Well, I FINALLY have some time to sit down and write this, It's been a hell of a couple of weeks. Welcome then fellow Lizard-folk to what is my first ever KoW tournament as a TO. It all came out extremely well, we had 12 people for three amazing rounds of KoW action in three scenarios. The list I decided to take was this, 1500 points was the limit: - Horde of Fire Elementals with Nimble - Horde of Tyrants with Staying Stone - Horde of Ancients on Rhinosaurs with Aegis of the Elohi - Horde of Skyriders with Jar of the Four Winds - Skylord with Blade of the Beast-Slayer - Mage-Priest with Surge, Inspiring and Martyr's Prayer - Mounted Battle-Captain - Lekelidon GAME 1 - UNDEAD First round was Dominate, pairings were done randomly and I got to fight an undead player that I introduced to KoW about a year ago, I did his first demo and never got to play him again until now, this was going to be interesting. His list was this: - Regiment of Ghouls - Regiment of Wraiths with Brew of Strength - Horde of Zombies with Hammer of Measured Force - Horde of Werewolves with Staying stone - Regiment of Soul Reaver Cavalry with Pathfinder - Liche King with Heal and Myrddin’s Amulet of the Fire-heart - Necromancer with Heal and Inspiring - Lykanis with Blade of the Beast-Slayer I had a plan for this one, I would use the Skyriders and Skylord on the right to shoot down the Werewolves and hold them for as long as possible. Skylord would look for some juicy flank to charge. Tyrants will take the centre and Ancients and FE would try to make their way through the left against his hardest units. I parked my FE and Ancients just outside the Forest oposing his Soul Reavers, he then made a terible mistake by moving them into the forest, giving me the charge, both my units together are devastating and the Soul Reavers are dead and his left flank and most valuable unit gone. Centre goes as planned with my Tyrants fighting the zombies with their flank protected from the Lykanis by the building. When the Skyriders can't back up more they move to the other flank just in time as the FE get killed, they get a flank into the very wounded wraiths and take it, Tyrants keep grinding and Ancients reposition to face the flank of everything. The last turns, the Skyriders kill the Wraiths, the Ancients flank the zombies, the Tyrants kill the Lykanis and finally the ancients kill the Werevolves, only thing remaining in the board is the Liche King. VICTORY SALAMANDERS 18-2 GAME 2 - ABYSSALS So it all came to this, due to some unfortunate pairings I got to face the only player I didn't wanted to face in round two. Not because he is a dick or anything, he is an extremely funny and nice guy but he is one of the best players I've seen and playing him is a huge challenge, I was hoping to face him in the last round in table one, for a more epic match. We get to play Take and Hold, his list was this: - Horde of Larvae - Horde of Lower Abyssals with Sharpness and two handed weapons - Horde of Molochs with Elite - Horde of Tortured Souls with Strength - Regiment of Abyssal Horsemen with Courage - Abyssal Harbinger with Heal - Archfiend with Wings, Lightning Bolt and Blade of Slashing I wasn't happy with my deployment to be honest but my idea was to hold the flying units with shooting and the Skylord and take the centre with my huge block of units. Game starts great with my Skyriders over-performing against the TS that he moved away to the centre as a result of that, the overperforming again with the Lekelidon against the Archfiend that in return charged the lekelidon and killed it. My Flying units then took his backfield and concentrated on the Molochs and killed them in a couple of turns. My Tyrants charged the wounded Archfiend, confident of leaving him at least badly damaged for a final kill next turn, but they flopped SPECTACULARLY, doing just 2 wounds. After that he made his move, he tried the alpha strike tactic on me. His Archfiend and Larvae went into my Tyrants, TS and Knights into my Ancients. I was extremely lucky and they survived! I knew I had the game in my hand at this point if everything went as it should. Ancients countercharged the wounded TS, FE did their Nimble dance to flank the Knights and Tyrants took another turn into the Archfiend. And now my dice left me for dead, despite doing a ton of wounds on the Knights a result of 3 on the Nerve test got them wavered, the Ancients did manage to kill the TS but the Tyrants flopped again and then rolled like crap for the Nerve. His next turn is devastaing, the Archfiend can just make the charge into the Ancients, killing them, the Knights having Fury countercharge and KILL the FE in one go and the Tyrants survive against the Larvae but the field is not looking good, and even worse he got two sceneario points this turn putting him far ahead. My flyers try to kill of as much of his units as possible but fail and then they die along with my tyrants. I don't think that apart from the Molochs I rolled more than a 4 in any Nerve check I did, it was terrible. Apart from that he played his scenario far better than I did, but it was so close at one point.... He ended up winning the tournament in a final match against the KoM, you can actually check that game HERE, as we recorded it live! DEFEAT SALAMANDERS 3-17
GAME 3 - ORCS So, that crushing defeat means that you can't watch me play on video on table 1, very sad, but I get table 2 again, this time playing Push against a very good friend of mine and better opponent, he used Orcs and this list: - Regiment of Moreax - Horde of Trolls - Regiment of Gore Riders with Staying Stone - Horde of Chariots - Horde of Longax - Krudger on winged slasher with Blade of Slashing (lots of slashing action going on) - Godspeaker with Inspiring - War Drum He deployed his big Horde into the terrain and I knew if I pushed forwards enough he wouldn't be able to clear it before getting his charge so I did, he also made a big mistake positioning his Gore Riders into the charge range of my FE, that got them killed, he took my bait (Tyrants) with his Krudger, that killed him too and my Ancients went hard on the right charging the trolls. I used the captain to charge the chariots so they can't multicharge into the Ancients, it works better than I expected, he even survives the countercharge! When he finally gets some charges on me they don't go well as the Chariots were disordered and hindered and the Longaxes hindered. Countercharges are devastaing, and by the end of turn 5 everything he has is dead and only my Skylord has been killed. VICTORY SALAMANDERS 20-0 That AMAZING last round propelled me into a very nice second place, leading the pack of middle scores and also getting the second best attrition, not bad at all. The army performed extremely well, I'm very happy. Only change I really didn't like was the Iron Resolve in the Ancients, that is going away for sure, there are much better uses of 25 points. Thanks for reading!!
Picture of the Top 3 players! The almighty winner of all, Edu, in the middle holding his precious trophy. The bravest and most dedicated to Fluff player, Iñaki of the KoM in the right. And me a proud TO and all around big guy on the left.
Sounds like a fun tournament! Congratulations on taking second. It sounds like you did almost everything right in the second game, but got dice screwed. It happens to all of us.
Yeah, it was a great day indeed. Second game was indeed frustrating but in the end we are playing dice game and it's part of what we do.
Fantastic battle report! And I am glad the Bretonnians made an appearance! Congrats on coming second!
Thanks! Yeah we had a very varied number of factions. Only army repeated was Undead and one of those undead was a new player to whom I lended that army as it was the only one I had ready to deploy.