Went to the big KoW bash at Tabletop this weekend and got in a couple of games. One was at 1000 points and one was a team up with 2000 points to a side (1000 each).
1) Wow. It's an easy system to play. The rules are simple and straight forward.
2) Movement is important. With only the chargers attacking, being the one who charges is vital.
3) Flanks and rear charges are right the hell nasty. With double or triple attacks, a horde of trolls deals our 36 or 54 attacks. On Saturday, I used a rear charge from a five elf unit of cavalry to rout a horde of beast-men with a rear charge.
4) While there are special rules, there seems to be no dominant special rule that negates whole armies.
5) As usual, I need to paint more. While I can throw down about 3000 points of painted elves in WFB, I can only get about 1500 in KoW. With orcs and goblins, I've got about 3500 points painted, but only about 1000 each in KoW as they are separate armies. With the allies rule, I can use some of one in the other, but only a quarter of the total.
Oh well. Back to the table.
Monday, August 24, 2015
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Hard Army, Soft General
I'd hoped to beat my previous performances at BB, with a total of 3 wins in 15 games, but it was not to be.
Game one was a lopsided affair against an grey and black (some priming had been done) Dwarf army. He had three blocks of 20, a block of 40, and two gyros. His plan was to use vanguard to get across the board really quickly, but he forted up in one corner of the table. So I put my troops in he center and my war machines in the other corner and made him come to me.
Between shooting and mangler squigs, the blocks of 20 were no longer combat effective by the time they got close enough for me to charge. His block of 40 was down to about thirty, and were hard as nails, and managed to run things off from combat, but running off one of the three unit they were fighting was never enough, as they could never pursue.
Game two was against grey and black empire knights. six units of them. I simply couldn't keep up with them and was unable to stop them from going where they wanted when they wanted. He won by tying up my units in combat and taking out enough small stuff to get a win.
Game three was against a Dwarf list similar to game one, but it was cow themed and had a flying cow gyrocopter. It was awesome. I lost this game on deployment and a bad decision. I accepted a challenge from a named dwarf lord and lost my general, which made my trolls useless for three turns until they accidentally stumbled into combat. I'd also placed them to where they had to wait for space to clear to be useful. Even still this was a great game in that a few dice rolls at any point could have changed the course of the game and that my opponent was fairly determined that the game be fun for both parties.
Game four was a grey and black dark elf cavalry list and was a very movement dependent scenario. This game was going well until the final turn when part of the randomness of the scenario gave me one in the ear. We managed to finish the game because I loaned him some movement trays he had two in his entire army). VPs didn't matter, and the objectives moved. Right as I was about to grab the objectives with two units that he no longer had ways to deal with, both objectives randomly moved behind my troops so he could snatch them up with cavalry.
Game five was a beautifully painted Warriors of Chaos army that has killed me a couple of times before. The general was new, and I knew I'd need a good plan, good execution, and good dice to win. I had the first part. My one decent magic phase was turn six, when the game was essentially over. before that I got 4 or fewer dice each time. I also took a risk in double charging a unit of Skull crushers, hoping to wipe them out and blow through to the warriors. I left one with a wound and they charged me. In addition, I forgot about a flanking unit until it was too late. As it was, I lost the game on the last combat of turn six when he finally finished off my savages and the two heroes in it.
End result - 1-4 and a great time. I was (and am) annoyed that 3/5 of the armies I played were unpainted. Between the three of them, a total of one model was completed, and even it wasn't based.
I need to get better at playing, so I can play the more experienced opponents who have the painted armies.
Game one was a lopsided affair against an grey and black (some priming had been done) Dwarf army. He had three blocks of 20, a block of 40, and two gyros. His plan was to use vanguard to get across the board really quickly, but he forted up in one corner of the table. So I put my troops in he center and my war machines in the other corner and made him come to me.
Between shooting and mangler squigs, the blocks of 20 were no longer combat effective by the time they got close enough for me to charge. His block of 40 was down to about thirty, and were hard as nails, and managed to run things off from combat, but running off one of the three unit they were fighting was never enough, as they could never pursue.
Game two was against grey and black empire knights. six units of them. I simply couldn't keep up with them and was unable to stop them from going where they wanted when they wanted. He won by tying up my units in combat and taking out enough small stuff to get a win.
Game three was against a Dwarf list similar to game one, but it was cow themed and had a flying cow gyrocopter. It was awesome. I lost this game on deployment and a bad decision. I accepted a challenge from a named dwarf lord and lost my general, which made my trolls useless for three turns until they accidentally stumbled into combat. I'd also placed them to where they had to wait for space to clear to be useful. Even still this was a great game in that a few dice rolls at any point could have changed the course of the game and that my opponent was fairly determined that the game be fun for both parties.
Game four was a grey and black dark elf cavalry list and was a very movement dependent scenario. This game was going well until the final turn when part of the randomness of the scenario gave me one in the ear. We managed to finish the game because I loaned him some movement trays he had two in his entire army). VPs didn't matter, and the objectives moved. Right as I was about to grab the objectives with two units that he no longer had ways to deal with, both objectives randomly moved behind my troops so he could snatch them up with cavalry.
Game five was a beautifully painted Warriors of Chaos army that has killed me a couple of times before. The general was new, and I knew I'd need a good plan, good execution, and good dice to win. I had the first part. My one decent magic phase was turn six, when the game was essentially over. before that I got 4 or fewer dice each time. I also took a risk in double charging a unit of Skull crushers, hoping to wipe them out and blow through to the warriors. I left one with a wound and they charged me. In addition, I forgot about a flanking unit until it was too late. As it was, I lost the game on the last combat of turn six when he finally finished off my savages and the two heroes in it.
End result - 1-4 and a great time. I was (and am) annoyed that 3/5 of the armies I played were unpainted. Between the three of them, a total of one model was completed, and even it wasn't based.
I need to get better at playing, so I can play the more experienced opponents who have the painted armies.
Monday, August 17, 2015
Bayou Battles Report
Bayou Battles is in the books and once again, I took a savage beating. After a convincing win over a Dwarf army in round one, my orcs got their comeuppance again and again. Rounds two and four were against armies of small cavalry units, and I had no answer for them. Rounds three and five, I had possible answers, but bad deployment and bad decisions threw the games my opponents' way.
However, I took the opportunity to try out my recently inherited D40 and document the armies that caught my eye. Sadly, I know there are some armies I missed, like the cow/dwarf army from my game three and the ship-bound high elf army. There were also at least two beautiful tomb kings armies I missed and another wood elfe army I know of that's really nice.
If anyone recognizes an army and can put a name to it, please tell me so I can add a name. If it's yours and you don't want the photo up, let me know and I'll take it down.
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| My offering to Bayou Battles this year. |
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| Dwarfs - Andrew Heinrich |
Tom Dietzel's Orge Kingdoms Army
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| I'm not sure if he was going Dwarf or Chaos Dwarf, But I like the army. I don't know his name, but I see him at every event. |
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| Ogre Kingdoms - Jeff Franz |
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| Dwarfs - Tim Delmas |
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| Wood Elves |
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| Ogre Kingdoms - Ryan Smith Took second in Player's Choice and third in Best painted (Or maybe those were reversed.) |
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| Skaven - Jeremy Lamonte |
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| Daemons of Chaos (or Warriors maybe) - Scott Filgo |
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| Lizardmen (Yes they look like Spartans, but they're apparently lizardmen). |
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| Dwarks - Pete Reese. The blades on the gyros actually spin, and the barrels of the guns light up. |
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| Skaven |
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| Empire - Russell Helms Too second in Best Painted and third in Player's Choice. (If Ry'an's was wrong, then so is this one.) |
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| Warriors of Chaos - Chris Cole (Not his army, but he was playing it.) The was my round five loss. The game was lost on the last combat of round six. Excellent game. |
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| Ogre Kingdoms |
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| Orcs and Goblins (Apparently with some lore of undeatch) Matt Reisch |
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| Vampire Counts |
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| Dwarfs |
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| Daemons of Chaos - Jeff Swann The photo does not do the display justice, not that the photos do any of the armies justice. |
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| Warriors of Chaos |
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| Dwarfs - Julien Lesage |
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| Orcs and Goblins - Nate Culver |
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| Daemons of Chaos - Edward Oh - (Won Player's Choice and Best Painted) |
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| Daemons of Chaos - Chris Davis |
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| Dark Elves |
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| Skaven |
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| Skaven |
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| Chaos Dwarfs |
Tuesday, August 11, 2015
In the interest of tradition...
Bayou Battles is in four days, and as is tradition, I am going to be painting up to the last minute. I'd planned on having time to paint, but a last minute editing gig and a new job have vastly limited my painting time. (There was also some farting around done as well.)
So I had to prioritize. I'll save the siege crew for last, and if I don't get them done, my siege engines will be crewed by night goblins.
On the fun side, while we were in Africa earlier this summer (part of why I got less painting done than I hoped), I realized my Pentax box camera, while great for kayaking (it's waterproof), it is not ideal for what I want otherwise. My wife got a new 55-300 lens for her Nkion (D40), which left us with a 55-200 lens she would never use again. She also got AMAZING photos in Africa. Looking on Amazon, I found that a new D40X body could be had on the cheap. Long story short, what ended up happening was that she ordered herself an upgraded camera body and I inherited the D40.
While the Pentax is 10 MP and the D40 is only 6, I can already tell the difference in optics is pretty substantial.
Even if my army will not be as awesome as I want it to be, I hope to get some good photos of the armies at BB. If I do, I'll post them here.
So I had to prioritize. I'll save the siege crew for last, and if I don't get them done, my siege engines will be crewed by night goblins.
On the fun side, while we were in Africa earlier this summer (part of why I got less painting done than I hoped), I realized my Pentax box camera, while great for kayaking (it's waterproof), it is not ideal for what I want otherwise. My wife got a new 55-300 lens for her Nkion (D40), which left us with a 55-200 lens she would never use again. She also got AMAZING photos in Africa. Looking on Amazon, I found that a new D40X body could be had on the cheap. Long story short, what ended up happening was that she ordered herself an upgraded camera body and I inherited the D40.
While the Pentax is 10 MP and the D40 is only 6, I can already tell the difference in optics is pretty substantial.
Even if my army will not be as awesome as I want it to be, I hope to get some good photos of the armies at BB. If I do, I'll post them here.
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