Mini Tournament

Wow, I won! Shocked

Very fun little spontaneous tournament, happens to be a bunch of us online so Olly runs round like a maniac and beats us into something resembling organised. Thanks Olly

Game 1: WG vs. Alavet
Last time around I played DO multiplayer, UD were my strongest so Ive been tending towards them this time. However im really finding they just plain aren’t up to snuff here, with the points values seeming way off base for most. Still, I figured they’re still pretty decent and after my O&G failed in a practice against Alavet (using a 16 point version of the army he used here) I decided to trust in Fear and try my UD. Below is the list im slowly shaping out of recent experience:

3x Zombie

1x Ghoul

1x Horsemen (w/ Potion of Strength)

1x Mummies (w/ Stormsword)

1x Wights

Alavet used a strong (in his words imba Tongue

) infantry list: Flags (w/ Spelleater), Ogres (w/ Defiance), WElf Archers, Ice mage, Greatswords, Halbadiers. We play of the 'Forest before Kislev' map.

He basically deploys his army between 2 clumps of trees with his hard stuff to the front, greatswords gaurding the archers who are behind the hard stuff. I put the horsemen on my left, ghouls on my right (to pincer round the woods), and everything else in the centre (wights in reserve).

I march everything down, but my wights mess up their move and end up going backwards for a bit Undecided

. I have to shift a zombie unit over to the right to support the ghouls, with the horsemen moving fast and swinging round the woods whilst his archers shoot at the mummies. He's a bit slow shifting the greatswords to counter the horsemen but they do the job, whilst the halbediers react to the zombie/ghoul attack, but flee in fear when the zombies charge. The mummies get bogged down in the ogres and the flaggelents wail on a zombie unit, i think the archers shoot the other zombies to death. The archers then deftly avoid getting double-charged by the ghouls/zombies, with one going to help out the Horsemen, the greatswords then breaking. I then run the horsemen after them to stop them rallying but fail. I think I manage to cut down the archers with the wights and ghouls (I could be wrong) but its all a bit of a mess by now and despite my early success with fear, he takes my army apart piecemeal. It all collapses when the mummies flee from the Ogres/Flaggalents who then beat up the Wights, whilst the ghouls run for the hills.

A fairly promising start but the mummies Epic Failed (AGAIN!!!!) and thus the inferiority of undead in 1-on-1 shows. No way they're worth 5 points, and the Wights arent good enough to save the game once the Mummies are gone. Still a good game and it could have gone either way.

Game 2: WG vs. Da Grot
I decided to use a defensive infantry Empire army for this game, having decided that I needed something a little more conservative, as Grot probably isn’t any more experienced than me. The army failed miserably on its first outing against Alavet but I learned from my experiences and swapped some stuff around.

1x Mortar

1x Bright Mage

1x Swordsmen (w/ Stormsword)

1x Greatswords (w/ Defiance Banner)

1x Halbadiers

1x Bowmen

1x Crossbowmen

Grot used something like: Goblin Shaman, 2x Arrer Boys, 2x Orc Boyz, 2x Big ‘Uns, Boar Boyz (Mork’s Banner). Map is Grissburg Town.

I deploy in the village on the plains to the right of the houses, putting mortar/mage behind a house with the greatswords guarding, and everything else in a line in front of a patch of difficult ground. He deploys in a line on the hill.

Game starts and my Mortar promptly blows up his Shaman and a few Arrer Boys from the unit it actually aimed at, swiftly followed by a big red “WTF???” flashing up on my screen. Fun times

. He marches everything forward, with my shooters aiming at his Boars and Boyz, whilst his Big Uns swing far left to flank me through the village. The mortar blows out a chunk of the Boars but when I use Burning Head on them I find they’ve got the nullify banner; mage promptly hitches up his skirt and runs backwards whilst the boars hit the crossbowmen whilst the swordsmen fight the Big Uns on their flank and the bowmen/halberds face the Boyz and archers. Seeing how far wide he’s marching the Big Uns in the village, the greatswords rush to join the melee, ;eaving the mortar to bombard the Big Uns and Arrer Boys. The Swordsmen find their opponent breaks because Grot accidently hits the ‘Rout’ button

, I then promptly forget about them and they get shot and Panic Sad

.

In the middle the Boars and Boyz are eventually beaten off, but the Arrer Boyz move in to support the survivors and my infantry, now bereft of greatswords (as they move to guard against the far wide Big Uns), with the remaining infantry fleeing a lot… The Big Uns charge the Mortar, get hit by the greatsowrds and I shoot the rallied bowmen into the melee, killing my own mortar and its 50-kill streak. At least the orcs wont get the credit!

Its all a bit piecemeal on the other end, with us both shooting and charging each other at odd intervals, though I think my mage actually manages to Burning Head an Arrer Boys and cause the unit to rout, eventually leving me in command of the field so I can move everything to support the greatswords, and win.

A hilarious opening followed by a very messy brawl, in which if im honest I probably owe my eventual success to Grot’s accidental clicking of rout on one flank Big Un unit sending the other flank Big Uns far too wide, partially compensated by my atrocious use of my mage and forgetting about my hardest-hitting unit (swordsmen) whilst they stood in front of archers… A fun game with several points of hilarity but had either of us been playing more experienced opponents we would have handed them victory through our amateur antics. Wink

Game 3: WG vs. Flak
I was a bit unconfident about going into this match, as Flak is an experienced player and I think had just beaten Alavet in a quick pick-up match they played in-between. I decide thatUndead certainly wouldn’t cut it and he’d probably outfox my Empire, so I took a chance on an O&G army I’d been mulling over for a while. I had very little experience with O&G but this seemed like a forgiving build.

1x Goblin Shaman

1x Spider

2x Boar Boys

2x Arrer Boys

2x Orc Boys

1x Big ‘Uns (Defiance Banner)

Flak was using Empire, roughly: Cavalry, WElf Bowmen (possible w/ Ptolos), Glade Guard, and some other infantry, I cant really remember exactly. We played Grissberg Town again, with him starting inside the village and me outside (so swapped deployment from last time).

Flak deployed his army deep into his zone, clustered around the furthest house, with a cavalry unit hidden in ambush towards the left flank (my left). I put the spider on my right, boars on my left, and everything else in the centre and just started marching forwards. As the infantry advanced they see the cavalry almost straight away, but I keep the boars going down the left hoping he wont react too strongly, but as it turns out I mess up their waypoints and one unit ends up sitting there, letting the cavalry come around and smack into their rear, forcing the other boars to come back and try and rescue their brethren (the rear-charged boar end up breaking but hold on long enough that the other boars flank the cavalry and thus give quantity a chance to win over quality). Without these units to threaten the bowmen it could have been disastrous, as last time I used a similar O&G army the bowmen shredded it. But something happened that neither of us are really sure on; all we know is the bowmen were showering arrows on my infantry with me trying to return the favour whilst the halberds marched in front; I know I took a shot with Gaze of Mork on them both but beyond that we aren’t sure, but whatever happens the Archers break and the spider runs around after them stopping them rallying. Yes! Main threat eliminated and my mistake with the boars compensated.
With this, the infantry lines clash, not sure of the details but it ends up with the Glade Guard ripping through a Boys unit but getting a flurry of arrows and the Big Uns to the face for their troubles, fleeing but eventually rallying with a goodly number of survivors. The rest sees his units getting ground down with the boars finishing off the cavalry and coming to help, although the unit that got rear charged ends up breaking and routing and my Boys suffer very badly. The other Boars chase after the Glade Guard to try and stop them rallying whilst I try and surround his other remnants and shoot, magic and charge them to death. When the Glade Guard rally (boars having failed their mission), they start fighting the boars but as I manage to finish off the rest of his army I can feed more and more units to the melee and rout them. The game ends with the field littered with human dead and a surprisingly large number of orcs still standing.

It was a very interesting game and I think I played pretty well, with my only real mistake with the boars getting charged which was compensated by being possibly quite lucky in dealing with the WElf Archers. With them gone and the cavalry bogged down against the boars (who they still smacked up good but numbers told in the end), the heart was torn out of the Empire army and despite the Glade Guards best efforts (im fast becoming impressed with these guys after initially thinking their points cost was quite steep), they couldn’t recover. Flak didn’t make any mistakes I could and played a good game, and before this match his army was very successful, but he ended up feeling he’d been routed so badly in this one he might have to reconsider it. So from being underdog I suddenly find myself in the final, but if I though Flak was a tough opponent I was now facing the guy who had gone 4-0 through this tournament...

Game 4: WG vs. ZzUu
Though I didn’t know ZzUu’s reputation, his win record against experienced players like Olly and Flak just this night told me I was facing a very accomplished player. Given the surprisingly clean victory of my O&G’s in the last game, I decided to stick with it and hope my inexperience with them didn’t matter too much.

ZzUu’s army was: Cavalry, Ogres, Pistoliers, Swordsmen, Halberdiers, Greatswords, WElf Archers. The map was Road to Moussilon.

First thing I noticed on this map was how surprisingly close the deployment zones were, coming a whole third of the way onto the board. I had a hill and windmill to the left of mine, opposite a smaller hill with wood to its (my) left. ZzUu promptly confirmed my fears by deploying very ably, with his infantry right out front of his deployment, whilst hiding his archers on the reverse slope of the hill and the cavalry and ogres down by the woods. Wellington would have been proud!

Id put my infantry in a line with the Arrer boys on the left on the hill, the infantry in the flat below to the right and the boar boys to the right of them, looking to swing round the hill. The spider went to the left of the Arrer Boys and the shaman plonked in the middle. Everything of mine rushed forwards, but ZzUu had waypointed his 3 exposed infantry to fall back to the hill the moment the game started, and desultory missile fire and magic did little to worry them, whilst the Ogres rushed from their hiding spot by the woods to reinforce the defensive positions on the hill. As the Boars advanced, I suddenly saw the final clever little bit of the trap whereby ZzUu had placed Pistoliers way over to my right well out of sight, ready to sweep in behind me at their leisure. Thankfully, leisurely they were, I think he was too busy organising the hill defence and the Pistoliers were slow to be brought into the battle. Meanwhile the spider rushed up along the left-hand edge of the map, foiled in its attempts to reach the WElf Archers by the cavalry intercepting it (though this delaying the cavalry turned out to be a blessing). Similar happened with one of the Boar units, when its path took it too close to the greatswords who charged into their path, stopping their rush towards the archers too. Thankfully, the other Boar unit swung just far enough around that it cam all the way around to the back of the hill and charged up into the archer’s rear, proceeding to reap bloody murder through their ranks.

On the front of the hill, the orc, human and ogre infantry collided, with my troops proceeding to suck and die but at a sufficiently slow enough pace to keep me hanging in there. The Pistoliers meanwhile had finally made a move and made a beeline for the exposed Shaman, taking a bit of arrowfire on the way but managing to charge him. Presumably they thought that would make them safe from being shot, but ZzUu hadn’t reckoned on me completely failing to notice my archers were still shooting at the pistoliers instead of ordering them to charge and try to rescue my Shaman, and when I did I decided I didn’t care and proceeded to shoot my shaman in the back whilst still managing to kill a few humans on the way. Fun times! Cheesy

The Pistoliers bravely tried to take a few Arrer Boys with them but the pressure of arrowfire was too much and they panicked, never to return. This was just as well, because the Cavalry had by now killed the spider and decided to go on a killing spree over the left flank of my army. In they went to a unit of Boys and I hastily threw in an Arrer unit to try and shore it up whilst I finished off the rest of his infantry with the surviving Boar Boys. This they did, but not in time to see the Empire Cavalry deciding they were having none of this ‘tarpit’ lark and breaking both units despite being surrounded on three sides. So instead of charging in to support the Big Uns in their head-butting contest (which the Ogres were definitely winning) with the Boars find themselves rushing headlong to try and salvage the situation whilst the other Arrer Boy unit found itself being ordered in to hold up the Cavalry in a way 2 other units had failed miserably to do. Happily they succeeded and with the Boars charging them in the rear the Cavalry broke, with the Boars chasing them and stopping them rallying whilst both Arrer Boys (the other having got over their savaging and rallying quickly) shot at them, although I think they ended up killing as many errant Boar Boys as Cavalry…

Back over at the hill, the Ogres finally proved their superiority and the last of the Big Uns died, dropping the Banner of Defiance right in front of their killers… Memories of just such a unit of unbreakable monsters flashed before my eyes and suddenly I had visions of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Once more the Boar Boys found themselves called on to rush halfway across the map to save the day against an unstoppable foe whilst the Arrer Boys desperately tried to pincushion them, before all charging in for a long, drawn-out melee against the exceedingly tough Ogres… Only to find that they both died after a couple of rounds. Bit of an anti-climax but it turns out that whilst they were sucking and dying, the Big Uns were actually thoughtful enough to put quite a few wounds on the surviving Ogres without being thoughtful enough to actually kill them off. Oh well, can’t complain.

So ended a tense and challenging game, and to my surprise it also left me the winner of this impromptu tournament (admittedly probably only possible by Alavet having to leave early), not bad for someone who’d only just started to pick up the game just a week or so ago. ZzUu played a good game but I think his tardy Pistoliers and Cavalry letting themselves get bogged down fighting the Spider on its own gave me breathing space from his 2 most mobile units that, combined with my quick (and this time entirely intentional) nullification of the WElf Archers, allowed me to grind my way through the rest of his army (or more accurately, sit their dying just slowly enough for the surviving Boar unit to rescue the situation with copious rear-charging). I made mistakes with the Boars that got charged and also in exposing the Shaman to the Pistoliers whilst not utilising his magic properly, but they ended up not mattering much.

Conclusion
So, a great little spontaneous diversion to wile away the evening with actually coming out in good form as an added bonus. Its also good experience with the chance to test out my more competitive thoughts on the available armies and see what sort of things other people regard as competitive ways to play. Sadly it seems that my favourite side, Undead, are not very competitive under the points restrictions in place (especially as they take no account of the smaller variety of units you can take) and whilst its still relatively early days I’m struggling to see where the equitable solutions are. Empire (and pals) meanwhile seem to be in pretty good shape and I’ve got plenty of ideas yet to try out with them now Undead are taking a backseat. O&G are a side I have little experience with but they’re shaping up to be a side I may enjoy playing with than I thought. I’ve got a bit of catching up to do though, and I think there’s quite a bit more tweaking to do than may seem at first glance before the bigger tournament at the end of April.

Nothing much left to say except thanks to my opponents for the games and to everyone else that I hope they enjoyed reading about them.

	Author	Topic: Mini Tournament (Read 20739 times)
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.