VC vs. Bretonnia

[BigBoston]

When it started I knew it was going to be a good day, both my vamps rolled 2's for their first spell, and I defaulted to the first level spell on both of them!

Vampires
Vampire Lord
3 level wizard
Skull Staff
Helm of Commandment
Master of the Black Arts
Forbidden Lore (Lore of Vampires)
Summon Ghouls

Vampire
Power stone
Black periapt
Dark Acolyte
Summon Ghouls

Vampire (Battle Standard Bearer)
Book of Arkhan
Dark Acolyte
Summon Ghouls

Bunkered in a unit of Ghouls with a Crypt Ghast

Wight King
Sword of Kings
20 Grave guard full Command, Banner of Barrows
Sword and board

10 Crypt Ghouls (Ghast)

10 Crypt Ghouls (Ghast)

20 Zombies (Std, Mus)

Corpse Cart (unholy lodestone)

5 Black Knights (Strigos banner, mus)

5 black knights (Dead Legion, Mus)

7 Dire wolves (doom wolf)

6 Dire Wolves

5 Dire Wolves

Bretonnia

Lord on a Pegasus (Magic Resistance 3)
3 Pegasus knights

2 units of 6 Knight Errant's

1 Unit of Questing Knights 9 (Damsel-2 scrolls)

1 Unit of Grail Knights (Pali)

1 Unit of Knights Errant (Damsel-2 scrolls, Pali BSB)
2 blocks of 20 Man-at-Arms
---------------------------------------------

(from my side of the board) there was 2 small hills, 1 impassable large rocky hill, and a large man made fountain, which also was impassable. All this on the right side of the battle field strung out from deployment zone to deployment zone. On the left side of the board, about 10" from the table edge, dead center in the field was large rubble of houses, not rough terrain, but blocked line of sight for charges. The center of the battle field is where these forces would fight!

Deployment

I used a bunker formation, my Wizard unit behind Corpse cart, which was behind my zombies. in the center of my zone, Grave Guard on the left of them, with a unit of ghouls on the GG left as a support unit. to the right of the zombies was the other unit of Ghouls. All units where in 6" of Corpse Cart. Black Knight unit on each side of my bunker, two units (one with the doom wolf and 5 strong) on the left, 6 units on the right.

(my point of view) Lined up Grail Knights on GG, small unit of KE on the left of them (lined up with Ghoul support unit). on the right of the GKs was a unit of Man-at-Arms which lined up with zombies, another small unit of KE, second Man-at-Arms unit, then Questing Knights, 10" line up with dire wolves on the right side looking for flank charges was the Gen & PK. here is the big mistake, unit BSB unit was on the far left side lined up with left side dire wolf unit? I think he didn’t was to let me sweep, but ran out of units to stop me. okay strategy, just not with BSB.

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Turn 1

A - Bret takes blessing

B - (left to right) step trap with the two dire wolf units, doom wolf unit on the far left ready for a flank if he moved too deep into my territory, small unit on the right hidden behind the ruins, with my unit of black knights 13.5 inches away where my wolves could flank charge. my idea here was to let him get cocky with his 2+ armor saves against dire wolves, forgetting about my BK (hatred banner). I moved my bunker up roughly 7.5 inches, wolves on the right I moved outside right table edge. meaning he could wipe them out with PK on the 3 turn and delay them into the real fight till turn 4, or ignore them, and let them have a rear charge on turn three. he chose the ladder.

Magic - Build up forces, adding 7 ghouls to each unit and 11 Zombies.

Turn 2

A- (my left to right) BSB moved forward full 16", all the knight in the middle moved 15" forward, man-arms-units move 8", Peg knights moved 20" giving me a flank charge, with DW's

B- No charges to declare. Adjust my dire wolf trap to stop charges, just a little bit, but ignore BK so he will forget about them (which was working). I moved my bunker forward 8". I readied my BK dead legion banner for a charge from PK. Right side dire wolves forward and to the left a little, waiting for the battle to begin.

Magic - I rip off 4 Danse spells, used power stone, which he scrolls, this left me with 5 powder dice. I cast Danse again, he uses dispel dice and gets it. 3 dice left, I cast it again on my ghoul unit on the left of my GG, the reason I do this is to see if he was anything else up his sleeve, they get to move 8" and make contact, but more importantly he can’t flank my GG unit. I activate corpse cart deathly vigor, he has one dispel dice left and rolls a 2. which I follow up with the book and grave guard moved 8" into Grail knights.

Close Combat.

Ghouls and 3 KE pushed in combat, he had mus, so I lost on one more ghouls, but BSB stopped this.

GG and Wight King ripped of 4 killing blows and 2 wounds, he wounded one GG. ward save one killing blow and saves 2 wounds. he lost by 3 and failed and fled. He rolled bad poorly, I rolled good and was only an inch away from him. Passes LD tests from all within 6"

Turn 3

A- Moved BSB unit forward just a bit, he finally catches sight of my BK unit waiting for him and turns white. For some reason doesn’t move them anymore? Deer in the head lights in seeing his future doom? Grail Knights rallied. Both units of Man-at-Arms move 8” all KE units charge and with a very good wheel gets a flank charge of on my ghouls on the right side, but he also charged with his Pegasus Knights first and could only get 2 models in, which reduced his attack on the flanks by 3 knights and 3 horses which was good news for me!
Magic phase – he cast the wolf hunts, but was easily dispelled, I carried a dice over.

Combat – two units of Knights Errant (unit of 9, unit of 6) on the ghouls, was not happy about the helm of commandment, getting despite he began to tell me how it was a magic item that should be used in the magic phase, I refrained from laughing at him and explained to him that is was not an arcane item, and much like his magic resistance 3 item it did not require a magic phase activation. He quickly realized how silly he was being and was a little embarrassed. I rolled my attack first and rerolled my misses striking an impressive 9 wounds, but he matched my rolling by getting 9 armor saves as heavy cavalry tends to do. He rolled his hits, which fell short, and roll his wounds and killing only 6, with combat res I still had my first rank! My ghouls held and that all they needed to do! Now for the scary combat, if his Peg Knights break my Black knights they will get a flank charge off on my Wizard unit…….no looking forward to that one. So as they are within 6” of my corpse card, like my ghouls, I got to strike first and re-roll my misses, with a staggering 3 killing blows (I know I was rolling like a champ) he saved 1 on them with the ward, but re whiffed it with all of his knights, and only got 2 wounds in, and I saved both of them with my 4+ armor save. I had unit strength of 20 because of the banner and I did caused two casualties (we ran them as one wound each, but as they died to killing blow and they had two wounds would I get 4 wounds instead of only 2?) didn’t much matter re failed him his moral check and fled, I pursued and crashed into his unit of knights errant that had the flank on my ghouls and they failed their fear test and fled, which were ran down by the charging unit! The ghouls that was fighting with his KE to the left of my GG actually beat the knight in combat with 2 ranks, numbers, and 4 unsaved poison wounds and the fled I rolled 11” he rolled 13”.
This was the beginning of the end for him.

B – VC

On the left side of the board I had two units of dire wolves and my
second BK unit, I wasn’t in charging distance, but I moved my small unit of dire wolves an inch away and marched blocked them, while I swing my big unit of dire wolves and BK’s around the ruin to support the slaughter in the middle of the field. I declared a charge on his fleeing Peg unit with my dire wolves on the right side of the board, I declared a charge with my BK unit that cause the big unit of Knights Errant that fled from them the turn before, which caused them to flee again, then I re-directed into his Peg Knight unit which caused them to flee again, which allowed me to run into his very slow man at arms unit, which failed their fear test. I again charged his remaining Grail Knights with my GG, Ghouls charged the fleeing small unit of KE, he rolled a 4 on 3 dice, so I gobbled them up. I moved everything else forward to press the attack.

Magic phase, I booked 3 units cause more fleeing troops, caught one of them and then the othet two ran off the table.


He then conceded that match.

 

[Lord Fear]

So what we've learnt is you can construct a boring-as-hell list that exploits many of the army's strengths (1), you can roll like a god (2), and you can write an excellent battle report (3), despite the game lacking any sense of drama or excitement (4). I hope that we'll get to read further reports where there's less of (1) and (2) and more of (4), as it's hard to truly appreciate a battle report where we know the outcome before you've even told us the armies

In other words, more please, but not raise lists against armies that have no hope to stop them!

 

[BigBoston]

Well thanks for the encouragement, I appreciate it! It really makes me want to participate in this forum when an unconstructive, negative, bull-shit decorator such as yourself takes the time to ruin some ones work, with no concern in the time invested in it.(1) you want excitement and drama read a book, now where have I claim to be an author or word smith. (2) building a list that uses the army’s strength is kind of the point, it’s not a wise choice to builder a dwarf army list base on being “highly mobile.” (3) I have better things to do with my time then spend it with pretentious jerks that have a sad enough life that they feel the need to demean other peoples efforts to satisfy some short coming that no doubt have been plagued since a young age that they just can’t live down, from your country of origin I’m sure it has something to do with your teeth, acne, body odor, and possibly a coordination issues. (4) If you don’t like how a build boring lists, or write with a lack of excitement, then don’t read them. I surely did not write nor post this to please you or your insignificant self-esteem complications. (5) Go into your bathroom, run a bath (that’s the large container in the bathroom that holds large amount of water, will possibly run a little dingy for lack of use because of the rusty pipes, but for this purpose it will have little or no effect.) , place your head so that all facial orifices are submerged, and hold for 17 minutes, and five-tenths seconds.

I have never until provoked, disrespected you or shined a negative light towards you in any way. If this is how I can expect to be treated being a new member of your forum I will not be participating at all. This saddens me because I was very excited about vampirecounts.net
Take care and I would like to thank those of you who understand that being a complete %&@$ing @$$hole to new blood instead helping new players make you a D-bag.

 

[Lord Fear]

Lol, sorry fella, just giving my opinion! Calm down, if my reply gets you that angry then you've got some serious rage issues, even if I was being an ass. I didn't say you can't write exciting games- truth be told it was a great write-up and you made this one sound as interesting as was possible, it's just the match-up was never going to provide a thrilling game. Your reply to me was certainly a pretty entertaining read though!

You say you didn't write it for the benefit of the reader, so why did you write it up? To show how easy winning with a spam-list against an army that has poor magic defence is? We already know that, Munkey posted an almost identical battle report a couple of weeks ago. To show the great tactics involved (Spam Danse Macabre and hope he forgets Book of Arkhan)? To show how brilliant you are for winning in three turns? I doubt you're that conceited and must surely realise what a mismatch it was. I just want to see you repeat the great win vs newer, stronger armies that give you a worry- not ones where it's a foregone conclusion and your opponents have given up by turn 3 (and probably didn't evnjoy the game in the slightest).

Just to be absolutely clear though: sorry for the mean-spirited reply! Don't let one bum post put you off the site. I'm not Carpe Noctem

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

Bigboston - you will have to mind Count Flapula. He can at times come across as rude but he generally is actually trying help in his own way, as he is an admittedly superb tactician.

He has apologised at any rate, and explained what he meant by his post so I hope you will still post at Carpe Noctem.

 

[doombunny666]

from your country of origin I’m sure it has something to do with your teeth, acne, body odor, and possibly a coordination issues.

And what impression have you just given us by that statement?

If you dont like him theirs no need at all to offend the entire country...

 

[Campbellstein]

Well done for the win, and good desription of the battle. As long as you remember that racism is always offensive, even against white people then i look forward to reading future battles

 

[Munkey]

Oh Dear. It all went a little serious there for a moment or two!

Big Boston, please don't allow the opinion of one person put you off. Variety of opinions is a good thing, even if not everyone agrees with each other all the time.

I, for one, enjoy reading the cast majority of battle reports posted on this website. I also enjoy sharing my own reports and my highly inaccurate conclusions thereafter. I don't always post every game I take part in, as they often go the same way - as I use a fairly standardised force. However, I have been looking at adding a unit of Black Knights to my existing force and your report has given me a positive nudge towards having a go with them.

Unfortunately, I have not got time to post 2 new reports. A bruising encounter against a rampaging Night Goblin force or the viscious dance of death against a particularly sneaky Dark Elf force. Maybe tomorrow.

 

[BigBoston]

I owe all of you an apology, I had a very rough day, not an excuse just a reason for the lash out. I regret many of the things I said. I still do not agree with how Flapula conducted himself, but my response was a bit over kill and had no intention of pissing off half of England.

Just for the record, nothing I said was racist, I was stereotypically insensitive, but not racist.

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

Ok, well considering everything that was said the argument side of things is now closed, no more discussion on it. I can see why BigBoston got aggravated and maybe said some things he regrets, so apology accepted.

Of course, you can all still comment on the battlereport as normal.

 

[BigBoston]

So if running big blocks of infantry that can absorb a bretonnia charge and spamming spell to negate thier nasty charge is boring and cheese dick, is thier a better way? All other lists I have tried against him either draw or sneak by with a small victory.

 

[doombunny666]

Try running less magic and more CC power with your Vamps, take some Wight kings make a more martial force not focused on spamming ION.

Wight King

Nightshroud
Sword of Kings
Shield

Goodbye Brettonian Lord, you challenge he accepts or you kill a couple of knights if he accepts you kill him simple...

 

[Munkey]

Nightshroud on the Wight King - V Sneaky. He has the toughness and extra wounds to take any damage... but who he's fighting should be chopped before any attacks come back! Nice combo of items there.

 

[Reincus]

Brets have big flanks. Baiting with summoned zombies and dire wolves to get flank charges with hammer units. Fell bats are great for crossfiring units that break from fear and from prevent enemies from fleeing a charge because of the crossfire potential.

Vampires with great weapons make their great armor save a joke, combined with corpse cart ASF can devestate a bret charge.

Wraiths are excellent against Brets, since only heroes and Grail knights can hurt them.

Black Coach is fun against Brets because they do not have tons of chariot poppers.