KoW Kingdoms of Men vs Salamanders [PUSH - 1500 points]

[Itepixcauh]

Hello!!

Back to my normal league games, this time I was facing a very tough and extremely challenging opponent. We have been second and third the whole league, exchanging rankings, so this game was critical for both of us. On top of that he is the nicest guy you can ever face, one of those rare unicorns of an opponent, nice, great guy and extremely good player.

Scenario for this month is PUSH, we rolled two tokens.

His list for today was:

- Horde of Heavy Pike Block with Strength
- Legion of Militia Mob
- Horde of Charioteers with Nimble
- Regiment of Knights with Elite
- Regiment of Knights
- General on Winged Beast with Diadem Of Dragon-Kind
- Army Standard Bearer with Heal
- Wizard with Lightning Bolt, Heal, Bane-Chant and Black Iron Crown

My list is a slight modification to the list I took to the last tournament:

- Horde of Fire Elementals with Nimble
- Horde of Tyrants with Haste
- Horde of Ancients on Rhinosaurs with Courage
- Horde of Skyraiders with Jar
- Lekelidon
- Mage-Priest with Surge, Martyr's Prayer and Inspiring
- Mounted Battle-Captain
- Skylord with Blade of the Beast-Slayer

DEPLOYMENT

I chose a very centric type of deployment with my core units, forming a castle I've been using for the last games with good success. The reserved my two flyers for the last drops waiting to see where he deployed his chariots and general, my idea was to face my Skyraiders against their Chariots with my Skylord, plan worked really well and I did just that.

Gave my Ancients the two tokens and went for the start roll. I won and chose to let him move first as usual.

TURN 1

He moved up cautiously, preparing his knights on the right flank to go round the houses. His chariots shoot tye Skylord doing a single wound and the Wizard firing at my Tyrants doing 3.

My turn is simple too, I shoot my Skylord to the flank of the Chariots, move my line forwards but outside the Range of his Knights except for the Lekelidon that I move up as bait and my FE that move behind the Obstacle inside the range on the Knights and general too. I position my Battle-Captain in a spot where his knights and General can't see him but he can.

My shooting was more effective, with the Lekelidon doing 3 wounds to the Knights and the Skyraiders doing 6 to the Chariots. My amazing Mage-Priest healed the three wounds of the Tyrants.

KOM TURN 2

He advances his infantry line forwards giving me a charge to both units, while his cavalry and hero repositions to face the centre. On the left the chariots back up and turn to shoot the Skylord again.

His healing is very successful and the knights are again at full health, but his chariots seem to need some more practise with the bows because again they only manage one wound to the Skylord, not being enough to do anything.

SALAMANDERS TURN 2

I decide to be patient and back up my Tyrants in line with the Ancients as I don't really feel like facing any on those blocks alone. Skyriders move into range and Skylord moves to the flank of the chariots again. The FE turn to face the centre, with their flank protected by the house and keep outside the range of the centre unit of knights. I charge my Battle-Captain into the exposed flank of the General, he won't double attacks BUT hitting the flank means his knights won't be able to see him next turn.

My shooting over-performs a lot this turn, my Lekelidon manages 4 wounds to the knights while the Skyriders and Skylord turn the chariots into a colander, routing them with ease.

My Battle Captain does an expected two wounds, grounding the General.

KOM TURN 3

He has a chance to put preasure into my centre in a way I can't really ignore it anymore so he does, advancing the Legion even further and doing the same with the Pikes, turning them to envelop my units. His General countercharges my Battle-Captain and his Knights behind him reposition to face him too, while the other regiment of knights advances hard to get the FE into range.

His caster throws a Lightning Bolt into the Tyrants again, scratching them. Combat goes not so well for me, his General does 3 wounds and wavers the Battle-Captain.

SALAMANDERS TURN 3

My opponent has made a mistake but he doesn't really know. He moved the knights in the centre 11 inches away from the Ancients, not realising they could drop the tokens and charge them. It's EXTREMELY tempting to do so as I know they can kill them in one go with ease but then the tokens will be left in my deployment zone, far, far away and it would be difficult to deal with the rest of his army and win the scenario too.

So I decided on what I think was a better strategy, I multi-charged the Legion with my Ancients and my Tyrants. My thinking was this: the combat can go three ways, the best one is killing the Legion in that case I reposition to face incoming charges, I can waver it and then the Tyrants are dead but the Pikes will have to decide if they want to face the Ancients to support the centre, leaving the Skyriders a juicy rear or face the Skyriders in which case I will just shoot and kill them. Worst scenario is not wavering the Legion, in that case I could loose both units but the Legion will be killed with little effort and the Pikes will be shot to death, not ideal but still beneficial.

I advanced the FE and intentionally exposed their flank to the Knights in the right but lined their flank with house so they would be able to fit and charge me, that prevents the multicharge there.

Lekelidon shoots but misses, but the Mage-priest does some wounds into the knights with a Fireball. The once again amazing Skyriders in conjunction with the Skylord manage to do an impressive 12 wounds into the Pikes! sadly not even a waver, missed it by one.

Combat doesn't go great though, managed to do only 16 wounds (around 4 less than average) and that is too far down to even waver them, not ideal at all.

 

[Itepixcauh]

KOM TURN 4

My failure to kill the Legion will surely cost me, he of course did what I would have done and flanks my Tyrants (wave them goodbye guys) and multi-charges my Ancients in the front with both the Legion and the Knights. The General decides not to finish the Battle-Captain himself and instead flies over to face my back line, the Knights behind him do charge the poor Battle-Captain.

He heals his horde of Pikes with both his individuals and moves into combat. The Knights completely destroy the poor Battle-Captain with ease, as do the Pikes with the Tyrants, both reform to face the most immediate threat. Then we move to the key combat here, the Knights (they are the ones with Elite) do a HUGE amount of wounds, with the Legion they take the Ancients to 13 wounds and a very poor prospect. He needs a 6 twice to kill them, the first roll comes and its a FIVE!! MY ANCIENTS SURVIVE!

SALAMANDERS TURN 4

That last combat was crucial, my Ancients surviving thanks to the Brew of Courage could have very easily won me the game. His knights in the centre have the flank exposed to the Fire Elementals, I also put the Ancients on the front. I didn't really need the FE to charge but there is a good reason to do it, I wanted them there, right now I can't position myself to face both the other Knights and the General but I can after the reform from the combat.

The Skylord charges into the flank of the Militia and the Skyraiders move out of charge range of the Pikes to shoot them. The Lekelidon turns to shoot the General.

The Skyraiders perform ad usual, wavering the wounded Horde of Pikes while the Lekelidon does another couple of wounds to the general. The Mage-Priest heal the Ancients that get back to at least a decent state.

I wasn't really expecting the Skylord to rout the Legion, I was thinking a waver was possible but I was wrong! They perish, he takes all the tokens and as I fail to roll a double one the Knights also die.

I decide to turn the FE as planned to face the other Knights and General and move the Ancients up to get them into the other half of the field.

KOM TURN 5

Field just doesn't really look well for my opponent, my last turn was devastating. Scenario wise, I have ALL the tokens in his half of the board and he only really has two units that can harm me. I was surprised to see him turning the pikes to expose the rear to my Skyriders but his reasoning was genious, they were almost on double ones and if I was going to roll them he wanted them to be facing the centre.

He multicharges the fresh FE with both the remaining Knights and the General. His wizard tries to kill the Skylord but fails to do so.

In the combat phase my FE suffer a total of 7 wounds and survive the Nerve test.

SALAMANDERS TURN 5

Simple turn really, game is already won so I charge the Skyriders into the rear of the Pikes, I drop the tokens with my Skylord and charge him into the General with the Lekelidon in the flank while the FE counter the Knights and the Ancients turn to face the right flank for a last turn charge.

My Mage-Priest Heals the FE leaving them in 3 wounds and confident to survive the final round.

Both units in the right survive the combat with little trouble but the Pikes are annihilated and the Skyriders shoot forwards.

TURN 6 & 7

On his turn 6 he tries to snatch some more points killing the FE with the Knights and General again, but without the TC they can't rout them. His wizard tries to do a wound into the Ancients but fails all his rolls.

My turn is also short, Anciensta and FE charge the Knights while the Skylord and Lekelidon do the same with the General. Both are killed. On the other side of the field the Skyriders have charged the wizard but failed to kill the damn guy. We roll for turn 7 and get it.

Turn 7 is simple, the wizard charges the Skyriders doing a wound! but in return he gets killed and the overrun get the Skyridres into the ASB that is also slained, leaving the field red with human blood.

ENDING

VICTORY SALAMANDERS! 19-1 in the league score and 10-0 scenario wise. I just couldn't be happier with my army as of right now, extremely deadly and the addition of the Skyriders is just pure gold, just what the army needed to be perfect for me.

Thanks for reading! More soon!

 

[Lord-Marcus]

Interesting game. I was almost excited to see an actual legion of militia

 

[Itepixcauh]

Interesting game. I was almost excited to see an actual legion of militia

He usually used it with good success. It's a great tarpits unit.