We fought our first escalation battles this weekend. Two simple 250-point skirmishes designed to force people to paint figures, and a chance to work through the game mechanics since we had some new players.
Skaven beat the Orcs and Goblins with a great hook charge into the Orc Arrer Boys, and the High Elves beat the Bretonnians.
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| Horde vs Horde... |
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| Setting up that surprising charge |
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High Elf Spears withstood charge
and routed Bretonnian Knights |
After that, we took out a large number of extra figs we had lying around and played a large (relatively speaking) battle. 1200 points, no magic, no magic items, and only one hero serving as your general.
Big Battle:
Skaven and Orc & Goblin alliance vs High Elves.
Skaven had two units of 20 clanrats
2 Warp Throwers
10 Plague Monks
A Rat-Ogre pack of 2 Rat-Ogres
A Hero/Chieftain that served as the Army General.
Orcs & Goblins consisted of 2 units of 20 Night Goblin Spearmen
3 Fanatics
20 Night Goblins archers
16 Orc Boyz
16 Orc Arrer Boyz
Total was roughly 1230 points.
The High Elves Order of Battle was the following:
8 Dragon Princes
3 units of 10 Elven Archers
5 Reaver Knights
1 Hero that served as Army General
10 Swordmasters of Hoeth
25 Elven Spearmen
Total roughly 1225 points.
We took a bunch of overhead shots of the deployment, a few shots of turn 1-3, but then somehow got zero pictures of turns 4,5,6. So, I don't have great notes and this will be a very sparse battle report.
On the Allied side of the board, the Orcs & Goblins lined up on their left flank, and the Skaven took the right flank near the village. From the OnG side, it was Orc Arrer Boyz in front of the hill, NG Archers, Orc Boyz, NG Spearmen, Skaven Clan Rats with General and warp-fire thrower hanging out behind them, then a column of Rat-Ogres, Plague Monks and NG spearmen, with another unit of Clan Rats holding the extreme right flank.
On the High Elf side going from HE left-to-right, Archers on left flank hill, Dragon Princes, some elven ruins left-center, then big block of High Elf Spearmen with General behind them, Swordmasters of Hoeth set back off the front line, Reaver Knights, then two units of 10 Archers taking the hill on right flank.
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| Close-up of the High Elf deployment |
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| Close-up of Skaven + Orcs and Goblins deployment |
Turn One Skaven
Skaven and Orcs advance across the board. A few goblin units squabble from animosity.
Warpfire Thrower fires but ends up hitting its own Clanrats.
Turn One High Elves
Not much happens. All High Elf bows including the Reavers shot at the center unit of goblin spearmen.
Only 4 died.
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| The Horde advances! |
Turn Two Skaven
Advance continues, goblin archers killed a Reaver knight. Warpfire killed a few spearmen.
Turn Two High Elves
Dragon Princes charged the Clan Rats.
Amazingly lose the combat after missing many hits and rolling lots of 1s. Clan rats lap around.
Reavers charge the goblin archers. Combat is a draw.
Turn Three Skaven
Rat Ogres charge in flank (dragon princes pass panic and fear tests)
Goblin spearmen in center move up, unleash 3 fanatics into the center of the battle lines. Spearmen lose 3 guys, swordmasters lost two, and 3rd fanatic went only a few inches in front of the spearmen.
Few other units suffer from animosity.
Orc Archers pepper high elf archers on the hill.
Goblins archers win combat. Reavers flee.
Rat-Ogre charge was ineffective, Dragon Princes kill some rats, but rank bonuses, charge, and outnumber bonus results in a drawn combat.
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| Fanatics unleashed in Turn 3 |
Turn Three High Elves
Reavers continue fleeing.
Archers again ineffective with shooting.
Large combat sees the Dragon Princes lose by weight of numbers, fail their break check and run. The clan rats pursue and catch them, wiping out the Dragon Princes.
Things are not looking good for the High Elves at this point.
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The Dragon Princes broke from this combat
and were overrun by Clan Rats! |
Turn Four Skaven
Fanatics fly around, one splatters himself against the Elven ruins.
Orc Archers pick off a few elf bowmen on the hill.
Turn Four High Elves
Reavers flee off the board.
Spearmen move up to entice clan rats into a charge.
Swordmasters and General take matters into their own hands, charging into the Orc Boyz.
Surprisingly they lose combat by one and Orcs lap around.
Turn Five Skaven.
Warp Thrower kills one of the fanatics.
Clan Rats take the bait and charge the block of spearmen.
Swordmasters and general kill 4 boyz, win combat. Orcs break and flee, Swords pursue and catch them. Panic checks down the line. Goblin Spearmen flee. Goblins archers flee.
Spearmen kill 10 clan rats and break them. They flee, spearmen pursue but don't catch.
This causes the plague monks to panic, along with the skaven general, rat ogres and warp fire teams.
Suddenly, the tide has turned. The Swordmasters deciding to take the fight to the Orcs may have been the key move in this battle.
Turn Five High Elves
Spearmen charge the fleeing clan rats, forcing them to run again.
The Swordmasters continue up and charge the goblin spearmen.
Archers kill 3 orc arrer boyz, one short of 4 needed to force a panic check.
Swordmasters win combat and cause them to break.
Turn 6 Skaven
Fail to rally general, but rat-ogres rally.
Turn 6 High Elf
Archers kill 2 orcs.
Game Over!
After tallying up the Victory Points, the High Elves pull off a stunning victory of almost 400pts more than the Allies.
