Equinox Fantasy - Round 3 and Wrap-up

Game 3: Derick Williams (Lizardmen)

Mission: Dawn Attack

Oldblood on Carnosaur

Scar vet, BSB

Skink Priest

20 Saurus, FC

20 Saurus, FC, Spears

30 ish skinks w 2 Krox, FC

Steg

3 Terradons

Ancient Steg

2 Sallies

2 Razordons

I'd never played Derick before, and this looked like it could be tough. I know from playing Dark Elves that Saurus do bad things to elves, as do Salamanders. Stegs are hard to kill and dish out the pain when they charge, but at least there was no Life magic to heal them up. I think I rolled up Miasma, Enfeebling, Pendulum and Mindrazor as my spells.

Deployment

We were on the same table as my first game, and having a river that ran almost exactly 18" in from the edge didn't make Dawn Attack amazing. Derick had both Saurus, his BSB (who I just realised is not in the pics) and his Oldblood all on the far side of the river, with his other combat block over the other side of the table. The Skink Priest was in with the Skinks, but I forgot his icon too. I was forced to put the Lions and BSB and the Chariot on that side of the river too, but luckily there was a bridge just by the 12" line so I could escape the Saurus. The rest of my deployment was alright; I wasn't too hurt by the random deployment.

Turn 1: Lizardmen

Derick ran forward at full speed with everything bar the Carnosaur, who zipped over the river to get into the action. Shooting saw the Sallies fall short of the Archers, and that was all that could shoot.

Turn 1: High Elves

My Lions and Chariot moved up to the bridge to get away from the 40 Saurus facing them down. The rest of my army just shuffled around a bit.

The real surprise came in the magic phase, where I got off a Pendulum to hit both Stegs. I did 3 wounds to the Baby and 2 to the Ancient. Maybe that spells not as bad as I thought!

I killed a few Skinks off the back of the unit and did some wounds to a Krox with shooting.

Turn 2: Lizardmen

The Saurus kept chasing the Lions on the left, and the Skrox moved another full 12" towards the Archers. Those guys are fast! The Sallies crept closer to the Archers, and the Oldblood moved up behind. The Terradons bombed the Phoenix Guard, which was an uneventful waste of everyone's time, as nothing happened. The Stegs moved closer to the Phoenix Guard.

I think the Sallies killed a few Archers, and the Razordons killed a couple of Phoenix Guard.

Turn 2: High Elves

Time for me to dish out some hurt! The Eagle flanked the Terradons, the Lion Chariot charged the Baby Steg and the Princes charged the Sallies. The Phoenix Guard fell short of the Razordons. The Lions got across the bridge, and the Chariot managed to jump over the river without a scratch. The characters on the right flank shuffled about a bit.

The archers and RBT killed a whole lot of Skinks, so now only about 12-13 were left, but unfortunately they passed panic.

The Lion Chariot did the 2 wounds it needed to kill the Baby Steg, and rolled on forward over the top of it. The Eagle did nothing to the Terradons, but kept them tied up. The Dragon Princes rolled over the top of the Sallies into the Oldblood, and did 4 wounds to the Carnosaur. The Oldblood then decided that instead of his Sword-of-Awesome-Doom, he'd use his wiffle bat instead. He only killed 2 Princes, leaving me up by 4. He broke and was run down.

Turn 3: Lizardmen

The Skrox charged the Archers, who got another round of shooting, killing a few more Skinks. The Ancient Steg failed a charge against the Phoenix Guard, and the Saurus chased after the Lions.

The Razordons did nothing to the Phoenix Guard (they may have been miasma'd)

In combat, the Eagle and Terradons kept missing each other. The Archers were all set to do very bad things to the Skrox, but Derick whipped out 4 from 10 parry saves to keep himself in there.

Turn 3: High Elves

The Spears flanked the Skrox, and the Phoenix Guard hit the Razordons. The Archers moved up behind the Terradons to show the Eagle how it's done. The Lions and Chariot turned to face the approaching Saurus.

The Skrox and Razordons were both wiped out, and everything turned to face the Steg.

Turn 4: Lizardmen

I think the picture might be wrong, since I think the Steg charged the Spears, and not the other way around like in the next picture. Anyway the result was the same regardless, the Noble and his friends dropped the Steg before it got to fight. The Saurus kept coming across the river, losing some along the way to dangerous terrain.

Turn 4: High Elves

The archers hit the back of the Terradons, and wiped them out. Like I said, I think the Spears killed the Steg the turn before, but it doesn't actually matter.

Turn 5: Lizardmen

Both Saurus units charged the White Lions. The Saurus, through a combination of shooting and dangerous terrain, were now down to 16-17 each. The Lions and BSB killed a whole bunch of Saurus (about 12 I think), and Derick couldn't match that, so both units broke and were run down.

And that was the game. I got everything and lost nothing, so a big fat 20-0 my way!

When I arrived the next day, someone had been called into work, so I wasn't needed to play anymore. So this is the last report, and now I'll do a quick summary of my thoughts on my list.

I think two biggest problems with the list were the magic and the lack of chaff. I don't think Shadow magic is versatile enough to be the only lore you take in a well-rounded tournament list, since it doesn't really have any way to draw out scrolls in the first few turns of a game. This is a serious issue, as by the time you want to get a Mindrazor off, you really don't want your opponent to have a scroll sitting there.

In my Dark Elves, my Level 4 generally picks either Shadow or Death depending on my mood, but I've started to always include a Level 1 or 2 with Fire to give some long range threat in the opening stages of the game. The Level 4 also gets the Ruby Ring a lot of the time to get another magic missile in there, which is invaluable.

The other issue with just 1 Level 4 mage choosing Shadow is that it's so hard to use up your dice effectively on a big roll, since the spells are all so situational, and it's unlikely that more than 2 of them will be useful at any one time.

I also thought the list needed more chaff in there to get in the way of things. The army was set up to play defensively, but had no real way of slowing down people other than the eagle. Like we saw in the second game, I had to use the Reaver Bow Noble to block up a charge, which isn't desirable. I'd much rather have more Eagles and maybe even some Reavers or Shadow Warriors to fill this role. It would also have been nice to get a character or two on eagle instead of foot to give the list more mobility.

I thought that Reaver Bow Noble was a waste of points, since he was there purely just to carry the bow, and had a 5+ save. I'd much prefer to take the bow as an extra on a character that can do other things as well, like if he was on an eagle with some magic armour for a 2+ save, 3 wound character with a lance.

The White Lions were perhaps a bit on the small side too, but I'm not sure where points would come from to make them much bigger.

So that's my Equinox coverage out of the way. As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the reports or my comments regarding the list. Next up, I'll be sharing my shiniest new toy. I hope no-one's arachnophobic!