Manfred devours the beasts to march into the semi final

[tex577]

Right the story so far.

Im in a 16 man 2000pt tournament at my local club and its structured so you only have to win by 1 vp to move on. Straight knock out. The 1st round i played a kurt hellborg empire force and won to move into the quarters. Its fixed list for the whole tourney. There is a battle report for that one.

Ok my list for the quarter final (vs Beasts)

Mannfred von carstein (count variety)
skull staff
book of arkhan

vampire
helm of commandment
talisman of lycni
dark acolyte

wight king
sword of kings
gem of blood

2x 20 zombies
10 skellies
5 wolves
corpse cart

3 fell bats
19 grave guard, fc, gw, banner of the barrows

3 wraiths w/banshee
varghulf

His list was:

2 massive beast herds
3 smaller beast herds
3x 5 dogs
2 x 3 minotaurs
6 centigors
4 x spawn

Beastlord Mark of tzeencth
wargor mark of tzeentch
wargor mark of tzeentch
wargor mark of tzeentch

ok set up (beasts) left to right

5 dogs, centigaurs, small unit of beasts, minotaurs, 2 spawn, massive beast herd, massive beast herd, small beasts, minos, 2 spawn, dogs.

Small herd and dogs set up in ambush.

My set up

wraiths, zombies, grave guard (wight king), skellis (manfred), zombies, varghulf, behind these we have dogs , bats, corpse cart and vampire.

I win ist turn

All foot troops move forward 6", varghulf moves to right flank, wraiths move to left flank.

Magic

new zombie unit created, bats and skellies increased vasttly.

Beasts turn 1

All move forward, centigors drunk and stupid.

Magic

he has an immense amount of different coloured fires and after all the fails and dispels 6 skellies have crumbled, and 5 zombies. His magic is wrong.

VC 2

Varghulf moves to extreme flank facing towards his big beast unit with lord and hero in. Wraiths move towards a small unit of beasts and dogs.
Bats (9 now) fly to flank, dogs move to assist varghulf. All infantry move forward a small amount.

Magic

Zombies and skellies increased, 3 magic missiles thrown at a big unit of beasts kill only 3.

Shooting
Banshee screams and kills 3 ungors but they hold.

Beasts 2
Centigors drunk and stupid again. small beasts terified and run from wraiths.
Everything moves into charge range that can. General and his hero mate align themselves against the varghulf ready to destroy him in a blaze of multicoloured fire.

Magic (here we go)

Loads of fire thrown at varghulf causing 3 wounds, phew!! I casually ask him if they are flaming attacks. He looks it up and amazingly says no they are not? I sportingly question this as by the nature of the spells they all say fire. We roll off for it and i win so get to regen. Luckily i regen all wounds. Elsewhere green fire is cast on my grave guard making them all attack each other. killing 5. Im out of dd and then he targets my wraith with d6 +1 hits, d6 +1 strength. he rolls 2 4's. 5 st 5 hits on my etherals. he causes 3 wounds. Could have been worse.

VC 3

Bats charge spawn on left, wraiths charge centigors who immune to psychology stay but he elects to flee (wasnt sure if he could being stupid) we roll and he wins but they charge off the board. The zombies charge the minos to hold them up, the skellies with mannfred charge the spawn opposite them, zombies on left charge beast unit, grave guard charge big unit of beasts (2 heros) dogs charge other spawn to hold it up, varghulf charges generals beast unit, who fail their terror and only run 3" which isnt enough to escape and varghulf chews them up. Basically this game is ended here. The dogs nearby flee off the board panicked as do a smaller herd of beasts.

Magic

Mannys magic much better now as his dispel dice are lost, so herds fighting grave guard at -3 ld, more zombies pop up and all units back to full strength or higher.

Combat

Manny and his skellies destroy their spawn, grave guard chase down the other big unit with 2 heros. Zombies, dogs, bats all hold.

Beasts 3

Minotaurs turn to face wraiths
everything else in combat.

Combat
nothing much happens as all hold with zombies losing 4 to cr from minotaurs.

VC 4
varghulf sets up rear charge on minos fighting zombies, wraiths cant quite reach other minos. Mahhy turns to face open mino unit.

Magic

Manny missiles the minos taking 8 wounds forcing the last one to flee.
Van hels goes off on varghulf who charges into minos in combat with zombie.

Shooting
banshees fail to wound minos

Combat
Varghulf kills one mino, minos cant do enough to win combat and run and are cut down by following varghulf.

Spawns are destroyed in the next turn and game is over in turn 5.

Total massacre for mannfred.

My first experience vs beasts and it was enjoyable. There were some very hairy moments with his mega (same as me) power dice pool.

The low leadership beast herd army he took are just not equipped to tackle fear causers but we had fun anyway.

This win sees me into the semi final against a tourney favourite.
The other quarters were as follows:

Empire vs Dark elves (Dark elves won)
Lizards vs Daemons (Lizards won)
Vc's vs wood elves. (WE won)

So it happened as first expected all the top club players (im brand new to this club so dont know anyone nor they me so im not included in this statement) have made the semis. The draw was made for the semis and i got wood elves. Lizards vs Dark elves.

People at the club are already setting themselves up to witness a lizard vs wood elf final (both players have come very high ie top ten in UK GT's) so i would love to dissapoint them and my vc's into the final.

Im facing a very tough extremly shooty WE list:
Lord
bow of loren arcane bodkins

hero
mounted
hail of doom

branchwraith
cluster of radients
annoyance of nettlings

4 x 10 glade guards

2 x 6 wild riders

4 treekin Branch wraith here

eagle

6 waywatchers

So how do i go about this? He can fire around 60 shots a turn, i realise i can raise units but i probably cant raise them fast enough. I will have an advantage in the magic phase so il try and fry him multi raise and van hels but its gonna be tough.

Please anyone have any solid advice against this kind of list im desperate to put shocked looks on peoples faces at the club and it would be my first ever final.

Cheers for reading

 

[Edward VanRandstein]

Sounds like a tough one you'll be up against. I don't have much experience vs WE, so i can't be much help there. All I can say is spam the hell out of Ion, and fight a war of attrition that the VC are so very, very good at.

I'm curious, how did the lizards beat Daemons?

 

[tex577]

Uhm i was playing at the same time but i think skinks poisoned bloodthirster and the slann did its stuff

 

[Aegis]

Either that or the daemon player forgot to set his alarm and slept through the tournament round = /

 

[tex577]

Ha ha fair play though, the lizardman player is a very good player he got 3rd at a uk gt a few years back. i saw he had 4-5 big skink units, 2 x 4 kroxigors, steggie and slaan. not sure what other characters were.

Anyway IF i get through il probably play him so when i lose to him you'll all be taking the piss outta me, he he.

But seriously how do i deal with all the shooting. i have a few ideas like stringing my zombies in 2 lines of 20 each in front of my big units the raising more 12" in front of these whilst protecting my flanks from his cavalry. My bats will vie for aerial domination with his eagle. My wraiths will try and get to his waywatchers. or i may even sacrifice them to get rid of the HOD. Then just march boldly up to his archers and whoop em. i want my grave guard vs his treekin. Hitting on 2's with banner and helm, wounding on 3's. No armour and no ward, should make kindling outta them. The branchwraith may be a pain with the annoyance but if i get lucky my wight king can challenge and with luck get killing blow on a 5 (after a 6) if not he hurts me but hopefully takes 1 wound from my gem off blood. I should survive with 3 wounds and then combat res the unit. This is my plan anyway. Not sure what to do with varghulf cos there is too much shooting around and also not sure how to nullify his wild riders but i got a week to think it over

 

[bebopasorus]

i have used the zombie wall to great defensive effect, but you need to realize its only 20 Z's for the first group, next volley from another unit of elf's, way off to one side, will be shooting around 12 Z's than 6...so center them around the unit you really want to protect (vargulf - 3d6 peruse YES PLX). but also use summon them behind him: he'll think twice about fleeing, again long lines work good here, but than those stupid skirmisher 360 rules fuss with you. you didnt mention banner but they have one that's 12inch MR3 that can suck, but if he does he cant use MR on vanhells or IoN. My WE friend doesnt have treekin so i cant help you there. hwo wide do you run your GG 7x3 or 5x4? the 1 extra SCR isnt that great when you hit on 2 wound on 3(or 2) and trash armor saves (sometimes regen- but WE have no regen). final thought - unholy load stone+ sideways CC = yay d6+1 model on a 3+(4+) roll. unicorn horn only +1 str on charge not +2! ALSO WK under BotB hits annoyance on 5+ and subsequently KB on 5+ very nice 1/3*1/3 = dead WE. ALSOALSO good luck @ Tourny

 

[tex577]

Ok firstly bebopasaurus thank you very much for your imput, but secondly you raise a very interesting and ultimatly important query regarding the Banner of the barrows vs annoyance of nettlings.

Annoyance of nettlings verbatim from book:

"In a challenge, any enemy attempting to strike a character with an annoyance of nettlings will only hit on 6's"

Banner of the barrows verbatim:

"All grave guard, black knights and wight kings in the unit (not mounts) recieve +1 to hit in close combat"

These are both magic items that contradict each other and so how does this work. Does both happen as bebopasaurus suggest or does it alternate in turns whose takes priority?

While we are here another contradicto that has occured recently is when i was using the screaming banner.

"Enemy units taking a fear test caused by the unit carrying this banner must roll one extra dice for their test and discard the one with the lowest result."

Funnly enough i was playing lizardmen whose rules state the opposite Ie. 3 dice and remove the highest. We didnt know how to prevail but our logic said they would cancel each other out so we decided they just take normal ie. 2 die LD (he wasnt too happy with this for his lowly LD but it seemed fair)

 

[Munkey]

Mua Ha Ha, well done for surviving a horrible magic phase and grats on making it through to the semi's.

You should be rubbing your hand together with glee at this draw. If your description of his list is correct, he has a total of 3 dispell dice - unless his branchwraith is a lvl1. You should be able to spam ION repeatedly - whilst laughing at your opponent.

Your two units that will frighten the life out of him are... Your Wraiths but do watch the Hail of Doom and the Bodkins - as these are magical. But however you can use the terrain to your advantage. Just move your Wraiths through the woods for the -to hit.

Your second unit will be your bats. A huge charge range, fear and skirmishers will terrify them. Just ION the FB up nice and big and let them roam through his archers for fun!

Most of my games, using WE against VC, revolve around an ability to take out the Vampire Lord - to make the VC crumble. This useually involves a Treeman Ancient or Wardancers. I have tried a shooty magical woodelf army, and I could not do enough damage at all.

If you want to unerve the WE, simply do not advance forward. Stay back and ION the untis nice and big. Magic missile his archer units as they come forward. Do not commit your Vargulf too early - keep him hidden until missle far has been reduced. Do not let the Wild Riders to charge your flanks - you can even castle up in a corner and let him try and take you.

I you march down the middle of the board, his Wildriders will get behind and onto your flanks. His Archers will move forward into short range and then slowly step backwards - whilst shooting. His treekin will happily smash into one of your units and slowly grind them down.

Magic is your best friend in this game. Wind of undeath scares WE players. Many of their characters cannot join units - like his Branchwraith. His lord might also be an Alter kindred - in which case he cannot join units either. Remember - to shoot you he has to expose himself to being shot back at - once you have moved into range, as he has range 30". But you have Manny - who can pump out 3 magic missile attacks per turn - with little defence against them!

Good Luck and happy raising.

Regards

Munkey

 

[tex577]

Great stuff munkey cheers for that insight.

A question though, why cant the branch wraith join a unit because he runs the bW with the treekin?

 

[bebopasorus]

While we are here another contradicton that has occured recently is when i was using the screaming banner.

"Enemy units taking a fear test caused by the unit carrying this banner must roll one extra dice for their test and discard the one with the lowest result."

Funnly enough i was playing lizardmen whose rules state the opposite Ie. 3 dice and remove the highest. We didnt know how to prevail but our logic said they would cancel each other out so we decided they just take normal ie. 2 die LD (he wasnt too happy with this for his lowly LD but it seemed fair)

when i use screaming banner and smash skinks (or other lizardmen) we role 4d6 discarding high and low- its chaos!

i interpret +1 to hit to mean 5's = 6 6's = 7 so on so it is not nearly as complex as screaming banner conundrum- have i been doing over my woody friend?

 

[Munkey]

AHa,

---

Ah yes, I may have been a tad hastey there. The BW can indeed join other units that have the Forest Spirit rule. It's just you don't see them joining a unit of Treekin.

 

[Fodderboy]

when i use screaming banner and smash skinks (or other lizardmen) we role 4d6 discarding high and low- its chaos!

That's the right way to do it.

 

[MadLarkin]

Make sure you play scout denial with your skirmishers, his waywatchers can be right behind your main units in the wide open if you don't have line of sight, that's really annoying. so deploy your wraiths and bats behind your guys and maybe even the lynci vamp somewhere in your backfield to ensure you have all angles covered so that his waywatchers have to deploy in front of your men. All those units in your backfield have the speed to catch up with your battle line anyway.

I would try the zombie wall as you march forward, if you have first turn then make sure you beef them up a bit because that many arrows will kill a lot of zombies. Your first turn should be entirely summoning, bats, zombies, skellies in that order I would think (the skellies prob have some time before combat and hopefully they're not being shot at yet)

I would keep your varghulf back behind units and have him ready to charge at wild riders that try and flank you, or just have him up on an extreme flank to limit the shots coming his way.

My woodelf friend always has problems playing against me as VC because I pen him in with raised zombies and I can actually catch him with my vanhels. I usually play with mannfred too and he is really sweet against an army with low power dice.