9th Age, Game 3.

The latest game of 9th Age. 4500 points Dread Elves vs Empire.  Despite the best efforts of my dice I managed to pull of a win, although Andrew was fielding an experimental army that I don't think was as strong as his usual selection.  I removed the Corsairs, except to proxy for other models, and added in a large unit of Executioners. It made a big difference to how the Dread Elves performed. The spearmen are a big improvement over Corsairs, and I don't think the Corsairs will make it back into my list until they do something to make them a bit more interesting.  Also the fist use of my new mat, which enhanced the look of the game a lot. 

The Battlefield

Empire Deployment

Elf Deployment

Witch Elves about to get run over by Steam Tank

End of Game

Final Dice roll, Andy thought he had escaped with a double 6 flee move.  Double 6 pursuit move from me means no more good luck fro the rest of the year!

9th Age

This Monday saw another attempt at 9th Age, the fan based set of rules based on the now defunct Warhammer fantasy battle 8th Edition.  We played 4500points, with Andy bringing his Empire and myself choosing to field my Dark Dread Elves.

My army consisted of:

21 Witch Elves
21 Corsairs
10 Executioners
20 Crossbows
2 Bolt Throwers
5 Dark Riders
5 Shades
10 Cold One Knights
10 Dancers of Yema


Andy brought:

30 Halberdiers
20 Spearmen
20 Spearmen
10 Knights
4 Griffon Riders
15 Imperial Guard
12 Crossbows
12 Crossbows
10 Archers
1 Wizards Wagon.
1 units of 5 fast cavalry.

Empire Right Flank

Empire Left Flank

The main difference this time was that I opted to give magic another try, so went all in and brought a wizard lord with some nice upgrades, and Andy opted not to bring any artillery.

The game started in the usual way, with Andy opting to deploy his army as quickly as possible to ensure he got the first turn. I was happy for this as there was no artillery to worry about.

Early game saw the Empire advance, while throwing their fast cavalry down the throat of the Dark Elves, hoping to stop their bolt throwers. This worked quite well, with fast cavalry destroying one bolt thrower, which handily caused the nearby unit of Crossbows containing the wizard lord to panic and start to head towards the nearest table edge. 

Run Away!

Thankfully the next turn they rallied, but that was them out of action for a turn.  The dark elves decided to just get stuck in and the Witch Elves and Corsairs both charged into a unit of spearmen each. The Witch Elves managed to inflict a lot of casualties on their opponent and in a total fluke the unit decided to break and flee, with the Witch Elves in hot pursuit. The Corsairs were not so lucky, and fluffed their attacks, with the Spearmen holding as a result.  On the left flank the suicidal executioners had set up in front of the empire knights, in the vain hope that they kill a character or two before they were trampled underfoot. On the right flank the Cold One Knights advanced, trying to set up the charge into the Empire Griffon Riders.

Ready, Aim, Fire!

Dark Dread Elves get a kicking

Alas the executioners were trampled underfoot, narrowly missing getting the kill on the Empire Priest hiding in the unit. The Knights then overran into the flank of the beleaguered Corsairs and in the ensuing combat the Corsairs were demolished and then promptly broke. Luckily they managed to outrun their pursuers, who were brought up short by another unit being in their way.  The Witch Elves charged into one unit of Empire Crossbows, wiping them out and overrunning into the flank of the second one.  The Cold One knight finally got the charge into the Griffon Knights, falling one wound short of wiping them out, but instead having to satisfy themselves with watching the remaining one flee from the table.

In the final turns of the game the Empire continued to mop up the Dark Elves, with the Empire Knights finally finishing the job on the Corsairs, including their general.  We pretty much called it there as there was no way my remaining troops would be able to survive against the remaining empire army.

So another disaster for the Dread Elves, but some interesting things learned.

Magic is still highly overrated, with the wizard costing nearly 500 points and achieving nothing.  The 9th age seems to be all about removing the random aspect of the game, apart from with magic which remains hopelessly random and now they also severely lowered the power level of a lot of the spells as well.  Wizards are definitely not worth it and mine shall be remaining in their box until some changes are made for the better.

Shooting also appears to be a bit pointless. The Dread Elf crossbows cost a lot of points and achieved nothing, again. I think the points would have been better spent on a combat unit instead.

If you have a character that can cast bound spells, then you should take as many as possible as they are far better value than wizards. they are more reliable, more likely to succeed in casting more spells and their abilities would appear to be just as effective. Andy had 2 in his army and they almost single handed turned the game in his favour.

Other broad issues with 9th Age include:

The Line of site rules. In this game you can see through Forests, and even other regiments of troops. It is theoretically possible for a cannon to snipe a lone character 6 feet away, through about 6 regiments of troops, which seems ridiculous and counter intuitive to me.

The Parry Rule.  Worried about your super cheap goblins getting beaten up in combat? Don't worry, just buy them a shield and then your opponents high weapon skill elites are reduced to the same weapon skill when attacking you! I understand the need to make Sword and shield more attractive (actually I don't, but that I think is more a symptom of tournament mentality where everything has to be viable) but this is a very clumsy way of doing it.

War machine rules are terrible.  They can see in any direction, which currently only skirmishers can do and the rules for the area effect weapons are awful. In previous editions of Warhammer you would place a template, which would then have a chance to drift of target and could potentially partially hit your target unit, or hit a different enemy unit or even hit one of you own units, that was part of the risk. Now they either hit, doing a potentially massive amount of hits (The empire mortar can potentially hit 36 models in one hit!) or they miss completely. Once again they can see through everything except hill and buildings and there is no modifier to hit for cover, even cover that would obscure you like a wood. Cannons are the same, with a cannon able to hit anything that is not behind a hill or building, and no amount of cover will protect you, but the cannon is magically inclined to only go the exact distance to match the depth of the target unit, be it one rank or five. Apparently cannons do an extra point of damage to fliers now as well, because erm....no idea, and only cannons get a bonus to shoot at big monsters now. Nothing else does, for some reason.

Bows and Long Bows now have volley fire (Short Bows don't appear to exist any more, probably because they weren't viable under tournament conditions). This means that an entire unit can fire, again at any target in range and ignoring modifiers to hit from cover. Fifty goblins can stand in a forest and fire  fifty shots up out of the forest, hitting anything within range with no minuses to hit them.  This has made all the other shooting weapons (crossbows, repeating crossbows, handguns) pretty much redundant.

These changes stink of alterations for tournament balance, rather than any real thought.  9th Age is the only rules I know of that allow you to see through intervening regiments of troops, and allow you to shoot cannons through friendly troops. This smacks of "we need to make war machine more effective" rather than any other sensible reasoning for it, and it is this sort of thinking that is making me struggle with the game.

The Dread Elves book is also pretty sub par, with  a lot of choices that Dark Elves are supposed to excel at actually being pretty bad.  Repeating Crossbows being a prime example of this.

So far I have played three games, and while Andy is an excellent opponent to play against the rules themselves are proving problematic for me. I am trying very hard to like the game, but it is a struggle. I do realise that the game is a work in progress and is due a big update later on this year, so we will need to wait and see what happens then.  It may be the case that the army that I have previously fielded when playing Warhammer is no longer viable which is ironic. My Dark Elf and Orc & Goblin armies have remained largely unchanged through 3 editions of Warhammer, and it is now that we are playing a fan made set of rules that I am finding that some of my units are now redundant, a complaint levelled at Games Workshop many times.  I will play a few more games before I call it quits but at the moment I find myself looking at the simplicity of Kings of War or Dragon Rampant, rather than the complexity of 9th Age which is perhaps a reflection of a change in my gaming tastes as much as anything else.

Return to 9th Age

This week saw another trial of the 9th Age rules, which is the fan set of rules created after GW killed of 8th edition.  It was a return match against Andy and his Empire, with me opting to again use my Dark Elves.

This time I decided to field a full MSU force, with no unit being bigger that 10 models. Andy had changed his force slightly, opting to drop the second unit of knights for two units of Pistoliers, and replacing the Greatswords with a big unit of Halberdiers. This left him able to field four characters, with 2 in his main unit of knights and 2 in his big units of halberdiers. 

I had a total of 15 small units, and was hoping to do some movement and manoeuver nonsense, but alas it didn't quite work out that way.

Deployment was fairly standard, with the majority of my units occupying the centre , with my Bolt Throwers on my left ready to deal with the Empire Knights, and the Cold Ones on my Right in a position to tackle the Demygryph Riders. 

Dark Elf deployment

Empire Deployment

I had a couple of new units that I wanted to try out this game, including the Warlocks, Executioners, Sisters of Slaughter and a chariot. Andy got the first turn and romped his army down my throat, with both units of Pistoliers getting within shooting distance of my troops.  In his opening shooting phase things got pretty bad for the dark elves, as the cannon managed to one shot a bolt thrower, and the mortar landed a direct hit on the Executioners, killing 6 and causing the rest to panic.  they never rallied and promptly fled from the table in my first turn. In addition to this the Pistoliers killed 4 out of the 5 warlocks. This left me with the no left flank, and I hadn't even rolled a dice yet!

Seeing the way this was going in my turn I advanced as much as I could in the centre, my left had nothing left to move and my Cold One Knights advanced while staring down the Demigryph Knights. The harpies advanced, trying to get into the Empire back line and try to deal with annoyingly accurate artillery. My shooting was fairly average, and I managed to deal with the Pistoliers on the right flank, strip a few ranks from a unit of spearmen and that was about it.  My bolt thrower failed to do any damage to the knights though, making a bad situation even worse.  my Corsairs with Hand Bows advanced and shot at the Pistoliers on my left flank, inflicting 2 kills.

Empire turn 2, and the knights charge my badly out of position Warlocks, catching when they turned to flee. One unit is spearmen charged a unit of Witch Elves and the Demigryph Knights sat on the hill, quite content to wait for the Cold One Knights to make the first move.  the empire war wagon (I forget its name) charged the Harpies, who fled but were caught and wiped out. The Empire shooting proved decisive again, with the cannon taking out the other bolt thrower and the Pistoliers killing 5 of the Dread Elf Corsairs.  Andy at this point felt the need to apologise for the way the game was going.

The witch Elves managed to fight the spearmen in the centre to a draw, mainly thanks to some impressive armour saves on his part.

Dark Elf turn 2, and things were getting desperate. In an effort to inflict some casualties and salvage my game I charged the second unit of Witch Elves into the Halberdiers, and moved the Sisters of Slaughter round ready to receive the charge from the incoming Knights.  My shooting was again fairly average, with some casualties inflicted on various empire units, but not enough to make any big difference.  Andy finally had some average luck and I managed to break and run down the first units of Spears, while my second unit of Witch Elves inflicted eleven casualties on the Halberdiers, before being wiped out. My remaining Corsairs opened fire at the Pistoliers again, inflicting 4 wound, and Andy duly saved every single one on them even though he was needing 5's or 6's.

Empire turn 3 saw the knights charge into the Sisters of Slaughter, and the spearmen on my right flank catch the chariot off guard and managing to charge it.  In the shooting there were not many targets, with Pistoliers killing all but one of the Corsairs, before the super accurate laser guided cannon took the head of the last one with a precision shot.  Luckily the mortar misfired this time.

In the combat phase the chariot manage to see of the spearmen, running them down, while the Knights managed to beat the Sisters of Slaughter, but not by much thanks the their ward save who then held to fight another round. 

Dark Elf turn 4 and things were getting even more desperate as I was rapidly running out of troops.  The Chariot charged the empire war wagon, which was right in front of it, and not much else moved.  In the shooting phase the Crossbows fired at the advancing Halberdiers, trying desperately to get Andy to fail at least one panic test, but with no success.  the sisters of Slaughter managed to hold of the knights of for another turn, although the Cult Priest was killed in the process.  the chariot did not manage to quite kill the war wagon, but it did rout from combat, fleeing from the field though so some small mercy.

Boxed in

 

Empire turn 5 and there was not much movement.  The Halberdiers charged the first unit of crossbows hiding in the woods and that was about it.  The Empire Knights managed to kill off the last of the Sisters of Slaughter, while the Halberdiers wiped out the Crossbows. True to form the cannon pivoted and killed the chariot with one shot, leaving me with pretty much no troops left on the field.

Dark Elf turn 5 and there wasn't much left to do. the Cold One knights attempted a long charge ta the Demigryphs, which failed. The Dark Riders charged the empire mortar and the remaining Witch Elves charged the flank of the empire Knights.  Shooting achieved nothing and in the ensuing combat the Dark Riders failed to kill the mortar(!) and the witch elves managed to kill the last of the knights, but were then done over by the remaining characters.

Empire mopping up.

Near the end now.

We called it quits there as there really wasn't much left for me to do at this point. A clear victory for the Empire.

So second game in and not really a great test.  Andy's dice rolls were so extreme that I had pretty much lost the game in the first turn, although I still made quite a few mistakes with movement.  think I might have pulled it out of the bag but I wasn't aggressive enough. Having a unit of Cold One knights, including two hefty characters spend the game staring across the table doing nothing is probably not  a great use of points (and they were worth a lot). The executioners never got to do anything at all, but the Sisters of Slaughter were the stars, really saving my night by holding up the big knight unit for a couple of turns.

My main issues this game were the empire artillery and the empire characters. If it weren't for the presence of the double characters in the main empire combat units the combats would have gone differently and I will need to find a way to deal with characters for the next game. Perhaps give an assassin a trial. 

I think leaving the general with the cold ones was also a waste, and he would have much better used in the centre, where he could have started dealing with the empire characters.  I am also pretty rusty at the positioning of units, and lost a few of them due to not thinking ahead properly but that is something that I will relearn with time. I always used to position units by thinking one turn ahead, and have lost the habit of doing that. the cold one Knights are a classic example of this, as they did nothing all game due to my inability to work out how to get them into position to get the charge, which their lances require.  I would like to split them into two small units but I think the stupidity would then cause me problems.

As for 9th age itself there are  still a few things that bug me.  The super accurate cannons are annoying, although in this game Andy was very lucky, hitting with every shot and doing maximum damage every time, but it still seems a bit off.  The line of sight rules are very odd, with war machines able to shoot through woods, and even friendly troops with reduction in accuracy. In 8th edition you could shoot a mortar or catapult indirectly, but your chances of hitting were much reduced. Also the lack of templates is a bit sad as well, with mortars and stone throwers being pretty much digital, with either a hit or a miss. the scattering templates were much more entertaining to use due to the risks involved.  I dint bring any magic this time, as I don't thing it is worth the cost you pay, especially for elves as they suffer horribly from miscasts and I cant say that I noticed its absence much.

There are still some odd things in the Dread Elves army book as well, that I think need addressed, such as cult units losing Killer Instinct and some dodgy points values. There doesn't seem to be any particular reasoning behind this, and I would be curious to know why they did that. I imagine the answer would probably be "balance issues". 

Its still good to be playing Warhammer again, which has been my main game for a long time, even though I grumble about the rules a bit (or a lot!) and I've got to give credit to Andy for putting up with it (me) and remaining a gentlemen throughout.

A New Age

I have been watching the development of the "9th Age" rules set for a while, but had never really thought anything of it.  The (9th Age is basically a fan made 9th edition of Warhammer Fantasy battle. It started out as 8th edition with a few rules tweaks, but is now heading the direction of being its own rules set.

Andy, one of the club members is a big fan and has been trying to get everyone inot the game. I have resisted for a while but finally caved and we had our first game last night. 4500 points, my Dark Elves against his Empire, or whetever they are called to avoid copyright infringement.

My army consisted of:

Noble Dark Elves

Dreadlord on Cold One

Dread Prince on Cold ONe with Army banner

Oracle with lore of Alchemy.

21 Corsairs

22 Repeater Crossbows

21 Witch Elves

Cauldron of Blood

8 Cold One Knights

5 Dark Riders

5 Shades

2 Repeater Bolt Throwers

5 Harpies

Andy brought:

Smelly Humans

1 General on a big Horse

1 Warrior Priest Type

1 Her with Battle Standard.

20 Spearmen

20 Spearmen

30 Greatswords

1 Cannon

1 Mortar

1 Wizards Wagon, or something.

1 Units Inner Circle Knights

1 Unit normal Knights

12 Archers

4 Demigryph Riders

Deployment was fairly standard, with all the infantry facing off against each other, with the cold one knights and Bolt throwers on my right flank, facing off against 2 units of knights, and a unit of Demigryph Riders on my left flank facing off against the Dark Riders and eth Shades.

Andy managed to lose the roll for first turn, allowing me to open things up. I managed to inflict some casualties with shooting, killing some knights and one of the Demigyph's, but apart from that didn't achieve much. Andy's opening turn involved some very accurate artillery fire, as his cannon damaged the cauldron of blood (imagine the mess!) and the mortar landed a shot right on top of the Corsairs, but thankfully the damage was limited.

Mid game saw some more of the same, with the Dark elves trying to inflict as many casualties with shooting as they could, concentrating on the mounted part of eth Empire army. The Empire artillery continued to be pretty effective, hitting the cauldron of blood again on his second turn, destroying it and landing a mortar shot directly on the Witch Elves, killing a third of them.  Dark Elf shooting also proved ot be effective, reducing the Demigryphs to a single model and damaging the wizards wagon (sorry, forgotten its name).

Dark Elves under pressure

Lots of Knights

Mid game and the infantry in the middle finally met, with the Corsairs and Witch Elves charging the spearmen, and studiously avoiding the deathstar looking unit of Greatswords. Both units managed to inflict heavy casualties on the empire units, but unfortunately both held their ground.  The turn after saw the Greatswords go into the flank of the witch elves, reducing them to a couple of models, but not before they managed to reduce the spearmen to two only two men.  the same happened to the Corsairs, with the remaining Demigryph charging them in the flank. Casualties were high the Corsairs were broken and run down by the Demigryph, but once again managing to reduce the unit of spearmen to a couple of models.  ON the Dark Elf right flank the Dark Elf general was charged by the other unit of knight, but he managed to kill 4 of them, receiving 2 wounds in return and the combat remaining deadlocked.

The Demigryph managed to pursue into the Crossbowmen (crossbow elves?), who excelled themselves in the next turn by seriously wounding the giant chicken.  Sensing things were going badly the Dark Elves charged everything they could. the Harpies charged the Mortar, the Dark Riders charged the Cannon and the Cold One Knights charged the Inner Circle Knights, who had up to this point just sat on a hill looking menacing and not wanting to get their freshly polished armour dirty. It was a long charge but they were lucky and made it in, with the Dark Elf nobles making a big mess of the human knights, who despite the presence of the general fled of the field.  The Crossbow elves, in a feat of bravery managed to kill the remaining Demigryph Knight as well. 

By this time troops were getting pretty thin on the ground for both side, but we kept going. In the final turns of the game the Empire General fled the field, the remaining spearmen were mopped up by either magic or shooting and the empire wagon was destroyed by the Bolt Throwers.

End game saw just the large unit of Greatswords and archers left on the Empire side, with some scattered remains of various light units, the crossbows and the Cold One Knights left on the Dark Elf side. 

My first taste of 9th age was fairly enjoyable, probably due mainly to having an opponent who was great fun to game against.  9th Age itself feels pretty much like another version of WHFB, which it pretty much is.  The rules are a bit tighter, but slightly less fun, I think. A few sections have been sanitised so much that they seem quite dull. Artillery don't have templates any more. I thought that was quite an entertaining part of the game.  While there is no faulting what the designers are trying to do, I think sometimes they don't quite have the same sense of the fun that previous edition of Warhammer had.

The line of sight rules also seem a bit strange. I remember the fuss that was made when 8th came out and you could shoot through forests etc. In the 9th Age you can even shoot through your own troops, with regiments proving to be no obstacle to line of site. I find this a bit jarring and it reduces the need for clever deployment as you can just shoot through eth troops in front of you.

Magic is also a sticking point, with the expensive wizard in the Dark Elf managing a grand total of 2 spells all game, neither of which were of any real importance. In hindsight the points would have been better spent on something else, like a chariot or a Hydra.

in general I had a good game, and enjoyed it. At the end of the day it is just a version of WHFB with a few tweaks on the edges, much the same as any of the previous editions. The real sticking point with 9th, as it has always been is trying to produce 15 or so balanced army books, all with their own play style and identity, and that is where they will struggle, I think. Just like previous editions..........

Next week we are back to Mordheim for a trip into the catacombs, so my undead should feel right at home.