Tuesday, August 9, 2011

First blood.

Blood flowed from me rather copiously tonight. My first 750 pt. friendly skirmish with Zach ended in a total rout for the Skaven. Zach fielded a bare bones Beastman army with a couple of nifty heroes, and a neat thing called a BSB...

My Skaven force, led by a brave but decidedly inexperienced Warlord Sneaky McGillicuddy, centered around a large unit of Stormvermin with a Warpfire Thrower along with a 27-rat strong unit of Clan Rats with a Poison Wind Mortar. I also had a two-Rat Ogre unit on the right flank, a unit of Gutter Runners, as well as a 2nd Level Warplock Engineer (thanks to a first game gimme from Zach).

My Engineer was tricked out with Warp Lightning and Death Frenzy spells.
Oh boy... I was going to kick some Beastman butt!!!

So. Things went sour from the first turn. Here are just a few of the things that happened:

My Engineer successfully cast a Warp Lightning spell... with Irresistible Force! I knocked down a few of his troops, and promptly forgot what a Warp Lightning Spell was and got just a li'l bit dumber to boot. And he continued his streak of ineffectiveness for the rest of the game, with Zach's caster dispelling the one or two spells I tried to cast in later rounds.

My brand new Warpfire Thrower misfired, and it's crew had the good sense to run away and right into the flank of my poor Rat Ogre unit, wounding both Mickey and Minnie in the process...

Sneaky was called out by Zach's BSB, and fought to a draw (until Sneaky's Stormvermin were routed to extinction).

Zach's caster beat off my rats with a stick... literally... He went straight up McHammer on my rats...

And the Beastlord's unit was on Magic Steroids and decimated my Stormvermin and Rat Ogre units.

And I haven't mentioned my freakishly poor dice rolls or Zach's freakishly great dice rolls when I managed to roll fistfuls of awesome!

So, turns out. The BSB is a big freaking deal! Those re-rolls really help!

I realize that it might not look it, but I had a grrreaaat time losing my first game! Though it may have been the good pizza and grog that eased the sting of the loss :-)

Got some great pointers on putting a list together, and am looking forward to Sneaky's next adventure. Did I mention that the BSB's are a big deal?

2 comments:

  1. Yo Dennis.

    I had a blast! It was a great face off on a truncated 'skirmish' board. My advice, on such a small point allotment, is to forget the fancy tricks and just OVERWHELM my forces.
    that being said, you still need a reliable force and as you learned, the BSB and general bring that.

    Stormvermin, while AMAZING in my eyes, are too expensive at this level of play. I suggest dropping them for Clanrats and dropping the weapon teams for big blocks of slaves. Below is a 'theory list' from someone who doesn't know the vast repertoire of skaven tricks.

    Lords (121pts)

    * Warlord (108pts)
    Halberd (3pts), Poisoned Attacks (15pts)

    * Heroes (190pts)

    * Chieftain (87pts)
    Battle Standard Bearer (25pts), Enchanted Shield (10), Tail Weapon (8pts)

    * Warlock Engineer (100pts)
    Wizard Level 2 (85pts)

    * Core (438.5pts)

    * Clanrats (233.5pts)
    Clawleader (8pts), Musician (4pts), Poisoned Wind Mortar (65pts), Standard Bearer (8pts)
    * 33x Clanrats (148.5pts)
    33x Shield (16.5pts)

    * Clanrats (128pts)
    Clawleader (8pts), Musician (4pts), Standard Bearer (8pts)
    * 24x Clanrats (108pts)
    24x Shield (12pts)

    * Skavenslaves (77pts)
    Musician (2pts)
    * 30x Skavenslaves (75pts)
    30x Shield (15pts)

    Ok. That leaves you with a few points to play around with.
    You have:
    a General with Heavy armor, poisoned attacks, Str 5 (very nice) and I assume an extra attack?

    BSB with Armor save of 3+ and a tail attack.

    A main solid unit of clanrats with parry saves and a mortar!!

    A secondary unit of clanrats for the warlock.

    a decent sized 'slave pit' to make my life a living hell....

    that's 90 models on the field!

    You could scrap the mortar and get rat ogres. Plus you still have about 10-15 points.

    Glad I finally got to play you and you enjoyed it. 90% of the learning you'll get is on the battlefield.


    A lvl 2 warlock

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  2. Blast! it shortned my comment.

    anyways. you'll have 90 models on the field.

    3 good blocks
    3 characters
    1 weapon team.

    very handy.

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