Loriel's 87th game against empire

[Loriel]

Got a match against my brothers empire army. I wanted to try our Shield of Saphery + Dragon Prince tactic.

http://loriel.kapsi.fi/WHFB_BR/HE087/BR.html

[razorfate]

Hi, i will try to write my comments as i read the report.

Army lists:
I wonder why he did not upgraded the heavens mage to level 4? He will be at a disadvantage while casting and dispelling.

Deployment:
I did not like the order of the empire's deployment. He can deploy the 3rd outriders before warmachines or other important units.

Spell Selection:
Emire player could not get the important spells of the heavens lore (meteor, convergence and chain lightning. Especially chain lightning would be very effective to clear off your chaff units which out number his. Level 4 would help him here.

Your spells are solid to gain ward save bonus though i 'd go for soul quench instead of drain magic. Can you take both of the signature spells?

Vanguard Move:
Moving Ellyrian reavers inside forest is a bold move, unlucky dangerous terrain tests can cause panic.

Empire 1st Turn:
Not being level 4 failed the blizzard spell.Woo, the phoenix is dealt then fled off the board. Also it seems that outriders brought trueflight bullets with them. Very good and lucky start for the empire.

HE 1st Turn:
Very long move with dragon prince bus due to walk between the worlds. The Inner circle knights seems to be trapped. As he turned Karl Franz to the other side of the board he will not be able to combo charge the draon princes with knights.
Dangerous terrain test took its toll but his luck with shooting seems to come at an end as you did not suffer any more wounds to cause panic check.
He should use the dispel scroll for hand of glory as it was very hard for him to pass 13 with only two dice due to he is level 4. Then he could reliably dispel your another 1 dice castings. As apothesis was used only for ward save, dispelling hand of glory is more important imo.

Empire 2nd Turn:
And again level 3 lord caster could not cast any spells.
2++ ward save archmage becomes a bully; liked that idea, maybe next time you can give him a fencer's blades.

HE 2nd Turn:
I think you can not charge with walk between the world spell, it is just an extra remaining move.

Empire 3rd Turn:
Rather succesful turn with shooting . It was lucky for him that Karl Franz did not charge the silver helms. And if he had managed to charge then the emperor would be stuck in combat due to steadfast.

High Elves 4th Turn:
I think it was wrong for the empire player to roll 2 dispel dice to get 10. It is nearly 50% chance to roll seven and dispel dice is too precious for 50% chance dispel.

Emire 5th Turn:
The battle completly went othr way. Maybe you had better roll to catch the knights with your dragon princes too.
It was a bold and correct move to charge the mage to the DP to open the way for the knights.

All in all an exiting game, the Empire won against the odds.
Thanks for sharing.

[Loriel]

Oddly I wasn't subscribed to this topic, luckily I noticed your comment

Hi, i will try to write my comments as i read the report.

Army lists:
I wonder why he did not upgraded the heavens mage to level 4? He will be at a disadvantage while casting and dispelling.

Spell Selection:
Emire player could not get the important spells of the heavens lore (meteor, convergence and chain lightning. Especially chain lightning would be very effective to clear off your chaff units which out number his. Level 4 would help him here.

Well, the problem for him was that he didn't have points to spare as he was hellbent to have double hellblaster with master engineers and first time ever Griffon Karl I totally agree with this it would have made the game much easier for him.

Your spells are solid to gain ward save bonus though i 'd go for soul quench instead of drain magic. Can you take both of the signature spells?

Drain magic is castable while in close combat and he had two spell curse of midnight winds and iceshard blizzard. You out of all might be interested to read one of my wall of textes about High Magic http://www.ulthuan.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=68738 , My usual "net list" revolves around White Lion block.

Agreed that his mage bunker really wanted to have some Soul Quench Love(allthough you didn't say it I take you meant it )

And yes you can take both signatures if you wish.

Vanguard Move:
Moving Ellyrian reavers inside forest is a bold move, unlucky dangerous terrain tests can cause panic.

actual as per se Vanguard move doesn't cause dangerous terrain test. Rules for dangerous terrain can be found at page 117 and it only states march, charges, flees, overrun and pursues. However if I ever played against a player who felt that it should be tested then I would do them. In away I can agree that vanguard could be counted for DT so... but in RAW it doesnt

I actually didn't mention it in the report, but the forest turned out to be regular forest.

Incase you meant with the bold movement that the forest would turned out to be Wildwood (which would have being the worst outcome for the reavers), blood forest, or fungus forest then there is actually one trick that you can use especially with fast cav when dealing with mysterious rivers / forests. On same page 117 you find the rules for mysterious terrain. In short it states that when you touch the mysterious terrain you seize your movement and roll for what the terrain is. If it is something horrible like boiling flood etc with fast cav you choose to continue move, simply do free reform 180 degree and go away from the terrain piece. There is no rule that prevents you doing this while vanguarding. I didn't explain it in the report as the forest turned out to be regular forest so no biggie

With mysterious river there is only one risk with river of light as it will trigger the effect and possible shoot burning gaze or worse out of your exploring unit. All the rest results (combined with mysterious forest and rivers) don't give you negative effects.

Empire 1st Turn:
Not being level 4 failed the blizzard spell.Woo, the phoenix is dealt then fled off the board. Also it seems that outriders brought trueflight bullets with them. Very good and lucky start for the empire.

My brother considered that getting rid of the phoenix was one of the main reason why he won the battle. This is actually one thing that I should take more notice how to place my units in events of panic test. I want to say that my 30 games with Tomb Kings has effect this, but to be honest I should allready know better. Still simple odds favor us elves to survive panics.

HE 1st Turn:
Very long move with dragon prince bus due to walk between the worlds. The Inner circle knights seems to be trapped. As he turned Karl Franz to the other side of the board he will not be able to combo charge the draon princes with knights.

My aggressive taunting style

He should use the dispel scroll for hand of glory as it was very hard for him to pass 13 with only two dice due to he is level 4. Then he could reliably dispel your another 1 dice castings. As apothesis was used only for ward save, dispelling hand of glory is more important imo.

I totally agree with you on this one. One of the niche thing about my Shield of Saphery tactic is that usually the effect of the spell is secondary and the main thing is the ward save. Against this strategy dispel scroll isn't as important as it usually is. My brother explained his view on the matter that he hoped that I would simple broke my concentration with the Walk Between Worlds and he almost got it but Book of Hoeth saved the day. He though that double hellblaster against that dragon prince unit would be death sentence.

Empire 2nd Turn:
And again level 3 lord caster could not cast any spells.
2++ ward save archmage becomes a bully; liked that idea, maybe next time you can give him a fencer's blades.

I like Fencer's Blades allthough sadly I was beaten down with the numbers in the High Magic guide. However it has great psychological effect that when regular R&F starts hitting him at 5+ players tend to ignore him -> his survival chances increases. (little side note I started today making a conversion model for my Shield of Saphery mage... I probably post pictures of it later tonight or tomorrow)

HE 2nd Turn:
I think you can not charge with walk between the world spell, it is just an extra remaining move.

You are right that WBW cannot do charge (no 8th spell can do it). But that wasn't a charge. I failed my charge then casted Walk Between to it. This is a debate wether it is legal to move models that failed charge, did reform (or failed swift reform), are fleeing etc. In our gaming club we tend to allow movement spells such as dance macabre / desert winds / walk between to move after failed charge / reform / failed swift reform, but not fleeing or for some unknown reason immobilized models.

Empire 3rd Turn:
Rather succesful turn with shooting . It was lucky for him that Karl Franz did not charge the silver helms. And if he had managed to charge then the emperor would be stuck in combat due to steadfast.

On a side note we "rolled" if he would have shot dragon princes with hell blaster and with the demo roll he managed to kill one

High Elves 4th Turn:
I think it was wrong for the empire player to roll 2 dispel dice to get 10. It is nearly 50% chance to roll seven and dispel dice is too precious for 50% chance dispel.

Well he hoped for less ward save, nothing else.

Emire 5th Turn:
The battle completly went othr way. Maybe you had better roll to catch the knights with your dragon princes too.
It was a bold and correct move to charge the mage to the DP to open the way for the knights.

He actually didn't realize it. I adviced it to my brother (or better yet mentioned that it is possible to complete the charge)

Deathclaw didn't submit to death by thousand cuts =(

All in all an exiting game, the Empire won against the odds.
Thanks for sharing.

It was a great game and my brother was really happy when he scored a victory against me on the 8th edition. Our gaming club have really hard time to beat me with the 8th armybook.