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By
Den Tom and Stefano
Prequel and the Tables:
(by Den Tom)
First
time attending the Trollslayers tournament so that’s always fun to check out
something new. A first look at the tables made it clear that the Troll Slayers
had a whole lot of great terrain at their disposal! Also a couple of very
terrain heavy tables who could potentially change strategy a whole lot should I
have to play on one of those. Not having slept to much again as we had our
weekly game-evening at the club the night before, made sure I was going to have
to find a wake to wake up before the first game…
(By
Stefano)
One
month after my second son Seppe was born, I felt it was time to attend another
tournament ! This time again a new tournament for me in the Brussels region,
organized by the Brussels Troll Slayers. I knew some of the gamers, so I was
excited to see how things are done by our Brussels and Walloon fellow gamers.
Furthermore, I finalized a converted Manfred Von Carstein model to represent my
Mannfred DrachZahn general. I was really eager to see how he would perform for
mostly when I field a newly painted model, it’s this model that is slain very
early in the battle …
The
dimensions of the table were regular tournament size and foreseen with the
amount of scenery that makes playing fun without disrupting a normal gaming
strategy. I like that ! It’s nicer to say one wins due to tactics than due to
scenery if you ask me …
The draw of battles:
(By Stefano)
I experienced in the past that the first tournaments after a remake
of an army, this army is represented statistically more then the others. In this
context, I was expecting to encounter chaos armies and dark elves (together with
undead it made up 60% of all participating armies), and no opponents like ogre
kingdoms, bretonnia or skaven. Greatly to my surprise, I saw a skaven opponent
on the other side of the table in my first round …
Round 1:
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Tom's
Opponent:
Patrick Maüen.
Army:
Bretonnia.
About
the opponent:
Let’s recapitulate, it’s
Saturday morning, I haven’t slept that much and my first opponent tells me
he doesn’t speak Dutch nor English, only French. Alright, so that was enough
to wake me up as I was going to have to find a way to be able to speak
French that actually sounded like French, both to me and my opponent.
Furthermore, Patrick was a great guy to play against and he would have given
me a lot more trouble if only his dice would have been a bit more forgiving.
About
the battle:
I set up my 2 blocks of plaguebearers in what
could be seen as a refused flank manoeuvre, only covering the open side of
the field with one unit of flesh hounds and keeping the flamers close to
have some fire support. Patrick put peasant bowmen, a trebuchet and
skirmishing bowmen to his centre and covered both flanks with a big lance of
knights, one joined by a general, one by his bsb. On the far flank, the one
I had left open, Patrick put his peasant unit, containing his damsel and
behind his centre he had a big unit of Pegasus knights. I began by moving
the Plaguebearers up a bit, but so that the Pegasi could not jump behind
them yet. On one flank, I kept my flesh hounds back a bit , in the hope
Patrick’s Errant Knights would fail their impetuous test and have to charge
my Plaguebearer unit with bsb, after which I could throw the hounds in their
flank. On the other side I carefully moved my other hounds so they would
have their options open and backed them up with the flamers, who took up
position in the wood. In his turn, Patrick moved up his Pegasus knights over
to my refused flank but thought flesh hounds had movement 14 instead of the
actual 16, which cost him his Pegasus knights in my next turn. The knight
unit to my refused flank moved up a bit so I couldn’t freely move up my
plaguebearers without opening their flank up to that knight unit. Then came
the part that actually decided the game in my favour. In my next turn I
parked my last fury in front of the big unit of knights with the general and
moved up one block of PB so that if he didn’t charge the fury, I would flank
him. To finish up this manoeuvre, I moved up my flamers so that if he would
overrun after killing the fury he would get stuck in the flamers and still
be flanked by the plaguebearers. Patrick did charge the fury but didn’t
overrun, guessing I would be out of reach for my flank charge. And he was
almost right as I just made my charge by one tenth of an inch. Then all went
down the drain for Patrick as he promptly failed his fear test, threw about
16” as a flee move and ran right off the field, panicking the peasant unit
with the damsel, who also decided to go home and left the field as well. A
flamer shot later panicked about every peasant left in Patricks army while
his other lance had run itself stuck in my other plaguebearer unit, ready to
receive flesh hounds in their flank. Suffice to say that a couple of very
short turns later the game was over and my deamons had their first massacre
of the day behind them!
I really hope to be able to play a rematch against Patrick sometime as I
really believe he could give my daemons a serious run for their money if
only his dice would allow them.
Most
valuable unit(s):
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Stefano's
Opponent:
Florent Parmentier.
Army:
Skaven.
About
the opponent:
Florent has the honour of being my first French speaking opponent. Apart
from this, Florent played the game correctly and we had lots of fun.
About
the battle:
Seeing a lot of magic and shooting, I was afraid I would loose my troopers
faster then I could raise them. Therefore, I opted to put my zombie unit in
a straight 21 model long line in front of my two skeleton units containing
all heroes. Having a ruin in front of my right flank, and woods in front of
my left, I positioned my bats on the former and my fast ground units on the
latter. Florent positioned his main blocks in the centre, with the warp
lightning canon in a forest and his jezzails in front of my fast units.
I got the first round, so my fast units went straight ahead, hiding my
Varghulf behind the black knights an wolves in order to keep him safe from
too much shooting. Furthermore I realized I made a big mistake with the
deployment of my zombies on top of a small wall : they could not march and
therefore my skeleton units could not eighter ! It would take me one more
turn of incoming magic and shooting before my core troopers could deal with
his bigger units … fortunately for me, the first spell of one of the three
skaven warlock engineers resulted in a miscast, ending the magic phase. Phew
… until the warplightning canon pointed directly at my Varghulf. The magic
beam went far enough and with a punchy strength of 8 there was no escape.
No worries, there is still something as regeneration, but I was feeling a
little weak in the knees when it failed, and Florent threw a whopping 4
wounds. Byebye Varghulf and his terror causing aspect.
But now it was my time to wipe out some vermin ! In my next turn the bats
got rid of a bunch of skirmishing rats, and the remaining cavalry kicked in
in a unit of giant rats. Half the unit was taken out immediately, the other
half was overrun. The wolves pursued into another unit of rats, and the
black knights bumped into the globadiers. The wolves kept the rats busy for
another round, whereas the broken globadiers caused a unit slaves to flee
off the board, as well as taking out the warplightning canon. So far, so
good !
Another drawback in the centre was his tunneling skaven coming up in his
second turn, charging the line of zombies in the rear. This kept my skeleton
infantry pinned down for another two rounds, making it nigh impossible to
attack the big skaven blocks in time. Great tactics by Florent ! Meanwhile,
one of his ratling guns send a clan rat regiment running by a double throw
(before being overrun by my black knights), and the other ratling gun fell
pray to the bats due to “no defended obstacle penalty if charged by flyers”.
The cavalry, being half reincarnated several times, finally saw their end by
an overdose of magic blasts and shooting, but not before dispatching the
enemy general. One of my skeleton blocks received the same treatment (with
the same result), and I also lost one of my vampire heroes due to a miscast
and some magic. The tunneling skaven were finally dispatched, and in my last
turn I was able to get rid of another clan rat unit with an overwhelming
combat result now I could finally kick in my general and battle standard
bearer. Final result : a minor loss. Not bad for a nice first game, although
I felt tired after a battle in French. But most importantly : my general
survived ! Byebye to the new-model-statistics …
Most
valuable unit(s):
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The black knights for taking out a unit of giant rats, a unit of
globadiers, a ratling gun, a warplightning canon and the enemy general.
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The vampires for “repairing” the black knights and bats over and over
again, so they could keep fighting.
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Round 2:
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Tom's
Opponent:
Julien Smal.
Army:
Ogre Kingdoms.
About
the opponent: Julien was
also a very fun player to play against as he really played the way ogres
should be played, with a lot of battle roars, funny comments and courage!!
He also played ogres in a slightly different fashion as I tend to play them
myself (my former tournament army was Ogre Kingdoms), so this made for a
very interesting battle.
About
the battle:
A table with very dense terrain this time which
allowed me to put both my plaguebearers in a central bottleneck, thus
closing up their flanks neatly. Julien used the typical ogre line with
irongut units to the centre, bulls to one flank and Rhinox Riders to the
other. In between his irongut units he put a scraplauncher and 2
leadbelchers guarded the rear, no doubt waiting for march blocking furies to
come in range.
Again I was able to put my flamers in terrain, which makes them that much
more powerful, spreading fire around almost the entire table without being
able to be charged by anything. Julien’s Ogres closed in fast and after
losing a unit of flesh hounds on a charge which I thought I should have
won (doing one wound out of ten attacks needing 3’s to hit and 3’s to wound
just doesn’t cut it), one of my flanks had been opened so I had to go over
to plan B. This was simple: blast everything into oblivion which came over
that flank with the flamers. On the other flank however, I had gotten my
flesh hounds into the flank of his rhinoxes and slowly but surely they made
the rhinoxes run, however not being able to overrun them, they had to follow
up and chase them all the way to the other side of the field before finally
being able to bring them down in the last turn, with support of a unit of
plaguebearers!(Since I had charged them in the flank in turn 2, those
rhinoxes really outlived their life-expectation…)
Now, back to plan B: charge anything you can charge and hope you go through
in one run or suffer the pain of being flanked. So that’s just what my
plaguebearers+General did: charge his big unit of Ironguts, containing both
a butcher and a bruiser. All of the chaos gods must have been smiling down
upon me because, as I managed to get several wounds in, Julien completely
fluffed all of his attacks, killing only a single plaguebearer. The line had
been broken and the other ogres would have known it. The panic test from the
breaking unit caused the Scraplauncher to panic, which sent him on the run
of his life: first through my furies, who suffered 1 wound, then through
terrain, losing all but one wound himself, so he could run through Julien’s
scouts as well, killing several of them and causing them to panic straight
of the board as well. The Rhinox then decided enough was enough and killed
himself by running into the forest behind where the gnoblar scouts had been.
In his turn, Julien threw his other unit of Ironguts with butcher against my
other unit of plaguebearers and moved his unit of bulls so they could flank
me next turn. The Ironguts bounced of the Plaguebearers and subsequently
were run down, leaving the bulls with nothing else to do then be shot by
flamers, eventually panicking them off the board as well.
When the dust settled and the smoke cleared, another massacre for my daemons
became apparent.
Most
valuable unit(s):
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Flesh hounds for flanking and
destroying the Rhinox Riders (even though it took them a full 5 turns).
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Flamers for being absolutely
devastating by being able to stay in cover and blast everything that
moved.
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Stefano's
Opponent:
Alexander Kosters (Tactica Chaplains).
Army:
Empire.
About
the opponent:
I always wanted to have Alexander as an opponent, for large was his fame and
reputation, and numerous were the rumors… All ended up to be true: Alexander
is always fun, even in his darkest gaming hour! Alexander: you can
have one or more rematches anytime !
About
the battle:
The scenery gave me a small tactical advantage : the table
represented a coast line with the armies opposing along the shore line.
Alas, Alexander made it very uninteresting to deploy my black knights into
the sea strip by deploying in a refused flank. I again deployed the skeleton
units in the centre with the zombies in front in a straight line (and I made
the same mistake again by putting one end in difficult terrain …).
Having no other option than assaulting head-on Alexander’s dug in position,
the cavalry and the bats were deployed on right flank to take advantage of
the oasis in the middle of the interposing terrain.
From the beginning of the game, it was clear for me that the dice gods were
in my favor : the first artillery salvos landed way over my battle line,
loosing one single skeleton. The central infantry stumbled forward (due to
slow zombies), with the fast right flank taking positions to charge in the
next turn. The next round of incoming fire took some wolves and again a
skeleton or two, and with the magical upper hand, my skeleton units became
quite large. The bats were on a solo-mission to destroy the rocket launcher,
which they did nicely, just to be shot to pieces the next turn by the
skirmishing huntsmen.
Meanwhile Alexander put a nice booby trap with a unit of pistoleers and a
unit of knights to lure my black knights into their doom, but I was not in a
hurry so I refused to move. As a counteract, I moved the Varghulf to charge
his knights first. Shooting now became a little more painful, for his
pistoleers took out two black knights. However, in the magic phase these
cavalrymen gained their undead life back.
On the other flank, a unit of knights was threatening my flank. Just to keep
the knights out of play, I declared a charge with my zombies. Much to our
surprise, the knights promptly failed their fear test and ran off straight
into a fallen pilar. To add injury to insult, my Varghulf did his worst with
the empire battle standard bearer, swooping him off his saddle before return
blows could be struck. These knights held their nerves, but the booby trap
was no more. This time, the black knights did charge the pistoleers. I
suspect the pistoleers were hellblasters in disguise, for four out of six
black knights were shot to pieces. Alas for Alexander, they again returned
in the magic phase (O how I like the repairable vampire counts army !!!),
breaking and overrunning the pistoleers, just to stop in front of a hill
with the artillery and handgunners. Needless to say all remaining empire
shooting took aim at my black knights, leaving not a single undead knight
whatsoever.
On the right flank, the huntsmen were really earning their stripes by
holding off a dire wolf charge. Alas, the next turn they proved no match
against a by now quite big unit of skeletons.
Things were not going well for Alexander, as my army was closing in fairly
intact from two flanks and the centre (the Varghulf already took care of the
remaining knights …) However, his general, wizard, canon, hand gunners and
a very large block of swordsmen were still standing with faces eager to sell
their lives at very high prices. The Varghulf was dispatched on a mission to
capture “artillery hill”, but failed to beat the hand gunners in the last
round of combat. I used the by now huge zombies to pin down the swordsmen
with general, but the returning empire hitting power blew them away in less
then two combat phases. Alas, my other infantry units were not able to bring
my heroes in contact with the empire butcher general to avenge the fallen
zombies. After counting our fallen, I won with a solid victory.
But the most striking part : no matter how bad the dice rolls or the game is
unfolding, Alexander keeps up the good hopes and spirits. Alexander :
rematch anytime !!!
Most
valuable unit(s):
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Varghulf for butchering a battle standard bearer with accompanying
knights.
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Vampire characters for being the best repair mechanics on the field.
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Zombies for scaring off a unit of knights.
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Round 3:
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Tom's
Opponent: Rick Saes.
Army:
High Elves.
About
the opponent:
I have known Rick for a while now and he’s always
a fun guy to play against. He’s the type of guy who can keep on enjoying a
game and keep on having fun, even when his army is completely screwing him
over.
About
the battle:
Well, both our names were at the top
of the list so for the second time in 2 ranking tournaments I was playing a
finale. Seeing as how last time I had been kicked around the table solidly,
this time I had to do better. I knew Rick was a good player and that I would
have to stay sharp for the entire duration of the battle if I wanted to have
a shot at the gold today. Simple deployment this time: Both plaguebearer
units with heralds to the centre, flesh hounds on both flanks, furies on one
outer flank to counter a bolt thrower and flamers somewhat in the centre in
the hopes of getting a shot off at those shiny swordmasters(which they did
in spectacular fashion). Rick had deployed is army deeper into his
deployment zone, creating more time to shoot at me before having to come to
combat. He had a solid unit of dragon princes so that actually seriously
scared me as that was something I couldn’t take care off with flamers. I
also already knew his bsb was holding the battle banner(+D6 CR) so I knew I
had to watch out when I charged anything with him in it.
So I started the long walk down the
field, running the hounds on my left flank up fast but keeping the ones on
the other flank back a while to counter Rick’s chariot, who had superior
movement. I was able to run my furies forward so they could get an
unmolested charge at the bolt thrower, but Rick cleverly countered that by
joining the crew with his general. The furies got shot to hell(or should I
say, home?) and only one was left, who didn’t have the guts to go for the
bolt thrower but who elected to go stand behind the dragon princes, thus
blocking their way back. In the meantime I had been able to flank charge
Rick’s Phoenix Guard with flesh hounds, but his bsb was with the unit, so
even 4kills and flanking wasn’t enough to even draw the combat. They lost
but held their place, which allowed me to throw in a block plaguebearers.
The only reason I had been able to do this without getting swordmasters in
my flank is because the flamer had their shot of the day. Killing a couple
of swordmasters promptly made them fail their panic test and the Rick rolled
to flee: 9”. As we measured, we realised they were about 8,5inches from the
edge, so they went back to Ulthuan, causing me to let out a sigh of relief.
So with no way out for the dragon princes but through a juicy block of
plaguebearers+BSB and his phoenix guard slowly dying away in the other
combat, nothing was left for Rick but to take some very daring decisions. So
subsequently his dragon princes charge the block in front of them, his
chariot charge 5 flesh hounds and his general went into the combat where I
was slapping Phoenix Guard around. His chariot lost of the flesh hounds as 1
impact hit simply isn’t enough, his Dragon Princes of course bounced of the
block of plaguebearers but nearly managed to kill the BSB(thank god for
regeneration) and were eventually killed as they rallied and got charged.
The one, lone fury could then be heard screaming: “My time to shine” and she
charged the bolt thrower, taking the crew out in 2 turns of combat after
which she noticed a fleeing high elf general coming her way, need I say
more? Slowly but surely the Phoenix guard had withered away and in the last
turn I was able to charge the second bolt thrower, who just ran off the
board because of the fear test. The balance said: Rick had 10 archers left
and I had lost my furies, my flamers and a unit of flesh hounds. Third
massacre in a row and my very first tournament victory was a fact!
Most
valuable unit(s):
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Flamers for their supreme anti-swordmaster
shot.
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The lone furie: for scoring a
high elf general and a bolt thrower all on her own, after having blocked
the dragon princes into their desperate charge…
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Stefano's
Opponent:
Laurent Mariën (Knights of Bayard).
Army:
Wood Elves.
About
the opponent:
I have seen Laurent joining the “ranking tournament circus” a few years ago
for he’s a buddy of Kaj. He’s always been nice and friendly, and I can say
now it stays that way on the battlefield! Laurent, I am looking forward to
our next game!
About
the battle:
I saw myself confronted with a large number of skirmishing and
cavalry units, together with a unit of treekin and a unit of archers. In the
past, I always had troubles to fight such armies, and I was eager to see how
the new vampire counts would do.
First of all, the table contained quite some forests in my deployment zone,
and a 2 floor building in his. Not quite a good start against wood elves
with a shooty infantry unit. However, I opted for a solid infantry right
flank, and a fast-moving left flank. Laurent deployed a treeman, wardancers
and one unit of dryads opposing my left, and his infantry plus cavalry on my
right.
The first round went without many casualties as my fast units moved to
charge away in the next round, while the central skeleton units just got
bigger in the magic phase. In the second round, we both went for the kill.
Laurent charged his treekin in the front and wild riders in the flank of my
unit of skeletons containing my general and battle standard bearer. To
protect my general, I had given him the nightshroud, which grants him to
strike first (even against chargers). On top of that, the skeleton standard
bearer woke up and started to wave fanatically his “Hellfire banner”
granting the unit and all characters within magical and flaming attacks. If
there is something a wood elf army just doesn’t like … I lost quite some
skeletons, but the treekin saw one model disappear, together with a wild
rider due to the attacks from my battle standard. I lost the fight, but
repaired the unit in the next magic phase.
My charging plans went quite as planned, for my bats pinned down the glade
riders to keep them out of my rightmost flank. Furthermore, the dire wolves
charged the treeman (no need to say they lost tremendously), but this
enabled my black knights to charge a unit of dryads. Being immune to
psychology, they had no other option but hold. The magical lance attacks
transformed the dryads into small barbecue sticks, leaving the dryads no
other option but a snake eyes breaktest. Two test dice and three pursuit
dice later, my black knights got stuck into the wardancers.
The next round saw the end of my Varghulf, for even this “war animal” could
not make a single dent in the charging big tree. If on top of that he failed
to get the regeneration right, well … The black knights continued their
stampeding momentum by adding some wardancer meat to the barbecue sticks,
and the bats disappeared from the scene by some well-aimed glade thrusts.
In an attempt to regain the upper hand in the central fight with the treekin
and my general, Laurent ordered his archers and the remainders of the glade
riders into my zombies. Having used all my dice to repair the skeletons, the
small unit of zombies were transformed into pulp in no time. The ensuing
overrun parked both units in the other flank of my skeletons. The ensuing
carnage saw the end of numerous skeletons as well as another threekin, two
wild riders and some bowmen. Thanks to my pool of spell dice (all vampires
were still alive), my casualties were “reborn”.
In the meantime, the black knights added again some wood to their
shish-kebab lances by taking down another unit of dryads, overrunning
straight into the flank of the archers. The ensuing combat saw the end of
the wild riders, the last treekin and all archers. By now, only the treeman
was still standing. Willingly to score more points, the woody behemoth
charged the black knights, killing a few but not enough to prevent me from
magically repair them in my turn. Seeing a massacre was in reach, I charged
the treeman with all units in range, including my general. The treeman
proved to be too tough to crack (I suspect him to have a steel core with a
layer of wood on top …), but he lost anyway due to ranks, banners and
outnumbering. The break test dice showed a five and a six … and that’s even
too high for his stubborn leadership of 10. Conclusion : wipe out in a
thrilling game!
Just one advise for Laurent : next time, make some attacks against the
vampire general instead of the skeletons around. A vampire hero is not as
tough as you think…
Most
valuable unit(s):
-
Banner of hellfire in combination with nightshroud for tearing down
three treekin.
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Black knights for overrunning two units of dryads, a unit of wardancers
and a unit of bowmen.
-
The magical power of the vampires to repair their army.
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Aftermath by Den Tom:
Well, what
can I say? I had had three amazingly fun games, played against three great
opponents and could conclude the day without having giving away a single command
point. It took some time however to have it sink in that I had actually won the
tournament and when I received the prize, a greater deamon of Nurgle, it became
clear that the chaos gods smiled down upon me!!
I want to
conclude by thanking the organisation for a great tournament and hope to be able
to play again at your tournament next year!!
Aftermath by Stefano :
Although
a large portion of the players opted for the latest “new” armies (vampire
counts, dark elves and deamons), I had three players with “ancient” armies. My
vampire counts army of 1500 points proved to have enough hitting power to
counter them. I have to wait for next tournaments to see how well it is against
the newer armies.
If
I look to my 8th place and the opponents I met, I am a very happy man
! Not only did I score quite some ranking points, but I had a very nice
tournament. Thanks to the opponents, and also to the organizers of this
tournament event. Hoping to be there again next year!
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