Razordon
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Just got back from Fools of War up in Stockport. Unfortunately I didn't take any photos (except for one of the last game to send to a mate) as it was rather full on the first day and I was hungover for the second. 6 games over 2 days - 4 on the Saturday and 2 on the Sunday and it was absolutely fantastic fun. Finished 14/24 with 3 wins and 3 losses. Even though I haven't got pictures (and I know how much you all like pretty pictures) I thought I would still do a little write up.
My list for the tournament was:
- Clan Lord w/ Wings of Honeymaze & Firebolts
- Herald w/ Boomstick
- Mage-Priest w/ Mounted & Surge
- Mage-Priest w/ Inspiring Talisman & Surge
- GFE
- 2 x Lekelidon
- 2 x Unblooded Troops
- 2 x FE Hordes
- Prime Horde w/ Brew of Haste
- Ghekkotah Warrior Regiment
- Kaisenor Lancer Regiment
Game 1 - Invade vs League of Rhordia (Loss 18/2)
Game 2 - Ransack vs Ogres (Loss 16/4)
Game 3 - Control vs Ratkin (Win 16/4)
Game 4 - Eliminate vs Elves (Loss 19/1)
Game 5 - Push vs Salamanders (Win 15/5)
Game 6 - Dominate vs Undead (Win 20/0)
Game 1
The main learning I took from this is DON'T TIME OUT. I was actually holding up really well - by turn 5 it was clear that I was going to lose the objective, but I was on the cusp of routing a good number of his units. This might have meant a 15/5 loss or even a 14/6 depending on how my last turn went. During the game there were two significant disputes over whether chargers were able to get in or not, and both counted my clock time down massively. The take-away from that was to remember to stop the clock as soon as there is a disagreement on anything, and this was something I did in all games going forwards. Luckily this tournament was a dice-down, rather than auto 20/0 loss, so even though he smashed his way through my units in turn 6 I was still able to salvage 2 TPs.
My opponent played the same list as he won the Black Dragon tournament with last week. He also won this tournament. He is also the number 1 player in the UK so far this season. As such, it was unlikely I was going to win. He used 3 Halfling Volley Guns (i.e. 45 shots, hitting on 5s, Piercing (2))in the centre to stop me moving forwards and had 2 hordes of Honour Guard (which are an equivalent unit to our Ancients on Rhinosaurs) amongst other things. My Clan Lord was able to take out two of the Volley Guns by the end, but not quick enough to allow my army to move forwards enough to stop main battle line being on my side of the board (which is rather important for the objective!). While I was doing better than expected against such a good player, I could never really come back from that. Not sure what I'd do in future - maybe try throwing more of my chaff directly in front in an attempt to help my others survive while pushing them forwards as fast as I could? The issue there was that I was mostly outranged by the Honour Guard, who then would have charged after the guns had shot my chaff. I'm thinking some Ancients on Rhinos would have helped out as their threat projection might have stalled his hordes... I will be looking to make some switches, possibly dropping the GFE.
Game 2
Fairly standard Ogre list - two hordes of shooters + other ogres of various descriptions. My Clan Lord did a fantastic job tying up one of the Ogre shooter hordes up for most of the game which no doubt saved countless wounds. Double surging took out a few of his melee hordes, while he was able to take out my Primes. It was a very tight battle but I was convincingly winning at the end of turn 6 I had a 16/4 win on my hands as I had 8 points and he had 5. Unfortunately, we then rolled and got a turn 7 (I was spitting feathers at this point). Because I had moved to the objectives on the last turn, in his turn 7 he was able to get some extremely favourable charges and shoot at everything else, routing both FE hordes, the Ghekkotah, and something else, leaving me nothing to come back with in my 7th turn. It ended up with him having 9 objectives to my 3 I think, and he'd also routed an extra 600 points. I was not happy. I'm not sure that I would have changed much, because for a 6 turn game I played my hand very well I had thought. Non-shooting lists are always going to suffer in objective marker-based scenarios if there is a surprise turn 7 because they will always have to disengage to capture objectives in their 6th in the knowledge that it might be the last turn. This will then always allow ranged units to get a completely unrestricted round of shots in their 7th. Still, it's something to bear in mind when I end up in a similar situation.
Game 3
This was against Ian, the guy I regularly play for practice, so you can read any of my Ratkin bat reps to see how these usually go
. Control is a scenario I really struggled with at CoK, partly because my army is based around tight battle groups working together (so don't provide the wide coverage), and partly because I was playing Goblins who have the opposite of that problem. This time round I used my standard procedure of Primes in the centre, elemental battle group centre left, and pivot round. I was able to clear his right flank (my left) and then swing round, with my primes pivoting and creating an advancing wall travelling rightwards across the board. It ended up kettling his army in the right third of the board, and although he did get round the bottom of my Primes into the central square on my side (worth 2 to him), I double surged an FE horde towards me to get the higher unit strength in the square. Ended 4-2 in VPs as I had his side central, my side central and my side left. He had the two square on the right side. This tactic of sweeping sideways across the board is something that is working really well for me at the moment.
Game 4
I completely fell apart. At CoK (my first ever tournament) it was game 3 that I started to mentally struggle, in this tournament it was game 4, so that is an improvement! My deployment was absolutely horrific - I spread out my army (big no no for how mine works), and the majority was the opposite side of the board to the units I had to kill. The whole game involved me trying to get across as quickly as possible and being shot / charged off the board one by one. I'm not sure there are many learnings to take from it as my brain was so addled by this point I'm not sure any of my decisions are worth analysing.
Game 5
After getting completely hammered the night before, my head was in pain throughout this one. The only two Salamander players facing off against each other, and there was a lot of trading of loot tokens. Whereas I've gone down the FE route, he had gone down the Ancients on Rhinos route, and had two Ankylodons and two hordes of Tyrants. His rhinos hit like a brick (I want some), but only once before my FEs had surged into their flank and routed them. His Ankylodons and one horde of Tyrants nearly got round behind me from the left, which would have been very dangerous if I hadn't been pushing forwards with my main force and chaffing them up with everything (including my Herald who threw himself in front of the Tyrants and survived for two turns!) The final showdown in turn 7 (another turn 7!) involved his Ankylodon and Brutes routing my FEs and taking the 4 loot counters they had accumulated, and then my other FEs flank charging the Brutes to take two back for the win.
All in all it was a bit of a scrappy game, and I'm definitely getting more comfortable to use heros as chaff. Something sacrificing your inspiring is worth holding a unit up for a turn, and whereas before I wouldn't have made that call I am starting to get better at determining when or not that might be the case.
Game 6 (aka The Undead Somme)
I did exactly the same as in the Ratkin game - Primes centre, this time with Lancers centre right for threat projection and Ghekkotah far right, the elemental battle group to their left (with a forest directly in front of them) and the chaff (Lekelidons and Unbloodeds) spread across the line. He had a troop of Wights on my far left, Warewolves and Lykanis the other side of the trees, a troop of Revenant Cavalry behind them, a ghoul regiment and a ghoul regiment in his centre, and then a battle group of an Undead King (Surge 12), horde of warriors, regiment of zombies and a troop of some hard hitting undead things (all shambling). On the right he killed my Ghekkotah, but then struggled to get all his slow, shambling stuff to where the action was. On the far left left, my Clan Lord almost immediately grounded his Wights allowing a horde of FEs to double surge and rout them after 2 turns. On the centre left, his Warewolves and Revenant Cav were charging through the forest (-1 to hit, no TC), whereas my stuff (FE horde, GFE, Prime Horde) was not. By turn 4 he had nothing left here and the rest of the game (including another turn 7) was my entire army crunching rightwards through everything he had. Learnings - always take into account terrain because it can be absolutely crippling. Double surge is awesome, particularly as you can be in a position where neither unit can see each other (and therefore charge each other) due to being the opposite sides of a forest and then have a 6" move and surge 16 to make the charge.
And the one picture of the day!
Overall
Main take away from the tournament, I need more distanced hitting power, so I want to somehow work in a horde of Ancients on Rhinos. I was finding that because I don't have much distanced threat-projection I have to sacrifice all my chaff pretty much immediately (which is 350 points!) to even start the proper battle. I've noticed this for a while and it means that when I win I don't tend to win many extra points on the kill difference, whereas when I lose I lose badly. If I swap out the GFE and Ghekkotah (+ other tweaks) to get the Ancients in I think I'll be able to dish out just as much damage while also having much greater threat-projection. Ancients on Rhinos will also benefit from cover from height 1 infantry, which the GFE doesn't. Still, this would then remove the Ghekkotah who worked wonders as distraction on the opposite flank to the one on which I was concentrating. I'll see what I come up with and no doubt post on the army lists in preparation for the next tournament!
p.s. it still won't let me upload photos, so I can't even show the one I did take!
My list for the tournament was:
- Clan Lord w/ Wings of Honeymaze & Firebolts
- Herald w/ Boomstick
- Mage-Priest w/ Mounted & Surge
- Mage-Priest w/ Inspiring Talisman & Surge
- GFE
- 2 x Lekelidon
- 2 x Unblooded Troops
- 2 x FE Hordes
- Prime Horde w/ Brew of Haste
- Ghekkotah Warrior Regiment
- Kaisenor Lancer Regiment
Game 1 - Invade vs League of Rhordia (Loss 18/2)
Game 2 - Ransack vs Ogres (Loss 16/4)
Game 3 - Control vs Ratkin (Win 16/4)
Game 4 - Eliminate vs Elves (Loss 19/1)
Game 5 - Push vs Salamanders (Win 15/5)
Game 6 - Dominate vs Undead (Win 20/0)
Game 1
The main learning I took from this is DON'T TIME OUT. I was actually holding up really well - by turn 5 it was clear that I was going to lose the objective, but I was on the cusp of routing a good number of his units. This might have meant a 15/5 loss or even a 14/6 depending on how my last turn went. During the game there were two significant disputes over whether chargers were able to get in or not, and both counted my clock time down massively. The take-away from that was to remember to stop the clock as soon as there is a disagreement on anything, and this was something I did in all games going forwards. Luckily this tournament was a dice-down, rather than auto 20/0 loss, so even though he smashed his way through my units in turn 6 I was still able to salvage 2 TPs.
My opponent played the same list as he won the Black Dragon tournament with last week. He also won this tournament. He is also the number 1 player in the UK so far this season. As such, it was unlikely I was going to win. He used 3 Halfling Volley Guns (i.e. 45 shots, hitting on 5s, Piercing (2))in the centre to stop me moving forwards and had 2 hordes of Honour Guard (which are an equivalent unit to our Ancients on Rhinosaurs) amongst other things. My Clan Lord was able to take out two of the Volley Guns by the end, but not quick enough to allow my army to move forwards enough to stop main battle line being on my side of the board (which is rather important for the objective!). While I was doing better than expected against such a good player, I could never really come back from that. Not sure what I'd do in future - maybe try throwing more of my chaff directly in front in an attempt to help my others survive while pushing them forwards as fast as I could? The issue there was that I was mostly outranged by the Honour Guard, who then would have charged after the guns had shot my chaff. I'm thinking some Ancients on Rhinos would have helped out as their threat projection might have stalled his hordes... I will be looking to make some switches, possibly dropping the GFE.
Game 2
Fairly standard Ogre list - two hordes of shooters + other ogres of various descriptions. My Clan Lord did a fantastic job tying up one of the Ogre shooter hordes up for most of the game which no doubt saved countless wounds. Double surging took out a few of his melee hordes, while he was able to take out my Primes. It was a very tight battle but I was convincingly winning at the end of turn 6 I had a 16/4 win on my hands as I had 8 points and he had 5. Unfortunately, we then rolled and got a turn 7 (I was spitting feathers at this point). Because I had moved to the objectives on the last turn, in his turn 7 he was able to get some extremely favourable charges and shoot at everything else, routing both FE hordes, the Ghekkotah, and something else, leaving me nothing to come back with in my 7th turn. It ended up with him having 9 objectives to my 3 I think, and he'd also routed an extra 600 points. I was not happy. I'm not sure that I would have changed much, because for a 6 turn game I played my hand very well I had thought. Non-shooting lists are always going to suffer in objective marker-based scenarios if there is a surprise turn 7 because they will always have to disengage to capture objectives in their 6th in the knowledge that it might be the last turn. This will then always allow ranged units to get a completely unrestricted round of shots in their 7th. Still, it's something to bear in mind when I end up in a similar situation.
Game 3
This was against Ian, the guy I regularly play for practice, so you can read any of my Ratkin bat reps to see how these usually go
. Control is a scenario I really struggled with at CoK, partly because my army is based around tight battle groups working together (so don't provide the wide coverage), and partly because I was playing Goblins who have the opposite of that problem. This time round I used my standard procedure of Primes in the centre, elemental battle group centre left, and pivot round. I was able to clear his right flank (my left) and then swing round, with my primes pivoting and creating an advancing wall travelling rightwards across the board. It ended up kettling his army in the right third of the board, and although he did get round the bottom of my Primes into the central square on my side (worth 2 to him), I double surged an FE horde towards me to get the higher unit strength in the square. Ended 4-2 in VPs as I had his side central, my side central and my side left. He had the two square on the right side. This tactic of sweeping sideways across the board is something that is working really well for me at the moment.Game 4
I completely fell apart. At CoK (my first ever tournament) it was game 3 that I started to mentally struggle, in this tournament it was game 4, so that is an improvement! My deployment was absolutely horrific - I spread out my army (big no no for how mine works), and the majority was the opposite side of the board to the units I had to kill. The whole game involved me trying to get across as quickly as possible and being shot / charged off the board one by one. I'm not sure there are many learnings to take from it as my brain was so addled by this point I'm not sure any of my decisions are worth analysing.
Game 5
After getting completely hammered the night before, my head was in pain throughout this one. The only two Salamander players facing off against each other, and there was a lot of trading of loot tokens. Whereas I've gone down the FE route, he had gone down the Ancients on Rhinos route, and had two Ankylodons and two hordes of Tyrants. His rhinos hit like a brick (I want some), but only once before my FEs had surged into their flank and routed them. His Ankylodons and one horde of Tyrants nearly got round behind me from the left, which would have been very dangerous if I hadn't been pushing forwards with my main force and chaffing them up with everything (including my Herald who threw himself in front of the Tyrants and survived for two turns!) The final showdown in turn 7 (another turn 7!) involved his Ankylodon and Brutes routing my FEs and taking the 4 loot counters they had accumulated, and then my other FEs flank charging the Brutes to take two back for the win.
All in all it was a bit of a scrappy game, and I'm definitely getting more comfortable to use heros as chaff. Something sacrificing your inspiring is worth holding a unit up for a turn, and whereas before I wouldn't have made that call I am starting to get better at determining when or not that might be the case.
Game 6 (aka The Undead Somme)
I did exactly the same as in the Ratkin game - Primes centre, this time with Lancers centre right for threat projection and Ghekkotah far right, the elemental battle group to their left (with a forest directly in front of them) and the chaff (Lekelidons and Unbloodeds) spread across the line. He had a troop of Wights on my far left, Warewolves and Lykanis the other side of the trees, a troop of Revenant Cavalry behind them, a ghoul regiment and a ghoul regiment in his centre, and then a battle group of an Undead King (Surge 12), horde of warriors, regiment of zombies and a troop of some hard hitting undead things (all shambling). On the right he killed my Ghekkotah, but then struggled to get all his slow, shambling stuff to where the action was. On the far left left, my Clan Lord almost immediately grounded his Wights allowing a horde of FEs to double surge and rout them after 2 turns. On the centre left, his Warewolves and Revenant Cav were charging through the forest (-1 to hit, no TC), whereas my stuff (FE horde, GFE, Prime Horde) was not. By turn 4 he had nothing left here and the rest of the game (including another turn 7) was my entire army crunching rightwards through everything he had. Learnings - always take into account terrain because it can be absolutely crippling. Double surge is awesome, particularly as you can be in a position where neither unit can see each other (and therefore charge each other) due to being the opposite sides of a forest and then have a 6" move and surge 16 to make the charge.
And the one picture of the day!
Overall
Main take away from the tournament, I need more distanced hitting power, so I want to somehow work in a horde of Ancients on Rhinos. I was finding that because I don't have much distanced threat-projection I have to sacrifice all my chaff pretty much immediately (which is 350 points!) to even start the proper battle. I've noticed this for a while and it means that when I win I don't tend to win many extra points on the kill difference, whereas when I lose I lose badly. If I swap out the GFE and Ghekkotah (+ other tweaks) to get the Ancients in I think I'll be able to dish out just as much damage while also having much greater threat-projection. Ancients on Rhinos will also benefit from cover from height 1 infantry, which the GFE doesn't. Still, this would then remove the Ghekkotah who worked wonders as distraction on the opposite flank to the one on which I was concentrating. I'll see what I come up with and no doubt post on the army lists in preparation for the next tournament!
p.s. it still won't let me upload photos, so I can't even show the one I did take!
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