The Lore Of Metal
Been a little while chaps and i'm as sad about that as you are. Mainly it has been due to lack of events that I have played in (although, I did get to run one, which was ace). I have been able to attend a two-dayer this past weekend, called the Storm Over Stirling.
The List
Lords
Archmage (Metal) - Level 4, Opal Amulet, Dispell Scroll, Ruby Ring of Ruin
Heroes
Noble - BSB, Armour of Caledor, Guardian Phoenix, Great Weapon
Mage (High) - Level 2, Silver Wand, Ring of Fury
Core
24 x Spears - Musician, Standard, Standard of Discipline
15 x Archers - Musician, Standard
15 x Archers - Musician, Standard
Special
19 x White Lions - Full Command, Banner of Sorcery
19 x Swordmasters - Musician, Standard
19 x Swordmasters - Musician, Standard
Rare
Eagle
Eagle
Eagle
Total - 2400pts
The Strategy
To be honest, I did a lot of last-minute changes and in the end I took this list without playtesting it. Luckily, it didn't do too bad. The general idea was to keep things as cheap as possible and to conserve VPs, hence no champions or magic standards on the Swordmasters. I have so often taken a 4+ ward on the Archmage, I thought it too risky to not to take it this time but as it turns out he didn't really die in many games. He used the Opal Amulet only twice (failed both times, the cheeky bugger) and I had a use for the scroll in every game. The spell selection basically gave me 4 spells on Metal and 4 on High Lore plus two bound items. As I was averaging about 9-12PD per phase (my channelling and the Banner were on fire all weekend!), that meant I had the opportunity to push through a LOT of spells and really bullied my opponents in the magic phase.
Anyway, the general idea was to get rid of the nasties (Mournfang, Chaos knights etc.) with the metal damage spells and buff the armour via Glittering Robe (which I luckily got in at least 5/6 of my games) and Shield of Saphery, which thinning the enemy ranks via my mass magic missile spam. Then my elites got in and finished the job, while the Eagles did what they do best and redirect and let me pick my fights.
The Comp
Pretty light-weight really;
-Most races limited to only +2PD/DD in each phase, +3PD for High Elves
-Look Out Sirs for the major damage spells (including Transmutation)
-6 games, 3 missions and 3 Battleslines (hence the number of standards in my units)
-200VPs per 1TP on the victory chart, which is quite brutal for armies that cannot get massive wins without losing a lot of stuff ie. the Asur.
The Event
Game 1 (Battleline)- Skaven
Enemy Lore - Ruin and Plague
The gist:
-Two Abombs and a Verminlord but no Slaves. Not a great match-up against the HE but I managed to do fairly well. Killed one Abomb and the Verminlord by Turn 3 but the other Abomb ran through my army netting plenty kills.
-Very bloody game against a new opponent. Not a bad result for a bad match-up.
Result: 10 - 10 Draw, 1936vps - 1970vps.
Game 2 (Break-point)- Beastmen
Enemy Lore - Lore of the Wild
The gist:
-This game was against a club-mate and we have played this sort of match up before. To be honest, I made few mistakes, the dice were in my favour and it's a hard match-up for the Beastmen. I managed to take off all his models by turn 5.
Result: 20 - 0 Win, 2650vps - 378vps.
Game 3 (Battleline)- Ogres
Enemy Lore - Maw and Fire
The gist:
-Pretty standard Ogre netlist against a player that I often play at least once a year at local events and it's always a solid game. The guy got a crucial Trollguts in the second turn which meant all my combat units bounced and started to be ground out. Luckily, I managed to keep reducing his armour save via Plague of Rust so that even Archer fire did some wounds each phase. Took his Gutstar of 9 Ironguts plus BSB and Slaughtermaster down to just 5 models after 1 phase of magic missiles and shooting.
-Lots of stuff died here and to be honest he got lucky that I didn't finish his character bunker off (Crown of Command
).
Result: 10 - 10 Draw, 1596vps - 1612vps
Game 4 (Seize Ground)- Warriors of Chaos
Enemy Lore - Tzeench + Third Eye
The gist:
-Played this guy before and felt that I should have had the upper hand being Metal against Warriors and him having no knights and a large unit of Trolls. Managed to do really well and kill a hell of a lot of stuff, leaving him with only a Hellcannon, a L2 on disk and a unit of 12/18 Tzeench warriors. Sadly, you had to capture an objective and as his unit was right on it, it took the game from my favour to another damn draw, despite the points difference.
Result: 10 - 10 Draw, 1860vps - 824vps
Game 5 (Dawn Attack)- Dark Elves
Enemy Lore - Shadow & Fire
The gist:
-Pretty standard DE netlist again and having the magic missiles that I did, I thought I'd do ok. It started well when I took out his flying Pendant guy with an irresistible Searing Doom (hurray for no flaming ward!), sadly the miscast took out my Glittering scales in turn 2, which left my Swordmasters to advance alone into the crossbows and Fireballs of the enemy so a bit crap there.
-Didn't manage to finish off any points despite the Black Guard being down to 7/20, the Spears down to 1/30 and both the L4 and L2 on 1 wound each.
Result: 3 - 17 Loss, 190vps - 1597vps
Game 6 (Battleline)- Lizards
Enemy Lore - Heavens
The gist:
-This guys had FIVE steggadons. Engine (with Skink), Ancient and 3 baby stegs. No Slaan was a nice change and I was actually really anticipating this match up as I wasn't at all sure how it'd go. As it happens, after you Searing Doom the Skink off his Steg (2+ armour save for the win!), you can pretty much do what you want with the magic phase and I made sure I picked the match-ups I wanted by cleaver use of Eagles.
-A unit of Swordmasters, even with Enchanted Blades, are no match for an Ancient Steg - remember that.
-A unit of White Lions, however, is a brilliant match agains even two baby stegs and an overrun into an Engine
-Took off everything apart from the Old Blood general who was standing in a rather messy pile of dead bodies (30 Swordmasters, 10 White Lions, 35 Saurus, Scarvet etc) on 1 wound.
Result: 15 - 5 Win, 2364vps - 1341vps
Tournament Result: 10th/30
The Bottom Line
Metal is not what you think it is. People tend to think it's brilliant against armoured foes and terrible against low-armoured troops. Well, after this weekend I can say that neither of those facts are true. It it not *that* good against armour due to it's high casting cost and it's not terrible against armour because of the buffs and hexes. Even low-armoured opponents start panicking once you take off their lowly armour save and start casting S4 Magic Missiles. The big dissapointment of this Lore is; it's high costing value, limiting it to a L4 or a L1 suicide mage; the lack of bubble spells. While Glittering Robes is awesome, I would have liked to be able to boost out Enchanted Blades for a better shooting phase also. As it were, I usually exchanged the Blades for the Searing Doom. Golden Hounds can also be used as a *slightly* cheaper Searing Doom, if range isn't an issue. I used it best for characters who don't get a LoS roll in units (Doombull in Gor unit, Steggadons). Transmutation of Lead has great potential but again, too expensive and lacked the bubble ability. Useful for when you have cast Plague Of Rust (which is a great spell to cast on 1 dice at the end of the phase, coincidentally) and you need to push through some damage or for Ogres to hit you on 5's. I found myself doing my spells in this order: Ruby Ring (1 dice), Ring of Fury (1 Dice), Searing Doom (2 Dice), Vaul's Unmaking (3 Dice), Glittering Robe boosted (4 Dice), Shield/Plague of Rust (1 Dice). Managed about 4 of those usually. Metal and High is an excellent combo.
The Final Word
Expensive
Some old has-been.
Twitter:@kingpash
Glory to the Asur!
