Battle Report

By Jay:

A friend of mine called me up the other day and said he had a 3K Skaven army that he was looking to take to 'Ard Boyz. He'd played two games with it and had fared pretty well. Beat up on some orcs and some VC with it. I couldn't possibly go without trying to take down a Skaven army, mostly because I can't fucking stand those little bastards. GW has one original idea and they have to make it the most over-the-top, undercosted army possible. But I digress. Armed with my severe distaste for all things rat infested, I pulled out the army I'm thinking about playing at 'Ard boyz:

Wood Elf 3000 points-

I didn't keep the list around so I'm gonna try to do this from memory.

Alter lord w/ spirit sword, helm of the hunt, some silly ass armor

Level four mage w/ wand of wych elm, moonstone, fear blade

Branchwraith w/ Cluster of radiance

BSB w/ asyendi's bane, hail of doom arrow

38 Glade guard w/ FC and banner of eternal flame

10 dryads w/ FC (such as it is)

6 treekin w/ elder

1 treeman

10 scouts

10 waywatchers

2 giant eagles

10 wardancers w/ FC

We rolled up watchtower scenario which is good because I'd have been screwed on a blood and glory. I won the roll and tossed my dryads in the tower. Prolly should have let them just run into it and rolled for first turn, but I wanted to keep it as long as possible. I managed to get a bane stone placed on his table half 7" away from the tower, so he was not to keen on running anything up on it.

He was running a huge stormvermin brick with characters for days in it. Thanquol, bsb, general, another level 1, and I think another hero in there, plus an assassin that never popped out. his only other big unit was a unit of 30 or so slaves, and a tunnel team of about 25 guys. Most of what he had out there was doomwheel, abom, rat swarms, giant rat pack, war machines and weapon teams. It's always a pain for me to get up on those types of armies with Wood Elves due to having troops that cost so friggin much.

First turn. I had to forfeit going first due to taking the tower. He right off the bat 13th spelled my waywatchers, then warp lightning'd my scouts. Scouts managed to live with 6 or so of 'em left, but the damage was done. Already I'm down a 230 point unit, not to mention the 10 or so losses from the war machines on my GG block. I managed to get my scouts to make their charge on the lightning cannon over on his flank (which of course took them 3 combat rounds to kill off) but otherwise no real discernible damage on my part.

Second Turn. Having moved my treekin and treeman up towards his huge block they took a lot of his attention. He started to move units toward them and tried creeping his doomwheel up the left side of the table where all I had were my wardancers and alter lord. He had the slaves closer to the wheel than my stuff though, so he couldn't get a good lightning shot off. His catapult and 1 lightning cannon misfired and both exploded much to my delight. My turn was fairly uneventful. I crept my alter lord up behind the tower, and started moving the wardancers across the field now that they had no catapult to kill off. Dryads made short work of the rat swarms that had charged the tower.

Turn three. Shit started hitting the fan this turn. We both had fairly crappy magic phase rolls, but the numbers in our respective units were starting to dwindle from random acts of ranged violence. The real damage was done in my magic phase. I got a Dwellers Below off on his stormvermin unit that ate up Thanquol and his level 1 mage along with a good 25 stormvermin.

Turn four. With his magic force decimated I pretty much managed to mop up the rest of his stuff. Alter lord charged the doomwheel and spirit sworded the shit out of it. Wardancers quisinarted the giant rat pack. Treeman had a slap fight with the abom. and my glade guard block moonstoned across the board far from harms way and panicked the slaves away. We managed to get a 6 on the scenario die roll and the pain ended with my dryads victoriously holding the tower.

I'm not entirely sure that I would take the army that I played to 'Ard Boyz, but I do have an idea for an army that I may play:

Treeman ancient w/ annoyance of nettling and cluster of radiance
Treeman ancient w/ murder of spites
Level 2 mage with DMS
BSB w/ asyendi's bane, hail of doom arrow
Noble w/ hunters talon, pageant of shrikes
Treeman
Treeman
6 Treekin
20 Dryads with champ
10 Glade guard w/ banner of eternal flame
10 Glade guard w/ standard
9 Scouts w/ standard
10 Scouts w/ standard

No magic to speak of really there, but it is shooty and hard hitting in hand to hand. It's really just a matter of if I have enough GW models to do it, as you can't use non-GW models for 'Ard Boyz.