1500 points Goblins vs. High Elves

This happened a week ago and I'm just writing about it now, so forgive the vagueness of the account.  It was also a horrific experience for the Elven side, so maybe I've blocked it out of my memory.

HE
Mage Level 2 - Seerstaff, High Magic
Noble - Armour of Caledor, Guardian Phoenix, BSB
15 Phoenix Guard, full command
5 Dragon Princes, banner, musician
27 Spearmen, full command
10 Archers
2 Bolt throwers

Goblins
Goblin hero - Giant Blade
2 Shamans
40+ Night Goblins, full command, 3 Fanatics
40+ Night Goblins, full command, 3 Fanatics
Arachnarok Spider, Goblins with bows on top
4 River Trolls

This was only the second time the I have ever played O&G and this is the first with so many goblins and the big spider.  My idea was to use Curse of Arrow Attraction and Flames of the Phoenix to whittle down the goblin units before I had to engage.  This would be a great plan if I had actually wounded anything with my shooting.

We rolled a meeting engagement for the scenario.  That sucked.

High(low)lights

James rolled 4 direct hits in a row with his fanatics, which meant he could send them continuously into my spearmen.  They also scattered into the spearmen a couple of time for good measure.  The saving grace was that they didn't do too many wounds each time.

James cast the giant template of death vortex spell and had failed to cast at first until he remembered the magic mushroom.  I couldn't get the double sixes on five dice to stop it.  I waved goodbye to a good chunk of my unit of spearmen.

Flames of the Phoenix took off 2/3 of a unit of goblins over 2 turns and the didn't run.  I beat them in combat once and they didn't run.

TSN turning point.  I forgot my plan at one point and let my Dragon Princes get charged by the reduced night goblin unit.  I did one wound with the princes.  The giant blade took out two princes and after failing several 2+ armour saves, the other three died all in the first turn of combat.  One of the saves was a reroll of a six due to a goblin spell.

Finally, my mage was high tailing it to the archers for some safety, when the spider crawled OVER the watchtower (you learn something new every day) and the four goblins on top after moving and at long range hit my mage twice and wounded on both to kill her.

The Aftermath
Well, I leaned that with some good rolling, Fanatics can really mess you up and hem you in.  I'm not sure what to do about that right now.  I think more experience is necessary.  Don't count on goblins running, even though they should.  These guys passed all of their psychology and combat resolution checks.

The biggest one was to make sure you get the cav in a charge.  I have been having trouble with that lately and I'm going to make sure I keep taking cav so I can work on making sure I get the charge. However, the trick I'm having trouble learning is getting them into a charge as support.  I find with elves, there is always lots of other units to either get in your way and prevent the charge you want or that want to get into your face first.  It's a skill I'm working on.

Oh, and roll less ones and twos.