In a marathon 6 hour game, my 2400 points of Wood Elves, 1600 points of Bretonnians and 1000 points of monsters, lined up against Andy's 4000 points of Beastmen and 1000 points of monsters for a really fun mash up.
On the subject of monsters, I had brought along my Forest Dragon and then added a Level 3 Truthsayer and a Level 4 Zoat (bringing my wizard total to 6!!!). This was in addition to my Treeman, two Great Eagles, an Eagle Rider and two Bretonnians on Royal Pegasi (one of whom was my not so secret weapon, more on that later). Facing me were two Hydras, a Manticore, two Razorgor, a Giant, a Carnosaur, a Cygor and a Ghorgon!
In terms of the battle, Andy was quite open about the fact that he deployed badly due to his placing of his fulcrums, with his Battle Standard Bearer at one end of his line and his General at the other. This left his Bestigor horde unsupported as they assaulted the centre of my line, and in the key moment of the game my Knights of the Realm unbelievably held for a round and then the Bestigor were pounced upon by my Men at Arms, my Wardancers and my Dragon. The Bestigor broke and from that point Andy was on the back foot, although he did almost turn my left flank later on (magic intervention saved the day).
Things that worked for me included my Wild Riders surprisingly blowing through a unit of Minotaurs and causing a Hydra to panic off the table. They then proceeded to chase off a chariot and tie up the other chariot and the Manticore before they were killed (although they killed the Manticore too!). My shooting also worked (for once) as my 50 (five-oh) archers shot up the oncoming monsters on the right so much that they withdrew. My Bretonnian Lord with Heroic Killing Blow was so obvious to Andy that by turn four the Lord had not really moved as every monster he'd charged had fled. I had to stand him right in front of the Carnosaur to get a fight, which he won with a Heroic Killing Blow.
On the flip side, just as my Dragon pursued and destroyed the Bestigor, and looked ready to storm a fulcrum, he got a rock dropped on his head by the Cygor. The Treeman was nuked by and Amber Spear hurled from atop a fulcrum (although he had scared off a horde of Gors, by Treesinging on them in a Blood Forest). My Spellweaver also miscast (on two dice) and turned every spellcaster on the table into frogs!
With the Beastman attack repulsed, the game was actually won by my newly painted Eagle Rider knocking one of Andy's Wizards off a fulcrum on his second go. I was quite pleased with this because that was my deliberate tactic (I had the second Pegasus Noble set up for the same job). This left me with two fulcrums and Andy with one, I think I'd still have won if it had gone to VP's but the result saved us the maths.
As for Storm of Magic itself, I loved it. It was a really fun change of pace from the regular game. The book is really attractive and the monsters hold all sorts of potential for fun variations. The magic items seem to be a bit of great silliness - the Living Deadwood Staff for example turned every forest into a Blood Forest, allowed me to move all forests every turn and had a bound spell for summoning more woods. Combined with Treesinging, this was lethal!!! The monsters were great fun and changed the dynamics of the game. Magic wasn't particularly overpowered, but the additional spells and miscast table certainly made the magic phase less rinse-and-repeat. I'll definitely be buying Storm of magic at some point and I'd recommend it to others.
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