Dogs (and Dwarfs) at BIGAoS a 1k tournament report

[Double Misfire]

Hi folks,

While all the grown ups were at Blood and Glory at the weekend my friend Bobby and I went to a four game, 1k one dayer hosted by the lovely people over at Bristol Independent Gaming and I thought I'd type up a quick report with some insights into how I felt the more unusual aspects of my list worked.

The event was a simple 1k vanguard event with the games being played being Take and Hold, Border War, Blood and Glory, and Gifts from the Heavens in that order. Before we get to the meat of the event I'll give a quick summary of the two practice games I played and how they forced me to completely revise my list:

Bobby and I met up for a couple of practice games at the club on thursday night with my fairly standard Dwar- Dispossessed infantry list made up of models I thought I'd painted well (killy lord, engineer, two warmachines, 20 warriors, 10 longbeards, 10 quarrellers) facing off against Bobby's deceptively gentle looking Ironjawz army (Megaboss with Battle Brew and Ravager, Warchanter with Battle Brew, Ironfist consisting of 2x5 Brutes and 2x3 Gor-gruntas).

We played Gifts from the Heavens first, with my army doing well until there wasn't a lot left of it compared to Bobby's, mainly due to the freakish speed of his stuff, my inablity to split my fire, and underestimating the damage output of brutes after charging my lord into a unit and then choosing to attack first with my warriors in a different combat instead. We then played Border War which was over by the top of turn 1, with me having pushed for a refused flank totally overestimating the staying power of my units (probably a hangover from older editions of Warhammer).

I've got a few photos of these games, but quickly stopped taking them when I realised I was loosing (the dwarf lord who did in the first game was where the foremost unit of brutes is):

 

After two such humiliating defeats (I don't know why gor-gruntas get such a bad rap online, they don't need to hit as hard as brutes, just get a up in the enemy's face on turn 1 and not die while the rest of the Ironjawz turn up), and a dawning realisation that my list could probably wasn't the best suited to grabbing matched play objectives and that anything fast enough to reach my army before I can shoot it is properly scary, I'd not planned on painting any new models especially for the event, but desperation, remembering something I'd planned on trying out for games of AoS over a year ago and a trip to my bitz box brought me to the two real stars of this report. I think I'd bought them both for Mordheim sometime last centenary and they'd been gathering dust ever at the bottom of a drawer ever since. Not to despair! A quick bit of filing, the addition of a couple of properly dwarfy beer barrels, a rushed paintjob while playing the new edition of Blood Bowl on friday and 17 years later these dogs were truly having their day in the sun:

Introducing Doggo and Boggo, Hunting Hounds from the Wood Elf compendium. They haven't got the Wanderer keyword so there ain't nothing elfy about them! I painted them like giant pugs because I imagined that's more or less what the kind of dogs dwarfs would breed might look like. They're trained find lost dwarfs in the mountains and lead them home with their little barrels of beer.

Of course Doggo and Boggo would need 960 points of dwarfs to accompany them, so here's the list I took:

• Dwarf Lord accompanied by shieldbear (general) with Legendary Fighter and Relic Blade
• 2x10 Warriors
• Joseph Bugman
• 10 Quarrellers (Bugman's Rangers)
• Dwarf Engineer
• Organ Gun
• Cannon
• 2x1 Hunting Hounds

I've used poor old Bugman in almost every game of AoS I've played since launch and he's a properly rubbish hero, especially for 100 points; what he allows a unit of quarrellers to do you can do better with a unit of miners without having to buy him and outside of that has I think killed three models for me over the course of his AoS career (two of which were other dwarfs), but I don't have a unit miners painted to a high standard so he made it into the list. Anyway, enough rubbish about dogs, practice games, and the army I play being overpointed - on to the event!

 

Bobby and I were two of 18 people to turn up for the event, a pretty big turnout for what I found out was B.I.G.'s first AoS event, and a bunch of very nice players with several truly beautiful armies in attendance.

GAME 1 - TAKE AND HOLD - CHRIS(?) - BONESPLITTERZ:

I got to play my first game on a gorgeous board set in the Realm of Fire against a lovely man who's name I'm not 100% sure I remember correctly (sorry!) and his gorgeous Bonesplitter force consisting of:

• A Kunnin' Ruk with
  • A Savage Orruk Big Boss (general) with Dok Juice and I can't for the life of me remember what command attribute
  • 2x20 Savage Orruk Boyz
  • 20 Savage Orruk Arrer Boyz
• A Wurgog Prophet with Dok Juice, the +1 to hit spell
• 2 Big Stabbaz

Deployment was pretty easy as I was able to use Bugman and the dogs' drops to get the advantage on what was being set up ahead of me (part of the design of the list was old fashioned WFB style chaff drops. I figured I'd have better ranged stuff than most of my opponents and first turn priority would be less of an issue). I deployed nice and far back with everything but the dogs, remaining in range of my objective so the orcs would have a longer walk to me and I could hopefully sneak in and grab their objective with Bugman's Rangers after I'd cleared the unit left behind to guard it.

The savage orruks went first and surprised me, only moving up the arrer boyz and one unit of regular boyz, leaving the other big unit, the characters and the big stabberz to spread out and keep watch for Bugman and his lads, I'd obviously grossly underestimated the psychological factor of units able to pop up anywhere on the battlefield against someone not used to them. On my first turn I ran both dogs infront of the advancing savage boyz unit (who'd been Kunnin' Ruk'd and run twice and were scaryily close to one of my warrior units) and killed a few arrer boyz with warmachines.

I lost the priority roll for turn two and the orruk units and characters guarding the objective continued to comb the area for Bugman, while the arrer boyz, out of bow range of my warmachines shot off poor Boggo in the hero phase, with Doggo still alive, forcing the advancing boyz to move past him and then charge my warriors at a very weird angle.

On reaching combat the savage orruk boyz fluffed all their attacks against the dog, and most of them against my warriors, with the warriors and my lord repaying the favour and only killing about three orruks between them. In my turn I shot and battleshocked off the majority of the arrer boyz, and realising that with the amount of orruk units sitting on the objective they wouldn't be able to take it unsupported and that I would need all the help I could get clearing the reamaining boyz and arrer boyz before the rest of the Bonesplitter army decided to join them dropped Bugman and his rangers on my right flank.

Turns three and four turned into a proper scrum on my half of the board with my combined army grinding down the two units that had rushed ahead, with the rest of the savage orruks racing down the board too late while my warmachines first shot off the big stabbaz, then started thinning out the incoming savage boyz unit. Hilariously a continuation of fluffed attacks from the boyz unit in combat with him meant that 2 wound 5+ save Doggo managed to survive about six rounds of combat with them. Go Doggo!

By the end of the game the Wurgog Prophet managed to make it to combat, only to be chopped into a fine mist by my lord, with only half a unit of boyz and the general left on the board for the savage orruks to a handful of slain dwarfs and two very brave dogs, minor victory with 720 victory points (I think?)  to me. A great game against an absolutely lovely opponent, every part of my army performed excellently, even Bugman more than doubled his total kill tally and managed to kill five orruks over the course of the game! I was a bit gutted I didn't land a major victory as it was something I'd been confident I'd be able to do in the notoriously hard Take and Hold with this list but hey-ho, nothing I could have done about it with that many orruks guarding the objective.

 

GAME 2 - BORDER WAR - AARON - STORMCAST:

Game two and I'd reached the dizzying heights of table three against a very nice chap called Aaron with a lovely looking silver Stormcast army. Aaron was brand new to the hobby, having only picked up Age of Sigmar a couple of months ago, so I did my best to not be as awful as my regular opponents insist I normally am. Aaron's list was made up of:

• A Lord Celestant (general) with Reckless and a Phoenix Stone
• A Lord Castellant
• 2x5 Judicators with bows
• 5 Retributors with 2 starsoul maces
• 2 Fulminators

Table three was a very developed board set in the Realm of Old WFB Scenery with lots of tall buildings to the sides and a craggy dwarf outpost in the middle. I was worried the height of the terrain would hinder my warmachines, but it probably turned out to help more than hinder me as the battle went on.

I carefully deployed out of Judicator + movement range and Aaron chose to let me have the first turn, allowing my dogs to cap both the middle objectives while a unit of dwarf warriors shuffled up to claim my objective and the cannon killed (I think) a Judicator. Five vps to me! On the Stormcast turn the Fulminators and Retributors capped their respective objectives while the Judicators moved into position, killing poor Boggo. Five vps to the Stormcast!

Turn two and the Stormcast moved into position, with the Fulminators trampling Doggo and most of the Judicators still out of range of my stuff. In my second go I realised I'd have to get my stuff within range of the two middle objectives and sped both warrior units over, with my lord very precisely positioned behind the warrior unit facing down the Fulminators so that he'd be able to pile in and attack after they'd attacked the warriors without being able to be attacked himself. The cannon shot off a couple of Judicators and battleshocked off another and the organ gun did two wounds to a Retributor. VP total: a worrying 6-10

I won priority for turn three and immediately realised I should have deployed Bugman and friends behind the Judicator line on my second go (I'm used to making my ranger champion army general and giving him reckless to near-guarantee them a post deep strike charge when they need one). I quickly rectified this by setting them up near the now very depleted Judicator units and desperately hoped for a charged to get them within claiming range of Aaron's objective. While I berated myself for being so stupid the warriors shieldwalled up, securing the middle objectives for me by merit of having more models than the Stormcast guarding them and the organ gun killed two Retributors while the cannon took out another couple of Judicators, from the undamaged unit this time. The charge phase rolled round and I rolled the two dice for my Rangers with dread, miraculously getting 11", getting them into the Judicators who they proceeded to knock down to one model and not take any wounds from. Bugman, being Bugman rolled a three for his charge, back on form after actually doing stuff in the last game. It didn't matter though, beacause the rangers had taken the objective, getting me a full nine points for the turn.

Not a lot happened in the Stormcast movement phase. In the shooting phase the Judicators managed to kill a couple of rangers  the Lord Celestant's hammer cloak got three of the warriors who'd taken the Retributors objective and the Fulminators Dracoths reduced my lord to a single wound (if I'd known they could do that I'd probably have not moved up quite so close to them...). Charges and combat rolled round with the second Judicator unit charging the rangers in a last ditch bid to get their objective back and the Fulminators and Retributors crashing into their respective warrior units. Aaron elected to go first with the Judicators, who deleted their 10 warriors in record time, allowing me to strike next with the other warrior unit who killed a Retributor, leaving them at only two models, The Retributors then killed all but three warriors, who proceeded to pass their battleshock test, keeping the objective locked for me. The rangers chopped down another Judicator, taking no damage in return and my lord only did 4 damage to the dracoth knights, who'd been shielded by the Castellant. 15-12

As we were finishing the third turn we were given a 10 minute warning to finish the game up and while I was keen to rush through another turn, Aaron was sure there wasn't much he could do to change the game's outcome and offered to end it there. I accepted and while I'd scored a major victory, I'd managed to get no points out of Aaron's army, leaving me with only the 700-odd points I'd got off the Bonesplitterz in the previous game...

After lunch we settled back into the hall and I found out I was on the still more dizying heights of table two for Blood and Glory, up against another Stormcast  player - a gent called Sam who'd recently won the Facehammer GT. If playing Aaron was the equivalent of just about managing to defeat a Liberator, taking on Sam would be comparable to facing down the Celestant Prime... He'd managed to loose to Bobby's Ironjawz in the previous game so I knew he could be beaten but wasn't feeling optimistic...

 

Thanks for reading! Games 3 and 4 to be posted later.  

[Aelven]

Great post. Enjoyable read from the start, cant wait for the rest!

[Double Misfire]

GAME 3 - BLOOD AND GLORY - SAM - STORMCAST

Despite only getting a minor in my first game and scoring no points for wiping out enemy units I'd somehow made it up to table two for round three: Blood and Glory. Sam, my opponent had previously won the Facehammer GT with Stormcast, so I can't say I fancied my chances. He'd taken a fairly straight gunline list that I don't imagine he would have been able to confidently run if Three Places of Power had been on the tournament bill. It was made up of:

• The Celestant Prime (guessing he was the army general, Sam didn't say anything about command traits)
• 3x5 Judicators with bows
• 2x3 Prosecutors with Javelins

Table two was made up of a couple of hills in the corners, a few scattered woods to the sides, a big wall and a pond in the middle that we'd rolled up as deadly. Sam put the Celestant Prime up in the sky and I cautiously deployed my warmachines out of Judicator + move range again, but had to confess I'd never played a game of AoS against an army with more firepower than my own before so really had no idea what I was doing beyond a realisation that Doggo and Boggo weren't going to be very useful in this game.

Sam very graciously allowed me to have the first turn and I neglected to move anything. My cannon killed a Judicator and battleshocked another off, the organ gun wasn't in range. The Stormcast's first go saw the Judicators move down the field into position and the Prosecutors fly down and harpoon (I think) a few warriors from the unit deployed on my left and a single cannon crewman.

After a speedy turn one it was pretty obvious (as is probably common when two ranged armies face each other down) that the game would go to whoever won turn two's priority roll. If I won my warmachines would be able to take out the Prosecutors and Bugman and his rangers would present enough of a thread to the Judicators that they'd have to waste a round of shooting dealing with them and not my warmachines. If Sam won the Prosecutors would easily be able to wipe out my warmachine crews bar one cannon crewman while the Judicators devastated my warriors and the Celestant Prime came down and made a mess. Unfortunately Sam did win the priority roll and that's exactly what happened. In my go I made the the insanely stupid mistake of choosing to keep Bugman and his rangers in reserve instead of contesting the objectives in the Stormcast deployment zone with them. My Lord could have saved just about saved the day if I'd won the next priority roll after he charged both units of Judicators but alas after wounding with all four of his damage 4, rend -2 attacks... only for Sam to roll four sixes for the unit's armour saves!

Turn three and Sam won the priority roll again, and due to having much more models on the board by me at this point could easily have forced a major victory. Instead, being a both a lovely chap and only about half an hour into the 90 minutes we'd been allocated for the game, at that point he offered to continue playing so we could both bowl for kill points. And bowl for kill points we did. By the end of the game Sam still had all four objectives on lock despite only having a single unit of Judicators left on the board, and I was still standing with I think just Bugman and his lads left, putting me on 840 kill points for the round.

All in all a great game against a very experienced opponent. After loosing those two key priority rolls I don't think I had too much of a chance, but much more exciting than I'd imagined a matchup between two shooty armies would be. Maybe I should get back into 40k! 

No longer confident in my gaming ability after a minor victory, major victory (where I failed to wipe out a single unit), and a loss under my belt, I did what any stoic dwarf would to and pressed on to whatever might have be waiting for me in my final game...

 

GAME 4 - GIFTS FROM THE HEAVENS SLAVEC - BLOODBOUND

I'd really lucked out with my opponents at this event, infact everybody in the hall (bar Bobby who I play every week and is just the worst) was absolutely lovely and I'd have been delighted to play against any of them. Slavec (I hope I've spelt his name right, massive apologies if not), my final opponent was no exception and was a fantastic opponent with a wip Bloodbound army that looked like it would shape up to be gorgeous when completed made up of:

• A Brass Stampede battalion consisting of:
  • A Lord of Khorne on Juggernaut (general) with the +1 to hit against Order bubble command trait and I honestly can't remember what artefact.
  • 3x3 Mighty Skullcrushers
• 10 Bloodreavers
• A Bloodsecrator with the +1 wound artefact
• Valkia the Bloody hard to kill

Despite my first three games having gone less well than I'd hoped, I was somehow back on table three - craggy dwarfhold in the middle, tall buildings in all the corners, with one crucial difference to the first time I'd played on it, massively impacting the game: the dwarfhold was now deadly! (you might have already guessed how this turns out...)

I deployed my guys in the middle of the board with enough room to rush towards wherever my comet landed (dwarfs only have little legs), with both my warmachines deep enough that they were just within movement + max range of the Khornate front line, and Doggo and Boggo on each flank, ready to be sacrificed on the altar of khorne as doggy speedbumps. Slavec deployed his units in a cluster in the middle of his deployment zone opposite mine, with Valkia and the Bloodsecrator on his left flank.

Slavec chose to go first, leaving his Bloodreavers behind on comet patrol and speeding everything else down the field, being careful to avoid the deadly (obviously booby trapped) dwarfhold occupying the middle of the board with all but one unit of juggernauts, who lost a single model running over it. Valkia rolled a 6 for her run and flew a whopping 18" over the tall building in the righthand corner of my deployment zone - I needed to deal with her quickly before she'd be able to make a run at my artillery crews next turn! I wasted no time throwing my dwarf lord's +1 to wound against grudge on her and moving the closest unit of warriors up into charge position while Doggo and Boggo ran up to ensure the Skullcrushers would have to cross the deadly dwarfhold if they wanted to charge my units on the next turn. In the shooting phase both my warmachines turned their attention to Valkia who was now in cover with a 2+ save, the cannon scored a single wounding hit that she managed to save and the organ gun did a bit better, chipping two wounds off her. In the charge phase my warriors were able to make it into Valkia, leaving her on a single wound and losing five dwarfs to Slaupnir and two dwarfs to battleshock in return (thank grungni for dwarf banners!).

To my relief I got priority on turn two and chose to go first, my comet crashing down on the righthand side of my deployment zone, and close enouh o Valkia that she was contesting it; as if she didn't need to die badly enough already! In the movement phase Doggo and Boggo contined to stare down juggernauts and my warmachines, engineer, lord and engaged warrior unit slowly shuffled up to block any Skullcrushers from getting too close to the comet in their next turn. In the shooting phase my cannon failed to do anything to Valkia for a second time, while the organ gun killed her about five times over. With not combats to fight I braced for Slavec's turn and the ineviatable juggercharge.

Slavec's comet landed directly opposite mine, with the Bloodsecrator planting his flag and the jugger lord throwing his command ability down on himself and two Skullcrusher units in the hero phase. The Bloodreavers scrambled towards the newly fallen comet, securing it for Khorne, while the juggernauts advanced as far around Doggo and Boggo as they could (the sight of a pair of large pugs obviously all kinds of intimidating to a heard of enormous mechanical daemon-rhinos), unable to get far enough around them to charge my units through without crossing the deadly terrain piece in the middle.

The charge phase rolled around, Slavec charging one unit of his first unit of Skullcrushers into my unscathed warriors and lord, only for two Juggernauts to fall to the deadly dwarfhold and the unit who'd already lost a man to the dwarfhold's deadliness rolled short and had to take on Boggo and the unit of warriors Valkia had shaved down to only three instead. Then it came for Slavec to charge in with his lord; there was no way he'd be able to make it to my line without being able to cross the deadly terrain piece. Slavec confidently threw down the dice to do so, only for it to come back an inevitable 1. The brutal Khornate lord, undefeated champion of 888 battles, was sent flying as his juggernaut tripped on a loose paving stone, his neck immediately breaking on impact with a nearby tree. (the third unit of Skullcrushers made it into my warriors unscathed)

Now you see him...

...now you really don't.

Slavec took the loss of his general (and a third of his Skullcrushers) to deadly terrain on the chin and played on, determined to get revenge on the dwarfs and their shoddy masonry in the name of almighty Khorne. Poor old Boggo and a bunch of dwarf warriors were put down by the juggernauts' impact hit mortal wounds, but unfortunately a single member of the unit of three Valkia had depleted was left alive long long enough for the two juggers on my right to pile in round him, securing my comet for the Bloodbound. Apart from that very little happened in the combat phase, with my dwarf lord only doing four wounds to the Skullcrusher in combat with him and the Skullcrushers failing to do much damage to my warriors in return. At the end of turn two the score was 2-4, I'd been dealt some outrageous good fortune on the death of Slavec's general, but I'd need to capitalise on it if I wanted to lock the objectives in as the victory points they gave out increased.

I went first on turn three, presumably after winning priority, unveiling Bugman and the rangers near the Bloodreavers and Bloodsecrator and managing to safely run Doggo over the deadly dwarfhold as close as he could get to the comet on my side of the board. In the shooting phase I put both warmachines into the Skullcrushers next to the comet, only able to kill one of them, meaning they'd still get the objective at the end of their turn, drat! Bugman and the rangers shot off a few Bloodreavers, but were unable to make it in to charge them. In the combat phase one of the Skullcrushers was able to pull off some pile shenanigans and slaughter my cannon crew (I should have spotted this and done something in the movement phase, so I'm totally to blame here), but his mates were surprisingly rubbery and didn't manage to kill anything while my dwarf lord, master engineer and warriors ground down two of their number. In the Bloodbound's third turn not a lot happened outside of the Bloodreavers moving a little further away from Bugman's Rangers and my guys slowly grinding the remaining two juggers in combat down. Still with the score now at 2-10 it hadn't been a terrible turn for the Bloodbound.

Slavec got priority for turn four and chose to go first, with very little happening outside of the remaining two Skullcrushers in combat with my stuff being ground out and his army remaining in control of both objectives. My turn saw Bugman and the rangers converge on the Bloodreavers, with Doggo moving round the (rather hard to kill) Bloodsecrator to reduce the chance of him running in to contest Slavec's objective if he won priority next turn. In the shooting phase the organ gun ripped apart the remaining Skullcrusher guarding the objective (not the most crucial thing in the world when my dwarf lord had a 4" charge to him, but I'll take it), securing it for my lord and warriors and the rangers got slightly too enthusiastic shooting at the Bloodreavers, killing all but one of them and almost meaning I'd be unable to charge and claim the objective! On seeing this Bugman decided to put his crossbow into the Bloodsecrator instead, doing a wound for his troubles. The rangers easily charged into and slaughtered the remaining Bloodreaver, so I was able to slam Bugman into the Bloodsecrator instead; he must have still been on form after the game against the Bonesplitterz, becuase he managed to do three wounds, taking none in return. At the end of the battle round the score was 10-18, though at this point victory for me was kind of inevitable.

I won priority on the final turn of the game and smashed my lord into the Bloodsecrator, turning him into a fine red mist and wiping out Slavec's army. The final score was 20-18, a major victory and 1000 kill points to me, not a bad way to end the day.

Slavec was a wonderful opponent and incredibly gracious at the loss of his general to deadly terrain, explaining that he'd known the risks when he'd chosen to charge across it. Overall I think I'd been dealt an insane amount of luck by the deadly terrain both being there and having been so well um.. deadly, but also really terrible luck at how far Valkia had been able to run on the first turn and the fact that she'd been able to survive two turns of cannon and organ gun fire (that would have killed almost as many Skullcrushers as the scenery did - honest), and been able to take so many warriors out so quickly,

 

When the results were being read out I was surprised to find out I'd come third overall, with the Bonesplitterz player I'd beaten in the first game in second place with one more point than me, and Bobby's Ironjawz in first with four out of four major victories (I'll never understand perceived internet wisdom's beef with Gor-gruntas, feel free to explain why they are bad to me). Four great games against four great opponents, who I'd happily play again, in an amazing venue with some gorgeous boards and scenery. I'd never been to B.I.G. before but will definitely be doing my best to make it there for their next AoS event. The tournament organiser mentioned that they were going to aim to do quarterly 1k one-dayers and advertise the venue to other tournaments inbetween, and I couldn't recommend them them enough, so if you like the sound of what they have to offer, keep your eyes peeled on their website and facebook.

I was very pleased with how my army performed overall, and with the exception of the cannon which I felt did much less damage than the organ gun and will swap out for a second organ in smaller games where having 60 points to spend on other stuff is huuuge, at first opportunity felt all my individual units performed incredibly.  My MVPs were the rangers who along with Bugman I now can't wait to swap out for a couple of units of much better miners (sorry guys!) and of course Doggo and Boggo who did insanely well for me given how little points I spent on them. Even in the third game against the shooty Stormcast army I couldn't have used them to block the movement of they were great as deployment drops, allowing me to deploy my army around the three Judicator units. The dogs were especially good in the first game, managing to waste a round of savage arrer boyz shooting and then heard a savage boyz unit into having to charge my battleline in a funny conga line, and the fourth game shepherding so many jugggernauts to their deaths on deadly terrain - I can't wait to see how they do in larger games. My next hobby stop will be to have a rumage in my bitz box and see what other dogs I can turn up so I can field maybe half a dozen of them. I'm planning on starting by converting up this guy:

 

Thanks for reading, feedback and questions welcome.  

[chord]

Great Read thanks for sharing!

[Splitbristle]

Sounds like a great tournament, I'm not too far off Bristol so may have to get involved in one of the next ones.