Welcome again to my adventures! It's been a while since I write a report and already have another one in the waiting list after this one. Damn real life keeping me away from my obligations! Anyway this was my first time against Ogres and my first time against this opponent too. His list was very balanced I think: - Horde of Ogre Warriors - Horde of Ogre Warriors with Two-Handed Weapons and Brew of Sharpness - Horde of Shooters - 2 Regiments of Boomers - Regiment of Warriors - 1 Giant - Army Standard - Captain My list was as follows: - Horde of Rhinosaurs with Haste - Regiment of Kaisenor Lancers - Horde of Fire Elementals with Nimble - Horde of Fire Elementals - Lekelidon - Battle-Captain with Wings - Skylord with Blade of the Beast Slayer - Mage-Priest with Surge and Inspiring - Mounted Herald The Blade of the Beast-Slayer is my main addition to the list, its use against Ogres requires no explanation really. My plan was to use my speed advantage to shut down his shooting as fast as possible while my Hordes held up the centre. In the deployment he protected his shooting quite well in between his units, so I deployed my fast units in the flank with his giant to counter his speed and take the advantage there. I know my Ancients can kill any of his units in one go so I'm pretty confident. We roll for turn 1 and I win it, fearing the damage those Shooters can put over the course of the battle I decide to take them down as fast as possible so I take first turn. SALAMANDERS TURN 1 I use my two flyers to move up his flank, giving him the choice to turn everything to face me and loose a turn or ignore me and suffer the consequences. The rest of the army advances as fast as possible careful not to get into his charge range. OGRES TURN 1 He takes the bait and turns everything on the right to face my two fliers, the rest of his line backs up to get away of my charge range. The Boomers on the right can shoot me, and do so putting three wounds on my Skylord, with Inspiring I'm quite confident of surviving this. First roll he gets a 10, I say thanks for Inspiring and he rolls again,... getting an 11. This sets up the tone for the rest of the game... SALAMANDERS TURN 2 Another quite uninteresting turn for me, I keep advancing slowly carefully measuring to get in range but keeping him outside his. I've lost one of my most useful weapons with a lucky roll but I still had the advantage. I have the centre all to myself and the range advange, no real hurry for me to get into combat right now. His shooter have lost a turn of shooting, and will loose another one as I move the Battle captain outside of everything he has and into a good position to harass his units. My Lekelidon shoots his Brew of Sharpness Horde (not planning to fight THAT), he does one wound and my Mage-Priest shoots a Fireball to the Boomers that killed the Skylord doing 3. OGRES TURN 2 He reforms the right flank again to face my incoming units while the left backs up again. The two Regiments of Boomers open fire putting some wounds on my Lancers and FE, nothing really interesting. SALAMANDERS TURN 3 I see a chance for my Lancers to charge his Sharpness Warriors unhindered using my Herald as an kind of pivoting point to evade crossing the forest, there was also just enough space between the Warriors and the Forest that even aligning to him I wouldn't touch the forest. I can statistically put 9 wounds on them and that should be enough to kill them. That would leave the Lancers in a tight situation but killing that horde before it can attack is worth loosing the Lancers. I also charge the Battle-Captain into the Shooters to keep them from firing yet another turn. The FE that were shoot by the Boomers charge them too. While the other Horde advances to counter-charge or support. I shoot the Boomers in the forest with my Lekelidon doing three wounds which is nice. The FE eat the Boomers alive easily, the Battle-Captain manages to hit and wound with EVERYTHING, doing 4 wounds to the Shooters, amazing performance. The Lancers though, not so good, they only manage 6 wounds, I roll average for Nerve and waver them. OGRES TURN 3 My Lancers are sold to his units, and he takes the chance. They get charged in both flanks by Boomers and Shooters. His Army Standard charges my Battle-Captain and the Warrior Regiment on the right makes a Charge against my FE. On the other flank he decides to bait my Ancients with his Giant so his Warriors would have the charge if I took it and his Captain move to support the right flank. The Lancers perish as expected, no surprises there. His Army Standard does some wounds to my Battle-Captain to no avail. He had some surprises prepared for me though, his Warrior regiment managed to put an astonishing 7 wounds into my FE, 7 wounds with 9 attacks (+3 to hit, +4 to wound) and on top of that he manages to roll 10 and 10 on the Nerve test... SALAMANDERS TURN 4 Loosing one of the FE Hordes and the Skylord to extreme lucky rolls hurts my list immensely, such an elite list cannot really afford to loose units and me sacrificing the Lancers for nothing doesn't help either. So I'm now loosing a game I had in control and have to fight back as cleverly as possible. So I charge the Battle-Captain into the Sharpness warriors as they are badly damaged, one or two wounds can take them out. I use my Nimble FE tricks to position myself in the flank of the Shooters and move the Herald to block the Warrior Regiment on the right. I'm really debating myself on what to do with my Ancients, but if I roll horribly (and as the game is going i wouldn't' be surprised) I need to block that Boomer Regiment so It cannot charge my FE. So I charge into them (even hindered they should die with ease, I'm expecting something like 8 wounds) I choose to resolve the combat with my Battle-Captain first as the fate of that horde will determine how I reposition my FE. I manage to put two wounds into them but roll badly on the Nerve AGAIN and only waver them. I can still work with that result though, So I roll for my FE and destroy the Shooters, reforming to kill either the Regiment or the Sharpness Horde next turn. My Ancients as every time I commit a powerful unit to a front charge they perform poorly and even worse needing just a 5 to kill the unit I roll a double 1... and now I have a Giant in my flank. OGRES TURN 4 He surprises me again, but this time by not charging his Giant into my flank, he instead decides to kill my Lekelidon with it, while the Warriors that had been backing up for the whole game and the Boomers countercharge my Ancients. His captain charges mine and the Regiment of warriors charge the Herald. The Giant doesn't manage to even Waver the Lekelidon, nor do the Warrior Regiment or the Captain! great so far! The double charge into my Ancients leave them wounded but for once luck is on my side and the Nerve test is low enough so they hold.
SALAMANDERS TURN 5 First thing I decide is to countercharge the Boomers instead of the warriors, the boomers are almost dead so I will make short work of them but I'm not sure I can take the Warriors in go without my TC and this way they would be Hindered if they decide to charge me next turn (Maybe I should have charged them seeing this on repeat, because if I managed to waver them I would block his whole line for another turn and I'm quite certain the boomers alone wouldn't be able to kill the Ancients) I then back up the Lekelidon, so that Giant is as far away as possible from my units if he wants to kill it. My Nimble FE do their thing and position themselves to end the life of those damn Warriors once and for all. Combats go as expected and both units are dead. I reposition my FE to look at his Captain (being Nimble he can cause a lot of pain if you are not careful) and I realise the only way to avoid that damn Captain to charge into the flank of my Ancients is to back them up, I need two inches and I get it luckily. OGRES TURN 5 He starts to think on the objective, and decides that facing off my Ancients is not really necessary for his plans as he needs that Horde alive to win really so he turns them and move forwards out of my charge arc. My Captain is very neatly positioned between his big guy and my FE horde for an overrun so he takes his chance. The rest just slams back into the previous targets. My Lekelidon dies, as does my poor Battle-Captain and the overrun is successful and wounds my FE as well. My Herald on the other hand is fine! SALAMANDERS TURN 6 This can be the last turn of the game and I know the only chance to win the game is to move everything I have into the scoring zone and pray for it to survive his last turn, so as much as I would have liked to kill that Captain if I do so I loose the game if it doesn't go to turn 7. In a desperate attempt to bait his Captain (now has two juicy rears all to himself) I move my Mage-Priest up to his lap (maybe he forgets he has Nimble, who knows!) and I pray for his warriors that are goint to finish off my Herald once and for all not to roll a 5 or a 6 on the overrun. OGRES TURN 6 I'm sorry to inform there isn't a picture of this turn but I can summarize it quite well: EVERYTHING DIES (except a very sad Itexpicauh) He doesn't forget his Captain is Nimble and rear charges my Ancients while the Giant does the same in the front killing them. The Warriors kill the herald and roll a 6 on the overrun, hitting the FE in the flank and killing them too with a quite lucky roll again...
Yeah TL;DR version: Dice hate me Apart from that I did felt the game was in my hand for the most part, also I felt my army performed well and everything apart from dice rolls did their job beautifully. Stay tuned because there is more coming very soon, maybe even today!
Maybe lining up 3 or 4 unused, virgin dice before the game and smashing them with a hammer would be of their pleasing too... Seems like I'm extending my pre-game rituals very soon.
Not doing that bad actually, but this loss really hurt me, but just because I played the army really well. Just check the Herd Report for a different feeling. Right now I'm sitting Third in the league just 5 points away from the top player and I'm really happy with that.