2300 Points v. Brettonians
The Scenario: King of the Hill - A rather unusual battle in that the only terrain on the battlefield is a single hill in the center of the battlefield. Victory is NOT determined by normal victory points. Rather, the winner is the player with the most models on and/or within 6" of the objective hill. Models, not units, count towards your total. War machines and monsters count as only one model. Deployment is increased to 14" from the edge. The game lasts 5 turns or 2 hours, whichiever comes first.
Note that it doesn't specify they have to be unbroken / not fleeing. In past years when I've seen this scenario in a tournament, it has that restriction. I think that restriction is appropriate and should be used whenever this scenario is played at home.
Extra Points: This being the final game of the tourney, the extra 300 points are used.
Armies: I have my usual army plus extra points:
1 General w/ the Hail of Doom Arrow
2 Units of 9 Glade Riders w/ Longbows
4 Units of 8 Scouts (2 with musicians)
7 Units of 9 Archers (3 of these units are my extra points)
2 Units of 8 Archers
2 Pegasi
Total Models: 132 (130 of which have longbows - neat!)
Against me is Lord Charles Perveval's Bretonnian Horde.
His Characters:
1 General w/ lance, shield Gail Virtue, Tress of Isoulde, Rending Sword, and Armor of Protection on a pegasus.
1 Hero w/ the usual trappings w/ Jade Amulet, Virtue of Joust, Grail Virtue. Fielded in Grail Knight Unit
1 Hero w/ the usual trappings w/ Knight Virtue, Impetuous Virtue, Flail of Skulls, Armor of Endurance. Fielded with Knights of the Realm.
1 Army Battle Standard w/ typical knightly equipment, Knight Virtue, and Banner of the Lady of the Lake. Fielded with Knights of the Realm.
1 Master Wizard with Staff of Flaming Death, 2 Dispel Scrolls
His Units:
8 Knights of the Realm w/ standard, musician
5 Grail Knights w/ standard, musician
5 Mounted Squires
10 Bowmen w/ standard, musician
10 Bowmen w/ standard, musician
12 Spearmen w/ standard, musician
Extra 300 Points:
6 Waywatchers w/ Longbows
15 Wood Elf Archers w/ Longbows, Standard, Musician
Total Troops: 76
Terrain: As stated before, the board only contains a single hill in the center. In the spirit of this, I did not attempt to argue and place my extra wood.
Analysis: One look at his army list and I realized my opponent is in MAJOR trouble. Remember, this battle does not use standard victory points. Victory is solely determined by the number of models you end within 6" of the hill. Since I have almost twice as many troops as he does, I figured this game was in the bag.
That being said, I wanted to test my mettle against the Bretonnians with more than just numbers of troops. Having never fought a Bretonnian army with my Archery Army, I've been wary about their ability to pray and their high armor saves. Now I wanted to see just what would happen when I put him to the sword. Or the arrow, as the case may be.
Deployment: My opponent's deployment was fairly simple, and almost without exception he deployed his troops as far forward as possible.
Starting on the left, he had a mounted suire unit in skirmish formation to protect the Lord on a Pegasus and the Grail Knight unit behind them. Next to the scouts was a bowman unit in their arrowhead formation, with the Master Wizard behind them, and the Knights of the Realm just off to their side. Directly behind the hill were the spearmen, all prepared to march right up and take the center.
Since his "combat troops" were all on the left, much of his archery was on the right. There he had his unit of Waywatchers (not in a wood, since there were none) with the Bowmen next to them. Next to them went the unit of elven archers in a fifteen-wide formation.
My own deployment was moderately similar. I had a giant line of archers across my battle line (obviously! I've got a lot of 'dem guys!). Seeing his knight units on the left, I deployed my glade riders on the right (so we could advance and not be charged by them). My general and pegasi were in the center of the elven battle line.
The scouts were deployed in their usual "Orion's Spear" formation, with one scout unit beginning near the Bretonnian Lord and knight units, and the other three appearing off the flank of the wood elf archers.
Strategy: My opponent, realizing he was in trouble, intended to swoop down the left side of the board and hit my archer units with his Glade Riders. Around turn 3 he'd have to start making a beeline for the hill, during which he planned on smacking anything near it (and pursuing them onto the hill thus smacking into more units). His archers on the right would attempt to trade fire with my archers as best they could (which I realized wouldn't be good enough).
My own strategy was pretty simply. I planned to kill as many of their men-at-arms as possible, ignore the knights as best I could, and to attempt to distract the knights so they'd never reach the hill at the end of the game. If necessary, I'd start maching archer units towards the hill. My scouts would mess with their march moves as much as possible, but at least one of the two with the musicians would end the game in unit formation in their deployment zone to take the extra +1 tourney point.
On the right, 18 my glade riders and 24 scouts, supported by about 40 archers, would massacre their entire right flank and close in on the hill as appropriate.
Prayer: Thre is no formal ruling about how the prayer is to be used. Ie; in a normal game, the Bretonnina player can choose whether to use it. In the Warhammer Players Society tournaments in the UK, the Bretonnians typically have to win the roll-off before making the decision to pray.
Personally, I didn't care if they used it. If they used it, I'd get to go first and would massacre their non-firing troops something fierce. If they didn't use it and went first, then I'd be able to shoot their knights with far greater effectiveness.
So I asked my opponent if he wanted to pray. He said he did, and that was that. He didn't appear very happy with his no-win decision though...
Start of Game: Bretonnians Pray. Elves get First Move
Wood Elf-1: The scouts on the right, seeing a very vulnerable string of archers in front of them, begin the game by declaring a charge on the archer unit. I ponder how many units should charge, and decide that 2 of them (16 scouts) is enough to take out 15 archers when I'm flanking/rear attacking.
The left scouts sacrifice their archer fire to march into the midst of the knight units, thus messing with their march moves. The right glade riders all advance 9" and draw their bows. Everyone else prepareds to fire.
In a flurry of firepower, four of the five Bretonnian squires on the left are killed, along with 7 of the right-unit of Bowmen. 3 of the Left unit of bowmen die as well, and immediately fail their panic test (on a 10 - their general is only Ld9). They roll a 12 and flee off the table. (Guess he didn't set them up quite as far as I thought he did).
Our hand-to-hand combat is miserable. Of 14 or so scouts that are able to attack (I ruled the other 2 couldn't make it there), only 5 manage to hit, and only 2 wound. Bleh! In return they swing back and kill 3 of my scouts. Fortunately, we are rear and flank attacking, so they lose the combat by 1 (they had a standard). They roll particularly badly, and break.
They roll to flee and only go 5"! I immediately pursue, and become despondent when I roll a "4" and a "2". So far both of our die rollings had been miserable. It was going to be one of those games, I feared...
Bretonnians-1: Realizing he's going to need to kill my general and force a series of panic tests, his general on his pegasus immediately flies high. The archers fail their rally test and run from the field. The spearmen march forward to directly behind the hill, while the Waywatchers move in place to fire upon my nasty hordes of scouts. On the left the suire and knight units move up as best they can, as the wizard lord turns to face my scout unit.
The waywatchers kill 2 of my 5-elf Scout unit, forcing a panic test which we fortunately pass. Magically, the wizard lord casts "Bless" on the Knights of the Realm, while his Staff of Flaming Death fires into my left-scouts. He kills 2 of them, but we pass our panic test.
Wood Elf-2: Realizing a fairly nasty Bretonnian general is about to decend upon my general, I decide it's time for a bit of help. With a single gesture my general commands the pegasi to fly high. Meanwhile the elven horde on the right advances and fires.
In a flurry of firepower, the bowmen unit on the right are is slain along with 4 of the central spearmen. So that it would not be wasted. the general lifts his Hail of Doom Arrow, and fires it at his only target, the Waywatchers. They are instantly slain as the arrows fall among them. On the left, the remaining squire is quickly dispatched as well. The remaining archers, not having any non-knightly targets on left, attempt to overcome the prayer-induced Bretonninan glory to fire at the Knights of the Realm. They have some success, and one of the Knights receives an arrow directly in his visor slit.
The pegasi spot their intended target and attack. They fly in and attempt to strike glancing blows on the Bretonnian General's pegasus. Not easy, since he is WS7 (I think), but with a bit of luck they strike and wound the pegasus twice. Unfortunately, this is not enough, and the General begins to dive down towards the Wood Elf commander...
Bretonninan-2: Seeing his 76-man army has been reduced to 25 (the elves are down to 123) with the death of 8 more spearmen imminent, he charges the Wood Elf general in a desperate attempt to salvage the battle and turn the tide. Seeing his approach, the Wood Elf general and his 9 archer companions raise their bows (-1 for long range, -1 for chargers, +1 for large target). Seven of the archers are able to overcome the Bretonnian general's glory and fire. The 7 arrows flly towards their target and 4 hit home. One of those arrows strikes the general and bounces off his armor. The other three strike his pegasis... and one wounds! The general falls hundreds of feet to his death as the pegasus crashes on the valley floor.
The Knights draw upon the virtues that guide them and ignore the urge to panic, and the wizard and spearmen remain as well. Still, the battle is obviously lost for the Bretonnians. After the other player and I kibitz and discuss if/how he could pull of an extreme upset victory, we agree that his army could not do so. (He'd have to kill my general and panic most of my army, but is too far away to reach my general during the game. Especially with us preventing him from ever marching).
Seeing the field of battle lost after only two hours of game-time (about 45 minutes of real time), the Bretonninan heroes raise white flags about their pennants and surrender the hill to the surperior wood elven army.
Final Result: Major Wood Elf Victory. Bretonnian player concedes after turn 2.
(Bretonnian player down to 24 models, Elf army down to 123).
Game Analysis: I thought I'd have this game wrapped up, and I did. But I didn't expect it to be this easy!
From a "King of the Hill standpoint," he was in trouble the moment the scenario was announced. I outnumbered his army 2:1, and his relatively high percentage of men-at-arms meant he'd be suffering far more severe losses than I would. The ability of my troops to infiltrate and take double-moves also meant he'd be hard-pressed to make march moves. And that's to say nothing for using the pegasi as well!
Even had this been a normal game, he'd have been hard-pressed to pull off a win. His knights certainly would have reached my line eventually and broken through. But he'd be hard-pressed to remotely make back the investment in points that the knights cost. Beating my army requires numerous breakthroughs, or the ability to fight and defeat the more expensive units (scouts, and especially glade riders). Spending 300-500 points on a knight unit & hero means you need to find more than just 99-point archer units to fire. I'd actually LIKE it if he attacked those.
The final blow was, of course, when I shot the pegasus from under his general. Even if I had not though, I can't imagine it would have made much of a difference. His spearmen were doomed next round no matter what happened with my panic tests (short of EVERYTHING on that flank panicking, which wasn't going to happen). That would reduce the enemy down to 17 models. It would have been ultra-easy to get more than 17 models near the hill at the end of the game.
Hill aside, even killing my general wouldn't have been enough. It would have given him a burst of points, but I'd easily be able to shoot out the pegasus later with my skirmishers if I chose to. That would "strand" the general at a footman's movement and vastly reduce his effect on the battlefield. Alternately, his wizard would have been an easy target for my skirmishing scouts and glade riders. With a T4 W3 and Save 5+ (6+ vs. elven arrows), he'd have died extremely quickly from archer fire (+297 victory points for killing him).
Since I'd picked up 707 points already, I think my victory would have been pretty safe. At worst I'd have wound up with draw.
But it was King of the Hill, and models, not victory points, are what counts. Game over.
Final Tourney Result:
3 Wins (Lizardmen, Dwarves, Bretonnians)
2 Draws (Lizarmen, Vampire Counts)
1 Loss (Khorne Daemons)