Greetings!
As we had a nice opportunity to play a 2000 per side battle between my high elves and recently painted Skaven army, I wanted to share some highlights from that game. It was very interesting encounter as I have never played against ratmen before. While for eastern barbarian it was the first time to lead that horde into battle. Hence we decided to play pitched battle with no specific scenario. The armies assembled were as follows:
Skaven
Grey Seer, 2 Hereos and a Warlock
6 units of clanrats
1 unit of stormvermin
1 unit of gutterunners
4 units of plague monks
4 units of rat swarms
2 units of rat ogres
2 units of jezzails
4 warplightning cannons
2 doomwheels
screaming bell
High Elves
General, 2 wizards, hero on dragon
4 units of archers
4 units of spears
4 units of reavers
4 units of silver helms
2 units of great eagles
HE were deployed with two mixed infantry brigades in the centre and each mixed cavalry brigade guarding the flanks. Great eagles were kept as reserve behind the main battle line. Skaven deployed in 3 brigades, one big in the centre, with screaming bell, doomwheels, rat swarms, some clanrats and plague monks. One of the smaller brigades had majority of shooting units, with one unit of plague monks as protection. The second small brigade had rat ogres, stormvermin, clanrats and a cannon or two.
HE started to move first, sending their infantry to occupie nearby hill with one brigade of cavalry still covering their flanks. The other cavalry and eagles did not move due to failed orders. Both wizards moved forward and started to snipe warplightning cannons. Picture below shows the situation after HE first turn:
Skaven moved entire battle line forward. They tried to shoot or cast spells but were still out of range while the rolls for spells were not high enough.
HE moved more infantry towards the hill but eagles and cavalry still remained stationary. Skaven decided it is a good time for attact and with the aid of Orb of Majesty the main brigade crashed into elven infantry on the hill. As HE warriors were not on the crest of the hill yet they were not in the defended position and suffered greatly. Fortunately their opponents were mainly swarms and plague monks so they managed to inflict some damage in return. Furious skaven attack did considerable damage but failed to completely remove elven infantry from the hill. The situation after the skaven attack is shown in the picture below:
Now it was time for counter attack. Some regiments attacked using initiative, mainly on the elven western flank. Great eagles and cavalry counter-attacked from eastern flank and cought main skaven brigade in a deadly pincer movement. Elven mage decided it is a great opportunity to use his ring of magic and cast storm of battle spell, which inflicted damage in many skaven units. Huge multiple combat errupted, skaven fought with fury but against elven heavy cavalry supported by a dragon they could not prevail. Even deadly doom wheel, which infilcted a lot of damage previous turn, was destroyed by elven infantry. It was very unfortunate combat for skaven as they lost their general and reached break point too.
So, after 3,5 turns the battle was decided. High elves lost 4 entire units and other 4 were badly damaged too.
I must admit it was on of the bloodiest battles I have played so far. Skaven plague monks and doom wheels can deal a lot of damage. I am sure that if the other two brigades were closer and blocking the counter-attack on flanks I would be in a very big trouble. I bet next time it will not be so "easy" for high elves. Skaven also seem to be a very interesting army. The fact they can form such huge brigades means that in combination with a screaming bell they should have no problems in moving their units into place. Managing such huge number of units though might be a problem and can take some time to learn.
I am definitely looking forwar to playing yet another battle against evil ratmen. I hope you enjoyed that short report!
Cheers!
