Yay! First report.
I played a game with a Blood Dragon list yesterday that did really well. The game was 2,000 points. Here was my list:
Lords and Heroes
Vekarin Banespike - 530 pts.
Blood Dragon Vampire Lord
Abyssal Terror
Quicksilver
Red Fury
Defender
Strength of Steel
Dreadlance
Wristbands of Black Gold
Victarias Banespike – 140 pts.
Blood Dragon Vampiress
Quicksilver
Defender
Aggredias Glorybane – 165
Blood Dragon Vampire – 100
Quicksilver
Defender
Flayed Hauberk
Feremini Mors – 150 pts.
Wight King
Skeletal Steed
Lance
Enchanted Shield
Battle-Standard Bearer
Core
20 Skeletons – 176 pts.
Skeleton Champion
Standard Bearer
20 Skeletons – 176 pts.
Skeleton Champion
Standard Bearer
20 Skeletons – 176 pts.
Skeleton Champion
Standard Bearer
20 Grave Guard – 319 pts.
Great Weapons
Standard Bearer
Castellan
Banner of the Barrows
Special
5 Black Knights – 161 pts.
Standard Bearer – 16
Warbanner
Heh, I just realized that I was 10 points under. Whoops.
I played against a magicless Ogre Army. I didn't get the exact list down but this is what my opponent had:
Ogre Tyrant with a Great Weapon
Ogre Bruiser Battlestandard Bearer with a Cathayan Longsword
9 Bulls with Full Command
10 Ironguts with Full Command
20 Gnoblars with a Groinbiter
4 Leadbelchers
4 Leadbelchers
Gorger
My opponent rolled higher than I for everything in the beginning - table sides, deployment and fist turn. I ended up deploying first and going fisrt. I stayed relatively defensive, my troops anchored around a town square sort of thing (we called it impassable for the sake of sanity, btu it was only like 5" across). I had two of my Skeleton units with Victarias and my Grave Guard on the left side of the terrain, where his Ironguts and Tyrand were and I had Vekarin, Aggredias and the last skeleton unit on my right. Feremini Mors and the Black Knights stood in the middle, ready to charge through the impassable terrain.
My opponent had his Gnoblars and Ironguts on my left, his Bulls and Bruiser on my right and his Leadbelchers on the extremes of each flank.
The game was pretty quick and clean. Well, not really. It went to turn 6 but by that time he had only five models left on the board. I don't really want to recount each detail of what happened, so I'll give you the spark notes of what happened.
Due to some careful positioning, his Ironguts charged one of my Skeleton units, obliterated all but seven and were subsequently countercharged by the Grave Guard and Vekarin. Vekarin was able to kill 3 Ogres all by himself.
A successful cast of Curse of Years from Vekarin considerably helped weaken the Bull unit on my right to the point where the Black Knights and Aggredias, even having suffered unraised casualties from shooting were able to break and run it down.
The Ironguts rallied but were charged again by Vekarin, who was able to kill their Gutlord two and a half times over in a challenge before running the unit off the board (last time, Vekarin had overrun into a unit of Gnoblars who made their Leadership test and challenged Vekarin with the Groinbiter who was then killed 11 times).
Despite losing his steed to an excellent roll with the Leadbelchers, Vekarin was still able to charge the offending unit and decimate three of their number, breaking the last one.
A respectable round of shooting from the other Leadbelcher unit killed all but one Black Knight and wounded Feremini Mors.
So, with that wonderful report, here is my feedback:
-Throughout the entire game my casting went relatively unchallenged. Vekarin was preoccupied for most of the game with keeping a Curse of Years working on the Bull unit than ran undispelled for three turns and did a total of 9 wounds to the unit. My raising from Victarias and Aggredias also ensured that my units never fell below 2-3 models below full strength, despite attempts to dispell my Invocations. While I can attribute a lot of that success to good rolling and a lack of magical defense on my opponent's part, I think that having 6 Power Dice seemed very unBlood Dragony. Maybe I'll play against a more magically-dependent force and see what I think then.
-Quicksilver is an incredibly powerful upgrade. Both of my heroes had 2 Hand Weapons from their Blood Dragon bonuses, and the addition of Quicksilver to that allowed them 5 attacks! Victarias, my least armored hero, tore apart a Gorger nearly single-handed while Aggredias took down several wounds from the Bull unit and take every attack they sent his way with a combination of Weapon Skill 8, a 2+ save and Defender. On Vekarin the power was almost broken, as it allowed him not one, but two extra attacks with Red Fury (auto-hits with the Dreadlance and 2's to wound almost anything allowed me to get 8-10 attacks every turn).
-I don't know why this isn't a rule, but Blood Dragons should be obligated to challenge every turn and have to accept challenges given to them. More than once I found myself not issuing challenges or accepting them with my Skeleton Captains in favor of my Vampires. I think if that was a rule than it might be more fluffy and temper the extreme offensive power of a Blood Dragon.
-I think someone said that Strength of Steel should not be able to be combined with a Lance, and I agree with them. Strength 8 is a pretty obscene number, even from a Vampire Lord. While I took the power mainly to help ensure that there is no chance of Armor Saves against Vekarin's attacks, it could be a little too powerful against some of the more powerful (and expensive!) options out there. I don't think many things, if any, should be able to wound Treemen and Dragons on 2's. It did help out quite a bit when Vekarin lost his flaming magic horsey, though.
-Defender wasn't as cool as I though it was going to be, but I think that is because I has facing an army with a lot of attacks anyway. I think it would be fun against a more man-sized army when I could negate half of the attacks coming my way.
-The Blood Dragon's bonus to Weapon Skill is insane. There was literally nothing in my opponent's army that I wasn't hitting on 3's, and 90% of my opponents models (everything but the heroes, actually) was hitting them on 5's. When coupled with the fact that about half the time they were hitting something all by itself (Vekarin) made it very powerful indeed. Personally, I think WS 8, 5 attack monstrosities who also happen to have a level of magic should cost a little more than 140 points.
My opponent thought that the list was very balanced and that he would like to play against it again (yes, we set-up another game xD). He attributed most of his misfortune to his own army list, bad rolling and me being 'mean.' xD I guess most of the above criticism may stem from a playing a rather unorthodox army, so I'll play against a different one and see how I feel after that.