A Skirmish and A Battle

A week or so ago I played a small game of Fantasy against a friend at the local GW. For the purposes of this blog he shall be known as Lord Karathess or L.K. for short. L.K. hadn't played fantasy since 6th so this was just a refresher game and an update on the rules. I played a small force of Tomb Kings and L.K. fielded his detachment of Empire. The whoreson employee of GW was rushing us along so I only took pics of the first turn and then we had to finish quick.

As the photo evidence shows the Empire deployed on the hill in an attempt to leverage full use of the artillery advantage, which would have proved effective if the cannon hadn't exploded upon firing its first shot. With the artillery out of the picture the Tomb Kings charged in for the kill and were in the thick of a bloody combat when the invisible hand of GW taint came and declared "pack it up, the stores closing in 15 mins and I wanna go home."

When I went home for thanksgiving (canadian thanksgiving which I would like to declare as the real thanksgiving in an effort to piss off any of our american viewers, suck it) I got to play a huge fantasy battle against Darko and Wooster. We played a 4800 pt game on our realm  of battle, which proved to be dismally small for that many points. I played both my Tomb Kings and Lizardmen against Wooster's Wood Elves and Darko's Dark Elves (alliteration yay). 

I seem to have misplaced the actual list I wrote but it was something like this:

Lords

- Grand Heirophant Khatep (Lore of Nehekhara)

- Slann Mage Priest (Lore of High Magic)

-->Scroll/magic resist (1)/loremaster/lizardchannel

Heroes

- Chakax (scar vet name character)

- Gor-Rok (scar vet name character)

- Scar-vet

-->cold one/piranha blade/light armour/shield

- Tomb Prince

-->Chariot/Armour of Destiny/Great weapon

Core

- 30 x Skely Archers

- 20 x Saurus

- 24 x Skink cohort

--> 3 x Kroxigor

- 7 x Skely Chariots

--> Banner of Swiftness

Special

- 30 x Temple Guard (horde)

--> Jaguar Standard

- 20 x Tomb Guard

-->Banner of the Undying Legion

- 7 x Cold One Riders

- 3 x Necropolis Knights

- 2 x Khemrian Warsphinx

- 2 x Tomb Scorpion (proxy)

Rare

- Casket of Souls

I leave it to Darko and Wooster to add their lists if they so choose.

At the start of the battle I felt I had the upper hand as the elves had precious few combat blocks and I had stretched my battle line across the entire table with very few holes. But as the game progress it became abundantly clear that I had underestimated a key factor that my opponents were counting on for victory.....Darko's witchery.

Prior to deployment Darko and Wooster spend a mind numbing amount of time debating spells as I declared that both my casters were in fact loremasters.

As the deployment phase began, I soon realized I wouldn't have a chance to counter deploy anything as my entire army was almost down and they had maybe one non-chaff unit on the table. This isn't a foreign concept for me but in this instance it was exaggerated as I had less than half the number of units that were arrayed against me.

I won the roll for first turn, a rare sight for me, and advanced across the board. I needed to cross the open ground as quickly as possible to negate their shooting. The first signs of witchery came in the magic phase when my slann rolled irresistible force on arcane unforging (on 4 dice I rolled 1-6-6-6) and exploded killing 6-8 temple guard, drained the power pool, and to top it off rolled a 1 and failed to destroy the magic item. After losing power dice I believe I threw the rest at the casket which was dispelled but I may be forgetting something. I don't recall anything significant happening in the shooting phase.

In the bottom of turn two, the elves advanced a marginal amount in an effort to reorganize their line and leverage their shooting advantage. I don't recall anything particularly exciting happening apart from some shooting related deaths on my side. (Note for the elves, feel free to edit and correct me if I'm forgetting something important)

At the top of turn two I made my first charge, my Temple Guard had been secreting the Jaguar Standard which gives them swiftstride. The temple guard leaped across no-mans land and crashed into Wooster's tree ogres, surprising to say the least. The rest of my units advanced except the chariots as they were in danger of a flank charge. I also brought on my two units of deep strikers (entombed beneath the sands) a group of 3 necropolis knights and 1 tomb scorpion, they surfaced behind the tower in the middle of a bunch of chaff. 

The second sign of their powerful witchery came in the magic phase, I decided to start with the movement bubble for tomb kings. Khatep rolled irresistible force (on 4 dice 1-6-6-6, AGAIN FUCK), blew up some archers, and drained the power pool. I realized now that I had wasted 800 points on magic because both my wizards were incapable of doing anything except sucking Darko's large witchy member. I think I got off one other inconsequential spell that turn, but I remained stalwart as I could still rely on my hordes of elite combat blocks to butcher the puny elves. Little did I know that the full extend of the cursed witching would be revealed. I was excited to smash tree ogres in the first combat of the game, but I was about to find out that Darko's witchery extended beyond the realm of magic. My temple guard proceeded to wiff almost entirely and get thumped by the tree ogres.

The rest of the game was dominated by the elves, I managed to fail every important roll, neither of my 2 warsphinxs manage to land a single thundercrush attack (thunderstomp template style). I conceded at the end of turn 3, I'm not interested in reliving the death of my beloved army but Darko or Wooster may be persuaded to boast their victory.

The above pictures are Wooster's Wood Elves arrayed on trays waiting to be deployed

Darko's Druchii Dark Elves

My disorganized Lizard/Skeleton horde

The elf battle line from a few perspectives

My fearsome battle line of elite combat units