1 treeman
21 archers with valourous standard
L3 mage Flaming Death, Chalice Sorcery, Book Secrets
L1 mage Destroy Scroll
Having played me before my opponent knew I would be manouverable and have lots of shooting. He was determined to get first turn so chose:
24 Lothern Sea Guard HA, SH, SP, LB, Banner of Shielding
+ Hero Bow of Loren Black Amulet
+ Champion ?
+ L2 mage Destroy scroll ?
16 White Lions HA SH? Cloak DHW Dread Banner
+General Flail of Skulls Meteoric Iron, Atrazar
+Hero Aof Protection, Ogreblade
+Champion Black Gem
+L2 Wiz Ashur, Flaming Death, ?
I had deadlock and Rof Corin. I neutralised a _lot_ of these items!
12 Silverhelms HASH L Magic standard ?
+Hero - Dragonlance + Crown of Command
+Champion ?
His battle plan was to place terrain across the centre line of the table and then crush me as I came through the gaps. This consisted of a wood, hill with cliff facing me and a tower+6"wall.
As he has only three units I'll just say what happened to each of them. His Archers protected one gap. I put the Hail of doom hero in a tower and as I expected all shots bounced. My 21 Archers came over a hill crest and shot along with the hail but he survives the panic test - important to fire the hail without -ve modifiers IMO. He reformed to meet my Treeman who charged and killed the L2 mage in the unit. I wanted to restrict his magic options. I kept shooting into the mellee naturally, as I could not hurt my treeman. As I found no Black Amulet in the other two enemy units I avoided hitting his hero and risked him not wounding me- a wise decision as it turned out. Eventually his ranks were thinned enough that he failed a break test. Rooted to the spot is _very_ useful.
I'd set up outside the silverhelms charge reach - the cliff he placed helped a lot ! He abandoned his battle plan early and advanced them between forest ocuppied by White lions and the cliff. narrow charge arcs available so my Flail of Skulls Heart of Woe hero charged in and killed his hero. Mine broke and fled but he did not catch - I'd hoped he would. The pursuit gave him a couple of nice juicy targets next turn, but I had allowed for this possibility. L3 Battle mage teleported in front of them stopping charges on other targets - hoping he could survive the attacks of two rank and file or the champion in a challenge. I expected him to break, go through the fleeing hero directly behind, who would be caught and the gem would trigger.
This was the secondary plan. In fact the teleport had brought the Silverhelms in Range of a Net spell and this worked. I'd got a 6 for the banner of sorcery and was throwing 5 or 6 spells per turn with very little impediment, though unfortunately I had not drawn Fiery Convocation.
Two chariots wiped out all the silverhelms next turn. Meanwhile a lot of shooting had been falling on the white lions in the forest to little effect. Thank goodness for the Bow of Loren and th WE -1 saves! Eventually he got Glamour of teclis on the third chariot and was able to come out and threaten my troops. I was very careful to avoid his charge arcs, eventually shooting away and Blast spelling all the RnF, champion and hero, who had been denuded of protective devices. The wizard Coruscation of Finreired and I charged him with my Warhawks, inflisting 1 wound through the 2+ save, then gemming him. He came back straight away but had missed an important spell phase and then was skewered for his remaining wound. Only the general remained in my 4th turn, but he refused to surrender so was honorably executed with the Bow of Loren - everything was out of charge arcs or had intervening friends in the road. Strangely enough he had lost everything and I had not lost an elf. This might seem to make him a dunderhead, but he was actually quite experienced and I had to execute some harsh decisions to keep my guys out of charge arcs and get the spells out in the right order so the important ones always worked. I guess the casualty comparison would not have looked that bad except that he refuses to give bows to characters in units that do not use them- good for threatening chariots and warhawks. A great heroic theme I guess . Another area of tactical inflexibility I pointed out to him was not splitting the Dragonblade lance hero off from the silverhelms to go deal with the treeman. In the early stages of the game even 1 wound from the Lance would have dropped a -1 to -3 break test on me from the archers ranks and standard but again, his heroic conception of the game demanded he retain the integrity of his units. Having pointed out tactical improvements to his game play I was careful not to deride the tenets of gameplay that give him enjoyment and pride.
