Local League: Fitful Fate

Hooray!

The league has now reached the halfway mark and we played the first 1000p game with the Border War scenario. I assembled the rest of my Aelves and resolved to give the Guardians of the Dawnspire -battalion a try by fielding all the models from the Spire of Dawn plus some extra footmen. Let us take a look at the army!

 Here they stand in all their glory. I boosted the numbers of the Spireguard by another 10 models to bring my points total up to 980p with the following list:

1x High Warden
1x Archmage
5x Reavers
20x Spireguard
10x Swordmasters
[Guardians of the Dawnspire]

The battalion gives my Archmage and his Swordmasters the Swifthawk Agents keyword and enables one unit within 16" of the High Warden to move or shoot in each hero phase. It's not bad for its cost and that keyword-buff really helps out as the Spireguard only count as Battleline if my army has the Swifthawk Agents allegiance (which I'd obviously lack if there were Eldritch Council units hopping about!).

The game I played was against the brand new Disciples of Tzeentch but luckily I bought the Battletome last week and I've been studying them thoroughly since then, making me aware of their various tricks and twists. Here's what the board looked like as we started out:

The opposing army had 20 Kairic Acolytes, 20 Pink Horrors, a Lord of Change and 3 Screamers of Tzeentch. The match-up seemed interesting from the start and I prayed through the entire aelven pantheon asking deliverance from the magical fires that would soon engulf my ranks!

So it was that the minions of the Great Schemer took the first turn of the first round and set about capturing the objectives. Buffs and Command Abilities flew this way and that as the foe ran to the centre of the field. I spent my own turn advancing with everything I had, the High Warden charging his Screamers on the right-hand objective and my Reavers thundering into the Kairic Acolytes while loosing volleys of arrows. The now-famous champion of the Spireguard, Imladrik Beastbane, was promoted to lead a whole legion of warriors who peppered the enemy Horrors as they strode towards the centre.

My Reavers got pulverized in the following turns by a fusillade of arcane fire that the Lord of Change summoned forth, although luckily they gave the Acolytes a battering before getting turned to ash. The arrows of the Spireguard (20 in the hero phase, 20 in the shooting phase) and the fact that both of the terrain pieces in the middle were Mystical (rerolling wound rolls if things go right) weakened the Pink Horrors enough for my High Warden to plough through the Screamers and right into them, using his 6" pile-in to capture the objective on the enemy zone before tearing the remaining Horrors apart!

As one might expect, this didn't please the Lord of Change who promptly obliterated the poor griffon rider in a cascade of multicoloured fire that sucked my poor Warden's soul into the Realm of Chaos...
But the damage had been already done. My Swordmasters rushed in to chop at the bird-daemon and capture the other mid-field objective while my excessively sweating Archmage did his best to turn aside enemy sorceries and blows with his Elemental Shield.

The Kairic Acolytes charged in to remove the discomfort my Swordmasters were causing the Lord of Change but got swiftly put down by the lightning-fast aelven greatblades, leaving the enemy general alone with only four ragged cultists to accompany him.

The Swordmasters held firm under the spells and blows of the creature despite losing four of their number to the daemon's wrath. Had it not been for my over-employed Archmage and a few lucky 6s the unit would've been gone in short order!

Imladrik's Spireguard fired off one last volley that cut down the remaining Acolytes before charging in to take down the final enemy. The Swordmasters swung first and, as they had already dealt 7 wounds in the last combat phase, they now took the Lord of Change down to his final wound. After failing to kill any of the Spireguard around him the badly wounded enemy general was finally brought low by a thicket of aelven spears.

The game ended on battleround 3 with a 17-10 scoreboard, meaning a major victory for the Aelves!

With a current total of 4 League Points my Aelf army is in the top-three on the lists, tied with the Greenskins and one point short of the leading Skaven.
The next game will be a 1000p Three Places of Power, followed by the third 1000p match and then the final 2000p special scenario.

I absolutely failed to paint any aelves this week so now I'll have to pick up the pace if I'm ever going to finish this project in time. 
Thanks for reading, keep the thumbs up for these brave plastic souls!