The event was 2000 points, six rounds with rulebook missions. Terrain was our typical 8-10 pieces per table.
My list was:
- 3x Tunnel Slave Regiments
- 2x Shock Troop Hordes
- 1x Blight Horde
- 1x Vermintide Regiment
- 2x Weapons Teams with Storm of Lead
- 2x Death Engine with Vile Sorcery
- Swarm Crier
- Warlock with Bane Chant and Inspiring Talisman
- Deamonspawn with Wings
Game One - Matt Barker (Abyssal Dwarfs) - Loot
In this game I managed to get two of the Loot counters early - The Blight grabbing theirs and eventually getting off the board unmolested. The one on my right flank Matt secured and tried to run for his table edge. I was able to shoot the carrying unit breaking Nerve and this left the counter unclaimed at the end.
In the centre my Shock Troops got the counter and started to back up. On the final turn they were sitting on 15+ wounds and made the decision to charge their pursuers in an attempt to break them so they didn't have to weather another charge. They broke the enemy leaving me with two counters.
Win 16-4
Game Two - Jayden Howell (Goblins) - Dominate
Jayden plays 10+ games a week on Universal Battle and as I said I felt very rusty going into this. Both of us were going to try and shove our hordes into the centre circle but both had good shooting. The game turned very cagey as we both realised sitting in the middle was sure death. My advantage was that my units were worth more points per square cm than Jayden's so I needed less in there.
This turned into probably the most tactical game of KoW I've played and at the end of Turn 6 it was a draw. We rolled up a 7th turn and while i was able to kill some of Jayden's units, he could cycle more in. It ended a draw on scenario and also Attrition.
Draw 10-10
Game Three - Joel Cunningham (Varangur) - Kill
This was a good scenario for me versus Joel's Varangur which only had two breath attacks. He had 3 Cavern Dwellers, the Linkworm and a Lord on Chimera (so juicy points haul). Turn One I let him come forward and then concentrated my shooting at his Lord putting 7 wounds on him. This kept him out of much of the game as he was reluctant to commit with my Daemonspawn playing sweeper. I erected a chaff wall in front of his Cavern Dwellers and was able to shoot them off over 3-4 turns. His infantry eventually took out my Blight but then received multiple charges and were destroyed.
Win 18-2
Game Four - Eugene Gielen (Ratkin) - Pillage
My first ever Ratkin civil war, Eugene's army had three Shredders and three Weapons Teams. Eugene won the roll for first turn and took it (which I thought was a mistake). He moved to close the distance and I was able to concentrate my Death Engines and LBs on the Daemonspawn doing 8 wounds. This spooked it and it decamped to somewhere safer. Eugene's shredders had awful luck but I had restricted his targets to the Blight and Slaves. Eventually a double 6 took out the Blight so it probably evened out a bit.
I committed chaff to inflict wounds and hold the enemy in place concentrating fire to remove units controlling counters. In the last turns I pushed my heavy hitters to mop up and hold 5 of the 7 objectives.
Win 17-3
Game Five - Ryan Lister (Undead) - Invade
This was a tough match for me as Ryan's army was composed of high point units. However I new he had points tied up in two Vamp Lords and they would only count half. I concentrated my army in the centre and pushed straight up the guts. On the flanks I sacrificed the Slaves, Verminkin and Weapons Teams to delay the Undead roll. I got lucky taking out Wraiths on a roll of 10. In the middle I sacrificed a unit of Shock Troops to take out Wraiths (x2), Soul Revenants and Werewolves. This cost me a Death Engine late in the game but with the other Shock Troops taking out a regiment of Dopplegangers I was able to win the centre and pushed quite a few points into Ryan's half. In the end it was a narrow win but it could have gone either way.
Win 16-4
Game Six - Kent Jackson (Elves) - Kill & Pillage
Kent's list was a bad match up for mine. He had Lord on Drakon, two Hordes of Drakons, lots of shooting units etc. There were also seven counters so I would have to expose my units to shooting to ensure I picked up the necessary points. In the end I was lucky that Kent tried to sweep a flank with his Lord and the two Drakon Hordes. This allowed me to use most of my army to blunt them before I moved forward to capture counters. One brave Slave regiment reached the Elf shooting lines and made a real nuisance of itself before dying (as all good slaves do). I was able to claim four of the counters and contest two others as well as picking up good points on the Drakons.
Win 18-2
Wash-Up
Overall the army did very well. I didn't really miss my Brutes and the Verminhorde were a nice variation over Slaves. It functioned against a wide range of adversaries from high shooting to none. One of the key requirements with the army is to be patient. You isolate threats but key is not to be too aggressive. I believe this is specially true with the Daemonspawn and the Weapons Teams as they can undertake multiple roles. I've started using the big guy more as a sweeper these days to instill uncertainty into the enemy. This is a different role from when I used the MRF where he was required to babysit.
In the end I finished on 95/120 points. Given that it was impossible to score 20 points in a game unless you didn't lose a model and destroyed the enemy army - and virtually impossible to get 19 - I was happy with the haul.
Starting the last round one point behind Jayden, I leapfrogged him to win by two. Both of us finished 5-1-0. Ryan was third with 4-0-2.
That meant I got some treasure. Yes-yes very covet-precious!
Congrats on the win, Pete.
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