KoW Fools of War 2017 Debrief

Just got back from Fools of War up in Stockport. Unfortunately I didn't take any photos (except for one of the last game to send to a mate) as it was rather full on the first day and I was hungover for the second. 6 games over 2 days - 4 on the Saturday and 2 on the Sunday and it was absolutely fantastic fun. Finished 14/24 with 3 wins and 3 losses. Even though I haven't got pictures (and I know how much you all like pretty pictures) I thought I would still do a little write up.

My list for the tournament was:
- Clan Lord w/ Wings of Honeymaze & Firebolts
- Herald w/ Boomstick
- Mage-Priest w/ Mounted & Surge
- Mage-Priest w/ Inspiring Talisman & Surge
- GFE
- 2 x Lekelidon
- 2 x Unblooded Troops
- 2 x FE Hordes
- Prime Horde w/ Brew of Haste
- Ghekkotah Warrior Regiment
- Kaisenor Lancer Regiment

Game 1 - Invade vs League of Rhordia (Loss 18/2)
Game 2 - Ransack vs Ogres (Loss 16/4)
Game 3 - Control vs Ratkin (Win 16/4)
Game 4 - Eliminate vs Elves (Loss 19/1)
Game 5 - Push vs Salamanders (Win 15/5)
Game 6 - Dominate vs Undead (Win 20/0)

Game 1
The main learning I took from this is DON'T TIME OUT. I was actually holding up really well - by turn 5 it was clear that I was going to lose the objective, but I was on the cusp of routing a good number of his units. This might have meant a 15/5 loss or even a 14/6 depending on how my last turn went. During the game there were two significant disputes over whether chargers were able to get in or not, and both counted my clock time down massively. The take-away from that was to remember to stop the clock as soon as there is a disagreement on anything, and this was something I did in all games going forwards. Luckily this tournament was a dice-down, rather than auto 20/0 loss, so even though he smashed his way through my units in turn 6 I was still able to salvage 2 TPs.

My opponent played the same list as he won the Black Dragon tournament with last week. He also won this tournament. He is also the number 1 player in the UK so far this season. As such, it was unlikely I was going to win. He used 3 Halfling Volley Guns (i.e. 45 shots, hitting on 5s, Piercing (2))in the centre to stop me moving forwards and had 2 hordes of Honour Guard (which are an equivalent unit to our Ancients on Rhinosaurs) amongst other things. My Clan Lord was able to take out two of the Volley Guns by the end, but not quick enough to allow my army to move forwards enough to stop main battle line being on my side of the board (which is rather important for the objective!). While I was doing better than expected against such a good player, I could never really come back from that. Not sure what I'd do in future - maybe try throwing more of my chaff directly in front in an attempt to help my others survive while pushing them forwards as fast as I could? The issue there was that I was mostly outranged by the Honour Guard, who then would have charged after the guns had shot my chaff. I'm thinking some Ancients on Rhinos would have helped out as their threat projection might have stalled his hordes... I will be looking to make some switches, possibly dropping the GFE.

Game 2
Fairly standard Ogre list - two hordes of shooters + other ogres of various descriptions. My Clan Lord did a fantastic job tying up one of the Ogre shooter hordes up for most of the game which no doubt saved countless wounds. Double surging took out a few of his melee hordes, while he was able to take out my Primes. It was a very tight battle but I was convincingly winning at the end of turn 6 I had a 16/4 win on my hands as I had 8 points and he had 5. Unfortunately, we then rolled and got a turn 7 (I was spitting feathers at this point). Because I had moved to the objectives on the last turn, in his turn 7 he was able to get some extremely favourable charges and shoot at everything else, routing both FE hordes, the Ghekkotah, and something else, leaving me nothing to come back with in my 7th turn. It ended up with him having 9 objectives to my 3 I think, and he'd also routed an extra 600 points. I was not happy. I'm not sure that I would have changed much, because for a 6 turn game I played my hand very well I had thought. Non-shooting lists are always going to suffer in objective marker-based scenarios if there is a surprise turn 7 because they will always have to disengage to capture objectives in their 6th in the knowledge that it might be the last turn. This will then always allow ranged units to get a completely unrestricted round of shots in their 7th. Still, it's something to bear in mind when I end up in a similar situation.

Game 3
This was against Ian, the guy I regularly play for practice, so you can read any of my Ratkin bat reps to see how these usually go . Control is a scenario I really struggled with at CoK, partly because my army is based around tight battle groups working together (so don't provide the wide coverage), and partly because I was playing Goblins who have the opposite of that problem. This time round I used my standard procedure of Primes in the centre, elemental battle group centre left, and pivot round. I was able to clear his right flank (my left) and then swing round, with my primes pivoting and creating an advancing wall travelling rightwards across the board. It ended up kettling his army in the right third of the board, and although he did get round the bottom of my Primes into the central square on my side (worth 2 to him), I double surged an FE horde towards me to get the higher unit strength in the square. Ended 4-2 in VPs as I had his side central, my side central and my side left. He had the two square on the right side. This tactic of sweeping sideways across the board is something that is working really well for me at the moment.

Game 4
I completely fell apart. At CoK (my first ever tournament) it was game 3 that I started to mentally struggle, in this tournament it was game 4, so that is an improvement! My deployment was absolutely horrific - I spread out my army (big no no for how mine works), and the majority was the opposite side of the board to the units I had to kill. The whole game involved me trying to get across as quickly as possible and being shot / charged off the board one by one. I'm not sure there are many learnings to take from it as my brain was so addled by this point I'm not sure any of my decisions are worth analysing.

Game 5
After getting completely hammered the night before, my head was in pain throughout this one. The only two Salamander players facing off against each other, and there was a lot of trading of loot tokens. Whereas I've gone down the FE route, he had gone down the Ancients on Rhinos route, and had two Ankylodons and two hordes of Tyrants. His rhinos hit like a brick (I want some), but only once before my FEs had surged into their flank and routed them. His Ankylodons and one horde of Tyrants nearly got round behind me from the left, which would have been very dangerous if I hadn't been pushing forwards with my main force and chaffing them up with everything (including my Herald who threw himself in front of the Tyrants and survived for two turns!) The final showdown in turn 7 (another turn 7!) involved his Ankylodon and Brutes routing my FEs and taking the 4 loot counters they had accumulated, and then my other FEs flank charging the Brutes to take two back for the win.

All in all it was a bit of a scrappy game, and I'm definitely getting more comfortable to use heros as chaff. Something sacrificing your inspiring is worth holding a unit up for a turn, and whereas before I wouldn't have made that call I am starting to get better at determining when or not that might be the case.

Game 6 (aka The Undead Somme)
I did exactly the same as in the Ratkin game - Primes centre, this time with Lancers centre right for threat projection and Ghekkotah far right, the elemental battle group to their left (with a forest directly in front of them) and the chaff (Lekelidons and Unbloodeds) spread across the line. He had a troop of Wights on my far left, Warewolves and Lykanis the other side of the trees, a troop of Revenant Cavalry behind them, a ghoul regiment and a ghoul regiment in his centre, and then a battle group of an Undead King (Surge 12), horde of warriors, regiment of zombies and a troop of some hard hitting undead things (all shambling). On the right he killed my Ghekkotah, but then struggled to get all his slow, shambling stuff to where the action was. On the far left left, my Clan Lord almost immediately grounded his Wights allowing a horde of FEs to double surge and rout them after 2 turns. On the centre left, his Warewolves and Revenant Cav were charging through the forest (-1 to hit, no TC), whereas my stuff (FE horde, GFE, Prime Horde) was not. By turn 4 he had nothing left here and the rest of the game (including another turn 7) was my entire army crunching rightwards through everything he had. Learnings - always take into account terrain because it can be absolutely crippling. Double surge is awesome, particularly as you can be in a position where neither unit can see each other (and therefore charge each other) due to being the opposite sides of a forest and then have a 6" move and surge 16 to make the charge.

And the one picture of the day!



Overall
Main take away from the tournament, I need more distanced hitting power, so I want to somehow work in a horde of Ancients on Rhinos. I was finding that because I don't have much distanced threat-projection I have to sacrifice all my chaff pretty much immediately (which is 350 points!) to even start the proper battle. I've noticed this for a while and it means that when I win I don't tend to win many extra points on the kill difference, whereas when I lose I lose badly. If I swap out the GFE and Ghekkotah (+ other tweaks) to get the Ancients in I think I'll be able to dish out just as much damage while also having much greater threat-projection. Ancients on Rhinos will also benefit from cover from height 1 infantry, which the GFE doesn't. Still, this would then remove the Ghekkotah who worked wonders as distraction on the opposite flank to the one on which I was concentrating. I'll see what I come up with and no doubt post on the army lists in preparation for the next tournament!

p.s. it still won't let me upload photos, so I can't even show the one I did take!

 

Sounds like a great tournament! Sounds like you learned a lot from this one.

 

You're on the money with that comment - while I tend towards winning convincingly when I do, having to sacrifice 350 points immediately reduces the difference in attrition. As time has gone on I've moved away from a 'covering all bases' list, finding that taking counter-units means I can focus on what the list does well. For example, rather than trying to match the shooting or flying dragon / horde game, I have the Clan Lord than can jump in to ground / disorder them. This then means I can spend all the saved points on more hard hitters, with chaff to enable them to get preferential charges.

I think the changes from the list above will be trading down the Boomstick (Lightning (3)) on the Herald to a Sparkstone (18" 4+ Disorder), remove the Ghekkotah and Greater Fire Elemental, and remove the Firebolts from the Clan Lord. This then allows me 295 points to include a horde of Ancients on Rhinosaurs with Maccwar's Potion of the Caterpillar. The Boomstick has been remarkably useful (my only 24" range!), but it's the only change I can make without seriously affecting the usefulness of certain units. I'm also a little concerned about losing a drop but I still have 4 chaff units and only playtesting will tell.

That bad?? I would have loved to see you there as well! I might, might be doing AltiBash IV in Altrincham on July 1st which is in the same neck of the woods?

 

I have had battles where he has been incredible (rear charging De6 dwarves at Clash of Kings for example!) but I was just a little underwhelmed by him at this tournament. The vast majority of units are not De6, so CS(4) is often wasted, and he only gets a meaningful number of attacks when he's put in a flank or rear. Obviously I can pretty much guarantee this with two surgers, but most of the time it was more beneficial to get 36 CS(2) attacks flanking with FEs than 16 CS(4) attacks with the GFE. While Rhinos will obviously be hitting the fronts of units more, they're getting 18 CS(2) TC(2) attacks as standard (and hitting on 3s not 4s) so as long as the TC is kept they're much better for damage output. Maccwar's Potion of the Caterpillar means the TC is pretty well protected, but even 18 at CS(2) is the same as Fire Elementals. I know the Rhinos are hideously expensive, but I'm fairly confident they'll do more than the GFE, Ghekko Warriors and Firebolts from the Lord (which was useless!) combined. The thing I'm most nervous about is getting rid of the Boomstick as it is perfect for chipping one wound off a unit that is heavily damaged but got good luck on the Nerve roll and didn't rout. It's the only 24" ranged I had, and the Lekelidons both usually end up being killed in their roles as chaff. This only leaves the two Mage-Priests with 12" range as my ranged options should I need to force a Nerve check and they will often be in the wrong place to do so. The only other option is to charge my Clan Lord in from distance.

 

Picture finally uploaded!

In other news, I've got another tournament - Slaughter in the South East - this weekend. I'll be running the same list as Fools of War as I don't have my Ancients on Rhinos yet...

 

Not fancy casino dice (which are ridiculously expensive!), but what I see as a great compromise. They're 12mm dice by a company called Koplow, which if you look at the links I shared on the other thread come second only to GameScience for uniformity of shape, and they have much sharper edges compared to Chessex and others. While only being slightly less uniform than GameScience, they are a fraction of the price - £13.74 for 35 dice + postage, and they can be cheaper than that if you buy the same colour in multiples of 36 (the same number of GameScience dice would have been over £50). Koplow also do them in 16mm if that is more your thing (I prefer 12mm as I can roll more at one time) and postage form www.thediceshoponline.com is only £2.99 to Spain. Word of warning on that website - their customer service is horrific - the only reason I made another purchase is because nowhere else sells them.

In terms of how they roll I've never been happier while playing than at Fools of War. I got good rolls, I got bad rolls, I got average rolls, all in the proportions that would be expected of random dice. It's honestly one of the best purchases I've made and it completely removes the (justified I think) feeling that my dice were consistently rolling poorly!

 

Yep, all mine are transparent for exactly the same reason

 

Threat range and threat projection are big issues with sallies.

 

I disagree. While I admit it is an investment, double surging mages means the FEs have an effective threat range of about 18" in a 180 degree arc. The best bit is that players often don't realise just how far they can go so fall for it and you get a flank. On top of this we have Kaisenor Lancers (16") and AORs (14") that hit like a few bricks and a tonne of bricks respectively. Thats slower than some armies, but it's still pretty respectable.

 

oh, i was just agreeing with your assessment of needing more "distance hitting power". I dont think an investment of 200 + 145 + 125 for a potential average of 6 + 4.66 + 4.66 is some kind of big deal, especially considering you have a potential to just hand him the FE horde if you dont surge enough.

 

I was meaning for the list, and the AORs I think should cover what I'm needing there quite nicely.

On the FEs front, the reason I used the term effective threat range is that your opponent will often stay further than the average surge away just in case you do get in. If you were taking a double mage combo you would always have multiple FE hordes, potentially with the GFE as well, so the investment is spread across multiple units. And you certainly wouldn't double surge them without the adequate cover should they fail to get in. Plus the M-Ps are multi-purpose: surging, wound chipping and even fly-disordering if needs be (although not as good as Ogres at this).

 

https://never2oldtowargame.wordpress.com/2017/04/07/kings-of-war-fools-of-war-tournament/

One of my games from the perspective of my opponent.