Shaar's Wrath - Ben's Round-Up

So the first part of the Months End games has been played and Ben has successfully defended the Cursed Orb again. Shaar the vampire is in serious trouble now, Mannfred will surely know that he has failed him... Melvin's Wood Elves ran it close and I'll post his round-up of the game when he gets it too me. On with the report:

Pre-Game
 
Mel tried to steal turn 1 and failed on a 5.

Having lost to him recently with a combat army using vanguards and knowing he had to attack me to get the orb I went with a gunline - 4 warmachines and 2 units of quarrelers with two combat blocks and 4 gyros. He went his usual mix of scout / archer units, a big unit of Eternal Guard with stubborn, 3 Treekin, a dragon and rider, 2 eagles , 2 wardancer units, a lvl 4 on life (or whichever the one with dwellers is) . He also had an ambushing treeman and a unit of dryads with another mage in them. Shaar went with a unit of wardancers.


Early game

The dwarf warmachines with help from a brand new master engineer opened up some devastating fire killing the dragon with the first stone from a grudgethrower. The scout archer units were hit hard by organ gun fire whilst the gyros tried to block the eagles and failed miserably with their bombing runs. Knowing he'd place a poisoned wood in the middle of my deployment zone I took the rune of safe passage on my Lord with the ironbreakers and placed them in it safe from the dangerous terrain tests.

He charged in a unit of archers into my organ gun and an eagle into my gyro on the left. His combat blocks moved up towards mine and my quarrelers. He moved his treekin around the right flank slowly towards a unit of longbeards waiting there.

Not much magic the first few turns - I tried to eat dwellers and failed.

His scouts killed my organ gun and ran into my engineer. I sent a second gyro in to help him. My 2nd organ gun kills his other eagle. More fire from all my units thins his combat blocks down further and I start trying to drop grudgethrower rocks onto his level 4 but Look out Sir keeps saving him.

Turns 2-4

I wipe out his chaff (2 eagles, 2 skirmisher units) for the loss of 2 gyros, a master engineer and an organ gun but still have 2 grudgethrowers and an organ gun (all runed up) left and now he has no chaff to throw at them. His 2 units of wardancers with characters charge my 2 units of quarrelers who stand and shoot.

His big unit of Eternal Guard charge my Lord with Ironbreakers frontally whilst his ambushing Treeman who can charge the turn he arrvies!!! charges them in the rear! Ugly! His treekin charge my Longbeards who fear nothing being old grumblers! The longbeards combat res the treekin easily and run them down before reforming. The main combat is my Lord with ironbreakers and runesmith, versus his treeman and Eternal Guard. The ironbreakers and lord outmatch the spearmen (but he keeps getting off the toughness buff on them with stops me tearing through them). The treemans thunderstomps do the most damage. He wins combat 4 or 5 rounds in a row but my banner makes me stubborn.

The big unit of quarrelers wipe out the wardancers and importantly the dragon rider to get all those lovely points! The other quarrelers get wiped out by wardancers with the vamp.

The big play comes turn 4 where my now free gryo flies to his backfield and flames his archer unit hiding his sniper and level 4. It removes enough models so Look out Sir no longer applies. My two grudgethrowers hit perfectly wiping out his level 4 and sniper instantly and killing the last archers. Unbelievably his dryads and caster fail to roll the 3+ ambush roll all game and never turn up! So he's left with only the vampire as a mage on the table.

In the main combat I charge my longbeards into this remaining Eternal Guard flank and he charges them in the flank with his remaining wardancer unit and characters. In the last round of combat we had time to complete my ironbreakers are finally wiped out defending their Lord nobly for so many turns even though they had a treeman in the rear and 3 ranks of Eternal Guard with toughness 5 or 7 depending on buffs pretty much the whole game. Losing the ironbreakers meant my lord was no longer stubborn but thanks to the charge by the longbeards I'm able to wipe out his Eternal Guard and win combat by 3 or 4., 1 of his units with characters in flees leaving the treeman facing my Lord and runesmith and the longbeards about to reform to face the vampire.

Had we played a final turn and his dryads arrived it would have been close as he would have tried to combat res kill my Lord but we had to call it then.