Game 1 vs Beastmen, 2500 points. List was built as 'all-comers' not tailored to Beastmen. Just realized that the list was actually 2509 not 2499 as I had originally thought (I had missed the steed on the L2 wizard), but given that the 10 point items on the Captain were never used, it's kind of a wash :-)
My list:
Characters (697)
Spellweaver, L4 on Dark Magic, Unicorn, Acorns of the Ages
Glade Captain on Elven Steed, BSB, HoDA, (Enchanted Shield, Dragonbane Gem)
Spellsinger, L2 on Shadow, Elven Steed, Moonstone of the Hidden Ways
Core (744)
2x 6 Glade Riders, Hagbane Tips
3x 10 Glade Guard, Trueflight arrows, Musician
Special (648)
2x 6 Wild Riders, Shields
12x Sisters of the Thorn
Rare (420)
2x Great Eagle
2x 8 Waywatchers
My erstwhile opponent was Tom, my co-host from the podcast. As a way to provide a good basis for testing, he brought his tournament winning all-comers list. This army (we calculated after) was on at least a 15-game winning streak, across two tournaments, a campaign and a series of friendly games. The typical strategy with this army is to use the chaff to control the flow of the battle, castle up at the herdstone and wait for the opponent to come and get off good counter charges with the hordes.
Horde of 50 Gor, with L4 on Death, and BSB
Horde of 50 Bestigor, with Beastlord, Crown of Command, Standard of Discipline
3 L1 Death Wizards around a big Herdstone Shard, one of which had Ruby Ring of Ruin
2x 5 Harpies
2x 5 Ungor Raiders
2x Razorgors
2x Chariots
Here's the set up. All the characters are in the Sisters unit. There was one wood mostly in the middle of the battlefield already, and I rolled two with the Acorns. They ended up scattering 7" each, into more or less a straight line up the middle, so I deployed my free forest on the left flank as an emergency escape with the Moonstone. I think he had an extra unit of Ungor Raiders that were also behind the Herdstone that I didn't represent here.
Wood Elves vs Beastmen by
godswearhats, on Flickr
Turn 1
I vanguard both Wild Rider units more or less straight up the flanks. With fewer drops due to Scouts and Ambushers, I get the +1 for first turn and win the roll-off. First major difference - even playing MSU, I had fewer drops than my opponent, although granted he plays with a lot of chaff. I push forward with the Eagles and the Wild Riders, putting the WR on the right behind the Waywatchers so I don't inadvertently charge. I move the Sisters partially into the wood so that my casters get the Blessing, and put one unit of Glade Guard into the building and move the others up for purely aesthetic reasons :-) The Waywatchers ping a couple of wounds off each chariot, while the Trueflight arrows of the GG pick out the unit hiding behind the Herdstone - at long range, moved and behind cover, hitting on 3s - and take out half the bunker unit. Magic was fairly uneventful, due to the long range, taking out a five Gor with a Doombolt. However, this turns out to be vital later ...
His Turn 1 saw him rotate the Gor 90 degrees on my left to face the Waywatchers (and get in the front arc of the Wild Riders) and move back. His Razorgors moved into more threatening positions, and his Chariot on my right turned to face the Wild Riders. One unit of Harpies flew to the far right corner, threatening a flank charge on the Waywatchers there. He got 12 dice for the magic phase (pretty common with this army) and killed three of my Waywatchers on the left flank with a Fireball, but was unable to kill my Great Eagle on the same flank. His Spirit Leech failed to wound my general.
Turn 2
One unit of Glade Riders comes in Ambush, behind the Herdstone. This was probably a mistake - I had hoped to get into the unit with the 3 Shamen in it on Turn 3, but as you'll see this didn't work out. My Wild Rider unit passes its Ld test and doesn't charge, instead moving out to the flank of the Gor unit, and putting itself in the charge arc of the chariot. The other Wild Riders move to flank the Bestigor, and the Waywatchers move back to behind the impassable terrain to avoid a charge from the Razorgor. The Sisters move entirely into that central wood, bringing everything into range of my general's spellcasting abilities. My magic phase did nothing. The Waywatchers failed to kill the chariot on the left, but the Captain's HoDA deleted it with 16 shots out of 18 :-) Two units of Glade Guard killed the Razorgor that was threatening them, and the remaining unit, along with the Glade Riders, plinked the last few wounds off the Wizard bunker behind the Herdstone, and took a wound off one of the Wizards. The Waywatchers on the right flank succeed in killing the chariot on that side.
Tom's turn 2 saw him charge the Glade Riders with one unit of Harpies and the Waywatchers with the other. He rotated his Gor forward again, to face the Wild Rider unit, but then cast a couple of spells on my Riders, wiping out 5 of the 6. He failed to do anything else of note in the magic phase, despite having 12 dice again. The Glade Riders were flanked and only did 1 wound while taking 3, so they fled and were run down. The Waywatchers killed 3 Harpies with some magnificent rolling to wound, and took a wound in return, giving a tied combat on that side of the board.
Turn 3
At this point, I'd killed most of Tom's chaff, but not his wizards nor his two big blocks. I charged my general (the L4 on the Unicorn) out of the Sisters and into the Shamen behind the Herdstone - I could just see them peaking out and had a big enough gap to slip through. He wasn't expecting it at all, so hadn't protected against it - he was more worried about the Sisters unit combo charging with the Wild Riders into his Bestigor - although again not that worried as he had 50 bodies and lots of S6 attacks and the Sisters/Wizards would be in the front not the flank. I charged the Wild Riders into the flank of those Bestigor, and moved the Sisters within close range of the Gor. I rolled a 7 for Winds, with no channels, and this is where everything changes ...
I cast Shroud of Despair on 5 dice and it went off irresistibly. My wizard rolled a Dimensional Cascade (my favorite!) and warped off the battlefield. All the remaining units in the backfield (except the Harpies who had chased off my Glade Riders) got hit by the Shroud. The plan had been to have the Wizard win combat against the Ungor Raiders and force them to take a break test, starting off the Leadership cascade, but with him dead I had to hope for a failed panic test on the unit I'd charged after they all took a S10 hit - they unfortunately passed the test and I had nothing left useful to cast.
So, I brought all of my firepower to bear on the Gor unit. Waywatchers, Sisters, Glade Guard 1, 2 and 3 and managed with the last GG unit to get to 12 wounds and force the panic test. They failed! Now everyone is at -1 Ld and they run off the board. The nearby Harpies and wizard unit also fail and panic off the board.
Now onto close combat, with the Bestigor unit now at -2 Ld due to the effects of the Shroud. The Wild Riders cause fear, and when the Bestigor fail that test they go to -3 Ld and WS 1. The WR do very well, killing 16 Bestigor (out of a possible 20) and take 1 wound in return (being in the flank - his Lord was afraid to make way, they only had to weather four attacks at WS 1). The Bestigor take a Ld test for their primal fury and fail, putting them at a further -1. I win combat by a ton, but he's Stubborn on Ld 10 - even with the -4, he manages to pass the break test, but then fails to reform and goes to a -5 penalty.
In his turn, the Bestigor fail another fear test and primal fury test and another dozen or so die. The Lord makes way and takes out a couple of Wild Riders but with his WS at 1, he's not able to make enough of a dent. They take a break test at -7 (all due to the Shroud) and of course fail and that's the game. His Razorgor charged my Waywatchers and I decided to stand and shoot, mostly to see how well the WW would do vs T5 - they got beat and run off the board, but that was pretty much my only casualty. The only model he had left on the table was the Razorgor (technically off the table, having chased the Waywatchers).
If you're interested, you can read
Tom's notes on both our games. I'll get the Chaos Dwarf one written up as soon as I can - that was a solid learning experience, and a narrow loss for the WE.
Apologies for the complete images. I generated the starting image and then accidentally refreshed my browser - stupid software! What idiot wrote that? ... oh wait ...