So about three weeks ago I posted on the army lists page asking for advice for a tournament that I was playing with four friends. Well this weekend we had the tournament.
The rules were as follows:
1. 1,000pts a side with no changing between games;
2. No Special Characters;
3. Normal rules for common magic items but only one army-specific item each.
My army list was as follows:
*Rénard the Black (Vampire) - Dark Acolyte, Lord of the Dead, Book of Arkhan [Rénard was my general]
*François de Marquesse (Vampire) - Dread Knight, Infinite Hatred, Sword of Battle, Enchanted Shield
*20x Skeletons - Full Command with War Banner
*20x Zombies - Standard and Musician
*6x Dire Wolves
*5x Black Knights
*Bertrand the Bloody (Varghulf)
The other players were Lizardmen, Empire, High Elves and Tomb Kings.
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Game 1: Vampires vs Lizardmen.
I’ll be honest, this was the game that I was most concerned about and I was proved right. My opponent (who endlessly complains that Lizardmen are rubbish – if you’re reading this, Lee, don’t even deny it!) fielded a pretty balanced list of a Scar Vet on cold one, a lvl2 shaman, 5 Cold one Saurus, about 18 Saurus with spears, 2 units of skink skirmishers (one 10 and one 13), 3 terradon riders and a salamander.
It all went downhill on turn 2 when I grossly underestimated skink poison and 26 blowpipe shots later the Varghulf was taken off the table. Added to this the terradons killed off 4 Black Knights with their drop rocks ability and it only got worse from there. I attempted to tarpit the Saurus with my zombies at one point and whoever is running round the tactics forum telling people to do that is a lizardman player in disguise because it was like feeding meat into the grinder! The only minor victory I had was François taking out a unit of cold ones by himself.
In the end it was a brutal massacre for the dinosaurs. Lessons learned: whoever tells you that you can tarpit saurus units is a lizardman player harbouring a secret vendetta against you...
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Game 2: Vampires vs Empire.
I wasn’t too nervous going into this game as I’d just watched the Tomb Kings do rather well against the forces of the Empire. Still, that cannon worried me and his army was unnervingly large... He took a mounted captain, a warrior priest, a mounted wizard (with wizard’s staff), 5 knights, 20 swordsmen, 20 spears, 20 handgunners and 2 units of 9 free company along with a great cannon.
In this game I relied primarily on Rénard raising zombies in front of the cannon and gunline while Bertrand and the Black Knights outflanked the good guys and rolled up the battleline. A combination of the imperial knights being on the other side of the field together with some luck on my part meant that the plan worked beautifully. The cannon bought it in turn 2 when it was charged by the zombies that Rénard had raised and these then went on to chew through the handgunners as well. For their part the imperial knights were a constant threat on my left flank but François was deployed with the wolves and managed to position himself so that they would have the flank charge on the knights if they charged my battleline which kept them out of the game till I charged them with François and his wolves in the final turn to see what they could do. As it happened they wiped me out (wtf?!?!?) but by that time it was too late and I had killed off everything else.
Result: Massacre to the Vampires! Lessons learned: Black Knights rock and a flank charge steam roller rocks even harder. Also, sometimes the threat of a charge can do more than a charge itself...
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Game 3: Vampires vs High Elves.
Now this was the game that I was most looking forward to! The High Elves brought a mounted lvl 2 with Ring of Fury, 2 bolt throwers, 20 sword masters and 20 archers plus a tiranoc chariot.
The plan for this game was to close as quickly as possible and avoid the sword masters as far as possible. On the whole the plan worked as expected. The Black Knights got caught by 10 swordmasters on my left flank but held them in place for a couple of turns that allowed Rénard and François to take the skeletons and wolves up into the High Elf centre where they ripped apart the bolt throwers and 10 archers. Meanwhile the other 10 swordmasters and chariot were having a game of cat & mouse with the Varghulf that eventually ended with my zombies charging the swordmasters and the Varghulf taking the chariot apart. The zombies were intended as a tar pit to buy time for the Varghulf but apparently they were impatient – The swordmasters failed their fear test, lost combat, auto-broke and fled into François’ wolves. In the end I sealed the game by Vanhels-charging François into the High Elf general and trampling the poor mage into the dust.
Result: A solid victory to the Vampires! Lessons learned: Zombies are awesome. I almost didn’t take them as well...
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Game 4: Vampires vs Tomb Kings. The No-one’s running Grudge Match.
The Tomb Kings brought a prince on chariot, a priest on a casket of souls, 3 chariots with the mirage standard, a tomb scorpion, 20 skeletons and 10 archers. I was probably most pleased with this game primarily because in an earlier warm up game we had used similar armies and he wiped me out in turn 3. Fortunately I’d learned from my mistakes and rather than tiptoe around the casket I bee-lined François and his wolves straight for it. It was guarded by 10 archers who managed to hold against the initial, perhaps over-impetuous, charge and held François in place so his wolves could be flank charged by 20 skeletons. Bad times. Still, the wolves held their ground (with a couple of IoN’s to help) and in the subsequent turn my award-winning zombies hit the flankers in the flank. Meanwhile, on the left flank, my Black Knights were poised to charge towards the casket (with hierophant on it) so the prince and his chariots fixed themselves in place to charge my Knights when they left the safety of their forest (to be honest, the Knights were doing so well holding his best unit in place that I didn’t bother to move them till about turn 5 when the chariots wheeled to get into what was clearly becoming the decisive combat on the right flank at which point the Black Knights flank charged them). The Varghulf eventually managed to get past the right flank combat and primed himself for a charge on the casket (which is why the chariots wheeled) but the prince’s attempt to cast urgency on the chariots to charge the Varghulf was dispelled and in my turn Bertrand the Bloody ripped the Hierophant apart with a satisfying crunch. By this point the right flank was mine and the scorpion had got lost while tunnelling (giving me the victory points as well as he rolled a 1 on the misfire chart!) so the game ended.
Result: Massacre to the Vampires! Lessons learned: Guard your dispel dice against Tomb Kings and never count on the enemy to break if they’re undead (unless you’re using saurus ;D)
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We scored it at 3pts for a win, 1pt for a draw and 0pts for a loss. The final scores them were:
1st - Lizardmen (9pts)
2nd - Vampires (9pts)
3rd - High Elves (9pts)
4th - Tomb Kings (3pts)
5th - Empire (0pts)
1st, 2nd and 3rd were assigned like that as the LM scored 3 massacres, I got 2 massacres and a solid victory and High Elves scored 3 solid victories so we used these like goal difference.
My final thought was that, with the advent of robotics, tanks, machine guns and rocket technology, it's a damning indictment against the Karl Franz administration that the Empire still has to worry about a bunch of cold-blooded lizard people who are still trying to decide whether or not to enter the iron age...
The rules were as follows:
1. 1,000pts a side with no changing between games;
2. No Special Characters;
3. Normal rules for common magic items but only one army-specific item each.
My army list was as follows:
*Rénard the Black (Vampire) - Dark Acolyte, Lord of the Dead, Book of Arkhan [Rénard was my general]
*François de Marquesse (Vampire) - Dread Knight, Infinite Hatred, Sword of Battle, Enchanted Shield
*20x Skeletons - Full Command with War Banner
*20x Zombies - Standard and Musician
*6x Dire Wolves
*5x Black Knights
*Bertrand the Bloody (Varghulf)
The other players were Lizardmen, Empire, High Elves and Tomb Kings.
*****************************************************
Game 1: Vampires vs Lizardmen.
I’ll be honest, this was the game that I was most concerned about and I was proved right. My opponent (who endlessly complains that Lizardmen are rubbish – if you’re reading this, Lee, don’t even deny it!) fielded a pretty balanced list of a Scar Vet on cold one, a lvl2 shaman, 5 Cold one Saurus, about 18 Saurus with spears, 2 units of skink skirmishers (one 10 and one 13), 3 terradon riders and a salamander.
It all went downhill on turn 2 when I grossly underestimated skink poison and 26 blowpipe shots later the Varghulf was taken off the table. Added to this the terradons killed off 4 Black Knights with their drop rocks ability and it only got worse from there. I attempted to tarpit the Saurus with my zombies at one point and whoever is running round the tactics forum telling people to do that is a lizardman player in disguise because it was like feeding meat into the grinder! The only minor victory I had was François taking out a unit of cold ones by himself.
In the end it was a brutal massacre for the dinosaurs. Lessons learned: whoever tells you that you can tarpit saurus units is a lizardman player harbouring a secret vendetta against you...
*****************************************************
Game 2: Vampires vs Empire.
I wasn’t too nervous going into this game as I’d just watched the Tomb Kings do rather well against the forces of the Empire. Still, that cannon worried me and his army was unnervingly large... He took a mounted captain, a warrior priest, a mounted wizard (with wizard’s staff), 5 knights, 20 swordsmen, 20 spears, 20 handgunners and 2 units of 9 free company along with a great cannon.
In this game I relied primarily on Rénard raising zombies in front of the cannon and gunline while Bertrand and the Black Knights outflanked the good guys and rolled up the battleline. A combination of the imperial knights being on the other side of the field together with some luck on my part meant that the plan worked beautifully. The cannon bought it in turn 2 when it was charged by the zombies that Rénard had raised and these then went on to chew through the handgunners as well. For their part the imperial knights were a constant threat on my left flank but François was deployed with the wolves and managed to position himself so that they would have the flank charge on the knights if they charged my battleline which kept them out of the game till I charged them with François and his wolves in the final turn to see what they could do. As it happened they wiped me out (wtf?!?!?) but by that time it was too late and I had killed off everything else.
Result: Massacre to the Vampires! Lessons learned: Black Knights rock and a flank charge steam roller rocks even harder. Also, sometimes the threat of a charge can do more than a charge itself...
*****************************************************
Game 3: Vampires vs High Elves.
Now this was the game that I was most looking forward to! The High Elves brought a mounted lvl 2 with Ring of Fury, 2 bolt throwers, 20 sword masters and 20 archers plus a tiranoc chariot.
The plan for this game was to close as quickly as possible and avoid the sword masters as far as possible. On the whole the plan worked as expected. The Black Knights got caught by 10 swordmasters on my left flank but held them in place for a couple of turns that allowed Rénard and François to take the skeletons and wolves up into the High Elf centre where they ripped apart the bolt throwers and 10 archers. Meanwhile the other 10 swordmasters and chariot were having a game of cat & mouse with the Varghulf that eventually ended with my zombies charging the swordmasters and the Varghulf taking the chariot apart. The zombies were intended as a tar pit to buy time for the Varghulf but apparently they were impatient – The swordmasters failed their fear test, lost combat, auto-broke and fled into François’ wolves. In the end I sealed the game by Vanhels-charging François into the High Elf general and trampling the poor mage into the dust.
Result: A solid victory to the Vampires! Lessons learned: Zombies are awesome. I almost didn’t take them as well...
*****************************************************
Game 4: Vampires vs Tomb Kings. The No-one’s running Grudge Match.
The Tomb Kings brought a prince on chariot, a priest on a casket of souls, 3 chariots with the mirage standard, a tomb scorpion, 20 skeletons and 10 archers. I was probably most pleased with this game primarily because in an earlier warm up game we had used similar armies and he wiped me out in turn 3. Fortunately I’d learned from my mistakes and rather than tiptoe around the casket I bee-lined François and his wolves straight for it. It was guarded by 10 archers who managed to hold against the initial, perhaps over-impetuous, charge and held François in place so his wolves could be flank charged by 20 skeletons. Bad times. Still, the wolves held their ground (with a couple of IoN’s to help) and in the subsequent turn my award-winning zombies hit the flankers in the flank. Meanwhile, on the left flank, my Black Knights were poised to charge towards the casket (with hierophant on it) so the prince and his chariots fixed themselves in place to charge my Knights when they left the safety of their forest (to be honest, the Knights were doing so well holding his best unit in place that I didn’t bother to move them till about turn 5 when the chariots wheeled to get into what was clearly becoming the decisive combat on the right flank at which point the Black Knights flank charged them). The Varghulf eventually managed to get past the right flank combat and primed himself for a charge on the casket (which is why the chariots wheeled) but the prince’s attempt to cast urgency on the chariots to charge the Varghulf was dispelled and in my turn Bertrand the Bloody ripped the Hierophant apart with a satisfying crunch. By this point the right flank was mine and the scorpion had got lost while tunnelling (giving me the victory points as well as he rolled a 1 on the misfire chart!) so the game ended.
Result: Massacre to the Vampires! Lessons learned: Guard your dispel dice against Tomb Kings and never count on the enemy to break if they’re undead (unless you’re using saurus ;D)
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We scored it at 3pts for a win, 1pt for a draw and 0pts for a loss. The final scores them were:
1st - Lizardmen (9pts)
2nd - Vampires (9pts)
3rd - High Elves (9pts)
4th - Tomb Kings (3pts)
5th - Empire (0pts)
1st, 2nd and 3rd were assigned like that as the LM scored 3 massacres, I got 2 massacres and a solid victory and High Elves scored 3 solid victories so we used these like goal difference.
My final thought was that, with the advent of robotics, tanks, machine guns and rocket technology, it's a damning indictment against the Karl Franz administration that the Empire still has to worry about a bunch of cold-blooded lizard people who are still trying to decide whether or not to enter the iron age...
I am beginning to work out how to use lizardmen decently (though shooty armies really knock me around). Also Dark Elves are a lot more effective again them that vamps.