I brought a casty lord in skeleton bunker, with a big block of grave guard with wight king BSB. (9/10 power dice, 6 dispel dice; +1 to cast, +1 to dispel due to staff) I had another ghoulkin vampire with Summon Ghouls and the book of arkhan, and then a necro as my characters. I had 2 small units of wolves, one 4-man wraith unit (with banshee), a varghulf, and a corpse cart with lodestone.

He had 3 block units (greatswords, swordsmen, and another misc block) with a smallish block of flagellants, a 6 man unit of heavy knights, two small squads of skirmishing archers, misc detachments, a unit of mounted hand gunners, and 2 cannons (the game turners). His general was a warrior priest, and he had another warrior priest, a BSB, and a lvl 2 mage (a disappointing 6 dispel dice!).

The plan was to pump my initially small skeleton unit up with Lord of the Dead (on my lord), who also had the sceptre de noirto, for summoning lots of zombies quickly.

His blocks were tucked in between terrain features, with knights out on a flank, one cannon way out in one corner (where the knights were), and the other cannon on the other flank, guarded by the hand gunners.

I plopped my blocks down in the middle, but then overloaded the knights/cannon flank with both ghoul units, both dire wolf units, and the varghulf. The wraiths were on that same flank, but towards the center more.

As I hoped, that flank quickly crumbled (the cav knights all ran away from the wraiths!), and the center became a zombie summoning fest. Despite the ability to fail LOTS of 3+ and 4+ casting attempts, I had generated enough zombies to hold quarters, protect my flanks, and was sending a big meaty unit to deal with the other cannon and the handgunners.

But, without a vampire to speed them along, the cannon hunting zombies took too long and a dreaded failed "Look Out Sir!" roll later saw my general take a cannon ball to the forehead. (sigh) Down he went. I rolled a "lets see what would have happened if I bought him wristbands" roll proved he would have still died, as I rolled below the required 3+. The zombies started leaving in a BIG hurry, as did the varghulf, but my necromancer led skeletons and my wight king led grave guard soldiered on. But all of my board quarter holding units were melting fast!

Once again, the old adage of "the luck will turn" proved true. My wraiths got into his big greatswords unit with his general/priest, and proceeded to hack it to bits! He had turned to face them, but I was rolling awesome to hit, so human heads were flying! His general had no magic weapon, and I had managed to raise a 5 man unit of zombies to get their flank, so I was going to town! The first turn he rolled insane courage to stick (later he remembered that unit was stubborn), but finally they broke due to huge combat res, and I was able to eek out a draw.

I am sure many of you will say I had a very sub-optimal build, but it was a fun first-game , and a good learning experience. I didn't want to power-game this guy (the first time we have played) right off the board, so I was content to have a good scrum.

Stars of the game: Wraiths, by far. Although they have poor WS, I rolled well on To HIT, and the Str5 hits were shredding the T3 humans, with no chance to hit in return. THe banshees wail killed more, adding insult to injury.

Second place goes to the Sceptre of Noirot. Zombies galore! If my casting rolling hadn't of sucked, I could have had the board swimming in zombies.

Lessons:
1) If there is a cannon on each flank, you will need to split your fast movers to tackle each. Even though "Look Out Sir!' is essentially a 2+ ward save, with enough shots, you have a decent chance of failing. And even wristbands might not save you. I am thinking I will take them next game versus empire though.

2) Sceptre of Noirot creates LOTS of zombies...fast! Very nice. Better on a hero or necro than on a lord? Possibly, as I had no ward on my lord.

3) You have to be VERY aware of where all your vampire types are, otherwise the army craaaaaaaaaaaawls. Vampire proximity to other troops is essential to keep in your frontal lobe. From that perspective, only having 3 vampires in my army (lord, ghoulkin hero and varghulf) may have not been enough. I guess I should have put the varghulf on one flank, and the hero (with ghouls) on the other to have both sides moving quickly.

4) Cannon balls roll over hills. In other words, as long as there are troops in front of you for him to aim at, he can hit the big nasty thing you try to hide behind a hill. Important safety tip, Egon.

5) Dont be a wuss with your grave guard. Make SURE they get stuck in and earn their keep. I am pretty sure they could have punched through almost any unit he had (bnr of barrows + BSB hatred banner), but they never got a chance. I was dragging my feet summoning, and that gave the cannon the time it needed to kill my general.

6) It would seem a very common tactic would be to lead with your grave guard, with units hanging back on either flank. Charge (or be charged) with your grave guard, then when he flanks them (who could resist), if they don't totally crumble, you can hit his flankers on your nexy turn in THEIR flanks. Game over. It seems like this would be a VC tactical staple.

7) Humans are pretty easy to scare.

8) Having Gaze of Nagash as a "shoot annoying things you can't reach easily" spell is VERY useful, plus it excels at drawing out dispel dice.

Okay, enough rambling for now. It was a fun game, and I am satisfied with a draw considering. No complaints. Advice that doesn't consist of creating an uber list that blows him away?

TIA

PS I can't wait for my next chance to play Lord of the Dead! As a long time orc/skaven player, troops that NEVER run are heaven sent. lol

Thanks for a good report!

No they don't, unless they changed this in 7th ed. Cannonballs are buried in the slope of hills. You can't even shoot large targets behind hills.

My pleasure. It was great to finally take the field with my new army!

He is a VERY fair player (voluntarily took the harsh interpretation for some rules against himself) and read from something (not sure if it was the rule book, but he considered it "official") that nothing except impassable terrain stops cannon balls. Nothing. No, you can't aim at something behind a hill you cannot see, but there was another target right in front of it which allowed him to sight the shot. (My bad.) I will inquire as to the rules source, but I think it was "official" Empire errata.

I thought forests, etc used to stop cannon balls. Assuming his source is valid, it sounds like they have simplified things down to nothing but impassable (ie a sheer face of some sort) stops cannon balls. I guess the idea is they are skimming and hopping along the ground, and so follow the contour of the hill...???

I was VERY skeptical at first as well, but he is pretty well read on WH stuff. I will get back to you guys on the details of the source.

If this is true it is something I will be adressing with any cannon-weilding army beforehand...and I will be arguing on the "common-sense" side of things that a cannon ball would not bounce up and over a hill if fired at something in front of it!

If the text truly says "nothing stops it but impassable terrain", that is going to be hard to argue against, as it very clearly should be taking into account all other terrain types.

Just spoke to the guy...it is right from the rule book.

Well IMO thats a dumb as hell rule from GW. Lets think situations.

Cannon ball lands in a river or lake....and can bounce out the other side absolutely fine (skimming?)

The hill issue is just monumentally ridiculous.

Cannon balls can go through unlocked houses but not through locked ones...they seriously expect the owners to see it coming and open the doors??

Im sure there are more instances where this simply makes no sense but I cant think of them right now.

I was thinking the logic was just that it skipped along the ground...up slopes, down slopes, but then it should just go Splash! in a lake and stop, but it says specifically lakes don't stop cannon shots. I guess they made no distinction between pre-initial impact and "the hop".

In 6th ed cannonballs clearly were stuck in hills, they even had pictures to make the point clear.

The reasoning behind is that hills are very high, after all they are treated as infinite high for the purpose of LOS, as you can't even see large targets behind a hill. And the hill itself is an impassable heap of dirt and stone, you can't very well shoot through it. The cannonball isn't rolling after all, it's flying.

Maybe they changed this in 7th ed. Really stupid if that's the case.

Good sum'd up report.

I like lessons 2, and 7. Short and sweet, actually as they aren't really lessons but facts. :)

I too think that would be dumb if the changed it, usually if a the empire player ever asked to shoot through a big hill we'd just say it's blocking LoS depending on the situation of course.

As for a rivers or lakes, usually the only rivers or streams shall I say for us, we agreed that they were only two foot deep so the horse, etc, could still make it past with only minor reduction. Luckily, only on one occasion was the water so deep that you needed a bridge to cross, that no empire race was present. So I guess the thought has just never really crossed my mind yet.

Sometimes too, if your bats are struggling trying to take out warmech, a Gaze can come in handy if it ends up slicing even one crewman down.

Where are you getting this from though N.I.B.?

I've looked through the 7th ed BRB, and on page 9 under 'hills and elevated positions' it states that you should get down and take a model's eye view to determin what the models can see. That is for units on a hill though.

However, on the same page 9 under 'interposing models', it's stating that a large target can be seen over something in front of it that isn't a large target. I couldn't find anywhere in the BRB that stated that hills are 'infinite high' and that you can't see a large target behind a hill? Can you show me where it states this?

I haven't had a look at the 6th ed wording so it may be as you say. That under 6th ed they were more clear on how hills work in terms of blocking line of sight.

Unfortunatly the Empire player played it right. Throwing logic aside, they simplified it so a cannon ball goes through-over-around etc etc everything.