Hey all,

Sorry it's been so long. There's tons of good reasons that I can give that are all totally not in any way made up. At all. One of our FLGS closed down, our local forum died, I ran a marathon, Austin broke out into open street wars, Texas seceded, and the Colorado ran (appropriately) red with (maybe not so appropriate) blood. Okay, so some of those aren't true.

The end result was that I went something like 6 weeks without playing, though it felt more like 6 months. I'm sure for the legions of sobbing Relentless readers out there, it felt like 6 years. Of blissful time free from bad jokes and worse excuses. And speaking of excuses...

While I do have some pics, the new store has the tables right next to huge windows facing west. And as the sun was setting today, photography became almost impossible during the critical portions of the game. I've included one from right before it got really bad so you can understand.

So- on to the game? Yeah, on to the game. The return to Relentless was originally going to be vs. Lizardmen a few days ago, but that game was played against a relatively new player who was using plenty of proxies and it just wasn't going to make for a decent report.

I was running at Will D. who brought Skaven, making this, somehow, my first 8th edition match against the under-empire. I've heard they're very weak, so this should be a total cakewalk, right? Will is a very experienced player, placed 3rd overall at 'Ard Boyz last year, but is new to the Skaven.

Here's what he took:

Grey seer on Screaming Bell w/Skalm, Shadow trinket, earthing rod <Death Frenzy, Crack's Call, Wither, Dreaded 13th> (oh dear)
Warlock engineer w/Condenser & Doom Rocket <Scorch, Warp Lightning>
Warlock engineer w/Dispel scroll <Skitterleap, Warp Lightning>
Chieftan BSB w/Storm Banner
Assassin w/weeping blade, potion of strength
60 clanrats, full command, shields, ratling gun
25 clanrats, full command, shields, ratling gun
25 clanrats, full command, shields, ratling gun
10 gutter runners, poisoned attacks, death runner
Warp Lightning Cannon
Doomwheel
Hellpit Abomination

I had my usual list, which I've been too lazy to change:

Dwarf Lord w/shield bearers, Runic armor (1+ save, immune to kb, heroic kb, poison, re-rollable), Runic weapon (flaming great axe)
Thane BSB w/Runic banner (Strollaz, 5+ ward)
Thane w/MR of Challenge, Great weapon, 3+ armor save
Runesmith w/2 dispel runes, shield, rune of stone (for combined 2+ armor)
Dragonslayer w/capri pants
25 Warriors w/full command, shields
25 Warriors w/full command, shields
19 Longbeards w/full command, shields
10 Rangers w/great weapons, heavy armor, mus, veteran
19 Hammerers w/full command, shields, MR of Grungni (5+ ward vs. shooting, magic missiles w/in 6")
12 Slayers
Cannon w/engineer, rune of forging, rune of burning (flaming, re-roll misses)
Grudgethrower w/engineer, rune of accuracy, rune of penetrating (re-roll scatter, +1 str)
Organ Gun
Gyrocopter

Will doesn't care for the scenarios, so we just ran Battleline. He's also not a fan of the wacky terrain, so all the woods were just normal rather than mysterious.

I took my usual deployment strategy, which is mostly dropping a unit vaguely towards the middle, dropping the gyro to buy time, and then throwing the rest in to one side of the first to try to gang my units up on one of his. This kind of worked, but then I think he was pretty happy with the situation too. This is my problem against hydras and hell-pits. I need to advance to get the soft blocks and stamp out the magic and shooting, but I can't afford to commit until I know the big nasty is down.

In the end, the cannon and grudgethrower had line of sight to the hell pit, the slayers were set to try to counter charge the doomwheel or HPA if either strayed too close, and the rest formed a wall to prevent gutter runners from poisoning my warmachines. The rangers made sure the back door was closed, and we were good to go.

Maybe they'll come to us?

Skaven toys prepare to do the heavy lifting.

And this, dear friends, is where I leave you for tonight. Full report arriving tomorrow...

And now it's tomorrow, where we start off with...

The Plan

Shoot the hellpit, doomwheel, and ratling guns, and if possible, pick of the gutter runners and one of the blocks with my extra numbers. Advance enough to counter attack when the main plan goes bad.

Turn Strollaz

I swing the units on the right around to start curling around an expected skaven advance. The slayers start act like they're heading around the building, but I'm hoping the doomwheel strays too close, as that's a pretty ideal matchup. Otherwise, I can't be too aggressive. As I mentioned before, I have to confirm the Hellpit is down before really heading in.

Turn One

Skaven blocks trundle forward to bring magic and ratling guns into range. The hell pit tests my bowel control by lunging 16" right at me, and the doomwheel rolls 14" towards the slayers to avoid accidentally zapping the hellpit.

Magic phase! My favorite phase of the game! Or, no... wait... The bell lurches forward ominously. Six dice dreaded 13th at my longbeards misses the mark, which lets me stomp all over the rest of the magic phase with dice only. Zero spells off and no scrolls burned? Great success!

Unfortunately, my runesmith was too busy patting himself on the back to notice that the shooting had started, and failed his look out sir against the Warp Lightning cannon which smoked him with a strength 4 blast to the noggin. Glad the first magic phase went so well, because it's going to be rough going from here on out... Nothing much else happens- the doomwheel powers up to strength 2 and gooses the slayers for no wounds. My war machine pickets work well, and the gutter runners have to shoot dwarf warriors for a handful of casualties instead of poisoning out the organ gun crew.

Do you have a picture of the battle? Good. Now imagine that behind the Skaven edge there is a car-fire going, just a few feet away. In other words, it looks like this:

Judging by the sundial, it's half past sixomigod here comes the hell pit!

For my turn, I decide that with no magic defense, I should probably go with the "win the game right now" strategy instead. Unfortunately, I seem to be a bit rusty at that little gem of battlefield mastery, so we're right back to the original plan. On the right, things are easy- slayers charge an easy 9" (thank you 8th edition!) to close with the doomwheel. In the middle, it's not so easy. With the hellpit so close, I consider either charging my lord into it (with his flaming great weapon) or sitting the gyro or lord in front to block or redirect respectively. I ditch the first idea, thinking I wouldn't want to gamble more than one turn of combat with the HPA and Dwarf Lord solo, and the other two choices would block cannon shots, thus defeating the purpose of buying time in the first place. The hammerers have to keep their face to the hell pit so that if they get charged, I could benefit from supporting attacks.

On the left, I summon all my 8th edition cleverness and swift reform a unit of warriors ten wide and turn to face the gutter runners to keep them from slipping past into the war machines.

And now on to that great roulette wheel of this army build- the shooting phase. The cannon burns out regen on the HPA, but only does one wound. The grudgethrower fails to appreciate the gravity of the situation and spends the turn carefully polishing their machine. The organ gun does its best to come to the rescue and blasts four wounds from the monster. Will starts to lift the thing off the table, but I grit my teeth and wracked with actual physical pain, remind him that it has 6 wounds, not 5... Problems...

On the plus side, the slayers only lose two of their number and then chop the thing to little bits and turn to face the actual fight.

Turn 2

In goes the hellpit! Take that hammerers! Everyone else just sits back and relaxes, except the gutter runners who run back over the hill to hide.

Magic phase then. The bell plays something soft and sweet and irrelevant giving re-rolls to leadership tests while the BSB stands right next to it. Winds of magic sets up a 6 dice vs. 4 situation. Wonder where those 6 dice are going? Dreaded 13th goes off, but not irresistably, and a single manly tear rolls down my cheek as I mourn my 2 unused scrolls. Four dice don't get the miracle double 6s, and my general's unit loses 18 Longbeards. That leaves the BSB, Lord, and Longbeard champion who tells a great story about how this one time, 200 years ago, he had been hit by this same spell and it was way, way worse. Somehow, this is comforting, and so I don't have to roll panic.

The WLC tries to shoot my lord out of the unit but somehow misses.

In other good news, the Hell Pit kills a paltry 14 hammerers (including the champ) and wounds the thane (thanks Avalanche of Flesh!), but is conked on the head and passes out. At least that's over.

As it rolls around to my turn, I assess the situation. Could be better. Both elite units are gutted. I have some points back, but I'm going to need to get some more. I hatch a plan to charge past the bell unit into a supporting block with the Dwarf Lord and hammerers, but a somewhat expected flee leaves me potentially hanging out in the middle of nowhere. So, I do the logical thing and redirect into the bell. For good measure, I thrown in 25 warriors as well. Unfortunately, my lord can't make it to the party and has to watch this turn. On the left, my picket line closes up and pushes forward to protect the flanks of the main combat. The gyro is grounded by the storm banner, while the slayers and rangers try to get back in the game.

With nothing much to shoot at, and a storm banner going gang busters, I still manage to drop a grudgethrower rock on the WLC to wreck it and send a cannonball through a weapons team exposed by the fleeing clanrats. The organ gun swivels to show another ratling gun how the big boys do it. Which is by blowing themselves up, apparently. Dang.

A problem I'd forgotten about crops up in the hand to hand phase. Namely, the assassin. Fortunately he's more interested in small talk and sits down for a nice chat for the thane and hammerer who take a seat as well. While this is going on, the dwarf warriors do great- taking minimal damage and putting a wound on the BSB and the gray seer. I win, but the bell unit doesn't really care...

Turn 3

The fleeing skaven fail to rally (yay!) and run out of range of the general (double yay!). On the left, the unengaged block of 25 skaven and gutter runners are in a stand-off with the warrior block. The magic phase pours a little salt in my wounds with the bell damaging the war machines. I have to throw everything to stop wither, which lets death frenzy through, and a crack's call drop 3 hammerers (but come just short of my BSB).

Hand to hand goes as well as I can hope- I score a second wound on the grey seer, drop the BSB and, though the rest of the hammerers die, the thane and assassin continue their pleasant chat.

On my turn, the lord charges in to try to save the day by helping to kill the seer. As he does so, the assassin chugs his potion of strength, and the seer scarfs down some skalm. My warriors on the left set up to threaten both remaining skaven support blocks. The cannon clips a few clanrats out of the same block, and the grudgethrower takes another turn to tidy up around their machine.

In the crucial combat an assassin challenge has to be accepted by the warrior champ, since I can't afford to fight a death frenzied, strength 7, armor piercing, D3 wound crazy rat. He gets 5 points of combat res right off the bat, and with a couple extra wounds on the warriors has me about 8 points in the hole before I swing. To generate as much combat res as possible I have to swing at rank and file, bringing it back to a 3 point loss. Crucially, everyone passes on a re-rollable 7, and the warriors even get another wound on the grey seer.

Turn 4

When the fleeing block fails to rally and runs off the board with the doom rocket engineer, I'm seeing the light of a possible comeback if I can get a little more luck. The slayers and gyro will be close enough to dive in next turn, and I feel alright about hanging around and starting to chop things up now that my lord made it in. The support stand off is broken by a dual charge on the left, which also coincided with the sun dipping over the horizon, so I managed to get one more pic, of this main combat:

Should be through these guys in no time!

Magic phase go! All the dice go at a crack's call on my general, who falls down a pit and dies. Yeesh. I dispense with the single manly tear act, and go into full on blubbering sob mode.

The death frenzied skaven underperform and I somehow manage to draw the combat, putting a second (fourth if you count Skalm) wound on the grey seer, kill the assassin with my thane, and draw the combat. On the left, the warriors do great, but still have to pass a re-rollable 7, which they make.

Final turns

The gyro and slayers rush into the rescue on the flank.
The rest of the war machines are wrecked by a ringing bell.
Heavy armor and shield are the coolest thing ever, keeping both warrior blocks not only alive, but kicking hard enough to kill the grey seer (!), and the remaining engineer, but also run off the last 25 man block and gutter runners. If I'd played it better, I would have reformed to charge the main fight or gutter runners who were worth more, and more likely to rally.
The challenge thane bit the dust in the very last turn, surrendering 99 points in what looked like any one's game, especially once we realized that without killing the bell, I was getting zero points for the grey seer.
The game came to a close with my wounded BSB and longbeard champion yelling encouragement to the big combat, where the bell was down to 4 wounds, and 60 skaven were down to 30.

And that was it!

When the dust settled, I'd lost a lot, but it didn't turn out to be quite as bad as it looked at first. The longbeard champ was alive, preserving all those points, both blocks of warriors were still kicking, and the BSB, slayers, rangers, and gyro were still around. Conversely, the skaven had just the gutter runners, the big skaven unit and the bell left.

In the final run of things, I was very happy to stagger away with a 1485-1254 win.

Final thoughts and battle summary to follow a little later- now it's time to cook some dinner!