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After a long week of catching up (ha) on school work, I suppose I should write something about my experience at Crossroads 2010. Despite getting sick with antibiotic-related shenanigans on Saturday and into Sunday, still had a bunch of fun games and met some seriously cool dudes. I don’t regret taking ogres, but I did start to feel outplayed towards the end, when I simply didn’t have the number of units needed to pull off anything too tactical – non-MSU ogres requires some serious micromanagement of LD bubbles and buffs, but without abundant and maneuverable chaff I couldn’t bother my opponent besides smashing things faces when allowed to.

Anyway, here’s the list that I waffled on and eventually went with, ultimately choosing the crown of command over a tenderizer tyrant:

L: Tyrant – mawseeker (T6 + stupid); sword of might (S6), armor of destiny (5/5+ save), crown of command (stubborn 9)
L: Slaughtermaster – fencer’s blades (WS10 + A5), wyrdstone necklace (5+ ward), skullmantle (-1LD to enemy tests)

H: Bruiser – BSB, talisman of endurance, heavy armor (5/5+ save)
H: Hunter – dragonbane gem (2+ ward vs fire), potion of strength (S8 one turn)
H: Butcher – dispel scroll

C: 9 Ironguts – rune maw (2+ to kick a spell onto a friendly unit within 6”), full command
C: 7 Bulls – full command, ironfists, light armor (I always used parry for a 5/6+ in combat)
C: 8 Trappers

S: 3 Yhetees – greyback
S: 2 Leadbelchers – bellower

R: Gorger
-----
2400



Standard deployment saw the yhets down first, becoming a flank, with the bullstar (tyrant + butcher + bulls) and then the gutstar (slaughtermaster + BSB + guts) nearby, hunter either between them or to either side, and the belchers orbiting behind the star to have spells pushed onto them. The trappers scouted and gorger showed up later, often about a turn late.

Figure I’ll plow through my games, with the occasional picture as appropriate …

GAME ONE: ROB’S COMBAT ELVES – Meeting Engagement

Prince – 2+ rerollable, 4+ ward, stardragon (!!)
Mage [HIGH] – level 2
Mage [HIGH] – level 2
20 Spearelves – S/C
20 Spearelves – S/C
20 Spearelves – S/C
20 White Lions – flaming banner
20 Phoenix Guard
2 Bolters



I had little idea of what to do with a stardragon, but I was hoping he’d plow it into somebody stubborn and eventually have its head caved in. The rest of the elves, I assumed I’d tear them apart in short order.

Which is basically what happened, as the bullstar shattered the rightmost spear block, turned and headed back into the fun in the later turns. The yhets zipped up that flank and tipped over the right flank bolter, as the hunter got stuck in immediately with the lions, against whom he had a sexy 2+ ward. Unfortunately he was counter-charged by some spearelves – in what would turn out to be a pretty questionable charge, but I allowed it – and killed, allowing the spear block to overrun into the gutstar, which had just been charged by the stardragon …

… and because of those spearelves charging in the game may have immediately swung my way. The dragon chomped into the guts and received almost nothing in return (he may have challenged something out?), but the spearelves lost an enormous number, about 15 total, and the dragon and block lost by -10 or so. They both broke and neither were caught. This would be a trend for the weekend, never catching anything.

The while lions however paniced from this devastation, and failed to rally next turn, putting them directly in front of the yhetees, who escorted them off the table. The phoenix guard also paniced, and just barely rallied (on an 11) after his dragon barely rallied (on a 10). The gutstar slammed into the PG and annihilated them, and once again the dragon paniced. After he failed his next rally, Rob called it quits. I wished him luck and that hopefully his bad LD rolls had worked themselves out early but walked away with a max 12-0 win.

GAME TWO: JARRETT’S AVOIDANCE LIZARDS – Blood & Glory

Slann [LIFE] – BSB, focus, rumination, ethereal, becalming, cupped balls, MR(2-3), bane head = an impressive 595 points!
Scarvet – 2+ ward vs fire, crown of command
Skink Priest – level 1/2
Skink Priest – level 1/2
20 Saurus – S/M
10 Saurus – S/M
10 Skinks – blowpipes
10 Skinks – blowpipes
10 Skinks – blowpipes
7 Camo Skinks
7 Camo Skinks
7 Camo Skinks
4 Terradons
4 Terradons
2 Sallies
2 Sallies

[Didn’t take a picture, but it’s the yellow w/ black spots lizard army you may have seen in other reports, been kicking around for a while now.]

So … this was going to be rough. Jarrett played on the US ETC team (so must know something about warhams!), and had brought a list purposely designed to show that a no comp event is a bad idea. Sadly my ogres had to fight it :’(

My ‘plan’ was to put the tyrant in the gutstar and head for his flags, perhaps catching the slann by some miracle. With so few drops said saurus standards were ~48” away through an ocean of poison. To cut to the chase, anything not in the ‘star died, as expected, and the ‘star itself was whittled down to the characters + gutlord by the end of turn 4, but was in spitting distance of the fatty saurus block. Wanting to do anything but roll 5+ armor saves and pretend I have a magic phase, I solo charged the tyrant into the saurus largely for gaks, and because all the skink screens being layered in front of the gutstar had gotten pretty irritating. Naturally the tyrant couldn’t make the 11” charge and stumbled forward, receiving an ocean of poison in the final turn and succumbing to his wounds.

I was thrilled that it was over, as I was never going to win the game by a long shot and my patience had just snapped with the tyrant’s refusing to play as well. 2-12 loss (2 points for having a couple characters left).

GAME THREE: BEN’S ANVIL DWARFS – Objectives

Last game of the day involved both of us placing three objectives and getting bonuses for carting our own off the board, as well as holding onto the enemy’s. My objectives were shot glasses, ‘cause it was that time of the day

Runesmith – anvil
Thane – BSB
Thane – fighty
Thane – fighty
25 Warriors – shields
25 Warriors – shields
25 Warriors – great weapons
25 Hammerers
Thrower – flaming
Cannon – flaming
Organ Gun

Wonderfully laid back list, nothing disgusting and wanted to fight – exactly what the tyrant ordered

My ogres moved up the board so quickly that he wasn’t able to grab any of his objectives, while my trappers dragged one shot glass off the left edge and then celebrated, and my yhets nabbed the rightmost objective and escorted it off my table edge, after being blasted and anviled down to a single wounded ape.

The party got started early with turn two multicharges that saw both ‘stars and all four dwarf blocks engaged in two separate combats. Truly a thing of beauty, though I was thanking my decision to go with the stubborn hat as the bullstar lost round after round against thane-led shield warriors and BSB-led hammerers. But the gutstar rocked through both of its warriors, flanking in and helping liquefy stunties.


The astute will notice that he has allowed the gutstar to enjoy a toothcracker buff for more than their own turn. (A rare occurrence over the weekend.)

Once again I failed to catch anything, but I had the last half of the game to chase off or further pulp his remnants. There was a moment of sadness as the gorger ate a face full of organ gun the turn after he appeared, and his anvil proved to be the most irritating one I’ve fought, do to the inane war machine assaulting rules when applied to ogres – really, just two ogres get to fight, as the other six stand around and gold clap? Regardless the bullstar sailed the last objective off his board edge for big points and a 12-0 win.

And then I got drunk.

Time for a nap, Day Two will hit tomorrow or so!

- Salvage

Awesome Glad to see that other than Skinkogeddon you had a good weekend.

Boss,

Thanks for the concise reports. Greatly looking forward to Day 2. Jesse and Jordan are our ETC reps from here in the Austin area, and they're of the same mind as Jarrett- 8th needs some kind of comp to prevent the worst builds.

Interesting to see the dwarf match up too. Were the slayers his objective markers?

RZ

Between school and not caring very much about my ogres I've left this report pretty neglected. However in the interest of completeness I'll toss the next ~20 minutes at finishing the thing ...

So last we met, the ogres had gone 2-1-0, amassed a fair number of battle points overall and had worked out their pent up aggression from the Denial Lizards on the smiling faces of some combat dwarfs. After half a bottle of Absolut, a terrorized doubles game he wasn't playing in and some midnight pizza, your favorite square-basing dreadnought was back Sunday morning for some serious matches. Sadly these ogres don't do serious very well

GAME FOUR: AARON'S WOC - Objectives (3 down center, lots of points for most wounds within X" of them)

I knew WoC were coming for me, and I knew I'd get mine on Sunday, so I wasn't surprised. Thankfully I drew one of the "softer" WoC lists (a relative term, when the stuff that consistently beats ogres are the 2-3 warrior blocks at the core of EVERY WoC army, though the hellcannons and death magic help), which meant only one hellcannon

Tizz level 4 on disc
Tizz BSB on disc
Shadow level 2 general on foot
18 Warriors - raging / MoK, halberds
18 Warriors - MoT, 5+ (4+) ward vs shooting, halberds
14 Warriors - MoT, shields, standard of LD9 exploit for the general standing in them
2 Chariots
Hellcannon
Warshrine (Archaon statue)



I knew I had lost this one, mostly because I was playing against WoC! While I didn't necessarily need to get my deathstar flanked, I knew that every turn I didn't charge was another in which he got to rain hellcannon fire and magic into me (the magic was less of an issue with the rune maw but still), so I rushed up to press the issue. Both choppy warriors and the BSB obliged.



Notice the bullstar is missing? It fled from a hellcannon charge, through the gutstar; then fled the warshrine, back through the gutstar; then fled the BSB, back through the gutstar; and was finally caught by the warshrine, making it one of the most successful 'shrines in history, VP-wise. Anyway, I knew bulls with ironguts weren't going to do squat to warriors, and my extra butcher was pretty meh to me - I didn't expect to carry a single buff that mattered. So anyway, there was some fighting:



The gutstar was swiftly dismantled after 1 turn of hacking by the warriors, for minimal loses. The only upshot was that the level 4 amazingly was right in front of my yhetees, who had scrambled away from the left flank as soon as the heckcannon settled across from them. So they monkeys ran in, and after 3 rounds of fighting cut his big bad caster down (3/3+ save and all) ... not that that was his general or very important at this stage. The gutstar's next round involved all characters except the tyrant dying, and then next round the tyrant went down as well.

It was not a total loss though. In addition to the yhets defiling the discer, the hunter also had a field day and charged/broke/pursued/charged/broke/pursued off the table both chariots, cleaning up a flank and not dying:



Ultimately it was a total win to chaos, but it was never not going to be, so whatever. Aaron was a great guy and got my favorite opponent vote.

GAME FIVE: KEVIN'S GOBLINS - Pitched Battle

Now I had taken a lot of shots of Kevin's goblins the day before, as I really admired his commitment to theme and individuality. I think his list speaks for itself:

Goblin Warlord (!!) - fighty kit, defense kit, wolf chariot (modeled to be Grom in a pimped out ride, and usually fielded as the fat elf-hater himself)
Level 4 Goblin
Level 2 Goblin - sneaky stealin'
Goblin BSB
50 Goblins - shields (5-wide)
50 Goblins - bows (10-wide)
35-40 Goblins - shields (5-wide)
25 Night Goblins - 2 fanatics, nets
25 Squigs & Herders
2x 5 Wolf Riders
2 Bolters
2 Doomdivers
10 Trolls



You read right, those ain't night goblins! And that is a lot of trolls!



Here we are all set up, and with the ogres winning first I was able to apply the pressure a bit faster than his cramped deployment was expecting.



In ogre two the trolls + steadfast bus of goblins were slammed by the gutstar, were both beaten and both fled. The bus went 6", the trolls went 5" (bouncing to almost the edge of the table), and the gutstar went 3" - I announced to him that that was game right there, since the gutstar wasn't going to have enough power left to do anything worthwhile, having gained 0 points in the process.



Here's the 'star after two fanatics, the trolls, bolters, magic, etc have torn into the ironguts. Next turn they charged the rallied steadfast bus + night goblins (trolls rallied), didn't break either, were flanked by squigs and devoured. Yep. Meanwhile the yhets had charged into the other not-quite-so-deep bus on the left and proceeded to win the next 6-7 rounds of combat, always by 1, never breaking their opponents - and also never allocating attaks to the level 2 shaman in the front corner, who kept stealing power dice to boot! Ultimately they broke and caught the unit, scampering off the table and making themselves scarce in the late game.

The bullstar for its part had powered into the bow horde in turn 2, and mediocre round after mediocre round saw the horde stick until it finally ran off the table, leaving the bullstar free to reform and face what was left of his army. Let's set the scene: It's turn 4, and the ogres have managed to bash their way into another position of power, with the bullstar staring at the flank of Grom's chariot, ready to smash the general and overrun into the trolls behind, beating them down and taking advantage of their LD4 + no BSB (having been killed by a fanatic the turn earlier ). The goblins are in a precarious position, with Grom brutally exposed, and just the trolls and squigs left, along with the level 4 skulking about, some wolf riders and a couple war machines. All that remains is for Fluffy the gorger to finish off the chukka he's chewing on and for the ogres to flip Grom over ...

The gorger fluffs, is killed by the goblin crewmen (!), panics the bullstar waiting to win the game despite LD9 (!!), panics the hunter ready to recharge Grom despite LD9 (!!!), and both flee far away from the action. I silently pitch my dice into the wall and declare that it's pretty much over, once again.

Ogre turn 5 involves rallying, Goblin turn 5 involves getting everybody sorted out of the mess I was trying to exploit before the tyrant screwed the pooch, Ogre turn 6 sees a half-hearted shot at wrecking the trolls, which amazingly works, but they pass their LD7 break easily. The bullstar is flanked by squigs and devoured, and I think the tyrant may have actually failed his stubborn 9 to rub it in. Also, the hunter charged those wolf riders, who stood and shot, hitting him once on a 6, wounding him once on a 6 and dropping him (he had suffered heavily from doom divers all game).

So another loss, repeatedly snatched from victory, but a fun if frustrating game.

Overall the fatties went 2-3, though that could easily have been 3-2 so no worries. I was, and still am, pretty miffed to get tanked on my painting score, but as the TO and I have discussed, my army is painted to a different aesthetic than the usual GT crowd (does that merit 78th out of 79 armies present, including unpainted ones? Obviously not, but cest le vie.)

And there you have it, my first GT experience. Might be a bit before the next one, due to the time and money costs vs the reality of being a grad student, even an irresponsible one

- Salvage

Some groovy miniatures there. I really think all battle reports are vastly improved with pictures, every thread should have them.

Ugh, awful luck in the goblin game. The deceptively punchy goblin warmachine crews. I remember having a bolt thrower chase off a small unit of miners back in 7th. Got a few more slayers after that game...

I'm quite shocked at the painting placing. That's just... bewildering. Were they using a points based system, or was it 100% subjective?

Glad to see the rest of the battles, and sad to see they didn't go well for the fatties, but glad again that you had fun at least. I am feeling a little guilty that all I will be able to offer you in targets is more WoC, but then I don't field 30 warriors, so I guess it evens out

That painting is really weird. I mean, ok you and I have talked about how I think your army could be improved, but it is a damn fine looking army I think. While I am not excited about the Hunter fella, the rest of the army looks professional. Not "pro-painted!!" but rather like they are there to get a job done. No silly bright colors, just big fat men who are coming to kill you and eat you, with no more concern than a farmer going out to slaughter a few chickens for dinner. I find that highly appealing, and not something easy to do given GW's somewhat over the top models.

Ahh well. I never win best appearance either

@ Mr. Treesong - Cheers for that. Despite only taking a couple shots of my own games I did manage to take 100+ of other armies and cool happenings. Perhaps I'll load them all up to some convenient photo-storage site ...

@ RZ - It does occur to me that I was finally getting a taste of what my round 1 opponent got, except his rash of failed LD10 tests hit early and often, while mine just denied me from sealing the deal in what was a tight game. Combined with some other poor rolls - not catching anything when it mattered, gorger power-fluff - and good ones for him it meant I too lost, but not in the instantly crippling way he did.

Painting was done by TO or his non-playing helper, judged from about 3-4 feet and in 1-2 minutes, from what I saw. My ogres don't stand up well to that

@ Wehr - Note that despite my tone in round 4 I actually have beaten WoC with my ogres, and beaten some far more cheddary lists ... run by generals not necessarily as good as Aaron but ah well. Warriors however are simply really good, particularly when people give them halberds and 3 attaks a piece

- Salvage

Yea I hear ya. I have been looking at lots of units in my list and asking "Why do I have these instead of their points in warriors?" As much as I love the ogres I am not certain they are better than ~15-20 Khorne warriors with halberds as you point out. My saving grace is that I am beginning to REALLY dislike the warrior model, and the ogres rock That and it isn't like I play ever, so looking cool is very easy to prioritize

Hey there Boss,

Having been at the tourney, I think it was easy for people, TO and helper included, to get caught up in the few armies that were far and above the rest. There were a few guys there that did fabulous jobs, and I think they were a little starstruck by that. I'm pretty sure they went to those armies first, and after that they went through all the armies more or less to just check the box without actually giving them much time and looking at details.