Another playtest game using the rules found
here. This time, rather than set up any particular matchup (good or bad for the Dark Elves), I said "let's just play a game with it. Take whatever army you want, other than Undead, and take whatever silly build you feel like." His choice was Umenzi (with a fairly conventional build).
We played without any other playtest rules or tweaks to the game, and used the stamped deployment rules.
I had bottom to top (top = right flank): Lowblood, Lowblood, Slaves, Lord of Dusk, Slaves, Lord of Dusk, Lowblood. In the rear I had a Coven behind the Slaves in the center and SlaveTakers on the right behind the Lowblood.
Bottom to top, starting with the front row he had: Javelineers, Javelineers, Possessed, (gap), Possessed, Javelineers, Javelineers. Second row was: (gap), Javelineers, Berserkers, GWE, Berserkers, (gap), (gap), Javelineers. Back row was Shamans, other half of GWE, and Shamans.
Now, if you're counting along at home, you'll realize that he massively cheated. The Berserkers puts him over by like 500 pts. (My buddy had slept like 2-3 hours and, I obviously didn't pay close attention). However, none of this will change the results, because the Berserkers literally would've never gotten into the fight. After the fact, we pointed out that had someone caught that, he wouldn't have deployed the Javelineers behind the line and would've double stacked the possessed. So, in truth, he was all told playing at least 180 pts down due to poor deployment.
Thus we can continue without the results here being horribly invalidated.
This picture is about turn 2. The GWE is getting Witching Hour'd every turn and then shot by a Lord of Dusk. The other Lord of Dusk is hitting the Javelineer at the second from the top (in the line). My coven are sliding left (i.e. down) while the Slavetakers have rolled out to the right (top). The plan, besides beating up the GWE, is to punch a hole somewhere on the left either by Lord of dusk shooting or a suicide charge by the Slavetakers.
The very next turn, the GWE is put in the Yellow and failed its Rout check. Normally, this would basically be game over. One you take out the illegal Berzerkers, the Umenzi have very little in their line that would hold up to a pinch. However, the Disrupted rule meant that the Umenzi player only lost 2 CAs and could keep the advance going.
The Umenzi line closes. Perhaps a flaw by me was not charging and pinching the GWE withe seize the initiative. I was figuring if I did, the flanking Slaves would get flanked and crushed themselves. I also figured that I could put the GWE into the red (only needed 2 boxes) with just the Lord of Dusk.
Out comes the best cards we have, but in the end he has impact hits...
On the next turn, the Lords of Dusk are popped and now there's just a giant gaping hole in the Dark Elf line.
The game was over by this point, with flanking and pinching going on all over on the right flank, but I had a rash of failed Courage checks that sent not only the left side of my line fleeing off the table but also the other Lord of Dusk unit. We called it here. Didn't really change the outcome, only speeding it up.
Once you get past the whole "he massively cheated" part, I still say this report shows that the Disrupted idea deserves further consideration by the rules team. Sure there probably would've been a few things different on the meta-level if those Berserkers weren't there, but I don't think it'd be a whole lot. On the right side of the GWE, his Possessed beat my Slaves in the slap-fight while on the left side if there had been Javelineers there, they would've probably blown through my Slaves quicker. So if anything, the beating would've been a bit more lopsided.
The dice probably slightly favored him in the crucial turns, because otherwise it'd been a closer fight I think. But I think that's okay. The DE stand-and-shoot is probably the strongest in the game, and if its a fair fight with them where it comes down to the dice and a few key decisions, then the Disrupted rule is probably going in the right direction. So I'll repeat that I humbly suggest the rules folks take a good look at this.
