Had a game last night versus a bretonian list. I toke the list mentioned in my earlier post. Basically added in a unit of zombies instead of some ghouls.
He had a choppy lord, a choppy hero, a choppy hero on a pegasus, a bsb and a scroll caddie. 1x 8 knights of realm, 1x 8 Grail knights and 4 units of 6 knights errant.
He put 2 units of errant on my left flank, 1 knight errant + Pegasus dude on my right. Opposite my force was everything else. I set up with the block of zombies 10 wide,flanked by a unit of ghouls each side. The ghoul bunker + Corpsecart was directly behind the zombies. Bats lurked near the corpsecart. Dire wolves were on my flanks. The cairn wraiths were left of centre, ready to spring forward at anything other than the grail knights.
I won the dice roll, so he decided to pray (brets are so cheeky!).
Vamp turn 1.
Cairn wraiths move directly forward, through a wood, ending directly opposite a unit of knights errant. The zombies march forward, aiming for his grail knights. Everything else shuffles up. I keep the zombie-flanking units of ghouls back slightly. I am offering him to charge into the zombies. The magic phase see the ghoul units raised slightly larger. 1 unit of bats is increased to about 8 models. The Zombie unit is increased by 27 zombies, up to 47 models!
Brets turn 1.
1 unit of errants bravely charge the cairn wraiths, 1 is sung to death on the way in, removing the rank! The rest of his force comes acrossthe board, ready for a second turn charge. Critically he keeps the middle grail, errants and realms, nice and close together. It looks like he will try to triple tap my zombies!! His pegasus moves to a position to charge most of my army - I will have to make sure I don't leave a gap for him to get at my lord! HIs extreme right errants line up against my dire wolves. He gets no magic off, 1 dice into Percy's purse! His errants cannot hit my cairn wraiths who (out of helm range) promptly manage to kill a massive 1 errant. He outnumbers, I killed, he carries a trumpet and so wins by 1. Out of BsB range a wraith takes a wound.
Vamps turn 2.
Opperation give him no choices. No charges (I never charge unless with cairn wraiths. I if I charge I have 2x combat phases before my next magic phase. If they charge me, it's my turn next. Also I try to ensure only 1 combat takes place each turn. This allows me to use my helm on 1 combat). My zombies march up to within a couple of inches of all 3 of his central units. the flanking ghouls again hang back slightly( they will slowly walk into a position to flank charge his knights).The bunker moves up, making sure to leave enough for zombie raising. My lord and Hugo move in the unit to lend the helm and BsB to the wraiths. My right hand dire wolves move to 1 inch from his errants, set at and angle to lead them away from my main force (he will have to charge or face a slow march blocked manouvre). I leave no room for sneaky pegasus charges at my bunker. My left hand unit of dire wolves move to lead his rigt hand unit of errants into a wood and out of the game. My bats are the final piece in the danse. They move to deny his 3 central units doing anything other than charging my zombies. They lad, out of charge arcs, about 1 inch away from the flanks of his units. This is to prevent him wheeling around my zombies - HE WILL CHARGE THE ZOMBIES!!! Time to ensure the zombies are still there after 1 turn of combat. After a couple of 'fake' curse attempts, he is a couple of dispell dice down. I then add 25 zombies and get the corpsecarts bound spell off. When he charges he will be facing 72 always-strikes-first-WS7 zombie ninja's! He then makes a critical error, he listens to the voices! The voices are those people watching a game who chip in with handy hints and tips, reveal sneaky traps you have set and generally interfere in the game (The most voices I have faced is 7, all helping my opponent, who still lost the game).Someone said challenge his banshee... which he tried, only to have the banhee decline, which allowed me a further 3 strength 5 attacks. Thanks voice! His errants were promptly dispatched. My turn over, my zombies awaited the inevitable multiple charges.
Bret turn 2.
The errants, Grail and realm knights, all having no other option, charged the wall of zombies. The pegasus knight also charged the flank to the zombies (although he didn't have the unit strength to deny my rank bonus). Both his other units of errants took the bait and charged my wolves. His entire army was commited. The three units + 5 characters charging my 80 point unit of zombies, were worth approx 1700 points. The magic phase passed with nothing exciting apart from an extra power dice for my next magic phase. He decided to do the 2 seperate errants first. On my right his errants battered my poor wolves and overran out of the way (I would move some bats near next turn to slow them down further & keep them out of the game a little while longer). On my left his errants fluffed their attacks and only dispatched 1 wolf! I struck 1 rider from his saddle. His rank, outnumbering and banner left 1 dog defiantly holding him up. Now to the important combat. My zombies struck first and, I am still not sure how, the killed a Grail knight! Go zombie ninja's! He rolled all his horse attacks at once. 20 dice, 1 hit! Go weapon skill 7! He then proceeded to slaughter a further 15 or so zombies. After the dust had settled he had beaten me by 16, so a futher 15 zombies were removed (one lesson I learned be murdered by a vamp player, at last years final, always always always take a bsb. That 1 less casualty may make all the difference). In this case it did not matter. I still had over 30 zombies and it was my magic phase next. He would have less attacks at a lower strength. 80 points of zombies was holding 1700 points of his army. My cairn wraiths were free to pick their next charge. My ghouls were set to slowly move to his rear and then get rear charges in - although I could simply move to capture table quarters. I wouldn't need to roll more than 1 dice, so miss-casting wasn't an issue. My character could leave the bunker unit and move to more advantagous positions.
He conceeded. He was beaten, not his army but he himself. His shoulders had dropped, he was trapped and couldn't beat the odds. He worked out the averages for hitting the zombies with and without the helm and boh time there would be zombies left to hold him up. Other people wanted the table so we ended it there.
Conclusions. Bretonians cannot blast aside a huge unit of zombies, especially with the helm nearby. I am very pleased with the slight changes to my list and I think, with or without a couple of minot tweaks, that this will be the list I will be using in the finals.
1. Starting with a unit of 20 zombies on the board is way better than trying to raise a unit from scratch. The 2 dice used to raise a unit of 5-7 zombies could be adding 22 models to the unit (inc corpsecart bonus). For the breakthrough mission and considering I might not get first turn, this will be very useful.
2. Cairn Wraiths are awesome. He only had 1 unit capable of actually hitting them. This is likely for most armies (except daemons of course) but factor in their ability to 360 charge + singing. They are very hard hitting, especially teamed with the helm & a danse for the re-rolls.
3. Now my force only has 3 units of ghoulsit is easier to raise them to larger proportions. I will not run out of models (an extra 11 not being on the board). I can realistically use the lesser vampires dice, freeing up the army dice for my lord to use!
Well enough from me. Any coments/thoughts would be appreaciated.
Munkey
He had a choppy lord, a choppy hero, a choppy hero on a pegasus, a bsb and a scroll caddie. 1x 8 knights of realm, 1x 8 Grail knights and 4 units of 6 knights errant.
He put 2 units of errant on my left flank, 1 knight errant + Pegasus dude on my right. Opposite my force was everything else. I set up with the block of zombies 10 wide,flanked by a unit of ghouls each side. The ghoul bunker + Corpsecart was directly behind the zombies. Bats lurked near the corpsecart. Dire wolves were on my flanks. The cairn wraiths were left of centre, ready to spring forward at anything other than the grail knights.
I won the dice roll, so he decided to pray (brets are so cheeky!).
Vamp turn 1.
Cairn wraiths move directly forward, through a wood, ending directly opposite a unit of knights errant. The zombies march forward, aiming for his grail knights. Everything else shuffles up. I keep the zombie-flanking units of ghouls back slightly. I am offering him to charge into the zombies. The magic phase see the ghoul units raised slightly larger. 1 unit of bats is increased to about 8 models. The Zombie unit is increased by 27 zombies, up to 47 models!
Brets turn 1.
1 unit of errants bravely charge the cairn wraiths, 1 is sung to death on the way in, removing the rank! The rest of his force comes acrossthe board, ready for a second turn charge. Critically he keeps the middle grail, errants and realms, nice and close together. It looks like he will try to triple tap my zombies!! His pegasus moves to a position to charge most of my army - I will have to make sure I don't leave a gap for him to get at my lord! HIs extreme right errants line up against my dire wolves. He gets no magic off, 1 dice into Percy's purse! His errants cannot hit my cairn wraiths who (out of helm range) promptly manage to kill a massive 1 errant. He outnumbers, I killed, he carries a trumpet and so wins by 1. Out of BsB range a wraith takes a wound.
Vamps turn 2.
Opperation give him no choices. No charges (I never charge unless with cairn wraiths. I if I charge I have 2x combat phases before my next magic phase. If they charge me, it's my turn next. Also I try to ensure only 1 combat takes place each turn. This allows me to use my helm on 1 combat). My zombies march up to within a couple of inches of all 3 of his central units. the flanking ghouls again hang back slightly( they will slowly walk into a position to flank charge his knights).The bunker moves up, making sure to leave enough for zombie raising. My lord and Hugo move in the unit to lend the helm and BsB to the wraiths. My right hand dire wolves move to 1 inch from his errants, set at and angle to lead them away from my main force (he will have to charge or face a slow march blocked manouvre). I leave no room for sneaky pegasus charges at my bunker. My left hand unit of dire wolves move to lead his rigt hand unit of errants into a wood and out of the game. My bats are the final piece in the danse. They move to deny his 3 central units doing anything other than charging my zombies. They lad, out of charge arcs, about 1 inch away from the flanks of his units. This is to prevent him wheeling around my zombies - HE WILL CHARGE THE ZOMBIES!!! Time to ensure the zombies are still there after 1 turn of combat. After a couple of 'fake' curse attempts, he is a couple of dispell dice down. I then add 25 zombies and get the corpsecarts bound spell off. When he charges he will be facing 72 always-strikes-first-WS7 zombie ninja's! He then makes a critical error, he listens to the voices! The voices are those people watching a game who chip in with handy hints and tips, reveal sneaky traps you have set and generally interfere in the game (The most voices I have faced is 7, all helping my opponent, who still lost the game).Someone said challenge his banshee... which he tried, only to have the banhee decline, which allowed me a further 3 strength 5 attacks. Thanks voice! His errants were promptly dispatched. My turn over, my zombies awaited the inevitable multiple charges.
Bret turn 2.
The errants, Grail and realm knights, all having no other option, charged the wall of zombies. The pegasus knight also charged the flank to the zombies (although he didn't have the unit strength to deny my rank bonus). Both his other units of errants took the bait and charged my wolves. His entire army was commited. The three units + 5 characters charging my 80 point unit of zombies, were worth approx 1700 points. The magic phase passed with nothing exciting apart from an extra power dice for my next magic phase. He decided to do the 2 seperate errants first. On my right his errants battered my poor wolves and overran out of the way (I would move some bats near next turn to slow them down further & keep them out of the game a little while longer). On my left his errants fluffed their attacks and only dispatched 1 wolf! I struck 1 rider from his saddle. His rank, outnumbering and banner left 1 dog defiantly holding him up. Now to the important combat. My zombies struck first and, I am still not sure how, the killed a Grail knight! Go zombie ninja's! He rolled all his horse attacks at once. 20 dice, 1 hit! Go weapon skill 7! He then proceeded to slaughter a further 15 or so zombies. After the dust had settled he had beaten me by 16, so a futher 15 zombies were removed (one lesson I learned be murdered by a vamp player, at last years final, always always always take a bsb. That 1 less casualty may make all the difference). In this case it did not matter. I still had over 30 zombies and it was my magic phase next. He would have less attacks at a lower strength. 80 points of zombies was holding 1700 points of his army. My cairn wraiths were free to pick their next charge. My ghouls were set to slowly move to his rear and then get rear charges in - although I could simply move to capture table quarters. I wouldn't need to roll more than 1 dice, so miss-casting wasn't an issue. My character could leave the bunker unit and move to more advantagous positions.
He conceeded. He was beaten, not his army but he himself. His shoulders had dropped, he was trapped and couldn't beat the odds. He worked out the averages for hitting the zombies with and without the helm and boh time there would be zombies left to hold him up. Other people wanted the table so we ended it there.
Conclusions. Bretonians cannot blast aside a huge unit of zombies, especially with the helm nearby. I am very pleased with the slight changes to my list and I think, with or without a couple of minot tweaks, that this will be the list I will be using in the finals.
1. Starting with a unit of 20 zombies on the board is way better than trying to raise a unit from scratch. The 2 dice used to raise a unit of 5-7 zombies could be adding 22 models to the unit (inc corpsecart bonus). For the breakthrough mission and considering I might not get first turn, this will be very useful.
2. Cairn Wraiths are awesome. He only had 1 unit capable of actually hitting them. This is likely for most armies (except daemons of course) but factor in their ability to 360 charge + singing. They are very hard hitting, especially teamed with the helm & a danse for the re-rolls.
3. Now my force only has 3 units of ghoulsit is easier to raise them to larger proportions. I will not run out of models (an extra 11 not being on the board). I can realistically use the lesser vampires dice, freeing up the army dice for my lord to use!
Well enough from me. Any coments/thoughts would be appreaciated.
Munkey
