ETC 2014 - Eternal Shadow Guard versus Dark Elves

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Mollesvinet
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ETC 2014 - Eternal Shadow Guard versus Dark Elves

Post by Mollesvinet »

My list can be found in the introduction thread here:http://www.asrai.org/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=25736

This battle was against a guy who just joined our gaming group, he is still a beginner and is learning the game. He did however have a veteran playing along with him, so sometimes I would help out but sometimes I would keep my strategies hidden. Usually if I knew I would play a beginner I would take a softer list, but I didn’t know before the game started.

Supreme sorceress – Earthing Rod, level 4 wizard, Lore of Death
Master – Dark Pegasus, heavy armor, shield, sea-dragon cloak, lance, Cloak of Twilight
Death Hag – BSB, Cauldron of Blood, Talisman of Preservation (not allowed, but she would have 5++ anyway)
25 witch elves (edit: full command + flaming banner)
5 harpies
5 harpies
5 harpies
10 dark shards
20 dark shards
20 black guard (edit: full command)
Reaper Bolt Thrower
Reaper Bolt Thrower
Reaper Bolt Thrower
Reaper Bolt Thrower

His spells:
Supreme sorceress: The Caress of Laniph, Soulblight, Doom and Darkness, The Purple Sun
My spells:
Spellweaver: Miasma, The Enfeebling Foe, The Withering, Okkam’s Mindrazor
Spellsinger: Searing Doom

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Deployment
My forest is a venom thicket and the river turns out to be a river of light. The hills and the building are ordinary ones. The ruins are arcane ruins, the orange ball is a sorcerous portal and the fence is a flaming barricade.
I make sure that all my elves are 29.5” away from his crossbows. I deploy the eagle first, but forget about the crossbows and the shades. I then panic about him deploying shades in the left side of my deployment zone, so I deploy GG2 to avoid it. However I realize too late that I deployed them too close to the eagle, so they will have to do a panic test if it dies. Treemen are in the forest to get cover against his bolt throwers. Wild riders and the eagle noble go on my right flank to beeline for the bolt throwers. He has combat blocks in the open field, bolt throwers on the hill and harpies as screens. I already knew about the Pegasus master’s kit and my opponent deployed him to go after my treemen. He gets the first turn.  

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Dark Elves Turn 1
Everything moves forward but doesn’t march, shades enter the building. Pegasus master moves in so that he is 17” away from my treemen. Harpies abandon their screening mission and blocks off my wild riders, I think this was a mistake. His supreme sorcerous is just out of range of the arcane ruins. He gets a very high roll for winds of magic, and starts out with purple sun against my treemen. He rolls a natural 20 on four dice and I decide to scroll it, even though he would need to roll 8 or 10 on the artillery dice. I let him have soulblight on T2 and dispel caress of laniph. Wild riders get speed of light from the portal. Bolt throwers all miss or fail to wound and his crossbows tries to shoot at T2 but fails to wound. My great eagle survives against all odds with one wound from shooting from both shades and DS2. 

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Wood Elves Turn 1
Wild riders charge the harpies and dryads charge the building. The treemen move back far enough to make it a difficult charge for his Pegasus master, while the eagle presents itself so that both treemen can charge his Pegasus master if he commits. Both glade guard units moves backwards to avoid dark elf shooting for as long as possible and the eagle noble moves up full speed. In the magic phase I first cast the big miasma on his DS1, which he chooses to dispel. I then cast the withering with irresistible force on the same target, reducing their toughness by 2. I roll 7 the miscast and lose 3 glade guard. The portal casts soulblight on the wild riders. Shooting from GG1 and the hail of doom arrow reduce DS1 to 3 shards and the mage. GG2 remove a few shards from DS1, at this point they would have been helpful on the other side of the table. The dryads only manage to kill 2 shades with their combined 16 attacks, but the shades still lose combat and break. I elect not to enter the building. The harpies inflict 5 wounds on the wild riders, but I save 2 on armor and 3 on ward saves which is very lucky. I kill 4 and they flee, I pursue but I don’t catch the remaining harpy which never rallies.  

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Dark Elves Turn 2
Black guard march forward, the supreme sorceress joins them and then the witch elves march forward. The destruction of DS1 has made my opponent realize that he doesn’t have any time to lose. Pegasus master moves behind my treemen and DS2 moves into range of GG2. The bolt throwers move so that my eagle noble doesn’t have any good overrun paths and the harpies block my wild riders. Shades rally. He tries to cast purple sun, but fails on a natural roll of 10 with four dice. Portal casts plague of rust on the wild riders. DS2 fails to do any major damage to GG2 but the 3 remaining shards from DS1 manage to kill the eagle even though they needed 8+ to hit! Bolt throwers shoot at treemen (rule error here), but doesn’t hit. 

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Wood Elves Turn 2
Eagle noble charges the nearest bolt thrower and wild riders charge the harpies. I realize the folly of letting his Pegasus master have poisoned attacks against my treemen, so I move them out of his charge arc and prepare to charge next turn. It was a mistake to place them so close together though. Dryads prepare to charge the black guard with the sorceress. GG2 moves so that the spellsinger can see the Pegasus master while the unit is still able to shoot at DS1. The big unit of glade guard hides their flank from the Pegasus master with the help of the eternal guard. I try to 5 dice searing doom on the Pegasus master hoping for irresistible force, but it fails. Portal casts wyssans wild form on the wild riders. Shooting claims 7 witch elves, though it should be mentioned that for the entire battle they never use their 5++ ward. Harpies and bolt thrower is destroyed, and I think both units overrun. 

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Dark Elves Turn 3
The sorceress enters the building alone, which is very brave of her. Black guard and witch elves march forward full speed and the Pegasus master goes right behind the treemen to box them in. At this point, I think the better option would have been to charge the EG to keep them occupied, but we will see how it turns out. DS1 enters the river, but gets banished and are destroyed. Shades block the dryads and the leftmost harpies block T1, though it’s not shown on the picture. He gets four dice for his magic phase, and goes for the purple sun which goes off with irresistible force. He rolls a 10 on the artillery dice, but I pass the initiative test on T2 and with all the EG. He rolls power drain for his miscast, which he chooses to reroll. He then rolls dimensional cascade, his wizard only takes 1 wound and stays in this dimension. Shooting doesn’t do anything, his bolt throwers cannot hit a thing all game. 

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Wood Elves Turn 3
Time is running out, so I decide to charge the eternal guard into the witch elves to save my big glade guard unit. The treeman charges the black guard and prepares for a rear charge from the Pegasus master. Dryads charge the shades who run but are caught, dryads reform to face the main combats. The wild riders charge the front bolt thrower, as they can overrun into the back most one but fail to roll a 7. Noble charges the left bolt thrower. GG2 move into close range of the building and GG1 swift reforms and moves forward to get the bsb into range of my treeman. In this way they can also shoot the sorceress if GG2 fails to take her out, they will only hit on 6’s but will reroll wounds due to flaming arrows. I go for mindrazor on the eternal guard, but only roll a natural 11 on the four dice. I decide to use the hearthstone to reroll a one, I need a 4+ and I roll a 5. He fails to dispel with all of his dice. With my last dice I try to cast miasma on the witch elves to lower WS and I, but it fails on a 2. Shooting easily kills off the supreme sorceress, avenging the fallen treeman. I do the witch elf combat first, thinking to get rid of his BSB. This will be the bloodiest battle in a long time, with lots of blood for the cauldron. Our champions do two wounds to each other in a challenge, my lord and his death hag both takes 2 wounds, killing her. I lose around 6 eternal guard (pass a lot of armour saves) and he loses 8 witch elves or so. In the end I win, and he fails his break test. When I tell him that I have the banner of dwindling and run him down, he pretty much gives up. However, we keep playing to see what the Pegasus will do to the treeman. The eagle noble overruns out of the map and the treeman takes one wound and does a bunch in return, but the black guard stays. 

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Dark Elves Turn 4
Pegasus charges the treeman and the harpies block the dryads. The bolt throwers try to kill the wild riders, but one survives. The Pegasus master hits with all attacks, but only wounds once and I pass my ward save. The black guard deals one wound to the treeman and I lose combat, but stay on my stubborn ten. We decide to end the game here.

It was actually a very close game, in the end it came down to mindrazor and the not so fortunate placement of his sorceress to tip the scales. He is still getting used to his book, so he did miss out on some ward saves and such. I think he learned a lot from this game, and after the battle we spent some time talking about how to improve the list. If there are any dark elves players out there with suggestions, feel free to comment.
Last edited by Mollesvinet on 19 Dec 2013, 04:27, edited 1 time in total.
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Gerner
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Re: ETC 2014 - Eternal Shadow Guard versus Dark Elves

Post by Gerner »

Well as a Dark Elf player I can skip in, because his list really need some optimisation.

The supreme sorceress could work, but with death I would really mount her to give her the mobility she needs. I would give her some kind of ward save.
The death hag can't take the talisman as you already wrote, and when mounted on the cauldron should in most circumstances be keept cheap (because she is so vulnerable to cannons/stonethrowers). Also you don't want her to loose poison attacks. Also the master is better at being the BSB, since he is more durable.
The witch elves should have atleast musician and standard bearer. The razor standard really helps them a lot.
The harpies aren't worth there money anymore since they increase in price - instead he should be taking 5 dark riders with shields, RXB and musicians. Dirt cheap and incredibly flexible.
Some times I like to take dark shards, but compared to WE and DR they don't cut it and especially not against wood elves who have the superior shooting.
I like black guards as well (but executioners are better in most circumstances). They need a musician, maybe give them banner of swiftness.
Reaper bolt throwers are good and dirt cheap. 4 might be a bit too much, and he shouldn't have placed them together like that.

There are some really amazing chooses in the book he haven't taken. Warlocks, Kharibdyss, Executioners, CoK, CoC..

He should be a lot more melee orientated and have diverse tools to handle the different match ups in CC.
For dark elves shooting is mostly to remove chaff.

Hope it helps, don't really know how they are in ETC. :)
Feel like helping me out? Look at my army list thread: http://www.asrai.org/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=25040 :)
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Mollesvinet
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Re: ETC 2014 - Eternal Shadow Guard versus Dark Elves

Post by Mollesvinet »

Hi Gerner,

I forgot to mention that he had full command in both combat blocks and the witch elves had the flaming banner, thats why i didnt want my treemen to play with them. I will look up and compare harpies with dark riders, sounds like you have a good point there.

The new list we put together for him has executioners instead of black guard, a bunker for the mage who has a dispell scroll and shadow magic. It also has some warlocks for backup magic. Those are the main changes so far.
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Gerner
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Re: ETC 2014 - Eternal Shadow Guard versus Dark Elves

Post by Gerner »

Arh, well. The flaming banner is really better of on the black guards or executioners.
The witch elves benefit hugely from the razor standard (like our Eternal Guards).

A still suggest putting the Supreme Sorceress on a steed, then she can jump between the dark riders. Dispel scroll and shadow magic is definitely good, but he should try out dark magic at some point as well, since we get +1 to cast it.
Feel like helping me out? Look at my army list thread: http://www.asrai.org/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=25040 :)
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Mollesvinet
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Re: ETC 2014 - Eternal Shadow Guard versus Dark Elves

Post by Mollesvinet »

Had another game against him today. I used a dragon and a level 2 on life (can't really reccomend it). The last three turns were pretty much incomplete, as i had to hurry for the subway. Since we rushed through it, i probably won't write a report. It ended up with a small win to me, but he did fail to do anything with his 3 bolt throwers for all game.

Anyway, he had executioners and i managed to get both treemen into them. They managed to put 5 wounds on one treeman and 2 wounds on the other before i killed all 25, but i did get lucky and had 11 thunderstomps in the second round of combat. If they were given the flaming banner, it would have been bye bye treemen.

Also he tried out shadow, but was quite unlucky. He failed to cast 2 mindrazors and a pit. I scrolled a pit and managed to dispell another with dice. So yeah, maybe shadow is not so foxy with only 4 dice per spell. With wood elves i quite like the "ranu's hearthstone" combination with shadow though, really improves the odds.
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Re: ETC 2014 - Eternal Shadow Guard versus Dark Elves

Post by hutobega »

Thanks for these reports...I love reading reports give me so many more ideas on how to play. I screw up and always charge things too quickly.
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Mollesvinet
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Re: ETC 2014 - Eternal Shadow Guard versus Dark Elves

Post by Mollesvinet »

Thanks man. I stopped writing the reports for some time, as i didn't get so much response on the last couple i wrote. However, i kinda miss writing them. Sometimes i feel i play better when i am taking notes and i know i have to publish the result later!

I will probably write some more reports when i get back from vacation. So far i only posted wins, it's not because i filter out the loses but i was on a winning streak back then. Hope to bring some more wins for everyone in the middle of february.
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Re: ETC 2014 - Eternal Shadow Guard versus Dark Elves

Post by godswearhats »

I like your reports, but we don't play ETC rules here locally so I kind of skimmed them because it was a bit like you're playing a different game altogether :-/
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Mollesvinet
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Re: ETC 2014 - Eternal Shadow Guard versus Dark Elves

Post by Mollesvinet »

My gaming group is open to suggestions for other comp systems, they would probably also agree to play some uncomped warhammer as well. Let me know what you prefer.
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Re: ETC 2014 - Eternal Shadow Guard versus Dark Elves

Post by godswearhats »

We play uncomped in this part of the world. It makes life a little more challenging for the Asrai. Hey, moral victories are still victories!
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