What The @#$% Was That? - Standing In Front Of A Steamroller

On Saturday I had a great game of Warhammer with Mike King. Recently back from the USA, he was trying his Skitterleap list that was the result of Theoryhammer rather than road trial.


Bloodthirster
Tzeentch Herald (Life)
3x 28 Bloodletters, each with Herald
4 Flamers

So about as subtle as a knee to the groin. From an opposition viewpoint, I imagined it would be like trying to catch an anvil dropped from a plane.

I used the Night Goblins (plus two Orcs) but I replaced the Spider with a Pump Wagon, a Rock Lobber, three single Trolls and a Wolf Chariot. So how did it go?

Early on I realised that the Life Herald had to die…..fast. He was parked in with the Flamers but the concern was that any wounds dealt to the BT would be “Regrown” back. I managed to kill him with a couple of Doom Diver shots which meant he didn’t get to see the end of Turn One. Unfortunately this meant that I couldn’t direct those shoots onto the BT so I took the next best option (IMO) and charged him with a Squig Herd. These, coupled with 3 Fanatics through him, managed to get him down to a single wound before they exploded.

On the one flank I engineered a multiple charge of dual pump wagons and goblin chariot into a Bloodletter block that had stepped on the Mangler. Unfortunately for me this only resulted in four wounds from the impacts…I had worked out that I should have got about 10 kills. These guys were able to regroup and took out my warmachines later in the game. The other flank saw another Boodletter unit walk onto 3 Fanatics taking 17 hits. They ended up taking around 10 wounds leaving them a little depleted. When they later charged through a fanatic to contact my second Squig Herd they had insufficient strength and over two rounds of combat fell to the herd.

However the key combat was in the centre. Here the BT charged my character bunker first killing the champ and then the BSB. He was joined by third Bloodletter block who were challenged out by the BO Warboss. In the ongoing combat the Warboss survived unscathed versus the Herald doing one wound in return. I lost the combat due to damage on the unit from the BT and hat to make a Ld 9 test. I failed and ran taking my army with me.

In retrospect I should have thrown my Level 4 Shaman under the bus (BT) before the BSB with Standard of Discipline. That would have bought me one more turn. It wasn’t helped by two Fanatics doing a total of 2 hits on the BT as they went through him while he was fighting. Neither could get that elusive last wound.

Mike managed to kill all but 100 points of my army while I picked up just over 1100 points of his. Although this doesn’t look close on paper it came down to a few critical rolls and a poor decision by me. His army is a steamroller and I was reasonably happy that the tactics I employed were geared to a win on another day. Certainly was a fun contest.