Saturday, June 15, 2013

Warhammer Fantasy Battles - First Game Ever

Thanks to my buddy Scott A. who brought his Dark Elf army, and mentoring from Pat L. (Socal Warhammer), I was able to get familiar with Warhammer Fantasy Battles. I do have some experience with Warhammer Ancient Battles, so it wasn't too hard to pick up the basics. What was very interesting was the Magic Phase - it really did some damage to both of our armies. Prior to the start of the game I took a few gratuitous pictures of my Empire army to date - the Imperial Griffon wasn't used in the game today, though. Scott only had about 1,300 points of Dark Elves, so being a gentleman, I only used 2,000 points of my Empire guys :)!
In the staged photos, Volmar the Grim is on the War Altar and a Light Wizard is on the Hurricanum. For the game, I used Volkmar as the Battle Wizard.
I finished the Engineer Commander for the Steam Tank this morning, before the game. He did very well as the Steam Cannon and Steam Gun did pretty good shooting. It was great getting familiar with the Steam Points rules. The cannon fire was the same as that as in WAB, which I used a lot with my Late-HYW French army.
The game itself was very close, although Scott's army was about 700 points less than mine.As usual my tactics left a lot to be desired, but I wanted to concentrate on learning the Magic Phase and other minor differences between WAB and WHFB. Not much really, but still a few things to remember and get better at. The photo below is from Turn 4 or so, my army pretty much bunched up on my end of the table. The Dark Elves are a very shooty army - practically all of Scott's units had crossbows which could fire twice! At the start of the game, a unit of Shades flanked my right and later started crossbow double-tapping my Order Knights. If it wasn't for the knights' great armor save, they would've been decimated quickly.
The shot below was kindly taken by our buddy Rod who stopped in all the way from Forks. It shows my Demigryphs rotating around in circles trying to get into contact with those pesky Dark Riders!

No complaints though - I was happy to see both my Order Knights and Demigryph Knights survive multiple missile attacks. My BSB was killed off by a Magic attack, but the War Altar charged into Scott's Corsairs and broke them off the field. The Hurricanum did well enough, it provided some weather attacks and survived. We played 6 turns and feel we both learned a lot, particularly with Pat's mentoring and coaching. We plan to play again next Saturday. I may even get a practice game in prior to as there is a Games Workshop store right down the street from where I live.

16 comments:

  1. oh WoW!.....look so fantastic, great minis great colors etc...well done sir!
    cheers,
    Phil

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  2. Thanks a lot for that, Phil! Appreciate your kind words. Best, Dean

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  3. The figures look superb. Especially like the flowers on the bases. I do like the steampunk feel for some of the WFB pieces (like the tank). Look forward to more Bat reports.

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  4. Awesome to see these in person...the pictures reveal how great these are...but truly, if you want to be blown away, see them up close and in person. Great game to watch and learn from, Dean. Won't make next week, but will make the effort to learn at a future meet up!

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  5. A great looking game and army, I like you despite gaming for over 25 years have never tried WFB, perhaps it's worth trying out.
    Cheers
    Stu

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  6. Thank you all for the kind words!

    Rod: You are too kind; looking forward to seeing you again.

    Stuart: Playing WAB for several years really made the transition pretty painless. In fact, I found the Magic Phase refreshing.

    Warm Regards, Dean

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  7. Oh my goodness me, could there be a finer sight? Tremendous Dean!

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  8. Look great on the table mate. Dark elf are tricksy especially the light cavalry. Nice summary of the game.

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  9. What a great looking army Dean!!

    Christopher

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  10. Great to see your whole army in this wild mashup! I'm looking forward to more reports, Dean.

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  11. Your army looks splendid dear sir. I have been playing both WAB and WFB for about 15 years but much prefer WAB. That said, playing WFB in a good humour with sporting opponents can make for great fun. When my gobbo's meet my mate's Skaven it's all just a matter who flees first and farthest ;-)

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  12. Thank you all very kindly, I appreciate the kind words and interest - particularly nice to read on a Fathers' Day morning here in the US.

    Best wishes to all, Dean

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  13. Dean,
    Good game. I was surprised my DE's lasted as long as they did. Time to get painting some more...
    Scott A.

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  14. Nice to see an Empire Army doing well, even if they did out number the DE :-). Nice batrep and piccies.

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  15. Great to see all your hard work paying off in a game. Well done.

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