Game 3 of WOOD ELVES vs. LIZARDMEN series ongoing. 2500 points.

[jberrysf]

With 2 games under our belts, Electric Paladin and I decided to scale up the battle to decide once and for all the age old question "What is Better? Forests or Jungles?" With 2,500 points at our disposal we rolled Dawn Attack and set about creating a table. In Mark's table corner there sat a thin forest, well out of the way, in mine, a small barrier, a mystical structure and a forest and to the center, a pair of buildings, a third forest and a second mystical structure. As we deployed, rolling a d6 to see what was held in reserve for this mission, Mark had the misfortune of losing 2 Saurus blocks and his Temple Guard which was housing the Slann Mage Priest to be deployed turn 2. I had 1 unit of Glade guard, my Treekin squad of 6 and one Treeman stay in reserve so at the onset, we were both missing some of our most thrashy, sluggers from deployment.

Mark deployed his Cold One Riders, skink skirmishers, his Skink Priest on the Ancient Stegadon and skink blocks (one with a pair of Kroxigores) very centrally, hugging the front edge of his deployment zone, while I deployed my 3 remaining blocks of Archers a good ways back from the action, with my Dryads taking up the right flank and the Eagle mounted Highborn and my Treeman using the buildings to the left for cover from all that pesky poisonous fire. My mage and BSB sat bunkered into the Glade Guard squads in the back and we got under way.

Mark dropped his Chameleon skinks into the foremost forest in my deployment zone and I vanguarded my Eagle Highborn (also my General) directly to the left of his skirmishers who were also hugging the building.

Turn 1 Lizards
Declaring no charges, Mark marched forward claiming the center of the board assertively. Without the Slann, his magic phase was largely innefectual and with his Salamanders out of range, shooting was limited to the Skink Skirmishers at the Eagle Highborn and the Chameleons towards the eagle, which did a combined total of 1 wound to the riderless eagle.

Turn 1 Wood Elves
Highborn eagle charges the Cold One Riders and Great Eagle charges a skink cohort without Kroxis who declare a flee. Swiftstride gives me oodles of movement and the Skinks are lost to an overrunning eagle. During the magic phase, The woodies get off Throne of Vines and then Awakening of the wood on the Chameleon skinks who are all up in the forest, but The Dark Cube (see Dispel Scroll) wipes out BOTH spells in one fell swoop. The shooting phase sees a hail of S3 shots at a good deal of distance falling into the remaining skinks to little avail. Who knew Kroxigores were so darn tough and scaly? In Combat, the Cold One Rider Champion accepts the Highborn's challenge and is swiftly cut down and with combat res heavily in my favor (what with overkill and a rear charge) and the Cold One Riders (at 7 out of 8 models) go hurtling across the board (towards my Archers and Dryads, oh no!!!), far too far for the Eagle lord to catch them, but causing more skinks and the chameleons to panic in the process. The Eagle lord redirected his sweeping advance and raked through the pesky chameleons for a strong first turn for Athel Loren

Turn 2 Lizardmen
Enter 2 Blocks or Saurus and a Slann with loads of Temple Guard. Gross. The stegadon wheels about to face the lone great Eagle and the skroxigore unit rallied. The Winds of Magic were quite cruel to the Slann, but he was able to cast some nasty firey doomy attack to take out the Eagle and the shooting phase saw more solid saves by the General on the Eagle.

Turn 2 Wood Elves
The remaining archers, the Treekin and the Treeman arrived (late as usual. This is why nobody invites Wood Elves to parties!) while the Eagle lord charged into the flank of the Stegadon Riding Skink Priest. A squad of dryads declared a pitiful attempt at charging the salamanders for naught, but they did a very nice job getting between the Saurus blocks and the archers. The Magic Phase left a couple units exposed to the Treesinging of 2 Treemen, which took off a couple exactly zero models from the skink-kroxigore squad but the shooting left 3 cold one riders dead from literally 40 bow shots. You'd think they;d be better at that. Combat left the Eagle Lord handily beating the skink priest and chasing down the stegadon after breaking it to combat res. Downside? I'm about to take a charge from the salamanders on my flank and the dryads are sure to be absolute toast from the saurus blocks to the north and the cold one riders to from the center. I hope they dont chain into my archers...

Turn 3 Lizards
All 3 charges I just mentioned? They happened. Sad times. Very little magic or shooting due to lame winds of magic so on to the combat. Saurus vs Dryads? Anhiliation of the little trees. Luckily one little fella survived and because of some good rolling on my original high initiative attacks, as well as my break test being on the general's leadership (#12 inch bubble) he stayed in combat. Did a wound to a salamander and took a wound, but passed the Break test with the general and all that was left was the dryads versus the Cold One Riders. I dealt 1 wound and in return sustained 3 wounds, fleeing to safety behind the archers? Uhoh. Death is coming for me. Luckily, the cold one Riders rolled just shy of sweeping into my elves. Huzzah? Tides are turning, this feels bad...

Turn 3 Wood Elves
Treeman charges into the Skink Skirmishers, taking a wound to poisoned stand and shoot. Dryads rally at the board edge. Magic brought back a wound to the Eagle Highborn with life magic and Dwellers took out a total of 4 temple guard. Shooting brought the cold one riders down to 1 final model and on to the dramatic combats!!! The single dryad somehow survives combat, losing by 2 or 3, but made his break test, so he tarpits on. Eagle General does another wound to a salamander and takes another wound. Boring. 6 skinks go down to the Treeman and they flee further than I care to chase, so he turns to face the skink cohort with the 2 Krox. This may get ugly.

Turn 4 Lizards
The temple guard charge the Eagle lord's flank, the skink cohort charges the treeman and the lone cold one rider assaults into the nearest archer unit. Oh God. So much fear. The Slann uses arcane unforging ruining the Eagle Highborn's Sword of might, making his attacks at strength 4 now. Bad news. He also uses hand of glory to up the salamander squad's WS to 6 and 7 respectively. This was a miscast that ALL OF HIS TEMPLE GUARD SAVED. Pretty solid. 4 skink go down to the Treeman who also takes a wound to the Krox, but the combat stays put and on to the interesting fight... THE DRYAD WHO WONT DIE.

Spoiler alert: He didn't ever die. Fun stuff.

The Eagle lord is looking to be in dire straits, but with skink handlers moving up, he wrecks out 2 wounds, plus one more on the salamander, leading to a loss of only 1 from the flank charge and a standard bearer.

But wait, what about the archers who got charged by the cold one rider? Higher initiative meant faster attacks. 8 attacks, 5 hit, 2 wound, 1 dealt. Somehow the archers were quasi functional in hand to hand.

Turn 4 Wood Elves
Second treeman charges the side of the skink, krox unit. Magic restores wounds to the Eagle Highborn. Magic was boring and rather a non factor this game. Life was helpful, but not huge. Treemen wreck and thunderstomp all skinks leaving only 2 Krox to flee and be taken out by the puruing treeman. The treekin charge the Temple Guard Flank and the now rallied dryads charge the tarpitted saurus block who's been whittled down to 2.5 ranks from the rear. Seeing defeat, the Lizards retire.

My big takeaways are that I can create serious havok with my Eagle Highborn and that Treemen in pairs are almost silly good against infantry. That paired with good target priority from the Glade Guard made this victory for me.

Thoughts from readers? Chime in below.

Thanks for reading.

[ElectricPaladin]

My big takeaway? I can sum it up with the thoughts that were going through my head while General Eagle McFarface was wrecking my army (the ones that won't get replaced by ****, anyway):

"Oh, so that's what characters are for."

I think this is one of the things that distinguishes Fantasy from 40k. In 40k, you really are better off keeping your characters to a minimum - except for force multipliers - and focusing on putting boots on the table. While you do need your boots (or clawed feet, in my case) in Fantasy, the way morale works, the importance of combat resolution, and the ability of a lone fast-moving character to run down multiple units makes it a much better choice to put a character or two out there.

Additionally, I learned that you don't put a skink priest on a stegadon. Maybe it was a good idea back in the day when that was the only way to get an Engine of the Gods, but now that a) I can just buy the thing as an upgrade to any ancient stegadon and b) the howdah crew no longer acts as protection for the character, there's no reason to leave a valuable hero and spellcaster that exposed.

[jberrysf]

Yeah General Eagle McFarface was definitely my MVP. I think using him for flank and rear charges as well as character or war machine hunting is, I think, my best bet. My big fear is that against high toughness or high armor save (think Temple Guard or Ancient Steg) his 4 attacks wont be enough to bring up the combat res.

I'm nervous to see what your list looks like with Bastilodons, Oldbloods and Scar Vets. Maybe my Eagle Highborn can handle it. Probably need to bring in some new support.

[ElectricPaladin]

I actually posted the list last night - you could go hunt it down...

[jberrysf]

Oh, I know. Im not looking forward to it.

[pgarfunkle]

Thanks for your reports guys I have really been enjoying reading them, especially as they are between my 2 favourite armies! I look forward to further battles