jesus guys... its only the second!? how are you lot built and part painted already!?
Heh heh, I've managed to build all of the Skaven in my 1,000 point list already. Although I have been going straight to GW after I knock off at noon and building until the store closes at six. I took a couple of pictures on my phone yesterday, but I forgot to bring my cable to work so I could upload them. They'll be going up some time later today.
I actually played my first game with the list last night. Myself and the Nurgle Daemons player who will be my ally in the campaign against Vampire Counts and Dark Elves. It was interesting to note that the VC player had a 'list' that was basically two units of Skeletons and three vampires.
The game was a standard pitched battle, and it ended up as a draw. I made a amphetamine parrot-ton of mistakes, not having played Fantasy for a while, but I think I've learned from them.
For one; I misunderstood the rules for Frenzy and thought my Plague Monks were forced to move toward the nearest visible enemy. Reading the rules after the game, I discovered that the rule required me to declare a charge if there was a unit in range, nothing more. So I pulled half of my battle line out of position for no reason, since I had my Rat Ogres babysitting them.
I think we might have won, had the Dark Elf player not borrowed the store's Hydra to try it out. I wasn't expecting a terror causing unit on the field, and hadn't made any plans to deal with it. His deployment and my Frenzy misunderstanding mean that my Plague Monks ended up hurtling toward the Hydra, the strongest unit in the enemy battle line.
The Rat Ogres that were meant to support them failed their fear test to charge it, which might have saved the Monks. The Hydra killed the Monks and took their standard, while the Rat Ogres were charged by a unit of spearmen, beaten on combat resolution and cut down.
Still, there were some real highlights to this game. My Warlock Engineer proved himself several times over when he annihilated one of the VC player's Skeleton blocks in a single magic phase with three successful Warp Lightnings. He also reduced the Vampire leading the unit to half wounds.
The Clanrats also performed quite well. Both sustaining surprisingly few casualties and eventually winning the game for us by claiming two table quarters. One spent most of it's time fleeing from the Hydra, but rallied right before they ran off the table, allowing them to take the quarter they ended up in, their ratling gun fled straight off the board without ever firing a shot.
The second unit hung around in the courtyard of a building for most of the game, keeping the quarter under our control while the daemons marauded off. They were eventually charged by a flying Dark Elf Assassin who had been revealed against the ill-fated Rat Ogres. He flubbed his rolls to wound, the Clanrats won on combat resolution and ran him down.
The Jezzails turned in a decidedly average performance trying to bring down the War Hydra, largely hampered by the monster's ability to regenerate. They were eventually killed by the flying Assassin before his demise. I want to see them in action a little more before I pass judgement on them.
I've made some changes to the list after this first game, largest of which is dropping the Plague Priest in favour of a Chieftain. Having my general charging away from the ranks he was meant to be bolstering and getting slaughtered was not ideal, and the Chief is significantly cheaper. I've also reduced the size of the Plauge Monk unit and taken away their additional hand weapons. Those got me a second ratling gun for the other Clanrat unit and a minimum-size block of 20 Slaves.
Phew, that post ran away on me a little...