As the title says I will be playing a game against a Vampire counts and Bretonnian alliance next wednesday. It will be a fun game for sure and a very big slaughterfest. I am fielding all CD miniatures I have (and some more). I know the armies of my enemies a little and so I know they will field:
Bretonnia
- A large lance of Grail knights
- Two or three 9-12 men units of Knights of the Realm
- a unit of three pegasus knights
- 30-50 bowmen
- a level 4 Prophetess with Life
Vampire Counts
- two blocks of 30 skeletons
- a unit of mounted wights
- hordes of zombies and ghouls
- few fliers
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Now, this is the list I came up with. There is not very much I can toy with unfortuntely as I do not have many more models.
Lords
Lvl 4 with Charmed shield, Book of Ashur and Opal Amulet
Heroes
BSB Castellan with The Mask ot Furnace, Iron curse Icon and a great weapon
Castellan with the Black Hammer
Lvl 2 (Metal) with enchanted shield and Dispell scroll
Lvl 2 (Death) with Feedbackscroll
Khan on wolf with some stuff
Kahn on wolf without stuff
Core
23 Chaos Dwarfs with Blunderbuss (Full Command) Banner of Swiftness
23 Chaos Dwarfs with Blunderbuss (Full Command) Razor Banner
20 Chaos Dwarfs with Full Command - HW+S
20 Chaos Dwarfs with Full Command - HW+S
40 Hobgoblins with musician - HW+S
20 Hobgoblins with musician - HW+S and bows
Special
Death Shrieker Rocket Launcer
Death Shrieker Rocket Launcer
Magma Cannon
6 Bull Centaurs Full Command with Gleaming Pennant
Rare
K’daai Destroyer
Hellcannon
Dreadquake mortar
5 Hobgoblin Wolfriders
The idea is to create a deadly field of fire with one flank while I go on the offensive with the other flank (Destroyer, Bulls, half of the dwarfs).
I think they will have a real problem with the Destroyer allowing me to get the offensive unit of Blunderbusses up front and fire away at those knights. The Bull Centaurs will make short work of them when charging them on the flank. We’ll see how it works out though.
Of course I am afraid of heavy magic like Dwellers, Purple Sun and that darned Vortex. I hope the Book of Ashur and the Feedback scroll will help me a little there.
What do you guys think about both my army and tactics?
I think the list looks good and best of chance in your upcoming battle. Be careful with your Destroyer as Bretonia has access to Heroic Killing Blow and Vampires have access to Poisoned attacks.
I would consider trying to find the points to put great weapons on your Bull Centaurs to help punch through your opponents armor and consider taking the lore of fire to hopefully get fulminating fire cage off on meaningful targets.
Definitely make some of your war machines hellbound to take out any and all ethereal units that may come your way. These are two potentially fast moving armies so keep those deamonsmiths around those war machines and concentrate your fire, you will need good to great shooting phases.
I would get rid of Banner of Swiftness(+1 move to Dwarfs aint worth the trouble)…make them come to you…add a banner of Eternal Flame to make your attacks magical(Flaming attacks also cause fear in warbeast cavalry and chariots) , go with the Chalice to control the magic phase.Make one Bull a Tau’ruk and give him Crown of Command, then give the Bulls the standard of discipline(Stubborn/Steadfast with an unmodified 10 leadership for breaktests).Give a Talisman of Preservation to your Sorc-Prophet
If he’s smart he will also probably field a unit of Knight Errants with Errantry Banner. Watch out for those they can be a pain. A 2+ armor save unit with potential S6 8 strikes hurts no matter the WS. If you are guessing his roster by knowing his miniature range you might want to consider these guys as potential enemies, since he might field RK models as KE ones, at least in my yard that’s legal enough.
Thanks a lot for all the great tips. I’ve added the flaming banner and the chalice (not sure how we will do that with three players). Next to that I have added an ogre for the earthshacker.
Dr Mojo, I know what KEs can do and how to handle them, I often field them myself, this opponent does not however.
With the K’daainI have to look out for ethereals and dragonhelms. Hope I can avoid it.
The armies of my opponents were roughly as follows:
Bretonnian
- 12 Grailknights with general, BSB and lvl 1 damsel
- 12 KOTR with lvl 1 damsel
- 12 KOTR with lvl 1 damsel
- Lord on Peg (no HKB)
- 3 Peg-knights FC
- 2 trebs
VC
- 30 Grave guards (horde) with wight king and vampire
- 30 skellies with vampire lord and necro
- small unit of zombies
- 25 ghouls
- some bats and hounds
- 8 mounted wights with vampire
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Both armies weren’t all that impressive, altough I didn’t really like the trebs opposite me. I was most scared of VC magic and the charge of two units of knights at the same time.
It turned out my opponents were scared shitless by my 2 units of Blunderbusses and focussed on not getting in their range, they didn’t care too much about a hill full of warmachines and were made to pay for this oversight.
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Deployment
I deployed with my offensive units in the center: K’daai, Hellcannon, 20 CDs with HW+S, Bull Centaurs, wolfriders, a Khan and 40 hobgoblins.
The two units of blunderbusses went on my right center.
My right flank was made up of my warmachines on a hill, 20 CDs with HW+S and 20 hobos with bows.
In my deployment I made two mistakes. The hobo’s where way outside the LD/BSB-bubble and the Hellcannon did not have an engineer.
Opposite the right flank were the VC’s fast units and mounte wights. That flank was seperated by the right center with a tower and some woods. Then came the ghouls, KOTR, skellies, Grave guard, Gails and KOTR. The later two were somewhat out of position.
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Turns 1 & 2
I moved my K’daai in quick, straight down the center and the Bull Centaursand 20 CDs in support. The wolfriders and a Khan were already on the flank of my enemy and threatening a treb.
I did some damage with the warmachines and magic, did receive some in return from the Trebs.
On turn two the K’daai charged the graveguard and started massacring them. My VC opponent panicked by its strength, not knowing what to do. The Bret player ignored it and race foward.
Next I killed of a treb and did some more damage. I positioned the 40 hobos on the far flank as a bait for the pegs (which was taken) and lord on peg and moved the hellcannon into position to support them (it had misfired on the first turn with a 6, killing just two knights).
The VC player was inching forwards all across the board. But the Brets charged the Bull centaurs with all three of his units and wiped them out. It brought him in a bad possition though.
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Turn 3
I quickly counterattacked with the 20 CDs and pinned down one unit of KOTRs. The grail knights got some heavy fire from arty and blunderbusses while the 3rd unit of knights had already taken a lot of damage from magic in the first turn. In the meantime the K’daai was munching on some more Grave guards making the VC player almost give up. I now wanted to get off Ashstorm on the scary unit of skellies with the Blender-vamp and necro but rolled only 2 for winds of magic.
The VC player finally charged his mounted wights into my 20 hobos on the right flank, forfeiting to do a useful thing with his hounds and bats.
His skellies failed their charge against my blunderbusses who somewhat dissapointed me.
The Brets moved his grails into position on the blunderbusses flank, charged with 5 KOTR against the same unit (only 1 died but the unit was defeated) and charged the 20 CDs fighting his KOTR in the rear (draw). The Hellcannon was charged and killed in two rounds by the lord on peg.
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Turn 4
The wights got a flank charge as the hobos had held. Game over for them. The grail knights got peppered and were all but destroyed. As was the other unit of KOTRs by the 20 CDs. Who held off a rear charge from the pegis and won it this turn against both units!
I finally got Ashstorm off on the unit of skellies while the grave guards were destroyed. The ghouls charged but were shot and hacked to pieces.
The bretonnian lord on peg was able to kill the K’daai eventually but apart from him there was not much left of my opponents army.
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Turn 5
Most of the Brets were killed by now apart from his general (I shot the BSB, damsel and last grail knight). The only remaning unit was the unit of skellies but I now moved in with all remaining units.
At the end of the battle I had all but one of my warmachines remaining, 20 gobos and both unit of 20 CDs (lost 4). The units of blunderbusses lost 3 and 9 men while of course the Bull Centaurs and K’daai were dead.
It was a nice victory for sure and it all worked according to plan.
