Once in a while I am fed up with pure faction armies, so once in a while I like to put up two factions who really don't like each other.

This time I wanted to join forces from elemental freeholds and dark crusaders. Two factions who have declared war on each other in the "real world" but who put up a pact for last friday-night mageknight-fight !!

The tournament was 300 points, no domains. Standard rules. This is what I came up with:

- High Priestess Kess (76) with TOTW (36).
- Gora Stormblade (49) with Footmans Fangblade (14)
- Talon Warrior * (33)
- 3x Blood Demon * (99)

In TOTW:
- Ghost Army
- Auraheal
- Disenchant

Total: 299.
Terrain: hindering and concealing

The idea was to cast Ghost Army and then to position HPK in hindering terrain, (safe for immediate close attacks and 19 defense for ranged), so she could oversee two objective tokens. She shoots with an attack of 14 (or 11 if you roll less then 5), making the neighboorhood of the objective tokens very dangerous. The blood demons and Gora would take the two objectives so the other party would have no choice then to come closer, in range of my priestess...

This tactic worked beautifully !! I won the tournament. However I must say it did become close sometimes...

So Elemental Freeholds and Dark Crusaders: stop your war and unite !! Together you are strong !!

Congrats on your victory. (though I would have inserted a cheap revenanter in your army)

But I see problems for your army against a beefed-up beatstick with 20+ defense, among others. What were your opponents' armies?

My first fight was against 4 heavy nexus guys : Lord Kalkatus, Pyre Spirit, Amazon Drac and another 97-point creature. This army was a very close call. What I did was waiting till the four guys came in range (he had too come because of Ghost Army), then basing them with my blood demons, actually sacrificing them. I could easly break away from them, shoot with Kess and then base him with someone else. The good thing was that he didn't came after ma Talon warrior. He missed a couple of shots at my Kess and the ones he hit, I could heal (with some luck of the dice, I admit).

The second fight was against a beefed up Chroma, supported by a magic healer on a flying ley dragon and a small Elven Lord Captain (don't remember which one). He made two mistakes: he forgot about ghost army, so he came flying up with his healer but he couldn't shoot me. So after finding that out, he came with Chroma, leaving the healer in range of my Kess. I first shot his Chroma and then basing him with one blood demon. In stead of trying to kill my demon, he fled with Chroma to the air, hoping he could heal his Chroma back to full strength. Since this took him one turn, I could shot his healer. He then fled with his helaer and his Chroma out of range, but again, wasting a turn. I, on my turn, had too wait because my Kess was pushed. After that, he tried to heal but missed (he had to roll a 9). I followed then with my Kess, so his healer and Chroma is back in range. He then has too choose: trying to heal Chroma and staying in range, or fleeing again. He chooses the first and his heal roll works !! However: only one one click of healing is the result... I then shoots his riding healer, giving again 3 damage, which leaves his dragon flying around and no healer... Because his Chroma doesn't shoot, it is useless in the air, so in coming down it is flooded with angry demons under the inspiring lead of Gora Stormblade. These guys kill his Chroma in a nasty fight while Kess shoots the remaining parts of Ley Dragon out of the air...

The third fight was against a hord of the same blood demons, together with Cult Enforcers and a healer and a revenanter. The healer was wearing Disruptor, so my Kess had to stay out of range of that one. The blood demon - cult enforcer combo is a very nasty one. This horde of dark crusaders moves fast (only one action) and is very strong: the subfaction from the cult enforcers give their tokens a the cost of one damage to the blood demons, freeing their selves from tokens and making the blood demons even stronger or bringing them in a double vampirism click... The fight began on with my usual tactic: taking the first objective with my three blood demons and bringing Kess into place for shooting on the first and on the middlest objective. My opponent moves with his hore in one time: 16". Second turn: he doubletimes and pushes his demon-enforcer horde to surround my demons which was a little bit too aggressive. I fled with the demons, giving 4 clicks of shake-off dam and shoots with Kess and killing further off with Gora. He then moves his dirsupting healer further in the fight, taking out the shooting ability of my Kess... He divides his demons and enforcers to further surround my three demons and my stormblade. However, stormblad with Footmans Fangblade is a nasty adversery: he gives three clicks autodamage, every turn, to his already weakend enforcers and he manages (bearely) to overpower the opponent. On the other hand the killed enforcers and demons try to kill my horde of demons but here I get lucky and some of the revenanted figures miss their attack. So after moving Kess out of range of the disruptor I manages to kill his healer also. Then it goes fast: my demons go after the revenanter while Gora Stormblade suicides himself in a fight with a cult enforcer. His death will not go unremembered, since he leaves the cult enforcer weakend and near-death on the battlefield, so even my talon warrior could kill him with one last shot...

As I figured. Thanks for the battle report though. :)

Shouldn't it be a good idea to do this more. Battle reports, please !!

Keep on playing and post your battle reports here !

(If my opponents read this post, maybe they have a different view on their fights...)


BTW, dragon, what do you mean with "As I figured" ?

I agree wholeheartedly, more battle reports would be great.

As for the army, I love it for the most part. I would only change:

The Talon Warrior is the first weak link that I can see. He's decent, but nothing speical. Get rid of him, and you can free up 34 points.

With those 34 points, you could upgrade Gora to level d, and if you were to downgrade Kess's spellbook to Tome of Brass, you could replace the Fangblade with Inferno. I'm not sure, but I think you wouldn't have to change to spells.

All in all its looks like an elegant bifaction army. I'd be interested to see how it plays1 :)

You are right about Talon but I didn't find another healer in my collection that fitted to the criteria "healing and elemental"...

My first spell set was
- disenchant
- animate wild
- wind arrow
- ghost army

This is a lot more aggressive spellbook. At the day of the tournament I decided to add auroheal in it anyway... With auraheal in the book, it can indeed be possible to get rid of a healer...