Midnight. A lonely tower sat atop bleak hills. A shadowy figure crouches at its top, hunched like a vulture waiting for something to stumble past and die.

Ignoring the chill winds, Janus Turkov huddled around his scrying stone. He was mildy worried by what he could see. It seemed that a Goblin horde had dared a raid into the Empire territory, but the stalwart humans had easily seen them off and were now pursuing them. Straight towards his domain. And if the humans followed the greenskins in, his Tower would be discovered, despite his protective enchantments. And that would ruin everything.

Worse than that, he wouldn't finish experimenting with that Carnosaur....

There was no other choice. The goblins must be eradicated.

***********************
This was a 2000pts Hidden Deployment game. My opponent had a huge, fully mounted Goblin horde (no fanatics, yay!). But 7 chariots was a daunting prospect nonetheless.

He deployed in one solid mass across the board, with his fast cavalry on the flanks, and his chariots and "heavy" wolfboys in the centre. I deployed the majority of my forces opposite his main unit of wolves with this general and battlestandard.

The game commenced, and the goblins rushed forwards. They would be in charge range very shortly. His wizards hid behind terrain, where I wouldn't be able to get to them.
The Dire wolves charged in, aiming their attacks at the BSB, but to no avail. They disappeared due to combat resolution. more zombies were raised, and the banshees moved up the right flank.

The fast cavalry on my left flank charged in against a unit of skeletons, but two units failed their fear checks and stayed put, meaning I still had my rank bonus.
The goblins were scene off in short order. The main unit of Wolfboys and two chariots his my main unit of zombies with Janus. The chariots rolled abysmally, and I was left with just 6 zombies after combat resolution.
My grave guard steamed in without further ado, hitting the wolfboys in the flank. Magic was again uneventful, as was the Banshee's screaming. In combat, the grave guard missed completely, but Janus kacked down two goblins, causing the generals unit and the chariots to flee, but well out of pursuit range. My surrounded skeleton unit charged into some fast cavalry, who promptly fled.

The goblin Warboss rallied his troops, and reformed ready to take the charge. Chariots charged the grave guard, where unfortunately for my opponent, they bounced and were chopped to in ensuing turns.
I nullified his magic phase again.
My turn saw the zombies charge in against the Warboss and his unit, who failed their fear test, thus hitting on 6's. My magic phase maneuvered the skeletons into another unit of Wolfboys, and my zombie regiment tripled in number.
Combat saw Janus despatch the BSB in a challenge, and I won through ranks, outnumber and overkill. Fleeing automatically, the goblins fled, only to be caught and pulled apart by the drooling zombies.

With the death of their leader, 3 of the remaining five chariots fled the board, whilst the remaining two had a wound each remaining.

Over the final turns, both wizards were despatched by the banshee's, whilst I lost a unit of skeletons to combined charges from the Wolfboys. The rest was mopped up courtesy of my superior magic.

Solid victory to the Vampire Counts!

*********************

Janus was pleased. The goblins had been slaughtered and chased back onto the teeth of the Empire spearmen, and he had avoided detection to boot. Now, if only he got coax those ghouls away from the corpses so he could carry on the experimentation....

Awwwww. I wanted the wolfriders to win (bet you can't guess what I play) ;)


The pre-battle story was very solid.

The report gave a good sense of what was going on, I didn't feel lost at all which I often do I battle reports.

The graveguard missed completely? Now that was rather unfortunate. How many were in B2B contact?