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I'm taking my Brets to the Hong Kong GT again this year, but I thought I'd change my list a little, and came up with a theme: the 10th Reliquary Crusade. 

It's my excuse to paint up the peasant heavy army I've been wanting to play for a few years, which is vaguely inspired by the English armies of the Hundred Year War.  The army is still being painted, so most of the figures here are from the bret army of fellow gamer George Yow. 

I've been a little scarce around Fun Atelier this year, largely due to a number of lit fests taking me away from Hong Kong: so this is my first chance to come up against the new Vampire Counts list. 

Vampire Counts

I was up against a fairly small army as shown above.  The four characters were all vamps, the lord and a hero going in with the ghouls, the bsb with the grave guard and one with the skellies.

I deployed my peasants first, filling up the middle of the battlefield with ranked units, flanked on either side with archers, and on the left hand side with 20 skirmishing arcers and the trebuchet.  My plan was to hold the centre fairly solid, use the archers to take out the fell bats, leaving me in control of the left hand side of the battlefield and then pin the enemy on the right flank between the centre and the lances of questing knights and grail knights. 

I have a particularly bad record against undead, and was hopeful that I could turn this round with an army as hard hitting as the bretonians. 

Round 1

The Vamps moved straight forward at quite a speed for undead: with the new rules for marching.  Only the fell bats made any kind of movement, across the front of the army, en route for the trebuchet.

I aimed at the black coach with the trebuchet, scattered onto the one next to it, and partially hit the one I had aimed for. 
I wounded the coach I had hit full-on, but it passed its ward save and so my shot was wasted. 

All my archers aimed at the fell bats but failed to destroy them - leaving the unit with 3 wounds overall.  Meanwhile my knights all moved around to threaten the flanks of the enemy. 

Round 2

The fell bats charged my trebuchet, but the peasants managed to draw the combat and so stayed put.  My archers fired at the ghoul unit to try and thin them out while the rest of my army set themselves up for flank charges. 

I declared a charge against the unit of skellies with my knights errant, hoping to assasinate one of the vampires, but they were a fraction short, and failed their charge.  Meanwhile my hero on a pegasus flew behind the skellies, also hoping to get a flank charge on the vampire in the skelly unit, and take him out.  Meanwhile my grail knights started around the lump of rocks to come into the rear of the VC army.  I kicked myself a little because I should have sent them round from the beginning.   

Round 3

The vamps moved forward again, the fell bats overrunning into my skirmishing archers while the black coaches charged my men at arms.  The men at arms were beaten and fled off the table and the black coaches did not persue. 

In my round three I thought I would pin the skellies into combat with the hero on a pegasus, and declared charges with my knights errant and my questing knights against the grave guard in front of me.  Meanwhile, my pegasus knights delcared a charge against onbe of the corpse carts, positioned so that they would overun into the grave guard once they won the combat. 

My grail reliquary charged the black coach in the flank and reduced it to one wound.  Again, I failed to destroy the thing. 

My knights errant passed their fear test, but the questing knights failed their fear test and their re-roll and refused to move.  My pegasus knights also failed their fear test and so my attack was severely blunted. 

The Grave guard and skellies had strike first and WS 7 and the knights errant lost the combat, although inflicting one wound on the bsb, but they were run down and the grave guard persued into my general's unit.

Round 4

Sorry, no pic here.  My general's unit fled.  My pegasus knight was killed by the Vampire he was against, although the pegasus survived.  The Vampire lord's unit charged my grail reliquary in the flank, and they were also run down. 

Meanwhile, one of the black coaches was magiced into charging my knights of the realm, who were also beaten in combat and fled. 

The skellies were magiced into charging my grail knights, who also lost combat, but stayed in battle.

Round 5

My general's knight rallied and my pegasus knights managed to get a charge off against one of the corpse carts. 

Round 6

The game ended with my grail knights winning a combat but no one else in range to attack.  Another fairly dismal performance for me coming up against undead.  I guess I just don't get an army that breaks so many of the fundamental rules of Warhammer, which seem to me to be about movement and winning combats.  I tried assassinating one of the vampires, but the Vampire struck first and killed my hero.  My shooting was pretty much ineffectual, in that all the units I shot were not destroyed in one round.  But I suppose I did give my trebuchet crew a chance to draw a round of combat.

What would I have done differently?  I should have sent my knights around the back from the beginning, just to throw the attack into reverse.  My plan was to combine the peasants with the knights, and again this failed.  I also forgot that VC have no shooting and deployed my army as if I was expecting a more normal army that has some shooting capability. 

My silver mirror wounded one of the vamp heroes in the first round, but this is pretty ineffective against VCs, as those wounds can be restored pretty effortlessly.