As I mentioned in my last post my friend and I had planned a gaming day to play through a scenario of our own devising, pitting my Skaven against his Wood Elves in a game of Warhammer Fantasy. Well the day has come and the scenario fought out! I took a bunch of photos during the game with the hope of pulling together a battle report, and while they’re not amazing I think they do a decent job of capturing what happened during the game!
First up here’s the scenario:
Here are the armies, first up the Skaven:
And the Wood Elves:
The board was set up according to the instructions in the scenario:
If you’re familiar with Warhammer Fantasy you’ll note that is quite a dense table, but as the Wood Elves would do most of the moving around that shouldn’t cause too many issues.
Deployment
Here was the state of things after the deployment of both armies:
I’ve initialised the units as it’s a bit hard to see what everything is in those top down photos!
Thanquol started the game perched atop the warpstone, ready to use its power to blast away any elves straying too close.
While the rest of the Wood Elves were confined to the board edges, the Waywatchers scouted ahead and found a good position to start raining arrows down on unsuspecting Skaven from.
The Highborn knew that taking out the Warp-Lightning Cannon was critical and positioned himself and his dragon as close to it as possible.
Wood Elf Turn 1
The wood elves spent their first turn approaching the Skaven, with most notably the dragon swooping down next to the Warp-Lightning Cannon ready to unleash it’s poison breath on the unsuspecting ratmen. You’ll also notice some of the woods moving around, the result of the Wood Elves making good use of their tree singing magic.
Those missile troops that hadn’t marched fired arrows, with the Waywatchers making short work of the Warpfire Thrower. The dragon breathed poison gas at the war machine to no effect, but some Skaven from the neighbouring regiment collapsed.
Skaven Turn 1
The start of this turn was rather horrid for the Skaven, with the presence of the dragon terrifying the crew of the Warp-Lightning Cannon to such an extent that they cut and ran straight down one of the burrow holes! I had great hopes for the cannon and it never even got to fire!
The clan rat regiment closest to the dragon turned to face it, and the Warlock Engineer and Thanquol blasted all they had at the dragon in the hopes of preventing it from rampaging through the tightly clustered Skaven army. The barrage of magic grievously wounded the highborn leaving him on a single wound, but the dragon was miraculously untouched, its tough hide impervious to the warp lightning. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valour, Thanquol used the Skitterleap spell to teleport behind the dragon, where it could not charge him in the next turn!
Thanquol also commanded Boneripper to move to intercept the dragon in the hopes that it could at least provide a bit of a road bump!
Wood Elf Turn 2
The dragon charged Boneripper and the closest tunnel entrance in the hopes of collapsing it and crushing the rat ogre, while the rest of the army closed in further. The Glade Guard on the right of the table discovered the hard way that the Storm Vermin were equipped with a banner that magically shielded them from shooting and the rain of arrows fired at them failed to achieve anything.
During the ensuing close combat, Boneripper was torn apart by the dragon, and the tunnel collapsed.
Skaven Turn 2
Once again the terror caused by the proximity of the dragon took its toll, with the clan rat regiment closest to it also turning tail and fleeing down one of the passages. Unfortunately for me that regiment was sheltering the Warlock Engineer and unbeknownst to my opponent was also hiding the Assassin! In one fell swoop I’d just lost a regiment and two heroes, ouch!
It did mean I got to use one of the scenario special rules and bring back on a fresh regiment of clan rats from the leftmost tunnel to block the dryads that were threatening it. Thanquol was more successful this time, finally killing the Highborn with magic, but still failing to wound the dragon.
Wood Elf Turn 3
The new riderless dragon charged the clan rats facing it, while the dryads charged the newly emerged clan rats below. The Waywathers rushed forwards to collapse the leftmost tunnel. On the right side of the battlefield the Wood Elves were much more weary, staying well clear of the Stormvermin. At the top, the Treeman turned to face Thanquol, ready to deal with him.
In what turned out to be a very eventful combat phase, the dryads defeated the clan rats and sent them running down the tunnel just in time for the Waywatchers to collapse that tunnel on top of them.
In the other combat however, clearly disturbed by the loss of its rider the dragon failed to do much damage to the clan rats and was forced to flee from the horde that faced it. As it turned to run, the rats saw their opportunity and dragged it down by sheer weight of numbers! Finally the dragon that had done so much damage was gone!
Skaven Turn 3
The Stormvermin finally managed to find a target, and rushed to meet the dryads that were trying to get around them.
Meanwhile another fresh unit of clan rats emerged from the last tunnel remaining open to close the way to the glade guard that were threatening it.
Thanquol moved back close to the meteor to be able to draw on its power, and using it managed to destroy the Waywatcher unit. In the combat phase, the Stormvermin broke and ran down the Dryads, ensuring they could no longer try to collapse tunnels but unfortunately that pursuit moved them very far from the tunnel, making it very unlikely they could get back in time to protect it from the other approaching Wood Elf units!
Wood Elf Turn 4
The Wardancers charged the clan rats closest to them, while the remaining dryads advanced towards the last tunnel entrance. The Glade Guard were checked by the clan rats that had just appeared in front of them and resolved to just stand and shoot them. The tree man came towards Thanquol, ready to unleash its roots on the unsuspecting Skaven.
Unfortunately for Thanquol, the Treeman’s strangle-root attack was successful and inflicted enough wounds on Thanquol to kill him outright! Gone was the chance of a Major Victory for the Skaven!
As consolation however the clan rats in combat with the Wardancers beat them and run them down after forcing them to flee! That clan rat unit had now slain a mighty dragon and a troupe of elite fighters!
Skaven Turn 4
At this stage of the game I realised that I had no way of stopping the Treeman from reaching the last tunnel entrance on its next turn. My units were either too far away or facing the wrong way! I therefore decided to risk a few charges and take the noble way out, which with hindsight was clearly not very Skaven of me!
The unit of clan rats facing the Glade Guard made short work of them, but the other clan rats after the attrition of fighting the dragon and the Wardancers succumbed to the Dryads. With that, the game was well and truly over!
Wood Elves Turn 5
In their turn 5, the Treeman and the Dryads advanced on the last tunnel and collapsed it, achieving a major victory for the Wood Elves with a turn to spare!
Conclusion
This game was a ton of fun to play. It was the culmination many months of planning and work from the two of us to prepare the scenario, the terrain, and of course painting the armies! Getting to finally play it after all of that was extremely rewarding. While the Wood Elves ended up with a convincing victory over the Skaven, it was pretty close for most of the game, with the requirement to close all three tunnels and kill Thanquol looking far out of reach for a fair few turns. The scenario then seemed to work quite well which was uncertain going in as we’d done no play testing.
We enjoyed ourselves so much that we’ve already started planning the next one! If you made it this far I hope you enjoyed reading this, and by all means send me suggestions on how I could improve this format. I’d like to make more of these in the future and do them as well as I can.
Lair of the Lagomorph 