4k match up marathon!

Empire / Vampire Counts VS Orcs and Goblins, 4000 pts 12/11

This isn't so much a battle report as a recap, I will try to cover the highlights using the photos below the guide. This was a 5 hour game, so I wasn't up for notes past the 1st round. The crazy number of units on the board required that my attention needed to be there.

This was the 3rd round of our Mighty Empire campaign. It was a team game with using my Empire army and Bill's Vampire Count Army taking on Tony's Orc and Goblin Horde. It was 400o point game, and while Bill and I simply combined our armies, Tony built a specific 4K list. In retrospect we should have taken the time to redesign our lists because we were entitled to use an extra Lord character and an extra Hero which we didn't use and we needed all the firepower we could get.


Above pic is shot of Tonys Line over the Top of the VC section of our line. at 4K Tony was bringing the full selection of what the O&G book has to offer Three special characters, (Grimgor, Gorbad and Azhag riding Skullmuncha,) A Giant, Several Chariots and all the available Warmachines.

This above shot is my section of line which was the right flank, I had my Hellblaster, pistoliers and some other shooters on the left flank. During Terrain placement Tony put a line of Trees down 1/4 of the board blocking it off, we knew this going to present a problem.


Here is the Center of Tony's line, you'll notice VC gravestones right at the foot of his base, we thought this would help more than it did, Tony had 8 dispel dice going so dispelling the bound stones wasnt a big deal.

This picture is somewhere in turn 2, Tony won first turn, and advance his troops, blasted us with artillery and hammered us with spells, like Foot of Gork and Gork's Warpath. (which is a particularly nasty spell, luckly the Shaman who had that spell rolled an early miscast, then rolled he lost the spell permanently. ) I used both my Dispel Scrolls 1st turn in order to save my knights and swordsmen from taking bigs hits from magic spells. We survived his first turn relatively unscathed and did some minor damage in return with shooters. In the top of turn two, my Knights shook off charges with a ton of impact hits from both chariots, I only lost only one unit, won the resulting combat and broke them both..that was pretty huge. Tony changed direction and started hitting the VC black knights as he was having alot more luck killing them, Still we where in pretty good shape after two turns. At top of turn 3 three is when the Orc foot troops reached us and brought the pain!



This pic above is from the Top of Turn 3, My main block is charged by the Orc lord on Skullmuncha the Wyvern, a unit of Wolf Riders and the Giant. Tony smartly declared his charges in an order that negated my ability to counter charge. All my troops passed the terror test and hung in their to get pounded and both my detachments easily broke..with heavy losses. However, my 30 Swordsmen easily broke the wolf riders.

My Wizard didn't do much of anything useful all game, despite rolling Wall of Fire, I never managed to get any his spells off as tony had plenty dispel dice plus 4 dispel scrolls. Bill's main infantry unit containing his general got charged by the dreaded Black Orcs, (best infantry unit in the game) and his Knights (already down to 50%) got charged by a big unit of Orc Boys, full command with a Warboss in it. His already hurting Knights went down fast, and the Orcs got an overrun straight into my Greatswords, (who are Stubborn) and had my Warrior priest in the unit (adding hatred) and he carried the Icon of Magnus, making them immune to fear, I also got a remains in play prayer off, making them unbreakable. I figured I was in good shape. think again- more on that next.

During our Turn, I decided to have my Knights wheel and charge the Giants flank while my General charged the front. Bill had a unit of Dire Wolves to my right and was going to charge the middle of the three units of night gobbo spearmen sitting about 9 inches to the rear in order to draw out the Fanatics. Good plan- however, unlike Tony we screwed up and declared our charges in the wrong order. so My General charges, but then instead of having the dire wolves go, my knights who are in a 6x2 formation went 2nd. That 6x2 of cavalry is big unit and when I wheeled, YUP. you guessed it. My unit goes within 8 inches of two of the units of spearmen drawing out 6 fanatics. 3 of which crash right into my knights decimating the whole unit, except for the Champion, Standard Bearer and Musician who flee. (my saves rolls where pathetic)

My General is Now 1 vs 1 with the Giant, I roll strong put two wounds on him and save off the two he put on me, I then break the big dummy and of course declare I want to run him down. he rolls low on his flee and I roll high, so I run the bugger down but I go crashing right into a full unit of night goblin spearmen, would ordinarily would have been fine, except its the unit which had NOT released its fanatics yet. So three fanatics come out and Tony rolls perfectly and all three crash into my general obliterating him. Total disaster for us. I lost two of the best combat units in my Army giving at least 500 pts to tony right there, at least I killed the 205 pt Giant.



This last shot is before the Top of turn 5, You can see my Warrior priest is alone vs all those Orcs, what happened to Greatswords you ask?, a combination of striking last and terrible dice did them in, I could'nt hit and I couldn't make their 4+ Armor save..they went down one by one never breaking but not inflicting much damage either, I couldn't win a combat vs the orcs and I lost my 10 GS, then the priest....Killing maybe 4 orcs., This were I should mention how absolutely shitty my dice were this game, generally I am not one to whine about dice but this game was pathetic, I was rolling multiple 1's on guys with 1+ armor saves so they still failed, I couldn't kill an orc to save my life and my damn cannons miss fired 3 out of 4 the last two turns, two being in the same turn. Bill's General died against the Black Orcs in Turn 4 and when you are the Vampire Counts, if Your Vampire General dies, it better be in the bottom of turn 6 or you are going to lose because your entire Army starts "Crumbling"...so by the time of this photo my undead allies are falling apart on their own not mention the Orcs hammering away at them.

It was basically all down hill from there, The saving grace being that my three remaining Knights got chance to charge the Orc Lord on the Wyvern and Tony decided to flee, I was 8 inches away and he rolled a "6" which equals a "14" exactly their charge range..so I ran it down and killed him for 450 points, if that didn't happen this game would have been a massacre, leave it to dumb luck.

The remaining turn, Tony's dice get hot for his artillery and spells and he wipes out just about everything I have left that do much of anything. My Cannons then misfired and jammed so they were out for the game, but still alive...a few handgunners got lucky and got that units of orcs down below 50% for scoring..my pistoliers finally end doing some damage near the end ( after missing everything the whole game with 14 shots a round. elected to Flee from the black orcs so I could keep them on the board to score but then spells crushed them at the top of turn 6. In the end all we had left out of 4000 points was...all my artillery ( 1st time for that) a full unit of Crossbows and 1/2 str unit of Handgunners. Tony had all his Heroes , except fortunately the most expensive one my knights killed. 1 unit of Black Orcs at 50%, One unit of Orc Boys at 50%, 3 units of Night Goblin Spears, One Pumpwagon, 3 snotling bases and all his warmachines. with numerous post game objectives Tony was +2222 for a Solid Victory.

This was a 5 hour game and I didnt get home until 3 A.M but it was it was great experience kudos to Tony for being a great general and really having a superb handle on how to play O&G. Thanks to Bill for hanging in their with me, now we can both go treat our wounds, regroup and get ready for the next round. Thanks to Joe F (who plays the Lizardmen (blue) in the campaign, looking on intently from the painting station in the last photo) Joe hung around out all night and watched this game!.

I should mention I also played Jeff from Hammer's Blog and his new High Elf army early that day so I was playing Warhammer for basically 15 hours straight!! I guess its good tourney practice stamina wise, but my wife says I need rehab, LOL!.