Here is the long promised battle report from my tournament a couple weeks ago. Sorry again for the delay, but life gets in the way lol. I have pics from each game so ill start with this intro then make new posts for each round along with some pics to give you a better idea of how the games went. On 2/25/17 I went to a 2000 pt AOS tournament held at the Coliseum of Comics store located in Kissimmee, Fl. I think there were about 10 of playing that day. I decided to take the Quad carno list that I have been theorycrafting in the forums here. Here it is. Saurus Scar-Veteran on Carnosaur - General - War Spear - Trait: Legendary Fighter - Artefact: Relic Blade Saurus Scar-Veteran on Carnosaur - Warblade Bloodclaw Starhost: Saurus Oldblood on Carnosaur - Artefact: Quicksilver Potion Saurus Scar-Veteran on Carnosaur - Warblade Saurus Scar-Veteran on Cold One Saurus Scar-Veteran on Cold One 10 x Saurus Knights (240) - Lances - Seraphon Battleline 10 x Saurus Knights (240) - Lances - Seraphon Battleline 5 x Saurus Knights (120) - Lances - Seraphon Battleline In case you haven't been following the thread, its located here. http://lustria-online.com/threads/2000-pt-list-knights-of-seraphonia-quad-carnos.19016/ In case you have never played a list like this before, it basically works like this. You move up the board as fast as you can. You use your command abilites to pump your units before charging. With this list I was able to get 20 knights that generate extra lance attacks on a 6 to hit, with 2 jaws and shields, and 4 mount attacks each. Backing them up were 3 carnos scar vets with 6 normal attacks, 2 jaws and shields, 2 carno claw attacks and 7 carno bite attacks, and then 2 scar vent on cold ones with 5 war pick attacks that had a decent chance of becoming 10 attacks maybe even 15 attacks, as well as the 2 jaws and shields and 4 mount attacks. And to push it even further over the top, with proper spacing, pretty much everyone re-rolls charge rolls and hit rolls of 1. If you just got overwhelmed with all the numbers, just think about how the opponent feels. Once all these buffs are stacked the army becomes quite scary, pumping out high volumes of accurate and deadly attacks. Ignoring rend -1 makes it a bit sturdier than the simple +5 save on knights would lead you to believe and it allows scar-vet carnos tank damage quite well. The old Blood doesn't have a shield so he doesn't ignore rend so Keeping him alive was an interesting challenge. GAME1 vs Sylvaneth Three Places of Power This would be a rematch of a game we played the last AOS tournament I attended. I barely lost that one when his Kurnoth Hunters shot my unit off the objective I needed to win. I didn't have 4 carnos then, so I was hoping for some payback! He likes to take the un-killable ancient treeman setup to make his ancient a 2+ armor save with re-rolls on 1s and ignore rend -1. Basically this setup is very hard for Seraphon to deal with and the best way to approach it is to ignore him. If he engages you and you survive, retreat away and don't let him tie you up. You wont be killing him with this army. Backing him up was another treeman, 2 units of dryads, a unit of revenants, branchwych and branch wraith, and 2 units of Kurnoth hunters with boys. My opponent deployed to my right between those two objectives so I deployed far left with the intent to wheel around and claim the middle and my left. I had first initiative and chose to let him go first. I like going second first turn with this army as it limits the shooting I take and the wardrums on the knights let me set up for a brutal double turn chance top of 2. On his turn he does some teleporting shenanigans to surround objective 3. His wizard doesn't roll high thankfully and so will have to wait a turn to claim it. Everyone else moved up and his hunters put some wounds on a big unit of knights. Little shooting like this is what makes me happy I took big units of 10. I can still lose 2 or 3 and be a beast in combat. I start my planned wheel. That big obstacle prevented me from reaching the marker with one of my scar -vets so no points for either of us this round. Im in a rush to get a carno on that marker in the middle before he plants a treelord on top of it. If he does I wont be able to get him off it. I decide my small unit of 5 knights needs to play roadblock and slow down his dryad swarm. They bravely move into the woods which promptly kills 1 thanks to dangerous terrain checks. (what is this 8th edition?) The next few turns are us jockeying for position and back and forth charges. His dryads kill my small unit of knights. My knights and carno and scar vet on the right take out a unit of 20 dryads. More dryads teleport in. His hunters and ancient are shooting up my carnos left and right but they are holding strong. My other unit of 10 keeps pursuing the kurnoth hunters as they kite them. My other scar vet holds objective 1 and his branchwraith grabs 3. His treeman barely misses grabbing the objective in the middle thanks to slower speed and my old blood charges right on top of it. Should have used a scar-vet in hindsight for the extra rend negation but I had hoped to kill that treelord soon with 3 carnos ganging up on it.
Unfortunately, he made every stomp for the rest of the game and got arcane shield on the treelord. Of course being in range of the ancient it also re-rolled 1s to save. That darn treelord tanked 3 carnos for 4 rounds of combat. I would sneak in d3 wounds or 3 wounds and then it would get healed. If the objective wasn't right there I would have retreated away and went after the hunters. My knights, scar vet and carno on the right cleaned up the dryads in the woods, but couldn't reach the branchwraith. My knights finally caught the hunters and did 4 wounds, but for the life of me I couldn't do a 5th to that unit. If I had they would have been subject to bloodroar which is a great way to get rid of units like hunters. I would go on to hold the middle and left, and when dice down was called I had managed to barely outscore my opponent. I don't recall but I think it was like 6-4. Our games are always fun and he is a great opponent, but man I was frustrated after watching all those carno attacks just get tanked. I am totally bringing and obstinate blade with me from now on.
GAME 2 vs Seraphon Blood and Glory It was hot seraphon on seraphon action this time. My opponent was playing an interesting summoning list with Slann, EOG, bastilidon, shadowstrike battalion, and a tool box of models to summon. His strategy was to play to the objectives and summon what he needed in any situation. When I saw the shadowstrike battalion in his list I castled like a giant scardy cat. I reeeeeaaaaaallllly didnt want to let his rippers get a charge onto my oldblood. Not having a shield makes him a lot less durable than scar-vets. This way he would have to get into my knights one way or the other. I got the first initiative again and had my opponent go first. I didnt get a pic but he managed to summon an Astrolith bearer off his EOG turn 1. Pretty good. He then planted it and made sure all his spells would go off for the rest of the game. He landed the shadowstrike rippers on the right of my castle and decided to whittle down one of my units of 10 knights. I braced for the pain and after it was over I had lost 4. Skinks moved up on my left and skinks claimed the objective in his deployment zone on my right. The rest of his army marched forward. I set up my buffs and sent a scar-vet and my knights after the rippers to make sure they died. I was successful in wiping them out on my turn. Everyone else moved up. My carnos on the left double charged 2 units of skinks with javelins, but only killed 1. The other retreated from combat and this would become a theme of the game. Turns out my opponent was really really really good at being annoying with skinks. Giving them flying, moving them in the way. Setting up combats so that I have to attack something else first, letting his skinks retreat again. I would never capture that objective in his deployment zone. Those skinks would go on to dance around it all game long. On my next turn I charged up the middle, a buffed unit of knights smashing into his guard and my general charging his bastilidon. My old blood and other scar-vet on carno made charges into his starpriest. I really wanted to kill it to keep him from channeling with it. Buffed knights were able to deal enough attacks to bypass the armor on the guard. If he had taked the eternity starhost I probably wouldnt have been able to kill all 10, but thankfully for me, that wasn't the kind of list he was playing.
On his next turn he gets into my knights with his eternity warden and EOG. I lose 5 knights that combat. My general slugs it out with his bastilodon as his skinks play dance around the carno on the left. I start moving my scar-vets on the right up towards that other unit of skinks to try to break the objective stalemate. He then does something really cool that I wasn't expecting. He uses his remaining summoning points to summon a unit of warriors over on my right. He makes a long charge and gets into my scar-vet on cold one. Totally wasnt expecting that. Its a cool way to use summoning. They managed to puts a couple wound on him. I guess my vet was surprised to see them cause he does nothing back. My general finishes off the bastilidon and the combined might of the eternity warden and EOG kill off my knights. On his next turn he retreats the warriors and brings them over to contest the objective being held by my almost half unit of knights. Very smart and his plan all along. His EOG decides to go for broke and charges my hero. Im super lucky on armor saves and he survives! If that guy had died there I dont think my unbuffed knights would have survived another turn. On my turn I charge his slann with the old blood and charge my knights into the warriors. At the end of combat my buffed knights take out 8 of 10 warriors and kill the rest in combat res, and my old blood manages to eat the slann earning me slay the warlord bonus objective. On the left those darn skinks keep dancing around my guys. After killing the EOG the carno on the right manages to make it into those skinks and eat them all. This breaks the objective tie and I end up winning by objective. In spite of all that I killed the game was essentially tied until the very end. It was a great game and I thought It was very fun playing against a different kind of list. I think there is something to this super objective based style. Maybe if GH2 works out summoning better, this style will see more play?
GAME 3 vs Dark Elves Border War Up until this point I had not played against a unit of dark elves since 7th edition fantasy. I remembered the 8th edition fantasy death star so when I saw the witches and then saw Malycath on his black dragon, I decided to focus on grabbing the objectives quick and trying to build up enough points for the win. Im going to go ahead right now and admit this is when I made the mistake that costs me this game. You see this tournament has slight different scenarios than the ones in the handbook and I didnt read them carefully enough. I encourage everyone who goes to a tournament get there early and read, really read, the packet. This version has a sudden death rule. Basically if you get tabled your opponent gets an automatic minor victory no matter how far ahead you may be. This is what comes back to bite me. My opponent appears a little weary of getting into combat with my carnos while they are full health and shuffles his witches up. Bolt throwers put some wounds on my carnos and he buffs his witches to nasty levels. On my turn I run up to grab 3 of the 4 objectives with my knights. I decide that since my game plan is to win by objectives, I need to start slowing him down while I build up my lead. I sacrifice one of my scar-vets on cold ones. He makes his long charge and gets into the front unit of elves. He kills a couple and takes 4 wounds back. But importantly he lives and slows down my opponent's advance on his next turn. Im sorry but I forgot to take pics for the rest of this one, but this is kind of how the remainder of the game looked. I held the objectives racking up points while my opponent shot at my army and I fed him units to slow him down. Carnos and scar vet on right killed a unit of witches and carnos on the left killed another. Malycath flew over to eat my unit of 5 knights in the back and my general and a scarvet on carno went after him. Took him down to 7 wounds but then he 1 rounded my general. I missed all my saves, Malycath hits like a truck with his sword and his dragon ate two carnos in a single combat. Rough day for the carnos. He hunted down the remainder of my army while i banked the last of my points and got tabled. At the end of the game I had 22 points to his 17. We both though I had won until we re-read the packet and thats when I realized the sudden death rule. He won the minor victory and I felt immensely frustrated with myself. He was a great opponent and his list hits just as hard as mine. It was a fun game but I feel like I had a great shot at winning this one too If i had realized the sudden death rule and went for a more standard gameplan. My opponent would go on to win 2nd place, and he deserved it. First place was new stormcasts with their new, silly, even better than it used to be Deepstrike list. On the very very bright side, I won a raffle for a free starter set and now have some super pretty sylvaneth to paint up. It was a really fun tournament and everyone there was really nice and great people to play against. As for the list, 4 carnos terrified everyone! No one seemed to have a list prepared to deal with them. I loved it! I have the Orlando Crucible convention coming up at the end of this month and ill be looking to play a similar list there. I haven't decided what exactly it will be but it will have some number of carnos and knights. Anyways thanks for reading this and I hope you enjoyed it. Good luck in all your games.
Great write ups! Too bad about your last game though, that's really frustrating. Infuriating but at least you learned a lesson from it, haha. Were the rules posted ahead of time at all? Also, sounds like the decision to drop the shield on your OB wasn't a great one, haha. Our cowboys have always relied on their survivability to get us through games. Something for all of us to keep in mind. It is interesting reading about the other Seraphon player and his tactics. Skink shenanigans have always been a staple for us, but the summoning trick looks like it has potential. Fingers crossed for GH2. Again, great job! Your army looks awesome in action. Pics are much appreciated
It did have them posted ahead of time, but I just didn't read them carefully enough. Won't be doing that again.
One of the best battlereps ! Awesome tournament and excellent write up ! Let the mistakes aside, well done ! Your comments with your thoughts are also important for new players like me Looking forward into the next one !
Quad Carnos is mega-scary. I have ONE and my friend is scared of him. Thanks for the battle report, seems like you all had a great time there!
It definitely is a top tier list. I am thinking of copying it for a tournament, If I get a few more carnos that is!