Armies of Arcana Forum

[Remy]

Ok! Well I am going to edit this as I go along and try and make this batrep more forum friendly.. see how this method works and if its quicker for me to do it like this.

First of all, here are the forces:

Goblins

Goblin King
Goblin Shaman

26 Goblin Regulars
25 Goblin Regulars
10 Goblin Wolf Riders
5 Goblin Wolf Riders
5 Goblin Dervishes
5 Goblin Dervishes
21 Goblin Bowmen
20 Goblin Bowmen

Light Catapult

Oriental Dragon

Dwarfs

20 mithril warriors
20 mithril warriors
20 halberdiers
10 handgunners

champion on horse
champion on horse

phoenix
titan


Setup

We used the Attrition rules for setup and I won the dice roll and chose to be the attacker. With Dwarves I knew wherever sparky placed the bulk of his forces he wouldn't be able to hugely redeploy... of course I really wanted to know where that cheeky Firey Phoenix would be, but I doubted sparky would place it till later.

We decided to "kind of" play Attrition, but really, we were just going to play it out and see how it went. If one side had clearly lost using the attrition style rules, we'd call a close to it.

sparky set up his main Dwarf infantry blocks together on the hill, with the Handgunners behind them, so I then placed all my forces down on that side of the board to confront them. I positioned all my units slightly further back than I needed to, as I knew I had the magic and missile advantage I wanted to get as many turns of shooting etc. before sparky could reach me. The Goblin King sat behind and betwwen one of the Goblin Regulars and Goblin Archer blocks, potentially to join either of them if necessary. The Goblin Shaman also sat behind the main units for a similar reason, and to get LOS for all his buffing spells to as many units as possible. The Goblin Dervishes (Fanatics) were all kept behind the main units to prevent them running off toward the enemy until I wanted to unleash them. The Oriental Dragon sat behind the main line, ready to redeploy wherever he was needed for support, and the Goblin army was flanked on both ends by Wolf Riders, the smaller unit skirmished to move over the difficult ground walls in front of them more easily if necessary. The Light Catapult (Doom Diver) was positioned between the two Goblin archer blocks to complete the firebase.

sparky then bookended his forces with the Phoenix to his far left flank, and the Titan to the right. The other half of the battlefield looked like it wouldn't even see battle!

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Goblin's eye view of the setup.

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Dwarves' eye view of the setup.


First 2 turns
The Dwarves all advanced over the hill with their monsters leading the way, and their horse mounted Heros moving in between the units but keeping far enough back from the front lines they could not be picked out at all by any missile fire.

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The Goblins reacted to this advance with typical Goblin cowardice by barely moving at all! The Regulars shuffled forward slightly, and the Wolf Rider (spider riders) on the far flank spreading out in skirmish slightly but that was all. On the Goblin's other flank the larger Wolfboyz unit went tearing off at breakneck pace away from the main battlefield - positioning themselves behind the ruins of a building so they couldn't be seen by any of the main Dwarf force.

Note: we may have made a mistake here, as the Phoenix was flying high throughout the first two turns - the dervishes could all see it.. so perhaps should have moved towards it (See Q&A in main forum) - but we only realised this on turn 2, and so my stupid Dervishes all set off towards a target they could not even reach... however with units in front of them it wasn't clear which way they would even move, so we agreed they could move sensible 'around' the units in front, which gave me a bit of lee-way.

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Goblin archer fire at mostly long range wittled down a few Dwarf Halberdiers, and the catapult hit with a Stone into one of the Mithril Warrior units killing a single warrior. The Titans ranged attack was mostly inneffective and only killed a single Goblin archer. No morale checks. The Goblin Shaman had saved up two power points and cast Flame Breath on the larger Goblin Regular unit.

Turn 3

The Goblin's won the initiative and forced the Dwarves to move first.... CHARGE! The Phoenix wasted no time at all and flamed towards the centre of the Goblin archer line, which held its ground. The rest of the Dwarf ground forces followed behind it, with the Titan advancing right towards the Goblin regulars and berserkers. Both of the Dwarf heros joined a Mithril Warrior unit. The Handgunners skirmished behind the battleline, hoping to maxmise their shots if the Goblin Wolf Riders revealed themselves..
Responding to the attack, the Dragon lept over the Goblin archer line to engage the Phoenix and the Goblin King and Shaman both moved around to gain LOS to the Phoenix. The Goblin Dervishes were forced to charge the Titan through the middle of the two Goblin infantry regiments, and he stood and shot with his natural attack.
The Wolf Rider units both encircled the Dwarf line.
The Goblin Shaman saved his first power point again. The catapult had reloaded, and both it and the unengaged Goblin archer unit fired upon the undamaged Mithril Warrior unit, killing a couple. The handgunners fired upon the Wolf Riders who'd exposed themselves, killing a couple, but not enough to force a morale check.

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In the melee phase, the Phoenix used it sweep attack killing many poor Goblin archers, who didn't do any damage in retaliation, however the Dragon ripped into the Phoenix doing 3 wounds. The Goblin fanatics did a single wound to the Titan with their first strike hits, but the Titan swept them back, causing 3 wounds in total. In the Morale phase the Phoenix passed its high test and regenerating back to 4 wounds, and the Goblin archers failed theirs and broke from melee - but the Phoenix was still stuck engaged with the Dragon so could not pursue.

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Turn 4
This turn the Goblin's moved first. A Goblin regular unit swung around and engaged the Titan too, trying to help the the berserkers. The other unit was stuck unable to engage as the Dervishes were once again getting in my way.. man I hate these guys sometimes in AoA! I just took them to make up the points really, but I'm finding them generally way too hard to control and unlike Orc Berserkers don't hit hard enough against enough targets to be worth the risks. They are pretty terrible if your opponent is fielding monsters and especially flying monsters! (well depends a lot on that Q&A answer). The other Dervish unit was forced to charge the Phoenix as the archer fled off the board, clearing their path to see it. The small Wolf Rider unit reformed into RAF, and the larger one charged right into the reloading Dwarven handgunners, expanding their frontage as they did so to get almost full attacks in. The mighty Goblin King made his move and also charged the Phoenix!
The Dwarfs responded by advancing once again with all their melee units, the Mithril Warriors behind the Titan wheeling to go around its engagement and possibly hit the Goblin infantry in the flank next turn. Both Dwarf Champions charged out of their units! One ran in to attack the Dragon and the other engaged the Goblin infantry fighting the Titan.

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In the magic phase the Shaman got to two points and pondered for ages about what to cast.. eventually placing Flame Breath on the Dervishes in combat with the Phoenix. Whilst this extra attack was caused by Fire magic and was flaming, it was still an 'attack' and could still, as far as we could tell, damage the Phoenix, it was just at lower Str than it would otherwise be. But this would prove to be a moot point later anyway...

In the missile phase the Catapult reloaded, and the remaining archers unleashed a damaging volley that killed about five Halberdiers.

But onto the most important melee phase of the battle really - the Goblin King and First Strike attacks from the crazed Dervishes killed the wounded Phoenix outright before it could regenerate or even have a chance to strike back. Consquently the dragon lashed out and wounded the Dwarf Hero instead, almost killing him, and the Dwarf Hero failed to even put a mark in the Dragon's hide.
The Titan ignored the Dervishers, who wounded him once more (but still had 6 wounds remaining) and he turned and felled 8 Goblin regulars with a single sweep... and the Dwarf Hero killed more.
The Wolf Riders killed a few Handgunners who in turn killed another wolf mounted Goblin.

In the Morale phase the Goblin regulars broke, having failed to do anything to the Titan, which passed its check based on their numbers. The Halberds passed their check also. The skirmished Handgunners took a check for superior RAF force, but passed it also.

Start of Turn 5
The Goblins fled and were pursued by the mounted Dwarf hero to make sure they could not rally and he hacked down 4 more each turn. Here was the state of play after the move fleeing troops phase:

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No pictures for the rest of this turn I'm afraid, as I forgot... but here's what happened. The Goblin King joined the remaining Goblin regulars unit, who backed away slightly from the advancing Halberdiers, to sparky's disgust! The remaining regulars continued to flee and continued to be pursued and cut down by the Dwarf Hero.
The Dervishes who killed the Phoenix moved onto the next target - the mounted Dwarf Hero, who was butchered in combat by them and the Dragon, but did take a Dervisher down with him. The smaller Wolf Rider unit swung around the backs of the Dwarf Mithril Warriors and Halberdiers, to threaten their rear.
The Mithril Warriors left with no regulars to charge now, did a umm.. let's say slightly suspicious charge into the flank of the Wolf Riders, but poetic justice was perhaps served somewhat as they then whiffed all their attacks.. however their presence in the flank caused the Wolf Riders to break and flee away, neither they nor the Handgunners pursued however as they had no chance to catch the super-fast wolves. The other Mithril Warriors rounded the side of the walls, but lost 3 more men to the catapult and archers who peppered them with bow shots and a 'Shot' attack from the catapult. The Shaman powered up magic points, and the Titan hit the berserkers engaged with it once again, but could not finish them all off.

Turn 6

Well the Wolf Riders made their flee move, as did the regulars, the Dwarf Hero continued to pursue once again.

The Goblin's won the initative (again!) and moved first, the Dragon and Wolf (spider Riders combining to charge the remaining Dwarf Halberds in the front and rear at the same time, as the Dervishers with flame breath still on them whirled into the Mithril Warrior unit next to them. The other Dwarf Mithril unit turned around to re-enter the fray, and the Handgunners reloaded their weapons.
Here's how it looked before melee, combat or magic:

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In melee, the Titan killed the last of the Dervishes fighting him, the Dragon and the Wolf Riders hacked apart the Dwarf Halberdiers. The flaming breath Dervishes fighting the Mithrils managed to kill four of them, but they were wiped out by the return hits and the resulting morale check. The fleeing Wolf Rider rallied, but the Dwarf Halberds were routed completely as so few were left.

Turn 7

The Dwarf Hero finally killed enough Goblin regulars that he'd spent most of the battle chasing down that they routed, so he turned about and headed back into the battle. With no fleeing moves to resolve now, it was onto Initiative, which the Goblins promptly won yet again. The Dragon charged yet again, leaping into the skirmished Handgunners, who, having reloaded before, fired and managed to wound the Dragon. The Wolf Riders moved up behind the beleagured handgunners who thought they'd seen the last of the pesky Wolves just a turn earlier. The brave Goblin King (he's the KING!), having seen the Goblin Regular unit get squished in a single round by the Titan, yet the Dervishes hold it up for some time, decided to try and take one for the lads by charging the now unengaged Titan to hopefully avoid it destroying another big unit with its sweep attack... this was actually a fallacy, but one with both believed as sparky forgot the base 9 wound modifier meant he could've over-run through the King anyway. The smaller Wolf Rider unit skirmished away out of charge range behind the Mithril unit who'd just killed the Dervishes, as they didn't want them to break into skirmish themselves and charge to their rear.
The Shaman cast flaming weapons on the Goblin Regulars, who were now rather flame-tastic, with two flame buff spells on them.

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This turn the Dragon didn't roll so well, and only killed a handful of handgunners, who didn't flee. The Goblin King and the Titan each wounded each other but remained in combat.


Turn 8
This turn the Dwarfs won the initative and moved first. The Mithril warriors advanced towards the flamed up Goblin Regulars but were still no-where near their target.
The Mithril Warriors split into skirmish to surround the grounded Dragon and with what was left of the Handgunners.
BOTH Wolf Riders also charged into this melee.
The Dwarf Hero joined the Titan in combat with the Goblin King.

The Goblin Shaman joined the Regulars unit he'd been casting spells on most of the game and powered up a lv 3 Flamestrike spell which all but finished off the already heavily wounded Mithril Warrior unit in front of them, which took further damage from the catapult firing another Shot attack. I can't remember exactly how many were left or if they actually routed, but the unit was certainly reduced to non-combat worthy by this point.
The Mithril Warriors failed to really wound the Dragon much at all, and they were taking a lot more damage back themselves from the sheer number of attacks the Dragon 10+ Wolf Riders were dishing out. I am not sure if there were any Handgunners left by this point also.
The King luckily dodged around and avoided death... and was left on one wound.

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With this failure to kill the King, we called it a night. The Goblins had won.

So what did we mean by the monsters doing all the real damage and being the tactical focus of the game?
Well the 283 point Phoenix easily wiped out 420 points of Goblin Bowmen, and took the Dragon (315 points), the King (184 points), and a Dervisher unit (185 points) to deal with it. However dealing with it was certainly what won me the game, as it freed up my Dragon to leap all over the battlefield like a jump pack squad, combo charging juicey targets.
In the end the Dragon had helped kill the Phoenix (283 points), the Halberds (480 points) and the Handgunners (370 points) and was set to do more besides. If we had realised the overrun rules correctly during the game, I am certain the Dragon would've been my only answer to the Titan as well, as that would've also gone through any of my units as easily as the Phoenix did.

But you can argue the points values and stuff, but more than that, I definitely felt like it was what I did with my Dragon was by far and away the most important factor in the whole battle, and dealing with sparky's Phoenix (admittedly at huge cost) was what swung the whole thing. We discussed this after the battle and I think sparky felt this way too about his Phoenix and Titan.

Of course, you could argue, this was somewhat like playing with a dragon a side in a 1250 or so points of warhammer.. where they would certainly dominate the game even more.

[Rocket-Toad]

Good work Remy, a thoroughly enjoyable clear and concise Battle report.
Nice to see those blocks of lads getting into contact.

Regarding the monsters effectiveness...

Remy wrote:

Of course, you could argue, this was somewhat like playing with a dragon a side in a 1250 or so points of warhammer.. where they would certainly dominate the game even more.

I'd be inclined to think along this line.
Another 1000 points, another block unit with a character in it and the affects of the big monsters is mitigated.
You fellas didn't muck around either , you went straight for the biggest nasty monsters you could find and dropped them onto the battlefield. Here I am trundling around with an Earth Elemental and a few trolls.

What was the issue with the Overrun rule?
I couldn't work out what happened in the game, would you please explain?

[sparky2]

That's a really feeble dwarf army. Only three proper units!

Rocket-Toad wrote:

What was the issue with the Overrun rule?

Base nine monsters triple their current wounds for determining if an overrun is possible, so the goblin king could not have held up the titan. In fact, neither could the fanatics after they had taken casualties.

[Remy]

Cheers RT! Sorry, I've noticed the report gets less coherant and interesting as it goes along.. it was getting late ^_^;;

Ah no issue with the actual rules for overrun, sparky just forgot he could do it in this situation. And so had I, as you can tell by the 'tactics' I used - charging my Goblin King to 'tie up' the Titan, when he actually couldn't tie it up in combat at all. He could if it was base:1, which was what we were both thinking he needed to get to 3x Wounds on the King to over-run him. This is wrong of course, cos the Titan gets a wounds multiplier for purposes of overrun due to being base 9 (x3 I think? I haven't checked the exact numbers). Well sparky should put him on a proper base 9 shouldn't he?

The Titan could've probably overrun a lot sooner than the King engagement too, as he was only a couple of Dervishers for a fair while that he could've chosen to just push past.

Oh yeh.. we don't mess around with the nasties! Well, really, its just what I had in my case. I don't really have any monster models at all, which was why I didn't bother to post anything in the 'list your monsters' thread! In fact, this Dragon isn't even technically mine. Its a long lost leftover mini from a friend of mine from so many years ago he'll have forgotten all about it. The only other monster models I have are a broken High Elf Dragon (the original citadel dragon masters one) thats lost its tail, and a feeble looking Griffin, which is again, not actually mine. I'm not traditionally a fan of monsters at all! I do have an unconstructed & unpainted Giant too as mentioned though...

Oh I'd love to use some different models and some elementals and stuff.. especially for summoning. But no nice models to buy. And not to mention enough time to paint! Now if only I could get away with model painting in the office...

[Rocket-Toad]

Remy wrote:

This is wrong of course, cos the Titan gets a wounds multiplier for purposes of overrun due to being base 9 (x3 I think? I haven't checked the exact numbers). Well sparky should put him on a proper base 9 shouldn't he?

Well it's nice to know I'm not the only one buggering up the rules on occasion.

[Rajmahal]

Nice report ... great effort.

You guys were playing the berserk rules wrong ... berserk troops don't have to approach troops that they can't reach. So troops that are flying high and those with impassable terrain blocking them and such can be ignored by berserk troops. I believe this is in the rules ... or maybe in a Q&A. I've definitely seen it in print somewhere.

_________________
Thanks, Raj Dhillon

[Remy]

Heheh, well to be fair we didn't bugger up the rules as such, it was just sparky forgot a tactical option available to him really.

Raj - All the rules for Berserk say is that they "must move towards the nearest enemy unit they can see, though it may ignore units that are already engaged".

I've asked about this in the Q+A thread now a few days ago, but no responses yet.

I agree thats probably how it should be, but its not how its been worded in the rules or answered in the official FAQ or anywhere on this forum. (It maybe on yahoo group somewhere - but that thing's horrible to search!).

Anyway.. I won't dare play any berserkers until its cleared up... despite the fact the Dervishes put up a decent overall performance in this battle!

The trouble is like you say, if you make a rule about "can't reach" you need to cover impassible terrain and such too. Also do you take into account terrain penalties for being 'nearest'. ie: enemies behind a lake, and going around the lake actually makes them further away than another unit that is in a straight line actually nearer. ie: only count possible traversible routes for 'nearest'... there are quite a few technicalities of the berserk rules that aren't really covered.

[Rajmahal]

It is covered somewhere ... can't remember where. I thought it was in the rulebook. I'll take another look the next time I go through it.

_________________
Thanks, Raj Dhillon

[Rocket-Toad]

Guys, just ask the Big man, he's around often enough.

[Remy]

It's already been asked RT.. see the Q&A thread. Looking forward to the big man's answers when he gets the chance.

[Rocket-Toad]

Right you are Remy, right you are.

I guess Sparky is kicking himself for letting your teeny goblin King give his mighty Titan a good kicking for far too long.
He knows the score from his Fantasy days... protect yourself at all times.
Lack of knowledge from the rules is not protection from them.

[Remy]

Hehehe, to be honest, if I had thought of it I'd have told sparky too. I'm not that competitive always, we're still figuring out some of these rules. But I had forgotten too at the time... I thought my Goblin King made a brave move anyway, even if it shouldn't have actually worked - the fool!