Battleplan:Hold or Die

[Threejacks]

We played this scenario last night at our monthly GG session.Thomatron who is new to miniatures gaming and my Son teamed up against me. Thomatron fielded a mix of Wood and High Aelfs while my son had brought some of our undead forces ,I used a Chaos force of Bloodbound,monsters and a few Tzeench units.

 

This scenario is the first one listed from the first sourcebook "Mighty Battles".It has an Invader who must divide their forces into an initial on board force that is 1/3rd of their models,while the remaining 2/3rds will arrive during the movement phase of turn 2.The Invader has an 18" diameter deployment zone that he can choose to be anywhere on the board.The Custodian player can deploy their whole force anywhere at least 12" away from the Invaders territorial circle.After Deployment the Invader secretly records a board edge for his remaining forces to arrive onto during turn 2.These forces are to be placed within 6" of the board edge no closer than 3" to an enemy unit,that is their move for the turn.

 

The Invader is also able to choose two Generals for this battle,one in Their onboard initial force and one in their reinforcing force.

 

We also used the Realm of Fire environmental rules that allowed ranged attacks taking place at further than 12" from their targets to reroll hit rolls of 1.Wizards all obtained a Fireball spell,all terrain block LoS through it,and we set up 6 geysers throughout the battlefield..these had a 6" radius around them that would cause d3 mortal wounds and one would go off randomly each turn(2 times per battleround).

 

Time of War rules were in effect as well though they didn't come into play as I deployed all of my models and the other team didn't have any Stormcast units to bring onto the field.

 

If a player has 1/3 rd more models than their opponent than they must be the Invader,otherwise roll off and the player rolling highest is the Invader....note that this particular battleplan does not give a choice on the roll off results(a few are like that).

 

Model count for the armies was Chaos at 52 and Aelf/Undead at 55.No comp system was used.

 

The Victory conditions were for each side to destroy the others starting forces,in this case the Custodian only had to destroy 1/3rd of the Invaders force while the Invader had to destroy the full Custodian force,a very tall order for sure.No turn limit but we did set a time limit of 2hrs and ended up finishing turn 3 at the 2.5 hr mark.

 

The command abilities consisted of the Invader being able to call an "All out Defence" which makes the General and all friendly units within 12" of him unable to move,charge or pile-in until their next hero phase,but these units can reroll failed saves.

The Custodians command ability was "Destroy at all costs"-pic d3 units within 12" of their general and add +1 to all hit rolls but -1 to all save rolls until their next hero phase.

 

A special rule was in effect for the Invader,"Defiant Stand"-The Invader can select a model with the Totem keyword and declare that this model will not move until all enemies have been defeated.This model cannot move during the battle but while its alive,friendly models don't have to take battleshock tests and when damage is inflicted on this model it can pass that damage to a friendly unit within 3".

 

That's the rundown on this particular battleplan

 

I did make an addition to the Victory conditions,and that is that if the main victory conditions were not met in the time limit then we would use the kill count totals to determine a minor victory.I did this as Ive always passed this battleplan up due to its lack of a turn limit but in using a time limit and adding these conditions for a minor victory,I think it fixes it and makes it a viable plan to use.In order to achieve the minor victory condions a player had to exceed their opponents casualties caused by at least 10%.

 

As I mentioned,we did not use any comp and chose to play the game as per the BRB with set up and army choosing being done straight from our collections,I like to try this now and then and its a great way to play for new players.

 

Basically they had 10-15 warscrolls,one monster and several heros,5 I think,some rank and file troops,a siege engine,some flyers,cavalry and archers.I had monsters as well,Skarbrand!(always have to use the exclamation mark with him)a couple of Khorgarathes,Scyla,Gaunt summoner,some rank and file and a Khorne skull canon,Pink horrors and flamers,just one min unit each of these.I didn't have anything saved to summon but my Son had several units saved...I knew that was gonna be a problem.And we were not allowing any model recycling unless the ability stated dead models could be brought back.As I suspected this "house rule" didn't have any effect as the game timed out before any re-summoning could be attempted.Its really only going to have an impact in smaller games were a player would intend to just start with 2-4 warscrolls then plan to summon and re-summon the remainder of their army.

 

My Chaos were deemed to be the Invader so we completed set up of the terrain and then did geysers,this is were I made my first mistake.I ended up placing my 3 geysers too far away from were I had planned to do my "Stand".I should have chosen areas just outside my deployment circle,areas in cover too so that they would have some of their ranged units being threatened with mort wounds.

 

I then chose a starting force that included a unit of Skullreavers(5),Blood Warriors(5),3 Flamers of Tzeeench,Bloodsecrator,Exaulted Deathbringer,unit of 2 Khorgoraths.I chose a ruins terrain piece in the corner of the table then secretly chose the nearest short edge of the table for rienforcements to arrive on.

 

Invader had first turn so in my hero phase I rolled a Geyser die and managed to singe the tail on the Vamp lords bone dragon for one mort wound,this was the only damage the geysers did the whole game,,thats 6 rolls on them.I think this is mainly due to my poor placement choices.

I used the Defiant stand scenario rule with my Bloodsecrator and he ended up being the focal point of most all of the enemy shooting for the next three turns.

 

The only charge I could get off on my turn was the Khorgoraths into my sons Chariots and Skeletons,they did a few wounds.

 

For the Aelf/Undead turn they brought units in closer,did some shooting and managed to put 2 wounds on the Bloodsecrator mainly due to me moveing all of my forces off of the terrain piece and behind it so they couldn't be targeted with shooting,but in doing so I no longer had a unit within 3" to pass damage to.I should have done set up a bit differently here I think.Anyhow,the Khorgorathes had the Vamp lord on Dragon join in the combat and all did some wounds on each other.My Son also summoned a unit of 2 Morghasts( I wish I didn't get those for him,lol) and a unit of Skeleton archers.

 

I rolled initiative on turn 2,got my reinfocements onto the board and was able to get the unit of Bloodreavers into combat due to that easy 3" charge range that I had with a group of Aelfs being near the table edge.I also got the Skullreavers into the melee that included the Khorgoraths,Vamp lord on dragon,Chariots,Skeletons,Necromancer and steed mounted Vamp lord..this melee went through turn 3 with my forced eventually breaking down.As a whole I was able to take out 6 skeletons and put a few wounds on the Necromancer and Vamp lords,,though they healed their wounds.

 

The Constodian turn 2 resulted in a summoning of Spirit hosts and more closing in on my starting forces.The remaining Morghast charged the Bloodsecrator,Aelf forces worked the Bloodreaver mob numbers down and His Chariots broke away from the forward melee with the Skullreapers and moved in toward the Invaders circle.More shooting took place with most of it going toward the planted Bloodsecrator,I passed off 4 wounds onto the unit of Pink Horrors I brought in and got within 3" of him just for that purpose.

 

Turn 3 had the Custodian steal initiative and they went right to work finishing off the Bloodreavers in the NE corner of the field.Fired more shots into the Bloodsecrator wittling down the Pink horrors to only 3 models,also charged Direwolves into the Bloodwarriors and sending Spirit hosts into the Khorne Skull Cannon.The Aelves also made a charge on the Bloodsecrator with an eagle rider.The melee with the Bloodsecrator resulted in all Pink horrors dieing off.

 

Invader turn 3 had me attempting to get as many of reinforceing units into combat as possible.This led to Scyla charging the Aelf forces in the NE,Skarbrand! charging into the Morghast and Eagle rider engaged with the Bloodsecrator and my Blood warriors and Deathbringer hitting the Chariots in my deployment zone.The end result here was that not much had changed,Scyla did a couple of wounds on the Aelf General,Skarbrand!...didn't do [big bad swear word],The Chariots lost two models though AND the Bloodsecrator survived the turn with one wound remaining,hehe.

 

At this point we called it due to time,,we knew that due to the model count we wouldn't have time to finish the game in the time limit.

 

Now I concede that if we had enough time to complete this battle,the Chaos forces would most certainly loose their starting models before the Custodian lost theirs especially considering that the Invader ended up facing an addional 32 models beyond the starting models in the Custodians force.Based on the original Battleplan and the fact that it doesn't have any criteria for a time limit on the victory determination,one can only assume that if the players cant complete the game then its a draw.

 

However I did add in the minor victory conditions that are pretty much the BRB conditions if a game cant be concluded as per a time limit and came up with...The Aelf/Undead forces summoned an additional 26 models and lost a total of 13 starting models putting the force loss at 70% ,while the Chaos forces lost 38 killed,0 summoned for a total loss at 73%..both well within the 10% needed for one side to claim a minor victory.Still a Draw:) As I mentioned though,for this I would count this as a win for the Custodian just due to what the board looked like when we called it.But for event purposes It would be a draw.

 

Alternatively figuring this with the assumed rule that summoned models must be killed in order to count toward the casualties suffered I come up with a Custodian casualty loss of 23%.As we can see from this, if the summoning "penalty" of just counting summoned models as casualties "when they die"(note that it doesn't state that in the BRB) doesn't do Jack [big bad swear word] to curb the desire to run full on summoning armies.

 

Had a great time playing though this one and will certainly keep it in the rotation.Having the scenario special rules along with the Time of war rules and the Environmental rules tacked on make for some very diverse and fun games.

 

Wow,,cant believe I typed all that..Im discussing doing Video Batreps with my Son and his Ipad right now,lol

[Malakithe]

Haha yeah you could do vids. I watched them a lot on youtube. Lots of ways to do it from slidshow style to turn by turn updates to full live

[Threejacks]

Got a couple more rounds of this one in,one on Sunday with my Boys and one last night with Steel Angel.

 

Sunday`s game didn't yield much info as my Boys played the Invader side, with a force of Ogres and Duardin.Then proceeded to run their one unit of Iron guts out of the starting circle right toward my shooting forces and summoner,,,yeah shot the Ogres up then they got charged by a Demon prince so that was that.Even though the Thunder Tusk is nasty with that auto 6 mortal wounds to anything within 18" I still wailed on it with Skarbrand with a turn 2 charge,,then they brought their reinforcing forces on the board on the edge....opposite from were they set up.Something about "I wouldn't be expecting that",well..they got that right,lol.Anyhow,killed off their final starting model on turn 3.

 

The game with Steel Angel ended up being a real good round of the scenario with me taking my Chaos forces again,and being the Invader.Steel had his DE forces.Setting up the Geysers proved very effective for me this time as I made sure I placed mine on terrain features in order to threaten any campers,also since geysers are placed before player sides are known it required some planning ahead of time for what I would do if I was Custodian vs Invader.I again chose a deployment circle based around a terrain piece that didn't have a geyser on it,there was 2 other board corners with terrain pieces with no geysers but they were further away from the main bunch of geysers that were near the long center line of the board but mostly in one 4x4 end section.So there was basically 4 geysers within 24" of my deployment circle.If nothing else this was probably my biggest advantage in this battle as Steel will tell of the casualties they caused on him.

 

We managed a total of 3 turns in just over a couple hours of play and called it.We didn't do a casualty count this time though.Steel had several units of 1 wound models and it would have likely skewed the numbers heavily against him.We are thinking it would be a much better system for draw breaking to do a wound loss comparison instead.This would allow for horde based armies to have an even footing vs elite armies.

 

We pretty much had around 50-60 models with a wound count of just over 100,mine was 106 and his was 102.With this size armies I would say we would have had at least another 1.5 hrs to complete the game.Now with my Game on Sunday we had forces of 2/3rds of that but the Ogors with their high cost models had trouble coming up with a 1/3rd starting force so I cant really say that in order for the scenario to be completed faster,it would have to be played with far fewer models.At this point im thinking its probably not a good one to have in a mix of campaign scenarios due to its lack of turn limit but certainly is a fun one to play givin no limit on time as the starting force position set up criteria is an interesting twist on what otherwise would be just a straight battle line fight.

 

Time to move on to the second scenario! "The Watchtower"

[Malakithe]

I've noticed that ogors kinda mess up all sense of army building comps. They are all higher costs, higher wound with lower model count. Kinda like grey knights. You look at what you have and say 'that can't be all' lol

[Norrad]

Face them on the battlefield and you'll wonder what Semi truck n trailer just ran over your face! Small force but very powerful!

[Malakithe]

Yeah and that angry faced mammoth thing takes half dmg which is nuts