2500 death yhetees vs the HE spearmen of doom!

Hello and welcome to this edition of Goofy List Showdowns!

I'm your host, LawGnome, and I'm here to walk you through the wonderment.

To begin with, lets see what I was playing with:

Slaughtermaster: Grut’s sickle, armor of destiny, level 4 Death
Butcher: dispel scroll, great weapon, level 2 Heavens
Butcher: forbidden rod, level 1 Maw, ironfist
Bruiser: bsb, heavy armor, ironfist, crown of command, dragonhelm
1 unit yhetees (6 models): greyback
1 unit ironguts (9 models): full command, lookout, standard of discipline
1 unit ogres (5 models): ironfists, full command
1 unit leadbelchers (3 models): bellower
1 thundertusk
1 unit mournfang: (4 models): standard, gleaming pennant
2 sabretusks

That....is a goofy list.  The general game plan was to have Doom and Darkness and Iceshard Blizzard.  As it turns out, that is exactly what I had.  My slaughtermaster got D&D, Soulblight, and then the two non-signature sniper spells.  My heavens butcher had thunderbolt and blizzard, and my tax butcher had... um.... stubborn, I think?  He didn't do much.

I wanted to get my yhetees into the flank of some unit, then drop both D&D and blizzard on that unit.  They would then be testing for their fear on a -4.  If I manage to kill the BSB early with a sniper spell, I could have autohitting yhetees ripping apart some poor bastard.  As you will see, plans mean nothing.

Now, lets take a look at my opponent!  He was running this bizarre little number:

High wizard: level 2 with a 4+ ward.  He was sitting in the spearmen block.  He rarely cast his spells, so I forget what he has.  I think he did cast one buff, which boosted his ward saves for a turn.
Beasts wizard: level 4 with amber spear, wildform, curse, and savage beast.  He was sitting in the skirmishers and was the catalyst for the majority of the damage I took.
Gryphon lord:  Had the spear that gave him +3 str and the ability to ignore armor saves on the charge, and had a 5+ ward.
Noble:  BSB on a horse.  This guy had a rerollable 1+ armor save.
Lord: Named character.  I forget his name, so he's Doug now.  He gives all the spearmen a 6+ ward, and had a 3+/5++ himself.  Nasty piece of work.
48 Spearmen: So many spears.  If a single wildform had gotten onto these guys, they would have been death incarnate.
9 Silverhelms: He did learn his lesson.  He positioned them in a way that ironguts could not hit them.  On the other hand, he let me get the charge with my ogres, so they never got their strength boost.
Frostheart Phoenix: I hate this guy.
Great Eagle: Chaff
Great Eagle: More also chaff.
6 Swordmasters: A bunch of scared little children brandishing sticks.
9 Skirmishers: cheap wizard bunker!

His general strategy, as you will soon see, was to get his two main combat blocks into battle, then bubble cast savage beast and put wildform on the spearmen, turning all of his units into unstoppable killing machines.  Will they succeed?

Let's find out!  Battle set, go!

Deployment
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I did another wide deployment.  The river kind of messed up my plans.  The original idea was to have everything set up roughly how you see here, though closer together.  The yhetees and the mournfang would go up the flank, and the ironguts and the ogres would charge up the center.  The 2 sabretusks (named Didjuseeim and Weredego) were deployed on the flanks, again to try to make flank or rear charges if possible, or to just be shooting bait if at all possible.  The leadbelchers were to hang back and try to take out chaff if at all possible.

My opponent centered everything around his massive spearmen horde.  The silverhelms held the BSB, and everything else was set to support those two units.  The eagles were chaff, the skirmishers were a bunker for his beasts wizard, and the swordmasters were because he didn't really have the points for anything else.

Turn 1 - Death Yhetees
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No vanguards, for once.  The reaver corp was rather depleted from all the other times they had played chaff, so this list was to give them a day off.

No charges today.  The sabretusks marched forward as much as they could, as did the yhetees.  They all stopped to splash around in the river.  Everyone else moved forward to get into magic range or shooting range (roughly 24").  The mournfang stopped just outside of the average charge range for the silverhelms.

Magic was a complete fiasco.  It was 9-5.  My wizards had rolled exactly what I wanted.  From this distance, I could spend 3 dice on a thunderbolt, hopefully wounding or killing the phoenix, and the rest on a range enhanced caress on the high wizard.  Well, my butcher, being the badass that he was, miscast on 3 dice.  The thunderbolt did exactly nothing to the phoenix, and then the butcher jumped into the void, taking my dispel scroll with him.  4 dice got sucked away, leaving me with nothing for anyone else to do.  The explosion caused 5 wounds, taking out 1 irongut and severely wounding another.  I almost wanted to call the game at this point.

Shooting wasn't much better.  The thundertusk took out 4 spearmen due to bad rolling and the 6+ ward save they were sporting from their special character (who's name completely escapes me.  We'll call him "Doug").  The leadbelchers only managed to take 2 wounds off the eagle.  Finally, I completely forgot that the harpoon launcher on the thundertusk had a 36" range, so I didn't shoot at all.

What a terrible round.

Turn 1 - Spearman HE
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I was also ready to throw in the towel for this turn as well.  I felt that he had completely outpositioned me, and that there was no way I was getting out of this with my units intact.

No charges, but he did advance everything into charge range.  The two eagles were set up to deflect my 2 nastiest units, and everything else was maneuvered into position to utterly wreck me next round.  I think he realized that the ironguts and the ogres would be able to get a charge, but they were still far enough away that it wouldn't be too terrible.  The skirmishing wizard bunker moved into the trees to give him steadfast (just in case) for the future.

Magic went well for him.  I dispelled his attempts to curse my mournfang, and he rolled a two on his attempt to soul quench my ironguts.  He tossed all the rest of his dice into a superpowered amber spear.  That wiped out 2 more ironguts.  So far, they have moved 6 inches and lost a third of their strength due to magic.  These ironguts saw the future, and it was BLEAK.

Shooting resulted in nothing, due to his skirmishers having to shoot through hard cover to get to my ironguts.

Turn 2 - Death Yhetees
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I had 2 major targets that I could run into.  I put the ironguts into the spearmen, and the ogres into the silverhelms.  I didn't really have an opportunity to run into the silverhelms with the ironguts, so I figured that they were stubborn due to the bruiser, so I'd just hold up the spearmen as long as I could.  I was hoping that the eagle would fail it's terror test, but when you make a list around people failing leadership tests, they tend not to.  So the thundertusk went in and between it and the ogres riding it, they just barely managed to kill the thing.  The mournfang obliterated their eagle on the charge, and then reformed.

Magic wasn't great.  I think it was 5-3.  I wanted to save my forbidden rod for the round when the yhetees were in combat, so I popped Grut's and cast Doom and Darkness on the silverhelms (which went through) and tried to cast soulblight on the spearmen (that did not go through).  I was really hoping the silverhelms would fail the fear test and give me a better chance of winning.

Naturally, the silverhelms passed their leadership test on a 6 exactly.  The noble challenges, and my butcher just looks at him, says "ah hell naw" and shuffles off to the back.  I took out 2 with impact hits, while he only gets one ogre.  He wins the fight by one, but my ogres stay.

My ironguts do some decent damage, but they take a lot back.  My slaughtermaster takes a wound.  Doug challenges my champion, who figures that this will be easy.  Instead, they both take a wound each.  I lose 2 ironguts, and take out a bunch of spearmen, but they are still attacking with roughly a million guys.  I win (barely), but he's steadfast and sticks around.  The meat grinder continues.

Turn 2 - Spearman HE
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On the elves turn, the phoenix fails his charge against the leadbelchers.  He needed a 4, rolled a 3, and sputters to a halt behind his silverhelms.  This saves my life for the following round.  His gryphon lord clips the corner of my unit, making me realize that I had made a TERRIBLE mistake when charging in.  A little more to the right, I still would have had all my guys on all of his, and his gryphon lord couldn't come in and beat down my slaughtermaster.  Instead, he just comes waltzing in.  I figure that my slaughtermaster will survive for a round or two, but this is still bad news.

The skirmishers reposition for a reason that I didn't really figure out at the time, while the swordmasters hide from the yhetees by going behind the building.

The magic phase comes around and I realize why the skirmishers moved: doom was coming.  It was a 9-6 magic phase.  He tosses 3 dice at wildform for his spearmen, and has 6 dice sitting on his savage beast card.  I figure that there is no way to stop savage beast, so I toss all 6 at wildform, causing it to fizzle.  He then tosses all 6 remaining dice at a bubbled savage beast. Irresistable force, so I'm glad I used my dice earlier.  He only rolls a 7 on his miscast.  Since there are no guys in base contact, he only wounds himself, but saves it with his ward.

He takes a few shots at my yhetees, but fails to cause a single wound.

Then comes combat.  Good lord this was painful.  For starters, the noble with the silverhelms causes 7 wounds by himself.  Add that to the couple of wounds done by the rest of the silverhelms (with only minimal losses themselves), and I was rolling on snake eyes to stand and fight with my last remaining ogres.  Naturally, they fail and run for it.  The silverhelms chase them down (which was later discovered to be a mistake), and I lose my second wizard and his unused rod.

The spearmen don't do too much, but dear lord do the characters.  Doug was still in a challenge.  He overkills my gutlord, leaving him as a smear of red paste thanks to the power of the savage beast.  The gryphon lord deals several wounds to the slaughtermaster, but he's not dead yet.  I lose several more ironguts.  I am now down to 4 ironguts, a severely wounded slaughtermaster, and an untouched bruiser.  I take out a few spearmen, but really, I'm just lucky that I was stubborn.

Turn 3 - Death Yhetees
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Lots of quality charges during this turn.  The yhetees make use of their swiftstride and crash (gently) into the skirmishers.  I'm not sure why they don't have impact hits  You would think that something that big and fast would wreak havoc on the charge.  The mournfang and the leadbelchers run headlong into the silverhelms (and the leadbelchers rolled a 10, so impact hits for everyone!).  The thundertusk rushes into the gryphon lord for the primary purpose of removing a lot of rerolls.

Not much else in the way of movement.  The two puppies just sit there licking themselves, completely forgotten in the corners.

Magic was a bust.  5-4, and he dispelled everything I attempted to do, which means it was right back to the grind.

I do the silverhelm battle first.  The noble rolled poorly, and only took out one mournfang, while the rest of the silverhelms only managed to take out a single leadbelcher.  I wipe out all of the silverhelms thanks to them failing their fear test (first of many, though these were just bad luck rather than due to magic shenanigans).  The noble runs, which kills him thanks to his status of being the BSB.  The mournfang overrun into the side of the spearmen.

The yhetees work their magic on the skirmishers.  5 dead and a wound on the wizard.  However, since they are skirmishers, they are steadfast in the forest and they stick around for another round.

The thundertusk manages to do a wound to the gryphon lord, the mournfang take out Doug thanks to him moving over to play with them, and the ironguts....fail their fear test against the terror causing gryphon.  I still managed to take out a few spearmen.   My slaughtermaster was taken out by the gryphon lord, while my thundertusk took 3 wounds from the gryphon.  It would have been a lot worse had I not removed their rerolls.  On the plus side, I did manage to kill off the high wizard, so now he is down to just the beasts wizard under assault by the yhetees.  The end result was a win for me, which caused the gryphon lord to run, while the spearmen were steadfast (though now sans general).

Turn 3 - Spearman HE
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The swordmasters charge the thundertusk, while the phoenix charges the leadbelchers.  The gryphon lord rallies and turns to phase the main melee.

Magic was ok for him.  I stopped wildform, and he manages to curse my mournfang, but nothing else happens, fortunately.

The swordmaster run headlong into my thundertusk, then realize "holy shit, this thing is huge!  This was a terrible idea!"  They fail their fear test, do a single wound to the thundertusk, and get thunderstomped out of existance.

The phoenix easily wipes out my leadbelchers, and reforms for his next attack.  The ironguts and the mournfang FINALLY finish off the spearmen.  They run, and the mournfang take a small hop forward to run them down.  The ironguts are down to a single irongut and the bruiser, both miraculously unhurt.

The yhetees lose a single model and wipe out the rest of the skirmishers.  Now that the wizard is no longer a skirmisher, he's not steadfast in the forest and makes a run for it.  The yhetees easily chase him down.

I'm not really sure how it happened, but I managed to turn this game around.  However, the gryphon lord and the phoenix are still a major threat.

Turn 4 - Death Yhetees
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The thundertusk gets a flank charge on the gryphon lord, while my bruiser and my last irongut charge the gryphon lord.  The mournfang turn around to face the phoenix, while the yhetees turn around to face the gryphon lord.

I remember the two sabretusks, and move them into a position where they can help if they need to.  However, as can be guessed, they don't need to help.  All they would do is get thunderstomped out of existence while providing a lot of combat res that I don't want to give up.

In combat, a lot of the lords power is taken away by the fact that I charged him, instead of the other way around.  I do a single wound to the gryphon, but in turn the gryphon kills off my thundertusk.  The bruiser and the irongut fail their fear test and do jack in this combat.  I lose the irongut and the combat, but live due to stubborn and rerolls.

Turn 4 - Spearman HE
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The phoenix charges in and does a wound to the bruiser, while the bruiser manages to take a wound out of the gryphon.  Again, I live due to stubborn and rerolls.

Turn 5 - Death Yhetees
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The yhetees swoop in from the back.  Between the yhetees and bruiser, they manage to kill the gryphon, and then stomp the lord to death.  The bruiser is still doing ok, surprisingly.  The mournfang turn around, annoyed that the phoenix just ignored them and flew over their heads.

Turn 5 - Spearman HE
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Forgot to mention the bruiser turning around after combat with the lord.

Anyway, the phoenix and the bruiser swat at each other, but no real headway is made.  He does a wound, but I have a banner, so it's a wash.

Turn 6 - Death Yhetees
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The yhetees move around to get a flank charge, while the mournfang charge in from the rear.

The bruiser holds for one last turn.  A few wounds are done to the phoenix, but the bruiser is on his last wound.

Turn 6 - Spearman HE
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This game actually went to the start of turn 7.  The phoenix finally takes out the bruiser and makes his leadership test to avoid running.  He's running on fumes, now.

During the last round, the yhetees charge in, and between them and the mournfang they do enough to make it run.  The yhetees run it down, and the game finally ends.  My army consisted of 5 yhetees, 3 mournfang, and 2 completely useless sabretusks.

So there you have it folks!  Despite my master plan falling to pieces from the word go, I still managed to somehow squeak through with a victory!

The yhetees were actually pretty useful.  Their aura did help a few combats by letting me hit on 4s and sometimes 3s when I otherwise wouldn't.  I never got a fear off on the units in combat with the yhetees, so no auto hits for me.

I am not a fan of death magic.  It is way to short-ranged for my tastes, and I was never able to kill anything with it.

The thundertusk definitely pulled his weight by stopping rerolls for the majority of the spearmen horde, so good job!

Woohooo!  Go Yetis!

Thanks for the report it was a fun read.

Another awesome battle report. I love the detail and commentary. It has a really great flow.

Personally, I play a death slaughtermaster always on a carpet with a 4++ save. He just flies around sniping and vortexing everything under the purple sun. Maybe not very cost effective, but a lot of fun.

@Ibisson:

Glad you liked it!

@nells:

Also glad you liked it.  I might try the slaughtermaster on a carpet build at some point.  I tend not to use the massive unit crusher spells, mostly due to my own feelings whenever it happens to me, but against certain opponents (namely the ones who like to use those unit crushers), I wouldn't mind doing so.

Hey LawGnome

Thanks for another quality battle report!  I’m am truly enjoying the entertaining battles you’re pulling out and I certainly need to start matching you shortly! 

I read the battle last night but didn’t comment due to being on my phone but I do have some running commentary/questions for you.

Firstly the High Elves army list, the ‘Doug’ character you’re speaking of is an Anointed of Asuryan, a very good choice.

Deployment – were your first drops the Sabretusks out of interest?  You’ve mentioned your deployment plan however clearly you were too spread out for your liking, what did your opponent do to cause you to react to his deployment and deploy wider?  I think your deployment was pretty solid going from right to left, you’ve got the Sabretusk positioned well, the MFC to take a flank, Leadbelchers to eliminate the Eagle etc.

What did you identify as the biggest threats in the enemy army?

Turn 1 – Ok being the critical person I am I’m curious as to why the movement with the right flank Sabretusk.  Surely you knew in your mind the Great Eagle was going to prevent the charge of the MFC so why invite it?  Leaving the unit back would have given the opportunity for the Sabretusk to perhaps charge the Eagle on Turn 2 forcing a reaction allowing the MFC to position themselves to take on the Silverhelms.

Was the river played as Magical?

I think perhaps an option overlooked would have been to focus on the Great Eagles, for the opening turns they seem like the biggest threats to your force as they can directly prevent combats from happening on your terms.  Turn 1 I believe you would have been in range of GE1 with a Iceshard Blizzard/Thunderbolt/Caress which would have taken out the Eagle straight after you put D&D on the Swordmasters within 6” of them.  Plan goes ahead and your opponent has to let something through and that strategy could effectively neuter the enemies flank.

Why wasn’t the Thundertusk targeting the Eagle?

Interestingly enough I believe your opponent used his Eagles far too early.

Turn 2 – Once again I present an alternative strategy, why not dual charge the Spearelves with both the Ironguts and Ogres and move the Leadbelchers to divert the Silverhelms?  In the magic phase then you can either soulblight (even bubble) the Spearelves and snipe the enemy Archmage with Fate/Caress.  May have also been a good time to pop the Forbidden Rod as well as it’s a fairly critical turn and the magic winds were fairly low and with 3 dice your opponent would only be stopping a single spell and my bet would be that it would be one of the snipes.

I’m curious to know how the Noble did 7 wounds when he’s only got 6 attacks?  Why was the Silverhelms pursuing a mistake?

Turn 3 – Great charge with the Yhetees!  They certainly got into the backline like you planned and dealt with a huge threat with the Archmage.  Was there an opportunity to charge the Phoenix with the Mournfang Cavalry?

That sucks however that the Yhetees failed to smash him, I must ask though did your opponent use the Archmage to smash some of them seeing as he was still under the effects of Savage Beasts?

Did the MFC fail to restrain against chasing down the Spearelves?  Would leaving them have been better?  May have caused a panic test in the noble or even got in the way of his charges?  Also had you charged the Spearelves next turn and they auto flee you’ve got another opportunity to panic the noble.  MFC could charge the Frost Phoenix beginning of your next turn if reformed.

Turn 4 – Was the Thundertusk damaged already?  Perhaps just moving it within 6” of the Griffon would have been the wise move and then allowing it to shoot at the Frost Phoenix.  I also believe your opponent missed out on an opportunity here to get his Phoenix out of trouble.  He could have charged the Sabretusk, overran into the Yhetees and you’d have nothing to counter with. 

Turn 6 – How on earth did the Yhetees moving through the combat like that?

From that it sounds like I’m just picking the crap apart of your game however I’ve got some points to mention that you did very well.  Firstly getting the Sabretusks and Yhetees into very formidable positions.  The Yhetees ended up taking out the enemy bunker which was worthy itself and then backed it up slotting the Griffon Lord – nice work!

The mutual support charges you made with the Mournfang cavalry were outstanding, they performed very well eventually getting to where they needed to and outside of an Amber spear I don’t think you’re opponent really had a clear answer to them in combat when they got there.

Congratulations on the win and looking forward to your reply and of course next game!

@Jimmy:

Glad you liked it!  I'll keep trying to provide top quality reports, and I look forward to yours as well

Anointed of Asuryan!  That's what he was.  He was a really dangerous, and I was so happy when he died.

Regarding deployment: I did indeed drop the sabretusks first.  I usually drop them first, one on either flank.  I have been burned by the panic chain caused by these guys dying early, so I take care to leave them far away from the rest of my army.  I didn't deploy wider due to his placement, I actually deployed wider due to the building in the middle of the map.  My unit frontage was slightly larger than could comfortably deploy and do anything with that building there, so I had to go wider.  I wanted my yhetees to be supported by my thundertusk, so I put him a little wider too.  This left everyone a little further away than I intended, especially with the river there.  Still, I was pretty happy with the overall deployment.

At the beginning of the game, I thought that the phoenix and the spearmen were going to be the greatest threat.  The phoenix because I have played against them before (they are the nastiest tarpit.  They are strong, durable, and they drop your strength.  Just a pain in the ass). The spearmen because of their sheer numbers.  If he was able to get any strength buffs onto them, sheer weight of attacks (made more numerous due to ASF rerolls) would absolutely rip me apart.

At the end of the game, I thought that the two most dangerous units were the gryphon lord and Doug the Anointed of Asuryan.  Those two caused more wounds than most of the rest of the army did.  The noble was also a huge threat.  Fortunately, I was able to kill him due to him being the bsb and him auto dying due to running.

First turn:
The movement of the right sabretusk was due to expectations from the magic and shooting phase.  I figured that I would take out the right-side flyers (or at least the eagle) in the first turn, which would leave me in a good position with that sabretusk to get a flank charge on the silverhelms.  The odds were good that the leadbelchers would be able to take out the eagle, and I have had good experiences with shooting down phoenixes with thunderbolt.  Instead, I got my butcher completely whiffing, dealing more damage to me than to my opponent, and then jumping down a hole, and the leadbelchers decided to load their guns with nerf darts instead of documents and briefcases like they usually do.  As a result, I wound up with a sabretusk way ahead of where the expected eagle attack was going to be.

River wasn't magical, just an annoying march blocker.

In retrospect, clearing out the eagles first would have been a MUCH better idea.  Instead, I wind up with 2 of my best support units stuck on eagles, which kept them out of combat for 2 very important rounds of fighting.  I lost a lot of my main combat block as a result of this.

The thundertusk wasn't targeting the eagle because I COMPLETELY forgot that it had other shooting attacks besides the ice ball.  My opponent doesn't normally play with eagles, so I didn't realize just how irritating they would be, so the ice ball went toward the huge block of spearmen.  Really, I should have shot that eagle with everything I had to make sure it was dead.

The main reason for charging the silverhelms was to prevent them from getting the charge on me.  It is really tough to avoid that due to their ridiculous movement speed, and the strength boost they get on the charge really does a number on everything without "Mournfang" in their title.  I wasn't sure at the time that I would be able to get the leadbelchers into them, and I think I was holding onto some vague hope that another shooting target would appear on the next round.  So I put the ogres into them instead, figuring that they would be able to hold against strength 3 attacks for at least 2 combats until the mournfang were able to join the party.  I was wrong, of course, but I really wasn't expecting the bubble cast savage beast.  The noble did the most damage that round, and was the primary reason the ogres ran.

With magic, there were definitely a bunch of different ways that could have gone better.  I didn't pop the rod because I was trying to keep to the original gimmick of the list: massive magic phase on the turn the yhetees get into combat, guaranteeing that I could force D&D on the unit they were fighting, and then wiping that unit out thanks to all of my yhetees auto-hitting.  I didn't realize that the beasts wizard would be so nasty.  It was really one of those cases where trying to keep to the plan makes things go far worse than if you just take the battle as it is and do what you can.

The noble also had the sword of strife or bloodshed (one of the two), so he had a bunch of extra attacks, which were exacerbated by the savage beast cast.  That one spell was a NASTY piece of work, and was very well executed.

The silverhelms pursuing was a mistake because it placed him in exactly the right spot for a mournfang overrun.  If he had restrained, then I wouldn't have been able to get all of my mournfang into his spearmen were I able to overrun.  It may not come clearly through on the battle report, but the angle and position were wrong before he chased for me to get more than 1 mournfang to hit the spearmen, assuming I could squeeze by the phoenix.  With the pursuit, I got 3 mournfang into the spearmen and able to attack.

I was very happy with the yhetees.  The archmage was the one that took out the one yhetee that I lost.  The rest of them weathered the str 3 attacks like champs.  I didn't have anything to fear the next round when savage beast wore off.

There wasn't much of a chance to charge the phoenix, and I'm not sure I would have wanted to.  The mournfang would have been on 5+ armor saves and wounding on 6s.  They are too useful as infantry squashers to throw them away on maybe holding up the phoenix for a round, and given everything else that happened, I wasn't sure I wanted to rest all my hopes on winning through combat rez.  If I didn't get him to run on the first round, then he wasn't running and would probably take all of my mournfang out without support charges, and I really didn't have any that were ready to make that charge.

The spearmen broke, but I didn't wipe out the unit.  They ran from the most numerous enemy (i.e. the mournfang at this point).  I had 2 options (so far as I could tell at the time): pursue with the mournfang, leaving the remaining ironguts in the perfect position to take on the gryphon lord, or pursue with the ironguts, leaving both units in an awkward spot.  I figured that the bruiser had been doing really well, so I wanted him in the gryphon lord combat.  Also, the higher strength would help in taking down the gryphon.  Probably should have reformed the mournfang to charge the phoenix, but it didn't seem like the best option at the time.

The thundertusk was damaged entirely by the gryphon.  He was fine before that charge.  I wanted him as close as I could get to neuter as much of the ASF advantage as I could.  The amount of attacks I took dropped  precipitously once I got rid of rerolls for 3/4 of the unit.  It might have been better to stick back, but I needed to generate some additional combat rez, and a charge mixed with a bunch of strength 6 attacks certainly helps that.

I saw the potential sabretusk charge, and basically just sat there hoping that he wouldn't notice it as well.  That would have completely wrecked me to have the phoenix in with yhetees without any support.

The yhetee move was completely legal, but battle chronicler wouldn't draw the arrow properly.  The yhetees arched around from the north and faced the battle.  If you put that into battle chronicler, from those positions I could either have the arrow draw properly, but have the yhetees facing the wrong way, or have them facing the right way and deal with the goofy arrow.  I went for the latter.

Yeah, his only real answer to the mournfang was the savage beast cast and his characters.  I think that if he played the skirmishers a bit more skittishly, he would have been better off for continuously casting savage beast.  He put the archmage into range, but failed to realize how far the yhetees could move.  I think he would have been better off moving them forward so that he sat right behind the combat units and screening with the swordmasters.  One more round of savage beast, and maybe actually getting wildform off (it was my primary dispel target for the entire game) and I would have been toast.  I really can't overemphasize how much his characters hurt with that buff on them.

Thanks again!

So, quick question for people reading my reports:  I have been leaving all the dead units on the map (just semi-transparent).  The idea is that this shows where all the corpses are, and gives a better idea of what moved where.   Do you like this approach, or would you rather I remove them the turn after they die so that the map is cleaned up a little more for ease of viewing?

So, quick question for people reading my reports:  I have been leaving all the dead units on the map (just semi-transparent).  The idea is that this shows where all the corpses are, and gives a better idea of what moved where.   Do you like this approach, or would you rather I remove them the turn after they die so that the map is cleaned up a little more for ease of viewing?

My personal vote is for them to be removed for a clearer picture of what's left. But either way, I like the reports a lot.

I vote to remove them, once they're dead I don't want to be reminded of them. 

Thanks for the response.

I'm partial to having them there, because it helps with the flow of the battle, but I can see how they might be distracting. Either way, I love the battle reports. Not only does it give me good ideas, but it helps me with thinking about deployment differently. My army lists are always solid, but my deployment and ability to see the overall battle play out is atrocious - these help with that immensely.