Terrain and Deployment
We did alternating deployment, which ended up with a hill and trees on mid-line left and right, a hill and pond in one deployment zone and a brushy area and a ruin in the other. He won choice of table sides and chose the side with the hill. His deployment was as listed above, from my left to right, with the priest in the halberd block, the captain in the spears, and the crossbows on the hill. I had one marauder group opposite the pistoliers, empire knights, and hiding behind the hill from the Hellblaster. Both hounds screened my knights with Hero in the center from the empire machine gun, while the other marauder group and the sorcerer took the flank with the crossbows. The sorcerer rolls Lash, Delusions, and the fear/terror Aura; not bad.
Turn 1
I go first; hounds and knights move up towards the Hellblaster and blocks; the left-flank marauders decide they don't want to try to take the pistoliers, nevermind pistoliers plus knights, so gallop towards board-center to support my knights. The other marauders move up and try to cast Delusions on the crossbows; you think I could roll 8+ on 3 dice but no, nor a lash on the last power die.
His knights and pistoliers gallop up behind the center hill and the pistols lay the smack down on one unit of hounds. The Hellblaster gets off one barrel into the slightly exposed knights before jamming for the next turn and one knight falls. The crossbows take out two of the marauders. The blocks stay put.
Turn 2
The left-flank Marauders take up a taunting position to try and draw out the empire knights or pistoliers. The decimated hounds rally, and the other hound unit moves out of the way of the knights. The knights position themselves for a charge next turn into the spear block, and the marauders/sorcerer foolishly charge the crossbows and get hit hard by a stand-and-shoot. They end up losing pretty badly in the ensuing combat and running for the border.
He shuffles his spears and halberds to prepare for the oncoming assault. His pistoliers shoot holes in the remaining hounds, while his knight take a non-commital move to the top of the hill. The crossbows take potshots at the fleeing marauder and sorcerer; now it's just the fleeing sorcerer...
Turn 3
Chaaaaaarge! The knights pile into the spear block, while the hounds try to take out the pistoliers but panic from the stand-and-shoot reaction and take off. The lone sorcerer rallies and the other marauder group fast-cavs its way to the side of the knights, flinging their throwing axes to not much effect. My Hero challenges, and his Captain hides behind the unit champion ("I pay you double! You'll be fine!"), who proceeds to get the beat down, followed by the humiliation of having his already dead body trampled by the chaos steed. The rest of the knights annihilate enough spearmen that they don't get to attack back, even from the second rank. Still, the Captain takes down another knight, and uses Rod of Command to hold.
Nick follows the hounds with the pistoliers and does some minor shuffling by the Empire to position for a counter-offensive against the Chaos Knights. The hellblaster pulls off an awesome set of rolls and obliterates the marauder cav to the man - now it's just the Knights, the Hero and Sorcerer on the chaos side, and the sorcerer takes a wound from the crossbows. The Hero and Captain meet in a challenge, and the Captain goes down, barely. Eye of the Gods time! I roll a 3, and with the Favour that could be Stupidity (yea right), +1 strength, or +1 toughness - I take the toughness to bring him up to S6 T5. The rest of the knights do just ok, but the spears break regardless and are caught by the knights just short of the board edge.
Turn 4
Things start going faster with so few units. The knights reform 180-degrees and then wheel slightly to aim at the halberd block, while the sorcerer moves out of firing arc of the crossbows and yet again unsuccessfully tries to Delusion them off into a corner.
His knights move to try to help with the impending Knight charge while the pistoliers finish off the hounds. The crossbows decide to ignore the sorcerer and pull a 180 and head towards the more-dangerous Chaos Knights. My investment in the Blasted Standard pays off as zero-misfire roll by the Hellblaster bounces ineffectively off of the knights.
Turn 5
Knight charge! They slam into the halberds. The sorcerer moves to put trees between her and the crossbows, and successfully casts Delusions on the empire knights! Finally! The Halberd Sergeant takes the Hero's challenge and promptly gets murderated. The three remaining knights do poorly, however, but take no damage in return. Combat is tied and nobody moves.
Titillating sights have the knights galloping off to an odd board corner. The hellblaster, pistoliers and crossbows have nobody to shoot at. The priest decides to take on the challenge instead of hiding in the back rank, and gets the indignity of being killing-blow'ed, taking another wound on top of that, and then being peed on by the horse. Eye of the Gods time again! Choices are +1 attack or +1 strength (+1 toughness already taken) so I choose +1 attack. The knights again roll decent but not great and despite losing by several points, the halberds hold.
Turn 6
The knights and hero kill every halberd except Steve the Banner Bearer, who somehow holds! The sorcerer lets the Delusions lapse but fails to Lash more than a single empire knight.
Steve falls to several thousand attacks while the knights look for table quarters. Rather than claiming a quarter, the Pistoliers take a shot at the sorcerer and kill her dead.
Final Score - draw. Despite me being down to 4 models (3 knights and a Hero) vs. his nearly-complete crossbows, Knights, Pistoliers, and Hellblaster, it's still a draw (in fact I was ahead by over 100 points). Go go expensive guys, I guess!
Thoughts
The melee hero was deadly and a blast to play; I finally got to roll on the Eye of the Gods table! He's definitely scary vs. other characters and I think I'll have fun with one on a Steed of Slaanesh later on. I shouldn't have charged the crossbows with the marauders and sorc. Stupid stand-and-shoot! They should have just circled them and peppered the opposing troops with axes and Lash - since the crossbows are move-or-shoot it makes them waste time spinning around. The ward save on the sorcerer and the knights was a butt-saver vs. crossbow bolts and hellblaster bullets. I think I'll have lots of fun at the 1k level.
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