Dark Elves vs Vampire Counts Battle Report

We continue our journey thru the Old World. Another game of 6th Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle. With square bases and proper formations, as it was meant to be. 

Once again I face my friend Lou across the table. He has brought his lovely old old Dark Elves, circa 

3rd to 4th edition. I take my "still has a new car smell"Vampire Counts army. Only painted in the last year and only on the table one time, last week.  I recently picked up some Spirit Swarms from ebay for a good price, so I quickly got them repaired and painted for the game. I also took a loose Spirit and mounted it as a single for a Banshee stand in. 

I also spent a lot of time pouring over the rules. I made a lot of mistakes last week and unfortunately a lot of them went against my opponent, Lou. My bad. After spending a week brushing up on the rules we were ready to take another crack at it. 

Here are the forces involved. The Dark Elves with with full Commands and lots of unit upgrades. I went with minimal to no command and very few upgrades. 

Here's the set up. Vampire Counts in the foreground, Dark Elves on the back edge.

The unit deployments

Dark Elves go first and Take a hill for Ranked fire. Other than that, they are very cautious.

Cold One Knights on my left fail there Stupidity roll. Warriors in the center move up behind the woods with Witch Elves.

First blood to the Elves. I lose 2 doggies.

 My turn, I move everything forward full.

Banshee's screen the Crypt Guard.

I'm struggling to keep things with in 12 Inches of my Necromancer for marching. I swing one unit of Wolves to the center to screen my my Necromancer.

Next Turn, DE player sits still, his knights go Stupid again!. That slows him down on the left. I almost lose the game on turn 2. The wolves get destroyed by the repeating Xbow on the hill. Uncovering my General to the Bolt Thrower. Lou wiffs the "to wound" rolls.

Magic phase sees Chill Wind get a hit on the Spirits and kills some Skellies on the left.

Crypt Guard also takes a hit from the Warriors

 My dead piling up.

 My turn, Spirits charge Xbow, they fail the Fear test and flee, I do not catch them. My Banshee moves into the flank of the Warriors, I think kills one or 2 with her Scream.

Xbow fail to rally and run off the table!

Cold Ones finally get their shit together and charge. I lose take lots of casualties (combat and combat resolution), but am still in the fight. My Vamp Thrall in the unit kills 2 Knights.

 Warriors and the DE General on the right charge my Crypt Guard. The DE player rolls HORRIBLY and I win the combat. His General Wiffs all his attacks. I should have lost. He breaks, and I pursue and catch the warriors, destroyed. The General gets away.

 I charge all over. Skeletons into Warriors in the Center, Banshee on Flank of Warriors. Wolves onto flank of Cold Ones, Spirit Swarm charges the Bolt Thrower. Crypt Guard at The DE General, he flees.

The Spirits

 I lose the combat again to the Cold Ones, and all the Skeletons are killed, but Vampy is still alive( well not alive 😋)

My other Vampire Thrall with the 2nd Skeleton unit charge and kill and break the Warrior unit. At that point the Dark Elf player threw in the towel.

Wrap up. Again fun was had and we got to GAME! Something that happens way too seldom. I didn't get a single spell off for 2 games now. No free skeletons for me! On the plus side, only having 1 Wizard but 2 Vampires, really really helps in Combat. The amount of Psychology tests that a VC army generates is staggering. Even really elite units are gonna break sometimes. For most of my Warhammer life I played Empire. And I did everything I could to limit the incoming damage. But with VC, you have to grit your teeth, take the hits and push on in.

The game really came down too 2 moments. The shots on my General, would have ended the gae for me, and the DE General whiffing against my Crypt Guard. Luck is a great ally.

I will expand the army some more. I have a Black Coach too paint, and Knights. The fine folks on eBay will be sending me a Banshee and another Skellie unit. I love those plastic skeletons.

That's all for now, Cheers, Xin

WHFB 6th Ed Battle Report, Vampire Counts vs Dwarves

After spending loads of time putting together tables for Cold Wars, I finally got to play a game.

My Friend Lou came over and we played Warhammer Fantasy Battle. I took Vampire Counts and Lou took Dwarves. I haven't played WHFB in maybe 2  years(WHFB Elves vs Empire, 8th ed)

This time it's 6th Edition. One of the reasons I like 6th is, it is the most expansive. It has the most Army Books and Supplements of any edition. 

Here's a quick write up of our game:

Vampire Counts(Me) 1000pts
Skeleton Regiment
Skeleton Regiment
Dire Wolf Pack
Dire Wolf Pack
Bat Swarm
General Vampire Count (Blood Dragon)
Vampire Thrall ( Blood Dragon )
Necromancer

Dwarves (Lou) 1000 pts
Slayers
Crossbowmen
Warriors with Great Weapon and Magic Banner
Cannon
Warriors HW and Shield
Runelord

 VC on the left, Stunties on the right.

 Left to right my battle line, Dire Wolves, Skeletons with Necromancer

 Middle Bat Swarms, Vampire Count and 2nd Skeleton unit with Vampire Thrall.

 Far Right, a line unit of Dire Wolves.

 Close ups

 These are Battle Master Wolves. I used green stuff to over the saddle.

 The Dwarves, from his Left to right. Warriors with Hand Weapon and Shield. Rune Lord, and Cannon

 Next is a Crossbow unit. Then Warriors with Great Weapon, and on the far right are the Slayers.

 VC win initiative, I march straight forward

 Here I made a mistake, the Wolves could not march by themselves. On the right they did a half move, so no big deal. On the left I marched, oops.

 The Dwarves stood still. The Xbow killed 2 Wolves.

 Lou guessed the cannon perfectly and bounced through 4 ranks. Unfortunately for him, he rolled 2 "1's" to Wound.

 Round 2, I charged the cannon with the Dire Wolves. On the charge, we tied, I killed one and he killed one. On the Dwarf turn Lord charged in, rolled really bad. I killed another Cannon crew and he killed one wolf. Another mistake, I was immune to psychology being undead, but I rolled for a break test and failed.

 My main units move forward, Bats fly over the standing stones. The Slayers turn to face the Wolves sweeping around the side.

 Third round, The bats charge the Slayers in the flank. No break test as they are unbreakable. The Vampire Count and Skeleton unit with Vampire Thrall charge the Warriors unit. I win the combat easily with 2 Vampires. Honestly how do you fight Vampires?

 The Warriors break and flee, I fail to catch. The skeletons slam into the Xbow Unit.
The Bat Swarm Killed a slayer, Didn't take any casualties, slayers don't break so they are stuck on the Slayers Flank, pinning them in place.

 I just realized as I type this I think we missed a round of combat on the Dwarves turn. Damn it. On Turn 4, the Vampire Count slams into the back of the Xbow unit. With the 2 vampires, and rear charge, the unit breaks.

The Warrior unit on the back edge rallied. but the Wolves hitting the flank break it again. At this point, the Dwarf player throws in the towel.

Observations.

I made a mistake with the Wolves. Not terrible but they got around the flank faster than they should have. They would have got there a turn later.

I didn't get a single spell off due to Dwarf Dispel dice

Vampires are just monsters in combat. This is the first time using both armies. Not sure what the Dwarves could do against them.

The Dwarf player was a little frustrated and I get that. We will have to play again and swap armies.

I think I have a Dwarf Organ gun, may that might have been better than a Cannon.

Anyway it was fun to play 6th. It was fun to play with new armies. I bought the Dwarves painted, and recently painted the VC. It was just fun to game.

Cheers, Xin/Jeff

Playing Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game, Battle Companies. Game 2

My Friend Lou and I started a Battle Companies campaign. If your not familiar with it, BC allows you to play out linked battles, grow your warband over time, using the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game rules.

"An expansion for the Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game, this 80-page hardback allows you to assemble a small warband and, over the course of many linked games, watch as its members gain experience, learn skills and become battle-hardened." 

I went with a Lothlorien force and Lou chose Uruk-Hai. I had 3 Galadhrim Warriors and 3 Wood Elves, 2 of which had bows. Lou had 7 scouts 2 of which had bow.

 We had one battle already that I won, but can't find the pics to do a Battle Report. So this is our 2nd battle. Each of us had small upgrades to our Warriors. 

We rolled on the Scenario chart and came up with - Rescue. One side sets up 3 figures in the center of the table (Defender) and the other side sets up 6 inches away (Attacker). The Attacker has to kill a specific model. The Defender has to reduce the other side to 50%. The balance of the Defenders forces come on at the end of turn one. Lou was the Defender and I was the Attacker. 

 Overall Board

 Ready for action

 Here we go.

  I get priority as per the scenario. I charge 2 guys into my target with support.

 Lou responded by adding 2 guys into the fight to peal off the support. I won all 3 combats, but only killed one, not my target.

 Next round he flees towards his reinforcements

 I pursue.

 I catch up but the Uruk-Hai quickly bring up support.

 My Target is on the right, out of combat. I gang up on one guy.

 His support comes up and again splits off my support. I lose badly, 2 dead.

 My Archers pick off one of his Archers.

 I retreat back towards my Archers so I don't get ganged up on.

 We pull back again, so I can get some shooting in, but no luck.

 If I lose priority he will be on me.

 And I lose priority, so we clash. My target is off the left, he doesn't want to risk him in combat.

 I kill one.

 He has priority again, our lines get mixed. He commits his guy I need to kill to the fray.

 No one dies and we are back at it. 4 individual combats.

 If I lose 1 guy I go below 50% which is his victory condition. If his one Uruk dies that I have to kill, that is my victory condition. So we are all in!

I lose one, and fail to kill my target(lower right Uruk) and so I lose the game! 

It was a fun game back and forth. After the game you figure out advances and effects of wounds. I rolled very badly on the "recovery" chart. The effect is Lost in Battle, meaning I left a man behind. So the next battle I play with my warband is Secure the Area, with my wounded guy in the middle of the board. So I'm down a guy going in, and have to rescue him. 

Some of the Recovery effects add character to the game. The Uruk-Hai's leader has a leg wound so he is minus one move. My Galadhrim Archer who is lost had got a free might point in shooting in the first battle, so he is the last guy I want to lose. 

We are gonna try to get some more guys in the campaign so we can mix up the armies. Failing that we will just start new Warbands and randomly roll to see who fights that night. 

Cheers, Xin