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Sunday, April 26, 2009

A lesson in humility.

Took a moment out from my frantic painting schedule to play a 2,250 tournament at BattleForge yesterday morning. It was one of their "Heavy" tourneys, which really equated to a test run of lists for Capital City Carnage IGT next week. I brought my list to play for the first time but things didn't go so well.

The day started off with a closely fought game against Warriors of Chaos. My opponent had 3 or 4 units of Marauders with Great Weapons and the Mark of Slaanesh, a unit of Tzeentch marked Knights, a unit of Slaanesh marked Horsemen, a big block of Slaanesh marked Warriors, Tzeentch marked Warshrine, a Chaos Sorc on steed (in the Warriors), Exalted Hero BSB on steed (with the Knights), and a Chaos Lord on a Chaos Dragon (with the 75 point Flaming sword that does D3+1 wounds per wound). All of his list was pretty much bad news for the Beer Gut Tribe. With no Psych in effect, and a terrifying Lord on Dragon flying around, things got ugly very fast.

Match started with the Dragon flying down a flank to kill a unit of 3 Ironguts. Meanwhile his forces surged forward in the center of the table in an attempt to bait a charge. My Slavegiant rushed his Knight unit, took 3 wounds, and threw the BSB across the field into the Marauder Horsemen (killing 3). The Scraplauncher did well the first couple shots, dumping killing blow junk down on the Warriors and removing a rank bonus. Eventually my main Bull block with Tyrant, BSB, and Siegebreaker Butcher were surrounded by units in the middle of the board with little to no support nearby. The main block charged the Warriors but missed by about 1/8" and failed the charge. It was then countercharged the next turn by the Maruader Horsemen and BSB on the flank, Chaos Lord and Dragon in the rear, and the big block of Warriors in the front.

Chaos Lord challenged and Tyrant Karnov stepped up to test out his build. He saved against the Lord's first attack, eating his sword with his Greedy Fist, and turning the 75 point item into nothing special. The Dragon was very upset by this and dealt 3 wounds to the Tyrant, who answered with 4 wounds of his own on the Dragon. On the flank the Siegebreaker Butcher finished off the Marauder Horsemen while one lonely Bull swuared off against the Exalted Hero BSB, dealing the one remaining wound he had and killing him outright.

At the end of this combat the Ogres were most alive, but hurting. They lost CC by 1, but made their check and continued to fight on. The next turn the Warriors flank was charged by a unit of 4 Ironguts with a Butcher to help even the odds. The Tyrant stood up to more brutal attack from the Lord and Dragon taking 1 wound in the process. He answered back by hitting all 5 times with his attacks, but failed to do a single wound to the Dragon (rolling almost all 1's and 2's). Just one wound would have killed the thing .... such terrible luck.

As a result the combat was lost for the Ogres after taking heavy losses to the Bulls from the Warriors in the front. After failing to roll double 1's the unit broke and was quickly chased down by the Lord and the Dragon (no thanks to that damn Soporific Musk!).

The flanking Ironguts went on to crush the Warriors, chase them down, and eventually chase some Marauders off the board. On the other side of the field, the remaining Ironguts and Leadbelchers took out the unit of Knights.

Game ended in a draw. It was a really fun and exciting match up, and my Tyrant loadout worked exactly as I wanted it to (with the exception of failing to kill that damn Dragon!).

Next match was a quick one. The Ogres were horribly slaughtered by an Empire list with 2 units of Outriders (plus captains with sniper rifles and pigeon bombs, and all kinds of terrible stuff), a Great Cannon (which blew up my Scraplauncher in turn 1 on a fairly cheesy shot), a Hellblaster (which blew apart almost all of my Bulls with one shot of 24), 2 Bright Wizards (who burnt the crap out of me with Conflagration), and 2 Warrior Priests (giving the Bright Wizards rerolls for the lose), and a Steam Tank. This wasn't counting the 3 massive units of Knights, a unit of Swordsmen, and the two detachments of Archers (who along with the Bright Wizards killed my Slavegiant in turn 1).

I managed to kill 1 Knight, 1 unit of 5 Archers, and the Steam Tank (with my Siegebreaker Butcher). He killed everything else on the board with the exception of a unit of Gnoblar Fighter who were hiding in a corner behind a wall.

A really, really, rough game. Has to be the worst beating I have taken, and my opponent was making snide remarks about the Ogre Kingdoms and how my list sucked the whole game (he told me I lost because I didn't play MSU Irongut spam, even though I had 3 units of Ironguts). Aside from the snide comments he was a fairly nice guy, and I am sure he only made the comments in an attempt to offer advice. It was just the situation that made it really tough to listen to anything he had to offer.

Shortly after that horrible loss (in Turn 3) one of the tourney players had a seizure in the store. Games stopped, ambulance was called, things turned out okay (I guess), but it really put a damper on the mood. Combine this with my horrible loss,to Empire, a slight hangover (from homebrew the night before), and an extreme hunger and it was time for me to leave. Didn't stay to play my third game.

Still feeling beat up from that last game though. I have been replaying it in my mind and I just don't see too much I could have done differently (aside from rolling better). I was shot and magic'd to death while I tried to find cover (there was only a forest on one side of the board) and make my way into charge range. Even if I had made it into range he had 3 units of Knights waiting to destroy me. All in all it was a bad matchup for my list.

Now I am going back to the painting table in an effort to complete my tasks. It seems unlikely that I will finish everything before next Saturday but I am going to give it my best. Hopefully I won't have any more games like the ones from yesterday.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Quick update!

I haven't had time to devote to this poor dilapidated gnoblog lately and I feel guilty about it. A combination of things has kept me running around with just enough time to drink beer and paint models. The biggest thing on my mind in the world of Warhammer is my first every IGT showing at Capital City Carnage in a little under two weeks. I submitted my army list earlier this month and it was approved last week. What was the list you ask!? Well ...

LORDS:
Tyrant - Cathayan Longsword, Heavy Armor, Luck Gnoblar, Sword Gnoblar x 2, Beastkiller, Wyrdstone Necklace, Greedy Fist, Greyback Pelt (321)

HEROES:
Bruiser - BSB, Lookout Gnoblar, Cathayan Longsword, Heavy Armor, Giantbreaker, Gnoblar Thiefstone (212)
Butcher - Siegebreaker, Skullmantle (180)
Butcher - Bangstick, Dispel Scroll (180)

CORE:
Bulls x 7 - Bellower (255)
Ironguts x 3 - Bellower (154)
Ironguts x 3 (144)
Ironguts x 3 (144)
Gnoblar Fighters x 20 (40)
Gnoblar Trappers x 10 (60)

SPECIAL:
Scraplauncher (165)
Leadbelchers x 2 (110)
Leadbelchers x 2 (110)

RARE:
Slavegiant (175)

Total Points: 2,250 (of 2,250)

A little bit of everything that is hopefully enough for most situations. I don't expect to win all of my matches but I am hoping for an even win/loss ratio at least. There are two other players bringing Ogres to the event which was a bit shocking to me!

I have been painting almost every day for the past month in an effort to finish the models in the list in time for the tournament. Expect painted pictures this month assuming I can find the time to take them (and post them here).