And now we arrive at the final chapter of this sordid tale. After defeating 3 members of Leadership 2 in glorious flurries of amazing dice, I earned the right to challenge Mike Hengl… of Leadership 2. Seriously.
Rolling in at 4-0, I was expecting something gribbly- that
VC army with 5 wraith heroes, or some nasty Dark Elves. Mike has lizards- and as I try to remember what I usually do against temple guard (not much) I realize he has an oldblood on carnosaur, and the tourney has come full circle!
His full list:
Oldblood, Carnosaur, Burning Blade, Charmed Shield, 4+ Ward, the Other Trickster’s Shard
Engine of the Gods, Cube o’ Darkness [Iceshard, Harmonic]
Scar Vet, Cold One, Halberd, 5+ Ward, Dragonhelm, Venom of the Firefly frog
24 Saurus, full command
29 Skink, 3 Krox, musician & standard
10 Skink, javelins, shields, musician & standard
2 x 10 skirmishers, blowpipes
2 x 5 Chameleons
Baby Steg
4 Terradons
2 x solo salamanders
So not a bad matchup, though I could really use a couple more cannons!
For the first and only time this tournament, I actually chose to switch table sides as we set up. I had my eye on a defensible hill in front of some woods that I might be able to force a fight in if need be (for removing steadfast, or soloing the
BSB).
My lesson learned from game 1 was to not, not, not let the ancient steg make it to combat. The combination of impact hits and thunderstomp meant that over a few combat phases, it would totally decimate any of my blocks. All the chaff was going to be a bit of a problem, particularly since I couldn’t really afford to be firing at salamanders with artillery so long as monsters were trucking around.
We could earn extra battle points by ending with more banners, killing more magic items of stuff, grabbing more table quarters, and killing more special/rare.
I deployed tight to the left, and used ironbreakers and rangers to keep chameleons far away from my war machines (though I have a suspicion I could have dropped the rangers somewhere a little better).
We rolled off, and good went to better when I got first turn! Time to smack that engine! But wait…
Mike forgot to vanguard his teradons. I told him to go ahead, nothing had happened yet. He hurriedly pushed them straight into organ gun range. The dwarfs found little reason to move, beyond the gyro and ironbreakers slipping out right to kick off the chaff battles.
The organ gunnery crew, surprised at having something to shoot at the top of the first turn took no time at all in blowing all four right outta the sky.
My bolt thrower couldn’t really draw a bead on any dinosaurs, so satisfied itself with skewering a skink handler. The rangers did the same on the other salamander. After those preliminaries, it was time for the real deal. My cannon streaked across the field, but only dealt a single wound to the engine, and failed to even injure the priest. Grudgethrower scattered slightly, but still scored a hit on the engine, and the skink priest caught it in the schnozzola, leaving the ancient trundling forward with a single shell shocked crewman hanging off the side. Great first turn!
Carnosaur lizards on Table 4? Can yooouuuuu diig iitttttt???
Believe it or not, this blurry picture was meant to better illustrate our deployment.
Mike pushed forward, didn’t have a magic phase and had a pretty unproductive round of shooting, killing a handful of rangers, and failing to breach the gyro’s armor plating.
Turn Two
Wow. Feelin’ good. Awesome first turn, minimal casualties. Let’s see where this can go. The right hand salamander has strayed a little too close to the rangers, but is positioned so I can’t get more than a handful of shots at it. I declare a charge, it flees a huge amount, so I redirect into some blowpipes, who ponder stand and shooting (I need an 8 on the dice) but choose to flee also. Cool, cool.
The ironbreakers find it a little difficult to follow the chameleons’ lead in the Chaff Tango, but the gyro gets in position and levels a template over a 5 man team. The little buggers are tougher than their statline would suggest, and only lose 2, with the remaining three totally unperturbed.
To the main event, I start shooting at the carnosaur. This indicates that I somehow managed to forget my one lesson learned in Game 1, that I further reinforced right before starting this game. The universe has a lesson to teach me about this.
In attempt to shred off the charmed shield with the organ gun first, it explodes. The grudge thrower tries something similar, hoping to tag the beast with a rock and knock off the shield with the splash, but misfires, and will miss next turn. The bolt thrower adds nothing to the conversation. The cannon cracks off a shot into the same, and finally takes the shield off, and wound the carnosaur for 3 wounds.
That brought me a little bit down to earth…
Fearing searing flames getting spat up and down my lines, I decide to pop the
MR of challenge on the left salamander, who has to charge to avoid fleeing the table, but doesn’t make the long run. I really think I might have squandered the rune here. Waiting till the critter was closer would have made sure to get him in at the cost of a single breath attack.
The lizards keep swarming forward, including a stack of skink skirmishers that go right into the face of my lines. The fleeing salamander doesn’t rally and proceeds off the board, but the skinks my rangers ran off turn around for a lil’ bit more.
My dwarfs are a veritable brick wall. Unfortunately, these dinosaurs are starting to look more and more like the Kool-Aid man.
The chameleons tried to bring down the gyro, but rapidly deployed counter measures kept the damage to a single wound. One unit also failed a march block check and was stuck in my charge arc. Yeah!
Peppy Hare’s sage advice comes in handy.
Turn Three
Here I decided to get rid of the skinks standing in front of my army and charge ahead. Didn’t really think this one out, to be honest. Looking at the picture, I’m not sure what this gained me, besides making sure they wouldn’t block up counter charges once everything was in it to win it.
The gyro charged chameleons who were too close to stand and shoot, but one of the little ninjas poked the pilot in the eye with a twig before running away, leaving him on a single wound. Fortunately, they ran directly in front of the ironbreakers.
With no organ gun and a grudgethrower busy undergoing repairs, I didn’t have a lot of a shooting phase. The bolt thrower struck the ancient, but bounced off his gnarled hide, and the cannon knocked him down to his last wound. Drat.
My warriors easily handled the skink screen, and then, realizing they were fairly exposed, elected to overrun into the salamander.
The lizards merrily countered by triple charging the shields with all available dinosaurs. I began to lament my hasty decision making that had thrown them out ahead, but Mike commented that I was really just mostly giving him some points back.
Mike can’t quite down the gyro with his chameleons on the right and it’s back to the middle.
Tell me if you can see the problem with this.
It might not be what you think.
As soon as we start rolling the combat, I realize I’ve got problems. Specifically, Mike may leave 5 dwarfs alive. I didn’t do the math at the time, but doing it now, odds were really close to even on whether or not 8 skinks handlers & crew, an oldblood, a baby steg, an ancient steg and the carnosaur would kill more than 24 dwarfs in a single phase. If you were betting, you should probably bet on them
not pulling this off, and I was on the wrong side of those odds.
And unfortunately, I ended that combat with 7 standing, and one passed steadfast later, my artillery was stuck staring at the carnage. The only high point, was that a single warrior had managed to chop the carnosaurs big toe off with his mighty strength 3 hand weapon.
Urgh.
Turn 4
There wasn’t a lot to do. I charged both hordes forward to engage the lizards as they came out of the trees in an attempt to start getting some big points.
The gyrocopter sputtered off into a corner to hide with its last wound, and the ironbreakers beat up the two toughest chameleons in the world. You don’t go messing with them in their barrio. They proved this further by cold-cocking an ironbreaker before finally getting chopped down.
The cannon and bolt thrower stared forlornly at the bevy of prime targets. The grudgethrower tried to rescue the rangers from the growing cloud of skinks collecting around them, but decided not to mess with a good thing, and wounded itself again.
I made the dinos fight next so they would have to take their reforms not being totally sure what was going to happen across the middle.
Heading in to the real combats, I decided to try to get rid of the lizard
BSB first to make the other combat easier. Once the saurus warriors whiffed spectacularly on the hammerers and I retained all three ranks, I elected to try to blaze through saurus to remove their steadfast and get the
BSB through Last Stand. This very nearly worked, as I killed enough to just that. Tragically, the dirty lizards passed a low break check- perhaps on a 3 or 4? Cold blooded continues to cause me no end of pain.
The great weapons mirrored this strong performance with their own display of slice and dicery, breaking the skink krox, who fled. At the time, I chose not to flee, feeling obliged to put the dinosaur threat in my front. I might have been able to pursue far enough to get out of arc, but the risk didn’t seem worth it.
The dinosaurs joyfully trundled in to my great weapons. Here we go again.
This time, I’m not hoping for a one turn wipe-out.
The skink krox rally easily, and turn to face the fight once more. In a desperate move, I challenge out with my
BSB, and it pays off huge- with a hammer strike dropping the carnosaur before it can swing and thunderstomp. I take my licks from the impacts and stomps, but hand it right back and take the last wound of the ancient, and three wounds off the baby steg.
Unfortunately, the hammerers are out of steam, and the saurus are only just waking up. They go into buzz saw mode, and cripple the hammerers, then reform wide before I can contract to try to preserve points.
Turn 5
Not a lot of choices left- the rangers are taking heavy damage from poison, and try to make a break for the building for cover, but it doesn’t look like they’ll make it.
The cannon and bolt thrower combine to tag another skink handler off the salamander, and I hang my head and go into the combat phase. My
BSB continues to pull weather the battering, and the rest of the unit is able to drop the baby steg, but at heavy cost.
The hammerers continue to take heavy casualties, and I realize my early gamble to bypass the
BSB is coming back to bite me as he lays about with his strength 6 halberd. I’m down to just 8 hammerers, and he’s definitely got the upper hand in that combat.
What happened?!
Note: Immediately after this picture, I reformed to take the returning skink krox in the flank.
End game
The hammers fight to the death, and perish at the bottom of 6, along with the last of the great weapons and my rangers. No real way to make this dramatic, as the writing is finally on the wall.
Result:I’m left only with my ironbreakers, gyro, war machines (less the organ gun) and my characters for a tragic 500-ish point loss. So close!
In the end, the game is a 5-19 loss.
Mike was a hell of a great game, doubly so when you realize a win on this table probably gets you to the podium. He forgave me my mistakes (at one point, during a hammerer combat reform, I started putting my casualties back in the unit) and was really great to play. On top of this, he played the entire game without magic, his only caster having died before he took his first turn.
And from our showdown on table 4 in the final round, he went on to win Best Overall!
Trying to sort out what went wrong- there were a couple things out of my control, but some that weren’t. Here’s where I think I erred.
1- If I focus fire on the ancient till its dead (i.e. if the cannon that weakened the carnosaur hits the ancient instead, its dead and never makes combat.
2- If I don’t charge the shield warriors, the dinos might get next turn charges, but at least one of them is probably not making it in, especially with the skinks in the way. I got myself in trouble with a charge like this in Game 1 of Bayou against Mark Cox (who also went on to get Best Overall. Hmmm.)
3- *Maybe* should have gone for the
BSB with my hammerers early instead, though the math hast that taking a couple turns for sure.
4- Also maybe hold the
MR of Challenge felt a wee bit squandered in this game, though at the time it felt like an okay choice. I’m not well practiced with it in 8th anymore.
Definitely have a tendency to relax too much in a game that I feel like I’m winning handily. This happened back in Game 1 at Cap City.
That’ll do it for tonight, I think. Final standings and thoughts and such to come soon.
and 
didn't expect them to wipe the hammerers like that, though! I still have no answer for them. In the deployment of that game, I see sabretusks touching units. I guess you guys don't play 1" spacing between units during deployment over there? (Only during movement?) The tourneys around here usually 
. I'll bug you about it later next year and see if you're considering it for 2013, then!
. They just don't work for me 
and I happen to have an army that likes to face them, too (can't be stomped / thunderstomp, high strength weapons). Mine always seem to die to a thousand cuts, even when the enemy lacks multi-wound effects... but I definitely agree about target saturation.
2000 (RT era Thousand Sons), 
2000 (Undivided), 
2500 (Skaven), 
(RT era World Eaters WIP)