Attended my second Crossroads
GT in Horseheads, NY this last weekend, and had a great time. In fact, I had quite a bit better time than last year, though that probably owed a lot to a) not getting sick this time and b) not playing ogres. That said, it was pretty trippy to see so many ogres everywhere (I was one of two last go ‘round), even if the presence of mournfangs and ironblasters in
every one of them should tell you something about how much (or how little) has changed for the fatties …
Anyway, I forwent retooling my ogres like a madman and brought my hyper-elite skaven. Which looked like this:
Ruin Seer - dragonbane gem, dispel scroll, D3+1 warpstone tokens, skalm, screaming bell
Assassin - blade of corruption, the other trickster’s shard
Assassin - weeping blade, potion of strength
Chieftain -
BSB, charmed shield
45 Stormvermin - banner of eternal flame, full command
30 Stormvermin - full command, ratling gun
30 Stormvermin - full command, ratling gun
10 Plague Censer Bearers
5 Gutter Runners - poison, slings
5 Gutter Runners - poison, slings
Doomwheel
Doomwheel
--------
2500
DAY 0 Rolled into town, met up with clubmates for dinner, drank some Jeremiah Weed and yakked with folks I recognized from last year. Speaking of talented modelers, you can see a few army shots I took throughout the weekend
here. Unfortunately I managed to get zero shots of the army that one player’s choice / best painted, a very well done night goblin force with a gorgeous arachnarok. Sorry Internet.
DAY 1 The first two matches were done through tiered comp, which if you’re listening
TO Corey I was very happy to see. A bit more transparency on the judgment involved might be cool, but I’m just happy to have comp matter for something
GAME 1: EMPIRE Started things off against Roy’s under-optimized Empire, playing a Battleline game with various
BP bonuses. Since he gave me a copy of his list, he had:
Arch Lector - warrior bane, 1+ armor, speculum, waltar
Captain -
BSB, wyrmslayer, white cloak, 2+ armor, warhorse
Captain - sword of might, charmed shield, dragonbane gem, 3+ armor, pegasus
Warrior Priest - shrieking blade, armor of fortune, iconcurse icon
Engineer - repeater pistol
9 Knights - banner of eternal flame, full command
39 Halberdiers - full command
5 Free Company (^)
5 Free Company (^)
30 Swordsmen - full command
15 Swordsmen (^)
16 Hand gunners - standard, musician
5 Outriders - champion w/ long rifle, musician
Cannon
Cannon
Mortar
Steam Tank
Here we are after deployment and into his first turn. The opening couple turns went his way, with engineer-guided mortar fire severely wounding the bell bus and crippling one of the smaller stormvermin blocks. My gutters were either killed first turn (you can see his charge on me here) because I had bet on getting first turn, or waited until turn five to enter play, meaning I had a lot of artillery to weather …
That or get hyper-aggressive. The bell slammed into his halberds + priest , tolled a 13 and proceeded to break the unit - it helped that my seer crack’s called through both his warrior priest and his waltar in the intervening magic phase, dropping the priest and also auto-killing the altar itself (
TO ruled that a character on monster/chariot mount took tests separately for both parts). So his main combat unit was run down by death frenzied stormvermin + bell + assassin (oh, I got death frenzy off turn one
), and the large swordsmen to their flank panicked and ran off the table. Rough times for Empire.
Over on the left flank, his stank survived a laser run by a doomwheel (with four wounds gone though), then charged and crushed it, but had taken enough wounds to play no more part in the battle. The other doomwheel 360-charged the captasus when it killed a ratter and failed to leave the table, blowing his face off with lasers (as is his want). Censers meanwhile evaporated some free company with aplomb.
Late game saw his
BSB’s knights grind against 20+ storm vermin with
BSB and assassin, lose, flee and rally, get joined by the lector and left alone
The outriders had lost all but the champ from a scorch, and another scorch finished off the handgunners whom the lector had briefly sheltered with. Late arriving gutters flipped over war machines like pros, as the bell’s unit dwindled dangerously low on models thanks to death frenzy and having to overrun everywhere. Thankfully he flanked it with the swordsmen detachment, which knocked out its frenzy, and then had the swordsmen clubbed to death for their troubles. But not before the bell could roll doubles and pop its assassin’s head
Which is to say, a minor victory to skaven, which with bonus points ended up an 8/4 split. While his artillery took a frustrating toll early on, my dominance of the magic phase was fairly telling, with death frenzy, crack’s call and scorch really going to work. Versus just the token prayer here and there that I let him have.
Roy got my vote for best opponent, great guy from Long Island.
Bell Rolls (x2 = rolled doubles, so took
D6 S4 hits on the bell unit)
1. Scorch (x2)
2. A Stirring Beyond the Veil (x2) [Perfectly timed to shatter his combat block]
3. Scorch
4. Wall of Unholy Sound [No effect, out of combat]
5. Unholy Clamor (x2) [No effect, in combat, but feedback killed assassin]
6. Unholy Clamor [Little effect, bell unit dead, so incapable of moving before!]
GAME 2: EMPIRE Next up, Blood & Glory versus … more Empire?! A little more tuned list this time, run by a younger dude named Andrew. He had something like:
Arch Lector - hellstrom mace, speculum, possibly rerolled armor, waltar
Wizard Lord - level 4 [LIFE], rod of power? (stores dice)
Wizard - level 1 [BEASTS]
Captain -
BSB, rerolled 1+ armor
Warrior Priest - not much
40-50 Swordsmen - full command
~30 Flagellants
5 Knights - banner of eternal flame, standard, musician
~30 Greatswords
Cannon
Mortar
Hellstorm
Stank
I opened things up with gutters killing his hellstorm before it could liquefy T3 stormies, and tossed a toad forward to laser his stank. That didn’t work as well …
… getting it charged by the stank in his first turn here. It died shortly thereafter. Bright side, his cannon and mortar did all of nothing, and then were both dismantled by gutters (and more gutters from off table) next turn. Magic didn’t get dwellers off on the bus, so my screaming dreadnought could contemplate the turn two mega-charge once more …
Death frenzy went up, censers advanced to mangle the greatswords on their way into the bell, and I sent another doomtoad to kill the stank. He failed too, and would be charged and crushed just like his brother next turn
In the first round of arch lector assassinating, my death frenzied assassin found himself with old man stats, whiffed a bunch, took the mace hellstrom to the face, and only took 1 wound! Whew.
The Empire strikes back, but that’s just what I wanted
Greatswords slam censers, losing a lot of their number as well as the priest (which I took out @ I3 to avoid rerolled ‘swords - funnily enough, he missed only 1 to hit roll anyway :’(), but carry into the bell’s flank, to sandwich it with flaggies on the other side. HOWEVER this just kicked in death frenzy-boosted attaks from the stormies down the flanks, letting me chew through lots of man-things. Neither unit cared, and the lector rolled a 1 to hit the assassin, so all was set for grind next turn.
BSB stormvermin counter-charge, and over the next several turns Things Happen: primarily, the waltar is crack’s called off the table, leaving the lector to be gutted by the assassin at long last. This puts him at Fortitude 4 and one point away from giving me +900
VP for breaking the other guy first. Unfortunately, the greatswords, thanks to a combination of Flesh to Stone, Throne of Vines and/or Wildform were always at the very least T4, and rolling 5+ armor saves like madmen. Leaving me in a painful grind of dropping 1-3 ‘swords a turn, and never gaining that last flag. (The flagellants were shredded in the process, and his knights ate ratling gun down to just the standard bearer, who hid in a corner all game and denied me THAT point too.)
Eventually the stank flanked my
BSB’s stormvermin, doing horrendous damage and teaching me all sorts of things about the thing - like that it can fire a S2 no armor flame template into combat! But then my ruin seer cracked it too
Sadly, after two hours of having him at Fortitude 4, we got to this point:
With my
BSB assassinated by somebody (a single greatsword swinging for two turns, I think), the bell unit dead to a rat and another unit fled from the stank’s assault, I was at Fortitude 3 and broken. In this pic we see my other assassin go to work, and preposterously on Turn 6 I finally killed those ‘swords and the
BSB, breaking him in return (and gaining a
BP).
You can also see that his swordsmen have come out to play - they had jumped in the building to the right and bunkered there for 3-4 turns, until he realized that my bell was furiously being told to level the thing and if he wanted to win he should probably come fight something. But then I just redirected it a few times with gutters (who tried to assassinate wizards), and there we were.
Thanks to scenario and drunkenly tough greatswords, my win by 700
VP became a draw, with
BP giving me a 7/6 advantage. A great game all the same, and good to play B&G (without auto-break), as it adds some real tension to the match.
Bell Rolls:
1. Scorch
2. Embolden [Worthless]
3. Scorch
4. Embolden (x2) [Worthless]
5. Scorch (x2)
6. Unholy Clamor [No effect, in combat]
GAME 3: OGRES A break for booze later and the last game of Saturday was new ogres, run by Jacob and done up in a very groovy pirate theme. They smelled something like this:
Slaughter Master - level 4 [MAW], hellheart, 5 attaks (sword of battle?), some ward, perhaps ironfist, stubborn crown
Butcher - level 2 [HEAVENS], sword of striking, dispel scroll
Bruiser -
BSB, defense stuff
8 Ironguts - banner of discipline, standard, bellower
8 Bulls - ironfists, standard, bellower
3 Maneaters - gleaming pennant, standard, handguns, scout, stubborn
2 Mournfangs - banner of eternal flame, standard, bellower
2 Mournfangs - standard, bellower
4 Leadbelchers - bellower
1 Sabretusk
1 Sabretusk
1 Sabretusk
Ironblaster
Ironblaster
Two ‘stars + loads of new stuff! Exciting times. Scenario had us each place 3 objectives, for which we got significant
VP if we carried them off the table edges (no edge could be repeated, edges worth varying points).
Mid-way through deployment, waiting on his characters and then scouts:
My gutters scouted onto my right objective and up the right flank, while his maneaters began where my tape is in the last picture above. Guneaters up in my junk - unexpected!
Skaven advance somewhat cautiously, magic blows poorly and yields a dispelled extreme range crack’s on the slaughter master (
ftw). Doomwheel phase begins by lasering a few stormvermin dead, but the right wheel, which I had jinked towards the guneaters with the intent of lasering through the building and wrecking them, misfires and drives back into the corner! Guh! Otherwise I grab a couple objectives and start killing sabretusks with gutters, to deny his objectives.
Here you can see the yelling doomtoad scream off into the corner
The guneaters, who had lost a model to the gutters, charged into the ninja-worms, laid down three wounds, and this happened:
Three of three 6+ dodge saves
High fives were tossed out, another maneater bit it but held. Meanwhile ogres advanced cagily, with magic kicking up a regen bubble on the bulls (and other stuff).
The dreadnought prepares for glory! 14” charge into the gutstar went off
and the left wheel screamed the 11” in to help, fantastic! Magic again blows poorly - I toss for crack’s through the slaugher master, he scrolls it; I put what I have into death frenzy on the bell bus and he stops with dice. Sadness. The wheel in combat slams S6+ lasers into the gutstar, but regen saves them all, while the non-objective gutters start working on an ironblaster, wounding it. Due to striking simultaneously, the toads many S6 impacts are largely ignored by regen, despite the bell’s S5 flaming ones hitting home. The ever present blade of corruption assassin begins his challenge with the slaughter master (0 wounds to either), and token wounds are done to the ironguts. Jacob wisely puts as many attaks as possible on the grey seer standing in front of the dreadnought, and I fail 7 of 8 ward saves :’( So much for magic. Also, the doomwheel died to the four attaks that needed to kill it (took one wound earlier to belchers). Bell bus still wins on
CR though, but stubborn ogres hold stubbornly. Bell bus becomes bell horde.
Ogres charge in everywhere I offered up targets. Magic tossed up +1S on the gutstar, possibly +1T on the bullstar. Ironblasters plague other doomtoad, which takes 2-3 wounds. In the Stomping on Nurglings phase, nurglings be stomped. Some ironguts die, both assassins fail to kill what they’re fighting (slaughter master / T5 bulls), censers survive mournfang impacts and drop one of them before being pulverized to a PCB, and many stormvermin are splattered. Bell unit doesn’t care, other unit breaks and gets away, to rally and be re-charged later.
Surviving doomtoad tries to lightning the right ironblaster, rolls S2 lasers and fails at life. It is counter-charged and killed, just like versus those stanks earlier in the day … I sweep some objectives off the table and continue to harass his objective-carriers (at this point mostly ironblasters).
Ogres turn, we get those counter-charges from above, as well as the belchers helping mangle the bell horde. The ironblaster thankfully fails to flank in too. Magic is another round of +1S for the gutstar. Combat sees an assassin clubbed to death by the slaughter master and another one ganged up on by bulls. Blarg. Bell doesn’t care, other stormies somehow hold.
Skaven take the mournfang’s flank that was offered to keep them off the leadbelcher’s flank, and when it comes to fighting things work out a little - mournfang is tipped over and poked to death, and the gutstar is reduced to standard + slaughter master. Sadly the other stormvermin are taken down to two models, who scamper off the board.
The bullstar closes the gap above, charging the
BSB’s stormies with the belchers hitting the flank. The stormies are trashed, but the skaven
BSB somehow survives in a challenge with the ogre
BSB, ensuring that steadfast keeps them around. The screaming dreadnought finally kills the irongut standard and breaks the slaughter master, but doesn’t manage to catch him.
Next turn, I can only assume the ironblaster flanked the bell and its posse, holding it in place. Miraculously, the slaughter master would fail his rally and run off the board shortly after. Obviously the chieftain
BSB was mashed by the bruiser
BSB, and his stormies were devoured.
Amazingly, despite not having any magic for two hours, in a list that depends on death frenzy / crack’s call, this game was actually a draw! I had nabbed two of the more valuable objectives, and had either killed or distracted his objective grabbers, getting me a big boost to tie things up. After battle point bonuses it was another draw in my favor, like a 6/5 split. More importantly, Jacob was another good guy to play against, with a lovely army that wasn’t too awfully bent in any way (though I think it’s approaching what will be the standard for ogres now, with some more tuning).
Bell Rolls:
1. Deafening Peals
2. Deafening Peals (x2)
3. Scorch (x2)
4. Deafening Peals
5. Scorch
6. Embolden [With the
BSB dead this might have mattered … if I had an army left!]
For those keeping track (i.e. me), I played a total of 8 T7+ models, in addition to a unit of greatswords that was occasionally T7, in my first two games. I played a total of 0 T7+ models in my third game. And yet the bell chose to only ring ‘kill all T7 things’ this game …
Admittedly, the bell did very little that was worth anything with its noise powers over these first games. In fact, besides the well-timed #13 in game one (which may have grabbed me the game) and all the dispel dice that those free scorches drew out (besides the ogre game when I had no other magic), I’d go so far as to say that it did
nothing worth while. Thankfully though I still think you get a lot for 200 points, including that lovely lovely unbreakable
Anyway, Day 1 came to a close, with me at win-draw-draw and a respectable 21
BP, when the highest player had 30. Then this happened:
DAY 2 GAME 4: VAMPIRE COUNTS After drunken rampages and restful slumber in our meatlocker-esque hotel room, it was time for the most serious game of the tournament: Andrew’s gravestar + ghoulspam in a triple objective game. (Basically battleline + significant
VPs for holding objectives evenly spaced down the middle of the board.)
Vampire Lord - level 3/4 (VAMP), master of the black arts, raise ghouls, helm of commandment, good armor, good ward, dispel scroll, 2+ armor, etc
Vampire Thrall - loremaster (LIGHT), powerstone, etc
Wight King -
BSB, The Hof
40 Ghouls - ghast
40 Ghouls - ghast
12 Ghouls - ghast
30 Grave Guard - banner of the barrows, full command, great weapons
5 Wraiths
Black Coach
So what you’d expect of
VC these days (one of my clubmates was running a very similar list, with varg instead of coach and different ghoul levels). Now, I know I can beat gravestar / ghoulspam
VC, my army has the tools it needs. Problem is, being skaven means that my tools aren’t necessarily going to be cooperating, and I need them to work.
With no pics to offer, let’s keep the report short too. Once he saw that my burning bell bus was headed into the gravestar, The Hof went down in a ghoul horde instead, promising to make life difficult for me. I got an early doomwheel tag onto the black coach, but the lasers were only S4, ensuring its destruction - the other wheel would spend the game making wraiths paranoid and eventually counter-charging in late game to help out the bell, but failing to turn combat and spend the last turns fleeing. Censers absorbed magic missile attention for a few turns before blocking the regening ghoul horde, and astoundingly the three living PCB assassinated the vamp hero before being shredded by ghouls.
And now I’ve run out of near misses or silver linings. The bell smashed into the gravestar Turn 2 (skaven went second), and the seer was dead before Turn 4, so I was allowed three magic phases. Winds blew poorly, made worse by the coach, and saw me effectively death frenzy the bell, get scorch on the grave guard but not the regening ghouls, and frantically try to 13th the vampire lord in his little ghoul bunker. My attempts failed, and soon enough the ghoul bunker was too big to insta-gib even if my seer weren’t KBed
Anyway, the bell unit got the grave guard under 10 models at some point, but was flanked on both sides by ghouls, which removed the stormvermin in a couple turns. Then the bell was viciously cut down by S6 great weapons that hit on 2+, and you know I think it wanted to die too. Usually the thing makes ward saves like a boss, but this time it failed just about the first six it was asked to make. Ah well.
Big 10(+) to 0 win for Andrew, and I had to apologize for getting frustrated during the game. I’ve beaten almost this exact
VC build in the past, which made things especially irksome, but I cannot do it with this army if the dice aren’t with me. Also, getting 0 points sucks :’(
Speaking of nonsense, here’s what the bell tolled:
1. Deafening Peals [No T7 on the board!]
2. A Stirring Beyond the Veil [Not in combat! But some damage dealt.]
3. Deafening Peals [No T7 on the board!]
4. A Stirring Beyond the Veil [Fighting on all sides = not a lot of supporting attaks to make! But some damage dealt.]
5. Wall of Unholy Sound [Army dead = not many +1A to go around!]
6. DEAD
But I gotta give the big guy credit, that’s a lot of high energy results, with apparently no doubles. So great pitch, just not the right tune for the occasion
GAME 5: ORCS & GOBLINS Going into Crossroads this year I had a premonition that I would be playing O&G a lot, and I was actually a bit worried as I think the army is quite strong and can do many things I don’t know to expect yet, and my own list has a distinct lack of chaff to deal with fanatics and manglers. Somehow I dodged a lot of other orcs and ended up against Jeff’s awesome Orchestra:
Orc Warboss - sword of anti-heroes (?), 4+ ward, stubborn crown, wyvern
Orc Great Shaman - level 3, 4+ ward
Orc Big Boss -
BSB, 5+ ward
Black Orc Big Boss - shield
25 Orc Big’uns - full command, shields
40 Night Goblins - full command, nets, two fanatics
5 Wolf Riders - some command
25 Black Orcs - banner of eternal flame, full command
2 Wolf Chariots
Wolf Chariot
Wolf Chariot
Spear Chukka
Spear Chukka
Pump Wagon - +1S
Pump Wagon - +1S
Doom Diver
Doom Diver
Mangler
Mangler
All told a pretty small, wonderfully converted army that I was thrilled to smash to bits
Jeff was a great guy and this was definitely The Fifth Game for him - in other words, time for fighting!
I finished deploying far before him, so here he is plopping down more and more lil’ specialist units:
My flood of nurglings and things grab first turn and scoot up cautiously. My doomwheel on the right wonders how he’s supposed to handle four chariots, a pump wagon and five wolves by himself, though the one on the left feels better about going up against a pump wagon, a mangler and a chukka. Gutters pull out fanatics and begin peppering a pump wagon and things. The screaming dreadnought braps out a 24”
BSB bubble, and I pull his scroll out on a long shot crack’s into his level 3.
The right doomtoad contemplates lending a hand to my Empire opponent from Game 1, who was fighting a black knight deathstar + terrorgheist next door …
Anyway, the Orchestra trundles forward, mostly. Manglers play it cagey and move backwards. Magic pulls out my scroll vs. foot o’ gork on the bell bus, and in shooting his doom divers fail to hurt doomwheels, while a spear chukka miraculously wounds a wheel and it flips out, driving to the right and away from its commanding run down the left flank! The other chukka misfires and misses a turn.
Skaven respond with yet another controlled advance - basically, the manglers need to be neutralized ASAP and it’s not happening fast enough. The right doomwheel does laserify its pump wagon, but it took so many lasers to do it that it wasn’t able to frag the cloud of chariots headed into it in the near future. Otherwise the left gutters slap a wound or two on the left mangler, and magic sees another d-bag crack’s call through his wizard dispelled (this one might have been scrolled). The bell puts up another 24”
BSB bubble, popping some nurglings with a double. Like a boss.
Jeff decides that sitting still and being magicked into oblivion (I do have range on him, and +1 level) isn’t his cup of tea, so he steps on it, advancing strongly across the board. His two chariot unit flanks the right doomwheel, but do to terrain only one chariot actually makes base - he wounds the wheel but the wheel max grinds and shreds a chariot, drawing combat. He gets up Fists o’ Gork on his shaman, then proceeds to blow up a doom diver and a spear chukka
Also, manglers return to the game and my anxiety returns …
Charge! Bell bus hammers into the blorcs + shaman, censers leap out of the forest into the big’uns + block hero +
BSB, and the left doomwheel makes a drunk flank charge into the night gobs (my intent was to park next to them and distribute lasers into the pump wagon to the left and the mangler to the front). Magic sees my seer drop Fists, fake Jeff out with a crack’s through his level 3 + general (he dispels as expected), and get death frenzy on the bell bus. In shooting I fail to drop a mangler, with gutters and ratling gun putting both of them at 1 wound left! Combat however is brutal, with the censers wounding the blorc hero and slaughtering 10+ orcs for the loss of five (three to their own smelliness). Amazingly they win but big’uns hold. Then the bell bus
rocks it: juiced up corruption assassin decapitates the great shaman (thanks The Other Trickster’s Shard), and bell + attak allocation shenanigans means the blorcs are testing at something unpleasant. They do pass though, with the
BSB reroll. Also, the left toad beats the night gobs (they hold), and the right toad tears into the remaining chariot but combat is a tie (I forgot to fire lasers into combat over there …)
Here we see the greenskin response, midway through the Mangler Phase: one has jumped through a wheel and detonated it, and the other is getting ready to pound through the bell bus, which horded out after the last turn. Many stormies died, but nobody cared too much.
Notice that pump wagon which charged some rippers (gutters) back there? Two of five somehow survived
2D6 S5 impacts (6-6-6 on wards again!), and killed the thing before the snots could attak! Professionals! They would go on to sit on the doomwheel-killing mangler
But yea, S3 hatred-less censers were clubbed to death, which combined with night goblin reforms and a scared wyvern meant his line basically got ready for the bell horde to do what it would with the blorcs and bring it on. Which it did, grinding the blorcs up and running them down. A chariot had got involved in the fight but death frenzy stormies dismantled it (after 6 impact wounds though, yikes).
Somehow the bell ended up off the table soon, likely by crushing through the last doom diver, then came back on, moved within 4” of the big’un block, and I cannily tossed a single die for the bell’s ring. Unholy Clamor came up, pushing the bell
D6” and right into combat
Magic gave me enough dice to drop Jeff’s warboss down a crack (the wyvern survived but failed monster reaction), and Jeff called it after my juiced up assassin evaporated his blorc hero, the big’uns broke and his
BSB auto-died.
Oh, the Bell:
1. Embolden
2. Embolden (x2)
3. Deafening Peals
4. ???
5. Unholy Clamor
6. N/A
Big win at the end netted me a load of points, but it wasn’t enough to overcome that 0 from before and a somewhat mediocre paint score - my nurgley skaven ended up in the bottom half of the pack. Frankly though I had a great time and was thrilled to go 2-1-2 with a totally different skaven list from the ordinary
- Salvage
2000 (RT era Thousand Sons), 
2000 (Undivided), 
2500 (Skaven), 
(RT era World Eaters WIP) 
Eldar 
-5000 points 