Vampires Suck (Part 2)

And so, having taken an entire evening to play only three turns of an error strewn game, Pete and I reconvened for round two of our breaking out of the old armies.

This time we opted to go for just 1000 points to speed things up and we also actually studied our army rules before playing, which helped.

We had both clearly spent some time thinking about what went badly as we had both altered the balance of our forces with an aim to improve performance.

Realising that I had struggled to cross the board, I opted for a much faster, if smaller, and hard hitting force. Pete, meanwhile, had reduced the attacking wing of his army which had found itself strung out and isolated (his Lord had only narrowly avoided defeat against my Vampire), but had maintained his infantry line.

High Elves

High Elf Lord - Giant Blade, Heavy Armour, Shield

High Elf Mage (Level 2 Wizard) - Ruby Ring of Ruin

16 High Elf Spearmen - Full Command 

12 High Elf Archers - Champion

12 Lothern Sea Guard - Full Command

15 Swordmasters of Hoeth - Full Command

Tiranoc Chariot

Vampire Counts

Vampire Count - Sword of Kings, Enchanted Shield, Talisman of Protection, Heavy Armour, Nightmare

Wight Lord - Charmed Shield, Heavy Armour, Skeletal Steed

Necromantic Acolyte (Level 2 Wizard) - Sceptre of Noirot, Nightmare

7 Black Knights - Lance, Barding, Full Command

5 Black Knights - Lance, Full Command

3 Bat Swarms

3 Fell Bats

Deployment

The armies we'd picked somewhat dictated the nature of the battle we would be having. My hammer units were going to aim to get across the field as fast as possible, and Pete's archers would seek to whittle them down before the arrived.

Meanwhile, my flying units would attempt to get behind his lines, whilst his chariot would seek to plough into my flank.

At least we understood each other.

Interestingly, this is the shape of many of my games against Pete, be they Blood Angels vs Alpha Legion in Horus Heresy, Resistance vs UCM in Dropzone Commander or Soviets vs Flak 88s in Bolt Action.

Turn One

Getting the first turn, I immediately made straight for the enemy lines, angling the smaller unit of Black Knights to address the inevitable advance of the Tiranoc Chariot.

Meanwhile, my Fell Bats flew up the flank of the Elven army, whilst the Bat Swarms loitered behind a wood.

Magic achieved nothing...a recurring theme.

For some reason I didn't get any pictures of Pete's turn, but he moved the Chariot up and opened fire with magic and missiles, killing a couple of Black Knights.

Turn Two

The Necromancer got on with his main task of bringing back fallen Knights, and the Vampire declared a charge at the centre of the enemy line...which failed.

To try to stymie the Chariot, I threw the Bat Swarms in its way, whilst the fast moving Fell Bats got behind the Elves.

Being somewhat out of practice at this game, I hadn't spotted that I'd left the Bat Swarms in the way of a double charge from the Chariot and the Spearmen, an invitation that Pete immediately took.

Meanwhile, a much more effective round of shooting and magic took almost half of the Vampire's unit out of action.

The Bat Swarms could have withstood the Chariot by itself, but a ranked unit hitting their flank led by a hero with a magic blade was too much to bear and the fluttered away into the night sky.

Fortunately, the Chariot fumbled its overrun roll and failed to contact my cavalry.

Turn Three

So far, things hadn't gone amazingly well and that sinking feeling grew as the Necromancer failed to bring back and Black Knights twice!

With nothing else to lose, I issued a charge into the Archers with both my Knights and the Fell Bats. I lost another Knight on the way in but won the combat and drove the Archers back.

Sadly, the other unit of Knights failed it's charge and to add injury to insult a miscast from the Necromancer (who was having an absolutely smashing turn) killed one of the Knights.

Fortunately the stumbled forward enough to be out of the Chariot's charge arc. Small mercies.

Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for the Vampire's unit and they were suddenly on the receiving end of a flank charge from the Swordmasters.

There followed some furious book-flicking as we tried to work out if the rest of the unit could fight if the Wight Lord the were in contact with issued a challenge - we reasoned that they couldn't as they weren't in contact with any other models, please let us know if we were wrong.

Meanwhile the Elf General and his Spearmen charged the Necromancer's unit and things were looking bleak.

However, I hadn't counted on just how resilient Black Knights could be when you'd properly read their rules, and we were both reminded of just how squishy Elves were.

In an amazing turn of events I won both combats, including an amazing use of the Charmed Shield turning aside a cleaving blow destined to take the Wight Lord's head.

I was still surrounded but I had the opportunity to charge one last time. There was still a chance.

Turn Four

I managed to raise a few more Knights into the Necromancer's unit before the charge was sounded again and the ploughed into the Spearmen and the Vampire's unit went into the Lothern Sea Guard.

In other news, the Fell Bat went into the MN age because why not.

Unfortunately, the Elves became a much tougher nut to crack and whilst the Sea Guard were driven back, the Spearmen and the Elven General cut down the Necromancer's unit and turned to encircle the Vampire.

Enemies crashed in around the Vampire who took the opportunity to issue a challenge to the Elven Noble, who bravely accepted.

Despite the Black Knights hacking and slashing their way through Elves, and cutting down the enemy General, soon only the indomitable Vampire Count was left standing...surrounded on all sides...

Turn Five

...I think you know what happened.

Final Thoughts

Overall this was a much more successful game, not only because we were much more competent, but actually there were the seeds of a decent plan.

Had I made the first charge in turn two, I think that things might have turned out differently, as with more Black Knights to play with, I'd have lasted longer and, more importantly, the Swordmasters were looking the wrong way at that moment.

Things might also have gone better if I'd not stupidly wasted my Bat Swarms.

What we both enjoyed was the fact that despite my first couple of turns going badly, I almost dug myself out of the hole, which speaks well of the way the game works.

I still need to get my head around the fact that powerful charges are less likely to blast through enemy units, and I really need to think about how best to take advantage of magic in the game.

I could do with rolling less miscasts too.

We'll probably do this dance again soon, and I suspect that things might get a bit 'scaled' up, if you catch my drift.