SHARGAZ EFB - BATTLE REPORT - UNDEAD VS ELFS - 1500 POINTS

 

Battle of Ravenkoff

"It was an early morning of Autumn when two elf messengers arrived to the elf town of Allerhun, inside of the Great Forest. They were agitated and tired. They had run all night to bring the terrible news. A undead horde have descended from the Dark Mountains and slowly headed towards the forest. They had almost reached the human village of Ravenkoff, close to the forest border. The population had runned away and the elf explores guarding the border were clearly insufficient to face the undead army. 

The garrison of Allerhum assambled a party to intercept the undead army before it reached the town of Ravenkoff , trying to delay its advance over the Great Forest, meanwhile messengers were sent to Mhytharasan to call the elf army." 

Will they manage to stope the undead in time?

Welcome to the first battle report of Shargaz - Epic Fantasy Battles. Today we are playing the mission Patrol to represent the elf party intercepting the vanguard of the undead army around the small town of Allerhum. The board is 90x90cm and each player fields a maximum of 70% of their forces in their deployment zones, leaving the rest in reserves.

The elf army is leaded by a wizard, commanding a expeditionary force of knights and horse archers supported by a giant eagle. They represent the first reaction force sent to the city, meanwhile the elf warriors and archers represent the garrison of Allerhum advancing behind them. For this reason, the most mobile part will be deployed, meanwhile the infantry remains in reserve.

The undead force is commanded by a necromancer. They represent the vanguard of the great undead host. It is formed by 3 units of skeleton warriors and 2 units of archers. In reserve, the necromancer has a unit of hellhounds and a dreaded unit of wraith knights.

The players take turns deploying their units. The elf commander decided to disperse his forces to threaten the undead vanguard from different fronts, exploiting his mobility. Meanwhile, the necromancer chose to deploy just in front of the objectives in the town to compensate for the slow advance of the undead horde.

The elf player wins the initiative thanks to its strategy factor of +3. So the elfs will activate first. The elf wizard cast a magic shield to protect the knights from the enemy missile weapons. The necromancer call upon a shroud of darkness to reduce the effectiveness of the elf archers.

Both armies advanced against each other.

The knights took positions in the flank of the advancing skeletons, preparing for a possible charge.

The skeleton archers opened fire against the horse arches but, due to their movement and the skirmishers rule of the elfs, they didn´t manage to score any hits (needing 7+).

The giant eagle made a cunning maneuver, using its mobility to threaten the left flank of the undead force. the skeleton warriors reacted by rotating to face the threat.  

The elf army retained the initiative in the second turn.

The wizard casted a magic maelstrom against the warriors, causing 3 wounds, but not managing to disrupt the unit with the courage test.

The necromancer, watching the danger that presented the eagle on the other flank, casted a missile attack against it, causing 3 wounds on the animal. Although it didn´t disrupt the eagle, it seriously wounded the majestic monster.

The elfs through themselves into the combat in the right flank of the undead army, meanwhile the eagle is forces to look for shelter.

The charge of the nights manage to defeat the skeleton warriors, causing several wounds and forcing them back disrupted, suffering a single wound. The skeleton archers fired them a volley and managed to cause a single wound on the knights.

The horse archers discharged their bows against the skeletons, causing 3 more wounds. 

Meanwhile the eagle failed with its resolution (failed command test at 4+), and decide to put distance from the undead missiles.

The undead army robs this turn the initiative to the elfs.

The necromancer casted a magic bolt against the knights, causing 2 wounds, but the knights passed the courage test (ready to charge again the skeletons).

The elf wizard, seeing the undesired attention received by the knights, decided to intervene, healing 2 wounds on the knights.

The skeleton warriors, without any hesitation (they are already dead) charged against the knights, but they loosed the combat for a wide margin, suffering 4 wounds and causing none in return.

The elf knights replied in kindness to the undead charge with a counter charge, winning again the combat and causing 4 wounds, suffering one in return. In the moral test, the undead failed the roll, suffering 6 extra wounds, removing the unit. 

In revenge, the skeleton arches opened a volley against the knights, causing them an impressive 4 wounds and leaving them really weakened.

Meanwhile, the other unit of skeleton archers advanced slowly but steadily towards the town with the clear intention of taking a house. With the help of a just received unit of elf archers and the assistance of the horse archers, the giant eagle launched an assault against the undead warriors, causing a significant amount of wounds, suffering only one in return. 

At the beginning of turn 4, both armies received new reinforcements. The unit of elf warriors appeared near the town, ready to face the advancing skeletons. Meanwhile in the other side of the battlefield, a pack of hellhounds appeared in the rear of the knights.

The elf general regained the initiative in this turn.

Seeing the danger those hellhounds posed, the wizard casted a magic missile against them, trying to prevent the charge. Although it caused 3 solid wounds to the hellhounds, it didn´t manage to disrupt them.

The necromancer tried to cast a missile spell against the knights, but the magic ring of the elf wizard prevent it. Therefore, making use of his magic staff, the necromancer casted ancestral dread over the horses, spooking them and disrupting the unit. Things didn´t look good for the knights. 

Close to the town the elfs created a blocking wall to prevent the skeletons from taking the house and downing several skeletons with their archers. Then the skeletons charged against the archers, but were surprisingly repelled by these suffering significant wounds in the process.

The hellhounds charged against the spooked knights, causing them several wounds and destroying the unit. Although the were almost destroyed as well in the process. 

The skeleton archers continued throwing volleys against the elfs, but the evasive nature of the horse archers prevented most of the damage.

After a very bloody turn 4, the undead received the last reinforcements in the beginning of turn 5. A unit of Wraith knights. Would it have time to participate in the combat? The necromancer won back the initiative.

He launched a magic bolt against the horse archers, causing a couple of wounds and disrupting them. The elf wizard did not manage to stop it with its magic ring and he also failed to cast a spell in his turn.

The combar around the house intensifies, with the skeletons charging the archers and winning this time, provoking several wounds when they fail the morale test. Just after that, the elf warriors charged the skeletons, destroying the last of them, although suffering 3 wounds in the process.

The hellhounds failed to charge the horse archers, meanwhile these were forced to retreat and regroup, trying to hide from the hellhounds.

The elfs retook the initiative in turn 6.

The wizard healed 2 wounds of the horse archers and 3 of the elf warriors, but failed to heal the badly wounded archers.

The necromancer showed no mercy and destroyed them with a magic maelstrom.

Reinvigorated by the wizard, the horse archers made use of their mobility to take positions on the flank of the hellhounds and destroying them with a volley of their arrows.

Surprisingly, the wraith knights totally failed the command roll, confused by the caos of the combat close to the town. They missed their opportunity to charge against the elf warriors.

The elf warriors, seeing that they were surpassed in number by the undead, decided to fortify in the house in provision of the upcoming combats. The last unit of skeletes slowly advanced towards the town, finally in position to participate in the combat.

The gigant eagle, seeing an opportunity to harrash the skeleton archers, made a risky movement, ready to give his live for a higher cause (it did have a single wound left and flyers cannot take objectives).

The undead archers continued throwing volleys to the elfs managing 2 wounds on the horse archers, disrupting them.

With the elf force very weakened but well positioned, the battle started to die out. The elfs win again the initiative.

The wizard casted a magic maelstrom against the skeletons, causing 3 wounds. Although the skeleton unit was well packed of skeletes, so it didn´t see possible to fully destroyed in time.

The eagle launched his assault over the skeleton arches, who managed to cause two wounds to the eagle, destroying it. In return, they received 4 wounds, but to no avail.  The eagle had failed to destroy the archers.

The archers managed to cause one more wound to the horse archers, disrupting them again. This prevented them from shooting. 

The skeletons assaulted the house, but the elfs were well fortified and repelled the attack causing several wounds. The wraith knights were forced to watch, incapable of assaulting the house in their horses.

None of the forces had managed to achieve the victory condition yet. The undead controlled one objective marker (3 victory points) and they had destroyed 3 elf units (5 extra points). The elfs had managed to keep one objective with the horse archers (3 points), meanwhile the other was contested by the undead, and had destroyed three undead units (3 points). Although there were three turns left to finish the turn limit, it was decided to call it a minor undead victory, as it was late and it would be difficult that the undead managed to get 7 victory points more before the turn limit was reached.

"The undead managed to control the town, meanwhile the surviving elfs retired to the forest under the cover of the wizards magic. Although they had not managed to stop undead horde, they had blunted enough their vanguard to give a very necessary time to assemble the elf army."