Vermin Swarm vs. Daemon Legion

DEPLOYMENT:

- Scenarion: Refused Flank

- Secondary objective: Hold the Ground

- I won the choice of deployment zone, and picked bottom

- Harbringer of Change generated spells from evocation ( 2+2 ) I used the choice to pick Ancestral Aid and got Danse Macabre.

- Horrors champion had prederminated spells Hand of Heaven and Cleansing Fire

- Magister generated spell from thaumaturgy ( 2 ) so he got Cleansing Fire

- My opponent chose that I would deploy first, Deployment order was following

Mounted Sirens

Rats-at-Arms (5 wide unit)

Sirens

Rest of Rats

- Mounted Sirens vanguarded

- My opponent won the first turn roll

MOVEMENT:

Doom Bell ( Lightning Reflexes )

MAGIC: None

SHOOTING:

- Plague Catapult killed 4 sirens

CLOSE COMBAT: None

MOVEMENT:

MAGIC: 6+3 , no channels

- Upgraded ancestral aid to Horrors 4 PD ( 10 )

- Nothing else

SHOOTING:

- Horrors with Ancestral aid killed couple rats from the doom bell unit

CLOSE COMBAT: None

MOVEMENT:

- Doom Bell: Lightning Reflexes

- I placed my mounted sirens without proper care ( I actually checked that if they were left to the front arc, but I realized that I accidently measured it from the corner as the rat unit was 6 deep thus my arc wasn't proper).

MAGIC: 3+2 + DD

- Cleasing Fire to Magister 4 PD (17) failed dispel attempt with 4 Dispel dice

SHOOTING:

- Plague Catapult missed

CLOSE COMBAT:

- Mouted Sirens killed 5 rats, rats killed 2 sirens and then crumbled rest.

TURN ANALYZE:

- Slobby placement of mounted sirens costed them. However overall it also helped me to divide vermin swarms forces, but that wasn't my strategy.

MOVEMENT:

- Multiple charge against Doom Bell Rats-at-Arms with Sirens to the front, Slaughterers to the flank and Furies to the rear.

- Horrors swift reformed and were just one inch away from the hill (thus they didn't have any line of sight)

MAGIC: 2+1, no channels

- Danse Macabre to Horrors 3 PD ( 12 ) -> dispel failed, They moved just to get the two ranks on hill

SHOOTING:

- Horrors shot Plague Brothrerhood and killed few of them

CLOSE COMBAT:

- Sirens really overpoerformed their attacks and slaughterers brutally anhilated remaining rats. Couple Sirens and Furies died, but nothing serious. My opponent was stubborn but he didn't have enough strenght in numbers and broke off with long flee distance. I tried to restrain my pursuit with Slaughterers and unfortunately failed, but Luckily their pursuit roll was long enough to make them out of Plague Brotherhood charge arc

TURN ANALYZE:

- I was really dissapointed by the fact that I rolled only 3 magic dice. I wanted to get the horrors on the hill, I wanted to cast Evocation of Souls to the Slaughterers as well as cleasing fire to gain breath weapon to the big combat. I finally decided that getting those horrors on top of hill to get some shot against Plague Brotherhood and next turn support charge from the hill was the most important thing.

MOVEMENT:

- Rats at Arms charged sirens flank

- Plague Brother hood tried to charge Horrors but rolled too low to reach them. Couple of them died against stand and shoot

- Magister on Doom Bell failed to rally and almost ran off the table (due bouncing from plague catapult

MAGIC: None

SHOOTING:

- Plague Catapult killed some Horrors (At this point we had unclear how to resolve hits against characters from area attacks?)

CLOSE COMBAT:

- Rats-at-Arms had no trouble breaking the Sirens (this picture is little off they couldn't overrun to Slaughterers) So they reformed

MOVEMENT:

- Furies declared charge against Doom Bell and bounced them off the board. They failed redirect (they have only LD 2 ! :D ) Plague Catapult managed to keep their nerves

- Reform for Slaughterers and little turning around for Horrors

MAGIC: 5+3, No channels

- Evocation of Souls to Slaughterers 2 PD , Dispelled with 3 DD

- Hand of Heaven to Rats-at-Arms 2 PD, did two wounds

- Ancestral Aid to Horrors 3 PD, Dispelling failed

SHOOTING:

- Horrors shot Rats-at-Arms and killed plenty of them. Something like 10 - 15 rats left in the unit.

CLOSE COMBAT: None

MOVEMENT:

- Plague Brotherhood charged horrors, stand and shoot killed yet couple more

- Rats-At-Arms valiantly charged Bloodletters

MAGIC: None

SHOOTING:

- Those furies wrre roughly 11 inch away from catapult so no target

CLOSE COMBAT:

- Horrors managed to break and caught the Plague Brother hood (ALMOST pursuited to the flank of Rats-At-Arms

- Blood Letters had good old blood orgy and caught the remaining rats.

My opponent decided to concede at this moment.

GAME ANALYZE:

- This was of course a very small game, mainly because I wanted to have painted figures on the board and at this moment I can field little over 1600 points.

- I really felt that 9th age is too harsh on Magic. When I played 8th I seldom used those 6 dice ultimate spells but rather tried more precise "tiebreaking" spells to support units in the battle field. Many of the spells have too high casting values compared what they give and especially since miscasts are really devastating in 9th. For example Thaumaturgys Smite the Unbeliever. I don't know what kind of calculating is being made with that spell but I think it is great example of too risky spell with too weak effect. On the bright side during 8th having that level 4 was almost mandatory so you could dispel enemy so in that sense this magic fixes atleast that problem.

- I have hard time to decide wether I like the secondary objects or not. I always though warhammer to be battle between to armies, clashing swords and hurling fireballs against each other and the "lastman standing" is winner. This certainly makes the game go more to gamelike feeling, it also forces players hand and list design, but I don't know if I like to play a game where so much is based on wether you have unit in certain point of map at the end or do something else.

- In a way I was really dissapointed on the Doom Bell. First of all there seemed to be little next to nothing why would anyone roll 2d6 with it? Those effects on 1d6 should either be weaker or 2d6 stronger.

- Overall I am still excited about the game, most rules are well written and clarifies alot of bad writing that Warhammer 8th had. It still feels the same game, which is very important for me.