The Black Sunz - Ironjawz - Update 28/02 - PICS! Whole new army painted!!

[Dez]

That hat kills me, I've been searching online for one. Start the Megaboss Movement!

[Chris Tomlin]

Morning all,

Hope you had good weekends...mine was super productive!

I will try to follow up on last week by going through my games at the Cheltenham Warchiefs GT each day this week.

As previously advised, I managed to get TBS XCVIII out this weekend...it's been about 6 weeks since the last episode, but never fear there is literally 6 weeks worth of content here as it is 3 shows in 1! The first section covers the event I am going to be discussing this week so you can listen to that if you want more coverage.

Check the podcast out at www.theblacksun.co.uk or on iTunes. It's NSFW / kids.

The Warchiefs GT was another 5 game event, However they had made their own narrative and battleplans which was pretty cool. I think there was about 32 players in attendance - not bad at all for the weekend after FHGT.

I think they were clever in that games 1-4 used the basis of General's Handbook battleplans with their own twist, theming each around one of the 4 Chaos Gods, before bringing it all together for a super unique game round 5.

There was a couple of other things going on, namely the Monster Hunter challenge (collecting badges for each monster you killed) and the Chaos emblems you obtained (physical, metal counters!) for your victories which could come into play round5.

The venue was awesome, with gaming mats on all the tables. It was BYOB but had quite a chilled up vibe, being literally the weekend after FHGT I was certainly taking it easy!

I had travelled up with @Paul Buckler, making us the only two men who had attended The Warlords, Facehammer and this event. 3 two dayers in 4 weekends!! Mental hardcore!!

I'll chuck up a link to the pack as it'll be worth you having a read over the battleplans before checking out my reports;

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3tr4xw7okxcfgp0/Tournament%20Pack%20v11.pptx?dl=0

List wise, I was using the same as Warlords and FHGT so you should be pretty familiar with that by now. However, just in case;

Megaboss Krunk - Ravager, Battle Brew
Pig Benis, The Warmaster, Fist of Krunk on Red Cabbage*
Da Ardnob (Slaughter-choppa)
Da Kurlzz

Ironfist
10 Brutes (Jagged Gore-hackas)
5 Brutes (Choppas)
5 Brutes (Choppas)
10 Ardboyz (9 'Uge Choppas, 1 Shield)
3 Gore-gruntas (Choppas)

*It was a two list format with fixed artefacts etc. Therefore my two lists were identical with the exception of the Cabbage, which had Battle Brew on one list and the Talisman of Protection on the other.

So, lets go...

Game 23 - Warchiefs GT - Round One vs @Russ Ward (Chaos)

After a bit of confusion with my grudge (me grudging and being grudged my multiple people!!) I finally settled on Russ; he's a top bloke and we had fun playing back in 8th edition (although his dice clearly hated him that game...think I made a TBS dice sale off the back of it!) so I was looking forward to a game of AoS vs him. As ever, Russ was rocking his Chaos and his list was something like; Bloodthirster, Sayl, Nurgle Herald, Khorne Herald, 20 Bloodletters, 6 Plague Toads, 6 Plague Drones, 10 Plaguebearers, 10 Horrors. I think that was about it.

As you'll see from the link above, this battleplan was a variant on Take and Hold, with terrain offering -1 save instead of +1 save, due to the game being played in the Garden of Nurgle. I thought this was a bit harsh on all Russ' Nurgle marked units...alas, the Gods are fickle!! Take and Hold as a battleplan seems to be one people aren't overly keen on and tbh, I get that. It's not the best. However, it does let Ironjawz play in the most basic of ways for the most part as you can pretty much go all out offense (providing a good match up and you can sweep the enemy as you go!).

I left my Ardboyz at the back to hold onto my objective and spread everything else as per usual. I let Russ go first because I'm nice, however it turns out he is nicer as he failed to cast any spells whatsoever (spoiler; he did this turn 2 as well). Because of this he moved up a little more cautiously than he perhaps would've otherwise I suspect.

In my turn I moved forward aggressively, looking for the double turn and to put this to bed early doors. I used the Gore-gruntas in quite an interesting fashion in this game, I managed to used their large bases to fill a gap between two bits of solid terrain that essentially walled off a couple of his units...of course if he could actually cast Traitor's Mist then he'd be able to alleviate this somewhat. I chucked 5 Brutes and the Cabbage straight into the Plague Toads, having no clue what they did at all. I have to say I was reasonably impressed by their resilience as he made a bunch of saves and I think I killed one maybe. The 10 Brutes ran up centrally with Krunk and Da Ardnob, they had the Drones and Plaguebearers to get through, with the Horrors guarding his objective. The other 5 Brutes stayed off centre, hedging their bets a little as I was unsure at this moment which way they'd need to go.

I didn't win the priority roll, which wasn't ideal. As I mentioned before he again failed his spells, which meant the Bloodletters were walled off by the Gore-gruntas and in combat could only bring 6 to bear, failing to kill a pig and locking us in. The Drones went into the Brutes and the Bloodthirster went into the Cabbage. I can't recall which variant he had, but suffice to say it diced the Cabbage, taking it clean off. Ouch! The Drones did really poorly against the Brutes and lost a couple in return. I should note that he also charged the Herald in, which was a mistake IMO as I was able to take it off and deny him free mortal wounds.

In my T2 I used the Warchanter to instead buff the 5 Brutes who were chilling and chucked them into the Bloodthirster. Thought they'd do a bunch of damage and cripple the thing so I could finish it off next turn, but I got the rub of the green with rolls in that combat and took the thing straight off. Nice! That pretty much swang it as those Brutes were now free to go other and assist their bros in taking out the Toads, and subsequently put some pain on the Bloodletters when they could get into the fight.

In the centre, Krunk and his Nobz smashed all before them and marched up onto the objective, securing me the win and taking away most of Russ' toys in the process. A fairly routine performance from the Ironjawz, probably made possible by a fortunate match up and yet again more bad luck on Russ' part...I'm sure next time we play it'll all come back on me and I'll deserve it!

Great game and an awesome way to start the event.

Result - Major Victory

I should also quickly mention that there was an interesting situation right at the end where he had a battleshock on the remaining couple of Bloodletters. Had he popped a 1 and then rolled well for the number returned, he could've snaked them around to actually contest his objective again putting me down to a Minor Victory. In hindsight I should've just not attacked. Interesting though.

Anyway, that's all for now. Need to crack on today, leaving early for the dentist!

Chris

[Dez]

How can you not attack? WAAAGH IRONJAWZ IZ BEST!!!

[Soulsmith]

Great little read mate, I will remember that gore grunta strategy!

[Chris Tomlin]

14 hours ago, Dez said:

How can you not attack? WAAAGH IRONJAWZ IZ BEST!!!

Sometimes you gotta be kunnin' bro! Whilst it would've been an entertaining story, it would've been pretty annoying to have a game I dominated turned from a major to a minor due to something like that.

13 hours ago, Soulsmith said:

Great little read mate, I will remember that gore grunta strategy!

Cheers man. Yeh since that game I have actually utilised them like that on a few occasions. In theory this wasn't the best time to try it out due to the presence of Sayl, who negates the blocking strategy. But yeh, definitely seems valid, terrain dependant.

Just doing up a very quick report of the next game now. Sorry I'm not contributing in the other threads here at present but will catch up soon. After this week I have no painting/prep for tournaments for the rest of the year which relieves a lot of pressure and frees up a lot of time!

I've also preordered Blood Bowl, so I'll be showing off Da Black Sunz in their Saturday afternoon guise as an American Football team soon...

[Dez]

Haha I know sorry that was tongue in cheek!

[TalesOfSigmar]

How do you cope with having so many Battleline units in Escalation.

Had a game last week with 3 on the board and 3 and 3 for units coming on.

But due to all the units being Battleline was finding I had 2 x 10 Ardboyz and the unit of 10 brutes on the board from the off, following by another unit of Ardboyz and Brutes having to come on before any of my characters. Feels like by the time the heroes are coming on they're playing catch up.

Is it just one of those things you have to plan for.

[Chris Tomlin]

Afternoon Ardboys!

So yesterday I mentioned that there had been some confusion around who my round one grudge was to be for this event. Well, an early front runner had been Jon Warmington before it was agreed I'd be up against Russ.
Fortunately, the stars aligned and I was drawn against Jon round two!

Game 24 - Warchiefs GT - Round Two vs @jonwarmington (Flesh-eater Courts)

Ok, so above I said fortunately as this was my initially feeling when I saw the draw. Jon then put his army on the table ;
Haunter Courtier General w/ 5+ ward and ring, King on Dragon w/ -1 hit book, Ghast Courtier, 2x 9 Crypt Horrors(!!) and 30 Ghouls. I believe he had the Attendants at Court battalion and maybe had a Varghulf to round things out. Can't remember.
But anyway, yeh, 18 Crypt Horrors...ouch!
This round we were playing Border War (GHOUL PATROL!), the event specific rule was based around Khorne doing mortal wounds to units that were not in combat, however we completely forgot this for the duration of the game; skills!
I knew this was going to be a tough game as although Jon hadn't played a massive amount of AoS, he was a solid player in WFB and had a super strong army here. His deployment surprised me a little as he deployed both units of Horrors on one flank, with the Ghouls camping out his objective and the Zombie Dragon on the other side.
My deployment was standard for me, 10 Brutes in the centre with Krunk and the Warchanter either side and Ardboyz behind them. Cabbage off to my right opposite the Dragon with the Gore-gruntas on the far right. The two 5 man Brute units chilled off centre.
Unfortunately Jon was able to take the first turn and did exactly what I would've done; went 5-0 up by claiming the two central objectives.
I retaliated poorly, chucking the Cabbage into the Zombie Dragon and moving up some Brutes and the Ardnob to try and hold up the Horrors. Even with the -1 to hit, I thought the Cabbage could cripple the Dragon thanks to Destructive Bulk and the main attacks hitting on 2+ usually. Unfortunately it didn't pan out and what was way worse is that he straight off killed me return thanks to some silly silly dice. So...two games with the Cabbage so far and a total of two turns played across both!! Good work *thumbs up emoji*.
I think I did actually get the double turn here, which was something. I rejigged the 10 Brutes, moving them off centre to go tackle the Zombie Dragon...which they finished off with ease as expected. Should've done that in the first place! Duh.
I was cagey on the other side as I didnt want to give the Horrors and free combat rounds in my turn. The Brutes had claim the right objective so I think it was 5-4 to Jon at the end of my second turn.
A lack of experience in the battleplans cost Jon a little in T2 as he actually left one unit of Crypt Horrors on the objective, not knowing he could tag and move on (this only became apparent T3 when I moved my Brutes off. Had I known this was why he left them in place I would have told him of course).
One unit of Crypt Horrors went into the Brutes infront of them, though I don't actually think he wiped me out. Perhaps he did.
Anyway from there, I managed to get Krunk and the large Brute unit into 30 Ghouls without any buffs on in T3...I thought this was it, my way back into the game. Now I really really do not like bemoaning bad dice rolls, however right now, this is me bemoaning bad dice rolls!! After battleshock he was left with 2-3 Ghouls, which was pretty frustrating. It was his turn next, he grew loads back, made them immune to battleshock and the rest was kinda history there. I really thought that was my one chance and tbh probably should've got it. Might not have won me the game or anything, but still.
After that the Crypt Horrors rampaged a bit, and even though I killed a whole bunch over the game, did not come close to finishing either unit. I made one big mistake that compounded the loss; you may remember a little while back I played a 1k game Bloodbound which I won because the opponent left me a charge into his Slaughterpriest which was on the objective. Well, I kinda did the same there here. Rather than letting the Horrors fight the Ardnob in the middle of the board, I backed him off meaning the Horrors could move then charge him. This subsequently meant he got into my objective a turn earlier than he perhaps would've otherwise.
At the end of the game I was 4 points down I believe. I never felt like I was in for the win and was constantly chasing the game, which isn't a great position to be in. Though that said, I did still feel in with a chance and fought right to the end to try and save it (which isn't always the case). The Flesh-eaters are super solid and realy punish you for not finishing off units. As it was I only scored points for the Zombie Dragon and the Crypt Ghast Courtier.

A very good, competitive and tight, if not frustrating (for the right reasons, not meant at all negatively) game. I tipped Jon for a strong finish and he came in 2nd overall, well played that man.  

Result - Major Loss

Wow...just finished that. Been adding bits on and off all day as I've been really busy. Rushed a bit at the end but we got there!
Enjoy,

@TalesOfSigmar - Chalmers, I'll reply to that question tomorrow mate.

Chris

[Nico]

Quote

But due to all the units being Battleline was finding I had 2 x 10 Ardboyz and the unit of 10 brutes on the board from the off, following by another unit of Ardboyz and Brutes having to come on before any of my characters. Feels like by the time the heroes are coming on they're playing catch up.

Which also means no heroes for Rampaging Destroyers free moves

[TalesOfSigmar]

Just now, Nico said:

Which also means no heroes for Rampaging Destroyers free moves

That's true but when they're apart of an Ironfist they're still moving D6

[Nico]

Another good write up.

Quote

Even with the -1 to hit, I thought the Cabbage could cripple the Dragon thanks to Destructive Bulk and the main attacks hitting on 2+ usually. 

 

Did you have the Talisman on the Cabbage (cannot recall if it was fixed artefacts for the whole event)? Surely time for a double down of the Battle Brew (ditto any time Sylvaneth are spotted in the distance).

Edited November 15, 2016 by Nico

[Chris Tomlin]

Afternoon boys and girls,

21 hours ago, TalesOfSigmar said:

How do you cope with having so many Battleline units in Escalation.

Had a game last week with 3 on the board and 3 and 3 for units coming on.

But due to all the units being Battleline was finding I had 2 x 10 Ardboyz and the unit of 10 brutes on the board from the off, following by another unit of Ardboyz and Brutes having to come on before any of my characters. Feels like by the time the heroes are coming on they're playing catch up.

Is it just one of those things you have to plan for.

Yeh it's not ideal...but remember you do have a massive deployment zone to bring the units on from. The units will still have D6" as part of the Ironfist. Also Brutes will be stronger than a lot of what your opponents are putting down. The heroes will need to probably spend a turn or two running to catch up to the middle objective, but it's not so much of the problem on the left and right ones.

It's a tricky battleplan that most armies struggle to adapt to in many ways, so I'm not sure we are that much worse off when you look at the bigger picture. That said, I think I have only played this 3 times tbh.

20 hours ago, Nico said:

Which also means no heroes for Rampaging Destroyers free moves

20 hours ago, TalesOfSigmar said:

That's true but when they're apart of an Ironfist they're still moving D6

Yeh as James says, the D6 from the Ironfist is usually enough to get where you wanna be (with a run) in this battleplan I find. You don't want to be on the other side of the table as then the characters will never catch up!

20 hours ago, Nico said:

Another good write up.

Did you have the Talisman on the Cabbage (cannot recall if it was fixed artefacts for the whole event)? Surely time for a double down of the Battle Brew (ditto any time Sylvaneth are spotted in the distance).

Cheers mate.

Yeh I did have Battle Brew in this game, but tbh defaulted to the single swig. You are correct though, I should've doubled down in this instance. Good spot. Noted for future reference.

Here we go again...

Game 25 - Warchiefs GT - Round Three vs Dave Knatt @The Nameless One (Flesh-eater Courts)

Yey! More Flesh-eaters...which in turn meant more Crypt Horrors, though luckily Dave only had 12  
Nah in all seriousness, I was happy to get in all the game time vs FEC as I'll be using them myself at an event this weekend, so good to get an idea of the synergies in practice etc.
The rest of Dave's army was made up with a GHOUL PATROL (3x 20) and a number of characters including a pair of Ghoul Kings on foot (who Dave hilariously referred to as young men throughout the game!! "Dave, those are ancient creatures, probably thousands of years old!") and various Courtiers.

This battleplan was actually mental. I was instantly glad that after the rigours of FHGT I had decided to take it easy this weekend and just drink beer. If I was FHGT drunk there's no way I would've gotten my head around it, it was hard enough as it. That said, it was amazing, I loved it and would really like to play it again. It was based on Gifts from the Heavens from the GH, however being themed around Tzeentch we were fighting in a crystal maze. What this meant in game terms was that you could leave the board from any table edge and reappear dead opposite. This made for a very cerebral game with a plethora of possibilities to consider and indeed try to counter/take advtange of.

So because of all these, we both stayed reasonably tight to our table edges (you had to come on 9" away from enemies) as we didn't want to allow each other to come on behind our armies etc. It also meant that whoever did so first would in turn leave a gap in turn, opening up themselves for attack.
Dave brought his entire GHOUL PATROL on his back table edge, knowing they'd have the opportunity to move around as they desired later on. We both basically skipped our first turns, instead waiting to see where the objectives dropped before getting down to business. I think I had a bit of luck here as mine dropped to the right which had two big pieces of impassable terrain in front of it. I chucked a couple of units off my left hand side of the table so they came on the right hand side and proceeded to create a barrier around the edge of the table so he could not bring units on to assault my objective. I think I have a photo of this kunnin' behaviour on my phone. I'll add later if so.
Now that I had my defence laid down with the Cabbage (taking up the defensive role so it could stay on the table this game!), Ardboyz, Gore-gruntas and 5 Brutes doing the job, I decided to get a bit aggressive with the rest of the army, but instead of looking to be clever with table edge moves, I just pushed it down the centre. This paid off as Dave's objective unfortunately (for him) dropped centrally.

Over the course of the game he tested my perimeter a couple of times, dropping Ghoul units onto my side of the board. He was unable to penetrate at get to my objective, but everytime I whittled the Ghouls down, he'd jump across the table and grow back with the Courtiers and Battalion buff. I killed over 40 Ghouls this game but failed to wipe out a single unit of 20!!
In the middle of the board, the 15 other Brutes, plus Krunk and the Ardnob went to work and had a field day smashing up Horrors. I was able to take down their Courtier which helped massively. Despite assistance from the Ghoul Kings I did manage to score his objective which made the game unwinnable for Dave.

I think we agreed that the game probably came down to the objectives landing where they did. As it was, the game probably could've been over earlier but there was a couple of occasions (priority, save rolls) where the dice kept Dave in the game with another chance. This actually made for a more fun game to be honest and I have to say it was an absolute pleasure meeting Dave. I don't think there was a single moment he didn't have a smile on his face. Super nice guy and even gave us a lift back to the hotel at the end of the night!  

Result - Major Victory

That's your lot today I'm afraid people!

As I said, I'm skimming these a bit so if you have questions on stuff that's a bit vague, please ask and I can flesh it out.

Cheers,
Chris

[Dez]

That Battle Plan sounds like a lot of fun, I'll have to try it!

I've been sorely tempted by FEC since their debut, I'd love to hear your thoughts on them (in an appropriate topic of course). 

[Chris Tomlin]

20 hours ago, Dez said:

That Battle Plan sounds like a lot of fun, I'll have to try it!

I've been sorely tempted by FEC since their debut, I'd love to hear your thoughts on them (in an appropriate topic of course). 

Yeh it really is. You should check it out man.

I might do a little review elsewhere of my experiences with the FEC, dunno. I'll definitely talk about it on the podcast anyways.

Ok, so there will be no battle report today or tomorrow I'm afraid. I've sorted an early finish tomorrow for #RAW16, which means I have more to do before then.

Next week I'll catch up with the final 2 Warchiefs GT games, my periscope game with @Forestreveries and then all the smaller campaign games I've played. That means week commencing 28/12/16 I can cover Clash and get back up to date.

Any spare time I get today I'll try and catch up on some of the other topics in here and try to reply to DM's I've been lax on! @scrubyandwells & @MidasKiss are two I know I have in there!!

Cheers,

Chris 

Edited November 17, 2016 by Chris Tomlin

[TalesOfSigmar]

Cheers for the advice mate. Hopefully I'll be able to do Krunk proud at Blood and Glory next weekend!

[nuttyknatty]

Hey @Chris Tomlin. Nice write up for our epic clash!

My 'youngsters' were no match for your Greenskins (even though, as you said, the dice gods did all they could to keep me in the game!).

Look forward to meeting you across the table in the future!

[MidasKiss]

10 hours ago, Chris Tomlin said:

Yeh it really is. You should check it out man.

I might do a little review elsewhere of my experiences with the FEC, dunno. I'll definitely talk about it on the podcast anyways.

Ok, so there will be no battle report today or tomorrow I'm afraid. I've sorted an early finish tomorrow for #RAW16, which means I have more to do before then.

Next week I'll catch up with the final 2 Warchiefs GT games, my periscope game with @Forestreveries and then all the smaller campaign games I've played. That means week commencing 28/12/16 I can cover Clash and get back up to date.

Any spare time I get today I'll try and catch up on some of the other topics in here and try to reply to DM's I've been lax on! @scrubyandwells & @MidasKiss are two I know I have in there!!

Cheers,

Chris 

Thanks Chris  We should skype and talk warhammer and music some time. I'll even let you tell me all about your day.

[Chris Tomlin]

19 hours ago, TalesOfSigmar said:

Cheers for the advice mate. Hopefully I'll be able to do Krunk proud at Blood and Glory next weekend!

I look forward to hearing all about it man! Good luck  

13 hours ago, The Nameless One said:

Hey @Chris Tomlin. Nice write up for our epic clash!

My 'youngsters' were no match for your Greenskins (even though, as you said, the dice gods did all they could to keep me in the game!).

Look forward to meeting you across the table in the future!

Hey Dave, glad you think I gave it justice. Hope to play you again some time. Did you get a chance to listen to the podcast? There was a little joke in there for you!  

@John Harrison

11 hours ago, MidasKiss said:

Thanks Chris  We should skype and talk warhammer and music some time. I'll even let you tell me all about your day.

Thanks sounds like it could be fun. You speak with @Forestreveries as well right? We could get him in on it. I'll have a look at that DM in a min.

So today is a tournament Friday and for the first time under the General's Handbook (I think?) I will not be running my Ironjawz! Still, I'm super excited about my themed FEC army. Should be a great weekend.

[Scottyjock]

@Chris Tomlin not sure if it's just me, but all your pics are showing up as broken links on here? Was gonna have a good stare at em!

[Chris Tomlin]

1 minute ago, Scottyjock said:

@Chris Tomlin not sure if it's just me, but all your pics are showing up as broken links on here? Was gonna have a good stare at em!

I think it's a problem across TGA as a whole... @Ben mentioned something about it previously. I dunno if I need to do anything once resolved.

[Donal]

On 11/11/2016 at 0:57 PM, Chris Tomlin said:

Happy Friday everyone!

I'm not playing at Age of Santa, I'll be assisting @Paddy O'Sullivan with the running of the event. It would be great to get a game in though. Which other events are you looking at?

Not 100% sure what I'm not. Firestorm 4s, your tournament (if i get a ticket), Londons calling are the most likely.

I'm 50:50 between south coast and Sheffield.

Loving the updates and the Witness me photo!

P.s. sorry on delay in responding took me a week to finish episode 98...

Edited November 18, 2016 by Donal

[Nico]

Gratz on 1,000 posts Megaboss!

[nuttyknatty]

5 hours ago, Chris Tomlin said:

Hey Dave, glad you think I gave it justice. Hope to play you again some time. Did you get a chance to listen to the podcast? There was a little joke in there for you!  

Halfway through the latest episode - am basking in my new found fame! ?

[Chris Tomlin]

Hey guys,

Urgh, slipped to page two!!  

Well, as you've noticed there have been no updates this week. I've experienced a bit of hobby burn out and have basically taken the week off everything Warhammer related after another mad rush to finish up stuff for a tournament event last weekend.

Pretty sure I'll be back next week to continue the catch up and contribute to the other topics in here.

Maybe see you Megabosses on Monday!

[Forestreveries]

Hey guys,
Urgh, slipped to page two!! [emoji37] 
Well, as you've noticed there have been no updates this week. I've experienced a bit of hobby burn out

6 games of FEC will do that to a Megaboss!


Sent from the Hidden Enclaves via the Realmroots