2000 Points v. Lizardmen
Scenario: The Forced March. "The full night of forced marching has left many of the troops at leass than full capacity for fighting. The exhaustion takes its toll and as a result, all units suffer a -1 movement penalty. Additionally, any model that normally fights with more than 1 attack is hampered by a -1 to their basic attack characteristic. The long night of marchin results in the armies being able to set up as much as 16 inches in instead of the usual 12 inches".
My opponent was unhappy, but I was cheered. He could start 4" closer to me, but he'd more than lose that back through the -1M. Additionally, his saurus would lose an attack. Not that I planned on fighting 'em in hand-to-hand! As for me, I wouldn't be moving much anyway, so this was a great set of rules.
The game was to be 5 turns. Standard victory points.
Army List - I had my usual:
2 Pegasi
4 units of 8 Scouts
2 units of 9 Glade Riders
1 unit of 7 Archers
6 units of 8 Archers
1 General with the Hail of Doom Arrow.
He had, and I'm estimating at this from memory:
2 Lizard Swarms
1 Level 2 Slaan Mage Priest with assorted magic items.
2 units of 9 skirmishing skinks each with javelins.
1 unit of 20 or so skinks with two kroxigors.
1 unit of 20-25 or so temple guard (the slaan was in this unit)
2 units of 20-25 saurus, each with a hero.
2 salamanders.
Terrain: I really liked the battlefield from the first round, with the trees and hills dividing the board into two smaller halves. I realized it makes it impossible for their general to give the leadership bonus to both halves of the battlefield. So I endeavored to do that again here with some success. He did use some terrain to place in out of the way areas that would have little/no effect on the game.
Setup: I used my Orion's Spear formation. I set up one scout unit in the center woods on their side of the battlefield. And the other three scout units on the right (weaker) flank in the corner. My archers were lined up across my back flank, with glade rider units on each flank.
He setup in a fairly traditional way. On the right half of the board he had the swarms, a saurus unit, the skinks with kroxigors, and a salamander. On the left side he had his Slaan general and temple guard, along with another salamander and a second unit of saurus. He had his skink skirmishers on the left flank in front of his two units as well.
Strategy: His was, presumably, to advance and pummel in the typical lizardman style. Since his fastest troops were M5 (thanks to the forced march), I didn't anticipate much trouble with them reaching my lines intact.
My strategy was to destroy his right flank with volumes of archer fire, while slowing down the left flank with archer fire and by sacrificing the pegasi.
Magic: To my shock, he took battle magic over high magic! He said he'd never used the deck before and wanted to play with it. I pointed out to him that High Magic was better against my army, but he wanted to try it anyway. I don't recall what he drew, but I remember that it never had much of an effect anyway.
Turn One - I won the roll-off, so I elected to go first. I immediately flew a pegasi foward on the left flank, and placed it directly in front of the skirmishers in front of the temple guard. I knew the skirmishers couldn't kill it in combat, so he was going to be severely slowed while he removed this roadblock from his path. My left glade riders advanced slightly.
On the right side, we moved our scouts toward his units to prevent anything from marching. Then we opened fire.
The archery was pretty nasty. His swarms took 8 or so wounds, killing one and severely battering the other. The skinks and the kroxigors were hit, killing numerous skinks (love that T2!) but not doing a lot to the kroxigors. They passed their panic test. The general did not fire his hail of doom arrow, as I thought I might need it against the kroxigors when the skinks were gone. The right salamander was also obliterated.
On the left flank, archery had some amusing results. The salamander lost two skinks. The left of the two skirmishing skinks took a few casualties. Unfortunately, a single unit or 8 archers managed to kill 6 skirmishing skinks on the other side at long range. This meant the skirmishers were depleted enough so that the temply guard could charge the pegasus. Too effective!
In his turn one, the temple guard charged my pegasus (who stood and died almost instantly, but at last prevented nearby units from march moving). The salamander shot at my glade riders, killing one. The rest of his left and right flanks advanced toward my line.
In turn two, we moved very little again. The other pegasi advanced and put itself in front of the left saurus unit. Then we opened fire again. This time the archery fire was even more impressive. The remaining salamander and swarm were killed. His skink units were all killed to a man (skink?). Except for the one with the kroxigor, that is. That one was reduced to 2 skinks. Not to mention a kroxigor was wounded.
I realized, too, that the kroxigors wouldn't be as difficult to kill with archer fire as I thought. So I tossed the Hail of Doom Arrow on his right Saurus unit, killing 8 or so.
(Status check: At this point his army is about 20" from his side of the table, with 18-20" or so to go before he enters charge range of my troops. My scouts are preventing his right-flank from marching, and the pegasi had effectly slowed his left flank from marching for the first two turns of the game. He was facing a charge across open terrain toward a line that would easily cut him apart).
In his turn, he advanced his left flank again what little he could (3"), and charged the pegasi there (who stood and died). The right kroxigors/skinks advanced. The right saurus unit (now down to 12 saurus) reformed to face my scouts. Magically, not much happened.
Turn three: The scouts easily walked back out of the 6" charge range of his saurus, and then our army opened fire again. On the right side the saurus unit was chopped down to about 4 warriors, and the kroxigors were all killed. On the left we concentrated fire on the saurus unit, killing 10 or so guys in it.
Note: At this point my opponent surrendered to me. He had lost over 50% of his army, and wasn't remotely near my battle line. We played on for another turn, but he conceeded a total loss to me.
Playing on so the judges wouldn't penalize him for "quitting", he moved his troops forward. We then opened hire again in turn four, wiping out the few saurus on the right flank. We elected not to play beyond that point, since the battlefield had turned into a bloodbath.
Final Score - Him, 100 (2 pegasi). Me:Didn't even bother counting.
Thoughts: This was a perfectly executed archery army battle. The archery army is most effective against T3 and T4 infantry with light armor. That describes pretty much everything in his army. With nothing fast that could repulse my scout units, he was doomed to plod slowly across the battlefield while being cut to ribbons. There was little he could have done to save himself. From the start he was in major trouble (although he didn't realize it).
He should have taken High Magic. It's unlikely he would have gotten the spell, but "The Tempest" would severely have dampened my ability to fire at his troops.
Also, if he had started his salamanders pointing at the corners to prevent me from setting up there, that would have helped him a great deal as well. At the very least he would have been able to march move towards my line for a round or two. That probably wouldn't have saved him, but every little bit helps when you're up against a superior enemy army.
Final Result: Victory!
Next Game: A really funky scenario whereby you try to get messengers off the board. vs. Chaos Warriors!