So I’ve had a little break from posting here… I have lots of excuses of course but I’ll try and drop a line again in the next week or two with some reflections on the game since the last Battlescroll. Unfortunately, we’ve slid in a direction which is a bit demotivating for a lot of people to play competitively but try not and let that get you down! There are still plenty of good opponents to give you a good game out there!
I did head up to Lübeck earlier this month for a one dayer. It’s been quite a while (end of 3rd) since I made it up there. The Lübeckers are a really nice crowd and this was part of the draw to go join the event for me. On top of that there were plenty of old faces from Kiel and Hamburg as well as a couple of new ones too!
It felt good to get another tournament in… that’s my first one in person since Hamburg Major back in January! I’m trying to get some more in between life, the universe, and everything it can be tough but no reason to let that stop me. I blame the moon. Can’t trust that damn thing!
Location etc
Really nice spot! Well looked after by the hosts with drinks, snacks, and lunch included. Good amount of space around tables, plenty of chairs, very functionally oriented terrain on tables. Weird thing to appreciate but they had a lovely big table where we could all sit around for lunch in the middle of a LARP shop, I thought that was really cool. Here’s a link to the shop if you’re ever in the area: https://pro.apparatus-larp.com/
Tournament meta
Well well well…. Small tournament at 12 players but practically everyone bringing the filth (except lovely old me of course 😉). 2 Sylv, 2 DoK, and DoT… no Lumineth or FEC though. I haven’t had many games into any of those three so was looking forward to getting some practice. You can see all the lists here if you’ve got an account since it was done with Herald. Wacky is that only 2 of the 12 armies were 2 drop and everything else has pushed into the higher drop territory.
My list
After testing a whole series of variations mostly around deciding whether to include the Ironclad or not, I’ve landed on this one which gives me a good combination of close range shooting pressure but enough melee to push things out of obscuring. I do really like the 6+ ward for Vongrim subfaction as it starts to make a quite prickly castle with not many units able to wipe a whole unit of Vongrim hiding in the “Skyvessel Cover”
Game 1 – Cyclic Shifts against Axel’s DoT
Feeling a bit tired after the drive I was hoping to go into an army not requiring too much brain power and… by the end of trying to go through the DoT unit abilities my brain was already a bit frazzled. That’s DoT though. It still feels a bit to me like the opponent is playing and I’m there for the ride against Tzeentch. Not to say that doesn’t make for fun games and I’m starting to see what my options are. In the list, there are really 2 hammers that I don’t want to suffer too much to, the Enlightened and the Tzaangors.
So I need to be moving up to threaten multiple units relatively early whilst still presenting a prickly enough castle to discourage the Tzeentch player from going in and if they do clapping back hard enough to swing things my way. It’s also clear here that reducing the number of units on the board reduces the flexibility of Tzeentch. Also, it’s fun to remove units so that makes it a bit easier mentally through what can otherwise be tough mental games. Here, the first turning point was taking the boatefact (great endrinwork) to give me a 4+ spell ignore bubble which takes away a lot of the damage the wizards can do to me. This really helps to stop the Master and Intercept!
Then I worked my way up the board using the terrain to keep the Tzaangors far enough away. I was very careful that I didn’t want to get both units slamming into my key units on the same turn. Going into my first turn, Axel use transformation into Spawn on me and due to a mix up about how the rule worked on that, it locked a lot of my army in combat (it can only be in combat with the unit it was cast on).
I kept things well back and when I won the prio into turn 2 I gave Axel the turn.
He didn’t spawn me again in my turn so I took my chance with the Enlightened just within reach if I could clear enough of the screens and bounce off them for my charge (use them to enable my Frigate to go in and drop my strike first unit in front). Went for them knowing I’d have to deal with the Tzaangors but thinking that if I could clear enough units that this would be enough.
That’s pretty much how it went down and I managed to knock off about half the Tzaangors in my turn alone. I chased Kairos down and only managed to kill him right at the end with the mortals at end of turn from my Skywardens. Then we pretty much just talked out turn 4 and 5. I can’t catch Tzeentch with all their tricks so this wasn’t a high scoring game but was securely mine.
Result: 67:42 to me and a win for lunch with a pretty good veggie schintzel and chips!
Game 2 – Creeping Corruption against Lukas’ OBR
Lukas is a regular tournament goer in the North and I’ve seen him picking up more wins and becoming a real threat on the Tabletop recently so I was a little nervous when I saw his name. He was bringing his new OBR and this is the first time for me into OBR since the new book so it was going to be interesting to see how it all worked. It was an interesting list with a mix of units between Deathriders, Mortek Guard, Morghasts, Triaxes… and Reapers. I already knew the Reapers were going to be confusing… but I hadn’t realised quite how confusing they would be!
Lukas hadn’t had many games yet with OBR by his own admission so I felt that was going to help balance it a little in my favour. Only problem is the damn terrain! It blocks my ability to use the Transport Skyfarers and Assault Boat with the Frigate. This means I had to make an early decision whether to take a measured approach or to push in hard before the terrain aura would block my setups.
Lukas ended up deploying the Morghast on the line… just within the aura of the terrain so I could have still gone for the alpha but with the Mortek Guard and Triaxes in behind to further increase damage and likely shoot the hell out of me I let him take the first turn.
We really just sort of stared at each other across the board in the first turn. I had decided to take the more measured approach and just sort of admit that the Frigate was going to need to hang back and deal with stray threats in my territory.
Lukas wasn’t having any of this and pushed his Morghasts right in… chip damage did its work, one went down before they could activate. They honestly whiffed a little… leaving them sitting there looking right at a whole lot of pistols.
I moved up to open some potential charges (and gave the Triaxes the lovely covering fire target of an Auto-Endrin) and then took away the Morghasts ward with the grenade. Then I started shooting!
And… 2 more went down quick… and then I fired 4 units including Brokk and failed to do any more wounds into the last one at all! It looked like I was going to have the frigate stuck in combat right at the end but I managed to ping 3 mortal wounds at the end of the turn with the Skywardens in combat with it!
The other units had charged in to wipe most of the Triaxes and just do enough damage to take away the threats to me and it was really cleaning up after that to consolidate the win.
Result: A really fun game with plenty of learning and a 66:46 for me. This was our first game against each other and I hope I pair into Lukas again, it was a really fun game.
Game 3- Linked Leylines against Tobi’s Seraphon
So… last game after two wins but middling scoring meant I was sitting on Table 2 dodging the DoK and Sylvaneth armies both on 2 wins but going straight into Tobi my teammate from Fettes Grot. It’s pretty much a given that our team will pair against each other in the last round somehow. Tobi is rocking his Seraphon at the moment… In the meta, we’re not seeing that much success for Seraphon but Tobi is a strong player and is always a challenge to go up against regardless of that!
It’s got a core of Kroak and the Saurus guard which I know I can’t fight through and is going to hurt me back over the turns I’m stuck in combat with them (but watch me try it anyway). Leylines isn’t a great battleplan for me since I don’t want to stay static across the leylines. It does leave the middle pretty open for me to maneuvre within though which is nice. Although Kroak and his spell could be crippling for me, I’ve got the chance to select the Nullstone boatefact to give me the 4+ spell ignore (although doing d3 mortals back each time is less exciting against Kroak).
This was also the only matchup of the two armies with 2 drops so all I had to do was win the rolloff. Tobi promptly rolled a 2 and I managed a 1… oof!
I could see two options for me in this game… either he would spread out too much and let me pick pieces off or I’d have to try and swing to a double, do enough damage and then try to hold on for points. Only problem is that Tobi’s a really well considered player and he made it definitely look like he wasn’t going to open up his castle to me.
Seeing his position in obscuring / cover (he definitely did the right thing there)… I positioned myself so that if I won Prio I could give it away… I almost choked and took it anyway but then stuck to the plan to chase that double.
He took away a charge dice for the Frigate with the Hunters of Huanchi so I shot into the two monsters on one flank and put a few things in trying not to tag too much too quickly (after a pretty bum round of shooting, I only just got the darned Skink on Troglodon with my last activation with the Khemist… boy was I worried that the 2 d3 heal per turn was going to heal it all the way back up).
I did win that prio roll into the next turn and I was probably over worried about the one unit of Aggradons and in return the 2 Saurus Guard Units slowly did a massive number on me even across the double. Tobi kept scoring strong though but the double was enough to secure this one for me.
Result: A win for Fettes Grot, 51:48 for me (we called it at the end of round 4 due to time)
Rounding things up
If you’re ever up around Lübeck, you should see if they’ve got a tournament on! They’re a great bunch of people and I had a really good time at the tournament. There’s definitely something to be said for smaller more intimate tournaments… even if there’s a bunch of cutthroats bringing the filth! Congrats to Henne for taking the 1st place with 3 high scoring games. I’m really happy with the 3 wins and second place especially with where KO sit these days. After a pleasant drive back with Janis, I whipped up a classic post tournament traditional Mee Goreng and wound down thinking back over the games during the day. As I finish writing this one up… I’m so keen to get to more tournaments. I’ve got to admit that I’m also keen to see the new GHB and an update to the balance in general. I’ll have a few more TTS games at least before that comes out to keep my dice warm. After that, I’m interested to see what comes and I hope it is a change to the obscuring rules!
