Archnomad's Skaven vs. TheLieutenant's High Elves.

So folks, sorry for the lack of activity lately, but I've had a busy weekend. I'm absolutely shattered right now, so the coherence of this post may suffer a little because of it, but I bring you a Batrep to sate your lust for Warhammer related chatter. I feel this was a good game to report because it swung a few times and it was damn close. Personally I reckon I had it at the end and threw it away, you'll see what I mean.

So the armies. I was using my MSU skaven army from the blog. I was against;
Teclis
Korhil
2 Units of 25 Spears w/FC
20 White Lions w/FC and Flaming Banner (Teclis went here)
20 Phoenix Guard w/FC and champ has Skeinsliver
15/16 Swordmasters w/FC and Banner of Sorcerery

It's a fun list. And by fun I mean it has Teclis in it and should be burnt at the stake. But anyway, sizing up this army my amazing powers of clairvoyance foretold my Seer being nabbed by Dwellers. Otherwise I shouldn't have too many problems if I can get enough redirection done. So, this is how we deployed. We were playing Dawn Attack so our deployment was kind of haphazard. I have to apologise for the mass of grey and some metal, but our armies are new for 8th ed (except my slaves but there's over 100 of them and I can't be bothered right now) so we haven't gotten round to painting them yet. There are a few proxies as I'm just finishing off the army, and I don't want to build Plagueclaw Catapults before I test them. Now I just don't want to build them. Anyway! Here's how we deployed:

On the skaven side,the three big long units at the front are slaves. Behind the slaves are giant rats, all 3 stormvermin units with weapon teams, all my artillery (I rolled a lot of 3-5s) a unit of jezzails, another unit of jezzails in the "jungle". Behind the forest is another proxied Plagueclaw, and the forward units are obviously gutter runners. My Warlock had Warp Lightning, my seer had Skitterleap, Scorch, Plague and the 13th.

The High Elves are much easier to explain, having 5 units. Closest to the camera is the white lions with teclis, then spearmen, then another spearmen unit, then the Phoenix Guard. Behind the Phoenix Guard are the Swordmasters (don't you hate Dawn Attack?)

TURN ONE

In the first High Elf turn, the entire army marched forward, and in the magic phase Teclis managed to get off 3 irresistables. He got off Throne of Vines, Flesh to Stone on his White Lions, killed some slaves with Awakening, 5 dice'd an irresistable Dwellers on to a WLC. What a wanker.

In my turn not much movement happened. I was pretty well set as far as redirection went, but I moved my seer up in to range to get the Alpha strike on teclis, hopefully I could Warp Lightning/Scorch/Plague the lions and then 5/6 dice a 13th into the unit and get Teclis. I moved my gutter runners around to avoid charges, but stay in range. Sadly in my magic phase I rolled 4 dice. I used 3 dice on scorch and it was dispelled, and I cast Warp Lightning (somehow) on one dice and did absolutely nothing.

However in my shooting phase I sort of made up for it. See, I had a weapon suited for taking out T7 white lions. It was a Brace of Poisoned Wind Mortars. The first one scattered and killed one. However the second got a hit and took out nine! Victory dance ho. Everything else pretty much flopped though. A plagueclaw blew itself up, and my gutter runners killed a spearman and a phoenix guard. Also, a jezzail picked off a white lion.

TURN TWO

So the Elves bravely marched up again, almost in contact with a fair few of my skaven units. Teclis gets off flesh to stone (irresistably), I dispel regrowth on the lions, he gets earthblood off on them though. He also gets Dwellers off on my slave unit housing the Grey Seer. He kills 11 slaves and my seer. What a wanker. Finally he Awakening's a WFT and my slaves run off the board.

So out march my redirectors!

I did some reforming, my gutter runners play about with charge arcs again (they never failed a LD test to not march, seriously). My warlock engineer moves up to get in doomrocket range of some spearmen (14" is my preferred range).

I use 5 dice on warp lightning, which is dispelled. I use 3 dice to remove throne of vines. My doomrocket kills 9 spearmen, my warpfire thrower however makes about double its points up by frying 16 spearmen (surprise muthafucka! ) from the unit near Teclis. My Poisoned Wind Globadiers join in the fun and kill another one, while my Catapult kills a spearman and 2 phoenix guard. Jezzails kill a swordmaster, and my gutter runners kill 3. The swordmasters panic and run off the board! Result! The phoenix guard however don't care and stand firm.

TURN THREE

In the High Elf turn the spearman charge into a warlock engineer, the white lions hurtle into the giant rats and the phoenix guard charge the jezzails in the forest. The other spearmen however fail their charge, which is good.

In the Elf magic phase Teclis gets off dwellers and kills 8 stormvermin. I dispel regrowth. The phoenix guard win the combat against the Jezzails, fail their overrun horribly and are still in the jungle. The slaves however panic and bolt off the board. The spearmen kill the engineer and overrun about 3" or something. The White Lions kill the giant rats and (this was this turn's theme) overrun about a centimetre. However the death of the giant rats touches the stormvermin and shocks them to the core, and they run off the board. This became a recurring theme.

In my turn my gutters again move around, otherwise it's pretty much clean up at this point, or so I thought. I march out some more redirectors (the pic is me redirecting the spearmen, the hand isn't mine).

My slaves kill nothing, my jezzails pop a lion, my gutters kill of a phoenix guard, my WFT kills 2 more lions, and now Teclis is in major trouble, as there were now only 4 white lions, the champion and teclis left in the unit (he's using the IoB model as Teclis, it looks better).

Feels good man.

So with that bugger dead I ended my turn.

TURN FOUR

For the High Elves the spearmen charged into my (now redirectory) unit of 2 stormvermin. The phoenix guard charged into the (redirectory) gutter runners, the spearmen charged the (redirectory) warlock engineer. The spearmin kill the stormvermin and overrun into the flank of a slave block. The other spearmen kill the engineer and overrun into a Poisoned Wind Mortar and the phoenix guard kill all the gutter runners.

In my turn my BSB walks in front of the Phoenix Guard to buy my army some time to pull itself together. Irritatingly I mispositioned him so he was within 6" of my Warp Lightning Cannon. That was a mistake. By the way that horse is a Poisoned Wind Mortar!

My Warpfire thrower fires into the spearmen on the flank of the slaves and kills them all, as well as 8 slaves. The Warp Lightning Cannon nabs a pair of phoenix guard (those things are so damn hard to kill!) and the spearmen kill my Plague Wind Mortar/

TURN FIVE

The Phoenix Guard charge my BSB (oh damn). The spears charge my gutter runners (yay redirects!). In combat the spearmen kill my gutter runners to one guy, but they don't catch him (Scurry away saves the day!). The phoenix guard hack my BSB down in cold blood, and overrun. My WLC panics (argh!) and dies. Grand. Looking at that pile (it's a collective dead pile) I could just feel "draw" coming along. Haha.

In my turn my gutter runner flees, panicking my Warpfire thrower (which flees). However in my shooting phase my plagueclaw catapult kills 6 spearmen (the best it's done all game). The Jezzails kill another 2, and the gutter runners kill one. My poisoned wind globadiers finish that unit off, leaving just the phoenix guard. They fail their panic (hurrah!) and run back a bit.

TURN SIX
The Phoenix Guard rally.

The globadiers kill one and the slaves kill 2.

So that's game folks. I feel I underestimated the resilience of the Phoenix Guard, and should have spent the last few turns running away rather than trying to kill them, cause I could have won then. Regardless it was a good game, it definitely swung, and I had a great time. Of course, had I passed my Dwellers strength check on my seer it could have been very different! Kudos to TheLieutenant for giving me a good game. (:

The end result: Draw. Damn good game I say.

I'm the one on the left. We were both quite hysterical by this point, enough sugar and alcohol will do that to anyone I feel. Check out my neckbeard. If it's any consolation to you I've shaved by now. And showered. Ugh.

Photogrophy done by Russel Coid. Our resident racist (but not really) Wise Chinese Hydra. I honestly feel bad for putting this picture on here but he insisted.

Finally, here's myself and Clayman reminiscing on our game earlier that day, where his Lizards soundly beat up my Skaven. As ever, our signs summarise our feelings toward the game. I might make that a recurring thing.

Hope you guys enjoyed the article! There's more to come, I have those same Lizards vs Tomb Kings, and a mini report of myself vs Clayman.

Stay Classy.