Got my first official 8th edition game in. Figured i'd post a down and dirty battle report and give some of my feedback on how it went. I posted up some of my take-aways on the forum.
I ran:
Slaan - bsb, ethereal, all lore, re-roll miscasts, extra dice.
took light
2x mounted scar vets
1x scar vet on foot
skink - 1 scroll
3 x 20 Saurus, Full command
2x 10 skink skirmishers
4 x Terradons
lil Steg
big steg
I faced Dannato:
Priest on an Altar
Mounted Priest
Mounted BSB w/ sword of battle
lvl 2 - Fire
Big unit of swordmasters
detachment of halberdiers
2x 10 riflemen
1x 10 crossbowmen
8x Knights
5x pistoliers
5x outriders
2x cannons
1x organ gun
1x mortar
1x hellstrom rocket
1x Steamtank
Deployement:
Pitched battle. He deployed a small center, an expansive backfield of warmachines, and then anchored towards his left side by placing the knight w/ 2 mounted characters and the war altar on that side. He countered this by sticking the Stank on his R side. His extreme flanks had L) Outriders R) pistoliers
I stuck all three saurus blocks in the center of my line, Slaan went behind a house in my deployment zone. I put a steg on either side of my line and then weighted my R flank by placing both units of skinks on it. I fancied my terradons getting over the top of his pistoliers so I stuck them across from them on my L flank.
I won the roll for first.
1a.
I marched my everything up. The slaan went into the house. The magic phase was heartbreaking, I managed to get Pha's protection on the little steg nearby. I went to cast Banishment (2d6 str 4 + Light spells known hits = str 10 for the slaan) on his knights and walked into the destroyer scroll. He got the 4 and Banishment disappeared from my list. In the shooting phase my skinks opened up and killed all but one outrider (marching skinks that can still shoot = win).
No close combats to fight.
1b.
He declared a charge with his knight unit. I held and he failed the charge. They shuffled forward 5 inches. Since he had a single lvl 2, the magic phase was pretty easily handled by my Slaan (+4 to dispel is hard to get around).
Shooting was a mixed bag. Nothing touched my stegs, he misfired a cannon and took it off and misfired his hellstrom so the rocket just stuck in the ground. Mostly just sniped a few saurus off the backs of my ranked up units. His pistoliers took out a terradon.
2a.
I charged one of my mounted vets out of a saurus block at the organ gun. He fled and panicked the mortar behind them (win, 2 war machines in one turn!). I knew the mortar would be able to fire the next turn due to the new panic rules, but I thought it was too far away to redirect at. Instead I re-directed my scar vet into the front of the 10 halberdiers. I tried to charge my big steg into his Stank, but I came up about way too short on the dice. My terradons hopped over his pistoliers and rocked them to death. My saurus block with the foot-slogging vet went into his swordmasters hiding the fire wizard.
Magic phase had me throwing a few magic missles around, but I had rolled a small amount of dice. I re-cast protection on the little steg. I also cried a little bit about Banishment being destroyed.
In my shooting phase both of my stegs continued to be out of position. My big steg couldn't hurt the Stank with shooting and my little Steg just couldn't get the hits on his smaller units. One of my skink units advanced and removed the other cannon. The other skink unit removed the last outrider.
My Scar Vet (yawn) continued to chip away at the halberds. I beat up on the swordmasters with my other saurus block, but he was steadfast due to chipping away at my units w/ his prior shooting.
2b.
His knights went into one of my saurus blocks and his Stank went into another.
Magic had him buffing a few units, but nothing major. The altar continued to stay anchored in the backfield Shooting took a few more saurus off and the stegs remained untouched.
During the close combat phase his knights managed to get 5 kills into a saurus block with a mounted vet. This broke my 3rd rank. I did about 10 wounds and failed to kill a single knight which gave him 2 ranks to my 2 ranks. I was on double ones and legged it off, immediately getting cut down by his knights. His Stank did a load of wounds onto another saurus block and they failed their break test (despite being steadfast) and took off.
3a.
My big steg went into the Stank. The block that had busted away from the steamtank rallied and reformed facing towards his knights.
My magic phase had me getting of Timewarp (double mv, +1 atk, ASF) and the WS10 i10 buffs on my recently rallied saurus. I netted his Knights with the light lore snare.
My shooting opened up on the war altar. I put two wounds on the priest on top and 2 wounds on the altar itself from skinks and the lil steg.
In close combat my Scar Vet continued to be stuck into his halberds. My steg rolled max impact hits, 3 regular hits, and 3 thunderstomp hits across the phase onto his Stank. I did a total of 2 wounds. Dannato's armor saves for that metal beast were criminal.
3b.
He tried to throw his knights into my recently rallied saurus, but failed his str test (From the light spell net) which kept him rooted and also caused him to take d6 str 4 hits, killing 2 knights. He tried to chuck the war altar into the flank of my pinned stank vs. steg combat, but whiffed the distance.
Shooting was minimal this phase. He shuffled his gunline around a bit which took them out for the turn.
Magic was more buffing. Throwing Phas Protection onto the War Altar was his priority as my lil steg was at close range.
Combat had him grind a few wounds off the steg and the crew with the engaged steamtank. My saurus block fighting the swordmasters finally broke them and sent them running straight back.
4a.
I charged his fleeing swordmasters and they legged it off the board. I tried to redirect and failed. My terrodons charged his rocket. My skinks moved up to stay in close range of the altar. I charged into the flank of his netted knights with a unit of saurus.
In the magic phase I managed to re-buff the saurus with timewarp and the ws/i buffs.
Shooting put another wound on the altar itself.
Combat. He called a challenge with the knights we drew. The remainder of my saurus opened up and put an amazing 15 wounds onto the knights and failed to kill a single one.
4b.
His altar failed another charge at my Steg. The rest of his units were either pinned or gunline, so not a lot of movement.
He dropped some templates on my saurus unit in his backfield and took a few off. He killed a few skinks out of each unit and both passed their panic test. The magic phase was skipped at this point as his wizard was gone. He wasn't worried about priest buffing at this point.
In combat my saurus champion killed his knight champion. With the remainder of the attacks I killed off another knight. He failed to do any wounds back, but as his BSB was in that unit he was only down a few points of combat res and held. His steamtank ground out the remainder of the skink crew and put a wound on the steg.
Turn 5 - nothing really amazing here. A lot of pushes in combat.
6a.
I charged the terrodons at another warmachine, charged my block of saurus in his backfield into some riflement facing away from them.
I re-buffed the Saurus block on my magic phase and turned my skinks onto his gunline as I was tired of doing 8 wounds to his altar just to see him armor and ward them off.
My saurus block continued to chip away at his knights, but he held again. My saurus block in his backfield ran over his riflemen and hit the back of his crossbowmen.
6b.
He finally managed to get his war altar into the side of my pinned steg. This would be what sealed the game up in the close combat phase.
No magic, No shooting.
Close combat hinged on two fights-
-I finally got a lucky phase (17 wounds this time) on his knights and killed the rest out except for his characters. They broke from combat, hit a house, and died.
-His altar traded out all of his attacks on steg for the d6 wounds, str10 hit. He rolled to hit - missed. Re-rolled for hatred - hit. Rolled to wound: 1. The steg hit him with three attacks back which he warded. The steg then thunderstomped him for 6 hits and wounded with four. He failed every save and took his general off at the bottom of six.
Result: Massacre to me. It was incredibly tense there at the end. We both commented that we felt like we were playing 7.75 edition as neither of us had more than just a few minutes with the rulebook, but it was a blast nonetheless. I believe Dannato has grudged me next week to take on his Orcs and Goblins...that'll be a hard army to punch through and Dannato doesn't give you any leeway if you make a mistake.