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By Kaio and
Stefano
Prequel:
(By Kaïo)
Already
the third tournament I frequented this year, I wanted to surprise every player I
know by not bringing along my usual Empire but High Elves. As my own models
haven’t seen any paint yet, I had the opportunity to use the army of a Knights
of Bayard collegue, Tony Cornelis.
The tables:
(By Kaïo)
As
on previous Conflict tournaments the tables were certainly wide enough but I was
a little disappointed in the fact that on most tables the centre seemed very
open. But nevertheless some of the scenery would prove a tactical challenge…
The draw of battles:
(By Kaïo)
I
wondered wether I would get an adversary I played before and who would expect my
Empire. The surprise was mutual as Arvid De Coster was my first opponent and
mentioned disappointed that he didn’t like to play a civil war. No worries… :o)
Round 1: Pitched Battle
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Kaïo's
Opponent: Arvid ‘Mini-Me’ De Coster.
Army:
Empire.
About
the opponent: I’ve played Arvid before and he really focusses on his
shooting. I can really appreciate him as an opponent because sometimes he
comes up with tricks or combo’s that I can use for my own benefit later.
About
the battle: I was facing 3 unitsof handgunners with hochland marksmen.
Furthermore 2 great canons, 3 small units of knights, some flagellants and
some swordsmen completed the picture. Arvid tried to kill my warmachine
crews but luckily for me the dice didn’t want to coöperate. On the right
flank I had held back my Dragon Princes somewhat longer whereas my infantry
took care of the left flank with Silver Helms and my Battle Standard Bearer
in support. Arvid succeeded in destroying my Swordmasters but in return my
Silver Helms easily took the flank of them and ‘returned the favour’. On the
right my Dragon Princes got charged but with remarkable high throws for my
armour saves I was able to keep my ground. Even a charge of flagellants in
my flank didn’t make them move and eventually the Dragon Princes even began
to win combat (WS2 T3 flagellants are an easy target forget a Prince with 2
attacks striking first). Eventually I won with a solid victory after what I
found a fine battle.
Most valuable unit(s):
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Opponent:
Patrick Pynaerts (De Witte Ridder)
Army:
Ogre Kingdoms
About
the opponent: I met Patrick first on G-day in 2007 during the first battle
of the tournament. In a nice battle he scored a solid victory, so my
intentions were to have a nice battle again, but this time to be on the
winning side …
About
the battle: When Patrick saw my army and the scenery (a big river flowing
from the left to the right edge in the middle of the gaming table, with only
one fordable place on my right flank), he wasn’t the most happy man around.
He deployed his ogre units evenly across his deployment zone, and all his
gnoblars ready to cross the fordable spot. I deployed my non-scouting units
ready to rush to that spot in an attempt to keep the ogres on the other side
of the river, and all scouting units inside the river apart from the
chameleon skinks who took position 12” away from the closest gnoblar unit.
The ogres went first, and I immediately suffered from the butcher magic,
resulting in two skink units on the run (of which one left the table), and
another one halved. Positive thing: one butcher took a wound ! The lead
belchers took aim at my chameleon skinks, taking down half the unit. Thanks
to my cold bloodedness most of the panic tests were passed. Having lost
quite some poisonous warriors, I felt all would boil down to how well I
could keep the ogres away from the ford. Therefore, I positioned the
terradons and cold one cavalry closer. The swarms and the remaining skinks
went for the great weapon ogres on the left, while the salamander pack with
my general and skink priest advanced through the centre to threaten the
butchers and their retinue. Magic went unfruitful, and shooting caused only
a few wounds
Patrick kept rushing one unit of gnoblars over the ford, with his bruiser
and retinue close behind, and another through the water to protect the flank
of the first gnoblar unit. The butchers tried to do the same tricks as the
turn before, but due to some unfortunate throws I could stop all of them
this time. I countered with my saurus cavalry charging in on the first
gnoblar unit, butchering 14 gnoblars on the charge, but even after this
onslaught they kept their nerves: a whopping snake-eyes on the breaktest !
Furthermore, my terradons charged a unit of two leadbelchers, but much to
our surprise both ogres misfired with enough hits to blow the entire ogre
unit to pieces. Much to my worries, the terradons landed just 1” short of
the bruiser with accompanying unit. Shooting went unnoticed apart from the
death of two gnoblars in the second unit. In Patrick’s turn, the unit
containing the bruiser charged the terradons who fled voluntarily but were
caught on the run. The butchers performed poorly again, and the remaining
gnoblars were further butchered by the saurus cavalry. Meanwhile the swarms
got stuck into the great weapon ogres, and after three rounds of combat the
big ones were poisonously devoured by the little ones. This left Patrick’s
right flank undefended, but the swarms were too slow to be part of another
combat for the rest of the game, so they stayed put to occupy a table
quarter. The salamanders finally were able to launch their flames, taking a
wound from a butcher and two from his body guard. The saurus cavalry charged
the next unit of gnoblars who fled, taking the bruiser and his guard with
them by the ensuing panic test. The ogre units in the centre tried to charge
my skinks, but they wisely fled.
In the final act, my general charged the second unit of leadbelchers, who
voluntarily fled, taking the second butcher with retinue with them on the
run, never to rally again. On the other side, the saurus cavalry didn’t
reach the rallied bruiser with bodyguard, so they were charged themselves.
The ensuing carnage saw the end of three saurus cavalry models, together
with two ogres. After another round of combat, the Ogre general found all
was lost, and fled off the table. In the centre, the last butcher got stuck
in a fight with my returning general, together with my charging salamanders.
With the aid of my priest (who managed to get rerolls for all the 1’s my
general threw) all ogres were dispatched. Much to my (and Patrick’s)
surprise, no ogre was left on the field. After headcount of my army, we
settled for a crushing victory in my favor.
Most
valuable unit(s):
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Round 2: Capture
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Kaïo's
Opponent: Bjorn Verpoorte.
Army:
Lizardmen.
About
the opponent: Second Olde World player today. Playing Bjorn is always a
challenge. He is a real tactician and regularly takes home prices on
tournaments. It happens that we have a discussion about a rule or a move but
we always seem to get a suitable solution. Anyway: I never step aside for a
nice challenge…
About
the battle: Overviewing the Bjorns army I saw no mages in it. This could of
course be to my advantage. At an early stage Bjorn rolled up my left flank
whereas I did the same with his left flank. This mostly to Bjorn missing
almost every save he had to make. In the center my Swordmasters were trying
to lure some kroxigors into charging them which they eventually did. They
were of course cut down but in the pursuit my Swordmasters exposed their
flank to the saurus warriors which just seemed to reach them. The battle
ended with Bjorn holding the two objectives near the center and me the one
on my right. That one objective more gave Bjorn the advantage as it came to
splitting the points for the draw (13-12).
Most
valuable unit(s):
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Opponent:
Karel Missine.
Army:
Wood Elves.
About
the opponent: Apart from some discussions about the rules, I had a nice
game. (in his club, they have some different interpretations of the rules)
About
the battle: After applying the appropriate procedure to determine the three
“capture-objectives”, it turned out they all were located in the centre of
the battle field.
I was facing an army with a lot of shooting and fast moving units. The
former were deployed in the centre, the latter on his right flank. On his
left flank he positioned a single hero and his woody units like treekin and
dryads. I countered this deployment with my salamanders against the treefolk,
some skirmishers and the terradons against the cavalry, and the rest in the
centre to go for his shooter units. Finally, some scouting models appeared
in the forest right in the middle of my deployment zone.
The battle itself can be summarized in two parts. The first part was mainly
me loosing a large quantity of models due to his shooting and fast cavalry
attacks. For Karel feared the poisoned attacks, my skinks were target
practice for his bowmen (the skirmishing -1 penalty negated by their no
penalty for shooting over half range). The fast cavalry got rid of my
terradons in two combat rounds, but not without loosing some horsemen as
well. I used the nearby skinks in an attempt to keep the cavalry away from
the centre for one more turn, and that actually worked. In the meantime, his
scouts were killing another unit of skinks, but were eventually butchered by
my poisonous and outnumbering swarms. The only other points I scored was the
death of his hero on his own who was poisonously shot down on the charge.
In the second part of the battle the tide changed. I managed to charge the
treekin with the remainders of my saurus cavalry including the battle
standard bearer, and after a lot of hacking, they were swept away (what else
to expect from a hero with 7 strength 5 attacks on his own …). However, the
hero was the only survivor after a next round of bowfire, and even lost a
wound. Nearby, the dryads overran a unit of skinks with javelins, but were
drawn in combat with the salamander unit containing my priest and general.
After two rounds of combat, the dryads with the branch wraith were
slaughtered to the man (so to speak), to the price of a wound on both the
general and the priest. Furthermore, I threw the swarms against the most
nearby cavalry, and it took them two rounds to get rid of my little
critters. Hopefully time enough to keep them away from the centre, for these
swarms cost a fortune !
But the hero of the day was yet to take some more toll, for the battle
standard bearer on cold one charged head-on on the nearest unit of bowmen,
stealing enough lives to make them run and captured (including his mage),
just to bump into the next unit, who underwent the same treatment. Due to
this action, Karel only had one unit left with enough unit strength to
capture an objective. First, he swept away a unit of skinks on one of the
objectives, but in the end I managed to get enough kills to take all his
units below unit strength 5. With my last movement, I made sure the last
full skink unit stepped on top of an objective, which after body count gave
me a minor victory.
Most
valuable unit(s):
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Round 3: ...
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Kaïo's
Opponent: Karel Missine
Army:
Wood Elves.
About
the opponent: I had encountered Karel once before and then we played a draw.
Karel is a nice player and I wouldn’t mind facing him again but with better
luck on my dice rolls.
About
the battle: I was facing a hard shooting army backed up by forest spirits.
At an early stage I declared a charge with my White Lions on his altered
hero who fled letting charge the Way watchers in the forest. A poor overrun
roll made miss me the Mage just in front of me. But that was not all. A
volley of strength 3 arrows on my Dragon Princes made me fail 4 armour saves
of my 2+. My Silver Helms went the same way. At that moment I already knew
that I wasn’t in for a treat. When on top of that my White Lions fled in
panic I knew all was lost. I managed to take some wounds of his hero’s but
as it came to the points count I suffered a massacre. Bad dice rolls had
certainly had their part in this defeat but Karel was certainly the better
of me.
Most
valuable unit(s):
- White
Lions for at least killing something :o(
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Opponent:
Nick van de Molen
Army:
Skaven
About
the opponent: Nick was fun to play, alas his companion not …
About
the battle: I was facing thirty (30!!!) jezzails, four ratling guns, a
warplightning canon and three tuned warlock engineers, bound together with
four units of clanrats and one single swarm. The scenario asked to get as
much of your own units into the other’s deployment zone, so I went for the
plan to screen my saurus cavalry and salamanders with most of my skinks to
prevent them from being shot down too early, but even this tactic didn’t
work: the saurus cavalry was shot and blasted down in turn 1, only leaving
my saurus battle standard bearer with a single wound. I tried to advance
quickly with my skinks in an attempt to bring down some enemies, but I only
scored few poisonous hits, and even those were mostly absorbed by armor
saves. The salamanders however scored a nice volley on one jezzail unit, who
turned tail and ran, only to rally e few inches from the table edge. I also
managed to get rid of the warplightning canon, together with a wound on two
warlock engineers each (one by a frontal terradon assault, one by himself by
rolling a 1 on a warpstone token). The single vermin swarm was decapitated
by a unit of skinks with javelins. Some brave skinks with blowpipe reduced
another jezzail team below half wounds, but that was all I managed to do.
The rest of the game merely boiled down to being shot to pieces or blasted
by magic. In the end, no lizardman was standing, and Niek had most of his
units in my deployment zone. I feared a massacre, but the few casualties I
inflicted made the difference: crushing loss.
Note: Niek, you threw a few 1’s to hit with your jezzail teams, but I cannot
recall you working out these hits on your own teams …
Most
valuable unit(s):
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Aftermath by Stefano :
The
tournament started well with two wins, but the combination of shooting and magic
proved too much for my lizardmen to overcome. Nevertheless, I had fun with all
three opponents (apart from the companion of Niek), and I hope I will encounter
them soon again ! (Hopefully without Nieks scoring skaven ;o)
Until
my last battle I was still hoping for a podium spot, but after the near-massacre
I was quite pleased with my 18th place. But most of the joy came from the fellow
players electing my army as best painted army of the tournament. The best reward
I could get from two years of converting and painting … thanks!!!
The
last word goes to the tournament organizers. Thanks for a well-organized joyful
day, hope to be there again next year!
Aftermath by Kaïo:
My first Ranking Tournament
with High Elves gave me not the satisfaction I had hoped for. The first two
battles went rather good but the annihilation I suffered in the third gave it a
bad after taste. Well, better luck next time as I hope to be playing the High
Elves again later this year on another event.
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