KoW Clash of Kings Warm Up - Sallies vs Ratkin 2000pts - Dominate!

I know this isn't much of a bat rep - I was concentrating too much on the game to take pictures! It was against a Ratkin player ranked in the top 50 in the UK, and I've never played Ratkin before so it took a bit of focus. Anyway here are the 'before' and 'after':

Before (Hunters to the far left, and there is a Lekelidon off the screen to the right):



After:



He went first, and moved things up. Shot my cavalry and lekelidon with Scurrier troops with crossbows, lightning and Artillery. I moved my Lord on Winged Fire Drake behind the building and moved everything forward.

By the end of his turn 3 he'd killed my Kaisenor Lancers, Prime horde (triple charge with Demonspawn, Brutes horde and Scurriers troop) and lekelidon (lightning) while I'd killed nothing. Fire Drake flamed his troop, Greater Fire Elemental surged into the side of the Demonspawn (after breath attacking the troop just to make sure) and Fire Elementals charged the Brutes. Brutes and troop routed. His left flank still didn't move, except for trying to get his Spear Warriors horde around the building while not exposing a flank to my Hunters. Each time I would move them into his flank and shoot again.

Realising he was in trouble, his horde moved to be able to charge the Lord (exposing the rear to my hunters), his regiments of Shock Troops moved foward further on to my side to avoid a flank from my Ceremonial Guard regiment and the Blight regiment charged my Ghekkotah, who survived! He chose to charge my Mage-Priest with his Demonspawn to stop me surging and didn't overrun far enough , which opened the rear to the Elementals.

Double charged the Blight with Ghekkotah Warriors and Ceremonial guard and routed, rear charged the Spear horde with my Hunters and wavered, rear charged the Demonspawn and routed. I had been getting some breath attacks from my Herald w/ Diadem on the Shock Troops and they routed in that turn (I think) as well.

After this is was a dash to the centre, and he tried the same with his Mutant Rat-fiend and Death Engine as he had no other choice. After he'd double charged the Ceremonial Guard (they routed) he got a flank charge from my Lord, a flank charge from my Greater Fire Elemental and front charges from Ghekkotah Warriors and Ceremonial Guard. As you can see, they didn't survive.

All in all, I'm rather chuffed with the result, and happy with how the army is playing! Most of my flank charges were forced - he was having make choices as to what was going to kill him rather than making mistakes. The only surprise was the surge into the flank of his Demonspawn.

Roll on Clash of Kings! I'm still going to lose 6 times, but I'm just happy that the first time I have ever played with my actual models I had a fairly decent win! 870pts-0pts.

 

Don't you worry - I went to a boys' school!

The board was 4'4" x 6'2" - slightly larger than tournament size but that was the closest at the club (you should have been able to tell it wasn't 4' wide as my Prime horde would have taken up a quarter of the width of the board ). Still, going larger makes little difference due to the KoW's brilliance of measuring from the centre for setup, not the edges.

I started writing and realised it would be easier to write unit by unit:

Lord
Caused little to no 'useful' damage - his only damage beyond flaming the Spear Warrior horde a couple of times was flanking the Mutant Rad-fiend and that was after I had clearly won the game. However, the threat he presented in being able to jump over and start attacking from behind meant holding up a horde of a Mutant Rat-fiend, a Death Engine, and forcing odd movement with the horde of Spear Warriors and regiment of Shock Troops. 315pts Lord to hold up 750pts of his army was fantastic, particularly as my main force was weighted the other side so I could take that side and move inwards.

Mage Priest, Greater Fire Elemental & Fire Elementals
Inspiring Talisman helped out a few times, and his surge with a Greater Fire Elemental into the flank of the Demonspawn bit hard. This little team of three works fantastically together - the ideal is to charge Elementals into front and surge Greater into sides to increase his number of attacks, but as shown here, they can shine even if they do this to different targets. I did the same against an elf army (GFE in the side and Elementals into the front) and routed a Tree Herder (which are near impossible to rout) in one turn. The manoeuvrability and higher CS of the GFE combined with the higher number of attacks (but lower CS) of the FEs provides the ability to deal with any type of foe - if they have low defence, flank surge with FEs, if they have high defense, flank surge with GFE. Killer combo and an absolute must.

Hunters

I absolutely love these little fellas, and I've said it elsewhere that I would never dream of taking a 2000pts army without some! They are wildly, wildly underestimated by every opponent (because they're crap). He even pointed them out on my list and laughed at the stats before the game, and used them as an example of units he wasn't worried about. And yet they held up a Spear Warrior Horde and then charged it in the flank and wavered it. I can fully understand why people might not take them, but I love the annoyance factor - too small to put effort into squishing, but manoeuvrable enough to do some interesting things.

Salamander Primes

This was my riskiest move, and one I was experimenting with for the first time - using a horde of Primes as chaff (for the GFE & FE sat behind). I think I'm on to a winner here, but only some more battles will really tell. My reasoning is as follows:
1. The unit can cause so much damage (25 CS(1) attacks) that the opponent is forced to deal with them or risk taking a beating. This was my opponents response - a triple charge - which leaves the strong, high Def units an opponent will have to use to kill them open to surge trickery from elementals placed at both of the rear edges of the horde.
2. If they don't die, FEs and GFE both have greater height, so rather than getting held up behind chaff (worst thing ever), one or the other can actually double charge with the Prime horde if they are placed at the rear edges. A player can choose which of the units in a double charge moves first, which would be the Primes, who then slide way over to the side as per a double charge, allowing space for one or other of the FEs or GFE.
Either way, you're quids in. Or so the theory goes. The only concern would be if the Primes were boxed in at either end so couldn't slide to the side, so this needs an eye kept on it.

Ghekkotah Warriors & Ceremonial Guard

Boring work horses, but did a good job of tar pitting the centre a bit until I'd completely routed his flank and started moving elementals etc. towards the centre.

Fire Drake

Got off a few flame breaths to kill a Warlock and a troop of Scurriers with crossbows. After my Lancers and Lekelidon died I had to use him to tidy up that flank. Always make sure you assess which type of attack you want to use against what enemies - the unit analysis sheet I have shared elsewhere shows this quite clearly - to cause most damage against high def, close combat, against low def, breath.

Lancers & Lekelidon

These were meant to mop up the two Scurrier troops & Warlock but both died before they could do anything. Although disappointing, this did mean two average units had drawn considerable amounts of damage away from units that would be in combat later (and therefore need all their health!), so I suppose they did do their bit to help the victory. I may actually do this in future - just run the cavalry as fast as possible, therefore presenting the most immediate threat, to draw fire from my slower, game-winning units... For 190pts (I wouldn't want difficult terrain slowing them down) that may or may not be worth it. More testing after the competition is required.

In terms of tactics, I'm not sure I could have got a better win, so I'm not sure I would have changed anything! Some of the tactical elements started out as more luck than judgement (like the Prime chaff w/ elemental backup) but will definitely be making returns in future battles. I think the main thing I need to improve, and I have been getting better with experience, is to play the game as though there are six turns - I know that sounds obvious, but it's amazing the number of players that seem to play as though it's a 4 turn game, and go for objectives too early at the expense of strategy and tactics. Take your time and learn how far your units can travel around a board in 6 turns, and place / plan them accordingly. The game is only ever going to end in Turn 6 or 7, so why would you want any units in the centre for Dominate! before turn 6? As long as you can get them in there on turn 6, you're good! Something that is taking me a little longer to learn is how to happily lose units. At turn 3 both me and my opponent thought I had lost - I had been mauled so far, but it turned out losing the units I did (thereby drawing fire from elsewhere etc.) won me the game.

 

It is debatable whether my deployment was more luck or more judgement - I'm not sure there was much in the way of thinking things through! Here's to hoping you're right!

 

I originally had the Hunters with bows and cloaks, and in an ideal world they would still have both, but the change from Ankylodon to FEs & GFE required a couple of points from elsewhere, so the cloaks had to go. I can't see them being much use without the bows - the extra range doesn't cost much, but it allows them to be that bit more annoying.