WHFB - 6th Battle Report: The Debacle at Isca Fields (6000 points | Flank Attack/Capture | Vampire Counts & Army of Sylvania vs. Dogs of War & Bretonnians)

[Kaptain Von]

Frankly, if the thought of a six thousand point game doesn’t wake you up inside, I don’t know what will. It certainly kept me going for about eight hours, even though I hadn’t actually slept for two nights on the trot and was fast succumbing to a pestilence and, frankly, was only kept functional by a hideous cocktail of Relentless and cranberry juice as well as my traditional life-giving tea. Lee hadn’t had the best night either, with a horribly delayed drive down and two fire alarms going off in his hotel during the wee hours, but damn it all we’d been planning this for weeks and we weren’t going to let anything stop us now.

Doesn’t that make it all worthwhile?

Neither force was what you’d call “strictly legal”, although the conventions regarding numbers of Lords and Heroes, as well as Core, Special and Rare troops under them, were still obeyed. The goal was for myself and Lee to plonk our entire painted collections on the board and give the other attendees of the first Exeter Games Gathering something to gawp at in between doing each other over. If you have a 6’x4′ table for the whole day, you might as well make use of it!

We cobbled together a makeshift scenario by mashing up the Flank Attack and Capture ones from the WFB rulebook. Flank Attack would make the most of Lee’s divided forces by not actually considering them the same thing; Capture would relieve us of the need to calculate or even consider Victory Points, with victory determined by Who Was Closest To The Thing at the end. The well-paid and foolishly courageous Dogs of War would start entrenched behind enough linear obstacles to make a Dwarf blush (to ensure I couldn’t sweep them all away by turn two), while the Bretonnians would advance from a flank of Lee’s choosing at the top of turn three (giving me a turn to at least brace for impact before the inevitable charge).

We needed something suitably high stakes to draw these mighty forces together, so I elected not to bring the Carstein Ring, and instead place it within the retirement cottage of one Felix Mann, Esq, once of Altdorf and now long deceased. Why was this needful? Look at who showed up…

Grand Army of Sylvania (attacking)​

• Mannfred von Carstein
• Lord Ruthven (Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon; some kit which ended up being totally irrelevant)
• Countess Carmilla (Vampire Countess on foot; Summon Bats and Spectral Attendants)
• Sir Francis Varney (Vampire Thrall, Wolf Form, Flayed Hauberk, greatsword)
• Walravius (Wight Lord Battle Standard Bearer, waving the Hell Banner about)
• Whispering Nell (Wraith with the Cursed Book)
• Rosenkratz, Guildenstern and Haeckl (three Necromancers with a Power Stone and Dispel Scroll apiece)
• 30 Skeleton Spearmen
• 20 Skeleton Crossbowmen
• 20 Zombies
• 2 (independent) Bat Swarms
• 10 Ghouls
• 10 Huntsmen
• 10 Dire Wolves
• 20 Drakenhof Guard (with the Screaming Banner)
• 28 Black Knights (one unit of 12 with the Drakenhof Banner, two units of 8 with nowt fancy to their name)
• 6 Spirit Hosts (I regret not taking more advantage of our "not strictly legal" lists and splitting these in half)
• 2 Banshees
• 2 Black Coaches

Dogs of War (defending)​

• Lorenzo Lupo
• an unnamed but courageous Hireling Wizard, late of Bretonnia no doubt, brandishing the Staff of Sorcery (Lee’s spare Damsel coming out to play)
• a foolhardy Paymaster
• Leopold’s Leopard Company
• the Marksmen of Miragliano
• a Pikeman company whose resemblance to the Alcatini Fellowship is entirely coincidental
• an off-brand Crossbowman company
• Tichi-Huichi’s Raiders
• Bronzino and a Galloper Gun
• Dadallo and the Birdmen of Catrazza
• Lumpin Croop and his Fighting Cocks
• the Giants of Albion and Hengist

Bretonnians (flanking)​

• King Louen Leoncoeur
• Morgiana la Fay
• The Green Knight
• a Paladin on a Pegasus
• a Paladin not on a Pegasus (bearing the Battle Standard)
• two footslogging Paladins
• a slightly overwhelmed Damsel with the Silver Mirror
• half a dozen Grail Knights (playing escort to the Fay and the BSB)
• eight Knights Errant
• two dozen Bowmen
• a dozen Men At Arms
• two fistfuls of Mounted Yeomen

Lee felt himself stretched pretty thin by this engagement, but had the advantage of a strong defensive position for his Pikemen and an excellent viewpoint for the Marksmen of Miragliano. His skirmishers occupied the wood on the left, while the Giants of Albion reluctantly divided their attentions, ready to counter-punch the oncoming horde.

Mannfred isn’t feeling very optimistic about his positioning, but he has the only Danse Macabre on the field, so without him the infantry will be lucky to reach the halfway line, and I’m not leaving him on his own without a cavalry unit to hide out in.

Lorenzo Lupo stares the Vampire Count down. These pikes are going nowhere!

In many ways my choice of flanking force was dictated by the terrain. My Huntsmen could only take cover behind this ruined chapel, while the Black Coaches didn’t have any other way into the lines that wouldn’t take them into a hedge and certain destruction. The Dire Wolves are over here because they’re still pretty nippy even if Mannfred can’t help them march; the Black Knights will turn into the bulk of the army and pick up speed later. The Spirit Host is just out of sight on the left; if the Bretonnians show up on that side, I’m confident that 24 Ethereal wounds will at least slow them down.

On the other flank, I planned to have these Ghouls spread out to block the Bretonnians should they show up, while Ruthven is there to deliver Terror, dragon breath and Death Magic into the heart of the Dogs’ line. Allegedly.

We both figured the Dogs of War would need a lot of luck to make it through the game, but things would doubtless turn Lee’s way when the Bretonnians arrived. Were we right? Read on…

 

[Kaptain Von]

Opening Gambits (Turns 1 and 2)​

My advance was immediately checked when the Green Knight showed up on turn one! The ethereal crew don’t fancy their chances any more, and to be honest I was already thinking of this flank as a write-off. My suspicions were confirmed when the Galloper Gun smashed one coach to powder with its first damn shot, and the Green Knight spent three turns making Spirits go bye-bye. Lee’s rolls for the Dolorous Blade were terrifying; six, six and five extra attacks in a row!

Mannfred drove his Knights headlong into the Pikes. Not the best idea he’s ever had, especially when I remembered I'd not taken the Banner of the Barrows on them for the first time in years, but Pikemen are only WS and S 3, and I’d get to roll some hefty armour saves, and with a bit of luck I’d have Lord Ruthven joining them in that conveniently dragon-shaped hole on their flank.

Sadly, Lee managed to dispel Vanhel’s Danse Macabre and cast The Bear’s Anger on his Paymaster, making him big and mean enough to hold off a whole unit of raised Zombies all by himself! What you see here is the impact of static combat resolution on Knights who’ve achieved nothing but a dead unit champion.

On the left flank, the charging Giant stumbled as my Hunstmen did a bit of baiting and fleeing. Hengist was now open to a charge from the Dire Wolves, and my Black Coach had a lane on Bologs (or is it Cachtorr?). Impact hits weren’t enough to fell the brute, however, and it proceeded to Yell and Bawl for three turns on the trot ("BORING!"). Automatically losing combat by two each time was enough to grind both units into dust.

Something similar happened on this side. On its charge, Cachtorr (or is it Bologs?) Yelled and Bawled, denying Lord Ruthven and his faithful steed any chance to get a wound in edgeways. On his next turn, Lord Ruthven proceeded to Miscast, lobbing himself out of the combat and narrowly avoiding the hedge! This left poor Beatryx pinned in combat with something that had higher Initiative than her and good odds of "BORING!" her to death as well. Looked good, though.

 

[Kaptain Von]

Bretonnia Rides (Turns 3 and 4)​

The Knights arrived, and promptly… achieved nothing for an entire turn, as the Yeomen failed their fear test, refused to charge my Skeleton Crossbowmen, and tied up the far braver units behind them. Similar events occured in the midfield, where the Men At Arms wanted nothing to do with fighting Ghouls and the Peasant Bowmen learned that actually, Ghouls are quite dangerous in a fight.

Morgiana took exactly one swig from her magical chalice, chugging the lot and hurling a Comet of Cassandora into the middle of the undead lines! As if that wasn’t enough, Mannfred’s attempt at Hellish Vigour to improve his Knights’ odds of crossing the fence was met with the Silver Mirror, dispelling the spell and putting a wound on him to boot. Even the Zombies were unable to turn the tide, as Lorenzo Lupo generated sufficient surplus wounds from challenging the Black Knights’ champion to cancel out his unit’s loss of rank bonus and draw the combat!

 

[Kaptain Von]

Desperate Times (Turns 5 and 6)​

In response, the Undead lines turned. The Huntsmen rallied and ran to intercept the Bretonnians, along with the leftmost unit of Black Knights. Their counterparts on the right charged Bologs (or Cachtorr) in an effort to save the Dragon from another round of Yelling and Bawling. Banshees and Wraiths were hurled toward the centre of the field in an effort to put the Cursed Book in play and whittle down the Dogs of War further, but a nasty surprise or two lay in wait. Firstly: Leopold’s Leopard Company are immune to psychology, and therefore to Banshee wails. Secondly…

Secondly, the Knights arrived too late. Cachtorr (or possibly Bologs) took matters in hand (or rather forehead), nutting the Zombie Dragon to death. I’d be cross about this, but “nutted to death by Giant” is a pretty epic way to go. The Knights didn’t quite manage to finish him off, he passed his Stubborn AF break test, and next turn King Louen charged and proceeded to go through the Knights like a woodchipper. In back, the Yeomen charged my summoned Zombies in the rear, breaking their ranks and buying Lorenzo Lupo another round…

… which he used to challenge Mannfred, taking the Count of Sylvania on mano-e-mano in the Classical style! Still hampered by the hedgerow which his Knights had yet to cross (a rules snafu, this shouldn't have been the case), Mannfred wasn’t quite able to strike down the mercenary general, while Lorenzo only landed two blows of his own; not enough to put Mannfred out of his misery.

On the other flank, Sir Francis Varney seized the day. An 18 inch charge and a 1+ armour save delivered him safely into the Crossbowmen, and three S7 attacks saw them broken before his onslaught.

The Drakenhof Guard produced impressive results in their charge against the Leopard Company. Although their Screaming Banner and Hell Banner power combo was wasted on the fearless pikemen, Leopold was cut down by a Killing Blow from the Guards’ Champion, and the Guard – aided by a timely cast of Death Dealer and Hellish Vigour – killed enough of the Leopard Company that they actually broke from combat on its own!

Even without Leopold, the Pikemen rallied, but this was do-or-die turn for the Vampire Counts and they didn’t let me down. Lord Ruthven charged and butchered the Mounted Yeomen, and the Drakenhof Guard were impelled into combat with an Irresistible Danse Macabre, turning both combats in favour of the Undead. Leopold’s men were run down, and while Lorenzo just about held his ground…

… the Paymaster was not so fortunate. Sir Francis was thirsty, and as the Paymaster fell beneath his blade, disaster struck the Dogs of War. Lorenzo, one of the Giants, and the Marksmen of Miragliano all failed their Panic tests and bolted, leaving the Sylvanians in control of the objective! The other Giant took its lumps too, falling over and getting cut to ribbons by my Countess and her Spearmen. And just to cap everything off, I managed to dispel the Comet.

Going into the last round, most of the Bretonnians were tied up fighting nondescript flanking chaff units, with the exception of Louen, who'd descended on the Necromancers, cutting their zombie bodyguard to ribbons but leaving the casters themselves alive.

Mannfred had finally crossed the hedge and taken control of the Mann residence. All he had to do was survive one last turn. To that end, he and all his Necromancers attempted to cast Invocations to restore him to full capacity of Wounds. Lee Dispelled Mannfred’s Invocation, and I failed to cast the other three. Suddenly, everything was back on the knife edge again.

Whirling his Delirious Blade about him, the Green Knight, immortal defender of Bretonnia, charged in and challenged the last of the Vampire Counts to single combat. Lacking any alternative, Mannfred drew his sword again and hoped against hope that he could prevail. It was not to be. The Ethereal care not for hedgerows, and so the Green Knight fought at full efficiency, liberating Mannfred from the mortal coil.

Hopefully, this epic final clash is not spoiled too much by my errant fingertip making its way into the photograph.

Defeat for the Vampire Counts! In the very last round of combat on the very last turn!

Honestly, I couldn’t ask for a better way to go out than that. When you’re playing a supervillain like Mannfred, hubris and trickery and defeat snatched from the jaws of victory by an immortal force of righteous fury is fitting and there’s no bones about it. This was a delightfully close game which could easily have gone either way. It would have been nice to have the Carstein Ring on Ruthven instead of whatever jank I'd thrown together to replace it, and to roll more than one Danse Macabre, and to bring the bloody Banner of the Barrows, but these are minor gripes. Lee was delighted at the chance to field all his forces together and for that matter so was I. We may yet do this sort of thing again some time.

 

[Unas the slayer]

​

Honestly, I couldn’t ask for a better way to go out than that. When you’re playing a supervillain like Mannfred, hubris and trickery and defeat snatched from the jaws of victory by an immortal force of righteous fury is fitting and there’s no bones about it. This was a delightfully close game which could easily have gone either way. It would have been nice to have the Carstein Ring on Ruthven instead of whatever jank I'd thrown together to replace it, and to roll more than one Danse Macabre, and to bring the bloody Banner of the Barrows, but these are minor gripes. Lee was delighted at the chance to field all his forces together and for that matter so was I. We may yet do this sort of thing again some time.

What an epic and appropriate ending!
and yes...only an undead can deal with another undead.


A really fun game, indeed

 

[The Sun King]

Such an epic game! Awesome with all the description and pictures. Love it!