GOATcon Day 2

 Game 4: Loot vs Eric’s Salamanders

• 4x Salamander prime regs (2 regs with 2 hand weapons)
• 1x Salamander unblooded horde
• 2x ancients regiments
• 1x fire elemental reg
• 1x greater fire elemental
• 2x Ghekkotah slashers
• Mage Priest with diadem of dragonkind (fireball 16)
• Clan lord of fire drake

(13 units, 31 US)

The one game (apart from Gordon’s dwarves) that I was really dreading. I really, really liked the balance in Eric’s list and didn’t really want to have to face it. Eric had plenty of spell support and some hard hitting infantry, lots of hard hitting infantry. Oh and did I mention the two Slashers? I’d just built a Red Goblin Slasher for my army so really, really liked the fact Eric was rocking two of the Salamander’s equivalent… and a Clan Lord on a  firedrake (aka a dragon). The 2300 pts really had enabled people to unleashed their inner monster and almost everyone had one or more titans, monsters or dragons.  

One unit in his list I was wary of was his mage priest with a diadem of dragonkind which gave him fireball 16! Add a fire elemental with 8 fireball and I’d be facing fireball 24. The individual mage priest could be a real pain wandering around dropping fireballs left right and centre so I decided to try to target him (her? it?) as quickly s possible with my Goat.

Eric’s army is stunningly pretty too. Extremely well painted and colourful. A real joy to play. The one advantage I had? Eric had been at a beerfest all day Saturday (Mark ran a Slyvankin army as part of Team Meric on day 1) so was a little under the weather .

After spreading my army too wide in game 3 vs the halflings I aimed to keep my deployment much more focused in game 4.

Once again there was a giant in the centre of the table and this time the giant had one of the 3 loot counters which were the objectives of the game so the giant would need to be dealt with!

Eric took turn 1 and immediately fired and fireballed the giant. Brilliant I thought! So  in my turn I too focused fire on the giant with my Boomers and got it up to 17 wounds before rolling a double 1 for the nerve check. Doh!

One area I did get lucky was turn 2, when the firedrake charged Nom Nom, only did 3-4 wounds and was then overwhelmed by my counter attack. I was then able to slow down the oncoming slanders and control the tempo of the game a built. The giant died on turn 2 and I claimed that loot token. I wavered the mage priest with alightning bolt then my goat charged him and kept him occupied for a few turns till I eventually ground him/her/it into dust.

I ended up concentrating my forces on my centre and right flank and a combination of the giant, a bully, hunters and siege breakers eventually overwhelmed this flank and from there I was able to turn back towards the centre and reinforce my defence of the centre. I was surprised at how well my tactic worked and in the end the Salamanders were routed.

The game was an overwhelming victory to the ogres.

Battle is joined. 

Eric's army is extremely well painted. Love the fire elementals!

Turn 2. Uh oh. This isn't good- luckily the giant wanted along the fornt lines and not though either army.

The firedrake waits to pounce. 

The firedrake charges Nom Nom but is hindered by the terrain. Spotting an opening I charge the salamanders on the hill on the right hoping to deal with them before reinforcements can arrive.  

Up and at em! 

The firedrake is isolated. Let's get him boys! 

Hunters flank a regiment of slamanders, the warlord on the chariot chaffs up some ancients. The giant lends a hand. The wariros though are waverered and prevent the siegebreakers from charging (not for the first time this happens over the weekend!)

Boomers use terrain for cover and I senfdout the boomer sergeant and warrior regiment to slow down the iniital charge of the salmanders

Battle is joined and much to my surprise both the warriros and boomer sergeant survive- but the boomer sergeant is wavered. The flying chicken is no more. In the forst at the back a slasher is trying to stomp my Goat to protect the mage priest. A zero point unit tying down about 300 points of lizardsies.  

At last the siegebreakers get into combat. 

Erics flank has been crushed. The warlord is in the flank of the Slasher. Having killed the hunters the fire elemental is about to be overrun by sigebreakers and a bully and or the giant. 

Eric launches one last attack on the centre

 Eric's turn 6, my troops hold. In the background the Goat had killed the mage priest and survived the slasher stomping. My turn 6 and without rollng a die I've won the game by holding to two of the loot tokens and so call it there. 

A great game. Didn't go the way i expected it to and was glad to get away with a win. Those slashers ahd been terrorising the lcoal gamers over the past few weeks apparently. 

MVP: Siegebreakers, the hunters.. and the goat.

Game 5: Hold the Line vs Gordon’s dwarves

The last game and my big win had put me back in second place so I was up against the undefeated Gordon and his dwarves. With 4 wins Gordon had already won the event without the need for a 5^th game!  Furthermore, the dwarves had smashed my ogres in our previous three games in Oamaru prior to the weekend and so I knew I was up against it.

• 2x Ironguard Regs (Def 6)
• 2x Shieldbreaker hordes
• 1x mastiff hunting pack
• Goloch (Steel behemoth)
• 2c Battle driller (annoying monsters)
• Dwarf stone priest- radiance of life and shroud of the saint (heal 3)
• Faber Ironheart
• Formation: Bulwarkers
• 2x Bulwarkers regiments  
• Ironclad horde
• Dwarf army std bearer

(14 units, 27 US)

He also had 7 or 8 of the annoying throwing mastiffs to try to avoid.

My plan? Try to concentrate on one flank and the centre and smash at least 4 regiments and hordes of dwarves, and try to win the centre and one flank!

However, Gordon matched my deployment and I ended up not concentrating on my right after Goloch’s fury was placed opposite my initial units and I ended up spreading wider than I’d originally intended as I treied to switch my focus to my left flank. Still, I hoped to refuse my right flank and slow Gordon down so that I could use the extra mobility of the hunters and warlocks to reinforce the centre and hopefully overwhelm it.

I lost some warriors on my right flank early, and sent out my Goat to try to slow down Goloch while I tried to redeploy the hunters and warlocks to reinforce the centre before my right flank collapsed. On the left flank, Gordon retreated his troops to stay out of range of my boomers which suited me though his character, Fabian Stoneheart, used his superior range to good effect, sniping away. Gordon also kept backing his right flank up and keeping hs units out of range of the boomers.

Eventually I managed to engage the centre and the seigebreakers, warriors and hunters doing some damage to the dwarven regiments and hordes but Gordon was able to sweep his left flank in and I slowly but surely lost the battle of attrition. At the end of the game Gordon controlled all three of the scoring areas for a convincing win though I did take soe satisfaction in destring more dwarven units than in our previous games.

As usual Gordon played well. Clinical is how someone at the weekend described his game play and I think is a very apt description. He plays smart, always is well aware of charge angles and distances and is very hard to catch off guard. My plan to slow down his left flank kind of worked but in the end Gordon was able to counter this and capitalise on mistakes I’d made.

MVP? Probable the warrior horde that spiked spectacularly vs a dwarven infantry horde and enabled me to take the off in one turn. 

Deployment. I wanted to avoid the left flank originally but when Gordon countered my initial deployment I changed my mind...

Bloody tough propostion. Gordon covers his squisher hordes well with bulwarkers and ironguard. 

'Ere the come.

Send forth the goat to tie down a flank? Yeah, right. 

My attempted switch and bait. Hunters reinforce the centre. I made a mistake here though by not putting the leader point in the wood. Damn! The warlocsk have also made a "jump to the left". 

Tis a bit constricted but.... follow meeeeeee!

I've managed to take out some ironguard and using a bully to chaff the dwarf horde

. The arriros had kiled another regment and Iu'd wavered the horde in the foireground but with headstrong this isn't likely to matter.

And it doesn't. A horde in the flank of my warriors. Maybe I should have turend to face a bit more...

Giant and woarlord tag team! 

A horde of dwarves into the flnak of the warlord. That is 50 dice! Ouch! 

Siegebreakers take out the horde. i forgot the battledriller was an individual so I could charge into it. But even so, Gordon ad got enough unit strngth to control the centre and comfortbvle claim the game 7-0. 

Well played Gordon. My plan nearly worked. Well, I killed mroe dwaves than ?I'd amanged i any previous enocunters with them. 

Overall results:

My crushing defeat dropped me back down to 5^th by a point (losing out to those pesky slamanders!) maybe I should have tied to get a horde into one of the other scoring areas on turn 6 of the last game, but by that stage I wasn’t thinking about the wider event and simply trying to kill more of the annoying dwarvsies.

I picked up the best sportsman award which I was chuffed with. I’d had some really good fun games where win or lose we both had an absolute blast and at the end of the day that was all I was wanting to do. I won one less game than I'd ben aiming for but the game vs Arthur changed on a single throw of the dice so can't relly compalin. My overall aim tohugh was to get my army on table, roll some dice vs players I don’t usually get to play and hopefully have a laugh. I think I succeeded in this. 

My goat also had the most kills but came 2^nd (the focus is on sharing prizes round) and my army also was one of the top ones chosen in the best painted comp. I don’t think individually the army would have got a prize for this but I’d spent a lot of time working on my basing, and completing new units, to ensure that the army looked unified so was happy that this was acknowledged.

Finally, as always Mark ran a great weekend. I loved the narrative he’d come up with and the GOAT characters (there were three versions of the Goat) added a wee bit of additional flavour to the games. I loved the additional randomness of the giants bought to games 2 and 3 and felt that they really added to the event and hope he does more of these type of things in future.

2300 points was a success too, and the extra 300 points to what we usually play meant that there was often and additional monster added to lists which I think was awesome.

I look forward to the more KoW gaming next year.