Played a game vs Brets on Monday. We played the 50% L&H rules, but that was it. My oppo took 2 trebs, a unit of 11(?) peasant archers 2 blocks of 12/15 knights (inc many characters, BSB, General, Paladins etc) and a smaller block of 5/6 knights. My list was Lords Slann, with becalming cogitation, WD, Dispel Scroll, BSB and Skaven Pelt banner Oldblood on foot, with Sword of Anti Heroes, A of D, Iron Curse Icon (Goes with TG) Heroes Tetto (in small cohort) Scar vet cowboy, Gamblers Armour, Luckstone, GW, CO (AQttached to saurus) Core 36 Saurus Warriors, Spears, Full Command 2 x 10 skink skirmishers 1 x 10 cohort, with poison. Special 26 Temple Guard, Full command, Razor Standard 3 terradon riders Rare Ancient Steg, EotG, Unstoppable Stampede, Sharpened Horns Total 2499. Board set up had some impassable terrain in the middle, gap either side and then hills. Flanks were pretty much open. I set up (L - R) terradons, skirnishers, TG, Saurus (both 'blocking' the gaps between the impassable terrain and the hills), steg, cohort, skirimishers His set up (my L-R) Treb in far corner, peasant archers, 2 big lances of knights/characters, small block of kights, treb in far corner. He elected to pray and gave me first turn. I vanguarded 3 units (terradons and both skirmisher units). After my movement I was in range of both trebs for shooting. Infantry blocks stood. In magic I did very little but managed to put a wound on the right Treb. In shooting the right skinks were magnificent, do a further three wounds to the treb and destroying it. On the other side, the terradons shot at the Treb, doing a wound, while the skinks shot at the archers, hoping to make them flee of the board. They killed some but not enough to cause a panic. His T1, Knight blocks all moved up. remaining treb shot, but misfired! No firing this turn or next. I managed to snuff out the magic. T2 Right skinks move round to harrass the smaller block of knights, steg and Tetto cohort moved up to support them. TG and Saurus moved up a small amount. On the left, Terradons closed the range to the treb, while the skinks focused their attention on the treb too. Magic, another non-event - My WoM rolls were poor - I think the highest I acheived was a 9! Shooting - The other treb died. I think I might have put a wound on the small unit of knights, killing one His T2 Large lances both declare charges - Failed Shooting - His archers target the terradons, killing one - Panic test - Passed! My T3 I cant remember if the TG were in range of the knights or not. If they were it would have been a very long charge. In the event I didn't try it. Movement - Terradons and skinks on left focus on the archers. Skinks on left try to stay out of the knights charge arc. Magic - Again not much, most of what I did got dispelled. Shooting - Many casualties on archers, they made their low panic test. His T3 Both lances charge and make it into the TG. (At this stage I knew I'd lose some but expected to be able to hit back). Movement - The only thing he had left was the smaller block of knights. These moved into a position to charge the skinks that had been harrassing them. No shooting! Magic - He cast a spell which would give me -1 to hit (Net of Amyntok?) I dispelled it. Then he cast Wyssans on one lance of knights, although I had three dice left I used the scroll as the total was high. He then used a magic item to give him two extra power dice and went for the bubbled version of savage beasts. He made it. Not only that it wasn't irresistible force either. I tried to get double 6 on three dice, but no joy. With two lances of knights, inc many characters (all with SBH on them) facing my unbuffed TG, I had a very bad feeling about the combat. Combat One of us rolled like a boss the other rolled like a stone. I was the one gathering no moss (and no saves for that matter!) In 1 round of combat, the entire block of TG and the slann were slain (As part of this he got a Heroic Killing blow on the Oldblood, and I rolled a 3 on the 4++!!!) Bye bye OB He reformed one lance to face the steg, the other lance moved forward to give space for this to happen and threaten the flank of the saurus. T4 Crap! Plan has gone to hell. OK, charge the steg into the lance facing it, about face with the saurus to face the threat to their flank. Move up terradons. Skinks and tettos cohort would have to deal with the small unit of knights (Good luck with that!) Magic - Another no show - I think I rolled 2 x 1 for WoM while my oppo chanelled, I didn't. Shooting the left skinks finally kill off the archers. Combat - Steg killed three with impact hits, received one wound in return, but the lance held. His T4 The lance charges the saurus. The small block of knights charge the right hand skinks. who stand and shoot. Magic - Basically a repeat of the bubble SBH above. 6 dice, no IF and I can't dispel. At this point I was laughing at my rolling while he was apologising! No shooting Combat - While the saurus survived they had been cut down significantly. The steg was killed thanks to the bubble effect and the skinks while killing one or two knights on Stand and Shoot, got killed to a man, well skink. We called it there. Well I can honestly say I had a plan (skirmishers to take out trebs asap, then harrass the knights, which will be stuck fighting the infantry with, hopefully, the steg and cowboy making flank charges). Forr two turns this was working well and had got rid of both trebs, and a bit later, the archers. Magic was a let down for the most part with some very poor WoM rolls. I also think I was naive with the dispell scroll, and should have kept it, but hindsight is a wonderful thing. With poor WoM, there were simply not enough dice for the spells I had. I possibly chose poorly which ones to cast. Although with the slann dieing so early I wasn't able to use the toolkit which is WD. Other than hoping for better magic and keeping the dispell scroll back I'm not sure I would have done anything else differently. The first bubbled SBH was the game changer - Wiped out my most powerful unit before they could hit back. I had hoped to be able to hit back with some of them. Even assuming just two ranks survived, it would have been 16 attacks basic, plus 10 from frenzy (plus any from pred fighter - We play both ranks but lets not get into a debate about that here!), all at strength 5 with AP rule., so minus 3 from his armour saves. It was not meant to be. But having been very lucky twice against High Elves recently (batreps somewhere on here!) I guess this is just karma.
VCs (usual) lack of beasts is exactly because they would be completely broken if they could bubble SBH. SBH is also one of the reasons why the lizardmen "beast council" works. Imagine a COC unit with 3 GW characters in front, who gets a bubbled SBH on them. It would do much the same, except the enemy at least gets to strike I can only suggest packing a cube as a second dispel scroll. It would have been more effective as well, allowing you to let him cast his wyssans and bubbled SBH, and then remove both. Sometimes the dice are just not in your favour, and this sounds like one of those cases.
My skink pew pew was great - No complaints about the dice there. Magic was so so, but it was combat where I really sucked. I may not have listed it above but I did manage to get the heavens spell where I can reroll ones in combat off on the saurus (too little too late, but had to go down fighting!). In the dice I rolled a couple of ones. Re rolled them and got...... snake eyes Like I said I was probably a bit naive in using the scroll but fair play to my oppo for drawing it out enabling him to get off the bubble. He is a good oppo, both in terms of his skill and personality, so losing wasn't an issue - More the fact I felt I hadn't given him a decent game! He's on Youtube under the name Jedkar with plenty of batreps, one or two of which include me! This one will likely appear in due course (I may have mis-remembered bits but the general gist is correct). Give him a follow.
Sometimes the dice gods are just against you. When that happens, you might as well throw any kind of strategy to the wind. I enjoy your battle reports. I think you face a lot of the same types of armies I play against. Suggestions I might make would be to encourage you to run the Lore of Metal against Brets. So many spells designed to wipe out heavily armored troops and it doesn't give them the 5++ ward against high strength hits because it has no strength value. Also, you may have wasted some points on your steg with the sharpened horns (isn't that the one that gives d3 wounds?) as Brets don't have a lot of multi wound units. Killing Blow is rough and, as you stated, the dice were against you. If he HAD survived, Sword of Anit Heroes might have been a little bit of a waste as well. The Oldblood can get five strength 7 attacks as is (plus one more attack, usually, with PF). Giving him the SoAH actually lowers his ability to deal wounds as they will always get their 5++ but you don't get as much armor reduction. HArmonic Convergences with the Channeling Staff is also a good way to ensure you really dominate the magic phase. I hope this doesn't come across as too much. One of my buddies has a big Bret army, so I've had a bit of practice against them. They can be a tough nut to crack.
Is there an FAQ on this or something? Neither spell is RiP and Cube only gets rid of RiP spells. Plus when you're rolling that terribly I wouldn't put it past the die to plop down on 1 for the Cube to even work. Pisses me off how badly they nerfed the cube.
If I'm reading the description correctly, if I play the cube at the point a non-RiP spell is cast, as long as I roll 2+ then that spell is gone. If there are any RiP spells in play then each is also rolled for, and on a 2+ they are also dispelled. So its a 2+ dispell scroll for the spell that was just cast by an enemy mage, and a 2+ on any RiP spells in play at that time.
@LordKingCrow - Not coming across too strong at all. We did play 50% and I think my Lords were slightly over the old 25%, but Heroes below. I did consider Lore of Metal, but thought it a bit cheesey knowing I was fighting Brets so went for WD to get the Metal signature as well as the Shadow one which has worked for me in the past. You're right the additions to the Steg were probably too much and I didn't consider the multy wound model point, so know to consider that in future. Saving that and a bit elsewhere would have gotten me the Cube! I thought the SoAH would have been good, but its the multi wound thing again. I usually go with the Harmonic and C Staff combo, just thought I'd try something different. Also I don't normally run Tetto and a Slann so was a bit of a mess when it came to choosing spells (too many shinies!) And thanks for the comments on the batreps. I don't get to play too often but try to do a report whenever I do.