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By Kaio and
Stefano
Prequel:
(By Kaïo)
At a late
stage I had entered the participants list of this tournament but when I look at
it I was actually glad that I did. Bart Goris had already asked me to have a
look at the scenario's that were going to be played on this day and actually it
had really made me curious. As usual I also started my day greeting the
The tables:
(By Kaïo)
As
usable the tables were large enough (6 by 4 feet) and filled with scenery. No 2
tables looked the same and all provided the players with tactical advantages or
challenges.
The draw of battles:
(By Kaïo)
I
was curious about my first adversary but when I saw his name I knew that he
would have no surprises for me...
Kaïo's round 1: Pitched Battle
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Kaïo's
Opponent: Alexander Kosters (Tactica Chaplains).
Army:
Empire.
About
the opponent: What a boring player! Just kidding. If you're new to Warhammer
(actually even if you're not new to warhammer also) this is the type of
players that will get you excited about the hobby. Improbable dice rolls,
tactics, jokes and laughter: all that makes a good game, this guy has to
offer. And in the end you might even win. I know I do... ;o)
About
the battle: Civil War. A Steam Tank (Alexander) against a lot of Infantry
(me) and this on a table with in the centre several Ogre Huts. In his first
turn aimed his canon at my fearsome helblaster. A perfect shot but when he
rolled to wound he scored a 1. I couldn't help cheering. In my turn however
I took aim at his steam tank with my canon. Also perfect shot but as a
(Sigmarite) godly intervention for my cheering I also rolled a 1 to wound.
Turn One played and the laughter had already taken over the game. I seemed
to get the upper hand when I got rid of both his blocks of knights with my
flagellants and my Greatswords but when a bad roll for a terror test made my
greatswords running into a wall the tide was changing. Another example of
'fine military skill' was given by a unit of vanilla knights which failed to
break a unit of handgunners hidden behind a wall for several turns. It was a
battle of extremes but eventually a scored a solid victory.
Most valuable unit(s):
-
Flagellants in combination with
vanilla knights: the later tricked a block of knights into a failed
charge exposing their flank to my willingly charging flaggies...
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The greatswords with warrior
priest for destroying the other block of knights. But that was only
until they failed their terror test...
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Stefano's round 1: Food Fight
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Stefano's
Opponent: Tom Degendt (Tin Soldiers of Antwerp).
Army:
Daemons.
About the opponent: Second time I played against Tom, he still had
the same attitude as before: I am here to enjoy some good games. In that
respect, I hope our game fits into that category. At least it does for me!
About the battle: Having rolled “food fight” I was quite happy. I
had fine-tuned my army so they could deal with every scenario, except
“pitched battle” … I decided to go for the plan I had in mind when creating
my army: transport the unoccupied food tokens from the centre to my rear.
Therefore, I deployed my bats and wolves evenly. I kept my infantry in a
central position, for Tom was forced to take the same route with his due to
the scenery. In an attempt to collect Tom’s food tokens, I deployed the
Varghulf and the black knights at my far most right so they could try to
steal some tokens from smaller units.
On the other side, the fast furies were on the flanks, the infantry in the
middle and the flesh hounds to my right. The flamers took position to my
left, clearly ready to take out my black knights and Varhulf.
I was lucky to get the first turn, so after movement, I occupied 3 out of 5
central tokens. The infantry moved a bit forward, and the black knights and
Varghulf kept out of range of the flamers. Tom occupied the 4th
central token with a unit of furies, and the fifth was mine in the second
movement turn giving me a midterm advantage of 3 more tokens.
Now the game came to a second phase: how to rob the enemy units from their
tokens. Tom did the first attempt by charging a unit of flesh hounds in the
front and furies in the flank of the grave guard with vampire general and
wight king battle standard bearer. The daemons really did their best, but
the undead armour save and regeneration from the drakenhof banner minimized
my losses. In return, several daemons were decapitated. The overwhelming
advantage of the undead made the furies pop away, leaving two flesh hounds
still in combat, just to live one extra round of combat. In fact, this left
3 food tokens right in front of my biggest and strongest unit on the board,
so in the next movement phase, I was really ahead of Tom. On the far left,
my black knights increased their tokens from 2 to 3 by running over a unit
of furies. I thought this would not last long, for the flamers picked them
as a target. I sacrificed my Varhulf (without token) in a seemingly hopeless
combat against the flamers, but this bought me two rounds without shooting
at the black knights. As a side effect, the flamers remained with only 4
models, having to drop their food token. Although in the end the flamers
took their toll, I was lucky enough to still have 3 black knights standing,
hence claiming those 3 tokens.
Meanwhile in the centre, I tried to stay out of the grip of Tom’s big
infantry units. By now I had a large advantage of tokens, and I was not
prepared to put everything at risk just to try to capture one or two more.
In that respect, the scenery game me a bit of an advantage: Tom’s big
infantry units were deployed behind some fences, and by the time they
managed to cross this obstacle, the game was nearly finished. The blood
letters smashed into my skeletons for two rounds of combat, but that was not
enough to reduce them below 5 models.
Final count-down: 5 tokens for Tom, 19 for me, and 1 out in the open =>
crushing victory.
Most
valuable unit(s):
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All fast units, for getting the central tokens and keeping them in
possession.
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The Varghulf for buying me enough time to keep the black knights “safe”
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Kaïo's round 2: Assassination.
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Kaïo's
Opponent: Kristof Claeskens.
Army:
Warriors of Chaos.
About
the opponent: Kristof is one of those war gamers you often meet on Ranking
Tournaments. He likes the game and isn't what they call a 'power player'.
Actually it's fun and relaxing to play him which is something that cannot be
said about all the opponents you encounter in the ranking.
About
the battle: Assassination: kill the hero's and champions in the army of your
opponent and preferably in a Challenge. I had a wide hill in my deployment
zone with to my opponents side an impassable cliff. Needless to say that my
war machines found a nice 'home' on this hill. Especially my Helblaster took
advantage of this high ground for he shot quite some units to pieces. One of
them being a unit of knights made him worth while his 110 points. With a
dence deployment I lured my opponent in battle and although I lost my
general in a challenge, I really had the upper hand in the combat. In the
end I killed every character except one wizard at the other hand of the
table. Unluckily for me this was enough for my opponent to score a draw.
Damn, if only I had charged in with 'von Horstmann'...
Most
valuable unit(s):
-
The helblaster for softening up
the hard hitting units of my Chaos adversary.
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Battle Wizard with von
Horstmann's Speculum for killing Exalted Hero.
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The great canon for killing a
chariot and sniping a Wizard.
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Stefano's round 2: Pitched Battle.
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Stefano's
Opponent: Tony Cornelis (Knights of Bayard)
Army:
Deamons
About
the opponent: I have always maintained close contacts with the Knights of
Bayard once I have met Kaj, so I already knew what to expect for my first
tournament battle against Tony. Tony’s personality made up for the big game
whooping he gave me. So I am hoping for a rematch soon for several
reasons!!!
About
the battle: I was facing an army quite similar to that of the previous game.
Alas, this time it was a pitched battle. Since my army wasn’t really tuned
for a pitched battle, and since I tend to loose against the new daemons, I
was hoping to use the scenery in my advantage. I opted for a refused flank,
which Tony could not counter with his entire force due to several Orc huts
just in front of his deployment zone. All my infantry units were positioned
on my right, the Varghulf and black knights on the far right, and some
wolves to cover the centre. Tony opted for a central deployment, with most
of his characters in front of my army.
Using the cover of huts and fences, I got away with my bats in his rear
(just to block marches), and the black knights and Varghulf in a threatening
position, while the infantry just slowly advanced. Alas, Tony is way to
“professional” to take such a bite, and maneuvered his troops in such a way
that the trap backfired in my face: a unit of flesh hounds with his general
succeeded in a charge on my black knights, killing them all apart from the
standard bearer. In an attempt to keep this slashing unit out of my flanks,
I charged the Varghulf on his general model. Alas, the leader revealed a
flaming sword, so bye bye Varghulf and standard bearer. The only thing that
saved me was he had to overrun, so they would not play any other part in the
game.
On my left, another unit of flesh hounds and a unit of blood letters were
trying to flank my infantry. I countered this by charging in frontally my
zombies, and enlarged this unit to enormous proportions. Mainly due to some
bad dice rolls of Tony, I managed two times to win the combat, seeing enough
models disappear to smash my dire wolves in the flank as well. This did the
trick, seeing even more blood letters to their end. This reminds me I still
have to promote one particular zombie for killing a blood letter in combat …
But the main action took place in the centre. The unit of flesh hounds that
came from my right, succeeded in charging my skeleton unit with female
vampire in the front. Some skeletons were rendered into gelatine, the
vampire took a wound, but some flesh hounds went down as well. The next
round of combat saw the end of the female vampire, with only one flesh hound
left in the end. This was getting on my nerves, so I charged my big unit of
grave guard, general and battle standard in the flank of that last flesh
hound, in an attempt to free the skeletons from combat to have them ready
when the nurglings and second unit of blood letters would arrive shortly.
The flesh hound wend down, but I didn’t overrun far enough: the nurglings
charged their rear in the very next turn. In an attempt to wipe out the
nurgling battle standard, I accepted his challenge. Alas, I was not able to
save all wounds (even after 4+ armour save, 5+ ward save and 4+ regeneration
… snirf …), so my entire army started to crumble. Bye bye ambitions to even
get a draw out of it.
The regeneration-ability on both sides, the ward save for the
nurglings and the armour save of the grave guard resulted in very few
casualties on both sides. The skeletons in nurgling flank took away their
ranks, but added the same amount of casualties to combat, so in the long run
I was going down anyway for I did not have any spell caster left, meaning no
new skeletons. To add injury to insult, his last unit of blood letters
managed to avoid a zombie roadblock and charge the flank of the skeletons.
The ensuing combat completely devastated the remainders of my infantry
units.
Finally, his flamers spouted enough flames to see the end of all bats and
wolves that weren’t in combat, ending the game in a solid defeat. In fact, I
was quite happy to see I at least did some kind of damage…
Most
valuable unit(s):
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Kaïo's round 3: Messengers
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Kaïo's
Opponent: Arjan De Volder.
Army:
Vampire Counts.
About
the opponent: One of those Dutch guys you see quite a lot on tournaments.
Great player who loves to laugh. I had a great battle...
About
the battle: Messengers: get your messengers at the other end of the table
and kill those of your opponent. I really had deployed poorly but luckily I
could turn it due to some mobility of my troops. Advancing behind a 1+ save
wall of knights I tried to get my messengers across. My flagellants got a
lucky charge on one of the messengers killing him outright. In their overrun
they charged a second messenger who followed his friend to meet his creator.
Arjan however got stuck in with his troops to and also managed to kill one
of my messengers. As I succeeded in killing a third messenger, Arjan
responded by killing two of mine in the same turn. Damn, this was not good.
At the end, we both got one messenger in the deployment zone of our opponent
and killed the three other messengers making it a draw. As only the
messengers accounted for the victory points I had negated several possible
attacks on my troops because they didn't matter anyway. I dare to say with
another scenario this game would have developed quite different.
Most
valuable unit(s):
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Flagellants for killing two
messengers.
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Pistoliers for killing the other
messenger and restraining the march movement of the other.
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One unit of knights for safely
escorting a messenger to the other side.
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Stefano's round 3: Messengers.
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Stefano's Opponent: Jef Verhaert (Witte Ridder).
Army:
Dark Elves.
About
the opponent: I think this must be the fourth or fifth time I meet Jef on a
battle field. Seeing this, I was sure I would leave the tournament with the
feeling to have encountered three very nice opponents! Jef: just overcome
your dislike of scenario’s, and you rock!!!
About
the battle: The roll on the scenario chart made us prepare for the
“messenger” scenario. I saw Jef brought a small quantity of big units, and
in total far less units than I had. So I opted to deploy my fast units first
and evenly distributed over the length of my deployment zone to act as
messenger interceptors. Thereafter, I would pick a spot to deploy all
infantry to use these as sledge hammer to make a kind of highway for all my
messengers to get to the other side. I managed to get away with this battle
plan, with my big blocks of infantry in the centre and the messengers in
between them. Jef deployed his all messengers in the centre and his right.
So far so good!
I calculated up-front that messengers need to run mostly at double speed to
have a chance of getting off the field on the other side, so that’s what
mine did, performing the dance of taking cover from projectiles and charging
threats. Alas, finding enough hiding spots for four messengers is not that
easy, so one messenger lost a wound after a hail of skirmishing dark elf
shooters. In order to avoid further damage, I moved my black knights towards
them. Seeing no other alternative, they opted to charge the black knights
rather then being charged. Alas for them, they were butchered to the man.
The fast units on my left remained mostly stationary to await his
messengers, but those on the right (having no messengers in that part of the
battle field) threatened the opposing crossbow unit, containing his spell
casting lady. Alas, the wolves were shot to the animal…
As foreseen, the dark elf corsairs smashed frontally into the unit of grave
guard, revealing an assassin. This dark elf villain managed to kill my
battle standard bearer (bye bye regeneration), and take a wound of my
general in the next round of combat. It was only by charging the Varghulf in
their flank, that I managed to get the upper hand of this massive dark elf
unit. They instantly fled and were captured. In response, the nearby
crossbow unit fled as well. As a result, the way to the other side was way
open for all of my messengers! Alas, Jef did the only thing he could do in
shot notice: use one messenger as march blocker by positioning her behind a
building that was 1” away from the straight line between my messengers and
the centre of his board edge, foiling them from some rounds of double
movement.
In the meantime, I tried to get rid of Jef’s messengers. My first attempt
with my vampires went unfruitful. With a cargo load of attacks and rerolls,
she didn’t even get a dent into one messenger. In return, the war hydra took
her for a late afternoon snack, as he already did with the black knights. If
only the latter managed to take the last wound in their last round of combat
… The second attempt to kill an enemy messenger was by charging a unit of
six wolves into one single and lonely messenger. The wolves scared off a
unit of dark riders a few turns before, but were not able to take even the
slightest bite from the messenger. In a third attempt I tried to run over a
dark elf assassin with my Varghulf, so I could charge straight away into the
messenger just behind him. Alas, this attempt was in vain as well: all four
assassin’s attacks hit home, and the regeneration roll ended in two times 1,
a 2 and a 3. Poof!!!
Further down the battle, the surviving dark elf spell caster got away with a
magic spell that killed my vampire general, causing most of my units to
crumble away. Those units that survived were focused on playing “big Bertha”
with the opponent messengers, while the mostly intact units of Jef took any
chance to tackle mine. In the end, this game of what could be described as
plain rugby, ended in all enemy messengers still alive of which two stranded
in my deployment zone, and also all friendly messengers alive of which two
got off the table in the centre, and two in his deployment zone. This meant
that even with my army completely destroyed, I won the game by solid
victory.
Most
valuable unit(s):
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Varghulf for taking down four corsairs out of five attacks, seeing them
flee, and thereby creating a speedway for the messengers.
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All units that kept Jef’s messengers busy and away from my board’s edge.
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Aftermath by Stefano :
First
of all, I had the honor of playing three nice and joyful opponents. Thank you
Tom, Tony and Jef! On top of this, I scored two victories, granting me the 8th
place, which is by far the best result I ever got on Conflict ! It even enlarged
my model collection with “Konrad Von Carstein”.
But
this all could never have happened without my fellow Conect’r gamers. Thank you
all for making this tournament the fine event it has become over the years. Even
without a store to back you up, and even without the big city hall we used to
organize the tournament, it was a great success !!! See you next year, hopefully
this time to be part of the organizing team!
Aftermath by Kaïo:
I had a nice day and hearing
my name amongst the first 15 was a perfect end for a perfect day. I didn't lose
any of my battles and so had a real good feeling when driving home. Thanks
Conect'R for another great Conflict.
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