BR: Skaven vs Beasts Part 3

When we left off the battlefield looked like this:


You can't see the unit of 5 hounds in front of the clanrats at the very bottom of the pic, but everything else is shown.

Turn 4a: Clanrats charge the hounds.
Clanrat unit with Warlord on my far left flank charges the unit of 4 Rat Ogres in front of them. The Rat Ogres flee.
For movement, I'm hoping the banner of hatred kicks in and makes the monks move up, but it doesn't and the monks are able to side shift some.
The storm vermin, not wanting to take on Rat Spawn and a chariot, back up, using the wall as protection.

In shooting, his jezzails wipe out the hounds in front of them. And the ratling gun hands my unit of 3 Rat Ogres in front of the monks 5 wounds, killing one. They pass their panic test.
Things are going down hill really fast here.

In combat, the clanrats beat up on the rats who run off the board. The clanrats try to restrain but fail and pursue them off the table edge.

Here is what I was looking at the beginning of my turn:


I knew I was in trouble and had to start making a few things happen.
Turn 4b: My herd charges across the lake and into the jezzails (not shown in the pic.)
My furies charge the ratling gun. It fails its fear test and flees. The furies easily catch it and destroy it.
The Rat Ogres that were fleeing rally.
thinking I can still get both Ratspawn and the chariot into the storm vermin, I move both units up.
Bonehead move here. I should have turned the chariot around.

I set everyone up for charges on the next turn.

I finally cast bears anger with a 9. He scrolls it.

In combat, the herd rips the jezzails a new one, killing off 4. I win combat and pursue them off the table. But not before suffering a wound to my shaman.

Here is the setup at the end of turn 4:


The arrow is still next to my Rat Ogres, but they had rallied.
Turn 5a:
Not really in charge range of anything, the skaven declare none.
Again, I am hoping the banner of hatred kicks in, and he is forced to move forward, he rolls a '4' and is able to simply reform to protect his flank.

He moves his Clanrats back on the table. And moves his Storm Vermin back 2 more inches.

In a surprising move, he moves his warlord out of his clanrat unit and into the rocks. I really wasn't expecting this and gave me a glimmer of hope.

Here was the setup at the beginning of my turn 5.



Turn 5b: I figured it was now or never. I charged Ratspawn and body guard into the stormvermin with BSB. I had messed around long enough. His BSB was still in the front rank and I didn't want him to wiseup and move it to the back.

Then for the other move. The unit of 2 Rat Ogres and single Rat Ogre into the monks.
Then the unit of 4 Rat Ogres into the clanrats and 3 hounds into the flank of the clanrats.

My thinking here is if he stands, then I do this combat first, crush the clanrats and overrun into the monks flank and can then crush them.
If he flees, my hounds catch him and the hounds flank the monks.

He flees and only runs 4". The hounds catch and kill them. But when we lay down the template, 2 of the 3 hounds are in the front of the monks. They don't hit the flank, they hit the front. And the unit of 4 rat ogres are out of range.

The storm vermin make their fear test.

Totally flustered at this point, I turn the chariot around to face the clanrats.
I move the herd back on the table.
I move the furies up close to his general.

In combat with the plague monks, I can only get 1 Rat Ogre on the Plague Priest. So I kill off a bunch of monks, but not near enough as he kills all 3 hounds and does a wound to kill a rat ogre and I lose by 5 or 6. I break with both, both run 6" and are caught by the pursuing monk unit who pusues 8" and hits the wall.

Now the big combat. My last gasp.
Ratspawn puts 3 attacks on the BSB. Knowing I need to get 1 wound in to kill him, I figured I better play it safe. I get 2 wounds in and kill him. There goes the BSB and Banner of the swarm, so +4 combat swing right there.
2 more attacks on the storm Vermin and I miss with both. Ugghhhh!!! Needing 3's to hit and 2's to kill.

Then with the 10 attacks from my Rat Ogres, needing 4+ to hit and 2+ to kill. I get only 4 hits and then only 2 wounds. :( This is horrible.
With his 3 attacks back he does 2 wounds.

So He has Combat res of 8: 2 wounds, 3 ranks, banner, warbanner, US.
I have 5: 4 wounds, banner.

So I lose by 3. Needing a 6 not to break and prevent the massacre. I roll the 6.

WHEW!!! What the heck happend there.

Here is the situation leading into the final turn:



Turn 6a:
Clanrats that just came on, into my chariot. Huh!! Oh crap, surely its out of range.
I hold. We measure, nope, right at 10". Its in. This is huge.

Not much else.
In magic, he finally casts Warp Lightning and gets a 10 and I have no scrolls left.
I roll my 3 dispel dice and match his 10. Whew, saved the herd.

In shooting he lobs 2 globes at my furies, one lands on him and kills himself. He makes his panic test. Then his warlord shoots his pistol at me. Needing a 6 to hit, he hits and wounds. I'm down to 2 furies. Enough for my last desperation try.

Maybe things are not over yet.
Big combat: I challenge, his champion refuses and moves to the rear. I don't care really, but gets rid of one attack. He can't handle the overkill potential of the Hellfire sword.
He gets to swing first and does only 1 wound.
With my 15 attacks, I kill 6.

His combat res: 1 wound, banner, warbanner, 3 ranks, US = 7.
Mine: 6 wounds + banner = 7.
He wins with his musician. Ugghhh!!!

Needing an 8 to prevent the massacre: I get it. Whew!!

His clanrats get 5 attacks on my chariot, 1 hit, 1 wound. Need a 4+ armor save, I fail it.
With 4 attacks, I get 1 hit and 1 wound. he saves it.
He wins by 4. 1 rank, banner, US, wound. So needing a 3 not to break. I roll a 4 and break.
I'm thinking, that ok, I'll get away and rally next turn. I flee 6 big inches on 3d6 and he catches me.

So this is the state going into my turn 6:


Table quarters don't count in the battle. But the objectives do.
I had one final shot at his general. It was time to take it.

Furies charge the warlord. I outnumber him and cause fear. With only a Leadership of 7, means he has about a 45% chance to flee.

We will get to that later.

In the big combat, I finally wrack up 7 wounds and knock his numbers down to 14 guys. With me having a US of 15, he needs insane courage and fails to get it. So I break him, catch him and capture their banner. This is a huge number of points and brings things almost back to even.

So it comes down to his generals fear test. He rolls the 2d6.

I see the 6. Oh yea, baby, come on win column.

Then I see the '1'. A 7, he had hit it exactly. One more pip was all I needed.

The warlord, easily dispatches the furies.

I'm thinking this is a huge victory for the Skaven but when we add up the points, I'm actually ahead by 50 points.

I killed 50 less points, but had captured the banner, and no table quarters and no generals killed, I was up by 50.

But then we looked at the objectives.
His was kill the big guys, not counting characters. I had 23 to start and only 8 left. So he got his. +400 vp.
Mine was to kill his general. I failed. -200 vp.

So in the end he was up by 550 vp and won the game.
We went ahead and rolled for the warpstone amulet but the 111 vp it might have given me was not enough to bring it to a draw. He rolled a '2'.

That Leadership 7 test he made, I calculated was worth 932 vp. If he rolls an 8, I win by around 380 vp. Ugghhh, so close, and yet so far.

So A draw game that turned into a loss because of the objectives.

It was a great game, that I learned a lot from.
I'll be doing a recap of lessons learned soon.

Hope you enjoyed it.