Tuesday 19 April 2016

Kings of War

I managed to play in a small one day three game tournament this past weekend.

My List was:

Ghoul Troop- 65
Ghoul Troop- 65
Revenant - Horde - 200
Revenant - Regiment - 120
Revenant- Regiment- 120
Zombie - Horde - 130
Wraith- troop- 140
Werewolves - Horde, Dwarven Ale- 245
Revenant Cavalry- Regiment- 170
Revenant Cavalry- Regiment, potion of caterpillar- 190
Revenant King on undead Wyrm- wings, blade of slashing- 240
Curse Pharoah /w Wings of Honeymaize - 185
Necromancer /w Banechant, inspiring talisman - 120
First Game: Pillage vs. Chirs' Dwarves

There were 5 pillage markers spaced roughly even along the center line of the table. He had a regiment of Brock riders on each wing and Dwarves and earth elementals in the center and the steel behemoth. His only shooting was a flame belcher. The first couple turns I shuffled my units in the center to put my zombies opposite the steel behemoth and the revenants across from the dwarves. On my left flank my Wyrm King and Werewolves faced off against Brocks and his mounted King. He moved his King with blade of the beastslayer in front of his Brocks into my double charge range. I wavered him and he blocked his Brock unit from being able to charge past. I flew my king behind for a rear charge the next turn. My Wolves finished off the King got charged by the Brocks and survived then combo charged with the Wyrm King to finish them off. In the center he played defensively shooting with the steel behemoth into the zombies.    





My Wraiths and Pharaoh got in behind him and start threatening rears, but I got sloppy one turn and his earth elementals squished the pharaoh. 

On the right after a few turn stalemate he came forward routed the Ghouls and then got combo charged by knights and revenants.


I was sitting on the objectives but the blood lust over came me and I charged off them into terrain into the main dwarf battle line. Lucky for me this was not decisive and I was able to back up and hold the objectives at the end of the game. As a not Chris' rolling was abysmal the whole game I think in something like 30 breath shots he did 2 damage to my zombies, it was going to be an uphill battle for him against that luck. 




Second Game: Invasion vs. Dale's Abyssal Dwarves 

Dale had a unit of halfbreeds on either flank, with infantry and obsidian golems in the center. For shooting he had one flamer and one troop of decimators. First few turns saw me advancing across my whole line, while he stayed still.   




On my left his pathfinding halfbreeds charged my revenants who held and then counter-charged with my pathfinding knights. On my right my wyrm king was threatening his Great Golem's flank so he moved his Halfbreeds up who then got charged by the wolves. The Wyrm King charged his iron caster then over-ran into the Great Golem. I'm happy I finally got a character overrun to work but my Wyrm king had little impression on his Golem, who smacked him around on the counter charge. The Pharoah charged the decimators then got surged into by the golems, he survived barely and fly back to my lines to inspire the zombies who were getting squished by the greater golem. I guess I stopped taking pictures at this stage but I ended up just moving my Wyrm King and wolves into the corner to score on the scenario. And the Knights moved up on the otherside to threaten him with rears and flanks if he advanced across the center line. In the final turn he flew one unit of Gargoyles across my line which was his only scoring unit.   



Game Three: Kill and Pillage vs. Brian's Goblin Horde.

Brian had about 12 regiments of rabble, two hordes of shooters five bolt throwers and 6 wiz's with lightning bolt. I lined up my pharoah and wyrm king to go after the bolt-throwers. Caterpillar knights and wolves in the center to break through supported by infantry on the flanks.  


Brian's shooting pummeled me the first couple phases. With a wiz bane-chanting the archers for piercing and a lot of lightning bolts. I advanced forward, charging the wyrm king and ghouls into a rabble protecting the bolt throwers and only wavering them. The Pharoah flew over the rabble and turned to start messing up warmachines next turn.  


After chewing through the first wave of goblins my units were looking pretty beat up but had the three middle objectives. Most of the combats were hindered which meant little damage was caused and the combats were protracted. Undead not wavering really shone through here.  


My zombies routing left my wraiths with a clear shot at his six clumped together lighting Wiz's I charged the closest looking forward to a string of over-runs ending in his bow horde and did exactly zero damage to the first Wiz. They then promptly zapped my Wraith's right off the table. 


Both our armies were looking pretty low on numbers by turn seven. My werewolves double one'd to stick around and my revenant horde was on it's last legs, and my two revenant regiments were stuck in the swamp in a never ending combat with two regiments of rabble. But I was in control of four of the objectives and managed a win out of it, although it could have easily gone differently. (With forty bow shots at my revenant horde on the last turn Brian failed to roll a single wound and they avoided having to take a nerve check.) 

A Brave goblin standard bearer gives up his life so the Wiz's 7 inches away can live another day. 

I actually managed to end up winning the tournament which was a pleasant surprise. I felt like I was able to minimize my mistakes and play to the scenarios. All in all I was very happy with my Kings of War experience. I managed to get great matchups with my zombies against CS3 units which they tar-pitted for long periods of the game. My Wyrm-King is a nice support unit but can't do frontal (or even flank charges) on his own, he does well with the wolves though. The revenant Cav is really medium cav and needs to combo charge, but also can't do it on its own.  It sounds like we are going to try and get a little local tournament scene going which I am looking forward too.   









Monday 18 April 2016

Tanks! Chain of Command

We used a modified version of chain of command to play a multiplayer east front tank battle. The battle pitted three Soviet Commanders with mixed platoons of T-34s, T-34/85s. IS IIs and ISU-152s against two german commanders with a mix of panzer IVs Panthers and a mighty Jagdtiger. The jagdtiger took up a good overwatch position early and the soviet commanders had to maneuver to avoid it since, being hit was almost certain death.  




A lucky shot early saw the a Panther main gun destroyed which opened up the German left flank.




The Soviets pushed the German Pz IVs on the German right in order to try and get around the flank of the Jagdtiger. 



With the German forced reduced to a jagdtiger and one Panzer IV we called the game.  Many societ tanks littered the field in front of the German position but the town was theirs!