Mighty Empires III

A Mighty Empires Campaign, 10/23 Games Workshop, Oak Park.




We completed the third round and played the entire 4th round last night including the strategy portion of the campaign map. The map above is status at the start of the upcoming 5th round
on 10/30

Round 3 Results were

Vampire Counts won a solid victory over The Empire
The Vampire Counts expanded their territory by 2 hexes and upgraded one hex.
The Empire having land grab claimed 1 hex

Orcs and Goblins Fought to a draw with the Lizardmen
Orcs and Goblins upgraded two hexes
Lizardmen grabbed a new hex.

Dwarfs won a marginal victory over the Wood Elves.
Wood Elves upgraded a hex to their second keep
Dwarfs upgraded hexes to 3 citys,

Round 4 Games

The Empire vs Lizardmen
(strategies Empire- building boom, Lizards- all or nothing)

Wood Elves vs Orcs and Goblins
(strategies Wood Elves- land grab, Orcs- scouts)

Vampire Counts vs Dwarfs
(strategies VC - disaster, Dwarfs- Elite Army.)

Results

The Empire won a solid victory over the Lizardmen
Empire claimed two new hexes and upgraded to a Keep.

Orcs and Goblins defeated the Wood Elves
Wood Elves grabbed a new hex
Orc grabed more hexes

Vampire Counts defeated Dwarfs
VC expanded and upgraded
Dwarfs raided for gold.
(not sure the vp scores will update later)

round 4's disaster was rolled and Bill choose the Empire (me)
luckily I made all my saves and failure would result in losing
all upgrades in the failed hex.


Campaign Scores (you need 12 to win)

Vampire Counts- 10
Orcs and Goblins- 7
The Empire - 7
Dwarfs- 6
Lizardmen- 5
Wood Elves- 3

odds are Vampire Counts win next week unless stopped

Round 5 challenges:

Wood Elves challenge Lizardmen
Orcs and Goblins challenge Vampire Counts
The Empire challenge the Dwarfs


Battle recap- The Empire vs Lizardmen 2000 pts.

My first attempt at a 2000 point game. Eric didn't have his terradons so he was short
so I removed my Dogs of War Dwarf Mercs to even it up. So we played a 2000 points game
but only used 1850 in points. My list was my usual with my General upgraded to a Lord with Several more magic items, I included a warrior priest and for the first time 20 Flagellants.

Erics list was his spear wielding uber general/ lord mounted on a carnosaur (little did I know how brutal this thing was) another mounted hero on a cold one. a block of cavalry ( Saurus warriors on cold ones.) 2 blocks of Saurus Warriors, 2 groups of skinks and a stegadon.

First 2000 point game, first time versus Lizards. Erics army is the cavalry version of the Lizardmen not the brutal magic version I have read about so he had no magic but 3 dispel dice
the extra coming from an upgrade on his hero.

I choose the Lore of Fire for my wizard and with priest along my magic dice were 4/4.

basically I held back in order to shoot everything I could as he advanced with the exception of his Skinks who were scouts and started the game in my face. My cannons where brutal decimating his cavalry from 8 to 2 in the first turn, but my Hellblaster also blew up that turn taking down a few skinks before it did. Skinks did some minor damage before being charged and routed by the flagellants who chased them thru some woods and ended up being bogged down in difficult terrain and putting themselves out of the game. my shooters picked off a few units while my pistoliers blasted some Saurus warriors before getting slaughtered in close combat. All my shooters were killed pretty easily..the game basically came down to his bad bas ass general versus the rest of the my entire army. The Stegadon's shooting didnt do much, although my General had to use his Jade Amulet to shake of a wound, which changed my strategy on attacking his Lord and fearsome beast.

In the top of turn 2 his Lord charged my Free Company detachment.basically slaughtering them however the few remaining guys held taking it to the next round. during my half of turn 2 I tried to charge him with both my knights and my main block of swordsmen but both failed the terror test and did nothing as a result at the top of 3 my Free Company was slaughtered and broke his lord persued and overran straight into my wizard who had a Wall of Fire cast on some nearby advancing Saurus Warriors., Stupidly I elect to nix the Remains in Play spell and flee I roll horribly and the wizard is killed. If I had just held at least the spell would have lasted another round. Regardless I know had my uber lizard god in my backfield going after my cannons and during round 4's shooting phase he starts casting "hand of god" which is basically rolling D6 S4 autohits on every unit in 8" luckily most his rolls on my cannons hit cannons and dont destroy them, and I only lose 1 crewman, my General got very luckly only took 1 wound and I made my 6+ ward save. I also lost about 1/2 my crossbowmen. This could have been alot worse. my Swordsmen where just barely out of range. I responded with full grapeshot hits from two cannons on the Lizard Lord and but only cause 1 wound to him and one to his beast, who has 5 wounds!! My general veered off from this guy since he only has 3 attacks (4 with horse) and I didn't want to face the reprisal of the 10+ attacks from his lord and mount..so My General ran down the remaining Cavalry to score points. The Lizard Lord turned away from my artillery in turn 5 and flank charged my knights who where in a drawn combat with his other Hero. Although my knights were slaughtered, He should have stayed on the cannons because at the bottom of round six. I came up with two direct cannon hits causing 3 S10 hits each to the Carnosaur (who survived with 1 wound remaining but I killed his General.
In the end I lost all my shooters, my wizard, the hellblaster and my knights but everything else was basically full. Eric only had his Carnosaur, Stegadon, his Second Hero, 2 Saurus Warriors and a handful of Skinks. Final Score was +850 points to me and a Solid Victory

Watchtower

Here's my Watchtower, I haven't had much time to work on terrain lately given my army painting schedule but I was up early this morning and finished its basic details. Most of my terrain is WIP. completely ready for the table top but always ready for a detail or two more if I get the time or motivation. I ordered some buildings from Armorcast recently which I am going to do in a similar scheme and will fill out the whole table with a small village. I just finished my Crossbowmen, so few of them are here, as well as my Wizard on the towers roof. He stills needs a detail or two himself, hopefully tonight. I am going to work on building my Flagellants this afternoon so I can safely put 2000 points on the table for our Mighty Empires Campaign.

Mighty Empires II

A Mighty Empires Campaign, 10/16 Games Workshop, Oak Park



Round 2 Results

Orcs & Goblins defeated Empire (marginal victory)
Orcs Defeated Dwarfs (Jeff) ( solid victory)

Vampire Counts defeated Wood Elves (massacre)

Dwarfs (Billy) defeated Lizardmen (marginal victory)

Round 2 map updates

Orcs and Goblins eliminated Dwarfs, taking their only tile
Tony remains undefeated

Vampire Counts pick up two new tiles upgrade to a city

Dwarfs (Billy) upgrades to a city, (he may have grabbed another tile)

Empire upgrades to a second city.

Wood Elves pick up a tile ( land grab)

Lizardmen upgraded to a Keep

Dwarfs (Jeff) Eliminated.

Round 3 games

Orcs and Goblins VS Lizards- TBA

Vampire Counts vs Empire 1500 pts- Solid Victory for the Vampire Counts

Dwarfs vs Wood Elves 1500pts - Marginal Victory for Dwarfs


Empire VS Vampire Counts 1500pts- Rnd 3 Battle recap

My 1500 point list is posted here in previous posts and is pretty standard. I did go with 2 cannons this time and one 5 man squad of huntsmen. Bill's Vampire Counts Army consisted of a Blood Dragon Vampire Thrall, Two Necromancers, a big block of Skeletons, two blocks of Zombies, 12 Black knights, 10 Wolves and 5 Fell bats.

The game for me started out well in turns 1 and 2 -where my Hellblaster Volley Gun racked up an amazing 38 shots over the first two turns at the end of turn two Bill only had 4 Black Knights and 2 Wolves left as a result. I inflicted some cannon hits on the zombie block and some other shooting damage. Things slid sideways on turn 3 when close combat began. even thou I won the initial combat of my Swordsmen, Detachment and General vs his Thrall and block of Skeletons, the Thrall's constant challenges did me in as My General failed to finish him off landing only 1 wound and was then killed. The first time my General has fallen in a game since I started playing at GWOP. I couldn't handle the VC's summons as my Dispel Dice got knocked to two as my Wizard ran off the table failing a leadership check from some bypassing routing cannon crew. By turn 5 the game trainwrecked for me with my Swordsman fleeing off the table, my knights broken and all my General, BSB, Preceptor and Swordsmen Sgt all dead at the hands of the Blood Dragon Thrall. I kept accepting challenges hoping my high armor saves would get me through to land one wound. Never happened. tough match.
Vampire Counts prevails with a +881 score. Thankfully I scored Land Grab a my strategy event this round so even thou I lost, I'll pick up a new tile. Good learning experience for my next game versus the Vampire Counts.

Mighty Empires!

Mighty Empires Campaign, 10/10 Games Workshop, Oak Park

We started Turn 2 of our ME Campaign tonight, round 1 results were as follows:
Orc and Goblins 6pts
Tony was challenged twice beating both Jeff W (Green Dwarfs) and Bill (Vampires)
Empire 5pts
I beat Felix (WE) in a massacre giving me 5 points!
Dwarfs (purple) 3pts
Billy defeated Eric (Lizards)
Dwarfs (green) 1pt
Lizardmen 1pt
Vampire Counts 1pt
Wood Elves 1pt


Starting Map Locations

Round 2 so far after moves, I will update later when I find out both Dwarf players and the lizards moves. see I used my 5 pts to grab a tile upgrade it to a Keep and upgrade my starting location to a city. Tony used his 6 points to just grab 3 territories, Bill had "land grab" as his strategic option so had an extra point to grab a territory, while Felix just upgraded to a keep.

I challenged Tony's Orc and Goblin army, it was a 1500 point match.

EMPIRE

Captain/ Army General
Battle Standard Bearer
Battle Wizard

24 Swordsmen /FC
10 Free Company Detachment
10 Handgunners
10 Crossbowmen / Musician
10 Huntsmen
6 Knights / FC
5 Pistoliers
1 Cannon
1 Mortar
1 Hellblaster Volleygun

ORCS AND GOBLINS

Goblin Shaman (General)
Goblin Shaman
Goblin Shaman

21 Night Goblins x 3 / FC
8 Spider Riders x 2
20 Black Orcs /FC
2 Spear Chukkas
1-Orc Chariot
1- O&G Giant
Tony's list was right about 1600 pts as he got an extra 100 from campaign rules.
Below is shot of the whole field post deployment.

I deployed first and finished 1st but tony still won 1st turn and it hurt. Outclassed in magic by alot of dice, I found the Goblin Magic to be deadly. My magic was total bust as I again took the Lore of Life and rolled "mistress of marsh" forgetting to add any marsh or water terrain to the board, my second spell "Gift of Life" is great but it never came into play so my magic was totally useless all game! Tony had alot of scary looking units. I'll cut to the chase here with some highlights and low lowlights.

Empire Highs: turn 1- my Cannon scores 2 wounds and on the Giant and obliterates the Chariot with 6 hits...biggest artillery success yet for me. My shooting all around was excellent, in fact I had too much of it, moving off my 5 man archer detachments to a 10 man huntsman squad was a bad call. Turn 2, my pistoliers blew away a full unit of Spider Riders in one volley, the HBVG blew away another unit of Spider Riders in one turn. my Crossbows and Pistoliers got another Nightgoblin unit down to 11 men, 1 away from having it be a scoring unit. Turn 3- My swordsmen who where taking it on the chin all game from the damn spear chukkas in the elevated buildings on tony's side of the field. Killed the Giant and then with seven men left killed and overran another unit of Nightgoblins.

Empire Lows: Turn 1, like I said magic was useless all I could do was dispel and my 3 dice didnt go far verus his three shaman and 8 power dice, I took the "Foot of Mork" right up the rear all game. Turn 2- Idiotically I had my huntsmen flee from some oncoming Night Goblins not noticing they were a bit too close to my Knights who held in their postion 1st turn and were only 12 inches from the table edge. Well guess what? yep they failed leadership check from the fleeing Huntsman, were too far from the BSB for a reroll and I roll a 15 on the 3d6 move. YUP OFF THE TABLE. probablly the worst thing thats happend to me yet. turn 4, my Mortar misfires and blows up killing everyone. Turn 5, The intimidating Black Orcs didnt get into the fray until turn 5 and which they were more than a match for my seven swordsmen and BSB.
While they only lost one man, they broke and fled into the remaining unit of Night Goblins- and were destroyed.

The Final Score was 1364-977 or a + 397 for Orcs and Goblins and a Marginal Victory for them
Considering I had no magic and no knights, I felt I did pretty well. If my damn knights hadn't run off the table before the game even started it would have been a different game.

I learned alot from this game, finally the Cannon pays off, I tried experimenting with the Mortar and thankfully I only blu tac'd it together becuase I am going back to another cannon. the mortar is two difficult to hit with using the damn scatter die. The Hellblaster Volley Gun simply ruled..I originally intended it to protect my cannons from fast skirmishers, etc..but I thought of several other strategic uses for it. Huntsman especially 10 on a large skirmish template are difficult , no. make that impossible to deploy behind ememy lines .They are way better in a 5+ units however they are not waywatchers and 5+ huntsman is about useless except in rare instance you could snipe a weak character. I am way better off using them a detachment/screener fodder. My Swordsmen and Army General continue to impress and I finally got some mileage out of my pistoliers. Crossbows are great glad I added them. Finally, Goblin magic is evil. Ouch.

I ended up surrounding the Giant on three sides and hacking that sucker down..thankfully I, put two wounds on him early with the cannon as he was about to go for round 2 of "jump and a down" I would have been toast.

Battle Report- Empire Vs Wood Elves IV

10/3 at Plastic Legions HQ - 1250pts
This is our 1st round in a Mighty Empires Campaign being run out of our tuesday night club at Games Workshop, Oak Park.

Army Lists

The Empire (John)

1 Mounted Captain ( Army General)

1 Battle Standard Bearer (Captain)

1 Battle Wizard (Lv 2)

24 Swordsmen- Full Command

10 Free Company (detachment)

5 Archers ( detachment)

10 Handgunners- Marksman w/ HLR

10 Crossbowmen, Full Comand

6 Knights - Full Command

5 Pistoliers- w/ Outrider

Great Cannon w/ crew


The Wood Elves- (Felix)


Wood Elf Noble (Army General)

Spellsinger ( on foot, Captain)

16 EternaL Guard

10 Glade Guard
10 Glade Guard
10 Glade Guard

5 Glade Riders

8 Dryads

8 Wardancers

(Army lists - Similar to what you've seen before here, I went with 6 Knights and full command hoping to increase frontage versus Felix's long lines and took the standard for the CR bonus. Felix changed things up going with 30 glade guard plus a block of eternal guard
he sacrificed allot of magic for a ton of shooting (36 shooters I think) in retrospect his magic
has been much more deadly to me. we both had 4 power dice and 3 dispel dice, I finally rolled a "2" for my jade wizard and got the "master of wood" spell, particularly useful here.)


Empire Deployment- A this was a campaign game, Felix's Wood Elves won the "scouts" special rule during the campaign turn. meaning I set up my entire army FIRST, then he deployed. I packed my stuff close enough it didn't really matter, his Glade Riders rushed the flanked..and were definitely troublesome. The only other special rule was we used my WIP
Watchtower in the background here as a building per the rules ( you could enter, capture it ect.)




Wood Elves Deployment- The long lines of the WE essentially make my cannon useless.
adding a mortar to the mix later. The block of eternal guard was wisely placed away from my cannon.


Turn 1- I took some shooting losses for sure...I was thinking about the end of "300" with all there arrows Felix thru at me. Not to mention his Noble has that Hail of Doom Arrow..which is brutal.

Bottom of turn 1


Bottom of Turn 2, My Knights Charged a group of Glade Guard breaking and overrunning them, charging my directly into the Wardancers..I lost a knight or 2 here, but killed all 10 glade guard and a pair of wardancers.


Bottom of 3, Pistoliers gun down 5 of 10 Glade Guard here..these 5 GG storm and take the tower and harass me with shooting the rest of the game.


Bottom of turn three. My Swordsmen battled the Eternal Guard and the Wood Elf Noble challenged my Battle Standard Bearer to single combat, I accepted and they fortunately fought to a Draw, My Swordsman came up strong and managed to break then overrun the EG. This was huge for me and terribly unlucky for Felix. In the foreground here- My General, wounded in a fluke -where felix hits me with two out of 10 arrows for a group of Glade Guard...I roll "Snake Eyes" for my 2 armor saves and out jaws drop ( he has a 1+ save, but 1 always fails) however my Talisman of Protection saves the day when I roll a "6" and "1" on my ward save. I needed a "6" whoa. -close. Anyway with 1 wound I charge these dryads alone, kill 3, win combat, again break and overrun them too
This turn was brutal for felix and basically ended the game here for him. He had lost both his characters, all his EG, and his Dryads. not to mention my Crossbows and Handgunner killed all his remaining wardancers in the Shooting phase ( I did lose all my knights to the Wardancers thou at the top of turn 3)

Turn 4 - I had three archers try to storm the watchtower to dislodge those Glade Guard up there, I managed to kill one leaving 4, but they were ran off and my Pistoliers were routed as well. They continued to slowing pick off my shooters, but time was running out and I had plenty of shooters left to go around.

Turn 5- The lone unit of Glade Guard ran from my General who ended up chasing them for the next two turns. Shooters managed to kill my Battle Wizard. And my Swordsman got hung up reforming and moving thru the woods, being Unit strength 20- I left them alone back there to hold the quarter and score.

Turn 6- (Photo above) Felix's last gasp, the Glade Riders who had destroyed my Cannon and Crew, ran back to this far table edge and tried to get a luckly arrow in to finish off my General. They missed and He continued to pursue the Glade Guard who kept trying to flee. The fled right into the range of my remaining Crossbows and Handgunners who shot them down. The game ended with felix having only the 4 Glade Riders and the 4 Glade Guard held up in the Watchtower.


SCORING

EMPIRE

Enemy Units Destroyed -

Wood Elf Noble/ Army General 125
Spellsinger /Captain - 175
Dryads 96
Glade Guard 120
Glade Guard 120
Eternal Guard 222
Wardancers 147

1005

Enemy Units at 1/2 str

Glade Guard 4 of 10- 60

Enemy General Killed-
Wood Elf Army General ( turn 3)- 100

Captured table quarters- 2 = 200

Capture Unit Standards
Eternal Guard unit Standard=100



Empire Total = 1465


WOOD ELVES

Enemy Units Destroyed -

Battle Wizard- 136
Free Company Detachment-50
Knightly Orders -178
Great Cannon- 100
Pistoliers- 114


578


Enemy Units a 1/2 str

Archer Detachment 2 of 5 = 20

Captured table quarters

100

Captured units standards
0

Captured Battle Standard
0

Wood Elves total - 698

Point difference- EMPIRE + 767

Result- EMPIRE- MASSACRE (II)

Photos and blow by blow coming soon, this fight really came down to one offensive sweep at the turn on the bottom of turn three, where the Swordsmen broke the Eternal guard during their 1st close combat, pursued and overran them.

Fantasy Ramblings..

So as you can tell if you have been reading this blog at all, I have been playing alot of WFB lately. I've been a little behind the 8 ball on painting. I hope to finish my Handgunners finally tonight. It has taken me way too long to finish a 10 man unit. I haven't been particularly focused, working on some terrain, move trays and various things with my free time. I've still got over 100 models to paint for Adepticon, I am sure I will be painting right up until the days before the event. Due to real life getting in way of my hobbies I have absolutely no painting time until next week. I am setting a goal to get 20 models done in the next three weeks, if I can do that I will be right on schedule. I am going to dedicate my November to working on my Heroes and whatever else I can acomplish (hopefully my cannons) leaving my December and January to be the huge crunch time for me. 18 Cavarly units, another big block of Swordsmen and 20 Flagellants are going to be a huge obstacle. man, its going to be tight. worse case scenario I show up with a couple dozen models with only 3 colors, going to kill my painting scores..but I am determined to play.

Speaking of playing, Felix and I have started a Mighty Empires campaign with several of the guys from Games Workshop, Oak Park store, there are seven of us, the armies being- The Empire. The Wood Elves, Vampire Counts, Orc and Goblins, 2 Dwarf armies and I believe the last army is Lizardmen. Since Felix and I couldn't make it last night due we decided to play each other today at my place to take of this rounds game. so its Wood Elves vs The Empire round 4!. (since we've been doing bat reps) new report with photos to follow!.