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Clan eshin battle report (longish); the first big 2250 game
Topic Started: 14th August 2004 - 01:01 AM (194 Views)
Saxon
Unregistered

well last night I had my first game with the all-skirmishing clan eshin list against my friends khorne daemonic legion army
my list
master assassin - weeping blade, warpstone amulet, bands of power
assassin - warpstone stars
2 x eshin sorcerers - 1 warpstorm scroll
2 x 12 nighrunner
5 x 10 nightrunners
4 swarms
5 GR
2 x 6 GR
Triad

his army

daemon prince - mark of khorne, diabolic splendor (4+ws), soul hunger (re-reoll misses), blade of the ether (no ArSv)
hereald on juggernught
3 x 16 bloodletters
3 x 5 flesh hounds
3 bloodcrushers (bloodletters mounted on juggernaughts)
daemon chariot (drawn by 2 juggernaughts)

the scenario we played was one from the upcoming tournament, this had 3 objectives - 1 major worth 500vp, 2 minor worth 200 each
it also require that 600 points of the army is in reserve and has a reserve roll similar to 40k from turn 3 onwards.

The major objective was in the centre of the table, the minors on one flank.
I started with the assassin, 4 units of NR and 2 units of GR off the table, he had the chariot, his general and one fleshhound unit off.

He went first and advanced the bloodcrushers towards the minor objective on the flank to counter the swarms I had placed guarding it. The bloodletters units assembled in the centre of the table marched up to the major objective and spent the rest of the game guarding it.in my turn i skitterleaped the MA into a fleshound unit, hoping that if I could deal with the fast cav units I could have the manouverability to avoid the big blocks of bloodletters, the MA had a major case of airswing only managing to kill one hound, and drawing combat.

The bloodcrushers failed to see the swarm next turn and wandered forward (UCoD can be quite useful), some fleshound units then played cat and mouse with a unit of nightrunners - trying to catch them but being outmanouvered. My eshin sorcers practiced the slingshot method of magic - one SL the other near the MA who then SL him away from the hounds and directly into the daemonic hearld, the MA dispatched the herald (just, my opponent had wisely prevented me getting bop off that turn) the jugger survived for a turn before in turn being butchered by the MA. A NR and Gr unit tried to charge different fleshhound units and promptly failed their fear tests (a common theme throughout this army).The swarms got stuck into the bloodcrushers with the eshin triad failed thier fear test and standing stupidly behind them.
The swarm - bloodcrusher battle lasted until the next turn when finally the triad overcame it's fear and charged in - 12 attacks, hitting on 3's (with poison) wounding on 5's - 8 hits - 4 poison wounds, 4 wounds on a 5+ my opponent then made only 1 armour save and failed all ward saves - 6 wounds in total - thank you triad :D, while I won combat the remaining blood crusher didn't pop, in the mean time his general had finally arrived right next to this little combat (where the reserves arrived was random) and subsequently charged the triad who decided that pussying out was the better part of valour and fled from terror and were subsequently run down.
Next turn the GR and NR finally managed to get their charges off on the fleshhound units, both butchering them where they stood (with 5 fleshhounds giving 8 NR in base and 16 attacks you can kill an awful lot of stuff), the GR chose to overun directly into the daemon chariot (not sure why seemed like a good idea at the time).
My opponent moved his general to within 6" of 2 of my NR units that subsquently failed thier terror test and fled at the start of my 5th turn, eventually in my turn 5 the rest of my reserves decided to turn up and all managed to arrive to the point furthest away from anywhere meaning all they did was fluff around for the rest of the game. I skitterleaped the assassin who gave the daemon prince the warpstone star treatment and took 1 wound off him. I SL the master assassin into the last remaining bloodcrusher who suffered greatly due to the combo of weeping blade and BoP. I tried to feed a bloodletter unit a unit of nightrunners in the hope that I could draw it away from the major objective due to their frenzy, unfortunately the NR failed their fear test and ran away anyway.
In my opponets last turn he moved his 3 units of bloodletters onto the objective and flew his general within 6" of my general and my assassin hoping for a lucky terror test.
My 6th turn - or as I like to call it the turn from hell - my general fails his terror tests and runs, and it being last turn counts as destroyed, the 3 fleeing units of NR all failed to rally and count as destroyed. I activate the warpstorm scroll getting 1 hit, which wounds but is saved by the DP's 4+ws, the Assassin has a shot at his general and of course fails miserably to even hit (despite need 2+). I SL the sorcerer onto the minor objective to claim it.

The victory conditions required we only count units destoyed and below half strength and the objectives so no table quaters (of which I controlled 3 and contest 1) I controlled both minor objectives (+400vp) he had the major (+500vp)
I lost eventually by 600+ VP making it a MV to my opponent as per the tournament marking criteria, if he hadn't have scored the points for the fleeing general (430) and I had rallied at least one of the NR units (at 100 points each) it would have probably ended up a draw.
Nevertheless I was happy with the result, my opponent is one of the highest ranked players in our region(not to mention a top bloke) and his khorne daemons have won 3 tournaments already this year.

OK the learning points

this army suffers terribly with fear and terror, especially terror - unfortunately this is one of the inherent weakness of the army and I'm just going to learn to deal with it - maybe SL into terror causes to get them out of the way would be the way to go - but things that cause terror are generally quite hard.

The magic is the cornerstone of this army, and I feel against anyone with a decent magic defence I'm going to struggle to SL anyone anywhere, so will have to resort to the old fashion way of sneaking around people and stabbing them in the back from behind - and then running.

I felt the NR with their throwing stars would have done well againt the ranked units, however due to their deployment and my awful reserve rolling they didn't get a chance to get near them to do some damage.

Gr and to a lesser degree NR are awesome against small lightly armed units, high WS and I coupled with 2 attacks each (with poison for GR) means that they can hammer small flanking and skirmishing units quite well.

I feel the key to using this army well is targeting mages and small skirmiser, flanking units first in order to gain magic superiority and manoverability without getting caught.

Finally and this one is a bit strange, in a tournament situation I feel it will be important to sacrafice a few NR units to my opponent in order to make him feel like he's playing, the high manouverability of this army means that you could pretty much play the entire game without getting into combat if you so choose, by giving up some points it will undoubtedly help your sportsmanship scores - no one wants to play a game where they can't get stuck in and at least make it feel like they are doing something.

thanks for reading
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Plague Priest
Unregistered

a brilliant battle #gs# #gs# #gs# #gs# #gs# #gs# #gs# #gs# #gs# #gs#
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Kraven Tailblade
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Loyal servant of the Great Horned One
You did good. Anybody is going to find it very hard to take an objective away from 3 units of Bloodletters in one turn. The unlucky dice in the last turn finished you.
Otherwise the game went pretty well.
Fear/terror are tough on any Skaven army. Eshin doesn't have the LD bonus for ranks to help either.
Warlord Kraven Tailblade
" Life is cheap. Yours is worthless. "

May the Great Horned One bless you!!
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