Battle Report vs. Dark Elves

Got to the first board.. after scouting out the trays of armies.. First game pairings and I am going against dark elves unsurprisingly with dual hydra's.. will be an interesting game but I can't complain at pairings if I play it right I should have the advantage..

Army Lists:

Wood Elves

Lord: Spellweaver, lvl 4, dispel scroll 275

Hero: none

Core: 8 dryads 96

8 dryads 96

10 glade guard 120

10 glade guard 120

10 glade guard 120

10 glade guard 120

10 glade guard 120

10 glade guard, standard and banner of the eternal flame 142

Special: none

Rare: Treeman 285

Dark Elves 1500

Lord: Supreme sorceress, lvl 4, sacrificial dagger, lifetaker, black dragon egg 345

Hero: Master: Battle standard, heavy armour, shield, sea dragon cloak, repeater crossbow, dragonhelm, the guiding eye 160

Core: 16 repeater crossbowmen, standard and musician 175

16 repeater crossbowmen, standard and musician 175

28 Dark elf repeater crossbowmen, standard and musician 295

Special: none

Rare: War Hydra 175

War Hydra 175

Deployment

Deployment Observations

• Firstly, I as the wood elves had to deploy first, while I’d have liked to see where he deployed his units as I was always going to forfeit the first turn +1 it was useful to choose the side which gave me the most cover as I was going to be defending it for the majority of the game.
•  I started with the glade guard unit at the far bottom way back, my thought was that it would be better to have a few units out of range first turn than keep my line static and I would rather not shoot with one unit than have one unit overexposed and shot to bits by druchii crossbow fire.
• He deployed his line pretty obviously as he had a long line of crossbow units even clumsier than mine. Note. The multiple units of 10 are much better than units of 16+ at trying to navigate terrain.
• I hid the dryads behind the hill to back up the treeman making up my forward spearhead, while leaving the other unit back to atleast pretend to have a close combat ‘specialist’ unit to deal with the hydra.
• My wizard was deployed in the unit of glade guard with the banner of eternal flame. One extra flaming bow shot!
• We agreed all terrain to be base terrain, hence the bases are shown on the map.
• The blue circle is a swamp, and the stony rocks are exactly that.
• His sorceress and battle standard are both in the same unit in the middle.
• Both hydra’s were deployed to the bottom half one middle, one bottom.
• Wood Elf Plan: I only have two units to worry about the dual hydra’s I have the unit of eternal flame to atleast counter the regen and being toughness 5 I am not too worried. Effectively I only had 10 wounds to take down to counter his entire combat force. I deployed staggered to give myself a line of retreat, in the critical turns of close range fire I didn’t want to bring it down to a point of I fire everything and then if he’s still standing my line collapses. This way I can flee with impunity and without real consequence, far on enough that I am unlikely to go off the board. 

Dark Elf Turn 1

Movement:

•

• His army moved forwards the crossbowmen 5, the hydra’s 12..  

Magic

• He rolled a 3 and 1 promising I thought, but he then one diced power of darkness.. Rolling a 2 he sacrificed a crossbowmen rolling a 5 more, taking it up to 11. Id need 3 dice to dispel it reliably and the amount of times you’ve two diced a dispel needing a 7 and rolled a 5 leaving yourself horribly open. I decided to let it through and grin and bear it. 
• He then 6 diced the boosted version of Melkoth’s Mystifying Miasma, targetting my wizards unit rolling a double 6. He reduced all their attributed by 2. 
• Then the miscast, snake eyes ‘Dimensional Cascade’ 5 crossbowmen were annihilated before the unfortunate sorceress was dragged to an untimely demise.

Shooting

•

• A hail of fire at the treeman, but hitting on 6’s, 3 + 1 from moving, 1 from long range and 1 from repeater crossbow fire and wounding on 6’s meant only 1 wound went through which was saved with the treeman’s 5+ ward. 
• The bottom unit was out of range of anything. 

Close Combat 

• None

Wood Elf Turn 1

Movement:

• My archers not in cover moved 5 forwards staying more than 29 away from his archers forcing them to fire at untits entrenched or tougher..  

Magic:

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• I rolled a fair 6 and a 1. No channel, 3 diced throne of vines which with the +4 was a pretty good result. He turned out to be one of these players that will not let throne of vines go off nomatter what and 6 diced it. I was content to drop flesh to stone on the dryads and end the magic phase life being short ranged and all that.

Shooting:

• The treeman was just out of range for strangleroot shenanigans and the unit shooting past him killed 1 crossbowmen.
• The flaming arrows failed to hurt the hydra unsurprising being BS2 and long ranged, but the other 3 units managed to take 2 wounds off the bottom hydra reducing it’s breath weapon to only str 3.

Combat

• none

Dark Elf Turn 2

Movement:

• His hydra’s ran forwards 12.. His crossbowmen stayed where they were, not quite sure what he was going to do with the bottom unit but he decided to not go into the swamp just yet.

Magic:

• None

Shooting:

• •The top unit let fire at close range and managed to knock 1 wound off the treeman.. 
• He shot the main unit at the treeman as well choosing to not fire at the T6 Dryad skirmishers. This unit took 3 more wounds off the treeman and I let out a sigh after rolling the saves.. Note. Master activated guiding eye for improved accuracy.

Combat

• None

Wood Elf Turn 2

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Movement

• The Dryads and the treeman charged successfully, the stand and shoot reaction took the monstrous creature to a wound and dropped 2 dryads one from the Banner carrying noble. 
• The rest of my army turned to face the hydra’s, with the units at the bottom retreating oh so slowly.. Backwards.

Magic

• •I wished my treeman wasn’t so far away.. So I could heal some wounds.. Instead I made do by luring out his dice with throne of vines and flesh to stoning the dryads incase he redirected into them.

Shooting

• The flaming arrows lead the way taking 3 wounds off the lead hydra, the northern most squad and the other forest squad easily taking the last two wounds off it.
• The remaining glade guard failed to hurt the non on fire hydra.. Mostly through the merit of a 4+ armour save as opposed to the regenerate..

Combat.

• The treeman passed his I5 attacks against him, before swinging out crushing 3 and stomping on 4 more. They passed their steadfast with the banner bearer nearby. 
• The dryads got lucky and only lost 2 of their number to opposed to the 4 they killed, only loosing combat by 1, which they passed on Ld 7. 4 kills and a charge vs. Battle standard, standard, 2 wounds and a rank. I possibly should have directed my 3 attacks on the BSB, if he’d been in contact with 2 dryads I would have.. But I didn’t know if he was going to turn out to have a 1+ armour save or some such and I desperately needed the combat ress.

Dark Elf Turn 3

Movement

•

• This is where scale get’s a bit iffy on the map.. The hydra charged the glade guard who promptly fled to the safety of BEHIND the dryads.. 
• The crossbowmen left out of combat moved into the swamp.. 

Magic

• none

Shooting

• The crossbowmen firing at the wizards unit in the forest needing 7’s got 3 hits! Which failed to wound..

Combat

• The treeman broke the crossbowmen killing 7 or so.. Failing to reform he ran them down instead.. 
• The dryads lost 2 more killed 4 more but still stood their ground! 

Wood Elf Turn 3

Movement

•

• Perhaps it was the excitement of the day.. But I completely forgot to turn the treeman around.. I knew when I rolled my magic that this was likely to cost him his life.. The rest of my army turned to face the hydra.. The wizard retreated behind the glade guard while the dryads moved forwards to stand in the way of the hydra.. 

Magic

• I 6 diced flesh to stone on the dryads… standing in front of the hydra..

Shooting

•

•  The flaming arrows wounded once.. Damn cover and he passed his 5+ armour save L.. The rest of my shooting failed to take a wound off the damn thing.. Umm awkward..  

Combat

• The dryads killed 2 more and lost 1 more.. And miraculously still held.. 

Dark Elf Turn 4

Movement: 

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• The hydra.. Eying the stone dryads infront of him went for a sneaky charge past against the glade guard.. Possibly out of range but I fled anyway.. Preferring to play it safe.. He redicted into the dryads rather than failing charge and breaking cover.  

•

• His crossbowmen stayed in cover

Magic 

• none

Shooting

•

• Crossbowmen began a gunfight with the remaining forest archer unit with flaming attacks now hitting on 6’s single fire killed 2. 

Combat

• The dryads vs. the crossbowmen went down to 1, killed 2 and held.. Brave brave forest spirits.. Did mean I couldn’t strangleroot the crossbowmen before they gunned my poor treeman down. 
• The dryads vs. the hydra took it down to 1 wound.. And lost one of their number to the high natural str of the hydra.. Drawn combat 

Wood Elf Turn 4

Movement

•

• The glade guard content to stay 29.5 inches away from the crossbowmen moved slightly..  
• The tree feeling very slow today.. Turned around.. 
• Gladeguard rallied on generals ld. 

Magic

• Renew stone on dryads.. Wished I had regrowth.. 

Shooting

•

• everything shot the entrenched druchii killing 2! 

Combat

• The last dryad was cut down.. 
• The dryads vs. the hydra killed him but lost one to the I5 beastmasters.. 

Dark Elf Turn 5

Movement

• The crossbowmen turned to face the tree..

Magic

• None

Shooting

•

• The tree was executed..  
• The other squad failed to kill any entrenched elves.. 

Combat

• None

Wood Elves turn 5

Movement

•

• The dryads sped towards the crossbowmen.. 
• The rallied glade guard rejoined their brothers in the woods.. 

Magic

• renewed flesh to stone on dryads.. 

Shooting

•

• Everything shot the pond unit.. Killing 3 or so. 

Combat

• None

Dark Elf Turn 6

Movement

• Reform crossbowmen

Magic

• None

Shooting

• Shot dryads failing to kill any

Combat

• None

Wood Elves turn 6

Movement

•

• The dryads charged the pond unit who fled. 

Magic

• Magic: none as it was the last turn.. And awakening of the wood was out of range

Shooting

•

• Tried to shoot battle standard’s unit killed 2 or so. 

Combat

• none

Aftermath

Total Victory Points

Dark Elves: 381 

• Treeman 285 
• Dryads 96 

Wood Elves: 995

• Supreme Sorceress 345 
• 16 Dark Elf repeater crossbowmen 175 
• War Hydra 175 
• War Hydra 175 
• General 100 
• Standard 25 

•

Thoughts:

• A massacre for the wood elves.. And a great first game..  
• I made a major mistake as I hadn’t realised that fled but not off the board doesn’t score for victory points I should have killed the last 4 instead of trying to force a ld test on the BATTLE STANDARDS unit.. But thinking I already had the vp there wasn’t much else to do. 

Aftermath

•

• Firstly, it was a good match up, it was a dark elf gun line while I had a wood elf gun line.. It was Battle for the pass so I had maximum space to abuse my 6 inch range advantage.. I had the ability to move and shoot so at worse I was hitting on 5’s and 6’s and that was long range at a hydra in cover.. While he was forced to hit me on 7’s by firing at me into cover. I felt that if I played it properly I would have a very good chance. 

•

• Secondly, his supreme sorceress blowing herself up turn 1.. Bad luck yes, and it’s hard to tell how much of a difference it would have made. She was using the lore of shadow, so I am assuming that the plan was to reduce toughness of key units before wiping them off the board with now wounding on 2’s with repeater crossbows. Just like to say this is a really neat tactic that I hadn’t seen before.. If the miscast hadn’t happened would have been interesting to see the two wizards battling over the toughness of dryads.. He also did point out that he could have mindrazered his unit to become str 9 to repel my forest spirits.. Well, that it what dispel scrolls are for but I guess he could have 9 diced it with the druchii special rule. I’d have probably directed attacks at T3 no save Sorceresses though and would hope to have killed her in the 4 turns I was In combat with that unit. 
• My dryads passing their break tests.. Great for me they did their job admirably holding up 455pts at a cost of 96.. I couldn’t have asked for more.. Only thought was perhaps I should have tried to sneak my spellweaver northward behind the hill out of sight to augment the treeman back to full health and support both dryads.. In the end I went for the safe plan and tried to bleed him on point denial and victory points using my advantages and accepting the forest spirit losses. 
• FORGETTING TO TURN AROUND THE TREEMAN.. Enough said.. If he’d passed his reform test after breaking the crossbowmen and had charged in.. He’d only have got the masters attacks and 1 elf wounding on 6’s before he had 5+D6 str 6 attacks on the battlestandard.. Oh well deserve it for making the mistake..
• Not knowing that fleeing doesn’t count for VP.. Lesson learnt..
• Aimless dithering with units.. I am going to say that the northernmost unit was left at that range for strategic cover behind the hill and not at all cos I didn’t really know what to do with them..
• Overall.. The army was played how it’s supposed to be, and with some luck got a great victory point total.. And lessons have been learnt for next time.

Comment's welcome

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