Daves 'thoughts' on the battle......
The scenario is interesting and I enjoyed it more that the usual two sides marchign accrss a board. The good armies were slow to come on, but because of the distance up board and its width, a lot of the evil units didn't join in until late in the game (or at all).
Lack of fast troops choices were an issue on both sides I think. Empire had very few fast reserves, which meant they got boxed in their deployment. The faster advancing WE found themselves without support and outflanked at times. Likewise the evil fast troops were either at the back (chariots looking for gaps) or tied up early (bats) and so they couldn't get to the chapel. The elven mages in the temple weren't in much danger at all.
It was a 6,000pts a side battle, pretty big for a 8x4board. Even with a lot coming on as reserves, this made the Western side of the board congested later on, partly due to the mass of cheap infantry on both sides, but an early large melee in the centre made the centre & eastern side a lot more open.
There were some very powerful named and non-named characters costing around 400 pts in the battle, more with mounts pts. HE Teclis did unstoppable spells on any double and loads of pluses to casting & dispelling. The Beastlord Morghul was a pain to both sides, the woods causing fear, and a chance of any troops near him morphing into spawn, like wise any mage fumbling ran a risk of being spawned. The WE lord on a dragon speaks for itself (no, it really does). The VC lord was a level 4 wizard had 6 power dice +1 or +2 on casting, but was still a force to be reckoned with in combat as well.
Overall I feel Teclis was the decider on this game. A good if expensive choice, he dominated the majic and from the way it went with the power they still had, I think without him the undead would have worn the opposition down. 15 power dice they had with bonus means they gain about 40 troops a round on average. 60 if I go zombies.
It was my first time using the new VC and thye worked a lot better than the old one, even if the combat resolution still feels too heavy (51 figures lost to a combat resolution doens;t seem quite right). the new figures were interesting, defintiyl use a corpse cart and wraiths again