Da Ghostwulfz

[Sangfroid]

Last tourney of the year and I've decided that having played destruction or ironjawz all year long if it ain't  broke don't fix it, sure I'll probably struggle against the balewind filth or the teleporting-mortal wound-dealing scum, but... trust in Gork and and pig-iron that's what Gordrakk says anyway! 

Ive dropped the big fella to go back to 2 Megaboss as I worry about the three places of power scenario a little but the rest of the list is my standard fare as I still can't see past a big brute led Ironfist really 

 

Megaboss on maw crusha - talisman of protection - bellowing tyrant 

Megaboss - battlebrew

warchanter

warchanter

10 brutes (grimgor is gonna take the place of the brute boss to get a run out)

3 gore gruntas 

10 Ardboyz (with my BoBB as the champion)

10 Ardboyz 

10  Ardboyz 

Ironfist

1960 (so some triumph rolls I expect) 

Bush bash bosh blood or glory awaits Da Ghostwulfz

[Chris Tomlin]

On ‎25‎/‎11‎/‎2016 at 11:19 PM, Sangfroid said:

Last tourney of the year and I've decided that having played destruction or ironjawz all year long if it ain't  broke don't fix it, sure I'll probably struggle against the balewind filth or the teleporting-mortal wound-dealing scum, but... trust in Gork and and pig-iron that's what Gordrakk says anyway! 

Looks like you had a pretty good showing mate...perhaps enough to take Best Destruction in the rankings? Dunno, I'll have to look at that later!

We gonna get some battle reports in here?

[Sangfroid]

Well if THE Megaboss @Chris Tomlinasks for battle reports I guess I had better produce them else get me 'ed bashed!

 

Game 1: Luke

Scenario: 3 places of power

Codename: "The Lay of the vainglorious Cold-blooded"

I got drawn against a fellow destructions players (Paul who I had had a very, very close fun game with at SCGT)  son for my first game and to my delight and terror (in equal measure) he had an army of Stormcast Eternal with no formations!!! Sadly he had the Vex banner 10 retributors, 15 Judicators, heraldor, Castellant, Celestant, Relictor and a unit of 4 fulminators... I was happy I didn't have to worry about the Lightning Strikes but not so keen on the Fulminators, my club mate Lez  happily drove 2 of these guys into 10 Ardboyz and deleted them in a single stroke (and then a megaboss with similar result) so I had an idea what 4 would do.... Luke hadn't faced 10 brutes before and asked how his retributors would fare against them and I was honest, if I charge the retris are dead meat but if you charge me I am pretty much dead meat.

I came up with my plan a simple ironjawz friendly plan, move forward as fast as possible try for T1 charges where able,  pray to Gork for T2 priority to then charge him everywhere at once with what's left of my army and hope to a) kill his characters while at the same time b) my 2 warchanters and Footslogger sit on the 3 objectives for at least 2 turns (giving me 9 points) after that the plan gets hazy but consisted mainly of cling on and try to survive to the end of the game with luke hopefully having an uphill battle to get the points back in time.

The reasons for this absolutely bonkers high risk plan are simple if I try to set up to shield my brutes and characters with Ardboyz screens he can just teleport his fulminators or retributors in and smash up the screens or just sit back and shoot me until I move (as I have to eventually) to get the objectives then pounce. He had also deployed two units of Judicators, one either side of his army and if I could get the gore gruntas (average chance) into one and a unit of Ardboyz (below average chance) into the other then id neuter his shooting and tie up his fulminators for at least 1 turn, if I could also get 1 or 2 of the remaining Ardboyz units into his retributors I would have a real chance of killing a couple before they started to go to town. Plus I like rampaging forward with choppas swinging and boyz yelling ;-)

This was game one deployment phase and I was already missing not taking Gordrakk as his command ability tips this lunacy of a plan heavily into the Ironjawz favor.

So committed as I was I took the first turn and rolled some dice, the ardboyz all failed to make the 12" line my goregruntas also rolled (ironfist and Destruction move) under average and were left a 10" charge which they failed. But I got both Warchanters on the outside objectives (one of them hidden in a dreadstone blight from all sight of Judicators) and My mawcrusha general on the third tight up behind a unit of ardboyz (2" from the front of them) with the brutes completely screening the rear of the Cabbage and footslogger hanging about at the back incase of something to hit. it wasn't perfect but I was well positioned, I hoped he would charge the Goregruntas with the Fulminators (thus taking them away from the main battle) shoot the warchanter on one flank and Ardboyz on the other and then only have 1 unit of Judicators shooting my brutes or Cabbage, also if he bannered his Retris into my brutes I could counter pile in with my Megaboss and Cabbage assuming he charged to get his maximum attacks, if he didn't then he would be unlikely to kill enough brutes to stop me and the boss's smashing him back, finally if he just charged my ardboyz with retributors I could then pile in with Mawcrusha and hopefully kill 4 or 5

If he faltered in his choices here and I got the priority it would be brutal or if he was tentative and then got the double turn I should have enough left to do the job.....

I've witnessed Grown men, seasoned tournament veterans bowels turn to water when faced with an angry cabbage and a wall of Pig-iron bellowing death across the field, he did neither, he showed his mettle and did  what I would have done , Shot the Ardboyz on one side the Warchanter the other, Charged the Pigs with the Fulminators, tooted the building and took 3 mortal wounds of the other warchanter, Shot the Cabbage and took off 5 wounds (I failed all 5 saves), Charged the Retris and his celestant into the Ardboyz screen wiping them out took the counter pile in of the cabbage sadly only losing 2 retributors back (the second time I wished I had Gordrakk...) and then braced himself for crucial T2 Priority roll......

(insert 5 min advert break here and a build up of huge suspense from the waiting audience...)

Luke won the T2 priority and I knew that from now on in this game was only going to be mine if I got all the luck (i.e charges failing or mystical terrain rolls going my way, making above average saves etc....) He continued to shoot the warchanter, and the ardboyz, tooted the building again (taking the other 3 mortal wounds off the warchanter killing him) deleted the Mawcrusha and charged his fulminators in to my 3rd unit of Ardboyz in the Middle deleting them as well. he had moved up his characters but crucially for me he still hadn't scored yet

I counter charged the Retris and celestant with my brutes and Megaboss (who had gotten a long charge around the retris and touching his heraldor, Swung my remaining ardboyz on the flank inwards to try and get into his heraldor 7 castellant (ignoring the Judicators now), I managed to succeed in all my charges, the brutes did a number on the retributors  and killed the celestant (as I said they would) the megaboss killed the heraldor and the ardboyz did a wound on the castellant. I was now 6-0 going into the t3 priority roll, if I could double turn here id be able to get 11 points on the board have a great chance at killing his castellant and maybe even taking out his relictor as well (which would have left just the vexillor to score an impossible 12 points on his own in 3 turns.

We braced ourselves for what surely was the game deciding t3 priority roll.....

(Want to shift those tough stains? Then try new.......)

Luke won the roll and it was all over, the Judicators pin-cushioned the Megaboss to death, the other Judicators finally killed the warchanter, the Fulminators rode roughshod over the brutes and he used the vexillor banner to teleport the Vexillor himself to the far objective, the relictor took the place of my second dead warchanter and while my last couple of ardboyz took the Castellant close to death it was not enough and he dealt with them with a swing of his halberd. Assuming we had let the turns roll over to the end Luke would have ended up with 14-6 on the objectives so a crushing defeat for the Da Ghostwulfz with VPs at 660-1960 against.

It was a wonderfully fun game, I love the seat of the pants nature of hyper aggression combat armies either of those 2 crucial priority rolls goes my way and I reckon the crazy plan might have just worked. Luke himself didn't falter  and he reacted perfectly to my attack I was really impressed but feel that his dad should be convincing him to join the destruction team rather than the shiny tin cans we could do with a quality megaboss like him in our ranks!

 

 

 

[Chris Tomlin]

18 hours ago, Sangfroid said:

Well if THE Megaboss @Chris Tomlinasks for battle reports I guess I had better produce them else get me 'ed bashed!

Ha!! Made me laugh  

Good detailed report though mate, sounds like an awesome game. Luke's a great kid, I was hoping to play him myself at Facehammer actually. From what coverage I saw this past weekend he had a good run of results as well.

I think you did the right thing playing for the double turn. If you'd got that it probably would've been game. Stormcast can be tough for us for sure.

Interested to hear your thoughts re Gordrakk vs regular Cabbage given that I've not used the big dogg myself.

Oh, I also liked the humour inserted with your ad breaks etc, made it fun. Keep 'em coming brother!

[Soulsmith]

Great report. I love reading reports form all you guys, giving me tips on how to play the force when I finally build it up to pure ironjawz.

[Sangfroid]

On 28/11/2016 at 11:45 AM, Chris Tomlin said:

Looks like you had a pretty good showing mate...perhaps enough to take Best Destruction in the rankings? Dunno, I'll have to look at that later!

We gonna get some battle reports in here?

Thanks guys if I end up best destruction for 2016 I'll be swinging some battle brew in celebration for sure, maybe even a mortal wounds worth!

Game 2: Joe Purcell

scenario: border war

codename: "Mystical potato head Joe thing"

So after I received some counselling to block out the horrific slaughter of the previous tabling I was pleased to see that Gork was paying attention to every other Orruk but me by allowing me to be drawn against Joe and his frankly horrific Clan Skyre list. 2 covens with engineer, 3 stormfiends  a grinder and warp fire projector, archwarlock, 10 acolytes and oh yes that's right 10 Jezzails!!! Now I was actually really happy to draw Joe as I have met him a few times at tourneys but never actually played him before, also I have seen Skyre in action through my buddy and Chump Kings Team mate Liam but never actually faced off against it. 

Everything favours the skaven in this scenario as they dictate first turn have enough firepower to smash to pieces 3 or 4 units turn one or worse let me creep forward to the objectives and pick me off with jezzails and tunnelling filth. My plan was simple, I put the brutes and foot boss on the back line in the middle of the board, screened by 10 Ardboyz and the gruntas, the cabbage in the far right corner screened by 10 Ardboyz and then the last 10 Ardboyz on the far left chanters both in terrain approximalty 18" in from the edges and themselves (to make sure every unit was 8" from a hero.) basically I was hoping he would split his covens and try to destroy the mawcrusha (but would actually only get the Ardboyz first so I would at least get one charge into them from cabbage maybe even a double turn), that he would be tempted to kill the 10 Ardboyz in the middle to score the 4 points (so I could then delete the fiends with my brutes) basically ignoring the gruntas and last 10 Ardboyz (who I hoped to charge or double turn across the board and clean up his acolytes and jezzails before they minced me). It relied on him to fall for the ruse of the mawcrusha because of his jezzails range I had no real chance to hide him T1 AND get across if I secured the double turn, if he placed both covens in the middle and took on the gruntas and the Ardboyz I felt I would be hard pressed to recover as the jezzails had such great range and damned terrain and lord of war trait..... eeeeek. 

So joe decides to go first and begins to put his two covens down so that he can score both 2 pointers, kill the pigs and Ardboyz in the middle and then get the 4 pt as well (basically I was about to be deaded)  he noted the mystical terrain to my right and had moved his engineer to be outside of 3".....then............picked up the coven and was obviously torn the juicy fat cabbage was just too tempting for his greedy rats he couldn't help himself and completely changed his mind and set up the second coven again over by the far right to go for the mawcrusha (a ray of green light seemed to glint off the megabosses upraised choppa!) he still very cleverly arranged the covens in diagonals so the engineers captured both 2 pt objectives the grinder in the middle and then the fiends in range to unleash the warpfire hell. I braced for impact but.......

he had left his far right stormfiends inside of 3" of the mystical terrain and then rolled a 1, it was horrible luck, I felt bad, and almost caved in to let him ignore it because he had been so careful with the engineer, however respect to Joe here because he could see me struggling to want to be a nice guy but finding it hard, and straight told me to stop being stupid and carried on. He of course took out the Ardboyz in the middle and scored all nine points at the end of his turn (he had rolled the warpfire and would have killed 6 Ardboyz so basically d6 would have battleshocked off) 

my turn one went as I predicted I charged the mawcrusha and Ardboyz into the fiends and grinder (killing two fiends) the brutes and Megaboss into the centre fiends (also killing two), pigs and left Ardboyz ran forwards to kill the engineer and grinder and secure the 2 pts. So it's 9-3 going into T2 and I absolutely need to get the priority else Joe will be able to... claw his way back into it (que drum fill and cymbal)

i won priority and that was the game really, I made him play on a bit to secure VPs off me ("made" in a friendly let's have a pint and some fun kinda way) some notable fun was the mawcrusha freed from 2 dead fiends charging the engineer, killing him with destructive bulk and then charging the last fiend and killin that with destructive bulk too, my Ardboyz also failed the mystical terrain which made us both laugh a lot, the jezzails managed to kill a unit of Ardboyz but once the brutes succeed in their charge it was over and a crushing victory for Da Ghostwulfz 14-11 at the end of T3 and no rats left alive VPs were 2000 - 360. 

We talked a load after and had a beer, I could see he felt annoyed at the mystical mistake but in reality my Ardboyz didn't do anything and had he killed them I still would have made a mess with the mawcrusha it may have just gotten him an extra 2 points and some wounds off the beast while I would have had to chase the engineer down, the double turn was the turning point for me (played for) and the fact he didn't concentrate his attack in my centre falling for my mawcrusha candy treat ruse instead! 

Overall a fun game and a genuinely nice bloke to play against! Hopefully get a rematch in again one day :-)

next up was Robert Sedgeman, club mate, champion of the GW Warlords tournament and in his words, eager to smash me up after our last game at New Dawn....... 

[Sangfroid]

Game 3: Robert Sedgeman 

scenario: Gifts from the heavens

codename: "Blood, sweat and tears"

Next up for round 3 was long time buddy, club mate and warlords champ sedge. He was playing with his bonesplittas  and was very keen to overturn the loss he suffered (with his high elves) to my greenskinz list at Chris Tomlins new dawn tourney earlier in the year.  Looking at the match up I knew this was going to be a horrendous task for Da Ghostwulfz, I was "lucky" enough to play sedge first when he started on the bonesplittas army pre warlords with my Khorne list and I knew that if I could get a double turn I'd have a chance, but if I pushed and didn't get it then I'd be dead meat. 

He had changed his list up a bit dropping out 30 archers to now include 2 x 10 of maniac boar boys which I think added some balance to the list and gave him some combat punch with a snagga ruk and mortal wounds from the boars. The rest of his list was 2 x 10 savage orruks, 40 archers, 2 maniac weirdnob, savage boss, prophet, kunning ruk and 2 big stabbas. A tough ask for Da Ghostwulfz but that's the kinda fights they like. 

We both had 5 drops and I won the roll to chose sides (picking the side with dammed terrain to stop his archers being even worse :-) I began my deployment very cadgey dropping first 2 warchanters (again each around 18" from the respective board edges and each other, the footboss smack in the middle of the table, mawcrusha far left  in the comer (everything on the baseline) then to finish, a unit of Ardboyz with gruntas on front, brutes between chanter and foot boss, then 10'ardboyz either side of the left chanter and touching up to the mawcrusha. He had flanked his army either side with 10 boars, put the archers to the left of my centre opposite mawcrusha with stabbas, and then two lines of 10 savage orruks screening his lines (the characters were dotted about in range to provide spells and buffs) I was pretty happy with how all this turned out. 

My plan was simple i was giving him first turn and as I was baselined he would need to come forward to get to me, if this was via a big push with the archers to take out the mawcrusha then they would be within a decent chance (very good chance if I double turned) for my brutes and foot boss to charge, at facehammer 10 brutes with gordrakk command ability had killed about 20 in a single round and only lost one back so I knew that I'd have him if he did this. I also know that sedge is a bloody good player and would have a healthy respect for the brutes and so would play Cadgey turn one, hoping to win priority T2 force me to go first and see where my metor landed then pounce. This was a mirror of my plan as I was hoping to get T2 priority see where his metor landed secure mine and either launch myself if I get the double turn or if I didn't I'd be hopefully limiting the initial storm from my brutes id hope. 

It played out this way he edged forward a couple of inches his lines rippling cinematically as the crazed orruks chomped at the bit to get to grips with the foe, meanwhile my boys stood stock still disciplined, and waiting for their chance.  I got the luck T2 and won priority and so forced sedge to take the turn, his metor fell on the right side (for me left for him) this was the opposite side to his archers he still had 10 orruks and 10 boars to secure it though. He moved forward a little more with his archers but now held back on his left flank on his objective. 

So in my turn my metor landed on my right so opposite his and this was the best result for me, this then allowed me to use the Ironfist and destruction move to its real strength, I sent the mawcrusha forward at full speed,it would be an 8" charge into his 10 Orruk screen but that was fine if I got in I'd be happy if not and I got the double turn I'd also be almost sure to get in, if he got priority then I hoped he would spend a whole turn shooting my mawcrusha off. I sent 10 Ardboyz in support again my plan here if luck went against me would be for him to have to waste time picking these guys off. The other 20 boyz, brutes warchanters and Megaboss I went full speed in a lateral direction the Ardboyz going forwards between the terrain the brutes towards my objective. My goregruntas went full speed ahead forwards and into some cover again if I lost the prio roll his boars or orruks would have to hit them on a 3+ AS. 

As an aside sedge has made up some fantastic terrain that looks like the rock formation of say the Grand Canyon part of America (or the drakensburg mountains in South Africa) looks really thematic with his bonesplittas and he had also made 10 pieces so if his opponent was willing (as I was) we could deck the whole table out like the badlands. My pigs were placed on a rock essentially looking down on their prey looked so cinematic as did the whole battle really) 

My mawcrusha made his charge and cleaned off the 10 Orruk screen but did bring the big stabbas to pile in back though they stayed at 3". They only managed to do 2 wounds though so I was pretty happy. 

I won the T3 priority as well, so finnaly unleashed Da Ghostwulfz, all three Ardboyz managed to dash across the board and compete their charges 1 into the archers, one into the other 10 orruks, and then 1 into both the orruks and the 10 boar boyz around his objective. The goregruntas flanked the boars too with all 3 6" away from the marker but as far away as possible from his archers. My brutes swarmed around my objective with chanters and Megaboss ready to pounce as soon as his archers were freed up which if I was lucky would not be until t4.  

i also made a mistake here, I had thought that when the stabbas die they only did the mortal wounds in the combat phase (like skullreapers) so my plan to was to shoot them off  and not get hurt back which was wrong it's whenever they die and with anywhere in 3". They did die and they also managed to put 6 mortal wounds back at me of which I failed all 6 4+ ward saves. Across the board my Ardboyz took off a few archers and orruks and the combined damage to the maniac boars was 4 models  (plus 2 more to battleshock) and in return I think I lost 2 orruks maybe. It was fantastic because I scored my objective and now sedge wouldn't score his until he had killed all of my gruntas, and the far right unit of Ardboyz. 

5-2 to me. 

In sedges turn 3 he used the snagga ruck to charge my mawcrusha and the maniac boars did the final 6 mortal wounds to my mawcrusha (again I failed to make more than 2 saves) this was frustrating as I'd hoped he would either draw some shooting or last long enough to fight something else. Sedge then unleashed hell, he split his shots (hero phase shots) across the three Ardboyz units surprisingly due to my great armour saves only killing a couple in each unit he then used his voodoo mask (or whatever it is called) and this killed a Ardboy he rolled a 4+ then killed another, this continued for 5 boyz before he stopped (leaving only 2 left to face 37 archers.) he then had his shooting phase killing another few orruks (again my saves were hot, obviously making up for the abysmal mawcrusha, swings and roundabouts :-). He had also managed to charge his boars into the middle Ardboyz they had killed the mawcrusha in the hero phase and wiped them out. So end of T3 still 5-2 to me, but all I have is 3 Ardboyz and 2 goregruntas contesting his objective, I have managed to kill the other boars though now 

He then got the return double turn and this was huge, he shoot off the rest of the Ardboyz and goregruntas (so securing his objective) and gotten a charge with his remaining boars into my Warchanter, Megaboss and tagged the corner of the brutes. No we had a proppa battle on our hands, over this combat phase and then my T4 the Megaboss and brutes went to town obliterating the boars for the loss of 4 brutes (2 to battleshock sadly) I had pushed up and charged my far chanter into his other weirdnob in the hope I could live and stop him scoring T5 (or at least splitting his shots away from my brutes.) so end of T4 it's 9-6 to me. I need this priority roll, to score and mean that he would have to score both objectives to win, my plan would have been to retreat everyone 6" away from objective and while he would still get a round of shooting off he would need to kill a wounded Megaboss , (warchanter was dead) and 6 brutes and get models of his own within 6" which would not have been possible with anything except his other weirdnob (from the snagga ruk earlier who had moved across the board with his boars) sadly for me at least I also lost the priority roll for T5 (I won the first two he won the second two so fairs fair really). 

He used magic and masks to wipe out my chanter blocker, moved the archers with hand of Gork shoot off my Megaboss in hero phase, shot 4 brutes off in shooting phase, failed the charge with the archers but succeeded with the maniac weirdnob and proceeded to do no damage with his attacks. 

At this point we are an hour over the time but it's game 3 Saturday so no one minds, we have a decent sized crowd watching us and the tension was amazing

the last two brutes step up one with gorehacka, one normal (I'd had to let the boss die from shooting as he was closest to the archers and so they would have made their charge) and they do 4 wounds to the maniac weirdnob, sedge scores his objective but not mine!! It's now 9-10 and it's my turn all I need to do is take 1 wound off the weirdnob and I win 14-10, we couldn't believe it, I picked the dice up and sedge shook my hand and wished me luck magmanimous in what we could both now see was going to be defeat......then we realised in the excitement I hadn't taken my battleshock test for the loss of 4 brutes...... all I need is a 1 or a 2 or a 3 and the game excluding a total fluff up is mine, 50/50 roll. 

I rolled a 4 :-( so that meant he did score my objective his T5 winning the game 15-9. 

It was a heartbreaking moment, I won't lie I was gutted as I'd gone from the elation of victory to the depths of defeat in a heartbeat, but after a minute to collect my thoughts it was an epic end to what was an epic game, truly one of the best I've ever had tournament or otherwise. We all went out for a great curry afterwards and I can tell it will be something we will remeber and reminisce on over a few jars for years to come! 

[Spiky Norman]

Great batrep!

I would love to see some of that badlands terrain, if you happen to have any pictures of it?

[Kaptan]

I greatly enjoyed the battle reports. Thanks. Made me register.

[Sangfroid]

4 minutes ago, Kaptan said:

I greatly enjoyed the battle reports. Thanks. Made me register.

Awesome sauce! Plenty of room for more Megabosses! 

 

3 hours ago, Spiky Norman said:

Great batrep!

I would love to see some of that badlands terrain, if you happen to have any pictures of it?

@Sedge check out the bat rep above fella and feel free to comment, also can you put some pics up of your awesome terrain please ;-)

[Double Misfire]

Great writeups, ditto wanting to see the Badlands terrain and can't wait for the next three games!  

[nuttyknatty]

Wonderful stuff Kieran! Keep em coming!

[Sangfroid]

21 hours ago, The Nameless One said:

Wonderful stuff Kieran! Keep em coming!

Thanks D..a..... wow sorry nearly named you then!!

Ok sit back and get ready this one is really an epic.... 

Game 4: Nigel Chorlton 

Scenario: Escalation

Codename: "Frenemies"

So feeling a little tender but not a major hangover I arrived at the venue to be greeted with the news I had drawn Nige. I was really happy about this, we had first met a year or so ago at Bjorn (and seen him a bunch of times at other events) where we had a fantastic game me with chaos/khorne, him Freeguild/order that ended up 10-10 under the old clash system. As a backdrop that game ended in the final turn his Karl Franz and Demigryphs had ploughed through 6 skullcrushers, while my skullreapers had smashed up a steam tank, only franz made it thru the crushers but he met the reapers in a river where my bloodsecrator was holding station. An epic fight ensued and in the last turn of the game there was one skullreaper left and franz was on one wound, he needed to kill the reaper to gain a secondary objective to make it a draw, I needed to kill franz to push it to a 14-6 (it's a little hazy) trouble is when skullreapers die they can cause a mortal wound... so franz kills the last guy and we both watch my die, rolling in a trance, it goes Nigel's way and secures the draw. What was also funny that game was Valkia the Bloody charging Balthasar Gelt and not even causing a single wound then getting killed by the old wizard and his canons firing every turn for 5 turns and not hitting once..... after our game that day he bought the then newly released Archaon and now in our second meeting the big man himself was built and painted and ready to rock n roll! 

This was now the third time this weekend I regretted not bringing Gordrakk, last time I'd faced Archaon with Ironjawz the Megaboss of megabosses had chopped up the everchosen easily.

Nigel's list was Archaon, lord of slaanesh on snake, mighty lord of Khorne, gaunt summoner (on disc) Crom the conqueror, 6 troll, 10 Plaguebearers, 2 x 10 chaos warriors with great weapons. We both had a dreadstone blight tower so we set them up either side of the middle objective with about a foot between them looked pretty awesome to be fair I wish I could discipline myself to actually take photos. 

Escalalation is a great scenario for ironjawz I haven't lost a single time I've played it prior to this, I find that with my 5 battline line units and speed you can get onto the objectives and if you get the vital T2 priority over into the enemies table side while your second wave also gets forward. By blocking off the enemies zone can really hamper how they then deploy and make it really hard for them to recover. 

I won the roll off so as we both had 9 drops I'd get to chose who went first, I put a unit of Ardboyz top right to go for the first objective, brutes smack in the centre and then Goregruntas in the bottom left. He mirrored plaguebearers with gore gruntas, and a unit of warriors with brutes and Ardboyz. I chose to go first and used the Ironfist move and ran as far forwards as possible with the Ardboyz and Brutes, with the goregruntas I didn't run as I had a 9" charge but I failed this and so it was quickly over to Nigel's turn. 

He moved laterally with his warriors, moving the ones in the middle towards my goregruntas, and the other towards the dreadstone blight, while he moved forwards with Plaugebearers and charged my goregruntas. In the combat phase he did a wound or two on my pigs and they went crazy killing 6 back and he lost 2 more to battleshock! SQUUUUUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEL. 

Nigel won the T2 priority roll and I prepared for the double turn with a feeling or dread, he brought the big man on right in the centre of the board and flew forwards so he was only 7" away from my brutes, the Slaanesh lord behind him giving Archaon double pile in, shield cast on archaon as well, I'd have to reroll 5's if any were left after pile in number one... things were looking bleak, he moved on 12" from my Ardboyz 6 trolls as well and moved the warriors up to 3" away from the brutes forming a V with archaon between the two blight towers. Finnaly he moved up his other warriors to support the nearly dead Plaugebeaers.  We moved to the charge phase and his warriors charged the pigs, then archaon failed his charge this was massive as he then didn't want to charge in his warriors as I'd probably mince these up unsupported even if they killed one brute. To make matters worse for Nigel his trolls failed there 6" charge too, but they did vomit and kill 2 ladz.  In the combat phase he caused enough damage to kill a goregrunta and they elected not to fight the Plaguebearers in case I only killed one and then he rolled a 1 on the battlehock so instead they killed 2 warriors. 

I finnaly let out my breath, I'd gotten away lightly from the double turn and now I had archaon well within my brutes sights, he hadn't scored any points and I could easily get 2 objectives (his warriors in the middle were within 6" but crucially his archaon wasn't so the brutes and warriors had cancelled each other out in his T2). I also had a chance for a double turn back.  So I brought on my last two units of Ardboyz on the left, one to grab the objective the other to charge into the melee with the pigs. My mawcrusha came on to the right side but because of my Fighting pit terrain piece wouldn't be able to guarantee a 3" charge into the trolls as I'd have to go around it.  I managed to get my Ardboyz on the far left objective in the movement phase, the other unit failed a 5" charge (yes I know I get plus 2 as well ) my mawcrusha was close enough to bellow at the trolls and did 5 wounds killing one. He also charged in and did a further 4 mortal wounds killing another, I had charged my Ardboyz into the trolls flank but left them strung out to be able to claim the objective.  I charged archaon with the brutes as well and activated them first as only 3 trolls would be able to hit my crusha.  He was on a 2+ save and 2 brutes had to pile in and attack the warriors, I killed 2 of those and even with all the rerolls only managed to put 4 wounds thru on th everchosen. 

His trolls attacked the mawcrusha and did 2 wounds, then my mawcrusha hit back and killed another 3 trolls meaning the last troll autofailed his battleshock test. The pigs, killed a couple of warriors again avoiding the Plaguebearers and he returned the favour killing another grunta. Archaon and the warriors killed 6 brutes and another 4 ran off due to the battleshock! Painfully as that was if I didn't get the double turn I wouldn't be able to stop archaon getting the charge off on my mawcrusha. So 2-0 to me end of turn 2. The T3 priority roll is another massive deal and this time it goes my way...... 

i bring on my 2 warchanters either side of the board to jump on the objectives, and the Megaboss near the pigs to make sure I can win out this area of the battle and secure the objective without doubt. The Ardboyz in the centre move up towards archaon the Ardboyz on the left move up to secure objective and also push any deployments Nigel will make an effective 18" from the objective itself. My Warchanter on the right takes over the objective allowing my Ardboyz to advance towards the warriors in the centre leaving me with a dilemma, because of the two dreadblights, the warriors themselves a third tower (with a flat top) and the slaaneshi lord I cannot easily get my mawcrusha into archaon without going first thru the warriors, and while I was confident I could wipe them out I'd double turned so it was 100% Nigel's go next and this would mean archaon charging me and going first and probably signalling the end of the crusha and the game for me, as he could then easily have enough to clear out my 8 Ardboyz and a Warchanter and then sit on two objectives till the end of the game. 

So I got my balls out (metaphorically not physically) and went for it....... 

i flew the mawcrusha up onto the tower and bellowed at the slaaneshi lord and got lucky and took 6 of his 7 wounds off! I then charged the 6" down and landed on the poor lord squishing him with my destructive bulk. Then I charged the 4" into archaon and took 4 mortal wounds off him! My Ardboyz managed to charge the warriors too and the other unit gets a really long charge (13" with the +2) so can assault the other side of the warriors and across the base of archaon . The third unit in the left fails its charge against the 2 Plaguebearers. 

We move to the combat phase, my Megaboss kills three warriors and they with the plaguebearers finnaly kill the last goregrunta. The warriors in the centre kill 2 Ardboyz from both units, he splits his attacks with archaon and kills 3 more boyz and takes some damage off the crusha, who had also taken some off the big man (ill come back to this in a sec) he did 8 wounds with the D6 damage attacks on my Ardboyz who can't dent archaon armour at all but the 8 in the rear kill a single chaos warrior. 

The melee is fantastic hits, wounds, misses, saves all flying about, Nigel's Marauder team mates (tony Moore and darran palmer come across along with one of the TO's mark Wildman to see what all the fuss is about as we are obviously enjoying ourselves very loudly :-)

archaons -2 bravery thing and sinister terrain mean I lose all but 1 Ardboy. I have forgotten in the excitement exactly how many wounds the two big fellas had left but I suspect they were both about half dead/alive I score two again making it 4-0 now. 

Nigel's T3 he brings on mighty lord of Khorne on my left to assault my Ardboyz and Megaboss on his own, he then brings Crom and the gaunt summoner on my right, he succeeds all of his charges and so now is 100% going to score 2 points if unless by a miracle I kill crom or the summoner with the chanter, and all of the 7 remaining chaos warriors with 6 guys...

the mighty lord kills 2 ardboyz, my Megaboss finishes off the chaos warriors, the Ardboyz kill 1 more warrior but lose 3 back (leaving three left) crom and the chanter trade blows 3 of me and 2 off him, and then in the centre after the flurry of attacks and dust settle, archaon has one wound left, the mawcrusha 2 Wounds left!!! (The other ardboy is still alive he had tried to finish him with dorghars heads so he could heal but failed to do anything), this turn as well he rolled 3 6's to hit with the slayer of kings and I mistakenly thought I was dead (it's wound rolls double 6 to auto kill :-). He scores 2 to make it 4-2 and we prepare ourselves for the T4 priority roll...

who ever wins this should be able to kill the other, the great warriors disengage, bloodied and weary preparing themselves for one last swing. The terrifying monsters they ride snarl in defiance and leap forward at each other one last time...... Nigel wins the priority roll and after mystic shielding himself and arcane bolting off the Warchanter, proceeds to finnaly cut down my general. (I think there may have been a loud take it off shouted here :-) 

the mighty lord kills another Ardboy, the chaos warriors kill all but one Ardboyz in the centre so Nigel scores 2 points and the score is now 4-4. 

So to recap the state of play going into my turn 4, he has 6 chaos warriors and archaon in the centre and i have 1 ardboy facing them, crom and the gaunt summoner are miles away to the right effectively out of the game now having secured the objective and will score T5. To the left I have 7 ardboyz in a fight with the mighty lord, a chanter on the objective, 2 Plaguebearers and then my Megaboss. 

Archaon looks down from dorghar who's busy licking its wounds and can see the tide has finnaly turned for chaos he. Should score 2 in turn 5 making it 5-6 (as I will score in my T4) and so at worst he is looking at a draw,n scenario (minor win on VPs) or if by some miracle the mighty lord and Plaguebearers can finish off the Ardboyz and chanter or Megaboss and maybe score the third objective for the major win for chaos.....

Archaon can be forgiven for his vanity he was tired and injured because he obviously forgot who he was fighting, he was fighting DA *^@?!*! GHOSTWULFZ, disciplined Ironjawz not bone sniffing savages....

footboss gives no thought to the mighty lord or the Plaguebearers and destruction moves 5" towards archaon so that with his move he is 9" away he then charges 11" and slams into both the 6 chaos warriors and the everchosen he puts everything into the big man and succeeds in taking the mighty champion down. The chaos warriors finish off the last Ardboyz and with the everchosen slain Khorne turns his favourable eye towards his mighty lord  on the field who proceeds to kill 4 ardboyz in one go! It's 5-4 to me and we are looking at the T5 priority role, if I win it I maybe able to clear off the 6 warriors in the middle and clinch a win! If Nigel gets the priority he will score in the middle (just retreat to stop me hitting the warriors and leave 2 inside of 6") and he can get his 2 plaugebeaers to capture the objective of the chanter as long as his lord can kill 2 ardboyz (3rd was out of 6") which would,swing the win to him!!!

Once more we roll for a crucial priority, this time I win it! (We have alternated wining the priority roles all game it's amazing) 

I retreat my Ardboyz as far away from mighty lord as I can and still be 6" from objective, I place my Warchanter 3" from mighty lord so if he wants to move and charge around him to get my Ardboyz he will need an 11" charge roll. Like I have done since turn one I continue to ignore the Plaguebearers.  

In the centre almost overflowing with waaaaargh energy after slaying the everchosen, my Megaboss eviscerates 5 chaos warriors in a single stroke (lucky for them they had immune to battleshock from the last turn....)

6-4 to me not enough to win it there and then but enough to mean that in Nigel's turn 5 he must get a 11" charge with his lord and kill 2 ardboyz to bring it back for a draw on the scenario (crom auto makes it 6-5). The mighty lord rolls a 9 but it's not enough and the triumphant Da Ghostwulfz carry the day with a major victory!!!! 

What a battle, there are 10 models left standing everything else is dead, we tot up VPs and it was 1560-1540 so I would have sneaked a minor victory if we had drawn on scenario points, we both had loads of fun and was practically as close as it could get and not be a draw. 

For the first time I was now glad I DIDNT have Gordrakk else it never would have turned out this way he would have slain archaon and easily and both of us would never gotten to have half as much fun as we did. Awesome opponent, awesome carnage, awesome fun. 2 majors and 2 losses so far going into round 5........

 

[hobgoblinclub]

On 02/12/2016 at 0:54 AM, Sangfroid said:

I rolled a 4 :-( so that meant he did score my objective his T5 winning the game 15-9. 

I was at the next table when this happened. The place just went silent and the little crowd watching the game seemed to back away in fear as if something horrible had happened. 

[Sangfroid]

1 hour ago, hobgoblinclub said:

I was at the next table when this happened. The place just went silent and the little crowd watching the game seemed to back away in fear as if something horrible had happened. 

Yeah it was really tense I haven't felt that in a game for a long time. Sedge and me had a rollercoaster 2 mins to end an epic 3+ hour game. Initially he thought he'd lost it by shooting the brutes so I could remove casualties and then he couldn't charge the Archers in,who would have been too many to stop me from scoring even if they didn't kill brutes, and then me 2 mins later when we realized I hadn't taken BS test (feels like BS when your rolling for ld6 brutes a common theme in these reports ;-) and then it was apparent my valiant display had fallen just short!

I think (or id like to think) it was a good game to spectate the flow of the battle after the initial rush across the board would have looked like a Hollywood last stand movie the horde of savages slowly taking down the disciplined lines to finish by practically encircling the heroes as they go down in a blaze of glory, finger tips just slipping from the prize in their last dying gasps.

Bonesplittas are one of the current meta-villains at the moment and so to see what can best be described as a 2nd or 3rd tier army of white pig iron clad Orruks 'ave a crack  would have got a few underdog feelings stirred ;-) Its the second time I've played ironjawz against bonesplittas and in both games I have come close (this one much closer) it for me is what makes AoS so damn exciting, the priority roles, the objectives the battleshock. Not dissing other games systems but in the previous edition this kind of mismatch would have been all over by T3 I expect once the boars "flank' charged the brutes.

 

[hobgoblinclub]

Totally agree. Most games in 8th were a turn of maneuvering, 2/3 of grinding out combats and then the rest of the game was spent trying to mop up using the awkward movement rules. AoS is incredibly exciting. Even more one sided games are usually fun. 

[Sangfroid]

And so the saga continues.....

Game 5: Andy Mackay

Scenario: Take & Hold

Condename: "The Thin blue Line"

So for my round 5 opponent I was drawn up against Andy, I had never met him before so nice to see a new face and he had an interesting Order army, which consisted of: Lord Celestant on foot, Drakesworn Templar, Castellant, Celestant prime, Mistweaver Saih, 5 Judicators, 2 x 5 Liberators, 5 Retributiors, 2 Tempestors and a Gryph Hound. So once again a very non standard stormcast list though one that I could see was going to cause me some problems.

I had a tough choice here I have played against both a drake and a prime before (though not in the same list) and both cause issues for Da Ghostwulfz. The prime because he can drop down when and practically where he wants and delete things and the Drake because he literally can eat 3 brutes in a turn and that's before he even attacks. Add that to probably 2+ rerolling ones and bouncing back mortal wounds from saves and my only real chance of reliably taking it down was going to be with the Mawcrusha

He castled for his deployment with his drake behind the objective on the back board edge, characters (not prime of course) in front, Judicators on the objective with his 2 units of liberators strung out forming the screen on his right flank he placed the retributors in cover and on the left flank he placed the tempestors (also in cover). Id set up pretty standard for me also 2 units of Ardboyz in the centre brutes behind with the Megaboss and mawcrusha, goregruntas on my right flank and the third unit of Ardboyz on the left, with the warchanters spread out 18" from each other and about 24" from the board edges.

I had two choices really the first would be to castle myself let him come on to me and pounce while hoping I can protect my objective from Primetime and weather his rain of stars and shooting, or just go for it, bum rush and try to inflict sufficient damage early to mean that he cannot have enough models to score both objectives, thus force him on the defensive and then see what happens (could get a minor either way or with some luck a major as I have enough models to charge forward then retreat some back later to nick my objective) I decided to go for it he only had 27 models and 20 of them in my mind where placed just where I needed them.

Thanks to the Ironfist I let Andy go first, he shuffled about a bit, buffed his drake to a 2+ and one of the liberators to a 3+. His rain of stars wasn't too bad only taking a wound of the Mawcrusha and killing one ardboy and his judicators shot off another (both from the same unit left of centre). Prime carried on chilling up high and it was over to me.

I went forwards at maximum ramming speed and by the end of my turn my 3 units of ardboyz were opposite, retris, Liberators, liberators brutes behind the 2nd ardboyz, mawcrusha behind the 3rd, goregruntas opposite tempestors and megaboss and chanters moved forward to be in range to buff plus provide I hoped a tempting target for the Prime. the middle unit of ardboyz (8 left) had actually made it into the liberators and managed to kill one (3+ As), we rolled for the crucial T2 priority and I got the double turn! (In Gorks good books I suspect for my hyper aggressive tactics again)

As an aside here if I had of taken my usual Gordrakk the game would likely have been over now as I would have probably gotten all three ardboyz units in along with the goregruntas (probably not the brutes) the extra 2 attacks each should have meant most if not all the liberators being dead, along with a couple of the retris. Then double turning would have been interesting as I may have been able to get to his foot characters with Gordrakk, forcing the drake on the back foot and I may have had enough to sneak the objective t3 depending what happened with his prime.

Everything except the two chanters and foot boss charge and make it in. on the left I have 10 ardboyz into his retributors, my brutes have snuck thru the gap and are strung out between the retributors (2 touching) judicators (2 touching inc big boss) liberators (2 Gorehackas fighting over the ardboyz), the Ardboyz on the second liberators with mawcrusha just tagging one guy, Pigs into the characters and tempestors (and gryphound). It was glorious and the power of the Waaaargh filled my general and so I elected to give everyone 1 extra attack. By the end of the turn all the liberators were dead, 3 judicators were dead, 4 retributors dead, gryphhound dead. Id lost a few ardboyz from the center and 3 from the ones fighting the retributors but largely my army was in tact  and he now had including the prime only 10 models left.

Andy took a breath it was a hard assault on his lines but crucially the thin blue line had just about held, now came the counter attack he knew he couldn't realistically get the major now so brought his prime down to deal with the Mawcrusha, he was boxed in with his drake so his only real option was to charge the goregruntas, his foot characters were similarly tied up fighting the pigs as well. then the slaughter began in earnest, his prime dropped a comet killing a brute, 2 ardboyz (one has lost a wound already) and taking 2 wounds of the Mawcrusha, tempestors killed 2 ardboyz, the judicators managed to kill another brute, rain of stars took off another brute and a ardboy from the middle unit (now leaving 2 models left). In the combat phase the pigs went down under the assault of the drake, this allowed the castellant to focus on the right unit of ardboyz killing 2 more, the judicators went down in the centre as did the last retributor though he killed another Ardboyz. And the Prime leathered the Mawcrusha down to 2 wounds left. To make matters worse I lost another brute to battleshock. (I did do 3 wounds back to the prime though)

So going into the T3 Priority roll, I have 6 ardboyz on the left, 6 brutes in the centre with 2 ardboyz, 3 ardboyz to the right, Mawcrusha on 2 wounds, he has all his characters and 2 tempestors left and crucially no-one within 6 inches of his objective, if I can get the priority here there is a chance I can win it with some good run/ironfist/destruction rolls from my brutes and megaboss to get back to my objective. If he wins priority then not only am I gonna get battered again, he will be able to move his drake on to the objective and thus making the game come down to VPs and stack the odds heavily in his favor.

We both feel the tension and have had a blast smashing the ****** out of each other, roll the dice and he wins the double turn back!

His drake charges the brutes and ardboyz on my left, his characters charge the brutes and ardboyz in the centre. he gets unlucky with his rain of stars and doesn't do any damage except to my footboss, but kills one more ardboy on my right with the tempestors (2 left now) and his prime only manages to do mortal wounds on the brutes and ardboyz but not enough to kill anyone. In combat he goes with the prime first and cleans up my mawcrusha, my brutes go next and take 4 wounds off his general and 2 off the drake but its not enough, he eats 3 brutes in exchange and puts his attacks into the 6 ardboyz killing 4, the characters kill another brute and the last 2 ardboyz in the centre and so  after the dust settles in the battleshock phase all the brutes are gone, so are the ardboyz (rolled a 6 there ouch!) leaving me with just 2 chanters, a megaboss on foot, 2 ardboyz on the left fighting his tempestors.

I have 600 points left on the table and he has about 1300 so short of a miracle its over, however Da Ghostwulfz do not give up!!!!! they fight to the finish!

I still have an incredibly slim chance, his mistweaver is on 2 wounds left, Celestant 1 wound, Castellant 4 wounds they are all standing next to each other in range of my footboss, if I can kill all three  of them and get the double turn who knows I may actually be able to take his drake or prime down as well (id have 9 attacks maybe with choppa and a chance to double swig brew.... ;-) As it happens I do kill the general and castellant with the Choppa/Fist combo but what I didn't do was split my choppa and fist attacks on the Mistweaver who can then use her 1+ AS ability to save both, he tried and didn't do too badly was a fitting end to the battle as his shooting and magic took down the boss next turn and my warchanters had both charged the Prime for kicks and also went down meaning a minor victory for Andy on VP's! My ardboyz had also died to the tempestors)

Great game and a really nice opponent, considering only 5 models were left alive at the end of the game was brutal. It was closer than the result would appear my audacious plan had almost worked if not for a priority roll, but as I mentioned this particular scenario is a tough one to get a major and so you have to bet big to win big or in this case lose big ;-)

Battered and bruised Da Ghostwulfz pick themselves up and prepare for one last fight, this one will be against Keith Ball and his Flesheater courts..........

[Sangfroid]

Game 6: Keith Ball

Scenario: Blood & Glory (Of course it is)

Codename: "Wrecking ball"

Its day two, its game 6 and Da Ghostwulfz find themselves lined up against Flesh Eater Courts army led by Keith Ball. Id seen Keith around the scene at least once before at SCGT but again we hadn't ever played before. He had a nasty looking army, ABGK on a Vampire Dragon (with +5 ward around him and Ring of immortality), ABGK on Terrogheist (with Cursed book), Crypt Ghast Courtier, 2 x 30 Ghouls, 20 Ghouls, 3 crypt horrors, Ghoul Patrol ( @Chris Tomlin favorite ;-) and 100 points of summoning which he kindly told me in advance was another Crypt Ghast Courtier. So a General that can come back to life ANYWHERE on the board,  T1 teleporting Ghouls, less drops so he can dictate first turn and a scenario  where you can auto win if you have all 4 objectives by the end of your turn 3 oh and potentially D6 ghouls back per turn and 2 courtiers that might do d6 more each.... Nice! I quite like the FEC they seem a fun army to pay with, very survivable, combat focused, big centre piece.. hang on sounds a bit like Ironjawz :-)

I've played a few times against this type of army so knew how to set up which was spread my army across the board from left to right, Gore gruntas, 10 Ardboyz (Chanter behind) 10 Brutes (Footboss behind) , 10 Ardboyz (Chanter behind) 10 Ardboyz (Mawcrusha behind). Id set up in such a way so that there wasn't a sufficient 9" gap for the patrol to come on behind me, if he chose to use the side edges (as I thought he would ) then they may be able to get the goregruntas or ardboyz on the otherside but id have my chances to countercharge after the initial assault. Even so I was quite worried as he had two nasty monsters for me to chew thru (one of which will resurface after death anywhere) and so this battle was going to be tough.

He gave me the first turn and so as I did against sedge I IP the Brutes, put the +1 to hit on Gruntas & Ardboyz x 2 in the right, and moved forward a little and spread out, keeping my characters back a touch, id opened a small doorway for him to come on the backboard in the left or right corners but he would only get the 20 man unit in, id also pushed back on the sides where he could deploy.

In his T1 he decided to bring on 3 Ghouls on my left (his board edge) and the courtier to protect and advance over his objective, he did the same with the 30 and summoned a courtier on the other objective, the 20 came on in the corner on my right (his board edge), he moved up with this horrors (over the objective by about 6" placing his general kind of in the middle of all 3 units (for the 10" buffs) and then his terrorgheist advanced over the objective so its back base was touching it. Quite a defensive line!

I won T2 priority and with no more pop up units the Ironjawz advanced at full speed, Keith hadn't played Ironjawz before but had seen them in action and I had gone thru the Hero phase movements with him but I think it came as a shock at how quickly Da Ghostwulfz covered the gap, in the Right the Mawcrusha got a charge into the 20 ghouls (right on the tip so not many guys would be able to fight back) 10 ardboyz were spread as a line on these ghouls and across the face of 1 of the 2 crypt horrors, the other 10 ardboyz had charged the rest of the crypt horrors. In the Left the 10 brutes were all but one able to fight the Terrorgheist and the 10 Ardboyz had gone around the flank and were engaging the 30 ghouls. My Foot boss and Gore gruntas let the side down and failed their charges. In my shooting phase the Mawcrusha had bellowed at the 20 ghouls killing 2 id also killed 3 more with Destructive bulk, and in my hero phase I had given +1 to hit on the Ardboyz facing the Ghouls and Horrors, the Mawcrusha and the Brutes. I had also elected to use the WAAARGH command ability and so with 4 IJ units in 15" I rolled a very satisfying 3 and prepared for the slaughter.

I went with the Brutes first (obviously!) and the cursed book cancelled out my +1 to hit but with all but 1 brute attacking rerolling all hits, I still only managed to take the terrorgheist down to 1 wound. This was more about his 4+ As, 5+ ward save (spell) 6+ ward save Undead Allegiance ability than me messing up my attacks, wow I was really impressed and what was funny was Keith was really impressed that they had managed so much damage as that!. He used his horrors to kill 3 ardboyz, then my Mawcrusha killed the remaining 15 ghouls, his ghouls on the left killed 2 ardboyz and then the combined 2 units of my Ardboyz managed to kill a Crypt Horror.  He also killed one Brute with his TG.

His line had rippled under the assault now it was his turn......

He moved his ghouls on the right up and charged into my Ardboyz, his Zombie Dragon went away from the Wrecking ball Mawcrusha towards the board centre (my footboss was there but also this would allow him to at least assault one of my objectives to stop an auto win or drag my guys back). In the shooting phase he screamed at the brutes but did nothing (even though he had healed back 3 wounds) his Zombie Dragon also missed his shot at my footboss.  He succeeded in his two charges and we quickly moved to the Combat phase, he decided to first with his ZD and munched my Footboss right up, I then let the Brutes finish off the TG (and lose a brute to the explosion) he fought with his untouched ghouls and killed a couple of ardboyz in the right/Centre (down to 2 guys left the other unit untouched) I responded by fighting his Crypt horrors and the untouched unit with pile in managed the last few wounds off the unit killing it (his ZD was 11" away so no 5+ ward save sadly, but the Crypt Ghast gave a 6+) I was really pleased with the Ardboyz here getting 6/7 wounds off them was a good showing. On the left side his ghouls piled forward in the TG slot and killed a brute and a couple more ardboyz leaving 3 left my ardboyz killed nothing back So having healed these ghouls up in the hero phase they were now at full strength.  In the battleshock phase my Ardboyz stood firm but 2 more brutes decided the sight of the teeming mass of cannibal lunatics was too much to bear......(why on earth are brutes less hardy than Ardboyz is really beyond me

I won the T3 priority (so no double turns so far) I made the untouched ardboyz immune to battleshock, gave +1 to the 6 brutes, Mawcrusha and untouched ardboyz. This unit I retreated back to face the ZD and with the last 2 guys retreated as far away as possible from Ghouls and ZD. my pigs and warchanters on either side charge the 2 ghoul units in front of them and after killing a further 3 ghouls with his bellow the Mawcrusha charged the ghouls on the right side and killed 4 more with destructive bulk. I decided not to charge the ZD with the ardboyz he couldn't get over me to my objective (or get to the other side one)  so would have to waste a turn fighting them.

It is now at this point the battle that was quite bloody already became an absolute slaughter.....

Worried now about my left flank I go first with the Brutes and handily kill about 15 ghouls from the 30. He goes next with the same ghouls on my pigs and 3 remaining ardboyz and brutes (they are all spread out) kills a pig does nothing to the Ardboyz and kills another brute. (also my warchanter took 3 wounds) then the megaboss and Mawcrusha decided its late its sunday, they are tired, keith is tired, I am tired and so proceeds to kill 18 ghouls (leaving 5 left who auto battleshock off, after doing nothing to back to either the mawcrusha or warchanter. Finally over on the left my pigs and ardboyz kill around 6 between them, liquidating the other ghouls unit. So with 2 crypt ghast left alive and a zombie dragon and me holding all 4 objectives its a major win for Da Ghostwulfz WAAAAAAAAAAAARRRGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

We carry on to let his Crypt ghasts fling themselves to their death on the Brutes and Mawcrusha and his ZD eats all 10 ardboyz in the centre giving a final VP of 1560 - 320.

Phew what an event 3 majors and 3 Losses I played some great people and had a total blast, also I was really honored to received the full 42 Sports points from my 6 opponents and 16 out of 20 Paint points for Da Ghostwulfz, these boys started their lives over a year ago inspired by the Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy "Kricket robots" and while the Mawcrusha was pinched off me and painted by my clubmate les martin the rest is all me and now its finished (well until later today and I pick up my bumper battalion box) it looks pretty cool if I do say so myself.

20th overall out of 74 and my target was top half so did really well and would recommend the event to everyone!

 

[LordRogalDorn]

Fantastic Battle reports! I love your style and enthusiasm. Congrats on 20th place finish! Da Ghostwulfz are an impressive force and should not be underestimated.

[Chris Tomlin]

@Sangfroid

Hey Kieran,

Really great reports there...best I've read on this forum, top work. I know they will have taken you some time to recount, so thanks for the effort man. This thread is great for new and experienced players alike.

Congratulations on your finish and your well deserved place in The Masters. You've probably been the most consistent Destruction player over the last year in the UK I'd say, so it's only fitting you are there. Looking at the 16 who made it, I cannot see there being a drop out for me to squeeze in (17th man! 17th!!). Regardless, I will be coming along and if I'm not playing can be your Warchanter!!

Incidentally, you will not end the year with Best Destruction as B&G listed allegiance over alliance (which is the way forward IMO). I was thinking of contacting @Ben to see if there's any way to get my scores changed from Destruction to Ironjawz as I've only used pure Ironjawz all year.

Anyhow, once again, great thread. Hope you keep it going, we all want to hear how Da Ghostwulfz do at The Masters!

[Sangfroid]

2 hours ago, Chris Tomlin said:

@Sangfroid

Hey Kieran,

Really great reports there...best I've read on this forum, top work. I know they will have taken you some time to recount, so thanks for the effort man. This thread is great for new and experienced players alike.

Congratulations on your finish and your well deserved place in The Masters. You've probably been the most consistent Destruction player over the last year in the UK I'd say, so it's only fitting you are there. Looking at the 16 who made it, I cannot see there being a drop out for me to squeeze in (17th man! 17th!!). Regardless, I will be coming along and if I'm not playing can be your Warchanter!!

Incidentally, you will not end the year with Best Destruction as B&G listed allegiance over alliance (which is the way forward IMO). I was thinking of contacting @Ben to see if there's any way to get my scores changed from Destruction to Ironjawz as I've only used pure Ironjawz all year.

Anyhow, once again, great thread. Hope you keep it going, we all want to hear how Da Ghostwulfz do at The Masters!

Thanks Chris I myself love reading battle report and am glad you all have enjoyed mine :-) 

I laughed my butt off when I saw I'd been put up as ironjawz as i though I'd sneak it thanks to Ricky @ChippyRick deciding to hide behind Archaon skirts these last few events ?And your moment of weakness with Stormcasts at CTW!

Eitherway we both know you are the true Megaboss, think of me more as a Weirdnob!

i will try to keep it going fella I'm actually building 10 more brutes right this second......

[Chris Tomlin]

59 minutes ago, Sangfroid said:

think of me more as a Weirdnob!

Don't worry, I do!  haha  

Stormcast were before I'd finished painting the Ironjawz...I sold them when I got halfway there to motivate me to finish.

[Sangfroid]

So it's Monday and masters week going to summarise my last few weeks prep, in this post then once everything is finished will post up here pics of the whole army so you guys know what's what!  It's funny I kinda have been a bit all over the place to with all this, I've written about 30 different lists, conversed and bounced ideas of some great peeps @Chris Tomlin and young Chris @Liam Cook being the two poor souls having to bear the brunt of it :-) However now it's here lists are in, practice games are done (and lost 1-4) and it's just 5 more brutes and a Megaboss to paint by the weekend! 

Here is the list I have gone with:

megaboss (battlebrew)

megaboss (battlebrew)

warchanter

weirdnob shaman

15 brutes (general, Bellowing Tyrant, jagged hackas)

3 x 10 ardboyz

6 goregruntas 

Ironfist 

1980

overall I'm happy with it and feel as far as ironjawz are concerned it's a competitive list. Which I suspect comes as no surprise to you all as the Ironfist has been the go to staple of almost all lists this year! I have tried out a few other things as I discussed with Chris in his podcast though all but one didn't feel as strong. 

The first was a slight variation to my blood & glory mawcrusha list 

mawcrusha (general, battle brew)

megabos (battlebrew)

warchanter 

warchanter

10 brutes

3 x 10 ardboyz

3 goregruntas 

ironfist 

i tried this out against our club president Johnny Harrison and his Ogors. The list worked well enough but I found that the mawcrusha was just so expensive for what he actually achieves, I love him but I knew that for the masters he had to go, he would be too easy for opponents to shoot off and even if they didn't his output Just isn't quite enough. I ended up,losing escalation scenario last turn last dice roll just couldn't get enough ladz to the objective

Next up I was keen to try out the weirdfist and brutefist, so tried this out against @Lez and his sylvaneth, I got smashed to pieces because i tried a audacious T3 victory on take & hold but it was not to be. However I knew that getting rid of the cabbage and getting more bodies on the table was the right direction of travel this being the first time I had played both sylvaneth and a ironjawz army with no crusha.

Megaboss (general, battlebrew)

warchanter (talisman)

weirdnob shaman (talisman)

10 brutes (jagged hacka)

2 x 5 brutes (choppas)

2 x 10 ardboyz 

2 x 3 goregruntas

weirdfist 

brutefist 

My next game was against Liam, I was keen to try the weirdfist again but also the "Megabrutes" the realisation that using the brute champ as the General I hoped would really make this unit work. Me and Liam had a really close game it was gifts from heavens and he won 5-0 in the last turn! My Ardboyz just couldn't hold on for one more round of shooting (though they had defied all the odds prior to that) the Megabrutes we magnificent, one shot durthu, got charged by 3 scythes and dispatched them with ease, they however just could get thru the treelord ancients 2+ save rerolling 1s ignoring rend -1, even with a Megaboss alongside I did 20 wounds but his healing 14 of them across the game was too much. My upgrade to a unit of 6 pigs worked though and they went thru 3 hunters before getting blast d by magic and hacked to bits by dryads. Weirdfist was a waste of time, shaman got killed T1 and I realised that he was just too squishy for an extra 100pts formation 

Megaboss (battlebrew)

shaman (talisman)

warchanter 

warchanter

15 brutes (general, Bellowing tyrant)

3 x 10 ardboyz

6 gore gruntas 

weirdfist

at this point I changed my list to what I ended taking to the masters, I played Les again for a much closer game which he won but felt I could have won and was in it much longer. 

The final list which I didnt take but I think is strong maybe stronger than what I have, and it's something I may try out after the masters :-) it's not as fast but it hits hard in a lot of places, weaker to battleshock on the 5 man brute units but there is a few threats here and if the enemy cant block you or shoot you then I reckon it could be devastating- 

megaboss (battlebrew)

megaboss (battlebrew)

warchanter 

shaman 

10 brutes (general Bellowing tyrant) 

5 brutes 

5 brutes

2 x 10 ardboyz 

6 goregruntas 

brutefist

 

[Sangfroid]

So I was going to write up all the battle reports for the masters 2017 then @Chris Tomlin got me to do the recent black sun episode where I speak thru them instead. A lot more fun and less pain on my finger tips) so putting a pin in that wonderful experience and moving forwards. 

I have mentioned in the "competitive ironjawz" thread my next list idea ( @N_Watson wanted to see it) so here it is with a bit of an explanation as to how it's going to work in my eyes. I also playing a game with Da Ghostwulfz tonight, had a week of playing Stormcasts last week So the ladz had some well earned R&R in Ghur. It's also against Les Martin and his rapidly-becoming-my-kryptonite, sylvaneth. 

The idea behind this list is the megabrutes exist because of the problems that battleshock poses to large hard hitting units of brutes. Having the Megaboss as the general means you can snipe him out then dismantle the Megabrutes easier so by having the brute boss as the general removes this risk.

However this is in very honest terms, The Megaboss should be Da Boss but by virtue of the FAQ the Megabrutes can function (I think this is good for ironjawz but it's still on the wrong side of gamey nonetheless). Also the waaagh command ability does have a place but as you can see from last wednesdays Matched play game on Warhammer TV (subscribe all of you if you haven't already!) the turn after the waaagh can be, painful on 10 man+ brute units. So these ideas are really based around limiting the relevance of battleshock and maximising the waaagh ability use. 

Also the real strength of the brute warscroll is the combination of Klaw & Smasha and also the Gore-Choppa for 180pts this is better than a lot of combat characters. Finnaly I am of a mind to try out the brutefist properly because the ability to charge in hero phase (do D3 mortal to a unit within 3" not always the target unit.....) is great, couple this with then retreating in the movement phase for board position or to play for double turn or even just to have only 1 combat (so you fight first) seems intriguing as well as a few other bits I'll go into in a sec. 

so the lists (there is 2 as always.....) 

megaboss (general, ravager, talisman of protection

megaboss battlebrew

warchanter 

weirdnob shaman 

3 x 5 brute Klaw & smash and jagged hackas 

2 x 5 brutes claw & smasha and choppas

3 x 10 ardboyz

brutefist 

=2000 

or 

Megaboss (general, ravager ToP)

megaboss on mawcrusha (battlebrew) 

5 x 5 brutes (as above) 

2 x 10 ardboyz

brute fist 

= 2000

the basic premise of the first list is to use the 3 ardboyz as a screen and place the 3 jagged hacka brutes behind them with Ardboyz almost surrounding them on 3 side. then the General in the centre (trying to get as many within 6") with 5 brutes around him, the chanter and shaman shielded by 5 brutes on one flank the Megaboss with battlebrew on the other up tight with some jagged hacka brutes. Ideally everyone is going to be 6" from general early doors so get the +2" movement. 

Against alphastike armies even if the Ardboyz screen falls the jagged hacka can counter pile in, then my turn countercharge with brutes and Megaboss retreat etc.... 

agaisnt shooty armies the msu approach is a decent counter as it becomes more pressing for the enemy as to what to target, the characters aren't at all important to the list (except 3 places of power) and with 12 ironjawz units good chance the waaagh will go off every time. I'm actually hoping peeps target characters in all except 2 places (will probably shield the general so he is a 2+\ 4+ ward. Things like kunnin ruk will not be able to maximise there output because invariably shots will be wasted. 

The 2nd list is the same except I've squeezed in a mawcrusha because I love him, it's not as optimal but the mortal wound charges in hero phase, retreat movement phase, then destructive bulk charge with crusha will really work agaisnt tough targets (stonehorn, durthu, fulminators etc....) as they should be softened up enough then for the crusha to blast thru in his combat phase. (I hope!) 

finnaly even just the brute boss left alive from the 5 man units can do D3 mortal on the charge and still put out some good damage (especially with 2/4 extra attacks from waaagh!) 

whatcha all think of that! 

[N_Watson]

I like it! It is one of those lists that you would easily dismiss due to the ease of use that the ironfist gives. I think that you are going to need to play really well to maximise the brutefist. 

I agree with you that your general should be a hero, but the fact that GW just keep putting things in the game like kurnoth and skyfires, I think until they change it, we need the megabyte general. If we can't give them another threat, why wouldn't they blast of the general. 

The 1st list could be good due to the MSU, but you get into the problem of having more charges to make and more pile ins, potentially losing stuff before you get to use it. 

Look forward to hearing how you get on.