+1 Ward Save Rants and Raves about Warhammer tabletop game.

So we bumped up to 3000 points and we lucked out by rolling the straight up pitched battle, So at least we didn't have to learn a new battle. And for this battle you get....

no battle report.

Instead you get my rant about people complaining about all the draw backs in casting magic.

In three games magic has only been a positive for me, and in this past game, magic won the battle for me. One archmage managed to kill, a dragon slayer, a cannon, a grudge thrower, 10 quarrelers, and did one wound to the anvil of doom.

Uhm....how is this not a game changer? Quite honestly, if it weren't for my archmage I wouldn't have won. If you use magic, you may get burned every now and then, but if you avoid magic, you will no doubt play one person per tournament that is just crazy enough to use it.

And yet another battle has come and gone, and more secrets of the 8th edition game have revealed themselves.

This post is going to be less of a battle report and more of a rant/rave.

We rolled a mountain pass scenario; nothing too special just the the long table edges are impassable terrain. And speaking of terrain, this is the second time in a row that we have rolled an outpost of destruction, this time it had three buildings a haunted house and 6 6" segments of ghost fence. Along with that we had two other towers a grail chapel, and two sets of walls. Ultimately a lot of terrain has been used in both of our games.

I tried a few new things this battle and took, Korhil as my general, and 2 20 man units of seaguard. The rest was my usual fare.

Artillery is just wrong. I kind of saw this during my perusal of the rules a few weeks before the release, but simply put near auto hits with artillery with no way to gain a cover save like in 40K was absolutely devastating to my army. I lost 20 seagaurd to just 2 grudge thrower shots. That's 1 grudge thrower 2 rounds I lost 260 points of troops to a war machine that is less than half the cost. The damage would've been worse except for I ran my fast cav back there as quickly as I could to stop the death from above. While I did manage to destroy the machine it was not until the crew had killed 3 of the 5 reavers in close combat. the remaining 2 were killed the next turn by cannon fire. =(

Korhil is pretty awesome, but fragile like most elves. Unfortunately, by the time Korhil's unit made it into combat all that was left was a full command and Korhil. Korhil issued a challenge and which was accepted by the champion of the unit. Korhil has 4 attacks ASF which usually lets him reroll misses is S7 and has killing blow. Korhil managed to kill the champion doing 3 wounds one of which was a killing blow anyways. The next turn however the challenge was ignored, and while yes the runesmith was sent to the back of the unit Korhil was done in by ordinary troops.

Magic the ultimate double edged sword. I LIKE IT. Mainly, because it is the only thing I have going for me. I took an Arch Mage with lore of the heavans, and a mage with beasts. During the game I got of a baby comet, and 2 chain lightnings while I did manage to miscast twice the resulting damage pale in comparison.

The outcome of the game was a rout in favor of the dwarves, and while there are a few things that I could've done differently with the units that I had, I don't know how much it would've changed the game. Well, only thing left to do is try something else!

So, one of the things you may notice about 8th edition warhammer is the use of a lot of terrain. So I set out on making some more. Fortunately, our friends at the Cosmic Castle in Roanoke had a sale and I was able to pick up some new stuff to put together.

This afternoon I set to work on the tower. This is a great model. First the plastic is thick so you feel as if it can support the design you are about to build, and to top it off the details are wonderful; so much better than anything I could do from scratch.

My only complaint so far, and I'm about half way through, is that it is really difficult and not clear as to the 90 degree angles on the corners. So my tower is ever so slightly diamond shaped. I was able to get the tower together and you can't really tell its not square, but its gonna take some green stuff in one of the corners. As always pictures still to come.

If you are just joining us, you may wish to read the post bellow this one first.

Turn 2 began with a successful charge of the watchtower by my beleaguered white lions, but my reavers continued to have trouble with the difficult terrain loosing 2 out of 3 models and failing a panic check, they would spend the rest of the game fleeing (you may now rally troops under 25% on a role of snake eyes. While this never happened for me I did manage to role 3 1's for distance moved once grrrrr.) So after promising to never abandon my dice again I asked them to start doing better. Magic was good again, but dispelled. Close combat saw my lions tear into the quarrelers not enough to kill them all and they are stubborn in a building so it was a draw and my lions had to take a step back from the building, great more shooting at them. Dwarven shooting was abysmal, and I think we got a poor representation of how awesome artillery really is. It wasn't Justin's fault but fate is a capricious mistress indeed. Both cannons rolled a misfire for their first roll so he used a rune of forging, the next rolls were successful in that they didn't misfire, but he was going to need it to bounce to cause any damage, and then both cannons rolled a misfire again. (Which lead us to two questions; what are the odds of rolling 4 misfires in the span of 6 rolls, and can you use the rune of forging twice in the same round of shooting? Justin opted not to on the fact that he felt it was beardy, I wasn't going to argue)

Turn 3 The lions charge the tower yet once again, the spearmen charge one of the cannons. Magic was really good and my mage in the spearman unit got of transformation of Kadon the which turned her into a Great Fire Dragon, that thing makes Greater Deamons whimper. The lions finished off the quarrelers and the engineer in the cannon unit wisely issued a change if only to slow down the now rampaging dragon unit. I accepted with my spearman champion who if he could manage to kill the engineer, then my dragon could easily finish off the rest of the crew, but unfortunately I needed 4+ to hit and rolled 2 2's. That being said HE have Always Strike First (ASF) and the higher initiative so I get to reroll misses, but I fail again and the engineer kills my champ. The dragon did nom the rest of the group. The dwarves then launched their own assault on the tower with their long beards during their turn and managed to leave 2 white lions alive. I should point out that my white lion champion had the same issues as my spearman champion and was unable to hit in 4 attempts. In another rules question we let the dwarves reform once the battle was over because they were no longer in combat. Other turn three happenings of note were the destruction of both bolt throwers, one by a wayward grudge thrower shot, and the dispelling of the Transformation of Kadon.

Turn 4. I had to do some thing fast I didn't want to charge the front of that mean dwarf unit with my phoenix guard and arch mage, but I couldn't give away the tower. So I repositioned my phoenix guard to take an oncoming charge but also charge the tower the next turn if need be, and sent my arch mage to the archer unit about 7" away. Then in a gamble of epic proportions the arch mage called the biggest comet of casandora possible right behind the tower. The dwarves were able to take out the lion chariot with a cannon shot this time making up for using nerf cannon balls the first time and caused 6 wounds. And in another epic feat the long beards charged the pheonix guard with a roll of 12 for its charge distance! Dwarves charging up to 15"!!!! Another challange was issued this time my champion hit one out of four times but failed to wound, ultimately I lost combat by 2 but we were steadfast due to having more ranks.

At the end of turn four we rolled to see if the match ended. I would end on a 6 and the comet would never come down. My gamble had paid off and I rolled a 6. The high elves stole the game. Just for grins and giggles we let the comet fall and while it wasn't big in radius, (just big enough for the tower) it did 14 str 8 hits to the unit in the tower.

All in all I had a great time, and yes this report is a little one sided If Justin finds anything to add please do.

I wrote out a battle report from last night's game but it was nearly two pages long in word, so I'm just gonna give you the highlights.
Both of us struggled a bit before the battle with army creation. Working with percentages instead of numbers of units makes the games very different for everyone. I decided to have some fun and just see how things worked and grabbed a lvl 4 Arch Mage with lore of the Heavens and a lvl 2 Mage with lore of beasts. (Quick side note; the rules read that if you role a duplicate spell "you must replace the duplicate spell with another of your choice from the same lore" p490. Does that mean if you role double that you get to pick the spell you want) I'm a little tentative about any close combat characters due to the fact that HE are so fragile and there are always going to be troops that can swing back.

We rolled the watch tower battle and for 7 other pieces of terrain. Terrain pieces included; watchtower, mysterious river, encampment of destruction with a charnel pit wyrding well, building, Nehekaran Sphynx, blessed bulwark, and a Mist-wreathed swamp. While I know some people are a little put off by the amount of terrain on the board, I kind of liked it do to another element of the game that is somewhat out of your control.

The dwarves won the watchtower, so after set up I got to move first. But before the first turn even happened the dwarven strollers rune activated and my ellyrian reavers are fast cav so they get vanguard. We didn't know who got to move first so we just rolled it off and the Dwarves took it. I sent my Ellyrian Reavers right into the water, one because it wasn't in harms way too much and two because I really wanted to know what it was. The move paid off because it was a River of Light, which has a lot of augment spell possibilities.

Turn one was bad rolling on everyone's behalf. My White Lion unit charged the tower that was 9" away, the quarrelers Stand and Shoot (SaS), the lions role a 3 for a charge of 8" and thus a failed charge and a move of only 2". My reavers try to set themselves up to charge the cannon next turn but to do so they have to ride through dangerous terrain and 2 out of 5 models role a 1 and die. Magic was good but dispelled. Two repeater bolt throwers managed to do 2 wounds to long beards. The dwarves didn't fare much better. Cannon one fires hits my cannon in my utter frustration I curse Justin's dice with the "anything but a one" hex and he fails to wound, Cannon two hits a repeater bolt thrower, wounds it, the only causes one wound. The grudge thrower was much more successful taking out a handful of white lions. End of turn one.

I would just like to take a sec to welcome those from the Cosmic Castle in Roanoke! I consider you guys my local hobby store even though you are an hour away from me, and I really enjoy gaming and just hanging out there when I am able to. Hopefully this will be a place where you visit frequently just to read and discuss warhammer.

Never been to the Castle? you can find them here http://www.cosmiccastle.net/

I got my collectors edition in the mail today, and let me just say, it is AWESOME!

A new day has dawned and the glittering host prepares once again for battle. The balance of the world rests upon their shoulders, the winds of magic at their fingertips and the fate of all lay at their feet.


more details to come.