GOATCON 2024- Day 1

 Goatcon 2024

Goatcon is a small 6^th edition Warhammer competition in Christchurch and this year it was also opened up to a Kings of War event run, as always, by Mark. 8 of us made it to fight for bragging rights of the best general, or the greatest goat depending on how well one’s army performed. Each army had a special goat character to add to their army from game 2 with special rules provided by Mark. My Goat was the last surviro of a WFB beastman army I sold aobut 2002 or 2003.

I ran, as I tend to do, my ogres and had been busy tidying up the basing and painting up new units to match the others. Most of my army is by Traxli factory and are a lovely range of very characterful ogres.

I couldn’t settle on a final list an in the end having been smashed repeatedly by Gordon’s dwarves I felt that had a few weaknesses and was not 100% settl3d on a couple of the units erven though I was happy enough with most of it. 5 games over 2 days would give me a good opportunity to decide which units would perform. My aim to take as many units as I enjoyed using and avoid what I call the BAF (boring as fuck) ogre list of 3 warrior regs, 3 Siege breaker hordes, 3 warlocks and 3 sergeants with crossbows.. boring.

My own self imposed rule is to have no more than 2 of the same thing in a an army- so no more than 2 warlocks, bullies or siege breakers). With the rent changes to the siege breakers I wanted to drop one back to a humble warrior regiment but boosted its combat ability by giving it the brew of Str to give in crushing 2 in melee, so almost as powerful as a siege beaker horde bir 5 pts less (and Def 5 vs Def 6).  

 

Nom Nom Rides Again:

• 1x Hunter horde with mead of madness
• 1x Boomer horde
• 2x Warrior Regs
• 1x Warrior horde with Brew of Str
• 1x Siege Breaker horde- blessing of the gods (elite)
• 1x Giant
• 1x Boomer Sergeant
• 2x Beserker bullies
• 1x Warlock with boomstick- Drain life and Lightning Bolt
• Nom Nom
• Ogre Warlord n a chariot- orb of towering presence

13 units, 25 US

 

Game 1: Dominate vs Nick (Goblins)

• 1x Rabble reg
• 2x Sharpstick legions
• 1x Spitter horde (bows)
• 1x Troll horde- with Det packs and dwarven ale
• 1x Felabag rider reg
• 1x Mincer mob troop
• 1x Maw pup launcher
• 1x winggit
• 2x Giants (Doof and Dorf)
• 1x King
• 1x king on a fleabag with pendant of retribution

16 units, 26 unit strength

Nick loves playing goblins and orcs. This is the third time we’ve met on the table and I always thoroughly enjoy playing him. He definitely lives the goblin life in his approach to gaming.

The game was another good one. I got lucky early on by double charging and smashing both of his goblin legions but this meant Doof and Dorf his twin giants were charging at high steam towards my lines. 

My giant got hit to 17 wounds but a very fortuitous double 1 meant he survived for another round./ A goblin king wasn’t having any of that, grabbing his trusty side kick, a flaggit (standard bearer) he charged the giant and managed a wound and my giant fled the field. The following turn the same king/flaggit combo smashed into a badly damaged boomer horde and also saw them off.

However, by now the superior fighting prowess of the ogres meant that we claimed the field. A good fun opening game with lots of highlights and low lights for us both.

MVP: The warrior horde did sterling work. 

Steady! 

The Greentide advances

The goblin legions did not like being charged by the ogres and imploded in spectacualr style- bothw ere destoeryed in the same turn!)

But this allowed the giants Doof and Dorf to close with my ogres

Hunters slow up the trolls in theforest... I like the ensnare rule. 

Fighting rages in the centre

In the end the ogres maintined superior unit strenght in the 12" centre circel to claim victory. 

Game 2: Invade Vs Arthur’s undead

• 2x skeleton regiments
• 1x revenant horde
• 2x Wraith troops
• 1x Zombie troll horde
• 2x Revenant cav horrdes
• 2x Balefire catapults
• 1x Reveant king
• 2x Necromancer
• Undead standard bearer
• Lady Ilona
• Revenant king on flying worm

(16 units, 23 US)

 I’ve played Arthur once before and he had a fairly typical undead list including revenant horde, a couple of with troops, zombie trolls, revenant cavalry, the dreaded balefire catapult’s, and various characters and an undead flying chicken.

The game went pretty well for me early on and I chipped away at a few units but Arthur put pressure on my right flank with the flying chicken and cavalry. I used my Goat to try to slow down one of the cavalry units and succeed in holding them up for a while which allowed my army to engage the centre. The wraiths proved damn resilient, but I managed to take out the revenant infantry horde and skeleton regiments but in the end got stuck by the wraiths. The wheels fell off mor me when I got the undead trolls surrounded by siege breakers, Nom Nom and a Boomer sergeant and managed to roll the dreaded double 1 which meant rather than dying the trolls held and my units wee then charged from the flank and rear and my right flank imploded and from their victory rapidly slipped away and the undead claimed the field with superior unit strength on the last turn

Deployment

Ogres advance on their left flank and try to refuse the right one. Tactics, smactics. 

the Giant (Bam Bam) smashes into the skeletons. The wight troops in the centre proved ot be a pain though

Fierce fighting in the centre- I've cleared out the reveant horde

The trolls are going to die! 

The moment it goes horribly wrong. The trolls were all but devastated and I rolled a double one so rather than turning to face the reventnat cav and other units I was stuck with my back to them. So close! 

Arghhhh!!! Multiple flank and rear attacks rout my units. 

Time to deal with the last units of wraiths

But Arthur controls the centre

Nom Nom's last dance. Spoiler alert It doesn't end well. 

A great close game, Arthur played well, but I definitely felt it was one that slipped away from me when I blew it vs the trolls but that is the way the dice fall sometimes.

Well played Arthur.

 My MVP: Boomer horde- in hand to hand they did more damage than the siegebreakers vs the wraiths (they may have got a rear charge but even so!).

Game 3: Pillage Vs Rob G’s Knights of the 2^nd Breakfast Halfling army

• 1x Stalwart horde
• 2x Poacher regs (bows)
• 1x Forest troll horde
• 3x Jugger Cav regiments
• 1x Aeronaut reg
• 1x Harvestor
• 1x Ironbeast
• Muster captain
• Sauceror
• Muster Captain on winged Aralez

(13 units and 26 US)

 I’d not faced halflings before and boy do they get a wide range of special rules including plenty of spell guard to protect vs spellcasters.

Going into this game I knew I wanted to keep my forces reasonably compact and not spread out across the table but the way the tokens were placed I immediately threw this plan out the window and forgetting Ogres 101 spread my force wide to cover as many objectives as I could. In fact I felt comfortable that I could control at least 3 of the 7 tokens on the side of the table I started and so was quietly confident, even tohugh I’d never faced a halfling army before.

One nice touch added to the narrative of the weekend for this game was a giant placed in the centre of the table which would wander off in a random direction D10+4” per turn and if it hit a unit a round of combat would be fought before the giant wandered off in another direction.

The game started badly for me when the giant immediately wandered into my siegebreakers, caused 7 wounds and wavered them. My hardest hitting unit in the centre of the board was pretty much neutralised. Fortunately later on the giant wandered into the halfling Ironbeast (tree herder) and like the siegebreakers inflicted enough wounds to waver the beast.

I made a couple of mistakes, including failing to hit the halfling trolls with my hunters- believing that ensnare + being in a woods (hindered charge) would enable me to slow the tolls down so instead of charging them I waited for them to charge me . It was only then I realised they were FOREST Trolls and so had pathfinder. Doh!

The halfling bow troops plinked away chipping away at the nerve of my bullies and boomers but In the end the biggest factor ended up being the aeronauts which bombed a number of units off the table.

The point of the weekend was to get poeple playnig so the TO had relaxed the usual must be painted rules to encourage more players and nothing wrong with that. Rob fielded his new hafling army. Personally I'd have hit them with a can of an armypainter undercoat and painted some weapons but that's me.  

Ferocious little buggers with a host of special rules. Power creep anyone? 

Aralez takes on a warlock.

Nooo... The giant smashes into my siegebrekers. Where the hell did that come from? 

Carnage in the centre. RThe chipping damage from the bows added to my discofort. 

Waht the hell are they? The aeronauts blasted the crap out of my army! Apparently they'd been pants up to now and truth be told on their first turn they missed badly but after that they went nuts! 

The halflings have smashed the centre of the ogres and claimed nearly all the objectives.

Rob played well, and the game went to turn 7 and Rob controlled the bulk of the objectives (6-1) so a very comprehensive victory to the halflings. I was punished for the mistakes I made and Rob played his army very well and thoroughly deserved the win.

MVPs: The bloody giant and the aeronuts! 

Points at the end of day 1

So the end of dfay1 I was 1 win and two losses, the same as the bulk of the players. Gordon was in the lead 3-0.

Roll on day two.