Battle Report - Dark Elves vs Empire: Battle One

I smell a battle coming

Lord Xanthus looked at his small warband and grinned: The small human village would bring him enough slaves to refill the flock in his mines. The only thing between him and his slaves were those pesky human soldiers who readied there weapons. He could also see some knights and even those blackpowder warmaschines he hated so much. Nonetheless he needed those slaves. Silent he gestured his Knights to trod aside his unit of crossbowmen. With the spearman and his shades blocking the right flank he didn't worry too much about the knights and artillery there, he just had to get grip of this human who chanted some blessings and prayers to this fool god the humans worship. As he felt the muscle tension of his Cold One he grinned and with a relieving: ATTAAAAAAACK! he sent his forces to slaughter.

So it starts: Battle Number One at our Warhammer Fantasy Battleday :) To make the day as comfortable as possible, I had already prepared the gaming table. If you wonder why there is a neopren whale sitting in the middle of it: Labschi always said he wanted to play against my "Delfine" (dolphins) instead of Dark Elves and that he would go home immediately if I would await him clad in my diving suit or disguised as Dark Elf Witch. For my diving suit it was too hot and running around nearly neekid was no option, therefore the whale was the closest I could get :D And naturally my cats did find this very interesting and jumped upon the modules, wrecking havoc and getting buried by two of them. Luckily no damage was done (neither to the cats nor the modules).

Deployment

After some nice nerd talk (Labschi and I work in nearly the same job in different companies) and preparing our units (for me getting most of them out of my Feldherr) we started to explain the units and the characters (without telling which magic items they had because of closed lists) and rolled for the spells. Here I was the first time lucky because my sorceress got the "Black Horror" which is really dreadful at this point size. Then we started deploying (Labschi had to go first) and I could follow my plan with refusing the left flank and just deploying my Dark Riders there. My right flank was protected by a small unit of

Shades, my big units of Warriors and my Bolt Thrower (with which I wanted to take out either the Knights or the Mortar). So I could concentrate my Cold Ones in the centre, with the hope to get them to the cannon as fast as possible while my Sorceress in the Crowsbows should take care of the opposing Swordmen.  The Harpies shielded my Cold Ones and stood behind the difficult terrain to make a fast flying move in the first turn.

Knights watching the Dark Elves advance

Labschi deployed his Knights, Mortar and Gunsmen on the left flank, his Swordsmen in the centre (his Cannon feared a fast charge of my Cold Ones and was setup rather unluckily) and his Bihanders with Priest on the far right (where they where completely ignored by me). His Mage got some nice Life spells and I got Turn one (although my Shades deployed as Scouts). Before we started Labschi told me he had a bad feeling of this thing and the sight his Knights had, wasn't ensuring either :)

Turn One

I thought I would just advance slowly, take the first artillery shooting and then crush into the battle line with all my force. My Harpies made a short jump to lure the Swordsmen while the Crossbows and Cold One Knights moved upon the hill. The Shades looked sneakily at the Mortar, the Bolt Thrower crew setup a volley and crossbows where readied. But before anything could happen the Sorceress channeled the strong Magic Winds and throw a Dark Horror at the Swordmen, killing a whole bunch of them. The crossbows added some more bodycount and the combined fire of the Shades and the Bolt Thrower caused the damn thing to fall apart. This sight panicked the Knights and they ran to the left side of the board.

Labschi then tried to rally his Knights but those cowards just ran off the table (throwing double sixes with no Army Standard nearby). He then charged my Harpies (which fled instead of taking the Swordsmen) and protected his units with some of the life spells. At this point it already looked pretty bad: No losses at my Dark Elves and 2 units of The Empire completely destroyed and one pretty damaged this didn't bode well for the human forces.
Labschi already thought of waving the White Flag but we decided to play at least a second turn.

Turn Two

At this point I decided to completely shoot of the Empire army. I just had to wait for them and weaken them on the way. With the Mortar AND the Knights gone the right flank was completely under my control  in the centre I had my Knights and my crossbows and the Dark Riders played tag with the Bihanders. So I just started with magic which did again bring very strong winds and I could release everything at my arsenal. Combined with all my shooting, the Swordsmen where brought to half their size, the gunners also and I even took out some Bihanders and the Cannon. At this point Labschi shook hands and looked somewhat depressed which I could totally understood.

Aftermatch

Lord Xanthus looked pleased at his small force. None of his valuable soldiers had fallen and the magic proved strong in this part of the human Empire. Surely luck was on his side today, but who would he be to temper with fate. His Warriors already chained the remaining soldiers of the fleeing army and the Shades and Dark Riders were already in the village, capturing and raiding what they found. Grinning he send his Cold One to a slow but steady trod, watching the glittering of the plaed Knights getting smaller and smaller: There would be another battle pretty soon. Perhaps he could still his thirst for blood soon.

To sum it up: This was a short and bloody battle with all advantages and luck(!) at the Dark Elves. I expected a much more harder Empire force with Demigryphons and the stuff. But Labschi hadn't had the time to glue them all together and therefore decided to write a list without them. Nonetheless I liked the list and thoughts he had, it just didn't play out. For battle two we made some minor changes, big ones weren't possible because Labschi hadn't just brought the miniatures for this one list.

And we recognized that we need to play more to get the rules into our heads (one reason we planned some small battles) for example the Priest didn't use his prayers the whole day (which wouldn't have changed anything in this match). 

After all it was a funny battle with some lucky throws at my side, especially in the magic phase where my Dark Horror wrecked havoc in the Swordsmen. As long as there is enough fun talk besides gaming such games could be enjoyable and fun for both sides.

Hope you enjoyed the Battle Report and it was somewhat understandable. Battle Two will come up in the next few days.

So long,

Paradox0n