Saturday, December 20, 2008

Clash of swords and sorcery ..

On tuesday me and Mike squared off again in a battle of supremacy for the "olde worlde" as they call it in Warhammer Fantasy. That night we managed to get two games in, i decided to dust off my Dark Elves and Mike again used his High Elves.

My Dark Elves consisted of:

Master w/ halberd, blood armor and seal of ghrond
Sorceror w/ lvl 2, darkstar cloak and dispel scroll
Sorceress w/ tome of furion and dispel scroll

Crossbowmen x10 w/ shields
Crossbowmen x10 w/ shields
Corsairs x 15 w/ full command and warbanner (master goes here)
Corsairs x15 w/ full command (sorceror goes here)
Dark Riders x 5 w/ musician and crossbows
Harpies x6
Harpies x6

Shades x9
Cold One Chariot x2
Executioners x12 w/ musician and champ

Repeater Bolt Thrower x2

The Plan:
My plan going into the game was using the pair of magic users to case "Power of Darkness" i saved myself 20 pts by taking the magic item Tome of Furion. Especially now that Dark Elves Magicians can use ANY amount of power dice they desire i would not have a problem casting any spells...

Other than that I plenty of harassment units in the form of dark riders, harpies and shades. Also did i mention how awesome the special rule Eternal Hatred is? I get it for free on all of my units AND against High Elves it's every turn not just the initial round of combat... YES PLEASE!

The Game:

Things were going quite well even if Mike had four bolt throwers all my harassment units did their job. Minimizing the effect of the High Elf bolt throwers as well as shaving off a few soldiers from the bigger blocks of units. My Sorcerer and his escort of corsairs failed to do any damage (magic or otherwise) and were promptly run down by Mike's spearmen. Also my executioners were whittled down by archer and bolt thrower missile fire, so by the time they charged they were of negligible effect.

If i had to name MVPs i would have to say that my chariots and master (with attached corsairs) were quite good. Mike's high elves had a really hard time trying to wound my chariot, toughness 5 backed up with a 3+ save were made it nigh impossible to knock them out. The Master and his retinue made short work out of a sword master thanks to hatred, late game they even managed to bag a unit of archers.

Post Game Thoughts:

I'm not a big fan of Dark Riders, yes i know they are quite good in game but the models have never convinced me and I do not have enough points in order to take a second unit (i like to take things in pairs). I may drop them and pick up a unit of either spearmen or the brand new corsairs. Both would be quite good in the army nothing like good old blocks to make the army look cohesive. I may actually upgrade the sorceress to be level 2. The extra die can make the difference softening up or weakening enemy units...

As for as my orcs go again they were defeated by Mike (it ain't easy being green) on the upside I found out that I would enjoy playing with a giant. I'm glad all this play testing is going on while I start to slowly clip the army from the sprues. I have a solid core of troops along with some heavy and fast hitters. Slowly but surely the army list is looking more and more solid as I keep things that I am comfortable and familiar with using. Till then...


clash of swords and sorcery

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