Lone Wolf Battle Report

First up was a Friday night warmup game. I was just walking around to see who might be available when a nice young man named Aaron asked if I wanted a game. I said sure and he headed off to get his army.

As I pulled mine out to setup, I was warned by a few friends that he has a history. I don't usually listen to gossip, so I ignored it and planned on having a fun game.

Aaron did not dissapoint. His army was awesome looking, he was a great sport throughout the game and add in his excellent general skills and expert knowledge of the rules. It all led up to a very tough fought, highly tactical, enjoyable game.
This was my favorite game of the weekend, and I wish I could have given Aaron my favorite opponent vote.

Setup:
Aaron put one block on my left flank, detachment to the outside and skirmishing archers in front.
In the center he put 2 blocks next to each other, detachments on the outside flanks and archers in front.
Right flank he did the same. And put down his 2 mortars and 2 fast cav to protect them.

I put my clanrats and slaves in middle. Frenzied units, 1 night runner and gutter runners on my left flank. Giant rats, swarms, night runners, jezzails and globadiers on the right flank. Tunnel marker in front of a mortar.

I think Aaron made a mistake with the 2 mortars so close together. They were too vulnerable there on the flank. There were 2 impassable roman terrain pieces in the middle that clogged things up a bit as well. I actually ended up fighting on this same table 2 times in the GT as well, so with this game, 3 battles. I got to know this table very well.

Roman Empire gets to go first:
Turn 1a: He moves up, fires his mortars, kills a couple of globadiers and they flee.

Turn 1b: I move up, trying to set up some diverting angles. Giant rats move full speed at the mortars, swarms and night runners moving on a flanking position. Forgot my magic phase completely.

Turn 2a: Aaron sets up an excellent trap on the left flank for my monks and PCB's. But is having troubles with the immense number of troops I have in the center and right flank. His Mortar #2 aims for the giant rats bearing down on them, but deviates and hits the night runners. They flee. Mortar #1 misfires and is out of the game for 2 turns.

Turn 2b: My Monks must charge his main block and his detachment will get a flank on me. My PCB's must either charge the main block or go for his archers. If I go for the archers, I leave the Monks out for dead. If I go for the main block, I'd stand a very slim chance of saving them. So I charged in with both. He had numbers, 3 ranks and a flank. So he was up on me by 5 to start. Ouch. But when my PCBs fog killed 3, to my 1. And my Plague Priest killed another 3-4. It came down to my PCB's killing his hero in the front rank. Ended up with 2 str 5 wounds on him. He needs 6's to save and rolls double 6's. Then kills a monk. He wins combat by 2. If he fails both those saves, I win combat. Ouch.
As it was, my Monks need a 4 and PCBs need a 3, the monks flee the PCBs stay. The detachment chases down the monks and takes their standard. Things are not starting off great.
My 2nd Giant rats charge the archers on the right flank. He flees. I try to redirect into the detachment but am quickly reminded that I have to redirect into the closest target. So I choose not to redirect. As it turns out the archers only flee 3-4" and my giant rats catch them. End up 1" in front of the detachment and out of charge arc of the main block. Sweet.
My magic kills a few and combined with ratling gun fire, his generals unit is feeling the skaven love.
Giant rats continue to move up, on mortar.
Slaves charge the archers in the middle and get both of those fleeing.
Globadiers rally.

Turn 3a: His generals block in the middle charges some slaves and runs them down. But sticks his neck out too far. Detachment on the right charges the giant rats 1" in front of them and they fight to a standstill. The big block kills off the PCBs.
The mortar fires but its shot deviates off the table.
One unit of cav charges my flank protecting ratswarms but only does a couple of wounds.

Turn 3b: Things begin to go downhill for Aaron here. Giant rats charge and wipe out the mortar #2 and have LOS to the Mortar #1 team. The tunnel team pops up and instead of going after the inaffectual mortar #1, hits the flank of the 2nd fast cav unit.
But the biggest charge was my slaves into his general's units flank. So his detachment was unable to do anything. This may have been a trap as I think he wanted my generals unit to charge in the front. I'll explain later what the trap was. I didn't fall into it and let the slaves wade in alone. We were playing closed lists and I'm not sure what he was sporting.
Gutter runners charged the archers on the left flank and they fled.
Giant rats and detatchment of swordsmen fought to another standstill.
In this turn my magic got going and the ratling guns began to put some pressure on some units.

In the big battle, the slaves win combat but the general uses his Rod of command.

The trap: Stick generals unit out. I hit it on the front and flank. His detachment can do nothing.
Use the Rod of command to hold.
His turn detachment hits flanking slaves, they flee. I now have my unit straight up with his general's unit with Griffon banner and he is up on me by 4 to begin the combat. Or the Griffon banner is in the unit on his right, charges in barely hitting my generals unit, so now it doesn't matter if the slaves flee or not.
Nice, glad I didn't fall for it. ;-)

Here are some pics midway through the game.


From my side, you can see my entire left flank is gone with the exception of the gutterrunners. In the middle my slaves are on the flank of his general's unit that has been trimmed down a lot from magic and ratling gun fire.
On the far right my swarms (with the cheese behind them) are in combat with the fast cav.


Here is a closer look at the battle from the side.

Part II will come later.