Monday 10 August 2009

The Casualties of Elazar

Feels like an appropriate rename after the tournament on Sunday 2nd (Yes it's taken me this long to post this!)
It was the Eric Daley Memorial Tournament. Held in honour of a member of my gaming club who sadly passed away in May. Money raised went to the Freeman's Hospital so it was all for a very good cause.

Just going to do a quick run down of my three games as I don't have the patience to write full battle reports for all 3.

The army list I took was as follows:

Elazar The Glorified
Daemon Prince
Mark of Slaanesh
Level 4 Wizard
Fury of the Blood God
Diabolic Splendour

Endika Fleshtearer
Exalted Hero
Mark of Slaanesh
Steed of Slaanesh
Flail
Shield
Collar of Khorne
Bloodcurdling Roar

Gaizka The Warped
Sorcerer
Mark of Slaanesh
Level 2 Wizard
Talisman of Protection
Infernal Puppet
Conjoined Homunculus

10 Warriors
Mark of Slaanesh
Full Command
Rapturous Standard
Additional Hand Weapons

10 Warriors
Mark of Slaanesh
Full Command
Great Weapons

15 Marauders
Mark of Slaanesh
Full Command
Great Weapons
Shields
Light Armour

5 Marauder Horsemen
Mark of Slaanesh
Musician
Flails
Throwing Axes

5 Warhounds

5 Warhounds

6 Chaos Knights
Mark of Slaanesh
Musician & Standard Bearer
Blasted Standard

Hellcannon

Hellcannon

My first game of the day was against a Skarsnik led Night Goblin army. I knew it was going to be a hard day when my 1 of the Hellcannons, the Daemon Prince, the unit of Warriors with ADHW and Gaizka were delayed at the start of the battle by Skarsnik's special rule. This had quite an impact as it put both of my wizards out of range for all of the magic for the first turn and left the warriors with too much ground to cover against a static Night Goblin army. My opponent had 2 Spear Chuckas, 2 Rock Lobbas and 2 Doomdiver Catapults. There was a hill on my left flank that I sent my Marauder Horsemen and Endika around to try and flank the warmachines (and the army) and Elazar went this way too. The enemy 'artillery' did a very good job of neutralising my Hellcannons early on which dropped a lot of points. Endika got into the flank and took out 1 of each type of warmachine by himself. Elazar caused some widespread terror and panic checks and with Ecstatic Seizures was wiping out Night Goblins by the dozen but there were just too many of them and with Skarsnik's leadership they were proving hard to budge. The fanatics caused absolute carnage amongst my troops as well, these fanatics seemed cold and calculating, picking their targets and making sure they hit them! Eventually Elazar was taken out by the combined magic of the 3 shamans and the shooting of the remaining warmachines when they could catch sight of him. Endika died in a challenge with Skarsnik (only having 1 wound left by the time he reached him). Gaizka survived the whole battle. He didn't get a chance to do a great deal but he did manage to get Ecstatic Seizures off as the last action of the battle on a unit of 43 Night Goblins and Skarsnik. The carnage that caused was hillarious but nowhere near enough for me to salvage the game.

My second game was against a Empire cavalry army with an arch lector on the pope mobile at its head and a steam tank. My reporting on this battle will be as short as the battle itself. The combination of some downright awful dice rolling and some bold moves by my opponent saw my army get absolutely demolished. It started badly with Endika challenging the arch lector who had van Horstman's Speculum. An empire captain with that spell stealing casket (the name of which escapes me) stole both of Gaizka's spells before he'd had any real impact on the game. 1 Hellcannon got bogged down in an unwinnable combat against the Arch Lector who kept rehealing and the other rampaged into a unit of Knights, a Steam Tank and a mercenary giant!
My chaos Knights looked as if they might salvage something when they managed to get the charge on a unit of White Wolf Knights. I was outnumbered and the enemy had a rank and a battle standard so I lost the combat by 1 after causing a few wounds on them and rolled a double 6 for my breaktest followed by a 4 for my flee roll. Epic fail! Elazar did no better being shot to pieces by two units of pistoliers before doing anything of any real worth himself. A short, painful game. After this I knew I was just playing for pride in my final game.

My last game was against a Dark Elf army. I really enjoyed this battle and it proved to be a thoroughly brutal affair. The two Hellcannons really made up for the previously poor performances and took out a nice portion of the Dark Elf army between them. Elazar didn't do spectacularly, I overreached him a little and then a unit of shades rolled an unholy number of 6s when shooting at him so he ended up dying rather ingloriously. My chaos Knights spent most of the game feinting and weaving with the Dark Elf Cold One Knights and thanks to Endika and his Marauder Horsemen baiting the Dark Elves the Chaos Knights managed to get a flank charge. At this point the combat should have been a formality in my mind but the Dark Elves had an asf banner and a battle standard bearer to boot. The bsb was on the flank I'd charged and struck first causing 2 wounds and I rolled 2 1s for armour saves. This left me with 1 Knight to fight back and although he managed to cause a wound the advantage of the flank charge had been lost and the Dark Elves won the combat. Endika repositioned his horsemen and charged into the Dark Elf Knights' flank when they'd turned to face the chaos Knights but this didn't prove enough to tip the scales and the combat dragged on. Eventually I won it but it kept my two cavalry units tied up for a very long time. I got quite lucky with the 2 sorceresses miscasting a few times so Gaizka's puppet came in handy. I managed to kill 1 thanks to the puppet and a Hellcannon ate the other. The Dark Elf Hydra though proved to be a major player. He took out one Hellcannon then with the help of the dead Sorceress' pegasus and a unit of Black Guard took out my remaining Warriors. This battle saw me pick up the most points and I did a game against a tough opponent and with both of our troops hellbent on spilling blood!

So all in all, my army finished 13th out of 14 so very unspectacular but I had a really fun day and learnt a lot about my army to boot!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bad luck matey, but atleast it was all for a good cause. Your second game sounds like you had a hell of a hard time. Nice work on the final game though. When those Hellcannons have the chance to dominate, they do just that - I have witnessed their power first hand!

Elazar The Glorified said...

Thanks. I had a great time and that was the main thing and I think we managed to make quite a bit of money as well (although not sure on the final figure yet). The Hellcannons are brilliant for that. 1 sat and just ate up a unit of 25 dark elf spearmen over a few turns until they ran away. With its high toughness it was barely getting scratched back - lots of fun! :D

noeste said...

*smiles*
Hellcannons in close combat is simply murder!

I bet Elazar is performing as he is, just out of spite, as you're using a Be'lakor model *nods*
Just wait 'til that new plastic kit gets out for Daemon Princes, and I'm sure he'll wipe the table clean!

Sorry about your friend, though; really nice of you to make a memorial tournament for him.