Hi all, and welcome back to another installment of Relentless!

Today, the matchup was with Mike’s Wood Elves. He hasn’t been using the army long, but is gearing up for the Lonewolf coming up next month, so was looking to get some more 2250 in.

He’d brought his list which looked a little like this:

Lord w/Alter kindred, Bow of Loren, Arcane Bodkins, Amber pendant, GW, light armor
Lvl 1 Spellsinger, 2 scrolls
Lvl 1 Spellsinger, scroll, luminescents
Branchwraith, Lvl 1, Despairs and Radiants
12 gladeguard, musician
10 gladeguard, musician
5 glade riders, musician
3x8 dryads
7 scouts
Some Wardancers with musician and champ
9 waywatchers
Treeman

I believe his magic came up all tree-singings.

I had my usual list, as the lord on shieldbearers still isn’t complete.

Lord w/GW, MR of Gromril, Rune of Resistance, Rune of Preservaton, MR of Challenge
Thane w/BSB, Strollaz Rune, Rune of Guarding
Runesmith w/shield, GW, rune of stone, spellbreaker
Dragonslayer w/Rune of Striking, Rune of Fire
25 Warriors, shields, full command
25 Warriors, shields, full command
19 Longbeards, shields, full command, Rune of Courage
10 Rangers, GWs, veteran, musician
6 Miners
11 Slayers
19 Hammerers, shields, full command
Bolt thrower, engineer, rune of burning
Bolt thrower, engineer, rune of penetrating
Gyrocopter

So at first glance, I probably wasn’t going to get a whole lot of chances at combat until he was ready. The only things that would help me force the issue would be the MR of Challenge and gyro, with extremely limited help from miners. Strollaz might help bracket in a unit of glade guard or dryads that weren't paying attention. There wasn't so much shooting that I was overly worried. Early on, most of it would be strength 3, after all. In my favor, the only points I had vulnerable to shooting were the slayers, rangers, miners, and war machines some of which I hoped to mitigate with deployment.

You can see the board in the first shot below. As it happened we had a lot of woods on the table, as that was what happened to be there when we arrived.

I deployed the bulk of my blocks in the only spot open enough to fit them in, and poised to move across the field and up and over the hill. Strollaz should get me off my starting line fast enough to avoid getting bogged down by any tree-singing, and once on the hill, I’d be free from any trees. Breaking up my line that way.

So from right to left (or bottom to top in the picture) I had warriors, warriors, longbeards w/BSB, hammerers w/lord. The dragonslayer went in the wood to prevent waywatchers from setting up in there, with the intention of Strollaz-ing back in to the slayer block after deployment. Slayers were on the other side, with the plan to go hide behind woods once the advance was on. Rangers went even farther left to sandwich his waywatchers and give me a shot at picking up their points. My bolt throwers dropped behind my line, since the only thing they’d have an impact on was the treeman, which was a large target anyways. Then anyone who wanted their points would have to go through or around the blocks.

Note: It was interesting here, because I’d always thought you could drop scouts in your own deployment zone unrestricted. In fact, you may place them in full view of the enemy, but it seems you still have to be more than 10” away from the enemy. So the waywatchers disrupted my rangers even in my own deployment zone.

He had (from my right to left):

Gladeguard and spellsingers
Dryads with branchwraith
Glade riders
Alter highborn and treeman in the woods
Spellsinger in glade guard and two more clouds of dryads, with war dancers placed centrally
Waywatchers were partially in a wood and 1" off the flank of my slayers
Scouts were further left outside my rangers

And now, a quick deployment pic:

My plan was to use the slayers, rangers and gyro to drop the waywatchers, the return the gyro to the main line to try to stick the war dancers, a unit of gladeguard, or the gladeriders until a block could pick them up. The alter highborn was going to be vulnerable to the MR of Challenge with his enormous move and 360 vision, so I was going to try to peg him with it and hopefully pick up enough VPs for a minor victory even if everything else avoided me.

Report to follow hopefully later today!