Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Unit face off: Rangers vs (Corsairs & Black Guard)

Humans fear the unknown.  I don't play enough Warhammer. Ergo, I fear the unknowns of Warhammer.
What I'm getting at is that when I play, I'm not familiar enough with the units I'm facing.  As a result I usually overestimate those units, and can end up with my units in a less than optimal position.

I thought I'd record a few unit face off's.  They don't have to be matches which are of equal value, just random units which fought each other in battles.  In this post the Dark Elves are worth slightly less, and also get rear charged. Still I figured it might be an interesting exercise & post.



15 Corsairs
&
15 BlackGuard
VS

Quarreller Rangers
39 Warrior Rangers (obviously not all are in this image!)

MATCHUP
<boxing match announcer voice over>:
Todaaaay's matchup is an interesting one, it's not your normal 1v1 - no sir! Nothing so banal for the fans.
Instead we have a 2v1 match up, with the 1 unit rear charging the other two. So, without further ado, let me introduce you toooooOOOOO the LEFT corner, wearing the black shorts; we have the feared Black Guard, and backing them up are the deadly slaver Corsairs.
15 Black Guard, FC - 230 points
15 Corsairs, FC & Sea Serpent Standard (gives frenzy) - 200 points

Facing them today will be the sturdy Dwarven Warrior Rangers, who just don't know when to quit:
39 Warrior Rangers with Great Weapons, Standard Bearer, Musician - 444 points.

Ok, you can stop reading in the announcer voice for now.

Bcon5 - Vs Dark Elves 11-06-2011 12-52-23
Turn 2: Rangers are in the top left, 
the double block of units is actually a single Ranger horde
SETUP
You'll notice the Rangers in the top left deployed with the scout rule, behind the Corsairs and Black Guard. In this battle the Elves chose not to turn and face the Rangers figuring perhaps that they'd be too slow and not catch up to charge. I love 8th Ed and being able to charge with Dwarves.
In my turn 2, the elves had moved down the board, so I charged the Dark Elf bolt thrower with the Rangers.  They wiped it out in the first turn over-running into the back of the Corsairs.  We did the whole closing the door thing and aligned the dwarves to both units of the Dark Elves - in hindsight this was probably incorrect. I think the rangers should have only maximised contact with the Corsairs whom they first contacted, on the left hand side of the photo. Ah well.

THE STACKUP
Dwarf Rangers:
WS4, S5, T4, A1

Dark Elves:
Eternal Hatred: re-roll the first round of combat.
Higher Initiaive, means always going first against the GWs.
Black Guard:
WS5, S3, T3, A2

Corsairs:
WS4, S3, T3, A1
Frenzy: extra attack per model
Sea Dragon Cloak's: +1 to saving throw in combat.

THE MEAT
TURN 2 (first turn of combat)
I was tasty happy with the overrun, but very uncertain about how the rangers would stack up against those two units.
Rangers get 3 ranks = 30 attacks, 4+ to hit, 3+ to wound; average of 10 wounds.
Black Guard, 1 rank, champion = 11 attacks, 3+ to hit, 5+ to wound; average of 2.44 wounds.
Corsairs, 1 rank, champion = 11attacks(frenzy), 4+ to hit, 5+ to wound; average of 1.83 wounds.

Unfortunately the Dark Elf Gods were listening that day, the Rangers rolled low and the Dark Elves rolled high. Eternal hatred really helped here. Even though the DEs lost the combat, it somehow wasn't by much and they both passed their leadership tests - the DE Battle Standard was nearby.
They both then passed their Ld tests to reform, and were now front facing the rangers.
It's not looking good for our stalwart Ranger heroes!

TURN 3 (second turn of combat)
Let's adjust the stats for front facing DEs:

Black Guard, 2 ranks, champion = 21 attacks, 3+ to hit, 5+ to wound; average of 4.9 wounds.
Corsairs, 2 ranks, champion = 21 attacks(frenzy), 4+ to hit, 5+ to wound; average of 3.6 wounds.

(note to self: check if second rank also get 2 attacks?). 

This turn the Rangers stuck to their average, and did approximately 10 wounds, wiping out the corsairs except for one last hardy pirate.
The Black Guard were took a good deal of damage and were put down to 5 models.
In retaliation the DEs killed 13 Rangers. Alas, I knew them well.
Rangers lose CR, and proceeded to fail their Ld roll (at -3).

Corsairs have the Slavers ability, which meant that I had to re-roll the highest D6 for my flee roll before they make their pursuit roll. They caught the Rangers.

RESULT
Neither DE unit did anything for the rest of the game except hide behind the Ziggurat to preserve points. I'd have done the same!
Looking at the stats, I'm feeling hard done by here. Even in turn 2 with both DE units facing front, the Rangers Horde should have been ahead in the wounds count.
Ah well, that's how the Dwarven rock cookie crumbles.

Bcon5 - Vs Dark Elves 11-06-2011 14-44-11
Black Guard and Corsairs (top left), exhausted and nearly wiped out, are elated after catching those damned stunty Rangers when they attempted to flee the combat.

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