On 25 November I played a 4000 point game of Warhammer 5th edition with Steve. I brought my Dark Elves while he fielded a Chaos army composed of Marauders and Chaos Warriors. We played in Sugamo, after the initial plan of getting together with Josh, Rodion and Andy at Kashiwa fell through. Sugamo was holding a Japanese International Gamer's Guild (JIGG) event, and so I thought we could crash the event and claim a table where we could play. Things panned out as I hoped, but we were lucky that it wasn't well attended because the event was held in probably the smallest room in the history of JIGG, with a grand total of three tables available. Fortunately there was never more than 7-9 people in the room at any time, which meant there was never any need to pack up our game early.
 |
| The Chaos and Dark Elf armies on display. |
The game itself was fun and well-contested, and ended in a draw, with Steve edging me out 24-23 in victory points (VP). It was played mostly in good spirit, except for one instance where I spat the dummy over a rules dispute over auto-breaking because of being outnumbered by fear-causing foes. Steve said that because he had passed the Fear test when his Chaos Warriors were charged by my Cold One Knights, his unit no longer Feared the enemy, and hence would not auto-break. I disputed this initially, but eventually yielded and let him take the Break test, which he failed anyway. I'm afraid I was overly adamant at first, however, because this particular rule is ingrained in me as a Tomb Kings player. It didn't help that there was a random Spanish dude there from JIGG who chimed in with his 2 cents and sided with Steve, even though he confessed that he'd never played Fantasy Battle before. I got over it, though, and we were able to play amicably from that point. We also exchanged apologies later, so it's all good. I felt like a dipshit for getting angry over something so trivial, and will strive to avoid similar situations like that in the future.
 |
| Deployment. |
There were a few other minor hiccups. The table was a foot too narrow, which meant we were deploying right on the table edge. This was bad for me as my army had a preponderance of fast cavalry who were counting on fleeing and rallying. Narrower tables meant that they were more likely to flee off the table and never come back. Once again I failed to bring a green tablecloth to cover the stark table top. We also forgot to bring Winds of Magic cards or a suitable substitute, and so I just cut my mages from my list and removed magic from the game. This meant I was down about 600 points against Steve, but since it was just an introductory game I didn't care. I also didn't use any of the nasty tricks I had planned for his Bloodthirster. My list included the Storm Banner, which prevents all flight but I never ended up using it. Steve didn't actually know his Daemon could fly. I had to tell him he could fly 20 inches per turn, but forgot to mention that he could also fly high, which is an ability that fliers have in 5th edition (this was later removed in 6th). The fact that he never flew high meant I never needed to use the Storm Banner. It would have dumped his Daemon back onto the middle of the table, and prevented flight until the effect wore off. I also had an Assassin with the Black Gem of Gnar to entrap his Greater Daemon, but rather than springing that on Steve and leaving a sour taste in his first Fantasy game I told him about it, and used it on his Sorcerer instead to show him how that particular magic item worked. My Sorceress, who I ended up cutting from the list, also had the Forbidden Rod and Healing Potion combination. I didn't end up using her in the game, but I also told Steve about how the Forbidden Rod worked so that it would not come as a nasty surprise in future games. Half the bad feelings that come from games with lots of rules is being surprised by a combination that you never knew existed. By putting out the most egregious combinations out in the open it lessens the "gotcha" element. People can handle losing within the framework of the rules, but less so when they get surprised by a rule or a special ability or magic item they didn't know existed.
 |
| Benched due to not having Winds of Magic cards. |
I initially thought that the Dark Elves had a weak list, but after the game I changed my mind. The Dark Elves are very competitive in 5th edition. They have armour-ignoring rank-piercing bolt throwers, both in single shot and multiple shot mode, which made them very deadly against knights or other similarly heavily-armoured troops. In 6th edition and beyond bolt throwers would be nerfed, losing their ability to ignore armour when firing multiple shots, but in 5th they were still vicious anti-armour weapons in either mode. In our game Steve's two units of Chaos Knights were cut to pieces by my artillery before they saw any combat.
The Dark Elves also have the best fast cavalry in 5th edition. Dark Elf light cavalry can skirmish, perform a vanguard move after deployment, and do not get penalized for moving and shooting. They are excellent for denying march moves, harassing the enemy with bow fire, and even performing flank and rear charges once behind the enemy line. Dark Elf Scouts are also very good troops. With their BS of 5 they can afford to shoot twice each turn with their repeater crossbows. Dark Elf Scouts hit on 5+ when firing twice, at long range, and after having moved. The most devastating thing both these troop types can do is to remove rank bonuses or get bonuses for charging the enemy in the flank or rear. In 6th edition skirmishers lost the ability to negate rank bonuses. In 5th they can still do it as long as they have five models alive at the end of combat.
 |
| The Bloodthirster! |
What the Dark Elves lacked was the ability to take on high Toughness opponents. Bolt throwers have a maximum Strength of 5 so it's useless against something like the Bloodthirster or a Dragon. The highest Strength troops I can field are Dark Elves with great weapons like Executioners, but for me they're too fragile because they always strike last. One way to deal with high Toughness troops is to either kit out a Lord character and go mano e mano, but that is a risky gamble. The better way is to simply ignore them, and cut apart the rest of the army while feeding the big nasty some cheap disposable troops to waste its time. There are also options like the Black Gem of Gnar and Van Hortsmann's Speculum, both of which can be utilized well by Dark Elves through the use of Assassins. In 5th edition players can deliberately avoid contacting certain enemy models when they charge, as the rule for maximizing models in contact doesn't appear until 6th edition. This meant you could deliberately avoid nasty characters by charging the edge of the enemy unit away from them. This tactic doesn't work against Assassins though, as Assassins can displace any models when they appear. One of these days I'm going to use the Heart of Woe and Strength Potion combination and create my own Assassin suicide bomber.
 |
| Dark Riders flee from the Greater Daemon. |
In terms of their rank and file Dark Elves have good solid troops in the form of the Dark Elf Corsairs. The Sea Dragon Cloak provides a flat 5+ armour save which can't be reduced by the Strength of enemy attacks, making them extremely durable against cavalry charges or monsters. I think the Executioners and the Black Guard are too expensive in 5th edition, so I won't be using them. Witch Elves are decent on paper, but they fluffed badly against Steve and cost me the game. They charged Steve's Lord on a Juggernaut in the flank and completely failed to cause any wounds at all. In return Steve's frenzied Lord caused seven casualties, and the Witch Elves ended up losing by two. They broke from combat, were chased down, and allowed the Lord to overrun into a Bolt Thrower. All told that cost me 5 VP - 3 VP for the unit, 1 VP for losing their standard, and another 1 VP for losing the Bolt Thrower. That's after charging his Lord in the flank, with a fully ranked unit. Herohammer at its finest. It's all good, though, as Frenzy is something that the Dark Elves can exploit as we have access to Witch Elf heroes. I found a rule for characters with Frenzy in 5th edition, which is a test they have to take after attacking. They have to roll less than their total number of attacks on 2d6, or lose 1 attack permanently. It's not a big downside, as usually the first fight is the most pivotal one. But Chaos Lords, with 8 attacks plus 2 from their mounts, are quite capable of taking on units by themselves.
 |
| We steamrolled the left flank and ran riot with fast cavalry and scouts on the right. But his characters whipped my ass in the middle. |
A final note on scoring. The scoring was based on my assumption that every 100 points or part thereof equated to 1 VP. I thought this meant that a destroyed, fleeing or fled unit costing 250 points equals 3 VP. This is incorrect. As Steve pointed out, a unit is worth 1 VP for every full 100 points, with units less than 100 points being worth 1 VP. A 250 point unit would therefore be worth 2 VP instead of 3. I don't know how much of a difference it would have made in the end, but it's worth noting for the next game. Amazingly, despite the hurdle of learning three disparate rank and file fantasy wargaming systems - Kings of War, Warhammer 5th edition and The Ninth Age - I'm actually starting to get a handle on things. More importantly, I'm enjoying each system more and more as I become familiar with the rules and conventions. This is good, because I don't see us ever agreeing on one edition ever as the base game for Fantasy battles.
Comments
Post a Comment