And we're back... So, you may ask, what's the delay been? Well... bought a house, tried out for a nationals level frisbee team, got cut from said team, and did a little painting on the side. It's been a month, you say? I must have a ton painted? Errrm, not so much. I did some clean-up on existing models, and finished basing and putting together movement trays. I also converted a [warhammertag13]BSB[/warhammertag13] and am well on my way with a [warhammertag53]Gyro[/warhammertag53] conversion, but neither are yet painted.

I did, however, finish up 12 slayers, which you can view here.

So, the game was supposed to be against a fellow I'd never played before at 1650 points, but he hadn't been able to make it home for his miniatures. So right before I headed home, Chris, who has kicked the snot out of me twice with his [warhammertag128]VC[/warhammertag128] agreed to drop his list to 1600 to get a game in. A few modifications to my list and we were ready to go.

My list:

Thane, GW, MR of Gromril, Rune of Resistance, Rune of Preservation
Runesmith, GW, Shield, Rune of Stone, Rune of Spell Breaking
Dragonslayer
25 Warriors, Shields, FC
20 Warriors, Shields, FC
10 Rangers, GW, Musician, Veteran
11 Thunderers, Shields
15 Longbeards, Shields, FC, Rune of Battle, Rune of Stoicism
Bolt thrower, Valiant Rune, Rune of Penetrating, Engineer w/handgun
12 Slayers
6 Miners

His list (I may not have all the details correct here):
Vampire (general), Hellsteed, Dread Knight, Wristbands of Black Gold, Infinite Hatred
Vampire (BSB), Walach's Bloody Hauberk, Infinite Hatred, Summon Ghouls
Vampire w/Black Periapt, Biting Blade, Infinite Hatred and ????
24 Ghouls with Ghast
24 Ghouls with Ghast
5 Fell bats
5 Fell bats
6 Blood Knights w/standard bearer carrying Royal Standard of Strigos

Similar to what I've seen before- this time no corpse cart, but much larger starting sizes on the ghouls. With terrain set up, Chris placed the available hills in the field of battle to prevent a shooting base for the Dwarfs. I slung some woods and a swamp around to make things a little interesting. I considered grabbing one of the hills and getting it into a deployment zone, but decided I'd see what happened if I was stuck shooting at ground level.

With that, and nowhere to scout the rangers, I was deployed, from left to right as rangers, slayers (in classy 2x6 death torpedo formation), thunderers, bolt thrower, dragonslayer, longbeards (w/runesmith), 25 warriors, and 20 warriors (w/thane). The [warhammertag128]VC[/warhammertag128] had bats in front of everything, with blood knights, flying general, BSB ghoul block, and other ghoul block arrayed in front of me.

Having trouble picturing this? Never fear- I've actually taken pictures this time. Which means I can no longer fuzz over my egregious tactical errors as I have in the past. Or can I? You will notice my photography occurred at intervals that can charitably be described as "random". For instance- this picture of deployment is actually at the end of [warhammertag128]VC[/warhammertag128] turn 1. Isn't it great? Efficiency! More on [warhammertag128]VC[/warhammertag128] turn one in a moment.

Note, you can't tell, as Chris' battle standard bearer doesn't actually bear a standard, but it's in the block not on the edge.

My plan was to lure away the blood knights for as long as possible, beat the ghoul blocks with mine (I was lined up 3 blocks to 2, and intentionally on the right table edge to allow my miners to come in and add some kills, flanks or rear, and remove ranks). I wasn't sure how I'd deal with his general, but more on that later. For magic defense, I hoped to remain disciplined, saving the spell breaker for a truly unacceptable spell.

And speaking of spells, his general had Vanhel's Danse, the [warhammertag13]BSB[/warhammertag13] had Gaze of Nagash, and the remaining vampire reverted to Raise Dead.

Turn One

As is tradition, I ended up going second- that's 7 games in a row, and that's actually how I like it. The bats (or skeletal angels as you might notice from the pictures) spread forward, screening his general and the blood knights, and the ghouls steamed forward. Magic turned out to be ineffective, with a failed cast on Vanhel's and a dispelled Gaze on the longbeards.

In my part of the turn, the blocks rolled forward, excited for a some fights they might win, and sure the rangers and slayers would be just fine against the blood knights. The rangers opened their carefully sealed orders. "You are hereby directed to engage the flank of the enemy cavalry while the slayers delay in the front them in the front. That is all." One of the rangers piped up, "Sure would be nice to have a battle where we weren't just fleeing or getting sacrificed. I'm just saying... And general knows we're only Move 3, right? Not fast cav?"

The dragonslayer positioned himself carefully in front of the bolt thrower, trying to stop up any charge attempts.

Ah. On to the shooting phase. For this, I refer you to the picture above. Look carefully. Now imagine the dwarf blocks have done their little movement bit. Now look at the undead again. Got a good picture? Now imagine this- after the shooting phase, the situation looked exactly the same. Yes, shooting failed to produce a single wound. Ooops.

Turn Two

It was off to the races. One unit of bats each went into the thunderers and the bolt thrower. Not wanting to change things for the sake of changing, the stand and shoot reactions failed to inflict any wounds, though the handgunners passed their fear check. The bolt thrower took full advantage of the Valiant Rune and yawned their apathy. Additional benefits came from the presence of the dragonslayer, who forced the bats into a 2 wide formation, which kept the number of incoming attacks down.

Blood Knights and ghouls all advanced, and here came the first critical point of the game. The vampire general plunged forward too far, expecting to get a vanhel's danse off. And in the magic phase, that spell failed to cast, leaving the vampire in charge range of the dragonslayer. Sweetness.

Joy was short-lived however. Apparently the bats knew Kung Fu. The bolt thrower lost one crewman for no wounds in return. The thunderers lost an unexpected three, and only inflicted a single wound back. Losing by one, they rolled a nine, and fled off the board, presumably to find the ammunition they had forgotten. Chris urged me to show you all a picture of the result of this epic conflict. To make me feel better, please also note the position of the hellsteed general.

"Hey, where'd all those thunderers go?"

Bottom of Turn Two

Screaming his disdain for the undead and for pants, the dragonslayer hurled himself into the enemy general. Sweet! The slayer torpedo presented itself in front of the Blood Knights, while the rangers positioned where I thought I'd get a flank charge in, with the ability to flee if the knights could manage a charge on them instead (I didn't think they could). I steamed ahead with the warriors, but turned the longbeards. I figured they could bail out the bolt thrower, and if the slayer didn't manage to take down the vampire (probably the case) I'd need the extra help.

No miners yet.

In combat, the bats continued to demonstrate why they had earned black belts in three different martial arts, killing two crewman with 4 attacks, and taking one wound back. Oh, that's not the interesting combat? Well the dragonslayer unfortunately missed with two attacks, ensuring the [warhammertag128]VC[/warhammertag128] general's survival, but managed to take none in return! Huzzah! Doing the math, it looked like I'd have a shot at getting the longbeards over into combat before the [warhammertag128]VC[/warhammertag128] general managed to skeedaddle. If only that rude, rude vampire wasn't US 2, he'd be crumbled already...

Here's a shot of the situation. I believe my vision was blurred with tears over the tragic loss of my thunderers, hence the fuzzy nature of things.

Turn three

The ghouls on the extreme right charged the 20 warriors with thane. Fear is passed. It would have been failed if they only knew what was coming... On the right, the Blood Knights smashed into the slayers, asking the naked dwarfs if they realized that even with just three knights in contact, there were still going to be enough attacks to possibly kill the whole unit. Sure, why wouldn't each model get ~~five~~ [edit: three] [warhammertag141]WS[/warhammertag141] 5 Str 7 attacks with re-rolls to hit, and another 2 str 4 from the steed?

Magic was all centered around trying to save the general. Chris tried to suck dispel dice by casting an Invocation on the general from his furthest vampire. I sussed this out as being firmly out of range. Unfortunately the very next spell added the wound, and I failed the dispel even using two dice. Next, the returned bats were sent into the same combat. I considered trying to stop this, but decided I might actually throw attacks back at the bats to get some extra crumble rez, so I let it through.

Combat phase... could have been better. As expected, the three blood knights killed all but two slayers, who complained loudly about how ridiculous this was. The charging bats failed to have any affect on the dragonslayer, proving there is a limit to how much Tae Kwon Do you can really know as a supernaturally animated animal corpse. The general only managed a single wound, success! Another round survived! Until we remembered the horse attack, who promptly kicked the dragonslayer to death. Damn.

Regaining form, the other bats finished off the last crewman with a fancy schmancy round-house kick, trying not to notice the regiment of longbeards 1" from their flank. On the far right, I lost two dwarf warriors to combat, and made my critical mistake. My dwarfs managed to kill one ghoul, which left me down by one. This is math that would have been wise to do during the game. Without pausing to consider how close this combat was, I decided to throw my thane's attacks at the vampire. I was quite proud of my positioning and eager to kill this guy before I was stuck in killing an endless supply of resurrected Crypt Ghasts as I had in our first game. Unfortunately attack rolls of 1, 2, and 3 meant misses, a one point loss to outnumbering ghouls, fleeing, getting caught, and giving up over 500 points in VPs (unit, thane w/general points, and standard). Had I thrown at the ghouls, I would have likely tied the combat, winning with the musician and waiting for miners to arrive to negate ranks. Or even better, I could have fled this charge, which was at max range in the first place, until I had a little help. Badness.

Here's the not so good looking situation:

Bottom of Three

Deciding not to repeat their performance in our last game, my longbeards passed fear and charged the bats who had just finished the bolt thrower crew. The rangers charged the flank of the blood knights, and my 25 warriors charged his [warhammertag13]BSB[/warhammertag13] unit's flank. The miners arrived and got ready to set up for a rear charge on the [warhammertag13]BSB[/warhammertag13] unit.

The longbeards, thinking it was taco night at the retirement home didn't even notice the bats in their rush to get there in time. An excellent 8" overrun from The All Worlds Edge Mountains Dwarven Track and Field Team of 2378 put me right in the flank of his general.

In the blood knight fight, the rangers failed to inflict the single wound they needed to win the combat, which would have left them in the flank, with a rank, fighting four [warhammertag27]DE[/warhammertag27]-frenzied blood knights one at a time. At the least, I'd probably not have to worry about the BKs for the rest of the game. Instead failure meant they needed insane courage to stay... which they actually got. So not all bad news over there.

My warriors started caving in the BSBs unit, getting a nice head start on the numbers game there.

Turns 4-6

The longbeards threw their Greatbeard on top of the vampire general and then beat him to death with Depends adult diapers and prunes. Crumble started taking down bats and the [warhammertag13]BSB[/warhammertag13] unit.

Dead [warhammertag128]VC[/warhammertag128] General!

The rangers fled their combat, which is what they're good at anyways, taking the Blood Knights out of the rest of the game. My miners came in and had to dispatch some bats that managed to block them from the rear of the [warhammertag13]BSB[/warhammertag13] combat shortly before crumbling. The 25 warriors unfettered by inept thanes and the like slowly caved in the ghouls, but due to silly [warhammertag128]VC[/warhammertag128] rules couldn't capture the [warhammertag13]BSB[/warhammertag13] as he neither fled from combat (obviously) nor died while fighting on his own. This was made possible by a great magic phase. 5 dice went into raising ghouls on 3+. There was a successful 5, two 6s, and a 7. I dropped both 6s with two dice each, and the 5 with one dice, leaving one successful cast, which only netted two ghouls. Very happy with that...

There was also one zombie raise in an effort to contest the quarter, but instead gave me 50 points when the warriors were able to charge them.

In the end things looked a little somethin' like this:

Rolling up VPs, we came to...

Dwarfs: 1065
Vampire Counts: 1226

A draw. Which I took happily given how bad things were looking. Things were quite fun- a couple big mistakes on both sides, and a few dice rolls that could have really changed things. I didn't fail a single fear test all game, got a good overrun with the longbeards, and had sustained good performance from my 25 warrior block, which really helped alleviate some poor performances in other combats.

Grades:

Thane: D. My fault, but still- all that armor doesn't do any good if you're run down. Only combat phase was three whiffs.
Runesmith: A Did a great job managing the magic phase. Helped ensure the bats were smeared using his [warhammertag52]GW[/warhammertag52].
Dragonslayer: A Jammed the bats into a position to allow the longbeards to come to the rescue, then almost killed the enemy general single handedly thanks to a bad movement error. Failing that, he pinned the vampire in place long enough to get some posthumous help.
25 Warriors: A Outstanding performance.
20 Warriors: D Really possibly too small. I feel like standard warriors probably ought to be 25 strong so one casualty doesn't drop their rank bonus. 25 strong also would have kept them in the game with a Break test on 8 instead of snake eyes.
Longbeards: A [warhammertag141]WS[/warhammertag141] 5, S 4 comes in handy when you really need those extra wounds to blow through a weak unit in one turn. Extra combat rez banner doesn't hurt either.
Rangers: C+ Could have been great, instead just did what they had to.
Thunderers: F 165 free points to the enemy.
Bolt thrower: C I should really stop playing with it like this. The Valiant rune isn't something I have in my 2250 potential list, and I'm sure I'm getting bad habits as a result.
Slayers: Errm, C? Did what they needed which apparently was feed the Blood Knights enough points to keep them from rolling up my entire army.

Overall- Need to keep combat resolution in mind a little better. I really need a [warhammertag53]Gyro[/warhammertag53] or more shooting or both. Right now I'm trying all kinds of tricky stuff that most of the time isn't really working. I think even an average first turn shooting phase really wouldn't have changed much of anything, as the bats were going to be hard to remove anyhow.

Anyways, thanks for reading- and hope you enjoyed the pictures this time out.