Hi all,
A bit of an "off topic" battle report today, as dwarfs were left on the shelf this time. I had to take one for the team and play an evil race since it's always more fun to have an Order vs. Destruction conflict. My cousin and his old friend were visiting in town, and though both were Warhammer players back in 5th edition, neither had ever played an 8th edition game. For that reason we made all the lists pretty fluffy in order to make a fun first experience for them and focused to teaching the rules and features of 8th edition. Even though neither player has tried 8th before, they're both very experienced gamers so we were able to have an efficient and competitive game, they picked up on all the new concepts with no problems!

Space reserved for awful fluff.

The forces of good seemed to be made with a theme of healing wounds. The general had a magic item that would cost him a wound if he used it, and the Wood Elves were comprised as much of multi-wound models as possible, with a Spellweaver using life spells to heal up any damage they took.

The armies:

High Elves:
-Cyrus the Grey- High Elf Prince
Barded Elven Steed, Helm of Fortune, Talisman of Loec, Lance, Shield

-Dameon- Battle Standard Bearer Noble
Armor of Caledor, Dawnstone, Great weapon (2+ rerollable AS, Strength 6)

-16 White Lions with full command.

-12 Archers

-17 Archers

-5 Dragon Princes

2 Great Eagles

Wood Elves:

-"Daria"- Spellweaver-
Wand of Wych Elm, Ironcurse Icon,
Lore of Life- Throne of Vines, Dwellers Below, Flesh to Stone and Regrowth

-Treeman

-5 Treekin

-12 Dryads with Branch Nymph

-12 Glade Guard with banner of Eternal Flame

The forces of evil were a mix of units, I'm not experienced with Orcs and Goblins this edition and my partner had never played 8th, so we tried to get a lot of variety to experiment wth.
Zogrod's Orcs:

-Zogrod- Orc Warboss
Armor of Destiny, Sword of Striking, Healing Potion

25 Big 'Uns- Shields, Standard of Discipline

-6 Trolls

-Level 2 Night Goblin Shaman, dispell scroll and Opal Amulet
Spells: Gork'll Fix it, Sneaky Stabbin'

-Rock Lobber

-Giant

-28 Goblins with shields and 3 Nasty Skulkers

The Dark Elves:
-Vierna- Supreme Sorceress
Tome of Furion (we forgot about this so she only got 4 spells...doh)
Lore of Shadow: Pendelum, Miasma, Enfeebling Foe and Mindrazor

-Noble BSB-
Halberd, Armor of Darkness and Dawnstone (1+ rerollable AS)

-War Hydra

-5 Dark riders with spears

-15 Black Guard (used executioner models because they look awesome)
Armor piercing banner

-10 Corsairs with Frenzy Banner

-5 Shades

Deployment: The good army got to choose side and chose the side with the towers. The archers deployed in the middle, with Dryads and the Treeman to protect them on the right, and White Lions, Dragon Princes and Treekin on the left. We deployed our Hydra on our left with the Black Guard, Crossbowmen and Corsairs, and the Giant, goblins,trolls and Dark Riders ended up on our right with the Orcs and Warlord in the very middle. The Dark Elf Shades queezed into a corner of their side, behind everything but with not particularly ideal targets to shoot at.

Turn 1:
Evil: We won the first turn with a 5 and marched forward, the Darkriders used Vanguard to get behind the Treekin and keep safe from being charged. Our alliance began to fail on the first turn as we rolled a 3. The Magic Phase looked great, we rolled an 11, but then my Goblin rolled an irresistable force on Gork'll Fix it on our first cast, not when you want a miscast to occur. 6 Goblins died to a small blast, the Opal Amulet saved the shaman, but then 6 dice were sucked away from our pool and the phase was pretty much over.
The Rock Lobber was victim to animosity and couldn't shoot. The crossbowmen killed a single dryad but the Shades couldnt wound the Treekin.

Good: Despite being cursed by Gork, the Treekin charge the Giant and succeed with a 9 roll. The dryads move up along the side of the board and the Dragon Princes turn to face the Riders and Shades. The Wood Elf rolled snake-eyes on the winds of Magic, but was able to cast Flesh to Stone on Treekin which I dispelled with a scroll. Both eagles moved to threated the Sorceress who was hiding behind the black guard.
Archers killed 2 Dark Riders- panic p"I swear too much"ed
Archers killed 5 black guard - panic p"I swear too much"ed
Treekin do 2 wounds to the giant and take none in return as my Giant rolls his first practically worthless Head Butt in combat...giant p"I swear too much"es break test

Turn 2:
Evil: I decided to go for the gold in the charge phase, I could have charged the White Lions and succeeded with an 8, but it seemed like a non-ideal matchup with all their strength and weapon skill and the Dragon Princes presenting their behinds for me was just too much reward to pass up, even though I needed a roll of 11 to reach them. In hindsight I should have gone for the White Lions, but I think I rolled a 5 anyway so it wouldn't have mattered. My partner's hydra did better, charging the Dryads easily. Finally, the 3 remaining Dark riders tried to save my giant by charging the rear of the treekin. Our alliance failed again and now we were Desparate Allies, so we had to spread the dice evenly. The Supreme Sorceress had her own miscast this turn, powering an Enfeebling Foe into the Dryads, which basically guaranteed the combat for us, but she forgot one spell, a forgiving miscast. My goblin cast Sneaky Stabbin on the Dark Riders which added some nice rerolls due to the rear charge, but my mushroom die rolled a 1 on Gork'll Fix it. I avoided the wound but the magic phase was over.
The Shades killed 1 dragon prince, and the Crossbowmen reformed and shot a great eagle down.
The Dark Riders caused a couple wounds but one was saved by the fairy ward, and they were smashed by the rear Treekin. The Giant rolled his second head butt for another wound but took 3 more wounds himself to be reduced to 1. He p"I swear too much"ed his break test. The Hydra devastates the strength 1 Dryads, killing 6 and they break. The hydra pursues because they needed to roll a 9 to actually flee off the table, but it turned out to be an unnecessary pursuit because the dryads fled off with a 10.

Good: The White Lions charged the orcs and the Prince (who had relocated into the wood elf archerds) charged out of the unit into the Corsairs. The Dragon Princes charged the cornered Shades---stand and shoots fail to kill anything. The Spellweaver rolled poorly in the Winds of Magic but cast regrowth to heal both wounds on the Treekin. Archers killed another 5 Black guard with sheer volume of fire despite poor rolling, and the Treeman used Strangleroot to kill 5 more, wiping out the guard and leaving the BSB and Sorceress out in the open.
In combat my Giant rolls his THIRD STRAIGHT HEADBUTT and dies to the Treekin horribly.
The High Elf BSB challenged my orc lord, he dealt two wounds as my ward saves failed and only took 1 in return. The White lions did 7 wounds to rank and file Bin Uns, taking 4 in return from the orcs, and I p"I swear too much"ed my steadfast break test.
The High Elf Prince kills 3 Corsairs and proves unwoundable against our 9 return attacks, but again the Corsairs hold due to steadfast.

Turn 3:
Evil: The Trolls charge the archers with the spellweaver in the tower. My goblins cant charge the Treekin because my shaman is in the way, so they prepare as best they can for next turn's onslaught. The Orc General heals his wounds with the Healing Potion. The Hydra faces the Treeman and archers, so that it can charge next turn no matter what. The Sorceress fails Mindrazor on Corsairs, this was our big gamble to still win the game at this point because a Mindrazor would have eaten right through that 1+ rerollable armor save the Prince had on him. Instead we fight another unwinnable combat and the corsairs are cut down to 3 troops but hold. The Trolls take no wounds, and kill 2 archers dont break, so the Spellweaver is still safe. Despite being newly rejuvenated, my Orc general takes a wound and fails to kill off the wounded Noble BSB. The White Lions kill 6 orcs, and the orcs strike back well and kill 5 White lions, I barely lose the combat and make another break test.

Good: The Treekin charge the goblins and the Eagle charges the Rock Lobber. With our dispell dice split due to our desparate alliance we are forced to make some awkward decisions with our dispelling. I dispell Throne of vines with all of my dice, but the Dark elf (now a level 3) fails to dispell Flesh to Stone on the White lions, opening the door for an unopposed Regrowth on the Lions as well, and 2 rise from the dead. Shooting kills off the Crossbowmen and the Treeman moves towards the Orcs and Goblins while staying 6 inches from the Sorceress and BSB to Strangleroots them. Strangleroots does no damage however. The challenge is a draw this turn with no wounds inflicted between my Warboss and the Noble, but Flesh to Stone makes the difference in the combat as the White Lions outkill my orcs 6 to 1. No longer steadfast, I need a 5 on my breaktest and fail with a nine. The White Lions pursue and chop my orcs (and general) down as they flee.

Turn 4:
Though we still have some powerful units left in the hydra and Trolls, things are clearly over in terms of who is going to win the game. We attempt a long charge on the Treeman with the hydra, which it fails, my catapult dies to an Eagle and there's no longer anywhere to hide the two dark elf characters from all the shooting and general badness in their area, and the trolls are pretty much stuck against a building with stupidity rolls about to cripple them with my lord dead, so we concede defeat since it's getting late and the store is closing soon.

Final thoughts:
Really fun game! It was neat to try out an army I dont play a lot, and my friends got a taste of the randomness of 8th edition. Things looked good when we got the first turn, getting that much closer to a shooting-heavy army before they get to shoot is generally a good sign. We had some disasters in the magic phases however, and interestingly were quite handily overpowered in hand to hand combat in general. Some of the biggest causes:
-The only big mistake was actually my own. I really screwed my partner over because I'm used to doing the shooting, not getting shot at. I should have spread my goblins out really thin and used them as chaff to protect the Black Guard and Corsairs, this would have REALLY improved our chances of winning, sorry Chris, didnt realize this till the day after! I used them instead as a Shaman Bunker that didn't do much good at all.
-Our fragile alliance was reduced to desparate allies by turn two, which made our already unlucky magic phases even worse and we were victims to two dice-draining miscasts. My shaman overdoses on mushrooms as well.
-The Giant, who would have been by far our best counter to the treeman, ended up on the other side of the board and against a terrible matchup with 5 Treekin. Even worse, I rolled Headbutt in all 3 combats before he died! (Question, does Headbutt prevent a model of equal initiative to the giant from fighting that turn? We played that it did not since strikes are simultaneous.) Even a rear charge with Sneaky Stabbin' augmented Dark riders couldnt turn the tide in that combat, I used to think Treekin were horrendously priced, but their overall quality makes it a pretty fair price, especially with life magic to heal them up.
-Even though they really shot quite poorly (my brother especially seemed to average 3 hits for every 10 shots with his arrows!) they did successfully whittle down the dark elves before they got to combat. This would have been bad in that most of my orc units got across the board unharmed, but they were met by bad matchups. The trolls were the unit that I really misused, I should have charged them into the White Lions, which wouldnt have been a great matchup by any means but it would have left the Big 'Uns free to terrorize weaker enemies. Instead I went for an unlikely rear charge against the dragon princes and as a result they were stuck eating a few archers per turn out of a tower.
-White Lions are very good against orcs and Goblins, I can't think of many units they have that would do well except maybe a Savage Orc Big Uns horde. Despite losing this combat, I really performed well in hanging in there for 3 rounds.
-We took a calculated risk pursuing the dryads with our Hydra (our best nearby way of dealing with the treeman) instead of reforming, and they fled off the board anyway with a 9 inch run. It would have been nice to reform and have a potential fresh charge next turn, but we still made the right decision.
-The Rock Lobber sucked plain and simple, not one hit all game. I think non-dwarfs don't really have an excuse to get stone throwers (or mortars for that matter) at this stage.