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Hey all,

This is going to be the thread for me to post the battle reports of my trip to Forgotten Heroes 2013. It was held this Saturday (the 14th) and I spent the weeks prior frantically painting to get everything ready.

The tournament has a bit of odd comp to it: no Lords or Special Characters are allowed, but you do get 35% to spend on heroes instead. I think that this is pretty hard on the Liche Priests, but it does mean less Dragons and Daemon Princes instead I guess. There is also some soft scores available: out of a total of 80 points, 60 are assigned as normal for the three games, 5 points are awarded for providing a small fluff section about your army, and 15 points are given for bringing a fully painted force. So I guess that I will at least get 20 points overall...

The List

The list that I decided to take is focused around using Death Magic and Catapults to hammer the enemy at range, while a Tomb Guard Horde gives my enemy something to think about. I will be quite vulnerable to enemy warmachines and the Anti-Heroes Sword, but on the plus side I should be playing to the TK strengths of ranged magic and shooting. I hope to use Death Snipes to deal with enemy MC that will otherwise give me real issues.



Since I had to write a fluff section, I also named the units in my army. Hopefully this doesn't make it too hard to read.

Heroes = 613pts
Hector the Haughty: Tomb Prince, Dragonhelm, Great Weapon (114pts) (General)
Phormio the Popular: Tomb Prince, Dragonbane Gem, Great Weapon (109pts)
Plato the Blind: Liche Priest, Level 2, Nehekhara (105pts)
Zeno the Paradoxical: Liche Priest, Level 2, Death (105pts)
Socrates the Contentious: Liche Priest, Level 2, Death, Horse (115pts)
Phidias the Idle, Necrotect, Ironcurse Icon (65pts)

Core = 517pts
Bastion of the Wise: Skeleton Archers, 19, Mus, Std (134pts)
Outriders of the Phalanx: Skeleton Chariots, Std, 3 (175pts)
Thessalonian Scouts: Skeleton Horse Archers, 5 (70pts)
The Riders of Poseidon: Skeleton Horsemen, 9, Full Command (138pts)

Special = 548pts
Charmides’ Companions: Tomb Guard, 38, Full Command, Sword and Shield, Banner of Swiftness (463pts)
Hades' Gift: Tomb Scorpion (85pts)

Rare = 315pts
Temple of the Royal Will: Casket of Souls
Woe to the Vanquished: Screaming Skull Catapult
Contempt for the fallen: Screaming Skull Catapult

The Fluff

Finally for this introduction post, I present the fluff that accompanies my army for this tournament. I quite enjoyed writing it, and it certainly covers many of my favourite parts of the TK background: the epic, bronze age feel of this ancient civilisation, and the utter self-centred nature of the Tomb Kings themselves.

Hear ye, hear ye, trembling wretches of the north, of the army that marches to your doom, and of the hateful pair of brothers that leads it forth. These two brothers, most bitterly opposed, do manifest and represent the cruel lessons of the gods, and ye may take comfort in knowing that their life and undeath has been as an eternity of agony to them. For each will only feel happiness when the other lies dead, and yet the curses of the gods do render them unto a eternity of communal existence. Hear ye, this tale, and know pity or contempt as is your wont.

There were once two brothers, as different in character as a placid lake and the raging sea. Twin sons of King Charmides, called in later ages the Undying, they grew up distant from each other, each in all ways contrasting with the other. Prince Hector was proud and aloof, never allowing others to perceive him as merely a man; his main strength lay in his aspect of detachment from lesser concerns, mortal frailties. Prince Phormio was ever at the centre of the people’s affections; gregarious and confident, his company of companions was always full and mirthful. While the first would seek to lead solely by the power of his cold logic and his stern gaze, the other would boldly leap into the breach, and, commanding attention by his proud presence, dominate the action.

Never could the brothers agree on anything, ‘cept their mutual antipathy. They were elemental forces, locked in a struggle for their father’s attentions. Though a King may have two sons, he can only have one successor. And so they struggled, fought, contested and contended their strengths against each other – court, temple and battlefield alike saw their bitter rivalry played out. As their contest – and their very lives – entered its thirtieth year, the crowd of the commons perceived that the King must indeed pick the vital passion of Prince Phormio to be his heir. For as the salt sea must undoubtedly consume the fresh water of a river, emptying out into the vastness of its bulk, so the popularity of Phormio could not be overwean’d by the wisdom and logic of Hector.

But the gods had other plans. The brothers, each accustomed to fight against the other, were dispatched by their father royal Charmides to destroy the forces of an invading force. So fiercely did rage their mutual hatred that each camped apart, detesting the very air that did part from their brother’s lips. So consuming was their disgust that neither would consult with the other, even upon the eve of battle. And so utterly did they envy the other’s life that they would not join battle as a unified pair, like the striking pincers of a scorpion; but instead, betrayed by this foul contest, they did each launch a separate blow, the uncoordinated effect like that of a drunkard’s punches, which is easily turned aside by the laughing mockery of a sober man.

And so the god’s plan came to effect, and the pair did both lie in the dust, to the ruination of their house and the premature death of their father. The three were carried into the crypts of their eternal resting together, a trio of tragedy to warn future generations of the hatred that the gods feel for the envy of brothers. But the sorcery of Nagash put an end not only to the lives of those who lived in their proud and fair city, but also put an end to the peaceful death that had – but for a brief time – ended their contest. Returned to life, the two brothers are now animated by a hatred for the living no less strong than their hatred for themselves, a grievous fraternity.  Sent forth by Charmides, called the Undying, the pair do ravage the lands side by side, made an effective pair only by the dictates of their eternal father. But even now does their contest continue, and so the generalship does rotate betwixt the two, as each contends with the other before the hosts of the army, the court of their father, and the priests of the temples to have the right of command.

Now go, listener, and consider ye well this tale of fraternal strife: for there must be some thoughts to fill thy idle time, before the hateful brothers do descend upon thee.

Below I will be posting reports for my three games; feel free to leave comments on them and on this introduction post!

Game One – Warriors of Chaos

My first game was against a chap named Will, who brought a slightly odd WoC list. Though I’ve played Warriors before, this was my first time encountering the Skullcrushers, and it was interesting to see them in action. As for the rest of the reports, I’ll probably have forgotten any actual magic items, but I’ll try to remember the relevant ones.



Exalted Hero, Mark of Nurgle
BSB – Palaquin of Nurgle, Mark of Nurgle, Charmed Shield
Level 2 sorceror, Tzeentch (Treason of Tzeentch, Tzeentch’s Firestorm)

21 Nurgle Warriors, Hand Weapon and Shield
10 Marauders with flails (as a bunker)
5 Marauder Horsemen

Warshrine
6 Chosen, halberds
6 Chosen, halberds

3 Skullcrushers, Musician

For my spells, I got:

Nehek Priest – Cursed Blades, Protection
Death Priest on foot – Spirit Leech, Soulblight
Death Priest on horse – Doom and Darkness, Purple Sun

The scenario was Blood and Glory, and I had 6 fortitude to my opponent’s 4.



I deployed in a fairly aggressive fashion, hoping to engage his Warriors block with my Tomb Guard, use Killing Blow to cut him to pieces, and thus get the B&G win condition. For this tournament, that wouldn’t end the game; instead it would give me 400VC, which should be enough to get a solid win. I otherwise deployed overly forward, as I was so excited by the massive hill that I couldn’t resist sticking my archers and catapult on top of it. My Horsemen and Chariots went onto the left, facing off against the enemy Horsemen and Crushers. Finally, I placed my Horse Archers between my Tomb Guard and Chariots in the centre of my line, scouted forward a few inches.



Warriors of Chaos won the first turn, and immediately declared a charge against my Horse Archers with the Skullcrushers. I think that mentally I assumed I would get the first turn, and so never bothered to worry about this possibility. Whoops. The Marauder Horsemen sort of shuffled around a bit.



The rest of the Warriors army moved forward at full steam towards my lines. That tiny little gap between our lines is pretty much the best indictment of my deployment that could be given. By the way, the Chosen rolled on the Warshrine thing before the game began, and got +1 Attack and 6+ Ward save between the two units; my opponent had rather hoped to get a Daemon Prince, which would make him the only general with a Lord on the table.

In magic, my opponent used Firestorm on the chariots, which obliterated one of them; he also tried for the Warshrine’s bound spell. I can’t quite remember what happened with that, but I don’t think that the outcome of the spell mattered much.

The Hellcannon celebrated the start of the shooting phase by shooting at one of my chariots: it misfired, went bananas, and stormed forward a bit to get into melee. Because that is a normal thing to do.

In melee, the Skullcrushers rather destroyed the Horse Archers. It was a bit gruesome to watch, really. They then overran into my Tomb Guard, taking the opportunity to wheel for a favourable placement. Due to some sort of a self-hating streak, I had placed my Hierophant in this unit, rather than in the archers; this meant that he now had a skullcrusher in base contact with the T3 W2 model holding my army together…



At the start of my first turn, I declared a charge with the chariots onto the Horsemen. I figured that I might as well get involved in the charge action. The Horsemen declared a flee reaction; next turn they would run straight off the table, netting me a truly massive 70 victory points. Totally worth it.

The Archers tried to swift reform into a narrow enough formation to fit between the Tomb Guard and the Catapult, so that they could retreat backwards. However they failed the leadership test (on LD9!) and so they just reformed and looked a bit gormless. Before I did this I moved the Liche Priest (with Death magic) out of the unit, to keep him safe from the approaching horrible things.

My Magic phase saw Spirit Leech onto one of the Skullcrushers dispelled. Then I cast the casket’s bound spell; it hit one of the chosen units, who passed their leadership test. It didn’t bounce to another unit, which is a shame because my opponent’s line was very crowded and it could have hit just about every unit in his army.

In the shooting phase, both of my catapults targeted the Warriors Battle Standard Bearer, who – despite being inside an infantry unit - could be picked out due to being carted around on a monstrous beast thing. The first catapult missed; the second one hit, but was negated by the charmed shield. Thus concluded the dread and terrifying magic and shooting phases of the lords of Khemri.

In the combat phase, my opponent’s Skullcrushers went before my Tomb Guard, and took the opportunity to kill not only my Hierophant, but also my General into the bargain. In return, the other Prince, the Necrotect, and the Tomb Guard managed to put four wounds onto them; after stomps and static resolution, we drew combat.



As my Hierophant had died, I got the insurpassable pleasure of rolling crumble tests. Normally these go alright for me, but today the dice gods were cursing me, and the casualties were high. The Liche Priest on foot took a wound, as did the archer unit. One of the catapults was destroyed. Then the Casket of Souls crumbled, releasing the souls within in a wave of angry energy that took a wound from the remaining catapult and killed the Liche Priest on foot. Not good. A photo of my right flank should sum it up:



Onlookers visibly cringed.



The Warriors began their second turn by declaring a raft of charges; the two Chosen units declared against the Scorpion and the Catapult, while the Warriors block declared against the Archers. Of these, only the first succeeded, so my ranged units survived for another turn.

Finally, the Hellcannon continued its temper tantrum by declaring a (failed) charge against the Chariots. I didn’t really know what to do about that situation, but I knew that I felt negatively about it.

The magic phase had nothing of any real interest happen, except for a failed attempt to kill the chariots with Firestorm. Since the Hellcannon had decided to go for a stroll, the Warriors were also attending the shooting phase in name only, and we moved straight onto combats.

In the Scorpion combat, the beasty managed to kill one Chosen, while they took a wound from it in return. Due to the construct rule, the Scorpion didn’t crumble despite losing combat by one. In the main combat, the Skullcrushers earned their reputation by killing yet another character (this time my last Prince model), but they didn’t do much damage beyond that. I didn’t do any damage at all to them however, which was clearly the result that I hoped for when I paid four hundred and fifty points for this unit. I think that either we drew combat again this turn, or one side lost by one; either way, both units held.

At the start of my turn two, my last Catapult crumbled to death. Oh well. I decided not to charge the Hellcannon with my chariots. You could speculate that this is because I didn’t want to risk the longish charge. But mainly it was because my chariots would manifestly fail to injure the giant sodding monster that masquerades as a warmachine. Instead my left flank shuffled backwards to get away from it.

In the magic phase, I gambled on a six-diced Purple Sun (from my only caster) to try and kill the Hellcannon. I rolled the dice. I misfired. My wizard didn’t explode (though a couple of his mates did get blown to bits). The template was aimed at the Hellcannon, with its I2. I rolled the dice. I rolled a 2 for distance, so that it went 6 whole inches. I wept a bit in my face. On the plus side, it now couldn’t charge either of my units, as the template was in the way…



In the shooting phase my Archers passed all expectations and actually killed a couple of Chosen. I was dead impressed by this, but sadly the Chosen didn’t fail their panic test.



Finally, in the melee phase we dealt with the same two combats as last turn. The Chosen chopped the Scorpion into tiny wee pieces, and reformed to face the Archers. The Skullcrushers, meanwhile, proceeded to harvest my tears and shattered dreams by utterly devastating my Tomb Guard unit.



At the start of the Warriors third turn, Will finally managed to get his big Warriors block into melee against my Tomb Guard. The Chosen, recently victorious over the Scorpion, charged the flank of my Archers. The Hellcannon decided to sit still for a change and try shooting. It missed.
After a fairly savage round of combat, I was left with a very shaky right flank:



This left not many choices on my turn three, the last turn that we got to play (as we had been slow to start the game). I pinged a few Chariot arrows off of the Hellcannon, decided not to cast spells for fear of miscasting my sole remaining caster, and then lost the last of my Tomb Guard. The Archers survived mainly by dint of only allowing three Chosen to fight them.



The game ended as you see above, with my opponent receiving around 1600vp, while I got 70vp. Due to the tournament scoring system, this netted Will 20 points to my 0. I was thus sent to table 12 for my post-lunch game; on the plus side, I was already on table 12, so I got to relax a bit while everyone else scuttled around. Next up: Beastmen, and Battle for the Pass!

Great report, and always nice to read about TK out and about Keep 'em coming!

- Salvage

Thanks for the read and the comment! I enjoy writing battle reports, and find that it certainly gives me time to ponder my multitude of tactical sins. Here is the second game, and I hope that you enjoy that as well.

Game Two - Beastmen

My opponent this game went by the name of Dave, and he brought Beastmen along. Happily he hadn’t brought the dreaded Herdstone Shard, but he had brought a fairly typical looking list. In light of his low Leadership and multiple small units, I felt reasonably confident about being able to use my list’s strengths against him.





Doombull – 3+ armour and a 4+ ward, I think. He went into the Bestigors.
Shaman – Beasts (Wildform, Savage Beast)
BSB – he and the Shaman went into the Gors unit.

40 Gors, Full Command, Additional Hand Weapons. These chaps were S4, which may be because of a magic banner?
Chariot
Chariot

Harpies
Razorgor Chariot
Razorgor Chariot
Razorgor
24 Bestigors, Full Command, Great Weapons

For my magic, I got the following:

Nehek: Desert Wind, Vengeance (movement hex)
Death on foot: Spirit Leech, Soulblight
Death on horse: Doom and Darkness, Purple Sun



After the fiasco of the last game, I decided to deploy very conservatively. We were playing Battle for the Pass, but the tournament pack specified that you had to deploy at least 6” in from your short table edge. I deployed my shooting elements camped on the 6” line, with the Tomb Guard, Chariots, Scorpion and Horsemen placed forward to intercept enemy units. The Beastmen, meanwhile, stuck both of their big units onto their left, angling to butcher my Tomb Guard, and effectively refused the right flank. There is another chariot on the far right, which you cannot see in this photograph.



The Casket of Souls was loving the extreme LoS-block nature of that hill. My opponent had not faced Tomb Kings in many years, and soon came to hate this particular unit with the fury of ten thousand suns.

I got first turn. My movement was to angle the Tomb Guard towards his Bestigor unit, and scuttle the Scorpion forward towards the same. The Chariots and Horse Archers stayed put up on their hill, not wanting to reap more ignominy.



In the magic phase, I cast Doom and Darkness on his Bestigors; I might be wrong, but I believe that failed to dispel it. I then opened the Casket in the vague direction of his right flank, and proceeded to evaporate a Chariot and the Harpy unit. To celebrate this, his other Chariot fled off the table in panic. Good times. In one fell swoop I had total dominance on my left, and my Chariots were now free to act.

In the shooting phase, my bows were all out of range. The Catapults fired; one missed the Bestigor unit, while the other hit and did only a couple of wounds. My opponent passed his Panic test.



The first Beastman turn saw a general advance towards my lines. The Razorgor and Chariots aimed squarely at my Horsemen, not least because they were bunkering the Doom and Darkness mage, while the Bestigors and Gors made noises towards my Tomb Guard.

His magic phase saw Wildform on the Gors dispelled and Savage Beast failed to cast.



In my second turn, I moved the Scorpion into chargebait range, angled to give the Chariots a good chance at a flank charge. The Chariots and Horse Archers swung around, while the Tomb Guard shambled forward a bit.

In my magic phase, my opponent was feeling very negatively about the Casket, and so held his dice back to dispel it. I took advantage of this, and cast Doom and Darkness on the Bestigor unit, leaving the Bestigors on LD5, with a reroll. I also managed to sneak through two wounds onto the Doombull with Spirit Leech. On the plus side, my opponent did dispel the Casket, as well as scrolling the Vengeance spell on the Gors. My magic phases were going well this game, and I was pretty pleased about that.

I fired both of my Catapults at the nearest Chariot; one hit, and did it two wounds, leaving it on two. It also clipped the Gors and killed a couple, but they passed their Panic test. Bowfire did nothing of note.



The second Beastmen turn saw a general advance, with the Bestigors steaming into the Scorpion to their front and the other units continuing to advance around the Abyssal Wood.

In Magic, my opponent cast Wildform on the Gors, which I let through, and tried to cast Savage Beast on the Doombull which I dispelled.



In the melee phase, the Gors failed their fear test, delightfully, but the Doombull crushed the Scorpion like an egg between his thighs regardless. Poor Scorpion. My opponent decided to hold rather than overrun, probably because he didn’t like the look of the flank charge he would then receive from the Chariots. He reformed a little after I took this photograph, so that my Chariots now faced the front, not the flank, of his unit.



My third turn opened with hunting season declared against the Bestigors. The Chariots and Tomb Guard both made it into melee, and I was able to minimise the number of attacks going towards the comparatively squishy Chariots. The Horse Archers began meandering towards the centre of my lines, while the Death Priest on horse ejected from his unit. The Horsemen themselves moved up to be an inch away from the Razorgor, in an effort to restrict my opponent’s options.



In the magic phase, I was once again able to capitalise upon my opponent’s wariness of the Casket, and get some important spells through. Doom and Darkness was recast onto the Bestigors; the Gors received Vengeance, which left them on M2 and in dangerous terrain.

In shooting, however, my Catapults chose to do poorly; one blew itself to pieces, while the other missed the wounded Chariot. The various Archers in my army also managed to avoid doing even a single wound to the Razorgor, in a display that was somewhat impressive but mostly embarrassing. “Darken the skies with arrows,” my arse.



The combat phase went about as well as it could. The Bestigors totally fluffed their attacks, and the Doombull was only good for a bit of damage, so that my opponent only managed to kill my unit’s champion (in a challenge) as well as the Death mage in that unit. In return, I wounded the Doombull again and slaughtered nine of the Bestigors; even with a BSB reroll, the Bestigors turned and fled. I pursued with the Chariots, who failed to catch, and reformed the Tomb Guard to face the Gor unit. Things were going well.



The Beastman third turn saw the wounded Chariot charge into my Tomb Guard, the Razorgor and other Chariot charge my Horsemen, and the Gor unit stumble forward 4”. This last choice I felt was quite unwise on my opponent’s part; he lost eleven models to the dangerous terrain tests. I suppose that he didn’t want to have my units steaming into his flank. Otherwise, the Bestigors continued running, thanks to Doom and Darkness.

In the magic phase, the Beastman shaman decided that miscasting was a fun thing to do, and lost all of his wizard levels in return for casting Wildform on his own unit. Not really a good exchange.



In combat, the Chariot did a few wounds to the unit and characters, but was cut down for its troubles. In a sign of things to come, the Tomb Guard themselves proved unable to wound it; I had to rely upon the S6 Princes to finish the job.

In the other combat, my Horsemen all died like champions, without even getting to swing. I love these guys; one of my fastest units, and thus first to the fight, but totally useless when they get there. However I was pretty happy about this turn of events; I had sacrificed the Horsemen to hold the Beastmen up for a turn, kept my mage alive, and now had a chance to shoot and Casket those units on my next turn.



I started my fourth turn by declaring a Chariot charge onto the Bestigors, who promptly fled from the table. Yes!


Elsewhere, I chose not to charge with the Tomb Guard. Here my thinking was that the Wildform would remove itself in a turn, and with no wizard levels left then my opponent would be unable to recast it. The Horse Archers moved up to try and intercept the Razorgor, which had reformed after the combat into a good angle.

In the magic phase, I was again prevented from opening the Casket; but I did manage to cast both Doom and Darkness and Vengeance onto the Gor unit. Shooting did absolutely nothing, with the remaining Catapult missing, and so we moved straight onto the next Beastman turn.

My opponent was in a bit of a bind this turn, and I believe that he chose not to charge with the Gors because of the Vengeance hex. He moved the Razorgor forwards, and turned his chariot to follow it next turn. With no magic and no shooting, this was a quick turn.



On my fifth turn, with the bell having been rung to announce the round coming to a close, I declared a charge with the Tomb Guard into the Gors. I was feeling that the Tomb Guard were redeeming themselves after the Skullcrusher incident, and wanted to maximise victory points here. The Horse Archers interposed their weak and brittle bones between the Razorgor and a possible charge on my Archers.

Magic saw Doom and Darkness recast onto the Gors. Shooting, again, did nothing to the remaining Beastman units.



This combat phase was a total disaster for me. My Tomb Guard, fully boosted by characters and at near full strength, was gutted by the Gor unit – a core unit! – and not only did I lose the general and my Necrotect, but I did only two wounds in return, with my speculative attempts to kill out enemy characters rebuffed by the dice failing to return Killing Blow results. I had pretty much lost all chance of a victory in the game, despite my consistently solid position until now, and my Tomb Guard were bleeding wounds and victory points like a stuck pig.



On my opponent’s turn, he charged and destroyed the Horse Archers, and crumbled the Tomb Guard and the remaining Prince to nothing. Ouch.

At this point, we totalled the various losses, and found that our victory point totals were 1389 for Dave and 1251 for me *; we had pretty much killed everything on the board, and both had claimed the general’s scalp, so that seemed about right for a draw. However, the tournament scoring system was very strange:

Players within 100VP of each other – draw.
If one player gets more than 100VP more than the opponent, it is a 15-5 to that player.
If one player gets more than double the VP of his opponent, it is a 20-0 to that player.

Under these rules, it became a moderately crushing 15 point win for Dave. I don’t mean to take his win away from him, because that is just how the game went. But both of us, and indeed the various onlookers, agreed that it felt distinctly like a draw; the points difference was a mere 138 between us! The same scoring system allowed the Wood Elves player to get very favourable results by simply winning the chaff war and refusing to get into any main combats. As I say, odd; but then I'm sure that I wasn't the only person to feel hard done by in the scoring, so probably it worked for the tournament ranking overall. I do know that the top places were all decided purely on VP difference, though.

This bizarre scoring, and the disaster of the final Tomb Guard combat, rather spoiled the excellent start that I had made to the game, and saw me descend to table 13 with 5 points out of a possible 40. I would next face Hamish’s Lizardmen, in Meeting Engagement.

* For information, if I had not committed to the final Tomb Guard combat, it would have been about 1251-538 instead. Another lesson learned.

Indeed those reports are enjoyable to read, a pleasure to see something else than WoC / Elves being played

Thanks! I also try to provide reports that are neither on Youtube, nor done entirely with Battle Chronicler. I may be old fashioned, but I still prefer pictures and text as the medium for battle reports.

Yeah definitely ... I tend to dislike Youtube battle reports as they tend to take ages .... Plus I can't go on Youtube from the office

Wow... I love your reports but it hurts so bad at some of your bad luck/ enemy's good luck. I know this is a dice game but DAMN.

I hope you keep going and get some good luck!

Thanks man, but yeah I do sometimes wonder if I shouldn't switch to playing Magic instead. I also have a bit of a love/hate relationship with the Tomb Kings; I love the background, the models, and the overall vibe of this bunch of irate bronze age warlords taking out their aggression on the world at large. But I just never do that well with them, which is an awkward realisation to make after painting 2.6k of them. The first game of this tournament was a real eye-opener, in terms of suddenly seeing that I've been playing them wrong.

hopefully armed with that knowledge you can get better, warhammer is a game of constant improvement. You never really not learning I find.

As for Magic man, man do I love magic. Have spent just about as much on Magic as I have on warhammer (which is to say: to much). I like Magic for its swift fun games you can have but I like warhammer for a full day of fun (hopefully)

The problem for me and card games is that deckbuilding just seems so boring. I kinda just want to smash stuff! Hence why I keep looking at my opponent's armies, and thinking, "I can take them". I think that we can all see how that goes.

Game Three – Lizardmen

For this game, my opponent was Hamish, who was using the new Lizardmen book. This was the first time that I played Lizards, but apart from the Bastilons, I had a reasonable idea of what everything could do.



Saurus Hero – lots of magic defences
Saurus Hero – BSB, lots of magic defences
Skink Chief on Terradon – Sword of Striking, lots of defences again
Skink Chief on Terradon – you guessed it…
Skink Priest – Dispel Scroll, Beasts - Amber Spear and Wildform

10 skink skirmishers
10 skink skirmishers
10 skink skirmishers
10 skink skirmishers
24 Saurus Warriors, Hand Weapon and Shield

1 Salamander, extra handler
5 Chameleon Skinks
Bastilon, lazergem thing
Bastilon, lazergem thing
3 Terradon riders

Stegadon Ancient


For my magic, I got:
Nehek – Desiccation, Smiting
Death on foot – Spirit Leech, Caress
Death on horse – Soulblight, Fate of Bjuna



Our scenario this game was Meeting Engagement, and Hamish got to choose quarters; he gave me the one that was effectively totally devoid of terrain. I won the roll off to deploy and go first. At this tournament, the organiser specified that we could put characters inside units before rolling to see if they would deploy on the table. At this point the dice gods cursed me to a thousand years of torment, and I managed to deploy only half of my army; the Tomb Guard, Archers, one of the Catapults, the Horse Archers, and five out of six characters had to march onto the table. This left me in a very weak position, and I tried to castle as much as I could. As you can see in the below photo, the Lizardmen managed to deploy every single unit as per normal.



Hamish then stole first turn. Oh good.



The first Lizardman turn saw a general advance towards my lines. The various Terradon riders were aiming for my Warmachines. Meanwhile, the Chameleon Skinks wandered up to the casket, and took a wound from it with poison.

In the magic phase, I dispelled Amber Spear on a Catapult. A combination of Bastilon lasers (pewpew!) and the Terradon shooting saw two Chariots go down.



In my first turn, I began by declaring three charges; the Chariot tried for the Terradon riders, the Horsemen for the Skink Chief on the left, the Scorpion went after the Skink Chief on the right. I really needed to impair the Lizardmen fast movers, if I wanted any chance to keep my warmachines firing. Of these charges, only the Chariot failed.

Then the rest of my army remembered that there was a battle, and turned up to play. My problem here was the lack of marching for Tomb Kings; with only M4, I would simply never be able to put my newly arrived units in place to block the warmachines in time. I decided to simply abandon my warmachines to the enemy, and concentrate on getting VPs with my central horde unit. With this in mind, I brought the Tomb Guard and Archers on about halfway up my long edge, with the intention of driving straight into the Lizardman army. The other Catapult went next to the first one, which was perhaps not the best idea. Finally I rode the Horse Archers out in front of the machines, aiming for the Chameleons.



In Magic, the Casket went off but didn't manage to do anything. Hamish dispelled Smiting on my Archers, and that was that. Shooting saw the Archers kill three Skinks, who panicked and fled. The Horse Archers shot and killed two Chameleons, but unfortunately they held. Then the stationary Catapult fired at a Bastilon, misfired, and blew itself up.

In combat, the Scorpion took a wound before cutting down its Skink Chief opponent. This made a pleasant change from his usual glorified roadblock self, but it did leave him open to a charge from the Stegadon Ancient... The Horsemen did a wound on the charge to the Skink Chief, who despite using the Egg of Quango managed to do a mere one wound back to them. He held on Cold-Blooded, and we moved to the second Lizardmen turn.



The Stegadon Ancient charged the Scorpion. Poor, poor Scorpion. The fleeing Skinks also rallied at this point.



The Terradon riders flew over the Chariot, killing it with dropped rocks. The rest of the Lizardmen army moved vaguely forwards, but there was a bit of a traffic jam as a result of the ongoing combats to his front.

In the magic phase, Hamish cast Amber Spear onto the Catapult; I declined to dispel, and he failed to wound. The Bastilon's laser beam accounted for half a dozen Archers. I then dispelled Wildform on the Skink Chief, as I kinda wanted him dead.

In the shooting phase, the Salamander fired at and hit the Tomb Guard, killing about three. The Skinks did little in shooting this turn, and would in fact do little for the rest of the game. Meanwhile the Chameleon Skinks failed to wound the Casket.

Combat saw the Horsemen whiff, and the Skink Chief took the time to kill out the Liche Priest, while his mount killed another Horseman. The Stegadon crushed the Scorpion with extreme prejudice and reformed to face the Casket.



I began my second turn by charging the Horse Archers into the Chameleons; they stood and shot, but only killed one.



The Tomb Guard declared a charge on the nearest Skink unit; after they fled, I redirected onto the Salamander, who also fled. The Tomb Guard then ambled forward 5”. One thing that often catches my opponents off guard is my cheerful willingness to declare risky charges; on M4 no-march, a failed charge generally makes little impact to the overall speed of the Tomb Guard.

One thing that was consistent throughout this game was my inability to leverage my magic phase. Hamish had a real knack for rolling box cars on dispel dice, which was a touch distressing to behold. I tried here to cast Spirit Leech onto the nearest Bastilon, but it was dispelled, as also was the Casket.



Shooting saw me begin to whittle down a Skink unit with the Archers. For some reason I never quite twigged that the unit standing next to it, on the back of the Saurus tray, contained a Skink Priest, which I obviously should have shot at instead. I blame the fact that the bar closed at this point, and I was absolutely desperate for a pint.



In combat, the Horse Archers rode down the Chameleons, and then chased them off the board. I believe that I failed the test to restrain pursuit, and so could not block access to the Casket. The Horsemen continued to whiff, and the Skink continued to slowly butcher them.



The Stegadon heralded the start of the third Lizardman turn by slamming into the Casket with gay abandon. I don't mean to spoil the report for you, gentle readers, but it doesn't go well for the Casket.

Other Lizardmen movement includes the Terradons lining up to charge the remaining Catapult, and the various fleeing units all rallying except for one Skink unit that later fled from the table. The Saurus and Bastilons began squaring off against the Tomb Guard.

The magic phase saw the Lizardmen treat the Archers to a laserbeam disco show; I concentrated on dispelling these, and was unable to stop the Skink Chief getting Wildform. Nothing happened in shooting this turn, as most of the Skinks had either just rallied or were actually in combat.



The Stegadon managed – after D3 wounds were taken into account – to do seventeen wounds to the Casket crew with impact hits. Ouch. At least one of the Terradons got swatted out of the sky by the resulting explosion.



The Skink Chief, bolstered by Wildform, finally crushed the remaining Horsemen, and now turned to find new targets.



I started the turn by declaring a charge with the Tomb Guard onto the Bastilon; I rolled 5, as you can see, and there was much dismay and gnashing of teeth. The Horse Archers rode back onto the board, and angled towards the general morass of Lizardmen units.

In magic, again I attempted for Smiting and Spirit Leech: again I was unable to achieve either.

On the plus side, I managed to kill the Skink Chief with the Horse Archers this turn. The Catapult, with the Stegadon bearing down upon it, took the chance to drop a pile of skulls onto the Salamander; it failed its handler LoS! test and got squished. Happy days! Meanwhile, the normal Archers did another wound or two to the Skinks, who resolutely refused to panic. It may indicate the lack of options available to me at this point, if I share that my plan here was to somehow cause the Lizardmen Skink units to chain panic... with Cold Blooded and the BSB re-roll in effect.

The Lizardmen fourth turn saw the Stegadon and Terradons declare charges onto the Catapult. The other Lizardmen units formed some sort of Phalanx, with the Bastilons blocking access to the Saurus block. One of the Skink units spun on the spot to shoot at the Horse Archers.



In magic, the Lizardmen continued to concentrate on casting the laserbeams onto my units, and this turn they succeeded in killing a fair few Tomb Guard. Shooting, which we did after this photograph, saw the Horse Archers wiped out.



Above is a photo that I took from the front, mainly because I was tired of photographing my soldiers' arses.

In combat the Catapult rather predictably got itself smashed to pieces, and the Stegadon reformed to go after my Archers.



My turn four, with only two units left on the board, saw me finally get a charge off with the Tomb Guard. I've had very poor luck with them against monsters before now, so I was nervous about fighting the Bastilon, but I was now so far behind on VPs that there was no point to conserving my army. I would need to utterly crush the Lizardmen core units in a single sweep by the Tomb Guard to even come close to getting 5 tournament points from the game.



However this turn my luck was with me – only taking a single wound on one of the Princes for the entire damage output of the Bastilon, before it got gutted by their great weapons in return. The Tomb Guard overran into the Saurus, and I knew that this would be the only chance I had for a solid score. Even more luckily, my missing back rank meant that I was out of charge arc for the other Bastilon!



But unfortunately it didn't go quite to plan. Critically, my opponent managed to IF Wildform onto the Saurus unit, meaning that I did absolutely no damage to it, even as his S6 I4 characters took wounds from the unit with every blow. This one spell was vital for me to prevent, and I had six dice in hand to try and stop it, but with the IF I was unable to do anything except watch as, yet again, a Core unit ripped my expensive centrepiece horde unit to pieces.



On my last turn I managed to get Smiting off onto the unit, but it was just too little, too late, and the whole unit was lost.

Result – a crushing victory for the Lizardmen, with only my Archers and two Liche Priests on foot left alive (in a manner of speaking) at the end of the game. In return I had managed to kill a Bastilon, the Skink Chiefs, the Salamander, a unit of Skink Skirmishers, and the Chameleon Skinks.

This game was quite a frustrating one, and it is a shame because my opponent was a good laugh, he was using an attractive army that I've not played before, and he was quite patient with my occasional rule confusions. I was totally on the back foot from the start, and with my magic failing to go off and my shooting hampered by the deployment, I was left trying to throw the Tomb Guard in to salvage the situation. Hamish commented that I did well to have as much mid-game success as I did, after the horrific start of the game, and I'm not sure what I would have done differently from that starting point. Perhaps I should have taken the TO up on his offer of buying a new set of dice from him!

Next up: I'm thinking of going through the units in my army and giving each a rating, as well as showing a few photographs of the other armies that took part in the tournament. Stay tuned folks!

Conclusion and Unit Overview

So after three games, I managed 5 battle points, giving me a total score of 25 once the soft scores were accounted for, and 2030 total VP. I placed 27th out of 30, which is not exactly what I had hoped for, but there you go. For reference, the winner of the tournament was Jamie Ferguson, who used Empire, on a score of 80 tournament points and 5645 VP. My opponents’ placing may also be of interest:

Will Eslan, Warriors of Chaos – 8th
Dave Taylor, Beastmen – 11th
Hamish Hepburn, Lizardmen – 19th



On the plus side, I did win Best Tomb Kings General. I was also the only Tomb Kings general, but a win is a win. Above you can see the brothers continuing their feud: even getting killed together in all three games didn't impair their mutual loathing.

Before I begin the unit overview, it is probably worth speaking about the comp. While I felt limited by the lack of Lords (no Liche High Priests in a Tomb Kings army?!) I don’t think that it actually made a difference overall. Unless I was packing a DoE King, I doubt that my combat characters would have been better placed; and my magic went well in the second game without the Lord casters, while the first and third saw either double-six dispels or such poor rolling on my part that another two points wouldn’t have helped. So overall I was happy with the comp, and quite enjoyed the emphasis upon Heroes.

Tomb Princes – I had been relying upon their T5 and W3 to keep them alive, but unfortunately came up against a lot of enemies that didn’t care. Having two GW Princes was fun, and certainly they provided a lot of the damage output for the unit. Perhaps I could have done with ward saves for them, but I’m reluctant to spend so many points on something that never seems to help that much.

Liche Priests – they cast magic, except when they didn’t. I didn’t bring a dispel scroll, and didn’t really miss it either.

Necrotect – at 65pts, this guy did his job. He suffers from being vulnerable to enemies killing him out at I4+, so that Hatred doesn’t work, but he is essentially vital to Tomb Guard so there you go. I also forgot all tournament that the Scorpion would get a 6+ regen within 12” of him, but somehow I don’t think that it would have mattered.

Core Units – These mostly did about as I expected. The Horse Archers killed something in melee! That makes a change. Otherwise, the Chariots killed stuff on the charge the one time that they managed it, the Horsemen provided speed and safety to a mounted Liche Priest (who survived both the first games), and the Archers were underwhelming as always.

Tomb Scorpion – at 85pts it is hard to fault this fella. He has a large enough base and a fast enough movement that I enjoyed using him to redirect; he is also tough enough to maybe kill some stuff. I definitely prefer deploying him normally though, as the Entombing never seems to go my way.

Tomb Guard – Ah, where to start. So this unit was 463pts, and with the combat characters it topped out at 751pts. They were the centre of my list, designed to both attract the enemy and to crush him in melee. They sort of did the first, but I think that we all know they failed at the latter. Let us look at the combats: Skullcrushers, Bestigors, Gors, Bastilon, Saurus. Out of these, they won two, one against a support monster that cost under a third of what they did. The rest of the time they managed to get murdered, including by a unit of MC that cost about 240pts. I am most disappointed by these guys, in ways that has nothing to do with their lack of marching. Obviously I am aware that a lot of this was bad luck. They just don’t have the number of attacks to get past whiffing, and they took damage so fast that I couldn’t stem the tide when the combats went against me. And I know that many will suggest that they need halberds (which sadly the models don’t have). But it is hard to not feel that I’d have been better off just sticking to Necropolis Knights, and investing that 290pts of character support into a sphinx and a second Scorpion, or something equally tough and fun. Disappointingly, I am inclined to leave these guys on the shelf next time around.

The Catapults – a bit distressingly prone to missing, but I just don’t have anything else that can do one-hits on both units and monsters alike. It is a shame that I never managed to panic anyone with the D&D combo, but at least I got some use out of them. The games that I did worse in are the ones where I didn’t have time to make use of their shooting, which seems about right.

The Casket – performed about as expected. I was mighty pleased to see it go to town in the second game.

My next tournament will be Winter War, in November, and my intention is to take quite a different list. I should be doing a similar thread there (though hopefully with a different outcome!), and the plan at the moment is to take two Sphinges, two Catapults, two Liche High Priests, and a unit of Necrosnakes. Whether I manage to paint all of this in time is a different story…



The Armies

Finally, I present some of the painted armies that took the field in this event. There was some lovely forces stomping around Edinburgh that day, and I was a bit sad in my face when I then looked back at my own army

In no particular order:











Note the can of Irn-Bru - a true sign of a tournament in Scotland...















And the winner of Player’s Choice for Best Painted Army went to this one:



I hope that you have enjoyed this tournament report as much as I enjoyed attending and writing it, and I hope to see you in another thread soon!

Awesome report, really bad luck at points and I think had your magic been more successful you would of been in a higher bracket.

I will be looking forward to the next report. These old picture style reports are the best.

Once again I must say that your reports are great but the bad luck is staggering to say the least!
I find that warhammer is a very luck based game so sometimes quantity is better then quality. Fielding more cheap core units might be the way to go, instead of tomb guard you could lay out a big ton of skeletons that make great tar pits that the chariots can flank charge into.
I don't know if you like the big sphinx unit big I love how it looks and have really wanted to see it on the field, maybe drop those so-so catapults for something else?

As for your comment on Magic deck building: Yes it can be boring, but I actually love it. I take the game really serious so I spend hours online looking at what people are playing so that my deck can stand up to it. If you want to just smash stuff that work to, go green stomping or red speedy and those pretty simple and hard hitting decks that win by attacking again and again.

Cheers!

Thanks for the comments!

The idea with a huge unit of Skeletons is mostly out due to the Crumble rules, I am afraid - if you lose combat, all your units take the damage equally, so if your Skeletons lose combat by 10 then the Sphinx to the side will also take 10 wounds. The only real use for Skeleton Warriors is to be taken in a unit of 80 and used to tie up enemy units all game. TG can at least cause damage...

Fine reps and pics, rotten luck though

Well done on the bat rep, looked like a cool tourney with lots of interesting armies!

I enjoyed these reps. Hard luck though. Buy some new dice?

Great reps. Some poor luck in there, but your biggest misfortune was coming up against the lists that was the paper to your rock.

Looking at your list it's clear that you had some serious deficiencies when it came to dealing with armour. Against the skullcrushers that was definitely the case. If you don't have halberd models for the tomb guard then perhaps consider giving them a razor standard instead of the movement one. You can work around having one fewer inch of movement, but when bloodcrushers or demigryphs are saving your wounds on a 2+ there's really not much you can do about that save watch your unit evaporate away.

Death magic and the Casket were meant to be my answer to armour, but I just didn't have time to make that work. Halberds (and the razor standard) would have indeed made all the difference in that combat, but unfortunately my second-hand models didn't come with them.

Really entertaining series. I too far prefer the text and pictures format. (though it is a lot of work)

 Charles Rampant wrote:
Death magic and the Casket were meant to be my answer to armour, but I just didn't have time to make that work. Halberds (and the razor standard) would have indeed made all the difference in that combat, but unfortunately my second-hand models didn't come with them.

Yeah death and casket are great answers to armour, but unfortunately you're always going to need backups.

For the halberdguard, try just picking up a single box and throwing some halberds onto the front rank. Or, as i mentioned, give them the razor standard. Preferably both. I've been running 33 with halberds, razor standard, and Ramhotep and it's been treating me pretty well. They're a little cheaper and more survivable with sword and board, but the damage output on the halberdguard is significant.