Fury of the Forest

What with Runefang just around the corner (next weekend) i decided that today i would get in few practice games with the Wood Elves. My opponent for these practice games would be Jayden from the Imperial Patrol blog. For one game he would use his Empire and for the second game we would swap armies for variety. He took:

A Empire General with Full Plate, Shield and Runefang

A Level 4 Heavns Wizard

A Master Engineer

A Level 2 Light Wizard

20 Halberds

60 Crossbows (in units of 10)

24 Reiksguard Knights

3 Cannons

1 Helblaster

I was using my Runefang List, which is more wood than elf, and is reprinted below:

Highborn (2#, 335 pts)
   1 Wood Elf Highborn, 335 pts (General; Wild Rider Kindred; Hand Weapon; Longbow; Spear; Volley Fire)
      1 Great Stag (Stomp)
      1 Glittering Scales
      1 Stone of the Crystal Mere
      1 Crown of Command

Spellweaver (1#, 265 pts)
   1 Spellweaver, 265 pts (Level 4 Upgrade; Hand Weapon; Longbow; Volley Fire)
      1 Channeling Staff
      1 The Lore of Life

Noble (1#, 140 pts)
   1 Wood Elf Noble (Battle Standard Bearer), 140 pts (Hand Weapon; Battle Standard Bearer)
      1 Gambler's Armour
      1 Hail of Doom Arrow

Glade Guard (22#, 292 pts)
   22 Glade Guard, 292 pts (Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Longbow; Volley Fire)
      1 Banner of Eternal Flame

Dryads (15#, 192 pts)
   14 Dryads, 192 pts (Causes Fear; Skirmishers)
      1 Branch Nymph

Dryads (15#, 192 pts)
   14 Dryads, 192 pts (Causes Fear; Skirmishers)
      1 Branch Nymph

Tree Kin (6#, 410 pts)
   5 Tree Kin, 410 pts (Causes Fear; Flammable; Scaly Skin; Stomp)
      1 Tree Kin Elder (Stomp)

Treeman (1#, 285 pts)
   1 Treeman, 285 pts (Causes Terror; Flammable; Large Target; Scaly Skin; Stubborn; Thunder Stomp)

Treeman (1#, 285 pts)
   1 Treeman, 285 pts (Causes Terror; Flammable; Large Target; Scaly Skin; Stubborn; Thunder Stomp)



Deployment was thus:

Empire Deployment

Wood Elf Deployment, hey look! They are all painted

I got turn 1 (because i play Wood Elves) and started the game by shoving all units forward at least 5 inches. In the magic phase i cast Throne of Vines and Earth Blood on the Glade Guard unit (turns out that was a mistake). Shooting wise i managed to knock out a unit of Crossbows with the HODA(!!) and Glade Guard fire.

The Trees Advance

It turns out that the Dryads needed it more

The Empire turn opened with cautious maneuvering. No charges were declared but the large knight unit on the flank shuffled forward. It was the shooting and magic phases that wrought the most damage on my lines. A Treeman, 4 Glade Guard and Nine Dryads lied dead in the dirt after the smoke and magefire cleared, this would not be easy. There were no photos of empire turn 1.

Wood Elf Turn 2 opened with a failed Dryad charge and my attempt to be sneaky movement wise. I shoved the Treekin forward and moved the second Dryad unit forward towards the knights with the Treeman lurking on the flank, in hindsight i have no idea what i planned to do with the Treeman (he was facing  straight forward and i moved a forest in front of him), but it all paid off later....... In the magic phase i did throw Earthblood on the weakened Dryads but that turned out to be useless as Mr Howel went on to dispel Throne of Vines and in the shooting phase i shot off the Helblaster. No combat yet, but that would change.

The Treekin, before the Empire shot them

The Dryads Stumble Closer

Empire turn 3 and CHARGES!!! But not good charges, in fact having 24 Reiksgaurd Charge 15 Dryads was very bad for the Dryads health.  Elsewhere the Empire line turned to aim their weapons at the advancing Wood Elf lines. In the magic phase some Treekin were fried by Lightning but it was the shooting phase where he damage was dealt. 3 cannons open up on the Treekin unit, this was bad news as the first in line for the cannon balls was the Highborn. One cannon missed, one cannon ball was caught one the stone of the Crystal Mere's ward save and the 3rd reduced the Highborn to 1 wound and reduced the Treekin to 3 models.The Crossbows continued to hammer the Dryads and may have even done some damage to the Treekin (cant quite remember). The only combat of the turn was a foregone conclusion, and it ended up with the Knights looking right at the Glade Guards exposed flank.

This photo has been used before but it was important that i got a Before.......

.........And After photo

The Glade Guard, minus' 2 others

Wood Elf turn 4 saw battle joined! The Treekin charged a unit of Crossbows, the Lifeweaver departed his unit to face the knights down alone and the Dryads got another failed charge in at a cannon,the Treeman also turned to face the knights flank, with evil intent shinning from his eyes. In the magic phase the Lifeweaver hit the knights with Dwellers Below and killed 7, unfortunately they didn't run and so he was now facing down a Knight Charge, and the shooting phase was uninteresting. In the Combat phase the Treekin wiped out the Crossbows and turned to face the flank of another unit.

Well you can guess whats gonna happen here

"Ummm Boss? Why are there trees on our flank?"

The Dryads shuffle forward.......again

Empire turn 4 opened with a failed charge against the Lifeweaver (who ran away) and placed the knights in a very bad position, and the Halberdiers turned to face the oncoming Treekin. The rest of the Empire turn consisted of chipping away at the oncoming Wood Elves but it only killed a Dryad and a few Glade Guard.

This cant end well

Wood Elf turn 5 and this was the turn that i won the game in. It started off with my Treeman causing the Knights to flee in Terror at its charge and then run them down, it continued with the 3 remaining Dryads finally charging the center cannon and the Treekin flank charging the Crossbows. The magic phase didn't happen as the mage was running away and the shooting phase isn't worth mentioning. What is worth mentioning is the combat phase, it saw the Treekin wipe out the Crossbows and over ran into the Halberdiers and the Dryads wiped out the Cannon and over ran into the engineer.

Now you see em......

......Now you dont

The charge of the Treekin

The Dryads Revenge!!!

Turn 5 for the Empire was all about damage control. Movement and magic wise nothing happened. In the shooting phase the Glade Guard were finally wiped out but the BSB remained. In the combat phase the Highborn and Empire general clashed, with the Highborn somehow managing to survive which is impressive considering all the Empire general needed to do was hit him once. In return the Highborn knocked a wound off the general and the Treekin squashed the Halberdiers who ran and were ran down with the Treekin over running into a cannon, and the Dryads shredded the Engineer and turned to face the last unengaged cannon.

Wood Elf turn 6 was a mop up turn.Firstly i charged the Dryads into the last unengaged cannon then I ran the Lifeweaver (who at some point was reduced to a wound by a cannon ball) behind a forest and the ran the BSB away from the nasty men with crossbows and lumbered the Treeman towards some Crossbows.The Magic Phase and Shooting Phase were uneventful and in the combat phase the Treekin and Dryads both ate cannon stew, with the Dryads over running into the Hevans wizard and the Treekin bouncing off the Dryads.

The Revenge of the Trees!!

The Empire's 6th turn was short but productive, the Crossbows managed to kill off the BSB, and the Hevans wizard got murdered by Dryads. Now there was a turn 7 only because i wasnt keeping track of the turns so i guessed that what was in fact turn 7 was turn 6. In short the 3 Dyrads over ran into the Crossbows behind the wizard, and lost a Dryad but killed the Crossbows, and the Treekin/Man sandwiched another unit of Crossbows. The Dryads were finally killed by the final unit of Crossbows. In the end , even though my army was savaged i still had my most expensive units on the field (Highborn, Treekin/Man and Lifeweaver) and Jayden had 10 Crossbows so i won by about 1000 points, which would have been a 15-5 to me.

The second game was funny, it really was, I wont give a fully detailed Battle Report but i will bring up the the highlights. For contexts sake we decided to swap armies to make things more interesting, what interesting meant in this case was watching my entire left flank panic because Jayden threw Dwellers Below at my Knights, who passed the panic test after ten of their unit died. Unfortunately the Helblaster and a unit of Crossbows failed their tests and ran away.

The panic! Note this is before we figured out how warmachines treat failed panic tests

The Halberdiers are unimpressed

The rest of the game went poorly, with awful rolls on my part and excellent rolls on Jaydens part. They say a picture tells 1000 words so here are that games photos.

The Right Flank

The non cowardly part of the Left Flank

"Is that a Tree coming towards us?"

Surly our shooting will destroy them

Crossbow POV

My lines, before they got shredded

So the Wood Elves won that one too. Two games and two Wood Elf wins are good enough for me, and the first game had the additional benefit of showing me the list can be effective. So the next time you will see these guys in action will be at Runefang next weekend. Until next time.
Rex