Had an awesome game against Sean on Saturday.  He’d just recently lost one of his final challenges on the Challenge Pyramid, so he was happy to take a list that was full of stuff he’d never take in a Pyramid game.

I used the list I mentioned here (the sane list, not the Pestilens or Moulder one).

He took something like:

Highborn – Dragon, Stone of Crystal Mere
Branchwraith – Lvl 1
Spellsinger – Lvl 1, Unicorn

Glade Guard ~x12
Glade Guard ~x12
Dryads ~x12

Tree Kin x3
Wardancers ~x12
Wild Riders ~x12

Treeman

I did very well.  In fact, I think I had an extremely solid chance of winning the game.  One roll decided it, though: his dragon-borne Highborn smacked into my block of Clanrats including the Warlord on Rat Ogre.  The Warlord was able to pop the elf-thing, but nothing in the unit was able to injure the Dragon; the Dragon rolled on Monstrous Reaction: Unbreakable!  It had to fail a Ld test and then pull off the 1/3 chance of rolling Unbreakable.  So, despite having a full block of clanrats with a Warlord on Rat Ogre with Weeping Blade and three Rat Ogres in the flank… that dragon went nowhere for five rounds of combat.  Easily long enough for him to get the remnants of his Wild Riders and his block of Dryads all up in the backside of my ‘rats.

It was a great, close game.

Some observations:

– The Hellpit Abomination was nasty.  I don’t think taking two of them would have done much more for me, but one was definitely something he had to deal with.  He munched his way through the Tree Kin and, in pursuing, flew across the table.  I wish I’d bought Warpstone Spikes, however; he’d have been 3-4 times deadlier.

– Rat Ogres didn’t have the chance to do much except catch the Dragon in the flank, throw a lot of high-strength attacks at it, and fail to wound it.  I need to give them some more table time.  Sean suggested going for the Master Moulder, especially with the Rat Ogres. 2 is too small, 4 is too large, and 3 just doesn’t have enough Packmasters; Buying the Master Moulder and his extra wound will offset that a bit.

– Bonebreaker Rat Ogre: I’m officially terrified of being picked out of the unit.  It wasn’t quite as bad against Sean as it could be against other, Bolt Thrower-including armies.  So, I’m going to try the War Litter; need to wait on the bits, but I’m definitely stealing the crap out of Rhellion’s War-Litter (though I’ll likely not use Queek).

– Re-jiggering equipment.  Replacing the Warpforged Blade on the Assassin with the Weeping Blade, giving him an Enchanted Shield (because, why not?).  That means the Warlord needs to change weapons: probably to the Blade of Corruption.  I’m going to try giving the Engineer just one scroll, which will free up points for Warp Energy Condenser.  On the advice of others, I’m giving everyone who has points left for it (the BSB and the Engineer, because he doesn’t have to pay for it from his Magic Items points) Pistols.

– That the Plague Mortar is move and fire is ridiculous.  That the Plague Mortar is move and fire while other Weapons Teams are not is even more ridiculous.  Three is far too many; I’m dropping two of them back down to Ratling Guns.  Curious to see how they perform: they got 3″ of range, but 50% of their shots will miss.  More significantly, the Misfire table’s changed: now any double causes the same roll on the misfire.  Rolling a 6 is no more dangerous than rolling 1.  I expect that will mean I’ll probably always roll 3 dice.

– Jezzails losing Skirmish huuuuurts.