KoW Salamanders vs Ratkin [Dominate! 2000pts]

First things first, apologies for the 'unique' look and feel to the game. The gaming club I usually go to has lost its venue so I played at the Ratkin player's house, and he didn't have a green mat or scenery. As such, the board is made of 6 Deadzone mats, the Deadzone scenery were buildings, the books and box were height 2 hills, the green cloth was a forest and the blue cloth was water (difficult terrain). I'm also playtesting an updated list so I've used paper cutouts for some units. And I forgot to field my Herald so that unit doesn't appear on the board!

Salamanders
Regiment Kaisenor Lancers w/ Caterpillar
Horde Fire Elementals
Horde Fire Elementals
Horde Salamander Primes
Regiment Ember Sprites
Regiment Ember Sprites
GFE
Lekelidon
Lekelidon
CLoWFD w/ Armour
Herald w/ War-bow of Kabba
Mage-Priest w/ Surge and Inspiring
Mounted Mage-Priest w/ Surge

Ratkin (from memory)
Horde Spear Warriors
Horde Brutes w/ Fog
Regiment Blight
Regiment Vermintide
Regiment Vermintide
Troop Scurriers w/ Light Crossbows
Troop Scurriers w/ Light Crossbows
Artillery
Weapon Team
Death Engine w/ Vile Sorcery
Mutant Rat-fiend
Warlock
Enforcer w/ Dragon breath
Demonspawn

Setup


Game










Finish


(Close up)


Thoughts on Setup
For setup I deployed my Salamander Horde early on the left far flank. This not only (potentially) refuses a flank, but also provides something with a bit of 'bite' should he ignore it. Luckily he took the bait and deployed the majority of his ranged on that side. While that did deal with the horde in turn 3 without the Primes landing a single blow, it meant that the rest of my army was pretty safe from being shot. Knowing the trees would provide good cover I placed my CLoWFD, one unprotected FE horde & M-P on my centre right, with the GFE, other FE horde and other M-P the other side of the building. This latter group was covered by the two Lekelidons. Right far flank had Kaisenor Lancers covered by an Ember Sprite horde. The other Ember Sprites were placed in my centre as an annoyance. The setup worked remarkably well and broke the game down into three - on the left it was ranged vs Primes, with their job being to mess with his deployment (tick) and hold up those units long enough to allow me to gain advantage the other side. The centre was a straight fight between Mutant Ratfiend & Blight covered by Scurriers vs CLoWFD and FEs with Sprites supporting - this was tight and could have gone either way. The right was Demonspawn, spear horde & Brutes vs the rest of my army, which I thought I would win but had to be very careful not to get the absolutely brutal Demonspawn in the flank.

Analysis
On the left flank the Primes did their job in setup, and died in Turn 3 (wavering (i.e. not dying) in turn two was good!). As you can see immediately after the unit disappears he tries to pivot his ranged units to be able to open fire on the centre, but his Artillery was left in charge range of my Clan Lord, who then moved forward out of all sight arcs afterwards. This caused absolute chaos as I spent the rest of the game jumping around his ranged units breathing fire, focusing on the units that could damage me most (weapons team). With armour 6 there was little he could do, even if by the end he had put 9 wounds on me, whereas low-armour rats are vulnerable to high attack breath weapons. CLoWFD was then able to jump back into the centre for game end.

I thought I had lost the centre when my M-P surged my FEs only 2 inches when I needed 3 to hit the Blight in the flank, opening up their own flank to the Mutant Rat Fiend. Luckily they survived this (the Fiend took them up to 10 wounds) and realising I might struggle I brought the GFE over from my right flank to hit the Fiend in his side. Although I rolled lucky and didn't need it, I had the opportunity to double-surge my GFE to make sure he got in. I've never run two M-Ps before but this is an absolute godsend - it's essentially Surge (16) on top of a 6" move, which is insane! The threat area of anything with surge becomes phenomenally large, and as surge moves work best when you catch players unawares having this up your sleeve is brilliant. Having one of the M-Ps mounted is the cherry on top to make sure you keep this option available throughout the game as it gives him more movement to get into the right place. As soon as the GFE switched from flank to centre I was able to turn it around, get the upper hand and clear out his units.

The right flank required a bit of tricksy movement to make sure I wasn't flanked, but I ended up triple charging his spear horde twice with Lekelidon, Lancers and Sprites to kill it. His Demonspawn killed my FE horde (but took a good amount of damage doing so) but was then unable to avoid being charged by Lancers and Sprites and succumbing. I think he had the idea to move his Brutes to the centre for the same reasons as I moved my GFE, but after I had dealt with the Demonspawn and spears (and my GFE was fighting so couldn't surge) I was able to turn both M-Ps and Lekelidons on shooting them, and with only DE4+ they died fairly quickly.

After all of the above came the obligatory charge into the centre to get the points and the difference in the amount killed clinched it. The final score was 747 - 430, so a 300 point win. Something I hadn't taken into account was that in Clash of Kings rules (which will no doubt be in the 'official' tournament rules released this year) flyers and Individuals count for half points, so that was 300 points immediately discounted from my total! By the standard rules it would have been 1050 - 430. This is something I will definitely keep my eye on next time!

 

Sounds like an awesome game! Still need to learn the rules to KOW but sounds so awesome!

 

Well get learning! What is stopping you?

Thank you!

This is the first time I have used them and in this particular battle they performed spectacularly well, so I can't be too unhappy. But I can't help but feel I only used them because they are the nearest thing Sallies have got to what I wanted, rather than actually wanting what they provide. I think the main issue is that they aren't good at anything. Other armies have cheap chaff that is terrible at everything but then very good at one specific thing, which is great because you can use them as a tool for that specific function without spending points on attributes you don't need. Brotherhood Reconnoiterers are a perfect example - super fast and nimble with few other features - I playtested a Salamander with Brotherhood allies list a couple of weeks ago to be able to use a troop of them as my Kaisenor chaff screen. It worked beautifully as I was immediately able to move 18 inches right into the face of the enemy line, forcing him to react, and this provided opportunities for my Kaisenors to be more effective than I had ever been able to make them in games before or since. Sprites, on the other hand, are slow, their breath is feeble, their melee is feeble, their defence and nerve aren't high...

After writing the above I've just had another look at options and realised I can't see for the life of me why I would have taken the two regiments of Sprites over a two troops of Unbloodeds. Is there any reason one might choose Sprites over Unblooded as they are the same points cost but Unbloodeds are clearly better? I can see in other lists having Height 0 chaff helps protect archers while not impeding Line of Sight, but that benefit hardly applies to us!

 

There is nothing in the rules to say you can't, and yes it absolutely is! I'm feeling good about this list, but only time and more battles will tell.

 

just realized ill be trying a list very much like this soon!

Do you feel fast enough?

 

I'm not sure with Sallies one could ever feel fast enough, which obviously puts us at a disadvantage. However, this list contains a few workarounds to compensate.

If we're talking speed to be able to get into combat as soon as possible I tend to use my Salamander Primes as a pin cushion for an opponent's archers, providing more time for the rest of my army to push forwards. Depending on what is in front of the Primes (Sallies always tend to have less drops and therefore less choice over this) I will either aggressively move them forward (if there are ranged units opposite), or march forwards in the first turn and then retreat each subsequent turn to remain out of charge range (if there are melee units opposite). Either way, opponents are forced to retaliate with shooting to avoid receiving 25 CS(1) attacks. This tactic has worked so well for me I'm even looking to rejig the list to give them the Fog!

If you're thinking of speed to try to get around the flanks of opponents, that's where the FEs & GFE come in. Rather than trying to outflank (which you will tend to lose due to the smaller number of drops), try to manoeuvre units to allow flank surges. For example, turning 45 degrees when a unit is going to get charged can show you a flank when your opponent turns to face. With two M-Ps you can get 6" move + Surge (16) with Elite, providing lots of options for surge tricks. Mounting the second M-P makes sure that he can easily get within spell range should you ever want to pull it off.

Finally, hiding the CLoWFD and jumping him behind the lines around turn 3 provides a good distraction that also helps you both move up and see flanks / derrières. Unfortunately, with Ensorcelled Armour being removed from the game this tactic has become far less viable. I had a game on Friday and used him with a different magic item and he died too easily unfortunately. I'll definitely be trying him a few more times before dropping him though.