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By
Den Tom
Prequel:
The annual Knights of Bayard tournament is a great one
with a whole lot of good atmosphere and a great deal of fun players who also
know how to make a game of warhammer into a true thriller.
First tournament I would be playing with the Deamons of
Chaos so I didn’t really know what to expect as I had only played two quick
games with them, which had both taken place the night before the tournament. So,
in conclusion we had: a great setting, a new, unknown army and some sleep
deprivation: this tournament was going to be interesting whatever happened!
The tables:
A quick glance at
the tables before unpacking the army soon made it clear that every table had
been set up so that it would offer interesting tactical opportunities but also
rather nice features which could make or break your strategy. This always adds
another dimension to the games and makes them far more interesting and intense,
just the way I like them!
The draw of battles:
Round 1:
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Tom's
Opponent:
Alexander Kosters (Soulcaresser)
Army:
Empire.
About
the opponent:
I had already seen Alexander on many tournaments
before and I have to tell you, this is one hell of a great guy to play
warhammer against!! Always fun, dares to take a risk and enjoys a good laugh
about it all. So Alexander: I’m up for a rematch any time!!
About
the battle:
Well, it being early in the morning and all I
started out deploying half my army in the wrong places, mostly disabling my
own movement and slowing down my slowest unit, the Plague Bearers, even
more. Alexander saw this and quickly realised he could chose when to charge
and where and so he did just that. The only thing that did well for me were
my flamers who had taken up position in the centre of the board in a nice
piece of terrain being nearly untouchable. Standing there it took the
firepower of Alexanders army for a full three turns to bring them down from
five to three while they had already obliterated three units of fast cavalry
shooting. The Steam Tank driving around freely did cause me a headache so I
decided to finally commit the Plague Bearers to hold that tank in place but
by that time most of the battle had past. In a desperate attempt to score
some most needed points, I threw my unit of flesh hounds into his big block
of knights with bsb and warriors priest but to no avail. The only thing good
about it was that they were able to keep the knights up for 2 turns, making
it impossible for them to do anything more.
When the dust settled the result showed a draw, a fitting end to a very
strategic and nerve-wrecking battle!
Most
valuable unit(s):
- Flamers for tearing away at light cavalry support
units and shooting a wound of the Steam Tank with their stand and shoot.
- Furies for surviving long enough to position
themselves in front of the knights so they would be unable to charge
unless they opened up their own flank.
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Round 2:
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Tom's
Opponent: Leo Hertog.
Army:
Vampire Counts.
About
the opponent: Leo is a
nice guy to play although I felt a bit sorry for him for almost knowing
nothing about the new deamon book. I was able to surprise him time and time
again with the new, nasty deamonic surprises and nasty combos and this had
great effect on the game.
About
the battle:
This time, being more awake, I was able to deploy
my army in a decent fashion, lining up the infantry in the middle, covering
one flank with the flesh hounds and the other with the furies and flamers.
Leo tried to slow me down by raising units of zombies in places that would
make me open my flanks up should I charge but miscalculated the distance
between his bait unit and his bigger units. When my deamonettes charged a
unit of them, they went straight through and overran straight into his big
block of ghouls with necromancer, forcing him to commit his second block of
infantry(carrying two vampires) to charging the deamonettes in the flank,
thus getting all his infantry stuck in one combat and ready to be
outmanoeuvred. Another lucky overrun brought my Plaguebearers against a unit
of black knights who had no hope of ever winning the combat. One turn later
my plaguebearers were ready to charge his skeletons, who were in the flank
of the deamonettes, in the rear. This charge won me the centre of the field
entirely after another two rounds of combat while my bloodletters were left
behind almost in my own deployment zone, having some fun with a raised unit
of zombies.
On my left flank, the one with the fleshhounds, my hounds were performing
admirably. They had to face off against two units of dire wolves(one of five
and one of ten) and had charged the smaller one. They went straight through
but didn’t quite overrun far enough, thus opening them up for a rear charge
from the big wolf unit. It took the flesh hounds four turns of combat and
being charged in the rear, but finally, by the end of the battle, they
finished eating the last of the wolves up.
On the other flank, a tag team combo of furies and flamers had cleaned up a
unit of ten dire wolves and a unit of ten fell bats in combat. What happened
then, was my best roll of the entire tournament.
Leo charged the flamers with a unit of five black knights, not knowing they
could stand and shoot...
I rolled the dice to see how many shots I had and my five flamers rolled:
six, six, five, five, five!! 27shots at five knights...needless to say none
of them arrived!!
So at the end of the battle, I had lost only my deamonettes and herald of
slaanesh and half of my flesh hounds while Leo had lost his entire army, a
clear massacre for the deamons!
Most
valuable unit(s):
-
Flamers for being excellent in
both combat and (stand and) shooting!
-
Plaguebearers for killing
everything in their path: 5 wolves, 5 knights, 20 skellies, 2 vampires
and about 15 ghouls…
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Round 3:
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Tom's
Opponent: Stephane Derdi.
Army:
Daemons of Chaos.
About
the opponent:
Stephane is a very nice player to play against
because even when his dice go really bad(which they did at several
occasions) he still stays cool and nice. So, Stephane: I hope we can play a
rematch sometimes and I also hope your dice will work better for you then!!
About
the battle:
Arriving at my table I recognised it: it was the
same table as where I played my first battle so I was determined to deploy
in a good way this time!! Then Stephane arrived and a glance at his army
kind of worried me. He had a herald of tzeentch and a big unit of horrors,
actually giving him 5levels of magic, and a bsb of Nurgle who had two very
nasty bound spells. Things looked bad for my two dispel dice and banner of
-2 to cast…
The herald of tzeentch had master of sorcery and Stephane chose to take the
shadow lore. This convinced me he was going to try to take out my main unit,
the plaguebearers + herald, by using the pit of shades spell, so I had to
commit my bsb’s -2 to cast to the lore of shadows to make it very difficult
for him to cast this spell. This however allowed the horrors to cast
potentially very destructive tzeentch magic at my army for four turns.
This time I used a refused flank by putting all my infantry from left to
centre and using the hounds to counter the right flank, supported by the
flamers, who held back Stephane’s flesh hounds from entering the game too
soon.
As I started the long run down the field, Stephane started going backwards
in order to keep casting for as long as possible. By playing so precarious,
he allowed me to have the initiative and this was what cost him the game.
Finally in turn four I parked my Plague Bearers in front of his horrors in a
move that said: either you charge and we fight it out slow, or I charge and
we fight it out a lot faster. In that same turn I had charged his unit of
plaguebearers with my BSB and one bloodletters(they had really suffered from
magic) and my unit of flesh hounds. As Stephane’s Nurgle BSB had left the
unit, my troops ploughed straight to, which gave the bloodletter and the BSB
the chance to overrun into the flank of the horrors. Slowly they started the
process of breaking down the big horror unit, occasionally being helped by
Stephane’s instability rolls, who saw no benefit from having a BSB around.
In the last turns of the game, Stephane’s Flesh hounds failed a charge,
which opened them up to be flanked by my deamonettes who kept them in check
long enough for my bsb to arrive and wipe away the rest of the unit. At the
same time my plague bearers were flanked by Stephane’s other unit of
fleshhounds, but at the end of turn six they were also defeated.
At the end, all that survived of Stephane’s army where his 2 characters(who,
in retrospect where worth a whole hell of a lot of points) and 2 units of
five furies who had taken position in my deployment zone to claim table
quarters. My casualties were my bloodletter unit, my furies and that was
about it. After counting it came to a minor victory for me.
  
Most
valuable unit(s):
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Aftermath:
It’s
simplest to say I had a really great day: I had played against three great
opponents, had played three exciting games with the new and thrilling Deamons
and I hadn’t lost one game!! All I needed to complete this day in the perfect
way was to discuss the day’s battles with friends over a great feast of fries in
the local “frietkot” which traditionally ended all our tournament days. But the
tournament had one last surprise left and that was the fact of me ending fifth
and thus winning a prize, which actually was a whole lot more than I had hoped
for as I had set my goal for tenth place. It had been a while since I scored a
podium place so this gave just that little extra to the day!!
I want
to finish by thanking the organisers for their great tournament, so thanks
Kaïo and the other Knights of Bayard and I already
look forward to returning next year!!Back to Top
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