Dakka Veteran
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This was a fun, fluffy tournament, which included not a whole lot of points for generalship and an awful lot for other things (you could get three battle points for entering, not winning, the moustache competition, the same number as for a victory).
Scoring: 3 for a win, 2 for a draw, 1 for a loss, 1 for completing the major objective. Each Scenario also had a minor objective, and by completing three of those you could turn a single loss into a draw. 30-point painting scale, and a maximum of 30 points for sportsmanship (but to get all 30, all 5 people had to vote for you as their favorite opponent.) 20 more points were available for various sorts of tomfoolery related to the tournament's theme. 2000 points, special characters allowed.
My list: Runelord with Anvil and two scrolls.
BSB thane with 1+ rerollable armor save
Master engineer with Brace of Pistols (always goes with the cannon)
19x Hammerers w/shields, full command, immune to fear and terror
19x Warriors w/shields, full command
10x Thunderers w/shields
10x Quarrelers w/shields
Bolt thrower, S7, BS4 upgrade
Bolt Thrower, s6 flaming, BS4 upgrade
Cannon, flaming and reroll misfires
Stone Thrower, reroll scatter dice.
All directions from my perspective.
Round 1 vs Ogre Kingdoms. The scenario was "Get da Git." You had an extra character model attached to one of your characters of your choice. He allowed you to reroll one D6 per game turn, but if the reroll was a 1, you took a wound (kraggi, more or less). the other character could Get da Git by killing the character or by causing his unit to flee.
He had a tyrant (never did find out his magic items), three butchers, 3x ironguts, 4x ironguts, 3x bulls, 3x Yhetees, 2x Leadbelchers and some gnoblar trappers.
His deployment from my perspective, left to right:
Ironguts/butcher, Ironguts with tyrant, leadbelchers with butcher and Da Git, Yhetees, and gnoblar trappers beyond some terrain so far away they never got into the battle.
My deployment, left to right: Hammerers with BSB, quarrelers, organ gun, and cannon on a large hill with the anvil behind them (git was with the anvil), Warriors on the ground, grudge thrower, thunderers with gyrocopter behind them, and the two bolt throwers in a small forest.
I was overconfident in my rerolling, and attempted ancient power on turn 1. Failed twice, of course, and was out for the first two turns of the game. Stupid. He had gone first, so I was going to get only 1-2 turns of shooting. I put it to good use, though, wiping out the entire left flank unit of ironguts (but not the butcher) and killing one leadbelcher completely. I had enough range on the gyrocopter to land it behind him, so that bought me an extra turn of shooting at some of his stuff. His butcher joined the big unit, meaning it was now six ogres wide. After another turn of ineffective shooting from me, he managed to get the toughness +1 and stubborn spell off on them and then they crashed into the stuff on the hill (but not the hammerers). There was impact all along the line on turn three: ironguts> organ gun, cannon, quarrelers, Bulls>Warriors and grudge thrower, Leadbelchers>thunderers, and yhetees> bolt thrower (only hit one). The yhetees ran over both bolt throwers in two turns of combat, autobreaking them due to fear-causing outnumber. They then turned around and headed for a table quarter, as by the time that turn was over, it was clear the way the game was going.
The turning point in this game was really a ridiculous bit of bad luck. My immune to fear and terror, stubborn hammerers with the BSB in them were lined up for a gorgeous anvil flank charge on the long unit of ogres fighting next to them (note that the butcher in this unit was on the near end), as the quarrelers and cannon (but not the organ gun) had managed to hold. I was much wiser this time, and rolled for only the regular power of the rune. I failed the anvil roll, failed it again on the Git reroll, and the anvil and hammerers sat there watching in horror as the large unit of ogres beat the hell out of their now-helpless shooty colleagues. The hammerers, in fact, were so terrified that they failed their panic test and ran off the board. The ogre deathstar overran into the anvil and it was all over but the screaming. At the end of this game, I had one remaining anvil guard (do I still get points for the whole anvil in this case?), and became an immediate candidate for the Green Medallion of Shame, given for the worst beating taken. I will tell you about the eventual winner of this dubious award later.
Round 2: Warriors of Chaos. He took the troll king (don’t remember his name) with four trolls, a really large block of chaos warriors (~27), a lord on a jugger in some knights, and 2x marauders with flails. I don’t remember a ton about this game, other than an anvil-fueled hammerer flank charge on the troll unit (they lost, fled, never rallied) in the same turn when my bolt thrower went through his unit of chaos knights the long way, leaving only one knight, which “look out, sir!” turned into just his lord surviving. Not to worry, though, a minimum-range guess from the grudge thrower was right on the money, and the unfortunate chaos lord found himself d6’d to death. In fact, I killed everything before it arrived, with the exception of one troop of flail marauders (3 models left) and his chaos warrior deathstar with BSB and slaanesh sorcerer. Regrettably, my warriors and hammerers couldn’t get through their 2+ foot knight imba saves, with the result that the game ended with the marauders unable to kill one last organ gun crewman (he kept holding on stubborn) and my hammerers, still above half strength, keeping the warrior block pinned from the flank. The warriors of Dwarf (even hammerers) were no match for the Warriors of chaos, and fled ignominiously to their deaths in some terrain. My gunline survived but my combat blocks died, with the hammerers failing their second critical ld9 roll of the tourney and fleeing off the board. A pretty boring game ending in a perfectly appropriate 1000-point draw with less than 100 pts of difference. I don’t even remember what the scenario was exactly… something about killing the enemy general, which I did and he didn’t.
Round 3: Dark Elves. You could not win, lose, or draw this scenario; you just got one battle point for every 400 points of enemy you killed. The major objective was to table your opponent and the minor was to have 500 points of core alive. His list was 3 units of 5 dark riders, ~15 black ark corsairs, 10 repeater crossbowmen, 1 RBT, 6 cold one knights, two units of six harpies and whatever those skirmishing types are that have really high ballistic skill. He did not have a lord-level character, just a BSB, a combat hero-level general, and two mages.
My deployment was dumb. I parked the anvil in the extreme right hand board corner, and then left about 18” between it and the next thing, which was the hammerer block. He predictably deployed his cold one cavalry right across from the anvil, thereby pulling my hammerers in the direction of nowhere and taking them out of the battle completely. Other than that little side skirmish, he stacked up his cavalry on the extreme left-hand flank, where it was blocked from some of my war machines by a couple of large stone things modeled to look like the Argonath from LotR. They were deployed at about a 45 degree angle, parallel to each other. I deployed my standard gunline with the warriors in it facing the black ark corsairs.
It was a highly complicated game, and I didn’t take notes. His cavalry came pouring down the toward my left flank, and although I did go through a unit of dark riders the long way with with a BT (and his BSB was present in it, but couldn’t look out because I wounded them all), a lot of it ended up getting there. My shooting is optimized for large targets, things with regen saves, and multi-wound models, but is consequently not very good against MSU-style fast cavalry like chaos marauders, dark riders, etc. My hammerers went after the cold one knights, and got a flank charge on them thanks to him failing his stupidity check (otherwise it would have been a rear charge, as he was anvil slowed). His knights broke in spite of the cold one banner, ran off the board (they were right on the edge) and I restrained successfully, turned around, and marched back toward the enemy.
Elsewhere, the two units of dark riders that I didn’t kill, and his harpies and magic, had more or less done for my gunline, although the stubborn artillery crews and shooters had whittled them down in the process to two dark riders and one more harpy (the organ gun rolled 10 hits on another troop of harpies, prompting a trip to the rulebook as he didn’t believe about the auto-hits). Three of his characters were dead including his general, and most importantly, his corsairs and my warriors got in a long brawl in the middle of the board. I kept outnumbering him, he kept holding and killing a couple a turn through sheer mass of attacks, and my hammerers kept toddling frantically back from the site of their victory over the cold ones. They were within one charge of the flank of the corsairs in the middle, and giving me a solid win on points, when the two remaining skirmishers in the woods (organ gun thumbing its nose at hard cover) flanked them. They killed zero, didn’t win combat by enough, and the skirmishers held to ensure that it was another draw. Bah. I was ahead of him by about 200 points, with the warriors, the hammerers, and the anvil, while he had half a unit of dark riders, his repeater crossbowmen, half a swarm of harpies, half his skirmishers, and the whole unit of corsairs with his last mage inside. We both got the minor, which was to hold or contest two board quarters (a very dwarf-friendly minor, as it didn’t require you to move at all).
Round 4: High Elves. The board had a hill in each DZ and some fences (obstacle) on the left-hand side of the board in no-man’s-land, as well as a forest bordering his DZ on the right side. Scenario was “We got ‘im.” One single unit of core troops had to have a prisoner (your opponent’s “messenger” model). To simulate the prisoner trying to cause trouble, the unit had to take a stupidity roll each turn on LD9. If they fled or went below US5, the prisoner was considered freed and you got 250 points (but not, oddly, the Major objective, which was to kill all of your opponent’s core units down to US5 or less, or at least 3 if your opponent had more than 3 cores).
He took a level 4 and a level 2 wizard and a BSB, 2 bolt throwers, 10 archers, 23 swordmasters in a bunch, and 15 sea guard, which was where he decided to put the prisoner.
My line from left to right was Bolt Thrower, Grudge Thrower, Hammerers, Quarrelers, Warriors, bolt thrower, Cannon and Organ Gun on a hill with the anvil behind, and then one lone unit of thunderers on the extreme right-hand board edge.
He lined up more or less opposite me: 2 rbts on a hill with the prisoner-having sea guard in front of them (with his level 4), swordmasters in the middle (containing level 2 mage), archers next to them, then a gap for the forest, behind which the dragon princes and BSB carefully stayed out of sight.
I’ll break it down by board sections. On the right, the dragon princes, sometimes anvil-smacked, failed to make it to my thunderers without anything else bothering to shoot them. They failed an awful lot of 4+ saves (base 2+ -2 for thunderers) and I killed them all in two turns of shooting, except for the BSB who then died on the stand-and-shoot to his glorious solo charge. On the left, my artillery was largely stymied, because I didn’t know you couldn’t see over defendable obstacles unless you were right on them. Managed to shoot some swordmasters, and took a few ineffectual cracks at his bolt throwers.
In the middle, where the game was actually decided, I threw everything and the kitchen sink at the swordmasters for four turns. They panicked once, and were eventually shot down entirely, one turn away from a charge at my warriors. These and my hammerers went after his sea guard block, and although it failed two stupidity rolls (if you think that’s bad, my warriors failed 3), I eventually got off an anvil flank charge. He fled (meaning I freed the prisoner) and then rallied, and I anvil-charged the hammerers into them again in his deployment zone. His archers, hoping to increase his combat res, flank charged them, which was an error because they were all in a long line and my warriors JUST had the distance to rear charge them. This combat could have won me the major objective, as it included both of his core choices, but unfortunately he got a spell off that made his 7 remaining sea guard and his level 4 wizard Stubborn, so they held (the archers all died, though). It was a convincing victory for me, as the only points I lost were half points for a unit of quarrelers (actually there was one left after a lot of RBT shots, magic missiles, and so on, but he wouldn’t panic) and the organ gun, which succumbed to magic missile fire.
Round 5: Tomb Kings. Scenario was "King of Da Spot." Each player got to deploy an objective marker at least 18" from a board edge and at least 12" from any terrain or the other objective. then a spot halfway between them was chosen as "Da spot." Controlling 2/3 of these won you the major objective. The minor objective was to have 750 points left on the board that was not: a war machine, a terror or fear causer, a character, or a large target (so, basic troopers of whatever flavor). The table we were on was almost all ice, which had the effect of adding d3” to all charge moves but subtracting d3” from all normal or march moves, to a minimum of 6” (therefore my dwarfs only got the bonus, not the penalty).
My opponent's list was a very weird one. He had one unit of three vanilla chariots, five skeletal horse archers, casket (note that the liche priest on the casket was also the army’s Heirophant), skullapult, one tomb scorpion, a large swarm of carrion, and two blocks of archers, including a 20-spot, all of which had poisoned arrows. His characters were the special character lady with an undispellable free attack spell, a BSB with a banner of raise some skellies, liche priest on casket and another mounded liche priest which went with the skeletal horse archers. This was his attempt at a “Tomb Kings Shoot line.”
** tangent**
I had my doubts about his list, but it turns out that this was the guy who inflicted the most unholy beatdown of the entire tournament. He was playing against a greenskins list with chariot spam, wolf rider spam, and Grom the Paunch. On his first turn, he rolled irresistible force for the casket of souls, from a hill on a wide open board where EVERYTHING could see. It was later determined that over nine hundred points of greenskins perished or panicked off the board before they got to move, including Grom himself. The tomb kings player then proceeded through the rest of the game without losing a single point, captured all available unit banners and table quarters, and scored a 2900-pt margin of victory. The green medallion of shame went to the greenskin player, who also received a new box of dice and a blister pack of flamers to start his daemon army ^_^
**tangent over**
All of which made me feel not quite so bad about what happened next in our game: I made a great guess and a successful rune of accuracy re-roll and swatted his hierophant right off the casket at the top of turn 1. The cannon had aimed at the casket as well, but overshot sufficiently to also kill the skullapult (it was raised back later but only had one crewman left). Other notable developments were that he aimed his scorpy in front of my gunline, but it misfired with the result that I got to place the scorpion wherever I felt like it. I used the scorp as a stepping stone for my hammerers, killed it and overran into the chariots, killing them as well in the next turn. Predictably, I tabled my opponent, took all three objectives, and won in a walk (he only got half points for a unit of Warriors, plus the anvil blew itself up -.-). We later realized he had forgotten to even deploy his carrion.
It was a nice feel-good ending to a tournament that had started out pretty discouragingly for me. I had a great time, met some cool people, and got the promise of a rematch from the ogre kingdoms player.
Hope you enjoyed this LONG report. I really appreciated all of my opponents, who took epic wins, draws, and epic losses with good humor, a great spirit of cooperation on rules questions, and whose armies uniformly looked lovely.
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