DAY TWO
Alarm goes off at 8:00am on Day Two, but I've already been up for an hour and am showered and dressed. Was awoken by the cruel light of morning blaring through the open window at around 7:00 am with the sound of rolling dice already rattling around in my head, and that was that for sleep. Still exhausted from my previous all-nighters, but after crushing 3 glasses of water to stave off the dehydration of gaming, drinking, and sleeping in dry, temperature-controlled hotel air I'm feeling chipper and ready to go.
We clean up the room, check our bags at front desk and check out of the hotel, then I grab some breakfast from a deli down the street before heading over to the venue.
GAME FOUR: WARRIORS OF CHA-...wait what do you mean I had an opponent swap?
I checked matchups the night before on my way out of the venue and I was told I would be playing another Warriors of Chaos player. I thus drank happily all evening in the knowledge that I would be starting the morning with another fighty opponent eagle to feed his army unit-by-unit into the woodchipper.
But nope. A few people had apparently taken an issue with some of the matchups, as a bunch of the "known players" had easy matchups and the concern was that they would cake-walk to the final tables. Also another couple players were up against the folks they'd driven in with, and one guy was even playing his own brother.
Thus I get to pick up my tray and bring my models to a different table where I'm facing off against...
GAME FOUR: GREEN DWARFS
If you run an army with trolls, night goblins, loads of chariots, and black/savage orcs that charges forth to meet the opponent head on I will give you the satisfaction of referring to your army as Orcs and Goblins. If you castle up in a corner with a half-dozen warmachines behind giant bricks of ItP infantry you get the ignonimous title of Green Dwarfs.
Which I don't mean as a sleight to my opponent in the slightest, as his army isn't any filthier than mine by a long shot and I don't begrudge him taking a competitive list. I just find it rather offensive from a fluff perspective to see Orcs who barely move off their deployment line. He didn't even shout "WAAAAAAAAAAGHHHH" at me! Not once :tongue:
In any event, my opponent's list went something like this. I have his actual list at home, so I'll update if there were any mistakes:
Wurzag (General)
Savage Orc Shaman, level 3, lucky shrunken head
Night Goblin Shaman, level 2, dispel scroll
Night Goblin
BSB, poison banner
Big fuckoff horde of savage orc bigguns
Big fuckoff horde of savage orc arrer boys (not bigguns)
3 goblin chariots
20 night goblins with 3 fanatics
2 rock lobbaz
2 doom divas
2 mangler squiggs
Scenario for today is BLOOD AND GLORY.
His fortitude is Wurzag (2),
BSB (1), savage orc banner (1), and arrer boy banner (1) for 5. The night goblins don't have a banner.
My fortitude is my general (2), the BK banner (1), and the two skeleton banners (2), for the same 5.
PREGAME ANALYSIS:
So after having people feed their lists into my woodchipper all day yesterday, I'm finally up against a list that isn't fighting me on ground I'm comfortable with. One look at the board and it's pretty clear that my opponent is going to set up in a certain corner of the board and make me come at him beneath a hail of artillery fire. My opponent is a savvy OnG player who's been playing the army for years (and against whom I have a lifetime record of 0-1-1, though the loss was with my
TK). He's going to whittle my bus with the doomdivers below
LoS levels and drop rocks on my vampires trying to snipe them out. He's going to try and use some impassable on the board to trip me up as I come in at him. Once I hit, Wurzag is going to throw 6-dice at the spell that lets him try to turn my wizards into squiggly beasts, and which (unlike dwellers, final trans, and purple sun or pit) can hit me while I'm in combat and has no chance to misfire.
So I'm somewhat concerned. My plan is to run the bus at him as fast as possible, and try and get my vargs to where I can dismantle his gunline ASAP. His two big bricks are easily redirected with my dogs though, given that they're frenzied and can be made to run around.
I also get a bit of a gift from the scenario. It basically makes either of his big blocks worth 500 extra victory points for breaking him. Chances are I break him first, and since there is no reward for second break I can throw away my skeleton units all I want. Thus I kind of park them in the middle to where they can charge in late game to break steadfast but won't risk themselves before I'm able to break him. If I lose neither skeleton unit I just have to protect my vampire bus and I'm golden.
THE GAME
He wins the roll and deploys his goblin chariots in the middle. I deploy dogs.
Then he puts a mangler squigg in the middle, still trying to obfuscate his deployment strategy. I drop more dogs.
I think that's the moment where he really wakes up, and realizes that I'm going to know exactly how his entire army deploys before I have to put down anything even remotely meaningful. Thus his next drop is his warmachines, to make sure his spacing is perfect, then puts his orc units on the line.
He gets the +1 and wins the roll to go first. Mangler squiggs bump into the board edge and nothing else moves. Magic phase he casts hand of gork on four dice and rolls ridiculously high. I know he's going to try and throw his night goblin unit at my bus and release fanatics, which is extremely dangerous. However I figure in my head that, given the random distance of the move, and the random movement of the fanatics, and the random number of hits, and the fact that they're only wounding on 3s and I still get a 5+ save against them, that this isn't worth burning my scroll for.
My opponent rolls really high for the distance on the hand, but really low on the distance for the fanatics. All told only one of them pops through the unit (the rest rolling 5" needing 6") and he fails to do any wounds. I think one doom divah hits doing a couple wounds to the unit and the other scatters off as do the catapults. Big break for me.
After my turn one the board looks like this:
So I'm actually somewhat disappointed with myself looking at this picture now. My plan was to deploy my bus on the far right and swing around him on the 9" flank gap given to me by Blood and Glory deployment. His
BSB is in that savage orc arrer boy unit on the right, along with a banner, meaning that I drop him to breaking point by killing that unit for a big swing.
However looking at the board now I'm not sure if that's the right plan. I should have put the bus just inside that one orc hut then come at him in an angle. That would give my bus more room to maneuver while making him trip his hordes up and come at me in waves. I would also be able to protect my vargheists from those chariots with the bus and could be a lot more aggressive with the vargheists. Instead I tried to pin those chariots by charging in my dogs, and moved the vargheists up cautiously instead when the dogs failed to make their charge (needed a 9, which isn't always going to happen). This was a huge blunder on my part that I'm really kind of frustrated about. It ends up costing me later.
That said, I'm reasonably happy with the state of the board after deployment here. That single dog unit in the top middle caused my opponent to stand there swearing to himself for a good 15 or so minutes while he thought about what to do. It is chaffing Wurzag's horde on the right from getting into a supporting position to help out against the arrer boys. It is also chaffing the arrer boy from charging my vampire bus.
What's more, since it's a dart I was able to turn it to where his horde is in my FLANK. Thus his direction of overrun is out in front of Wurzag's unit. He's basically forced to overrun one unit or the other, since otherwise they trip each other up. But that puts him into a really bad overrun position.
However if he backs both units up to shoot then he can clear at most one dog unit before I put my bus into him and just chaff up the other brick with the other dog unit. That or shoot warmachines at the dogs too, which I guess he felt was unacceptable.
Instead he decides to charge in the arrer boys and move Wurzag up into range of his spell. He throws a bunch of dice at that and I dispel with dice. Then he throws the rest at boosted foot on my BK bus and I burn my scroll. Ain't having none of that.
In combat he blows through the dogs and rolls 10" for overrun into the other dogs. Wasn't really expecting that but it's no problem for me. He closes the door to where my skeletons can hit him in the flank.
His giant overrun took me out of
LoS of his savage orc unit, which is annoying. I briefly consider charging a character out into the warmachine line but the big mangler squigg right there dissuades me against that rather quickly. Instead after charging in the skeletons I swift-reform my bus around that rock to threaten his savages in their rear (which will still be their flank after they reform to face my skeletons). Vargheists zoom up to have a charge into his warmachines next turn, but I've stupidly left myself a few inches short of optimal distance and one of my vargs needs a 10 while the other needs an 8. I'm extremely frustrated with myself right now. I should have just chaffed the chariots with a unit of vargs and kept the other one to where I could have been charging into warmachines THIS turn. Who knows, perhaps he would roll low and the vargs might even win combat?
In magic I think I get rerolls to wound off on the skeletons but he dispels Invoc on the bus and burns his scroll to stop Raise Dead in front of Wurzag. The savages smash the dogs as expected and reform to face. Skeletons put a few wounds onto the savages but that's it. He reforms them into ranks.
TURN 3:
His turn again, and now I'm really sweating. Wurzag moves up to try and cast his stupid spell on my bus again. His mangler squig careens towards my bus but staying 1" away from that rock means he can't get a good angle to actually clip me. He's right there to threaten once I hit combat though.
Magic phase and he throws half his dice at hand of gork and gets it off. He's going to stick his mangler squig in front of my bus, and both of us know it. I sit there swearing to myself for about as long as he did after that movement phase above. After a long time I decide it's not worth failing to dispel this (as he rolled quite high) and let it go. He throws the rest at wurzag's spell and I throw all my dice to dispel. He might store a die for next turn.
In shooting he drops my bus below Look Out Sir! levels and I'm holding my breath as he rolls for his catapults. However one had misfired last turn, and the other scatters way off. I take a sigh of relief, but not for long.
gak. gak gak crap gak crap feth. What the hell do I do hear?
Charging in means VOLUNTARILY jumping my 1,348 point vampire deathstar onto a mangler squigg.
3d6 S6
AP hits will chew that bus apart.
We've been at it for a while as we're both taking long turns (knowing that once combat hits it will be too late for that), so I have a bit of an audience going. After looking at the board I realize I really don't have any other choice.
I stand up on my chair and declare the charge. BALLS
TO THE WALL!
Fortune favours the brave!
I really do have no choice but to charge through the mangler. There's a risk I lose my bus, but with both of his catapults back in commission next turn and my vargs too far back he'll prioritize dispelling the invocations and start dropping rocks onto my vampires. There are exactly 5 black knights left in my bus, four and the champion, meaning no look out sir against those catapults. All it takes is one hit, and odds are too good to risk that.
However, it also means that I am at exactly the level I need to begin allocating some of those hits to my characters. Both my vampires are (thank Nagash) on full wounds, as is my wight king. All I need is a bit of luck and my bus should survive unscathed. I can then force through an invocation on the backs of raise deads and hellish vigour and be good to go.
My opponent is giddy as he picks up his dice. He rolls 14 bloody hits. To be fair my dice have been rolling hot all game, and his haven't been pulling it out for him, but I'm sweating bullets now. I allocate two each to my characters and the remaining 8 onto the unit.
All 6 of the wounds on my characters wound. One vampire makes one ward save, while the other fails both. The WK fails both armour saves. My general is sitting on a single wound, as is my WK, and the other is at 2.
On the unit, he wounds with 5/8. About average...but enough to wipe the unit. I pick up five dice. I only need to roll one 6 and I'm golden. I stand up on my chair and...
...stick a 6. Champion is alive! I give a whoop and another goes up from the crowd.
On the other side the vargheists charge doesn't go so well. I janky charge in both vargheist units but one of them fails and comes up short. The other hits a rock lobba.
Oh, and skeletons charge his goblin wolf chariot. They need an 11...and fething MAKE
IT. SKELETONNNNNSSSSS. My opponent is actively cursing my dice luck now.
Magic phase. I need a big phase to raise some knights back up. Instead I roll 3-1. No channels. Crapsticks.
No use messing around. I declare two dice on invocation off my level 4, which I tell my opponent will raise up 5 black knights. He groans. I chuck the dice and he curses. 11 again!
He looks down at his 3 dice and realizes that on average rolls he's going to fail to dispel. He's not happy about it but he lets me have it. Bus grows back to 6 rank and file and I'm cheery as chips.
Next I declare two dice at raise dead, which is what he was saving his dice to stop. With it I'm going to chaff Wurzag's unit from coming in to aid his buddies. I throw two more dice and...11 again! What's more he throws all 3 dice and fails to dispel. With the signature I put wounds back onto my vampire and WK, putting them all back up to 2.
In combat my vargs eat the warmachine and overrun. My skeletons break the dog chariot and chase it down.
But in the combat that really matters my vampires lay into his unit wounding all 10 on first pass. He makes a ridiculous number of ward saves, but Other Trickster's Shard! Both vampires are directing attacks against the same model so they both get the advantage. He fails all of them on the reroll. I end up killing 18 savages. Horses and black knights kill a few more. As do skeletons. When he finally gets to attack back I save a bunch with parries and shields. He's on double 1s and breaks, and my skeletons roll high enough to cut him down. SKELETOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONS.
TURN FOUR
Magic he throws all of his dice at Wurzag's spell and gets it off really high. I can't risk any of his other spells so I keep my dice rather than fail to dispel. He doesn't roll a 6 for either vampire.
Sadly my vargheists being too slow means that he has half of his artillery still available to barrage me. Doom diver whittles my bus down below 5 non-champ
RNF again and he lands a rock directly on my head. He wounds and I stand up on my chair again and roll the ward...
... and roll a 3. 6 wounds and my general is dead. Nooooooooo!
My turn the bus careens into Wurzag's unit. MY QUEEN SHALL BE AVEEEEENGED. The vargheists who failed their charge last turn come in on the flank. The other vargheists continue chewing down the artillery line. Magic I get 10 dice to 5. 5 dice at bubbled vanhels goes off IF and I lose all my spells but vigor. 5 dice at viggor and I he fails to roll high enough to dispel. King Mekhet goes to town on the savages and kills 10. His wight king kills a bunch more, as do the black knights. The Vargheists roll like champs and make up for being lazy before. I kill half the unit in one fell swoop.
He's on steadfast 8 and breaks. Everything pursues. That's game.
) it's armybook for all that it's worth ... with ghorgon for added flair 