Saturday 24 March 2012

So SOMEONE didn't put the memory card back in the camera...

And a good thing too given the briefness of the game!

It was Ben's OnG vs my Dragon list in last post. Only change was putting flame banner on the spears (better place for it!).

His list looked like this:

Bus of Orc boyz with stubborn crown warboss, warded up BSB, lvl4 with scroll
24ish Savage Orc big 'uns with lvl1 with shruken head
5 spider riders
2 solo gobbo wolf riders-one with charmed shield and 1 with terror mask
6 trolls
1 solo troll
unit of 2 chariots
1 rock lobba
1 doom diver
2 manglers
1 big spider thingie (Ronald Reagan)

we rolled up Blood or Glory with was a good mission for me (7 vs 5), however that meant getting to the bus (which spent the entire game in a building)

I deployed reasonably defensively. Past experience vs OnG has shown that you have to deal with all the chaff first (something my army is rather good at) and THEN worry about the Trolls and Savage Orcs! My only real concern was 1 mangler that was outside of archer range and had a forested journey towards my lines. It was on my eagle'd side, but I totally fluffed dealing with the mangler.

Turn 1:
OnG go first and move chariots up to threat range. Manglers do their thing and spider riders move to threaten eagle. Ronald Reagan rocks up my right flank to threaten my archers. All looking reasonably sinister. Then the Magic phase. Ben first rolls up a 6 dice monkey on Foot of Gork. Not a HUGE roll (but enough to cast) so I chuck my 6 dice at it....fail to dispel due to lots of 1's. Not too bad says I due to scatter....2 DIRECT HITS later on both my Wlion units = both down to front rank only (so 10 and 7). Effectively removing my entire combat arm turn 1. TO add insult he then takes a wound off my lvl2. Waaagh-tillery opens up and does 3 wounds to my dragon.

So my turn 1: Not much really to do. I move back, reform wlions into "combat units" and swing my Dragon round to my right flank to counter Ronald Reagan. I make a huge mistake (still a little shell shocked I guess) and charge my eagle into spider riders instead of sitting back to catch the mangler. My Magic consists of fireball attempts at his chariots drawing out his scroll with a 3d6 fire ball-leaving his dice to stop the ruby ring. My shooting phase results in a dead mangler  which was good. In combat my eagle dies easily (i4 poison silly me).

Turn 2:
Stuff happens. Nothing of note that I can remember. Artillery misses, Ronald Reagan and Dragon sit 21 inches away (with Ronald 19 inches from archers). I used my scroll to stop something.

Turn 3:
The terror mask decides to try his luck into my big archers (that were now minus BSB who had joined spears to avoid Ronald Reagan). Archers hold with cause 1 wound with S&S. The spider riders move to set up a mangler over run (as I should have guessed they would...still annoyed as wasteful use of eagle!) Magic consists of killing my lvl2...2 sniper spells and 1 wound left :(. Waagh-tillery fails to do anything (DDiver misfires and Rlobba misses). In combat 2 archers die, but I hold.

My turn 3: well, minus a bit of stuff. I charge dragon into flank of terror guy-dead. Wlions charge and kill all the spiders easily. Shooting is once again effective (only BSB and 10 archers). I kill 1 chariot and remaining one fails panic.

Turn 4:
Already! Ronald Reagon tries a max range charge on the archers...rolls 6, 5, 5 and fails PHEW! S&S does nothing sadly. Mangler, now underrated moves up to squish some whitelions who have no where to escape...if only manglers were like fanatics as I was really close to some forests... This S'orcs decide they want some action....but only if protected by a solo troll who is pushed out in front to act as a speed bump if my spears where feeling rather suicidal. The solo chariot rallies. No combat this turn. Shooting resulted in another fail (scatter off board). Magic was good for me. Foot scattered off dragon, then off spears, then I got to place it on the Savage'orcs   and only scatter 1 inch-killing 8 from 12 hits which is not bad.

My turn 4-well there was "Eagle vs Shark" and there was "Shark vs Giant Octopus" and "Godzilla vs Giant insect thingie" and now there was Ronald Reagan vs Dragon as my Prince, surprised to have lasted so long, charges in! I then had to make a decision about how I was going to deal with the Savage Orcs. I drew my archers and spears back-BSB rejoined the big archers. MY unit of 7 Whitelions then pushed forward to take the charge. My gamble was that he couldnt kill 7 wlions,  then hold on re-roll ld 8 and spears come smashing into the flank...it was the only thing I had to stop them!
Once again looking back I had an even better option-reform into conga line and do the same thing. Guess my inner "be a dick" doesn't exist in friendly games! Of course this all relied on 23 s3 and 3 s5 shots being able to kill a troll-which they did! In combat the Prince casually did 3 wounds then the i4 poison thing got me again and the dragon fell. Princes uber armour combo bounced off 6 stomps. However I was still up in CR (3 wounds + charge vs 3 wounds) so the combat continued!

Turn 5:
Or otherwise known as "how to lose 800+ VPs in 1 turn" Mangler rolls heaps and smashes into whitelions...doing 12 wounds and then runs off board. Savage Orcs charge Wlions and slaughter them (I do 5 wounds in return) and over run out of spear LoS. Here once again I would like to point out how not throwing away the eagle turn 1 would have netted me the Savage Orcs. See-the eagle would have jumped on the mangler (saving me 10 wlions). These wlions would have moved up BEHIND the front wlions to catch the over run allowing spears to flank.....oh well. waaghtillery kills 6 archers from small unit. Prince does 2 wounds to Ronald Reagan and takes none in return (another 6 stomps too).

My turn involves Spears reforming to look at the Savage orcs and moving the 4 archers to force awkward overrun. Shooting does stuff. Another wound to Ronald Reagan for none in return.

Turn 6: 
The rock lobba misfires giving me the points. My Prince slays the spider. In my turn he does what's called "getting the hell out of there" back to my lines. The Savage orcs reform to face my spears instead of taking the bait. Mangler moves off the board again. IN my turn I charge the spears in hoping to out CR the Savage orcs and break them. I win combat by 1 (static CR FTW), but the savage orcs hold to end the game.

So a win for the Orcs, but they didn't break me, so a moral victory to the elves!

After thoughts:
Other than hitting myself for a wasteful use of my eagle I think I played rather well. flaming banner on the spears meant the trolls stayed out of harms way all game-so a great deterrent. Dragon surviving til turn 4 was awesome. Dying in combat not so, but once again in combat with something the Prince could handle with no other threats around. This is looking like a key thing for the dragon. All the dragon is, is a very expensive Prince delivery system that causes terror and flies. Could I down grade to the dumb dragon? maybe, but would not be as cool...though 70 points for 2nd eagle and 20 points of something could be very useful!

I lost game turn 1 when foot got 2 direct hits on my combat arm. Nothing I could have done except use my scroll. Don't really know why I didn't...Getting the bus out of the building, even with my 2 combat units at full effectiveness would have been very, very hard anyway, so I doubt I would have broken the Orc army.

Anyways- next Wednesday the list rocks it again vs another army...let's see the dragon survive to turn 5!

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