The 5th of January saw me face off against
Alistair’s Orc and Goblins, in my final group game of the Warhammer Fantasy Competition.
Having given him a
practice game with my Dwarves, at the end of last year, I had some idea of what to expect from his army. As such, in a straight fight I was reasonably confident that I would come out on top. How wrong I was! But I’m getting ahead of myself. As normal, any mistakes in this report are down to memory and notes.
The migration of the Herd continued. They may have taken casualties against the stunted ones but they had successfully navigated the mountains and made it into new lands. A great plain had spread out before them, dotted with small woods. The scouts had reported to Khazbar that a significant forest lay ahead which promised refuge and a new home but they had also reported roving bands of Greenskins in the vicinity. It was one of these that the Vanguard had wiped out but under his instructions, they had allowed some of the wolf mounted goblins to escape. This, he knew, would ensure that more of their kind would be drawn to them as a moth to a flame as the greenskins, even more than his beastmen, loved any excuse for a scrap and wouldn’t stand by whilst a herd of their strength passed through. The trick would be to eradicate all the Orcs in the immediate vicinity so more wouldn’t gather to continually bleed away the strength of the herd. It was for this reason Khazbar had gone against the orders of Bashor and let survivors escape. Who knows, he thought, perhaps the greenskins would succeed where the stunties had failed and kill off the troublesome Beastlord.
TerrainFor this game we rolled up
Map Pack 6, which consisted of 2 woods, 2 hills and 2 marshes.
Alistair was player A and started by laying the 2 woods and after setup was complete, it looked like this:
Scenario and pre-match rollsAlistair rolled the
Dawn attack scenario. This competition scenario is played as per the Dawn Attack scenario from the rule book so had the random deployment element (which never goes well - as was the case here!). The comp scenario differed from the book as the table is divided into 4 quarters and to win you must control more quarters than your opponent (with your opponents half worth 2 points each and your half worth 1 point each. This gives you an incentive to move forward and not castle).
In terms of spells rolled for everyone:
Khazbar (level 4 beasts) had: Savage beast of Horros, Curse of Anraheir, The Amber spear and Wyssan's Wildform.
Wazzock (level 1 Shadow) took Melkoth's Miasma.
The Orc (level 2) with power scroll rolled: Brain Buster and 'ed Butt .
The Orc (level 2) with Ironcurse Icon bought: Hand of Gork and Gaze of Mork.
In terms of
secret missions, I took Hero Hammered (kill more enemy characters than they do) and Alistair took raid the baggage (get a fortitude bearing unit in the enemy deployment zone).
DeploymentDeployment was a bit of a nightmare for me with everything ending up boxed in the right flank with the exception of the 2 units of ungor raiders, one Razorgor and the Doombull in the centre.
Alistair's units were spread between his left flank and the centre of the board. There was one signal lonely unit of Boar boyz that were placed opposite the mass of my troops.
After deployment it looked like this:
Both chariots were suffering from the well known disease, limp spear.
With the entire Beastmen army entering the field from the far corner, the Orc forces had free range over their right flank. The wolf riders and trolls (accompanied by the BSB) pushed forward. Frustrated with how far away the enemy were, the Big Un's started to complain and drag their feet. Not putting up with this, Grashnik pulled out his choppa and summarily executed 4 of them.
Although all Orc's enjoy a good brawl, even the Boar Boyz were smart enough to realise that the forces arrayed opposite them would snuff them out as soon as look at them and moved with all haste towards the rest of their forces.
With a squeal, the first doomdiver was flung into the air. His aim was true and he struck the Doombull dead on. Snorting with pain, Cattleclysm wrenched the body of the goblin from the wound it had opened up with its impact.
Sensing the Hand of Gork start to coalesce under the orc archers, Khazbar quickly snuffed out the spell, sneering at the feeble magic of the green shamans. His disdain grew further as the other shaman called upon his other god and twin beams of green light tore up the ground but fell well short of the Beastmen lines.
Determined to get to grips with the unruly mass of greenskins, the two hordes of beastmen pushed up, angling towards the nearest Orc units. Everything else moved forward, towards the centre of the battlefield.
Attempting to ensure his bodyguard would survive the further attentions of any flying goblins, Wyssan's was cast on the Doombull.
The Orc right flank continued to advance at pace swinging round to head towards the enemy units.
The Boar Boyz continued their redeployment (running away!) and this was further aided by the Shaman casting hand of Gork. The Orc Shaman scooped up the unit and deposited it square in the middle of the orc lines (and conveniently out of the range of the Beastmen units).
The Doom divers continued to rain down, this time targeting the unit of Gor dismembering a handful of them on impact.
The archers, showing why Orcs shouldn't be trusted with anything bar a blunt instrument, fail to hit, let alone kill, any of the barn door sized unit of Gor in front of them.
Boarboyz after the Hand of Gork
Determined to avoid any further attention from the Goblin artillery, the Doombull attempted to charge the nearby archers but the earlier wounds had damaged his wings and he was unable to make the distance. The rest of the herd continued forward maintaining the battleline. The flock of harpies swept round the side of the orc archers. A lone Razorgor moved forward to tempt the orcs into doing something rash.
Although Wyssans was again successfully cast again on Cattleclysm, when Khazbar casually followed up by throwing the Amber spear at the nearby cavalry, it dissipated before reaching them, with one of the enemy shaman cackling. At that point Khazbar knew it would have to die.
Unable to contain themselves, with the Razorgor nearby, the Orc boys tried to get to grips with it but with a breakdown of communication the back ranks fell over the front and the charge ground to a halt.
The Orc shaman, in another show of cunning, again called on his God who this time scooped up the orc archers and placed them behind the beastmen hordes in a very threatening position. Worry lines appeared for an instance on Khazbars face before he hardened his gaze, determination overcoming his fear of the seemingly omnipotent Orc Gods.
The Orc ranged units again targeted the horde of Gor with the archers again failing to wound despite firing almost point blank into the rear of the unit. The Doom diver only managed marginally better, killing a single Gor.
The harpies let out a shriek and flew towards the flying goblins. In their eagerness they tangled up and fell to the ground well short of their target.
The Doombull, snorting with excitement at the blood to come, smashed into the side of the orc boyz and went to town killing 7 of them. Despite the slaughter, they remained steadfast and reformed to try and bring their overwhelming numbers to bear.
Bashor and his bodyguard reformed and moved forward to face the archers. Khazbar and his Gor moved further and were now in a position to threaten the enemy lines. The two chariots moved up to support and the two Razorgor were sent forward to get in the way.
The Ungor raiders, that had done nothing so far apart from avoid being killed by moving through the marsh, managed to beat all expectations and actually kill a wolf rider with shooting.
The Bestigor did reform honest! (We just moved the lord and standard to save time).
The Orc Boar riders could only hang on as they lost control of their mounts and they charged into the Razorgor, their animal instincts recognising and wanting to kill a corruption of one of their own. To the surprise of no one, the unit made short work of it.
The other Razorgor met a similar fate but at the hands of the Goblin cavalry. It didn't go down easily and dragged two of their number down with it.
The Orc General, decided to make his move and moved up ready to charge the Doombull and support the block of boyz.
The elite Orcs again started infighting as their path to the enemy was blocked. Grashnik only needed to decapite a single orc this time to get the others in line. Gork then intervened and moved the unit closer to the enemy and clear of the backlog or friendly units (
and in the process achieving Alistair's secondary mission).
In a show of desperation, the arrer boyz finally managed to shoot something successfully (in this case 3 bestigor). They were supported by the Kamikaze goblin who flattened a further five when it impacted the unit.
Sensing the pivotal moment had come, the forces of the herd charged where ever possible. The Gor horde piled into the flank of the Orc Boyz in support of Cattleclysm (
we diced this to see if it was a front or flank as it was an even split to both).
The Bestigor horde tore into the arrer boyz and led by Bashor crushed the Orcs, slaying a full 17 of them before running down the remainder.
The two chariots charged the boars, squealing pigs were thrown into the air with the impact (
we didn't actually get to complete the combat due to time).
The shrieking harpies finally managed to make it into the goblins and the bird women quickly surrounded their prey (
again we didn't complete the combat due to time).
Both sets of Ungor Raiders again excelled themselves with one unit taking out another wolf rider and the other shooting two Big 'Uns.
The mass of Gor in close proximity to the enemy shamans unnerved them enough that Khazbar was able to cast both Wyssans on the Gor horde and Savage Beast on himself, the detonation from the miscast merely killing a single Gor, Orc and putting a wound on the Beastmen BSB. He grinned as his body swelled with power and made full use of it as he personally cut down five of the pitiful orcs in front of him sucking in the pure essence released in their death. Zhurock planted the herd standard in the ground and added 3 deaths to the tally of Orcs. Cattleclysm, his wounds finally getting to him, slumped down and failed to cause any damage. The rest of the horde made up for the Doombull's deficiency and butcher a load more Orcs. Even with the General nearby, the losses were too much for the boyz and they dropped their weapons and legged it for the hills. The Gor horde followed but crashed into the staggering Doombull, failing to catch the fleeing orcs.
The Doombull isn't running, he just fit better that way round!
ResultsMe - Loss (5) + Fully Painted (2) = 7 points
Alistair - Win (15) + Secondary Mission (6) + Fully Painted (2) = 23 points
ConclusionYet another really, really close game but unlike the match against Martin's Dwarves this one went against me.
At the end of the game, the Bestigor had control of one of my quadrants (1 point for me) and the Big 'Uns and Wolf riders had control of my other quadrant (2 points for Alistair). The Doombull blocking the Gor overrun in the final turn, meant that they missed capturing one of Alistair's quadrants by a minuscule 1.5" (you have to be wholly within a quadrant to capture it and frustratingly, they were slightly overlapping his two quadrants). This gave Alistair a win, by 2-1 scenario points.
Dawn attack always presents a challenge with the random deployment and this game was no different. Even I was taken back by nearly everything going in one corner and of course most of Alistair's was always going to go in the other. Reality meant that a good chunk of the game involved trying to get to the middle of the table in good order to even get into combat.
I knew that movement spells were good but I was taken aback with just how good the Hand of Gork was. Not only does it allow an out of turn movement but it also allows you to completely change a units facing, which I think is unique even among movement spells. Now I will say that the spell is tempered by having a random movement distance but Alistair rarely rolled under 18" for this and almost every time it was used, it really disrupted my game and had me on the back foot. Even having a +2 bonus over him on dispelling, due to the winds of magic rolls, I was rarely able to stop the spell. It also allowed him to complete his secondary mission by moving the Big 'Uns into my deployment zone (to capture the baggage). Moving his Boar Boyz out of range of my units helped prevent me getting my mission and threw my units out of position.
My plan (such as it was) to engage single units while 'chaffing' up others, worked well and in each combat my troops overwhelmed his but time was against me and these games were about scenarios not kills (which I of course kind of went out of my mind during play) and Alistair played a good game and secured the win and his secondary object, maximising his points.
Overall it was a fun but slightly frustrating game (mainly down to the deployment) and leaves my qualifying in a precarious position. At present I lead the group with 42 points, however I've played all three games and the others in the group have only played 1 game a piece. Luke is second on 26 points and Alistair is third on 23 points. This puts them both in a strong position and another solid win could easily put them above me. Still, if I do go out, it allows me to concentrate on the Blood Bowl league (and just administrate the remainder of this competition).
The cut off for the group stages is the 2nd February and I know Luke and Alistair have their game booked for later in the month, so I will just have to wait and see what happens in the group (though if Luke doesn't clean up, i'll be surprised, so I suspect the only question is who gets the second place spot).
