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Hi all,
Just got back from Wasteland Wars and had a great time playing on what
are
overwhelmingly the best looking gaming tables for any tournament in North
America. Decided to try a different army this year so I clobbered some
Hillbilly with a cinder block and stole the following
Cult of Ulric
25 warriors of ulric, light armour, shields, std, mus, warrior priest
upgrade with heavy armour and great weapon (223)
25 warriors of ulric, light armour, shields, std, mus, warrior priest
upgrade with heavy armour and great weapon (223)
10 warriors of ulric, light armour, great weapons (60)
10 warriors of ulric, light armour, great weapons (60)
12 teutogen guard, musician (138)
5 hunting hounds
5 hunting hounds
5 hunting hounds
11 inner circle knights of the white wolf, mus, std, war banner, champion
(351)
11 knights of the white wolf, mus, std, champion (293)
10 archers (70)
5 huntsmen (45)
5 huntsmen (45)
8 wolf kin, great weapons, musician (85)
8 wolf kin, great weapons (80)
Grandmaster Marcus the Fearless, storm hammer, heart of middenheim, bane
of the craven (266)
Seneschal Roy the Bastard, barded warhorse (82)
warrior priest, battle standard bearer (124)
Had a warm up game against Bryan Jone's Sylvannia list on the very cool
Lybraras table and had just enough time to lose before running to the
airport to pick up Roy. That bring my tournament prep with this army to a
mighty 1 win and 4 losses.
Game 1, Tom Keegan, Ice Board
So I thought I was going to play Roy in game 1, found out he had a
different opponent and was thrilled to have dodged the slayers as they
are
a tough matchup for me. Instead I end up playing against Tom Keegan and
his pirate slayers (complete with a scratch built pirate ship that would
have been cool if he had eaten the popsicles to make it).
Great, same army as Roy but run by a better general.
4 assorted slayer characters
6 doomseekers
3 units of 16 or 17 slayers with additional hand weapons
goblin hewer
long drong's slayer pirates
We are playing on the ice scenerio where the attacker has to cross the
ice
and get some points into the defender's zone. I won the critical roll and
selected the attacking position as I believe that side has a big
advantage. Tom lines up his army in single ranks covering pretty much the
whole board, with characters and doomseekers interspersed between units.
My game plan is to try and punch through the right flank with the inner
circle knights and lead a pile of higher point value infantry through
there to victory. I hedge this plan with a skirmish assault on the left
flank and the regular knights up the center. Tom surges forward looking
for ice trolls, but I get to go first due to the scenerio. Quickly get
the inner circle knights (with Marcus the GM) engaged on the right and
start wearing down the slayers. Center gets botched up quickly after I
get the roll Ld test to move weather (you roll up a weather effect every
turn) and fail with my lead unit while Tom keeps getting the
"slippery"
result can't move his center unit either. Left flank is a series of
futile attempts to shoot stuff with my meager archer force and ends up
with complete destruction of all my troops over there as Tom's
doomseekers
fall through the ice, but hold on by their axes (when on the thin ice you
have to make tests and Tom twice got the "fall through the ice
unless you
pass an inititive test" on that flank and passed both tests. One
central
doomseeker did fall through the ice. Central knights finally got engaged
with some slayers, doomseekers, characters, etc and managed to keep
killing enough guys to hold in place. Top of turn 5 and things on the
right side are now very tricky. I have finally slaughtered all of the
slayers plus a hero, but my knights are engaged by 2 doomseekers.
Grandmaster moves through the unit and kills one on my turn, then wraps
around (at this point my knights are a single rank) to contact the other
one and manages to kill him bottom of turn 5 (bit of good luck here). Top
of turn 6 and I have no troops in his deployment zone yet, and have to
make some crucial rolls. Weather comes up with 11 - the only one that is
no effect. Knights pass their "thin ice" roll and scamper into
the
deployment zone. Some other junk passes as well and I arrange them to
catch the fire from the goblin hewer. End up with a Massacre as the inner
circle knights and grandmaster are a huge percentage of my total points.
Tom fought very well and almost came away with the massacre himself in a
scenerio where he was in a bad position. 16-4 Ulric victory.
Game 2, Owen Thomas, Chaos Clouds of Death board
Owen was the youngest player at the tournament and this was a rematch
from
last year. He had a blood dragon army with a mounted count, necromancer,
thrall on foot, 2 blocks of 30 skeletons, 20 grave guard, 9 black
knights,
a huge unit of 20 ghouls, and 4 leadbelchers. Terrain is mostly wide
open, but clouds of doom can appear that do a S3 hit with no armour save
to anything they move over. Scary for knights. Owen deploys (from my
perspective) with skeletons center left, then leadbelchers, more
skeletons, black knights, grave guard, and ghouls. I put the regular
knights left, pour my infantry into the center, and then the inner circle
knights on the extreme right with the wolf-kin units. The clouds have it
in for my army as the central one moves right towards my lines and in the
first two turns 2 more clouds pop up in the center of both table quarters
on my side of the board. This completely stymies the central portion of
my infantry advance and slows the knights on the left as the clouds weave
around to mess with me. On the right side the inner circle knights charge
the ghouls on turn 2, he has to hold, and I mash them up and pursue
almost
to his table edge. Left side I first try and go straight at the
leadbelchers and skeletons with my knights, but the cloud gets in the way
so the knights turn around and do a flanking swoop instead. Archer fire
manages to down a leadbelcher and they panic, rally, and get back into
position but now a bit too late to really help. While this is going on my
inner circle knights turn to face his black knights while a unit of dogs
bravely takes one for the team to keep the grave guard off of their
flank.
He makes a mistake with his roaming necromancer and I charge it with the
inner circle and overrun into the front of the black knights with vampire.
Grandmaster Marcus the fearless challenges and the lingering effects of
former glory compel the Blood Dragon Count to accept. I manage an
incredible 2 wounds to him on the charge and he cannot strike back as the
Storm Hammer stuns him. Mean time a brave flank charge by some hounds
plus a frontal charge by some wolf kin amazingly wins a round of combat
against the grave guard with thrall (thank you improbability drive)
keeping them off my inner circle knights flank. Next turn Grandmaster
Marcus finishes off the vampire count - Woo Hoo - marking the first time
EVER in 6th edition that I have actually killed a vampire lord by doing
damage instead of just combat resolution. From here out it is just
mopping up as the skeletons crumble quickly (hastened by some knight
charges and a warrior block with a priest), while his grave guard chase
after the little infantry units I keep pouring in to keep him occupied.
18-2 victory for Ulric.
Game 3, Bryan Jones, Underground
A rematch from the Friday night pickup where I was so rudely slaughtered.
Having already reached my quota of dead vampire counts for the day I knew
better than to try that again (and Bryan's lord was way tougher).
Von Cartein Vampire Lord, crown of the damned, book of arkhan, spectral
attendants, Thrall with battle standard, mounted thrall with gem of
blood,
9 black knights, banshee, black coach, 5 dire wolves, bat swarm, bat
swarm, 24 skeleton militia, 24 skeleton militia, 23 skeleton militia
Having had my butt handed to my by Bryan the night before I at least knew
what not to do. Scenerio limited shooting to half range, making my
mediocre shooting completely useless, and disallowing fly movement making
Bryan's bat swarms pathetic. Bryan placed his 3 tomb markers on the right
side of the board where there were some impassible rock features. I
figured this meant he was going to castle and I had no intension of
trying
to bust him out of his castle. Decided to play for a draw to minor
victory by controlling table quarters and knocking down some of the
summoned skeletons. Deployment took a while as we had a running
conversation the whole game about exactly what we were doing - I love
those sort of games. By the end all of his skeletons, the black knights,
and all the characters were in the castle, but he put a banshee and the
coach on the extreme left flank way outside of the castle. I had some
hounds on the right, then regular knights and a mess of ranked infantry
through the center. All skirmishers and my inner circle knights were on
the left. I focussed all of my efforts on killing the left side of the
board while march blocking with the hounds on the right. Bryan summoned a
pathetic 2 dire wolves on the far left in my table quarter who I quicky
surrounded with wolf kin and a unit of hunting hounds and they died in a
futile charge into my hunting hounds. He overcommitted his banshee and
got double charged by wolf kin and archers for a combat resolution death.
Inner circle knights went straight at the coach, took the charge, and
then
ground it down over a few rounds. In the center I could not really stop
his summoning so didn't even try - just kept the skeletons in front of me
and saved the dispell dice for his movement magic (book plus a van
hel's).
I made one mistake with my regular knights as they punched through some
summoned crossbowmen, but had a weak overrun and ended up exposing their
flank to a skeleton unit. Fled from the charge, then fled from another
van hel's charge in the magic phase, and finally rallied within sight of
the board edge. Whew, that was a lot of risk for a few skeletons and dumb
on my part, but without consequence. On the right his thrall charged out
of the knights into some hounds and again I fired up the improbability
drive taking no wounds and delivering one back to him. Hah - my moment of
triumph as this would mean me winning by 2. Alas, the gem of blood was
activated rebounding the wound causing me to lose instead. At this point
it looked like I had the minor victory wrapped up so Bryan had to start
coming out of his castle and taking chances. I offered him little chance
to get points back and only offered targets were he would need some lucky
dice to win. Lucky dice deserted him and in the end it was about 30
points shy of a massacre. Very fun game and my favorite of the week.
13-3 Ulric minor victory.
Game 4, John, Lozanno, Damnable Oasis table
Great, the same scenerio that I choked against Cody last year on table 1
at Game 4. Here I was again on this board and again I executed a flawed
battle plan. What I needed to do, and knew I needed to do, was load the
knights on a flank and kill herds all game. Instead an irrational fear of
the "dying of thirst" rule that can do no armour save damage to
you unless
you have been to the oasis took hold and I loaded everything to rush the
oasis. This still could have worked if I got the first turn, but I
misjudged the number of units (forgot that one would ambush) and so John
got the critical +1 and went first. His beastmen army had a beastlord
with rending sword, armour of damnatiion, and horn of the great hunt, 2
wargors, bray shaman scroll caddy, 18 bestigors, 6 centigors, 5
minotaurs,
giant with mutant monstrosity, 2 chariots, and lots of herds with 9/11,
9/11, 7/10, 7/10, 5/5 gors/ungors, plus 2 5 man hound units. His big
stuff was in the center of his line and herds on either flank. I decided
I would punch up the center with the knights and then try to take and
hold
the oasis. Unfortunately he went first and managed to kill a hound unit
with dark hand of death (I rolled a double 1 to dispell) that was
intended
to block his minotaur unit and seal my victory. OK, now I'm already on
plan C and it is my first turn. I probably still should have done the
frontal assault, but instead went left with the inner circle knights to
go
after the herds on that side. Screwed up another hound unit that was
supposed to screen me from just 1 of the two chariots, but instead
screened from both. He charged and I took it with the hounds, knowing the
overrun would come to my knights and wanting that fight to happen in my
turn. Archers on my right manage to kill enough centigors to panic them
off the board, and I position the warrior units to counter the herds.
Central knights get completely jammed due to bad positioning on my part.
The game pretty much went completely in the tank when his two chariot
charge into my inner circle knights did 13 impact hits causing 10 wounds.
With a 4+ save I then made 1 freaking save. With the rest of his attacks
he managed to finish off 11 inner circle knights in a single charge.
Grandmaster holds as he is stubborn (anything within 6" of the oasis
is
stubborn) and I have BSB nearby. Great, now 2 turns have gone by and
I've taken a sub-optimal deployment and made it way worse with some crazy
dice. Rest of the game I'm just scrambling to try and kill stuff to rush
the center at the end, but still can't get the dice to swing back my way.
It takes my grandmaster about 6 turns of combat to kill 1 chariot,
his troops kept rallying, and a critical herd I broke in combat managed
to outrun my warriors, rally, and come back to kill my stuff bottom of
turn 6. Even with the crazy stuff from the early parts, I still would
have won if I could just have caught that herd. Oh well, John made no
mistakes that I noticed, got a bit of luck, and capitalized on my bad
play. 3-17 loss.
Game 5, pitched battle (but on an oasis table)
A rematch against Mark Burr who I unfairly beat at the Hillbilly last
year
in the "knights are competely screwed" scenerio. Mark was
playing
Brettonians and is therefore, in general, deserving of scorn, but his
army
is so well composed that depsite my innate hatred of Brettonians I
couldn't find any way to mark him down. Duke with sword of carcassone
(opponent rerolls sucessful armour saves), armour of agiluif (WS 10), 2
damsels, 3 men at arm blocks, 10 skirmishing bowmen, 10 ranked bowmen, 8
realm knights with war banner, 8 realmm knights, 8 errant knights, 3
grail
knights, 4 pegasus knights. Center of the board has a difficult ground
water feature and I put a couple of token infantry units on the left
flank, skirmishers in the center, and knights with more infantry on the
right. He has bowmen and a men at arms unit on the right, and all the
rest on the left side. I go first and advance hard on the right, slow on
the left. He then advances hard on the left and manouvers on the right.
I screen his knight advance with hounds on the left and again advance
hard
on the right. Mark then turns 2 lances around to counter the threat,
while the other takes care of the dogs and then ends up in a protracted
fight with teutogen guard and wolf-kin where I very very slowly kill his
knights (I hate that ward save) while he wears me down, but not out as
the
BSB is hanging out nearby. Back on the right he moves his archers to
screen my knights from a hard advance to his knights. I make a mistake
and charge his archers - I was hoping to wipe them out and then sit
still,
but only manage to kill 9 so I have to pursue. Other knights charge some
men at arms who flee and are run down. I then screen his general and
realm knights with my archers, and hope I don't pursue too far with my
inner circle - however I pursue much too far. I take the charge from the
errant knights and BSB, win combat, but can only put 1 wound on the BSB
with my general so he doesn't break. His general then overruns into my
inner circle, but just on the edge so his character isn't actually in the
fight. We all hold and have a protracted knight fight that ends right
before I can charge the flank with my other knights as his general
slashes
through my troops and even a horse kills one of my knights, while I do
nothing back that turn (damn ward save). Inner circle knights are run
down and I'm in trouble, but charge the errant knights in the flank with
my knights and he has to hold as he overran into my hounds. Mark gets
rubber lance syndrome and doesn't even do a wound on the charge into the
hounds while Senschal Roy the Bastard kills the exposed damsel, runs down
the errant knights, and hits the flank of his realm knights.
Unfortunately, the doggies (that Mark apparantly wisely refused to
slaughter with his errantry knights) cannot restrain pursuit so they come
too only to be horrible slaughtered in combat so I don't get a win on the
charge (but do hold). Then those no good peasants come in on my flank and
I lose big time. Desperation charge into the front and rear of his
general's realm knights top of turn 6, but his general does a ton of
damage back to get the draw and then it is peasant time and they come in
and blow things open. 3-17 loss to Mark and I spent the long drive home
evaluating my mistakes against him and eagerly await a rematch.
Not sure where I ended up in the rankings, but managed to lose to the top
2 battle folks overall. Lots of good players at this tournament and it
has quickly established itself on my "must attend" list. Mike
is very
well organized and deals with all of the tournament nonsense in an open
manner so mistakes are quickly fixed and everyone is treated fairly. I
bought several of the buildings after the tourament, as they are now in
the terrain selling business, and those buildings are amazing and will be
a prominent feature in my game room - once construction is complete this
summer (expect the Yrisarri Warhammer Tournament to resurface soon
after).
Random Comments
Congratulations to John Lozanno for taking overall with a very fair
beastment army. I'll get my shot at a rematch next year :)
Note to Mark Burr - you only won because you played better. I'll bring an
even more powerful calculator next time to try and keep up with a fellow
math nerd.
Roy - you suck and your failure to respond to my challenge to single
combat shows pathetic weakness. (Note, taunting Roy before the Hillbilly
is what results in playing against wood elves on the 6 woods table).
To the kind folks who sold us food all weekend and then donated all the
cash to charity - you absolutely rock and please charge us more next year
as we will gladly pay. Having drinks, muffins, sandwiches, and even
breakfast burritos right there was superb. Thanks also to the Thomas clan
who not only supplied massive numbers of tournament attendees, but also
lunch on Saturday.
Mike Cannon - thanks for running such a great event. If we can just get
all of the games on day 1 then the Albuquerque contingent would be
unstoppable (we had 2 of the top 5 spots after day 1, before, well,
choking).
Marcus
the slightly ratty looking grandmaster of Ulric
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