2500 pts High Elves vs. Skaven

This battle actually occurred a week ago.  I  am sometimes a little lax on the blog update thing.  I'll do my best to remember what exactly happened.

 This was only my second time playing Skaven.  Our local Skaven player doesn't play often and doesn't run any of the filth, so this was going to be a learning experience.  I was warned ahead of time that Ken was bringing a hard list and I warned him that I wanted to try out my dragon for the first time.  I knew that taking a dragon would not be an ideal choice due to the inevitable warp lightning cannon, but I really wanted to put that bad boy to work.

Lists:

Skaven:
Warlord on Bone Breaker, Warlock enhanced weapon, Talisman of Preservation
Greyseer, Warpstone Tokens, Power Stones
Plague Furnace, Plague Priest, Dispell Scroll
28 Plague Monks, Full Command, Plague Banner
Chieftan x2
30 Stormvermin, Full Command
50 Clan Rats, Full Command
25 Clan Rats, Full Command
40 Slaves, Musician
4 Rat Ogres
Warp Lightining Cannon
Hell Pit Abomination
Doomwheel

High Elves:
Prince, Moon Dragon, Enchanted Shield, Vambraces of Defence, Crown of Command
Noble, BSB, Banner of the World Dragon
Mage, Level 2, Sigil of Asuryan, Lore of Death
Mage, Level 2, Silver Wand, Opel Amulet, Ironcurse Icon
20 Archers, Musician
20 Archers, Musician
21 Spearmen, Musician, Banner
21 Spearmen, Musician, Banner
Great Eagle x2
21 Swordmasters of Hoeth, Musician, Banner, Banner of Sorcery
5 Dragon Princes, Musician, Banner
Bolt Thrower

Ken deployed in a pretty spread out manner, which suited me just fine.  Also, he placed the furnace on the far flank.  If he had placed it centrally, I would have had a world of trouble dealing with it.

I deployed centrally and tried to keep my force fairly tightly together.  I have found in the past that I spread out too much and even with the great movement of the elves, I leave a few units hanging in the wind.  Also, we have mostly been playing 1500 point games at the club due to time constraints and it was difficult placing so many units and not blocking myself in. 

Ken got first turn and promptly cast Warp Storm, I think it's called.  It is the spell that grounds flyers and gives a -1 to shooting.  This threw a spanner in the works for me.  I found that I had two eagles that were deployed in front of other units that could only move 2".  This created a terrible bottleneck and left me basically sitting around for a turn.  The dragon was pooched as well, because he couldn't get out from behind the troops in front of him. I really wanted to get him into the A-bomb.  Ken shot at the Swordmasters and pulled a rank off of them.


My turn one was uneventful.  My magic was either ineffective or dispelled and my shooting did nothing to speak of.

Turn two saw my Swordmasters get into the unit of slaves and wreck them.  The slaves did nothing back and even with steadfast blew up in my face, luckily not doing too much damage to the squishy elves.  The A-bomb got within a couple of inches of a unit of spearmen, so I charged it to save the impact hits.  The dirty little elves actually did a wound on the ugly beastie and the A-bomb squished a fair few elves, but they were left with a couple of ranks so were steadfast and held.  The dragon got in behind the A-bomb for a charge next turn.

Lucky for me, Ken's magic didn't do much this turn and he used the cannon to shoot at my bolt thrower instead of the dragon.  In retrospect, I'm sure he would do that differently if he could do it over.  In my magic phase I got spirit leach off on the chieftan in the unit of Stormvermin and killed him dead.   Shooting again did nothing.

Turn three saw the Dreaded 13 spell make an appearance.  Ken cast the spell on my unit of arches that my fire mage and fled to.  The spell went off irresistibly and turned the whole batch into Clan Rats.  I was very "disappointed" at this point.  Ken also got the doomwheel into the flank of the dragon before he could charge the A-bomb.  His cannon again targeted the bolt thrower and did nothing.

The Swordmasters charged the Stormvermin and after seeing the beat down on the slaves, Ken chose to flee, while I restrained.  The doomwheel did a wound to both the rider and dragon, but misfired and couldn't get a good lick on the unit.  The elf did nothing to the wheel, but the dragon smashed it flat.  Amazingly, the spearmen held out for another turn and did another two wounds!  They also had a rank left so were still steadfast and held even after the beating they were taking.  In the magic phase, Spirit Leech took out the Plague Priest on the furnace.

Turn four saw the A-bomb finally finish off the pesky spearmen and turn to face the dragon.  The Rat Ogres charged the remaining unit of spearmen.  Their hero challenged the mage and she wisely went to the back where she wouldn't be dead.  The spearmen put the hurt on the Rat Ogres and made them run away.  The Stormvermin just kept running.  The clan rats only managed to take a wound off of the eagle and it stuck around.

Magic for me did nothing this turn as Spirit Leech was dispelled and I didn't feel like blowing my last mage up, so didn't force the issue.  The died, but had eagle held up the big unit of Clan Rats so the Swordmasters could get the charge in.  The Swordmasters took a big chunk out of the Clan Rats with minimal losses in return.  The Clan Rats were steadfast, however.  The dragon finished off the job the spearmen had started and killed the A-bomb after taking another two wounds.  Shooting again does nothing.

Turn five saw the Stormvermin run off the table without ever seeing combat.  The Clan rats took another sh*t kicking from the Swordmasters, and after a good leadership roll and subsequent reform,  were still steadfast, but not by much.  During the magic phase, the Dreaded 13th struck again.  Ken rolled a mitt full of dice including those gained from a warp stone.  He rolled five sixes!  My unit of spearmen were devastated, but not removed.  My caster survived to fight on.  Ken rolled poorly for his miscast and ended up smashing most of the rest of the Clan Rat hoard and a bunch of the Greyseer's unit.  The Greyseer rolled over 3 and lived to fight on as well.  The Rat Ogres rallied and turned to face the Dragon Princes that had been shadow boxing with the furnace all game.

In my turn, the Dragon Princes charged the Rat Ogre unit and did well, but alas, I couldn't pass an armour save to spar my life and lost three models.  The Swordmasters cleared out the remaining Clan Rats from the hoard, and the dragon charged the Greyseer's unit.  However, the furnace was trundling toward that combat.  The mage and her few spearmen swift reformed to face the furnace.  I cast five dice at Purple Sun and got it off irresistibly.  The sun went through the furnace and a bunch of the Plague Monks.  We were unsure how to handle the furnace's test for the Purple Sun.  After consulting the rules, we decided to use the stats of the crew.  If we did this wrong, I'd love to hear how it should be done for next time.  Anyway, the furnace went poof and so did a chunk of the monks.

We called the game after the end of turn five due to lateness and that fact that it was mostly a cleanup operation after that.  This was a very fun game with the momentum swinging widely several times throughout the game (as often happens in 8th).  I know Ken and I made lots of tactical errors, but that's all part of the learning curve.