h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

For the first time since 1999 I agreed to play James 'Quartet' Baker, one of the better generals of my acquaintance. Being of the well-founded opinion that Quartet's 2K Wood Elf tournament army would slap me all over the table we took advantage of it being quiet, nabbed a second table, and played a Last Stand game on the pair of them.

Rather than the usual 'line up and run at each other' battle, this meant that my army was twice the size of his (closer to 4:1 in terms of figures on the table). My mission was to wipe him out completely before he killed half my force.

I had the regular force (I do need to finish those Tomb Kings. Hmm), he took two mages, four archer units, some waywatchers, some wardancers, and some dryads.

Well, I needed to get in fast and start tying up his bowmen. The two fast-moving units at my disposal were the Giant and the Boar Riders, and they both entirely mucked it up - the Boar Boys took horrendous amounts of arrows and failed their panic test on turn two, the Giant zoomed in on the Dryads, didn't do a single wound and was beaten to death for his trouble. Add to this my fanatics destroying the chariot and killing far too many Black Orcs, and the inevitable happening when too many Orcs and Gobbos converge on the same spot (ie, they start attacking each other and not the enemy) and you begin to see my difficulty.

It eventually boiled down to more conventional battle lines with the bolt throwers enfilading the Elves. After 12 epic turns of conflict the last pointy-eared scum was hacked down but Quartet had won, killing between two-thirds and three-quarters of my force. But a good and very different game. Memories of when I played Wood Elves and kept saying 'No, they're not beardy, honest' are flashing before my eyes...