Round 5 vs Adam Ballard
Invade at 2300 points
Night-stalkers
Scarecrow Regiment
Scarecrow Horde
Doppelgangers -Mead of Madness
Shadow Hounds Regiment - Chalice of Wrath
Butchers Horde
Butchers Horde
Soulflayers Regiment
Soulflayers Regiment
Terror
Shadow-hulk
Dread-fiend
Dread-fiend
Shade
Butcher Fleshripper
I put back the shade and a regiment of soulflayers that I took out make a 2000 point list to get back to 2300 points.
I’ve also dropped the void lurker, because I struggle to get enough out of it for the points it costs. To replace it I have a dread-fiend to threaten flanks and a fleshripper. Twice the US, but that can be in two places and roughly the same potential damage output. This left me enough points to take a Chalice of Wrath on the shadow hounds, it’s not something that I expect to help in every game, but I have had games where I wish I had it. The last 10 points went to Mead of Madness on the doppelgangers, a little extra speed is handy on a second line unit and madness is thematic for my arrmy.
Empire of Dust
Skeleton Warriors Horde
Skeleton Spearmen Regiment
Skeleton Spearmen Regiment
Mummies
Enslaved Guardians - Maccwar’s Potion of the Caterpillar
Enslaved Guardian Archers
Bone Giant
Bone Giant
Monolith
Empire of Dust Balefire Catapult - Scarab Jars
Empire of Dust Balefire Catapult
Soul Snare
Cursed High Priest
Idol of Shobik
A solid and balanced list. A little deceptive to how much the units can actually do, but more on that later.
Deployment
My cunning plan was to delay between the terrain on the right and attack the centre left with my titans and butchers; while soulflayers and shadow hounds sweep down the left (of the table, not my army’s left).
My opponent had a different idea entirely. The almost all of Empire of Dust army squeezed between the building and the right flank. This threw my deployment off considerably. I proceeded to put units down where seemed like a good idea at the time while dithering about where to attack and how much I wanted to dedicate to holding my opponent up. The right move would have been to take a little time to decide on a new plan when I realised what my opponent was up to, which was fairly early into deployment.
Not a good start.
Empire of Dust Turn 1
The Empire of Dust won the roll and took the first turn, which was not ideal for me. Units are pushed up a little and a catapult hits the dread-fiend on the left.
Night-Stalkers Turn 1
Night-stalkers move up as fast as scarecrows can while minding the bone giant on the left, it can’t see my butchers to charge, right?
On the far right my fast units don’t have the space to slow the enemy by threatening flanks and dodging arcs, so they dither instead.
The left goes for the catapults. Those catapults are not really a threat though, the shadow hounds really should be threatening the bone giant to help the titans.
Empire of Dust Turn 2
The infantry move up. The Idol of Shobik charges the scarecrows to hold them and the doppelgangers behind them up. The left bone giant moves into the forest to get just the right angle to surge into the butcher’s flank. It needs 5" with 8 surge dice (monolith) and even then needs to roll above average to rout the butchers in one go. It gets both. To make it worse, I missed this move, so nothing is in position to charge the bone giant next turn.
Night-Stalkers Turn 2
My titans turn to deal with the bone giant and Shobik, while the shade and scarecrows team up to do no damage to the Idol. Shadow hounds move to get behind the enemy, but haven’t thought about what to do once there.
The left soulflayers spot a flank on the mummies and that (along with an urge to hold them up) begins the attack. The butchers and damaged soulflayers attack to protect their flanks. Unfortunately the flanking soulflayers stub a toe in the terrain and don’t get a bit of luck to remove the mummies. The have take a good amount of damage so I’m confident that I’ll win that fight after a bit of grind, or at least hold things up. Right?
Empire of Dust Turn 3
The scarecrow horde holds against the bone giant in the flank and the shade stands up to the Idol but wavers.
Things go much better for the Empire of Dust on the right, the unsuspecting nightmares have fallen into a trap. Even without a flank attack the flanking soulflayers fall to the enslaved guardians while the guardian archers do have a flank charge on the other soulflayers. The high priest drains the life of the dread fiend for 6 damage, healing the mummies. The tables have turned, the now badly damaged dread-fiend is swallowed by the sands while the mummies are barely hurt.
The butchers are now isolated and doomed.
Night-Stalkers Turn 3
The night-stalker titans put down the Idol of Shobik and bone giant on the left, while the shadow hounds get in position. The remaining butchers put up a fight, but don’t do enough.
The dread-fiend on the left starts on the catapults.
Empire of Dust Turn 4
The butchers are destroyed and the terror is engaged by undead infantry.
The skeleton horde faces the threat from behind.
Night-Stalkers Turn 4
The titans engage the infantry sent to delay them while the doppelgangers hold the line. The shadow hounds are confronted by a lack of tasty rear charges and realise that simply supporting the titans from the flank would have helped far more. The terrain means that any charge from their position will be hindered.
The catapults are mopped up.
Empire of Dust Turn 5
The terror exposed a sliver of its flank to attack the guardian archers and is taken down by the skeleton spearmen. The doppelgangers have their energy drained away while fighting the mummies and waver.
The victorious units on the far right move to score.
Night-Stalkers Turn 5
The shadow-hulk gets stuck in while the butcher fleshripper flanks the skeleton spearmen, for a small victory. The shadow hounds are scoring, but don’t have a good charge.
Empire of Dust Turn 6
The soul snare and guardian archers team up to do 9 damage to the shadow-hulk and roll the nerve to rout it. The other unit move to score.
Night-Stalkers Turn 6
The butcher fleshripper tries to escape the guardian archers, even though it could probably stand up to charge that might give the shadow hounds a flank.
Empire of Dust Turn 7
The butcher fleshripper pays for my folly, because the Empire of Dust already have the maximum extra points.
Night-Stalkers Turn 7
In the last turn the shadow hounds go for a long shot at extra kill points but achieve nothing.
Thoughts
This went as badly as a game could. A combination of not having a plan, not thinking my moves through and learning the dangers a lot of drain life the hard way lead to a crushing defeat.
The Empire of Dust’s deployment put a massive concentration of force in small space on the right. Anything that I deployed to the right of the top building was doomed as there was not enough space to deploy adequate opposition. I really only needed to slow something potentially trying to get around the top building and threaten units that ignored it.
I actually needed my best units engaging between the two buildings, I could have engaged the weaker units to the left while blocking the better fighting units to the far right.
To make it worse, I squandered several units. A horde of butchers that I needed to be part of my assault were put on the right to “hold up the enemy” where a regiment of scarecrows could have done the job and not been tempted to get into trouble. The shadow hounds spent the whole game getting behind the enemy, but could have threatened the pesky bone giant in turn 1. Finally, my shade joined a pointless attack, while it’s sole mission should have been destroying the soul snare.
That’s all because I didn’t have a clear plan for those units, because I didn’t have a plan in general.
This defeat means that I will probably see me slip to the bottom half of the ladder and means that I have lost half of the available games. That means I have to win the next game for an average overall result! ONWARD TO MEDIOCRITY!