Second TOW event in the Netherlands, the support and interest is growing!
Another 1500 points event (the first ones are kind of warm-up events), organised by Stefan from Alliance Open (the Dutch organisation that does lots of events for all kinds of tabletop gaming). Rulespack could be found here: Rulespack & Information AO The Old World April 27th v1.2.pdf
Once more, amazing job by the TO, great venue, great organisation in every aspect. As a former TO myself of many years, I can appreciate the amount of effort that goes into these kinds of things. Especially since Stefan also played in the event as a substitute in case of an odd number of players (which ended up happening). You can see some more photos on their facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?vanity=AllianceOpenTournaments&set=a.947550687376175
Now, onto my list! I played this all-mounted empire: https://www.newrecruit.eu/app/list/Wfirs
| The Empire of Man – All Cav Lector – [1495pts] # Main Force [1495pts] ## Characters [692pts] Captain of the Empire [149pts]: Hand Weapon, Shield, Barded Warhorse, Barding, Hand Weapon, Full Plate Armour, Battle Standard Bearer, War Banner, Talisman Of Protection Captain of the Empire [115pts]: Hand Weapon, Lance, Pegasus, Hand Weapon, Full Plate Armour, Charmed Shield, Dragon Bow Lector of Sigmar [340pts]: Hand Weapon, Light Armour, War Altar of Sigmar, 2x Barded Warhorse, Barding, Hand Weapon, General, Mace of Helsturm, The White Cloak Priest of Sigmar [88pts]: Hand Weapon, Heavy Armour, Barded Warhorse, Barding, Hand Weapon, Great Weapon, Charmed Shield ## Core [430pts] Empire Knights [304pts]: Drilled • 12x Empire Knight [22pts]: Barded Warhorse, Barding, Hand Weapon, Hand Weapon, Heavy Armour, Shield, Lance • 1x Preceptor [6pts] • 1x Musician [6pts] • 1x Standard Bearer [16pts]: Banner of Duty Empire Knights [126pts]: Stubborn • 5x Empire Knight [22pts]: Barded Warhorse, Barding, Hand Weapon, Hand Weapon, Heavy Armour, Shield, Lance • 1x Musician [6pts] ## Special [373pts] Demigryph Knights [266pts]: • 4x Demigryph Knight [63pts]: Demigryph, Barding, Hand Weapon, Wicked Claws, Hand Weapon, Shield, Full Plate Armour, Lance • 1x Demigryph Preceptor [7pts] • 1x Standard Bearer [7pts] Outriders [107pts]: • 5x Outrider [19pts]: Empire Warhorse, Hand Weapon, Hand Weapon, Heavy Armour, Pistol, Repeater Handgun • 1x Sharpshooter [6pts]: Repeater Handgun • 1x Musician [6pts] |
A nice photo of the gang at 1:43 AM the night before the tournament 😂
I wanted to try out something new in TOW – a no-magic list, and to see if I can get somewhat reliable buffs from Warrior Priests by including several things:
- Include more than 1 warrior priest – this was an epiphany I had earlier that made me want to try this list out – what if you could use multiple warrior priests to force an important LD roll for an important buff? The range of all of the Sigmar Warrior Priests abilities is “This model and one unit in command range”. The nice bonus is that the command range of a general on a war altar is 18”!
- Include the banner to reroll a LD test. This is the only way to give a warrior priest a reroll of his ability (unlike undead BSBs, grumble, grumble), which can be used if I fail the test in a crucial turn.
The war altar has a nifty debuff for magic users within his 18” bubble (-2 to cast), MR2 of his own, plus the other warrior priest gives MR1 to the big knight unit. Wasn’t sure if it would work, but I was willing to give it a try.
Now, onto the games!
Round 1 vs High Elves
Opponent’s list was this:
| High Elf Realms – Stuff from the Elf shelf – [1499pts] # Main Force [1499pts] ## Characters [477pts] Archmage [235pts]: Hand Weapon, Elementalism, Wizard Level 4, Lore Familiar, Seed of Rebirth, Pure of Heart Noble [242pts]: Hand Weapon, Shield, Full Plate Armour, Great Weapon, Griffon, Heavy Armour, Serrated Maw, Wicked Claws, General, Dragon Helm, Seed of Rebirth, Pure of Heart ## Core [379pts] Lothern Sea Guard [379pts]: Magic Standard, Veterans • 24x Lothern Sea Guard [12pts]: Hand Weapon, Light Armour, Thrusting Spear, Warbow, Shield • 1x Sea Master [17pts]: Enchanted Shield • 1x Standard Bearer [45pts]: Razor Standard • 1x Musician [5pts] ## Special [278pts] White Lions of Chrace [278pts]: • 14x White Lion [15pts]: Chracian Great Blade, Hand Weapon, Heavy Armour, Veteran • 1x Guardian [6pts] • 1x Standard Bearer [56pts]: Banner of Iron Resolve • 1x Musician [6pts] ## Rare [365pts] 2x Eagle-Claw Bolt Thrower [80pts]: Bolt Thrower, Repeater Bolt Thrower, Sea Guard Crew Frostheart Phoenix [205pts]: Full Plate Armour, Wicked Claws |
His mage chose the Plague of Rust, Summon Elemental Spirit, Earthen Ramparts and Wind Blast. (I didn’t realize before this game that summon elemental spirit and wind blast make a nice combo where you can place the template behind the unit and then push them into the template with the wind blast)
No deployment photo, forgot to take one! Doh! But I remembered to take a lot of photos later on 🙂
He got the first turn and cast Ramparts on his sea guard block with his mage plus shot down some of my small knights (2 down).
On my first turn I moved up with everything to start threatening charges.Outriders on the right side marched to move out of the phoenix’s arc and threaten the charge on the bolt thrower, while demis were hiding behind them to not be easily shot at by the bolt throwers.
His turn 2, he put his Lord on a griffon in front of my knights. I didn’t take that huge knights bus not to charge, so charge I did, while also trying to charge my war altar and pegasus riding captain into the sea guard. Idea being that war altar will do some wounds, and pegasus guy will provide first charge rule and hopefully that would win us the combat. Unfortunately, war altar got 1 and 2 on his dice and didn’t make it, while the pegasus guy did. Egh, not ideal..
On the other flank, bolt thrower shot down 2 outriders who fell their panic test (unfortunately, would’ve been a nice charge there). The phoenix was able to get to the flank of my demigryphs, who then decided their best bet is not to get flanked by the bird. They went full ahead towards the bolt thrower, inviting the birdie into their rear. Outriders rallied, moved a bit and shot pistols at the bird and did two wounds!
My knights didn’t really do that well into the griffon (as expected). My plan for a lot of knightly attacks (remember, entire first rank can attack with 1 attack each) doesn’t work that well if the enemy challenges, because me refusing the challenge means my opponent can retire my warrior priest and remove my prayer of rerolling 1s. In hindsight, maybe I should have just refused the challenge and strike at him without the rerolls… It was a tough decision.
What happened next is quite a cool moment that opened the doors somewhat for me in the otherwise bad looking game. When my knights were rolling for their break test on my opponent’s turn, they rolled enough to Fall Back in Good Order (FBIGO), but as that is actually a unit broken from combat, it sent a panic wave in 6 inches around him. My war altar failed, and then rerolled the panic due to the war altar’s ability, and failed it again. But then I realized that that’s actually not at all a bad thing. The war altar fled, rallied automatically (because it is also a FBIGO when units fail a panic unless their model count is lower than when they started) and I was able to face the war altar to the griffon rider! And then charge him in my turn! And then bonk him in the face with Mace of Helstrum. Which I did! Huzzah! On the right flank, my demis failed to restrain their overrun move so they went out of the board after killing the bolt thrower.
All this time, my war altar was within 18” of the enemy mage trying to make him not succeed in casting. It did it a few times, but when enemy rolls 5-5 or 4-5 or similar results, -2 doesn’t really help there. But what I realized is that my mage dispelling would also probably not succeed in those rolls. This meant that Plague of Rust was constantly on my big unit of knights. At some point in this, my pegasus dude got shot down by magic and/or shooting. Sea guard with all those shots and AB2 banner is really nice way to get some anti-armour in your list.
Next few turns will be very easily described by the images below… Opposing mage got off Plague on my unit(s) one at a time and then killed and/or whittled down my Lord on the war altar and my big block of knights. Short range barrage of lothloren sea guard with AB2 banner + bolt thrower + some magic will do a number on ya, and a big flying bird can finish off what’s left.
My demigryps came way too late for the party, and in the end there was no point in me doing a turn 6 charge into his white lions, as I couldn’t really do enough damage for any points to be scored as they are stubborn.
Game ended like this.
My kills:
Noble [242pts], general +100, Eagle-Claw Bolt Thrower [80pts]. Total: 422 points
My losses:
Everything but the demis: 1229 + 100 general + 50 bsb banner + 50 knights banner = 1429
Overall: -1007 points difference. End result: 3-17 battle points. Quite a rocky start. Note that for the tournament, as I was playing against the TO as the stand in, he always puts in a draw in case he wins. So it made my end score a bit better than I deserved.
Some post game thoughts – I’m not 100% sure what went wrong here for me… After I bonked the enemy general I thought I would be in a good shape, but turns out that I wasn’t. My war altar fell REALLY quickly once he focused it. I kind of remember lots of opponent’s spells going off (rolling 8-10 on 2d6 most of the time) and we also (mis)played it so that the AB2 banner works on spells as well (it doesn’t as Armour Bane only works on weapon attacks). But the problems started when I underestimated that unit from the start, and then didn’t get the charge into it via the chariot. No swiftstride really hurts its charge distance as you just need once a bad 2d6 roll and you’re not moving much… And the fact that everything in the battle took place right in front of the sea guard’s short range shooting range didn’t help either. But I was most likely supposed to keep my demigryphs close and get them involved against some infantry sooner. Them taking down a bolt thrower is just down to my bad tactical usage of them.
Round 2 vs Orks and Goblins
Game two was against the greenskins! Finally for me to see what the deal is with those fanatics… 🟢 😢
Opponent’s list was this:
| Orc and Goblin Tribes – 1.5k Waaagh! – [1498pts] Main Force [1498pts] Characters [592pts] Black Orc Warboss [342pts]: Full Plate Armour, Hand Weapon, Shield, Wyvern, Heavy Armour, Venomous Tail, Wicked claws, General, Trollhide Trousers, Da Choppiest Choppa Night Goblin Bigboss [50pts]: Hand Weapon, Light Armour, Shield, Wollopa’s One Hit Wunds Night Goblin Oddnob [200pts]: Hand Weapon, Wizard Level 4, Waaagh! Magic, Flying Carpet Core [521pts] Black Orc Mobs [243pts]: Stubborn 12x Black Orc [168pts]: Full Plate Armour, Hand Weapon, Great Weapon 1x Boss [20pts]: Full Plate Armour, Hand Weapon, Great Weapon 1x Musician [20pts]: Full Plate Armour, Hand Weapon, Great Weapon 1x Standard Bearer [20pts]: Full Plate Armour, Hand Weapon, Great Weapon Goblin Wolf Rider Mobs [50pts]: 5x Wolf Rider [10pts]: Giant Wolf, Claws and fangs, Hand Weapon, Shield, Cavalry Spear Night Goblin Mobs [228pts]: Netters 29x Night Goblin [4pts]: Hand Weapon, Thrusting Spear, Shield 3x Fanatic [75pts]: Fanatic Ball & Chain 1x Boss [7pts] 1x Musician [5pts] 1x Standard Bearer [5pts] Special [185pts] 2x Goblin Bolt Throwas [45pts]: 1x Bolt Throwa [45pts]: Goblin Crew, Hand Weapon, Bolt Thrower Orc Boar Chariots [95pts]: 1x Orc Boar Chariot [95pts]: 2x War Boar, Tusks, 3x Orc Crew, Cavalry Spear, Hand Weapon Rare [200pts] Giants [200pts]: 1x Giant [200pts]: Callowared Hide, Giant’s Club |
His mage rolled 3 (de)buff spells and one foot of mork (or gork?).
We played the diagonal deployment scenario and this time I’ve kept my units close. I’ve deployed the outriders so that they can have a good shooting from turn 1, and the pegasus guy so he can go warmachine hunting! I’ve moved the outriders more to the left with their vanguard move, and the first turn was mine.
I’ve moved the pegasus guy all the way to the left of the night gobbos so he can fly over them and get into the bolt throwers, and I’ve shot down the wolf riders (only 3 died) who failed their panic and fled behind the lines. On the right flank, I’ve drilled my unit of knights to do a 21” march towards the enemy. War altar and the demis and stubborn knight chaff unit moved up as well to get into the 18” range of the enemy mage to start using his -2 to cast.
Opponent then released 1 fanatic to try to tackle my pegasus guy, moved the fanatics up. Repositioned his general a bit, and moved his giant and boar chariot in a way so my knights don’t see them from the forest. In hindsight, I should’ve entered the forest a bit with my unit so that I could see through it. But it wasn’t a big deal, as I have counter charge, I can work around that.
Fanatic did just 1 wound to my pegasus dude, but I think a bolt thrower hit him and finished him off. Sad day for him 🙁 The goblin wolf riders rallied and moved to intercept my pegasus dude.
In my turn, I moved up with my knights to see the giant and the chariot, ready to counter charge them, alongside with my plan to drilled into redressing the ranks to bring A LOT of knights into the front rank for attacking. I also had my prayer off for rerolling 1s to hit and to wound. I was ready.
War altar repositioned itself to be able to start charging stuff next round, threatening the BONK to the enemy general, while my stubborn knights were offered to manslaughter to draw out charges and redirect.
On the left flank, I decided I won’t be shooting at the night goblins with my outriders, but I’ll march them to the far left, to be able to stand-and-shoot the wolf unit if they were to charge, and to otherwise charge/harass the back line of enemy’s forces. At this moment I felt good. I’ve lost the pegasus guy, but my outriders in his back, my full frontage is ready to charge – it’s going to be good! Onto the opponent’s turn… (yes, this is dark premonition)
Opponent was about to declare several charges – his goblin wolf riders (2 models) into my full unit of outriders, his general into my stubborn knights, and his giant and chariot into my knights. However, he started with his giant. Which meant I had a terror test. Which I failed. Doh. But it’s ok, I have my reroll one LD test banner, I’ll just roll it again. Failed again. DOH. Ugh, fine, I guess I’ll flee… Oh, but behind me there’s impassable terrain. So how do I actually flee then? I have to go around the terrain, but I was so close that I can’t wheel to get around it at all… The judge ruled that they won’t pivot directly away from the giant 1” in front of the house, but that they’ll pivot so that they can wheel around the house. I’m not sure if that’s the correct way to do it rules wise… It is definitely in the spirit of “they want to get the fuck outta there” and facing the house without being able to wheel behind it surely doesn’t seem like something you’d do when you’re trying to get out of dodge. But, even with that, my knight rolled INCREDIBLY low, and had to wheel around the house, and the giant rolled 6 on his charge distance and he caught them. BAM! 550 points gone, 2 of my characters and one of my 2 main combat units. Yikes. To top it all off, my general failed a panic test after the giant caught the knights 6” away from his position. But, again, same as last time, this was actually to my benefit as he just got a 2d6 move towards the enemy, ready to charge his general in the next turn.
What also happened is that my knights who baited enemy’s general panicked the demigryphs, who again kind of got a free movement into the enemy (closer to the night goblins).
My outriders killed one goblin rider in stand and shoot and then killed the other one in combat and got a nice overrun move for their trouble, right in front of the enemy warmachines. Nice, some reckoning for that knight bus that got wiped out.
However, what happened next will surprise no one who has seen fanatics in action already. Holy moly… Let’s begin.
Fanatics get released in command phase (before enemy charges) and then enemy charges through them, suffers damage, and then they move and can move through my charging unit AGAIN?!?! I’M SORRY WHAT?! Yikes!
So, what happened is that 1 fanatic completely wiped out my unit of outriders even though they successfully charged the war machine, and another fanatic did about 7-8 wounds on my Demigryph unit. JUST ONE FANATIC. OK, I rolled terribly on armor saves (I think I saved 0 or maybe 1 on 5+ on 9ish wounds), but still, that’s unbelievable damage output. Even if I knew everything about this, I’m not sure what is the counterplay to this, other than not having high value models near that unit?
Anyways, in other news, my war altar did the thing! He charged the enemy, bonked it, but didn’t kill it. I did 5 or 6 wounds in total (between impact hits and the mace) with the help of reroll 1s prayer. He even broke fully from combat because of my terror, but he fled enough to escape my wrath, and I didn’t flee enough to escape the black orks in my flank. Demis still managed to break the black goblins (even their boss rolled the S10 thingie)
In the opponent’s turn, everything rallied and I got the black orks in the flank of my war altar, which got some wounds on him. But he is stubborn so he was going to be fine afterwards.
He fled through the black gobbos and got even more damage thanks to that I think. But at the end of that flee he rallied (stubborn = FBIGO = rally at the end of the flee move) which YET AGAIN got him into a good position for a charge in my turn. He charged the night gobbos, together with the demigryphs. The gobbos fled and demis caught them, while war altar redirected into the enemy general again. This time I’ll finish him off! I did 6 wounds last time, I just need to finish up the last 2 wounds.
Errrm… nope. My impact hits didn’t do any damage, my mace bonked but was regenerated, and then the Ork general… killed my war altar… So instead of me having a commanding control of that flank with my general and 2 demis, it was just 2 demis surrounded by basically entire enemy army… I did some redirecting with my small knights, but in the end the demis got whacked as well.
In the end, my small knight unit was playing hide and seek with the enemy army and successfully did so. Also to note – other than the pegasus guy at start, enemy bolt throwers didn’t roll a single hit entire game. Still didn’t help me much 🙁
In the end, the result was quite devastating. I killed the gobbo unit and wolf riders, and the hero in that unit, but lost almost everything, lots of banners and general bonus. End result was 1-19 for the opponent.
Some post game thoughts – Well, this was a rough one. I’ve not done the math, but had I not failed that terror test (twice!), my knights would’ve probably killed the giant in a few rounds of combat, right? Lots of knights and horses attacks, rerolls of 1s to hit and to wound… And if that were to happen in a matter of let’s say 4 combat rounds, my knight bus would be in the rear/flank of the enemy causing all kinds of havoc and problems. It would be a completely different game. But even after that happened, I had a chance I think, and if my general managed to kill the enemy lord in the first or second charge it did, I would still be happy with how the game looked…
But, alas… The choice of having the War altar be the general (as a LD8 lord) was a conscious choice I made early in the list building so I could have him as a general so his bubble is 18” instead of 12”. Sure, failing that terror test with reroll was rough odds, but it’s not THAT rough. LD8 rerollable isn’t that great. Maybe I should’ve replaced the BSB captain in that unit with a cavalry grand master (lord or hero choice) to make them immune to psychology as well. Something to consider definitely. Minimize the number of potential failures of the list! Note that also this would’ve been avoided if I had placed one knight in the forest so I could see through it and be able to charge the giant myself instead of counting on counter-charge when he charges me. Small details are often very important…
In other news, if I remember correctly, I felt my magic defense was quite good in this game. Enemy got maybe a few spells off in the entire game (including one wandering foot of g/mork), and magic didn’t really do much in this game.
Round 3 vs Warriors of Chaos
Opponent’s list was this:
| === Order of the Moon [1494 pts] Warhammer: The Old World, Warriors of Chaos === ++ Characters [528 pts] ++ Sorcerer Lord [255 pts] – Hand weapon – Heavy armour – Mark of Chaos Undivided – Level 4 Wizard – On foot – Lore Familiar – Daemonology Chaos Lord [273 pts] – Hand weapon – Full plate armour – Shield – Mark of Slaanesh – General – Chaos Steed – Dragon Slaying Sword ++ Core Units [385 pts] ++ 5 Marauder Horsemen [92 pts] – Cavalry spears – Javelins – Light armour – Shields – Mark of Slaanesh – Marauder Horsemaster – Musician 24 Chaos Marauders [233 pts] – Flails – Light armour – Mark of Khorne – Marauder Chieftain – Standard bearer – Musician 5 Chaos Warhounds [30 pts] – Claws and Fangs (Hand weapons) 5 Chaos Warhounds [30 pts] – Claws and Fangs (Hand weapons) ++ Special Units [581 pts] ++ Chaos Chariot [120 pts] – Hand weapons – Halberds – Mark of Tzeentch 4 Chosen Chaos Knights [178 pts] – Hand weapons – Shields – Full plate armour – Mark of Slaanesh – Champion – Standard bearer 1 Dragon Ogres [59 pts] – Hand weapons – Heavy armour 2 Chaos Spawn [104 pts] – Flailing Appendages (Hand weapons) – Scaly Skin (Heavy Armour) – Spawn of Nurgle Chaos Chariot [120 pts] – Hand weapons – Halberds – Mark of Tzeentch — |
The opponent rolled The Summoning, Daemonic Vessel, Daemonic Familiars, Daemonic Vigour.
The deployment was the “square box deployment zone” so all our deployment was quite central. I finished deploying first and vanguarded my outriders on the hill for some shooting action after I inescapably get the first turn.
Except I didn’t… Enemy got the first turn, moved all the hounds to bait/redirect my units, and magicked my outriders a bit (2 models down). I was certain that opponent moved his wolves like that so he can flee and then move my units out of cohesion. I didn’t really mind that for my knights bus, again due to counter charge. I was happy to simultaneously charge his chosen knights and/or his dragon ogre with my unit. And the rightmost unit of wolves got charged by my small knight unit, who don’t really mind being up front baiting.
I charged, moved up the rest, stayed put with my pegasus guy and outriders to shoot up a bit the spawn unit. The pegasus dude needs 2+ to hit and 3+ to wound, and he hit every time and he rolled a 2 on to-wound roll every time when shooting at the spawn the entire game (this happened 3 or 4 times in total this game).
My knights on the left punched through the dogs and failed to restrain pursuit, so they leapt forward like idiots (which is what would’ve happened if my opponent fled with his dogs in the first place). They then got charged by the chosen knights, lord and the dragon ogre, and they were more than happy to countercharge as well, using this opportunity to drilled-redress-the-ranks and add all but 2 models to the combat! I also had the reroll 1s to hit and to wound in effect, so I finally got what I was looking for there!
My other knights overrun/pursued their dogs as well, causing the enemy frenzied marauders to charge after them. The knights then fled, baiting them out their full charge distance, and they went through the demigryps. While rolling my LD8 rerollable panic test I was having flashbacks to the previous game, but there were no problems of that sort this time.
The spawn unit rolled quite a lot and managed to charge into the outriders!
Spawns rolled double 1 for their attacks, so they killed only one outrider, but they didn’t do much in return and they gave ground.
Enemy on the left side killed 5 of my knights, but I didn’t do badly myself, I killed one chaos knight and a wound or two on the dragon ogre.
I FBIGOed and my opponent didn’t follow up, so I had the chance to reform and charge the solo dragon ogre in my turn with the knights, and to send my war altar after his chaos lord. My demigryps then charged his infantry unit, and my pegasus guy charged the marauder horsemen.
My knights cleaned up the dragon ogre, but my Lord bounced off the chosen knights (no damage whatsoever I think). My pegasus dude broke the marauder horsemen and decided not to pursue them, hoping they’d run out on their own in this or next turn (and they did in their initial flee, they needed 7 or more).
My demigryph knights charged and did a lot of damage to the marauder dudes, who then FBIGOed 9 inches, which got me ALMOST out of arc of both chariots. One did have an arc in the end and followed up with charging the flank of demis.
What happened next was the prime example of how combats are happening in TOW… Knights bus rear charged the chosen knights who had charged the front of my war altar, and then a chariot charged the knight bus, and things were FBIGOing all over the place. Chariot fleeing in my turn so it can charge back on its own turn, hilarity ensued! Battlefield didn’t move as his knights were sandwiched between my two units, and I kept not hitting with my mace for a while.
On the other side, my demigryphs (supported with 18” reroll 1s to hit and to wound buff from the War Altar) were decimating the marauders, but also getting charged by the chariot, which then bounces back to charge again next turn 🙂 More hilarity!
Also, my pegasus dude was flying around the spawn unit trying to plink them off with his S6 2Wounds bow, but as you’ve read earlier, he failed to wound every single time!
I won’t go into the details of every turn, but take a look at the photos below to see what was going on…
Near the end i managed to clear out his chosen, lord and the chariot, whereas he was able to clear out my demigryph unit. For the last turn of the game I gave him my small knights to charge so my big ones could counter charge next turn.
They managed to do that, but they didn’t get the chariot, but I did lose the small knight unit in the process. Not the best choice it would seem.
In the end, the final result was a 13-7 win for me.
Some post game thoughts – I was finally able to do some drilled shenanigans. And it worked! Kinda! My knights were able to dish out some damage and have managed to survive to tell the tale. I think my opponent made a mistake in not attacking my heroes at all, as their damage output and static CR (BSB and warbanner) were quite important. If he focused them down earlier, my bus would be much less potent. My Mace of Helstrum general took a long time (like 6 combat rounds?) to finally BOINK the empire general, and then did just 2 wounds (but I ran him down in that round of combat).
I was quite surprised by the fact that my demygryph knights didn’t chew through the marauder unit with their “reroll 1s to hit and to wound” buff, but it does make sense when I realised that I had a chaos chariot bumping me to my flank every few turns. Bit by bit I lost some wounds and damage throughput. I also “wasted” some attacks on the chaos sorcerer thinking I’d kill him, but after he absorbed 2 full rounds of combat without a wound to his name, I started going to the unit. Demis are good, but not that good.
Best thing I had going for me this game is that chaos lord was equipped with a weapon that my entire army was immune to, so he was relatively harmless for me in the challenge with war altar.
And for the end, some after tournament reflection on the list and the games.
The core empire knights bus is not to my liking in TOW. They lost their biggest asset they had before (from 1+ armour to just 3+ now). Everyone worth anything has at least AP2, and that makes their save 5+ which is just not that good. I much preferred the infantry block with demigryph heroes that I played in the previous list as my core tax unit.
Not enough chaff units. I’m going to start including at least 2 units of archers in my list. They’re 35 points each, and they will help me not lose the game in the deployment phase. I’ll have 2-3 units that can go anywhere and don’t really impact how I play the game and they don’t give away my deployment plan or strategy.
War altar was fine to very good. At no point I felt it was bad or not working. I did however have several times when I REALLY NEEDED those prayers to go off and they did. But what about the times when they don’t? The prayers are really good. Reroll 1s to hit and to wound is great on demigryphs and charging knights, and it’s SPLENDID on Mace of Helstrum (which hits on 4+ and wounds on 2+ in 99% of the cases). Altar has 8 wounds with a 4+ armour and 5+ ward and that serves it quite well I think. Except when it’s at short range of tons of arrows with AB2 I guess 😭
Lack of magic – defensively I think it ends up being the same as having a Lvl 4 dispeller. A lot of times when an opponent rolls average or below average, they fail to cast or roll so I have a chance at a fated dispel. When the opponent rolls 9-10+ on 2d6, well, my level 4 would probably not dispel that either. I want to try to run both and see if I can run this combination without too much interference on my side, while putting all the interference on the enemy side. If my war altar doesn’t have 18, but 12” radius for the effect, it could be possible to get the enemy mage in the bubble, but not my own mage, while still being inside of the enemy mage for dispel purposes.
The bow captasus on pegasus is very MEH to me. If he wants to shoot, he can’t march, and that’s a lot of effects of flying down the drain. If he marches so he can harass and get behind enemy lines, he can’t shoot. His shooting, although in theory good, is very prone to variance as it’s 3 dice rolls (to hit, to wound, enemy armour) that have to all go well, otherwise you’re just wasting points.
The failed terror is definitely making me rethink my LD approach. I don’t think I can play without LD9. I’ve also failed a lot of panic tests throughout the tournament. Why did GW have to nerf the warrior priests LD from 9/8 to 8/7? 🥹I think with 9/8 (lord/hero level characters), as it was before, their abilities would be somewhat consistent as opposed to this wildly inconsistent coin flip. Plus, you wouldn’t have to limit yourself to LD8 for your entire army with Altar as the general.
Things I want to try out next are
General/Mage Lord on Imperial Gryphon and a Steam Tank. Potentially in the same list! To be seen.
Thanks to everyone for reading this if you came to this point. I’m mostly doing this for self-reflection and to see what I can improve with my list and gameplay. If you have any thoughts, ideas, advice, let me know in the comments! 🙂
