Vc Tour

[Bauglir]

Dear Keepers

It has been a while. Though I checked the forum frequently I didn’t feel the urge to write something. But the sun is shining and …
So, here’s another (small) report on how my VC fared the last couple of weeks.

My first encounter, a few weeks back, was against Empire for our annual Warrior cup (2250p, everything is allowed save cheating).
I deployed the following list:

http://z4.invisionfree.com/The_Blood_Keep/...?showtopic=9838

My opponent, from what I remember put the following on the table.

Waraltar
Bouble Steam tank
3 units of emperial gunmen. Two with a marksman.
3 units of 5 knights
3 cannons (guess there was a hellblaster as well)
2 wizards
Warriorpriest on horse.

Well, I can be quite brief on this one. Nothing really happened the first 3 rounds, save a few casualties from incomming firepower.
However he completely blocked my magic phase. I didn’t raise a single zombie. One thing did get through – Wind of Undead. Really, the highlight of the battle for me. Nearly every unit of his took a casualty. In no time I had unit of spirit hosts (3 bases) on the battlefield. They immediately hunted down a steamtank. A succesful flankcharge elimated that potential threat.
Turn 3 was a turning point. Waraltar and the second tank threatened my battleline. My vampires exhausted all their magical power to raise zombies and to van hell’s a wraith unit in the flank of the Waraltar. But to no avail. Nothing came true.
From this point on I knew I was in trouble. He succesfully charged both his tank and Waraltar into the skeleton unit. My skellies perished and his Waralter overran into my bunker killing my lord.
Keeping my honour I succeeded.
A wel deserved massacre for my opponent.

My second battle was against Lizardmen (1999p). An army I have always struggled against. And more inportantly, my first encounter with the new lizzies.

My list:
Vampire: general, dark acolyte, summon creatures, walach's bloody hauberk, biting blade, nightmare
Vampire: BSB, dark acolyte, avatar of death (heavy armour, handweapon, shield), nightmare, drakenhof banner
vampire: dark acolyte, avatar of death (great weapon, heavy armour), book of arkhan, talisman of lycni
10 ghouls
10 ghouls
20 zombies
7 dire wolves: doom wolf
5 dire wolves
corpse cart: balefire
corpse cart: balefire
9 black knights: fc, barding, warbanner
5 fell bats
5 blood knights: std bearer, banner of strigos

My opponent:

Stegadon Engine of the Gods went in a unit of skinks
Stegadon
2 units of skinks (skirmishers)
Unit of 5 cold ones
Character on cold one
6 flyers
3 kroxi
2 salamanders

I fairly controlled the magic phase, I didn’t rush into combat. So everything went well…so far. I tried to eliminate the salamanders with gaze of nagash. But the Lizardmen blocked it. I succesfully raised zombies to block EoG but I couldn’t uphold the invocations.
So, getting too close I opted for the charge destroying the salamanders. And that was it. That chargemove however got my black knights in an awkward position. He consequently charged, well clipped, my knights with his cold ones. And this battle went on and on.
By then my blood knights were being destroyed by a charge from his stegadon. Bit by bit my army withered away.
A very tense and strange battle. If my black would have get passed the cold ones more quickly this would have been a different battle. But then again, if my mother would have wings she could fly.

Result: massacre for the Lizardmen.

My last battle so far was yesterday versus skaven. Again a 1999p battle.
I used the same list as above.
My opponent…Well he had a lot of skavenJ

Deployement was quite staight forward. I concetrated my force. I centred my zombies with both corpse carts in their back. To the left I had my black knights, doom wolf unit in front of them. To the right I had my blood knights. Bats and other wolves in front of them. Ghouls on either flank. Lycni vamp joining the ghoul unit on my right.
Opposit were,well, skaven. Table edge to table edge.

I marhed forward asap. Expanding my bat unit up to...6:rolleyes: The lycni vamp marched into the forrest in front of her. She camped there until turn 5.
The skaven tried to blow up some knights. Oh, do I thank Drakenhof.. His (10) jezzails only killed one black knight.
Surviving his firepower turn one we both knew I had him. Turn two I moved in for the kill. Destroying one unit and forcing other to flee the battlefield.
In the end I only lost a zombie unit to charge from sencer bearers, a ghoul unit to plague monks and both units of wolves.

Finally, a complete massacre for the VC again. It was about time.

This post has been edited by Bauglir on Oct 9 2009, 02:43 PM

[Razon]

Thanks for the reports.
Sorry for the loses in the first two games, but you seem to have made up for it in the third!

I'm a bit surprised about the result of the first game. I thought that wraiths would dominate the whole table, not letting empire player make a single charge. With only the Walter having magical attacks it would have still taken him a while to chew the ethereals, with a descent chance of being killed himself (his chariot) by great weapons.

On a side note, what kind of a VC player would you say you are? Offensive or defensive? If you are fielding lots of wraiths or knights I'd say you have to be the offensive kind, meaning you rush forward with everything, diverting and removing opponents chaff in order to bring your main unit against his.
If you don't consider yourself to be the offensive player you should field more infantry based lists with good magic support, letting your opponent charge you and then counter- charging him to death with the side not of magic.

This post has been edited by Razon on Oct 12 2009, 08:25 AM

[Bauglir]

Morning Razon

Thanks for hte reply.
I know mate. I kinda messed up in the battle against Empire. I should have been more agressive with the wraiths. Doubt trouble my thoughts back then:-(

Am I an offensive/defensive player? Hmm, a good question.
Well, under 6th ed I was a hardcore Lahmia-player. Large units of skellies, GG and banshees,...
Under 7th ed I catch myself considering a more offesive style of play. Black knights, minimum core, varghulf.
Blood knights are fairly new to me. Only played them two or three times before these three battles. So, still learning here.

Next match up with the 1999p list is due 29th of Octobre. Then I'll be facing VC.
My opponent runs a fairly similar list. Though he's only running 1 corpse cart (balefire) and has two wraiths and banshee in comparison to me.
So, I should be able to dominate the magic phase - as long as I don't roll too many snake eyes.

Yours
B

[Bauglir]

Evening Keepers

I had a 40K battle scheduled last Thursday but my opponent wasn't able to attend. So I took up my vampires and encountered Warriors of Chaos.
Again, I used my 1999p list as above.

From what I recall my oppponent deployed the following.

Two Tzeentch lv2 wizards. One of them had the conjoinend homonculus.
One other combat character on a barded chaos steed

Two chaos chariots
25 marauders: FC
15 chaos warriors: FC, mark of Nurgle
15 chaos warriors: FC, mark of Nurgle
9 chaos knights: FC, mark of Nurgle

He had 6 PD, and access to flickering fire and gateway, twice. No scrolls!

Opponent’s deployment. From my left to right.
Knights joined by combat character (extreme left flank); forrest; chariot; warriors joined by wizard; warriors joined by wizard ; low wall; chariot; marauders; forrest

My deployment (left to right).
Large wolf unit; (near centre) ghouls joined by lycni vamp; corpse cart; zombies; ghouls on a hill; black knights on hill; corpse cart; wolves; blood knights joined by general and BSB (extreme right flank). The bats went behind the hill.
All my vamps had raise dead and gaze of nagash

Well, chaos was on the move and clossed in on me. His wizards attempted flickering fire and gateway but to no avail.
I responded by sending my large wolf unit to meet his knights. Forcing him to charge me the next turn and by this keeping the knights away from my battleline. My lycni vamp marched out towards the forrest at 11 o’clock. On her right she had the exposed right flank from the chariot in her view. Her ghoul unit, both corpse carts and zombies moved in as well. The bats flew over to the right behind my blood knights, who had also marched forward. The remaining wolves leaped straight forward. By then a new unit of zombies was being raised treathening the marauder’s left flank. My generel attemped to damage the chariot, next to the marauders, with gaze of nagash. But none of the 11 hits struck home. At that point my lycni got bored. She took out here precious book and van hellsed into the chariot’s flank. Strike 7 and away it was. This took the nearby warriors completely by surprise, opting to take a run for it.

However the fleeing warriors rallied soon after. In the meanwhile the knights took the bait and annihilated every single wolf. Which held the knights out of the main battle once more. The surviving chariot attempted to charge the other wolves but fear took the upper hand. His wizards however succesfully casted gateway, damageing my black knights. In addition, flickering fire caused two blood knights to drop dead.
Rage overwhelmed the blood knights and they charged the marauders. Fleeing was their only option if they wanted live a bit longer. The bats flew over the fleeing marauders and landed in front of them. Next, my general raised another batch of zombies in between the marauders and the chariot. Th Lycni vamp moved on behind the enemy line and also started raising zombies treathening the rear of the chaos warriors.
Anticipating the fact that the chaos knights will eventually wheel/reform to treathen my left flank. I ordered my ghouls on the left to turn and reform, facing the knights. The zombie unit and corpse cart repositioned themselves.

The chariot, eager to get stuck in, charged my zombies bringing him in a quite precarious position. As he killed the unit he ran over into the first zombie unit I had raised, exposing his flank to my blood knights. Having no real options left my opponent relied on his magic, concentrating everything on my black knights. Again my black knights took some damage.

So the Blood knights flankcharged the chariot and ran over into the marauders. The ghouls who anticipated the chaos knights slightly repositioned themselves in ordre to steer the knights towards the hill. My wolves moved on to challenge the warriors closest to my blood knight. For the rest I tried to reraise some black knights.

The chaos warriors consequently charged my wolves and were able to overrun into my blood knighs (the angle of the wolves was imperfect by a mere fraction of inch. His warriors just clipped my blood knights). However the blood knights just went for the weaker maruaders and eventually won the battle. This let the maruaders flee into the waiting fell bats. The warriors were consequently caught by the knights.

In the meanwhile my black knights had descended the hill, yet turned around facing it. The lost knights were being reraised one by one. The blood knights killed the remaining warrior unit.

The chaos knights went for the ghouls on the hill, destroying them. In a feeble attempt to get out of sight of my black knights they tried to overrun far enough. To no avail though. My black knights subsequently flankcharged, whipeing out the remaining Warriors of Chaos.

Result: a complete massacre for VC

Yours
B

[LordCypress]

Good report. Playing againts Warriors of Chaos is always fun. You know you're going to see close combat and lots of it. Looks like a nice win overall. Blood Knights + Chariots = auto dead chariots .

[Bauglir]

Okay, I had my 1999p battle vs VC yesterday.

My oppoenet's list:

Vampire: dark acolyte, summon ghouls, bloody hauberk
Vampire: BSB, dread knight, infinite hatred, drakenhofbanner
Vampire: infinite hatred, dread knight, blooddrinker

10 ghouls (bunker)
15 ghouls: ghast
116 ghouls: ghast
21 zombies
8 wolves
8 wolves
corpse cart: balefire

5 black knights: FC
8 black knights: FC, banner of strigos

3 wraithes: banshee

Well, I can be brief on this one. As it wasn't the most exciting battle.
Man o man. He hardly moved at all through the whole game. And as I didn't want to rush in I kept my pace. Man...though he's a nice bloke, but that game was boring. I cann't find any other term to describe it - pity.

In the end my Bloodknights killed of a block of zombies and his 5 black knights. For the rest I managed to rip his wolves apart and chop of some of his other black knights. Oh, and I gazed a freshly raised zombies back to oblivion.
This, in addition to a captured banner, and two table quarters got me a solid victory.
My opponent managed to howl one of my carts below halve wounds and he chopped my black knights below starting numbers - I managed to miss all my regeneration rolls

So yes, not one of my best battles. Due to his style of play I started to hesitate myself.

Next up is against Dwarves. Yet that chap actually moves his army around

Yours
B

[Razon]

Hi, you seem to play a lot of 1999pt games, is that a standard in your club? I never tried it before but it does sound fun, no lord and max 1 rare!

I am thinking of entering a no-limit 1999pt tournament in a month, expected to be very waacy. What can one expect from other armies? Any special character heroes that dominate the game?
I would be using a similar list like you have. How do you feel about your magic offence/ defense? Does it win games/ can you stop important enemy spells?

Sorry for railroading your thread, but I'd like to hear what you sow of other armies and can your list cope against anything.

[LordCypress]

As far as stuff to watch out for in no lord tournaments. Well the obivious one for me is Khorne Heralds and the Skulltaker. Can't really see how us VC have anything to go up against these guys in a straight up fight. Maybe a Wight King with the Sword of Kings?

Back to the battle report. Playing againts other VC only ever has two outcomes. Either totally tactical like a chess match or boring like you said. Some games can keep you guessing all game long. "Ok I know he has this but maybe he might do this........ or maybe hes gone with this magic item....." or the game you had.

Ok I roll my dice now you roll your dice. and so on and so on.

[Bauglir]

@ Razon

No, 1999p are not the standard at our club. This point limit is just for our club league this year. In addition, special characters are allowed now. Last year it was 2k and no special characters for example.

So, in my group I'll be facing or have been facing:
lizardmen (already)
skaven (already)
VC (already)
dwarves (next Thursday)
high elves (12th November)
deamons (26th November)
bretonnians
lizardmen

Now, as for my list. Well, I like it. I've have played another 1999p list last season for a tournament which runned quite well also. list
But I wanted to try out something more aggressive now.
At 1999p one doesn't see a lot magic being used. So having 8 PD is an advantage. Is it game winning? Hmm, not easy to say. This depends on what spells one's get. E.g. in my battle vs skaven I had rolled van hells twice plus the book. Now that was game winning.
On the other hand, vs chaos all my vamps had gaze. But due this type of army I nearly didn't use it. As I was in combat too quickly. Versus deamons however gaze my be interessting.

The two corpse carts are a bonus. Most of one's opponents magic doesn't come through. And if it does, it is either just and hence easy dispelled or either nigh impossible to dispel.

About special characters? Well, although it's allowed now there is only one chap including them, the deamon player. And I still have to face him.

Anyway I'll report my battles here.

Yours
B

[Bauglir]

Hi lads

Well, I had my encounter with the notorious Dwarves yesterday. Hmm.

My opponent used the following list.

Dwarf hero (thane, general)
Thane BSB
An engineer dude

2 blocks of warriors: FC
1 block of Ironbreaker: FC (general and BSB in here)

10 quarellers
10 thunderers

cannon
boltthrower (fire rhune)
organ gun

Seeing his force, I'm going like. Yep he's mine. Yeah.
The highlights.

Turn1:
Nothing really happens. In contrast to my battel vs the VC he actually moved his force
Two bats got killed by a cannon.
I moved up my force. I expanded the bats - a really cool power.

Turn 2:
My blood knights get killed save one due to thunderers
The bolt thrower hits nothing, again.
The organ gun gets blown up
The cannon hampers and is out for two turns.
The iron breakers charge the bats and are stuck there for another turn.

My surviving blood knight has to charge the block of warriors on his own - ouch. Though he hangs in there for another turn.
My wolves charge the cannon and kill one crew member.

Turn 3:
The bats are chopped to bits now. The thunderers flank charge the wolves and kill them.
The blood knight is kille by the warriors.

I charge the ironbreakers with my black knights. And I do an astonishing zero kills CR: one black knights drops from his steed.

Turn 4:
Though, I kicked in the ASF from the corpse cart. I do one, yes one kill. His general goes up against my general hitting him twice. Ok I say. Time to save. Armour save of 5 now - nope. Ok, Ward save of 5 - nope. Ahum, regeneration man - nope And I go mental.
Crumble, crumble, crumble,...
I tried some damage control. But rolling to many 5's and 6's - yep, then I can roll high enough - for my crumble test, I kept my honour and conceded.

Anyway, I wouldn't do anything different. It was just plain bad luck.

Next up are the high elves next week.

Yours
B

This post has been edited by Bauglir on Nov 6 2009, 04:13 PM

[LordCypress]

Thats just bad luck man. Imagins if all those 5's and 6's you rolled at the end of the game came during the beginning. Warhammer is still a game of dice rolls. I think your game play was sound.

I feel your pain about thunderers. They hit harder than most people think. Strength 4 and armour piercing. -2 to our +2 armour save means only a 4+ armour save. 50% of saving. Makes one consider the Flag of the Blood Keep.

How does this outcome affect your tour?

[Bauglir]

I know Cypress. But like you stated. It's still a game with dice controlling the outcome.

Anyway, I swallowed my sorrow with a nice pint of Leffe.

About my tour. A bit too early to tell. However, 1st place becomes fairly unlikely I guess. But one never knows. If I can manage to win the upcoming battles with solids and/or massacres...Well one's is allowed to dream, no?

Yours
B

[Bauglir]

Evening Keepers

The High Elves have been met and dealt with.

My opponent:

Seeer mage: scroll
Mage: 2*scroll
Caradryan

12 archers
block of swordsmen: FC, standard of balance
block of phoenix guards: FC, banner of scorcery
5 dragon princes: FC, banner of Ellyrion
5 dragon princes: standard, musician

2 bolt throwers

His cavalry deploy on the flanks, archers and 1 bolt thrower are on a central hill. The swordsmen are in front of the hill's rightside. The phoenix guards deploy on the opposite side. The second bolt thrower is on the left flank next to the dragons princes.

I have two forrests in my deploymentzone. On my left I put my bats followed by the large wolf unit and the blood knights, next to the bats are ghouls with my lycni vamp. Central position are for my zombies, black knights (general and BSB here) and the two CC. On my right I put another wolf unit and the other ghouls.

For spells I have raise 3 times, curse of years for my general, wind of undead for my lycni vamp and gaze for the bsb.

The high elves take first turn. As he also has an item that gives him an extra +1 when rolling for who may go first.

Turn 1:

Both dragon princes leap forward as do his swordsmen and phoenix guards. His mages prepare themselves to unleash hell on me, and one of them does. Irresistable force. Vaul's unmaking and there goes my regeneration
And 3 black knights get blown from there horses.

I move in with my black knights. My lycni vamp leaps out to hide in the forrest. Bats move out of the way. My doom wolf unit march forward and take proper position. Anticipating a charge from the dragon princes. Blood knights move in a bit. I heal a black knight. Curse and gaze gets blocked due to scrolls.

Turn 2:
The dragon princes charge ad kill the doom unit. His other dragon unit wheels and goes for my centre. The swordsmen have the approaching black knights in their vision and wheel accordingly to face them. The phoenix guards as well wheel inwards. In the meantime his mage has left the swordsmen and hides in the unit of archers on top of the hill.
My CC do their jobs and no spell comes through. Again I lose a knight to shooting.

The Blood kngihts smell fear and blood and charge the dragon unit which flees. My general takes a bold move and orders his kngihts to charge the swordsmen. The remaining wolves charge the other dragon unit in the rear. To no avail though..
I raise a new unit of zombies in front of the guards and I heal 1 or two black knights. My opponent is out of dispel dice. And my lycni vamp takes out here book. Van hell's on the black knights, giving them ASF and re-roll to hit. Being taken by surprise he forgets he's got another scroll. So both my vamps take out a bunch of swordsmen and only his captain has the chance to hit back. Which he managed to. As he kills my bsb. Nevertheless, the swordsmen are taking a LD-test on double 1. And there they go

Turn 3:
The fleeing dragon unit are to scared and flee onwards. The other unit charges the closest CC and breaks it down. They subsequently run into the second CC. His wizards are still unable to cast anything due to balefire. However I do take casualties due to incoming fire. Blood and black knights are paying the price.

Now that the fleeing dragon unit is in range for my black knights, they chace them off the table. The fell bats charge the archers in ordre to take out the mage.
My general raise a few more bats and my lycni vamp heals two blood knights.
The bats however manage only to kill one single archer. One bat crumbles due to CR. My second CC gets broken down as well. But the dragon unit stays put as there is a large zombie unit awaiting them.

Turn 4:
The dragon unti wheel towards his deployement zone. The guards are facing the short table edge now (my left) and move up a bit. With my CC's gone now I carefully prepare myself. Luckely he rolls double 1, his mage in combat ake a wound and the magic phase ends. My black knights and blood knight take another few casualties due to the bolt throwers.
And the bats? Well they do their jobs and succesully pursue the archers.

My bats return on the table and take off towards the bolt thrower on my right.
I try to cast van hells on the zombies so I can lock the dragon unit into combat, but it wasn't meant to be. Again I heal blood and black knights. Oh, and I turn my black knights, facing towards the hill.

Turn 5:
The dragon unit charge and kill the raised zombies. His surviving mage succesully casts distillation of silver and spirit of the forge. So, I take my chances and only dispel the forge. Only one black knight drops from his steed. Again a blood knight drops dead.

The bats charge the crew on the hill, kill them and overrun right in front of my black knights. Again I heal.

Turn 6:
The dragon princes move on the hill facing my black knights. His mage leaves the guards, moving behind their rear for protection. And, the guards turn facing the zombies. Magic is of no consequence.

The bats fly over and are being raised up to 5+ again. They position themselves next to the mage. My lycni vamp leaves his hiding place and leaps forwards next to the guards. Remember the ghouls? They control two table quarters.
I heal blood and black knights. So both are over half unit strength. My general attempts another go at curse. But Caradryan gives MR 3. I also try Book of arkhan on the bats. But the book gets dispelled.


Result: Solid victory for VC

Next up are Deamon of Chaos (26th November)

Yours
B

This post has been edited by Bauglir on Nov 15 2009, 07:28 PM

[LordCypress]

Another good report. Looked like your Knight units took a pounding. Your opponent must have been pretty frusturated with all the healing you did? Did you manage to get into close combat with Caradryan? I fought him twice. One killing him then dieing from his explosion effect the other time he slaughtered me.

[Bauglir]

Evening C

No, I stayed away from the guards and Caradryan as far as I could.
That unit didn't really do anything save moving forward, turning, turning again and moving a bit and turning

Well, the worst moment for my opponent was when I pulled off Book of Arkhan and he forgot about his last scroll. That really was a decisive point.

Yours
B