With a win against Mawtribes my Fyreslayers managed to go 3-0.  Yet, once again, how I won gives me hope that I will manage to pull off “Ultimate Bragging Rights” at least once as we flip the table and start playing our opponents’ list.

To make for a more interesting tactical choice with the center objective in Focal Points we’d made sure the objective could be contested on two levels.

As can be seen in the picture above those on ground level would be in the 6” zone of control but so would those on top of the hill.  In the second round it looked like exactly this scenario was going to come into play as the Ironguts moved into the lower zone of control.  

With control of both objectives in the West and the Central objective Mawtribes would pull into the lead on VP and force me to make a difficult decision on how to regain control.   Getting up the hill and over the skull to get into combat was going to take a high Charge Roll anyway so the base case was they’d stay there.  But my opponent rolled an 11 and charged them in.

Now based on previous games this still wasn’t a horrible idea.  The Ironguts had been making hay in previous matches buzz sawing though other units or severely degrading if not one-shotting Monsters.  In contrast, outside of giving the Run & Charge Command Trait buff to my Hearthguard Berzerkers my Runefather on Magmadroth had done almost nothing in prior games.  He’d lost out to a Maniak Weirdnob last game...  

So the odds still seemed in Mawtribes favor, but due to other units in combat that turn my opponent prioritized a different unit with their first activation.  With the enhanced Rune of Fury giving me an extra attack and re-rolling 1s to Hit the Vosaxe Artefact buffed Latchkey Grandaxe finally went off.  With the Magmadroth kicking in some Damage as well was able to kill three out of the four Ironguts and leave the last with only 1 wound left.

The swing in VP and my opponent’s combat effectiveness from this one combat would prove decisive.  If you’ve read the other battle reports for Fyreslayers there are moments like these where different choices or better or worse rolls of the dice helped swing things in my favor.  So while I am happy to finish the first round undefeated I don’t think things are hopeless once I start piloting the other lists against my Fyreslayers.

Interestingly enough I am very hopeful about winning with the Bonesplitterz list that went 0-3.

Against Khorne in the final game of the first cycle they had an interesting opportunity to exploit.  Bonesplitterz had used their pre-game movement to advance their Savage Big Stabbas up the board.  This baited Khorne into going first to try and knock out these threats before they got into their Bloodthirsters.  Except, even after re-rolls Khorne would fail all but one charge, only managing to get one unit of Flesh Hounds into combat.

On Bonesplitterz turn they faced a choice of targets.  Do they commit both units into WRATH and FURY or do they split their attacks and try and take out Skarbrand using the Big Stabbas ability to run & charge?  They went for the latter.

The Big Stabbas did one shot Skarbrand on some good rolls but Tyrants of Blood sequential activation meant WRATH and FURY both survived this combat.  Again, hard to fault taking out Skarbrand before he gets going but once the game was over we kept coming back to this exchange as being one that still left Khorne with the advantage after leaving themselves exposed by failed charges.

I fully acknowledge Bonesplitterz is going to be the toughest list to pilot.  But in the Scorched Earth Battleplan I’ll be using them I do think they have some opportunities to exploit Fyreslayers limited movement once Vostarg’s R1 free 6” run is in the past and the Runesmiter out of the tunnel.

Similarly, I like Khorne’s mobility to get to objectives and hopefully single out some of the support pieces Fyreslayers are so dependent on.

Doubt I can go 6-0 across this tournament but I still think I’ve got wins ahead of me.