+ WoT vs HE 2250, League Ender 2 of 4 +

Overview
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Location: Zombie Planet
Date played: Monday, April 05, 2010

High Elves
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General: B

Lord:
(AM) Archmage
- level 4, powerstone, ring of fury, fifth spell

Hero:
(M) Mage
- level 2, pick spells

(N) Noble
- reaver bow, enchanted shield, great weapon

Core:
(S) 10 Spearmen

(A) 10 Archers

Special:
(PG) 14 Phoenix Guard
- standard of sorcery, champion

(SM) 14 Sword Masters
- standard of balance, champion w/ talisman of loec

(WL) 13 White Lions
- lion standard

(DP) 5 Dragon Princes

(TC) Tiranoc Chariot

Rare:
(BT1) Bolt Thrower

(BT2) Bolt Thrower

(BT3) Bolt Thrower

(GE) Great Eagle


Warriors of Tzeentch
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General: Salvage

Lord:
(CL) Chaos Lord [365 points]
- MoT, runehammer, enchanted shield, collar of tzeentch, favor, demonic mount

Hero:
(S) Sorcerer [195 points]
- MoT, golden eye, dispel scroll, bloodcurdling roar, disc

(X) Exalted Hero [160 points]
- MoT, BSB, talisman of protection

Core:
(CW1) 20 Chaos Warriors [395 points]
- warbanner, full command, shields

(CW2) 19 Chaos Warrriors [374 points]
- rapturous banner, full command, shields

(H1) 5 Horsemen [81 points]
- musician, spears, light armor

(H2) 5 Horsemen [81 points]
- musician, spears, light armor

Special:
(DO) 3 Dragon Ogres [231 points]
- great weapons

(O) 3 Ogres [160 points]
- musician, great weapons, chaos armor

Rare:
(HC) Hellcannon [205 points]

Total: 2247 points
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Deployment
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MAGIC
Archmage: Metal 1,2,4,5,6
Mage: Curse of Arrow Attraction, Shield of Saphery

Pimp: Flickering Fire

Turn 1 - Warriors of Tzeentch
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Hellcannon plays it cool and doesn't rampage, nor will she all game. Everybody else mobilizes, with the horsemen fading their flanks and both the dragon ogres and Pimp taking big risks and expecting to be shot / magiced. As usual, I ought to have played it a bit cooler with my mobile elements for a turn, but ah well ... Astoundingly the Pimp gets flicker off against the right bolter, 4 S4 killing one crew and wounding the machine. Sadly roar is out, and it's over for the elven opening volleys.

Turn 1 - High Elves
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The elves do a bit of cagey maneuvering - mostly the flanks turning in slowly, with the mages jumping around and the eagle flapping over to march block. Then the magical main event slams in with a +3 from the banner of sorcery, for a daunting 11 PD + ring of fury offense vs 3 DD + scroll. RoBI slams the Pimp for 1 wound (no eye vs non-magic missile), then a distillation is let through on the assumption that a 3/3+ save can soak those 2D6 S4 hits - naturally this isn't the case, and the one wound that hits him goes through both saves and takes the single most threatening model (with his scroll unused) off the table. The mage follows this up by cursing the dragon ogres, which absorb 12-18 bolt rounds and many many wounds in the following shooting phase, leaving one smashy, angry monster. Other fire is directed at either horsemen unit, with some damage done - his shooting dice were excellent all told. All in all, a brutal turn for chaos.

Turn 2 - Warriors of Tzeentch
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Big Blue trudges on! On the left the horsemen bait a charge from the chariot to protect the flank of the ogres - unlike the diagram, this would send the chariot either into a failed charge or a terror-checking charge into the hellcannon, not the ogres in either case. The stars began parting ways, while the the last drogre zipped to, if he lived, take out a damn bolter. No magic, no shooting, over for another round of reeming.

Turn 2 - High Elves
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The tiranoc charges the horsemen, but opts not to try for an EitW into the hellcannon. Other cagey movement mostly preps the center for the incoming 'stars, while continuing to move the flanks in. With the archmage out of LoS magic is somewhat subdued, but 2DD can't stop the last dragon from being cursed with arrow magnetism once more. He is shot many times and dies a lot. Likewise the right horsemen, and a fantastic single shot from the NW bolter skewers an ogre and puts 1-2 wounds on the brute next to him. All panics are passed, but not sad checks :'(

Turn 3 - Warriors of Tzeentch
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Rather than moving the chaos lord to the corner of the warstar and accepting that there's no way five dragon princes in the flank will do anything, I move the Baron out of his unit to block the DP, and I also realize that he can probably kill the swordmasters on his own too. This would prove to be a brutal bit of hubris ... Meanwhile, the 'stars near striking distance, big and medium gribblies struggle whilst marchblocked and the horsemen rally (but don't move, as I forgot about the fast cav bait dealy).

Turn 3 - High Elves
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No charges - the princes are too smart to tackle the Baron, and I don't think the tiranoc gave the horsemen another shot (maybe HC was in the way?). Lions stay without 2" of their woods, though their flank is now less than 2" ... Magic mainly goes into a SotF on the chaos lord, which four-dices through into IF (his second of the game, for no miscasts), completely overloading the collar and doing 9 hits = 9 wounds = 7 failed wards. 365 points of god-killing power vaporizes, and so does my desire to run a chaos lord any more. Time to up gun: level 4, you're in from here on out, I've been good and avoided bringing nukes so far, but Mr. Demo-Horse isn't working. Back to the game, the remaining horsemen are shot a lot, and the 'stars absorb all firepower.

Turn 4 - Warriors of Tzeentch
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OMG TIME TO FIGHT?! Not quite: the rapture star fails its fakking fear test and can't carge the PG right in front of them. I take my anger out on my dice, but then am gratified by the hellcannon flanking the white lions through the woods - something is going to die, dammit. Warstar is out on the spears, so stomps up to stare it in the face, and the ogres spin to intercept the chariot. In FIGHT LAND, the hellcannon takes a wound and eats a woodself or two, losing combat but whatever.

Turn 4 - High Elves
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More cageyness, more shooting. The ogres are cursed and then pincushioned with arrows, leaving one with one wound. 'Stars continue to absorb fire, possible losing a few from the warstar and one from the rapturestar. There is more fighting between HC & WL, with more wounds put on Ms. Nibbles and more dead elves.

Turn 5 - Warriors of Tzeentch
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The rapturestar gets over its irrational fear of mute elves and slams the phoenix guard, while the warstar docks with ~10 points of spearelves. Both units vaporize, sending rapture into the mid bolter and war just sailing past the NE bolter - all panic checks are passed, naturally. In a continuing display of good luck, Ms. Nibbles is dropped in 3 rounds of combat with just 2 white lions, though her dwarfs admirably kill another couple elves to bring the unit below half! Sadly they break, but are not caught. Oh, and the last ogre gets away from the chariot's range, to outside of the DP's as well.

Turn 5 - High Elves
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White lions push the hellcannon crew into the building, destroying them and netting big points, and other movement involves sandwiching the last ogre between chariot & cav and aiming some archmage at the warstar. Magic tickles the warstar - he refused to try for a 3rd or 4th casting of SotF, as 4+ turns with no miscasts is unheard of for him / me - and shooting slammed it a bit more. The last ogre amazingly survived all the fire directed his way. In combat, the bolter is detonated by Duke von Dook, the BSB.

Turn 6 - Warriors of Tzeentch
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The dragon princes are surprised to find the last ogre within charge range, but hold against his charge anyway. Annnd the 'stars turn to face squishy elves, but this thing is over. The final ogre is killed by ASF-ing princes, his chaos armor utterly failing him.

Turn 6 - High Elves
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DPs claim a quarter, but no need to move otherwise. Minimal magic and available fire goes into the warstar, dropping it below half.

With that, an anger-inducing game came to a close. I was pretty much ready to quite fantasy at some point, things were just so fakking terrible. Instead, I'm simply going to accept that as a Tzeentch player playing a Tzeentch army with only Tzeentch marks, I shouldn't feel bad at all about running a gateway-happy level 4. So next time: BIG BADDA BOOM!

TIZZ LOSS (3-17)

*For those keeping track at home, this was my worst loss in the league since the 500 pointer closing game vs these same HE, when I went 0-20. When avoidance + magic + shooting all work it's absolutely infuriatingly brutal for us chaos ground-pounders.