Empire vs. Cursed Kings

My opponent got his deployment first and won the starting roll.

At the time that I realized that he came with the exactly same list as he did on 5.2 against my horsemen list I though that HLP would be very safe behind the building, rather than inside the unit. Luckily the forest turned out to be ordinary forest. I also managed to get cover from two cannons with casket, as my opponnent really didn't pay attention to deploying his cannons,when he though that forest denied cover for casket.

My opponent keeped up his usually tactic of being very immobile. (there was perhaps some minor movement with halberdiers or something, but hoenstly don't remember)

At magic he got 4+3 +1 (hurriculum). He casted Banishment on 4 PD on my carrionrs and I tried to dispel it and failed. He casted bigger version of shems with 4 PD to other carrion unit. Both units were reduced to single wound.

At shooting his first cannon shot missfired and destroyed the cannon. He placed his cannons too closely and the other paniced away. Another cannon tried to hit casket but missed. On both flanks outriders and hellblasters shooted horse archers, but with some miracle my left flank survived.

I managed to charge his hellblaster with my horse archers

I went full speed ahead from all fronts.

I got 6+5 WoM so was capped at 12 pd. First I casted 2 pd upgraded version of cursed blades n C1 unit. Managed to heal 4 wounds back. Then I casted 5 PD casket to right volley gun (rolled pretty high) and my opponent dispelled it with all of his dices. Then I casted bubble smiting on 5 pd and my C1 unit was at full strength and C2 got 4 wounds back.

At shooting I decided to try double panic test for archers and halberdiers, and to maximize scatter. My archers and skeletal chariots failed to deliver decent blow with those volleys of str 3 shooting.

At close combat no wounds was inflicted so I won combat by 1, but my opponent managed to hold.

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Turn analyze:

- I still have hard time of using catapults. At this moment I was too concerned about scattering out side that I didn't try to shoot Hurriculum down.

- Perhaps moving HLP in building this turn would have served purpose to the later games. I was still too concerned about net of amyntok / banishment / shems shooting at my HLP archer unit that I decided to stay put. For example horse archers would have been on smiting range and more likely would have killed blaster.

- It was nice to see some TK resurrection power. C2 had 3 wounds in so I managed to pretty much nullify my opponents last turn magic.

He charged to my horse archers with his halberdier detachment. Allthough picture seems like it would have been flank charge, it was frontal. He backed of with his halberdiers from the deployment line so he wouldn't be at 24 inch range with my archers inside the building.

Magic was again 4+3 + 1 (hurriculum) This time I managed to dispel his 4pd banishment on my carrions with 4 DD. He casted double shems burning gaze other from level 1 and other from level 4. He couldn't shoot both magic to same target. Carrion 1 was left again with 1 wounds and Carrion 2 got 2 wounds.

Too bad I lost the skirmishing bonus against to hits, since he rolled badly with hellblaster but still managed to kill C2. On the left flank his outriders nailed the last carrion.

None of my EBtS missifred. Only tomb swarm 2 got scattered 10 inches. I originally tried to place them in front of halberdier horde. I tried desperately long charge with necroknights, since I allready though that I would move them about 4 inches forward anyway. I charged to arhcer with chariots and then overran in to halberdier unit. Too bad its angle wasn't optimal for necrosphinx to overrun to big halberd unit.

This time I moved my HLP in building with the archers. This way I got better range to spells.

Magic was 6+6. I went really dull using 4 PD casket on right hellblaster and my opponent let it go and it failed to do damage and then failed to bounce. Then I casted 5 PD smiting got IF and survived with detonation.

At shooting I decided to go for hurriculum, managed to hit it and do 3 wounds on it. My archer shooting again failed to deliver significant damage Stalkers nailed great cannon.

Close combat was pretty straight for chariots to kill archers, sphinx killing volley gun and overruning in to engineer.

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Turn analyze:

- I used prince apophas and tomb swarms to guide arch lector movement in hope of getting his hatred out of question.

- My basic idea here was to have sphinx doing exactly what it did. Next turn it would have opportunity to reform after killing engineer. I hoped that my opponent would have charged my chariots flanks with his halberdiers, that my apophas + swarm block would prevent arch lector to aid them in combat and then after my sphinx would have reformed he would have hard time to decide which model he wants to have in rear knights or sphinx. At this moment I really didn't realize that arhcers were so close to block knights movement. On retrospective my arhcers on building should have relaly shooted that detachment archers.

He charged to my flank with the halberdiers. He charged my other scorpon with hurriculum.

As I said before I really didn't realize that those arhcers were so close, so they effectively blocked knights from charing halberdiers next turn. He decided to leave level 4 and joined one of the detachment. He moved archers to face the other scorpion. He tried to move his lector, but couldn't do it due my blockades and the way he played his halberdier detachment.

At magic he got 5+3 +1 (hrriculum). He tried to nail Necropolish knights with banishment which I dispelled with DD and bigger version of shems which I scrolled. He casted smaller version with 1 PD to tomb scorpion and it died (or was it few damage and str 3 shots killed him.... )

At shooting he cannon missed again casket. Hellblaster and outriders shot chariots and they were left with one wound!

At close combat he did 2 damage with impact hits with hurriculum. Then I managed to do 2 poison strikes (and since my catapult nailed hurriculum 3 wounds) it died.

My opponents surprise appophas had flying, so I managed to charge halberdiers in rear with it. Tomb swarms went for great cnanon, necrosphinx went for arch lector. It was very close call that if I woudl have charged archers with chariot that tightnening movement would have allowed necroknights to get in the rear of halberdiers, but still they would have clipped to arhcers. So charge to hellblaster with single wound chariot in hope of overrunning to halberdiers.

I moved my stalkers further in hope of shooting level 1 mage bunker. then placed tomb swarms just somewhere near....

Magic was 5+5+1 from casket. I casted Vengeance on big halberdier block. I managed to cast double six on casket for outriders, they got few wounds and paniced out of the field. I tried to cast cursed blades on sphinx, but my opponent dispelled it. I casted smiting small version on arhcers, but my opponent dispelled it too.

This time my shooting was pretty good I got direct hit on halberd unit with catapult and about 10 models died. my archers managed to do little damage on them also. I really should have measuered thing rather than just trusting my poor eyes. Stalkers weren't no where near that archer bunker...

At close combat my Sphinx failed to do wounds due ward saves. He managed to pass break test on -2 modifier and managed to combat reform from loss. My apophas managed to do 5 wounds with 5 attacks. chariot killed 4 models before they managed to land the deadly finishing blow to it. Too bad I used apophas breat weapon on this combat, but I wanted to make sure that I break tha poor bastard with no doubt. And my apophas allready had 2 wounds in him, so it was very likely that next turn he might have been killed. Tomb swarms did 2 wounds and great cannon crew made 2 wounds. He didn't break.

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Turn analyze:

- Stalkers were very badly played this time. I just looked up that ok they manage to get in range. Perhaps I though that fine they killed the cannon and that was enough. On retrospective I really should have turned them to face better halberdiers and since I couldn't be sure that outriders would have been taken care of by casket perhaps turn them so they could have shot them too.

- Tomb swarms are perfect war machine hunters. They have reliability to stay there and as for threath they aren't nearly as big threat as for example scorpions are. And are actually very hard to remove from battle field.

He charged my tomb swarm with his halberdiers. He got fairly decent ammount of damage from DT test and got 1 wound against BSB.

Magic was pretty high if I remmber correctly. He used 6 PD shems burning gaze on knights and just barely failed to kill them. AGAIN, in this game I was left with unitthat had single wound.

Shooting was next to nothing.

At close combat he naturally anhilated my swarm, but was forced to do another DT and his BSB died (due second wound from dt) and he lost fairly ammount of models in the process. Tomb Swarm managed to nail cannon.

I tried to charge with swarm to arhcers flank. Single wounded knight charged to arch lector (he was banner bearer)

Magic was again 5+5+2 from casket. I casted Dissecation on archers. I casted vengeance on halberdiers, I tried to cast smiting on archers but that got disppelled if my memory serves me right. Casket managed to hit outrider, but they managed to hold their nerves. Originally engineer was just barely 6 inches apart, but when models were taken off master engineer was out of harms way =(

Still shooting with archers was most effective in this game. Only 2 archers survived (one funny aspect in this matte was that dissecation didn't help at all with this roll, so no 3 to wound rolls) My catapult tried to lucky shoot mage, but scattered.

At close combat Arch Lector finally broke (only managed to do 1 wound, but got 3 static from banner, flank and charge). I took long time to consider whether to pursuit with both, or would I turn Sphinx eye on halberd unit. Finally I came up that arch lector was nearly as much points (actually more since +100 general) that he was the main target. so both pursuits. Unfortunately he rolled 11 escape roll.. Halberdiers managed to just exactly kill the stalkers. He did 4 wounds, I did 3, he had charge, flank, rank and banner. so he won the combat by5... AND NOW when i write this down I remembered that they have animated construct rule.... well that really wouldn't turned the game around.

He failed to rally his lector and outriders. they both got very short flee range.

At magic he tried to shoot apophas with shems burning, but I dispelled it.

I was at 16 inch away from arch lector with my sphinx. and master engineer blcoked knights charge. I charged to outriders first with sphinx, and then redirected it to lector. He rolled 5 inch more, so I needed 11 to get to lector and of course lady dices gived me 11. I charged archers with swarm and apophas. Terrror check forced them to flee.

At magic I got again 6+6. (this was 5th time in this battle that I had 11 or 12 dice) I casted vengeance on halberdiers again. I tried to cast dissecation. I tried to casket halberdiers.

He charged apophas, suffered again some wounds on DT. Too bad he managed to kill apophas before he did anything. and too bad that explosion didn't do damage.

I failed to charge with knight. It was like 11 inches charge. Tomb swarms managed to get in combat. Too bad that I couldn't shoot them now.

At magic I had again 11 dices. gave tomb swarms killing blow (healing) and it would have helped against 6+ armour save. Then I tried to bigger version of dissecation, but my opponent dispelled it with amry DD:

At close combat something absolutely brilliant happened. First of all my opponent feared. Then he rolled horribly with the dices when needed to wound roll of 2+. And I rolled pretty good with my 6 dices, managed to do 2 killing blows and 2 poisons. No saves at all He lost the combat by (was it 3) but due steadfast managed to hold...

Final score 2261 - 1207!