I posted for some advice on warband army composition earlier here: http://www.bugmansbrewery.com/index.php?showtopic=26032

We are using the warbands rules located here if anyone is curious about minimum unit sizes and the fact I don't have a thane: http://www.warfan.net/Warbands.pdf
We are playing two opponents every two weeks and I've played my first 4 opponents now, as well as a 500 point sample match against another player in the league.

I decided to start out at 10 Warriors, Shields, Full Command; 5 Thunderers, Shields; 5 Quarrellers, Shields.

First opponent a week or so ago was VC. Very simple match(his 2nd game ever, my 1st game ever), the VC player wanted to use his old fantasy RPG minis and all he had was one vampire, skeletons, zombies. I was expecting to have to fend off all sorts of bats and wolves and skirmishers. We rolled for the deployment map and we ended up with the split deployment map. We rolled for player A and B and he won and force me into the split deployment zone. We rolled for our secret objectives and we each got invade.

In deployment, he placed first: a small unit of zombies, 6 or 7 or so. I placed my warrior block in the split deployment zone across from them. He then placed a unit of skeletons right behind the zombies, with his vampire attached. I placed my last two units in the other zone as I was forced to by the split deployment. I decided to just forget the invade objective as it would take 3 or 4 turns of solid marching and I would have to dedicate two units to it.

This was a pretty simple game so I won't go into too much detail: essentially he moved forward with his two units each turn towards my warriors, trying to make his secret objective of invade. My warriors didn't move at all in in fact did nothing the whole game. My ten ranged guys just peppered his units from the other side, and at the end of turn 6 the only model of his left on the table was the vampire. I blocked every summon spell except through judicious use of dispell dice. He had put too many points on his vampire so even though I killed both his units I only got enough VP for a victory and not a massacre.

From this match I learned that the invade objective is worthless and should be ignored.

Round 2 was vs Wood Elves and a vet player. He has around 350 points and I have 250 still since I decide (like an idiot) to save for an organ gun. We had the simple deployment zones (12" deep bar on each side of the table). Terrain was a hill or forest in the middle of each quarter and a forest in the exact middle of the board. His army was a hero on foot with a bow and the awful arrow of doom, 5 glade guard, 4 dryads, 5 wardancers. For secret objectives, he got the kill half the army objective and I got the table quarter objective.

I essentially lost here in deployment: I forget the very good advice give to me in my barracks thread. I placed the thunderers in the wall obstacle on one quarter, the quarrellers on the hill in the other quarter, and the warriors between them at the 12" deployment limit. Clearly, these units were spread too far to support each other and it would come back to bite me later. For table quarter objectives, I should just deploy in the middle of the zone and forget the tempting hills and walls. WE deployed the hero and glade guard across from the thunderers, and the dryads and wardancers across from the quarrellers.

WE goes first, the hero moves up and peppers my thunderers with the arrow of doom for around what seemed like 50 hits but was probably less. The glade guard shoots at them too. After tons of armor saves three thunderers are dead and so are my hopes for holding that table quarter. WE hero tries shooting single arrows at the thunderers the rest of the game and doesn't score another hit so I won't mention him again. Dryads and wardancers move towards the central woods. For shooting, the thunderers and quarrellers shoot at the units across from them but score no hits. In fact, because of various penalties for cover, range, skirmishers, etc, none of my shooty units and none of his shooty units hit anything the rest of the game. My warriors stay put.

Turn two, he moves closer to the central woods with his two CC units and I hold still. Various ranged volleys miss on all sides. Turn three he charges with both units towards my warriors. The dryads are in range and the wardancers fail their charge based on range and merely move forward. I lose my fear check against the dryads but I outnumber them so I hold but only hit on 6s. The dryads totally miss everything and so do I, but I win CC on outnumber and standard. The dryads fail their leadership check and flee! I pursue into the woods but not fast enough to catch the dryads. My turn, and I charge the wardancers as the dryads are actually further away. Charge fails by half an inch!

Turn 4, the dryads rally and the wardancers charge. Ranged attackers miss all around. A few dwarfs die, no wardancers die. The wardancers are using their +1 attack dance to great effect. My portion of the turn is where I lose. I decide to shoot with quarrellers at the glade guard insted of marching up to support the warriors. The next turn the dryads charge and I start moving Quarrellers up for the flank but they just aren't quick enough. The warriors slowly die over the various close combat phases. I win each combat from standard and even the musician once, but the wardancers and dryads hold long enough to completely kill the warriors by turn 6. For VP, I've only got half points on his wardancers, while he certainly completed his annihilate objective, got full VP on the warriors and half on the thunderers. Since his points value is much higher than mine, he only got enough VP for a victory, missing a massacre by 5 or so VP. In the recovery phase is where the real pain happens: he recovers the 4 units I killed and I have to buy back the 3 thunderers 4 warriors, and the standard, wiping out almost all my xp.

From this match I learned not to deploy units out of support range of my other units, not to sit at long range and plink away at skirmishers in cover, and not to depend too greatly on armor saves: out of twelve 3+ and 4+(dryads have high str) armor saves I only made two.

A break of a few days happened so I added a unit of three slayers to my roster. I also learned to put the points on the table or the opponent will cause more than enough casualties to make up for it! After watching the wardancers and dryads carve up my warriors with multiple attacks, I figure that the two axes on the slayers will come in handy.

Next opponent was today: Dark Elves. A vet player but with rough the same point value as myself. Terrain was similar to the last match: a hill or wall obstacle in the middle of each quarter. This time there is a LOS-blocking hill in the exact middle of the map instead of a forest. Plenty of room on top for units. His roster is around 7 or so spearmen(spear elfs?), a level 2 caster, and a unit of 5 repeating crossbows. We roll secret objectives, we both got hold quarters. This time I deploy everything in the center in a line, and he deploys everything to my left in a line, out of line of sight of each other through the hill.

He moves up towards the hill and starts casting. He is using his spell to increas power dice so I use two dispel to dice to block it successfully. This turns out to be a mistake because the rest of his power dice are used to drop an area effect spell on my warrior block and I am unable to stop it with the rest of my dispel dice. A few warriors die. In my turn, I move towards the hill in a group. The slayers take a chance and start running for the opposite corner unsupported, as they are out of range of all his units.

Turn two, he crests the hill and starts casting again. This turn ( and the rest of the turns) I save my dispel dice for the actual spells and not the power dice increase spell. He has 5 dice this turn and uses 2 for a magic missle which I let through(pretty obvious fake) and use armor saves to block. Then he does his AOE spell and I dump dispel dice to stop. Shooting is pretty uneventful as there are too many penalties. My turn, slayers keep on trucking for that opposite table quarter and my warriors move up. Shooting on my part takes out a repeater crossbow elf.

Turn three, he consolidates on the hill. Magic: he increases power dice and casts a magic missle with 2 dice.... at the unarmored slayers! luckily he fails the cast. I block his AOE spell with the rest of my power dice. My turn, I shift warriors to the left to edge more to the side of the repeating crossbow elfs as I don't want to get counter flank charged by the spear elfs. My shooting misses.

Turn 4: pretty much the same. The slayer aimed magic missile misses, they keep heading for that quarter. I block the AOE spell. Their crossbows kill a warrior, Mine kills a crossbow. Warriors move up, his spears start heading off the hill for the charge. Turn 5: disaster: irresistable force on the aoe. He plops it right on my ranged line. He manages to kill three thunderers and one quarreller. I march and wheel my warriors for a charge next turn. Turn 6: no casualties on his side from shooting or magic. I manage to shoot another crossbow elf or two, leaving him with 1. I'm out of charge range of the crossbow elfs and charge the spears. In the close combat, no wounds happen and no one flees.

End of the game tally: I made my quarter objective (only need a min unit size unit to hold a quarter). He gets half points for the thunderers, I get halfs for the repeaters. My VP from the objective is not enough to push to a victory, being just a bare few short. I get 50 points for a draw and have to spend 30 to buy back two thunderers. This leaves me twenty, so I buy another slayer.

From this round I learned not to dither around if I want to get to close combat or i'll never get there in time. March march march.

Opponent 4: different wood elf player. I have more points than him, but only 20 or 30 or so. His list is much softer than the last WE player. Hero on a horse, 6 glade guard in two units of 3, 4 dryads. Same map as last round since I played them back to back, almost the same deployment on my side. I finally rolled the kill half their units objective. I can't remember his as he didn't make it. He deploys similar to the dark elf player from the last round

I get first move and march march march towards the hill. This time the slayers are hungering for action and are guarding one flank, the warriors are on the other flank, and the shooters are in the middle. He moves towards the hill as well. His hero moves forward on his horse and unleashes his arrow of doom. I helpfully point out that one use items like that have to repurchased each round, but I let him do it anyways because I am pretty sure he is going to get flattened. He kills 2 warriors. His glade guard moves just around the hill enough to kill a warrior. I pass my panic check.

Turn two. My warriors make a slight left and start marching towards the hero. The shooters and slayers continue to march towards the hill, making it halfway up the slope. His dryads move towards the hill, his hero charges my warriors. No wounds either side, and he makes his break test as I win combat through outnumber and standard.

Turn three. The shooters get to the top of the hill, the slayers are still huffing and puffing as they were a bit further back. My warriors inflict a wound on the hero, take no casualties, and the hero holds. His turn: The dryads are unimpeded by the difficult hill terrain and charge the thunderers. I fail my fear roll but I outnumber so my first round is 6s to hit. I stand and shoot and kill a dryad! Luckily for him the unit is immune to psychology and doesn't have to make a panic check. In close combat he kills a thunderer and I cause no wounds. It's a tie since I have outnumber. In the hero vs warriors fight, the warriors take no wounds and inflict one back to the hero, killing him! One of the units of glade guard shoots at the quarrellers and kills one.

Turn 4. My warriors march towards one of the units of glade guard. The slayers charge the dryad flank and fail! Difficult terrian make it hard to judge sometimes. My quarrellers shoot and kill another glade guard off in the distance. He makes his panic check. The dryads kill another thunderer and I cause no wounds back. I make my break test. His turn: his glade guard units move back and shoot at the warriors, missing. The dryads vs thunderers is another stalemate.

Turn 5. The slayers charge the dryads and the warriors charge a unit of glade guard. The slayers choose to use 2 axes and I have three models in base contact with the 1 dryad in the flank. I kill it. The warriors annihilate the three glade guards in front of them and overrun towards the last lonly glade guard near the table edge! The two dryads left miss and the thunderers inflict a wound back. The last dryad passes his break check at -3 from losing combat. His turn. Glade guard shoots and misses, dryad flails about and misses.

Turn 6. I charge the last glade guard with my warriors, killing him. The last dryad is cut down by the slayers. Total wipeout for the wood elves. Since I get my objective, added to the unit VP, I get a massacre, even subtracting out half VP for the thunderers. I recover all my models and he loses two dryads and two glade guards, forcing him to spend a lot of xp to get them back. His hero acquires another ancient wound, making four or so that this hero has now.

So this is where I am now. I have 110 experience to spend. My final roster is 10 warriors, full command, shields; 5 quarrellers, shields; 5 thunderers, shields, 4 slayers; for a total of 294 points.

Since I had time, I played a practive 500 point warband match against a different dark elf player in the league. My roster was
10 warriors, full command, shields; 5 quarrellers, shields; 5 thunderers, shields, 4 trollslayers and 1 giant slayer in a unit, 1 dragon slayer, and the dreaded organ gun. His roster was a repeating bolt thrower, a unit of ten repeater crossbows, 5 ranged guys on mounts whom I can't remember the name of, his hero on a cold one, and 4 more cold one knights.

Same map, same deployment. We both rolled invade for our hidden objectives and since this wasn't a official campaign match, i decided to go for it. He placed his repeater bolt thrower first, behind the obstacle wall in one quarter. I placed my units directly opposite the LOS blocking hill. He placed his units near his bolt thrower.

Turn 1. He goes first, his missile cavalry go round the hill on my right flank toward the slayers. His cold ones move around the front of the hill towards the warrior block. I do nothing my turn

Turn 2. He moves his cold one knights up further and his missile cav up further. His missile cav shoots at the thunderers, but I survive due to armor saves. My turn, my thunderers move back an inch and a half to let the organ have LOS to the missile cav. The slayers wheel and march towards the missile cav. In the shooting phase, the organ pivots and blows away all 5 missile cav in one salvo! That was one heck of a first shot ever with the organ gun, I think I might have a new favorite.

Turn 3. The cold ones flub a stupidity roll and dont march far. I foolishly forgot to check LOS and the slayers when they moved to the flank and the moved past the boundary of the hill! Now the repeater bolt thrower has the prettiest flank shot right down the line of slayers. Luckily he misses but the slayers are caught out in a bad way having moved 6" into the open. My turn. The organ pivots, fires, and I roll a 4 for hits. I decide to go for it and re roll it for a ten. After wounds and armor, all 4 cold one knights are blown away, leaving the hero all lonesome! My other shooting units have no LOS to the hero and can't finish him off.

Turn 4. The hero charges my warriors and challenges my unit champ. I cowardly decline. The dwarfs take a casualty from the charge. They inflict a wound back, and with standard and outnumber win the combat. The hero fails his break test and runs. I pursue but don't make it to him, against falling an inch short on a pursue. On my turn I start marching my units towards the deployment zone to try and make the invade objective, something I wouldn't do in a real campaign game as they all end up exposed to the bolt thrower and crossbows. My warriors charge the hero, catch him, and over run towards the deployment zone. As a side note, can you over run after charging a fleeing enemy? We did a quick rule check but couldn't find anything. It just seems odd that dwarfs can only march 6" a turn, but from this combo (pursue at top of the turn, charge in bottom of turn, then over run) they can move a heck of a long way.

Turns 5 and 6 were pretty boring. I march to the deployment, taking ranged casualties left and right. I never make it to the deployment zone, falling an inch short on most of my units. I still get a massacre after totalling VP, as his two mounted units composed over 380 of his 400 points and he only got half points on the slayers and thunderers after all the ranged shooting in rounds 5 and 6.

So I feel pretty confident in my warband now after a few opponents. I am 2-1-1, with another massacre under my belt at my desired 500 point roster level.