The Vampires Strike Back

Vampire Counts vs Skaven - 500 points

In the first round of the MKWGW Escalation League, I was randomly drawn to play my son, Alexander, and his Skaven. As you might have guessed, we have played each other many times, and he normally wins. Fortunately as the league is starting at 500 points, I didn't have to worry about his big guns (Warp Lightning Cannons, Hell-Pit Abom etc.).

The Forces

The army was led by the level 2 necromancer, Gotred Onjür, equipped with an Obsidian Amulet.

At the start of the game, I rolled the spells Hellish Vigour and Raise Dead for his spells, so I swapped Hellish Vigour for Invocation of Nehek.

With the new 50% allowance for Heroes, I was able to add two cairn wraiths

For core units, I had.....

Twenty skeleton warriors with full command, armed with swords,

25 zombies with a standard bearer.

 and five dire wolves.

Alex had a unit of 20 clanrats with full command and a poisoned wind mortar attached to the unit, another unit of 20 clanrats with a ratling gun attached to it, and five poisoned wind globadiers. His general was Ratchitt, a warlock engineer, who was a level 2 wizard of the Lore of Ruin and carried a Doomrocket. For his spells, he had Warp Lightning and Scorch.

The Battle

Deployment

Gotred the Necromancer bunkered himself in the skeleton warriors unit, shielded by the command group and the two cairn wraiths.

Ratchitt, leader of the Skaven, went in with the unit of clanrats with the command group and poisoned wind mortar.

Round One

The Vampire Counts army won the roll for first turn. The dire wolves moved down the left flank while the skeletons and zombies advanced in the centre. Gotred was able to raise half a dozen more zombies.

The Skaven also chose to advance. Ratchitt took out a single dire wolf with Warp Lightning. The poisoned wind mortar got a direct hit on the skeleton warrior unit, destroying five of them. The ratling gun shot down a few of the zombies, though not as fast as they were being raised. Ratchitt held back with his Doomrocket, hoping to get into a more optimal range before shooting.

Vampire Counts - Round Two

This was a disastrous round for the Skaven. The dire wolves first charged Ratchitt's unit of clanrats, hoping to draw out the Doomrocket with a Stand and Shoot reaction (loose thinking on my part, as the Doomrocket doesn't have to target the charging unit in a Stand and Shoot), then the skeletons charged Ratchitt's unit, forcing a Terror check because of the cairn wraiths. Alex rolled an 11 and they promptly fled. The zombies charged the other clanrat unit and made it in. Ratchitt's unit was charged down and chewed to pieces by the dire wolves.

The magic phase just piled on more woes for the Skaven. Alex let a Raise Dead spell go, saving his dispel dice to stop Invocation of Nehek. I had three dice to his five, and barely managed to cast Invocation of Nehek in a 12" bubble with a score of 12. He rolled 5,2,2,1,1 and the spell went off. The skeletons were back to full strength, and around twenty five more zombies were added between the two units. (MZ in the picture stands for More Zombies).

The clanrats fighting the zombies lost combat by 1, killing three for one, but held their ground.

Skaven - Round Two

On their second turn, the poisoned wind globadiers moved to the flank of the newly raised zombies to avoid being charged.

In shooting, the poisoned wind mortar had its shot go wild, the globadiers managed to take out a couple of zombies, and the ratling gun crew got trigger happy and blew themselves up.

The remaining clanrats unit lost combat to the zombies and this time broke and were run down by the zombies. The nearby poisoned wind mortar panicked and fled.




The game was over by the fourth turn. The globadiers fled off the board after failing a Terror test from the cairn wraiths. The poisoned wind mortar rallied but was charged by the newly raised zombies, fleeing off the board after losing combat. Only a single dire wolf had been lost in the Vampire Counts army, while the zombies total numbers had swelled from 25 to 58.