3 Game Local Tournament

Entry posted by WatcherintheWater February 5, 2018

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A little while ago. I played in a 7-person, tournament in a nearby hobby store. It was a lot of fun, and I did pretty well, given that it was my first time using Overlords in a full size game. I finished 2-1 (with by far the most VP of anyone). A strange mix of armies, aside from me there was one other Zilphin list, two Blood Knight heavy Soulblights, 2 Tzench, and one flesh-eater courts. Here was my list:

· Skyport: Barak Zilphin, Addional Footnote – Re-roll one charge

· Enderinmaster – General w/Fleetmaster

· 2x Khemists – one with the Earburster

· 3x10 Arkanauts – One unit with each of the special weapons

· 9 Endrinriggers – 2 Grappels, 1 Skyhook

· 6 SKywardens – 1 Drill Cannon

· 40 Dispossessed Warriors – 2 Handed Weapons, Shields, 2x Banners

· Runelord

Game 1

Opponent’s List: 3 units of 10 Blood Knights, 1 Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon. He had the bloodline that gave all the nights +2” move and fly.

Scenario: Scorched earth

Deployment: He dropped one unit of knights on each of the outside objectives, and the third unit and dragon near the middle. I put my warriors and the runelord on by left objectives, the Arkanauts with skypikes on the middle, and the Arkanauts with the volley guns on the right along side my ship loaded up with everything else. Since he had fewer drops, and I put down the ship last, I didn’t use the Fleetmaster ability.

Summary: He took first turn and basically just moved everything forward. The frigate used its hero phase move and everyone jumped out. Shooting did a handful of wounds to the dragon and to his right knights. Easy charges for the riggers and Enderinmaster into those same knights. They actually survived the combat and rolled a 1 for battleshock, so there was one knight left after my turn. I won the roll for turn 2 and took it. Shooting took out the last knight and took the dragon down to just a couple wounds before the skywardens finished him off in combat. The Frigate moved up and burned one of his objectives. At his point he was already down 8-0 on VPs and had only 2 units left, so the game was mostly over. He charged into my left and center objectives. The Arkanauts in the center got wiped, and the warriors got battleshocked down to 5 or 6 left. He burned the center objective and left the other. He won turn 3. The knights on the center tried to combo charge my two units of Arkanauts on the right objective. I think he needed a 7 or 8 on the charge to get both units, but he rolled just short, and only got one of them. He deleted them, (and the remaining warriors on the other side) but I still had more models near the right objective. In my half of the turn I took out the knights on the right side with shooting and an endrinrigger charge. The wardens and frigate moved up to his center objective, and the runelord charged the flank of his last unit of knights. Since he could only get two knights into range, he lived and held them up. We danced around objectives for the last couple turns, and I won by a pretty wide margin.

MVP: The Endrinmaster charged into one of the Blood Knight blocks on turn 1 with my Endrinriggers. He supercharged his harness, and all 3 of his attacks got through. It was huge, because my riggers had some pretty bad rolls that round.

What I could have done better:

· Activation order of combats! When he charged in round 2, he activated his knights fighting the warriors first, and after taking so many of my guys off the board, I totally forgot about the Arkanauts fighting the other combat, and just activated my remaining warriors to strike back.

· I should have re-arranged the warriors so that when they were charged by the Blood Knights, the Knights couldn’t get within 3” of the objective.

· I also should have arranged my two Arkanauts that were on my right objective to be a little further apart, while keeping as many models on the objective as possible, in order to make it harder for him to get both in one charge.

Game 2

Opponent’s List: Sort of similar to the list I played in game 1. 2 Vampire Lords on horses, 1 unit of 10 Blood Knights, 1 unit of 15 Blood Knights, 3 Vargiests, and one unit of 30 Skeletons with Spears. His bloodline gave him re-rolls of 1 to hit on the charge or something like that.

Scenario: Starstrike

Deployment: I put my skypike and volley gun Arkanauts spread out to my left, the warriors and runelord slightly to the right of center, and ended up dropping my loaded-up ship on the right. He spread out his army basically in a line on the 12” line. From my left to right it was smaller knights, vampire, skeletons, vampire, bigger knights, with the vargiests behind the skeletons.

Summary: I gave him first run, and he pushed most of his army forward, with the vargiests flying over the skeletons. I used my hero phase ship move and everyone disembarked. I put basically everything that was in range into the big knight unit, and through the combination of shooting, charges and battleshock, wiped out all 45 wounds of blood knights in exchange for one Khemist and a few skyriggers. He probably should have kept that big unit wrapped in the skeletons until at least one of the stars came down. The center star landed on my right, which was where the majority of my stuff was. He won turn 2, and put his vargiests into my Endrinmaster, and skeletons and one lord into my riggers and wardens. Due to the unit size and buffs from his vampires the skeletons were at 4 attacks each, so he rolled 76 dice even though he only got 19 of them into combat. Unfortunately, 4’s to hit and wound, and saves of 4 meant that he only got another four or so balloons. The 10-man knight unit also charged my skypike Arkanauts and wiped them out. In my turn, I ground through a bunch more of the skeletons and took out the lord and vargiests through shooting and combat. The stars fell on the middle of his side, and on the right of mine, which were again really good spots for me. All he had left was one vampire and his 10 knights, so things were in good shape with me already on or near all the objectives. I moved to sit on all the objectives, and tried to pin his knight unit with my nearby arkanuats, but they were wiped out anyway. I positioned the warriors to block him of from getting his knights to his nearest objective, and scored my 9 points. He moved his knights towards the objective on my side of the board but failed a long charge. He won turn 4, and charged the knights into the warriors. Same as what happened the first game, they took a bunch of casualties, but stayed on the board, and because of positioning prevented him from scoring the objective. The Dwarf banner that halves the number of models that flee due to battleshock is great on a big unit. In my turn they got wiped out so I only scored 2 objectives, but I took out his remaining vampire. We called it there since I was up 17-0.

MVP: The Endrinriggers crushed it this game. They did the bulk of the work in taking out the big Blood Knight unit on turn 1 (700+ points) as well as the skeletons, and one of the vampire lords.

What I could have done better:

· Again, activation order of combats! I forgot about that same skypike unit in turn 2!

· There wasn’t any point in trying to take a few wounds off the blood knights. When my Arkanauts over there finally got one, he just popped it back on in his next hero phase and used the placement to get the whole unit in range of his hero for buffs.

· I should have tried to maneuver the left side Arkanauts so that they were in better position if a star came down over there. It didn’t happen, but I wasn’t in a good place to claim any objectives over there. At the least they could have made it tougher for him to get a turn 2 charge.

Game 3

Opponent’s List: This was the other Zilphin list. He had an Ironclad, 3x10 Arkanauts all with skyhooks, 2 Khemists, an Admiral, 9 Endrinriggers with 2 Grapnels, and 12 Skywardens with 4 Drill Cannons and 4 Volley Guns. This was the only game where I remembered to take a picture.

Scenario: Duality of Death

Deployment: I put the warriors across from the left objective with the Enderinmaster and Runelord in the middle of the unit. The skyhooks and skypikes went with one khemist across from the right objective. He put one unit of Arkanauts across from each objective, and loaded everyone else in the Ironclad. We both had fleetmaster, but he won the dice off, so I had to pick first. I deployed off the board, because I if I didn’t I worried he could surround my frigate on turn 1. He put his on the board near the right objective.

Summary: He took first turn. The ironclad hero-moved up and dropped everyone except for the admiral up on the right objective, and then ran towards the left. Shooting took off my skypike Arkanauts and chemist and did a couple wounds to the runelord and Endrinmaster. The riggers grappeled across the board and charged my warriors, knocking them down to about 14 or so left by the end of the turn. In my turn I dropped the frigate in where I could fit everything on the left side of the board. Everyone disembarked, and I shot off his left side Arkanauts and a few of his endrinriggers. My riggers tried to grapple into the middle of the board, but both missed, and then both them and the skyriggers failed their long charges. His riggers and my warriors + Endrinmaster each did a little damage to each other. I won turn 2 and at this point probably needed a big turn to get back in it, since he scored an objective and I didn’t. My frigate and party all pushed inwards from the left, with the frigate getting on the objective. Shooting took out the rest of his riggers and did a handful of wounds to his ironclad. I tried to grapnel the endrinriggers over to his side of the board to either charge the Khemist he had holding his objective or his big block of shooty skywardens, but they missed again. My wardens then charged his ironclad and a couple got blown up by his mines, but they did a couple more wounds. In his turn he finished off the wardens, shot my skyhook Arkanauts down to just 2 left (they had been taking pot shots at his Khemist on the objective), shot off some of the Endrinriggers and took out my Enderinmaster. The admiral also bailed out of his ironclad. He won the turn 3 roll and the admiral charged my riggers. Shooting took them down to 2 left, and he did 8 or so wounds to my frigate. In my turn I killed his admiral with the riggers and shot down his ironclad, but the score was 6-3 him and I really didn’t have any way to get to his objective and do any real damage. He won the turn 4 roll and we called it.

MVP: My Frigate held the left objective and did a lot of the work shooting down his ironclad.

What I could have done better:

· I should have put my Khemist that deployed on the board more than 28” away from his skyhook Arkanauts.

· I should have dropped my ship closer to the left objective. I wouldn’t have had room to unload everything, but I think I could have put a hero on the objective, to claim it turn 1.

· Or, even better would have been to deploy my frigate in the middle of the dwarf warriors in such a way that he couldn’t charge it. Then I could hero phase move away and drop everyone, getting a hero on the left objective and at least having options for much easier charges with the endrinriggers even if they miss with the grapnels.

· I shouldn’t have focused so much fire into his riggers. Without the chemist buff it would be fine for them and the warriors to just grind away at each other for a few turns off the objectives.

· This game was a tough fight and I made some mistakes. His list seemed more optimized than mine, but if I had won the fleetmaster roll and had better luck with the grapnels I would have been right in it.

Overall Thoughts on my list

· Skypikes seem useless on 10 man units of Arkanauts. Almost anything that is strong in combat and will just wipe out the unit if it goes first, and you probably don’t want to charge with them anyway. Even if you do get to go you probably only get 2 or 3 wounds extra. Might as well just get volley guns or skyhooks for more shots.

· The big warrior block well as an ally. It got charged by units that hit really hard in every game and thanks to the banner (halve the number that flee from battleshock) they always stuck around for at least one turn.

· Probably worth it to take a 3^rd grapnel on the Endrinriggers. That third one should only matter for one out of every 8 shots, but when you don’t get any fours it can really hurt (Game 3).

· When grapnels work they are awesome. Just gives you so much mobility. I’d like one more unit of grapnel riggers.

· Overall, I think my list was solid. I don’t know that I would change that much about it except for cleaning up the weapon selection (which is odd partly because I started my overlords as a skirmish force). Next step is to drop the Runelord in exchange for 3 more wardens.