Wolfriders 2: Electric Boogarooooooo!

Two quick things to update today. First off is that I finished my next 5 wolf riders today (the ones I whinged about converting HERE.

I do love these wolf models and wolf riders have always been a favourite of mine. Partially because of the rapid movement, but also because of fond memories and fevered imaginings of the battle of five armies from The Hobbit. 

The group shot was too blurry, but here are a few solo shots:

Here's the boss...

Here's the musician, complete with excessively large horn!

Wolf rider making with the stabby-stabby.

So, of course, the reason I was painting these all so frantically, was that I was playing Andrew B's undead horde tonight.

To say it was a game of two halves would be an understatement...

Waaagh Morthang

Horde's Eye View...

Initially, things were almost all going my way. Barring some very unlucky animosity rolls, it all went my way in the first 2 turns.

Turn 1

Morthang swept through the centre of Andrew's army, taking out the Hex Wraiths and the Undead Heavy Cav too. The Spider Riders not only broke the dire wolf unit, they swept into the black coach and (along with the goblin archers who were "suffering" under animosity) destroyed it to. The Spiders' poisoned attacks were very lucky, and Andrew's ward saves were very unlucky.

Meanwhile, though, my savage orc big uns and orc boyz were going nowhere fast, as they failed animosity test after animosity test.

Morthang ended up in combat, alongside the wolf riders, with a skelly warrior unit. It should have been a bloodbath, but the Wyvern rolled poorly, as did the wolf riders, and though beaten, the undead hung on.

At this point we made a wee rules mistake, and assumed Morthang (who was no longer in B2B) would be free from the combat, as he'd wiped out all the skellies he was in B2B with. In truth, he should have been moved into contact again. As it was, he was out on his own, and a combination of a Tomb Banshee's howl attack and a Cairn Wraith chill attack killed him. The Wyvern broke from combat and was killed. Gutted. I gave him the Trickster's Helm, but against those special undead attacks, it was totally useless. Bah. Lesson learned: against undead, you need a ward save!

From this point on, it was downhill for the greenskins. Andrew's general - Eichengard - is nuggets. Fencers blades, plus a ward, plus a couple of blood gifts, make him a combat wombat. There was just nothing my lesser characters could do against him. Morthang, on Wyvern, would have done alright, I think, but a Big Boss just ain't that big.

I plugged away, and my boyz did OK, but he was killing 5 to 8 boyz a turn. We stood no chance (though bigger units may help in the future...).

Penultimate Turn

In the end we were left in the odd situation where Eichengard and one skelly were in combat with my unit. Eichengard kept offering challenges then obliterating my characters. With hindsight, I probably would have been better refusing the challenge (unOrcy though!) and hoping some boys were left in B2B to hurt him. Also, again, bigger units may have managed to overcome his insane amount of damage.

What was odd, was that if there had been more skellies there, my savage orcs would have killed them, meaning they won the combat, meaning Eichengard took wounds and died. As it was though, they just stood around like plums, watching him slaughter character after character.

So a victory to the undead.

Lessons learned:

1 - ward save vs. the undead.
2 - don't play scenarios where you play lengthways, as animosity is a killer.
3 - I really need bigger units.

Good fun game though. At any point it could have gone differently: If Morthang hadn't been able to be reached by the Cairn Wraiths, he'd have survived at least one more turn, possibly longer. If my infantry hadn't failed all those animosity tests, they'd have been attacking Eichengard at the same time as the small boar boy unit (whose magic banner negated his magic items, though in truth it's the blood gifts that did most harm).

Equally, if Andrew's black coach and/or wolves had survived, or his cavalry...

Already looking forward to the next game (and hoping my ordered stuff arrives soon!).