Day Two At Horned Rat V

Into Day Two and after watching the Warriors win (Yay!) and Liverpool lose the FA Cup Final (Boo), I was more than a little grumpy. I was looking for someone to vent frustrations on and that was Sam and his new Chaos Dwarfs.
Game Four – Sam Whitt (Chaos Dwarfs – FW Book) – Blood & Glory

As I noted in a prior blog, I was concerned with playing Sam’s list for two reasons – first, unfamiliarity with the book and army, and second he had most of the toys. Where I thought he did have a weakness was in regard to mobility and in having no real chaff to control space on the board.

We both had Fortitude of 5 (General, BSB and two banners) so it required either of us to only get two items – one if general – to break the other and pick up 600 points. Both of us put both scoring characters in a single unit, my BSB forsaking his usual Bulls for the safety of the Ironguts, Sam’s in the Infernal Guard.

With so few drops, Sam went first after deploying back. In came the Kadii Destroyer to threaten my line of three units of mournfang while the magma cannon killed two Sabretusks. The Dreakquake Mortar exploded – even with its reroll – and one of the key threats was gone.

Then came what was probably the key moment of the game. I declared charges with two units of my Mournfang on the Destroyer. I then had the third unit charge a unit of Hobgoblins which if successful would free my Guts to also charge the Destroyer. Sam should have fled…..he would have gone off the board. I suspect he was concerned that it would have opened up a charge of my Maneaters on his Bull Centaur unit. However by holding it allowed me to get the Guts into the Kadaii bringing with them an extra +5CR on top of the +1 for charging. With +6 CR and a series of Str 5/6 impact hits before a further swathe of Str 6 IG attacks, the Kadaii was always going down.

After that my Maneaters and Mournfang cleared out the Centaurs and I started picking up points across the table. In the end Sam had his Lord and BSB left plus two Hobgoblins. I lost the three Sabretusks.

Win 20-0

Game Five – Mike King (Lizardmen) – Battleline

Mike had jumped to 3rd behind myself and Tom and so we resumed our ongoing battles. We generally play once a week and predominantly it is Ogres versus Lizards.

In this game, Mike was on top early using Timewarp to concentrate on my right hand flank. Here I had a unit of Maneaters and they were eventually taken out by a combination of Skinks, Salamader, Saurus block and Camo Skinks. At the same time Mike had used a Skrox unit to flee off the board. On the other flank I fared better when a unit of mournfang held the charge of the Ancient Stegadon that had emerged from behind a tower. I then was able to charge two Mournfang units into his flank and kill him.

With Mike now in the ascendency on my right, his Slaan decided now would be a nice time to visit the Warp. This removed the potential for buffs that the Lizardmen army needed to use the Saurus to beat up my two foot units. I was able to buff my units and took the fight to the Lizards cleaning out the Skrox and a Saurus block. Mike did well in the last few turns preserving points where he could and withdrawing his two remaining Saurus blocks and their Scar Vet characters.

Win 17-3

So with that win I finished with a Battle Point Total of 91 points. This is my best ever return for a five round event (beating the 88 points I got with my Vampires at Horned Rat 2). Obviously I was really happy with that and it was enough to secure 1st Place. I felt that I had played pretty well over the weekend and took full advantage of the Ogres’ strengths. A lot of people think Ogres are just a “push it forward” army and while I’m sure you can play it that way, I think to maximise its potential you need to be a little smarter than that.

I generally play a more circumspect game and look to use my mournfang in a support role more than I think others do (if you believe the internet/podcasts). Therefore I will flee with units a lot more and look to set up the game for Turns 5/6 rather than just use units to smash through lines. I think that these type of tactics are really suited for the 20-0 BP system and as a result my average return per game has been rising.

Still they are gaining a lot of internet hate at the moment and it appears they are about to be hit by the comp stick. What will be interesting is that I know that there are a few Ogre armies in the pipeline locally so we’ll see what sort of success they have (at Equinox there were no other Ogres in the top half of the table).

Thanks to all my opponents, I had 5 very enjoyable games. Thanks to all the participants who travelled to the event from outside the region – your support is appreciated. And thanks to Raymond for all his efforts in organising and umpiring the event.