Hello again! Another month and another battle report for our league, in February we had to play LOOT, my thoughts on army preparation and game strategy can be found HERE. Lets start with the army lists: ORCS (Remember this are Orcs not Orks, they apparently know how to write in Mantica) - Mounted Godspeaker - Krudger on Winged Slasher with Blade of Slashing - Horde of Axes with Brew of Sharpness - Horde of Axes - Horde of Trolls - Regiment of Morax - Regiment of Gore Riders with Dwarven Ale - Wardrum SALAMANDERS - Skylord - Mage-Priest with Surge and Inspiring Talisman - Herald on Raptor with the Healing Charm - Horde of Fire Elementals with Blessing of the Gods - Horde of Fire Elementals with Wine of Elven-Kind - Horde of Ancients on Rhinosaurs with Pathfinder - Troop of Hunters - GFE - Lekelidon His army is to me a bit unbalanced, for a start with such a low nerve having only once source of inspiring is VERY risky, also he has literally no chaff at all, better for me. The double horde of Axes really bothers me though, that is a lot of CS attacks, specially afraid of the Brew of sharpness horde, really nasty unit. I'm pretty sure he will deploy the Gore Riders along his Krudger near a token and his trolls in front of another one, that is what I would do, so if I start first I will take the last one with my Hunters and just hide it. DEPLOYMENT I was hoping that he would mess up his deployment and gave me two easy tokens but he didn't, he played really well his cards, but as predicted I have a really easy token on the left so i know I will start with an advantage if I get to move first, sadly I will lose my second chaff unit, lets hope it doesn't affect my a lot. I know the centre token is almost impossible to get but if I can hold his big units for the entire game I can get the one on the right hopefully. We roll for first turn and he wins it, damn. I was extremely surprised when he gave it to me, lets not mess this up. SALAMANDERS TURN 1 On the left I move my Hunters up 10 inches and turn 90ยบ ending up over the token and picking it up, he is ore than 12 inches away and can only move 5 so I know next turn I will turn gain and move 5 (max with a token) and he won't be able to catch me, that is 1-0 now for the next 2. I advance 6 with my Elemental line, if I get near to the objective before he does I will have advantage if this gets to a stalemate, which I hope it does. On the right flank I move everything to be putside the range of the Gore Riders but I bait him a charge on the Lekelidon with his Krudger that has moved 12 to get the second loot token. If he takes the bait I know that a charge from the Ancients will likely kill him with a bit of luck (maths say an average 10 wounds with Brutal means I need a 7 twice to rout it) in the shooting phase I surge the Nimble Elementals up hoping not to get more than 6, I get 5 and that is almost perfect. ORCS TURN 1 Well my hopes for a cautious player blow up rather quickly, he is agressive, A LOT. Pushes is main units forwards and moves his trolls at the double the full 12 inches to get the central token. His Krudger takes the bait too and charges the Lekelidon. On the combat phase the Krudger makes an appalling 3 wounds on the Lekelidon that is not even wavered ( he rolled 6 1s to wound, BTW this is the first and last of his bad rolls) SALAMANDERS TURN 2 This was the perfect scenario to test my Nimble tricks, I sidestepped the FE and made a slight turn so that when I surge them they would hit the corner in such a way that it would be a flank charge, then multicharged both of the other FE and the GFE on the front, maybe a bit of overkill but I really wanted to get rid of them (In perspective that maybe wasn't a good idea). On the right flank the Herald healed a wound on the Lekelidon that pivoted and moved up to chaff the Gore Riders in the flank and the Skylord flies over the enemy lines and shoots at the Godspeaker making 3 wounds and routing it! YES The trolls were completely smashed in the center and I reposition to face the inevitable charges and on the right the Ancients only manage to do 8 wounds with a horrible to hit roll and sadly Ionly mange to waver the Krudger. Right now the game is looking great but i'm pretty sure those counter charges will hurt. ORCS TURN 2 The feared hordes charge my two hordes of FE and the moraxes that wouldn't fit in the gap between the Lekelidon and the Krudger are force to charge the Lekelidon along the gore riders. He backs up the Krudger so my Ancients can't reach him, that was a very clever move. Combat was brutal, one of my hordes the one with the nimble is routed in one turn with an amazing roll, way higher than average and two consecutive high nerve rolls, the other one is badly wounded and the poor lekelidon is no more. Ouch. SALAMANDERS TURN 3 I was hoping for both my hordes to resist at least one turn and now the game is not looking good, my only hope is to get lucky and kill one of his hordes in one go with a front charge from my FE and a flank surge from my GFE (with a war drum nearby I'm not really counting on it) My herald moves to heal the FE as he is more needed there. On the right the Ancients charge the Moraxes on the front and having the choice to charge either the Krudger or the Moraxes with my Skylord I go for that juicy rear, again not sure that was the wisest move as you will see soon but i really needed to kill them. I kill the Moraxes easily and reposition to face the charge of the Gore Riders in such a way that the charge would be hindered when they slide. The other combat goes well, 14 wounds is great but not nearly enough with the War Drum nearby. ORCS TURN 3 No picture here, sorry. I supose it got lost in all the blood. He charges both his Krudger and his Gore Riders into the Ancients, countercharges the Horde into the FE and charges the rear of my poor GFE with the other Horde. I was looking at the posibility of all my units dying this turn. Not a great prospect. The first combat was with the tyrants and although some wounds were made they held. Then we went to the GFE combat and he asked me if he should just double 1 it, and then I looked at the clock and realised he had only like 7 or 8 minutes left, he wasd likely going to run out of time so I said NO. Yeah I did that, I made him roll 75 attacks (that is one of the problems of running big hordes) of course the GFE died but he died for the cause. The we got to the big one, his Gore riders were hindered but still they manage to make 7 wounds! and the krudger rolled like a mad man and made another 8, with 10 attacks! 15 wounds was too much and even with inspiring they died. He reforms the Krudger to face the Skylord and the Riders to face the objective. SALAMANDERS TURN 4 Well, this doesn't look as good as I was hoping. My combat power has been reduced to 1 wounded Horde of FE, and he still has most of his and one more objective than I have, not great. Still I had one loot token and by the looks of it I could manage a draw if I get rid of his wounded Krudger and the Riders. I charge once more the surviving FE into the Orc Horde, I also have a rear charge from the Skylord into the Riders that I take and position my Mage-Priest to fireball his Krudger. The spell went really bad not making a single wound while the Herald healed the FE, the combats had mixed results, the FE killed the horde finally and reposition to face the other one, and their death presumably, and the Skylord manage to do only 2 wounds on the Riders, not really enough. ORCS TURN 4 Again no picture sorry, I was struggling here badly. My Skylord was out of arc of his Krudger so he just reformed to face the action in next turn, while the Riders instead of counter charging my Skylord decided to play the objective and grabbed the second token confident in their success. Inevitably the other Horde charged my FE. As predicted the FE die but again those 25 attacks take some time to make and he is running REALLY short. I think he ended his turn with like 2 minutes on the clock. Should have offered the flank instead just to make sure...
SALAMANDERS TURN 5 Well if I make him roll lots of dice he might run out of time and I could get a chance of winning here (we weren't sure what rules applied in this case so we went for can't roll any dice and can only give the halt or pivot order), otherwise only thing I could do is draw if I killed the right flank. So I moved the Herald to block the Riders and placed the Mage-priest out of the Krudger arc but in a place where the Gore Riders could overrun onto him with a good roll, my thinking was to bait him to charge the herald in the hopes of overrunning and give me a final rear charge with the Skylord (theta I moved directly to the back of the Riders) while the Mage-priest was still rather safe (think he needed a 5 to make it) In the Shooting phase the skylord put another 2 wounds on the Riders and my great, GREAT Mage-Priest blessed by Sotek in his serpentine glory and sinuous wisdom blasted what it must have been the strongest Fireball ever, that completely destroyed the Krudger. Praised be Sotek!! ORCS TURN 5 He took the bait and went for the Herald, while his horde just pivoted their enormous mass to face something useful. Not surprisingly the Herald died but he couldn't get the Mage-Priest. He did his turn lightning fast but still there is one turn left an only had like 40 seconds on the clock, and I was planning on taking advantage of that. TURN 6 Well I will have to be sneaky and have a bit of luck to get this off, fist I moved the Mage-Priest out of the way of his big Horde just in case and charged my Skylord into the rear of the Gore Riders. There was a bit of shooting but in the end it was irrelevant. In the crucial combat my Skylord rolled his 15 attacks, I was expecting 4 wounds statistically etting them to 8 that would require a 7 (appalling nerve of 15) sounds great to me, right in the sweet spot, and I rolled...... NONE. Damn! The only good thing is that I know for sure he can't countercharge me unless he is flash, but with my luck today who knew. It's his turn and just as he is turning about to move the Gore Riders the clock beeps, fantastic! I even took the picture just then Right now he is winning, I desperately need another turn, I make the roll and for the thisrd time in the game luck is by my side, we go to turn 7. TURN 7 We decide to just roll the combat and see, I do. Finally I get what I should and the Gore Riders DIE, my skylord gets the token and the WIN. My God that win tasted sweet, so, so sweet. After we rolled all this we got confirmation from the league organiser that if you timed out all your units were considered ROUTED, so it turns out I had won in turn 6 with a 1500 point attrition score and 1 objective to 0, but still it was good to know I would have won anyways with the new CoK rules. ENDING Something was wrong with the greenskins, Itepixcauh felt it since they appeared in the horizon. Their eyes injected in blood, the jaws dislodged with pure madness charging forwards disregarding their lives. He had fought the Orcs in the past and even though their fierceness is legendary this was something else, he could taste it. Leaned on his polished jade staff he still couldn't believe the carnage and bloodshed that laid all around him, his army brutally dispersed and broken to obtain the two pulsating orbs of light he had in his hands. Wise enough to know when coincidences are no more, this battle was a revelation, the orcs had victory on their hands and suddenly surprised filled their eyes as rage dispersed into the air, Itepixcauh could almost see the twirling patterns of red and purple mist floating into the sky, and then as fast as they appeared they fled. There were powers well above the pesky orcs that were playing against him, but now he knew. Sadly the greenskins took one of the cristal orbs with them, probably not even knowing what they had. It makes no diffenrece, two werent enough, the search hasn't come to an end yet.
Excellent fight! It's amazing to see how your perspective of your opponent changed over the course of the battle. That was a hard game, but you pulled it off! The only disconnect that I have in reading your stuff is that I'm not well versed in KoW lingo nor Salamander names. Gonna have to study up.
Thanks!! take a look at the post I made regarding names: http://lustria-online.com/threads/lizardmen-to-salamanders-conversion-chart.17706/ Also, yes my point of view of my opponent changed a lot, I really had this game as an easy win but got smashed hard. Lesson learned, never underestimate the enemy.
I love how you made him roll all the attacks just to run the clock down what a brilliant move that was. Great battle and great write up as usual.
That's standard procedure! Always make sure your opponent does everything so it runs their clock down. In very time-restricted tournaments (Clocks of War) I've known people to avoid taking rear charges because they wouldn't have time to roll all the dice.