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Background:

Heinrich Kemmler's latest plan of world conquest once more lies in tatters. Deceived by his Skaven allies, Heinrich has been forced to flee with a large force of Imperial troops close behind. Seeing a bold move as his last possible chance Heinrich has paused in the graveyard of a church to raise some reinforcements and intends to break his pursuers and make good his escape.

Set-up

The setup is fairly straightforward and specified by the scenario.  The Undead are set up in the centre of the table, close to the church.  The battlefield (we played on a 6 x 4 table) was fairly densely populates with woods and hills (more than I would have liked but about average for Len).

The Undead quickly deployed to limit the Imperial set-up to the extreme corners of the table. The main reason for this tactic was to prevent any of the Empire artillery from setting up on the hills and it worked!

The Empire army split in two to surround the abominable forces of Undeath arrayed against them. The force was fairly evenly split, with around half the force behind the Undead and half the force in front.

The undead set up with a screen of skirmishers covering the two main units.

Victory Conditions

The Vampire Counts have to destroy a half or more of the attacking Imperial army before being destroyed themselves. Simple

The Battle

In summary:

The Spirit Host and Fell Bats fought the forces in front of them to a stand still. The Spirit Host scared off a unit of the Empire Infantry and held up the other unit for several turns while the General (the only man with a magical weapon, as the wizard had fled in panic with the infantry) slaughtered them single handedly. The Crossbowmen put up a redoubtable defence against the Fell Bats, keeping them from destroying the Cannon.

The Ghouls took some missile fire, made the mistake of charging a large unit of Dwarves and got themselves slaughtered (oops), but held the Dwarves up long enough for the Skeletons to charge them, and frighten them off.  The Skeletons followed up into the skirmishing Archers in the garden of the house and promptly saw them off too.

In the centre, the Knights charged round the woods into the newly deployed Zombies with the Banshee close by.  The Banshee killed a handful of Knights, the Priest of Sigmar's disgusting holy prayer of God knows what killed a handful of Zombies.  The Knights failed their break test and were CHASED OFF THE TABLE by the remaining Zombies.

The loss of the Knight's alone was enough to force a draw but with the destruction of almost all the Empire army (I believe the Cannon survived as did the infantry with the General and a unit of Crossbowmen) there was no doubt about the outcome. A resounding victory for Heinrich which will buy him the time to plan a new scheme to bring about the fall of the Empire.

Debriefing

This is all from the point of view of the victor so may be biased. The Banshee was cool, the Fell Bats and Spirit Host were frankly unexpectedly brilliant (although this had as much to do with a couple of bad Fear and Panic tests). The Knights were in one large, impressive-looking unit but not impressive enough against a larger unit of fear-causing enemy.

The Empire attack was non-existent. The only unit that came to the Undead were the Knights, and they had no infantry support. Against Undead this is fatal. It is generally only a matter of time before the Undead unit you are fighting against wins a close combat and (because of Fear) automatically Breaks you.

Finally, Heinrich should probably have taken a wound. In the new rules even the Necromancers are Undead, so should be affected by the Soulfire Prayer. Sorry Len:-)

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