Road to Bristol: The Art Of War! #6 Tournament Day 1 (Hyper-G)

Hi folks,
As Lucky-Sixes mentioned in his post it wasn’t long on day 1 before I was called up into the tournament as a replacement player. Even though I’d known for a long time that this might happen it was still very exhilarating when it actually all kicked off!

So... into the breach...as they say!

Here's the link to our channel where the battle reports will be:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6RqtSiZ_YeZP_Sif7Cf65Q?view_as=subscriber

Like, share, subscribe, etc., etc., and you'll be kept up to date with all the action!

Like Lucky-Sixes, I won't go into too much detail, but will summarise the battles and then add some final thoughts about the overall state of affairs.

Game 1 - O&G vs SA

Lining up against Saurian Ancients for the first battle was an interesting start as SA were one of the armies I'd usually control myself. Opponent Mark was a great opening player to go against who clearly knew what he was doing & was happy to help me settle into things. So much so that he allowed me to re-deploy my Cave Goblins after they’d failed a terror test to prevent them from fleeing off the board in the first act of the game!

Unfortunately for me though, this was my opponents only merciful act as before my turn 1 had begun I’d lost my Git Launcher, Wolf Raiders & the entire unit of Common Orcs mainly as a result of Pyromancy Magic and Salamanders (and panic tests!).

I knew I had to react with aggressive tactics & focused everything I had on a central advance which saw some success as my Gargantula, Giant & a Totemic Summon worked hard to eliminate his big unit of Skinks & Caimans. Unfortunately though, Mark had systematically destroyed most of the rest of my army whilst this had been going on, including my Chariot-riding general, leaving the Trolls hopelessly stupid.

My Iron Orcs went on a last gasp run for the objective but even that failed to turn the tide and it ended as a 0-20 loss. However, I’d felt like I’d given it a go after an awful start so I wasn’t too discouraged.

• Deployment has to be managed better as not all my opponents will allow me to reverse my early poor decisions.
• This tournament is going to be a lot of fun. Even though I lost horribly, I enjoyed this game so much!
• I didn’t need to worry too much about losing this one as a lot of the damage had been done before I’d had a chance to do anything (and most of my deployment was alright). This was a good opponent who knew how to play his army and I expected that he’d do well in the tournament.

Game 2 - O&G vs VC

Vampire Covenants is always an army I enjoy playing against & from talking to my opponent, Chris, as we deployed I knew this wouldn’t be any different. I tactically chose to go heavy on the objective in this one with most of my scoring units going for the central area to claim the middle. This was whilst doing everything possible to stay away from Chris’ very scary big unit of Barrow Guard.

In the early game I stuck well to my plan and managed to set up a big grind on the centre with my Orcs outlasting his unit of Crypt Ghouls. In the meantime my Gargantula and Giant had split the Barrow Guard’s attention to take out a Varkolak & sneak into an endless combat with some Zombies with the help of a crucial unit of Cave Goblins that kept the Barrow Guard busy.

Thanks as well to some awesome Troll vomit cleaning out Chris’ Barrow Knights I was well in control of this one and an unfortunate movement mistake towards the end by Chris left the Barrow Guard floundering & me coasting towards a 20-0 win!

• Another really enjoyable battle & this time I felt like I I wasn’t hampered by early mistakes.
• The Gargantula is a real tank that can go off alone so long as he’s focusing on a particular role; in this case flanking after destroying the Varkolak.
• Chris was unlucky with some decisions he made but in this battle I felt in control and that put me in a good position so long as I remained sensible (for goodness sake stay away from the Barrow Guard!!)

Game 3 - O&G vs BH

Beast Herds is an army I’m almost totally unfamiliar with as we just don’t get round to playing with or against them. My opponent Luke had a lot of chariots and a fearsome Minotaur combat character that I knew I'd struggle to take down - my solution - keep away from him!

In my previous battle I felt like I'd found a new niche for my (non-BSB) Iron Orcs as a distraction / re-directing unit that my opponents didn't necessarily think were playing this role.  The longer I kept them on the board the better keeping whatever they were sparing with busy whilst I focused on the rest of the threat.  This was my early plan here and so, despite getting the Gargantula caught up with this (and killed) as well, they managed to almost single-handedly keep back most of the Beast Herd units who were hampered by a bit of terrain forcing them to take a long route round.

Whilst this occurred I baited Luke into declaring 8" / 9" charges with 4 of his Chariots on my Bridge Trolls in the middle.  It was a risk as if they'd all succeeded the impact hits would have wrecked my unit even with the Regen but as it happened only 2 successfully completed the charge and the Trolls revelled in smashing wood, even managing to flee to safety after a 5th chariot eventually flanked them having seen off the 4 others in various turns and a further unit of Centaurs too.

This had left my Common Orcs grabbing the middle objective (it was the treasure one), whilst my BSB Iron Orcs offered discipline support and the Giant helped a unit of Cave Goblins on the other flank.  In the latter situation it all started so well as Luke was left with only a unit of Mongrel Raiders on that side whilst the Cave Goblins claimed the objective but in a very clever move those Mongrels surprised me and charged the Goblins, routing them and evening out the objective tally (as thankfully they couldn't claim it themselves - phew!).

We knew it was close as all the chariots and Centaurs that I'd killed was probably evened out by the Gargantula and Iron Orc sacrifice and so as it went into the last turn Luke risked it all on a charge by his Wildhorn unit with Wizard into the front of my objective-holding Orcs... and the Orcs slapped them up royally!!!

The Wildhorns and Wizard were run down causing a big swing to the overall score at the very end and I emerged with an amazing 11-9 victory!  This was an awesome battle for me, not just because of the result either.

• The Iron Orcs emerged as my favourite unit to use for tactical purposes
• Cave Goblins can't be trusted - even though they are useful Mad Git delivery systems they shouldn't hold objectives... even against Mongrels!
• I need to think about using the Terror special rule better on my Giant who could have caused some problems to the Mongrel unit that cost me the objective as his General & BSB were no-where near.
• Totemic Summons are amazing.  They popped up multiple times again to assist in the re-directing and limited Luke's combat character to limited points scoring.

There were so many positives taken so far from day 1, and somehow I was also 2 wins out of 3 with slightly less points than Lucky-Sixes (31) but very much feeling good about the tournament so far!

Thanks for reading,
Kind regards,
Hyper-G

Road to Bristol: The Art of War! #5 Tournament Day 1 (Lucky-Sixes)

Today is the day! All the hard work (ha!), preparation and painting has come down to this.

We rocked up, as eager as ever and put our armies down on the table ready to pit our wits against England's finest and come out triumphant... hopefully!

It was very exciting and we were both buzzing to see what it would be like to participate in a tournament. We had been getting hints and tips all week from people going or that had gone to tournaments in the past, both on the forums and in person; so naively, we felt very prepared and ready for the day ahead.

About 10 minutes in and we were interrupted by one of the TO's, saying that they had a drop out and that Hyper-G was needed! And like the hero he is, he stepped up into the breach and was now an official participant of the tournament! Woop. So, we both had a jam packed day ahead and despite being thrown into the mix, Hyper-G had had a pretty good preparation to the tournament as well, finishing his 3 battles undefeated with his Orcs.

So for day 1, my fixture list was pitting me against Empire of Sonnstahl, Ogre Khans and Orcs & Goblins (again!); while Hyper-G went up against Saurian Ancients, Vampire Covenant and Beastmen. We were actually pitted against each other in the 2nd match up, but we spoke to the TO's, explained that we couldn't stand battling each other again and they kindly changed us up, which was very nice of them. As always, for full video battle reports make sure you visit our YouTube channel first, as I will likely be giving away some key details of the match ups and definitely the scores below!

Here's the link to our channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6RqtSiZ_YeZP_Sif7Cf65Q?view_as=subscriber

Like, share, subscribe, etc., etc., and you'll be kept up to date with all the action!

Onto the battles then! I wont go into too much detail, but will summarize the battles and then come out with some learning points that we took from it. We will do my battles here and Hyper-G's in a seperate post I think so that its not too long.

Game 1 - HBE vs EoS

So for my first match up I went against a very good player in Felix Newman (Captain of Team Scotland!) and his gun-line EoS with some cool looking Griffon characters to support. My bright eyed eagerness and enthusiasm got quickly nullified as he quickly dismantles my army with his accurate, Str4, AP2 infantry and Str5, multiple shots, multiple wounds war machines with magic support.

In key events, I got my deployment all wrong - spreading out and putting my army down early to get the first turn (in order to put the pressure on) and lining my shooting against his Reiters. Normally this would actually be a fairly good tactic, but I completely neglected to recognize that he had placed both his Reiters on a hill, and then subsequently vanguarded behind the hill and kept them safely hidden from my shooters. Damn! And to rub salt in the wound I had put my Knights on that side thinking that I would have a clear run (and also use the hill as protection - shame I didn't consider that he could us it too) from his shooting and he was able to use them to tear the unit apart with the fully loaded Reiter shots. One of the Griffons was over that side too and similarly to the Spider in my previous battle, killed both my shooting units with ease. There was a point where I nearly managed a Seaguard cover fire stand and shoot to double up with the Queensguard against his BSB Great Griffon, but unfortunately I forgot to move half an inch back and that meant I was within the advance move of the beast, and therefore unable to stand and shoot. Gutted. The Dragon had to wait a turn for the other units to march over to the left side and then got pummeled with other shooting from the war machines. The rest kind of just crumbled. 20-0 to the Empire.

We had a bit of spare time at the end of the battle (as he crushed me) and Felix was nice enough to talk me through what I could've done and how those changes in tactics might have changed the outcome of the battle. So with these tips in mind here are my learning points:

• Don't forget about vanguard and terrain! This cost me a shooting phase and essentially my Knight unit, and without that I was never going to even threaten him so potentially him vanguarding behind the hill won the battle before turn 1! Now that's what I call being outplayed.
• Be more aggressive with the Dragon. I should have just put my dragon up and got him to charge me or focus all his shooting on me turn 1. staying back allowed an extra shooting phase from his war machines and cost me the Dragon. It wasn't even close either, he did like 7 wounds in the second round with his volley guns so I should have made him sweat right from the start
• Deploy better. My knights need to be in the thick of things rather than so far away. Gave my opponent too much time to focus fire on the units he wanted to and gave them little chance of reaching the enemy lines intact.

Game 2 - HBE vs Ogre Khans

I had been well and truly schooled in my last game and the only consolation was that I was against someone else who had been 20-0'd. Having said that, the other guys (Ross Stevenson) had been beaten by a vampire player who I think ended up finishing 3rd so that actually made no difference and didn't really give me indication about skill level. However, I did know Ross from our last outing to Bristol so at least I knew I would be against a fun player. And besides, Hyper-G beat him so surely that was a good omen for me! The list Ross was sporting, however, was completely different so i was in no better place in knowing how to deal with the list. He had a huge unit of tribesman housing his General, BSB,and mage, with a few Bruiser darts, 2 big monsters, a unit of Tusker Cav and some Scratapults.

My first thoughts were actually quite positive despite having my a$$ handed to me in the first round. Prior to the tournament I thought Ogres were a good match up for me, with my Knight unit as the key to the win. They could easily handle the big monsters and Tusker cav, so the only problem would be the big core unit with characters. I would have to duel charge them in order to hurt them, or they would just grind me out. My shooting was pretty good for this game too to kill off the chaff and plink away at the big unit when they were gone. So, if I could stick to the game plan I thought I would do quite well.

He deployed everything to get the first turn and then moved up a little bit to leave me some long charges and get some early shots with his Scratapults. Luckily for me, on turn 1, I made an 10" charge with my knights into the flank of his Rock Aurock, which then took me into his Mammoth which was behind his lines. In doing so, I did give a flank to both his Scratapults on his turn 2, who both charged, but due to hereditary and some good armour saving roles (I think I got the armour buff on them too), I did enough wounds to the Mammoth to kill it and send the chariots running. My Reavers who had vanguarded behind his lines were then available to subsequently charge and run down both of them in my turn 2/3 and actually pick up some points - which is a very rare thing indeed. Meanwhile my Dragon was able to charge the Tusker Cav on his flank, with the help of a sacrificial Eagle, and took them out with the help of Molten Copper in the Magic phase (and thus making the unit flammable) and the Dragon's boosted attacks. This whole situation meant I was able to surround the big deathstar unit and after a few rounds of shooting to take a few bodies away (which to be fair I did pretty well to do) I charged my Dragon, Knight unit and Lancers in (who had been playing around with a bruiser dart for a bit). With the subsequent magic support and a few bad dispel rolls on my opponents part i then murdered the unit over a few rounds and the game was won! 20-0 to me!

I thought I had played this one pretty well, but realistically it came down to a ballsy 10" charge on turn 1 from my Knight unit which won me the battle. The rest came together very nicely and I managed to keep my focus after the early jubilation to make sure nothing silly happened. It was made quicker by some bad magic dice rolling on my opponents part, but in truth there wasn't much more he could do. Learning points:

• Don't leave your opponent long charges. I didn't have much to lose by declaring the long charge and the reward for pulling it off was massive. So the lesson here is don't even leave the possibility for a charge, especially if the damage done is that big!
• Re-rolls to wound on Dragon/Knights is devastating. This was most prevalent in this battle as it just allowed my units to make quick work of his. I was already capable of doing a lot of wounds but having that in my arsenal was very useful. With magic the way it is now, you are going to get at least one spell off unless you are really unlucky so the alchemy spells + hereditary is working with pretty good synergy on my list so far. Need to make sure I utilize this fully in future
• Chaffing is crucial. I out-chaffed my opponent in this battle, and this lead to the downfall of the tusker cav. To be fair they are one of the units that don't necessarily need the charge, but I certainly do - both for devastating charge and for getting magic support on my units. I need to keep this up if I am going to win more battles in this tournament.

Game 3 - HBE vs O&G

Last up for the day were the Orcs. Now by this point, despite being buzzed off my last win and effectively reaching my goal of one victory (I know I may have mentioned complete domination of the world before, but my actual goal was just to beat one player), I was pretty tired / mentally drained before going into the battle. It was a long day and it took more out of me than I expected. Thankfully, I had an awesome opponent and we were both doing pictures for battle reports and chatting and having fun. It was his first tournament too, so we ended up playing this one very laid back and I have to say this was the most fun game I had at the tournament, perhaps even ever! Cheers for the game Simon!

Looking at his list, he had 2 chaff raiders, some goblin bows & a big unit of spear goblins (both with mad gits and the spears had 3 goblin chiefs in it!), a big unit of feral Orcs with his apocalypse wielding general, a chariot, a splatterer, some trolls, a spider and a giant. Lots of units and bodies. We played Spoils of War and Counterthrust for this match up I think. With all the battles I have had against O&G and the knowledge I had of them bestowed from Hyper-G, I felt pretty confident going into this one as well. Similar to the ogre battle, I knew my knights could handle everything apart from a grind with his big units, and from the very first battle I had against a Orc horde unit, I knew my Dragon could wreck face against these infantry, and especially those with minimal save so I was keen to sort that match up too. I wasn't too scared of his ranged threat and knew if I could concentrate on his chaff early on, I would be able to pretty much set up the match-ups I wanted. He dropped his chaff and surprisingly his spider down early (which he put on his own on his flank), so when I had the chance I dropped to get first turn. I put my Knights directly opposite his Spider - who to be fair was hiding at the back of a forest - thinking that was a perfect match up for me, and when I got the charge off on him I would wipe him out and turn to face the rest of his army. My shooting I dropped opposite his wolf raiders and my dragon and Catclaw just stayed with them as a mini counter-charge force. My Lancers I put on the right flank next to one of the objectives and planned to take that and hide for the rest of the battle.

After a few turns of slight movements with the knights vs Spider, i managed to get a 9" charge off and was super lucky to take ZERO wounds to dangerous terrain. I think I actually rolled one but ward saved it. They did exactly as expected and reformed, again not taking any damage from the forest. In the middle, my first turn of shooting/magic did their job and took away his 2 units of chaff and the chariot as well, so that was awesome. I then picked on his trolls to whittle them down with my flaming ranged attacks before sending the Dragon in to kill them off and overrun into the Giant. Simon kind of chaffed himself up in one of his turns, which allowed me to kill the Giant over a few rounds of combat, but then, seeing that they would also take the central objective in doing so, he was able to charge his feral orc unit into me and the general clearly was not happy in letting my dragon take off his unit and in rather spectacular style, wiped my dragon out in a single round of combat. That hurt! But we were getting really into the game at this point and we saw this as a pretty epic kill for the Orc lord which painted a pretty cinematic picture. We had a few people that had finished their game come over to watch and we ended up having a bit of a crowd which was brilliant! Really good atmosphere. Anyway sorry, back to the battle...

The Lancers had completely abandoned their project of objective scoring as his big unit of spear goblins were placed opposite and too scary for me to take on. So they chose to go round the back and go after the goblin bows and war machine. They did this very nicely, and the mad gits only managed to do 1 or 2 wounds to them and so they easily got their points back. After they did this I ended up combo charging them into the feral orcs (who had now turned around after killing the dragon and were caught goading my units) with my Knight unit - who once again, passed through the forest they were in with finesse. I did so many wounds and killed his general in a challenge with my general. I managed to kill him without him striking back due to my high initiative and combat build so my lord definitely earned his stripes there and got the revenge for slaying my dragon! We spoke about it afterwards and he said this was a mistake, but I think I would have killed him with my chaps either way, but would have killed less Orcs maybe but who knows. But after a few rounds of grinding, on the last turn (and last roll of the game!) he had a re-roll-able 7 discipline test to keep them from running. He failed the first one and we were on the edge of our seat for the second roll. This was so important because down in my deployment zone we had managed to get into a fight between my seaguard & lion chariot (who was in his flank) and his spear goblins (who had the objective that the Lancers bailed from). That was going pretty well for both sides as I was winning combat but he wasn't losing enough bodies to prevent him being steadfast. He still had Ld 7/8 tests to make but did so valiantly throughout the game. But, crucially, this meant that currently he was winning the objective 2-1, so the last dice roll would decide who would win the secondary part of the battle and whether I would get the points for his feral orc unit or not. He couldn't look... I couldn't look (but did because I was willing him to fail - in a sportsmanlike manner of course... even half the audience dare not glance at the dice! He rolled it and rolled... a 4!!! Wow, what a battle. Gutted he managed to stick, but very pleased we had just played a very intense, really fun battle!

When all was said and done, it ended up being 15-5 to me on the scores, but due to the objective, a 12-8 overall! Learning points:

• Kill chaff early. It really helped me to set up the charges I wanted and keep my Knight unit free to charge on my terms.
• Know what your units can handle! My dragon mage is good, but he cant handle a whole unit of feral orcs with a beast of a general. He did do well to handle his giant and trolls and it may have been a necessary sacrifice as there wasn't much else that could deal with them so well; but its worth thinking about for future battles. On the other hand, I did well to put my knights against his spider who brushed him aside quite easily. As opposed to the last Orc battle I had where I didn't do this and the spider went to town on the rest of my army.
• T9A is really fun! Sorry for the cheese but I thought I would add this in as I hear a lot of people on the forums saying the fun is being slowly drawn from the game but this experience has really quelled all that animosity for me (#Orcpun!). For me this is proof the fun is still alive!

After all that I was knackered! But I was standing at around the middle of the pack with 32 / 60 points, and with 2 wins no less! Pretty pleased with myself, I went back to the hotel to have a well deserved beer. Bring on day 2!

Road to Bristol: The Art of War! #4 - Practice Day (Friday)

So here we are folks, all the preparation and planning has led to this!

We finally made it to Bristol and like the eager geeks that we are, we turned up the day before to get some practice battles in with our armies to warm up for the big event. And very appropriately, we were battling at BIG - Bristol Independent Gaming store and were met by some very friendly members of the Bristol Ninjas Team who were hosting the weekend.

Callum and Shane were running the tournament on the days ahead but still (somehow) managed to fit in giving us some games the day before, and between them and some other chaps having a similar attitude to us turning up early, we had a great day of chat, dice rolling and lager drinking which was fantastic. A huge thanks goes out to those chaps who made us feel very welcome in Bristol leading up to the event and then of course when we met them at the venue!

Overall we had 3 games on the day, 2 for my Highborn Elves (Dwarven Holds and O&G) and 1 for the Orcs (Infernal Dwarves). Again, if you want to catch the full reports we have them listed on our YouTube channel here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6RqtSiZ_YeZP_Sif7Cf65Q

**Spoiler Alert** we will do a mini review of each battle below so make sure to watch the videos first before reading on if you don't want to spoil any of the magic!

Game 1 - Highborn Elves vs Dwarven Holds

I played a wonderful chap named Terry as we both turned up pretty much when the building opened and got straight to it! We played the encircle deployment and the spoils of war secondary objective. He had a big block of Spear Clan Warriors, Crossbow Clan Marksmen, and Deep Watch supported by 2 Grudge Throwers and 2 units of Miners. He also had 5 characters in his roster - mainly defensive minded. This included an Engineer, 3 defensive Thanes and a killy general.

He castled up on my left flank surrounding a hill and I spread out with my Knights and Dragon and Catclaw (Lion Chariot) facing him off, Shooting units in the middle and Lancers completely out of the way and ready to take the objective on the right. My thoughts were to get the objective sorted with Lancers early on (and then later on with my shooting units) and then send my Knights and Dragon into his troops. His blocks were pretty big (30 odd) but putting both my big guns in together should mean I fly through them pretty quickly - I would just have to make sure I only take them on one unit at a time!

In the early part of the battle I moved my units up to set up the charges against his left side first - although they were a big unit of spears - so plenty of armour penetration, which I was a little scared of to be honest, but being a practice game I really wanted to see how my guys would fare. Shooting focused on his crossbow unit to try to limit the shooting I took in return and magic was aimed at his war machines and getting the hereditary spell off, which thankfully I managed to do more often than not. My Dragon took 4 wounds(!) in the first turn to his Grudge Throwers - and that was even with my 1/2 damage shield to the first multiple wounds damage and with the hereditary off! Safe to say I needed to get into combat quick.

In my turn 2, the Knights went head first into the spears. A dangerous game (with Hyper-G grumbling about this being suicidal if it was any historical battle) but one I had to risk to prevent any shooting casualties. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the Dragon in as well as he had chaffed me with a character, so I charged him in to face off and again get out of the reach of the catapults. The plus for this though, was that he had left me a 10" overrun into his crossbows if I did manage to kill him (or probably more likely make him run due to being pretty tanky). My Knights wrecked face, doing like 13/14 wounds with no response - which is a very lucky return (insert Hyper-G grumble), although the hereditary spell did help a lot here, as well as some poor rolling on my opponents front. They were steadfast though and reformed to get more attacks in. This ended up being a mistake as I managed to continue to kill off his guys and meant on his turn he was not steadfast, ran and was caught. Meanwhile my Dragon whiffed, but my opponent's luck continued and he failed a discipline 8 re-rollable break test to stick around and fled away. Unfortunately, I didn't chase him down or make it into the crossbows which lead to a dangerous shooting phase, but thankfully (and once again thanks to the hereditary spell) I only took one wound from the missile fire and eventually charged into both his war machines and saved my Dragon. Phew!

Elsewhere, my shooting did a few wounds to his shooters before both fleeing charges from the oncoming Dwarfs to the back of the board. This allowed my Catclaw to charge and subsequently run down the crossbows which was very welcomed. I did have a bit of an issue with a unit of Miners in my backfield who took the attention of both my shooting units, but in the end it was too much for them and I managed to kill them but it was over several turns and I took a lot of casualties in doing so.

A few learning points I took from this:

• My Knights are class! With the Prince in there they can deal out some serious damage. Overall they boast 23 str7 ap4 attacks, including the Prince's 6 lethal strike and divine attacks which is just crazy. Not much can stand up to that and with the right protection they will be a real threat.
• Hereditary spell rocks! Speaking of protection this basically single-handedly saved my Dragon and essentially won me the game - or at least ensured it was not close. This is going to have to be my priority moving forward. I will need to cast this to be successful.
• Lancers helped to secure the objective. They did not do a lot during the battle but were an easy win when thinking about the objectives. This was the first time I had used them solely for this purpose and was maybe something I would have to do regularly to make sure I keep the objective points on my side

In the end, a solid victory but I cant say it was all down to skill, as my opponent was getting quite unlucky on some of his rolls, but a fun game and a nice way to start the practice off. Confidence was high!

Game 2 - Orcs & Goblins vs Infernal Dwarves

This time it was Hyper-G's turn to take on Callum's Infernal Dwarves, and his list had not changed from when I 'played' him. I say that in inverted comma's because it wasn't really much of a match up due to my terrible play with the Knights that ended up chaffing the majority of my army and meaning I only had a meaningful charge with him on turn 6. So it was up to Hyper-G to show me how to do it in what would be a very interesting fight. As a recap, Callum had a big unit of Immortals with a killy Overlord and BSB, a 30 strong unit of Citadel Guard, 50x Hobgoblins, 2 units of chaff Wolf Riders, 1 unit of baby Kadims, an Engineer and 3 war machines - Rocket Battery, Volley Gun and a Flamethrower. The Orcs sported a massive unit of Common Orcs, 2 lots of Cave Goblins with a Mad Git each, 2 lots of Iron Orcs (each with an Iron Orc character to make them bodyguard), a Giant, a Gargantula, Bridge Trolls, chaffing Goblin Wolf Riders, Git Launcher, Skewerer(ererer) and an Orc Shaman general on a Boar Chariot. It ended up being front-line clash and capture the flags, and similar to the Highborn Elves battle Callum castled up in the right corner surrounding a hill and left all the attacking to the other player - in this case it was up to Hyper-G to advance! Not something he was unfamiliar with, being an Orc after all. The Orcs mainly stuck to the centre, with a unit of Cave Goblins on the left flank with the Giant and a unit of Iron Orcs occupying the right flank - goading the unit of Citadel Guard in front of them.

In the early stages, the Infernal Dwarves shuffled around with his Incarnates as the only real advancing unit. The Orcs moved up aggressively and otherwise both armies just set themselves up for later. Hyper-G did chaff himself up a bit with his Bridge Trolls, purely due to the amount of units he had and a very annoying bit of impassable terrain in the centre of the battlefield.  I'll hand over to Hyper-G for the rest...

So the first major moment involved the Kadim Incarnates who weighed up various charges and eventually settled on going into the Gargantula in Callum's turn 2.  This proved to be a bad call thanks to the Spider chewing them up pretty swiftly taking minimal damage in return.

Callum had been prioritising his shooting on killing off my minimal defence Orc general on his Chariot and he was bleeding wounds regularly but somehow, over the course of numerous turns, he was just hanging on, crucially getting Awaken The Beast off on himself and narrowly avoiding death whilst he also managed some important other magical support too.  It was one of Callum's biggest annoyances how much attention the Orc was taking and obviously I loved it!

The chaffing game was well underway in the middle but one of the Hobgoblin Wolf Rider units fled due to a terror test and it opened the door for my Orc block and the Giant to charge into and efficiently kill off the massive Hobgoblin block that had caused Lucky-Sixes so much of a headache getting to in his battle.  I don't really know what the problem was to be honest!

With my Bridge Trolls still chaffed by my own army and the Cave Goblins on the left playing their own game the attention shifted towards Callum's big infantry blocks and after eventually losing my Orc general (much Dwarven cheering mixed with grumbling at this point) it was game on for the second half of the battle!

My Orcs and Gargantula now had the support of a Totemic Summon that was only there thanks to the stubbornness of my Orc Shaman in staying alive and between them most of the Infernal Dwarf war machines and chaff were eliminated.  In trying to keep the scary Immortals and slightly less scary (but still scary) Citadel Guard at bay my other unit of Cave Goblins had done a sterling job with its Mad Git and combined with a teasing unit of Iron Orcs the turns were running out fast as the Orcs looked to surround the remaining Dwarves.

As turn 5 for me hit I finally plucked up the courage to use the angles available and charge the Iron Orcs into the Citadel Guard and although they managed to kill a few that combat ended in a stalemate with the Iron Orcs probably losing out had there been a few more turns.  Despite that (they kept their points anyway as they were still healthy enough at game end) I was delighted with how much of a distraction they'd been in this battle while the rest of my army dealt with the rest of business!

All this going on meant that my Trolls, other Iron Orcs, Gargantula and Orc unit could all sit back and wave at the Immortals refusing to go anywhere near them and sit pretty.  The Giant went on a mission and successfully took out the final Rocket Battery war machine but the highlight of the end game was still to come!

The Mad Git that had so effectively held up the Dwarf Infantry weaved his way between them and struck with the accuracy of a sniper to roll exactly what he needed to land on Callum's Engineer, doing exactly the right amount of wounds to kill him as well.  What a trooper!  (I won't mention that he then went on to wound the Giant and the Totemic Summon afterwards as well!)

We didn't count up the exact winning margin but with very few casualties on the Greenskin side it was an extremely successful outcome and meant I was going into the tournament undefeated with this O&G list (albeit only from 2 battles but I'll take it!) although obviously at this point I was only a spare player anyway.  Perhaps Lucky-Sixes should just move aside?!?

My learning points:

• My fears over my Orc Shaman General being very vulnerable to shooting were confirmed here but by doing everything possible to keep him alive as long as possible he can still be a thorn in an opponent's side.
• The Iron Orc unit that controlled half of the board for a long period were excellent and I decided to use them exclusively in this role if I had the chance, which wasn't necessarily what I'd expected of them prior to this.
• The Skewerer (which killed one single Dwarf in this battle) is absolutely fine to deploy on its own away from everything else.  If the opponent takes the time to kill it, fine by me!
• I have a lot of units!  It's really hard getting everything where it needs to be so preventing the chaffing of my own army was something I'd need to work on.

Game 3 - Highborn Elves vs Orcs & Goblins

So with a bit of time to spare, we managed to squeeze in one more battle with the Highborn Elves and it was against an Orc & Goblin list, commanded by the other Tournament organizer - Shane. Normally I would be quite confident against O&G as they were one of the armies I was most familiar with due to playing against them several times and Hyper-G taking them along - so I felt like I had a reasonable knowledge of the army. However, this list had 7 Chariots, 2 big units of Boar Boys, a huge Iron Orc unit and a Gargantula! This was not something I had come across before and seemed like a really interesting list - both to play and to play against. Safe to say I was looking forward to it. Shane was a great sport as well and was talking me through things to think about when the tournament came around, so we had some good tactical chats about movement and options during the battle, so thanks for that Shane!

With the tournament in mind, we decided to play marching columns for the deployment, as it was one of the new ones and a tricky one to get your head around - so the perfect choice for a practice! Capture the flags was our secondary objective and we were ready to go! He had spread his forces out across the whole length of his deployment, with his 2 Boar Boy units on the right, his Iron Orcs in the centre and his Spider on the left. Chariots were spread out and his General on a Boar was hiding behind his Gargantula, safe from my shooting. I put my chaff on the left, shooting and Catclaw in the centre and my Lancers & Knight unit on the right facing down his Boar Riders. The Dragon stayed over on the right looking to magic missile some cavalry and the Chariots where I could.

At a glance, I thought this was a good match up for me - my shooting to focus on a Chariot a turn and hope to cause some panics whilst my Knights were poised to go against his cavalry - pretty much guaranteed to beat them - especially if they got a charge off, which was likely due to having better movement. Plus he had no magic or shooting for me to worry about so all I had to focus on was getting the right match ups in combat. Easy!

He moved up (as you might expect) and one thing I did notice was how good he was at his angles and setting up counter charges. He ended up leaving me a 10/11" charge for my Knights into his more central Boars and I took it! I was lucky enough to get the charge off and completely murder the unit, before overrunning to safety - although it did leave me needing a turn to move around and re-group. My Lancers on that side did a pretty good job of holding off the other unit of Boars, especially when I managed to knock off 3 or 4 in the early magic rounds with Molten Copper, so I was pretty happy with how my right flank was looking.

On the other side though my shooting did not manage to do much and instead of trying to get wounds off on the Chariots I chose to focus on the Gargantula and was struggling to do any real damage, doing one or two wounds before it got in my face ready to charge. I had to take a gamble with my Lion Chariot, who charged the Spider head on. My thoughts were that the guys on top had multiple wounds 2 versus the beast and my Lions and impact hits had str5, so I was hoping to do as much damage as possible before it got to my shooters. This unfortunately was not to be though and I got obliterated (on the turn that I charged no less!) without doing any damage whatsoever. To make matters worse, I had even managed to get flaming attacks and flammable off on the Chariot/Spider meaning I was re-rolling my wounding rolls on the damn thing, but I did zilch! And then it was his turn and he charged into my Queensguard for some hurt. Keeping in mind I had a stand and shoot (from both the QG and SG) as well as a round of shooting and a Lion Chariot charge in... I had done 3 wounds to him. Meaning he had 5 left! That was not a good place to be for my shooty Elves and both the QG and the SG who were close by all succumbed to the spider over the remainder of the game. Tough break and a sh*t ton of points. Gutted!

Back up with my Knights and they had turned to get in the back of the Iron Orcs, who had to turn around and face what was coming. I took the Knights into them and did shed loads of wounds (like 14 or 15) in the first round - as well as killing the BSB - with him doing 2 or 3 in return. He was still steadfast and stuck around. This lead to one of the remaining Chariots charging into the side of me and boy oh boy did that hurt! With all the impacts and attacks I took another 4 or 5 casualties and left the unit seriously depleted. I actually still managed to do more wounds to him and his Chariot fled while his unit stuck around again. One more round and I did enough wounds to make him flee and catch him, as well as overrun into a Chariot, but at this point he had his General and two other Chariots ready to charge me on his turn. He duly obliged and while I managed  to kill the Chariot I charged into, he killed of the rest of my Knights and combat resolution saw my General flee and get caught. Oh dear.

By this point my Lancers were participating in a bit of a Mexican stand-off with the other Boar Boys, but now with no support and my centre gone, the Spider and remaining Chariots had managed to surround me. Despite managing to dance around a little with my superior movement, he caught me on the final turn and my Lancers were toast. Now you will have noticed that I have not even mentioned my Dragon Mage. This is because I was flying around trying to use my magic missiles to do damage (unsuccessfully) instead of charging into Chariots left right and centre and being aggressive like I should've been. I paid for a combat Dragon but decided to just use him as a flying carpet for my Mage. Looking back on it now, I had several good chances to charge in but chose not to and it cost me in the late game. I did manage to pick off his General in the latter stages but it wasn't enough and it ended up being a resounding win for Shane. Well played sir, I definitely got schooled by a better player there...

Learning points:

• Charge the feckin' Dragon into combat! Also, I found myself being scared of the Chariot charges when in fact I should have used him as bait and got some of the Chariots to charge me. He can take it, he's a big boy. But dancing around and trying to cast magic is the wrong thing to do with a 1,100pt combat model. Shame on me!
• Hereditary spell. I didn't even attempt to cast it this game and it cost me big time. As was said before, I really need it to be prevalent in my battles so that I don't lose too much. HBEs weakness is how elite they are and this seriously helps to mitigate that so I need to get better at getting this off

However, I can't complain too much as I had a really good time in this battle and it was a pleasure to play against Shane and his very fun O&G army. But the grudge has definitely been set and I will look forward to the rematch! By that point I'll have a tournament under my belt and pretty much be a pro so I'm bound to win, right...?

Well with all this said and done, we rested our heads and got ready for our first tournament ever! Hyper-G ready with his pom-poms to cheer me on as I go and had his O&G in reserve just in case. We were very excited and raring to go, so naturally went back to the hotel and had a few beers to settle the nerves! The first round had been drawn and I was up against Felix Newman and his gunline & Griffons Empire of Sonnstahl, so it would be a tough start but one I was very ready for. Bring it on Bristol!

Lucky-Sixes & Hyper-G

Road to Bristol: The Art of War #3

So a few weeks on, and with several battles under our belt to look back on I think its time for a quick update of where we are at, don't you?

We have now finished all of our practice battles and are ready for our trip down to Bristol with our final draft armies - preparing to conquer the world! Well England... or maybe just prove we are better than the people in Bristol... OK, yeah, just hoping to scrape at least one win!

A reminder, you can find full video reports of all our games up to this point on our YouTube channel here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6RqtSiZ_YeZP_Sif7Cf65Q

**Spoiler Alert** the following will do a recap of these battles with a bit of a review so if you haven't already - check it out so I don't spoil it for you. But if you aren't bothered and want to just read on then it's all gravy!

So, from the Highborn Elves point of view, they faced Orcs & Goblins, Saurian Ancients, Infernal Dwarves and then regular Dwarfs (but don't tell them I said they were regular!) - managing a draw, a win, a loss and another draw, respectively, which isn't bad. The list itself has changed only slightly, with musicians being added and items being juggled around but for the main part staying pretty much the same. The final list (and the one that was submitted saw the Lancers, Seaguard and Queensguard add musicians to their roster at the cost of a few Queensguard bodies and a musician on the Knights; while the Dragonmage decided to go with the Magical Heirloom and Rod of Battle in the Artefacts department - now boasting 6 spells, some combat offence and multiple wounds defence. A true all-rounder! Everything else was unchanged.

During the preparations, a few things popped out at me as priorities for the tournament:

• Think about the secondary objective earlier! This had cost me a few times now and is a big swing in terms of the final battle points. In a tournament this would be crucial to get my points up and could even swing a loss on points to a win, which would obviously help my rankings. I need to think about how best to win the scenario earlier than turn 4/5 when often this was already lost for me.
• Musicians are crucial. This was especially apparent in the Infernal Dwarves battle where I could not swift reform my lancers or shoot my Seaguard after reforming. As you can see I have now added them so was confident on this front at least.
• Be aggressive. This list is all about the hitting power with my Ryma Knights and Prince combo, and the Dragon cannot afford to be shot for too long (especially against a gun line!). So, I need to get them into combat ASAP. My dragon can chew up infantry, and the Knights are perfect against any monsters or units with about 20 wounds or so. Any more than that and my knights will struggle on the grind and especially don't let them get charged.
• Magic is key! Alchemy is pretty good and the dragon will need to get one of these off to a) get his attacks up and b) get the flammable against his opponent. Also the hereditary is pretty god-damn good!

From the Orcs point of view, the 2 lists used in practice changed pretty dramatically, and not having as many battles means if Hyper-G does get called up for the tournament then he will have to blag it somewhat. However, he is unbeaten so far so looking pretty strong in terms of confidence and has been with the Orcs for a long time so knows the army inside out and won't be in the dark too much if he does get called into battle. The final list stuck to the mantra of his successful battle versus the Ogre Khans having a wizard master Shaman general and 2 Iron Orc characters rather than a combat general and BSB with a apprentice wizard; splitting up the Iron Orc and Cave Goblin units into 2 (for both) and adding a Bridge Troll unit. It gave him more magic, more scoring units and more tricks! Perfect for the Green-skins don't ya think!

Going off the Ogre battle mainly (as well as thoughts from the forums), the learning points for this list were:

• Ld8 General is worrying and he doesn't have too much in the way of defence. However, the miscast doesn't seem too damaging for the Res5 of the chariot. Plus the scarification spell attribute from Shamanism is pretty nifty for combat defence so that will be one to remember.
• Speaking of magic, Totemic summon! This was something that immediately caught the eye and will be useful for either draining the dispel dice from the opponent or having a free unit in the enemy's backfield! Very exciting spell and one that will be highly prioritised when casting spells - every time!
• Iron Orcs with bodyguard are scary. These will be good for distractions but not against anything quick and elite. However, good for zoning out areas of the battlefield as they are not to be taken lightly and at worst can hold off the opponent for a few turns while the other units get into position.
• Don't expect much from the war machines. These guys are not much more than a distraction and aren't that unreliable but don't get too bothered if they get picked on as it just means the other stuff is not, which is a good thing. And you never know, they may do the odd wound here and there!

Well that was our thoughts going into our first tournament as while we would've both wanted a few more battles for practice we were pretty happy with our armies. It was unlikely that Hyper-G would participate in the tournament itself but we were going down the day before so would be looking for a few practice games to test out the Orcs, and would be supporting Lucky-Sixes with his Highborn Elves during the main event nonetheless so it was all good. Needless to say we were both buzzing and really excited to be getting involved in the tournament scene and a 60-man battle royale was not a bad place to start!

Lucky-Sixes

PTG YouTube Channel - T9A 2.0 Beta Battle Reports

Hi folks,

Check out our YouTube channel as the first of our Battle Reports has now gone up!

These were all practices for the big Bristol Tournament 'Art of War'.

Watch as we get used to T9A 2.0 Beta rules and let us know what you think of our channel, etc.

Kind regards,
Hyper-G

PTG YouTube Channel - T9A 2.0 Beta Rulebook Review

Hi folks,

It's exciting times at the moment within PTG as we're looking to not only bring you this blog but also we've started up a YouTube channel which we'll be posting videos onto as well!

Link to Proxy Table Gaming You Tube Channel

There will be lots of different content going up in the future and what better way to begin than a few videos where we review the 9th Age 2.0 (Beta) rulebook.  Check them out, leave us some comments and let us know what you think.  If you're feeling really nice you may even like to subscribe to us as well!  Lucky-Sixes will send a chocolate bar to our first subscriber that officially subscribes and says something relevant about a video so get on it! (he doesn't know this yet but it will happen! - totally his fault if it doesn't happen - just saying...) (disclaimer about something relevant added... internet robots don't tend to enjoy chocolate... probably!)

We'll be looking to improve as we go so whilst these initial videos may be quite rough around the edges our journey needed to begin somewhere!

Look out for more videos soon, including our first ever video battle report as Lucky-Sixes pits his first draft Tournament Highborn Elves against my first draft Tournament (spare) Orcs & Goblins!

Kind regards,
Hyper-G

Road to Bristol: The Art of War! #2

Hi folks,

The Bristol Tournament is fast approaching so it's time to catch up with what's been happening regarding our preparations!

As Lucky-Sixes has said; whilst we may not have expectations of winning the tournament and returning home in ultimate glory we do want to do as well as possible thus set ourselves up with some practice 2.0 (Beta) battles to prepare ourselves.

At this stage it looks as though officially only Lucky-Sixes' Highborn Elves will be entering the tournament itself whilst I look to provide photo support, cheer-leading and add lots of banter to the equation but nonetheless I've been listed as a tournament back-up player therefore at any moment I could be drafted in to compete for real.  As a result I've been looking to prepare my own army; in case I get a last minute place!

This leads nicely into our first battle practice as I rallied together a relatively non-proxy Orcs & Goblins army to take on the Highborns.

My list contained:

Iron Orc Warlord (General w. War Cry) - Paired Weapons (Blessed Inscriptions), Plate Armour (Tuktek's Guard), Pan Of Protection Pinchin', Potion Of Swiftness, War Boar

Iron Orc Chief (BSB) - Shield, Green Tide Banner, Talisman Of Shielding

Orc Shaman (Wizard Apprenctice - Pyromancy) - Magical Heirloom

35x Orc 'Eadbashers - Full Command, Spears, Green Tide Banner
30x Cave Goblins - 2x Mad Gits

33x Iron Orcs - Full Command, Mikinok's Totem
Orc Boar Chariot
5x Goblin Raider Wolf Riders

Skewerer
Greenhide Catapult (Git Launcher) w. Orc Overseer

Gargantula
Giant w. Giant Club

The list was built around a couple of gribblies in the Gargantula & Giant whilst my Iron Orc General on his War Boar would be roaming around solo hopefully causing some trouble.  My two big infantry blocks (I'm not counting the Cave Goblins) would be my main objective grabbers and fighters whilst the Gobbos, Boar Chariot & War Machines provided some support.

With only a Wizard Apprentice (albeit with the Heirloom to get the additional spell) I was intrigued to see how I'd compete in that phase, especially against a Wizard master.

Battle would commence in an age-old Elves vs. Greenskins!

Kind regards,
Hyper-G

Road to Bristol: The Art of War! #1

Howdy folks!

So, 2.0 BETA has dropped and PTG is venturing into the unknown and plunging ourselves into the tournament scene. 2018 is a big year for us, and lots of content coming your way you lucky people!

The tournament in question is in Bristol on 18/19 Feb and we are super excited to say that we will be a part of it. This is our first tournament we have ever attended in any format so are not really expecting much except to broaden our horizons and meet some fellow geeks of the 9th Age community. As I said, very excited!

So much so, in fact, that, in true newbie style we have got in touch with the tournament organiser, Callum, to ask a few questions about the set up and everything we need to know. We seem to have made a good impression though, as he has graciously invited us up to play a few games and meet some of his group a few weeks prior to the tournament. Thus, we will be able to get quite a few practice games in using the new rule-set - which is where this series of posts begins.

We will be having a few internal battles to test the rules and our armies out before heading down to scope out the area and opposition with a few external games. Then based on that, we will be polishing off our lists with a few more internal battles against some choice armies before heading out to challenge T9A folks in their domain.

This means that in the coming weeks, we will be releasing several posts based on the lists we are taking and the practice battles in the build up to the tournament - and of course, full coverage of the tournament itself. So watch this space peeps!

To start you off though, we will look at my list that I'm going with - which is of course, my beloved Highborn Elves! This list is subject to change based on our battles and some feedback on the forums, but will for the most part stay the same, due to these being my favourite/best painted models, so its the special items and commands that will change rather than the units themselves. Anyway, here it is:

High Prince, Queens Cavalier, Elven Horse, Lance + Nova Flare, Dragonforged Armour + Diadem of Protection, Shield

Mage, Wizard Master, Order of the Fiery Heart, Alchemy, Dragon, Paired Weapons + Hero's Heart, Shield + Starmetal Alloy, Rod of Battle, Potion of Swiftness

5x Elein Reavers

5x Highborn Lancers

24x Seaguard + Standard: Banner of Becalming

11x Knights of Ryma + Full Command + War Banner of Ryma

Lion Chariot

Giant Eagle

19x Queens Guard

So as you can see, not a lot of models but tries to compete in every phase. Pretty good shooting with the Queensguard/Seaguard combo; Fast combat units with the Dragon and the Knights + Prince, with small support units in the Lancers and Lion chariot - who will also be on the prowl for some monsters; and a good amount of chaff to support (Lancers can double up as chaff if needed). Scoring wise, I have 4 units that can claim objectives and the Mage is designed to be decent in the magic phase - as well as some subtle magic support with the HBE core rules and the becalming banner to help out. Plus, he's a freaking Dragon! I must admit, when the new rules for the Fire Dragon Mage came out, and allowed him to take alchemy and buff his mount when casting spells this was the first thing I put in my list. Pumped to see how he can fare in battle.

Anyway, that will do for now, and hopefully we will have some juicy battle reports with you very soon. We will aim to review how this list changes after every battle and hopefully have a very refined list come submission date - which is 3rd February 2018 - although we will be posting slightly behind when things happen for obvious reasons. So lots to cram into a short space of time, with Hyper-G's Orcs & Goblins as the first test, coming very soon! Excited!

As always, leave your questions and comments below and thanks for your support!

Lucky-Sixes

#4 Dwarven Holds vs. Highborn Elves 2

Welcome back folks to the concluding part of this battle report.

We had over a week to contemplate our next moves in this one so when we resumed we were both raring to go at it!  For the beard! (in my case at least!)

So Dwarf Turn 4 began with minimal movement as most of my interesting units were either locked in combat or already doing vaguely what I wanted them to do anyway.  And so we went almost straight to magic... and I'd been plotting this for some time!

A small bit of magic missile damage...

But the main news was the Rune of Storms that I managed to get through and, with the last Lightning Attacks part taking the final wound, somehow Lucky's Sixes Phoenix rider was no more!  This was despite the ward save and magic resistance!

What a result!

I certainly didn't expect to kill the thing!  My objective in this spell was to maybe do a wound or two, but mostly to stop the Phoenix using its flying movement to either support the Spearmen or hunt down my Anvil.  Still... I'm not complaining!

Lucky-Sixes says...

Well... Damn! I must admit, I thought I could weather the magical storm with my BSB, mainly due to the magic resistance improved ward save but not to be. That really put a thorn in my side and with the Knights held up that bloomin' magical anvil will have free reign to do whatever it wants, and with multiple magic missiles it could really scupper my plans.

Further shooting added insult to injury as this unit of Archers was almost done for

Then it was on to combat...

The Forge Wardens continued to show they weren't just a shooting unit and one further breath weapon to help the Spearmen were finished.  Lucky-Sixes Elf character did survive to run, and get away, but the Forge Wardens were swiftly in pursuit

In what was clearly a hugely well-timed magic phase I'd also made these chaps stubborn and it helped to hold up the Elf General even longer as the Miners threw themselves under his blade but held him in place!

Also, as expected, the grind continued over here with both sides trading their weapons for pillows and no-one being killed!

It had been an incredibly successful turn 4 for me and the Dwarfs, and the complete opposite for Lucky-Sixes and the Highborn Elves.  But they certainly weren't out of the fight yet as that Dragon Mage was very much still looming and with three Bolt Throwers ready to get some revenge turn 5 for them could also be a massive one!

After Elf Turn 5 charges, etc. this was how it looked as the Dragon decided to take things into its own claws and the lone Elf character rallied to find himself staring down the Forge Wardens who'd decimated his brethren moments ago.

With revenge on his mind Lucky-Sixes unloaded with his Bolt Throwers but if the previous turn didn't show that things were leaning my way a minimal amount of Forge Warden casualties confirmed it.

Predictably the Miners couldn't hold on any longer in combat but they'd more than done their job.

Less predictably something did go Lucky-Sixes' way and my Dwarf character failed his break test and ran away!  But the Knights let him go in favour of reforming to dish out Elven fury on the Anvil for all the damage it had caused.

But in the place of one Dwarf character having a blip another stepped up to challenge the Dragon and actually survived too! 

This is how it looked after Elf turn 5 and I couldn't help but begin to hope that I might be able to pull this one off!

Lucky-Sixes says...


Yeah, the spears could not match up to a more elite unite. they had done their part but in the end didn't have the defensive capacity for all that fighting. It had been a mistake to charge them in so early and I had paid the price for it. Although, it was in no small part to my opponent having so many str4 breath attacks - brutal for my fragile elves.

Meanwhile, my other big combat threats had been chaffed up in several combats with several different champions or characters and that had severely slowed their progress. At least I had successfully defended my artillery hill up till now - although, again, it had meant that I hadn't been able to pump any shots into the Forge Wardens until now and now it was too late to have much more impact on them. It was going to be tough, but lets see what I could do to bring back this battle into my favour...

I had a bit of thinking to do at the start of my turn 5 as I felt like I could win this one but I knew there were a lot of points tied up in Lucky-Sixes' Dragon and Charioteer general, both of which I doubted I could do much about.  The Knights of Ryma were also unlikely to yield me any points and therefore I came to the conclusion that I definitely needed to secure the objective.

Instead of charging all the Rangers into a Bolt Thrower I decided to bypass one of them and only go for the other two with my Runesmith.  This allowed the Rangers, one of my few units with a standard bearer to go for the objective in a rather boring outing for them, but potentially crucial!

Something killed the final two Archers, probably some of that awesome Dwarven magic everyone knows and loves!

A more reliable source of death-dealing here though as the Forge Wardens complete their bullying of the Spearmen unit by unloading on the surviving Elf character who didn't last long.

It looks like something also finished off one of the Bolt Throwers... although for the life of me I have no idea what!

And in the only combat of the turn the Dragon finally dealt with the Master Engineer that dared to survive the previous turn, but as can be seen the Forge Wardens had turned around and were ready to frustrate...

Somewhat unfortunately for Lucky-Sixes, he didn't think this next turn coming was his turn 6 and so when that was established it was a bit of a shock for him.  But nonetheless we made sure and it indeed revealed that it was now or never for the Highborn Elves who needed to continue picking up some victory points and also find a way to stop the Rangers from keeping the central objective.

The quest for points began with completing a charge on the Anvil by the Knights of Ryma who were so keen to kill it that they rolled double sixes on the way in.  Don't blame them really!

The pesky Runesmith that had tried to make a run on the Bolt Throwers was shot down for further points.

And the Dragon chewed through some Dwarfs who no longer had anyone left to challenge him.

Revenge?  Justice?  Anvil dead!

Despite all this relative success for Lucky-Sixes the turn had started with his Lion Chariot general failing to charge the central Forge Wardens to help out the Dragon in killing them.  An extremely frustrating end for the Highborn Elf leader in what had been a tough battle for him.

And this was our final picture as Highborn Elf Turn 6 ended

It escapes my memory as to whether the Forge Wardens in the middle were killed off in my final turn or whether they had 1-2 left after the Dragon's final swing but with the Rangers claiming the objective it was clearly down to a count up!

When all was said and done (and counted) the victory points revealed that it was very close points-wise, actually just showing that Lucky-Sixes narrowly had done the most damage.  But of course, in this game of objectives the 10-10 scoreline swiftly changed to 13-7 in my favour and victory was complete!

Overall I was slightly surprised that I hadn't just scraped the victory points as well but it made me even more relieved that I'd managed to claim the objective.  This unique Dwarf list was one I thoroughly enjoyed playing and after that incredible turn 4 that turned the battle my way, I don't doubt I'll be giving a similar list a go again in the future... perhaps in a different gaming version... (spoiler alert!)

MVP for me goes to the Anvil.  Although the Forge Wardens and characters were all important the spells that the Anvil was able to pump out with such success no less were crucial in getting the victory.  Somehow I don't think the Anvil (or Dwarf magic) will stay this strong for too much longer!

Lucky-Sixes says...

In the end, it turned out to be a very hard fought victory for the Dwarfs, but with a little bit of luck the other way and my Phoenix surviving it could have gone all so different! Still a very fun battle, and nice to play a different type of Dwarf list than a standard gun-line or big brick of great weapon wielding brutes!

My tactic to shoot his crossbows I feel was successful, but in the end I didn't show enough respect to the Forge Wardens shooting ability - forgetting that str4 shooting is a massive pain for elves lol. Also, the magic potential the Anvil on it's own brings is insane! Very handy to have and was a real threat all the way through the game. Again, something I should have targeted sooner in the battle.

I was disappointed with my deployment of my lion chariot. he was easily kept out of the game by the multiple small units and in the end was glorified protection for my bolt throwers. Dragon did OK, but he and the Phoenix were limited in what they could damage due to 'Fireborn' on the Forge Wardens. They played their part and helped to clear most of the core/chaff but really they need to be concentrating on the threats. Knights did okay too, but were held up all too easily by the Dwarf character. They did manage to get rid of the Anvil though so probably get my MVP award. In the end, I was quite pleased to get a draw on points with it, but there was no doubt that this battle belonged to the Dwarfs!

The Fire Elves was a fun list, and as Hyper-G says, will be good to get a similar list up and running for future battles.

As always, thanks for supporting and see you soon! :)

#4 Dwarven Holds vs. Highborn Elves 1

Hi all,

It's time for a dedicated battle report with pictures and all!

Lucky-Sixes has recently been trying out his 'Fire Elves' list for Highborn Elves and I was about to begin my rotation through some Dwarven Holds lists.  The stage was set - The War Of The Beard lives on!

This was a 3,000 point battle and although most of my Dwarfs were not the exact units they looked like this probably gets around an 8/10 for proxy due to Lucky-Sixes' 100% non-proxy rating.

As a side note, this could potentially be our last 9th Age version 1.1 battle before we move on to 9th Age version 2.0 (Beta).  Very exciting!

Dwarven Holds (Hyper-G)
Master Engineer (Grum Burlaksson) (Rune of Dragon's Breath, Rune of Shielding, Rune of the Forge, Shield, Forge Repeater)
Master Engineer (Ulfred Spanglehelm) (Rune of Dragon's Breath, Shield, Wyrm-Slayer Rocket)
Thane (Thor Stonebeard) (BSB, Rune of Dragon's Breath, 2x Runes Of Shielding, Shield)
Thane (Durden Drave) (Holdstone, Rune of Steel, 2x Runes Of Iron, Rune of Shielding, Shield)
Thane (Harding Grim) (Rune of Dragon's Breath, Rune of Kinship, Rune of the Forge, Shield, Pistol)
Runic Smith (Torgen Ninefingers) Rune of Dragon's Breath, Rune of Kinship, Shield, Rune of Resolve)
10x Greybeards (Vanguard, Shields, Throwing Weapons)
10x Greybeards (Shields, Throwing Weapons)
12x Clan Marksmen (Handguns, Great Weapons)
16x Clan Marksmen
12x Clan Marksmen (Guild-Crafted Handguns)
10x Deep Watch (Musician, Standard Bearer, Runic Standard of Dismay)
11x Forge Wardens
11x Forge Wardens
10x Forge Wardens
Steam Copter
Attack Copter
10x Miners (Throwing Weapons, Standard Bearer)
20x Rangers (Throwing Weapons, Great Weapons, Standard Bearer)
Anvil of Power (Rune of Storms, Rune of Shattering, Rune of Oaths)

As can be seen my list is quite a MSU (many small units) list and it also has a fair amount of shooting too.  It's unlike any list for Dwarfs that I've ever played going back as far as 7th Edition Warhammer so it's a completely new idea for me to take on.  With 5 characters sporting Breath Weapons it's packing some secret nastiness and I'm interested to see how this is going to turn out... especially when I saw Lucky-Sixes' list...

Highborn Elves (Lucky-Sixes)
High Prince (Ramzha) (Royal Huntsman, Lion Chariot, Great Weapon, Heavy Armour, Lion's Fur, Bluffer's Helm, Talisman of Greater Shielding, Divine Icon)
Archmage (Tai) (Lv.3 Fire, Order of the Fiery Heart, Young Dragon (Saphira), Dragonforged Armour, Hardened Shield, Talisman Of Supreme Shielding, Wand Of Stability)
Commander (Zion) (BSB, High Warden of the Flame, Flame Phoenix (Flareon), Flaming Lance, Potion of Strength, War Standard, Lucky Shield)
Commander (Farryn) (Queen's Companion, Great Bow of Elu)
Commander (Blaze) (Heavy Armour, Shield, Spear of the Blazing Dawn, Daemon Hunter's Helm, Potion of Swiftness)
5x Reavers (Bows)
35x Citizen Spears (Full Command, Flaming Banner)
17x Citizen Archers (Champion, Musician)
17x Citizen Archers (Champion, Musician)
6x Knights of Ryma (Devastating Charge, Champion, Standard)
14x Queen's Guard (Longbows, Standard, Banner of Speed)
3x Sea Guard Reapers (Repeating Bolts)
Great Eagle

The fire theme is quite prevalent and there's also some important Fireborn hanging around on two of Lucky-Sixes big nasty characters so immediately my Flaming Forge Warden shots and Flaming Breath Weapons look less useful (but not useless I'll add!)  The Highborns also have an abundance of shooting meaning that this could quickly turn into a ranged battle but whilst Lucky-Sixes' Elves have the edge in distance he can shoot, the Dwarfs' shots will pack a bit more of a punch.

The Ridden Monster & Monstrous Beast (Phoenix & Dragon) will be important as the Dwarfs may not be able to deal with them especially in their low numbers but with their shooting capabilities they at least don't have to rely on triple marching to get close to their enemies in combat.

I'm really liking the Shield Wall special rule for Dwarfs in 1.1 9th Age and think it could really be a useful addition to make Great Weapon Dwarfs less of an automatic choice.

Lucky-Sixes says...

My Fire Elf list is one I have been trying for 2/3 games now and in each of the previous battles I have made several mistakes, mainly due to not really knowing the army and what I should be doing with anything.

It's a fun list though, and is trying to be a jack of all trades list. Essentially the goal is to use my shooting and offensive magic to whittle away the enemy units enough that I can hit them hard with my hammer units (General chariot and Knights of Ryma mainly), while giving them support with Fire Phoenix, Dragon and Spears. This is obviously in an ideal world and with best intentions of a less than optimal general so not guaranteed to happen by any means, haha!

For the most part, I consider this a good match up for me. Toughness 4 across the board will be tough to deal with, but I can out-range most of his shooting units and have good mobility to get behind him (as he has to move forward to engage me with his shooting/combat units) and for charges. My main issue is that he is Fireborn with his big 3 units and my main shooting/magic that would normally target these units are flaming. So in some respects I will have to change up my targets so that my archers/bolt throwers go for his rare dwarfs while my Queen's Guard and Dragon concentrate on his chaff.

Either way it looks like a very interesting match up and hopefully I can bring in a win for the Highborn! Raise thy Bows... and all that jazz!

Including scouting Rangers, vanguarding Greybeards & Reavers this is how we lined up.  Most of the Dwarfs were set alongside one another ready to move forward and shoot whilst the Elves hugged the hill in the middle that their Bolt Throwers huddled on, monsters looming nearby and Spearmen facing off with the Rangers.

Deployment saw some interesting decisions, or rather just the one as far as I was concerned as Lucky-Sixes placed his Lion Chariot character behind his archers! Happy days for me although I did my best to keep very quiet about this at the time.

I'd tried to be quite coy with my deployment order and choices but Lucky-Sixes seized the initiative dropping his units before I did and getting the first turn.  Our secondary objective was to hold the centre with neither of us sporting a huge amount of standards.

The hail of shots began as my ranged opponent targeted the Crossbow Clan Marksmen shrewdly knowing that they had enough range to shoot back without moving first.

2 Rangers and 2 Forge Wardens also went down in the phase but it was the crossbows that really felt it.  Only 5 remained - that's called bullying!

With this unit depleted there wasn't much I could do in retaliation other than move up my Greybeards to bait a charge and advance with the shooters to get into range.  A few Elves were killed by disgruntled Crossbow Dwarfs avenging their fallen comrades too.

Greybeards moved up to bait the Elves into attacking and I managed to magically buff them with Stubborn too.

With the BSB nearby to provide a re-roll the Greybeards stuck around although the Eagle had prevented help from the Rangers in my next turn.

On the other side Lucky-Sixes' Reavers blocked my advancing Dwarfs whilst threatening Knights of Ryma planned their assault.

Need I mention that more Dwarfs were taken down to arrow shots and the observant amongst you will notice that the Lion Chariot had pushed its way between the Queen's Guard and Archers to also give me concern.

My Ambushing Miners didn't appear for turn 2 but I went on the offensive anyway as I now had some Elven targets in my Forge Warden's sights!

The Dwarfs shoot back killing the Queen's Guard and nearly the Queen's Companion character too.  A ghoulish-looking Steam Copter is also threatening the other Archers near the bolt thrower and the Flame Phoenix (that looks like a Frost Phoenix) has taken a couple of wounds from shooting handguns, hazaar!

Bad Birdy!

Stubborn Greybeards no longer as Lucky-Sixes assesses his turn 3 charge(s)

Reavers didn't stand a chance and the Greybeard unit on the right had Stubborn cast on it to assist in its overrunning fate, which took them well past the Knights of Ryma's front!

For Helves Turn 3 Lucky-Sixes had some decisions to make.  As is usually the case he went with 'charge' as most of the conclusion to his decisions!  The Knights of Ryma charged into Handgun Dwarfs left behind after killing the Reavers without taking any losses, the Lion Chariot general sneaked past his unit of Archers to confront the Greybeards that had overrun a long way whilst the Spearmen and Flame Phoenix kept together to charge the other unit of Handgun Dwarfs.

Shooting for the Elves was not as prevalent as less arrows and harder targets meant that only 2 Forge Wardens and 2 Deep Watch were plucked off the board although a combination of 3 Bolt Throwers finally killed off the nearby Steam Copter with much frustration for Lucky-Sixes that it took all 3 to do so when only one of them actually did the damage!

That's why he's so scary, although the stubborn remaining Dwarf stands firm.

A much more convincing performance from the Spears & Phoenix this time around.

Ryma Knights leave no prisoners either as another Dwarf core unit is decimated.

All the charges were devastating and most of the Dwarf core was now in the dead pile.  But in all honesty this wasn't a huge surprise as they'd all been charged by much better combat units than they were.  But there was plenty of firepower still left in the Stunties!

The Spearmen turned towards a unit of Forge Wardens as Dwarf numbers were depleted everywhere.

Dwarf turn 3 was boosted tremendously by the arrival of the Miners who came on behind the Archers near the building.  The Forge Wardens on the left of the picture above reformed to face the Spearmen wondering if they'd charge them and were joined by the Dwarf general as well who abandoned the smallest Forge Warden unit in doing so.  Meanwhile the Rangers tried desperately to get back in the fight and were aided by a timely magical movement spell.

Between Dwarf shooting and some surprisingly strong magic missiles many Elven Archers met their doom, including the Queen's Companion finally.

More decisions presented themselves for Lucky-Sixes in his turn 4 and having seen off the last Greybeard it was the Lion Chariot general that had the frustrating task of having to go and deal with the Miners.  The bolt throwers were under threat from them without doubt but I personally was delighted in seeing the Helf leader going backwards away from my Forge Wardens and Rangers.

Lucky-Sixes says...
I must admit I debated completely ignoring this unit and sending my lord into his forge wardens. But this was a much farther charge if I did go for that, and the Dwarfs would get a stand and shoot reaction as well as being able to challenge him out and stick around so I wasn't sure whether it was the best thing or not. In the end, I choose to defend my back lines and mop up the minors. This basically meant I would get some points and save my general and potentially my remaining bolt throwers as well, so a much more defensive option - which is unlike me I must say! 

What was left of the Elf shooting finished off the middle Forge Warden unit and also in the picture you'll see that the Spearmen indeed charged the other Forge Wardens whilst the Phoenix reformed.

The Dragon-Mage, who had been fairly quiet, charged this Vargheist-like Steam Copter but killed it with magic before the combat so reformed instead

In my turn I'd moved the Thane with the Holdstone out of the Deep Watch to block the Knights of Ryma.  If he could survive their charge (challenging out their champion) then he could potentially hold them all game... he survived their charge without even a scratch!

Using only one of the two breath weapons the Forge Wardens proved themselves to not just be a shooting unit and churned through the Spearmen.

The Thane with the Miners took a noble decision to sacrifice himself for his fellows and it assisted them to hold secure and annoy Lucky-Sixes' general.

The remaining Miners reformed to face the Lion Chariot although it was doubtful how much that would make a difference.  Due to timings we had to pause the battle at this stage and so I'll end this post with a picture of how things stood overall and also our thoughts on how things were going and would pan out.

Most of how this looks has been covered but to also add there are two remaining Crossbow Dwarfs who somehow survived after the first turn attention they had.  Also, one Deep Watch remains - all huddled near to the Anvil on the right of the river towards the top of the picture.

Even though my dead pile was full of core Dwarfs, a Forge Warden unit, 2 Steam Copters and most of the Deep Watch I was feeling surprisingly okay.  It had so far been a slog of a battle with a lot dying and I was happy with my remaining Forge Wardens and Rangers, with their characters accompanying.  I hoped the Thane with re-rollable armour could keep the Ryma Knights busy for a while and the Anvil magic was proving to be very powerful... strange for Dwarfs really...

Also, I wasn't entirely sure how much thought Lucky-Sixes was giving to the secondary objective to claim the centre...

Lucky-Sixes says...
This was a really tight affair, and a very enjoyable one to boot - even though there was a lot of serious thought and decision making that meant I was actually quite happy for a break on this one. The battle could literally go either way, and as Hyper-G had pointed out, I had really not taken the objective into enough consideration and would now be looking to stop him from getting it rather than win it for myself. The trouble was how? My Dragon mage was the closest contender, but flaming attacks and flaming breath weapon meant his damage output was limited against the forge wardens and there was still some 1-2 model units floating around the Anvil that needed to be taken care of - especially now the Knights of Ryma were now locked in a seemingly eternal grind with a Dwarven Hero... not a character you want to be grinding with to be honest. My Flame Phoenix had taken some wounds but with minimal shooting coming his way and magic resistance (+ ward save) he was looking like the best option to clear the Anvil and units, but that would basically seal the Spearmen's fate as without any help, it wasn't looking good for them - even with a very good spear character aiding their cause. My backfield too was looking vulnerable, with that massive unit of Rangers so I had a lot to ponder at the half way (nearly) stage.

Thanks for reading folks,
Hyper-G