Morning all

Yesterday evening I battled the Dark Elves – a 2k game.

My list :
Vampire: lv3, dark acolyte, forbidden lore (vampire), lord of the dead, HoC, dispel scroll, talisman of preservation
Vampire: lv1, forbidden lore (death), power scroll, talisman of lycni
Wight king: BSB, flag of the blood keep
25 skeletons: fc
20 skeletons: fc (bunker for general)
25 ghouls: ghast
25 grave guards: fc, great weapon, banner of the barrows
black coach

DE:
High sorceress: lv4, power familiar, dark steed
Shadowblade
BSB
12 RxB: standard
12 RxB: standard
10 RxB: standard
5 dark riders: musician, crossbows
5 cold one knights: fc
5 cold one knights: fc
4 bolt throwers

The battlefield was a bit awkward looking. I had to bring my own scenery to the club, as we have decided at our club to give priority to painting or other boardgames every third Thursday of the month.

So, having quite a lot of Necromunda and 40K scenery and nearly no fantasy scenery the battlefield looked fairly steampunk B)

Anyway, off to the battle.

I deploy in the centre with the coach hiding behind a building. Grave gaurds and wight king (6 wide) are flanked by skeletons (right) and ghouls and thrall (left). The second skeleton unit with my lady goes behind the GG.

My opponent deployment (my left to right):
Dark riders (vangaured towards my army), RxB, knights, RxB and BSB and bolt thrower behind a wall, Rxb with general, bolt thrower, and knights. The other two bolt throwers are deployed fairly central near his table edge.

Going first my lady lets all her unit march. The coach stays in hiding. My lady pushes a side some skeletons to get a better view at the dark riders. She unleashes gaze of nagash but the evil sorceress has no trouble dispelling the magic bolt. In the meanwhile the black coach absorbs a bit of magic power boosting it to hatred. The thrall is no match for the level 4 sorceress.

My lady notices some disturbence in her ranks and she truns her head to punish the insulant skeleton. However, much to here surprise she sees a swift appearance, who shrugs of his haloween suite, closing in on her. The mere boy in her eyes treathens to kill her, but she kindly declines this dance of death and lets her captain step in for a challenge. The captain doesn’t stand a change.

The rest of her army receives a hail of arrows. The knights on my right flank leap forward.

Stuck with shadowblade my lady lets her unengaged units go forwad in a spearformation. The black coach driver sees the upcoming knights. He takes his whip, but the nightmares are in no hurry at all. The coach stumbles forward and becomes magic resistant.

For some reason shadowblade feels quite confident and issues a challenge. Again, my lady kindly declines the offer and let him stand there in the cold – she wasn’t able to re-raise her captain in time. This dance has taking long enough. Six of her bravest and vanhelsed skeletons take down shadowblade. The poor chap must have been too struck by my lady’s attitude that he didn’t managed to make a single hit.

Again the unengaged skeletons take some heavy beating and are completely wiped out. The cold one knights take advantage of the hesitant coach and ferosiously charge it. But the coach is a tough nut to crack.

The grave guards and ghouls move onwards. My lady re-raises some fallen skeletons in het unit while under a constant hail of arrows. And the wraith has his hands full with the knights.

The Dark Elf knights charge the grave guards. At last, combat. For one fallen brethren five knights get decapitated. The guards pursue into the RxB. My Lady’s bunker is now completely under attack until she is on her own. The Dark Elves see their change to slay this vampire but she swiftly dodges two bolt thrower salvos.

No time to waste, my Lady seeks shelter in the ghoul unit. The grave guards have no trouble with the RxB and overrun of the battlefield. The ghouls turn a round, facing the dark riders. My lady concentrates and magically moves the unit. The cowardly dark riders however flee through some ruins, but one breaks his neck when falling from his steed.

The coach is fully powered by now and the knights are no more, at last. The ghouls become target number one. Luckely the arcane ruin gives the undead regeneration. After the smoke clears up there is one ghoul standing proudly next to his mistress. Unforntunately her beloved thrall is slain.

The battle is a draw in my favour. It was a nice and tence battle, justified by the outcome.

Some afterthoughts:
-My opponent manages to not throw a single 6 for evocation of death.
-Still too careful with the coach. I need to be more aggressive.
-The suicide thrall wasn’t able to cast anything. And I didn’t want to just waste here on the sun. So, in future builds I reckon I’ll leave Death lore for what it is.
For now I’ll have to stick with her as this is my list for our clubleague.

By the way, my first league battle is next week against Ogres.

Yours
B

You can't overrun if you were charged.

Did I wrote overrun? Oops, I meant pursue. In the game there was still one knight standing. My bad.

Yours
B

Thanks for the report btw, what are the rules for Shadowblade? Wouldn't he be able to contact your lord on the other side of the champion, so to speak, to avoid the challenge?

Yeah the Coach is outstanding against Elves, you should deploy it in the open to give him more targets. A shooty list like that can take away one of your units per turn.

Hi N.I.B.

Well, I've checked the rules for shadowblade. Apparently shadowblade may be placed anywhere in the front of the unit. And then he counts as being in close combat with these models.

I'm not sure though that this doesn't allow one to challenge him.

In our case however, I'd placed my lady on the left courner next to the champion - needed LOS tot he dark riders for gaze of nagash. So, the models in base to base were my lady, champion and standardbearer.

On the other hand, I see now that my opponent revealed shadowblade too early. He needed to wait until turn two.

Anyway, I'll inform my opponent to check out shadowblade, as he'll use this list in our league.

Yours
B

Yeah, which would force him to accept the challenge from the unit champion.

shadowblade kinds sounded pathetic in this. usually people stik shadowblade on lone characters dont know y he stuk it on a unit. silly silly nice battle. i would have fielded are vargulf against against dark elves if i had the chance. id really laugh if shadowblade was sent onto a vargulf then i would srsly howl with laughter.....would b interesting

We both played our league list. So no tayloring.

But I know, putting shadowblade against a unit wasn't the smartest thing to do.

Yours
B