ETC Dragon vs Daemons Failure!

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Mollesvinet
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ETC Dragon vs Daemons Failure!

Post by Mollesvinet »

Wood Elves List

Highborn – Forest Dragon, GW, Armour of Silvered Steel, Stone of Crystal Mere, Other Trickster’s Shard
Spellsinger – Level 2 Metal, Dispel Scroll, Ruby Ring of Rhuin
Noble – Battle Standard Bearer, Wild rider kindred, Stone of Rebirth, Potion of Strength
Noble – Great Eagle, GW, Shield, Armour of Destiny
3x10 Glade Guard with musician
20 Glade Guard with musician, standard bearer with flaming banner
8 dryads
11 Wild riders with musician, champion, standard bearer with razor standard
Treeman
2 Great Eagles

Plan was to keep the dragon and wild riders together for dual charges. Eagle noble against warmachines and the like. Glade guard were to shoot things to pieces with eagles to delay. Treeman to counter last minute threats getting near glade guard.

Daemons list

Blood Thirster – Soul Eater and ASF sword
Herald of Tzeentch – Level 2 metal, screamer
5x10 pink horrors
2x1 Beasts of Nurgle
4 Beasts of Nurgle
4 Plague Drones
6 Furies
Skull Cannon
2x5 ambushing flesh hounds of khorne

Magic

Only Treason of Tzeentch was cast on an eagle with no effect to the game, due to miserable rolls for magic and lucky dispel rolls. I would try for enchanted blades on my big glade guard but fail. He would try for glittering robes on the Blood Thirster but fail

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Deployment phase

Terrain had little to no effect, so I won’t go over it.
I instantly forget about my battle plan, wanting to use my wild riders against his skull cannon. Then I realize that I want to keep my dragon away from the cannon. Finally I want to put my treeman in safety behind the obstacle. Wild riders are placed so that if his blood thirster charges, then he has to take a dangerous terrain test in the khemrian quicksand and risk losing the model. 

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Demons Turn 1

He steals turn 1, and manage to move his skull cannon so that it can get a straight line at the corner of the treeman base without going through the obstacle. Everything moves up. Rolls 3 for magic but his blood thirster pass its leadership test.


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Wood Elves Turn 1

My common mistake with the dragon is to be too scared with it, so this time I couldn’t resist the possible dual charge of my eagle noble and dragon. The eagle nobles charges the furies in the flank, with an overrun path into the beasts of nurgle. Everything else moves into short range of the plague drones, which I forget have flying as this is the first time I face them. Wild riders march up and reform to block out the beasts of nurgle and forcing his cannon to charge or get charged, lose 3 to dangerous terrain. GG4 does 2 wounds to his blood thirster and I only do 2 wounds to plague drones. I do 9 wounds to the nurgle beasts, but they then save 7 of them! Running the numbers afterwards, it was clearly a bad idea to charge these guys in this way. Eagle noble takes 2 wounds, due to me forgetting other trickster’s shard on the dragon and forcing him to reroll. 

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Demons Turn 2

I use potion of strength. His cannon charges in, his bloodthirster charges GG4 and I flee since I cannot allow him to regain wounds through soul stealer but he catches me on by rolling 2 sixes. Plague drones charge eagle noble. Both dogs come on. He rolls 4 for winds of magic and gets his ward reduced by one. He does 5 impact hits but only gets 2 wounds, my noble wounds with all his three attacks (forgot fury) but the cannon lives with 1 wound. He then rolls double 1 for rally test, and the cannon is restored. Plague drones kill the eagle noble, and reform so that they can choose between glade guard or dragon next turn. Dragon kill a nurgle beast and manage to win combat somehow.

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Wood Elves Turn 2

Dryads block one dog unit, an eagle blocks another one. I swift reform GG3 and GG1 to face the thirster, but GG3 fails on LD10. After they fail I forget to move them at all. Spellsinger joins GG1. Shooting with GG1 only produces 2 wounds on the blood thirster. My opponent asks me to roll the dice for GG3 to see if they would have killed him, and sure they would have. Wild riders finish of the cannon and reforms. Dragon does 5 or 6 wounds, and he fails to save a single one. Guess there is some justice. Dragon reforms to face new charge.

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Demons Turn 3

A nurgle beast and the level 2 charges GG3 and I couldn’t stand and shoot because I didn’t turn them so I flee and they get caught. His Blood Thirster charges GG1 and on the stand and shoot I only do 1 wound, leaving him with 1 wound left. In combat I pray that the elves can get lucky and kill him in close combat, but it doesn’t happen and he heals a wound after killing a lot of elves. I reform to get more ranks. My dragon then manage to do zero wounds to his plague drones and my lord takes his first wound in return, my dragon flees 10 but he rolls 3 sixes on his pursuit. 

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Wood Elves Turn 3

My wild riders charge his pink horrors, but due to him rolling wards like crazy they only kill 2 of them. At this point I concede the game, there is no possible way for me to win at this point.

Thoughts

I played this game very badly, my best excuse is that I only had 3 hours of sleep that night. Overall I was quite happy how the units performed, but I just failed to set things up in a way that it would make a difference. That being said, he was quite lucky especially on ward saves, pursuits and then the cannon healing back up. Next time the plague drones will be a much higher priority, as they are very difficult to delay. I also believe that his blood thirster should have died to shooting. The change from a 70 glade guard limit to 50 glade guard can really be felt. The treeman was simply to slow for this army list I felt, even if he didn’t get one-shooted.

Based on these impressions, I tweaked the list. I mainly got rid of the treeman for some waywatchers and a scout noble with hail of doom. Their job will be to attack warmachines and provide extra shooting. I added a few wild riders, I feel more than 3 ranks is too unwieldy but on the other hand I want at least 2 ranks in combat to deny rank bonus. I changed the lore from metal to shadows, I was begging for withering this game and pit of shades would have been awesome against the central nurgle units. Miasma would be nice to reduce movement of incoming units. I might regret if i face a bunch of knights next time, but lets see.

I will get a couple of games next weekend, and this time I intend to stick to the plan and do some dual charges with dragon and wild riders on the flank. I read that WizzyWarlock had a similar idea of a list with a dragon and wildriders, so any input from you and of course everyone else would be nice!

New list

Highborn – Forest Dragon, GW, Armour of Silvered Steel, Stone of Crystal Mere, Other Trickster’s Shard
Spellsinger – Level 2 Shadow, Dispel Scroll
Noble – Battle Standard Bearer, Wild Rider Kindred, Stone of Rebirth, Potion of Strength
Noble – Great Eagle, GW, Shield, Armour of Destiny
Noble – Scout Kindred, Additional Handweapon, Hail of Doom Arrow
3x10 Glade Guard with musician
19 Glade Guard with musician, standard bearer with flaming banner
8 dryads
14 Wild riders with musician, champion, standard bearer with razor standard
2 Great Eagles
5 waywatchers
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Lord Sloth
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Re: ETC Dragon vs Daemons Failure!

Post by Lord Sloth »

Noble – Battle Standard Bearer, Wild Rider Kindred, Stone of Rebirth, Potion of Strength
Is it an ETC rule to give a BSB a kindred? Can't normally do this.
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Mollesvinet
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Re: ETC Dragon vs Daemons Failure!

Post by Mollesvinet »

Yeah it's an ETC rule, its in the general rules about BSB's. The same place that says that BSB's have access to all mundane equipment of their hero-type.

I used to run BSB eagle with my dragon, to have it nearby. I really like this new way and i wish i had played it better, because the unit is now a crazy combat res generator including ranks to break steadfast. I have high hopes for the weekend, and will of course do battle reports.

I was considering the helm of hunt, but the potion of strength is just too nice to give up. Stone of rebirth already offer as good protection as he can get and he gets +1A the turn he doesn't charge anyway.
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WizzyWarlock
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Re: ETC Dragon vs Daemons Failure!

Post by WizzyWarlock »

Unfortunate on the battle, it didn't seem to work out well for you at all. I really don't like games like that, where it wouldn't matter what you do because the dice just aren't on your side or majorly in favor of the other guy.

A few thoughts on the new list:

I'm not sure what you expect to get out of the Level 2 Spellsinger. The maximum number of dice used to cast a Shadow spell is a lot lower in ETC (4 or 5 max?). Couple that with the fact you're only going to have two spells, and I just can't see this character doing much of anything. It'll either be dispelled out of the game or you won't be able to reach the casting value you're after. I tried Shadow with ETC rules and it was horrible, I'd never try it again.

Your back line also looks really weak. You'll have the Wild Riders, Eagles, Waywatchers, Dragon & Eagle Noble all moving up the table, while all the Glade Guard have to defend themselves with are 8 Dryads. If anything gets back there you're going to end up losing a lot of points, and considering you only have 4 combat units, two of which are single characters, it's really likely that it's going to happen.

I like the Scout Noble, that Hail of Doom launched at close range early in the game could be a nasty surprise; assuming you don't roll a 3. :eek: :p He also brings some much needed hitting power when attacking war machines. The Dragon Lord is pretty strong, as is the Eagle Noble, though the Wild Rider unit I find a bit too big. I find the best unit size to be 10 - any smaller and they don't do much, any bigger and they become a major target for the enemy, which isn't the ideal situation for a T3 5+/5++ unit.
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Mollesvinet
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Re: ETC Dragon vs Daemons Failure!

Post by Mollesvinet »

The level 2 is mainly there to carry the scroll really, i am struggling to choose a lore for her. The limit on shadows were very harsh at 4 dice, but has been lifted to 5 dice for all spells except mindrazor at 4. I know its uphill with a level 2, so i am looking for something that will really make a difference if i miscast it or get a lucky turn of magic.

The purpose of the eagles is to stay behind and block the enemy from reaching the bowline, i do miss the 70 glade guard cap as right now i only have 4 units of glade guard. I have been toying with the idea to have 5 units of 10 for more double fleeing or at least 4 units of equal size to give the opponent less obvious targets.

My first list had around 10 wild riders as you suggest, my main concern is losing the ability to deny rank bonus and steadfast on smaller units.

I do have alot of points in characters, if i was to drop one it would probably be the eagle noble, mainly due to redundency with the dragon. Question is what units i would get for those points... If you could post your version of the list for inspiration, then that would be nice. Thanks for the input
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Re: ETC Dragon vs Daemons Failure!

Post by Drstrangelove »

I'd be VERY tempted to take lore of light on your Lv2. It has great low casting values, the buffs really help, the magic missiles (esp banishment with it's rerolling ward saves: suck it, daemons!) rock and with how many daemons there are around at the moment you have the nice bonus of dealing extra hurt to them.
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Mollesvinet
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Re: ETC Dragon vs Daemons Failure!

Post by Mollesvinet »

I won't play daemons everytime though. Seems to me light needs more mages to make it worth it, i mean the signature is only really good when cast at 15+, banishment will only be strength 4 and all my combat troops (not mounts) already have ASF. So basically phas protection and speed of light are nice, though my models already have pretty high WS and I.

I could remove the eagle noble and the scout noble, then i could fit in a level2 and up to 3 level 1. It's alot of points for level 2 magic though...
WizzyWarlock: Unfortunate on the battle, it didn't seem to work out well for you at all. I really don't like games like that, where it wouldn't matter what you do because the dice just aren't on your side or majorly in favor of the other guy.
While he was very lucky at times, i did play the game very badly so i don't really mind that much. This game didn't really show me the true strength of the list,but it certainly taught me alot of lessons of things not to do. Very proud of my highborn not to be wounded for so long, given the unfriendly environment he was put into! It's the first time i played this style of list and its quite enjoyable.
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