Next months contest

Hey guys, I really enjoyed doing the contest this month, I hope you guys did as well.

So was doing a bit of brainstorming for next month. I had some new ideas and wondered what you thought.

1. I could do another month of movie quotes. Easy to do, you guys seem to really like them.

2. I could do song lyrics, probably older stuff from the 50's - 70's, maybe some early 80's stuff.

3. I could actually stick to Warhammer and do a FAQ question each day.

4. TV trivia.

5. Brain teasers.

I am open to other suggestions or ideas.
Post your vote in the comments section.

And help support this blog by checking out some of the cool links at the top of the blog.

Movie Quote of the Day Contest: 9/29

Ok, going into the last 2 days. Its still up in the air. This one is a bit off the beaten path. Modified to stop google. Good luck.

Quote value: 3 points

"If you let this chance pass, your heart will turn as brittle as my skeleton."

Good luck.

Order of Combat

Last edition, we had order of chargers that allowed you to control things on the board. After much consideration this will be the newest rule that will screw the most people up, or elevate those above the masses.
There is a lot to consider when you are dealing with 4-8 combats all in a 3x3 area of the battlefield. In the heat of the battle, your all pumped as you just got off the most awesome of charges. Then a couple of bad dice rolls later, your opponent looks like he pulled his dice right out of the microwave, and your army crumbles to pieces in a very bad way.

When if you had stepped back for a minute, you could have changed the entire battle by changing the order of the combats fought.

So lets take a minute an think about the order a bit.

1. First thing you should do in every close combat round when it is your turn to pick the order is immediately assume everything, is going to lose combat, break and run.
If that happens, what happens? Who gets Cutdown (my new word for Crossfire)? Who gets away free? What combats are close to your general, which ones are close to your BSB? Which ones might be close if the General or BSB break their enemy and overrun/pursue?

2. Which combats are auto-wins for you. You have the flank on a unit of Ogres. So you are at +5 and he has only 3 attacks. You've won the combat before a dice is picked up. Unless this is your general or BSB's unit or if this unit will Cutdown a fleeing enemy, these are usually safe do first.

3. If the Generals leadership or the BSB's re-rolls are needed in combats nearby, it is probably best to do theirs last. Unless doing so will set up an enemy behind you, that could lead to your General and BSB being Cutdown.

4. If you have a chance to break a unit, and pursue/overrun into the flank/rear of an enemy already in combat, it is almost always a good idea to do this, unless you losing this combat and breaking sets up some good Cutdown opportunities for your opponents.

5. Remember if a unit is no longer in combat, they become succeptable to panic. So doing a combat you know you will lose, to get an opponent out of combat, so you can force a panic test by breaking a unit you know you will break.

A lot is involved in this and it can become complicated very fast.

Lets take a look at the diagram below.


This is straight out of my last battle report. One side is Red with his general and BSB shown in yellow. The opponent is blue with is general shown in brown.

Here the order is crucial. Lets look at each individual combat from both view points.
1. The bottom left combat represents a good chance for the blue to win. If blue wins, he gets no additional benefits. But if red breaks blue, the blue can be Cutdown by the red unit behind him.
So for red, this is a "safe" combat to do first, with the potential to be really good. While for "blue" this is a very bad combat to do first.

2. The top left combat. Red has outflanked blue here. If red wins this combat, then he will probably pursue into the flank of blue. So unless this is an unwanted thing, Like hitting the flank of a unit of Frenzied minotaurs, that will cause you a lot of casualties with no benefits, then this is probably a very good combat to do first.
However, if you win or lose, you will not be there for the potential Cutdown from combat 1. So this is probably a good combat to do 2nd.
Also, since they are in range of the general and BSB, you would probably want to do this before in case you lose combat and you need them to stick around. Sure if the general's unit breaks them and you pursue, you are probably still in range. But if the BSB is killed outright, or if the general's unit is broken, you could be in real trouble.

For blue, this is a tossup. If you lose combat then you will leave the flank of your neighboring unit open for the pursuit. But you will draw the flanking unit out of the crossfire. If you win combat, you can push the flankers away from the potential Cutdown, and preserve your unit.
The best time for blue to do this combat, is after the #3 combat.

3. The general and BSB are a tough fight.
In this case, if you fight, lose and break you are losing your general and BSB to help combat 2 and combat 4. But if you do combat 4 first and they break and run, this could set up your general for Cutdown. But if you do it first, and win combat then do you not pursue to keep the general/bsb combo close to the #4 combat, or do you get the fleeing vp, that have a very good chance to rally.

For blue, this is also a toss up. You know your odds are against you facing so many characters. But the opportunity to remove the general/bsb combo out of the equation early on could be a great temptation. And this could be if you win or lose combat.
And if you are looking to hold, doing this one before #4 allows you to use your general's leadership.
But having the opportunity to break the red unit in combat 4, to setup even the slimest possibility of a Cutdown of he general and BSB might make doing combat 4 worth it.

4. Combat 4 is really iffy for red. Facing off against a character adds a whole new diminsion to things. Whether you win or lose, could draw the general away from the #3 combat. But a loss could put the general in range of the #1 combat and possibly set up a Cutdown for your generals unit.

For Blue you have the same issues. Setup the slim but possible Cutdown. Do you think your general's leadership is best served helping combat 3 or combat 1. But could only help combat 1, if you pursued a very long way.

This was how it actually played out with it being Reds turn:
1. I did combat #1 first. I had the chance for Cutdown with combat 2, I didn't have to worry about his general being nearby to help him out. And if I lost there was no huge detrement to me.
As it turned out, I lost combat, but held.

2. With no chance for Cutdown left for me, I did combat 2 second. This was setup to see a pursuit into the flank of combat 3, breaking their ranks and adding more attacks into the combat. This would give me 4 more attacks and he would only pick up 1. I also get to use the general/bsb if I lose. If I lose, there is no bad detrement to me.
As it turned out, I whiffed he did 2 wounds and wins. I hold but only because of the general/bsb combo.

3. This one was tough. I did #3 next, but later felt like I should have done #4 then. But the fear of setting up a Cutdown on my general's unit even though I felt confident of victory here, was tough to swallow. I had not even considered getting his general out of the way, which I should have.

As it turned out, I won combat, he broke. But fear of pulling my general/bsb out of range of combat 4, I restrained pursuit. I also restrained to help out my hounds fighting combat 2, that lost their first round of combat.

4. I did combat 4 last, and as it turned out, I won combat and he held.

Order of combats and their outcomes will become a very fluid portion of the game, and I think you will see people taking a lot more time working out what they want to do. Influencing new players in the order will become the new personality skill. "Why don't we just start on this side and work across?" Oh yea, you will hear that.

Being able to spot the advantages and disadvantages of doing combats in specific orders will be come a great skill that will serve you well for the next few years.

Movie Quote of the Day Contest: 9/28

Ok, coming into the final stretch. Only 3 quotes left. This one should be pretty tough but I got faith in you guys.

Quote Value: 3 points

"Stop trying to rationalize everything, will you? Let's face facts, we have a mystery on our hands!"

Good luck!!

Battle Summary and thoughts

Overall, it was a fun battle, but my opponent made some very serious errors right out of the gate.

1. Putting his Altered Lord right out front to get killed. This gave me a 200+ vp and he had done nothing. Leaving him back to pelt me with no armor save arrows was the way to play him and have him charge in after a treeman had tied up a unit.

2. Should have fled with the scouts. Actually the scouts should have been in the house, as there were only 5. While the waywatchers which are also not a bad combat unit, should have been in the woods. Since only 5 can shoot out of the house, 3 WW were wasted the whole game.
But if the scouts flee there, they easily make it away to rally and continue to pelt my knights and hounds.

3. The next round he charges the wardancers in, but can only get 3 in because of the scouts still covering up over half my frontage. If the scouts are not there the wardancers can get the whole unit in and have a much better chance of winning combat. Instead, they die along with the scouts.

4. The treeman not getting into combat I think was big. Strangle root is nice but he only got it off 2x and both times he only rolled 2 hits. He could have saved his general, killed my priest by charging in to the rear of my unit. This could have pulled it back to a draw.

5. I find this Cult of Ulric army to be very flimsy. I thought with all the armor it would be a tough army to take down, but my uncanny ability to roll 1's for armor saves is unparralleled in the world of Warhammer. 2 battles and I get a draw and a minor win that should have been a draw.

6. I have got to learn to play the army better if I'm going to be successful with it.

7. His archers on the hill should have fled from the hounds that charged their flank. By allowing this charge, it gave me a unit behind his wild riders to destroy them if they fled. It set me up for the scenario where I break them and overrun into the next unit and get to do attacks again. I was unlucky and him lucky that this did not happen.

8. Being free of fear, terror and panic checks while in combat is unbeleavably huge. Armies normally suceptable to those rules took a big step up in power levels.

9. Order of combat is even more important than I previously thought. So much so, I'm going to do another article on it.

10. I think I need to be more aggressive pushing units up. And giving more priest support to the base WW units. I'm not using my knight units in support of each other as I'm expecting them to win on their own. They do sometimes and sometimes not.
So better working together is what is needed.
So my plan for next battle is each of my 3 major units (IC, and 2 with priests) will have another unit to work with it. Instead of spreading them all over the battlefield. I need to do more of a weighted flank attacks. And less phalanx attack.

BR: Wood Elves vs Cult of Ulric, part 2

Turn 3b: I knew this would be a crucial turn. Things were starting to swing against the knights as their initial forceful impetus was ending.

Charged my general, bsb and last of the IC knights into the archers on the right. He stands and shoots but all the arrows bounce off their armor.
My hounds into the archers on the left.

That was it for charges.
My hounds both failed their rallies and headed for the board edge. The knights also failed and ran off the board. In magic I get off the spell to do str 4 hits and kill 2 wardancers. This was #3 and so I met my objective.
My units move around a bit. I forget to shoot at the wild riders on the right flank.

I start with the left most combat and the wild riders do 3 wounds to my knights. Needing 3+ to save I fail 2. Only the priest is left. He whiffs. So I lose by 3. Needing a 5 to stay, I make it!!
I did this combat first for the following reasons:
I I lost and fled it does not hurt anything else.
But if I won, the wild riders would flee into my hounds and be wiped out if they outran me.

I do the hounds next, hoping they will break the archers and overrun into the flank of the 2nd unit and help out my generals unit.
But with 4 attacks needing 4+ and 4+/3+, I do 0 wounds.
Then with 2 attacks, he hits both times and wounds both times. Ugghhh!!
So I have flank, and he has hill, 2 wounds, US, so I need a 5 to stay and stay!!!
His troops turn to face my wolves.

I do my general next. This was a mistake. But my general needing 3's to hit and 2's to wound, I do 1 wound. My priest kills 1 and a horse kills one. His attacks bounce off my armor and I win by 3, even with his rank, hill and US. He needs a 5, fails and breaks. I restrain due to my mistake in combat order. I didn't want to take the general or BSB out of range of the wardancer battle.

In that combat, the wardancer general wounds my priest. I kill a wardancer and I end up winning by 2. So as it turns out I didn't need the general/bsb to help out. He holds though. Uggghhh!! as I see the treeman right behind me.

Here is the end of turn 3b:


Turn 4a: Instead of charging the rear of my knights to save his wardancers, he was confident the general could still win that combat and moved the treeman after my generals unit.

He rallies his fleeing archers on the boards edge and backs his wild riders on my right flank behind the swamp.

It was his turn to forget his shooting and his way watchers started painting flowers on the inside walls of the house.

In combat we did the wild riders first. The 3 attack the priest and get a wound on him. With his 2 attacks back he hits twice but only wounds 1 time on 2+. He needed both wounds. He loses by 2 breaks and runs. He does get away and is on the top of the hill on my far left flank.

On the archer combat, he swings first and with 2 attacks he kills 2 more hounds. My hunt master can do nothing again. So this time I lose by 5. 2 wounds, hill, US and I have nothing. Needing a 4 not to break, I roll it. He expands out to 3 wide.

Finally, in the wardancer combat, he whiffs totally as do I. So static combat has me win by 1 with the standard as we are equal on US.

Here we are at that end of turn 4a:


Turn 4b: Now it is looking a lot more like its over.

My generals unit charges the rear of the archers.
My hounds in the middle charge the lone wizard, but are just out of range.
My priest fails to rally and scoots off the board.
But my fleeing hounds on my left flank rally and turn to face the wild riders.
The lone DOW guy that had been hiding since turn 1, comes out and shoots at the wild riders but misses.
I move my knights on the right flank behind the marsh.
Move the DoW cav up and fail to hit a wild rider with their bow shots.

I do my generals unit first and with my total of 10 attacks I kill 7 of the archers.
He fails to kill the huntmaster, breaks and is run down. I pursue with both to keep them out of range of the treeman.
In the wardancer combat, he does a few wounds, but I manage to save everyone of them. I then kill off the last of the wardancers and his general breaks and is run down.

This is the bad situation for the wood elves at the end of turn 4b:


Somewhere we got mixed up on turns and we were thinking this was the end of turn 5.

So we only played 1 more turn.

Turn 5a: final turn: He has no charges. backs his wild riders up, moves the 2 to the flank of my hounds.
Moves his archers up and shoots and kills the last WW knight with the priest that broke the wardancer general.
The treeman was just within 8 of the hounds so could not march and couldn't get in range to kill the priest. So did a strangle root on the hounds and killed a couple. They didn't panic.

Turn 5b: final turn. With no charges and the game in hand, I make no moves at all. Instead just stand and shoot at his wild riders. They all miss. Meaning in the full 5 turns, I didn't do a single wound with either DoW light cav units.

Here was the final battle positions:



As you can imagine it was a pretty nice win for the Cult of Ulric. I was up 300 vp from bonus points. General, 1 table quarter and I got my objective while he failed in his.

Final Tally:
Cult of Ulric: 1284 + 300 = 1584
Wood Elves: 1067 + 0 = 1067

And only a minor victory.

Hope you enjoyed it. Final thoughts and comments later.

BR: Wood Elves vs Cult of Ulric, part 1

The game begins:

Turn 1a: My opponent jumped out by racing across the board. Putting his Altered noble in the woods directly in front of my line.

His scouts moved up and shot up some hounds, killing none. So the WayWatchers in the building shoot and kill 1.
His archers on the hill killed off 4 DoW cav and 3 hounds. Everyone made their panic tests.

Here was what it looked like at the end of the turn.


Turn 1b: I was a bit leary about the Altered Lord on the edge of the woods, but decided I needed to deal with him early. In I charged with one unit of knights. And another unit of WW knights charged the scouts on the edge of the woods.

Everyone else moves up and around. I move 2 dog units up to the wall around the house. The idea, force the Way Watchers in the building to shoot the hounds, and give them hard cover. I run the DoW lone guy behind my hill to protect him.
I get a spell off with my priest with the chystals and emblems, giving them +d3" charge.
In combat, my knights kill 3 of the scouts, but with insane courage they stay.

Then to the big one. I get 3 attacks on the Noble. Needing 4+ to hit, I hit all 3 times. Str 5 vs T3, 3 wounds. He's dead. WOW!!! This shocked me. This turned out to be a huge mistake for my opponent on turn 1.
We discussed it later, he was thinking he could run up and still shoot his bow, and thought those knights would be mostly wiped out. It was a hard lesson, but one he won't soon forget.
Here was the status at the beginning of turn 2a:


For charges the Wood Elves have the wardancers run in to help out the scouts with those knights. The dryads charge the DoW fast cav who flee. My knights make their panic test and the dryads are setup for a nice charge.
The rest of the elves move up, including the treeman into the woods. Strangleroot on the knights kills 2 of them, but they make their panic test.
The way watchers shoot one of the hounds, I forget to give them hard cover and he kills off 4. The hunt master makes his panic test.
All his archers tee off on my Inner Circle knights and just outside short range, those 20 arrows struck true and 2 knights fell to the ground. Ugghh!!

In combat the wardancers bounced off the tough armor, with no killing blows striking home. Then his archers whiff as well. I manage to kill all the scouts and one wardancer. I win by a bunch, they break are run down and I pursue into the Dryads hanging out behind the combat.
Here was the setup going into turn 2b:


Terror takes an early toll and the unit of 3 knights flees from the treeman.
Luckily the unit of knights with the priest next to my generals unit makes it and charges into the Wardancers hanging out behind the woods.

The DoW cav, rally and move up and shoot at the lone wizard. Hit him once, but fail to wound.
That was it for charges as everyone else moved up. The priest on my far left flank makes the unit immune to panic. (bad spell, but hey thats 2).

In combat, against the Dryads the First knight wounds the Dryad champ once but she makes her ward, then knocks the knight off his horse. The knights do manage to kill 2 of the limb swinging monsters who cannot seem to hit back. Then the Branchwraith goes. Hits 3 times and wounds 3 times. I then make all 3 saves. The dryads break, and are run down. And with the exception of the way watchers in the house, the right flank is mine.

I am now facing his generals unit and my First knight challenges. His champion wardancer accepts. They do the 4+ ward dance. I wound his champ but he dances out of the way while killing my knight. I do take down a couple of the nimble dancers who cut down another worthy knight. In the end I win combat but he holds his ground.
And this is the setup going into turn 3a:


He considers several charges of his 2 units of wild riders vs my Generals, IC knights. But the angles just are not there. The wheel from the center unit would hit his wardancers and the gap between my hounds and his archers is too small for him to squeeze through.
In the end, he decides to charge the hounds. They flee and my knight unit behind them is right at 18" away. I misjudged and moved them up too far.

In shooting he tries to strangleroot my generals unit but was just out of range.
His Way watchers shoot the hounds and even with the protection of the wall, lose 2 hounds and they flee.
Finally, 20 str 4 shots into my IC knights and I lose my champion and musician.
This was not looking good.

In combat, the wardancers and general hack on my knights and kill off all but the standard bearer and priest. I lose by 2-3 so I use the Rod of Command to hold.

The wild riders charged in and with 3 wounds, I need a 4+ save and fail all 3. Ugghhh!!. I get 5 attacks back and get 4 hits, but needing a 2+ to wound with my priest, I only wound 1 time with him. The champ does wound twice, but he makes a ward save and 2 wild riders go down. With the banner it is a draw combat. But my musician died, so he wins by 1. I hold.
Here it is at the beginning of turn 3b:



Stay tuned for part 2 coming soon.

Movie Quote of the Day Contest: 9/27

Ok, this one should be very, very easy. So I want the movie, who said this, and who they were speaking to.

Quote value: 3 points

"I do not deny that my heart has greatly desired this."

Good luck and may your fingers be fast.

Another Battle Report

Hey guys, I got the real pleasure of getting to play another 7th edition game last night. This time against a wood elf player.

I took my Cult of Ulric army again as it was still laying out with the exception of swapping the "Immune to Panic" banner to the "Immune to Fear and Terror" banner.

His army was this:
Altered Highborn w/Bow of Loren, Arcane Bodkins, Briarhearth, Pageant of Shrikes.
Wardancer Noble (general) w/ Blight of Terrors
Branchwraith w/cluster of Radiants
Spellsinger Lvl 1 with 2xdispel scrolls

9 Dryads with a Branch Nympth
8 Wardancers with a Blade singer
7 Wardancers with a Blade singer
10 Glade Guard
10 Glade Guard
8 Waywatchers
5 Scouts
5 Wild riders with wild hunter & musician
5 Wild riders with wild hunter & musician
Treeman

That was 2243 points of wood elf goodness.

I do want to point out this was a fairly new player having only really gotten into warhammer in the last 18 months or so. He is still learning and making some mistakes.

But he is a fun opponent to play against as he is very laid back and we both had a great time.

We rolled up terrain: 2 hills, 1 woods, 1 marsh and a farm house. We played a pitched battle with objectives. So he got his free woods.
The objectives we rolled were pretty lopsided.
He got Preserve, which means he has to keep 75% of his army alive. Huh!!! I don't like that one.
I got Magic Dominance. So I had to get 3 spells off during the game.
We set the objective values at 100 points to get it. No penalty if you failed.

We setup terrain, picked sides and deployed.
I put the house on the very edge of the table and he scouted his Waywatchers into it. I think this was a mistake. He should have put his unit of 5 scouts in their. As only 5 models can shoot out at one time. 3 way watchers never got to shoot.
There was no way for me to get them out of the house, as I had no infantry.

It led to some interesting tactics. Anyway here is the starting deployment:
I was on the right and my opponent on the left of all the pics.
He has from my left flank (bottom) to the right flank (top):


Wild riders (cut off)
both units of glade guard on hill
Altered noble (90% cut off) you can see a corner of his base.
wild riders with treeman in front of them.
wardancers with general.
Lvl 1 wizard behind them.
wardancers
dryads with dryad hero.
Scouts in the upper woods
Watwatchers in the house.

I had from left to right:
Hounds
White Wolf(WW) unit with banner immune to fear and terror, priest
hounds on the hill
IC WW unit with Grandmaster and BSB priest
DoW fast cav with bows
hounds
WW unit with priest with Rod of command behind the hounds
hounds
WW unit
WW unit
hounds
hounds
WW unit behind the hounds
DoW fast cav with bows.

He won the roll to go first and chose to do so.

Battle report with pics coming soon. Enjoy.

Movie Quote of the Day Contest: 9/26

Ok, here is one a little off the beaten path.

Quote value: 3 points

"Does a man have teeth the size of an axe blade?"

Good luck

Tactic of the Week

This week I wanted to cover one way to avoid getting your units caught in a "crossfire", for lack of a better term, trap.

Here is set 1:


In this pic you can see a Clanrat unit on the right, a giant rat unit to the left.

Facing off is a Empire WW unit on the right and a hunting hound unit to its left.
This is obviously a bad situation for the Empire player, but he can still make things worse.


Here in this picture he has charged the clanrat unit. And to protect the knights flank he has moved his hound unit up.
In the close combat phase he kills only 3 clanrats. But still loses combat by 1 (5 to 4) and holds. Probably the worst possible scenario for the knight unit.


It is now the Skaven players turn. He charges the hound unit and the hounds stay. At least now they are diverted from pursuing into the knights.


But since it is the Skaven players turn, he gets to pick the order of the combats.
So he chooses to do the G.Rats first. The G.Rats easily break the hounds and overrun to a position behind the knights. Now when he does the knight combat, being down by 4 and with a loss in a point of strength, if he breaks now his knights are destroyed in the crossfire.


Instead, here is what the player should do. Ensure your supporting units lanes of flee are parrallel to the fleeing lanes of your main units.


Now it doesn't matter which order he does his combat, and even worse case scenario both units flee, at least they have a chance to get away and rally.

I hope this is somewhat helpful.

Movie Quote of the Day Contest: 9/25

Ok, here was a small little movie. This one may be tough.

Quote value: 3 points!!

"Except you know your own future, which means you can change it if you want to."

Good luck.

Summary of weekend BR

The game was a ton of fun, and I hope Shaun enjoyed it as well. The game pretty much just covered the left flank and center, while the right flank was pretty stagnent thanks to his spirit hosts which held up a unit of White Wolf knights the entire game. Add the other WW unit over there failed 5 charge attempts. 2 from fear and 3 from out of range, over 6 turns.

Things I learned about this army:
1. I hate fear.
2. It can be suseptable to high levels of magic. Ecspecially if I don't take out some wizards. I need to concentrate more on trying to get to them. As my priests will die during the games, of that I have no doubt. So I need to shut down his wizards as well.
3. Move of 14" is nice but not as nice as I'd like. But don't want to do Bretts or High elves. Have to learn to estimate better with them.
4. I think the DoW fast cav with bows was a good addition. It keeps my opponents thinking about where to put lone guys, and I can still charge in on cheap units. The 10 bow shots are fun, and I love being able to shoot even if I move 16". So I don't sacrifice movement for shots. It doesn't hurt anything for me to roll those 10 dice.
5. The hounds are good as bait and sweeping woods, but not much else.
6. If there is a house on the field, I can't touch any unit inside. So I need to stay away from houses and keep long range shooting units from entering. Like jezzails.
7. This army was built to handle the flee and charge type armies. It does not handle fear causing armies very well. But the fact that it didn't fall completely apart and still got a draw. A few rolls either way, could have changed things in both directions.
8. My main general's unit is totally awesome. Took on 3 units and almost won out. If it had gotten 1 more unit into help, it would have won. Damn fear tests.
9. I was debating taking the immune to panic or immune to fear and terror banner. I chose the panic thinking I'd face more panic than fear. I think I'll switch back. Fear and terror are too big a problem for this army.

7th ed rule changes that I learned from:
1. You have got to be aware, big time, where everyone is at, where your opponent is likely to be, where panic, and terror are coming from and what units this will affect and in which direction they will flee.
2. I did a no big deal charge from the hounds down into the ghouls, even though I figured this was a lost battle. By doing this, and then fighting that battle first, I cost myself a full unit of WW's and a priest.
3. I'm changing my default order of battles. Before I'd do the non-important ones first and then the important ones. I'm switching now to do the important ones first.
4. Unit maneuvering is very, very important in this game now. To get flank and rear bonuses, you have to actually maneuver your units around to grab those.
5. The additional BSB bonus is very, very sweet. You will see a lot of BSB's floating around.
6. The inability to wrap really hurts when fighting spirit hosts. I expect to see more of these on the field of battle.


Summary of the battle:
I think the battle hinged on just 3-4 dice rolls and a couple mistakes by me.
1. His black coach doing only 1 impact hit and crumbling fast. This gave me the early lead.
2. In his challenge, him doing 4 wounds on 5 str 5 attacks, needing 3+, 3+ and then me having a 4+ armor save. This sucked. As the great trap I setup totally backfired. It was like sacrificing a knight and a bishop to get his queen. And instead I lost both knights, both bishops and got nothing.
3. My huge mistake of having the dogs charge the ghouls unsupported. Then fighting that battle first setting up the ghouls to crossfire the fleeing WW's from the vamp count. And moving up my knights so the ghouls ran in behind the knights. I hit my unit, hop over and am killed. HUGE!!
4. The right flank knights failing 5 charges. 2 by 1/4". This was just my mistake, but failing 2 fear tests out of 5 on Ld 8 sucked. And the hounds failing 3 fear tests in a row on Ld 7 to charge the rear of the grave guard sucked as well.
5. Me failing to stop the grave guard from getting danced into the flank of my general's unit. I wasn't too worried about it, but should have been. Thought I could stop 2 spells, should have concentrated on just stopping that 1.

In the end, a great game, I learned a lot and will continue to learn as we play this new 7th ed. It does change the game a bit. Makes you think more about where things are, where they are in relation to each other, and where things will be the next turn.

Hope you enjoyed it.

Movie Quote Standings

We are into the final week of the contest. In case you are unaware, the winner at the end of the month receives any item out of my ebay store up to $10 at no cost.
Or they can choose to receive a $10 discount on any item over $10 in my store.

Standings right now are as follows:

Shawn O: 13 points
Dave S: 10 points
Shaun G: 8 points
Ben M: 5 points
Andy H: 4 points
Rick H: 2 points
Jim Z: 1 point

Going to 3 points per question in the last week means there are 18 points up for grabs. Meaning anyone is still in it and a lot can happen in the last week.

If you feel your points are too high, don't worry about it. If you feel they are too low. Email me and tell me which dates you won on and I'll go back and double check.

Good luck to everyone.

BR: CoU vs VC, part 2

When we left off things were a real mess.

Turn 4a: His black knights and vamp charge my WW on the hill and the ghouls charge them in the rear. I fail my Ld 9 fear test, flee right into the ghouls and am auto-destroyed. The ghouls and black knights run right through each other.

He then uses the dance to move the ghouls into the rear of my Grandmasters unit.

When all is said and done, there I lose combat by 2. Needing a 7 not to break, I hold.
But I'm down to my WW standard warbanner, BSB and general.

Turn 4b: This turn things need to change. Warhounds into the rear of the grave guard. I fail my fear test and fail.

WW into the small unit of zombies with necro and failed their fear test.

In the middle, the BSB is taken down, but the general kills all but two of the zombies. We win combat by 2. GG down to 6. Ghouls make their break test.

Turn 5a: Not much happens here. 1 necro is running around. His wraith challenges my general who must accept. But the WW takes the ghouls down to below 5, so he loses his rear bonus. He loses combat by one. The wraith takes a wound.

Turn 5b: The WW charge the small zombies, make their fear test but are out of range by 1/4". Ughhhh. Move their 7 and stop. But the DoW cav charge the rear of them. Kill 4 and the whole unit pops.
The hounds again fail their fear test to charge the rear of the GG.

Turn 6a: The Black knights turn to face my 2 dogs. Everything else is dead but the necromancer in the woods who runs and hides.
Combat no one takes any wounds. I think he wins by one and I hold.
He raised a large unit of zombies to block my DoW from charging the rear of the Wraith.

Turn 6b: WW into the rear of the grave guard, but are out of range. That is 3 charges this unit failed for being out of range. The other WW unit on the right flank finally killed off the spirit hosts.
The DoW try to charge the flank of the new zombies to pick up a few more VP but fail their Ld 9 fear test and stand.
in the big combat, the WW knight finally fails to kill any ghouls and takes 4 wounds. he fails his armor save and is killed. My general loses combat by 4. Breaks and is crossfired from the new raised unit of zombies.

That was how the game ended.

I had 2 table quarters while he had a standard and general's bonus. The VC player conceded the victory, but the more I think about it, I believe it ended up being a draw.

Final thoughts and lessons learned coming soon.

Movie quote of the day: 9/24

Here is an older one, but its a movie, I just love. One word has been changed, but otherwise accurate. I want the movie and who said it.

Quote value: 2 points

"This mission is too important for me to allow you to endanger it."

Good luck.

CoU vs VC: BR part 1

The vamps rolled for their spells. For the Necros he got Invoc & CoY, the 2nd got Invoc and Gaze and the Vamp got Invoc and The movement spell.

We lined up across from each other and he won the roll to go first.


Turn 1a: with no charges he moves everything up. From left to right he has:
Black coach, ghouls in the woods with necro 1. Then the unit of 30 zombies with a wraith. Black knights in the back with the Vamp and the grave guard in front of the knights.
Small unit of zombies on the hill with the other necro. The spirit hosts and direwolfs on the flank.

In magic he moves the graveguard up and out of the way. Raises a unit of 10 zombies he puts just on the edge of the hill on my left flank. Kills 2 dogs with the flaming rod.


Turn 1b: The flank of the zombies was too sweet to pass up and so charged in, did a couple wounds and he is down to 5 zombies. But the hound unit is right in front of the Black Coach and I can feel it barreling down quick.
The fast cav on the very far flank (not seen) moves up and shoots at the direwolves killing 2.
In the pic, you can see my DoW fast cav on my far left flank. The wolves are my hunting hounds and the oarnge ones are my hunt masters. So I move a lot of guys up and this is how the turn ends.

Turn 2a: The black coach rumbles into the hounds. The Black knights charge, the grave guard charge the hounds in the woods, the spirit hosts charge the other hounds in the woods. All 3 hounds flee. The unit of 3 only run 6" and are caught and run down. The rest are failed charges except the black coach.
The Direwolves charge the DoW cav and whiff, and are wiped out for their efforts.

In magic he raises a new unit in the middle of the field. he also tries hard to get his black nights in with his dance spell, but I managed to stop the book and his casting.
In combat, the black coach does only 1 impact hits, which wounds but that was it. With 4 attacks I hit and kill 3 zombies, win by 4, the zombies turn to dust and the BC down to 1 wound. WOW!!!
Here is what it looked like at the end of turn 2a:


Turn 2b: Here things got a bit dicey. I had to do something and I knew it was risky, but decided it needed to be done. I went aggressive.
First things, the 3 wolves failed their terror test and fled right into the unit of zombies and was destroyed.
But the hound unit on my far left, made their terror test, then passed their fear test and hit the flank of the black coach.
Grandmasters unit of IC knights and BSB Priest charge the small unit in the middle of the field.
The unit in front of the black knights side steps a few inches and prepares for the worst.
The 2 WW units on the left flank swing around to help support the middle.
On the right flank, one unit of WW charges the spirit hosts. Unable to hurt them, they win by 1-2 every round of combat till the hosts finally crumble in the last turn of the game.
The WW unit on the far flank, charges the unit of 10 zombies with the necro. I make my fear test but am 14 1/2" out. Just missed it. Ugghhh!! This hurt a lot.
The archers move and around.
In combat, the black coach whiffs. I do manage a wound on the BC, but he makes his ward save. But it pops anyway. The newly charging hounds feel it and charge forward hitting the ghouls. The GM with IC WW, destroy the unit of 9, overrun into the large unit of zombies.
One of the fleeing hounds rallies and moves to the flank of the Black knights.
Here is the setup at the end of turn 2, start of turn 3:


At this point we misplaced the camera, so there will not be anymore pictures. So you will have to visualize.

Turn 3a: His black knights and vamp charge the WW knights with priest in front of them. They hold, to my opponents surprise and make their fear test.
The grave guard turn to their left facing my generals flank. I stop the book, but I can't stop his generals casting of dance and into the flank of my general they go.
His small unit backs up.

In hand to hand, his black knights with Vamp kill every knight in the unit. Leaving only the Priest there. So Using the Rod of Command I stay. He knows he is in trouble.
The hounds kill only 1 ghoul and they slaughter the dogs, who almost make their insane courage roll (rolled a '3'). The last 2 flee and get away.

In the big combat in the middle. Since both of us charged, we roll to see who goes first on those tied with initiative. I win, so everything goes at the zombies. I kill 9, (boy does hatred really work) and with my General's Laurels it counts as 12. Add in the banner, warbanner and BSB. It more than makes up for his 1 kill, 3 ranks, flank and standard. I end up winning by around 6 and he crumbles badly.

Turn 3b: This is the make or break turn. Knight unit with priest into the flank of the black knights. My knight unit into the small unit of zombies with necro. And hoping they would have better luck, my hounds on the hill into the ghouls. And the hounds over by the black knights into the rear of the grave guard.

On the left flank no problem as the hounds hit the ghouls. And the WW knights with priest had the spell up making them immune to fear. But on the right flank, the hounds refused to charge and help the general. and the WW knights would not budge to hit the small unit. Ugghhhh!!! Damn fear.
The 2 fleeing hounds did rally.
Both DoW units circled towards the middle of the field.
I screwed up with my knights and moved them to the top of the hill.

In combat the hounds killed another ghoul, but the ghouls just destroyed the hounds killing all but the hunt master who fled. He got away, but under 25% could not rally. The ghouls pursued and put them right behind my knights on the hill.

The Vampire Lord issues a challenge. The priest with the rod accepts. With 5 attacks needing 3+ and 3+, he hits 4 times and wounds 4 times. Uggghhh!!. Needing a 4+ to save, I fail all 4!!! NOOOO!!!
So I need some serious wounds with the charging unit. With 6 attacks needing 3+ to hit, 3+ to wound, I get 2 wounds. Ughghh!! On a 4+ he saves 1, so I only kill 1 knight. He ends up winning by 2. I'm still immune to fear. In range of my general and BSB, I am not worried. Needing a 7 not to break, I fail, re-roll, I fail again.
I roll 11" and get away from the knights who only go 8. But I hit my own unit on the hill, causing panic to them, hop over them and into the ghouls and am auto-destroyed.
I do make the panic test.

In the middle a couple knights fall, but with the general pulling down some serious combat res, I still win by several and more crumbling ensues.

This is the end of part 1 of this great battle tune in to part 2 coming soon.

Quick game notes

Just got to fight a great game with a friend of mine. He surprised me and brought his VC. I was planning on playing my new Cult of Ulric all cav list.

My list was:
GrandMaster w/Laurels of Victory & white cloak
Priest BSB mounted with barding, hvy armor, Bane of Craven, 2 wolf emblems
Priest mounted w/barding, hvy armor, shield, great weapon, rod of command
Priest mounted w/barding, hvy armor, great weapon, 2 chrystals, 2 wolf emblems

5 WW knights, full command, inner circle, warbanner
5 WW knights, full command, banner (no panic)
5 WW knights, full command
5 WW knights, full command
5 WW knights, full command
5 WW knights, full command
4 hunting hounds with hunt master
4 hunting hounds with hunt master
4 hunting hounds with hunt master
4 hunting hounds with hunt master
4 hunting hounds with hunt master
4 hunting hounds with hunt master
5 DoW Light cav with bows
5 DoW Light cav with bows

That was it.
His army looked like:
Vamp Lord blood dragon, lvl 2, sword striking, steed, barding, armor, black periapt.
2 Necromancers, 3 d.scrolls and book of move your units
wraith w/great weapon, rod of flaming death
(it just occured to me, thats 5 characters as the lord takes 2 slots. Shame on you Shawn).

30 zombies (wraith went hin here)
10 zombies (1 necro in here)
20 Grave guard full command
6 black knights, full command
8 ghouls
black coach
2 ethereal hosts
5 direwolves

That was it for him.

Full battle report to follow soon.

Movie Quote of the Day: 9/23

Ok, here we go for a pretty easy one.

Quote Value: 2 points

"I am your wife. I'm the greatest good you are ever gonna get!"

Good luck, and don't forget starting Monday, all quotes will be worth 3 points till the end of the Month!!
The Competition is close.

Movie Quote of the Day Contest: 9/22

Ok, this should be an easy one for everyone.

Give me the movie and who said it.

Quote value: 2 points

"what knockers"

Good luck.

7th ed rule change

Ok, here is one that seems to have slipt by the editors.

You only gain the +1 bonus for hand weapon and shield when you are fighting to the front and when using a normal hand weapon.

It says nothing about using a normal shield.

So Heavy Armor, Enchanted shield, hand weapon, fighting to the front, gives you a 2+ armor save. Not too bad for 10 points.

Ben

Movie Quote of the Day Contest: 9/21

Ok, this one might be a bit tricky. Hopefully, hints will not be needed.

Quote value: 3 points!!
(if no hints are needed. If I give hints, it goes down to 2 points.)

"Can someone please pass the ketchup?"

Good luck.

7th ed rule thoughts

Last night I realized one thing that will help skaven out a lot. Many times, I have someone stuck in combat with slaves, but I am afraid to shoot into combat for fear the slaves will panic and run.

Or I don't want the enemy to panic and run, so I can chase them down and capture their standards.

Now, I don't have to worry about that. With no panic inside combat units, you can blast your Warp fire throwers in there and not worry if it hits a couple of slaves. And ratling guns can blast away. Kill a few slaves, and no one cares, not even the slaves.

So I think the "no psych tests while in combat" is a real boost to Skaven generals.

Movie Quote of the Day Contest: 9/20

Ok, this is from a film I have not seen in years. I need to rent it again, it is a classic. Anyway, I don't expect it to be real difficult. So hop to it guys.

Quote value: 2 points

"A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual."

Good luck.

Musings for my next army

I know, I know. I'm not even done painting my Rat Ogre army. And it is coming along nicely. I finished up painting another Rat Ogre just last night. So 10 down and 10 more to go.

But already laying plans for my next army and starting to buy the figs. I'll keep the figs part a secret for right now, just suffice it to say, when I put it on the field of battle, I think it will look truely awesome. If only my paint jobs could do the models justice.

But I've been playing a lot of power armies through my GT career. Mainly Skaven and Sylvania. Plan on next year running my Beastman Rat Ogre army. According to the new UK power armies ranking Skaven fall in the class A (strongest) and Sylvania and Beasties fall into the class B.

I have played and won with much weaker armies in the past and feel I can do so again. So my army I'm looking at running in 2 years is a Cult of Ulric army. This is rated as a class D. The ratings only go to E which is reserved for Dogs of War and Dark Elves.

The full list looked like this:
BAND A
Skaven
Vampire Counts
Bretonnians
Lizardmen

BAND B
Hordes of Chaos
Beasts of Chaos
Daemonic Legion
Lahmian Vampire Counts
Wood Elves
Army of Sylvania
Errantry War
High Elf Sea Patrol

BAND C
Empire
High Elves
Orcs & Goblins
Slayer Host
Dwarfs
Ogre Kingdoms
Tomb Kings

BAND D
Grimgor's 'Ardboyz
Archaon's Horde
Cult of Slaanesh
Clan Eshin
Army of Middenland
Cult of Ulric

BAND E
Dark Elves
Dogs of War
Kislev

Anyway, I didn't pick CoU because it rated low, but actually picked this some 3 months ago, long before this list came out. It actually fits the miniatures I want to use. Hint: They are not GW minis. This will be my first complete army without a GW miniature in it.

The list I was considering would look something like this:
Grandmaster
3 Priests, 1 a BSB
6 units of 5 White Wolf knights with full commands. 1 is Inner Circle.
6 units of 4 hunting hounds with a hunt master
2 DoW unit of 5 light cavalry with bows.

That would be the entire army. Add on a few magic items on the characters and a couple of magic banners and we hit 2250 pretty quick.
Total of 74 models.
2 power dice, but no spells. Just the 3 prayers.
5 dispel dice, a couple of shards and 3-4 emblems.
The 2 DoW units were the latest edition to it, mainly because it fits the theme of the army so well. Trust me you will know what I mean when I'm ready to unvail it.

This would be a very fast, encircle you and try to hit you hard in the flanks type of army.
For those who want to say I'm only taking this list to take advantage of the newer 7th ed rules. I had 90% of this list made out last March, long before I knew any of the 7th ed rules.

Anyway, I'd be real interested on your comments. What do you think of the army? Do you think you could run it over pretty easily? I don't see it as a 1 trick pony show either. I've been working on tactics and stratagies with this army that I think could do really, really well against most armies.

Movie Quote of the Day Contest: 9/19

Things are heating up and with Shawn O. out until Friday, it gives the rest of you a chance to catch up. This line has been used in a few movies, but IIRC, originally came from the one I'm looking for. If I'm wrong, then think about what kind of movie, I'd like. This one is in my top 20 easy.

Quote value: 2 points

"A dream to some, a nightmare to others"

Good luck.

Featured army of the Week

This week's featured army isn't as WOW as last weeks, but its worth noting. This Skaven Horde belongs to Marcus Martin. He believes in running a different kind of army from most Skaven players. No ratling guns (even before 7th ed.), no wizards, loves the large G.Rat blocks and loves master moulders. Marcus also believes in bright colors for his Skaven often implementing greens and of course he has the famed yellow clanrats. Marcus has torn up the GT circuit this year with 3 different armies including his Southlands list, his fast cav Tomb Kings and this army, Skaven.

Here is a pic of his army:


And here are some of his slaves:


Here are some Eshin troops, either gutter runners or night runners:


Here is his tunnel team with what I believe is his tunnel marker. And rat swarms:


And here are his Giant Rat units. As you can see he runs in packs of 4, so he gets 24 rats and 4 handlers giving him a 5x5 with 3 extra and a US of 28. Pretty sweet really. And he often will put in a master moulder to lead these guys to allow them to re-roll psych tests and give a bit of punch in combat.



Of course no Skaven army is complete without some Jezzails. The best knight killers in the game:


And finally Marcus loves one unit I always have a hard time getting to be really useful, but I still bring them. He brings 20 of these bad boys. Poison Wind globadiers, hit on 4+, wound on 4+. Pity the fool who flies a monster behind his lines.


I hope you enjoyed Marcus army. Besides being a great player, he is also a great person to share a beer with and can work any probability math you throw his way. He also maintains the Unofficial US Warhammer rankings. As long as you have been to at least 2 GTs in the last 12 months, you will be ranked. You can find it here:
http://www.photobirder.com/Warhammer/index.html

Go there and you can find yours truely sitting currently at 8th best general in the US.

Ratspawn army changes

I have been considering doing some minor changes to my proxied Beastman army.

I decided I really didn't care for a 2nd Lvl 2 beast shaman in it. So I decided to drop him completely in my last battle.

As a result I ended up bringing 4 chaos spawn to my last game.
I didn't care for that either so I felt some more changes were still needed.

I also had dropped Setrad down to Lvl 1, and didn't like that. So I'm bumping him back to lvl 2.
And decided I could drop the spawn down from 4 to 3 and bump up the chariots from 2 to 3.

And my army now looks like this:

Doom Bull undivided w/Heavy armor, shield, Hellfire sword
Wargor undivided w/heavy armor, sh, gr.weapon
Bray Shaman undivided Lvl 2, beast magic, Bray Staff, d.scroll

5 Minotaurs, und. great weapons, champ, standard
4 Minotaurs, und, gr.weapons
4 Minotaurs, und, gr.weapons
3 Minotaurs, und, gr.weapons
3 Minotaurs, und, gr.weapons
3 Beasmen chariots, undivided
3 units of 5 chaos hounds
2 beast herds: 7 gor, ex. hand weapon, full command, 6 ungors
5 Furies
3 Chaos spawn w/mark of slaanesh

Comes out to 18 drops, 74 models of chaos goodness.

Total points: 2250
Character points: 475 (21.1%)
Core Points: 1475 (65.6%)
Special Points: 75 (3.3%)
Rare Points: 225 (10.0%)

Power dice: 4
Dispel dice: 3 + 1 scroll

Let me know what you think. I've been running 2 shamans with this army for a long time and well, my magic has never done much and it couldn't stop much either. So I've decided to pretty much say to heck with magic and run Setrad as a combat character and add in the spawn and chariot for some more punch to go with the Rat Ogres (Minotaur) units.

Up to now this army has only ever suffered 1 draw (against bretts on some weird dice rolling) and 1 loss (to a Empire army with 2 Griffons, league game).

My real delima now is I want to bring it to my next GT. Planning on the Alamo in November. But there is no way I have this army painted by then. I'm working on it every night, but I just can't see it being finished in time. Too much conversion work still needs to be done.
So do I bring my Sylvania list for one last run? Skaven again? Or bring the half painted Skaven Beast list?

What do you guys think?

Movie Quote of the Day Contest: 9/18

Ok, Shawn took a big lead over the weekend, but with still plenty of time to catchup, everyone has a shot.

This one should be pretty easy. So jump on it. I left one small bit out to keep it from being able to be googled, but you should still be able to get it.

Quote Value: 2 points

"A few years from now, all this, everything, it's gone."

Good luck.

Tactic of the Week

This is a new tactic I call the 'Panic Avalanche' allowed by the new rules of 7th edition. This can be done in several ways.
But the 2 most popular will be shooting by fast cav and terror causing creatures.

In my example I'll be using a terror causer.

Here is the beginning setup:


This is a very common setup by a Skaven army. We have Giant rats on the outside, night runners in the woods. And a checkerboard formation in the center of the table. With slaves in front and a Clanrat unit with Warlock behind.

Then on the opposing players turn, he moves a Dragon into position:


After moving into postion, he breathes on the Giant Rats. This will kill a great many and force a panic test on them. But this was not the true intention of landing where he did.

At the beginning of the Skaven players turn, he must now make a very crucial Terror test. Failure to pass the test will cause the night runners to flee as shown.



The end result is a panic test on the G.Rats. If they pass that, a terror test on them. A terror test on the N.Runners.
But the panic avalance comes in when the N.Runners fail and run through the slaves and the Clanrats. They will then pop out on the other side of the clanrats and off the table.
If either the Slaves or the clanrats fail their panic tests, they also will end up popping right off the table as well.

This can be done in a lot of ways, but the general idea is to control the direction of the fleeing unit, to cause as much panic as possible while they are fleeing.

Movie Quote of the Day: 9/17

Ok, this one is really vague. And could have come from several movies. But I know you guys are up for the challenge. This one comes from one of my top 20 movies of all time. Which should narrow the list quite a bit.

Quote Value: 2 points

"You're late. Do you have no concept of time?"

Good luck

Movie Trivia Question of the Day 9/16

This was a neat little movie.

Question value: 2 points

"We won. We must have been right."

Good luck.

Movie Quote of the Day Contest: 9/15

Sorry a bit late today. But here none the less. This little film I really enjoyed. I hope you guys did to.

Quote Value: 2 points

"I'm getting my ass kicked every other day"

Good luck

Featured army of the Week

This is an awesome army built and painted by Derrick Ramsey. Derrick is a great guy to get to know, plays an awesome game and by these pictures can build a fantastic looking army. He hails from the Lubbock area and so is part of that game group.

One of the great parts of this project is that he can use it for lots of different armies. At the Lonewolf he played it as a Lizardman list and drew enough votes to get 3rd place in Players choice. And was actually my favorite.

He used the great Call of Cthulu books as his inspiration.
Here is the full army:


Here is his skink hero on Stegadon:


This next pic shows a closeup of the army display centerpiece and his Kroxigor.


These delectable creatures were his Salamanders:


These cultists were Skink skirmishers (not sure if they had javelins or blowpipes):


And this final picture shows his Lizard Swarms. I'm not sure what the 2 further up are, maybe Derrick would enlighten us some. But they look great.



Well, that is it for my featured army of the weeek. People out there do a truely awesome job building armies and it just makes me sick. Great Job Derrick, keep up the good work. I can't wait to see your next project. You will have a tough time outdoing yourself on this one.
I hope you guys enjoyed it. Remember, you can always click on the pictures to get bigger versions of what you are looking at.

Tactic I read, not mine

Some people might call this a tactic, Others just call it cheesy. So I feel it falls more in the lines of a 1 shot trick that could work, but seems like it would take a lot of time and effort to put into play.

I read this on the Warhammer forum and they call it Leap F**ing. I'm assuming it means Leap Frogging, but you can call it what you want.

The idea is if you have a unit that will not wipe out a unit with crossfire (or insert whatever new term you wish to call this rule) but can be used to still kill a unit.

Setup:


In this setup unit A in red has charged unit B in blue. A thinks they can break B, but either he does not wish to pursue or feels he cannot catch the fleeing enemy.

So the red army takes a unit of skirmishers or fliers that are only US 4. That can move quickly behind the unit. Leaving only a small gap of 5-7".
The idea is that if he rolls less than 7", you have a great chance of catching them. If he rolls higher than 7, he will hit the skirmishers behind him.

According to the new rules, this will cause him to leap right over all of them and land on the back side. Since there is no room to move him on the table and stay 1" away. He is considered dead and taken off the table.

Some people will call it cheesy. I just see it as part of the new rules. A trick some people might use to wipe out a unit. Of course this depends on a lot of things to make it work. But if it does, it could have some impact.

I mainly wanted to bring it up, so you are aware of this, and make sure you are not caught in it. Remember just because they are only US 3 or 4, do not underestimate a small unit in your backfield. They can do more than crossfire you.

Movie Quote of the Day Contest: 9/14

Ok, this will be the last 1 pointer for the month. But it should be pretty simple.
Give the movie and who said it.

Quote value: 1 point

"Don't think you are, know you are"

Good luck. I know its a bit vague, but you can do it.

BR Summary Beasts vs Chaos

I failed to give a final wrapup Summary of what I felt worked well and didn't work well in my last Battle Report. So let me give these final thoughts.

This game came down to a few dice rolls. I felt the armies were evenly matched and my sons playing skills have improved so much, he is a very tough fight for me. The last 3 times we have played he has had me on the ropes only for me to reach out and snatch victory right out from underneath him.

But there were a few things both of us could have done better.
1. On turn 1, I should have moved my beastherd completely in the woods to avoid the quick spawn.
2. My son made several great charges on turn 2 that really turned the game in his favor early.
a. His spawn into the lone stragling ungor out of the woods.
b. His general out of his chosen to kill the spawn and attempt to overrun into the herd for another lovely 6 attacks. But dice roll kill #1, he falls 1" short.
c. His chariot around to my spawn. I didn't think he could make it. But after close examination and measurement, it was still iffy. So we rolled off and he won. This should have killed the spawn and then an easy overrun into a rat Ogre unit. But with the hounds only fleeing 4" or so, the 2nd chariot moved its full 14" running over the hounds and panicking my chariot, but also got in the way of his other chariot's overrun.
d. Then the Dragon Ogres into the spawn and then a great dice roll that landed them into some Rat Ogres, wiping them out and overrunning.

He also made a few mistakes. His chosen knights had broken the Rat Ogres and they probably would have fled off the board. It was better to restrain there and keep them in the fight. They never really got back in until I tossed them the beastherd at the end, and I didn't have to do that. So this hammer unit of well over 200 points took out a 138 point unit. And that was it.

His marauders charging my 4 Rat Ogres was a huge mistake. They were just slaughtered.

I felt his fast cav had ways to get away from the chariot trying to charge him at the end of the game, but he just danced around with it and was eventually destroyed.

His Daemonette riders took the long charge at the further chariot instead of taking the easier one at the closer chariot. This came up short and then both chariots hit him on the next turn.

But the real dice roll to determine the game came down to several:
1. The 2nd chariot failed a ld 8 fear test and its re-roll. So only 1 chariot hit my big General's unit.
2. His 1st chariot only does 1 impact hit to me.
3. I need a 7 to not break and I roll it.

I actually played that really bad. I don't think I could have set it up with both units in front of me without the chosen knights having a shot at my rear flank. But if I had charged the beastherd and they fled, then I would have only faced the 2 chariots in the rear, so still no bonus for him, but 4 models of mine, + US + banner. So I may not have won, but was probably my best option. And if the 2nd chariot fails its fear test as it did, then I probably win that combat.
What I did was probably the worst option, and I got lucky.

Overall a hard fought battle that could have gone either way. The newer 7th edition rules didn't play much a part of it, except when my chariot fled through my own unit mowing down a bunch of ungor/packmasters.


Thanks again for reading it.

Movie Quote of the Day Contest: 9/13

Here should be an easy one for everyone. Just the name of the movie and the character.

Quote value: 1 point

"Your aim is as bad as your cooking."

Good luck.

Tactic of the Week

This weeks tactic is made available by the new 7th edition rules.

I call it Squeeze the Edge. This works really well with those large cavalry units we like to see so much of and everyone is expecting to see a lot more in the future.

If you will remember I pulled this same tactic on my son in our battle. But he had another unit to help out.

Here is the original setup. My opponent has a unit of Boar Riders. If they are savage orc it makes it even easier as they are forced to charge.


My units consist of a slave bait unit, a unit of giant rats and a unit of clanrats.

This is a basic variation of the typical flee and flank with the added bonus of in 7th ed the enemy may not redirect but is forced to continue on his regular path.

In the above pic you can see that there is no room for the 125 mm wide unit to get through, but there would be room for my 100 mm unit to make it if I wanted to charge him. But I'm also happy to sit here and wait for him to charge. Like I mentioned before if he is frenzy, he would have no choice but to charge.


In the above picture here, the boar boyz have charged and my slaves fled. I rolled a 9, so I move 10" and they get away. So the boar boyz fail their charge and only run 7". This leaves their flank wide open to my giant rat unit. An easy charge here leaves them at a loss.


And in the case where I only roll a 5 and move 6", my slaves are run down but the Orc Boar Boyz still move 14" and expose their flank to the waiting clanrats. Again an easy victory for the clanrats.

Thats it for today, happy hunting.

Movie Quote of the Day Contest: 9/12

For today this is an oldy but a goody. I loved this movie, so that should give you some clue.

What I'm looking for today is the movie title, what character said this and what character they said it to.

Failure to give me all 3 will be met with either a NO or no response. First person to give me all 3 in one comment will win.

Quote Value: 2 points

"I was your moon and stars, and it went away?"

Good luck

Beasts vs Slaanesh BR part 2

When we left off the Skaven beasty boys were looking in really bad shape.

As we start turn 3 it is chaos turn to put a major blow to the beasts.


On the left flank the chosen knights charge into the unit of 3 Rat Ogres, do 5 wounds, break them and run them down. But not before I kill 2 of the chosen knights as well.
The Marauders made an ill advised charge into the unit of 4 Rat Ogres (minotaurs w/great weapons) With their 6 attacks they do no wounds and suffer 7 casualties in return. With the help of their general they stay.
The general charges into the herd who now turns around to face him. But only going 4 wide I'm only +2 on him going in. With 5 attacks, I could look at some bad news. He challenges and the Foe Render steps to the plate to keep the Rending sword from doing more than 1 wound. In 7th ed, a multi-wound weapon can do no more wounds than a model has. He hits only 2 times and wounds only once. His horse whiffs. So he kills the Foe Render, but loses combat by 1. He stays.
The beastherd rallies.
The hounds kill off the spawn in the middle of the field.
And the chariots kill off all but 1 Rat Ogre. He does 2 wounds back, so one chariot has 3 wounds on him. Needing a 6 not to break. He rolls the 6.

On the far right flank:


The spawn moves towards the herd but fails to make it.
The steeds of slaanesh charge the chariot on my left, the one with the Kangaroo rat. I hold, and he is less than 1/2" out and so its a failed charge.
The fleeing fast cav, fail to rally so turn and head towards the table edge.
And finally the Dragon Ogres come back on and wheel around to face the chariots.

Now its my turn 3.
On the Left flank:


The Rat Ogres kill a lot more marauders before breaking them and running them down. The 3d6 pursuit from blood greed is very nice.
The Chaos lord issues another challenge, but knowing he stands no chance the Master Moulder (Wargor) steps to the rear. This turned out to be another good move as the Chaos Lord does 2 wounds, and I win with the musician. He holds again.
Ratspawn and guard charge the 2 chaos hounds that killed my spawn and they flee. Hoping to run into the herd, we were 1/2" short. Uggghhh!!
The chariots wipe out the last Rat Ogre in combat with them.
The furies fly away from the beast herd.

Over on the Right flank:


The beastherd wanted to charge the chariots but went unruly and were forced to charge the Daemonettes, then failed their fear test so were just stuck. But both chariots made their fear tests and plowed through the daemonettes killing all 5 with impact hits before even those fast tongues could lash out and do any harm.

It was now the Chaos scums turn. I forgot to take a picture at the end of this turn, but not a lot happened here.
His chosen knights moved back on the board.
The beastherd moved tried to move out of the charge arc of the unit of 4 Rat Ogres and being march blocked couldn't do it.
The 2 chariots moved closer to my side and spun to face Ratspawns unit.
The hounds failed to rally and ran off the board.
The spawn charges into the beastherd. I do 1 wound to it, it kills a gor.
The Dragon Ogres move closer to the middle of the board.
The fast cav rally and reform just out of the chariots charge arc.

But the biggest battle was the Chaos Lord vs my herd. The Chaos Lord challenges again, and again the wargor excuses himself to the rear (boo, hiss!!) Meanwhile the chaos lord, whiffs again doing only 2 wounds. This is all needing 3+ to hit and 3+ to wound with 5 attacks. He loses by 1 again. A 10 on the break dice and he is heading for the showers with my beastherd quickly on his heels.

So all of the sudden the game is turning around. But it is still anyones game.


On the left flank, the 4 Rat Ogres charge the beastherd, kill a whole bunch and only take a wound or 2 in return and chase them off the board.
The beastherd charges the fleeing Chaos Lord who runs 15" and off the board. Wow, if he only runs 9-11" he gets away and has a chance to rally. Thems the breaks sometime.
But my general is in no better shape. With 2 chariots on my flank and a beastherd to the front I have to make a decision. If I charge the herd, he will flee and leave my flank to the 2 chariots. I need a lot of attacks on the chariots to destroy them. And I need that Hellfire sword on the chariots.


So I take a risk and turn my unit to leave the flank to the herd and face the chariots head on. The hope is the herd fails its Ld 7 fear test. I don't expect the chariots to.

Over on the right flank:
The beastherd and spawn continue to fight and I put another wound on the spawn. His spawn goes for Setrad my bray shaman but only does 1 wound. The chariots spin around.

Now it is the beginning of turn 5. IT is do or die time and the game hinges on this main charge.
Both chariots and the herd into Ratspawns unit. This is it.
The beast herd makes its fear test and charge. Ugghhh!!!
Chariot 1 (with 3 wounds) fails its fear test but re-rolls and makes it. Uggghhh!!!
Chariot 2 fails its fear test but re-rolls and FAILS again!!!

The chariot does only 2 impact hits and with all its attacks does only 2 wounds. The herd adds on 3 more. so kills 1 rat ogre and does 2 wounds to another.
I do the last wound to the chariot. And the Rat Ogre on the flank hits all 3 times and wounds 3 times.

So we add it up:
Me: 4 wounds, +1 for standard + 1US = 6.
Him: 5 wounds, +1 flank, +1 standard, +1 rank = 8.
So needing a 9-2 = 7 not to break. I roll a '7'!!! Wow!!! That was the game.

The rest of his turn he moved his Dragon Ogres up and his choas knights up.
He moved the fast cav back out of charge arc again. The spawn was killed.

My turn 5:


At this point I know I have the game. Taking that test was huge.
Using the new rules I move Ratspawn and the champion into the 2 flanking spots so he can't kill off the Rat Ogre with 2 wounds. The furies charge into the flank of the beastherd. But I kill them down to just 2-3 guys and run them down.
My herd on the left flank moves up to threaten the 3 chosen knights.

Over on the right flank:


The beastherd having just finished off the spawn charges into the chariot that had failed its fear test to charge. I take a couple of wounds, but win combat. He holds.
I move the chariots around to try and line up some turn 6 charges.

Turn 6:

The game is over and my son knows it.
He turns his knights to face the herd.
He turns his Dragon Ogres to face the chariot.
In the herd-chariot combat he takes a wound on the chariot.
It breaks and runs off the table.
The herd pursues and stops behind the dragon Ogres.



Botton of 6. The Finally!!
In a final attempt to clean off the board.


The herd on the left flank charge the chosen knights. Whiff badly, are chopped down for their efforts and are run down.
The Rat Ogres turn around to face off the Chosen knights.
Ratspawn and his guard move up 12 to take the far right quarter.
While the 5 furies fly back to my lower left quarter to contest that in case the battle with the chosen goes bad, which it did.

Over on the right flank:


The chariot charges the fast cav and wipes them out to a man.
The chariot and herd charge the dragon Ogres. They combine to do 7 wounds leaving a single wound on 1 dragon Ogre. He puts 2 attacks on the chariot in an attempt to smash it and 1 on Setrad. He fails to hit the chariot but slays Setrad the Bray Shaman in one final act of defiance, before he is broken and run down. I didn't move the pursueing units.

That was the game, the only thing left on the board for him was the 3 chosen knights. We didn't add up victory points but even with the losses I took in units, 2 heroes and the one banner. I still won with a pretty comfortable margin.

I hope you enjoyed the battle report and let me know what you think.
Is this worth it. Do you like the pictures? Would it be better to do 1 overhead shot that is smaller?

Thanks, Ben