9th Age Practice - Battle 2

Battle 2
Our second 9th Age practice battle saw a turn around of armies as this time Lucky-Sixes rolled to take on the Undying Dynasties whilst I took control of the Sylvan Elves.

Lucky-Sixes 'Chariot' list contained:

Nomarch (Chariot Of Nephet-Ra, Heavy Armour, Shield, Lance, Skeleton Chariot, Additional Skeleton Horses)
Death Cult Acolyte (Level 1, Path of Sand)
Tomb Architect (Death Mask Of Teput, Lance, Amuut, Master Mason)
10x Skeleton Chariots w. Full Command (Banner Of Discipline)
11x Skeleton Archers
3x Shabtis w. Full Command (Great Aspen Bows, Flaming Standard)
3x Tomb Cataphracts
Battle Sphinx (Innate Defence (4+), Breath Weapon)
3x Winged Reapers (Light Armour, Paired Weapons, Necromantic Aura)
Colossus (Scales Of Destiny)

My list contained:

High Druid (Level 4, Path of White Magic, Tree Singing, Book Of Arcane Power, Sacred Seeds)
Chieftain (BSB, Drums Of Cenyrn, Blade Dancer, Sylvan Blades)
Druid (Mist Walker's Mirror, Level 1, Path of Nature)
29x Sylvan Archers w. Full Command (Black Arrows)
6x Heath Riders w. Standard Bearer (Shields, Elven Cloaks)
9x Blade Dancers w. Full Command
3x Kestrel Knights w. Musician & Champion (Shield, Light Armour, Skirmishers)
3x Kestrel Knights w. Musician & Champion (Shield, Light Armour, Skirmishers)
10x Sylvan Sentinels w. Champion (Paired Weapons, Scout, Hawthorn Points)
10x Pathfinders w. Champion

Again there's no pictures (there would have been Battle Chronicler images but I'm rubbish and so out of date) (non-proxy rating 0/10) so this will be brief and I should mention that in making the lists I tried not to tailor them at all, sometimes to quite a dire extent.  For example, the Drums Of Cenryn on the Blade Dancer Chieftain was always going to be useless against Undying Dynasties as they can only ever declare a Hold charge reaction.  But I was having fun with my lists so it wasn't really until the point of the battle that I realised some basic things with the lists that didn't make sense.  I guess I tried so hard not to tailor the lists that even included things I knew would have no effect!  Oops!

This time we had the Flank Attack set up and a secondary objective to hold the central ground.  This deployment was quite complicated but after much measuring we got there in the end.  Once again I found myself staring down some enemy units that I didn't really know how to deal with.  The big Chariot unit was very intimidating and the Tomb Cataphracts that were deployed on one flank with the Winged Reapers looked pretty solid too.  I set up with my main shooting block in one corner in a forest and had another forest in the opposite corner.  My intention was to draw the chariots nearer and then use the Mist Walker's Mirror to teleport when they came too close for comfort.  Meanwhile my mobile shooting Sylvan Sentinels and Pathfinders would harass the enemy and hopefully whittle them down.

I remember that doing the first couple of turns Lucky-Sixes moved forwards and shot with his Aspen Bows, both from the tiny unit of Skeleton Archers that were a bunker for his Hierophant and also with the Skeleton Charioteers.  Alarmingly he was taking models from my army out and one unit of Kestrel Knights fled from panic, whilst the Dancers also lost a few.

In response my shooters were not doing so well.  I thought that I could take out the Shabtis with one round of arrows but somehow they took two turns and an eventual charge from the Sylvan Sentinels and the Heath Riders.  I'd spent far too many shots killing the Shabtis and before I knew it the Chariots were right on the doorstep of the Sylvan Archer unit.

The other unit of Kestrel Knights had managed to charge the Winged Reapers in the flank but that didn't turn out well and they were also sent fleeing.

Whilst this didn't look great I felt that things were okay because I'd reduced the Dread Sphinx to 1 wound, had forced the Hierophant out of his bunker through magic and Kestrel activity and was flanking with both skirmishing shooter units.  Both the Kestrel units were fleeing or gone but that was alright.  I popped the Mist Walker's Mirror and all of a sudden Lucky-Sixes' Chariots were facing one empty corner (we played open lists so this wasn't a complete surprise it should be noted).

This was the end of me being in control though.  The Dread Sphinx declared a long charge on the Sylvan Sentinels who had been expecting it and hoped to kill it with a final stand & shoot but instead they failed their terror test and fled out of reach.  But in doing so they clipped the Pathfinders.  Uh oh!  They failed their panic test and fled off the board.  In the following turn the Sylvan Sentinels failed to rally and also fled off the board.  Moments later and the chariots shot away half of the Heath Riders although thankfully they held their panic.

In such a short space of time a quarter of my army ceased to be on the table and Lucky-Sixes had needed to do very little to achieve it.  I was somewhat aggrieved and attempted to charge the Blade Dancers with Chieftain BSB into the flank of the Chariots to try and kill off his General in a flash attack.  But of course, they failed their charge.  The remaining Heath Riders also tried a last ditch effort to kill the Dread Sphinx hoping to get that final wound through, but they couldn't do it and died shortly afterwards.

Lucky-Sixes at this point was pretty happy to call off any attempt at going after my Sylvan Archer unit as he simply didn't need to.  While my army failed to play ball they'd managed to fail a swift reform test and lost a turn of shooting as a result.  The battle came to an anticlimactic end as the Chariots ran through the Blade Dancers with impact hits (even with a 3+ ward save) and the board belonged to Undying Dynasties apart from the Archers in the corner that had forgotten to string their bows!

It was incredible how the Sylvan Elves had gone downhill so quickly with so many failed tests in such a short space of time.  BUT... it should be noted that all but one of the failed leadership tests were done without the BSB re-roll... so maybe that was the reason.  It was a disappointing end to this one for me as I thought I'd been doing okay.  Not to take away from Lucky-Sixes who had again done nothing wrong either and certainly deserved the victory.

Lucky-Sixes says...'

Yeah... I feel like I had been gifted this one if I'm honest. Not through my own luck - this time anyway! ;) - but through Hyper-G's own poor rolling. A few failed leadership tests meant I was able to focus on units that should've been safe, had I been dealing with the skirmishers that were up in my business. Having said that, I was able to capitalise on Hyper-G's misfortunes and was able to control most of the latter part of the battle.

Going into this battle I was quite excited with the list. I am a massive fan of Chariots, have been since I started in 7th editon; so to see a huge unit of Chariots all in one with a general in it as well made my mouth water. Otherwise it was quite an interesting list, with a bit of an MSU feel to it, with the obvious exception of those Chariots!

Again, magic didn't really get tested, as I only had a Level 1, and I can't remember magic doing all that much for the Sylvan Elves either - shooting was the main focus of this battle. The Elves had the obvious advantage but due to Hyper-G's fantastic rolling it was taking double the time it should have been and the Undying Dynasties had more units than they should've to attack back. The chariot unit had a surprisingly good number of shots and along with the 11 Skeleton Archers - and the 5+ to hit on everything, we were steadily taking down the opposition.

The Winged Reapers proved to be quite cool and toughness turned out to be the decider when the Kestrels came-a-calling. Otherwise, my units hung back and waited for the Elves to crumble (ironic eh!), before rushing the enemy towards the end in an Undead wave; and then finally backing off happy with the work they had done.

Quite happy with the Undying Dynasties, units were cool and some nice changes - with the main one in adding the same Undead rule that the Vampires have - marching within 12" of the general. This has made them nearly as mobile as other armies and is a huge improvement / step forward in the 9th Age. Not that I noticed it much with my Chariot unit, but the flyers / monsters certainly profited from it. Granted, other armies will still likely be able to outmanoeuvre you and if you are not within that 12" range then you will still struggle, but not anywhere near by the same margins as before, which is great.

Anyway, another fun battle and another win for Lucky-Sixes taking it to 2-0, so I can't grumble at all. Not that it was about winning at all, and we certainly weren't playing it that way. Still everyone loves a whitewash...