Scenario: King of the Hill (Watchtower, but with a hill)
Pete turned up with what has started to become “that net list” with a few tweaks to suit his play style. 8 Ironguts, 8 Bulls, Slaughtermaster, Firebelly, BSB, 2 cannon, 3 sabre tusks and 3 units of 2 mournfang heavy cav. My army design wasn’t that well suited to handling so many fast high armour units, having dropped the sepulchral stalkers early on in my list development. I knew going into the game I had to isolate the mournfang and bring my TG hoard to bear with his blocks after reducing their strength with archer fire.
The hill was left vacant by both sides and Pete deployed in formation in the centre. The terrain being very poor I had to settle for an arcane ruin on my right as a barricade. I deployed the bulk of my forces centre right, with the TG anchoring flanked by sphinx and supported by archers. The knights took the hard right looking to get a flank or be a road bump for the incoming mournfang.
Turn one starts off great with Pete letting through Light of Death which went on to wipe out one unit of mournfang. It bounced to one of his cannon causing a further wound before dissipating. Pete was more worried at this point by smiting. With the majority of my archers out of range I think this was a mistake on his behalf. A SSC found the mark and removed his other cannon and setting me up for the best possible start. My horse archers caused a wound on a sabre tusk on my right. Pete moved up all his units in short order, charging the horse archers with his sabre tusk’s. His remaining cannon put a few wounds on a sphinx. On my left flank he had scouted his maneaters to threaten my TG. I used my archer fire on them and positioned a sphinx to block.
Turn two and in come the maneaters whom destroy a unit of archers after my sphinx failed its charge on the maneaters. My horse archers die to the sabre tusks and one SSC finds it mark, but fails to wound, the other misfiring. Magic was but a footnote with Pete casting a fireball into a small archer unit. The maneaters overrun into the warsphinx. Here I missed a critical move, forgetting to angle the 10 man archer unit beside the warsphinx to redirect any charges. I would pay for this later. This was my mistake number one.
Turn three starts with my Necroknights failing a charge on Petes other unit of mournfang. Pete fancied this matchup, however I wanted it as I knew it would remove the threat for a few turns so I could concentrate on his main blocks of ogres. Light of death failed to do anything. I charged my other warsphinx into his ironguts to attempt to hold them up so I could get a turn 4 charge on his bulls/slaughtmaster unit with my TG. The sphinx proceeded to fluff the combat and died to combat res. Things were not looking to good here. His other mournfang charge my archers that I had positioned wrong, and his maneaters charged into my other sphinx. I removed the archers and the mournfang rolled into the sphinx gaining Pete an additional round of combat with the mournfang. The sphinx dies and Pete reforms the cav to threaten my flank and withdraws the last remaining maneater. Pete threw in his remaining sabretusks, as I had shot one off in the preceding turns. It was beaten down by mighty archers over two turns of combat!
Turn four and the knights fail another charge, this time on the remaining cannon. Shooting removes a few ogres and I position an archer unit that is infront of my TG to only allow only one of his ogre blocks into combat at one time. Pete moves his mournfang to start to threaten my hieropant and warmachines. This opened the door for my next turn. Magic does little again.
Turn five and I commit a suicide charge with my 10 man archer block into the flank of his mournfang. This opens up a charge on his ironguts and BSB with my TG. The ensuing combat sees Pete loose by 5 or 6 however he manages to outrun the skittles with an 11, however a often forgotten rule is your BSB auto dies if it breaks from combat! I make my big mistake no.2 here. My overrun bought me to within 1” of his slaughtermasters units flank, effectively reducing my overrun to approx 0.1” total, when infact I should have had to angle my pursuit about the centre of my TG hoard. Having a huge overhang to my left this would have ment my TG hoard (still at full strength) would have hit Petes Flank! Safe to say the combat here would have been decisive, as not only would I have ended up contesting the hill, but had a fair chance of breaking the ogres. Pete pointed out that he would have been able to get a mournfang into the combat aswell. We ran out of time for what would have been an interesting turn six, as Pete opted not to charge my TG flank with his slaughtermasters unit.
I threw a few rocks at Petes last maneater to try pick up 215vp, however the first one missed and the other blew up….
The game ended in a 7-13 loss for me as Pete rallied his bulls to capture the hill for an extra 400vp. I was happy enough with this result as it could have been a lot worse. I view Ogres as being one of the worst match ups for TK. Although the majority have little armour, none of my KB works and the high number of attacks and overall fast speed of the infantry makes a lot of my tactics redundant. This now puts Pete in second place overall, and myself in third.
Game 4, Peter Williamson’s Tomb Kings
Scenario: Meeting engagement
It’s a TK off!
Peter had bought a build that was very interesting IMO.
3 units of 3 chariots. 1 warsphinx, 1 necrosphinx, a block of skittles with Prince and hiero, unit of 4 Ushabiti (Yay!), 4 Knights, 2 units of 10 archers, some horse archers, 2 scorpions and a casket, but no SSC… At first look the build puzzled me, but Peter had obviously been doing very well with it as he was 4th on the tables at this point. Its good to see that two people can do well with completely different builds of what the internets regards as one of the worst armies!
The scenario basically ruined what would have been a bloody (bony?) game. Oddly enough we played each other the year before at Guardcon, my Orcs vs his High Elfs which resulted in a draw…. Signs and Portents…. I had to set up first, so I anchored myself in the right hand corner (this scenario plays diagonally across the table) believing Peter would want to come at me with all the chariot goodness of his. I was wrong. Peter was worried about my shooting, so deployed all his shineys outside of 60” range of my catapults, leaving only a few chariots within range.
Turn one sees little happen. I try for a lucky scatter from my catapults to no avail. I loose some scout archers to his chariots bow fire, and Peter manages a lucky wound on my warsphinx from his horse archers. Peter tries his luck with light of death on a sphinx, which doesn’t do anything.
Turn two and I try again for some lucky SSC scatter. I loose my horse archers but heal the wound on my sphinx. I start walking up the TG with a sphinx in toe. The other I hold back waiting for his scorpions. Light of death flashes off on both sides with no luck. Peter advances his 2 chariot units on my right, whilst I hide my knights behind the hill in the centre waiting for them. Both scorpions appear behind my lines and ready for a turn 3 charge on my casket. Oh noes…
Turn three starts with me reforming all my archers to fire on his scorpions. I manage to put 1 wound on one, but get a hit from a SSC removing one from play. My warsphinx I held back angles up a counter charge and I drop my hiero back out of harms way incase he decides to assassinate it with the scorpion. He charges into the casket with his remaining scorpion and causes a wound, and I wound him in return. Loosing by 1 the casket remains for another turn…
Turn four and I charge my sphinx into his scorpion, but not before the scorpion sees off the casket, which proceeds to blow up. Wow casket implosion can cause a mess. I got away with minimal casualties however no more casket… I had attempted to use magic to heal the casket, but it was promptly shut down by Peter. My archers reform to face his chariots which have edged forward into bowshot range, and I cause a few wounds on the closest unit. Catapults now being safe miss their marks again. Peter tries some light of death action causing a wound on a sphinx, however doesn’t get the bounce. That could have hurt. Peter starts withdrawing the chariots after recognising how much bowfire would hurt him.
Turn five and my knights charge into his reduced strength chariots, whilest all my archers move into range and remove his other 3 man chariot unit. Peter moves his 10 man archer units up to get some shots off on my warsphinx and create some road bumps for me. Catapults fail miserably again, and magic has little effect. Things are tense at this point, as the game is starting to move into my favour, mainly due to my bow fire. I stop advancing the TG up fearing the combined assault of chariots, and both sphinx. I don’t overrun my knights into his archers, seeing the trap of ushabti and knights waiting for me behind them. I withdraw and call it a day.
Turn six and I calculate if I can manage to kill the rest of his annoying horse archers and take out one of his 10 man archer units, I will get a 13-7. I throw three dice at little smiting on a 10 man archer unit, and roll 3 6’s…. I then proceed to roll a 4 for the miscast, and fail my 4+ as my hierophant cascades into the abyss… Crumbling destroys one of my catapults but I am lucky to get away with a few wounds here and there. My warsphinx cleans up an archer unit. Peters turn was uneventful and the game ends.
Result, 10-10 draw…. Stupid hierophant miscast. That will teach me not to take the earthing rod… In the end the scenario made a rather mundane game. However twice I have played Peter and twice we have met with meeting engangement and twice we have drawn. Peter played a smart game realising the scenario and my build stacked the dice towards me. I am left wondering if I need to build an army specifically to fight Peter and this scenario…
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