Dark Elves vs. High Elves

TERRAIN:

Terrain was randomized as BRB 8th page 142. I won the first placement roll

Terrain placement order:

- Forest left

- Settlement of order ( 2 x buildings, 3 x fences, Wizard Tower)

- Anvil of Vaul

- Ghost fence (near reavers)

- Dwarf Brewhouse

- Wall

- Forest

- Forest

Terrain analyze:

- I made big error here, that happened because I didn't pay much attention. When we rolled the terrain I told to my opponent what everything was, but when I then placed I just though I placed normal building on the left, not Brewhouse. Original idea was to get relative safety for my archmage in both flank, but that brewhouse pretty much nullifies the idea of using Reavers as steadfast deniers. Also I crammed them up too tight so if I would have player reaver unit in that flank (at the time I wasn't sure where it is going to be placed) it would invoked unnecessary dangerous terrain. Nevertheless other than that I think terrain had more to offer for me than my opponent.

DEPLOYMENT:

I won table edge choice and my opponent won the first deployment. Deployment order was:

- Corsairs

- Dragon Princes

- Executioners

- Silver Helms

- Darkshards

- Reavers (small)

- Warlocks

- Frosthearth Phoenix

- War machines

- Hydra

- High Elven Characters

- Rest of Delf

My archmage used Lore of Beast and I generated 4, 2 , 2 , 3 and ended up with following spells: WYssans WIldform (swapped amber spear), Panns pelt, Curse of Anhareir and Savage beast of Horrors.

Morathi chose every spell from Lore of Dark magic. She generated 6 , 5 , 4 , 2 and ended up with spells: Doomnolt, Word of Pain, Shroud of Despair and Arnzipal's Black Horror.

He won first vanguard movement. I moved my big reaver unit just out of Hydras charge range (about 18,5 inch etween those two)

I won the roll for first turn.

Deployment analyze:

- That Hydra complete whacked my original plan. WIthout the Hydra those reavers would have slipped in far left corner and worked the magic they were designed to do.

- At the end of battle I noticed that he had illegal list with two Banner of Eternal flames. Since Airo was new to warhammer he though that same magic item can be used as duplicate choice. Luckily this effected the game only when dragon princes gained better ward save in the last fight.

My reavers went to scout the nearby forest and reavealed it to be fungus forest and then they went back to the same place they were.

Magic: WoM 4+3 no channels

- Curse of Anhareir to Warlocks 2 PD. passed

- Savage Beast of Horrors on prince 2 PD , Dispelled

- Pann's Pelt on archmage 2 PD, success

- Wyssans wildform to reavers 1 PD, success after reroll

No shooting or Close combats

Turn analyze: I think my opponent made a mistake of dispelling the savage beast at this moment, especially when he didn't charge the prince with warhydra afterwards, so this dispel had no effect on the game.

Executioners passed frenzy test. Warlocks marched and Curse of Anhareir did nice 3 wounds on them (no ward saves passed)

Magic: WoM 6+2 no channels

- Doombolt against Prince 3 PD. Irrestible force. It did total 2 wounds on prince and 1 wound on dragon. As result Morathi warded the miscast damage, but rest of the dices were lost.

Shooting: Darkshards killed 2 Dragon Princes and both boltthrowers tried to 6 shot the prince, but they failed to deliver. Shades failed to wound Noble.

I charged with Noble to darkshard rear and they failed Terror test. Then I used dragon princes tobounce them of the battle field. I didn't even try to redirect with dragon princes. I placed my reavers on new position in hope of getting Executioners flank with frenzied overrun. I reformed silverhelms in 5 wide to get more attacks and turn the angle of the executioners little bit.

Magic: WoM 6+2, no channels

- Curse of Anhareir to executioners 3 PD (really high roll 5+5+6) my opponent decided to let that go.

- Upgraded Panns Pelt 5 PD, Dispelled (would have effected both prince and archmage)

No shooting.

My prince almost died against those bolt throwers. I managed to save him by 4+ ward.

Magic: WoM 3+2 , + 1PD

- Doombolt to reavers 4 PD. This was really high roll so I didn't try to dispel it. It killed total 7 reavers but they managed to hold their panic.

- Doombolt to archamge 2 PD, dispelled

At shooting Hydra chose to use breath weapon and did one wound against Archmage

At close combat to my opponents surprise the griffon had Always first strike and all the Great Weapon wielding shades were killed before they could land a strike. He tried to kill my BSB and hoped that his hatred and GW would be enough to do 2 wounds on him.

Turn analyze: I think his decision of leaving that corsairs unit still was mistake. Allthough I understand one reasoning behind it that I had such mobility advance compared to him so he though that it wouldn't matter much how he placed them.

I did nice multiple charge. Those silvehelms managed to move just enough to get full frontal assault for reavers. 1 Reaver died due dangerous terrain test that the fence invoked.

Magic: 6+2, no channels

- Savage Beast of Horrors for Prince 2 PD, dispelled

- Wyssans Wildform on reavers 2 PD, failed to dispell

- Upgraded Pann's Pelt 4 PD, succesfull

At close combat no challanges were made. I rolled really well with all the 5 or higher str attacks. He managed to kill 4 silverhelms and 5 reavers, but most of all he killed my Prince. Star Dragon failed monster test and rolled Stupidity. I decided to save the breath weapon for future uses as I was fairly confident that this would end up major victory regardless. Funnily enough I did 10 wounds with Thunderstomps . Total 32 executioners died. Due stubborn from the Brewhouse he managed to hold.

Turn analyze: I was so excited about the combo charge and when I realized that the original idea what I had with the Reavers worked in this particular setting very well. In this battle even with about 14-20 executioner casualty those reavers would broke their steadfast and the break test would have gone much worse. I totally forgot that the brewhouse were there. Thanks to my opponent memory he used it.

Hydra charged the flank of Phoenix. Corsairs swift reformed

Magic: WoM 6+6 no channels

- Doombolt on reavers 4 PD, success and all of them died

- Doombolt on arhcmage 4 PD, dispelled

- Upgraded Word of Pain to Reavers 2 PD, success -1 WS/BS and -3 STR/INI

- Blackhorror 2 PD, failed

No shooting

At close combat He managed to do only 3 wounds to reavers. My Frosthearth saved the chillwind strikes with 4+ ward and remained unharmed. Hydra failed to do single wound to Frostie. Finally my stomps killed both characters and they wiped out. It was still too much for hydra and it broke. Sadly Dragon, Reavers and most of all the single Silver Helm dropped from combat as the executioners died. I tried to restrain pursuit with phoenix and managed with it.

Dragon passed stupidity test. I first used archmage to bounce the hydra off the board. Then I used single silverhelm to finish the job. Then when the silverhelm moved away infront of reavers I did multiple charge to corsairs. On retrospective I don't know what I was thinking, but I probably would have managed to just make normal charge move against the hydra with the Silver Helm (all I needed was to catch the bastard) but this way it was "sure deal"

Magic: Wom 6+2 , no channels

- Wyssans on reavers 2 PD, dispelled

- Panns pelt on archmage 3 PD, failed to dispel

- Curse of Anhareir to warlocks 3 PD, succesfull

At close combat Morathi managed to do single wound on Dragon and then Dragon trambled the poor bastard down. In multiple combat his corsairs feared my terrible monsters and I did total 17 wounds as he managed to do only 4 on reavers. 2 more dead reavers and corsairs would have being steadfast. Frostie, Dragon Princes and Noble passed armor saves. My reaver unit managed to break his steadfast and he broke from combat. At this moment my opponent decided to yield the battle. He might have gained the points from archmage by doing maximum dice roll on subsequental turns with the warlocks, but he wasn't so interested in to making those last points as it was getting too late.

Final score was 2646 - 80

LORE:

Loriel and Ardui'La searched for the body of Elaiduir in the battlefield where numerous Har Ganeth Executioners were put down. Loriel saw the Prince and quickly went and tried to revive him, but it was too late. Prince was allready gone. Ardui'la started to break the skulls of surrounding corpses. Some were still alive, but not for long. Ardui'la sweared to punish all the betrayers for his fathers death. Suddenly he realized that his fathers star dragon was still alive, but when he looked up he saw the dragon flying aimleslly towards the horizon. Ardui'La knew that the beast was only loyal to his father. Loriel asked wether the new prince of Rendelar province would join his armies, but the young elf refused and cursed the name of Loriel. "We never should have joined your mad quest!" he roared as he forced this sword in to the hearth of Tularis Dreadbringer.