Brawler Bash VIII - Who's going?

Brawler Bash VIII is historically the largest GT of the Mid-Atlantic Region (event details here --> http://www.wargamersusa.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=32).  It uses a Carnage Scoring system, in which W/L/D doesn't matter, all that counts are total victory points.  Additional victory points can be scored through scenarios and 1/2 points are awarded for units below 25%, characters below 50%, and/or units that are fleeing at the end of the game.  Legions of Chaos, Legions of Undead, and the Khaine End Times lists are allowed (with a few restrictions) and most special characters are allowed (see event details).

This year the Ogre Kingdoms are the 2nd most popular army (6 entries out of 74).  I know at least a few others on this forum (in addition to myself) are bringing ogres.  Please use this thread to share with the community thoughts about your list, your first round pairing (they are posted here --> http://warscore.net/event/111/view.html), and follow up here with a post-tournament comment or two.  I also hope the community at large will have a few things to say as well.

Competitors (and their lists)
1.  Snarkhunter's Legion of Fire
2.  Gutlord Inquisitor, Stronghold Sniper
3.  Tyrant Grix and the Gnoblar Thiefstone
4.  lbisson's Scouting Maneater Horde
5.  Erics1127, Great Gut Maw!
6.

Thanks for participating!

-Snark

I can't make it this year. Next year I'll be back in NC.

I am going to be there playing Brets first round. I took Gutlords 18 scouting man eater list and ran with it. I'll post when I get home from work tonight

This is the list took:

Ogre Kingdoms 3000/3000

Tyrant- Fencer's Blades, Glittering Scales, Healing Potion

Slaughtermaster- Lv4 Lore of Heavens, Grut's Sickle, Gnoblar Theifstone, GW

Bruiser- BSB, Runemaw Banner, GW

Butcher- Lv2, Lore of Beasts, Hellheart, GW

Butcher- Lv1, Lore of the Great Maw, Dispel Scroll, The Other Trickster's Shard

10x Ironguts- Champ, Musician, Standard, Look-out Gnoblar, Banner of Swiftness

8x Ogres- Champ, Musician, Standard, Look-out Gnoblar

7x ManEaters- Musician, Standard, Dragonhide Banner, 7x Brace of Ogre Pistols, Scouting, Poisoned Attacks

Sabertusk

Sabertusk

3x Leadbelchers

Ironblaster

Ironblaster


Im facing a Khaine list so not really sure what ill be running up against.  But Ill probably apply the ManEater presure and drop comets on my way in.

i am definetaly going and wrecking all the skrubz with m7 weed-colored shrek superior master race army 

Go Len go! I think it could be awesome! I'd do it myself if I had time to make another 9 maneaters.

Gnoblar thief stone !!!! Yes .... Man I didn't think of that. Good choice. Odds are good you'll roll that 6 and make someone cry. I hope it's a tzeentch disc lord! But stealing ruby ring or OTS could be good too.

Here is the ManEater Horde

Slaughtermaster, Lv4 Heavens, Sword of Might, Glittering Scales, Scroll, Ruby Ring
Bruiser, BSB, Rune Maw, GW
Butcher, Hellheart, Maw tax
9 Guts, FCG, LoG, Std Disc
3 x 3 Ogres w/Crusher
18 ManEaters, Scout, Poison, Bellower, Std, Razor Std, 9 x Brace, 3 x GW, rest in back rank
3x Tusk
2x Blaster

Facing Brettonia first round.  If I get the ME into the flank of a lance of knights, the lance should disappear.  Comets towards trebs and M@arms if he has them.  Cannons down the lances of knights, maybe trebs.  I think this matchup should go fairly well.  We'll see what happens once we roll dice.

I love your list. I think it looks fun to play. Your opponent might not agree

@lbisson I have to ask: Why the Razor Standard on the Maneaters? The Armour piercing rule has no additional effect on the pistols. Wouldn't another banner be more efficient?

Close combat is where it helps. Gets the s5 to -3 for armor and GW will basically punch through 1+ saves which are pretty prevalent at this event. The shooting is just to get in people's heads. Cc is where these guys earn their keep.

I love it. I know we talked before you submitted but the list is a thing of beauty.

I agree, I probably would have gone for Dragonhide (for anti-etheral goodness) or gleaming pennant. The razor makes sense vs 1+ armour (S5 even that much S5 struggles against 1+) but with the great weapons in there seems like overkill. I'd have liked to see slightly more guns (at least 12 - enough for the first two ranks of a horde).

I had more guns but like you said, it seems better to have the GW up front so the I3 attacks get a chance from the rear.  So I have enough guns to have 3 GW in the front, then the rest of the first and second rank are pistols.

I thought about Dragonhide and almost took it.  My problem was not having enough practice games to decide.  One thing I do know is that the list as it is totally rocked the world of a Dwarf gunline list with 6 copters.  Tabled them twice. 

Dragonhide (for anti-etheral goodness)

Just a quick question on this.  I don't think Dragonhide gives magical attacks...does it?  So not sure it would help against ethereal. 

I really hope we don't see a ton of the Lore of Undeath.  With Jacob winning masters with it I think there may be some bandwagon Undeath casters.

It doesn't. The banner does not make attacks 'magical' in effect.

The breath weapon comes from the item itself, and attacks made by magical items are considered magical per the rulebook FAQ.

It certainly doesn't make your normal attacks magical but the breath + static res will usually put paid to an ethereal unit.

Cool, I'll keep that in mind.  Thanks.

I've had the DHB pop off my Green Knight when tooling around with Bretonnians.  Makes the unit a bit harder to ethereal chaff (which is why I like it on MFC).

Good luck fellow Tyrants!  Hope you feast well.

I'm going to be there. This will be my first tournament. I'm fighting dwarfs in the first round. Here's my list

Slaughtermaster (383pts): Lore of the Great Maw, Wizard Level 4, Armour of Silvered Steel, Channeling Staff, Fencer's Blades
Tyrant (310pts): Gut Maw, Talisman of Preservation, Great Weapon

Bruiser (191pts): Battle Standard Bearer, Great Weapon, Armour of Destiny
Firebelly (207pts): Additional Hand Weapon, Lore of Fire, Wizard Level 2, Hellheart

Ironguts (422pts): x9 Bellower, Standard Bearer- Standard of Discipline
Ogres (202pts): x6 Bellower, Ironfists
Ogres (202pts): x6 Bellower, Ironfists

Ironblaster (170pts)
Ironblaster (170pts)

Maneaters (393pts): x6 3x AHW, 3x Great Weapon, Bellower, Scouts, Swiftstride, Standard Bearer- Banner of Eternal Flame, 6x Heavy Armour
Mournfang Cavalry (350pts): x4 Bellower, Heavy Armour, Ironfists, Standard Bearer- Dragonhide Banner

Very very solid! Ooh, Gut Maw. Good choice! Don't forget Terror, it's handy when people try to chaff you up. If they forget to keep the general/bsb near that can win you games.

Thanks for the great response! We have 5 of the 6 Ogre brawlers reporting in.  I'm really liking the lists.  Each one is competitive, yet with a great deal of variety.  Truly a testament to how good our book is.

All these lists are looking great. Wishing you all the best of luck

Some quick results (Final Overall Rankings). 

1st Place - Lord Inquisitor (31499 pts)
2nd Place - Snarkhunter (28977 pts)
27th Place - lbisson (23389 pts)
33rd Place - Tyrant Grix (22508 pts)
36th Place - ogre list that was not posted here (22072 pts)
42nd Place - Erics1127 (20634 pts)

There were a total of 65 players.  I invite these ogre participants (and anyone else interested) to comment on their post Brawlers Bash thoughts.  I'll do so tomorrow, after a good nights rest!

Well considering I've only been playing since November and this was my first real tournament experience I think I did pretty well. I'm a little unhappy about my painting score but I guess that's subjective. The friend I came with got higher than me and he agreed that I deserved the high score.

As for my matches I got a lot of confidence in my first match when I tabled the dwarf army with the slayer horde. I went down hill from there though until tabling my last opponent playing vampire counts. The second match was against the top empire player and I was just out matched skill wise. The third one was against the top dwarf player who just shot me to pieces before I even got close. My deployment and the terrain didn't help in that game either (or the five gyros). Fourth match was against lizardmen. It was really fun but again I was just out classed but held my own before a lot of bad luck pushed it in his favor.

All in all it was a good time and all the games were fun.

I had a great time. Playing on table 1 is a little stressful with the video feed, knowing that people are watching and commenting on your games, but it's pretty sweet all the same.

I resolved to finish 6 turns all 5 games and I only managed it in 4 games but the other game we got to the last combat of the bottom of the last turn before it was dice down so that's not too bad. I was also trying to be a better sportman and my sports score was pretty nice so I'm happy with that.

Obviously no complaints about my placing so clearly my army did well. I tried the level 4 of death - yeah, never again. Just wasn't very useful for ogres. Bubble soulblight was the only spell that really stood out from death. Tried to snipe many times and it was just a waste of power dice. Although I did manage to get the Doom And Darkness + Braingobbler combo off and net me a unit of demigryphs, which was cute. I think it only worked because it was late game and my opponent didn't care about points lost and the demis weren't going to achieve much and he was trying to stop some other spell, so I don't think that's a good idea to take Death.

That said, two slaughtermasters is pretty cool. Don't think I'd do two SMs and a Tyrant at less than 3000 points but it was fun. I think I would go Maw + Heavens in future, although Maw + Beasts could be fun.

I took Poison + Sniper. Never again. Thought it might help against deathstar builds - but it just didn't work. I'll go back to Poison + Stubborn or Poison + Swiftstride. But the maneaters did great. I just kept getting them into enemy units at full strength. So many dice!

So 18 Scouting Poison ManEaters cause quite a stir.   

The list was a lot of fun to play and it really screwed with my opponents heads during deployment and throughout the game.  Almost everything they touched vaporized.  I don't think I would take this list again though.  The horde is awfully unwieldy, especially with some of the terrain layouts over the weekend.

Game 1 Bretts:  Player kept feeding them 80 point Paladins to chaff them up for most of the game.  My Guts and darts cleared just about everything from the table except the Lords Lance, Turn 6 my ME caught them in the flank and disintegrated them.

Game 2 Khaine Elfs:  Yikes!  This was my worst nightmare come to life.  Horde of Wood Elf Wildwood Rangers with a Death Hag (Brew) in them.  50 I5 WS5 St5 attacks hurt... A LOT!  Especially if they get off Enchanted Blades.  Hit on 2, wound on 2 is a bunch of dead ME.

High Elf Sword Masters, Death Hag (Brew) - seem familiar?  A second horde of Ogre killers with basically the same stats.
 I got all of the easy points before I engaged and couldn't get either of these blocks.  ME got vaporized.  Not good.

Game 3 WOC:  Blasters do well vs Monsters.    ME got the Lord on Chaos Dragon late game and other stuff along the way.

Game 4 WOC: this was against the Best Painted army.  Wow!  Just wow!  Gabe can really paint.  Extremely fun game against a really cool opponent.  We basically had everything mixing it up in the middle of the table turn 2.  Blasters took out Galraug(?), the dragon lv4 Tzeench general turn 1.  Then the bloodshed started.  Killed everything except one Skullcrusher and the Chaos Ogre block.

Game 5 Vamps: for the record, Gutlord warned me I would regret not having the Gleaming Pennant on the ME, he was right.  This is the game it happened.  Opponent had 4 blender Ghoul Kings, Quickblood, Red Fury.  Only Vamp Lord was on Lore of Vamps, others were lore of Undeath.  I thought that was interesting.  Double TGeists bunch of 2 zombie horde, 1 skel horde with flaming banner.  Necro Lv4 in Zombies, everyone else in Skellies.  Skellies deployed across from my Guts with SM, Butcher (HHeart), Bruiser.  He vanguards up with Skellies, I march up to 10 inches from Skellies with Guts, my ME were on left flank out of TGeist way, keeping an eye on HexWraiths for a turn.  Turn 2 he charges skellies into Guts!  Hellheart, I rolled a 1 but it didn't matter since we were in combat together.  Vamp Lord...Dimensional Cascade!  No warp.    Large template takes out many ranks of skellies and a couple of Guts.  GK 1, GK2, GK3 all get small template.  Bye bye horde of skellies.  Only 2 ranks left.  Lord on 1 wound, GKs each with 1 or 2 wounds remaining.  Blenders decimate my Guts, SM and BSB break from combat and get run down.      Who needs magic or a BSB? Eventful Turn 1. Top of 2 I charge ME into flank of Skellies, he makes way with Chars.  They do like 20 wounds to my ME, ME destroy the Lord and GKs.  Bye Bye Vamp Lord (only Vamp Caster)!  My ME break from combat on a Steadfast 8.  Gleaming Pennant sure would have been nice here.  I roll a 9, 4 remaining Skellies run them down with a 10. Yikes!  I lost hope momentarily, then the crumbling began.  He lost most of his army to crumble.  Except that L4 Undeath caster and his zombie block.  He could just summon a Vampire char and stop the crumbling.  His turn he summons a unit of Hex Wraiths "to try and draw dice".  There was NO WAY I would throw any dice at a spell other than to stop him from summoning a vamp.  He miscasts!  Unit of Hexies...OK.  Wait for it....

Dimensional Cascade!  Sucked into the warp! 

Now it is a race for me to clean up remaining stuff while he crumbles and his summoned Hexies to try and chase me down to get the rest of my army.  (Summoned stuff doesn't crumble, something I learned here)  At the end I have an Iron Blaster and he has a unit of Zombies.  I guess I win by 15 points.    This game was insanely fun and funny!

Overall I had a really enjoyable time.  Next time I will probably take two units of 9 ME instead of 1 horde.

Thanks for reading and congrats to Gutlord!

It's been a week, but Brawler Bash is still fresh in my memory.  What a great tourney!  Congrats to Gutlord on first place and to all our Stronghold Ogres for their successes.  Here are a few thoughts about my 5 games:

Game 1:  Won 3809-1475 vs Joel's Empire.  Game one is the only truly random pairing in the tourney, and I didn't feel so lucky to be paired against one of the better players in our region (who finished 7th Overall at this tourney).  He deployed double hellblaster, double steam tank, a light council with war altar, a large block of halberds and 3 peg captains - two with a 2++ vs fire.  I did my normal trick of marching the hellheart firebelly out, breathing, and popping the hellheart.  He charged with his BSB, won combat, and pursued (and caught) me.  The pursuit brought his BSB out of range from his archer bunker of light wizards.  A pair of fireballs later, and they panicked off the back table edge.  He also lost both hellblasters (ironblaster and a rare double misfire explosion), both steam tanks (ironguts got one, maneaters got the other) and his archlector (ironblaster).  His BSB also later fell to the might of my tyrant.  Aside from causing the panic of his light council, I don't think the firebellies had much of a starring role in this game.  MVP probably goes to my oft-maligned ironblasters.

Game 2:  Won 3379-1657 vs Todd's Vampire Counts.  One of my regions Master's players running a list with Manfred and a Lvl 4 of Undeath.  This game was not going well for me, as we started Turn 4.  Manfred had been dominating the magic phase, the hellheart had failed, a block of crypt horrors and a block of grave guard had cleared away my maneaters, and a firebelly, and I had lost an ironblaster to misfire (and explosion).  The only bright spot was that I had slain his BSB.  Then a 3 diced miscast sent Manfred down the warp.  The resulting crumble - and crumble - and crumble turned what I foresaw as a sure loss into a significant win.  My MVP, if there was one, was the firebelly that charged into the graveguard, killing the vampire BSB, preventing my opponent from stopping the crumble once it began.

Game 3:  Lost 3552-4149 vs Ira's Khaine list.  My opponent's list for this game is quite possibly the most broken end-times abomination I have ever seen.  Five units of dark riders with xbows, 4 repeater bolt throwers, 7 mounted characters (two dreadlords, two masters, a dark elf level 4 of metal, a high elf bsb with BotWD, and a wood elf level 4 of high magic) and to house all those characters - a bus of 16 warlocks.  What do you do against 16 warlocks with multiple killy characters and a 2++ vs magic and the wood elf high magic attribute (wound tokens)?  I chose to sacrifice the maneaters to get a flank charge by my ironguts with all 6 of my characters. 8d6 hits from breath weapons erased the high magic tokens and a few warlocks - but the BotWD kept my SoAH from clearing the characters ... at least until my ironguts were able to kill his BSB.  We fought this combat every turn from bottom of 2 through top of 6 ... that's 8 rounds of close combat.  At the end, only his two dreadlords survived.  Meanwhile, my ironblasters and ogres had managed to clear all of his remaining dark riders and one of his bolt throwers.  The game ended with 5 models on the table (both dread lords and three bolt throwers).  My ironblaster had a chance on bottom of Turn 6 to clear both dread lords (who had just finally won the big combat) - but it misfired and exploded.  I was extremely happy to walk away from this game earning over 3500 pts.  Ira finished 4th overall with this Khaine list and proved to me how much I really hope that End Times (and Elves) get some much needed balance in 9th.

Game 4:  Win ~4500ish - ~1500ish vs Eric's Skaven.  So, let me tell you about stormfiends.  Each model gets to take 3d6 shooting attacks (march and shoot, BS4 with no penalties except for cover, including the march - they can reach 24 inches, and they are Str 5 armor piercing with rerolls to wound).  When you see 4 of these deployed opposite your ogres - you can expect 6 ogres to die each turn on an average amount of shooting. 
Add in two warp lightning cannons, a brass orb, and three units of gutter runners and you too can experience the sense of foreboding which I had as this game began.  The +1 to go first was crucial - I got the first turn and was able to kill 3 of the stormfiends with a barrage of fireballs, and the ironblasters managed to kill one warp lightning cannon.  He countered by killing all but one irongut with the brass orb (he skitterleaped to get in range) - luckily I passed my look-out sirs.  As the game proceeded, I managed to kill 27 storm vermin (total) with two flame breath templates, then the maneaters finished the rest (even with death frenzy on the rats).  Turn 5, I had my tyrant+bsb+one firebelly as a unit (the last irongut died to the last stormfiend's shooting) charge his character bunker - which fled.  Then in my shooting/magic phases, I killed the last stormfiend - triggering a panic chain on all of his chaff (so that he could not position them to prevent my charge on a possibly rallied character bunker).  His next turn - and only one rat dart rallies.  I charge the rest off the table and the game is won.  This game had many crazy swings (from the initial storm fiend carnage, to the brass orb, to the storm vermin carnage and the character bunker fleeing).  Despite my general dislike of skaven, this was actually my favorite game of the tournament.

Game 5 - The final game saw me on Table 2 in 3rd place against an Empire list played by someone who was quite successful at this year's Masters.  His list had Level 4's of Life and Shadow (and yes, he rolled Dwellers, Enfeebling, Mindrazor, and Pit), plus two big blocks of halberdiers, two steam tanks, a hellblaster, and two units of demis.  In this game, my ironguts had to weather both steamtanks impacting and grinding - and with the help of the maneaters in the flank, they eventually killed them both.  By that point, there was only the irongut standard left with my bsb and a firebelly.  Meanwhile, the tyrant and bulls killed the general on war alter and overran into one unit of halberds.  On his next turn, he brought the other unit of halberds into the flank and mindrazored them.  Thanks to an ogre charge on the overrun, I managed to only lose combat by 2 - and held.  On my turn, I killed the rest of the first unit of halberds and turned the face him (still holding after losing by 1) - just as mindrazor ended.  Meanwhile, having finished the steam tanks - my bsb+irongut standard+firebelly charged the flank of the hurricanum that was supporting the halberdiers.  When he fled, I redirected into some demis to free up a charge lane for my maneaters.  They charged the hurricanum off the board - then redirected and made a 15 inch charge into his wizard bunker.  I fought the halberdiers first (their bsb had died the previous round, they failed their fear check, got crushed and broke/got away), then killed the wizard bunker and overran into the fleeing halberdiers.  His demis killed my irongut standard+bsb, then caught the fleeing firebelly, but it was totally worth it.  I won ~3500-~1300 (putting my opponent, Ryan, in 3rd place for the tourney).  My MVP was the tyrant - who lead his bulls against two 30 man blocks of halberdiers (one with mindrazor for two turns of combat) finally killing/breaking both units.

As results were tabulated, Gutlord Inquisitor and I speculated upon which of us had placed higher.  His final game (on Table 1) had also been very successful.  Though the final score had him up by 1500 pts, I felt a sense of great accomplishment in placing 2nd overall, especially knowing the great challenges my opponents had presented me.  Brawler Bash had exceeded my expectations.  I had enjoyed 5 great games, against 5 extremely good (and very fun to play) opponents, and had walked away with a strong finish.

Some feedback on my list:

-Hellheart is awesome.  It consistently outperforms anything else in our army book.  Even on the rare occasions where it misses, it still has a huge psychological impact on my opponent - of which I can take advantage.  I continue to believe that in a comped environment, I would choose the hellheart (and a scroll) above the opportunity to bring an ironblaster or the runemaw banner.

- Firebellies get exponentially better as you bring more of them.  Four (with powerstone, forbidden rod, and a ruby ring) gives you enough power dice and fireballs to do a shocking amount of damage on turn 1.  Breath weapons (in combat or as shooting attacks) destroy your opponents hordes/buses.  Kindleflame even grants you the ability to cast as if you are equivalent to a level 4.

- Scouting/Poison/Pistol-eaters have the ranged output of an ironblaster (averaging 3.5 wounds vs T6+) against weak armor and incredible melee output.  They force your opponent to deal with them early or lose the game.  They can shut down enemy vanguards.  And they often give you the +1 to go first.  As always with scout (and as Len learned the hard way), you need the gleaming pennant to prevent early panics.  They have a bit of a learning curve (in terms of your deployment and early target selection/movement), but once you get the hang of them - they are a significant projection of force early on that can really put your opponent on the defensive.

- Ironblasters continue to disappoint me.  Though mine had a couple of bright spots (I was very thankful for killing a warp lightning cannon and a hellblaster), they still misfired 6 times over the tournament - exploding twice.  Knowing how hard they are comp'd at most events, I just don't feel they are a must have.  Though I think Gutlord will disagree.

Well, that's my wrap up.  I thank you all for reading and I appreciate all of our ogre participants who contributed at this years Brawler Bash.

-Snark

Nice battle report. I wish I could have been there (alas my work schedule said no  )

Very nice Snark, thank you for taking the time.

I have allways been to coward to run with scout on my maneaters but perhaps they deserve a shot

Hopefully Gutlord Inquisitor has the time to tell us of his good run as well, so nice seeing ogres doing well.

/Jacob

For me, I've been running a single ironblaster for so long I've been thinking "really, they overcomp that second ironblaster" and it isn't that good. But certainly for the first couple of games, oh yes it was that good.

Game 1 vs monster-mash WoC: my opponent did a youtube report here:

Game 2 vs monster-mash WoC (slightly different mash, technically a Legion list but only daemon unit was a skullcannon). He had 3 daemon princes (all level 1 lore of death, although he didn't roll purple sun) and a lord on a disc. Cannons showed their worth in this game, blasting prince after prince. Only one hit my lines and charged my maneaters. With soul feeder nearly killed them before finally dying. His Skullcannon misfired turn 1 and died. I shot a "why not" shot from an ironblaster at his chaos lord (3+ ward, re-roll 1s). He rolled a 2 and dropped dead. At this point other than taking some damage from four skullcrushers, it was just mop-up. This game was just shooting fish in a barrel. Nick's a good player and the dice just didn't give him a break at any point.

Game 3 vs Ryan's empire. Ryan and I had driven down together for the event and I had talked with Ryan extensively as he was putting together his list and vice-versa so we were really aware of each others' lists. He's also a top tournament player -- and I've played him a good number of times in practice games and I have never beaten him with any list ever. Yikes. His list ran a couple of steam tanks, two units of demis, two hordes of halberdiers,a level 4 life and a level 4 shadow and the popemobile. And a cannon and hellblaster. Life and shadow presents the risk of enfeebling + dwellers, which should terrify any deathstar but I had rune maw. Which really limited me to putting all my eggs in one basket (I tried to split up my characters in most games but they all ended up sooner or later in one mega deathstar). The scenarios were all fairly wacky for this event and this game had a leprechaun in the middle of the board that would cast final transformation on all units within 6" at the end of each game turn. It also was treated as impassable, making my left flank clogged up with 3 impassable elements and the right flank open. I put my bulls in the center (intending to put my characters in there and bounce the final trans from the leprechaun with the rune maw), then ironguts to the right and maneaters to the far right. He out-dropped me and was able to put most of his army on the left behind all that impassable and the two steam tanks, hellblaster and cannon to the front.

I got first turn, and rammed forward, particularly the bulls (who had vanguarded, due to a special card). I bailed my characters out into the ironguts and positioned the bulls within leprechaun range in such a way that anyone charging them would also be in range. I was really hoping both of the stanks would charge and be stuck there long enough for me to engage with the rest. I moved the ironguts up but didn't march the maneaters to shoot. This was rather a mistake I think, they got stuck on that right flank and only really killed a unit of demis all game. I wanted to shoot the hellblaster dead but the maneaters were the best unit to deal with stanks in combat. I killed the hellblaster with prejudice. He sent one of the stanks into the bulls next to the leprechaun but the other just shot at me. Anyway, long story short I sent my full-on deathstar into a chaff unit and made a 10" overrun into one of his halberdier units. I had measured and checked he couldn't flank charge me with the other unit ... but failed to consider that a successful overrun would mean wheeling to maximise, so his second halberdier unit crashed into one flank and the steam tank (thankfully down to only about  4 wounds) into the other flank. “Those poor bastards, they’ve got us right where we want them!” While being surrounded on all sides, since I'd charged, I got the dragonhide benefit and that made a big difference – and the hellheart went off, catching his life guy and his shadow guy (he rolled a 1 on throne of vines ha ha ha!). Only mistake Ryan made probably all game was challenging in the combat and allowing my exposed crown of command guy move out of danger (although he was probably okay – I got a boosted soulblight off, probably only time Death really paid off all tournament). Well, that meat-grinder saw the ogres victorious eventually and saw off the remains of the halberdiers. Late game the other steam tank finally died to the leprechaun and a nifty doom-and-darkness + braingobbler combo panicked off the other demigryph unit that was clearing up my backfield. Last few turns involved manoeuvring over the leprechaun objective which I finally took. Serious carnage on both sides. I had my maneaters and the tattered remnants of my deathstar but all he had was his arch lector and a level 4. Solid win for me, but Ryan left with a respectable number of battle points.

Incidentally, here's my leprechaun, which I put together rather quickly the day before the tourney:

So gutlord, how do you feel that the two slaughtermasters went?  Would you have wanted the kits to have been reversed at any point in the tourney?

Well... Yeah. I couldn't quite get the kits right. I'd like crown of command on the guy without the hellheart to give me the option to run out of the unit. But the points don't allow all the toys that way around. Might you, I might have dropped the Rune Maw and put the crown on the BSB.

The two things I would 100% have changed is take Heavens or Beasts instead of Death (not impressed) and not take Sniper on the Maneaters. It's just too rarely useful. Scout and Swiftstride are better. What I did like is the Dragonhide on the deathstar and the larger Maneater unit with the Razor standard. I'd toy with putting the Dragonhide on the maneaters perhaps. But the armour piercing is really nice.

Sounds like that doom and darkness and braingobbler combo paid good dividends atleast once.  Given that Doom and Darkness is a RiP spell, it should have not been too difficult to set that up.  Did you try it more than once? 

Was there any kit set-up that you would have taken differently?

I think Ryan would have stopped one of those two spells if it was not brawler bash. Since that unit wasn't going to be doing much in the remainder of the game it didn't really cost him anything (unlike a 20-0 system where losing points translates to lost battle points). I think I was reasonably happy about my gear ... With hindsight I might have swapped the sword of anti-heroes out for a sword of striking and greedy fist. I was expecting more deathstars.

Game 4 vs DE

This was against dark elves with a cauldron witch elf unit and a brolock deathstar full of characters. Bunch of bolt throwers and fast cav. I was very worried about this matchup. Other than the witch elves he essentially had total control over the game and if he didn't want to engage he didn't have to. Fortunately it was Brawlers so he would have to engage my deathstar to win but if I got caught between the witches and the brolocks I was going to have a bad day. There was a lot of positioning in early turns, him trying to set up a combo charge and me trying to engage one or other of the units. Eventually the witch elves got my deathstar in the flank with a peg lord but I kept the brolocks out of it. I broke the witch elves and didn't pursue in order to try and pin the brolocks in but he just moved off. The enemy deathstar wiped everything off the board and we were running out of both time and turns and both of us were looking at essentially losing. He knew he had to engage and rallied witch elves returned to the fray. He had an opportunity to charge me turn 5 and didn't take it because I had buffs up. However here (and I assume this was just the time pressure getting to him) he didn't set up a charge bottom of turn 6 and instead let me charge turn 6, which broke the back of his unit. He then charged into me with everything else but it was too late. I ran out of time before I completed mopping up his army.

There's no question this game would have been a loss if it weren't for the BB format forcing him to go for my deathstar. This was another opportunity for my snipers to shine but they just didn't do anything other than a wound on one of those characters in the deathstar.

Game 5 vs Lizards

To give props to Irby, he battled to table 1 game 5 with what was by far the most well-rounded list I faced at the tournament. High frog with saurus bodyguard, tettoeko in a big unit of skrox. A couple of ripper characters, an oldblood on a carnosaur, some ripperdactyls, some salamanders, a few skink units. Nothing particularly nasty yet clearly he was cleaning up to be here. I felt that he made a mistake in deployment - he put his infantry down fairly early, on one flank. This let me guess where his characters were going and deploy opposite them. He had some rotten luck trying to take out the IBs (his ripper character failed to kill one that he charged early). He did manage to switch out a high magic spell and went for death and rolled purple sun - which gave him a shot to at least damage me. He eventually cast it turn 4 ... and rolled a misfire of course, killing the slaan. That was his last chance to really do something to me, he had nothing really to stall the ogres long enough and once they got into his lines they just killed everything.

Got lots more reading to do but firstly thanks for all of the write ups guys, some incredible stories and fantastic information coming through.  On the phone currently but hoping tomorrow I can ask some specific questions.

For those interested, here are some pics of my four Firebellies:










Hope you like them!

-Snark

Bleeping Brilliant!

Fantastic Firebellies Snarkhunter, at first i thought they were all photoshoped different colours.....

I like the illumination effect on other parts of the model.  Will have to try that technique out on a few other items.  Any tips on how to accomplish this well?

They really are lovely. No one does blending better. Source lighting is very well done -- if you photograph them (or photoshop them) onto a black background they may look even better.

Only gripe is that I'd love to see some variation in pose (or even skin tone or clothing). But there's a sort of charm to their synchronised fire breathing.

Firebellies are absolutely fantastic. OSL is something I have never mastered, but these guys are absolutely superb and some of the best OSL I have seen.
I bet together they are an awesome sight on the table! Excellent work, truly inspiring!

G_H