Honour & Glory Tournament Bat Reps 8 October

[Nico]

So 3 of the South London Legioners got to go to the Solent Wargamers Club in Portsmouth. @Bowlzee brought the Sylvaneth (the fluffy Harvestboon Wargrove); Max brought his sweet-looking and well converted Nurgle force; and I finally got to bring my Order army - so I've now brought all 4 Grand Alliances to tournaments.

I say "my Order army", however, something clicked in my mind the Wednesday before when I realised that my general Derp Lord on Forest Dragon and archers (Waywatchers) were Compendium units that weren't permitted. Fortuately I'd been working on building a Lightning Echelon for a future tournament, so I brought this instead.

While the formation looked brilliant - it allows you to double charge in a turn while dropping mortal wounds as you go and charge through enemy units - this meant that I was low on the pew pew as I had to take Liberators and Bleakswords as Battleline -

• Celestial Hurricanum with White Battlemage (General) 
• Auric Runesmiter 
• Lightning Echelon
• Fulminators
• Fulminators
• Tempestors
• Tempestors
• Bleakswords (Battleline)
• Vulkite Berserkers (Battleline)
• Liberators (Battleline)

Big thanks to Tony for smooth organisation. 

 

 

[Nico]

Game One - Olly's Mixed Destruction

Battleplan and Armies

The Battleplans were random - so we had Escalation first. This was ok for me, my Battleline were pretty poor, except the Vulkites, but on the basis that the Runesmiter deployed with the Vulkites (conjoined units cf. Fanatics, assassins) I could bring these down together as a single escalation drop (my first wave of 3 was the Liberators, Bleakswords and the Vulkites conjoined with the Runesmiter) and do some damage.

Olly was a very nice guy and we had a good chat about the Dread Maw and Destruction generally.

His list was:

• Dread Maw
• Orruk Warboss
• 3 miscellaneous Shamen
• 2 Doomdivers
• 3 x 10 Orruks
• Orruk Chariot
• Orruk Chariot
• Mangler Squig
• Mangler Squig

Thankfully I had used 2 Dread Maws at Rain of Stars, so I knew their strengths and weaknesses well.

Deployment

I wanted to avoid the large deadly hill on my right and let Olly run over it.

I stuck my Auric Runesmiter and Vulkites underground, my Bleakswords in the middle and the Liberators way out on the left.

Olly deployed his Orruks on my right and in the middle.

Battleround 1

It's worth emphasising that you don't score in round one of Escalation. I gave Olly turn one.

Olly ran his Orruks forward. His 4th unit was the Dread Maw which popped out near the Bleakswords and failed its 9 charge. However, it's position shielded Olly from me deploying anywhere near the right objective.

In response, I ran forward the Liberators onto the left objective. The Bleakswords moved into cover in the middle. The Vulkites tunneled up behind his central Orruks and prepared to charge. I fluffed the roll and the reroll.

Battleround 2

Fortunately I won the initiative.

I brought on the Hurricanum and proceeded to drop a comet on the Dread Maw - chipping away 2 wounds.

I also brought on the 2 Tempestors and 2 Fulminators. The Tempestors fired at the Dread Maw to give it -1 to hit. Both sets of knights formed up just outside 3 inch charge range and blazed away with their mortal wound shooting attacks. They did about 2 more wounds after the Ward Save.

The Hurricanum moved forward and decimated a unit of Orruks. 

I waddled the Vulkites forward, threw some axes with reroll wounds to kill 3 Orruks. I then rolled a 3 and a 2 for the charge, so I just made it, but would not get all the models into combat. As I could reroll a single dice, I chose to reroll the 2 - 5/6 improvement or no change - and naturally rolled a one to fail the charge. No impact damage for me....

The Bleakswords and Liberators opened the scoring.

Score 2-0

Olly responded with force - bringing on a pair of Mangler Squigs and his artillery. 

These made swift work of the Vulkites, although I did get to activate them and took 4 wounds off one squig. In future this unit needs to be 20 strong minimum for the better ward save. 

The artillery chipped away and killed 2 Liberators on the left objective. Another one fled.

His Dread Maw sidestepped the Knights and went for the Hurricanum - chomping great holes out of it. The horses managed to do a wound back - no mean feat against 3+, 4++.

Score 2-1

Olly won the initiative....

Battleround 3

Olly sent on his chariot against the Runesmiter. The other chariot came up to threaten my right. Thankfully the Runesmiter stopped him deploying near the Liberators.

The Dread Maw killed the Hurricanum.

One of the Manglers - the unhurt one - went for the Bleakswords and deleted them. They chipped off a few wounds first.

Things were looking very bleak for Order.

Olly racked up 2 points also.

Score 2-3

I brought on what needed to literally be the cavalry to save the day. They surrounded the Dread Maw and blazed away with shooting - whittling away wounds. The Tempestors shot at the Mangler to give it -2 to hit and did some wounds too.

I charged in - one of the units double oned the charge. Fortunately I then activated the second charge once per game ability. This dropped a further 6 mortal wounds (should have been 8) on the Dread Maw, nearly killing it. It also allowed me to charge some of the knights off to attack the Mangler and a unit of Orruks.

The Fulminator riders fluffed their rolls, but the Dracoths saved the day, finally killing the Dread Maw.

The Mangler did minor damage to the Tempestors, before they killed it and a few Orruks.

I reclaimed the middle so scored 2.

Score 4-3

This time I won the initiative.

Battleround 4

2 of the units of Dracoth Knights went right to attack that objective. Their pew pew took out some Orruks. They failed their longish charges.

The other unit of Fulminators chomped down the chariot in the middle and also got into combat with a Shaman.

The Tempestors in the middle stayed put and put the -1 to hit debuff onto the other Mangler. They shredded the remaining Orruks.

The Chariot killed the Runesmiter.

Score 6-3

Between his free movement and some good charges, Olly got his Warboss, the Mangler and the Chariot into combat with the Tempestors, who weren't close enough for a 2+ save (in retrospect moving the Fulminators away was daft).

The artillery pinged away another Liberator - leaving just one model left.

The Orruks on the right objective moved to stay within 6 but as far away as possible.

The Mangler rolled like a pro - even with -1 to hit it took all the remaining wounds off the Tempestors - killing them. I killed off the Shaman in the middle.

Once again control over the middle objective had switched. Olly scored 2.

Score 6-5

Battleround 5

I won the initiative. The Knights abandoned the middle and went for the right objective. 

The Liberator Prime made a hasty prayer to Sigmar for protection from the flying Grots.

The 6 Knights blazed away at 7 Orruks and 2 Shamen. The charges went in, I passed deadly terrain rolls and wiped everything off the objective. so I held two.

Score 8-5

Olly realised he couldn't win at this point and all he could do was shoot at the Liberator Prime for victory points. He didn't manage the kill.

This game did show the real value of the mobility and area denial from the Vulkites even if they derped their charges.

The game was very swingy, but I felt my plan throughout of scoring all game on the left - delaying the Orruks in the middle with the Vulkites and focus firing to kill the Dread Maw was a sound one.

I felt reasonably confident going forward, although the fragility of the knights at times was concerning.

 

 

[Nico]

Game 2 - Wayne's Bullgor Stampede

Armies and Battleplan

So I was off to the heady heights of table one.

As soon as I saw Wayne's list I wished that I had my earlier army with the extra pew pew Waywatchers in it. he had literally zero shooting and a stampede of Bullgors and 3 cheap as chips 8 wound Doombull heroes for 120 points each. With their 5+ saves, Bullgors are just begging to be trashed by arrows.

Wayne's army looked amazing and he seemed to have named every model:

• Doombull General (Dark Avenger and Chaos Talisman)
• 2 more Doombulls
• 3 x 6 Bullgors
• Ghorghon
• Bullgor Stampede
• Ghorghon

The Battleplan was Blood and Glory - so 4 objectives.

Deployment

My plan was to threaten his right objective with 2 Fulminators and 2 Tempestors, hold my right with Liberators and then have a counterpunch approach on the left, where the Hurricanum and the remaining knights would sit behind the Bleakswords. The Vulkites would pop up and try to kill his general or hurt a Ghorghon.

Battleround 1

Wayne had fewer drops and made me go first. In a classic example of why the Balewind Vortex can be pro-balance by making first turn less awful, I cast it using the Hurricanum and dropped a comet on his general (had I taken a Thundertusk or Bastilodon, I could have simply pew-pewed instead). I managed to convince Wayne that the Chaos Talisman only works on wounds not mortal wounds. However, I only rolled a one on the D6 mortal wounds.

I held the left flank steady (so no shooting with the Hurricanum sadly) and advanced the Knights on the right so that they plugged the gap between two buildings, making a potential funnel.

In response, Wayne sent everything surging forward. He passed both his mystical rolls on his right flank. His general hung back slightly. He used Crown of Conquest on the Bullgors opposite my knights to make them immune to battleshock.

I won the initiative roll.

Battleround 2

The Hurricanum came off the Balewind and nudged forward to get the central unit of Bullgors in range. I shot one dead. He passed the Battleshock test.

The Knights went for it, taking on the Ghorhon and 6 Great weapon Minotaurs. The Vulkites popped up 9 inches away from his general. Shooting from the Knights took out 2 of the Minotaurs and applied a -1 to hit debuff.

The Vulkites failed their charge - I rolled a 3 and a 1, so I needed a 6 on the reroll. This was starting to look like a trend.

The Knights made it in and took out more Bullgors, leaving only 2 left and the Ghorgon. Unfortunately, despite the -1 to hit buff, Wayne proceeded to kill one knight out of each unit (despite a 2+ save rerolling ones on the Tempestors). The synergy was horrific. Dark Avenger is basically a free Hurricanum against Order that doesn't get any smaller.

With hindsight I should have used the special rule to drop a further 4 mortal wounds and try to charge into his general, even if it was a longshot.

In response, Wayne moved away from the Vulkites, leaving them stranded and surrounded my remaining Knights.

He butchered them easily, while the rest of his forces advanced towards my thin green line.

Ominously Wayne won the initiative.

Battleround 3

Wayne pushed on - sending 11 Bullgors towards my left plus the Ghorgon.

On my right the Liberators were slaughtered by the Bullgors - the major victory was out the window for sure. The Vulkites were left alone - so perhaps Wayne was not confident of a major either. 

 The Bullgors also deleted my Bleakswords, before I chopped down a few of his men with the Tempestors. I now needed a double turn to rescue my left flank and have any chance of a minor.

The Vulkites assumed a defensive position on the objective.

I forgot to cast a spell with the Hurricanum, which was a bit of a disaster. Mystic Shield on the Tempestors for a 1+ rerolling ones or another Comet could have made the difference.

The pew pew however, was devastating. The Hurricanum took 6 wounds off one of the minor Doombulls (not the general sadly).

The Tempestors were within 3 inches of the Bullgors so they did double damage.

The Fulminators charged in. Then I activated the ability. Dropping even more mortal wounds. I managed to wipe the floor with the Bullgors, but wasn't able to long bomb into his general.

I now needed to win the initiative to kill his general and the Ghorgon, but it wasn't to be. I would love to be able to replay the game from this point on with me winning it. I think i would have gotten the minor victory.

Battleround 4

All over. Wayne romped in with the Ghorghon. and the other unit of Bullgors. He killed the Hurricanum. In exchange I killed his wounded Doombull for some kill points. He killed the Tempestors.

That was pretty much it.

I felt gutted. At least I held it to a minor victory (majority of objectives).

In hindsight I should have simply moved my Knights from the right to the left flank after deployment and done a more crushing double charge.

I'm really disappointed with Fulminators and never planning to run them again. Their 3+, 3+, -1 rend, 3 damage attacks just refuse to come good. They are a bit better with the +1 from the Hurricanum, but not enough. If you are playing them, don't use the formation - just run a unit of 4. Typically my army was perfect against gunlines, but I didn't face any. I'm strongly considering running a couple of Lord Celestants on Dracoth instead (or Concussors) - the shield is awesome and they can shoot even if they ran as well plus 7 wounds, plus mortal wounds on the hammer plus can score on 3 places of power.

Wayne played it well and capitalised on his good fortune. He was a gentleman to boot.

 

 

[Nico]

Game 3 - the Wall of Nurgle

 

Armies and Battleplan

The third game was Border War - Ghoul Patrol. Sorry I've forgotten the name of my opponent -  Dan?

My opponent had an incredibly low model count Nurgle army:

• GUO with Dark Avenger (Clare)
• Daemon Prince with Chaos Talisman
• Gutrot Spume
• Bloab Rotspawn
• Festus
• Epidemius
• 3 x 10 Plaguebearers
• 5 Blightkings
• 3 Flies
• 2 Beasts of Nurgle
• The Formation

I cannot believe he got away with such a hero-heavy list. On reflection, this was quite well suited to my army as his high rend countered my knights. Had I had a horde army, he would have been totally swamped.

My opponent was notable in that he had better dice rolls than Terry Pike, which is saying something. 80% hit rate on Unpredictable Destruction - phenomenal - the average player is lucky to remember to roll 80% of these.

Deployment

Dan deployed in a cluster around his home objective.

I knew that his Blightkings were a threat with Dark Avenger, so I targeted them aggressively.

I put the Liberators and 4 Knights on the left flank and the rest of my army on the right flank. There was a gargantuan Garden of Moor all mystical in the middle.

Battleround 1

I made Dan go first. He waddled forward a bit to grab the right objective.

He scored 3.

Score 0-3

I surged forward with my Knights. With nothing opposite them, my left ones had to cross the Garden of Morr to do anything useful. 

I pew pewed away at the Blightkings and killed 3 of them. Sadly they were immune to Battleshock. my Liberators held the left and the Knights my right.

My plan was to target the non-ward save units relentlessly and hold him back in his deployment zone, while I kept scoring on the flanks.

I kept the Vulkites in reserve.

Score 5-3

I won the double turn.

Battleround 2

The Hurricanum took all but one wound off Festus with a comet (should have done mystic shield with hindsight). I put inspiring presence on the Bleakswords.

I moved up to get the Knights in range of the +1 to hit buff and reroll charges from the Hurricanum (Reckless).

Again I kept the Vulkites in reserve.

The Knights passed their Mystical tests on my left. I put down markers for this but proceeded to forget the rerolls (which may have cost me the game).

The Knights blazed away with shooting - taking the Blightkings down to the last model and the Flies down to their last model.

The Plan was to charge in, dump mortal wounds from the formation special rule and then charge over the top to attack Bloab and Festus (who don't have ward saves). On the right I would kill the Flies, then in the next turn I would blast the 2+ save Daemon Prince with the double damage mortal wounds from the Knights to drop him. Moreover, my Knights would hold the Nurgle forces in position while I racked up points on the flanks. I thought it was a sound plan.

I shot the GUO with the Crossbows to put -1 to hit on him.

It became immediately apparent that the formation is junk. While you can ignore models as you charge, you still need space to land both models in. I rolled badly and rerolls weren't enough, with the result that I couldn't get into Festus and Bloab. Disaster.

I activated the Fulminators and killed the last Fly outright.

His Blightking responded and managed to get 11 hits (6 and a 5 off 2 exploding attacks). This was but a foretaste of the deluge of amazing dice rolls that Dan managed. Left with no other option the Fulminators had to attack the GUO and actually chopped about 7 wounds off it, with the rerolls I forgot it might have been a kill.

The Tempestors smacked at Bloab and took about 7 wounds off him. Festus however survived. In response Dan killed a Fulminator on the left - Gutrot with +2 to hit was not much fun. My saves were dreadful. I think I did kill off the last Blight King too.

Score 10-3

Now it was Dan's turn. The GUO, Festus and Bloab all healed up significantly (I was furious that Festus had survived). He cast Bloab's spell and mystic shield on the Daemon Prince. His Plaguebearers waddled in as did Epidemius. I unbound Vomit I think.

Number of attacks for the GUO's shooting attack = 6!

In the combat phase, Gutrot again got a 6 for Unpredictable Destruction and by the end of the turn both the Tempestors were dead.

I did little damage in response. The Daemon Prince and Epidemius killed everything on the right.

The GUO attacked and suddenly all the Knights in the middle were dead. This was a disaster. The toughest armoured units in the game were shredded by zero synergy Nurgle heroes - what a joke. Dark Avenger is seriously powerful.

On the plus side, Dan only scored a single point.

Score 10-4

Now I needed to win the turn, but I lost it. 

Battleround 3

Dan failed his spells which was a small consolation. However, his centre surged forward towards the Bleakswords. On my right the Plaguebearers and Beasts swamped the objective.

His Plaguebearers made their way towards the Liberators.

The GUO did another 6 shot attack and killed several Bleakswords. The GUO, Festus and Bloab all made their charges. His Daemon Prince shredded the Fulminators. The Bleakswords did minor damage. In probably the most obscene thing in the game, Bloab (a non-combat-oriented wizard) rolled a 6 for Unpredictable Destruction, then proceeded to take more than 11 wounds off the Celestial Hurricanum - killing it. 

On the left, the Plaguebearers made a long charge into the Liberators. I lost a Liberator and killed about 3 Plaguebearers.

Even after I killed his combat units outright (the Plague Drones and Blightkings), a handful of heroes had somehow destroyed 1,100 points of Dracothian Guard, a Hurricanum and 10 Bleakswords in 3 combat phases. I was not best pleased. 

Somehow Dan had picked up both side objectives to score 5.

Score 10-9

 

 

There was one hope remaining for the remnants of the forces of Order and that was the Vulkites who had failed at everything throughout the tournament. Dan had left only 11 models near his home objective. I had 16 Dwarves.

They popped up and I again rolled a 3 and a 1 for the charge, so I needed to turn the one into a 6. Part of my problem as a wargamer is that I assume that longshots will never happen for me. However, this time I rolled the 6. The impact hits killed 3 Plaguebearers and I positioned so that I would not be within 3 inches of the GUO.

I activated the 4 remaining Liberators first and to my disgust they were left with 5 models - so I didn't reclaim the objective. 

The 10 Plaguebearers killed 2 Vulkites - needless to say this was way above average.

I wiped out the unit down to one model with Battleshock and scored 4 points.

Score 14-9

Now I needed to win the initiative to have any chance of victory. I tied with a roll of 6, then tied again, then I won.

Battleround 4

The Runesmiter buffed the Vulkites. Their hit rolls were apocalyptic as they failed to snipe Festus with their axes.

The Liberators finally took the lead against the Plaguebearers, although the unit survived.

i scored 6 points.

Score 20-9

In response, Dan jumped onto my home objective and lobbed an arcane bolt at my Liberators. He went on to score that objective. Festus failed to debuff the Vulkite armour. The GUO attacked the Vulkites - some ward saves are better than others as he did heavy damage. However, the unit clung on.

Dan scored 4 for my home and both sides for a total of 8.

Score 20-17

 

Battleround 5

I now realised that my counterattack had been mathematically futile. Unless the Plaguebearers died, he was always going to score 9 points in the last turn.

I lost the initiative anyway, so it was immediately game over. I think he even killed the Runesmiter to add insult to injury.

Score 20-26 

This was perhaps the most draining game I've ever played. It was also the defeat that owed most to bad luck and exceptional enemy good luck of any I've ever played. Perhaps I should have simply parked the bus on the objectives and force him to waddle towards them, then countercharged. nevertheless, the double turn Dan got was out of this world in terms of the damage he inflicted (noting that the Tally only got going after that turn and was never a significant factor).

Conclusion

An enormous proportion of the damage output from the Knights comes from their shooting attacks, so any double turn against you will be bad for them. Having Dark Avenger to cancel out (and more) my Tempestor debuffs was infuriating.

Going forward I'm looking at using a Lord Celestant on Dracoth for 220 instead of the Fulminators. The shield is sweet as is the ranged attack (which you can use after running), having to take off 7 wounds before you lose any damage output is also handy. 

The Lightning Echelon formation is complete junk at 140 points. Fundamentally MSU combat armies are dreadful as you don't do enough damage in the first activation. Just don't use the Lightning Echelon full stop.

The Tempestors will see another outing - against non-chaos armies they are useful and do almost as much damage as the Fulminators do.

The Fulminators would be a great sideboard option as a hard counter to shooting. If you do use them, you need to use 4 of them as a single unit and they need +1 to hit from the Celestant or from the Hurricanum.

I was highly disappointed with a Major Win, Minor Loss, Major Loss. I made a mistake in the second game, but the last game was almost entirely bad luck and what I consider to be a weak list (such a low model count, so slow, joke battleline units) coming good in rock paper scissors fashion.  

I've concluded that Order simply need to go with more pew pew and less melee (unless you're going Witch Aelves, Vexillor bomb or Fyreslayers). Not really my style of play.

At least I've taken all four Grand Alliances to tournaments now - not that many people can say that.

On a much brighter note, my club mate Max took down a first AoS trophy for the South London Legion (Most Honourable - I believe - being a result of winning the painting competition and generally being honourable) - well done Sir!