Halloween Doubles Tournament!

Crazy Halloween Tournament.

http://warhammer.org.uk/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=125231

So guys and girls.  I finally got round to writing this up! This was my first Tournament ever and also was a Doubles in the newly established B.I.G. (Bristol Independant Gaming).  The info on the tournament is in the link including some specific rules for magic phase and some very interesting scenarios indeed!  Note that though the 5th game was meant to be a simple battle line they threw in some extra twists.  These were basically in order to have a Magic or a Shooting phase you have to roll a 4+ on D6 for each phase.  Fun times!

One  thing to mention this was a fancy dress event and there was an amazing amount of dress up including some gents in drag, a fair amount of extreme onezy suits, mad professors and killer doctors (me).  However, the best dress was the 2 chaps that were dressed up as Skinks!  Truly looked amazing!

I’m going to (try to) keep this pretty brief for the battle reports.  Just because time has been pretty short lately!

Our list:

Of Monsters and Men Halloween Doubles list. 
Tony Norman and Dave Musgrave.
 
Ogres
Slaughtermaster (General) – Fencers blades, Glittering scales, Dispel scroll, Ironcurse Icon.  375pts
Bruisier (BSB) – Crown of Command, Dragonhelm, Warrior Bane, Lookout Gnoblar, Heavy armour, Iron fist.  193pts
7 Ironguts – Full command, Standard of discipline.  346pts
6 Ogres – Standard, Bellower.  212pts.
3 Leadbelchers – Bellower.  139pts.
1 Sabertusk – 21pts
1 Sabertusk – 21pts
1 Sabertusk – 21pts
1 Ironblaster – 170pts
 
Total – 1498pts
 
 
Empire
Grand Master - Runefang, Ironcursed Icon, Charmed Shield, Luckstone. 255pts
Priest - Barded Warhorse, Heavy Armour, Enchanted Shield, Ruby Ring, Obsidian Trinket. 128pts
Luthor Huss - 155pts
10 Knights - Inner Circle, Full Command, Gleaming Pennant 285
8 Knights - Full Command 206
3 Demigryph Knights - Standard Bearer, Banner of Eternal Flame, 204
3 Demigryph Knights - 174
10 Huntsmen - Musician 90

Total - 1497pts

Game 1: Watchout! Tower.

So a watch tower with attitude, that moves and beats you up if your inside or outside!  Nasty little fella!  This was a game against team Trailer Park Boys an Ogres and High elves army.  So Ogres basically had 1 Ironblaster, 4 Mournfangs, 4 lead belchers 2 kittys and a hoard of bulls with a Butcher level 2 maw and Bruiser BSB.  The Elves consisted of 1 eagle, 9 silver helms (one of which was some sort of cheap character), Frostfire phoenix, 25 phoenix guard with elf Lord (General) and a small unit of archers.

We got about 4-5 turns in with this lot.  The watch tower basically spent most of the game running around their deployment zone and battering their units (Hit the phoenix guard like 3-4 times and killed a 3rd of the unit! Go tower!)  Our opponents must be said had terrible dice luck to say the least.

My Ironblaster shot off their Ironblaster on Turn 1 and killed a Mournfang  later on. Also killed 4 silver helms that tried to outflank, us while my Bulls finished of the unit.  Some chaff died here and there but nothing game changing.



Also my Empire partners main knight unit charged and killed the Mournfangs as well as a unit of 3 Demigryph Knights (with flaming banner) charging the Ogre Horde that just got Troll guts off and holding them off for 2 full turns and still not dying!



In the end it boiled down to our opponents Archer unit in the corner who were the only unit that could get into the tower that was running round their lines.  They had to survive 2 rounds of 2D6 strength 6 hits and not break.  Happily for us they could not survive 1 round! 

Main thing I felt was that our opponents were not as aggressive as they should have been.  For example the Frostfire phoenix never saw combat.  Rather unusual if you ask me.  Not that I’m complaining.  Otherwise they did have terrible luck.  Ironblaster was MVP for me this game accounting for the enemy Ironblaster, 1 mournfang and helping kill the Silver helm unit.  Good job I painted him!

Result: Draw 5 Tournament points each.  For Victory points we got 817pts and they got 88pts.

Game 2: Trick or Treat!

So a battle line scenario with tokens that can be good or bad when you land on them.  Extra VP’s, Indestructible mangler  squigs, instant death to the nearest character, making  a model in a unit a wizard for the rest of the tournament or turning a character into a FROG for the rest of the Tournament!  (One of the other games had a well hard Deamon Prince turn into a Frog!  Priceless!)

We were up against Team Those Bar Stewards.  2 Chaps from Bristol Vanguard.  Jan and Warren, both top guys and both regulars in the Tournament scene.  They were running Wood elves and Chaos Dwarfs.  (Oh how I dislike Chaos Dwarfs)

Their list:  1 Kadii Destroyer, 2 Magma Cannons, 2 units of Hobgoblins, 1 Unit of Infernal guard bunkering 2 level 2 caster smiths to allow re-rolls on both cannons and the Army BSB.  Wood elf list I’m a little vague on but there was a level 4 life wizard bunkered in eternal guard unit, 2-3 units way watchers, 3 units of glade guard and 1 eagle, as well as a Elf general with some crazy killy bow.

In short this game went very badly for us.  We lost first turn and got shot to bits by end of turn 2 nearly 50% of our army was dead.  Magma cannons killing 4 ogres in a shot is just unpleasant lol!  However, My Ironblaster performed well again.  Killing 1 Magma cannon in 1 shot and nearly the second but missing by 1 wound.  He also killed a unit of Glade guard in CC with a lone Ogre before getting killed!  Go Ironblaster!  Our opponents got really lucky with their tokens 3x extra 500 victory points! Yup they really got that!  We also got 1x 500 VP bonus our selves.  Managed to release a mangler squig in their lines but he decided to run to the corner and never attacked their lines at all, shame.

My Main Irongut unit did get a nasty token which gave them frenzy, devastating charge, flaming attacks and the scream attack from vampire armies.  Sadly when they got this they were depleted and charging into the Infernal Guard who have natural 5+ fire ward (Curses).  It also did not help that we forgot the scream attack could be used in CC.  Otherwise we would have finished the Infernal guard and maybe some of the characters.  Missed that unit with only the champion left.  Still we live and learn.  Of course we were eventually tabled.



All in all I expected a loss in this game luck was not on our side but considering what few models made it into combat we did a fair bit of damage.  A good game with some really funny stuff happening.  Wished I had remembered that scream!  Ironblaster was MVP again killing nearly both Magma cannon bar 1 wound and a unit of glade guard.  Gotta love that painted bad boy!

Result: Loss 0 – 20 to our opponents.  They got 4820 VP’s to our 1491 VP’s.

Game 3:  Running round in circles.

A weird take and hold circles mission that rotate twice every turn and do various nasty ways of killing your units!  If your unit is the only unit inside you score 1,2 or 3 Tournament points based on the colour of the circle.

So team Snape Killed Dumbledore were an Ogre and Skaven combo.  (This is the team we had a practice game against. I did feel a little sorry for these guys as they have had a rough tournament so far and we had given them quite a beating in the practice game.) 

Their list: 3 units of 50 slaves, 1 horde of plague monks, 1 warp lightning cannon, 1 hellpit abom, 1 unit of 20 clanrats with the poison wind crew (note this guy was also a level 2 wizard from the last game now with stupidity) a level 1 engineer and the BSB. 1 unit of 7 Ironguts with level 3 Slaughtermaster (General and Maw), firebelly (on his own), 8 ogres with 1 regular bruiser for some muscle and finally 3 mournfangs.

This game actually was fairly even in terms of the circles tournament points until the last few turns.  We got first Turn and let me tell you My Ironblaster showed he worth yet again!  Popping to Warp lightning cannon in 1 shot and panicking a unit of 50 skaven slaves off the board!  Man I love this Ironblaster!  The first few turns were basically scrambling for the circles.  The skaven Abom had a nasty surprise when Demigryph Knights with the flaming banner denied him his regen and busted him right up inside one of the circles.  Also My Ironguts showed the ogre unit how  it’s really done ( they had the mounted priest with them and had got of re-roll to wounds prayer).  Having hatred for first turn of combat my guts had re-rolls to hit and wound.  Let just say it was a one sided fight.   The main unit of Knights from my Allies showed the Horde of plague monks what 1+ armour saves are all about and gave them a good thrashing over a couple of turns which was pretty amusing.  Apart from that it was just holding circles and taking damage from said circles.





Very happy with how this game went.  We controlled the pace quite well, struck were we needed to. And redirected what need to be.  Empire Priests granting re-rolls of any kind to ogres is also just pure filth and I love it!  MVP of the match was my Ironblaster yet again on top of the warp lightning cannon and 50 slaves he popped an ogre or Irongut here and there too.  For my team mate it has to be that mounted lone priest!  Man what a guy!

Results: Victory 11 – 5 tournament points.  1132 VP’s for Us to their 760 VP’s.

Game 4: Prison Duty.

So each team is meant to have 5 prisoners each.  However, they can only be in a unit of Infantry and only 1 unit of Cavalry can take a prisoner.  Turns out Monstrous Infantry are not allowed them.  It’s a shame it was written a little more clearly as I was banking on having prisoners with my Guts.  Oh well will watch out for this next time.  So were had 2 units that could legally have a prisoner!  Awesome!  1 of my allies units of Knights and his Huntsmen, who now can’t scout and are also very vulnerable.

So team Masters of Disasters are a couple from Bristol Vanguard using Orcs and Goblins and Dark elves.
Their list: 2 Bolt throwers, 10x coldone knights, large unit of witch elves with cauldron of blood, 5 dark riders, and 5 warlocks.  3 Units of wolf riders (2 from separate units were level 2 wizards from the second scenario 1 life and 1 death), horde of orc big uns or boys with General and BSB in(not sure which), 2 doom divers, 8 stone trolls, and a unit 20 night goblins bunkering a level 4 wizard.

So our opponents had 4 prisoners 1 with the fast cavalry warlocks, 1 with the goblins and the other 2 in the large unit of orcs and witch elves.

Left flank was basically where our knight unit with prisoner went and was a close call but managed to get our prisoner of the board as the game went scoring us 5 TP’s.  Also 1 of my sabertusks charged and wiped out the 5 dark riders as well as a doomdiver later on!  Not bad at all.  The unit of coldones killed one of the Demigryph units and joined the mid field later on to nearly be wiped out (bar 1 model) by my beefed up ogres on Bullgorger! Shame would have been some nice points there!  The main Witch elf unit came over to the left flank as well.  More on that later.




The right flank was having the warlocks try and make a run for it past us!  Got a charge in the flank with a kitty who killed 1 and held them up.  He got counter charged by a unit of wolf riders and killed.  So it was up to the leadbelchers who happily blow the unit to bits with 1-2 left and they failed x2 panic checks and ran off the board!  2 TP’s to us! Also on this flank our Huntsmen were horribly killed by magic of doomdivers something like that and bagged 2 TP’s for them.  The Large orc unit made it’s way over to this flank after charging and beating 7 versions of hell into the other knight unit.  Gotta love hordes!

The centre field was quite eventful!  My trust Ironblasters luck finally packed up and managed to blow up his own cannon making him and awesome chariot instead.  He made his way over the right flank after that.  1 amazing and amusing moment was when my ally sent a ruby ring of ruin into the central bolt thrower.  They let the spell through and he proceeded to roll 6 hits and actually got 2 sixs through the toughness 7 killing it!  Very unexpected!  The big event here was a dual charge of my ogres and Ironguts into the large unit of stone trolls.  After some impact hits hatred re-roll oh and lets not forget bubble +1 strength 5 trolls dead for a couple of Ironguts.  They broke and were cut down by the Ironguts who over ran into the night goblins who were promptly smack around killed off bagging us another prisoner kill!  The ogre bulls and reformed and went to play with the coldones as I mentioned earlier.





 
So at this point we have 9 TP’s and they have 2.  There’s 2 prisoners left and we can only stop the orc unit realistically.  So the witch elves got their to the of the table another 5 points to our opponents.  It all boiled down to the Orc unit.  Sadly we were unable to finish of one of the wolf units (1 model left) and the Ironguts got blocked.  Good dispelling on their part to be honest and the leadbelchers just had some bad luck.  So I had managed to redirect the Orc unit with my Ironblaster and I ran the Slaughtermaster out of the Ironguts.  The Ironblaster was killed and the orc unit reformed so it could literally side step of the board.  My Slaughter master had to make a 16 inch charge into their flank to stop them scoring 5 TP’s.  He totally made it and got an ogre charge of course.  Made a challenge which they refused.  I won combat (fencers and glittering scales really are fun!) and held them up!  Sadly they still scored 3 TP’s for getting the prisoner into our deployment zone.

What a game!  Massively enjoyable and some serious thinking needed for this one.  Ironguts with re-roll really rock (I love that priest) made troll look like whimps!  Ironblaster thoug no kills this time round made a crucial redirect.  But I think MVP was the Slaughtermaster for making the 16 inch charge!  Great stuff.  Very close game indeed.

Result: Loss 9 -10 Tournament Points.  1283 VP’s for Us and 1246 VP’s for them.

Game 5: Battleline. (With surprise rules).

So this was a simple battleline.  Or so we thought!  Last minute rules came in.  In order to have a shooting phase or a magic phase each team must first roll a 4+ or not have that phase at all.  Fun times!

So team Mr and Mrs another couple from Bristol Vanguard (Mr in particular is very knowledgeable in warhammer and has quite a way with words.  I think I miss understood him once or twice and took minor offence but was fine at the end of the battle.  Nice people regardless!).  So these 2 were running Skaven and Vampire counts.

Their list: 2 units of 6 Gutter runners, 1 doomwheel, 3 units of 50 slaves, 2 warp lightning cannons, unit of 20ish clan rats (or stormvermin not sure which) with BSB and General in (level 4).  Also 2 units of 5 dead doggys, 4 units of zombies (1 unit of about 30, rest were all 20), with one of units having a level 4 nerco, 8 crypt horrors, 5 vargiests, and finally 1 terrorgiest.

So this game was a crazy grind fest really with neither side hardly ever getting a magic or shooting phase (we had more then they did!)  My partner though was having a bad game in turns of leadership rolls and basically failed a lot of them.  1 of his knight units ended up taking a doom rocket hit and leg it from the nearest unit (dead doggys) making them literally bouncing through the army from right flank to left flank.  Getting ahead of myself here though.

We picked up first turn!  Just some general moving up Nothing to note really.  Our opponents did let of the stormbanner though.  Shooting came along and I wanted my Ironblaster to shoot the terrorgiest.  So to do this I first had to roll 2x 4+’s.  1 for the game rules and 1 for the stormbanner.  That was just to fire!  I then hit and wounded the terrorgiest who failed his regen roll.  To top of a lucky streak I rolled a 6 for wounds and took him right off the board! BOOM! That’s how it’s done!  My Ironblaster strikes again!  Also the unit of knights I mention earlier along with 1 of the units of demigryphs decided to change board ends as I stated earlier thanks to some fun panic checks.  It must be said the ogres held firm!





Left flank wise My ironblaster later got to shoot again but only did 1 wound to a doomwheel (who went on to give the unit of demitgryphs a true beating and they fled) shortly after the other knight unit and Ironblaster combo charged the doomwheel and finished it off.  However the Vargiests decided to go on a little rampage on this flank charging my ogre bulls (I underestimated these guys to be sure!) they killed the bulls over 2-3 rounds and went on to kill my Ironblaster and the Huntsmen.  Gutter runners killed my Kitty which also panic what was left of the Demigryphs of the board.  Bad placing on my part.




The centre and right flank was where it was at though.  Leadbelchers didn’t do much thanks to no shooting phases but took of a few models here and there as well as taking a charge from dead doggy who kindly fluffed attacks and got slapped about for their trouble.  Our big knight unit charged the Crypthorrors and really battered them over 2 turns (gotta love 1+ armour save and some dude totting Runefang), the demi gryph knight killed a unit of 50 slaves over a while.  While my gutstar smashed another unit of slaves apart.  Throughout all this there had been not much in magic or shooting at all we did manage to get a prayer of on the knight unit 5+ ward save I think in combat which stayed in play most of the game as we didn’t get another magic phase. (Since it ends in the next magic phase, we did check this with the TO who ruled no magic phase means can’t officially end woot!)



After those big fights my Gutstar went into another unit of slaves with leadbelchers supporting in the flank and gave them a good beating too.  Sadly our opponents finally got 2 shooting phases and warp lightning cannons targeted the guts (since they can shoot a slaves and don’t care) killing 5 guts over 2 turns.  Not enough though by the end of the game.  My ally’s knight unit and demigryphs went into the bigger unit of zombies and finished them in time for the end of the game.

Little bit of whirlwind this game!  Gutstar+priest seen lots of action accounting for 101 skaven (there was a level 1 engineer somewhere).  I love re-roll!  Bagged nice amount of points from those horrors too.  Despite the leadership issues from empire knights the right flank held very well and did some serious damage.  Next time I think I will keep leadbelchers around where those vargiests will strike.  Nasty little fellas with strength 5 and decent initiative but no armour.  Ironblaster MVP again in this game 1 shooting a Terrorgiest was game changing and saved a lot of hassle for us, as well as clearing up the doomwheel.  Great game that I learnt a lot in.  Also that I should be more open minded with certain people as he was actually trying to explain certain game mechanics to me that I was not fully aware of.  Very patient chap that only had good intentions.  I look forward to gaming with either of these 2 people in the future.

Results: Victory 12- 8 Tournament points. 1262 VP’s for Us and 940 VP’s for them.

Final thoughts and results.

My first tournament ever and was fantastic.  Our team ended up 11th out of 16 teams which I’m very happy with considering the nasty defeat of the second game!  The team that got first was a dwarf/chaos team with no less then 10 warmachines!  Ouch.  Also a prize went out for best costumes which was deservingly won by the Skinks.  The main thing is that it was great fun and I learnt a lot.

Very happy with how the list worked.  Gutstar pretty much never died and dealt some serious damage.  Even when depleted.  Re-roll for ogres are just amazing.

It has to be said that my freshly painted Ironblaster performed outstandingly.   He killed:
1 Ironblaster.
1 Mournfang.
Half a unit of silver helms.
1 magma cannon (nearly 2).
1 unit of glade guard.
1 warp lightning cannon.
1 unit of 50 skaven slaves.
Couple of ogres.
1 doomwheel.
1 terrorgiest.

He also redirected a large unit of orcs allowing my slaughtermaster to tie them up and denied our opponents 2 extra tournament points.  Simple amazing on his first outing as a painted mini!  Easily MVP of the tournament.

Sorry for the lack of pictures and awful amount of text.  I hope you guys enjoy the read.  Thanks for stopping by.

Kind regards Zolas.

Those scenarios sound crazy    and man that IB really kicked butt, makes me want to finally build mine that's been sitting in its box for weeks and weeks....

Sounds like a fun tournament! Any chance you took pictures of the games?

I did take pictures but there not great quality and mostly just so I had n idea of what was happening turn by turn.  I can sift through some of the better ones to post up though.

Kind regards Zolas.

Added some pictures finally as requested.  Some not fully in order depending on how I did the write up.  I hope at least you like them.

Kind regrads Zolas.

Aaaaaaaaaaaannnd......finished! 

Brilliant report, sounds like it was a great tournament, i was gutted i had to miss out.

Some very weird and wonderful games all played in the right spirit it seems.


JoS

Aaaaaaaaaaaannnd......finished! 

Brilliant report, sounds like it was a great tournament, i was gutted i had to miss out.

Some very weird and wonderful games all played in the right spirit it seems.


JoS

Yeah sorry about the WALL of text buddy.  I'm not very good at making things small and concise.  It was a great tournament.  Next one up is the Tides of War - Winter at B.I.G. which I believe you are coming too if I'm not mistaken?

Kind regards Zolas.

Dont apologise, it was a really good read

I am indeed attending, although im not sure about the totally uncomped and full end times stuff, im not sure if its good for us ogres.

I am also looking forward to seeing your army in the flesh and have plenty of painting questions for you

JoS

Aye looking forward to seeing you again too, and I would be happy to help with anything.  The draw for first round is out now as well by the way.  I got Dwarfs for my first round.

Bit worried about the 3 Skaven and 3 High elf players though  :S

Kind regrads Zolas.

yes ive seen that ive got daemons, not sure how i feel about that one.

Surprised there are no legions of chaos!

Ive put in a style of list that ive never played before so should be interesting to see how i go!

JoS