality, and I had a spare 2,500 points list in case it was needed. However, I was expecting to be facing the HE, not leading them, which is why Ilthron had an anti-High Magic item!

My Army was:

Ilthron, General, Cold One, Armour of Eternal Servitude, Shield, Sea Dragon Cloak, Great Weapon, Crown of Black Iron. With the “Green Fist”.
Vathis, BSB, Cold One, Heavy Armour, Sea Dragon Cloak, Hydra Banner. With the “Green Fist”.
Delathrai, Sorcerer, Level 2, Soulstone. With the “Long Shields”.
Skr’oll Kadii, Sorceress, Level 2, Dispel Scroll, Tome of Furion. With the “Green Shields”.
The “Green Fist”. 7 Cold One Knights led by Darathon, full command. War Banner.
The “Green Hand”. 6 Dark Riders, RXB, Musician.
The “Green Spear”. 6 Dark Riders, RXB, Musician.
The “Green Shields”. 24 Warriors with Spear and Shield. Full Command.
The “Long Shields”. 12 Warriors with RXB and shield.
The “Short Shields”. 12 Warriors with RXB and shield.
The “Shades”. 7 Shades, Bloodshade
The “Green Reapers”. 2 Reaper Bolt Throwers.
‘Tash’, War Hydra with two Apprentices.
The Harpies. 5 Harpies!

I ended up facing Craig’s green-skins in the centre of the 12-foot battlefield, with Steve Drew’s Asur supporting me on the left and Derrick’s Asur army supporting me on the right. My opponent had Steve Cochrane’s Chaos Dwarfs on his right (my left) (Steve had forgotten to bring his Wood Elves) and Ben’s Vampire Counts on his left (my right).

Steady in the Centre

On a hill in my deployment zone were my two RBTs and the Long Shields with the Sorcerer Delathrai (Chillwind, Word of Pain). Throughout the battle this group were never troubled by the enemy and poured shots and spells into the enemy at every opportunity.

Dying whilst winning on the Right

The Green Fist, with General and BSB attached, provided the strike force on my right, supported by the two Dark Rider units. The Green-skins won first turn, and the first magic phase was horrible. No less than 5 of the COK died! In the most important dice roll of the game, the COK passed the panic test, otherwise both General and BSB would have been off the table with the remaining 2 COK!

Anyway, the DR tempted the greenies into some rash charges, which the DR fled leaving some greenies with failed charges. When the time was right the Green Fist smacked into an Orc chariot. Although there were only four figures in the unit, it included the General and BSB and they had the Hydra Banner, and this meant that they churned out 22 attacks between them, most either S5 or S6, usually on 3s to hit, so they destroyed the chariot pretty easily and then overran into a single line of Gobbo archers. At this point they were charged and clipped by a tooled-up Black Orc Great Weapon unit. Of course, the Druchii (less the BSB) attacked the gobos, killing 10 of them, and then the Black Orcs fluffed their great weapon attacks (poor ‘to-hit’ rolls) and the BSB killed the Black Orc champion! I won by 8, and both Orcs and gobbos ran for it. Under club rules I could only pursue one, so chose to run down the Black Orcs, which I did. One greenie shaman was in the unit, so one down…

The COK unit then curved left, and menaced a unit of Night Gobbos. The COK were then flanked by a Hobgoblin Bolt-thrower (from the Chaos Dwarf Army) but luckily the General took 2 wounds and stopped the bolt. At this point the tiny unit was menaced by the Black Orc General in a large unit of boarboyz, but the Green Hand charged them in the rear, broke, and fled, only to be pursued by the tooled up boarboyz, away from the action! The final action of the COK was to charge the unit of Night Gobboes (originally 30 strong, by this time just 8 strong due to magic, shooting and the Hydra’s breath attacks). The Night Gobboes fled, and could not be rallied.

Winning on the Left

On the left flank, the Green Shields (with Skr’oll Kadii, Dark Hand of Death, Wind of Death, Doom and Darkness), Tash the hydra and the Short Shields waited to support the centre and counter-charge. However, the Harpies, flying close to the greenies to temp them into some failed charges, released 3 Fanatics, and these attacked my left-most units. To escape the whirling Fanatics the Green Shields and Tash the hydra advanced towards the nearest greenies, charging a unit of Boyz armed with spears. This also contained a greenie shaman, and Tash got to work with a vengeance. The Druchii won the combat and overran the greenies (two Orc Shaman down).

What happened next was bizarre.

The Druchii Spearmen unit overran into a Chaos Dwarf Sorcerer, and beat him in combat (ranks and standard made it a certainty) ran him down and then overran into the Hobgoblin Bolt-Thrower, which they destroyed. They then reformed to charge another Orc unit in the flank, but to my surprise were charged by an Orc chariot that I though was in the ‘dead’ pile (I was close to my opponents table edge). The scythed chariot did four hits, promptly rolled four ‘1’s, was beaten and fled. At it was the O&G 6th turn I knew the chariot could not be rallied, so the Spearmen restrained from pursuit and instead charged a greenie Orc bow unit. This fled, but as it was the last turn of the game the greenie bowmen were automatically counted as lost!

Tash the hydra (down to two wounds after the first Greenie magic phase) was charged by a Giant, and the Giant rolled the combat result where he automatically wins by 2, and Tash failed the break test and was run down.

Obscure Bits

After the Harpies were decimated by the Fanatics, the lone Harpy charged a Gobbo Doom Diver Catapult, killing one crew, but the other gobbo killed the Harpy, which would otherwise have won the combat!

The Shades deployed out of sight in a wood in the centre of the battlefield, and as the Green horde swept past they ran behind the enemy, playing cat and mouse with the Giant. This kept the Giant out of the battle for a while, and the Shades did little else as they were too far away from anyone.

One DR unit was run down by Boarboyz, but the other went to assist the right hand Asur army. Deservedly, they got wiped out by the skellies.

One enemy Orc unit was attacking the Asur on my left. On the O&G 6th turn they were caught in the target zone of a unit of Chaos Dwarf Blunderbusses (shooting at a lone HE Mage to take her last wound) and the Orc unit took 12 wounds! They then failed the panic test and fled, and because it was the 6th turn could not be rallied. The Chaos Dwarf player was not noticeably upset at trashing his Orc allies! PS the Mage survived!

Aftermath.

Ilthron surveyed the battlefield. His Druchii had swept most of the green-skins off the field, and his army was pretty intact. Only the enemy general and his boarboyz were left, rushing around the middle of the battlefield whilst the shooters on the hill shot everything they had at them.

However, on his flanks the two Asur armies were decimated – on his left an entirely unscratched Chaos Dwarf army was approaching a single wounded HE Mage, and on the right a few HE Seaguard and Swordsmasters tried to hold off half a Vampire Counts army. “Time to go” thought Ilthron, and he sounded the retreat.

Factual Bits

I lost 1,089 points, my greenskin opponent lost ‘about 1,700’. I also took out a Chaos Dwarf sorcerer and a Hobgoblin bolt-thrower. I also had two Orc standards to add to my score, (having lost none myself) but that was not what it was about. The enemy beat my 2 allies, and won the overall battle 2-1.

The key points of the battle were:
1) The green-skin magic was horrible. Too many 2D6 S4 magic missiles came my way.
2) The Harpies triggered the Fanatics whilst they were still away from my main units. Some stunning initial Fanatic movement rolls (two 11s and a 12) meant they got involved with my spearmen and the Short Shields, reducing the Short Shields to just 4 warriors. I wasted a spell and a round of Long Shield shooting to get rid of two of the Fanatics that were heading towards the centre!
3) I comprehensibly outmanoeuvred the greenies, setting up some excellent counter-charges which my Dark Riders triggered, only to flee and leave the enemy units with failed charges and ripe for counter charges by my combat units. The Shades, although they didn’t kill anything, kept the Giant out of play for most of the battle, and the tooled up Black Orc general with his large Boarboyz unit, which was my opponents big ‘strike’ unit, only got into combat once, and that was when I charged his rear. I was relived that he pursued the DR (even though the DR were destroyed) as it kept them away from my decimated COK unit.
4) I had never used the Hydra Banner before – absolutely awesome! My unit of just four COK rampaged around with their 22 attacks, spreading fear and confusion in the enemy rear.
5) Towards the end of the battle, Derek looked over the battlefield, looking at the two decimated Asur armies and my rampaging Druchii, and said to the other Asur player Steve: “Here Steve, I think we’re playing with the wrong elves”. Indeed.

[Danceman]

“Here Steve, I think we’re playing with the wrong elves”. Indeed." <-- indeed

of course nice to see druchii kick som arse

[Lord rakash]

How many hours did it take to complete the game??

Nice to see a druchii win..I don't know how win without playing VC and rais lots of zombies...

[Paul nettle]

Hi Sabush. We started setting up about 7 pm, actually finished deployement by about 8.15 pm and the battle finished about 10.40 pm. The last turn was a bit rushed, as we have to be out of our meeting place by 11 pm, and that includes tidying away terrain, playing boards, dice, tapes etc as well as packing up my Druchii back into their travelling case. Luckily, the other Paul packed up my Chaos Dwarfs for me and this saved some time.

Multi-player battles always take longer than one-on-one. Its a rule!

[Langmann]

Towards the end of the battle, Derrick looked over the battlefield, looking at the two decimated Asur armies and my rampaging Druchii, and said to the other Asur player Steve: “Here Steve, I think we’re playing with the wrong elves”. Indeed.

Says it all.

[Tzadarkath]

Seems like a nice battle and I cant more then agree with Steve