The US Masters: A Hunter's tale

So I qualified as the 9th best player in the South region in 2014 by using a derivative of this list that I created about 3 years ago.  In the South, almost every tournament is totally uncomped, so lots of the worst things you can imagine.  Since my lists are generally regarded as the weakest of the big ten (thanks Mark), taking my usual list against weaker versions of everyone else seemed pretty appealing.
Back home, I’ve claimed to be the fattest Ogre of them all, so that was my primary goal of this tournament: Finish as the top Ogre.  Pretty simple, right?  Noooooooo………

Slaughtermaster, lvl 4, Heavens Grut’s Sickle, MR3 token, Great Weapon
Bruiser BSB 4+ Ward, Great Weapon
Butcher, lvl 1 Maw, Dispel Scroll, Great Weapon
Hunter Beastkiller, Harpoon Launcher, Potion of Strength, Charmed Shield, Dragonbane Gem
10 gnoblar
10 gnoblar
10 gnoblar
10 gnoblar
3 Bulls
3 Bulls
8 Ironguts, Champ, Std, Banner of Discipline
5 Leadbelchers Mus
5 Leadbelchers
Dog
Dog
4 Maneaters, Std w/ flame banner, Poison, Swiftstride Brace of Pistols
Ironblaster

Deployment: this army has 14 drops.  The first 9 mean almost nothing to me.  Frequently, my opponents were fully deployed before I dropped an Ogre.  Ogres can dominate the Deployment phase like no other with 25pt Gnoblar, 21pt Dogs and 90 3 Bull squads.  This does create a very MSU feel to the army since combo charges for combats are a must and flee lanes must always be kept open.  Also, it allows the Leadbelchers and Heavens Magic to tear apart half of my opponent’s army before he can reorganize.

Characters: They all go in the Ironguts.  It’s a gutstar and if it dies, I typically lose.  If it lives, I typically win.  It’s more of a bunker than a star so it doesn't die much.  Since, as you can, most of my characters are unarmored and I have no way to heal them, combats need to be short affairs.  A quick note on Grut’s Sickle: I didn’t roll double 1s at the tournament.  Sorry for the spoiler, but I did it twice in 5 games before the tournament, so I felt pretty good.  I typically only use it in the first half of the game as well to decrease my chances of dying in a tournament.

Hunter: I used him all of the time in 6th and 7th ed.  He’s not cheap, but he’s meant to be good at a whole lot, great at nothing.  The vanguarding ability surprised so many of my opponents that it became known as “the trap.”  Seriously, one of the bloggers spread it around the room.  It was pretty funny.  He’s there primarily to avoid the insane 2nd Ironblaster comp hit, but still have a reliable way of taking out monsters.  That and he can hold up heavily armored units, take out warmachines, drive flaming units insane and all and all, be a real pest.

Maneaters: Why did I take Swiftstride?  There’s no comp hit. Also, if I do have to fight, my chances of rolling a 10 are dramatically increased.  Mostly the Comp hit though.  A quick lesson on comp: shooting armies must have high comp scores, otherwise there’s no motivation for my opponent to attack.  Having free points, especially since my army almost automatically gives up 300pts a game, is a must.  As a result, my comp score is a 13.5.

The Chaf: The Gnoblar are for the treadmill, the Dogs are for “I need you here right now” duty and the Bulls as flankers, chaf killers and frenzy baiters.  If my opponent lets them flank, bad stuff happens, if they don’t, whatever unit is chasing them does it for four turns.  If you have enough drops, you can force your opponent into this situation every game.

So that’s the notes on my list.  I might have been the last person to arrive in NC, since my flight arrived Friday at midnight.  I thought I was just recovering from a pretty bad cold, I was very wrong.  I didn’t sleep that night either.  I wasn’t in great shape.  The first 2.5 games of day 1 my memory is pretty sharp, it gets hazy during game 3 and game 4…. I was out, so please forgive the memory lapses.

Game 1: Nickolas Bradley
Bret Lord, Grail Vow, Armor of Agiluf, Heartwood Lance, Virtue of Heroism, Pony
Prophetess, lvl 4 life, potion of sacre, pony
Paladin BSB, Grail vow, virtue of the impetuous knight, Rampager’s Standard
Damsel lvl 2 Beasts, Dispel Scroll
12 Knights of the Realm, FC Banner of Chalons
12 Knights of the Realm, FC Gleaming Pennant
12 Knights of the Realm, Banner of Eternal Flame
5 Mounted Yeomen, Banner
5 Mounted Yeoment
10 Grail Knights, FC, Banner of Defense
Trebuchet
Comp: 13.5

Nick was from the Southeast region.  Even though the region is practically on my doorstep, I live in New Orleans, I had never made it out to any of the tournaments there.  Maybe this year.  Anyway, I’d played a couple of practice games against a friend of mine using Nick’s list (we found out pairings a week or so before) and they had been a mixed bag.  The first game was one of the notorious Grut Sickle double one games on turn one.  It’s always turn one.  To not be outdone, my Ironblaster blew itself up at the start of the shooting phase.  Yep, one of those games .  The next game went must better, but both were against a player unused to the list.  Nick was no novice.

Deployment: Nick’s army went down before mine.  Knights of the Realm (flaming), Grail, Knights of the Realm(Chalons) roughly in the center  with the treb, peasants and a knights of the realm unit far to my right.  Nick’s character placement really threw me.  I had expected characters to go in the Grail unit, but he actually spread them out.  Lord and Prophettess in the left realm unit, BSB and Damsel in the right center Realm unit.  Tricksy.  My gnoblar went in the center of the table, a unit of bulls on the far end of each flank, Ironguts to the left of the gnoblar with the other shooters strung out to the left of them and Ironblaster hugging the back of the table.  The hunter and his faithful pup deployed on the right of the gnoblar and vanguarded 12” forward

Magic: Nick Life(Dwellers, Flesh to stone, Regen, regrowth) Beast(Wyssan’s and something else)  Me(Lightning Bolt, Curse of Midnight Wind, Iceshard Blizzard, Harmonic Convergence)

First turn:  I went first and sprung “the trap.” The Hunter moved his 12”, just outside of everyone’s los and prepared to flank a unit of knights.  The dog took off and parked right in front of the Lord’s Unit to keep me outside of a 1st turn Dwellers.  In all of my practice games, this had also triggered his one use on Impetuous Knight bonus, but I had to choose between the two and I wasn’t as worried about the paladin’s unit.  The rest of my movement were getting the leadbelchers in range, a sprint for the flank by the maneaters and the deadly gnoblar advance!  Magic and shooting killed one yeomen unit and some of the Lord’s Knights of the Realm.  My Ironblaster missed the treb.  No problem, I’ll get it next turn….
Nick charged the dog, who barked and held.  The BSB’s unit charged the gnoblar, burning their additional charge, who fled before redirecting into the next, who fled as well.  Run you little green midgets!  His other Yeomen, who I had hoped to panic when I “killed” the treb chaffed the Hunter.  His magic buffed some units, and the super accurate treb threw a giant rock that crushed the Ironblaster in one shot.  Ouch, so that’s how that feels.  Nothing paniced.  Arf Arf died in combat, the knights overran a few inches.

Turn 2:  The Hunter charge those damned peasants, so he could eventually turn around and charge some more damned peasants who had murdered my ironblaster, which was staffed with green damned peasants.  Ugh.  The rest of my army just repeated turn 1: Leadbelchers/Ironguts moved backwards but stayed in range, gnoblar blocked the realm, Maneaters kept running, another dog blocked his general’s unit.  The right bull unit is trying hard to convince the last knight bus that they pose no threat, but Nick is unconvinced.  My gnoblar rally.  Magic and shooting ping a few more realm knights down.  He has a choice now, keep the characters in the unit and charge the dog, or bail out of the depleted unit…  The hunter does what the hunter does and murders some peasants, turns and prepares to take out a stupid trebuchet.
Nick charges, so the characters are stuck for another turn.  The BSB’s unit drives more gnoblar off.  The grail are keeping pace with the two lances, ie not moving much.  Nick gets Wyssans off on his Lord’s Realm unit and miscasts a Regrowth.  The net result is about the same.  Arf Arf Arf dies only a few inches from her sister’s corpse, but he doesn’t overrun.

Turn 3: I do the same thing I’ve been doing: Shuffling backwards with the Leadbelchers and the Ironguts, moving the gnoblar forwards, the hunter charges the giant rock throwing peasants, and the maneaters advance to the sweet spot on Nick’s flank.  The right flanking bulls…. Not so much.  Nick has finally cornered them and they’re preparing to make their final stand.  More gnoblar rally.  I go hex crazy on his realm unit with his Lord and force through iceshard.  Shooting pings him back down to two ranks.  The hunter kills the treb and reforms to face the center of the table again
Nick declares more charges:  This time both the Grail and what’s left of the Lord’s realm.  He needs a 12 for the Lord’s unit and an 8 with the Grail.  The Lord double 6s it, the grail fail.  Ok, not what I was expecting.  The BSB’s unit was stuck by the gnoblar and simply reform to be able to charge something else next turn.  This is largely a result of the angle + the wheel of the lance through a very congested area and not the gnoblar being up in his face.  Winds of magic aren't great and I burn a scroll to completely shut them down.  I take a few wounds and lose a champion to the Lord, but he loses his Prophetess, all but one knight and takes two wounds on the Lord.  The Bulls on my right flank die to the lance that’s been chasing them all game.

Turn 4:  It’s go time.  The Maneaters charge the flank of the damaged grail knights, My Hunter pops his potion and charges the rear of the BSB’s realm unit.  Magic does stuff, I’m casting with a +6 and he’s just got the lvl 2 now.  No targets to shoot, so combat.  His Lord and guy both die after doing nothing, Ironguts reform.  The Maneaters super impact charge (Swiftstride ftw), bust up the grail, who flee, get caught (Swiftstride ftw) and then smash into the BSB bus with the Hunter.  Yep, they fight again too.  I don’t break the unit, but I do grind them down to two ranks so 8 models die and at least one was a character (BSB I think).  The game has been busted wide open.
Nick goes for points and charges his last realm unit into the flank of the hunter.  I don’t have much hope for him.  Magic is nothing.  The Maneaters carve through his realm unit and kill everyone.  His knights rubber lance, lose combat and flee.  I don’t recall whether or not I chased them off the table or not, but I think they survived off in a corner.

Result: 20-0

Turn 4 was the real decider.  I delayed and shot until my units were all in place and Nick tried to bust out, but didn’t have the remaining forces to do it.  He could have started to shuffle the characters out, but that would have let my chaf hold him in place for more turns.  Likely just conserving points was the way to go, but where’s the fun in that? He was a great sport and I look forward to seeing him in the future.


Next up: Todd Wiatt's Skaven

Thank you for the write up, a great little read. May go play around with Hunters now

Edit: Wrote this before the first battle report

Lol, he's up to killing some Yeomen, a Treb and murdering a lot of Knights of the Realm and there's 5 more games to go.  I'll probably have the next battle up in a couple of days or after another night of insomnia

Good read. Interested to see how it goes against Todd's army. So much multi-wound.

Skaven are never an easy matchup for Ogres and Todd was no different. In every game, I could tell roughly how things were going to go early on, except that one.  Not only was it close, but we also had Table 39, the table off by itself by the counter.  So I got to play on the best table against possibly the coolest guy at the tournament in a really tight game. Nothing beats that

Damn I'm nearly offended lots more people aren't flocking to this topic to comment.  Firstly well done on the excellent results, what's fascinating for me is the fact you've been running more or less the same list for a number of years, that's amazing and shows not only a level of commitment that far surpasses mine but secondly some hardcore resilience to be able to soak up the metas, book changes, opponents just to name a few variables.

I just wanted to post a quick comment and now I'm off to read the 'guts'. 

Thanks again.

Agree with Jimmy, this is fantastic and i am looking forward to reading more

@kylek2235: Inspired by your use of Hunters i want to try them out. What other builds do you suggest? I want to run two instead of my normal dual Ironblaster

@Jimmy The original list looked very different to this one, at least to me.  More gnoblar, larger Maneater unit, no ironblasters (I didn't like that everyone was using them, so abstained) a thundertusk and a Bull horde (sweeper arm) that would sweep across the table late game.  The Ogres were more reliable in the combat phase back then.  The WoC and HE armies forced me to go from massed poison shooting to Ironblasters.  The maneaters dieing damn near every game and exposing characters forced me to drop them as a bunker and bring in the Ironguts.  Every incarnation has spent less time in the combat phase.  The shift away from mournfang happened early in my area since once everyone started taking anti-cav measures, they were just free points.

@Minigiant I added the hunter purely because the comp packet forced me too.  I don't think I'd used him for more than a random pickup game since the 8th ed book dropped before I needed to replace my second Ironblaster.  I didn't even spend much time thinking of his current build, but he really does seem to work with MSU lists.  If you go with two, make sure one has a magic weapon!

Game 2: Todd Wiatt's Skaven

Warlord, War Litter, Fell Blade
Grey Seer Earthing Rod, Talisman of Protection
Assassin Weeping Blades, Potion of Strength
Assassin Blade of Corruption, Other Trickster’s Shard
Warlock lvl 2, Dispel Scroll
Chief BSB, MR2, Iron Curse Icon, Halberd
Chief, Halberd, MR3
45 Slaves Mus Champ
45 Slaves Mus Champ
5 Rats + packmaster
5 Rats+ Packmaster
34 Clanrats FC Shields Ratling Gun
40 Storm Vermin FC, Razer Standard, Ratling Gun
8 Gutter Runers Extra hand Weapons, Slings, Poison
6 Gutters, Extra hand Weapon, poison
WLC
WLC

Comp 10.4

When I got my table assignment, I walked all over the place trying to find table 39.  I’m sure there was some sort of order to the table numbers, but, since table 39 was on the opposite side of the room from table 38, I didn’t see it.  When I finally realized it was the table sitting by itself next to the counter, Todd was already there waiting for me with a horde of dirty rats.  Todd is a player from the mid atlantic, of which was easy to see since we were all wearing color coded shirts to match our regions.  It occurs to me now that I probably should have been asking my opponents how they qualified and what tournaments they played in, but I never did and no one ever asked me.  Weird.  Anyway, a friend of Todd’s joined us at the table and it was a pretty friendly/casual atmosphere.

Deployment: Even with Todd’s Skaven, deployment went my way.  Clanrats in the center of the table with Todd’s BSB, Fellblade and Grey Seer In the unit, the Stormvermin with MR3 guy to the left and a block of slaves to the right.  A lowly rat dart toed the line right next to them.  The last unit of slaves went behind the Stormvermin, while the WLC cannons went in opposite corners.  The ratlings and other rat dart were generally behind his lines or near the left WLC, none of which were actually facing the WLC because why would anyone do that?  I can’t recall if Gutter Runners scout, but the large unit went in front of the WLC and the other unit was next to the Stormvermin.
My deployment looked much like the first game, but on the right side instead of the left.  Gnoblars in the center, bulls on the far flanks.  Ironguts to the right of the gnoblar with the leadbelchers and maneaters strung out to the left.  Ironblaster was in the back as usual.  The reason for a deployment opposite of the slaves instead of opposite the squishy, points filled Stormvermin was simple: I thought Todd would put the Assasins in there to boost their combat prowess and I wanted nothing to do with them.  The Hunter, along with a dog was deployed on the far left across from the WLC, he then vanguarded up.  I then got first turn and The Trap was go.

Magic: Todd Lore of the Rat(Howling Warpgale, Crack’s Call, Warplightning… something else)
Me (Harmonic Convergence, Chain Lightning, Comet, Iceshard Blizzard I think)

Turn 1: Dog and Hunter split up and moved their full distance to the unguarded WLC.  The Bulls on the left flank advanced around and the rest of my line shuffled around to get into shooting ranges.  This is the point where a podcaster named the Hunter’s vanguard move “The Trap,” since he showed up at our table, thought we were still deploying and realized we were well into my first turn.  I wouldn’t even mention it except the name was relayed to me in practically every game after this.  It was pretty funny.  I put a comet marker in his backfield and I pinged a few rats out of the clanrats with the leadbelchers/maneaters.  I wanted to drive the characters into one unit I could chaf forever, ie the Stormvermin w/ the assassins, instead of having two combat effective units coming towards. The other Leadbelchers fail miserably at killing the left rat dart.  Finally, the Ironblaster continued its reign of mediocrity by only wounding and not killing the WLC on the right.  Not a great start
Todd, surprised by the Hunter, diverted his Gutter Runners and both ratling guns and that unit of slaves to deal with the threats to his WLC.  The rest of his army double times it forward, except for the gutter runners who faithfully guard the other WLC from anymore Ogres tricks.  His Gutters were worried about my right flanking Bulls and Bulls were worried about his gutters, so neither really did anything.  Magic sees a Warplightning go off, of which I tell Todd “It’s ok, you’re going to roll a one anyway.”  He rolls a one, I can see the future.  He shoots all he can at the Hunter (I don’t recall if the Ratlings could shoot or they were preparing for next turn), but the Hunter survives a weak WLC shot and a bunch of long ranged sling shots from the Gutter runners with one wound for his troubles. Arf Arf (the dog) is ignored.  The other WLC shoots and kills a couple of leadbelchers.  His Fellblade guy takes a wound

Turn 2:  The rat dart on the right needs to be driven off, so the Maneaters charge.  With swiftstride, I think I needed a 7, it wasn’t far.  I remember because when he fled, he only fled a few inches (probably needed an 11) and I decided to stay the course rather than redirect into the approaching Slaves.  Todd told me later he held his breath as I was deciding whether to redirect into the slaves or not.  The Hunter charges the WLC, while his faithful pet repositions himself to not be shot to death.  The left flanking bulls swing around and charge the Gutter Runners protecting his flank.  The rest of my army, sans some gnoblar take a step back.  The comet comes down, some slave and a ratling gun die.  The rest of the phase I get a chain lightning that does one hit to the other ratling, which he wards, and doesn’t jump.  Shooting kills more Clanrats and there is light at the end of the clanrat tunnel.  The Iron blaster spins in a circle.  Somehow this is my Gnoblar’s fault.  The bulls kill the gutter runners.  The Hunter obliterates the WLC and earns the title “Pimp Master.”  Pimp Master is pleased by this.
The Stormvermin charge two units of gnoblars, who flee.  The clanrats charge two more gnoblar units, who flee.  I haven’t done enough damage to his clanrats so he doesn’t bail the characters out.  Not good.  The slaves advance towards the maneaters, the clanrats forward. The other slaves advance right up into Pimp Master’s grill.  I think he gets Howling Warpgale off this round or I burned a scroll early.  Either way, I was worried my shooting wasn’t going to be there for me in future rounds.  The WLC hits the Ironguts, I pass some Look Out Sirs (much harder than you’d think for me!) and he kills a few Ironguts.  There are three characters and three Ironguts (one of them a champ) left in the unit. Eep.  His fellblade guy takes another wound.  Take that rat.

Turn 3:  So Todd has a large block of slaves, a clan rat unit with multi wound shenanigans, and a large block of Stormvermin with Assassins all bearing down on me and I can only realistically chaf them for one more turn.  I’ve got a much depleted unit of Iron guts, some maneaters and a bunch of small units.  Whatever unit I charge, I’ll likely be stuck in combat with it for more than one round and then be combo charged or just die, as is likely the case against the clanrats with Mr.Fellblade.  It’s charge or get cannoned so I charge.  Maneaters into the the only unit they can charge, the Slaves.  It’s at this point I realize there’s a large slave flank right in front of me and I “only” need to kill 35 slaves to likely break his steadfast, so the Ironguts go into the slaves as well.  The other dog goes in front of the clanrats.  The left flanking Bulls innocently charge the last rat dart on the left.  I need a sling shot for this to work.  The Pimp Master decides he can take on 45 slaves by himself and charges.  I might have thought he was invincible at this point.  Todd and I were making fun of him a lot and there was a certain amount of goading going on.  Three gnoblar units flee off the table.  One rallies for some reason.  Magic: I can’t hack a guy because of the damage to my Ironguts so it’s regular +4 for me.  Todd stops Harmonic Convergence.  Not good.  I throw out Iceshard blizzard on the slaves.  -1ld is nice, is a great consolation prize, right?  I’ve got two dice left and really nothing to use it on.  I tell Todd I’m going to cast Chainlighting on his gutter runners guarding the WLC (just within 24”) and I joke with Todd that I only need an 11 for it to work.  I roll an 11.  A gutter dies (rolled another 1) and then do 2 wounds on 3 hits to the WLC.  Dead cannon.  Gutters shrug.  My cannon, knowing he has nothing better to do, decides “shootin’ is for suckas” and runs around in a circle again.  Thanks buddy.  The Leadbelchers shoot a few storm vermin, but most of their Los is impaired.  I do the Bull combat first, they crush the dart and need a 6 to overrun into the Stormvermin, which is a combat that will be fought NEXT turn, ie holding them in place for a turn.  They succeed and the Stormvermin are pinned.  We go the Slave combat and Todd throws out the mother of all surprises to me: the Assassins pop out.  Not good at all.  Stone Cold Todd Wiatt had me snowed the whole time.  Much laughter is had.  The Slaughtermaster can either fight two or one assassin since they’re in btb with him, I choose one and challenge.  He accepts with Weeping Blades and plans to pop the potion next turn.  I don’t die, but the future is bleak.  The other Assassin can’t get by the BSB’s ward save (reroll and all).  Neither Assassin dies.  I can’t say the same for the Slave.  30 of them die, but I needed 31 to break steadfast.  I do however have a unit with two ranks in the flank of a skaven unit so no rank ld bonus and then there’s that pesky -1 ld iceshard blizzard.  They pop, the assassins die and I reform, having conquered the right flank.  In the most important combat, the Hunter kills a few slaves and takes a couple of wounds back but passes the armor saves.  Todd is determined to kill the Hunter rolls 5s and 6s like a champ.  I win by 1, but his slaves are undaunted and stay.
Todd’s movement phase is pretty short.  The clanrats charge the chaf dog.  The Gutter runs move behind a building.  There’s a ratling gun wandering around without something to kill and everything else is in combat.  Magic doesn’t accomplish much and there’s no shooting.  Combat time.  The Hunter only does a couple of wounds, and takes another wound for his trouble.  He loses to the slaves, but stays!  Say it ain’t so Pimp Master.  The Bulls, with impact hits and a rear charge manage to lose only by 1 and stay, Not good for the Assassinless Stormvermin.  They reform to face the Bulls.  The clanrats kill the dog and reform to face the Ironguts and Maneaters.

Turn 4: The Ironguts declare their charge.  Todd can either stay or flee through the Stormvermin/Bull combat.  When Todd reformed, to keep the Maneaters out of his flank, he brought him into flank charge range of a unit of leadbelchers.  Facing the Ironguts and Maneaters to the front and the Leadbelchers to the side, Todd decides to flee the clanrats through the Stormvermin.  I redirect the Ironguts into the rear of the stormvermin and charge the Ironblaster too.  Both make it.  I believe I charged the Maneaters too, but it was a long charge at best and they failed.  Pimp Master’s pup, charges the Slaves to save the day.  Bubble Harmonic goes off in the Magic phase and the Stormvermin are reduced to just a few models.  They do kill off the Bulls, but they break and are run down by the Ironguts and Ironblaster.  In the overrun, I pick up the fleeing clan rats as well.  The Ratling Gun flees and doesn’t rally.  In more important news, the Hunter loses combat again and this is just too much for both of them and they both flee.  The dog gets picked up for its troubles, but Pimp Master gets away.
Todd’s army is now the Gutter Runners and that block of slaves.  The Gutter runners shoot and panic the right flanking bulls off the table and we spend the rest of the game playing Hunter vs. Slaves.  The Hunter eventually dies in combat.  Todd declares moral victory.

Result: 20-0

Conclusion:  This game was a lot of fun and Todd got my favorite game vote of the tournament.  When the WLC decimated my Ironguts, I wasn’t sure where to go.  I never like being forced into combats, but I really had no choice.  If I’d charged the Ironguts at the clanrats, I would have bounced since the front rank was mostly characters and champions.  Ending the slaves was the better option, although breaking the steadfast would have been easier.  I never expected Todd to put the Assassins there.  Stormvermin or Clanrats were where I had them pegged.  I checked back with Todd after almost every game and he was moving them all over the place.  Sneaky Skaven.  A quick note on etiquette: I try to thank my favorite opponent after every tournament post score sheets turned in (I don’t fish for points) and he let me know that our game was his favorite as well.

Next up: Ryan Capps's Empire

Great read, thanks for writting this up im patiently waiting for the rest of the reports.

Hi kylek2235,

It is great when Master players take time and write about their games at such a competitive tournament! So thanks a lot for doing that, it is rare indeed and is greatly appreciated.

I actually sent your list to Jimmy after the tournament as something to have a look at as he embarked on MSU OK journey and your army definitely has some MSU elements.

I really like first two games. You mentioned that your armies spent less and less time in combat but it looks like it is not necessarily true here. Of course magic and shooting are very important components but at least in these two games you earned your victories in combat and without it there would be no 20-0 results.

I know that day 1 in 4 games you played you had to use strategy cards. Do you remember which you and your opponents played each time and what impact did they have on the games?

Thanks again for your reports, please, keep them coming! 

Wow that outcome is not what I expected. I've played this army with my ogres and all that multiwound shredded me. How bad do you think the game would have gone if the slaves with the assassins hadn't broken?

Ryan's kicked my teeth in a whole bunch with his Empire too recently so going to be interesting to see how it goes next game. I would have said you match up a whole bunch better against the Empire but I would have pegged it as a loss against Todd's skaven so let's see!

@ Tyrant Grix  Thanks, I have new found respect for every battle reporter that types these things up.  It's not easy!

@Swordmaster  I'm usually very secretive about my lists and my wife even suggested I not type these up.  I've been seeing more and more copies of my list spring up in my region, but up to this point, none of them have been able to play it correctly.  I'd rather they play it correctly at this point, even if it is a little late to alter the meta. I know its rare, but enough people in my region already know how I play.  If out of region players adjust their list with me in mind, I'm flattered, but I doubt it very seriously.  In this era of Elves, Daemons and WoC, there's just no room for the poor weak ogres 

As to the combat prowess: Step 1: shoot, Step 2: delay, Step 3: repeat Steps 1 and 2 until your opponent commits or backs off.  I play in a Win/Loss/Draw region, so it doesn't matter what they do.  In a 20-0 system, if they back off, it's a 13-7 win.  If they don't, it's a 20-0.  Neither opponent has backed off so far.  The other side of the coin is on its way.

I haven't mentioned the cards because they didn't mean much in my games so far. Game 3 makes a difference and I'll talk about it then.  In game one, I did the "keep your opponent out of your deployment zone" one and Nick did the same.  I chose that one as a hedge.  If Nick's Brets were still on the table late game, I wanted him to have to choose between pursuing what's left of my army (since something must have gone terribly wrong) and giving me points.  Against Todd I chose Blood and Glory of which I think Todd chose the same.  I don't know why.  Probably because there was virtually no difference between it and assassins.  I should have chosen Curse of Arrow Attraction, but I was saving that one for game four (hedging my bets that I would keep climbing the ranks, since it was an easy objective for me).  Both games I scored about 3000pts to my opponent's 200-500pts.

Just out of curiousity, is this the Australian Swordmaster that posts such eloquent battle reports on the Warhammer Forum?

@ Gutlord Inquisitor:  Initially I was really worried about not breaking the Slaves in one go, it wasn't until the combat phase when I lightened up about it.  The clanrats were chaffed so couldn't flank/rear charge me, so the only real danger was from the Stormvermin.  If the Bulls don't overrun into them, they're free to charge the dog as well as the clanrats, and then slingshot into the Ironguts.  Essentially, as long as the Bull overrun happens, the worst that happens is that I likely lose my general to an assassin, still kill every slave/assassin (minus the one in the challenge), destroy the unit, reform during his turn and the clanrat bunker is in the same awful predicament.

Not saying anything about Ryan the player, but when I found out what Ryan's list was, I was a lot less worried than when I played Todd.  Skaven (no clear shooting points) and Vampire Counts (ethereals) are two of my worst matchups.  I have no idea how Ryan Ironmanned it through 8 games from friday to sunday and played as well as he did.

Hi kylek2235,

Thanks for the reply! Well, I was told that imitation is the most sophisticated form of flattery so you should be really proud of your achievements

I do understand that top players may be more secretive about their lists. It is true for ETC players who now are preparing for their event and they don't want other teams to know their secrets.

But I, maybe naively, believe that a top player is also capable of performing greatly even if his list is known. You seem to confirm that by saying other players don't get the same results. Which is not surprising, you need experience and practice with the tool you have until you get to the point where you use it properly.

I have never had a chance to play in win/draw/lose environment, I wonder if you had to change a lot when you played at Masters with 20-0 system. At the same time, if your opponents don't come to you and you get 13-7 then it is indeed a good result either way.

Thanks for the explanation on cards. I like them a lot and I think they have a potential to add new and great dimension to the game as it is.

And yes, I am that battle reporter from TWF although I am not an Australian, just living in Oz at the moment.

Cheers!

Game 3: Ryan Caps Empire (roughly since I don’t have a copy of this list)

(Not the) General of the Empire on a Griffon
Archlector (general) on the hatredmobile
BSB
Lvl 2 Light
Lvl 2 Light
Lvl 2 Light
40 Halberdier
40 Halberdier
10 Archers
5 Pistoliers (I don’t remember if this unit exists)
4 Demigryphs
Cannon
Stank
Hurricanum

It’s game 3 and I’ve got 40/40 points.  That’s good because I’m in a three way tie for first place of the US Masters with Alex Schimid and my southern nemesis Mr.Radigan, but it’s bad because players are stingier with points and the competitive atmosphere ramps up.  I joked with Jeff that if he started to lose his game, I’d have to throw my game to play against him (regional immunities wear off round 4).  Jeff pulled Alex and I got Ryan “Ironman” Capps.

Ryan was the official Ironman of this tournament.  Although technically from the Mid Atlantic Region, he was representing the Mountain West due to drops.  Not only did he play all 6 games of the Masters, but he had to play in a qualifying two game tournament the day before to make the Masters.  All in all, that’s 8 games in three days and he was on the top tables for much of them.  Game 1, he destroyed my tourney roommate Julien Lesage’s Vampire Counts with his light council.  Finally, a list I’m used to seeing back home and not a minute too soon because I’m really starting to lose focus.

Deployment: As usual, Ryan deployed his army first, Demis were on the far left flank with a halberdier horde next to them on the right and then the other halberdier horde in the center of the table. His Archer/council bunker behind that with the Hurricanum and Hatredmobile.  The Steam Tank was deployed behind a hill on the far right, so it could trundle forward first turn, with the cannon sitting on warmachine hill.  Our General of the empire friend was deployed on the hill to screen the cannon and he was facing towards the rest of his army and away from the right side of the table.  My army went down next, gnobs in the center, bulls on the far flanks, Ironguts to the left of the gnobs and the rest of my shooting strung out on the right flank.  “The Trap” deployed in the griffon’s blind spot near the right table edge and vanguarded forward the full 12” in preparation of assaulting warmachine hill.

Card Objectives: I haven’t talked about it until now, but we actually had objective cards that we played prior to each game of the first four games that would award us between 300-600 vp points if achieved.  I didn’t mention it until now because they made little difference.  If my opponent wants to achieve one, its likely going to involve killing my Irongut unit (Assassinate General, Kill Highest point unit, Break army).  In this scenario, I chose “Assassins,” which meant I needed to bag some characters.

Magic: Ryan Light Council Wizards (The Lore of Light sans Birona’s Timewarp)
Me (Comet, Harmonic Convergence, Lightning Bolt, probably Iceshard Blizzard)

Turn 1: Finally someone other than me gets first turn.  The Steam Tank doesn’t misfire and clanks a few inches onto the hill.  The General of the Empire turns his Griffon around to glare at the Hunter.  Pimp Master waves back.  The Demigryphs take off after the Left Flanking Bulls.  He’ll succeed in catching them in three more turns and they play no part in this narrative.  Quick aside, if he doesn’t do this, I’ll use them to threaten his Hurricanum, Hatred Mobile and Archer Bunker all for the low low price of 90 points.  The Halberdiers advance as fast as the support units can keep up.  Magic, I think he banishes some gnoblar.  I remember targets were limited due to range.  He might have failed a boosted banishment since that happened at least once this game.  One cannon ball sticks in the mud and the other can’t do enough damage to the ironguts to get to the Ironblaster.

That stupid Griffon is in the way so I can’t charge the cannon with the Hunter, so he stays where he is and grabs another tool from the old bag of tricks.  The left flanking Bulls take off running up the table edge.  The rest of my army moves to shooting ranges, while the gnobs creep forward slowly.  Magic: I abuse Ryan’s level 2s with the +6 to cast.  Comet gets scrolled and bubble Harmonic Convergence goes off.  I bolt the Griffon, but (as per previously mentioned bad number of hits rolled all tournament long) I did no wounds.  That’s ok.  That poor stupid Griffon is dead,  it just doesn’t it know it yet.  With Harmonic up, I blast off the maybe imaginary pistoliers (It seems likely they were there, but I can’t remember anything about them other than I’m clearly missing damage output from my second leadbelchers).  The Hunter launches a bolt through the Turkey’s neck, then the Leadbelchers and Maneaters launch their own buckshot through him all so the Ironblaster can shoot through him and the cannon his soon to be worthless corpse is hiding.  The turkey has one wound left and so does the General of the Empire, the Ironblaster launches a cannon ball through both models.  With Harmonic convergence, I am in damn near can’t fail territory, roll to wound the turkey “1”, reroll “not a one.”  Great, dead turkey.  Roll to wound the guy “1,” reroll, “not a one.”  Ok, still good.  Roll for the cannon, “not a one” perfect, roll for number of wounds “1.”  WHAT DO YOU HAVE AGAINST CONTRIBUTING?!  Lol.  So the cannon lives and I start counting points.  This leads to my favorite conversational exchange all tournament long:

“You know he’s not my General, right?  I know he’s the General of the Empire, but he’s not my General of the Empire”  Ryan
“But he’s the General of the Empire, doesn’t that make him the General of the Empire.” Me
“Well, I mean he’s not the General of MY Empire, if that makes any sense.” Ryan

Lol, I started laughing just thinking about it.  Ryan has a pretty good sense of humor.

Turn 2: Ryan’s Halberdiers advance, the steam tank advances a little bit again.  I don’t recall if Ryan is rolling 1 or 2 dice to move, but he’s only moving a couple of inches forward each time.  The support units keep pace.  I let a tiny banishment off on the Ironblaster and it takes a couple of wounds.  It’s going to die anyway so whatever.  Thanks for nothing Ironblaster.  Nothing else goes off.  Two cannon balls later and my Ironblaster is kindling.

Pimp Master puts away his crossbow, downs his can on spinach and Juggernauts into the Steam Tank.  Yep, it’s d3 S8 impact hit time.  Swiftstriding Ogres is an awesome sight.  The right flanking bulls move up and prepare to charge the cannon next turn.  The rest of my army stays put, except for the possible inching forward of the gnoblar.  In the magic phase, I place a comet near his support units, launch a lightning bolt at the hatred mobile (does nothing) and throw up another Harmonic Convergence bubble.  It’s still long range, so I only knock off a rank or so of the Horded Halberdiers.  Combat starts with the Hunter smashing into the tank like a raging beast.  He does two wounds with his impact hits, Ryan rolls double 6s to save.  While Ryan is doing the happy hamster hop of victory, the dog manages to do two wounds, Ryan then rolls double 1s.  Lol, clearly the Hunter loosened the jar of pickles for the dog to open.  We halted the game to laugh at how ridiculous that was for a few minutes.  The Hunter then does 4 more wounds to the tank.  I make some joke about how it’s officially a paperweight now.  The dice gods are not amused.

Turn 3:  Ryan sends all of the gnoblar fleeing back to my lines with charges from both Halberdiers.  Meh.  The comet comes down and damages the Hurricanum and the Hatredmobile.   The Archers and Halberdiers avoid harm. There’s no shooting to speak of.  This is probably when Ryan realizes that the damage outputs between his banishment spells and my shooting phases are unequal and shifts strategies.  He does manage to not misfire, generate some steam points and blast the hunter in steam.  The Dog dies, but the Hunter lives and holds firm.

The Bulls charge the cannon. All Gnoblar rally.  I dispatch a dog in front of his left most Halberdiers.  The Maneaters advance around the flank of the Halberdiers, the leadbelchers advance in front.  I think I was concerned about the Steam Tank getting free, which is why I was so conservative with the Maneaters.  I know they still have LOS on the tank, but moved to within long range of the Hatredmobile.  Magic has me place another comet behind his lines and launch another ineffectual lightning bolt.  Shooting has me cut his Halberdier horde in front of me in half.  There’s only 15 guys left, if that.  The maneaters wound the Archlector.  The Hunter does another wound to the tank, it’s got 3 left

Turn 4: Ryan charges the dog, Ryan charges the depleted halberdiers into both leadbelchers, who both flee.  Even with depleted, with the Lore of Light, the Hurricanum and the Archlector nearby, they’re still more than a match for either Leadbelcher unit individually.  What they’re not a match for is the almost untouched Irongut unit that was sitting quietly behind the leadbelchers, waiting for them to move.  The Steam Tank grinds the Hunter out and the nearby Bulls panic.  Ryan abandons banishment spam in favor of protection spells.  Ryan finally drives the Left Flank Bulls off the table with the Demigryphs

The Maneaters charge the Steam Tank, I think they super impact hit it as well.  Rough day to do be Empire Engineer.  The Ironguts charge the Halberdiers, Ryan flees.  They ended up pretty far back, so it’s possible that I drove them further back with a unit of gnoblar.  If so, the rest of the Gnoblar enter full on “get in the way” mode to protect the remaining Leadbelchers and Ironguts.  One Leadbelcher unit rallies, the other legs it off the table.  The right flanking Bulls rally and play no further part in the game.  The comet comes down and destroys the Hurricanum, pings the Archlector another wound and does two wounds to the Hatredmobile. 1 wound left on the Archlector and 2 left on the mount.  With two turns to go, I got this.  I do a wound to the Steam tank with the Maneaters.  Two to go.

Turn 5: The Halberdiers drive two units of gnoblar off the table.   The Demigryphs move to try a long bomb last turn charge.  The tiny Halberdier block rallies and accidently threatens the Maneaters flank.  Magic is mainly protection spells.  No shooting, no grinding, no wounds in combat.

I double time it across the table with the Ironguts and move right next to the Halberdiers.  There is no escape.  I throw all of my magic and shooting at the Archlector.  They’re all warded.  Damn 5+ ward save.

Turn 6: The Archlector has managed to get around the Halberdiers and charges one unit of gnoblar and drives it off, which forces me to hold with the second one.  This gives him two opportunities to get into the leadbelchers.  1) he declares a charge with the Demis, who need an 11.  2) The halberdiers destroy the Gnobs and need to overrun 11”.  I could have just moved backwards and ended this problem during my last turn, but my focus is not there.  It was dumb to allow the chance, but, luckily, I don’t get burned by it.  The Maneaters don’t kill the Steam Tank again.  It feels like everything I’m trying to kill just becomes immune to death when I get it down to one wound.

Since the Maneaters can’t free themselves from the Steam Tank, I have to make a decision: Murder the Halberdiers for free points or skip combat and six dice thunderbolt at the Archlector.  I go for the safe points and charge the Halberdiers.  I skip magic altogether.  The Halberdiers are eliminated with extreme prejudice.  The maneaters finally end the Steam Tank.  The Archlector takes another 2 wounds from the Leadbelchers and Ward saves them both.  Le sigh.  Just the Archlector, not his mount, was worth 700pts between scenario, tourney rules (separate points for rider/mount), and General points and I couldn’t get by a 5+ ward.

Result: 13-7

I won, but I left points on the table, a lot of points.  I’m disappointed now, sitting in my room, typing this up, but at the time, I was pretty damn excited.  I was sitting pretty with 53/60 points at the most competitive tournament in the United States, but that was good enough only for third place.  Radigan had beaten Alex 16-4 and Jarret Messing hopped us to get to table 1.  The dream of slaughtering my nemesis, team south or not, on the largest Warhammering stage in the US was dead.  More Bad news: the world appears to have taken a slightly blue tinge and I keep forgetting where I am. 

A quick aside about the tournament:  This is the kind of guy you’re going to meet at the Masters.  Sure, there are a lot of people with poker faces who quietly make their moves in utter silence, but there are far more people, like Ryan, that are just excited to be there.  They exude energy and there’s always a smile on their face.  They’ve done the work all year long and this is the reward.  I’ve won one major GT and been on the top tables of countless others, but I was just ecstatic to be there.  If anyone reading this ever has the opportunity, take it at least once.


Next up: Jacob Brandon

Hi kylek2235,

I really like game 3 for several reasons. While it is great to be able to 20-0 your opponent, often close games are much more entertaining to read and many more situations where things could have gone either way happen. It may, of course, take more energy from the players but it is just my personal approach.

Second, playing against a great player like Ryan, who can give you run for your money but has a great sense of humor and shows that it is not only about battle points is fantastic. It does not take away from competitive play, you can still learn from such players but it also matters how they do it.

I totally agree, getting to the Masters is a reward in itself, even to the smaller event like Australian Masters

I have a question about Heavens Magic. It has a great potential and I absolutely love the re-rolls of 1's or 6's. However, when I tried to use it I found that I often do not push my opponent into hard choices. With single level 4 I often had 2 spells of some kind of direct damage and 2 of augment/hex type. It was really easy for the opponent to decide what they don't want to let through and it was a rare occasion when I could cast more than 2-3 spells per turn anyway.

How do you make it work for your army?

Cheers!

@Swordmaster   I'm not a top player, I'm just a blue collar Ogre player from little Louisiana, doing work in the trenches, fighting the good fight against much stronger opposition. Lol.  I still have a huge chip on my shoulder from all of the 7th edition tournaments I attended as the only Ogre player for years.  The joke among the other South guys was the reason I did so well was because I was the only guy used to using such bad lists.

It's funny, Jeff Radigan and I are pretty good friends on the tournament circuit.  I've played Jeff 4 or so times and I love playing against him.  He's a rare combination of nice, serious and honest that makes for a very good game.  I won't play against him outside of tournament games.  It's rare that he's ever fooled by the same trick twice and there are only so many crazy and erratic maneuvers I can employ with an MSU list.  I'm not the only one on the circuit that thinks that way either.  There are definitely cliques.

As far as the differences to W/L/D, its a better system for dancing armies.  Wood Elves typically struggle more in the 20-0 system because their margin of victories are much smaller than say a Warriors of Chaos army, who can operate with very wide margins.  It's a fun system, but there are pros and cons.

There was one thing I regret at the Masters: I didn't get Oncebitten to sign my Rulebook.  I had every intention to get it in the days leading up to it and he even went out to dinner with the South guys, so I had every opportunity (even though I kept forgetting where I was and staring at the ceiling).  My point in all of this geeking out is that the people that grow the hobby are way more famous than the players at the top tables.  Keep writing up Battle Reports and I'll keep reading them.

@Swordmaster  Grut's Sickle gives me +2 to cast.  The two big ones are Bubble Harmonic and Comet.  it's rare my opponent can stop both, sometimes neither.  Even if they do, I can still chain lightning or Lightning bolt.  Sometimes -1ld is the only spell I want I try panicing things with the leadbelchers.  Grut's makes its all possible though.  Every spell can be cast with 3 or less dice except super boosted comet, which I rarely cast.

Hi kylek2235,

Thanks a lot for your quick reply!

Great and modest players are even more rare breed Keep up the good work, the results speak for themselves

I admire OnceBitten for his dedication to the reports preparing. I don't watch videos that much, as I am mainly a reader (that's why I write the reports) but his example is very inspiring. I am sue you can send him your rulebook to be signed and sent back Or you will just meet him next year!

I will keep writing for sure, I still have 5 more reports in the pipeline. But I also learned that I feel even more motivated when people leave comments (hint, hint! ).

Hm, I guess the fact I often refuse to use fashionable items comes at a price too Book of Hoeth is probably the item that makes your magic phase better in a similar fashion as Gut's Sickle. Thanks a lot for elaborating on that!

Ok, enough distractions, otherwise you will not finish the rest of the reports

Cheers!

I really love reading these batreps!

I have been playing alot of 800 points games in the last few weeks, but can't seem to remember the battles well enough to make some reports. Do you take pics or have a notebook for it?

@Evoluo  No pics, no notebooks.  All I have are my score sheets where I circled what died in my army.  I'm as surprised as you.  That recall is about to fail be horribly though.....

Game 4: Jacob Brandon Tomb Kings

High Liche Lvl 4 Nehek, Dispel Scroll
High Liche Lvl 4 Undeath, Scroll of Shielding
Tomb King Dragonhelm, Great Weapon Ironcurse Icon
Herald BSB Charmed Shield MR 3
18 Archers FC
18 Archers FC
5 Horse Archers
5 Horse Archers
5 Horse Archers
16 Skeleton Archers, FC Light Armor
40 Tomb Guard
Screaming Skull Catapult
Screaming Skull Catapult
Hierotitan
Casket of Souls

Comp 12.9

My next opponent was Jacob Brandon and we were playing on Table 2.  This was the first round where table numbers correspond to battle points (ie Jeff and and Jarrett were playing on table 1), but somehow this was the same table I played Ryan on.  I’m going to apologize in advance.  Out of all of my games, this is the one everyone wants to hear about and I have virtually nothing to tell you.  This was game 4 of day one, I hadn’t slept in over 36 hours and I was probably running a fever.  The extremely large chip on my shoulder that kept me going through the first three games went to dinner.  I was so bad off that I even asked him to remind me when I needed to roll something because I couldn’t stay focused.  I’ve never been anywhere near that bad off and this was the first tournament I was totally sober for in a long time.

I do remember that I mentioned that I read about his success at The Colonial last year, but I don’t remember what he said.  If you don’t know, he tore through The Colonial Carnage with his TK Lore of Undeath army and caused a pretty big stir, since TKs never win anything.  There are a few TK players in my area and I don’t take any of them lightly, so at least I had that going for me.

Deployment: He castled in the right corner.  His casket in the far corner, the Herotitan not far from that, but near his wizard bunker on a hill.  The Tomb Guard with the other characters were at the front and two archer blocks behind them and catapults along the table edge inside the castle.  When he starts moving, the Tomb Guard will fan out into the center of the table, with the archers guarding the area between him and the table edge, if that paints a better picture.  I deployed in typical formation on the left side, away from everything.  Not sure what the plan was.  I put the Hunter on the right side of the gnoblar thinking I was going to vanguard him again and sprint past the tomb guard.  I must have missed the four ambushing horse archer units in his list that kept the Hunter in place.  Short of the Hunter placement, deploying on the left wasn’t bad.  I don’t have any magic weapons so I’m completely defenseless against Ethereals and, unless I was lucky, I was going to get stuck on that barbwire fence like so many others and be screamed to death.

Magic: Jacob Undeath(Raise Characters, Raise Monster, Raise Cav, Heal), TK Lore of Nehek(Move, Ward, Shooting... something else)
Me(Comet, Lighting Bolt, Harmonic… maybe curse of the midnight wind?  No Chain Lightning)

Turn 1: He begins to fan out like I described in the deployment as the Tomb Guard advance towards the center of the table.  In the Magic phase, I let go all of the Undeath magic and stop the TK magic.  I don’t know why, that was not the game plan.  He got a unit of Hexwraiths and a unit of vargheists.  The Horse Archers take pot shots at the Hunter and burn his charmed shield.  The Screaming skulls start smashing into my army, mainly amongst the leadbelchers.

I think I advance my entire army forwards, I know the maneaters and the bulls move their full distances forward.  On the left flank, it’s duck and cover time.  The bulls reverse course and the Dog and Hunter head for the board edge.  He can march with the Hexwraiths so I have to stay outside of their move or take damage and still be cornered, except for the Hunter who I forgot was almost immune to fire.  Magic sees a regular comet go into his backfield equidistant from the stone throwers.  I don’t know why I didn’t push it for more comets in his backfield, but this was the only one I think I cast.  Maybe I had low magic phases?  Anyway, the Ironblaster has no targets (everything behind hills), so I cannon snipe.  It doesn’t work.  Shooting kills some archers

Turn 2:  The Hexwraiths charge the bulls trying to hide in the corner.  The Vargheists go flapping after the Ironblaster and the Tomb Guard continue their implacable advance.  This time, I stop the right magic, but the casket bounces across my entire army.  Yep, entire army sans the stuff on the right flank.  Bulls, Maneaters, , leadbelchers, leadbelchers, Ironblaster, Ironguts, 4 gnoblar and Dog.  Wounds are pretty scattered but the Dog dies and I think the Maneaters emerge unscathed.  Having most of my army inside the ld 9 reroll bubble is important.  Comet does not come down.  One Catapult misfires…. Not sure about the other.  Archers focus fire on one leadbelcher unit and do a few wounds.  The Bulls die in hth.

I keep the flankers moving, the maneaters will need an 8 to charge the archers next turn and right beyond that is Jacob’s bunker with all of those pesky wizards.  The gnoblar prepare to start blocking maneuvers and the Ironguts advance.  The Ironblaster starts moving around the hill to block los to the vargheists.  Magic: I don’t remember casting anything, but I must be buffing the leadbelchers because I was focus firing on one unit of archers at a time at a time.  The comet does not come down.  Shooting is all done at the Archers closest to the table edge.  I just need to bust a hole through.

Turn 3: Jacob drives off some gnoblar with the Tomb Guard, the Hexwraiths begin chasing the hunter, the Vargheists flap around the hill.  Comet does not come down, but all of the Tomb King magic goes off again.  The casket hops across across my entire left flank again (sans the now dead dog).  This is probably where I lost one unit of Leadbelchers.  The maneaters inconspicuously take no wounds again. While the rest of the army takes a smattering.  In the shooting phase, another misfire in the catapults and I don’t know where the other hits.  I know he bulls eyes a few shots but I cant remember where.  It’s not in the Leadbelchers or maneaters so maybe the Ironguts.  Anyway, the reason I know its not the maneaters is that they take 3 wounds from archer fire, promptly fail their panic check and flee.  They needed to pass this last check to get to the soft and squishy center of the army.

The comet comes down this turn and wipes out both the catapults.  It really blasts a crater in the ground, but that’s about the total of my memory for this game.  I had enough sense to start fleeing with everything after this to conserve points.  All of the gnoblar end up dying as do the left flanking bulls (I think in a suicide charge by one wounded bull at his bunker on the last turn).  Somehow the maneaters die, probably from not rallying  Somehow the Ironblaster avoids the Vargheists and survives the game, but I haven’t a clue how.  The Ironguts and all of the characters contained within all survive.  They actually get really close to achieving my “finish in the center of the table” objective.  I really just needed to take either the general or BSB out of the unit at the end of the game and move him to the center.  Last but not least, the final leadbelcher unit.  This is I do remember.  The Vargheists charged them turn 6 and I fled real low, but he still needed a double six to get me and he got it.  I was totally bummed.  By the way, the only reason I know who died is because I made score sheets after each game.  They’re really useful for most memory recall.

Result: 4-16

As you can see, this game went bad fast, but I still had hope for a bit.  I was so crushed that after this game, I actually called up my wife to apologize for losing.  She’s been making fun of me about it ever since.  I have no memory whatsoever of that conversation so maybe she’s making it up.  That’s what I’d like to believe at least.  Phone records be damned.  At least Mr.Radigan lost to Jarrett, so a sliver of hope was kindled that the grudge match may yet happen.  Unfortunately, Jeff went for broke and got 0 points when he should have pulled up like I did.  Jacob would go on to defeat Jarrett in round 5 and then last year’s champion Justin Burgy in round 6 before being crowned Master or Overlord or whatever our title is.  Personally, I like Archduke. 

That’s the end of day 1 and I was sitting with 57/80 which was good enough for 7th place, a minor lead over the rest of the South, and a firm grasp on the only thing that actually matters to me: Best Ogre.  All I have to do is plow through a New England Juggernaut.  Le sigh.

Next:  Travis Weyforth

Damn but that really sucks to be forced to play 4 games in a row and then with the fever as a bonus. I was really surprised when I saw it in US Masters player's pack. It is a marathon indeed and I think people should prepare for it accordingly too.

Well done for putting up a fight despite having to play under such extreme conditions. I can't imagine how bad you might feel about it if you were at full strength that game would have been different story. Getting 4 points in that situation was very, very good score.

If it is not to much to ask (as it may be still painful to recall that game) what would have you done differently?

Also, looking forward to reading about game 5 as it is going to feature some HE

Another great write up and well played considering the prevailing conditions and your opponent. Not going to lie it was this battle report i was looking forward too most. His TK army has inspired me to try Lore of Undeath in an Ogre army

Really enjoying this thread so far Kyle, thanks for the reports. 4 games in one day is a massive ask, could they not do 3 games on both days? The most games I've ever played in 1 day at a tournament was 3, and I still felt compelled to go home and detox overnight after that.

A quick aside: if it sounds like I'm complaining that I lost this game because I was sick and game 4 is hard, it's not intentional.  Everyone had to play game 4 and everyone said it was an endurance test, so my opponent was beat too.  I lost because Jacob Brandon is the best player in the United States this year.  Jacob had to really help me get through this game though and I feel really awful about that

@Swordmaster I'd have deployed the Hunter on the left and used him in the flanking breakthrough party with the Bulls and Maneaters, shut down the 1st turn of Undeath and then be mindful of the scenario objective.  It really doesn't take much to push this game into a draw.

@Minigiant Sorry about that, you're not alone.  A lot of my gaming group, especially the TK players, had that reaction.  I recommend watching the twitch games between him and Jarrett and Justin if you want to get a feel for it.  I haven't yet, but I plan on it.  Especially the game against Jarrett.

@Sacktree  I'm not a member of the planning committee or the head of my region, so I didn't get a vote on the subject.  I've played 4 game days before at home and at Adepticon, so it's not something I've never done.  Lol, I'm not sure I've ever won game 4 though.

@Minigiant Sorry about that, you're not alone.  A lot of my gaming group, especially the TK players, had that reaction.  I recommend watching the twitch games between him and Jarrett and Justin if you want to get a feel for it.  I haven't yet, but I plan on it.  Especially the game against Jarrett.

You dont happen to have a link do you? Cant seem to find it

And no it doesnt sound like your complaining

Three of them are here:

https://www.youtube.com/user/AtomicEmpireCast/playlists

Game 5: Jacob v. Jarrett
Game 2: Hayne v. Jerry
Game 1: Combat Dwarves v. Ogres (David Otaro v. Ben Mitchell)

There might be a more centralized location on the Wargamersusa forums that has all of these, but I'm technologically inept.

Hi kylek2235,

I didn't take your story as an excuse, simply an explanation of the conditions. Nobody's fault. It is a fact though that without that fever you would have performed better. Maybe it would not transfer into a better result but at least you would not be disappointed with anything.

Ah well, it happened, nothing to be done about it. However, there is always a bright side and that is the fact that you can and will do better under more favorable circumstances! Also, it may be good idea to organize some local events that have 4 game per day as an endurance training 

I was really impressed by Jacob's performance and here is the link to the relevant topic at TK forum (although Jacob didn't post there)

http://z4.invisionfree.com/Khemri/index.php?showtopic=15583&st=0

As to the games they used to be at their twitch channel but unfortunately not anymore. So I hope they will upload all 6 games from table 1 they were recording.

Btw, the first game was Empire vs DE I think?

Cheers!

4 games on Sat was pretty brutal. There's generally a lot of pushback to 3 games on sunday from more local players - if you're driving 4-8 hours home that's only possible if it ends relatively early on Sunday. 6 games was felt necessary with this number of players and 4 games sat and 2 games sun was seen to satisfy everyone. Except for the four games Saturday thing which no one really liked. It seems to have been the most complained about thing.

It's funny I know all of your opponents bar your first one (and two of them are in my gaming group). You were working your way through the mid-atlantic! (Well, Travis defected to the NE and Ryan wasn't representing MA but still...)

@Swordmaster Nah, David is definitely combat Dwarves since he's my game 6 opponent.

Provided that channel I sent was correct in its game order, 5/6 games should be:
Game 1: David Otaro v. Ben Mitchel (Combat Dwarves v. Ogres)
Game 2: Hayne Bagley v. Jerry Parsley (Lizards v. Chaos Dwarves)
Game 3: The first three weren't the top tables, so I don't know this one
Game 4: Jarret Messing v. Mr. Radigan (Empire v. High Elves)
Game 5: Jacob Brandon v. Jarret Messing (Tomb Kings v. Empire)
Game 6: Jacob Brandon v. Justin Burgy (Tomb Kings v. High Elves)

@Gutlord Inquisitor I know there's a big controversy about the 4 games, but I'm pretty indifferent to the number.  Typically I can play 4.  If you're there to beerhammer it though, then its next to impossible.  It did allow me to fly back out on sunday though.  My entire stay in NC was less than 48 hours.

Lol, If one person could be responsible for the downfall of a region, it was me to the Mid Atlantic.  There were just so many of them in the top 10 on day one.  My three favorite games were 2.5 Midatlantic.     Really an excellent showing on and off the table by the region.

Hi kylek2235,

I guess that is the topic of your opponent from game 6, he is not telling much about the games (at least not the way you do) but it is a very interesting read about his army. I am happy to see that there are people who are willing to bring unique armies to such a competitive event and perform very well!

http://www.bugmansbrewery.com/topic/46238-a-voice-for-combat-dwarves-in-competitive-play/

Excellent!  I'm glad to see him living large.  He deserves it after his performance at the Masters.  A lot of people had to eat crow on their predictions for his list

I'd really like to say more about David, but all of it will lead into our Game 6

Game 5: Travis Weyforth’s High Elves

Prince/Star Dragon, Talisman of Preservation, Other Trickster’s Shard, Dragonhelm, Lance, Armor
Archmage, lvl 4, high, Obsidian Lodestone, Scroll of Shielding, Gem of Sunfire
Noble BSB, halberd, armor, Reaver Bow, Potion of Strength
Mage lvl 1 Beasts, Dispel Scroll, Ironcurse Icon
28 Archers FC
6 Silver Helms Champ, Std
6 Silver Helms Champ, Std
21 Phoenix Guard, FC Razer Standard
Bolt Thrower
Bolt Thrower
Bolt Thrower
Pigeon

Comp 11.3

After 5 hours of sleep, I woke up feeling less terrible than the night before.  I would have slept longer except that John Bailey’s snores sound like velociraptors fighting over small children as they run through a kitchen.  Julien concurs.  So my plan for the day was to chug down enough caffeine to keep me awake for a week.  That and a bitter and resentful feeling that Jarret and Jacob were so far ahead of me in points, it would be impossible to catch them.  Players on the top tables are generally risk averse and just don’t gamble with points.  My list had taken me as far as I could go, so my job was to play the role of spoiler.  Today was the day I ended the hopes and dreams of two people.

That plan lasted until I arrived at table 3, and I saw my opponent’s list.  The owner of the list was none other than multiple GT winner and ETC pro Travis Weyforth.  If you read about any of the controversy involving a guy switching from the Mid Atlantic to the New England team the Friday before, that’s Travis.  I didn’t know that at the time, and I didn’t really care when I found out.  Travis was that mix of serious and jovial that you find from time to time on the top tables: They’ll joke and talk while moving models, but you can tell that they’re really concentrating on what they’re doing.  It helps ease the tension that’s always around the top tables on day 2 and made Travis a blast to play against.

Deployment:  Remember when I said that I have 9 drops until I drop something I care about?  Travis’s army had a total of 7.  He deployed the silverhelms on either flank, the archers behind the hill in the center, the Phoenix Guard to the left of them, the Bolt Throwers spaced pretty evenly along the table edge, and the charmed shieldless dragon guarding a bolt thrower.  I think both mages were in the Phoenix Guard to start out with.  My deployment was the same as it had been all tournament: Bulls on the flanks across from the silverhelms, gnoblar in the center, Ironguts on the right of the gnoblar with the shooting units strung out along their right.  The Hunter, who was placed to the right of the leadbelchers, and a dog vanguarded up a few inches to face the dragon way across the table.  This would have been the perfect deployment except for one fatal flaw….

Magic: Travis High(Hand of Glory, Soul Quench, Fiery Convocation… Not sure)  Beast(Wyssans)
Me Heavens(Comet, Harmonic Convergence, Lightning Bolt, Iceshard Blizzard)  Maw(No Armor Saves)

Turn 1: I get to go first.  Yeah, I had double the number of drops but still went first.  The dice gods are cruel.  The Gnoblar begin their job of treadmilling Travis’s only combat unit, the Phoenix Guard, by taking a few steps forwards.  The left flanking bulls take a couple of steps back from the silverhelms across the table, while the right flanking Bulls take off running down the table edge towards theres.  The rest of my army moves up a few steps to prepare for Travis to move into range/LoS.  The Ironblaster moves up onto the hill it was hiding behind.  Magic sees the Comet stopped but Harmonic goes off on the Ironblaster.  I cast iceshard blizzard on the eagle but do no damage from the lore attribute.  During the Shooting Phase, the Maneaters, needing 6s to hit/wound, pluck a couple of silverhelms out of their saddles and the remainder run off the table and like that I’ve claimed the right flank!  The Ironblaster, who I have to cast harmonic convergence on to ensure it doesn’t fail because it will if I don’t, surprises me and does something:  It kills the Prince right out and puts another 2 wounds on the dragon.  That’s a huge step up from the nothing he’s done all tournament.  He passes his Monster Reaction test.  The Hunter pings another wound off the dragon with his crossbow.  +1 to wound Large Targets is nice.

Travis advances the silverhelms on the left flank forward to within decent charge distance for next turn.  The wounded Dragon runs for cover behind a fence, but is slowly making for my lines.  The Eagle hops around Gnoblar land.  The Phoenix Guard sprint towards my lines and the Archers move one rank onto the hill.  This is where I find out my deployment is all wrong and regional differences bite me in the ass.  By leaving more than 50% of his unit behind the hill, he gains a heavy cover bonus, but his back rank archers fire as normal because LoS is only drawn from the front rank.  Essentially a “I can see you but you can’t see me” type of situation.  This is the first I’ve heard of it, and since it nullifies my entire deployment, we call the rules judge over.  Grrn start with an apology, which is never good, and says he enforces the rules handed down to him by the committee and they ruled that this was the way to go a few weeks back, but left it out of the rules pack for some reason.  So much for my entire strategy of blasting the archers into oblivion while chaffing the phoenix guard.  Anyway, I let a soul quench go on the Ironblaster, he takes a couple of wounds and I fail both saves.  In the shooting phase, everything that can shoots the Ironblaster.  The Archers do three wounds, I fail three more saves.  Yep, there’s the Ironblaster I remember.   

Turn 2: The gnoblar advance towards the phoenix guard, the maneaters head for cover in the woods.  The Bulls on the right flank get into long charge distance of the bolt thrower, while the ones on the left take another step back.  I hit the eagle with a lightning bolt and do only 2 wounds to it.  Bubble Harmonic goes off.  During the Shooting phase, the Hunter misses, one Leadbelcher unit kills the eagle, while the other Leadbelcher unit with harmonic fails to hurt the Archers (they need 7s).  The maneaters do no wounds to a bolt thrower with their pistols.  Not a good turn at all.

Travis moves the Phoenix Guard towards the Gnoblar, while the Dragon swings over the hill in my deployment zone to hide.  The silverhelms fail a charge against the Bulls.  Travis tries to make me feel better and does nothing in his magic phase.  His shooting phase can only kill off a few gnoblar and one bull from the right flanking unit.  It panics.  There’s a ton of shooting and magic missiles and we might do 8 wounds between the two of us this turn.

Turn 3: The Bulls charge the silverhelms but fail their charge.  The other bulls rally.  Everyone else pretty much just stays where they are.  An irresistible comet goes down between two bolt throwers and the archers.  Block this you stupid hill.  That’s all my magic though.  Shooting does nothing again.  16 maneater shots have done a total of 0 wounds to the bolt thrower.

The Phoenix Guard decide to test the great green wall and two units of gnoblar flee in response.  The Silverhelms finally catch the Bulls.  The Dragon swings around the “unprotected” rear of my line.  Magic sees that he gets off a hand of glory on the archers.  Not good, but the comet comes down.  That’s good.  It kills the bolt thrower the maneaters have been failing to hurt and kills 8 archers.  Bolt throwers knock off a maneater and one leadbelcher unit loses two guys.  The silverhelms beat the Bulls and run them down.  Travis is starting to chip away at my lead and there’s nothing I can do about it

Turn 4: No charges again, and the great green wall rallies.  Out of frustration, I make a terrible mistake: I move the maneaters out of the safety of their trees to be able to shoot the other bolt thrower and possibly threaten the flank of the archers on BS hill. The Bulls move to support.  The Ironguts, Hunter, and untouched Leadbelcher unit all turn around and form a semi-circle around the dragon with complete lack of fear.  I almost couldn’t believe I did it because the Phoenix Guard are maybe 8” away from the rear of the Ironguts.  In that 8” was two dogs and 4 units of gnoblar though, so chaf walls create weird situations.  During magic, you’ll notice I actually named the spell my butcher had that’s because I actually cast it.  I rolled 3 hits and did one wound to the dragon.  Travis stopped all of my other offensive magic.  The shooting phase almost accomplishes nothing: the maneaters do one wound to the other bolt thrower.  Too bad it has two.

Travis starts preparing his charges: first the dragon to the Ironguts, wait no, to the leadbelchers, then pauses and says:

“Ok, what’s all of the crap on that guy,” pointing to the Hunter.
“Well first he’s got that crossbow he can stand and shoot with.”
“Uh-huh, does the Beastkiller work with that.”
“Yes, so he’ll need 4s and 4s and do d3 wounds there.  Then he still has the charmed shield to parry your first attack.”
“Uh-huh”
“Then he’s got the Dragonbane Gem to avoid the Breathweapon.”
“Uh-huh”
“And then he’s got the Potion of Strength that he’ll likely pop next turn and kill your dragon if he’s still alive.”
“Yeah %(*& that guy.”  Lol, like I said, Travis is a pretty funny guy.

The dragon then wisely decided to fly over my lines into the no man’s land between our armies.  The Phoenix Guard decide they’re done and leave the gnoblar in place.  The Archer bunker reform to face the Maneaters and the Wizards bail out of the Phoenix Guard for the Archers.  Soul Quench eliminates the Maneaters and the Archers kill the bulls.  My lead is officially gone.

Turn 5: Everything turns around and stares at the Dragon.  Magic sees a lightning bolt, which does nothing, he stops comet and Harmonic, and I fail to cast the no armor save spell again.  The leadbelchers at short range end the dragon.  They were probably angry at the lack of targets all game long.  Lead reestablished. 

No movement, magic gets off another hand of glory.  Shooting reduces the damaged leadbelcher unit to one model, it doesn’t panic.

Turn 6:  The one leadbelcher runs way out of range/los of everything.  Any magic that can give me points is stopped.  I throw rocks at the phoenix guard for fun.  None are injured 

His Phoenix guard charge a unit of gnoblar, I hold.  Fleeing units count for half points anyway and two fleeing gnoblar= 1 dead one.  He magics/shoots another gnoblar unit off the table.  To no one’s surprise, the phoenix guard kill all of the gnoblar.

Result: 13-7

If I knew about the Hills ruling, I would have deployed on the other side, unloaded everything on the dragon (including the maneaters poisoned shots) and maybe have killed it.  If not, he would’ve been so damaged as to have fled to safety the rest of the game and I could have chaffed/shot the phoenix guard until I was ready to charge them.  As it was, I couldn’t go chasing after the archers because they could always just step back behind the hill, reform the phoenix guard and trap me in.  Eh, but what ifs are great.  My complaint wasn’t with Travis or Grrn, both handled what was a very awkward situation incredibly well, but I’d expect something like this to at least be in the player pack.  There are three pages of creating “impossible to charge” situations that are illegal, but not one sentence about this?  Ugh.

A win is a win is a win though and I did go toe to toe with one of the best players in the US, so I wasn’t that disappointed.  Meanwhile, rumors had been flying all around us that Jarrett was up big on Jacob.  Travis and I even paused a couple of times to get updates from Grrn as he made the rounds.  Everyone was on edge, but it wasn't like people were going in and out of the room looking for updates.  Whatever happened in that game, Jarrett ended up losing big and dropped back down to the rest of the pack.  It was a huge upset because everyone thought Jarrett had it in the bag and then it turned everything upside down and no one knew how that was going to affect the top ten.  Had I done enough to move back to table 2 and play Jarrett?

Nope. 

Next up: David Otaro

@Swordmaster  I'm usually very secretive about my lists and my wife even suggested I not type these up.  I've been seeing more and more copies of my list spring up in my region, but up to this point, none of them have been able to play it correctly.  I'd rather they play it correctly at this point, even if it is a little late to alter the meta.

I think the sharing is admirable, so many people in this hobby are so reluctant to share. Which means new people to the hobby take just as long to learn the skills as the people prior. By sharing you are not only helping those people but helping the hobby progress as a whole. With so much uncertainty in the hobby currently i think this is important

Great battlereports!

@Swordmaster  I'm usually very secretive about my lists and my wife even suggested I not type these up.  I've been seeing more and more copies of my list spring up in my region, but up to this point, none of them have been able to play it correctly.  I'd rather they play it correctly at this point, even if it is a little late to alter the meta.

I think the sharing is admirable, so many people in this hobby are so reluctant to share. Which means new people to the hobby take just as long to learn the skills as the people prior. By sharing you are not only helping those people but helping the hobby progress as a whole. With so much uncertainty in the hobby currently i think this is important

I've heard this from a few battle reporters and others. E.g. Once Bitten has the same feeling, not so much that people will copy his list but that people know it, how it works and what its weaknesses are just from watching the videos. Or they'll even practice against it because they want to practice against something and that's a list they know.

Still, at least in this case, all of the ogre lists were broadly similar and most were very similar to this list and it isn't because we're copying each other. Swedish just pushes you in a similar direction. I almost went for a list that's very similar to this one (and changed my mind at the last minute), Snarkhunter (Shannon) has been using the hunter+kitty vanguard trick at a number of MA GTs. There's just not that much you can do with ogres that's truly original.

The one person that kept his list under wraps until about a week beforehand was Jacob and his list was something most players had never seen before because it really used Undeath. Part of his great success at the masters was genuinely this was a list most people needed a game or two to play against and understand how it works and how to beat it -- and no one had. When you face it for the first time it rocks your world.

OB's not wrong.  I've played my fair share of games against Light Council's before, but watching OB use a very similar list to Ryan's over and over again didn't hurt.

My experiences are in an uncomped enviornment, so there's no push from swedish here.  My reservations are for the affect it will have on my area, where numerous lists bearing a striking resemblance to mine have been popping up lately.  There's one guy in my own area that uses an exact copy of it and I razz him about it every time I see him. Justin, if you're reading this, I'm not talking about you although I give you a hard time as well!  I don't travel outside my region much anymore, so I doubt I'll be remembered, much less schemed against if i qualify next year.  Lol

Although I wish I could claim the Hunter as some sort of trick I discovered,  I can't.  He just fit this list really well.  I've never seen him before, but I'm certain he's been used, probably with my exact build.  My deployment, the drops, and the way I use my chaf are what set me apart.  I actually decreased my number of drops when I tweaked my list.  It's supposed to have 15 and I've even considered upping it from there.  Nothing in my army is stubborn, and except for the BSB and Ironblaster (for all the good it didn't do me), totally lacking in armor and ward saves, so the army depends heavily on getting the right chaf for the right unit.  If my opponent shoots the right chaf unit, that house of cards becomes a tad shaky.  That's where the hesitancy comes from.

As to the tournament itself, I knew about the soft spots of Swedish comp.  I even posted on our forums that we were going to see a bunch of shooting ogre lists.  Fighty Ogres take some real hits and I was surprised at the number of players that went horde or two ironblasters.

Jacob's list, I have a funny story about that.... I have one very determined young TK player who constantly picks through tournament results for successful TK army ideas and he ran across someone that had played Jacob at Colonial.  He described the army and the results and I told him that sounds tough, but he's one out of 80, I'm not going to see it.  As a result, I didn't add the sword of might to my hunter and opted for the potion of strength because the chances of me running into ethereal units (VC comp is tough) was remote at best.  I got an "I told you so" when I landed home!  Without the stuff he told me, I would have charged my Ironguts into the Tomb Guard, got caught on the "barb wire" and been screamed/etherealed to death like so many of Jacob's victims, so I have to give Andrew the assist on my 4pts!

I actually think combat ogres could do well in this environment. I was not far behind you on day 1, and towards the end of game 5 I was in a good spot to make a break for the top (before disaster struck!).

Deathstar ogres just don't give up points easily and I was surprised how many of the armies could be cracked open. Far less fast-cav movement armies than I had expected.

Lol, I saw " the disaster."  That was a tough break.  I get ragged on for taking Grut's Sickle frequently, but it cuts down on miscasts dramatically.  Was Justin your game 6?  I know he played an Ogre player his last game.

How crazy was that it that the few Wood Elves were largely confined to the west and also the lead exporter of frogs?

No I played Justin game 3 or 4. I played Mark Cox game 6 I think. Skaven.

The grutsicle is good, especially with heavens. I'm not knocking it. Particularly in a shooty ogre army (since the casualties caused are not that important). Miscasts are not normally too bad with Maw. I just seem to have caught all my miscast karma this tournament because I didn't bring a back-up caster. Game 1 - lost 3 levels turn 1 on 3 dice. Game 2 - lost 3 levels turn 2 on 2 dice. Game 5 - miscast turn 1 on 2 dice, miscast turn 2 on 3 dice and fall down the hole. Game 6 I miscast turn 3 and fell down the hole. Damn! Mind you, out of those 4 games I had one draw that would have been a 20-0 with more time, one 20-0, one loss that I was really winning up until that failed check and one draw. One of the games I actually had a level 4 all game I was playing dwarfs and got scrolled a lot. I only really had one game where I got 6 turns of magic. So I am giving more thought to the tyrant+level 2s concept.

That said, if we were doing it all again, I would definitely go for a lower comp army. Clearly you were doing well with the high-comp but as far as I could see, it was better to go low comp and try and crack the game open.

Yeah the frog thing was amusing as hell. Well I lost a game last masters because someone frogged me. For aggressive ogres it can ruin your parade because it brings your M effectively of the whole unit down to 1. I was pretty scared by the number of frog scrolls! Fortunately the only one I ran into was Phazael's and that was on a friday night friendly game.

Kyle just a quick question, were you generally always using Grut's every turn unless the Ironguts was severely unhealthy?

@Gutlord Inquisitor Low comp scores for fighty Ogres are perfectly fine since you're going to be advancing and expect to get those points back.  For shooty Ogres, the comp score has to be high, otherwise nobody advances on you.

I'd never be able to live down the shame in my gaming group if I got frogged!

@Jimmy I generally stop midgame.  It's primary use is to draw the scroll early and kick in a little extra punch since the most damaging spell in the lore is not nearly as effect late game.  I think only against Travis did I cut all game long and that was because he was taunting me to do it the last turn.

I know the averages and do not like to tempt the dice gods.

Even if you cut all game long it's only doing a max of 6 wounds. So bring two extra ogres to feed it. What bothers me is that over 6 games odds are good that you get lynched. (63% over 6 games if you cut 6 times a game).

Yep, which is why I don't cut all game long.  Average is generally 4 times a game.  I tell myself that the decreasing number of dice used per spell cuts down on my miscast numbers, so that helps balance things a little.  The offset is a power boost that likely nets me more than he's worth during that same period.  Unfortunately, he might just sink a game, but I've actually won the majority of the games he's died in and he has never died in any turn other than the first.

So what you're saying is that when you go to use the SM with Grut's again you've got a death coming up. 

@Jimmy Lol, he died twice in 5 games before the start of the tournament, so my luck might just carry me through the Lonewolf.  I go for risk avoidance all of the time, so adding a little risk here and there appeases the dice gods    My uncomped list relies on the sickle much less than the swedish.  Uncomped has a strict "draw the scroll and stop" policy.

Game 6: David Otaro’s Dwarves

Dwarf Lord Shieldbearers lots of stuff that looked bad
Thane BSB Master Rune of Grungi/Strollaz
Runesmith Rune of Spellbreaking x2
Runesmith Rune of Spellbreaking x2
10 Great Weapon Warriors Mus
10 Great Weapon Warriors Mus
29 Longbeards Shields FC Banner of Strollaz
Gyro
Gyro Vanguarding
Gyro Vanguarding
23 Ironbreakers FC Banner of Stoicism
5 Rangers
17 Irondrakes, FC Trollhammer Torpedo, Strollaz again

Comp 17.5

After game 5, we had our longest break yet during tournament play.  From the looks of it, most of the regions paired off to talk about their placing in the tournament.  Half of our team had really surged in the second half and Jeff Swann was really egging everyone on to give it one last push for Best Region.  We all wanted Best Region, but Jeff was the heart and soul of that drive.  Surrounded by the biggest names in Warhammer, I felt I needed one more big game to prove that I belonged on the top tables.  What I got back on table 3 was the complete opposite.

I’ve rewritten that statement 4 times now and every time it sounds horrible, but I don’t know how else to write it and it not be a lie.  When the lists were being announced, I picked my favorites just like so many others:  David Otaro was my dark horse candidate to take the top 10.  There were 4 Dwarf players at the masters, 3 of them were gunlines and then there was David.  His 17.5 comped Dwarves were the talk of the pregame because who brings a 17.5 to a tournament with a cap of 14?  David was well known as “that guy.”  I have a few friends here that run all in Strollaz lists and do very well for themselves in uncomped tournaments.  It can be very match up dependent, but the favorable matchups should only increase in a comped system like Swedish.  It’s also very capable of picking up big wins that the 20-0 system requires.  Despite the criticism, I liked the list and I liked that David was ballsy enough to tell everyone that said it wouldn’t work to %(&*^ off.  So I thought I was playing the role of our plucky young hero in this narrative, instead I was playing the role of the dick that ruins the Cinderella story.

Magic: Me (Chain Lightning, Lightning Bolt, Comet, Harmonic Convergence)

Deployment: The Irondrakes go in the center of his deployment, the Ironbreakers with all of his characters sans one rune priest to the right of them and the Longbeards with the priest to the right of the drakes.  The Gyros go behind the lines, ready to pop out and chaf anything that threatens the Irondrakes and the Dwarf Warriors go on the far right side to corner one of my Bull flankers.  My army deploys as it has all tournament long, but to the left side so I won’t have to face the Ironbreakers.  Bulls on each side, gnoblars in the middle, Ironguts to the left of them and the rest of my shooting strung out to the left.  Seeing as how David has a unit 5 scouts which are going to be deployed directly opposite the hunter no matter where he goes, I deploy him on the left as well.  Rangers are deployed opposite him behind a wall.  No vanguard for me.  David Rolls Hatred vs Characters.  Apparently the only time he “rolled” hatred vs everyone was when he played Orcs and Goblins.

Turn 1: I get the first turn.  The Bulls charge the Rangers and make it.  Even with the wall, I should be able to take them.  The leadbelchers and Ironguts take a step back.  The Maneaters and Hunter advance to begin taking up flanking positions.  Thunderbolt goes off and does one wound to a gyro.  A unit of maneaters and leadbelchers do no further damage to it while the Ironblaster does what it does best and kills nothing.  The other Leadbelchers shoot the Longbeards and 2 die.  The Bulls and Rangers slap at each other and combat is drawn.

The wounded Gyrocopter charges the flank of the Bulls.  With the stellar results of last combat and being outside my generals LD bubble means they’re probably gone.  The Ironbreakers go for some long charges against the Gnoblar and one unit flees.  They move up a few inches and the Drakes and Longbeards move up to match.  The other two Gyros hold their flying pattern and the Warriors both slowly advance on the stationary Bulls.  The Irondrakes shoot at the Gnoblar (the only things in range) and the great green wall shutters, but doesn’t run.  The Bulls kill three Rangers this time, but take two wounds back, lose combat, and are run down by the gyrocopter.  I start down 50pts this game (first time all tournament) and so now I’m down 140pts.

Turn 2: No Charges.  More walking backwards.  The Gnoblar rally.  The Maneaters swing around the flank as does the Hunter.  I’m not particularly close because I don’t want the Longbeards to turn and advance on them.  The Maneaters don’t have musicians so reforming and moving isn’t an option.  I cast Chain Lightning and pop two Gyrocopters.  The Ironblaster quits chasing butterflies and blows up the other one.  The 3 rangers panic and run.  I kill one with one unit of Leadbelchers and kill another 3 longbeards with everything else.  There’s only one thing protecting the Irondrakes now.

The Ironbreakers send two more gnoblar units running and the longbeards fail a long charge on the Leadbelchers.  The Dwarf Warriors move towards the Bulls again.  They’re now 12” away.  The Rangers rally well out of my reach.  The Irondrakes shoot at my Leadbelchers and do 4 wounds.

Turn 3: I agonize whether or not to dispatch the Dogs and buy another turn.  The Gnoblar wall is growing thin indeed since one did not rally and fled off the table.  The time is not right, the Break Out must begin.  The Hunter splits with his dog and moves to within throwing spear range of the Rangers.  The right flanking Bulls, take a step back, I’m now 15” away.  I Lightning Bolt the two rangers.  One dies.  David has a good laugh at my expense.  We’ve been making fun of the Ranger’s survival chances all game long.  To prove David’s point, my Hunter misses with his spear.  My leadbelchers shoot back at the Irondrakes and kill 4.  The Maneaters and Leadbechers kill 5 Longbeards.  The Ironblaster kills another 1.

The Ironbreakers drive off two more Gnoblar.  The Longbeards charge both leadbelchers, who flee.  The last thing protecting the Irondrakes, my leadbelchers, is gone.  The warriors move up again, in staggered formation.  David knows I have to pass a redirect test if I charge.  Tricksy.  The Ranger runs into the Woods and he’s lost to me.  The Irondrakes shoot and kill two Ironguts.

Turn 4: I declare a charge with my Ironguts against the Irondrakes.  I only need a 6 to make the charge and David has a choice here, stay with the Irondrakes and shoot, which will lead to their deaths, or flee and I make the same charge into the Longbeards.  If he were to flee with the Longbeards, I have both a dog and Maneaters that might be able to either catch him or drive him off the table.  He stands and shoots and kills two more Ogres.  At this point, I’m down to 3 Ironguts and 3 characters.  The Ironguts make the charge with super impact hits.  The Bulls declare a charge against one warrior unit, they flee and then fail the redirect.  I’m uncertain about whether either gnoblar unit rallies, but one unit of Leadbelchers rallies and the other runs off the table.  One unit of gnoblar gets in front of the Ironbreakers, a dog in front of the Longbeards.  The Hunter runs back to the Longbeard semi-circle.  The Ironblaster moves behind a hill to avoid the attentions of the soon to be free Ironbreakers.  In the magic phase, I get off Harmonic Convergence on the Ironguts.  The Longbeards lose two more Dwarves to the Maneater shooting.  The Irondrakes are killed to a man and I take no wounds.  My overrun puts me beyond his lines.

The Ironbreakers charge the gnoblar and the Longbeards charge the dog.  Both hold and both die.   The Longbeards face the Maneaters, the Ironbreakers towards the Ironguts.The Dwarf Warriors finally complete their charge with the Bulls and the others rally and face towards the Ironguts way across the table.  The Warriors do 0 wounds to the Bulls and Bulls kill 4.  David rolled absolute garbage, but he stays.

Turn 5: My Ironguts take off running for the table quarter, but I’m stupid and keep the now Dwarf Warriors in my LoS.  My last dog gets between the maneaters and the Longbeards.  If he wants to get the Maneaters, he’ll have to overrun and fight it in my turn.  The Leadbelchers and Hunter take flanking locations to emphasize the point.  I don’t cast any magic and another eight longbeards die to maneaters, ironblasters and leadbelchers.  I kill the Dwarf Warriors in combat

David moves the Dwarves full speed ahead to catch my Ironguts and pens them in with his warriors.  No Musician here either so I can’t reform and move.  He’s 10” away, so as is, he needs a 7 to get there.  The once numerous longbeards spot the obvious trap, turn around, and start walking away.

Turn 6: I can’t charge the Warriors without getting closer to the Ironbreakers and I refuse to give up half points for fleeing.  I sidestep 3”.  If he wants me, he’ll need a 10.  If he rolls a 10, he’s going to pick up the Ironguts and the 1300pts contained within.  The longbeards are reduced down to 7 models and the rune priest.  That’s half points.

David declares a charge with his Longbeards, he needs a 12, but it was possible so why not? Then David announces the big ominously: The Ironbreakers.  The Longbeards fail, which is probably good since I think I could have taken what was left.  He throws the dice and…………………………….

Nine.

Result: 13-7

I have to chalk this game up to experience.  As I said before, I’ve got two players that play Strollaz lists here and I’ve grown very accustomed to blasting Gyros and isolating units, which is exactly what my army is built to do.  When I destroyed the Irondrakes, I didn’t seek to take out the chaffed Longbeards the following turn also because I actually lost my last two games to Dwarves.  Both Gunlines, but both times I got hung up on a unit longer than I should have and then got flanked.  David ended up finishing 13th in battle, 20th overall and grabbed top Dwarf honors.  I really hope that David’s success at the Masters leads to more Dwarf players experimenting with Strollaz lists.  If comp restrictions at the Masters are similar next year, look for David in the top 10.

Next: The Conclusion and Review

The Conclusion and Stuff

Wow, it takes a long time to write these things up and I have no idea how my memory has held up as well as it has.  So if you’re counting, I’ve compiled 83 battle points total.  Jeff’s speech apparently worked because three members of my region picked up 20-0s in there last round.  That puts Jeff at 84 (taking Best in the South from me  ), Julian at 83 and Justin at 81.  There has been friendly rivalry between Justin and I all season for top Ogre honors and if he’d beaten me, he would have never let me live it down.  That put 4 of us in the top ten for Paragon points.  Unfortunately, our 5th was a ways down and, as a result, we couldn’t wrest top Region from New England.  That’s ok, we’ll get it next year.

I ended up in a tie for 3rd Overall in Paragon points with Jeff Swann, which Jeff won by battle points, and 6th in battle with some tiebreakers.  I’m not bummed about it.  Jeff was the driving force behind our region’s success and always seemed to be at everyone’s table, telling them what they needed to do.  That was a pretty sweet trophy though.  On a down note, Southwest flat out destroyed Jeff’s Daemons on the way home, which really sucked.  That being your last memory of a tournament is just not the way things should be.

As for my personal goal of taking the top Ogre honors, the honors were mine.  Justin finished a few spots below me for 2nd on the Ogre totem.  My other successes aside, this was all I wanted and having to work as hard as I did made it feel even sweeter.

Grades:
A- The Bunker: In 6 games, the Irongut bunker never got below 3 remaining models and none of the characters within ever died.  That’s not unusual for me although I do lose the butcher every once and a while in combat, but typically, it’s they all die or none.

B+ Magic: I relied more on magic this tournament than I do in the tournaments back home and it provided me what I needed when I needed it.  That being said, I’m uncomfortable with the amount of reliance I put on Grut’s in this list.  Hacking 3 times a game in a 5 game tournament vs. hacking 4 times a game in a 6 game tournament is a big difference and I might look to replace Grut’s with something else for my Swedish Comp list.

B Leadbelchers: Going from 12 to 10 made a big difference.  Having one less guy meant I was less willing to commit them to combats and their shooting was noticeably less.  This meant I had to rely more on magic, ie Grut’s Sickle, and risk death to get the damage output I need.  Frequently, the strategy with these guys is to start blasting units with characters until they get below 5 models and the character snipe them, a tactic I never utilized in this tournament.  Here, they cleared chaf and then blasted a hole in my opponent’s line for the Ironguts to escape through.

D+ Ironblaster: He killed nothing game 1, a few stormvermin from impact hits in game 2, a General of the Empire and his Griffon (granted that’s 2 total wounds) in game 3, nothing that didn’t come back to unlife in game 4, a prince in game 5 and some Longbeards and a Gyrocopter in game 6.  That feels pretty underwhelming but he did agro a lot of attention that could have focused on anything else in my army.  Passing a few armor saves along the way would have been nice.

A+ Pimp Master the Hunter: He gets my MVP.  No matter how much the Ironblaster let me down, he just kept going.  He killed Mounted Yeomen, a Treb, a unit of Knights, drove off one more and helped chaf up his general’s unit in game 1; He killed a WLC cannon and agroed lots of Skaven shooting in game 2 before dieing to slaves; he wounded Ryan’s Griffon and crippled a Steam Tank in game 3; he was free points in game 4 (sorry buddy, my bad); he did some wounds to Travis’s Dragon and scared it out of the backfield of my army in Game 5; in game 6 he only killed a few longbeards but he kept me in position to charge the Longbeards late game even though I never did.  This guy was all over the table and actually a much better replacement to the Ironblaster than I thought he would be.  I think I might sculpt a big purple hat with a feather for him.

A The Chaf (Gnoblar, Bulls and Dogs): Although 14 drops served me well this time, I might want to increase it to 16 in the future.  I can’t state enough how advantageous it can be to have your opponent deploy his entire army before one unit of any significance hits the table on your end.  It might be in the form of two more gnoblar, or maybe just one more Dog.  The Bull units did a great job keeping units occupied and letting the treadmill do its job.

B The Maneaters: I have them in the army for the poisoned flaming shots ie Chimeras and Trolls.  The uncomped version is tailored to WoC armies, but WoC armies are less fearsome in a comped environment.  As a result, I might consider dropping the flaming for either a gleaming pendant or for the Banner of Swiftness.  I thought about dropping Swiftstride for Vanguard or Scout, but one would impede my drops and the other doesn’t seem as important as Swiftstride with the Hunter around.  Since there are so many more threatening targets in my army, the maneaters frequently avoided my opponent’s attention, which was my biggest concern with having so many points in a unit so small.

The Highlights

The West:  I think every one of them brought a Frog Scroll and every time it successfully changed a wizard into a frog, the player would yell “FROG” and the rest of the West would then echo him.  It happened about twice a game and by the end of the tournament, everyone was yelling Frog.  Really funny stuff.

My Opponents: My Best Game vote was a really tough choice because all of my opponents were awesome.  I ended up giving mine to Todd, which might be the first time I’ve given it to a Skaven player.  As was the case for many tournaments, I always wish I could hand out more Sports votes.  It’s rare for me not to get along with my opponents, but coming into the tournament, I was worried and I’m glad it turned out to be for nothing.

The Not-So-Highlights

Arrival times: Most of my region arrived Thursday and stayed through Monday.  They partied it up Thursday, Friday and Sunday and I was the only one to miss out.  I really wish I could have been a part of that.  On the other hand, if my plane left on Thursday, I would have been too sick to go, so maybe it worked out?  I don’t know.  If your region is as close as mine is, take advantage of it.  Think of the Masters as a reward for an excellent season and live it up.

That’s all I've got and I can’t believe I actually managed to type all of this.  Thanks for reading this novel and best of luck to all of my fellow fatties.

A fantastic conclusion to a fantastic season of games. Thank you so much for sharing

Hi kylek2235,

Congratulations on the very impressive finish! I knew about your overall placing before when I checked the final standings so I had to stay quiet not to spoil it for other readers It does not make it less impressive to me at all and I was even more curious to read about your games. I am sure I will get back to them many times and I wonder if I can try and encourage you to do two things in the future:

1. Keep writing about your games
2. Start adding maps, at least for the deployment.

It may add to the time you spend on the reports but it is really, really worthy doing. Not only for the readers but also for yourself. I offer any help you may require to make it happen!

Btw, do you happen to have any pictures of your army during the event? Or maybe you noticed somebody else posted their own with your army?

I keep reading about your army choices and general plan and main thing that comes out of it is to out-deploy your opponent. You took advantage of something that other armies may not have, cheap units. You paid less than 400 points for 8 drops that reveal absolutely nothing of your plans and that can be further used to great advantage without much of a loss. I am talking abut gnoblars, sabertusks and bulls. These units cannot be ignored because they will otherwise interfere with the movement phase so the enemy has to divert resources otherwise used to harm your more important and expensive units. For MSU practitioner it is a very interesting part for sure.

I was pondering recently on the proliferation of various types of hard to catch fliers or fast units. These are even more dangerous for infantry based army, even as fast as ogres. M6 is great but you need something more to contain units that can fly over and/or are way faster still. You nicely countered that with 2 x 5 leadbelchers, ironblaster, maneaters and possibly Heavens magic too. Even if you claim that Ironblaster underperformed it is a psychological weapon. What is more, each of these units is decent combat asset so you can also aid the Bunker with any of all of them. Hence,the combination of multiple cheap units and good shooting/magic allows you to control movement phase very well despite lack of fast cavalry or very well armored flying characters.

Finally, you have the Bunker. 8  Ironblasters equal to 24 T4 wounds with 5+ armor save. It is similar to medium infantry unit and as such there are probably units out there that are way harder to take out. However, I'd risk a statement that in general your opponent are more busy with clearing support and returning the favor to your won shooters than to actually targeting the Bunker. What is more, that unit needs to take quite a lot of damage to get their output damage reduced. Hence, they actually have a good chance to survive the game and as such protect the points very well.

I write all this mainly to see if I understand the principle of the operation well because I don't want to say any of your victories was easy. You were playing against other Master players after all, there were no easy games during that event!

What I do want to say is that the player defines the army and if the player does not know how to use it to its full potential then it will not work no matter how bullet proof it is. However, as you demonstrated very well, the unique army that may look softer on paper than the net lists in the right hands is a very dangerous tool. So thanks for the inspiration! I am sure I will be coming back to your reports many times

Cheers!!

When MiniGiant was asking about me by name in the rules forum, I figured more than a few knew about it.  My army drew a lot of attention, which is not something I'm used too.

You've got a handle on the army strategy pretty good.  If its fast or flies it dies t1 or t2.  I don't like things that could either block/kill my chaf before they're used.  Once everything that's not a unit of inf or normal heavy cav is dead, I start chaffing and shooting the main units.  The ironblaster would help if it were alive.  I know he's useful, but he seems to die so often when I take just one.

Being M6 is great, except my flanking units (generally the Maneaters and Hunter) are shooting and moving as they go.  It takes them until T4 or 5 to get to a viable flanking position and I have to be sure they can win before I commit them.  They're also generally way out on the flanks

The Bunker is exactly as you said.  Most people say its a little too small, but it generally doesn't agro super amounts of damage and several games it was untouched altogether.  Only shooting really affects it since it has MR3.  Well, that and Purple Sun/Pit of Shades.  If i cut Grut's for something else, I'll probably shrink it to 7.

I think I only got these done because I'm only kind of employed and I went through a period of intense insomnia.  I honestly don't know how you do it.  I can try diagramming though since I have another large tournament in Dallas this weekend coming up.  What program do you use to diagram?  It's been a few years since I looked into this.

Jake was running around all tournament long trying to video everything he could find.  He makes sure to mention updates on the top 5 tables, so he runs past my table a lot. He's the one that named my Hunter "ambush" tactic The Trap and then spread it around the room.  I was supposed to give a quick interview after my game with Todd, but I think I kinda brushed him off by accident.

feature=youtu.be

Anyway, my game against Todd is at the 3:25 marker.  It's the first turn during my movement phase.  I'm easy to find since I wore my club colors (the green Bayou Rats bowling shirt) over my Red South Region shirt on both days.  The army is distinct enough to pick out from the rest of the video considering I'm on table 2 and 3 for the remainder.

I've gone through the video twice (my wife wanted to see) so if you have any questions on who's who, let me know.

I don't have any idea why my list is still considered soft.  The curse of the finesse army maybe?  Bah, it's your crazy armies that had me keep adding more units in the first place.  If you owned 600 gnoblar, you'd like to bring at least a few of them to the table every now and again too!

That's it, I'm off to bed.  I promise to stop lurcking on the Warhammer.org.uk forums and say hi every now and again.

Hats off to you sir, thanks for posting all the insightful information that will prove to be an asset to the stronghold and I'm looking forward to getting to grips with the Lore of Heavens at some stage myself.

Congratulations once again.

Just wanted to thank you for taking the time. Good read and educational for aspiring tyrants, such as myself.

I feel I struggle with leadership bouble when I try msu/mmu. How do you get around that in a list with so many drops?

/Jacob

Fantastic read. Very small group I play in but reading about the level and tactics at this level is inspirational and quite simply a good read.

Bravo.

K

Thank you very much for the read. I was so inspired I converted up a spare Hunter I've had lying around for years (my other Hunter is in with my ME's).

Hi kylek2235,

I use Battle Chronicler and I believe Jimmy did some good tutorial on it here too:

http://www.ogrestronghold.com/forum/index.php?topic=27949.0

It may take some time to get used to it but at the same time if you just do the deployment map it is already very good.

Thanks for the video, always good to see it all live even if due to the number of players it was hard to stay on one particular table for long

People often make a mistake of judging the army too soft by simply assuming it has to have certain elements. It's like with HE, if you don't bring Banner of the World Dragon then you have no idea what you are doing :-P Your army, apart from Gut star, that is more a bunker too, does not tick many boxes for net lists. No mournfangs, only one blaster, some silly units like gnoblars But as I said, it is all about the player. You designed your army and you know how to play with it so it is strong force.

Being strong it does not feel like being over the top. You need your skills to make it work, it is not point-and-click army.

As you can see you already inspire people and I expect there will be more hunters showing up in OK armies!

Cheers!

Sorry, I had to learn how to use Army Chronicler since I'm so bad at anything technology related.  Its crude, but this is roughly my deployment for the entire masters.  That and the mirror image on the other side I guess.  The Hunter and his dog are the only wildcards here.

Obviously, it's a refuse flank strategy where I protect my flank with gnoblar, dogs and the ever present threat of a unit of Ogre Bulls.  I do actually have about a half dozen other deployment formations for certain situations, but I ended up staying with this one.  Strangely enough, it's not the formation I traditionally adopt back home.

The weird thing is that during 7th, I had no deployment strategies.  Every unit placed was a reaction to my opponent.  This is a fixed deployment.  In its most basic form, you literally just choose the left or right side depending on how your opponent deployed his whole army.

If my opponent doesn't have a fixed deployment strategy, he has nothing to react too and may end up putting units in locations that will never reach combat.  In this way I can fight their army in waves, or not at all.

@Jakeflash:  The gnoblar, leadbelchers, maneaters and Ironblaster all start within the bubble.  If the maneaters start flanking, which is what this deployment is setup for, then they'll leave the safety of the bubble.  If there are no threats to the ironblaster, he'll start making his way elsewhere.  The Gnoblar almost always get driven out of the bubble at some point, but not until late game

At least one dog stays close to the Ironguts until I sacrifice him.  If he gets killed early, the only panic check to take is for the Ironguts with their rerollable 9.  Yes, it has bitten me in the ass.  361ish days ago I lost the Lonewolf tournament when I failed a double 9 rerollable roll.  Pretty bummed about that one.  At least it was to my clubmate though.

@Powerposey  I think the Hunter looks great.  If my wife teaches me how to use her camera, i'll throw some pics up of Pimp Master.  I pinned different arms and greenstuffed some sleeves for some minor converting work too.  Great idea about poaching the Thundertusk/Stonehorn arrows.  Our weapons look really similar.