Byakhee Jim and I had a short notice random game of WHFB. It was so short notice and ad-hoc neither of us knew what army we’d be facing. Jim’s Bretonnian army is constrained by what he can buy painted on evil-bay, and I artificially constrained myself to what I had painted, especially what new stuff I had painted. So I didn’t have a well balanced army, and fielding my newly painted unit of (all of) five Cold One Kinights (COK) was really asking for a hiding…
Jim made the mistake of fielding his peasnt skirmishers in front of a unit of knights, and I should have spread out another 6 inches or so. Both os us refused one flank. Other than that our deployments weren’t bad.
Jim suggested, I photo’d the armies, as they viewed each other at the start of the game, which was different.
Then his army sat down and prayed. Well, I was surte this gave him some form of advantage (I guessed a ward save), but as a Dark Elf General, I went with the line “It’s a pity they’re still awake” and launched the attack.
I envisaged a murderous assault of RXB, RBT and magic….then the dice intervened.
My first level sorceress managed to roll a double 6 on 3 dice, killing 7 of the RXB men in the unit she was embedded within. And the spell did no damage to the Bretonnians. My awesome fire power only killed 4 peasant bowmen and one knight. This set the pattern for my luck with the dice. Sounds like an excuse, but Jim agreed at the end my dice rolling had been unusually lousy.
Surprisingly, Jim’s armoured columns of knights did not charge forward, rather a single hero (Duke Forgar de’Artois) on BBQ wings (AKA Pegasus) bravely charged the Shades on my left flank, and took a fair amount of damage on the way in, perhaps my only lucky dice rolling of the game. Nonetheless, the knight managed to make them flee, and follow up into the Harpies.
Jim, had been expecting me to field Dwarves, so came equipped with 4 stonethrowers – all souped up of course (min/max). His luck started when his stonethrower did a direct hit on my army general causing 5 wounds….Heavy Armour, Shield, mounted, on a Cold One with a Sea Dragon Cloak, still gives you no armour save against a direct hit…squish…I had also placed the Chaos Gate piece of scenery I’d done which counted as an arcane terrain piece, so of course his Knights riding past got the beneficial Speed of Light spell cast on them (WS 10, I10) which was to come in handy later…
Come my turn, I charged the single Cold One Chariot at the peasants who run away (Jim applauded my good move), and then positioned the COK and Hydra to support it a tempting distance away from 2 columns of knights. My High Sorceress’ Cold One failed a stupidity test, so she was left stranded at the back and out of range. This left the Level 1 Sorceress, with the only spell within range – Penundural Pendulum…which relies on Initiative of the target to survive, guess which unit has I10 ? Not only that she managed to again blow herself up, reducing her level to zero. The Harpies killed the Duke in combat – a rare ray of light in a dismal round that saw precious little missile damage done. The Harpies on my right flank did take out one of his stone throwers though.
Jim’s next go saw the chariot destroyed by his army general on chicken wings (Hippygriff), the Harpies routed by a column of knights (I rolled 9 dice for a 5-6 ward save and failed ALL NINE times). His stone throwers almost halved the unit of Harpies on the right flank, and managed to trash the RXB unit on the flank that faced the next column of knights…
In combat, his knights managed to wipe out the COK as well.
At which point I called it a day.
Well I went in with an unbalanced army, and it showed it. WHFB 8th Ed, really punishes small units, and rewards large units. I think most of the Byakhees have agreed, that they know my army very well (too well), and have appropriate counter strategies, mostly involving souped up stone throwers to pound by puny T3 Dark Elves into the ground.
I enjoyed the game nonetheless, as I got to field my new COK and chariot. These will need working on and I have a few ideas in mind for new tactics and how to use them against my foes. Jim was also surprised, at the last moment reading the FAQs again at my suggestion, that Bretonnian knights have not been completely nerfed in 8th Ed.
Other than the small unit of COK, neither Jim nor I could see how I could have changed the outcome given my abysmal dice rolling.
The Lost City of Carcosa 