So last weekend saw me sneak off to Boards and Swords in Derby for a day of gaming with Matt, starting out with a 2000 point pitched battle between my Empire and Matt's High Elves, using WFB 6th Edition.
I won't do a blow by blow or turn by turn account, but here are some edited highlights. Rough army lists are further down, but broadly speaking I took an infantry list with some big state units, artillery and flagellants, whilst Matt had a mix of chariots, small infantry units, and eagles.
Empire forces arrayed for battle, with a lot of black powder weapons!
The battle really split quite neatly into three broad areas. On my left, my artillery, supported by a pair of Engineers and a unit of handgunners, duked it out with an Eagle, Chariot and a unit of spear elves containing a mage. A miscast on Matt's first turn saw the mage explode, taking out three of the spear elves, but miraculously leaving the mage unharmed (although I imagine his surviving neighbours shuffled away from the slightly smoking magic user). Things exploding would turn out to be a theme of the day...
Further ignominy was heaped on the poor unit when my mortar dropped a shell right in the middle of them, wiping out a significant chunk of the remainder. Again the Mage survived without a scratch. This would prove to be significant, as my Long Rifle armed Engineer took a wound from him, which should have finished him off by rights, but of course wasn't enough on its own. Matt's magic was on point otherwise - choosing law of life saw him able to turn the scenery against me, and I took more damage from trees than any of his shooting!
An attempt by one of Matt's eagles to take out my artillery was thwarted by the cannon crew and an Engineer wielding a repeating pistol. One of his three chariots was more successful, overrunning the mortar before it could repeat it's success - only to then fall foul of the cannon, now free from the threat of the Death Chicken.
Polly want a face full of lead!
There used to be a mortar there! In the woods, handgunners flee after the mage (seen top left) turned the very trees on them!
Bang, and the chariot is gone!
The remnants of the mortared spear elves attempted to take out the cannon (which had in the meantime managed a successful shot on another spear unit). However a failed charge gave my crew time to wheel the heavy gun out of their charge arc, and open the opportunity for the remaining Engineer to let loose with his reloaded repeater pistol, finishing the unit off (the standard bearer fled, the only survivor). Sadly another chariot sealed the fate of the cannon crew soon after.
Funnily enough, I didn't fire the cannon from this position...
Meanwhile, on my right, my unit of flagellants blocked the gap between hill and lake. Over the course of the game, with a little help from a detachment of swordsmen and one handgunner (the last survivor of his detachment), managed to hold up an eagle, chariot and a large unit of White Lions led by a fully tooled up Lord - wiping out the eagle and chariot in the process. They died to a man - so from their point of view it was a successful battle!
Matt and I seem to have a knack for complicated melees!
At the very end, the White Lions managed to break through, but too late to influence the battle in the centre, which was pretty much over by then, allowing my halberdiers and spearmen to reposition to another blocking position.
Turn 6 - too late!
The Centre kicked off with a mass firing of handguns, which did... very little as it turned out.
Well, it looked impressive!
My state unit's detachments took the brunt of the charges, and were largely wiped out in combat, fleeing, or through being attacked by angry forestry. In hindsight I may have been better off fleeing with some of them and allowing the chariots and spear elves to break themselves on my large infantry units. My spearmen saw off one unit of spear Elves, only to be broken in turn by a charge in the flank (but later rallying) by another unit of spears, who were themselves then destroyed.
You can see here that the swordsmen detachment chased off the chariot - next turn they would be obliterated by the woods next to them!
Near the end of the game, Matt finally succeeded in casting 'Comet of Cassandora', which resulted in an unseemly scramble away from the centre by my remaining infantry. despite building up to 4 tokens, the rock of doom never arrived - which was a stroke of luck for my spearmen and halberdiers, who were right in the danger zone at the game's end!
So how did things end up? Although I felt like the game ended with me pretty much in control of the battlefield with some sizeable units, Matt actually had more victory points than me, although not enough to avoid the game being a draw. In the end I had just sacrificed too many units: the artillery, Engineers, all my detachments and the flagellants (a very effective, but not cheap, speedbump). Had Matt's mage taken a wound from that miscast or the mortar round, it all could have been very different - magic was the cause of a decent amount of my losses.
Thoughts? With hindsight I should have protected by artillery better, perhaps with the unit of handgunners who got trounced by trees. Blocking attacks by eagle and chariots would have depleted them pretty quickly, but it could have gained me an extra turn or two of shooting.
I don't regret not taking any magic users. A couple of extra dispel dice probably wouldn't have made much difference. Matt is convinced I should take warrior priest more often, but at 95 points unequipped, and most of their abilities unused against high elves (hatred of chaos for example), I remain unconvinced. Whereas I wasn't too disappointed by the Engineers - the repeater handgun helped dispatch a giant eagle and a unit of spears, and the Long Rifle came within a hairs breadth of taking out a Mage.
I probably should have fled with my detachments more - their defeat was almost inevitable, giving away points, whereas they had a decent chance of rallying due to the presence of my general.
Did I really need infantry units that big (30 models)? Maybe not - they ultimately didn't really get into combat much. That said, there is a comfort in knowing they can take damage from shooting and magic, and still put up a decent combat resolution from ranks, outnumbering etc. perhaps reduce them to units of 25 (and 20 for greatswords), and use the spare points for hunstmen or a small unit to protect the guns.
My list
30 Halberdiers, detachments of 10 handgunners and 10 swordsmen
30 Spearmen, , detachments of 10 handgunners and 10 swordsmen
10 Handgunners, marksman with Hochland Long Rifle
30 Greatswords, detachment of 10 handgunners
Cannon
Mortar
20 Flagellants
Elector Count, Captain with Battle Standard, Engineer with repeater pistol, Engineer with Hochland Long Rifle.
Matt's army
3 units of spears
1 unit White Lions
1 unit scouts
3 chariots
Bolt Thrower
2 eagles
Lord, Battle Standard, Mage
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