Introduction

This was the second game of three played at the “Conflict” Regional Tournament, and my third game of Warhammer ever. Vampire versus Vampire promised to be interesting. My opponent Steve was also from Bournemouth. In fact it was his army I admired in the Bournemouth store when I played Dan’s Beastmen (see earlier Battle Report). In fact I was partly influenced by his army into changing mine to be more competitive.

The Armies

Armies were to 2000 points. My army was “Captains of Morgul”. In summary, this was as follows:

• Necrarch Vampire Count, with “Nehekara’s Noble Blood” (mounted)
• Necrarch Vampire Thrall, with “Nehekara’s Noble Blood”
• Necromancer, with bound spell and Dispell Scroll
• Wraith
• Black Knights
• Grave Guard with halberds and shield
• Skeletons with spear and shield
• 2 small units of Dire Wolves
• Fell Bats
• Spirit Host

Steve’s army was similar, but with more wolves, ghouls and tougher elite units because of his two Blood Dragon Vampires. However, he had no Necromancer so only a single level 1 wizard overall (his Vampire Count).

The Terrain and The Scenario

There was another graveyard in the middle of the time, but this time I couldn’t take it as a good omen for myself!

The scenario was a standard meeting engagement, with units placed alternately on the table and dicing for the choice of first turn.

Magic

Magic was going to run very differently in this game! I was the one with all of the dice and options, so selecting spells was especially important.

I ended up with the following:

Thrall

1. Invocation of Nehek (raise Undead)

Necromancer

1. Invocation of Nehek
2. Hellish Vigour (hand-to-hand combat spell)

Count

1. Invocation of Nehek
2. Hellish Vigour (hand-to-hand combat spell)
3. Vanhel’s Dance Macabre

Three “Invocation”, but I really wasn’t familiar enough with “Hellish Vigour” to make it work to my advantage. Interestingly, the dice came up with a completely different spell set to the first game. I wished I had “Gaze of Nagash”. With hindsight, and with better knowledge of the rules, I could have chosen some spells from the Lore of Death, which I think has more magic missiles.

The Game

At the start, the table looked something like this:

I’m not certain about the exact dispositions. I’m working from memory and the game was quite rushed.

Steve’s Vampire Thrall was with the Black Knights and his Count with the Grave Guard.

My Thrall and Wraith were with the Skeletons, my Necromancer with the Grave Guard and my Count with the Black Knights.

The game started badly for me because under time pressure I couldn’t think of a solid plan. The Blood Dragon army seemed to outnumber me or be otherwise more threatening in every area. This is probably true, because I made up for this with magic. But I didn’t want to build a plan around the use of magic.

My main concerns were:

1. To make sure I took proper advantage of my magical superiority
2. To avoid being charged by his Black Knights
3. To avoid a simple head-on confrontation

The two armies moved together and I couln’t see how to avoid a straight head-on confrontation. I hoped that I could move things in my favour with magic.

Unfortunately, I had no magic missiles which was what I really needed to do damage to his heavy troops in advance of the clash. My most useful spell was Invocation and I did manage to raise two zombie units and a skeleton unit to upset the enemy’s plans. See the diagram below.

The game settled into a number of melees:

1. My Wolves were outnumbered on the left, and the Bats were of little help.
2. My Black Knights charged and eventually destroyed the Skeleton unit opposite.
3. I created a small of unit of Skeletons in the enemy’s rear, but these were eventually defeated by his Fell Bats. (I suspect I was beaten by gamesmanship here, because it didn’t feel right that my skeletons could not turn to face their attackers and bring more skeletons to bear)
4. My Grave Guard began a combat with the enemy Black Knights. I’m sure I charged them, possibly using my bound Vanhel’s spell. They did reasonably well against this tough enemy, but they were in turn charged in the flank by the second Skeletons unit.
5. There was a complicated melee on the right involving Wolves, Ghouls and I think Spirit Host, as well as a newly created Zombies unit.

As my Black Knights charged in, I created a Zombies unit to cover their flank. This worked very well, although they were quite easily destroyed by the Grave Guard (led by the Count!).

The high point for me, although simply through luck, was when my Grave Guard Captain (“Crypt Keeper”) answered the call to personal combat from the Vampire Thrall and consequently killed him outright with the “killing Blow” on one die roll.

Victory or Defeat?

Again, the game was cut short through lack of time. Again, I had more victory points but only by a small margin, so again the result was a DRAW.

Lessons Learnt

The only real lesson from this battle was to learn the rules! There was some question about how Fell Bats worked in flank combats, on both sides. Also, if I had been more familiar with the rules and the army I might have thought to use the Lore of Death instead of Necromancy to try to get magic missile spells.

© 2004 Mike Adams
www.smallbattles.co.uk