Battle Report: Cherry City Iron Gauntlet Qualifier

This past Saturday, I competed in an Iron Gauntlet tournament down in Salem, a qualifier for the Cherry City Invitational. Short version: Had a great time, went 2-2.

Long version!

Here's what I brought for my three lists:

Dominar Rasheth (Chain Gang theme force, Tier 4)
* Titan Gladiator
* Titan Sentry
* Titan Sentry
* Basilisk Krea
Agonizer
Agonizer
Paingiver Task Master
Paingiver Task Master
Gatorman Posse (max)
Gatorman Posse (max)
Paingiver Beast Handlers (min)

Supreme Ascetic Naaresh
* Molik Karn
* Bronzeback Titan
* Titan Gladiator
* Basilisk Krea
* Cyclops Brute
Agonizer
Mortitheurge Willbreaker
Nihilators
Tyrant Commander and Standard Bearer
Paingiver Beast Handlers (max)


Void Seer Mordikaar
* Tiberion
* Basilisk Drake
* Basilisk Krea
Agonizer
Mortitheurge Willbreaker
Nihilators (max)
Paingiver Bloodrunners
Cataphract Cetrati (max) + Tyrant Vorkesh
Tyrant Commander and Standard Bearer
Paingiver Beast Handlers (min)

Round One

Faced off against Sean playing Circle Orboros. The scenario was Two Fronts, and he chose to drop a Morvahna 2 list. I dropped Rasheth - my usual Circle choice.

Turn two begins

This was a straightforward game; Sean's list wasn't one he was practiced with, while I'd played against Morvahna 2 a couple weeks ago, run by a very good Circle player, with this exact same Rasheth list. So... his dice weren't doing him any favors either. The game ended with a Titan squashing Morvahana and 6 control points for me.

Final positions

Round Two

I was up against Brett, one of the better Legion of Everblight players in the area. He dropped Abyslonia 2 against my Naaresh list in Incoming.

Turn two under way

As you can see, he's sporting an Archangel in this list. It didn't do a whole lot this game, and he found its chief disadvantage was that he kept bumping into the wings as he leaned over to move models...

Regardless of this disadvantage, he went for an early assassination after I moved in to try for some control points on Naaresh's feat turn. I screwed up a bit, lost my Fate Walker move, and was unable to move Naaresh back to a safe position; he was able to walk his Scythean up and kill Naaresh. A good, quick game, though I'm still kicking myself over the error.

Final position, Naaresh gobbled up by a Scythean

Round Three

Circle Orboros again, this time played by Jeremy. He put down Morvahna 2, and I chose Rasheth again - locking myself into Mordikaar for round four.

This was a much tighter game than the first match. He went for a top of turn 2 assassination using War Wolves returned to play by Morvahna's feat, and damn near did it; it's only the fact that War Wolves can't use Sic 'Em if they're in melee that saved Rasheth from becoming dog chow.

After that, the game settled into an attrition slog in which I had the advantage. I managed to remove his Wold Wrath from the table on turn three or thereabouts, and slowly eliminated almost all of his units. He finally went for a Hail Mary: Morvahna had Blood Mark on her, but he was able to get a single charging Skinwalker on Rasheth, who transferred to Morvahna and thus killed her. Luckily, the blowthrough damage didn't kill Rasheth...

Final position - Rasheth transfers charge damage to Morvahna, killing her.

Round Four

Last game, I was up against Adam running Minions. Usually they're not a problem, but he was locked into a really solid matchup against me, with Maelok the Dreadbound versus my Mordikaar list.

Adam's first turn under way.

At first glance I thought this would be a pretty straightforward match, but it was actually extremely difficult. I feated coming up the board, as usual. That was a bit of a time walk, but I found I simply couldn't put out enough high-value attacks to remove three units of Tough Gatorman Posse all sitting at around armor 20 or so. After his feat turn, I had lost very nearly all my models, so I conceded and we called it a night.

Final position - Mordikaar has almost nothing left to swing with.

I had an excellent time, and I'm growing very fond of the Iron Gauntlet rounds. Doesn't hurt that I won a $20 gift certificate in the post-tournament raffle...

Battle Report: Kings of War, first impressions

Battle begins

Last week, I got a chance to try out Kings of War with the half-painted beginnings of my old Warhammer Fantasy Vampire Counts army. I lost interest in GW's mainstream offerings long ago, but I do love the spectacle of 28mm figures clashing on the table, especially the monsters you can toss into a fantasy battle. So Mantic Games' Kings of War is worth a look: it promises fast, smooth play that lets you focus on positioning and tactics more than list building.

We played a 1500 point game, which seemed a shade on the small side but plenty big enough for a learning game. The terrain, as seen above, made very little difference in the battle - a few hills provided elevation and slight line of sight blocking, but had no effect on movement. My opponent, Brother Glacius, brought Elves, more or less as follows:

Spearmen Regiment
Spearmen Regiment
Bowmen Troop
Sea Guard Regiment
Palace Guard Regiment
Forest Shamblers Regiment
Stormwind Cavalry Troop
Seabreeze Cavalry Troop
Tree Herder
Bolt Thrower
Bolt Thrower

I cobbled together an Undead army:

Vampire Lord
Liche Lorde
Necromancer
Necromancer
Zombie Horde
Zombie Horde
Skeleton Horde
Ghoul Horde
Revenant Cavalry Regiment
Werewolf Horde (played by some Hordes Circle Orboros Warpborn Skinwalkers)

Deployment is in alternating steps; roll a die, winner chooses whether to deploy first or second. First player deploys a unit, then his opponent does, and so on until all units are deployed. After deployment, certain units with the Vanguard rule may take a move before play begins.

I dropped my hordes in the middle of the board, backed by my characters, with the Werewolves and Revenant Cavalry on the right and left, respectively. Brother G put his Bolt Throwers and cavalry on the wings, with the Forest Shamblers anchoring his right flank and the elves in the center and left.

Brother G went first. His Seabreeze Cavalry on my left moved up fast, threatening my Revenant Cavalry, while the rest of the army moved forward somewhat more slowly. I shambled my hordes forward, as a good necromancer should, and started picking up the basics of the game.

Over the course of the next six turns, my hordes shambled forward and got stuck in with the Spearmen, Palace Guard, and Forest Shamblers. His bolt throwers were, well, mostly useless. My Revenant Cavalry rolled over his Seabreeze Cavalry after a bit of chasing around but then got shot to death by the Bowmen. My Werewolves were quite effective, and I can see why Brother G thinks Mantic may have made a design error on Large Infantry Hordes - by themselves they dominated the right flank.

In the end I won by a small margin of destroyed troops at game's end on turn 6.

Overall, I had a pretty good impression of Kings of War. I don't think I'd get into it without already having some troops, as I've gone off 28mm for large battles for reasons of space and storage, but since I do already have some... I like the way it plays quickly. The buckets of dice mechanic is offset by the sheer speed of play; we knocked out six turns + deployment in under two hours, pretty good for a learning game. I'll be playing this again. Might even try to build a second army - maybe something from Warlord's Pike and Shotte range using the Kingdoms of Men list.

Near the end, the Tree Herder continues to chew through the skeleton horde, ghouls close in on hapless elven spearmen, and the werewolves clash with elven knights.

You can take a look at Brother G's thoughts on the game here.

Battle Report: Iron Gauntlet League finals, round 1

This past Monday, I went up against Asher (one our local Press Gangers) in the first round of the finals for this Spring's Iron Gauntlet League.

For those unfamiliar with the format, Iron Gauntlet is a Warmachine Steamroller event. Each player brings three 50-point lists. The first few rounds are normal steamroller, and each list must be played at least once. The final four (or eight in this case) players match up in single-elimination 75-point games, with the list built from the models brought for the 50-point lists.

I didn't expect to make it into the finals rounds, so my list selection wasn't optimized for the finals rounds. I'd brought Makeda 3 Brute Squad, Rasheth Chain Gang, and Martin Hornacek's Mordikaar list. Asher had run Saeryn, Abyslonia 2, and Vayl 2. Because of the league format, we'd had time to scope out each other's possibilities, so the usual list building phase was already done:

Saeryn
* Succubus
* Angelius
* Angelius
* Ravagore
* Shredder
* Typhon
* Zuriel
Blighted Nyss Shepherd
The Forsaken
The Forsaken
Spell Martyr
Spell Martyr
Blighted Nyss Sorceress and Hellion
Strider Deathstalker
Blackfrost Shard
Strider Rangers

This list is four points short, as I'm hazy on what else he had. Probably a Spawning Vessel & Acolytes.

Dominar Rasheth (Chain Gang, tier 4)
* Titan Sentry
* Titan Sentry
* Titan Gladiator
* Titan Gladiator
* Bronzeback Titan
* Basilisk Krea
* Basilisk Drake
Agonizer
Agonizer
Agonizer
Paingiver Master Tormentor
Paingiver Master Tormentor
Paingiver Beast Handlers (max)
Paingiver Beast Handlers (min)
Gatorman Posse (max)
Gatorman Posse (max)

The scenario was two fronts. He won the roll and chose to go first; I picked the side with a couple of walls on it. The center of the board was dominated by a hill. His side had a hill and a forest.

Deployment for both of us was pretty simple. He placed his beasts in a brick with the Angelii on my left, support in the rear, Blackfrost Shard and Deathstalker on my right, and the Nyss Sorceress and Rangers on my left. I deployed in a brick with Rasheth right up in the front (slow fat man has to get up the table), and the Titans arrayed beside him, the Bronzeback slightly behind. One unit of gators was on each flank, and the Agonizers and Beast Handlers snuggled up in the back. The Basilisks were placed between the Titan herd and the left-hand gators.

First turns were pretty typical - we both ran up the field as far as we could. Well, I went slightly shorter, to deny him an easy alpha. Rasheth tossed Carnivore on the right-hand gators and popped feat. Between feat and the Agonizers, I effectively locked him out of doing any serious damage to me, so instead he maneuvered for position on his second turn and popped his own feat - definitely locking me out of doing any serious damage, as it prevents melee attacks on his beasts and I had one ranged attack.

I then jammed with the Sentries, using Locker to prevent his beasts from moving in any direction except directly toward the Sentries. I put out a very little damage with the Drake, and used the right-hand gators to cripple the Blackfrost Shard and remove the Deathstalker. Left-hand gators tried to move up and take out the Rangers; they did no damage, but the Rangers failed a fear check, so that was good enough. Finally, I used a Gladiator to take out the objective, and thus scored a point, plus another for controlling the zone.

Unfortunately, I'd moved Rasheth too far forward. He threw the right-hand Sentry at the nearby Gladiator with the Ravagore, knocking both Titans down and neatly eliminating Locker from the equation. After that, it was just a matter of tagging Rasheth with Saeryn's ranged weapon, which prevented him from transferring, and then killing him with a couple of spells.

All in all, a pretty good game and a valuable lesson: keep your caster back as far as possible...