Introduction
Going with the same army twice does not sit well with me, so I decided to change it all around after all. I was looking for a way to get in a mobile but safe mage, but with the new edition out the moonstone is now one use only so not as powerful as before. I was looking at the cost of an eagle when I spotted another flying beast for the mage to mount, the MIGHTY GREEN DRAGON (Gregory). I went with white magic for healing the dragon, strength buff and ward save spell. And of course item destruction against the enemy. My 2500pt list turned out as follows, considering the new edition:
High Druid – level 4 white, green dragon, earthing rod, divine icon
BSB – Eagle, armour of destiny, elven cloak, lance, shield
Druid – Level 1 alchemy, horse, dispel scroll
2x8 dryads with champions
2x10 sylvan archers with black arrows and musicians for that special groove
8 heath riders with 3+ armour save and banner
7 wild riders – shields, champ, banner of speed, additional hand weapons
7 wild riders – shields, champ, banner of flame, sylvan lances
10 forest rangers – banner, champ
10 forest rangers – banner, champ
10 sylvan sentinels with hawkthorne and scout
5 waywatchers
My opponent fielded the following:
Ogre boss – two handed weapon of d3 wounds, 4+ armour, 4++ regen, 2++ versus fire and reroll successful wounds against him!
BSB ogre – holy sword
Ogre mage 1 – level 2 maw, dispel scroll
Ogre mage 2 – level 2 maw, book of +1 to cast/dispel
8 iron guts with great weapons and full command
50 gnoblars with bows (damned things)
4 mournefang
3 mournefang
1 Manfred the Rock Auroch
3 single dogs (tigers but modelled as dogs)
For spells we had:
White magic: unforging, rising phoenix, blessing and magical move (should have switched move to missile)
Alchemy: molten metal
Maw1: toughness spell and panic hex
Maw2: toughness spell and super magic missile (d6 S5 AP6 movement reducing)
Scenario was breakthrough and I rolled highest for table side, letting him choose so I can go first. On to deployment:
Deployment
Two hills, three forests, a building, a river, a wall and the yellow looking rocks are a wheat field.
My biggest mistake in deployment was the dragon, which should have been more central to reach more targets. My opponent decided to load up on one flank, to keep some of my rangers and dryads out of the game. Sentinels aim at Manfred and waywatchers at the mournfang. First turn goes to the sylvan elves.
Sylvan Elves Turn 1
Movement: I move up the wild riders to threaten, but make sure he needs 11 or even 12 to catch me. Dragon is too far away to cast item destruction on his characters, also it should have gone on the other side of the waywatchers to threaten more of his units.
Magic: 7v5 I think. I cast a big molten metal on the 3 mournfang but it is dispelled with dice. The last two dice go to movement on the rightmost rangers, to get them into the game.
Shooting: sentinels and SA1 puts 4 wounds on Manfred. Waywatchers do nothing and SA2 fails to kill the nearest dogs, should have aimed waywatchers at it as well!
Ogre Khans Turn 1
Movement: His guys storm up, the wounded dog blocks my sylvan lance wild riders.
Magic: He casts toughness twice on his 4 mournfang (wrong on diagram) to protect them from the dryads attacks. I dispel the first with dice and second with scroll. He also manages the panic spell on WR1 which also makes his units hate me.
Sylvan Elves Turn 2
Movement: WR1 charges the mournfang, I am hoping to get the strength spell on them. Rangers charge the dog, but the wild riders fail restrain and charge as well. The dragon almost had a charge on the dog to terror it away, but we decided it was in flank so it was blocked. Left dryads redirect his mournfang and everything else scoots around to get into the right position.
Magic: He dispels that strength spell with dice and unforging with scroll.
Shooting: I take out Manfred with poison and do a wound or two to iron guts. SA2 fails to kill the dog despite being at close range! Waywatchers pointing the wrong way again!
Combat: The wild riders get quite lucky on their wound rolls and I get about 8 wounds through with 5 in return. He fails his rerollable 5 break test and gets run down.
Ogre Khans Turn 2
Movement: The other mournfange charge the dryads. Gnoblars reform to get revenge against the wild riders. Finally once again the wild riders are blocked by a wounded dog.
Magic: He gets toughness on MC2 which isn’t shown. He casts panic on the sentinels which I let go and they pass. Finally he casts the magic missile on my dragon, and despite saving my dice I fail to dispel it. He fails to wound in return.
Shooting: Gnoblars kill the two wild riders.
Combat: 7 dryads die and the last one gets away.
Sylvan Elves Turn 3
Movement: FR1 tries to charge his gnoblars, but fail to get 9. The sentinels realize they are doomed, so they just lure the mournfang away from everything else. Everything else goes to the right flank.
Magic: 5v3 I think. I got all in on molten metal on MC2 to save the sentinels, but fail to cast.
Shooting: I kill one dog and wound the other. I also take some wounds off the iron guts, although we realize around here that wheat fields give cover. Whoops.
Ogre Khans Turn 3
Movement: Mournfange charges the sentinels, I decide to stand and shoot to do a few wounds although I probably should have fled to leave him stranded. He also charges the rangers with his iron guts. Gnoblars have to march forward to get in range of anything.
Magic: He gets through the panic spell on my heath riders and the flee.
Combat: Sentinels are destroyed and he reforms to face heath riders and SA1. Rangers are also destroyed, they could have done good damage here but I rolled very poorly. He reforms to face main forces.
Sylvan Elves Turn 4
Movement: Heath riders rally and face MC2. SA1 move backwards to slide out of charge arc. Everyone else prepares to engage gnoblars or to anticipate iron guts.
Magic: He dispels all of my spells with dice!
Shooting: I shoot the last dog.
Ogre Khans Turn 4
Movement: My heath riders flee from his mournefang, but flee very short. They don’t get caught though. Iron guts move up.
Magic: He gets toughness on his ogres.
Shooting: Gnoblars do 9 wounds to the forest rangers! EEEK! Sadly because I have a champion they can no longer grab objectives.
Sylvan Elves Turn 5
Movement: I charge gnoblars with dryads and he holds, I then charge with wild riders where he stands and shoot but I take no damage. Both charges are failed however! Heath riders fail to rally as well, and I even lose 3 or 4 to dangerous terrain.
Magic: Again I fail to do much with magic, as I keep rolling a one and something else on dice and he has +3 to dispel most of the time.
Shooting: Shooting do no damage to iron guts.
Ogre Khans Turn 5
Movement: Iron guts try for the wild riders, but fail to get 9. Mournefang moves up to catch heath riders.
Magic: He gets a single toughness buff on the iron guts.
Shooting: He kills two wild riders with gnoblars.
Sylvan Elves Turn 6
Movement: Dryads go into gnoblars, losing one to stand and shoot. Wild riders, BSB and dragon charges the iron guts but Gregory fails its charge! Nooooo.
Magic: He let me get a small molten metal on his mournefang, I do enough damage to remove a model but he passes his panic. I then get off the strength buff on the wild riders with a very high roll.
Shooting: Shooting does nothing to mournfang.
Combat: Dryads kill 8 gnoblars but take 5 wounds in return on a very lucky wounding dice. I lose by one but stay. The wild riders and BSB do 9 wounds to the iron guts, but the wild riders are destroyed in return. I win combat by a lot, but he is steadfast as dragon did not provide rank.
Ogre Khans Turn 6
Movement: Mournefang catches my riders, I am hoping to get lucky with dangerous terrains for another panic but he doesn’t fail any.
Magic: Nothing of importance, probably some toughness?
Combat: His lord challenges for a proper final showdown. I do no damage to him without my lance, as I have to reroll successful wounds. He does three wounds to me, his holy attacks and multiple wounds aren’t necessary as I already fail all three ward saves in the first go.
Prologue
A very good and close game. We did not count up points, but I think it is a draw or a slight victory to him. Had my last forest ranger been the banner bearer, then I would had a minor victory I think. My biggest mistakes were probably not fleeing with the sentinels and the dragon movement. All in all I was very happy with the list, but magic did not do much for me.
A big thanks to my opponent as well. Turned out the he played a 100 points less than me! Double toughness spell was really good for him, and at first he got of a lot of spells on two dice. But during the later half of the game he failed a couple of essential toughness spells due to using two dice, which really helped me out. The gnoblars turned out to be my biggest trouble, too many bodies to deal with and bows that really sting versus T3.
Looking forward:
The dragon only has fly(7), so I want to try the lore of shadows to get some extra movement in. With mindrazor in mind I felt like I had to get some wardancers in, so I have changed one unit of rangers into some wardancers and as an experiment I will let the BSB be a wardancer with the giant blade as well!
In core I got rid of the big unit of heath riders as they are somewhat of a liability and also the dryads as I was not overly impressed with them. With toughness debuff in mind, I got some more archers instead. Also, as one ranger unit is gone I went with two small units of ambushing riders to grab objectives and to kill warmachines.
To afford the changes I had to drop the waywatchers, but that allowed me to get an eagle in. The eagle will be useful for setting up sweet multicharges.
Only last consideration is the lore on the level 1 mage, who will now be on foot. Probably starting in archers and joining sentinels when possible. Thinking to stick with alchemy, but I might go with fireball or even a second miasma. Miasma has been nerfed though, so it is no longer possible to drop all 4 stats.
Pictures
Wild Riders on the warpath!
Setting up the trap