Equinox 2015

Over the weekend I attended my first tournament of the season, Equinox in Auckland

Having not played any games of WHFB since August of last year (thanks to ETC withdrawal...) I decided to substitute skill with a filthy list and luck...

The boys in pink ride against Ross's minions of Chaos

Dreadlord on Dark Steed, Giant blade, OTS, Dawnstone...
L4 Sorceress on Dark Steed, Dispel scroll, Dragonbane gem and Shadow magic? (why!?)
Master on Dark Pegasus, Twilight...
Master on Dark Steed, BSB, Obsidian amulet, Dragonhelm...
13 Dark riders, Rxb, command
14 Dark riders, Rxb, command
3 RBT
2x 7 shades
5 Brolocks
13 Brolocks and a Brochamp...

Rusty as ever, the draw gave me John (Brets are dead!) with some Teclis filth... Very disapointed he didnt take the spell selection he had posted on the ACG forums.... boo John. booo.

High Elves matchup ever being a pain, game played out to be a draw until some of the boys in pink that had strategically withdraw to a corner (read, cowering trying to get out of range...) decided after suffering some casualties from a fireball that this stuff wasn't for them and made and quit the field... breaking my army and handing over 700vp's last turn.. .well played
7-13 loss

Round two I faced Chris's Tomb Kings. Apparently they still exist in Jafa land. Dropping the first game, I though stuff it, lets push it and get a game (instead of the usual Dark Elf shenanigans...). I rolled his left flank which only had a small unit of Ushabti with great bows, pit of shades took care of a war sphinx while his casket exploded and decided to kill my Dreadlord! Miasma made sure his shooting wasnt an issue. I cleaned up the rest of the army leaving a unit of chariots for a big win
20-0

Last game of Day 1 I played Evert and his Lizardmen. Usual LM vs DE mischief happened. His Scar vet threw caution to the wind and started rolling through shades, bolt throwers and Peg Heroes like theres no tomorrow. The last bolt thrower however managed to luck a single bolt killing the old lizard. Game was basically DE shooting > LM shooting after that with it going back and foward several times. Small win
14-6

Round 4 tables 1, 2, & 3. Dark Elves hold the left on all tables, 'others' on the right.

First game, day 2. Ross was up with some WoC sprinkled with Slannesheee goodness. Apparently there's some rule that Brolocks don't like Slaneesh stuff. Who says they are not balanced! Who would have thunk. Being more mobile and with no return fire to speak of, we played on Ross's side of the table. Game can basically be summed up with me shooting off most of the threats and Ross failing some panic checks he shouldn't of. A decent win for my Elves
17-3

Game 5. Civil war. Ryan's DE vs mine. Ryans on the NZ ETC team this year with his DE. Meeting engagement is the scenario of the day and we line up. Instead of doing the wise thing and cornering it up, playing safe and taking a 10-10, I though we should make a game of it. I dropped my scouts on the left flank and van guarded the center. Small arms exchange had my scouts survuve and take of his one. I then dropped one of his Dark rider units to 1/3rd strength and used the scouts to cover the Peg riders advance. A combination of Miasma helped reduce the return fire and I took the flank forcing Ryan to abandon his Bolt Throwers and come across to the center. We had both set our bolt thrower out of range of each other, so now his army was in range of mine. Big win for me which we both agreed was probably down to Ryan not dropping 1 unit of scouts on my right to threaten my bolties.
19-1

Last game vs James. Went into this one knowing that I was at a disadvantage. I had no real way of dealing with his infantry bunkers, not to mention the Star dragon. Seams my terrible choice of shadow magic paid off again as the star dragon fell into a pit (of shades). Rider survive though... Our bolt throwers exchanged fire most of the game, but my Peg rider decided to suicide on his left flank! I failed to finish off a unit of Silver helms and the game ended a small loss for me. Better than I anticipated.
8-12

Mr Tibbles Dark Elves pre final transmutate. Note James's Star dragon is still alive!

So two minor losses and 4 wins I end up with a raw score of 85, with James closing me by 4 in the last round. HE needed a 14-6 win to pip me at the end. I think we both thought we had dropped down the order as we heard Ryan and Kelly had decent wins last round, so was pleasantly surprised to find out I had won Equinox! The field was dominated by #elfapocalypse and WoC, which I guess is a sign of the times. 

Big thanks to all my opponents for some entertaining games, and to Phil for all the time put in to making things happen! 

1st event of the year for me and can confirm filth and luck are a substitute for skill. Just ask James about Star Dragons and final transmutate...

Equinox Roundup - Battlereports

Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending my first singles tournament of the year being Equinox. I took this as an opportunity to practice for the ETC later this year and entered a Chaos Dwarf army based on the Tamurkhan Books Legion of Azgorh. After running them at the NZTC earlier this year I was looking to get a variety of games in against a host of the other slave races, and not just Daemons.

The event was an interesting one in that we had 4 games on the first day, followed by a break on Sunday morning and 2 games in the afternoon. Something to do with a booking cock up from the Auckland Council.
The draw for the first round was published a few days before the event and we went in almost blind with none of the lists readily available pre tournament.

So the first settlement I came across was James Brown and his Ogres. James had been playing the good game all week with the "pre tournament smack" and had even gone as far as starting what can only be a new additional sideline competition going forward. The Battle of the blogs was on an New Zealands top Warhammer Celebrity would be decided this weekend. 

Lining up opposite me was all the usual suspects except this build had a tonne of fire wards. James, where you expecting my company? Being a crafty little Jafa, James lined up his little fatties all in a row as to minimise any magmacannon pain coming his way. James then lucked up and grabbed first turn, getting off a 2D6 fireball and taking out my Magmacannon first turn, followed up by laser guided cannonball taking out a Death Shrieker Rocket. To add to my misery a hobgoblin unit decided to leg it after failing an animosity test. I got my own back with the other Death shrieker rocket taking out the Ironblaster. The game was them spent with each of us out-maneuvering each other with me avoiding the Gutstar with the Bowser the K'Daai and James avoiding the K'daai with the Mournfang. Henery Khan managed to run around all game picking up heroic 1v1's with Sabre Tusks. The little (hob)goblin that could...This resulted in 10 slaves captured and 10 getting away. A draw in anyones books

Game two was against Russell and his VC. Normally not a very good matchup for the Dawi Zharr but in this case I wasnt to realise till after "what could have been". Russell had a Terrorgiest, or what I like to call it, no.1 top priority to kill. He also had a Black Knight Bus loaded up with leaches, and some skittles and what not to match. After taking out the no.1 target, my artillery spent the game working on dropping the numbers of skittles. Some timely casting of ash storm stopped them coming back. I fed the Bus with Henry first, followed by the Bull Centaurs whilst I ran around the back of the bus with Bowser and the Prophet after it survive a "going down the hole" roll. Meanwhile, my hobgoblins decided it was time to leg it again, and fled from the oncoming Ghouls. Early in the game Russell miscast and feedback caused wounds on a bunch of his characters allowing me the ability to snipe his BSB with curse of Hashut. This resulted in me picking up 12 slaves to his 8. After the game Russell pointed out that he had the flaming banner on his Bus, and only mundane weapons on the characters in the bus, and wondered why I didn't change in with Bowser. I had no answer except top bash my head against the table...

After kicking myself some more it was time for me top face Mike Stewart, a future (and past) team mate of the upcoming ETC. We had a mission this time, King of the Hill!. Mike had Empire with only one chicken Knights, however there was 2 cannons... Knowing my armies worst enemy was on the board in the form of cannons, I decided I would try just running at him. Yeah I want to be an Ogre deep down and push everything forward. A rolled up first turn and after hiding behind a hill I flew up the prophet and zapped a cannon with a 2D6 flaming wrath, but only picked up 2 wounds. I then finished it off with a Death Shrieker. Henry ran up the right flank into a grap shot from the other cannon. Meanwhile Bowser steamrolled right into the Halberdiers bunker with the L4 caster in tit and spent the next few turns grinding it to dust. I left the Great Swords alone whilst leading around the chickens until the Prophet could come over and deal with them. I sat some hobgoblins on the hill after chasing of some archers and collected myself 19 new slaves for the trouble, letting one get away. Damn it I still can't believe I didn't pick up on the flaming banner in the Black Knight Bus...

Game 4. Game on. Lining up opposite me was Rob's Chaos Warriors made up of many classic miniatures from GW's hay days. Looking good Rob. I started out by landing a perfect magmacannon shot on the trolls, removing 4 out of 5. The last one then spent the game hiding behind a hill whilst the cork come out the magmacannon and it blew itself up. The Hellcannon was dropped first turn to a combined Death Shrieker attack and I started pushing a refused flank in the hole I had made. I loose anothe Death Shrieker to a msifire and the Prophet survives another "down the hole" miscast  after zapping the Tzeentch Sorcerer Bowser then makes contact with 18 Warriors and a L2 sorcerer and cleans them up. Robs Tzeentch lord then ties him down for the rest of the game and I throw Henry under the skullcrushers to save them contacting Bowser. I pick up 13 slaves for my efforts.

Game 5 and a new venue. Tom is next up and another Ogre matchup to contend with. I start by giving Tom, a former ETC player and stuntie player a lesson on what it feels like to line up agaisnt a classic Dwarf deployment... Yeah I turtle up in the corner. Fist turn and another perfect Magmacannon shot. Bye bye Ironguts. I take 4 wounds off the Ironblaster but don't finish it off. In return Tom uses it to take out the Magmacanon. Tom tries to entrap my K'daai but I manage to get it in behind his lines. My Prophet takes out Toms "Bruiser who thinks he's an Arabian Prince" and overruns into 2 mournfang. A timely ashstorm stops the 4 mournfang in their tracks. I try make an Ogre sammich (between Bowser and the Prophet) but Tom bails all his chars into the Bulls before Bowser gets in to finish the ironguts. Tom lets me have a hardcast Burning wrath which I then roll up 12 hits on the remaining 4 strong Mournfang, killing 2. This however allows Tom the ability to charge my warmachines as Henry is no longer redirecting them. The Mournfang clean up a Death shrieker before overruning into the other one, which in turn allows me to charge the fangs in the flank with my Infernal Guard breaking them. I pick up 16 slaves for my troubles this game.

Last game and I am matched against the undefeated Ross and his Warriors of Chaos. He has a nasty list, including Skullcrushers, chariots, and the unkillable Tzeentch disc lord, not to mention that Nurgle Daemon Prince build we all love... Split deployment sees my Prophet and Bowser lined up opposite Ross's Helcannon and Daemon Prince. I get first turn and push up the flank with them. The DP and HC are out of range of the Death Shriekers so with the help of the Magma cannon they take of the Chimera instead. I zapp the DP with Curse of Hashut and take a wound off. In my second turn Bowser charges into the Hellcannon whilst the Prophet flies in behind the DP and zapps it again. Ross throw 6 dice at it to dispel, and rolls a 1,1,1,1,2 and 3... yeah. I cause 5 wounds in which he saves one. Bye bye DP. I fireball off some chaff and shoot some dogs. Poor puppies. Meanwhile, both Hobgoblin units feel that things are going so well that they are not needed, so leg it... again... and the magmacannon kills 4 or 5 Warriors each turn before the Tzeentch lord takes it off. The warriors flee the field. At this point Ross is felling extremely under the weather and asks to call the game. The game is called and we work out I have captured another 16 slaves all up. 

So that ends my first outing with the Dawi Zharr in a singles event, and with well over 40 attending I pick up 1st place over all, after the tie breaker with Ross. Not a bad way to start the year. I am happy at how the Chaos Dwarves are preforming so far and got some good practice in for the ETC later this year. The tournament was very tight at the top, with Dan Butler (WOC) out scoring me on battlepoints but with an unpainted army, and 13 points splitting the top 22 players!  I bagged 84 slaves out of a possible 120 so I hope the tower masters will be pleased. 

Equinox Results

So the first tournament of the year is done and dusted, and the first single player outing for my Chaos Dwarfs has been rather successful

	Army	Adj Batt	Sports	Paint	Tie Break		Total
Tim Joss	Chaos Dwarves	43	20	20	0.1		83.1
Ross H	Warriors	43	20	20			83
Dan Butler	Warriors	47	20	12			79
John w	Bretonnains	38	20	20			78
Simon Kwok	Daemons	36.5	20	20	0.1		76.6
Richard B	Chaos Dwarves	36.5	20	20			76.5
Ryan	Warriors	34.5	20	20	0.1		74.6
James Brown	Ogres	34.5	20	20			74.5
Paul Clark	Tomb Kings	34	20	20	0.1		74.1
Glen	Warriors	34	20	20			74
Rob Sadler	Warriors	33.5	20	20			73.5
Henry	O&G	33	20	20			73
James C	Wood Elves	32.5	20	20	0.1		72.6
Rory	Skaven	32.5	20	20			72.5
Mike Youngs	Dark Elves	32	20	20	0.2		72.2
Tom	Ogres	32	20	20	0.1		72.1
Nick munn	Skaven	32	20	20			72
Sean Robertson	Dark Elves	31	20	20			71
Aaron P	Daemons	30.5	20	20	0.2		70.7
Brian	Dark Elves	30.5	20	20	0.1		70.6
Blair	Empire	30.5	20	20			70.5
Sam	O&G	30	20	20			70
Paul Dalton	Ogres	28.5	20	20			68.5
Russ	Vampires	28	20	20			68
Damon	Lizardmen	27.5	20	20			67.5
Stephen	Skaven	27	20	20	0.2		67.2
Dave Hart	O&G	27	20	20	0.1		67.1
Graeme	Warriors	27	20	20			67
Michael C	Lizardmen	26.5	20	20			66.5
Mike S	Empire	26	20	20			66
Ross Clark	Warriors	25.5	20	20	0.1		65.6
Mike Vercoe	Ogres	25.5	20	20			65.5
Noel	High Elves	26	20	19			65
George	High Elves	23.5	20	20			63.5
Aaron C	Vampires	25	20	18			63
Nick I	Wood Elves	22.5	20	20			62.5
Dan Blomfield	O&G	21	20	19	0.1		60.1
Bobby	Beastmen	20	20	20			60
Dean W	O&G	13	20	20			53
Ron golds	Beastmen	9.5	20	20			49.5
Phil O	Daemons	5	20	10			35
Geoff	High Elves	5	20	10			35
Chris E	Wood Elves	5	20	10			35

As you can see the top 22 players where split by 13 points! Everybody bough out their A game and there where some seriously tough lists to contend with. Dan Butler came out with best general on the day scoring the highest battlepoints. We never got to face each other unfortunately. Ross and I played it out in the last round for overall bragging rights. Hopefully next time we face Ross wont be so under the weather. 

Safe to say the new WOC book has definitely hanged the meta. Can't wait to see what Daemons do to it...

Huge thanks to Phil for organising another successful event, and to all my opponents who stomached my stupid hat all weekend.

Also, massive props to Rorius Maximus and his better half, for not only putting me up for the weekend, but putting up half the field. So how'd that experiment go mate?

And now, more importantly after spending hours pouring over my list James still only managed a draw. And that's after removing the biggest threat turn one before I had even rolled a dice. Mr Brown, I think you need to go back to Warhammer Academy, or at least get a new mentor. 

And so to the victor go the spoils of war.

 Most. Important. Mug. Ever!

The Gauntlets, thrown they are...

The gauntlets have been thrown down. The draws are up for round one of Equinox and it appears that we have sudden death!

Its little Jimmy vs little Timmy! and how appropriate it is!

In the blue corner, we have dirty cheat'n Orges, with all their broken undercosted toys
And in the red corner, no other than my Chaos Dwarfs, who may have broken toys, but hell do I have to pay through the roof for them!

A classic show down if any. Will the fatties have their cake and eat it to? Or will the evil stunties add to their stocks of slaves? Will it be BBQ Ribs or pork belly pie? 

Stay tuned, all will unfold tomorrow morning...

If it works...

I stumbled across this over the weekend

http://www.wargamerau.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=137578

Whilst not an unremarkable list, it does appear to have some striking similarities
To say the least, it is an exact copy of the list I took to Equinox in March of this year as posted here: http://plastickrak.blogspot.co.nz/2012/03/equinox-part-1.html

Good to see that other people are either coming to the same conclusions I have or indeed seeing the same potential I have found. It will be interested to see if he can make it work better than I could.

Imitation is indeed, the sincerest form of flattery...

Equniox Part 4

Game six, Ross Hiller-Jones and his Chaos Warriors

Scenario: Random (Battleline)

Ross came into this game having just narrowly beaten Pete on round five 11-9. Ross was one of nine Chaos Warrior players at Equinox (amazingly there was only one daemon player!) His force consisted of Chaos Tzeentch Knights lead by a BSB, Chaos Tzeentch Warriors with sword and board, Chaos Tzeentch Warriors with Halberds, A level 2 on disk with death, a lord on disk with 3+ ward, a level 1 fire mixed in somewhere, and two warshrines. A very bad matchup on paper! Knowing sooner or later I would face one of the nine Chaos Warriors lists (I was hoping to get one of the marauder lists floating about) I had had a few practice games leading up to the event, and learnt a few tricks to deal with this type of list.

We rolled battleline (I was secretly praying for battle for the pass!)

I won roll off to choose sides and picked the one that favoured me the most. Terrain was interesting, with a large impassable rock on my left and a river running across the board a third of the way on my right.

Deployment was simple for me. I split my forces into two. I started with the three 10 man archer units going down in the middle. This drew out Ross’s knights, Warriors, and a shines which where all placed towards my centre left due to the river. I then placed my casket on the extreme left and Ross placed his halberd unit opposite. I then threw a sphinx infront of it and Ross placed his characters towards my centre left. Second Sphinx goes down along with the last 10 man archer unit in front of the casket, which left me free to place everything else where I pleased. My hierophant, 2 units of 20 archers, 2 catapults, knights and TG hoard were then placed behind the river and far away from his forces. By doing this I made Ross commit to one side or the other, exposing a flank.

Turn one. Ross won the roll of and moved the bulk of his forces towards my casket and sphinx. His Halberd Warriors moved 8” forward towards the casket. No magic for him this turn with a poor roll. My turn I declared charges from both sphinx, however only one made it. The warsphinx decimates his warriors who hold due to stubborn. I get off light of death which bounces around casing mayhem with a total power and kills a warshrine. Catapults fire at his sorcerer but miss the mark. I move my right flank towards the middle but remain on the far side of the river.

Turn two and Ross charges in his lord vs the sphinx to try save the warriors, who end up fearing the Sphinx this turn. The sphinx survives and in return wound his lord. The combat is drawn. His knights and warriors move up along with the disk caster and shrine. I start peppering his warriors and shrine with bow fire, causing some wounds. My right flank moves round to form a battleline long-ways down the table, but I remain on the far side of the river bank. I score a hit from my catapult and kill his disk sorcerer.

Turn three and Ross charges his knights into a 10 man archer unit siting on the board edge. He attempts a reform but no matter how he tries this pushes him off the table, so he elects to move off to come back in his next turn. My sphinx goes down to combat res which frees up his lord and half strength halberds. I charge my other sphinx into his lord and get a killing blow off, but his 3+ ward saves the day, however this stops his warriors moving past, and they have no way to move pass as there is not enough room. My necro knights charge his shrine which flees, and I redirect into his warriors, cutting several down for 2 wounds in return. He passes his stubborn test. I cross the river on my right and line up his warriors with my TG in the centre. Light of death causes more havoc.

Turn four and the warsphinx vs Chaos Lord is heating up. His lord manages a wound on my sphinx, which in return causes three back, including a killing blow. Ross proceeds to fail his ward save and his lord and general are returned to the chaos wastes! Ross moves his knights back onto the board and they wheel around towards the casket and as far away from my TG hoard as possible. In response I angle my 10 man archer unit in front of the casket to ensure that he has to charge them first. Casket makes itself a nuisance of itself again. My catapults and archers try to take out the other shine but only cause a few wounds

Turn five and Ross charges the heroic Sphinx with his Halberds, and kills it with a three 6’s. His knights charge into my archers in front of the casket and overrun into it. We spent a few minutes actually seeing if this overrun would happen as the call could have gone either way. Ross hides his halberds in behind the hill. The shine rallies and the warriors get cut down to 5 men, however are still stubborn. I try kill the shrine with the catapults but miss. The knights kill my casket on their overrun and reform to face the other way. I forget to apply the casket explosion damage.

Turn six and things are looking good. Ross charges the shine into the remaining 2 necroknights but does nothing, I split my attacks with one knight on the warriors and one on the shrine. The combat still holds, however in my turn in charge the TG which delete the warriors. The shrine flees and is caught by my knights. I launch a catapult each at his halberds and knights, as both where sitting on the table edge. I get a wound on each. He passes his auto panic test on the halberds on an 8! (wish I had taken skulls of the foe now) and fails the panic check on the knights. However he has a BSB and rerolls to get an 8 (drat! Where be my skulls of the foe!)

The game ends with a 12-8 in my favour. Ross came ever so close to being tabled in that last turn, however that’s how the dice roll. He played a strong game which earned him a well deserved second place overall.

My Tomb kings finished 4 points behind Ross for a third place for me, which basically meant it was down to a dice roll on turn 6 by him to decide second place! Pete Dunn finished on the top step and Peter Williamson finished 5^th overall with his TK. All in all a very good weekend for the Kings. Several close games and some very challenging opponents made a great weekend overall, with all my opponents great sports and a pleasure to game against. Big Thanks to Phil Wu for organising it all and taking all the flak in stride!

Next up is The Horned Rat V in May.

Equinox Part 3

Game Four – Peter Dunn and his Orges

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 4^th 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…