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!
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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.
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.
Thanks for reading,
Kind regards,
Hyper-G
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.
Thanks for reading,
Kind regards,
Hyper-G
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