Undead, that smell of Cheese?

Activity with the blog is alas moderated by an abject lack of transport at the moment.  The shiny new car has suffered a terminal failure, and so the ratty old car is being put back on the road.  Until then I'm winding up the last of my recent games.

 I'd like to get away from Warhammer, but it is always easy to pick up a game, last week it was an uber-cheesy competitive "Deathstar" List I pitted against Gav's High Elves.

Deathstar is a new term to me, but implies a Warhammer army under 8th edition where most of the army is sunk into one horde sized unit of maxed out heavy infantry.  In my case 1250 points of a 2000 point army was invested into a single unit of 38 Grave Guard, plus the Vampire General and the Army Battle Standard.

The aim is to work up an army for league gaming and maybe more tourneys, league games at least likely to become a regular feature at my club in the coming months.  Traditionally as a friendly player of Dogs of War, Orcs and Goblins and a non-gunline Dwarf army I suffer against the more notorious builds.  Cynically perhaps, I built an army in what is considered the most competitive of my four Warhammer armies to avoid getting stomped so much.

The game set up as seen above was the chance encounter scenario, played diagonally and with random reserves.  My Deathstar unit naturally ended up in reserve, which basically meant it was safe from the enemy on the first turn, but had to start from the back of the table. 

It was no surprise that Gav's tough old army worked through the rest of my force with general ease, two units of Ghouls a regiment of basic Skeletons and a unit of Wraiths made up the rest of the force (excepting a tiny diversion of Dire Wolves) and only the Wraiths and Wolves had staying power.  However one of my spells allowed me to turn the enemy into a spectral horde, which happened three times and saved my bacon. 

When the Grave Guard finally got in to action they proved murderous, but moved too slowly to overrun the enemy.  After six turns Gav was up on points, but not quite by enough to call it other than a draw.

As a unit, the Deathstar is lethal, as an army it is hit or miss, probably vulnerable (despite it's 4+ Regeneration power) to war machines and big power spells. Still compared to my Dogs, it is a much more competitive prospect.  Until the Orcs and Goblins book can be assessed, it will serve.