Sunday, March 30, 2014

Practice Game – Paul Kuehnert – Ogre Kingdoms

Paul was kind enough to invite me into his home this past week and offer me a game in preparation for Adepticon.  I gave him the choice of a big game, with my 2400 point list or a smaller game with my 1000 point empire.  Paul chose the larger game, and even designed at the 2400 point level despite my offering to let him keep it simple and use a 2500 point list he had already developed.  Due to the list being designed right before the game, I didn’t actually see the list but Paul helped me with the details, so I think the following is correct.

The List
Slaughtermaster, general, level 4, lore of the great maw, talisman of preservation, dispel scroll, great weapon

Firebelly, level 1, hellheart, great weapon
Bruiser, heavy armor, shield, dragon helm, sword of striking, iron curse icon

9 Iron guts, full command, standard of discipline
3 bulls, iron fists, champion
3 bulls, iron fists, champion

Sabertusk
Sabertusk
Sabertusk
6 Man eaters, full command, 6x duel pistols, poison, stubborn
4 leadbelchers
4 leadbelchers

Ironblaster

Magic
For my Death wizard I first rolled Doom and Darkness and Soulblight.  I contemplated keeping them and going triple soulblight, but decided that I would take Spirit Leech instead.  My metal wizard took searing doom (and probably always will).


Paul took Fireball on the fire wizard and +toughness, regeneration, magic missile and stubborn on his level 4.



Deployment
At first I assumed we were just going to play Battleline, as that is what I normally find when I play pick-up games.  Paul however wanted to roll off for selection.  I suggested instead we just roll out of the book, as long as it wasn’t Watchtower as I didn’t expect to see that one at Adepticon.  He rolled a 2.  I said I thought it was Dawn Attack, and Paul said he hoped not.  It was Dawn Attack.  I offered to switch back to Battleline, but Paul took it on the chin and said we would move forward with Dawn Attack.  That’s probably the better option, his goal wasn’t to prep for Adepticon and other events do run Dawn Attack and he needs to learn to play it.  I on the other hand was fine with Dawn Attack as my army is highly mobile allowing me to overcome whatever the fickle deployment dice bring.

We rolled off and Paul got the honor of deploying his entire army first.

Paul deployed both of his Ogre “darts” on the right side.  A unit of leadbelchers hid behind the terrain, ready to move up and support the monster block.  The monster block went just right of center, flanked by the other leadbelcher and the ironblaster.  The maneaters got banished to the far left.  Paul managed to place the three sabertusks in such a way that my picking off one would not cause any panic tests.

For my deployment I got the dark riders fairly evenly spread center towards the right with the larger unit ready to claim the hill as a fire/charge point.  The bolt throwers got spread around the back.  I rolled my choice with the dreadlord bunker and chose to put in on the left to quickly take out the man eaters.  I then rolled left with the caster bunker making my left flank controlled with all of my Doom Fire Warlocks.



Plan was simple, take the 2 turns of shooting, and kill the man eaters, leadbelchers and ironblaster.

I vangaurded up strong, giving him charges across the board needing 12s.  I crossed over the two doom fire warlocks, putting the wall between them and the lead belchers and keeping me outside 24” to at least make him move up.  I considered and then discarded stretching to avoid the ironblaster and instead just made sure he couldn’t get a flank shot along my characters.


I rolled and got the mighty 6, stealing the first turn.



Turn 1 – Dark Elves
Showing how long it had been since I had played, I took a few minutes to consider charges – despite having vanguarded across the table.  So instead I move up with the doomfire warlocks and leave the shooting bases in position.

I roll a 12/6 magic phase, making my only channel for the game.  I throw 4 at doom and darkness on the man eaters, hoping to draw out the dispel dice before opening up with the magic missiles.  Well, I miscast.  I roll a hit on each wizard, losing a warlock off each unit and putting a wound on the metal wizard.  I lose 2 dice (10/6).  I then 4D a small doom bolt which is dispelled and fail a 2D soulblight on the man eaters.


My shooting does only puts 6 wounds on the maneaters and 2 on one of the ogre darts.  2 bolt throwers fail to do anything to the iron blaster.  Oh, and I put a wound on a saber tusk.



Turn 1 – Ogres
Paul doesn’t work any of the charges I gave him, 12s on the right but some good charges with the man eaters.  I’d be happy with him charging the dreadlord bunker and if he hit the wizards I’d flee, leaving him to charge the bunker or get flanked.  He doesn’t take the bait.  His darts back up a little, happy to stand off with S3 shooting.  The lead belchers move up to take on some dark riders BS vs. BS.  The man eaters move up to shoot at the wizard bunker and a sabertusk runs up to prevent the dreadlord bunker from hitting the man eaters… but by moving up with the maneaters it means I only need a 9 on the over run, and would get a flank.  That’s probably the only mistake Paul made all game.  Short range shooting just wasn’t worth it.

Paul rolls an 8/5 magic phase.  He throws 3D at Doom to dispel it.  He then chucks 5D at big fireball, miscasting.  He only rolls 7 hits and only kills 1 dark rider.  The miscast wounds the firebelly and puts 2 wounds on the unit.  The audience made noises when the general failed his look out sir, but I would rather have a 3rd wound on the unit then what happened… dang 4+ ward (and the fact that the general can heal).


In shooting both Leadbelchers opened up on dark riders, scoring 25 hits but only killing 5 of the 6 models in the unit.  I pass my panic.  The cannon forces a look out sir on my general, which I pass and kills a doom fire warlock.  The man eaters kill 2 warlocks off of the wizard bunker.



Turn 2 – Dark Elves
With little movement on Paul’s turn, I have little to counter.  I do charge the wolf with my entire bunker.  The caster bunker moves up next to the man eaters, facing the rest of the army.  A bubbled soulblight could be good in that position.  It also put them in a good spot to charge leadbelchers or retreat.  The shooting units stay, though I do hide the solo dark rider.

I roll a mighty 3/1 magic phase… so I lied, I did channel a second time.  Seeing me having upwards of a 5/1 magic phase, and with the 3 wizard unit right in front of his army, Paul uses the hellheart but fails to roll far enough to touch them.

I roll 2D at doom but fail.  I then power stone and get off a smaller searing doom on the ironblaster.  It takes a wound.  I was sort of hoping to draw the scroll, but just the hellheart is fine.

My shooting puts 1 wound onto the left lead belcher unit and a wound on the bunker.  All the BTs fail versus the ironblaster.


In combat I kill the dog; he doesn’t even wait for me to pick up dice.  I then over run and slam into the maneaters.



Turn 2 - Ogres
With the maneaters engaged, Paul shifts his focus to the wizard bunker, a solid 460 point unit.

He rolls a 6/4 magic phase.  As he had exposed the flank of the left leadbelchers by shifting, he throws 2D to put stubborn on the unit.  I let it go without a second consideration.  He gains +1 to cast.  He then 2D the ogre magic missile at the wizard bunker, followed by a 2D fireball.  I dispel the first and scroll the second.

Both lead belchers then proceed to score 37 shots at the unit.  First starting with the far left, now stubborn unit.  It needs 7s, shooting through the advancing ogre bunker.  It manages to kill 2 doom fire warlocks, which denies me character protection exactly.  The second unit then picks up not only the warlocks but both casters.  Ouch.

The ironblaster tries to snipe a bolt thrower but misses.


The first 3 characters I roll picks up the 4 maneaters and I overrun forward towards the bunker.




Turn 3 – Dark Elves
I start my turn with a discussion.  I think the smart play is to charge my bunker into the back leadbelchers, allowing me to either overrun into the iron blaster or at least past the bunker unit.  From there I could go crazy cleaning up the shooting and just weathering the magic, which after all was just 2 magic missiles, one of which I could dispel.  But this game wasn’t about winning.  This game was about coming to an understanding of what my army COULD do.  I figured the best way to do that was to shove my bunker into his bunker.  Would I win?  I didn’t now.

I used both of my potions and declared the charge.  I also put 2 units of dark riders off into the stubborn lead belchers, knowing full well they wouldn’t kill the unit and would instead get counter charged by the iron blaster.  My thoughts were that should I win the big combat, 2 units of leadbelchers would then open up on my doom fire warlocks.  I didn’t like that, so tying up one unit of leadbelchers sounded like a great idea.

I roll a 10/6 magic phase and with only 1 spell to cast I chuck 6 at soublight bubble, but it’s dispelled.

My bolt throwers manage to get 2 wounds on the ironblaster.  Even with a third BT, these things are still trash and if they don’t perform at adepticon (in the 11 games I’m using them) then they are out.  They aren’t worth the comp consideration.  For the 210 points I could get a hydra with a flame template, and maybe restructure my points for a second… we’ll see how they perform.  But 3 turns in and they got 4 wounds on maneaters, 2 wounds on an ironblaster… 3 of them.

So anyways, back to the game… my BS core shooting doesn’t do anything, or maybe a few more wounds on the darts, but who really cares?  There are only 6 shooting at this point.

In combat I do my general’s combat first, hoping to move the unit forward and move the dark riders into the bubbles.  Paul declares a challenge with his champion and I accept with mine, pushing trapped character back into the combat.  I will have to be careful of that, when I placed my unit I didn’t consider having more than one model that could only attack a challenging model.  Sloppy.  My champion did a wound and then died but without any overkill.  His firebelly did make way, but not the BSB.

My general then does 4 to the firebelly, cleaning him up.  My master does 2 wounds from the potion of strength.  My cloak of twilight does 7 wounds to the unit.  The back rank and a horse each do 1 more wound, leaving him with just the 2 fighting ranks.  All my non-general characters take a wound.  The unit breaks, killing the banner and BSB, but I fail to catch.  More disappointingly, neither the leadbelchers nor the ironblaster fail their panic check.

The dark riders kill 2 models off of the leadbelchers and lose 1 in return.  He holds, but decides not to reform as it would open up more attacks and possibly block the ironblaster.




Turn 3 - Ogres
The iron blaster does go into the dark riders.  Paul wanted to put them into the larger unit, but couldn’t’ get the angle so put them into the smaller unit.  Just mean that there were fewer points and if the impact hits went crazy he couldn’t get his maximum wounds (and risked losing his crew attacks).  The ogre darts held pat.  The leadblechers turn to face the bunker and sadly, the general’s unit rallies.

He then rolls a 7/5 magic phase, and as my fried Van would say, “put his shields up.”  I decided to let the +1T go through as I had a soulblight and wanted to stop the regeneration.  A 3D +1 did come first and a 4D regeneration saw me not rolling higher than a 3 and failing the dispel… ouch.

The leadbelcher opens up with 11 hits on the bunker and I lose 4, failing 4 of 5 4+ saves.  It looked for a second like my dice were turning on me.


The ironblaster only manages 1 hit on the dark riders and kills a model.  I then do 2 wounds to the leadbelchers and 1 to the ironblaster (thank you horse).  Paul’s dice turn and he only kills 1 dark rider and I win combat.  The leadbelchers hold but the ironblaster runs right in front of my bunker.


Turn 4 – Dark Elves
Wanting to get back into the much diminished bunker unit, I charge the now in the way ironblaster.  It obliges but rolling high and running off the table.  I then make it into the bunker.  That dark rider unit on the right that hadn’t moved since vanguard found itself in the perfect place to secondary charge should the bunker have fled through the ogre dart forcing him to hold.  I make it in.

I roll a 5/3 magic phase and chuck them all at soulblight.

My shooting kills a wolf off.

Now in the general bubble, I go with the leadbelcher combat first, doing 2 wounds while he kills off the smaller dark rider unit.  He holds with 1 wound left.

The bunker v bunker combat is eventful.  My BSB gets into a challenge with his champion and only manages 1 wound but makes his save.  I then do 3 wounds to the unit and put 2 on his general.  He kills the twilight cloak dread lord but only does those 2 wounds.  I’m up 4 wounds, rank, charge and banner and he fails his snakes.  This time I catch him.

With a unit of leadbelchers, 1 out of position sabertusk and 2 ogre darts (one missing an ogre left) Paul concedes the game.  Probably good, it was after 11 and I didn’t end up getting up until just past midnight.  Had to work Friday.



So after action… Bolt throwers still seem worthless.  The character unit is a beast.  Maybe more than I need it to be.  The magic is weak.  I miss my level 4.  Right now my first instinct is to drop a dreadlord down to a master and upgrade the death caster to a level 4.  That lets me keep most of my combat, giving up some synergy.  I think what I would do was keep the cloak and sword of strife on the general for 6 attacks and move the ogre blade to a master for 3 instead of 4 attacks.  I would have to lose the dawnstone, but I could live with that.  I would also lose the ability to dart a survivable character out of the unit, but I might be able to make that up by adding a charmed shield in.  I don’t think there would be any savings from that, but I’d have some extra points from dropping the three bolt throwers for a hydra.  The hydra would become cannon bait, but that might be ok.

We’ll see how Adepticon goes.

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