2500pts Tomb Kings vs Vampire Counts

[tarrym]

Overview
Scenario: Battleline
Date Played: 20th March 2012

We actually played this game around a month ago now, and I had almost given up on writing a report for the game. But I'm not the sort of person who likes to leave things unfinished!

Having said that, both myself and my opponent have agreed since that this was a bit of a non-event of a game thanks to some unfortunate luck early on - and I'm sure any veteran undead player will be groaning and moving their mouse/fingers towards the "close window/tab" buttons already However for anyone who is interested here is the report...

Tomb Kings

Lord

[TK] Tomb King, Destroyer of Eternities, Enchanted Shield, Dragonbane Gem, Potion of Speed (265pts)
[LHP] Liche High Priest, Heirophant, Level 4, Talisman of Preservation, Channelling Staff (270pts)

Hero

[LP] Liche Priest, Level 2, Dispel Scroll (130pts)

Core

[SW1] 50 Skeleton Warriors, Spears, Light Armour, Master of Arms, Standard Bearer, Musician (330pts)
[SW1] 50 Skeleton Warriors, Light Armour, Master of Arms, Standard Bearer, Musician (280pts)
[SA1] 19 Skeleton Archers, Standard Bearer, Musician (134pts)
[SA2] 10 Skeleton Archers, Standard Bearer, Musician (80pts)
[SA3] 10 Skeleton Archers, Standard Bearer, Musician (80pts)

Special

[NK] 3 Necropolis Knights Musician (205pts)
[K] Khemrian Warsphinx, Fiery Roar (230pts)

Rare

[NC] Necrolith Colossus, Additional Hand Weapon (175pts)
[SSC1] Screaming Skull Catapult (90pts)
[SSC2] Screaming Skull Catapult (90pts)
[CoS] Casket of Souls (135pts)

Total: 2494pts

Note: I haven't got the exact list to hand, and I suspect the above isn't 100% accurate as I'm sure I would have spent those last 6pts on another Skeletal Archer - which would obviously have made all the difference! But this is close enough.

Vampire Counts

Lord

[VL] Vampire Lord, Level 1, Barded Nightmare, Shield, Lance, Armour of Destiny, Luckstone, Red Fury, Quickblood (387pts)
[MN] Master Necromancer, Level 4, Master of the Dead, Sceptre of Stability (235pts)

Hero

[N] Necromancer, Level 2, Dispel Scroll (125pts)

Core

[CG] 40 Crypt Ghouls, (400pts)
[S] 25 Skeletons, Champion, Standard Bearer, Musician (155pts)
[Z] 23 Zombies, Standard Bearer (74pts)
[DW] 5 Dire Wolves (40pts)

Special

[BK] 14 Black Knights, Barding, Lances, Champion, Standard Bearer, Musician, Banner of the Barrows (444pts)
[FB1] 2 Fell Bats (32pts)
[FB2] 2 Fell Bats (32pts)
[SH1] Spirit Host (45pts)
[SH2] Spirit Host (45pts)
[Vt] 3 Vargheists (138pts)
[CC] Corpse Cart, Unholy Loadstone, Spear (121pts)

Rare

[T] Terrorgheist (225pts)

Total: 2498pts

[tarrym]

Deployment


Terrain was set up randomly as usual. It was just by chance that one end of the board featured 2 forests, and the other 2 buildings and a set of obstacles. The centre of the board featured 2 hills, one in each deployment zone, and a magical circle - which grants MR(2) and never actually came into the equation apart from influencing charge lanes. Once the game was under way we agreed to play the magic circle as impassible in the centre (the liquid bit) and open ground around the edges.

The Tomb Kings won the roll to chose sides and opted to take the southern edge - although looking back at it there really wasn't much in it either way. The Tomb Kings put their two large Skeleton Warrior blocks on either side of the hill, each supported by either the Necrolith Colossus or the Khemrian Warsphinx. The larger of the three Skeletal Archer blocks took up position at the foot of the hill and were joined by the Liche High Priest with the two Screaming Skull Catapults behind them.


On the far left the Necropolis Knights guarded the Casket of Souls, with one of the smaller units of Skeletal Archers taking up position behind the forest to pick away at any flying units the Vampire Counts might send down that flank.


The Vampire Counts set up their infantry off-centre to focus their efforts against one flank of the Tomb Kings forces - but of course this wasn't revealed early enough thanks to the large number of chaff units on the board. The Vampire Counts infantry set up a solid line near the buildings and were joined by both Master Necromancer and Necromancer, the Corpse Cart and both Spirit Hosts.


On the far right flank came the Vampire Lord accompanied by his retinue of Black Knights and a Terrorgheist.


And on the far left the Varghiests set themselves up to try and dominate the flank while a unit of Fell Bats found themselves slightly exposed.


The Direwolves made use of their vanguard rule and moved up along the right flank.


The Tomb Kings won the roll for first turn, and took it - hoping to start picking off these chaff units ASAP before the rest of the Vampire Counts army became an immediate threat!

Spells:
Liche High Priest: Khsar's Incantation of the Desert Wind, Djaf's Incantation of Cursed Blades, Neru's Incantation of Protection, Ptra's Incantation of Righteous Smiting
Liche Priest: Khsar's Incantation of the Desert Wind, Usekhp's Incantation of Desiccation

Vampire Lord: Invocation of Nehek
Master Necromancer: Invocation of Nehek, Vanhels Dance Macabre, Gaze of Nagash, Curse of Year
Necromancer: Invocation of Nehek, Hellish Vigour

[tarrym]

Turn 1 - Tomb Kings


So take a good long look at that map...all those skulls/explosions over the Tomb Kings units! Here is how that happened...

This early on there wasn't much clever manoeuvring to be done so the Tomb Kings lines simply advanced. Everything moved up and prepared itself for the magic phase.


The only cunning move was from the Skeletal Archers on the far left flank who moved into the forest - which I think turned out to be an abyssal forest! - which put them exactly within the Varghiests maximum charge range so they would need to take a frenzy test, and if they did charge then of course they would need to take dangerous terrain tests.


So on to the magic phase. The Liche High Priest started things off by rolling 3D6 to cast Ptra's Incantation of Righteous Smiting on his Skeletal Archer unit. He got two 6's - . He then rolled 3 on the miscast chart - . Of course he then rolls a 3 and vanishes into the warp - . The resulting crumbling tests saw several wounds dished out around the army - even the Tomb Kings Ld10 bubble didn't save the units within range! Thankfully the only unit which crumbled into nothing was one of the Screaming Skull Catapults.


Following that minor catastrophe, the Vampire Counts had more than enough dice to stop the remaining Liche Priest from doing anything at all. The magic phase was over.

Then on to the shooting phase - at least the Skeletal Archers have double shots right! Well out of their 32 shots they managed to inflict 6 wounds on the Skeleton Warriors facing them. But the Vampire Counts player rolled three 5's and three 6's for their armour saves! These TK themed dice aren't helping the TK much


To round the turn off. The remaining Screaming Skull Catapult aims for the Terrorgheist but the shot drifts off as far as it possibly could and hits the edge of the board.


So that's how not to win a game with the Tomb Kings

[tarrym]

Turn 1 - Vampire Counts


The Vampire Counts centre advanced slowly - as it was out of range of the Vampire Lord towards the crumbling Tomb Kings lines. The two units of Fell Bats repositioned themselves ready to redirect units in future turns.


The Terrorgheist couldn't find a position within it's 20" fly distance which left it safe from being charged by the Necrolith Colossus and/or the Skeleton Warriors. So it held back and allowed the Black Knights to move closer for the kill.


Meanwhile on both flanks the Direwolves and Varghiests respectively moved up as fast as they could.


In the magic phase the Tomb Kings somehow managed to stop everything except a single Invocation of Nehek from the level 2 Necromancer. 11 more Zombies joined the battle.


With no shooting - that was in range - and no combat it was time to hand things back over to the Tomb Kings.

[tarrym]

Turn 2 - Tomb Kings


This time the Tomb Kings got off lightly from crumbling. The only significant loss was two wounds on the Khemrian Warsphinx.


The Tomb Kings continued to try and prepare their lines to take on the Black Knights on the flank.


Meanwhile the Khemrian Warsphinx and the Skeleton Warriors nearer the centre did their best to get into position to hold up the Vampire Counts centre.


The Necropolis Knights and Skeletal Archers on the far left flank tried to set a trap for the Varghiests. Necropolis Knights can fairly easily take, and eventually win against, a unit of 3 Vargheists so the Vampire Counts were obviously hoping to hit the Skeleton Archers first.


The Liche Priest kicked off the Tomb Kings magic phase by attempting Khsar's Incantation of the Desert Wind. It was cast, but once again with those dreaded double 6's! All units nearby were healed back up to full strength - except for the Khemrian Warsphinx which could only have 1 wound healed thanks to the construct rule.


The Skeleton Warriors and Necropolis Knights moved again to make sure they were ready to fulfill their roles. The Skeleton Warriors were there to hold up the Crypt Ghouls, while the Necropolis Knights were there to remove the Vargheists - although they were sacrificing a unit of Skeleton Archers to do it.


The miscast wasn't quite as bad as last turn, and the Liche Priest only took a wound from the backlash.


In the shooting phase, the Skeletal Archers on the left flank managed to put 2 wounds on the rapidly approaching Vargheists.


And on the other flank the Skeletal Archers in the building took down a Direwolf.

The central unit of Skeleton Archers managed to take down roughly 4 Skeleton Warriors with bow fire - this time their armour save rolls were more average!

And lastly the Screaming Skull Catapult managed a direct hit on the Terrorgheist. There was a moment of clenched buttocks when the roll to-wound came up with a 2, but then it scored 6 wounds in total and the Terrorgheist was removed from the board before it could do any harm.

[tarrym]

Turn 2 - Vampire Counts


And so the undead charged!

The Vargheists started the movement phase by charging the Skeletal Archers. As they flew into a forest they had to take dangerous terrain tests and lost one wound - which meant losing a model as the Skeletal Archers had already put 2 wounds on the unit in the last turn.


The Spirit Hosts both attempted to charge the Khemrian Warsphinx to hold it up for the rest of the game. But only 1 made it.


And on the right flank the Black Knights charged the Necrolith Colossus who had just positioned himself too far forwards to be safe - doh!


The rest of the Vampire Counts units continued to shuffle forwards and reposition themselves.


The Direwolves on the far right continued their move around the building - not being within 12" of the Vampire Lord meant their progress was a little slower this time.

In the magic phase lots of spells were attempted, but most were dispelled - which wasn't bad considering the Tomb Kings had lost their level 4. The one spell which did go through though was Vanhel's Dance Macabre (12" bubble version) which saw the Vampire Counts centre optimise their positions ready for their next turn.


The combat phase started with a frustrating result of the Vargheists. They managed to kill around 5 Skeleton Archers, but the survivors inflicted 2 wounds back. Which meant at the end, a single Skeleton Archer was left standing after crumbling - which is all the Necropolis Knights needed.


As expected, the Spirit Hosts failed to do anything to the Khemrian Warsphinx. But of course as it doesn't have magical attacks there was nothing it could do in return!


On the right, the Vampire Lord made short work of the Necrolith Colossus. The Black Knights overran and hit the Skeleton Warriors but didn't have enough room to fully maximise this time.

[tarrym]

Turn 3 - Tomb Kings


So on the left flank the Necropolis Knights charged the rear of the Vargheists.


The Skeletal Warriors charged one of the units of Fell Bats - and it was at this point that the Vampire Counts player realised he had made a mistake with the positioning of the second unit as it wouldn't give him a flank charge with his Ghouls as he had hoped.


With the rest of the Tomb Kings army either already engaged, or not really wanting to move it was straight into the magic phase.

Note: there is a discrepancy in the photo's here which I can't quite explain. Basically the lone Skeleton Archer in combat with the Vargheists and the Liche Priest are both shown as being removed from the board somewhere between movement and shooting! I can imagine that I possibly forgot to roll for crumbling and we did it now - which accounts for the Skeleton Archer, and possibly the Liche Priest died to another miscast. But basically I can't say for sure so my apologies!

The Casket of Souls finally went off and killed the unengaged unit of Fell Bats, but failed to jump to any other units.


In the shooting phase the Screaming Skull Catapult switched to trying to take out the Corpse Cart, but it only managed a single wound. The Skeletal Archers in the centre added their firepower, now that the Corpse Cart's regeneration save was temporarily removed thanks to the flaming attacks from the Screaming Skull Catapult, and inflicted another wound.


And the Skeleton Archers in the tower killed another 3 Direwolves as they tried to sneak around the rear of the Tomb Kings lines.


In combat the Necropolis Knights easily finished off the Vargheists for no wounds in return.


The Skeleton Warriors easily removed the Fell Bats and opted not to overrun - as doing so would expose their flank to the Crypt Ghouls.


And the other unit of Skeleton Warriors, aided by their Tomb King managed a stunning 3 kills against the Black Knights, but suffered a lot worse at the hands of the Vampire Lord and lost their combat. The Black Knights opted to combat reform to being more of their number into contact with the Tomb Kings Skeleton Warriors.

[tarrym]

Turn 3 - Vampire Counts


The lone surviving Direwolf opted for a cheeky charge on the Screaming Skull Catapult to try and do some damage.


Meanwhile the Crypt Ghouls went for a charge on the Skeleton Warriors - bus vs bus!


Not seeing any real advantage in charging anything else into one of the existing combats on the board. The remainder of the Vampire Counts forces continued to push forwards down the centre, hoping to either take out the Skeleton Archers near the hill or to set up flank charges in later turns.


In the magic phase Vanhel's Dance Macabre once again went through - the Vampire Counts pretty much had free reign over the magic phase at this point.


The Master Necromancer also managed to cast Invocation of Nehek and rolled pretty well for both the Zombie and Skeleton Warrior units. The dice in this picture show the number of models added to each unit - we didn't even both getting the models out as I think we both knew at this point where the game was headed.


In combat, the Tomb Kings scored a moral victory when the Direwolf failed to even hit with it's attack and the crew of the Screaming Skull Catapult smashed it over the head with a spare skull!


The Skeleton Warriors didn't fair very well against the Crypt Ghouls - they were just plan out-matched.


Saving the Black Knights vs Skeleton Warriors combat until last, it was the Spirit Host's turn next. But again it failed to inflict any wounds on the Khemrian Warsphinx.


And then this happened...


The Vampire Lord went ape, as did his Black Knight retinue. The Tomb King was felled to a killing blow attack and the remaining Skeleton Warriors just fell apart like matchsticks!

Need I say more

Game over - victory to the Vampire Counts

[tarrym]

Post Battle Thoughts

Tomb Kings
So this was my first game in a while where I didn't take the earthing rod on my heirophant. But, although it REALLY stings when you're heirophant dies to a miscast, with hindsight I still don't think the earthing rod is really worth it. Your heirophant has to miscast, and then roll a 1-3 result (1/6 chance) on the miscast chart before you'd use the rod - any other miscast result and you'd be silly to risk re-rolling and getting a 1-3. So you're spending points on an item which you may use once every 6 or-so games.

To be honest when my Liche High Priest died on turn 1, I considered stopping there. But we'd gone to the trouble of setting aside time for a game and setting everything up so it seemed a shame to waste the opportunity. And to be honest TK crumbling really isn't that bad, so it was no worse than losing my Grey Seer early on if I was playing with my Skaven.

Anyway, other things did happen during the game so no point focusing on that one event! I was quite pleased with some of the other units. The Necropolis Knights have proved they are really useful at taking on flanking units. Although they are a little slow at getting back into the rest of the fight afterwards. The Screaming Skull did well against the Terrorgheist, and with 2 on the board they have some real potential to take out enemy supporting/ethereal units.

Sadly I'm not so impressed with Skeleton Warriors. I have read online that they are pants. But as I've mentioned in previous battle reports, I like to build up first hand experience with units rather than relying on 3rd party experience. I figured that 2 big blocks of Skeleton Warriors would give me some advantage in numbers which, when combined with the Necrolith Colossus/Khemrian Warsphinx, would be useful in protracted fights. Unfortunately my opponent knows how to "nullify" the threat of my big constructs

So this list is going in the bin. Back to the drawing board to try something else - which hopefully combines the lessons learned from my games so far!

Vampire Counts
After the first turn, it was always going to be difficult for tarrym to come back and win, and to be honest his luck didn't get much better after that.

I was trying out a few new options in this game. Firstly the two single Spirit Host bases, as expected these were very useful both as an extra deployment drop and also to hold up enemy units with minimal static combat res like the Khemrian Warsphinx. The second unit I tried out was the large unit of Black Knights led by a Vampire Lord. The thinking here was to have a fast flanking force of Black Knights, Vampire Lord, Terrorgheist and Vargheists which could all benefit from marching in the generals march bubble. Meanwhile the rest of the units would slowly move up, supported by magic if possible.

I think I made a couple of mistakes during the game. Firstly during deployment I changed my mind and split my flanking force, deploying a unit of Vargheists on the opposite flank to everything else as they can still march outside the generals bubble. This led to a test to restrain from frenzy with only Ld 7 on my turn one which if failed would have ruined their game. I think in hindsight I should have stuck to my original plan and kept them near my general.

My second mistake was when I attempted to lay a trap for the Skeleton Warriors using my two units of Fell Bats. This was probably unnecessary, as the Crypt Ghouls could easily outclass the Skeleton Warriors in a straight up fight anyway and so didn't need to try and engineer a flank charge. And of course I then messed up by moving my Fell Bats again in the magic phase, forgetting their original purpose. I think my lesson here is to not try to be too clever.

Other than that, I was reasonably happy with the way things went, but I'd definitely like a rematch where tarrym's heirophant doesn't die in the first turn.

[datalink7]

Great report, with great visuals along with it. Thanks for taking the time to put all this together.

The game was almost lost from turn 1 for the Tomb Kings. If you lose your level 4 on turn 4 or 5 it isn't as bad, but on the first go around that is a blow that is hard to come back from. Not only do you lose from crumbling, but you lose your offensive magic and defensive abilities.

[Methios]

Why no tombguard? >.>

[TsukeFox]

Why no lore of Light?

[TsukeFox]

No earthing rod???

[tarrym]

Why no tombguard? >.>

I've pretty much played every other game so far with the TK with a unit of Tomb Guard. Now I'm not really one for sticking with a list for long periods of time, and I'm still relatively new to the latest TK book so I wanted to try out some other units for a change.

Why no lore of Light?

This is something that crops up more in the next battle I played (report on it's way). Although, in fairness, if you read the post battle thoughts from the Vampire Counts player you'd see that this was the first time he brought along those Spirit Hosts - assuming it's the signature magic missile that you're actually referring to as basing tactics around any other spells from the lore when I only have a level 2 to chose that lore is a little too unreliable for me . One of the main purposes behind the level 2 in the lists so far has been to maximise my chances of getting all the augments from the lore of nehekhara. And up to now it's worked quite well.

No earthing rod???

Try reading the battle report



So those are my reasons for not taking these things in this particular list...it would be interesting to hear the reasons for taking them from Methios and TsukeFox. I'm not saying they are silly suggestions - I have used all of them at different points in my games so far - just that it would be good for me (and possibly others who might be reading this) to get some real understanding of why you've suggested these particular units/items/lores.

Thanks

[TsukeFox]

Well sir- unlike skaven who can function without the seer due to excellent shooting and crazy monsters- TK seem to need their lvl4 to augments to regrow troops as they die soo easily. Well worth protecting against the freak chance of explosion- if it does not happen good, if it does...
Actually I find the 4+ ward useless since if one is smart with the Hierophants unit, it should never see combat- a one time use ward save at most.

As for Lore of Light- the entire lore (phas for a 2nd ward save, increased WS & Int, the net, ect) is golden for TK+ a Hierotitan, the spells are really cheap for a lvl2 or even a lvl1 to Cast.

[tarrym]

Well worth protecting against the freak chance of explosion- if it does not happen good, if it does...
Actually I find the 4+ ward useless since if one is smart with the Hierophants unit, it should never see combat- a one time use ward save at most.

I agree, combat is not something to worry about for your heirophant. However this isn't the reason behind taking the ward save. Miscasts will come up in most games we play (not necessarily on the heirophant, but even someone else miscasting can put a wound on the heirophant) and this is where the ward save is most useful. I don't want to play a game where by turn 4 I'm cautious about using my lvl 4 just because he only has 1 wound left. And given a choice between a 4+ ward save against most of the miscast results, or a chance to re-roll one of the less likely results (which in itself has an in-built 4+ ward as it's only on a 1-3 that the caster is removed from play) I'd prefer the 4+ ward

And that is not to mention that my regular players are VC and Orcs & Goblins, so that's lore of death and lore of the little/big waaagh which both have access to spells which can snipe at the heirophant.

Don't get me wrong, I can see the point your making about the earthing rod. I just think that from my experience so far the ward save is useful more often.