WFB: “When Ego’s Collide”
Team game play is a hot topic recently with ETC having just happened, but let’s talk about a non-ETC team event or two.
In the midst of a meta where we no longer have as many Fantasy events run through official channels Fantasy players in many areas have been forced to shift, taking on the responsibility of running our own events. In our corner of the world that means an increase in 2 day tournaments and high levels of competition. As part of those people have banded together to create clubs and teams. Rivalry between teams and clubs ebbs and flows, encouraged by the success or failure of individuals at events and that is Where Egos Collide.
Where Egos Collide
Shortly after Cody Jensen from Abusement Park (the Tomb King guy) won Wet Coast I got a message from my friend, Chris Powell asking me to put him in contact with Abusement Park to issue a team challenge:
Of course Abusement Park jumped on board, agreeing that it was time to see which of them had the better team.
We settled the debate on August 10th at Drop Zone Games as the four members from Hammered Heads came over to Nanaimo, BC to take on the Abusement Park team (which adopted me as their 4th player for the day). Smack talk had happened in the days and weeks leading up to the day and it was time to throw down dice.
Meet the Teams
Hammered Heads have a long history. When I was a red shirt they gamed at the store I worked at under two club names: Geek of the Hill and WCP, Geek of the Hill amalgamated into WCP and have been gaming in tournaments under that club name and event played Team Challenges like the Ordo Fantaicus Club Challenge (OFCC) that takes place annual (this year in September). About a year ago many members of WCP took on CHOP Gaming Club’s name but not all. Those who have not taken on the CHOP name are now gaming as the Hammered Heads.
The team brought over: Chris, Vern, Shayne, Darren, Dustin and Ricky (Dustin and Ricky were not there to play in the challenge this time)
I gamed with these guys on a regular basis before I moved to the Island, learning a lot of what I know about playing Fantasy from them and even turning to them first when I can’t figure something out with a list or an oddball rules question. I had mixed feelings about facing off against them.
Abusement Park are one of the two Fantasy gaming clubs on the Central/North Vancouver Island (the other being Greenskin Nation). Abusement Park only joined the tournament scene in the fall of 2013 so are very new to it but quickly earned themselves a reputation of being good, solid competitive players and great opponents.The team is twin brothers: Cody and Wyatt Jensen, their best friend Jim Downie and as I said I was adopted in (they even got me my own shirt).
Abusement Park has certainly participated in fewer tournaments and events than most of the other Fantasy players I know but they have caught on quickly and continue to play competitively and just for the fun of the game.
The Battles
In preparation for writing this article I asked all of the guys to be able to give me battle reports for at least one of their games since I knew I wouldn’t be able to watch the critical moments all the time since I would be actually playing my own games. Dustin and Ricky were great help with making sure we got lots of pictures.
The Armies
My List:
I decided to bring my Bretonnians and went back to a tried and true army list that I had taken to tournaments in the past–if any of you know Tom Harris (long time, very successful Bretonnian player from the UK), he helped me build this list last year when I was coming up blank on figuring out the right blend of stuff for the way I play.
My list included:
- Lord (General) on Warhorse with a shield, the Biting Blade, Gromril Great Helm, Mantle of Damsel Elena, and Virtue of Heroism
- Prophetess on Barded Warhorse with the Silver Mirror, Falcon Horn of Fredemund and Level 4 Upgrade using Lore of Heavens
- BSB on Warhorse with the Enchanted Shield and Dawnstone
- Paladin on Warhorse with a lance, shield, the Dragonhelm, Luckstone and Virtue of the Impetuous Knight
- three other Paladins each with just a lance and shield
- Damsel on Barded Warhorse with a Dispel Scroll using Lore of Beasts
- two units of 5 Knights of the Realm with Full Command
- 13 Knights of the Realm with Full Command
- 14 Errant Knights with Full Command and the Banner of Discipline
- 4 Pegasus Knights with Musician
- two Trebuchets
- Sorcerer Lord (General) with Mark of Nurgle, Level 4 Upgrade, Dispel Scroll, Crown of Command, Enchanted Shield and Fencer’s Blades
- Throgg
- Festus
- BSB with Mark of Nurgle, Scaly Skin, Dawnstone, Halberd and Helm of Many Eyes
- 9 Trolls
- 22 Warriors with Mark of Nurgle, Full Command and Standard of Discipline
- two units of 5 Maurader Horsemen with Mark of Slaanesh, Flails and Musician
- 4 Skullcrushers with Ensorcelled Weapons, Standard, Musician and Charmed Pendant
- Hellcannon
- BSB, Master Rune of Grugni, Shield and Great Weapon
- Master Engineer, Run of Stone, Great Weapon
- Master Engineer, Run of Stone, Great Weapon
- Runsmith, Rune of Spell Breaking, Shield, Rune of Stone, Great Weapon
- Runsmith (General), Run of Spell Breaking, Shield, Rune of Fire, Rune of Stone, Great Weapon
- 40 Longbeards, Great Weapon, Musician, Standard Bearer, Old Guard, Rune of Stoicism
- 40 Hammerers, Musician, Standard Bearer, Master Rune of Valaya
- Cannon, Rune of Forging
- Cannon, Rune of Forging, Rune of Burning
- two Gyrocopters
- Organ Gun, Rune of Accuracy
- Organ Gun, Rune of Accuracy, Run of Burning
- Slaughtermaster (General) with Armor of Destiny, Dragonbane Talisman, Dispel Scroll, Great Weapon and Level 4 Upgrade
- BSB with Dragonhelm, Crown of Command, Ironfist, and Heavy Armor
- Butcher with Hellheart and Great Weapon
- 11 Ironguts with Standard of Discipline, Full Command and Look Out Gnoblar
- 3 Ogres with additional hand weapon and Bellower
- 4 Mournfang Cavalry with Dragonhide banner, Ironfist, Heavy Armor, Bellower and Standard Bearer
- three Sabretusk
- 6 Maneaters with Banner of Eternal Flame, Brace of Pistols, Bellower, and Standard Bearer
- two Ironblasters
- Sorcerer-Prophet (General) with Talisman of Preservation, Enchanted Shield, Arabyan Carpet and Level 4 Upgrade using Hashut
- 34 Infernal Guard with fireglaives, Deathmask, Naptha bomb, Musician/Standard Bearer, Banner of Swiftness
- 8 Bull Centaur Renders with additional hand weapon, Musician/Standard Bearer, Razor Standard
- 8 Bull Centaur Renders with Great Weapons, Musician/Standard Bearer
- Iron Daemon War Engine with Hellbound
- K’daai Destroyer
- Morathi (General) on Dark Pegasus with Level 4 using Death, Shadow & Dark, with Heartrender and Darksword
- BSB on Dark Pegasus with Cloak of Twilight, Heavy Armor, Lance, Repeater Crossbow, Sea Dragon Cloak, and Shield
- Master on Dark Pegasus with Armor of Destiny, Lance, Sea Dragon Cloak, and Shield
- Master on Dark Pegasus with Talisman of Preservation, Charmed Shield, Heavy Armor, Lance, Sea Dragon Cloak
- two units of 6 Dark Riders with musician and standard, Repeater Crossbow and Shield
- two units of 12 Darkshards with musician and standard, Reapeater Crossbow and Shield
- four Reapeater Bold Throwers
- 5 Harpies
- 11 Shades with musician and standard, and Great Weapons
- Hydra
- 6 Doomfire Warlocks
- Slaughtermaster with Level 4 using Heavens with Crown of Command and Dispel Scroll
- BSB
- Butcher with Level 1 using Maw and Hellheart
- 8 Leadbelchers (LOTS)
- Ironguts (enough to fill Core requirement)
- 7 Maneaters with brace of pistols and poison and Gleaming Pennant
- two Ironblasters
- three Sabretusks
- Arch Lector on War Alter with Enchanted Shield, Cloak of Alric and Heavy Armor
- Battle Wizard Lord on Warhorse with Dispel Scroll and Level 4 Upgrade using Lore of Light
- BSB on Warhorse with Lance, Shield and Dawnstone
- two units of 6 Knightly Orders with Standard and Musician
- 12 Inner Circle Knights with Full Command
- two units of 3 Demigryph Knights with musician
- 10 Reiksguard Knights with Full Command
- two Steam Tanks
The Battles
From Vern:
1st Game: all about me passing leadership tests while doom and darkness hexed and not being able to break through skullcrushers flanked by 7 maneaters. Cody wins
2nd Game: Can dwarfs charge on a ten……..yes! Wyatts hammerers blow up my ironguts and leadbelchers. Flee then run off the table. I charge long beards with 7 maneaters bsb and slaughter master running 5 wide. sh** the bed with attacks, impact and stomps. lose all 7 maneaters for 16 longbeards then bsb and slaughter master die next turn
3rd Game: Shoot you roll bad and then you know the rest [this was his game against me and I’ll tell you a bit more about how terrible it was for me later]
4th Game: I get a favorable deployment but give up 1st turn. Trade shots with Jim and in the end get through his iron guts before he kills mine.
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Very fun event nice change from the norm.
From Chris:
“My report is as follows. I lost, I won, I lost, I won. My list was soft thank you Jim it just got harder” 🙂
“Don’t you know…I don’t remember the loses. Selective memory!!! I’m undefeated in my own mind!”
“I’m just glad we won the ogre off. Old man Vern! Old man Vern! Old man Vern!”
From Jim:
Chaos Dwarfs VS Ogres
Deployment
Ogres turn 1
Chaos Dwarfs turn 1
Ogres turn 2
Chaos Dwarfs turn 2
Ogres turn 3
Chaos Dwarfs turn 3
Ogres turn 4
From Darren
Revenge on the Tomb Kings, errr Nurgle Warriors.Well Sadly I did not get another crack at the Wet Coast Winning Tomb King army. The Nurgle Warriors, backed up by Throgg and a distressing number of his friends looked like a worthy challenge however.Game Plan: I wanted the tanks to get into the Nurgle warriors, they do not roll to hit, and therefore they remove the Nurgle warriors largest advantage. The War Alter was going to get into Throgg and hold that block while the knights cleaned up the rest of the army. Demi’s would be the flanks that could come into the Fights and add combat res, the knight blocks I was relatively certain would not be able to stand against wither of the combat blocks.The Game:Thanks to the small number of drops the Warriors had, I did get the fights I wanted in this game. The Tanks were directly across from the Block of Warriors with all the characters (bar Throgg) and surged forward on the first turn. Turn one’s most eventful moment was the Hell cannon landing a shot on the lone wizard, rolling a misfire, the a 6 result which was a direct str 10 hit. The wizard survived with a single wound.Turns two involved the knights trying, and failing to get around the trolls, and the tanks slamming into the Warriors (The regen from Festus was the only thing that saved that unit). The War Alter moved to place itself between the knights and the trolls. My Wizard Lord tried to kill himself by miscasting on a 3 dice cast, got away with a singed cloak and a lost wizard level. Turn 3 saw my wizard succeed in his suicidal quest by miscasting again on 3 dice, his mindset appears contagious as the entire chaos army failed stupidity this turn, prevent throgg from charging.Turns 4 and 5: Without a wizard Magic began to take its toll and the Warriors clawed their way back into the game. In infuriating fashion, despite being down to two warriors and characters the block of Warriors refused to break. The BSB looked ready to take my whole army by himself. Throgg finally gets his head on straight, and charged the arch lector. He Killed the Lector in 2 rounds but then was held by the stubborn 6 Altar. On turn 5 Throgg turned to give his flank to the Alter, Actually lost combat and failed his first shot on his break check. He passed his second attempt.Turn 6:A unit of Demi griff knights slam into the rear of the chaos character block, winning on combat res and causing the characters break on the last roll of the game.
Game one dark elves vs Bret’s
Deployment battleline saw two 5man knight units on ether flank with the trebs and two supper lances down the centre and a 4 man peg unit on my right for the Bret’s, and for my elves there was both units dark riders on my left with a peg and a unit of crossbows that dove into a building to avoid the knights, a unit of crossbows centered in front of a massive hill with four Bolt throwers and my BSB peg, followed with my warlocks, morathi, war hydra and shades on my left,
First few turns ended up Brets coming up the center and pushing the flanks timidly as my elves start to develop and dance behind them unfortunately for the Bret’s the trebs both misfired and were very ineffectual for the first few turns they were around, thanks to continue will soul blights, I was able to shoot off all but six knights in the errant lance, turn three saw the peg knights fleeing for the back board, and the Bret lord running solo and thanking the lady for coming down to stop all the arrows, and the death of the trebs, turn for got interesting with the errants and solo Lord getting into the Bolt thrower line and the warlocks and BSB Pegasus into the flank of the level 4s lance and dome of darkness cast on the lances, in the combat the errant Lance fails to kill a Bolt thrower and the level 4 Lance rolled insane courage, the main comment ground on until the death of the BSB but then the warlocks where joined in by another two Pegasus with a seconds doom an darkness that crushed the lance, leaving the errant Lance and Lord alive at the end of the game achieving their objective, but giving me the win and all three tactical tokens.
Result 45-10 to dark elves
Game 2
DE vs ogres
Deployment Blood and glory, so first off we played on a board with forests and hills across the center so there was cover across the whole board, And the 9″ in from the sides and 15″up against ogres hurt,
So from my left to right he had a cat, 6 man eaters, iron blaster the gutstare iron blaster, mornfang, ogers and two cats,
My left to right, shades, two units of crossbows, dark riders, 3 Bolt throwers, harpies behind them, BSB
peg, war hydra, bolt thrower, Morathi, other two pegs, and the last unit of dark riders,
Ogres got first turn and closed the distance to my lines in one turn. Magic was ineffectual, cannons bounces of the peg riders, my turn one I bet heavy to win heavy, charging my BSB with D3 wounds in to the gutstare the other pegs Landed to the flank of the mornfang
Magic I 6 dice doom an darkness on the start but was scrolled, And in shooting we shut off half the maneaters and a bunch of wounds off several support units, combat had the ogres refusing a challenge than having my Pegasus Smacked down by the guts after killing 2,
Next turn saw man eaters charge a unit of crossbows and lose 1 in the stand and shoot, and I double fled the gutStar losing a unit of dark riders which I felt was a good trade, then I fled by war hydra from the board stranding them on a piece of impassable terrain, magic saw regeneration on the morn fang and in the shooting phase he put a cannon ball through Morathi killing her, but in a stroke of luck my crossbows wiped out the last two maneaters before they struck, the rest of the game resulted with my pegs and warlocks running down the rest of his support units and morn fang and me chafing up and shooting off all but 3 guts and 3 characters but also him destroying most of my shooting, leaving me the last turn trying to but failing to getting the points for the gutstart & characters, loosing me the game looking back I see several small mistakes that mean the world against other good player. But I will be sure to learn from, also he accomplished his objective, when denying mine, but by doing so give me all 3 objective tokens,
Result 35-20 to ogres
Game 3
DE vs WOC
deployment dawn attack
I don’t believe the dawn attack roll altered my opponents deployment severely besides his hell cannon being placed on a flank, and having a mobile army like mine I have never had dawn attack be too severe before the game
From my left to right my opponent had, a unit of marauder horses, throgg and friends big block of nurgal worrier with festus and the L4 death and BSB, skull crushers, marauder horse, and the hell cannon,
And my left from right was 3 bolt thrower a unit of crossbows and a unit of dark riders all crammed in to a 12″x12″ then followed by Morathi, crossbow unit, harpies,and the other 3 pegs then the left flank was crammed with a 8″x8″ building that was impassible, and a bolt thrower, war Hydra and dark riders,
I stole first turn on a roll of a 6.
I moved up and fannedout to the flanks with Morathi making for the trolls, and the other pegs squaring off against the skull crushers, magic saw a purple sun kill 4 trolls and a wound put on throgg, then shooting off another two trolls and most of the marauder Horsemen. In his turn his castle broke up and push towards my lines, but unfortunately the hell cannon rampage running 14″ straight down the board. My appointment had more bad luck by breaking concentration with 3d6 rolling triple 1s, for the next several turns the shades and Bolt throwers continue to shoot up the trolls as the nurgal block advanced, the hell cannon ended up charging and eating a bolt thrower as a scull crushers had to charge the herpes which was going to leave them with three Pegasus looking at there flanks but with a 12″ over run left only two Pegasus insight of the rear of the unit, which the Pegasus took and Broke the unit but failed to catch them, by this point nurgal block was securing an objective in the centre of the board, the hell cannon was tied up with the Hydra skull crushers and rally were looking at my crossbow units. And the trolls unit were reduced just to throgg, I had lost my BSB. At this point my opponents luck drove the last couple nails home, thanks to throgg’s mutant regeneration he rolled and succumb to spawndom on the eye of the gods, then was shot down, the skull crushers were charged in the flank by dark riders and pinning them in place for the last turn denying his objective, as I accomplished my objective, though my opponent did take the center objective as I took two flanking ones and the game, although at this point in the gaming I was losing my fortitude and was losing track of Game turns,
Results 45-10 dark elves
DE vs dwarfs
Deployment meeting engagement
The dwarfs deploys in the back corner of there zone as I deployed front line, from dwarfs left to right was gyrocopter two entrenched organ guns with engineers, block of 30 hammerers, two cannons 40 Longbeard with great weapons, and a gyrocopter. My deployment was
Left to right
Both dark riders, to the flank, both crossbows across from his hammerers with all three pegs and Morathi sitting behind them, all 4 bolt throwers on the bace line warlocks then my war hydra and shades came on from reserves on my first turn also on the right flank beside my warlocks,
Firs turn I was fairly lucky with the dwarf cannons bouncing off my pegs and only one losing a wound from an organ gun. My first turn saw Morathi, BSB, and one peg split to the right and one solo after the organ guns, magic was void the whole game and all my shooting went in to the warrior and hammerers to start whittling the blocks down, second turn was much the same but I lost one Pegasus to the organs but I got one Pegasus into a spot where he could not be charged and could get too the cannons, third turn I got into one organ gun and one canon but lost my BSB to the steady barrage, turn 4 was interesting when the dwarves took an aggressive posture and march towards my lines, this lead to me triple charging the four warlocks remaining Morathi and my war hydrant into the long beard block which had about 25 model’s left, after the first round about 10 dwarfs were left for the price of too wounds on the Hydra and a warlock, so the combat held so I reformed my units to be out of line of site of the hammerers block, who in their next turn reformed to face the combat, but the Elfs finished off the dwarfs in that turn so in my own turn I charged the last war machines and moved all my units out of any possible charger distance, and we called the game there with him on one token, and achieving his Objective, I also achieved mine and pulled out the win in the end.
result 25-15 to dark elves
My Games
Mechanized Demigryphs hiding in the trees |