Champions of Destiny - Game 2

Round 2 - Vampire Counts vs Dwarfs

So, in this game I was playing against Luke Stout and his Dwarf army. Again, not a good track record against dwarfs. My best game was when I scored 99 points more than my opponent in a friendly, 2 points short of a minor victory.

Dwarfs, as most Warhammer players will know, are tough little S.O.B.s, especially when they are running a gun-line, as was the case in this game.

To throw a little bit of story-line in here, my general was now upgraded to a Vampire Lord, having gained some power from the Black Coach (which, for this battle, was sitting off of the battlefield). My 2,000 point army was as follows.

General: Luga Belosi - Vampire Lord

Level 1 Wizard (Lore of Vampires)

Heavy armour, barded nightmare

Sword of Swift Slaying, Charmed Shield, Talisman of Preservation

Red Fury

Vampire

Level 2 Wizard (Lore of Shadow)

Heavy armour, barded nightmare

Book of Arkhan

Quickblood

Necromancer

Level 1 Wizard (Lore of Vampires)

Dispel Scroll

Cairn Wraith

30 Skeleton Warriors

Full command, spears

The Screaming Banner

30 Zombies

5 Dire Wolves

Another 5 Dire Wolves

10 Black Knights

Full command, barding, lance

Banner of the Barrows

Spirit Host

10 Stormvermin

Standard bearer and musician

Storm Banner

Poisoned Wind Mortar

Fire Dragon

Luke's dwarfs were something like this. The characters probably had runic weapons, armour or standards. The war machines all had runes. Not sure what the Cannon had, but I think the Grudge Thrower had the Rune of Penetrating and the Organ Gun had the Rune of Accuracy.

Dwarf Lord

Shieldbearers

Dwarf Thane

Battle Standard Bearer 

20 Longbeards

Cannon

Grudge Thrower

Organ Gun

10 Irondrakes

8 Inner Circle Knights (Empire allies)

Treeman

Strangleroots

Deployment looked something like this, though the buildings might be a little bit out.

The abbreviations for the units are fairly much the same as the previous game, but here's a recap as well as the new units.

The large S near the centre is my Skeleton Warriors (I know, there are two units labelled S. I'm sure I labelled them SW on Battle Chronicler...oh, well). Next to them are the Black Knights with my Vampire Lord and Vampire (or baby vamp as some people like to call them).

On the left side are my Stormvermin and the Poisoned Wind Mortar. Next to them are a unit of Dire Wolves, with the Spirit Host behind them.

Over on the right are the other unit of Dire Wolves, and hopefully beyond the reach of his war machines, the Fire Dragon and the unit of Zombies containing my Necromancer scroll caddy and the Cairn Wraith.

The Dwarf units are - Lb=Longbeards, containing the Dwarf Lord and Thane, C=Cannon, GT=Grudge Thrower, OG=Organ Gun, I=Irondrakes, ICK= Inner Circle Knights, T=Treeman

I don't know if I missed something when I was prepping the Battle Chronicler pictures, but over the board, the dwarf army seemed bigger than it looks in the picture.

I rolled my spells and had Invocation of Nehek for the Vampire Lord and the Necromancer. The baby Vamp had Penumbral Pendulum and Okkam;s Mindrazor.

Luke made the grudge roll, and his entire army hated my army. They double hated the Skaven.

After vanguarding my first wave of cannon fodder, the Dire Wolves, Luke won the roll to go first.

The Treeman marched forwards, and the Longbeards marched forward as fast as they could as well. The Irondrakes and war machines took out the left unit of Dire Wolves, the Spirit Host and the Poisoned Wind Mortar, all but obliterating my left flank.

After activating the Storm Banner, I moved my army forwards, with the Black Knights heading for the centre. The Fire Dragon marched forward (on foot) and hid behind the building on the right.

In the magic phase, the Necromancer tried drawing out the Dwarfs' dispel dice by casting Invocation of Nehek. Luke wasn't too bothered about this and he let the spell go, allowing me to raise a few more Zombies in the unit. The baby Vamp then cast Penumbral Pendulum (the first time I've ever managed to cast that spell) at the Inner Circle Knights, rolling my Irresistible Force for this game.

The Pendulum hit two knights, but only managed to wound and slay one. My miscast was a Detonation! That's the one where only models touching the wizard take hits but the wizard himself is okay. For my troubles I lost two Black Knights.

On the Dwarfs second turn, the Inner Circle Knights managed to manoeuvre out of the charge arc of the Black Knights and in front of the Longbeards. Their shooting was somewhat hampered by the Storm Banner, but they still managed to take out a couple of Stormvermin and landed a direct hit with the Grudge Thrower on the Vampire Lord.

The Vampire Lord failed his Look Out Sir! roll, but was saved by his Charmed Shield, and two of the Black Knights were slain,

On my second turn, the Storm Banner ended. All I was able to do was swing my Black Knights around to face the rear of the Inner Circle Knights, while the Skeleton Warriors moved to block the Treeman, and for the Necromancer to spawn a few more Zombies.

Luke's third turn was as devastating as his first. Two Dire Wolves were slain by shooting from the Organ Gun. The Irondrakes slew some more Stormvermin with their shooting and caused them to panic and flee (a novel experience for a Vampire Counts army, having units fleeing).

Worse still, another hit on the Vampire Lord from one of his war machines. I think it was the cannon, which landed short, but bounced into the Vampire Lord without hitting any of the rest of the unit. Again, I failed the Look Out Sir! roll, failed the ward save from the Talisman of Preservation, and the Vampire Lord was blasted off the battlefield.

The crumble checks were fairly light. The remainder of the Dire Wolves crumbled, along with about two Zombies.

On my third turn, the Black Knights and the baby Vamp charged the Inner Circle Knights. They took the charge, despite it being a rear charge, as this would set them up for a counter-charge by the Longbeards if they held.

The inner Circle Knights managed to slay a single Black Knight. In return, all but one of their number were slain, who broke and ran. The Black Knights restrained from pursuit and reformed to face the Longbeards. Even if they had pursued, they would have more than likely taken a flank charge from the Longbeards.

After the next turn, it was all but over for the Vampire Counts army. The Black Knights failed to do any significant damage to the Longbeards, and were wiped out.

The Fire Dragon attempted to save the day by coming out of hiding behind the building, but was also guuned down. The Stormvermin rallied, but were wiped out to the last rat by the Irondrakes, and the Treeman had no problem making short work of the Skeleton Warriors.

Only the Zombies, led by the Necromancer and accompanied by the Cairn Wraith, survived. The Cannon took a few shots at extreme range and needing a long bounce. It even scored a hit on the Necromancer, but failed to wound, not even requiring a Look Out Sir! from the sixty or so Zombie volunteers.

Another enjoyable game. The Necromancer and the mass of Zombies earned me at least a point! I'm sure Luke enjoyed blowing my army to bits as well. The dwarfs are revelling in their victory. However, they were unaware of the cloud of mist floating away from where the Vampire Lord was cannoned, towards the Black Coach wherein his coffin awaits!

Results from Round Two

                 Players                                                      Victory Points     Tournament Points

Table 1     Phil Rossiter (High Elves)                               274                           10
                 Alex Hogan (Empire)                                        140                           10

Table 2     Luke Stout (Dwarfs)                                       1910                          19
                 Andrew Hogan (Vampire Counts)                        0                            1

Table 3     Andy Wood (Dark Elves)                                   367                         10
                 Matt Stafford (Warriors of Chaos)                   312                         10

Table 4     Charles Hart (Wood Elves)                               430                         10
                 Warren Stevens (Vampire Counts)                   230                         10

Table 5     Nathan Bradley (Vampire Counts)                 2067                        16
                 Julie Stevens (Dark Elves)                                  740                          4

Standings

        Player                         Tournament Points          Victory Points

 1     Luke Stout                               33                                  3048
 2     Phil Rossiter                            29                                 1823
 3     Alex Hogan                              29                                 1583
 4     Matt Stafford                           20                                 1124
 5     Andy Wood                              20                                  1277
 6     Charles Hart                            19                                    735
 7     Nathan Bradley                       17                                  2212
 8     Warren Stevens                      16                                     620
 9     Andrew Hogan                        12                                     480
10    Julie Stevens                             5                                     740

Coming next

The third and final battle report...Vampire Counts vs Dark Elves. I'm in danger of winning the Wooden Spoon two years in a row. I'd rather hand the baton on to somebody else to be honest.

Also, I'll stick with this blog theme (though the layout could be improved), just need to find out how to use the CSS code to get rid of that annoying drop-down thing when you scroll down the page.