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It’s been under four weeks since DaBoyz GT, and I’ve been super busy getting ready for the Border Raids GT. For those of you who don’t know, Border Raids is run in Philadelphia by Mike Clark at his shop, Showcase Comics and Games. Clark puts on a great event, with plenty of good food, and tables with high quality themed terrain. The tourney was heavily comped, with some highlights being: no demon armies, no lore of shadows, no dwellers, purple sun, gateway, dreaded thirteenth, etc. and a bucket of items being banned. In addition, Bretts, Beastmen and Wood Elves received 250 bonus points for their army.

I liked my dwarves in a comped environment, so I revamped my DaBoyz list, adding a few more units to flesh out the 2500 points. The army was as follows:

Thane, Rune of Stone, Challenge, +1 Initiative, Flaming, and a shield
BSB, 1+ rerollable armor, Immune to KB and poison, flaming weapon and 2+ ward vs fire
Runesmith, shield, Dispel and Balance
27 Quarrelers with great weapons, fc
15 Quarrelers with GW, fc
29 Warriors with shields, fc
29 Hammerers, fc
14 Hammerers, fc
2 x 6 miners with muzo
Cannon with engineer, flaming
Grudge Thrower with engineer, Accuracy, Penetration
Organ Gun
Gyrocopter

In addition, after my poor painting scores from DaBoyz, I rebased the entire army in the three weeks in between. I filed off all of the flock and paint and hand painted cobblestones on all of the models. I received a few compliments at the event for my “rage basing” . So, two clubmates and I trekked down to Philly for the event, ready for a great time.

GAME 1 – “SCOOTER” – VC

So my first game was against a strong VC player who goes by the name of Scooter (I couldn’t tell you what his real name is, because EVERYONE called him Scooter). The table was a magically themed table, with a Wizard’s Tower on the left flank and a group of Arcane Ruins to the right. The other building in the middle of the field was impassable. The scenario involved an Ogre paymaster, who ate our troops throughout the battle. You got extra points for capturing the enemy’s ogre. Scooter’s setup, from left to right, was: Terrorgheist; 31 ghouls with a Vamp Lord with the helm, crown, loremaster heavens, Master of the Black Arts and some stuff and two other level 2 vamps on the VC lore; 26 Grave Guard with another Vamp and the hatred banner, 50 ghouls, and 7 wraiths with a banshee.

Anyone who has read my bat reps in the past knows that I have a tough time playing against vamps. I am usually not aggressive enough against them, and the magical defense I choose to take usually isn’t quite up to snuff for this matchup. Despite that, I figured I’d attempt to use the terrain to my advantage, setting up on a wide front in the open side. My setup, left to right was: Cannon (aiming at the Gheist), Small XBows with Runesmith, Organ Gun, 30 Hammerers with BSB, 6 miners, Gyro, miners, little hammerers downslope from the big XBows, the warrior block with the thane (he had a magical weapon and lots of combat res at his back), and the grudge thrower.

My plan was to use the miners, gyro and the big hammerer block to stuff up the hole in between the wizard’s tower and the building, while grabbing his rare points and his big ghoul block on the right. Once the Gheist was taken care of, the gyro and the small XBows would try to engage the Vamp lord’s bunker and stop him from using the Weapon skill hat, and maybe kill some of the little vamps. I really figured he’d by aggressive with the bunker…I was wrong.



Scooter went first, shuffling everyone forward and moving the wraiths out wide to the right. His Gheist flew straight forward in front of the cannon, screamed at the XBows with the runesmith and killed 8 of them! I passed my panic, but I was still intimidated. In his magic phase he used heavens magic to blow the Gyro out of the sky. On my turn, the cannon sent a cannonball through the gheist’s skull and killed it. I moved the hammerers and the miners up to plug the gap, but with the heavy casualties on the little XBows, I decided hanging back was smarter than looking for trouble. I also moved the warriors to the right to go ghost hunting.



On his 2, Scooter moved the ghoul bunker right behind the wizard’s tower to shield it from any charges or shooting I might want to send its way. The wraiths continued to move out wide. In his magic phase, he gets off a curse of years on the hammerers, killing 10…on 6s…meh. On my turn 2, I move my warriors out to the right to chase the wraiths, and move the hammerers snug into the gap. I then shoot the grave guard, killing a bunch with the Organ Gun. The grudge thrower keeps lobbing magical rocks at the wraiths, but keeps deviating off target.



On Scooter’s 3rd turn, he moves all of his vamps to the middle of the ghoul bunker. He pushes the grave guard right in front of my hammerers. The main ghoul unit on the right comes out of the trees and the wraiths keep going on wide, drawing the warriors away from the ghouls.

On my 3rd turn, it finally occurs to me that Scooter isn’t going to get any vampires in harm’s way. Things aren’t going awfully, but I realize that I’ll need to break through the grave guard to get to the ghoul bunker, so I send in the hammerers. On the right, I charge the warriors into the wraiths, but fail the charge (I needed a 9, so it was doable, but still tough).



In the ensuing combats, he kills loads of hammerers, and I bring them down to about 4. One more round of this will free me up.

On his 4, Scooter continues to string my warriors out with the wraiths, and charges the main ghouls into my miners, who flee. He fails his test to redirect and rushes forward, exposing his flank to my small hammerers. In his magic phase, he casts Nehek five times, and I dispel it once. This is a case where only adding 2 to dispel is killing me. He raises a bucket of grave guard, kills off the hammerers, breaks the BSB, and overruns into the Organ Gun. It’s not looking good for the home team.

On my 4, I fail another charge on the wraiths (he’s getting near the board edge, and this time I need an 8). I move the little xbows around the wizard’s tower, away from the grave guard. I send the little hammerers into the flank of the ghouls, killing a bunch, but he reforms to face me. The grave guard smash up the organ gun, and they’re free to run amok in my backfield.



On his 5, he charges the cannon with the grave guard and smashes it up. He also raises a bunch of ghouls on his main block. He moves the wraiths behind my grudge thrower to shield them from the warriors. On my 5, I send the XBows into the flank of the main ghouls. The warriors fail another charge on the wraiths (this time needing a 7…). In the ensuing combat, I lose the little hammerer block.



On his 6, he sends the wraiths into the GT, kills it, and overruns out of charge arc of the warriors…sigh. In the end, I can’t reach his bunker, and only get half points for the main ghoul block and the grave guard and full points for the TGheist. I gave up all the hammerers, ½ the little XBows the BSB and all the war machines for a 7-16 loss.

Scooter played it really well by delaying some units and not letting me fight him on multiple fronts. He also knew that the gyro would cause him all sorts of problems, which is why he spent a bunch of magic dice killing it first turn. It was smart of him to bait my warriors away and also hide the main unit safely behind the tower. Because I lost by so many points, even if I’d charged the wraiths successfully, the battle points would have been the same. My magic defense just wasn’t up to snuff this game.

So, a small loss in Round 1 dropped me to the lower tables to face:

ROUND 2 – MATT CASSIDY – ORCS n’ GOBLINS

I’ve played Matt a few times at previous GTs, and he’s an excellent player (with the tourney results to prove it). For this event, he was taking an Orc and Goblin list chock full of stuff. Half the table for this game was dominated by a small outpost with 4 towers (treated as impassible) with a walled courtyard. The table also had a special rule where each player could have the wardens in the tower shoot d6 S3 shots at enemy units once per turn. Looking at the terrain, I knew I had the option of bunkering behind the walls, but looking over Matt’s list (and taking my hatred of greenskins into account), I liked my chances to smash him up and grab a big win. To avoid a standoff with him, I deployed some of my bigger units out in the open, trying to goad him into a big fight on a small table. The war machines would be bunkered behind the walls.

Of course, I forgot that he had 42 million drops, so he easily outdeployed me. His set up, from left to right, was: Mangler Squig with Rock Lobba behind; 24 night goblin bowmen with 2 fanatics and a lvl 2 gobbo shaman; The giant in the back is a Doom Diver (throwing goblins on gliders), with 2 spear chukkas and a unit of spider riders, a pump wagon, a unit of wolf riders, more goblins with 2 fanatics, a Goblin Lord on a Giant Spider, and a Goblin Lord on a Flying Carpet (another hang glider) and a partridge in a pear tree. Lastly, he placed his brick of 30 Savage Orc Big’ns with BSB and Lvl 4 orc shaman and 10 Savage Orc Boar Boys on the right, opposite my war machines and away from my hard hitting units.

My setup was: the little Hammerers followed by the big hammerers with the Challenge thane, the little XBows with the BSB, an organ gun and the big XBows, a cannon, the warriors with the Runesmith, and the Grudge Thrower. As I said, I’d been outdeployed and after setup I figured I was way out of position, but could still make a play for a small win.



Matt got first turn, moved some of his goblin units forward on the left and surged ahead with the savages on the right. In the magic phase, he got an IF Hand of Gork on the Savages, rolled up 26”, and plunked them down right next to the flank of my warrior block! However, for the miscast he rolled up Dimensional Cascade. The blast kills off 9 warriors, and the savages ward off half of their wounds, losing only 4 or so and his Orc shaman got sucked into the warp to personally shake Gork’s hand. On my 1st turn, I throw my plan out the window and start improvising. I moved the little hammerers up on the left to draw out fanatics, I turn the warriors to face the savages, and I rush my XBow block forward to avoid the overrun. The gyro flies over and steams a few savages, the Organ Gun kills a handful, and the cannon snipes off a few more. It’s still looking grim.



On his Turn 2, Matt sends in the savages, but fails the rest of his charges. I’m also stunned when he goes to roll for his mangler squig…the one that I was supposed to be shooting with my war machines before I panicked and aimed everything at the savages. He rolls up a whopping 16”, and plows through three of my units! He shoots up the little XBows down to 4 models, and the BSB is feeling nervous. He charges the spider lord into the flank of my warriors, and moves the hang glider goblin lord into the courtyard to setup annoying charges later. The warriors stay stubborn, but they can’t take another pounding like that again. After the combat, I remind Matt to reform his savages into a deeper formation to remove my steadfast next turn. Ain’t I a nice guy?



On my Turn 2, I move up the little hammerers to draw out the fanatics. I also fly the gyro to the other side of the courtyard, to try and pull out the fanatics from the big goblin unit, but don’t have the speed to make it. I try to shoot the mangler, but I misfire with all three war machines (that seems to happen to me a lot…the massive war machine fail). The warriors break, but escape getting run down (see, being nice does pay…I guess).

On Matt’s turn, he runs down the fleeing warriors with the hang glider lord (well, there goes that karma thing). His spider lord charges the gyro, which flees, releasing the remaining fanatics. His savages charge the cannon and kill it. His mangler rolls up a mercifully small number, and only kills the organ gun. His boar boys go into the GT, and delete it. With all my war machines gone in one swoop, it’s getting really ugly.

On my 3, I turn my big hammerers toward the savages, and the BSB bails from the little XBows, staying with 3” of the hammerers to grab the 4+ look out sir. I charge the main crossbows into the goblins on the right and break them, and I reform them to face the savages. My miners finally come on in the backfield.



On his 4, the goblins don’t rally and flee off the table. He sends the pump wagon into the miners on the right. The mangler rolls three 5s and dies. He keeps bringing his savage blocks around. In his shooting phase, he kills off the last of the little XBows, but he misifires with his Rock Lobba and it explodes.

On my 4, the hammerers charge into the remaining saveg orc big’ns. The main XBow block keeps moving back to support. In the ensuing combat, I kill off the BSB, and wipe out the unit outright.

On his 5, he charges the spider lord and the Boar Boys into the hammerers and deletes them.



In retaliation, on my 5, I charge the spider hero in the rear with the XBows, break him and overrun into the flank of the boar boys.



On his 6, he uses the flying goblin lord to charge the BSB, instead of just shooting him with the Doom Diver. The XBows break the boar boys, running them off the table and overrun into the spider lord, and the BSB stays. In his turn, I kill the spider lord dead.

In the end, it was a massively bloody game. I gave 2,250 points, and got 2,194 for a 12-12 tie! Matt and I spoke about the game afterwards and he was dissatisfied with how it ended. He really had this game in the bag, but I was stubborn about trying to come to grips with his main units (where his points were). Once he got the Hand of Gork off, and started rolling my flank, I was in a really tight spot. I didn’t mitigate the damage as much as I could have, but by keeping the main XBow unit safe, I could bring them back to counter his savages in the late game. I was also really lucky that he cascaded his level 4. If he hadn’t gotten unlucky, he would have killed my runesmith in turn 2 and got magic superiority the whole game.

So, a minor loss and a tie put me on a trippy Tzeentch themed table against:

GAME 3 – CHRIS O’BRIEN - BRETTS

Chris is a member of the Lost Legion out of Boston, and he posts on the TWF as Silas7 (of Ratticus fame). Speaking of, he posted his version of the batrep, and it can be found here:

[url]http://warhammer.org.uk/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=95225

This was the first game I’ve played where both my opponent and I were taking pics for battle reports, and it made for a weird pace. After each move, both of us would take a pic and write notes. For this game, the scenario called for rolling three dice for the winds of magic, with all the bonus points revolving around magic, miscasts and wizards (leaving my poor army feeling left out). In addition, we were playing on a Tzeentch themed board. The towers would allow nearby wizards to automatically channel, and the rock outcropping was dangerous terrain.

His setup, from left to right, was: Grail knights with Lvl 4 (life with stubborn crown); archers; Peg Knights; a bunker of Archers/Teb/Archers, with the archers facing out to protect the treb from miners; 40 Men at Arms; Knights of the Realm with the BSB; 40 more Men at Arms; Knights of the Realm with Lvl 2 (Beasts); 4 more Peg Knights; Lord on Peg with Heroic Killing Blow and some other stuff.

I concentrated most of my forces between the impassable ruins and the rock outcropping, with the water in front to force as many dangerous terrain checks as I could. To be honest, I didn’t have a strong plan besides softening up his knight units with artillery and using as many delaying tricks as I could on the Peg Knights to stop him from mugging the artillery early. My setup, left to right was: Cannon (far corner); Little XBows, Gyro (across from the treb); Big XBows with BSB; Little Hammerers; Big Hammerers with Challenge Thane; Organ Gun; Warriors with Runesmith; Grudge Thrower.



He made his vanguard move with the peg knights up the flanks, and we started the game. I moved the little hammerers to the edge of the water, and moved my warriors and big hammerers to the right to face his peg knights and right knight block. The gyro flew straight forward, out of the charge arcs of the knights, facing the treb. Shooting killed some peg knights. On his first turn, he failed a charge on the cannon with the left peg knights (lucky me). This held up his grails somewhat, who were stuck behind them. The peg knights on the right continued to slide around the flank. He also moved his right knight lance forward.



The treb kills a few XBows, and in his magic phase he raises back the peg knight on the left.

On my turn 2, I charge the peg knights on the left with my small XBow unit, but fall short. On the right, I continue to move the warrior block and the hammerer block (with the challenge thane) to face his peg knights and the lance. The gyro in the center charges into the treb, but the combat is tied. In the shooting phase I get ready to unleash black powdery death, and roll up three misfires. Massive War Machine Fail! Sigh.

On his Turn 2, I use the Rune of Challenge to force his Peg Knights into the hammerers, and he sends the right lance into the warrior block. This will preserve this flank for a while, and protect my war machines. The knights slay a bunch of warriors, but they stay stubborn. The Peg Knights los combat by a handful, but they stay as well. His general flies way around to setup a charge on the GT next turn. On the left, he sends the pegs into my cannon. They fluff their attacks, and the cannon stays stubborn. He also sends his grails into my little XBows, who flee and escape. My ploy of trying to delay his left flank is sortof working….sortof…



On my Turn 3, I rally the Xbows on the left. The miners come on the rear next to the archers. I shoot the Main Xbows and the Organ Gun into the middle knight block and wipe it out, leaving the BSB by himself. The GT lobs a rock at the Peg Lord, “Pegs” him (see what I did there?  ) and kills him dead. The gyro breaks the treb. The Peg knights on the right break from the Hammerers and flee into the rocks. The Peg Knights on the left are still locked up in combat with the cannon.

On his 3, he charges the Grails at the little XBows again, who flee again. After I run, he needs to roll a 12 to catch me, gets it, and runs them down, facing toward my main XBow block. My delaying action on the left is officially over. He advances his left Man at Arms to catch my main XBows in a pincer. His BSB flees for the hills, heading behind the pink woods on the right and away from combat. He also rallies the right Peg Knights. On the right, he charges the Men at Arms into the flank of the warrior block. In the ensuing combat, he breaks the warriors and runs them down and the Men at Arms slam into the flank of the hammerers.



On my Turn 4, I run the main XBows forward, out of charge arc of the grails. I reform the little hammerers to face the right flank. The miners in the rear start to mop up the backfield, charging his archer blocks. The war machines fail to kill anybody. In the combat on the right, the hammerers stay and turn to face the Men at Arms.

On his 4, he goes in for the kill. He charges the Xbows on the left with his Men at Arms, and swings his Grail Knights around to get a rear charge next turn. He also sends his right Peg Knight into the Organ Gun. Luckily for me, he fails the charge with his right lance into the GT (but it’s only a matter of time). It looks like Chris has set an excellent trap, with me stuck in between. Notice, however, that the BSB is still hiding behind terrain until he gets the “All Clear”.



In the ensuing combats the Organ Gun on the right stays stubborn. On the left, the main XBows break the Men at Arms, and turn to face the flank of the grails. On the right, the Hammerers break the Men at Arms and turn to face the flank of the right lance. With those two combats the game completely turns around in my favor. If Chris had brought his BSB forward, he could have used the BSB reroll, and maybe even enhanced the leadership of the Men at Arms blocks.

On my 5, I flank charge everybody, even sending in the little Hammerers against the right Peg Knight engaged with the Organ Gun.



In the shooting phase, I smash a Peg Knight on the left with a rock. They fail their panic check and fly off. On the right, I break the lance with the Beast mage in, and chase it off the table. The peg knight fighting the OG gets killed. On the left, the main XBows break the grails (even with the stubborn crown), and chase them off the table as well. The dwarves are left on the field wondering “How the heck did that happen?”

In the end, I got 2025 points and gave 850 (gyro, cannon, little XBows, and the warriors) for an 18-3 win (no bonus points for me, but even pulling a win out was a bonus!). In looking back at the game, it all really hinged on Chris sending his BSB to the rear. The fact that I broke both Men at Arms blocks in his turn made for such a huge swing. If either one of those Men at Arms blocks stays, the game would have been a lot closer.

As for my play, I think I made a few minor mistakes, but the main strategy of delaying the left while I dealt with the right (using the Rune of Challenge to great affect) worked well. So at the end of Day 1, I had a minor loss, a tie and a big win, putting me square in the middle of the pack.

Day 2 will be coming soon. If you ahve any questions or comments, please post them up, and thanks for reading,

Orzabal

Great report, really nice pictures. I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on the shield warriors, as I don't see a lot of people taking them (I include a big block myself).

Game 2 was totally zany. What a crazy way to start with the Hand of Gork. Also, duly noted is the damage from the mangler. I've had the good fortune to always shoot them down thus far. Did it start moving randomly after the first set of hits?

I love the hang glider goblin lord (and I suspect Boss Salvage will too when he gets a chance to read about him). What else did the little guy have?

Zeke,

to be honest, I just don't think the shield warriors are any good. They hold stuff up (sortof), but they never win combat because of the strength 3. At this tourney I lost them in 3 of the games (and in game 1 they never got into combat). I'm thinking of dropping them at my next tourney in January. I'll probably regret it, of course .

Game 2 was crazy. It was hard to keep a strategy going after turn 1, and I just found myself reacting to Matt's moves during the entire game. And yeah, the mangler went random, but it still plowed through my artillery. And I loved Matt's goblin lords. They were really effective in the game against me. The hang glider had the flying carpet and I think a charmed shield and a magic sword.

Orzabal

Damn, they banned an entire army book? Thats some serious comp

Good reports.

Yes! More dwarf reports for me to read and this one from an event I was at! You guys seriously make these M3 armies look fun to play

Will be back to comment on the reports once I've gone through and fully absorbed them

I really do not see the reason to ban deamons. But still this was a enjoyable read!

Moar! Now!

GAME 4 – AL ADEL - EMPIRE

So Day 2 starts with me back in the pack, which put me against Al Adel, a long time player who had one of the coolest display boards at the tourney. It was a converted keep, with his army manning the ramparts. The scenario was diagonal deployment and revolved our armies dealing with a hangover and trying to grab kegs of beer (each keg gave a battle point). For the first turn, our Ld, to Hit, etc. was -1 and magic was -2 to cast. In the center of the table was a charnel pit, which gave -1 Ld to any unit within 6”. On the right were a group of Ogre huts which would cause damage to units within 6” of them.

Al got to setup first, and from left to right he put down: 2 units of 5 Knights; 10 Inner Circle Knights; Stank; 20 handgunners; 50 Halberdiers with BSB, Lvl 4 (Life and stubborn crown), an Archlector with VHS and Mace of Helstrom; 20 XBows; Mortar; Cannon; and 20 Flagellants out wide right.

My setup was: Gyro; Organ Gun; small Hammerers; small XBows; Cannon on the hill behind; (these were all setup pretty far back, giving a refused flank); the main Hammerers with the Challenge Thane; Warriors with BSB; GT; Main XBows with Runesmith. My plan was essentially the same as my game versus the Bretts, run a delaying action on the left flank while I smashed up his halberds in the center. I also planned on using the charnel pit to my advantage during the game.



I failed to steal the initiative, and Al went first. He brought his left two knight units around, through dangerous terrain, to grab the keg on that flank. In the process one of the units failed two DT tests, and panicked off the table (thanks to the scenario’s -1 Ld). He trundled forward with his Stank and the moved the IC Knights way forward to threaten my war machines. On the right, the Flagellants ran forward to press my flank. In the center, he moved the Halberds forward, on top of the charnel pit. Now, I made a mistake in setting my cannon up on the hill, which allowed him to destroy it with counter battery fire. This left me with only the GT to deal with the Stank. (For those of you who follow my reports, I made the exact same mistake at the Crossroads versus Roy Beiderman’s Empire army. There’s no need to put the cannon up high when the Stank is a large target anyway).

On my turn 1 I tried to charge his IC Knights with the small XBows, but failed it. On the left I moved the gyro up in front of the IC Knights to draw them away from the Organ Gun. In the center, Al’s aggressiveness allows me to set a trap for the Halberds. I move my hammerers forward so that they’re 7” away from the charnel pit (outside of the -1Ld bubble, but close enough to ensure he’ll be in it if he charges), and move the warriors out wide right to eventually flank them. In the shooting phase, the GT rolls a 1 to wound, the OG misfires and the XBows on the right shoot up the flagellants.



At the beginning of Al’s turn 2, I use the Rune of Challenge to force his halberds into the hammerers. At this point, he had the choice to flee, and eventually rally on a 10. This would have denied me all those points, and he could have used the Stank to grab a small win. Instead, he charges in. On the right, his flagellants charge the main XBows and putter short, taking another round of shooting for their trouble. On the left the IC Knights go into the Gyro. In the center, the Stank declares a charge on the small Xbows and they flee. He then rolls up his steam points, gets a 6 and stalls. In the ensuing combats the hammerers stay stubborn, and the Gyro stays as well!



On my Turn 2, I try a “10” charge from the small Hammerers into the flank of the IC Knights, but fall short. In the center, the warriors plow into the flank of the halberdiers. On the right, the main XBows charge the flagellants and wipe them out (grabbing a keg in the process). The miners come on behind and eventually clear out his war machines. In the shooting phase, the OG wipes out his small unit of knights that were holding the keg and the GT fails to wound the Stank again. In the center, his halberd block wins combat again, but I stay stubborn and steadfast. The Gyro finally breaks from combat, and the IC Knights turn to face the Organ Gun.

On Al’s Turn 3, he charges the Organ Gun with the Knights and smash it. The Stank charges the small hammerers, who flee. In the main event, the Big Hammerers kill off his BSB, but the halberds stay stubborn again.



On my 3, I charge the small XBows into the IC Knights, but fail again. The small Hammerers rally, but the Gyro keeps fleeing! In the main combat, I kill off the Archlector, but the halberds stay stubborn AGAIN! (Even with the loss of Ld, and the -1 from the charnel pit, he refuses to roll more than a 7!)



On his 4, the Stank and the IC Knights charge the small XBows, who flee off the table (sure, NOW they roll high). In the center, he kills off the last Hammerer, but the Halberds finally break, with the Warriors and the lone Thane in hot pursuit. On my Turn 4, the warriors run down the Halberds, and the Gyro finally rallies.

On his Turn 5, the IC Knights go into the small Hammerers. Since he didn’t have a good charge lane, he used the Stank to shoot up the Warriors.



The Knights fluff their attacks, the Hammerers smash them up, and the knights break, back toward the Gyro. On my 5, I charge the gyro at the IC Knights and run them down, picking up the keg they were carrying. I made a mistake here in not moving my thane into the safety of the Warrior block.

On his 6, he ran over the poor thane with the Stank. On my 6, I flank charge his XBowmen with the Gyro, break them, run them down, and grab their keg, giving me all 4.

In the end, I gave 1201 and got 2290 and all 4 kegs, giving me a decisive 21-3 Win. Looking at the game, I used the terrain really well to set my trap on his main Halberd unit, and the delaying tactic on the left worked reasonably well. I got really lucky on the left when he stalled with the Stank on Turn 2. If he doesn’t stall there, he could have eventually put it into the main combat and swung it in his favor. That would have made things very ugly.

So, that put me at the heady heights of Table 3 for the last round of the Tourney. I was definitely fighting above my weight class.

GAME 5 – KEN STUBBS - BRETTONIANS

So, have you ever been somewhere, and felt that you really didn’t belong? That’s how I felt on Table 3. The only time when I’ve been on a table this low was when I got randomly drawn there 1st turn. The scenario was Blood and Glory (he had a fortitude of 8, I had a 7). Three of his banners were on archer units and peg knights, which I would never get if he didn’t want me to. To top it off, we were playing on a Brettonian themed table. Any Brett units within 6” of the tower on the right were stubborn. And there was a jousting field in the middle of the table, which was treated as a building that cavalry could go in. And remember, Bretts got an extra 250 points this tourney. So my outlook was pretty bleak to start off.

Ken was a fantastic opponent, with a fun personality and a big smile. We went over each other’s armies, and while Ken was showing me his list, he said “I wanted to bring a list that would show the TO that Bretts don’t need help…in fact they should be comped!” All with a big smile and a laugh. He had 15 Knights of the Realm, 8 Grail Knights, two units of Archers, 5 Peg Knights, a Treb, a unit of mounted Yeomen, two captains (one with charmed shield and the other with a magic sword), a BSB, a Lvl4 on Life (stubborn crown), and a killy lord. He went through all the characters and told me everything they had in exhausting detail.

His setup, from left to right, was: Grail Knights; the Knights of the Realm; and over by the stubborn tower he setup his two archer units, his Treb, his mounted Yeomen, and the Peg Knights facing the rear to stop my miners from causing problems.



My setup was Organ Gun in a wood; Cannon behind; Warrior Block with Runesmith; Main XBows with Main Hammerers behind and GT; Small XBows with Small Hammerers behind and the gyro. I setup as far away as possible from the stubborn tower on the right, and bunkered next to a hut and a wood. We were also playing with an 18” dead zone in the middle, and I deployed 21” back (his move + 12 was 20”, so I figured I was safe for his first turn). My plan was to move my small XBow unit, then the main XBow unit into the “building” that was the jousting field. This would leave only the hammerers as targets for the lances. The Xbow units would then deploy out of the building, facing the flanks of the knights.

On his last setup, he placed all of the characters into the Grail Knights on the left. This made the first two ranks full of characters, each with different powers and magical banners and stuff. Even then it didn’t occur to me what it meant.

So, I go first. I send the little XBows into the jousting field, move the Gyro out wide right to harass the peasants, and proceed to shoot up some knights. The Cannon aims for the Treb, and hits the obstacle in front of the archers instead, breaking it up. (We had to look this up, because I wasn’t sure that’s how that worked. Of course Ken was right, and he was even gracious enough to allow me to take the shot back, but I didn’t take him up on it.) The GT and the OG both misfire.



On his first turn, the Grail Knights with all the characters in it forms Voltron and declares a charge on the Warriors. I remind Ken that I’m too far away for him to reach. He then reminds me about all the items he talked about when going over his list, including: the ability to add +d6” on the first charge, the ability to reroll the charge distance, the stubborn crown and the cold-blooded banner. Wait, what? It’s funny, he told me everything, but I just didn’t process it. So the Grails plow into the warriors. The KotR go for a looong charge on the XBows, and fail.



In the ensuing combat, the Grails smash up the Warriors, run them down and plow into the cannon. At this point, Ken and I talked about the game. He mentioned that I was taking it pretty well, and I told him that as far as I was concerned the rest of the game would be a mathematical exercise. I had no delusions of grandeur any more .

So, on my turn 2 I charge the Gyro into the mounted yeomen. On the left, I turn the Hammerers toward the Grail Knights, but I can’t reform the main XBows because there is no room. I decided to abandon my original strategy, and left the small XBows in the building. I bring one unit of miners on, and instead of coming in on his backfield, I move them on my table edge, and sidle up to within 1” of his Grail lance. This would stop him from adapting a lance formation when he charged my main blocks next turn. At the time, I figured this would deny him a few attacks at most. My shooting is pretty lackluster again, killing a few KotR.



In the combat phase, he kills the cannon and reforms to face the main blocks, and the Yeomen fighting the gyrocopter stays.



On his 2, he declares a charge with the Grails into the main XBows. I flee with that unit, across the Jousting Field (because it’s a building), and out the other side. He redirects with the Grails into the Hammerers.



He then charges with a unit of archers at the XBows, sending them all the way back across the battle field, through the building again and out the other side. I ended up losing 8 or 9 XBows to Dangerous Terrain. We discussed the move here, and he said he wanted to keep me corralled in the corner. He also sends his KotR into the OG. On the right, with one of my miner units already on my side of the table, the Pegs get tired of babysitting the peasants, and he moves the Pegs to the center, looking for glory.



In the ensuing combats, the KotR fluff their attacks, and the OG stays stubborn! In the main combat, he kills a bucket of Hammerers, but they stay Stubborn. And on the right, the gyro breaks the Yeomen, panicking the nearby archers.

So it’s my turn 3, and it still looks bad for the home team (though on the Brett table, I guess I was the away team). I charge the Gyro into the Treb on the right. I moved the small Hammerers forward to hopefully get a flank charge on the Grails next turn, assuming I have anyone left by then. I also rallied the main XBows into a deep formation, facing the flanks of the Grails. The miners down there turn to face the rear of the Grails as well.



In the main event, I kill the BSB, but I’m still losing combat. The KotR finally kill off the OG, and turn to face the small Hammerer unit. On the right, the Gyro blasts “Flight of the Valkyries” out of its loudspeakers, breaks the Treb, panics off the other archer unit, and the overrun allows me to run down the archers that panicked last turn. Hoody Hoo! Yes, the Bretts are stubborn, but they’re stubborn 5, which doesn’t help much.

On his 3, he charges the KotR into the small Hammerers, with a combo charge from the Pegs in the rear. The Pegs failed (thankfully), but the KotR rammed home. In the main event, I keep picking on characters, trying to grab some points, but he keeps healing them with the Stubborn mage.



The KotR fluff their attacks, and the Hammerers smash them up, running them down! Are things starting to look up?

On my 4, I flank charge his Grails with everything. The Small Hammerers and the XBows go into the flanks and the Miners go into the rear, touching the mage. The Gyro keeps mopping up peasants in the backfield. In the center, he kills off the last of the Main Hammerer block. Despite that, I win combat, but he stays stubborn with the cold blooded banner, but not before I put two wounds on his mage.



Right about now, we’re told that the time for the round is getting tight, and that this would be our last turn. (We had spent so much time talking about the game and bantering back and forth that we were way behind). On his 4, he sends in the Pegs into the flank of the small Hammerers, trying to save his main unit. Now that the Hammerers are all dead in the front, he makes way with the Lord into the rear of the unit to deal with the Miners and protect the mage.



The Lord fluffs big, killing only one miner, allowing me to kill the mage, and remove the Stubborn crown from play. I win combat by a bucket load, and the Grails break. Based on the rules for the tourney, I got all of their points because they were broken at the end of the game. When you combine the VPs with the bonus for breaking him first, I end up with a massive 24-1 Win!

In hindsight, at the end of Turn 1, I had no business winning this game. We talked about the game afterward, and he felt he made a big mistake sending the XBows back into the corner. He was getting pretty aggressive, and it ended up costing him. I also think he made a big mistake taking his Peg Knights away from the peasants. Nothing makes a Gyrocopter look good like Ld 5 troops. My mistakes were in deployment. I just had no clue as to how far he could charge on Turn 1, and didn’t set up accordingly. Bringing the miners on behind his Grail Knights on Turn 2 was a good move on my part. It protected the Hammerer block (somewhat), by denying Ken some attacks, but more importantly it left the Stubborn mage vulnerable to a rear charge. It also shielded the main Xbows from his KotR bus, forcing it to charge the Hammerers instead.

Ken was the most engaging and fun player I’ve had the chance to play against at a GT in a very long time. If there was a sports score at the event, he would have gotten my top player hands down. He was gracious in victory in the beginning and gracious in defeat at the end.

So I ended the tourney with 3 big wins, a tie and a minor loss. Couple that with a reasonable paint score, and I ended up finishing 5th Overall, and winning 2nd Best General at the event. That’s the best finish I’ve ever had at a GT. And multiple people told me how nice the new army basing looked as well. All in all, between my placing, the excellent food at the event, the themed tables and 5 great games of Warhammer I had an excellent weekend.

As always, thanks for reading, and if you have any comments or suggestions, let me know,

Orzabal

Great read, congratz on the result. You and Red_Zeke make me want to build a Dwarf Army.

orzabal wrote:So I ended the tourney with 3 big wins, a tie and a minor loss. Couple that with a reasonable paint score, and I ended up finishing 5th Overall, and winning 2nd Best General at the event. That’s the best finish I’ve ever had at a GT. And multiple people told me how nice the new army basing looked as well. All in all, between my placing, the excellent food at the event, the themed tables and 5 great games of Warhammer I had an excellent weekend.

Fantastic placing man, well fought - and your basing does look extra fly now, glad that you were raking in the accolades for it Rocking reports too, nice to see how things wen down in detail.

Red_Zeke wrote:I love the hang glider goblin lord (and I suspect Boss Salvage will too when he gets a chance to read about him).

Ha! Was just musing about how much I like Matt's army, especially that little glider lord. Such a cool build, and cooler model

- Salvage

Awesome that you got to play 2 Bret armies! Both games looked absolutely bleak, and you got huge wins out of both.

Congrats on doing so well . It's great to see "nice guys" finish high at GTs! Funny comments about Scooter's name in the first report, too- if you heard Mike at the end he actually anounced him by his real name (as a joke), and no one reacted because no one knew who it was

Looking forward to getting a game with you at one of these events sometime!

Meant to weigh in on day 2- Great reports. I really like your analysis of mistakes/good moves. The only thing missing is a more comprehensive army listing for each game. Lets me picture the matchups a little better. Were these closed lists or open?

In game 5, did you bring the miners on in a conga line? This is the only way I can see them getting that far in. Impressive move, taking away his lance formation reform!

I know he was trying to "break" Brets, but I think he'd have done a more impressive job if it with more peg knights. Those seem pretty awesome to me.

Great games and great result! I wish I could view your pictures but the photouploader you use is blocked in China =[

What are these Bret banners/items you speak of? I don't know of any banners that grant cold blooded or give +d6 to charge distance.

There's a Bretonnian virtue (the Impetuous maybe?) that grants the D6 to charge, and the banner rings a bell, though I can't recall its name.

Ah yes, it is Virtue of the Impetuous Knight. One use only though!

Hautamaki wrote:Ah yes, it is Virtue of the Impetuous Knight. One use only though!

Yupp but it stacks!

Thanks for the positive feedback, gents.

Zeke, the lists were open lists, I just didn't get copies of my opponent's lists after each game . And since it was open lists, it makes my brain spasm in game 5 even more silly. "Wait...you can charge how far?" And yeah, I conga lined the miners on ,sheepishly raises his hand>. I hate the conga maneuver when used to hold people up, but in this instance I was grasping at straws

And yeah, the Brett flying circus is tough to deal with, but Dwarves give it a tough time because it doesn't bring alot of ranks to the table, so we stay steafast on Ld 9. I must say it was a cool tourney because there were a lot of army types represented on the tables. I find the less comp, the less army variety there is. And banning Shadow made for lots of different magic lores as well.

Orzabal

My low initiative army certainly enjoyed the banning of Shadow (and Purple Sun from Death). I hope Mike keeps running events like this!

Not that I don't enjoy an uncomped event every now and then, too

Nice reports, and thanks for posting up on here.
Too bad they banned the DoC book.
I think it's hella lame to ban the DoC, and the entire Lore of Shadow, but allow empire to take steam tanks, 40 BS based missle weapons, and 2+ other war machines.

Empire could only take a single steam tank, and there was a limit on how many missile weapons could be taken (I think it was 40 or 45). Whatever the limit was seemed to stop MOST people from taking a lot of missile troops... orazabal excepted (and apparently it worked pretty well!)

It definitely shifts the power gradient but it's only for a single one of the tournies at that store, advertised well in advance. There are lots of non-comped events, which I enjoy, too. But you don't see wood elves and the like competing at a lot of those, and they had a good chance in this format.

Lol, there's always one.

I wasn't hateing on the format, after all; it's always nice to see a format balanced so any army has a chance.

For the record, I love that Mike banned Shadow and forced all the kneejerkers to look at the other lores out there

- Salvage (who plays skaven so has about 1/2 a choice in his lore selection )

Yeah, I salute any dramatic shakeup in comp. There are plenty, plenty of events one can go to in the US with minimal comp if that's your thing. Most Texas comp consists of about four bullet points. Nice to change things up once in a while- encourage people to try something different!

Hey man this is a cool battle report! I was at border raids and played against Chris too!

Tough luck against drawing scooter first round... He's a really good player.

Scooter is a stupidly good player. Also quite fun to play against even when he's kicking your butt. The only reason I can remember his real name is Nicholas Walters is because i have to turn it into EQ rankings with his real name.) He goes by Scooter all the time.

Fun to see all the pictures, I'd missed this thread up til now. Very nice battle reports.

Yeah, Scooter sent me packing, both at the Border Raids and again at the Conflict, with a DE list. Hopefully I can get another crack at him at the Colonial.

Mike, the Border Raids was an excellent event. I really liked the comp because it forced people to bring things that were outside the norm. Thanks for the Bat Rep Compliments, and I'll see you next year.

Orzabal