So I’ll take a shot a doing a quick battle report for you guys. This past weekend I ran a teaching game for a friend of mine but rather than doing the same old core box skirmish stuff, I went ahead and put together a couple of 200pt lists with all my new expansions. Since he’s a seasoned gamer so I figured he could handle it. Rather than doing a turn by turn battle report, I just want to hit on a few thoughts I had after the game.
Here are the lists.
Waiqar
Ardus IxErebus x1 [37]
--Artifact: Fortuna's Dice [6]
--Unique: Ancient Technique [2]
Reanimate Archers x4 [32]
--Training: Combat Ingenuity [6]
Reanimate Archers x4 [32]
--Training: Combat Ingenuity [6]
Carrion Lancers x1 [15]
Reanimates x9 [50]
--Champion: Deathcaller [5]
--Heavy: Support Carrion Lancer [6]
--Training: Simultaneous Orders [2]
Daqan
Kari Wraithstalker x1 [32]
--Artifact: Fortuna's Dice [6]
--Unique: Wraith Step [1]
Spearmen x9 [59]
--Champion: Lance Corporal [6]
--Equipment: Tempered Steel [3]
--Heavy: Front Line Rune Golem [7]
--Heraldry: Lion-Standard Bearer [5]
--Music: Aggressive Cornicen [5]
Rune Golems x1 [17]
Oathsworn Cavalry x6 [46]
--Equipment: Wind Rune [6]
--Heraldry: Bull Pennon [3]
--Training: Rank Discipline [4]
These idea behind these lists was to keep the number of units close to what you’d see in a regular core box skirmish battle but with larger units and a some upgrades. I worried that I had gone a little overboard with the Daqan upgrades and that it would be too much information for a new player to process but that turned out to not be the case. I also wanted to play around with a few combos I had heard around the webs.
I played the Waiqar while my buddy played the Daqan list. Since I was a point less than him I took first player and chose the Head to Head deployment and he chose the Supply Raid scenario. The combination of this deployment and the scenario was interesting because it allowed us to stick the objective tokens along side of our deployment zones and not just in front of them. In a game with 4-5 units a side, it was easy to get your forces split up trying to grab those side objectives. Lets just say that my deployment was horrible shall we?
The first couple of turns were spent feeling out the action dials and how movement works so there wasn’t much happening besides shuffling around and grabbing a few of the objective tokens. By turn three though our units were ready to rock and roll and I loaded up a few units with blight from the archers and carrion lancer while he ran his Rune Golem into the elevated terrain. This move by him, while inadvertent, taught us both a lesson on how terrain can be extremely useful with movement. I had my big block of reanimates right beside it and he was able to use the terrain to pop out and set up a flank charge. Once he got that Rune Golem engaged with the Reanimates, the Lancer/Deathcaller combo was switched off for the rest of the game. He handled one of my unsupported archer units with his Cavalry while Kari popped a couple of wounds on the Carrion lancer. I provided the game’s comedy relief by mismanaging my Lancer’s movement and impaling myself off on the spiked terrain.
Needless to say it was a rout. I sucked pretty hard with my movement but I fault myself and not the templates. Ardus was running around like chicken with his head cut off and my carrion lancer killing himself was just icing.
Waiqar list thoughts
I’m not sure I’m a fan of two blocks of 2x2 archers. Sure they put down the blight but that only gets you so far. Their damage output doesn’t quite do enough to help remove units in larger games. I’ll probably back that down to 1 unit and go with a couple of 2x1 units of Carrion Lancers with Rank Discipline for some blight/combat potential. I wasn’t impressed with the Carrion/Deathcaller combo for the simple fact that I think the Reanimates need to operate as an anvil unit not a “shooty” unit. I still haven’t decided how I want to run them but I’m leaning more toward added staying power.
Daqan List thoughts
The famed 3x3 spearmen with Front Line Rune Golem is a beast. That configuration is going to be hard for me to NOT take in future games. The damage potential with the added modifier and upgrades is a force to be reckoned with. It can be slowed down though with enough blight and a flanking unit though. The upgrade I think that surprised me the most was the Aggressive Cornicen. I got caught off-guard when he charged in with a march 3/damage modifier/lance corporal combo. The 2x3 Cavalry unit did well enough for him. He misunderstood the wording on the wind rune so he didn’t use it. Could probably do with or without it if you need to save points. That’s another unit that I could potentially see dropping down to a 2x2 with Rank discipline to free up some points.
Final Thoughts - (Get good)
My poor movement with Ardus and the Lancer really took the melee punch out of my list. I really need to sit down and practice with the movement templates so I can learn how to put units where I want them when I want them. This is most important with scenarios where you have to overlap objectives with your units. Maybe that’s good practice. Throw some tokens out on the board and practice moving to them in the fewest turns possible. (sounds like a good Friday night huh?)
Also, I got this feeling after the game that Threat is key. There are a few units I think that I could drop down a level but keep the same threat thus freeing up some more points for more units.
Take all these opinions with a grain of salt though. I still have a lot of learning to do and a lot more games to play.