Friday, April 19, 2013

BAO 2013: Round #1 - Skaven

For Round 1 of the 2013 Bay Area Open, I played Chad Pond.

Chad is a member of the Barbarians gaming group out of California and also plays and travels with the Leadership 2 gaming group at several out-of-area tournaments.










Chad has been playing a very nicely conceived and painted Skaven army that is based around a Skaven clan having found and destroyed a Lizardmen stronghold. His army for this tournament included:

Thursday, April 11, 2013

WaaaghPaca 2013: Round #5 - Empire

For the final round of WaaaghPaca 2013, I played Alex Davys and his beautiful (and powerful) Empire army. Somehow I managed to not get a picture of Alex and his epic mustache (I think it might have accidentally been deleted in the picture transfer).

Alex was playing a fairly standard Empire mounted build which included a solid foot-troop unit as a mage bunker and several hard-hitting mounted units. His list for the tournament was:

Monday, April 1, 2013

WaaaghPaca 2013: Round #4 - Ogre Kingdoms

For Round 4 of WaaaghPaca! 2013, I played Paul Wagner and his alternative Ogre Kingdoms army.

Paul, this guy over to the left with the happy grin on his face, is a fantastic player and gave me one of the more fun games of the weekend.










He was playing Ogres, normally something difficult for the Wood Elf army to deal with, but with an alternative list to the normal 'Gutstar, double Ironbreaker, Mournfang list. He was playing Mournfang, but the rest of his army was something I haven't seen in competitive play before. From what I can remember, this was his list:

Tyrant
Bruiser (Battle Standard Bearer)
Firebelly (Level 1, Arabyan Carpet)
Firebelly (Level 1)
Ogres (7 models with full command)
Ogres (8 models with full command)
Mournfang Cavalry (5 models with full command, Dragonhide Banner - I believe)
Sabretusk
Sabretusk

This list made for a small center deployment for Paul, but provided some serious combat potential between the unit of Mournfang and the two Ogre units (in which he put his combat characters). I liked the list, and it must have been doing fairly well for Paul at 2000 points, but I definitely feel that it is one of the less competitive Ogre builds that I have seen at tournaments (minus the 5 Mournfang of course - these things are just brutal!).

Pre-Game:
For this round, Paul and I were playing Blood and Glory with the following exception: the player with the most facial hair chooses table sides.

The "Man of Intrigue's" special rules were as follows:
  • The "Man of Intrigue" is "the warrior." Any enemy unit charging the "Man of Intrigue's" unit suffers d6 dangerous terrain tests.
  • The "Man of Intrigue's" unit may deploy the objective marker this game. The marker counts as two fortitude points if within 12" of the center of the board at the end of the game. The marker also causes an additional d6 dangerous terrain tests (on top of its normal d6 dangerous terrain tests) for any unit attempting to cross over the marker.
Battle points were awarded as follows:
  • 3 battle points awarded for winning the game by more than 100 victory points.
  • 2 battle points awarded for winning or losing the game by less than 100 victory points.
  • 1 battle point is awarded for losing the game by less than 300 victory points.
  • 0 battle points are awarded for losing the game by more than 300 victory points.
  • An additional 1 battle point is earned for having more fortitude points than your opponent within 12" of the center of the board at the end of the game.
I had the most facial hair between and chose table sides. I chose the side where I had put down all of my stuff as the terrain on the board would be having very little effect on how I played out this scenario.

Going into this scenario, and after seeing Paul's list, I was a little concerned because we were both pretty close to the same fortitude. I knew I needed to wipe at least two of his units (or more, if possible) to win the game. But, I also knew that if I could kill two units, I would have the most fortitude in the center of the board at the end of the game and secure myself the bonus objective.

Before deployment, we rolled for spells. Paul chose to take Fireball with both of his Firebellies (pretty good choice against my small units of Dryads). My Spellweaver managed to roll-up Wyssan's Wildform, Flock of Doom, Amber Spear, and Savage Beast of Horrors (a good range of spells, especially for dealing with the Mournfang).

Deployment:
Paul deployed his army in a strong central position in hopes of taking control of the center of the board and bringing the battle to me. He deployed both Sabretusks on his flanks and placed the Firebelly on the carpet behind the building so that he could move into it on his turn. But his real battleline was the two units of Ogres flanking the five Mournfang.

That's one strong battleline! The second Firebelly was deployed in the unit on the left while the rest of the characters deployed in the unit on the right.










I deployed my army to counter Pauls. I deployed a strong archer base in the center protected on the flanks by Dryads. On the left flank I also deployed the large unit of archers with the Spellweaver to hopefully get a flank shot with Amber Spear.

At the start of the game, this is what my battleline looked like. A little ragged, but deployed so that I could easily move units around and into short range without losing more than a single unit to a charge.









The Game:
This was one of those games where Paul's dice were not with him. As such, a turn-by-turn breakdown does little to add to the outcome of this game. Rather, a general overview of what happened suffices to tell the tale of Paul's horrible luck.

I won the dice roll to go first and slowly, but surely, broke the Ogre army apart.

I moved my army forward in a rough semi-circle and let loose with everything I had. In the first turn, between magic and shooting, I managed to wound a Mournfang, kill one of the Sabretusks, and kill 3 Ogres from the Firebelly's unit.








In response, Paul declared a long charge with the Mournfang against a unit of Dryads but failed. His Ogres marched forward to get closer to my archers (bringing them within short range). Finally, his Firebelly flew into the building on the right side.

In his magic phase, a Fireball managed to kill a single Dryad from the unit looking to block the Ogres on the right.




Sensing an opportunity, I moved my archer units forward so that they were in close range of the Ogres on the right. I charged the left unit of Ogres with a unit of Dryads in the flank to hopefully kill the Firebelly. Finally, I reformed the large archer unit with the Spellweaver so that the Level 4 was in the Mournfang's flank.

Magic saw both Wyssan's Wildform cast on the Dryads in combat and an irresistible boosted Amber Spear kill three Mournfang, dropping the unit to only two models (but including the standard bearer so the unit was still dangerous). I killed the last Sabretusk, as well as three more Ogres in the right unit with shooting. Finally, in combat the Wildformed Dryads wounded the Firebelly and killed an Ogre, for only a single loss in return. I won the combat and the Ogres failed their break test. The Dryads then ran the Ogres down! The left side of the battlefield was now in my direct control.

Paul countered by charging the Dryads who caught the Ogres with the Mournfang and demolished them in a single round of combat. The other Ogre unit also charged a unit of Dryads, beat them, and chased them towards my right flank.

I responded by reforming my archer units so that Paul could not charge me on his turn and then proceeded to cast magic and shoot at his remaining units. With the combined might of the Altered Highborn, magic, and short range shooting I killed the last two Mournfangs.

Over the remaining turns, Paul kept moving to try and charge me, but good reforms and flee reactions prevented him from getting into combat. I continued to shoot at him until the only units left of the board at the end of Turn 6 were his Firebelly in the building and his Tryant.

I walked away from this game with another 4 point win raising my battle points total to 14. Paul took a zero point loss but accepted his defeat with dignity and a jolly attitude. He was a great opponent and ended up getting my favorite opponent vote for the tournament. I look forward to playing him again in a game where the dice rolls are a little more even.

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