Entry posted by Crispen
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Hi guys!
So a friend of mine dropped around today and we decided to bust out a 1200pts game. My seraphon vs his undead. I wanted to test the core of my 2k list so I took:
Sunclaw starhost
Sunblood - General, obsidian blade, tenacity, phoenix stone
30 saurus with spears
10 saurus with swords
10 saurus with swords
Oldblood with great weapon
Skink starpriest
Skar-vet on carno
My friend took
Vampire lord - book of -1 to hit, general
Necromancer
10 skeletons with swords and shields
30 skeletons with spears and shields
20 grave guard
2 morghast archai
10 zombies sitting in his summoning pool (I didnt know this in the game).
We decided to play take and hold as I think this might be a scenario I'm going to struggle with.
Deployment wise I placed my carno on the right hand side of the battlefield, one 10 man saurus unit screened my 30 man unit and the other 10 man saurus was deployed on the 12inch line on the far left. All my characters were deployed on the back board edge as I wasn't sure how fast my friends army was. He occasionally runs these black knight bombs that get a first turn charge and wasn't sure if he had something similar planned with this army.
I was able to win the priority and went first, in hindsight I shouldn't have. I couldn't make use of the saurus march ability as that would put me in a bad position if my friend double turned me. So instead I pushed the 10 man sword unit that I deployed on the left up the flank and cast mystic shield on them and moved the carno forward. My middle battle line re-positioned themselves.
In my friends turn he summoned some zombies to block my carno and moved his entire battle line forward. His skeleton unit he buffed with the vampire's command ability (+1 attack). The archai flew into the centre.
I won the priority for second turn. I started by casting mystic shield on my 10 man swordman unit shielding the spearman and using inspiring presence on the spearman. I knew that next turn I was going to probably take a beating haha. Everything in my army shuffled forward a little.
My saurus on the far left flank charged a 10 man skeleton unit and the carno rolled a double 1 for his charge... In combat I rolled badly and only managed to kill 3 skeletons and lost 4 saurus in return.
In my friends turn he ran his zombies out of the way as much as possible and positioned his spearman unit for a charge into the carno. His wights prepared for a charge on the losing 10 man saurus unit on the left and the archai set themselves up for a charge into my 10 man screening unit. The vamp threw his command ability along with cursing my carno and the necromancer gave van hels to the skeleton spearman. The saurus on the left only just managed to die, the wights only killing 5 and with the skeletons managing to cause the one wound needed to remove the remaining member. The carno surprisingly held up to the double attacks from the spearman only losing 5 wounds from about 100 attaks, in return I only managed to kill 3 skeletons due to the vampires curse and my inability to hit anything. The archai ate through 6 saurus.. Those dudes are brutal when you can't ignore their rend haha.
We rolled for priority with me knowing if I lost, I'd lose the game. Luckily for me priority was on my side and I was able to secure it again. I was finally able to use the sunblood command ability! And only just! I threw it on the skeleton unit that was currently beating up my carno. I tried to cast mystic shield on the 4 saurus fighting the archai, but it failed. I moved my old blood up to try and get a charge off on the archai, it was desperate, but I needed to try and stop them from getting into the spearman. the sunblood and skink priest moved over together towards the carno and the spearman prepared themselves to charge the skeleton spearman. Charges started badly with the old blood not making it into the archai, it was so bad as this meant his re-rolls of 1 to wound buff would still be in range of the spearman. The spearman made their charge into the skeletons. In CC they managed to delete 18 of them and took 3 causalities in return. With the carno ability and battleshock the skeletons were wiped.
The 4 man unit of saurus unsurprisingly got slaughtered by the archai.
In my friends turn he positioned his archai and wights for a charge into the oldblood and spearman and the zombies for a charge into the carno. The necro used arcane missile to take 2 wounds off the carno putting him at 7 and the vamp used his curse thing to remove 1 attack from all the saurus spearman weapons... Which is brutal since that basically negates the 80 point battalion.
Charges went off with only a small amount of wight making contact with the oldblood and spearman. The archai easily made it into the spearman centre and the zombies went into my carno. My friend activated the archai first and proceeded to delete 12 saurus. In retaliation I managed to kill one archai, bing the other to 2 wounds remaining and do nothing to his wights. He then activated the zombies who caused 2 wounds to the carno! My old blood whiffed and missed with all his attacks before being deleted by the wights, I also lost a further 10 spearman from the wights. In battle shock the saurus disappeared.
We rolled for priority and my friend got the double turn. I conceded, but we played it out to see what would happen. The carno was arcane missiled off a decent 3 mortal wounds caused.
The wights moved up to charge the sunblood and the archai went after my priest. My friend wanted to see what the sunblood could do and charged him, as soon as the sunblood died I would lose anyway as he was the only thing holding my objective. My friend was able to get van hels off in the hero phase on the wights (forgot to mention that). In combat he caused 7 wounds to me, luckily because I was tenacious I was holding in there and caused 6 back at him, we didn't roll for the second round of attacks from the wights and ended it there.
Learning curves
I came away with a few things learned. The additional wound on the Sunblood probably isn't worth it and might be better replaced with reckless.
I shouldn't have been so timid and should have tried for a double turn, myself. By not doing so meant I just doomed myself to die slowly (which I did great!)
Saurus old blood is really sad as far as his profile goes, but the re-rolls to 1 for all saurus within 5 inches is good. I will say though the high elf loremaster could probably kill this dude 1 on 1.. Seriously the mage has a better to hit roll haha.
Sunblood command ability is super hard to use. 15 inch range is surprisingly low and when you do get to use this ability its generally only going to be for your turn as whatever you hit with it is likely to die anyway. I may need to consider making the slann my general, I'll ponder some more.
All your abilities are single targets, which means you have to anticipate exactly what your opponent is going to do and if you're fighting on multiple fronts like I was, you're probably going to be overwhelmed.
Saurus are great chaff, but might not work in the way I'm hoping. I planned to use them sorta like a chaff and hammer with the 10 man units slowing the enemy so the 30 man unit can obliterate them. Coming to find this might work once, but that's it...
Carnosaurs look awesome, but don't seem to be very killy... at least not the skar-vet anyway.
The 30 man saurus spearman unit is super hard to maneuver, the large bases are just killer for 1 wound 5+ sve models.
The next games I play will be at a tournament on the 16th. After this game I had considered going over to chaos or back to my ole trusty stonehorn haha. But I think I'll just stick to Seraphon to get the army based and painted.
Here is my WIP old blood:
Thanks for reading.
Crispen out!
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