Ravenwood - Dark Elf 2000 - me vs. BubblePig

[Kevin]

Ron (BubblePig) was over, and we went for a quick-and-dirty game before work.  Considering playing Dark Elves at the Championship Tournament, Ron asked me to take Ravenwood vs. them on an open map.

We used all rules which will be in use at the Championship tournament, and played this game as though it were round 1:  2000 points, open map, Breaking Point.





Set up and Strategy

Dark Elf Army, left to right:

Slave Warriors, Slave Warriors behind Slave Warriors, Halfblood Levies, Standard Bearers, Highblood Blades, Lashmistress, Dusk Lancers behind Blade Dancers.  2000 points.

Ron's plan was to pulverize my army on one side, while delaying with some cheap units on the other.


Ravenwood Army, left to right:

Spearmen, 2 Bowmasters behind Spearmen, Brownies behind Spearmen, Brownies behind Brownies, Brownies, Brownies, Spearmen.  1985 points.

I placed my Bowmasters last, after he had committed to putting his heavies on the right.  This would allow me to get a good deal more volleys of arrows off.  I went with a wider line than most stand-and-shoot armies (and a bit less "shoot" -- only 670 points worth), as I'd come to appreciate the awesomeness of the diagonal slope-back formation.

Because the Dark Elf army was so weak on the left, my plan changed a bit, where instead of being all "Stand," I put my two leftmost Spearmen on Close.

Bowmasters were initally set to target the Halfblood Leavies,


You can pretty clearly see two lines of coins, representing locations targets for units in our respective armies.




Opening Moves

My units hit their location targets.  I'll be leaving my third-from-right unit facing backward, so that it would march forward less far as the Lasmistress pulled it in.  Other Brownies stand ready to take their place.

On the left, the Dark Elves did an...unusual...maneuver, where instead of fanning out to the left, the Halfblood Levies went forward-right, behind their line.  This meant that my Spearmen wouldn't be outnumbered, and I could send them straight in without worrying about getting pinched.  It also meant my Bowmasters had better targets--they were reordered to shoot the Lashmistress, but with her out of range targeted the Slave Warriors.  The first volley missed entirely, but the next, with some Spirit Guidance, put them into the red.  The Slaves blew their rout check and became Disrupted.

On the right, Dark Elf heavies plod forward.

To the immediately right of my Bowmasters are some Brownies playing "Close Escort," ready to sacrifice themselves to buy me one more round of shooting if Dark Elves broke through.






Harvesting the Chumps

Left to right...

Spearmen kill Slave Warriors, but other Slaves are in backup position.  The initial slave Warriors fought incredibly well (I think Ron rolled 3 1s at one point), and put my Spearmen into the yellow on the turn they go down.  A blown rout check could've been somewhat painful, but my Spearmen Hold.

The Disrupted Slaves with two hit points were moved to protect other units's flanks (costing 2 CAs).  My Spearmen predictably finished them in one turn.  Halfblood Levies then charged in, but they took a nasty hit back, immediately blew 2 rout checks and disintegrated!

Standard Bearers took 2 damage from a volley of arrows (the nearest target, as the Lashmistress had been out of range), so I send in my Spearmen, confident of victory.

Brownies had moved forward to protect my Spearmen's flank, and got pinched by two Highblood units.  We didnt' even bother to roll!  The sad part, though, is that the Lashmistress wouldnt' have been able to pinch if the Brownies she'd lashed in hadn't blown their rout check the turn before.  

At least other Brownies are positioned to hit the Lashmistress, who had taken a couple of damage from arrows already, in the flank...

To the immediate left of the Bowmasters is a loose card we were using for measuring.  Please ignore it.  





Fear the Mighty Brownies!

Left to right...

Spearmen are predictably beating down the Slave Warriors.

The Spearmen who had one-shotted the Halfblood Levies now pinch the already very wounded Standard Bearers into oblivion.

Brownies get Spirit Guidance, and hit the Lashmistress in the flank.  They do 2 damage, and the Bowmasters do several more.  The Lashmistrss goes into the red and routs.  I play "Strike" on the free Brownie rear attack, and the Brownies finish her off!    Major hurt is headed their way, but they'll be bragging to the other Brownies tomorrow after regenerating in the forest.

Again, please ignore that stupid card to the left of my Bowmasters.



All She Wrote

A few turns later...

On the left, my Spearmen finish off the Slave Warriors.

In the center, my Spearmen give chase, but don't manage to get engaged again.

On the right, the Blade Dancers were just in range of the Brownies flank, but not their front.  They engaged with their flank and The Brownies exploded.

On his next turn,  Ron played "Seize the Moment," and the Highblood Blades joined the Blade Dancers to form the Overkill Squad which pinched more hapless Brownies!

Meanwhile the Dusk Lancers plow into my Spearmen.  My Spearmen blow their fear check, so even with a good red card I only do 2 damage.  They are put into the yellow and hold, but on the second turn of combat they totally whiff while they are overkilled on damage alone. yike!

However, all this Brownie-and-Elf slaughtering takes time....time for my Bowmasters to get to work on the Highblood Blades, who currently have 4 hit points left.

At this point Ron conceded.  There was nothing he could do to stop my Bowmasters from finishing off the Highblood Blades in at most 2 volleys (and at least an even shot of doing it in one), and as soon as the Highblood Blades went down the Dark Elf army would "Break."  

---------------------------

A fairly lopsided game.  My dice, particularly morale dice, were very good.   I was also clearly helped by the Dark Elf heavies being on the opposite corner of the map from my Bowmasters.  Similarly, it was a mistake for the Dark Elves not to extend their line on the left, which would have deterred at least one of my Spearmen from engaging.  As it was, I was able, with a bit of luck, to annihilate that flank and thereby be positioned to "Break" his army

Of course, Ravenwood Stand-and-Shoot is a nasty, nasty thing for Dark Elves to have to deal with.  Most Dark Elf units, especially the Highbloods, are very tilted to the offense, meaning they have relatively poor defenses for their cost.  (Defensively, the 313-point Lashmistress has a total of 1 more red box and 1 higher morale than the 207-Point Ravenwood Swordsmen.)  And this game illustrated pretty well what happens if the Dark Elves simply send a bunch of expensive but fragile infantry units plodding toward the Ravenwood line.

See many of you next week!

[gornhorror]

Great report.  All hail Ravenwood.  Wouldn't it be awesome if brownies were core?  Ah, one can wish, can't he?  

[RushAss]

As usual, great report Kev!  While I didn't read a word of it, I'll spit out some horse hockey to make everyone think that I did.

This is an example of unit specialty.  I don't consider Bowmasters to be generally useful, but they are pure gold against other Elves.

Kudos to Ron for fielding a close and hose army, which is rather unconventional for Dark Elves.  I'd bet Drake Riders would have been a far better purchase than the Knights since it would have also allowed him extra points to add more chump units or even find a way to plug in a Slave Taker unit with some screwing around with the points.

Courage clearly favored Kevin and I will always say that he who has superior courage wins.  This was especially interesting because the Dark Elves have courage help in their command deck while Ravenwood does not!

While certainly within the rules, I find the entire thing with the Brownies on the right of the line facing towards the Ravenwod deployment zone to be silly.  I mean that was smartly played by Kevin, but I keep getting this visual:
Commanding officer - "Don't look"
Troops - "But Commander, the enemy approaches!"
Commanding officer - "Shut up!  Haven't you ever seen the ending to Raiders of the Lost Ark?  Turn around and don't look I say!"

The Dark Elves certainly mucked up their right flank.  I wonder if Ron had something in mind over there and it just didn't work out the way he visualized it.  I've done that plenty of times myself.

While it didn't matter this game, Kevin's placement of that Brownie unit next to the Bowmasters is the kind of stuff that makes him really good at this game.  It's little things like this that players should really pay attention to so that they may improve their game.

[Kevin]

While I didn't read a word of it, I'll spit out some horse hockey to make everyone think that I did.

LOL!     I would expect nothing less.

While certainly within the rules, I find the entire thing with the Brownies on the right of the line facing towards the Ravenwod deployment zone to be silly.  I mean that was smartly played by Kevin, but I keep getting this visual:
Commanding officer - "Don't look"
Troops - "But Commander, the enemy approaches!"
Commanding officer - "Shut up!  Haven't you ever seen the ending to Raiders of the Lost Ark?  Turn around and don't look I say!"

Heh.  Actually, there's historical precedent for this.  (I'm not making this up I swear!)  During the 1700s & 1800s (possibly earlier), the Zulu King (today's South Africa) would keep the men in his reserve units facing backward during a battle until the moment he'd order then into the fray, at which point they'd turn around and charge.  Fighting with spears is really ugly stuff (especially when you aren't winning), and apparently troops in reserve who faced forward would see what was going on in front and get all demoralized.

Thx for all the other comments!  

[gull2112]

This game shows quite well the advantage of minding your matchups. Since I didn't actually witness the deployment phase I won't be critical of the setup, but the end result was that Ravenwood had everyone where they needed to be. As always, the vicissitudes of the dice can un-man (un-elf?) anyone, and clearly the end result of a trouncing was due in a large part to the dice, but this games gives the appearance of having been a forgone conclusion.

And Ron is an excellent player. Why, he even gave me a royal drubbing at Total-Con last year. Kudos to him for trying a different style of DE build.

[gull2112]

BTW- I can't find the disrupted rules, where are they? I understand how a unit becomes disrupted, but am not clear on what the effect of disrupted is, and how a unit can become undisrupted.

[Kevin]

You can see the Disrupted Rules on the google doc with the unofficial Championship Tournament Rules.

Disrupted is a standing order, so any order change makes a unit undisrupted.  Note, however, that it costs an extra CA to change the order.  Being Disrupted is basically a nerfed version of being on Hold.

As noted in the report, my Bowmasters were deployed last--after Ron had committed most of his heavies to one side.  Keeping the opponent guessing is a good part of deployment.  (Seth similarly kept me guessing during our game at Council.)

And yes, Ron is generally a very dangerous opponent!

[Kevin]

his game shows quite well the advantage of minding your matchups. Since I didn't actually witness the deployment phase I won't be critical of the setup, but the end result was that Ravenwood had everyone where they needed to be.

A bit more about deployment.  My first deployments were the brownies two-deep in the middle of the map, then Spearmen in each corner.  So 4 or 5 deployments in Ron had no idea where my strength would be.  A couple of deployments later, and it was clear that I had spearmen on one side and Brownies on the other, but Ron was still thinking I might have a close-and-hose army, saving a Centaur or two for the end.  So he went with chumps opposite my Spearmen, figuring he'd outweigh me on the other side of the line, and his face fell when I laid down the Bowmasters at the very end.

I think his last deployment was the Dusk Lancers, but at that point is was too late:  had he put them on the left my Bowmasters could've shot them to pieces before they got close, while the other side of his line would be outnumbered.

[RushAss]

Heh.  Actually, there's historical precedent for this.  (I'm not making this up I swear!)  During the 1700s & 1800s (possibly earlier), the Zulu King (today's South Africa) would keep the men in his reserve units facing backward during a battle until the moment he'd order then into the fray, at which point they'd turn around and charge.  Fighting with spears is really ugly stuff (especially when you aren't winning), and apparently troops in reserve who faced forward would see what was going on in front and get all demoralized.

Interesting, I did not know this.  You know what they say about learning something new every day...

On deployment - there is such a mind game going on between both players and it's a wonder that nobody has started a thread about it yet.  A typical opening deployment is just to plop a solid line unit like Dwarven Axemen dead-center and say "there, deal with that!".

[gull2112]

You are right Rushass. There is a whole sub game around the deployment phase. I think it would be very interesting in the future if the session reports focus a little bit more on the set up and the thinking that went into the process of who got placed where when. I know that's tough because you'd really want to rcord each though for each placement. Its something that is really hard to remember after the game. Why don't you go ahead and do it first and shame all the others into following your suit.

[RushAss]

It is super tough to get into any kind of detail when we are playing big games because there are usually 3-5 players involved instead of the traditional 2 and a heck of a lot more units.  Even so, I usually just give myself average marks when it comes to deployment.  I've had some brilliant deployments and I've had some miserable ones.

[gull2112]

I always seem to realize after deployment, but before the end of the first turn, what I SHOULD have done. Argh, its frustrating. No one needs to read my comments on setting up as it will not add to their knowledge of the game at all, but I wouild be definitely most interested to hear what goes on in other folks' mind when deploying.