The Uneasy League vs the Unholy Alliance - 2000 point game of Fantastic Battles

Andrew, Jim and I met up this week for a large game of Fantastic Battles pitting Andrew's Verminkin and Jim's human Byzernians against my Night Stalkers (vampires etc) and Goblins. Above you can see initial deployments on a table taped off to be 180x80cm. Both the ratmen and the vampires used the Night March strategy meaning their forward lines were started only 4bw apart! Rolling for objectives, both sides received the dragon-slayer mission meaning if we dispatched all opposing dragons and fantastic beasts, we'd get a Resolve boon across the table. That mean killing the goblin-king's wyvern mount for them, or killing a rat-god and an archangel for me...

After rolling for mishaps, the Night Stalkers were completely unscathed (but for an overly enthusiastic Death Coach), while the goblins were ravaged by disease, desertion and general slovenly lateness. The opposition had a couple of late units, but was otherwise not too bothered.  

The opening phase of the battle saw the vampires flying brigade crash into the verminkin jezails and screaming bell on the left side of the river, quickly scattering light artillery pieces. 

However successful the Night Stalkers felt though, it soon became apparent that a lot of the small vampiric army was being used to overwhelm a very small part of the rodent host.

Further along the battle lines, the vampires' dire wolves charged the verminkin ninjas, the verminkin giant rat wheel managed to charge the terrifying  Death Coach, and the ghouls impulsively leapt into the elite Vermin Guard unit.

The werewolves had managed to catch the verminkin flame-throwers in the flank, but were soon counter-charged by the giant rat-god Verminkin warlord.

While the savagery of the ghoul attack was initially successful against the Vermin Guard, they disgusting cannibals were soon counter-charged by some gas grenadiers and a formed unit of Byzerinan foot in the flank.

On the hill of the far flank, the goblins had spent their time reforming their lines and trying work out which characters were supposed to be doing what in their grand mess of a battle plan.

Without sufficient support in place, the direwolves and the ghouls were scattered, leaving holes in the centre of the table and a very lonely looking Death Coach holding its own. Saying that, it was terryiying, driven by a rogue, supported by the Night Stalker warlord, and its opponent was repeatedly cursed by the Night Stalker warlock, so it's actually more of a surprise that the giant rat wheel survived for so long!

The vermin ninjas emerged from the woods to charge the vampire knights in the flank which was inconvenient, but at least it took them out of the woods that they had been sheltering in. The werewolves were holding out against the rat-got and his flame throwing lackies, while the winged brigade finally started their return the main battle.

At the same time, the goblin masses met with the iron of the Byzernian forces on the right. The elite heavy cavalry had taken quite a shower of arrows from the horde unit of goblin warriors and now as they charged in it was time to return the pain. Sweeping in to their rear, the goblin shaman and his unit of bat-riders attempted to even the odds somewhat. The goblin king and his wyvern decided it was time to go toe-to-toe with that pesky archangel.

Goblin madcap warriors hurled themselves at the spears of more Byzernian heavy infantry, while the wolf-riders closed on the Byzernian light cavalry (who were still more heavily armoured that the green-skins).

Across the battlefield, holes were now appearing in army lines. The goblin horde had weathered the charge of the heavy horse bt were only one Resolve point away from breaking themselves. The goblin spider-riders repeatedly tried to scuttle across the rough terrain to engage the Byzernian spearmen, but the Byzernian magic-user made good use of their blink spell to repeatedly mess up the goblin plans.

And then the Verminkin flank collapsed! Caught between the werewolves and vampiric bats in their rear, first the ratman flamers and then the rat-god himself broke and fled. The vampire knights managed to reform and broke the ninjas and the ripple of resolve loss finally forced the giant wheel to flee as well - and not before time as there was now a unit of Vermin Guard attacking the death coach in the flank.

The battle was more mixed on the far side as, while the goblin king had sent the archangel fleeing from the battlefield, the goblin madcaps and half the wolf-riders had scattered at the same time, losing a goblin captain in the process.

The Night stalkers were reforming their lines to roll up the Verminkin flank, and the goblin spider-riders and their giant chum had finally managed to make contact with something - skirmishing ratmen grenadiers (so you know how that ended!).

However, the battle was in the balance as both sides neared their breaking point. The goblins had one melee phase to break some more units, as the following turn there was a statistically overwhelming likelihood that the shooting phase would break two units equalling eight companies.

And in the end, the melee phase was enough. The giant and spider-riders broke the verminkin grenadiers, and the bat-riders scattered some skirmishing light infantry. The fight went out of the rat-man coalition and their armies collapsed 22/22 against my breakpoint of 13/21. 

In reality, the battle was so much closer than the final score suggests, and one more shooting phase really would have broken me. The boon for killing both the rat-god and the archangel staved off disaster a couple of turns earlier, and the feast racial trop for the Night Stalkers meant that each success rejuvenated the units ready for the next melee. All in all, and evening well spent. Around four hours start to finish for 2,000 points a side, including a lot of chat, a bit of dice rolling, and great craic.