Grudge match. Of happiness and joy.

Hi,

So, back in the day, when men were men and the Cub was but a gleam in his daddy's eye, I lived in sunny Newfoundland, and played 40k with a disreputable, if lovable, band of rogues and scoundrels.  Amongst them was Chris, who played Nurgle Space Marines, and never a more vile and puss ridden pack could you encounter.

As it happens, Chris came through Halifax the other day (his WWI re-enactment groups were doing a bit up at the Citadel, which we missed due to the Beloved's birthday and my desire to continue being married).  Chris and I, however, did manage a game of WFB at the local GW, due in part to the staff being willing to reserve us a table and loan Chris an army (thanks, Dan!).

Turns out, Chris has been working on Skaven, so we arranged to throw down at 1500 points, my Brets against his (Dan's) Skaven.  I ran a list similar to the one I'd run at the tournament a ways back, but with points fleshed out with a couple of Lords (thanks to the 50% L/H rule of the End Times). Chris ran a couple of 50-rat units, assorted characters, a unit of Rat Ogres, and enough weapon teams at which to shake a stick.



We played the random deployment scenario, with Chris deploying first.  He put his rat block in the center, the ROgres off to the left flank, and his weapon teams distributed across the army.  I had my Treb and Yeomen on the left, my knights and archer in the centre, and my Pegs on the right.





\My plan was pretty simple.  Chris had stacked up his two big infantry blocks a bit.  I hoped to capitalize on it, get his units tangled in each other, and then hopefully maximize my knights charge, breaking units piecemeal rather than letting him gang up on me.



The major weakness of my list, along with it's strength, is the knight block, which functions as something of deathstar.  With my Army banner, a Lord, and my L4 wizard, it was something of an all or nothing proposition.



First tun, I probed on the flanks with my Peg Knights and Yeomen.  Chris advanced, pushing his ROgres into the woods on the flank (they spent much of the game wandering in said woods), and opting to stack up his infantry rather than getting them bogged down in bad terrain.



My Treb managed to misfire in it's first shot, but luckily only lost it's shot for the turn.  On turn 2, I charged my Yeomen into a weapon team that had strayed too close.  They promptly whiffed all their attacks, as did the weapon team in return.  As it turns out, I should have won the combat due to my musician, but both of us forgot it affected combat resolution (been a while for us both), so the units stayed locked in combat.



In the centre, there was inconclusive shooting and magic exchanges.  I flew my Peg knights in behind his lines, causing ( I hope) a moment or two of indecision.



On Chris' turn, his weapon team managed to get in a solid hit, while my Yeomen maintained their proud tradition of slapfighting, before running away in shame.





On my following  turn, things got a little crazy.  Chris had pushed his rats forward enough that I figured I could chance a charge.  I sent the knights in, they hammered home, and then things went sideways.  One of the advantages that Brets have is that their wizards don't sit in the front rank of their unit - rather, they're snugly ensconced in the middle.  That meant that my Lady could still cast offensive spells (just not at the unit her unit contacted).  I then decided to compound the impact of my charge with a casting of Dwellers Below on the block of Skaven behind the one I'd charged.  This went off, with irresistible force.  On the plus side, Chris couldn't counter it.  On the downside, it caused a S10 hit to the Lady and every model in base contact with her, i.e., most of them.



As it turned out, I got dumb lucky on this one.  Both my other characters dodged a bullet, and while I lost three knights, most made their ward save.  I lost some attacks on my charge, but was still in the game.

The Dwellers spell was a monster.  Half the rat unit failed their strength test and died, and while they made their Leadership check, the unit was well and truely gutted



The turn continued crazy in the shooting phase, where my attempt to finish off the damaged rat block with my trebuchet backfired as the thing misfired again(!), and this time, exploded in a storm of splinters.

In the combat phase, my knights predictably won (by 11, or something silly like that).  The rats broke, and my knights chased them down, but not enough to engage the second, damaged rat block.



This left them sitting in the middle of a shooting gallery of weapon teams.  It was about this time we figured out we'd been doing the aforementioned teams incorrectly through most of the game.  This wasn't looking too good for the knights.

As it turned out, however, Bretonnian armour stood proof against Rat tech (I think they overshot and killed as many of their own guys as mine), and at the end of turn 3, it wasn't looking great for Chris.



I still had a solid block of knights, including all of my characters, his Rogres were tied up, and odds were good I'd break the second block of Clanrats had the game continued.



We had to call it for time at that point, but it was a grand affair.  It was great to see Chris again, it's been far too long since we'd had a chance to play, and the GW guys here in Halifax were terrific as always in helping us out.

FMB