Billy the Bloodthirster

I had a game at GW this week, playing as Daemons against High Elves. I had been playing a lot of Skaven so wanted a break from them, and knew Drew had High Elves so wouldn't want to double up the same army, so Billy and the Daemons came out to play.

Buckeye Battles Final

For the final game of Buckeye Battles, I was matched up against High Elves with loads and loads of magic. The idea with the "Coven of Light" HE list is loads of Lore of Light casters, and a caster who gets to pick his spells so that you can have 2 Pha's Protection spells and 2 Banishment spells... and Banishment would be at strength 7. Let's look at what Ken brought to the table.

Facing off against Kairos

Recently, I hit up the local GW with Andrea's new High Elves to try and get a pick up game. I really wanted to use the Dragon model that came in her army, so I built up a choppy Lord on a Star Dragon list at 2500. My opponent was none other than Kairos Fateweaver himself, it seemed as the Chaos Gods though it fitting after the previous weekend's tournament!

Starting High Elves

I picked up a box of the new and amazing looking White Lions this weekend, and used my 'Ard Boyz round 2 prize support for more White Lions and Dragon Princes... so High Elves are my next Fantasy army! I like the idea of an elite army to be a break from the massive Skaven hordes. There seem to be a good amount of High Elf players in my area lately after the new edition and Island of Blood, but with the new miniatures I couldn't resist.

The plan is for a White Lion heavy list. They really are my favorite unit. And today there is a great new article on Games Workshop's website with the Color's of Ulthuan. I was already thinking about a nice red and gold color scheme for my army. But the article makes it perfect to run them as Aryth Pass Guard! The Aryth Pass is one of the secret pathways through the mountains of Chrace, and the 4th Company of the Aryth Pass Guard's color's are red!

As for a preliminary army, take a look at this and please critique. This is to fit with the Chrace and  the 4th Company Aryth Pass Guard.


290 Archmage, level 4 Shadow, seerstaff of saphery (mindrazor, pit of shades, miasma, withering)
184 Noble, bsb, dragon armor, great weapon, banner of the world dragon
145 Noble, barded steed, dragon armor, great weapon, potion of strength, dragonhelm
335 25 Lothern Sea Guard, full command, banner of eternal flame
295 30 Spearmen, full command
480 30 White Lions, full command
380 20 Phoenix Guard, full command, banner of sorcery
200 5 Dragon Princes, full command
140 Lion Chariot
050 Great Eagle

2499

Weekend wrapup

It was a good holiday hobby weekend. I had a short week last week with my vacation up state, so I was looking forward to coming home, picking up my Island of Blood set, and getting some games in. Lets start with Island of Blood. One word: Fantastic! I love the small rule book, and I love the Skaven models. I already assembled my Skaven set, I traded away my High Elves today for another Skaven set, and I already started some conversion work. At the very least I immediately cut the cleaver off of my Warlord and added a shield. It is silly to have two weapons when one is a halberd! I think I am planning on taking the halberd off the other one as well as the back banner. I might change the head too, I have a cool engineer head left over from my Doomwheel kit I've been meaning to use for a conversion.

After picking up my Island of Blood set on Saturday, I also picked up a Mephiston model for my Wife's Blood Angel army, and I played my first game of Warhammer 40k in about 2 months. Mephiston is a beast! We also picked up another 2 Assault Squad boxes so she could fill out her army a little better, but for our game Saturday we just added Mephiston to her existing army and played 2000 points. I played a pretty standard list and was able to intercept Mephiston with a Lone Wolf to handle him, but she has a much better grasp on how to use him in the future. My opinion is that he is best as a support character following behind another Assault Squad, intercepting armor and assisting in assaults to take the focus off of himself. He also NEEDS cover, either from actual cover or other marines. Fell No Pain probably doesn't hurt either from a Sanguinary Priest.

Today I played a a 3000 point 'Ard Boyz practice game against Mike's High Elves with Teclis leading them using Shadow magic. Mike won the 'Ard Boyz at RIW Hobbies, so I knew even though he made some minor changes to try and improve his list, it would be a very close idea of what I would be facing in the semi finals (especially since we are car pooling together). He had a level 2 with High magic, a BSB, and the Phoenix Guard special character. He had a large bunker unit of Spearmen, a small unit of archers, a smaller unit of Swordmasters, a big unit of Phoenix Guard, a small unit of White Lions, a large unit of Seaguard, minimal unit of Dragon Princes, and 4 Great Eagles. I played with the list I used for 'Ard Boyz, but I dropped a unit of Giant Rats, dropped a unit of Gutter Runners, dropped a level of magic off a Warlock, and also dropped his forbidden rod. Instead I added 2 units of Rat Ogres with a master-bred and an additional packmaster.

At the start of the game I scouted one unit of Gutter Runners in front of 2 Great Eagles. The other unit was flanking the other Great Eagles and Dragon Princes. When he tried to open the game by charging the one unit, a stood and shot, killing one Great Eagle with my poisoned slings. I killed the second on the same side when he charged me that turn. I would just like to say now, if you are playing Skaven and do not have Gutter Runners in your army list... go buy them now. Log on to GW, call your store, check EBay, just go buy them. They have proven again and again how valuable they are, both in practice games and at 'Ard Boyz itself.

He advanced slightly and I pretty much rushed forward. Very first turn I cast Plague and it was scrolled by Teclis, and I lost Plague for the game. I then cast the 13th Spell on his not-large-enough unit of Swordsmen and warped the entire unit into Clan Rats. Then my Grey Seer (not the General) rolled a 4 and then a 3 and was instant killed himself. There is a reason I take two Grey Seers, and give the Power Scroll to the second! Magic was not to grand during the game as far as high amounts of power dice, we both rolled pretty much average. But the High Elves had the Banner of Sorcery and Teclis, both adding d3 power dice each casting phase, as well as the crystal that removes a power die and adds it to his pool in each dispel phase. I was lucky that my channel rolls were on fire! Even still, Teclis was great with magic and even rolled FOUR irresistable force spells in a single phase at one point (only 1 with double 6's).

My Hell Pit Abominations were almost non-factors until very late in the game. I fled a charge from Phoenix Guard early that left me recovering until I could get a late charge on HPA 1. HPA 2 was supremely unlucky, as he had a Pit of Shades scatter 8 inches OFF of the nearby Storm Vermin right onto him, and promptly failed his Initiative test. That was the only "deadly" spell I got hit by really. The rest was buffs and debuffs from Teclis to help his army. I already mentioned my one 13th Spell, but I did get another off on turn 6 that wiped out the rest of the White Lions to secure their victory points.

The shooting was very limited in the game. On the first High Elf turn though, he shot my Rat Ogres and killed 1 Packmaster (which is 25%!). They promptly failed their leadership test and fled off the board. This was a very good lesson. I've already drafted a new list with a single unit of 6 Rat Ogres with 3 Packmasters. Throughout the rest of the game I used the Storm Banner combined with Howling Warpgale to stop the High Elf shooting phase and all but shut down the leftover Great Eagles.

My own shooting was not spectacular, but the Doomrocket is a beutiful thing. On my own first turn (I activated the Storm Banner on his second turn), I cast Skitterleap on my own Warlock Engineer from my Grey Seer and sent him behind enemy lines. I set up about 16 inches away from the center of Teclis' Spearmen bunker, rolled 12 on 4d6, and killed 25 out of 31 models in the unit!!! I did position him so that if I rolled too high, I would at least hit the unit behind Teclis and possibly still him too, but the dice gods smiled on my sneaky tactics, and the Horned Rat laughed at the dead elf-things.

I also really nailed the best tactic for defeating Teclis... charge his unit and allocate attacks onto the wimpy elf. Sure he wounds on 2+ with his one attack, but steadfast Slaves or Stormvermin (who finally killed him) will work just fine. In the end I had flank Abomination charges and the Rat Ogres finally making it into combat to wrap things up. Turn 6 the only High Elf unit on the board were the Phoenix Guard, but he had killed enough Skaven that even with only 1 unit left, I only got a minor victory. Against another 'Ard Boyz winner, and Teclis, I will take it and chalk it up as a lot of quality experience!

Battle Recaps

I've played 13 games of 8th Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles so far. Here is my impression of the armies I have faced, in order how strong I feel the armies are based on my experience with them.


Empire. I only played on game against the Empire. I was able to take his war machines mostly out of the game and hit his Wizard with the 13th Spell while he was in a small unit of Crossbowmen. I wasn't too impressed with the Archlector / Warpriest casting abilities either. I think I would have been given more fits if he had more war machines, but I've been taking more units of Gutter Runners as well. The large blocks of infantry were at a disadvantage to my blocks, because I always struck first with higher initiative and similar statlines. I tied up Greatswords with Slaves and hit his shooting units with the 13th Spell (hit them instead of big nasty units because 1 cast would destroy a single unit), Gutter Runners, and fast flanking units.

Dark Elves. One small game vs Dark Elves doesn't tell me much about them in the new edition. This was the first 8th Edition game I played and it was only 1000 points. I definitely will need Gutter Runners to disrupt the lines of repeating Crossbowmen. I am really hoping for new Nightrunner models in the 2nd wave as well that I think will help close the gap. Again, not much to say with so little of the full strength of the Dark Elves on the board, but they were more of a challenge than the Empire.

Warriors of Chaos. Elite Infantry, tooled up characters, high level powerful casters, and that damned War Shrine. Warriors of Chaos were tough, but the game I played against them, the 13th Spell decimated his Deathstar unit and ended the game quickly. I am more worried about Knights in my flanks, and should focus on feeding Slaves to Chaos Warriors to keep them away from my caster units. Not much really unfolded in this game to show the true strengths of the Chaos Warriors.

Daemons of Chaos. Daemons took a big hit with the new edition, but I still think they are a contender. In the game I played and reported on, the Bloodthirster (or any other Greater Daemon) is a big threat. I actually think it's better for Daemons to take bigger units of core Daemons, because I think they got better (except the poor Plague Bearers). A Ward save and Fear army-wide makes close combat better, and faster movement gets them across the table faster every game. I used the 13th Spell against the Daemons to go straight for his core blocks and not allowing them to get to me. I think this was key, because his big stuff really couldn't widdle down my large units of infantry.

Orcs and Goblins. One of my three losses so far in the new edition have come to the Greenskins. Lots of war machines because of the new army list percentage system. Lots of large infantry blocks which is the strength of the new edition. Lots of points to spend on characters large and small without worrying about slots. I think the Orcs and Gobbos are much better in the new edition. For me, it was about focusing on one unit at a time, protecting my flanks from chariots and boars, and slowing down the big hordes. I have won 2 out of three vs Orcs and the games I won were because I succeeded in my game plan, and because in both games I won the large and unwieldy units had trouble maneuvering around terrain. Both times against different opponents I was able to use impassable terrain to protect my units, and is also why I would rather run deep for Steadfast than wide for Horde formation.

High Elves. High Elves are pretty tough with always striking first and lots of great weapons in the army. In an 'Ard Boyz situation they may arguably have the best magic with Teclis. I have played the pointy ears 4 times. One loss at 1500 points, a draw at 1500 points, and a draw and a win at 3000 points both against Teclis. Teclis is ridiculous, but I survived him both games. Otherwise my focus against High Elves was to use my Gutter Runners to attack bolt throwers, eagles, and archers. Also I used by big nasty stuff on the flanks to take care of chariots and cavalry. I tried not to ever engage head on, because I would get chopped down by ASF great weapons. I tried to always have support when actually engaging. The 13th Spell is excellent vs the High Elves because they like the elite MSU's. I like turning those units into rats! 4d6 dice does take a huge chunk out of the big blocks, but for me it's about removing a whole unit (even if it is a much smaller unit) at a time. This causes the panic tests, and ensures victory points that are only awarded for entirely destroyed units.

Lizardmen. The toughest army I've faced in the new edition. I've won one and lost one. Both games were decided by magic, when in the first game I turned his Slaan into a Clan Rat with the 13th Spell, and the second game I vaporized my Grey Seer with a instant death miscast result. The game collapsed from there but I still learned a lot. Cannons vs Stegadons... VERY NICE. Template weapons hit all parts of a model, so that strength ten Warplightning Cannon shot I just rolled? Good-bye Stegadon. The Slaan magic though makes him king of the magic phase when special characters (Teclis and Karos) aren't on the board. Adding a die to every spell cast, making your caster's 6's not count within 24" (so I'll just have to take 2!), and transferring miscasts to your enemy are some powerful attributes. Combined with Life magic is probably were the Lizardmen are their strongest. For me, I tried to focus on one side of the board and dance on that 24" line with my Grey Seer to actually get my spells off. Beware of poison Skink attacks on your big stuff. Those piddly little Skink units are actually high threat priority if you don't want your monsters to end up as pin cushions.



I still need to face a lot of armies to get a good grasp on what they have got in the new edition. I am at least happy with the fact that the armies I have been playing are considered the "tough" or "upper tier" armies. I'm glad I was able to get a game in vs the Empire, but I want to find a gunline to test myself against. Speaking of gunlines, I think the army I want to face most now is Dwarves. I know I will be marching through a hail of missile fire to get to them, but I need to practice some anti-Dwarf tactics.I have also NEVER played against another Skaven army. I'm looking forward to a mirror match to really test out my unit choices versus another Warlord's army building style.

3000 point Skaven vs High Elves

I played another 3000 point game tonight trying to fine tune a list I had been contemplating for 'Ard Boyz. My game Saturday was getting used to the high point level, but was filled with 'fun' stuff I wouldn't truly take to 'Ard Boyz. Tonight I faced off against Brian F. from the Great Lakes Warhammer League and his 'Ard Boyz tuned High Elf list! I wrote out my list a few times today, and with the help from the lads over at The UnderEmpire, decided on a Seer/Warlord list rather than a dual Seer list. I was leaning towards dual Seer all week but decided against it. I'm glad I did, the balanced list did well.

Brian's list was generally this: Teclis using Lore of Life, level 2 mage with the Lore of Metal, BSB Hero with Magic Immunity banner,and a foot Lord with some magic items. Dragon Prince, Lions, Swordmasters, Seaguard, Spearmen, Archers, 2 Bolt Throwers, shadow warriors (HE scouts, I forget), and an Eagle.

Here was my list

475 Grey Seer, lvl 4 plague and ruin, screaming bell, power scroll
218 Warlord, war litter, shield, weeping blade, worlds edge armor, rival hide talisman, potion of strength

290 Plague Priest, lvl 1 plague, plague furnace, dispel scroll, opal amulet
143 Assassin, tail weapon, the other trickster’s shard
115 Chieftain, bsb, talisman of endurance, shield of distraction

325 30 Storm Vermin, champion, standard, musician, war banner, plague wind mortar
235 30 Clan Rats, champion, standard, musician, shields, spears, plague wind mortar
155 30 Clan Rats, champion, standard, musician, shields
062 30 Slaves, musician
062 30 Slaves, musician

250 25 Plague Monks, champion, standard, musician, storm banner
090 5 Gutter Runners, slings, poisoned attacks
090 5 Gutter Runners, slings, poisoned attacks

150 Doomwheel
250 Hell Pit Abomination, warp spikes
090 Warp Lightning Cannon




We started the game off by deploying, obviously. Teclis was deployed in the White Lions, along with the magic immunity banner. I wouldn't be able to touch him with the 13th Spell! I deployed one unit of gutter runners 12" away from one bolt thrower, then he deployed his Scouts near my weapon teams, then I deployed my last gutter runners in front of my weapon teams to block them.

First turn, Teclis IR'd Dwellers Below to drag down 18 of 30 Clan Rats. Thankfully my Grey Seer passed his test (thank you S5 Rat Ogre crew). Not much else happened. My turn 1, I warped his unit of Swordmasters into clan rats. Small, elite infantry units are the perfect target. I used 6 dice and my power scroll, but rolled 3 6's anyways. I was also able to take out the Bolt Thrower on my left in one round of shooting with the Gutter Runners. Poisoned slings ftw.

From here on out, Teclis used a lot of powerful magic without anything to stop him, and I advanced while taking casualties. My Abomination was able to catch the Eagle second turn because he was grounded with the Storm Banner, after the flaming attacks from the Archers only wounded him once. My Storm Vermin made a good charge to get by the Shadow Warriors (?) in combat with the Gutter Runners and then ran off the Spearmen they charged. Warlord riding a war litter, with a Weeping Blade made short work of the unit champion in the challenge.

Brian made some horrible charge rolls, leadership rolls, to hit rolls, etc, etc, etc... his rolls were definitely against him. But, my Plague Monks and Plague Furnace didn't really get into combat. They were slowed down by my deployment. Too many slaves surrounding my Furnace unit, and it never got into the thick of things.

But after the fighting, it didn't matter. Finally this game I really think my Gutter Runners did excellently, and I was glad I stuck with them. I only truly lost 65 victory points (one weapon team) during the whole game. The other units that broke were able to rally to deny points. I am feeling pretty comfortable overall with the list, but I would definitely like to get some more practice in.

Island of Blood contents spotted!

Surfing the interwebs today I found some reports of the Island of Blood models being seeing at local GW Hobby Centers! Take these reports for what they are, internet posts, but get ready to be excited...

Over on Dakka dakka, there are rumored sightings of the contents of the new starter set.

"GW stores now are now receiving their display sprues from Island Of Blood. Customers in my local GW store were assisting in assembling the models today. They look absolutely terrific. I've seen Swordmasters and the Griffin assembled. Great detail, poses, etc. The Skaven stuff looked good on the sprue. As rumored, 2 Rat Ogres and a Warp Fire Thrower among all the great smaller stuff."

and

"check out the burning rat on the 'thrower"

and

"Got ahold of the minis today for Island of Blood. Skaven are amazing, High Elves pretty good. Chieftain in the style of Queek, but with a back banner and halberd. 40 Clanrats, Warpfire Thrower (complete with burning rat), Posion Wind Mortar (meh, was disappointed by this, not much detail on the mortar itself), Chieftan, Warlock Engineer, 2 Rat Ogres (tiny heads) and a Pack Master.

On the High Elf side it was a Prince on a Griffon (on a flying stand, really, really, really, ugly. It was stretched out like the Dragon is though, in a "flying motion"), 5 very nice Elerian Reavers (fantastic champion in this unit), 10 Sword Masters (pretty sure they were all unique models- same pose/different style armor and whatnots), and 10 Sea Guard.

That's all I saw, and was told it's going to be $90. I'm getting 2 for my Skaven, unfortunately all the Clanrats have shields sculpted on."

and

"Clanrats are armed with hand weapons"

and

"And no slaves for the skavens? "

I just may have to give my local GW a call and see if they have them available. Apparently they need to have the Island of Blood contents assembled, painted, and on display by the first week in August.



Another quote update:

I'm the 3rd quote there, currently waiting for my Rat Ogre's bases to finish drying before going on to prime them

Be jealous.

But as far as I've seen, there are no Slaves or Globadiers with what I have been sent. The infantry I have are 40 rats, all with shields, 20 with hand weapons, and 20 with spears. So I guess they can still be Slaves, it's just all in the painting, as the models are almost indistinguishable from normal multi-part Clanrats.

More thoughts on 8th edition

Days away from the Warhammer 8th Edition release and I spent some more time playing the new Warhammer rules this week, getting 3 more games in. I played twice against High Elves and once against Orcs and Goblines (more or less just goblins). I played to a Draw in both games and realized something: it is hard to win in 8th edition. According to the rule book, you need to score twice as many victory points as your opponent to win... every other result is a draw. No more minor, major or massacre victories.

As for the games themselves, I tried out some very different lists to get a better feel for my Skaven in the new edition. My first list was fairly balanced, and had the Furnace, some mortars, and the Doomwheel. Everything performed well enough but the mortars were very nice with no more guess range and pre-measuring allowed. My second game was an all infantry list, 1000 points with 201 models! There were so many dead rats at the end of the game vs the Goblins, but I still almost wiped out my opponent to the man. But since I didn't, we counted it up and had a draw. My third game I tried out magic in the form of a Grey Seer, and also tried the Hell Pit Abomination. The magic phase was very nice to me in this game. First turn my level one Plague Priest got off Plague. Later my Grey Seer cast Skitterleap to avoid what would have been death in close combat, and cast The Dreaded 13th Spell to wipe out a unit of Phoenix Guard. The Hell Pit Abomination did not perform as well as I'm used to, because he got tore up by Dragon Princes. He killed them but left with only 1 wound.


I had a few "new-rule" thoughts:

High Elves with ASF and re-rolls are just nasty. My large troop blocks were just decimated. I was losing many combats because just too many hits were getting through. High Elves will do very well with this rule. It is also what crippled my Hell Pit Abomination. 4 Dragon Princes with lances charging the HPA, also re-rolling attacks with their lances. Ouch.

Swift Reform rule is awesome. Just awesome. Probably one of my favorite new rules. A swift reform allows you to take a leadership test if you have a musician. If you pass, you may reform as normal, THEN take a regular move without marching. If you fail you may only reform without moving. This, combined with free reforms after winning combat (or a leadership test to reform after losing) really speeds up the death and carnage in close combat. More units fighting, lots more models dying.

I really like the new magic system. My opponent was getting pretty unlucky with his miscast rolls and becoming a little jaded with his failures with magic... but after it was all said and done he still did alright and we were pretty balanced. My Grey Seer list did it's job (which was to take out a unit with the 13th spell) without dying. In fact he was the only non-slave model on the board at the end of the game. Thank you Skitterleap!

Tale of 4 Gamers period 1 under way!

Army lists are in for period 1. I now have 3 weeks to paint 60 Clan Rats to finish up my first list. I have 1 unit based and primed, so hopefully I can get some work in on them tonight. Here are the 4 first period lists. First round matchups are Skaven vs Lizardmen, and Orcs and Goblins vs High Elves:

Rhellion / Skaven
 
Plague Priest: lvl 1, flail

20 Clan Rats: spear, shield, clawleader, standard, musician
20 Clan Rats: shield, clawleader, standard, musician
20 Slaves

20 Plague Monks: musician, standard, bringer-of-the-word, Storm Banner
5 Plague Censer Bearers
5 Plague Censer Bearers

749

Gargunki / Lizardmen

Skink Priest: General, Level 2 Upgrade, Aquatic, Dispel Scroll, Diadem of Power.

16 Saurus Warriors: Musician, Standard Bearer, Spears, Shields, Scaly Skin.

2 x 10 Skink Skirmishers: Blowpipe, Aquatic, Skirmishers.

3 Terradon Riders: Arboreal Predators, Javelin, Drop Rocks, Flyer, Skirmishers.

2 Salamanders: Hunting Packs, Spout Flames, Aquatic, Causes Fear, Scaly Skin, Skirmishers.
6 Skink Handlers: Aquatic, Skirmishers.

Total Roster Cost: 740

daskrusher / Dwarfs of Chaos

1 daemonsmith w/shield 112pts

15 chaos dwarf warriors with full command, chaos armour, shields, and attached eruption gun 250 pts

15 chaos dwarf annihilators with standard and musician 195 pts

1 death rocket 90 pts

1 earthshaker cannon 100pts

total: 747

gunslinger / High Elves


Hero on horse Helm of re-rolling armour and SoM, barding, dragon armor

2x10 archers

bolt thrower

eagle

12 White Lions + full command, Lion Standard

752