Battle Report, League game 2

My Warhammer League game 2 came up against Shaun Gray. Great opponent and every year it seems both of us make it into the playoffs. He has pulled 2 3rd place trophies from the MAWL and is always a great game.

This year he has switched from Skaven to Empire. So I was pretty worried coming into this game with my Twins of khorne. I kept my no armor save sword over the d3 wound sword.

I don't have his list but his army was:
General on steed
BSB on steed
Captain on steed
Captain on pegasus

He had 2 big blocks of swordsmen with 2 detachments each. 9 free company in a 3x3 block and 5 handgunners
block of Great swords
6 pistoliers
10 handgunners
10 flagelants
2 cannons
2 units of 5 knights
1 Hellblaster

Terrain had a huge wall on the left side with a swamp in front of it.
We had the Apocalypse of Heroes in the center and was pretty big.
On the right he had some walls at the edge of his deployment zone and a house on the far right side. A hill on my right side.

My deployment was pretty even across the board while he put a cannon in each corner. The hellblaster behind the walls.
The knights next to it.
His main blocks in the middle.
knights on the left side along with the pistoliers and flagelants.
His pegasus scouted behind the large wall.

He picked sides and I won the roll to go first. I let him take first turn.
Turn 1a: Nothing except the cannons could shoot. He flies his peg behind my units on left side and doesn't move much else. Blocks move up a bit and he searches for the scroll and finds it. Cannons kill a couple guys.

Turn 1b: I decide its best to be aggressive so everything plows forward except 2 marauders on the left and a centigor. They turn to surround the peg. With 16 axe throws, the peg and captain are wiped out.
I have 3 units search for the scroll and all fail.

Turn 2a: Game turns quickly. He charges his knights at my Dogs of war and they flee.
His knights don't quite make it to my knights on the hill. Wish they had.
Then he unleashes holy hell on me as his cannons kill a couple guys. But then his hellblaster rolls 20 shots, 6 hit, they all wound and wipes out the entire knight unit. None saved. The marauders on their right panic and run off the board. The Centigors pass their save. So 15 handgunners unload on them and wipe them out.
The other marauders on the right are knocked down to 1 guy and he flees, gone.

So the only thing left on the right flank is my knights with hero. And 5 fleeing DoW fast cav.
On the left he shoots and kills a couple things but nothing much.

Turn 2b: knights on far left charge pistoliers who flee. So failed charge. Everyone else is trying to move up. Right side DoW cav rally.

Things get hazy in here. At this point I've lost over 600 points of troops and he has lost nothing. So out comes the beer and pizza and I just relax to have a good time.

I get a charge on his greatswords. A detachment flanks me. I win by a couple and the detachment flees but GS's hold. Knights then flank me and he kills none. I wipe out the GS's down to 1 or 2 guys. They both break. Knights run through the pistoliers who panic and run.

His flagelants charge my chaos knights. And in 2 rounds of combat are wiped out. Cannon is then destroyed.
I chase both the knights and pistoliers off.
On right side a single DoW fast cav charges the cannon. Wins combat and chases them off the board.
He then in turn 5 runs around to block off the hellblaster from shooting my general's unit of knights. So his 10 handgunners in the house shoot at the DoW cav behind the stone wall. So 5 guys needing 7's to hit. Gets a hit and kills him.
The hellblaster gets off its 5th shot. All between 18 and 20 hits. So 15 rolls without a misfire. And wipes out my general's knights.

On my side, I bait a big block with my Dogs of War cav, he takes it. And as soon as he does, I know I'm in trouble. Cav flee, so khorne knights with hero can charge the swordsmen in the flank, or the other swordsmen with general and BSB in the front.

I know whats coming but decide its still the better option and hit the flank. I win by a ton, but here comes the rod of command. Damn it, I knew it.
General with BSB and swordsmen in my flank.
My hero challenges and his general accepts. I move my hero to the end, and that is the only model he is touching on the flank, so only the general gets to attack there. That helps some. His general with 3 attacks, hits twice. Wounds twice. Then needing a 4+ armor save, I roll 2-3's and the hero dies. Ugghhh!!! If I save one of those, my hero has a great chance of killing his general.
My knights then promptly roll horrible as well. I lose by 5. Needing a 3 not to break I roll a 4. 1 more wound and I hold there. DAMN it!!!
Knights are broken. They get away and rally. But when his general and captain charge in, I take it and he kills the last 3.

Turn 5 I want to keep his knights out of my left quadrant, so I leave my DoW fast cav where they are and search for the artifact, but fail to find it.

His turn 6. Knights charge the DoW fast cav who flee. He does not make it into that table quarter. Denying him 100 vp.
His 2 characters pull out pistols and shoot at my centigors and kill 1, knocking them down from 3 to 2. So they cannot claim a table quarter.

My turn 6. Centigors wipe out detachment. General charges and wipes out detachment.
Marauder cav of 3 stays put. searches and finds the magic artifact. Takes the boobytrap of 2d6 str 3 hits. 2 die, and the last guy makes his panic test. So I keep the artifact.

But then the roll that changed the game. My Dogs of War fast cav need an 8 to rally and fail. So that is 100 vp I lost for them and 100 vp I lost for the table quarter.

We add up the results and he is ahead by 480 vp. That 200 vp from that 1 roll means I draw him.

But it didn't happen, oh well. Still had a fantastic game, did achieve the scenario objective and picked up the artifact. So now 0-1-1 in the League. Horrible start for the 1st place finisher from last year. Different army is a lot more difficult to win with.

MVPs. For him it had to be the hellblaster. 5 attempts, all with 18-20 shots, no misfires. Accounted for 2 full knight units as well as a several marauder units.

For me, my general. He took the knight charge in the flank and he failed to do a wound to me. My general then broke his greatswords, knights and panicked the pistoliers. Took out several detachments and took 2 hellblaster shots in the teeth and only suffered 1 wound.

Until next time...