Battle Report- Empire Vs Wood Elves

Felix and I squared off again tonight at GW Oak Park for our third 1000 point match up

Army Lists

The Empire- (John)

1 Mounted Captain ( Army General)

1 Warrior Priest

24 Swordsmen- Full Command

10 Free Company (detachment)

8 Archers ( detachment)

10 Handgunners- Marksman w/ HLR

5 Knights - Musician, Preceptor

5 Pistoliers- w/ Outrider

Great Cannon w/ crew

The Wood Elves- (Felix)

Wood Elf Noble ( Army General)

Spellsinger

10 Glade Guard

5 Glade Riders

8 Dryads

5 Wild Riders

8 Wardancers

5 Waywatchers ( scouts)


Same 1000 point list I have been using for the last few months, Felix brings a noticably different list with no infantry with all shooting and calvary.

Deployment was pretty straight forward, basically a three lane setup. Felix won the die roll deployed 1st. Screens are done in photoshop and are just rough sketches of how it went down.
Should be self explanatory, Thin red lines are Empire shooting, Green the Wood Elves shooting, the Blue line is spells cast from the Spellsinger, black arrows are movement.


TURN 1

Empire- I win the die and go 1st. moving everyone forward, I deploy my Handgunners 10 wide fire a volley at Felix's Glade Guard, 10 misses. While range guess is good, I throw an "8" on the Artillery die overshooting way long in the direction of the Wild Riders and his General. My Archers get lucky and take out 1 wild rider at long range.

Wood Elves- Felix comes out of the gate swinging, his spellsinger throws "fury of the forest" at me, I use 2 of my 3 dispel dice to dispel it, FAIL, he kills one of my 5 knights. He then fires 20 arrows from 3 of his units at my Handgunners, killing 8 of the 10 of them and routing them for good. (less than 25% cannot rally) my priest cast armor of contempt on my General giving him a 4+ wardsave in addition to his 1+ armor save

Ouch!! on the first turn, lose all my gunners and 1 knight.




TURN 2

Empire-

I have my Swordsmen, my Militia detachment and my Knights all charge his Wild Riders and General hoping for a easy kill. Stupidly I forget they are fast cavalry and can get away easily, Fleeing with thier "feigned flight" I have three failed charges and am now setup for him to charge me. My priest casts unbending righteousness on himself, making the whole block of swordsmen "unbreakable". My archers, again get lucky and hit and kill a wardancer.
my Pistoliers trying to flank and harass come up empty being out of range to hit anything

Wood Elves-

Felix charges his Wardancers into my Swordsman block, my militia detachment counter charges, His wind riders easily rally and reform. I get lucky on escaping a flank charge from his Dryads because they were too far back in the woods to see me to charge, so they fail.
His Spellsinger again hits my knights with "fury of the forest" I throw my last dispel dice in vain and fail, losing two more Knights, they then fail their break test and rout. While the Waywatchers and Gladeriders open up with arrows on my Cannon crew killing 2 of them.

Close Combat begins with his charging 7 wardancers, dropping 21 attacks on my units, HOLY S***.. He kills my Swordsman Sgt and 6 other Swordsmen and a pair of kills on my Militia.
Crap!, I thought this is going downhill fast.




TURN 3

Empire- My General charges the wardancers flank, at this point my Priest starts trying to cast
Hammer of Sigmar on my General so he can reroll all misses, Felix wisely uses his dispel scrolls and his dispel dice in later rounds to nix it. I never get it happening, I kill two more Wardancers,
(Warrior Priest, Hammer of Judgement)
I win combat but since everyone is unbreakable we are not going anywhere.
My two remaining knights rally and turn around hoping to go next turn, my archers and pistoliers come up empty AND my Militia unit takes some more hits decides to fail the break test and rout AND I forgot to shoot my damn cannon ( not that I have killed anything with it recently).

Wood Elves- Wild Riders and the Wood Elf General Charge my Pistoliers, who "stand and shoot", coming up huge blowing away all the Wild Riders..leaving the General to charge the 5 of the them solo, I am totally psyched at first..but then realize that the stand and shoot during their charge does NOT count toward combat resolution. So his General going first in close combat kills a Pistolier and I lose combat. I, of course fail the break test running on rolling an "8" on the 3d6 and his catches me with a "9" just like that I am overrun and lose the four of them and he runs smack dab into my Archers. OUCH, so much for a break, Felix finishes off my Rallied Knights with the rest of his men.





TURN 4

Empire-

I dont have much left to do at this point other than slug it out in this big melee we have going
I am weeding down his Wardancers, my General is killing one a turn and the swordsman are hanging in there. My Militia unit Rallies and turns about for turn 5, my Archers slug it out 8 vs 1 against the Wood Elf General. My damn cannon with one crew member cant hit a damn thing
my ranges are ok, but I keep rolling "2"s or "8"'s coming up short or overshooting.

Wood Elves-

Felix decides to hold his Dryads instead of moving and joining the General against my Archers...he probably assumed he'd need them as his Wardancers where going down, ( slowly) (this turns out to be a boon for me in the end.) Everyone is in CC except my rallied militia who now number 3 men, they somehow dodge a hail of arrows and make it to turn 5, the last cannon crew doesn't and he goes down.

TURN 5

Empire- I sacrifice my three remaining Militia guys up to block the dryads from getting to my Swordmen before the last round. My General polishes off another Wardancer, and my remaining Swordsmen have an exposed flank, the Militia keep the Dryads away until the last round, this is good. my archers are somehow surviving as Felix's General is throwing "1's
its still 6 vs 1 over there.

Wood Elves- The Dryads swat my Militia guys like flys and set up for the last turn.
The Wood Elf General is under some kind of bad mojo and cannot kill my lowly Militia archers. Felix is thinking about the end of the game now and positions his remaining units in separate table quarters to score victory points.

TURN 6

Empire- Finally I take out the last Wardancer- those guys are a royal pain in the ass, I'd been fighting the seven of them since turn 2, I still have 16 Swordsmen remaining and my General at full strength but they cant do anything else other than defend from the incoming Dryads. My 6 Archers attack the Wood Elf General and I come up with two hits and then 2 wounds
Felix has a dice hex going and fails both Armor Saves and then both Ward Saves taking the two wounds and dying, I kill his freaking 152 point General with 48 points of Militia in close combat-
That's why I love this game, it can turn around in a heartbeat and it did. I pick up 100 extra VP for the General and 100 pts for the Wild Rider Standard he had in the unit with him, and my archers stand alone on that table quarter.

Wood Elves-

The Dryads charge and take out 3 more swordsmen leaving me with 13.
I cant respond since noone is left on the flank to attack back, Felix's other units
have all dropped back to scoring position. Game over.





Final Scores

The Empire

Enemy Units Destroyed-

Wood Elf General - 152
5 Wind Riders- 130
8 Wardancers- 144-

Enemy Units at 1/2 Str- NONE

426

Bonus Points

Enemy General Slain 100
1 Table Quarter Held 100

200

Empire - 626 Victory Points

Wood Elves

Enemy Units Destroyed-

10 Hangunners - 105
5 Knights- 139
10 Militia -50
5 Pistoliers -107
Great Cannon and Crew-100

Enemy Units at 1/2 Str- NONE

401

Bonus Points

2- Table Quarters

200

Wood Elves- 601 Victory Points

The result is 25 Victory points or a DRAW.


Obviously I was surpised I came out ahead on this, my Archers killing his General allowed me to pick up 300 points, (the General Bonus, the captured Standard Bonus and the Table quarter bonus) IF Felix had killed my Archers he would have picked up an extra 164 points
while denying me the 300 bonus and the 152 for General, making the score 765 to 274 in his favor and a Solid Victory for him. ( which is how the game felt as it was played out).
This game was kind of trainwreck for me a few levels, my cannon, knights and handgunners, never showed up to play and I failed every freaking leadership break test I tried to make. There is no doubt I need to add a Battle Standard Bearer to any size Empire army I play, as he allows me to re roll any failed break tests within 12"that's key. I a few more thoughts on this game but that will have to wait until tomorrow.


Edit- along with totally botching the magic phase and the rules violations that have been pointed it, I have also realized, I was not eligible for the unit standard bonus in my scoring as it fell uncaptured when my Pistoliers gunned down the Wild Riders during my stand and shoot.
I have corrected the score.