Alamo GT 2012 - Round 3: Ogre Kingdoms

For my final game of Day 1, I played Sean Bright and his Ogre Kingdoms army.

This is Sean. And he was a blast to play. He would eventually go on to win the Best Sportsman award for the tournament with a total of 4 Best Opponent votes (one of which was mine)!






Somehow I managed to lose his army list. So I don't actually have the magical items that he took with each unit. But I do remember the gist of the army. His Ogre Kingdoms army included the following:
Slaughtermaster

• General, Level 4, Lore of Heavens, Hellheart

Bruiser

• Battle Standard Bearer, Rune Maw

Butcher

• Level 1, Lore of the Great Maw

Firebelly

• Level 2, Lore of Fire

Maneaters (5 models, full command)
Ironguts (14 models, full command, Standard of Discipline)
Ironblaster
Ironblaster
Sabretusk Pack (1 model)
Sabretusk Pack (1 model)
Mournfang Cavalry (3 models, full command, Dragonhide Banner)

This army is pretty hard nutz! It has one giant unit of 18 models in horde formation (so every model in the unit attacks) including all of the characters and the Rune Maw banner (making the unit almost immune to magic). Then there are the double Ironblasters, and the Mournfang Cavalry. Needless to say, I knew I was in for a tough fight. Especially as there was no way I was going to be able to do the roughly 60 wounds needed to drop the Irongut unit with characters while defending myself from everything else.

Round 3 was also the keg scenario. In this scenario, one "true core" unit starts the game with the keg. That unit must deploy in the center of the battlefield, becomes stubborn, and is subject to stupidity. A unit loses the keg if it is destroyed, flees, or leaves the table. Whoever still has the keg at the end of the battle gets the 4 bonus battle points. Even before the tournament I knew that it would be nearly impossible for me to get the bonus battle points for this scenario.

Luckily, this scenario also had some special, optional rules. The optional rules for this scenario allowed you and your opponent to bid a number of drinks. The number you bid would give you a bonus to your die roll for choosing sides and to determine who goes first. The only caveat, you had to drink all of the beers that you bid in the First Turn (30 minute time limit) or for every drink you failed to finish you gave up one of your battle points to your opponent. However, just for agreeing to play the optional rules, both players got 2 bonus points no matter what happened to the keg unit. So of course I decided to play the optional rules as did Sean. I bid a total of 6 drinks for the first turn and Sean bid 5 (so I would effectively be getting a +1 to both dice rolls).

My Spellweaver rolled for spells and happily got Flock of Doom, Amber Spear, Curse of Anraheir, and Savage Beast of Horrors. From what I can remember (I really didn't write much down about this game, something I will have to work on in the future as I get lazier by Round 3) Sean's Firebelly got Fireball and his other characters has some other random spells. Magic would play very little into Sean's plan this game so I don't really remember what other spells he had.

We rolled for sides and Sean won the dice off choosing the side where terrain was least likely to hinder his movement. My objectives going into this game were:

1. Kill the Ironblasters.
2. Kill the Maneaters.
3. Kill the Mournfangs.
4. Don't lose the game to stupid mistakes.
5. Don't every get into combat with an Ogre unit.
6. Don't lose the keg unit! 

Deployment:
Sean's deployment was straightforward. The Irongut unit with all the characters (and the keg) was placed in the center of his deployment as per the scenario rules. To the left of that unit he placed his Mournfang Cavalry. To the right he placed his Maneaters. His two Ironblasters deployed behind the Ironguts and both Sabretusks were placed on the extreme right flank.

My deployment was  more spread out. On my left flank I deployed an Eagle, the altered Highborn, the Wild Riders, and the Eagle Noble in an attempt to provide a strong flank to swing around and attack the Ironblasters.

In the center of the board I deployed a single Glade Rider unit that held the keg. Then further on the right flank I deployed the remaining three units of Glade Riders, the Warhawk Riders, and my other Eagle. My thought here was to mass my shooting attacks at the Maneaters and then swing behind the Ogre lines.  

After deployment, I remembered to vanguard! (finally getting it down). The entire right flank shifted up and away from the Ogre lines to try and draw the Maneaters away from the rest of the army.  

After Vanguard moves my left flank looked like this. 

We then rolled off for the first turn and again Sean won! I really should have bid a much higher number of drinks as I really needed to go first in this game. I have no doubt in my mind that had I gone first, the entire outcome of the game would have been different.

Turn 1:
Sean's Ogres move forward advancing in a solid formation. The Ironguts and Maneaters marched towards my right flank. Both Sabretusks moved forward as well to threaten a charge into a character. The Mournfang marched straightforward and the Ironblasters moved to have line of sight on my Eagle Noble.

In the Ogre shooting phase, both Ironblasters fired at the Eagle Noble. The first Ironblaster shot was deflected by the noble's Charmed Shield, but the second shot killed the noble. Sob; no Hail of Doom Arrow for me this game!

Wood Elf Turn 1 saw the remaining units on the left flank move forward to put pressure on the Ironblasters. On the right flank, the Glade Riders moved forward slightly to maximize shooting on the Maneater unit.

In the magic phase the Spellweaver put two wounds on the closest Ironblaster with a successful Flock of Doom. However, a boosted Amber Spear into the flank of the Mournfang Cavalry was dispelled.

In the shooting phase, the Highborn wounded the Mournfang Cavalry and the Glade Riders killed a single Maneater.

Turn 2 - 6:
During Turn 1, both Sean and I drank all of our drinks. Thus, no player would be giving up any additional bonus points this game for the optional rules (Good for us!). However, having drank so much in the first 30 minutes of the game, both my note taking and picture taking became sporadic. Rather, than provide a complete turn by turn breakdown, I can only provide the general overview of what happened.

• On my left flank, the altered Highborn spent all game shooting at the Mournfang Cavalry, eventually killing them before they ever made it into combat.
• Both Sabretusks were killed by Wood Elf shooting early in the game.
• One Ironblaster was destroyed by magic with Flock of Doom. Sean would continually allow this spell through each time it was cast so that he could in turn dispel the boosted Amber Spear.
• Both of my Eagles would be killed by the Ironblasters.
• The Maneaters continued moving towards the Wood Elf lines, eventually declaring a charge on the third turn. The Maneaters charged the mage's unit who opted to flee. Sean then redirected into the BSB's unit (who had moved into the unit with the Keg to help them pass their Stupidity tests). I elected to stand-and-shoot as the Maneaters needed a 10 on the charge roll to make it into combat and because if I fled, I would automatically drop the keg and give Sean 2 more battle points. The Maneaters then rolled a 12 (of course) on the charge roll! Between the bonus impact hits and the Ogres' normal attacks the entire Glade Rider unit and BSB were wiped out (so much for being Stubborn).

Stupid Mistake #1: I should have fled with the BSB's unit! I was not close enough to the board that I would have run off so the only penalty I was facing was giving up the keg bonus points to Sean. As I already knew I couldn't get his keg unit, I should have just given him the points and kept this unit alive as having this unit and the BSB alive would have given me the win this game.

• After the Maneaters killed the BSB and keg unit, the remaining Glade Rider units killed the Maneaters with massed shooting.
• The Wild Riders and the Warhawk Riders charged the remaining Ironblaster, breaking it in combat and running it down. However, the Wild Riders rolled a 12 for their pursuit roll and clipped the rear of the Irongut unit. The Ironguts would then kill off all of the Wild Riders over a few combat phases.

Stupid Mistake #2: Once it was determined that the Wild Riders would contact the Irongut unit on the pursuit move, I should have wheeled to maximize the number of Orges' contacted. This would have allowed all of the Wild Riders to strike at the Ogres rather than the two. I know this wouldn't have changed the overall outcome of the combat as more Ogre attacks would have just killed the Wild Riders earlier, but its a rule that I need to remember when playing because it can matter in other situations and is an easily forgettable rule.

• Finally, the Warhawk Riders died a fiery death from a boosted Fireball after that Irongut/Wild Rider combat was over.

In the end I lost the game by about 150 points. I had managed to kill everything but the Ironguts and the Ogre characters netting around 1050 victory points. In contrast, Sean got 1223 victory points for the Wild Riders (in combat), the BSB (in combat), a Glade Rider unit (in combat), the Eagle Noble, both Eagles, and the Warhawk Riders.

Sean got the full points for the keg bonus objective as well as points for winning the game. In turn, I got 4 battle points for losing, 2 battle points for playing the bonus objective, and then 2 additional bonus points stolen from Sean do to the Sneaky Git rule. After Round 3, my grant total for Day 1 was a mediocre 32 battle points out of 60.